#so i sometimes just forget that its a thing i have dealt with all my life

[thebluester2020]

I wonder how sdv bachelor's would react to you getting mad at them for forgetting your (relationship) anniversary?

Getting Upset At SDV + RSV Bachelors For Forgetting Your Anniversary (For the Umpteenth Time And You Decided To Leave Them For It)

Warning(s): Angst (Especially on Shane's part lol, I'm a hater), No happy endings, Reader goes in on Shane and Alex in their individual parts,

Side note(s): Ik you were probably expecting something decently light anon but I just remembered that I haven't ratted on Shane in a minute so I thought some good ol' fashioned angst was in store.

Also, I picked who I wrote angst for because I teared up thinking of writing angst for my favorite emo or writer. Still, though, I hope you like what I've written anon (and sorry it took so frickin' long 😔)

Shane | "Another Bottle"

You were so excited for tonight, you could hardly stand in place as you waited for Shane to get home!

Tonight would be your third year with Shane. A year that (in your mind) would symbolize the trials and tribulations the both of you had gone, as well as shared with one another. And for the last week or so, Shane had been talking almost non-stop about the plans he had for the both of you at the end of the week! He hinted at eating some fancy dinner cooked up by Gus at the Stardrop Saloon, and although he didn't mention it verbally, Shane had been spending a lot of time with Elliot lately.

The two had almost nothing in common so, butterflies erupted in your stomach at the thought of the extra things your husband was preparing for you.

Shane had also mentioned taking a walk on the beach at the end, and once the night had concluded? A nice wine on the porch whilst listening to a playlist of you and his' favorite songs.

All of it was straight from a dream, a fairytale even that...admittedly, you thought would never happen. Especially since...he had forgotten your first anniversary, the second one too—but, you were nothing if not forgiving.

You had to be.

Your husband dealt with a lot. He had mental health issues as well as a drinking problem that he was still fighting to curb to this very moment! When you married him—nay, when you first started dating him. You knew that you would have to be patient and constantly show him that you were with him through thick and thin, come Hell or high water. You'd stand by Shane's side and walk with him through any troubles he may have faced or had roaming around in his head.

Therefore, that's why, as soon as the clock in your shared bedroom ticked to five o'clock. You practically burst out of your bedroom and out to the front porch to wait for Shane like an eager dog waiting for its owner to return home after a long day! In any minute, he'd walk through the small gates that led onto the farm's property...maybe with a bouquet of flowers? A tired expression at first perhaps? One that would immediately melt away at the sight of you like it always did...you couldn't wait to see for yourself.

Six O'Clock

You had decided to sit down on the steps of the porch, constantly standing in a pair of heels was bound to hurt your feet sometime or another as you continued to wait for Shane to go through those gates. He must've been held up at work, maybe spending a little extra time getting your date ready! Something.

Anything other than the thought your mind was threatening to settle on.

No, anything but that.

He was late but you were going to have patience, after all, all the best things in life were worth waiting for, right? You were willing to bet that he was going to appear at any moment now.

Eight O'Clock

You had lost the bet with yourself, that much was obvious as you quietly took off the outfit you had put together for tonight and debated whether you should simply take a shower and go to bed or if you should comfort yourself over a nice glass of wine. On one hand, you wanted the former, anything that would help you forget this night but...this time? You just couldn't bring yourself to do it.

This would be the third time that Shane had forgotten your anniversary. Last year, you had let him slide with his excuse that he was caught up at work, even though he worked at a grocery store and the place had a set time for when it closed! The second year, that time around, Shane had claimed that Jas suddenly wanted to spend time with him! You wouldn't have minded Jas tagging along for your anniversary date, she would have made it more lively, so that year as well, you let it slide.

This time though...as tears started to well up in your eyes and your chest tightened. You didn't know if you had it in you to let another anniversary slide.

And that's when you heard the front door open and close.

Even from the bedroom, the scent of alcohol was strong and all too familiar. The lazy movement of Shane's footsteps...the way he groaned and grumbled drunkenly in search of you.

He had forgotten your anniversary...all so he could get drunk?

You saw red. "Where were you?" You immediately questioned your husband when you rounded a corner and into the living room.

There he was, lying down on the couch with the stench of alcohol radiating off of him. You clenched your fists so hard at the sight, that you almost worried they'd bleed. "Out." Shane finally answered.

You could feel a vein threaten to poke out as he slurred his words.

"Out?" You said in exasperation.

"Yes, out."

"I thought you were trying to quit drinking," You stormed up closer to him. Shane barely even flinched, you were hoping he'd give you something, anything that said he had remembered your anniversary but was just too drunk and stupid to remember it. "Why—"

"I needed a break from work!" He grumbled. "Get off my back."

"But—" You took a breath. "Shane." You continued. "Our anniversary...you—you promised." When that word made its way out of your mouth, Shane could barely give you the decency to look embarrassed. To look ashamed that he would miss his only spouse's birthday. The one person who had stuck with him through everything, listened to him when he was at his lowest, had made sure he was at Dr. Harvey's in a heartbeat the second you noticed he was too drunk to even stand. You had even gone out of your way so many fucking times to make sure that you had did some things for him, anything that made his recovery easier and swifter.

And what could he do to thank you?

Easy, begin to fall asleep on the couch whilst he still smelled of alcohol. Even as tears started to burn your eyes, he still couldn't wake up for you.

So, you decided that was that.

You wouldn't go through this again for a fourth, fifth, or even sixth time in a row!

You were done.

"...I guess you were right before Shane," You said to his passed-out form.

"You are nothing but a drunk. And that's all you'll ever be." You continued with venom dripping from each word before you stormed off to your bedroom. Immediately, you tore open the closet before you practically ripped and tore his clothes from the hangers, snatching pants and everything else he owned from the drawers and other places he kept his things before you carried them all to the living room before dropping it at his feet.

Still, he barely moved an inch aside from snoring obnoxiously.

You wanted him gone first thing in the morning and you wouldn't hear another half-assed apology or even an excuse that he was "still healing" or "just had a momentary relapse". It was a fine fucking time to have a relapse on the day you were looking forward to for an entire week! And you absolutely hated him for it.

But...soon you'd have your peace back, free of any disappointments too.

Once he was up and gone tomorrow.

Alex | "High Ambitions"

Alex's gridball career had been going extremely well as of late.

You always knew that his efforts, the constant hard work he'd put into the sport, would pay off one day. You always told him that! You just wished that...it wasn't at the expense of you sometimes, compared to how he was when the two of you first started dating, Alex was gone almost all the time. From sun up to sun down, he'd either be training or taking a bus down to Zuzu city at the crack of dawn in order to train further with his coach!

You didn't have enough fingers to count how many times you woke up by yourself. The spot where Alex should have been cold and empty, but Alex had promised you that he wasn't letting his ambitions and his budding career get in the way of you two! He'd always come back and hug you, stating that you were the reason why he was playing in the first place and trying to make it big.

All so that he could fund and take care of the both of you, deliver you a lavish lifestyle that would allow you to have more time to do the things that you and he liked to do rather than most of your day being spent with farm work and running around! And while that was all fine...your current lifestyle, was something you enjoyed.

And you enjoyed it even more when you did it with Alex.

Yet you had bit your tongue and nodded your head, you were happy for him and wanted him to succeed! So long as he didn't forget about you, you were happy and content. Besides, you'd have all the time in the world to make up for lost time with him tonight! It was your anniversary and the second he got back from practice, you wouldn't hold back from being a little greedy with him.

At least...that was the plan.

Until two hours went by.

He was supposed to be home at 8 o'clock.

Now? It was just barely reaching 11:00pm. And as the minutes continued to tick by, your anger at your husband only grew. He promised you that he would be home on time, that he wouldn't let practice take over you being his number-one priority. Clearly, that was one huge lie. However, as you heard the rapid jingling of keys at the door all of a sudden...you couldn't even find it within yourself to make up an excuse for him like you had many times prior.

No, it was clear where his priorities were as of lately.

And you weren't a part of them in the slightest.

"Y/N!" Alex called out as soon as he entered the house, his eyes quickly finding you sitting on the couch. Back straight and eyes forward, you hadn't even reacted to the sound of your name aside from a brief glance over your shoulder.

Oh, he knew he was in trouble.

"Sorry," Alex said bashfully, flashing you a boyish smile that would always do just the trick of melting your heart a little in the past. "I got caught up with practice, I scored three touchdowns today!"

"Do you know what day it is today?"

His eyes widened a little, his mouth opening to ask you to clarify as he desperately racked his brain. Only then, did horror wash over his features the second he remembered. "Y/N...I'm so sorry-"

You suddenly stood up. "Don't bother," You said sharply with a sigh. "It's the third time you've missed our anniversary!" You laughed emptily.

"All for fucking gridball practice. The same thing you told me wouldn't get in between us."

He rolled his eyes. "You know this is the one thing I've been working towards my entire life." Your husband huffed. "Why can't you be happy for me? I'm doing this for the both of us!"

"The both of us?" You scoffed. "You're doing this for you. I told you the second you started practicing to not let sports come between us, to at least take the time to remember me!" You shouted as you quickly got in his space, your chest heaving as your hands found their way to your hips.

"And what do you do? The exact opposite."

"Well, what about you?"

Oh, he was not placing the blame on you.

"You're always working on the farm, that or rushing off to the mines for the third time in a night!"

"How the- that's not the same! And besides, you're barely here to begin with! I'd rather be in the mines with the ghosts to keep me company than lay in an empty bed for the fourth night in a row!"

Your husband only blew you off with a scoff at your words, turning on his heels to walk away from the conversation. And that single act, it only made the pain worse. So much worse that...you couldn't even believe that you had married him in the first place. In the beginning, you were absolutely smitten with Alex, admiring his determination for gridball as well as his drive to be the best at it! Even now...you still want to support him at it, see him become the very best but...not at the detriment of you.

Not at the detriment of your marriage.

If he couldn't be bothered to remember the simplest things about you such as an anniversary.

Then it was best if you left the picture completely.

You took a deep shaky breath. "...Pack your bags tomorrow Alex." You said, your breath barely above a whisper but still loud enough to where Alex stopped in his tracks completely.

"What?"

"Pack them," You repeated. "You want to focus on gridball? Fine, but it won't be with me playing second fiddle to it." Then, you turned around to walk to the bedroom and shut the door behind you.

[deathsweetblossoms]

Elain Archeron’s Character Growth

I'd never once seen [Nesta and Elain's] hands sticky with blood and fur. (...) It wasn’t that Elain was cruel…Elain sometimes just didn’t grasp things. It wasn’t meanness that kept her from offering to help; it simply never occurred to her that she might be capable of getting her hands dirty. I’ve never been able to decide whether she actually didn’t understand that we were poor or if she just refused to accept it.

—ACOTAR

Getting Her Hands Dirty:

"“Don't forget that gardening often results in something pretty, but it involves getting one's hands dirty along the way."  “And torn up by thorns," I mused, recalling a morning this past summer when Elain had come into the house, her right palm bleeding from several gashes thanks to a stubborn rosebush that had pierced her gloves. The thorns had broken off in her skin, leaving sharp splinters that I’d had to pull free."

—ACOSF Bonus Chapter

“Enchanted gloves,” she read from the card. “That won’t tear or become too sweaty while gardening.” She set aside the box without looking at it for longer than a moment. And I wondered if she preferred to have torn and sweaty hands, if the dirt and cuts were proof of her labor. Her joy.

—ACOFAS

"Elain stepped out of a shadow behind him, and rammed Truth-Teller to the hilt through the back of the king's neck as she snarled in his ear, "Don't you touch my sister".

—ACOWAR (thank you @tealeaves-and-rosepetals for this one)

Elain "Grasping Things":

“It’s their tradition, though,” Elain countered, her face still flushed with the cold. “One that they fought and died to protect in the war. Perhaps that’s the better way to think of it, rather than feeling guilty. To remember that this day means something to them. All of them, regardless of who has more, who has less, and in celebrating the traditions, even through the presents, we honor those who fought for its very existence, for the peace this city now has.” For a moment, I just stared at my sister, the wisdom she’d spoken.

—ACOFAS

Elain saw every single thing Nesta had done, and understood why.

—ACOSF

Elain Offering to Help:

A lady—that’s what Elain would become. What she was risking for this. (...) “I’ll do it,” Elain said, taking a deep breath and squaring her shoulders.

—ACOMAF

Cassian shifted in his seat. “So we track down the Dread Trove—how?” Elain spoke from the doorway, having appeared so silently that they all twisted toward her, “Using me.”

—ACOSF

But she hadn’t hesitated to come. When Feyre had offered to let her remain home, Elain had squared her shoulders and declared that she was a part of this court—and would do whatever was needed.

—ACOSF

Elain Accepting The Hand She is Dealt:

Elain, who would not eat, or speak, or do anything at all. Elain, who had somehow become the adjusted one.

—ACOSF

Elain, mourn as she might for the life she would have had with Graysen, had found a place, a role here. Tending to the gardens of Feyre’s veritable palace on the river, helping other residents of Velaris restore their own destroyed gardens—she had purpose, and joy, and friends: those two half-wraiths who worked in Rhysand’s household.

—ACOSF

Silver lined Elain’s eyes, but her voice remained steady, sure. “There was nothing that could have been done to save him, Nesta.” The words were kindling. Elain had accepted his death as inevitable.

--ACOSF

“It’s already ended badly. Now it’s just a matter of deciding how we meet the consequences.”

—ACOWAR Anyways she's perfect. She is everything. She is the moment.

[qhazomb]

so i got two different versions of the "leviathan au." one where it's a whole different situation from regular (not-a-game) HLVRAI, in which gordon and benry first meet when gordon is test driving an experimental exploration sub for black mesa... and another one where it follows along with the regular not-a-game AUs, and the leviathan is benry's true form. this second version also follows my headcanon that benry really was 'born' in 1994 (and is just a year younger than gordon).

benry hatched from an egg that had crashed down onto earth over a hundred years ago, and the crator its impact made turned into a small lake over time.

(the entity that laid that egg had been... dealt with by the overly territorial mr. coolatta, along with the rest of the clutch. unfortunately for mr. coolatta, he missed one egg. and said egg would prove to be a major headache source for him yeaaaars in the future.)

in the early morning of january 1st, 1994, the egg finally hatched, and a little larval space squid dragon crawled out. he remained in that lake for five years, curious about the world and other creatures beyond its shore, but always too nervous to leave the safety of his cradle.

until one day, when a smaller version of some of the beings benry had sometimes seen hanging around the lake finally spotted him. and gave him a candy bar.

this version of the AU uses the whole 'gordon and benry really DID know each other as kids' idea, and in this case, they knew each other over the course of one summer. lil six-year-old gordon and his family were spending the summer at a relative's lakeside home, and while exploring the lake beach, gordon encounters and soon befriends a 'lake monster'. (all the adults of course write the kid's tales of his new lake monster friend as a child's wild imagination, naturally.)

communication between the two of them is at first pretty one-sided, which doesn't bug gordon much cause he's pretty sure his new friend 'Sparkly' is just an animal (monsters are a kind of animal, duh) so he's not expecting sparkly to understand him. gordon is at least able to understand how 'sparkly' is feeling, though, as the weird rainbow bubbles he sings out make gordon feel things that don't feel like his feelings. which he thinks is really weird but also kinda cool and he wishes his cat missy could do that.

benry is eventually able to finally really understand what gordon's saying, once he's able to briefly make a mental connection with the human. VERY briefly. just long enough to get an understanding of the following things:

the english language (at a six-year-old's level at least).

that his new friend's species are called humans.

that humans don't think things like him exist, and would freak out if proven otherwise. this is why gordon won't let benry follow him when the bigger humans call him to come back to the big boxy shelter.

video games are a thing and apparently super fun. benry would like to try video games. pushing buttons to make a lil guy on a picture box do stuff, as if you were the little guy. sounds neat!

if benry wants to do anything outside of his lake without having to hide all the time, he needs to look less like himself and more like a human (looking like a human will also make talking like one easier. can't really form a lot of the sounds they make with just a beak.)

unfortunately, this didn't happen until like a day or two before gordon had to go back home. but gordon told benry that he'd be back next year! he'll think up a ton of new stuff for them to do until then!

...doubly unfortunately, sometime late fall of that year, black mesa finally finds benry and takes him down to their facility in new mexico. so the next year that gordon's family goes to visit at the lake in summer again, gordon gets no response when he calls out to 'sparkly,' no matter how many times he does. after a time he gives up, accepting that his lake monster friend is gone, and then eventually even forgets he ever existed, believing any memories to be imaginary friend stuff, like his mom and relatives always assumed.

benry didn't forget, though.

...but he did forget what he orginally looked like. not long after gordon's family left, benry got to work on practicing looking human. the hands were the easiest part, he already had hands like that, he just had to get rid of one finger (why humans only got five??). arms and torso were no biggie either, really. the hard part was the head and legs. legs weren't toooo hard to figure out, they were kind of like arms, sorta, but human heads and his head are SO different, like, wow. that took a while.

by the time black mesa had found him, he was looking mostly human. but not enough to trick anybody. especially not anybody with ways to detect the cosmic energy his body radiated.

black mesa never knew about benry's true form, as he never went back to it once during his captivity (and eventual employment for good behavior) at the facility, and eventually benry himself even forgot what he really looked like... which could possibly be blamed on some of the experiments conducted on him. his memory may be a bit wonk in some regards, but it's not THAT bad.

it's not until after the big beatdown in xen that he finally starts to remember... he respawns, but in that midform, rather than his usual human disguise form.

he's unable to try and shift further, as the 'containment' mr. coolatta mentioned turns out to be a whole new research facility that black mesa sold benry off to in order to secure extra funds for repairing and rebuilting their own labs.

this new place, Lancer Labs, seems to have gotten the same weird 'dampening field' that 'mesa had to keep benry's powers nerfed.

the scientists at lancer are also not as 'nice' as black mesa's, if you can believe that.

benry's stuck there for a year, being as uncooporative as he possibly can. lancer has been able to learn all they can from examining his body, but they have made like 0 progress with mental/behavioral studies, and they're starting to get real tired of benry's shit. so upon reviewing various files and reports they got from black mesa, including some recordings from during the rescas, the researchers at lancer labs get an idea for something that might finally get their prized specimen to stop being a stubborn ass.

in the middle of the night, gordon freeman is abducted from his own home.

they could tell from some of the rescas recordings, that benry seemed to be rather fond of the humans he was travelling with. lancer is going to use gordon as a barganing chip.

benry had become pretty listless and dejected during his new captivity, but seeing gordon get dragged into this shit was the kick in the pants his drive to escape needed. gordon may have been a big jerk, but he doesn't deserve being locked up in a lab for the simple crime of knowing benry.

benry just has to wait for the right moment to break outta here....

[humdinky]

i love pixar's turning red. it is such a good representation of girls at that age. they don't shy away from depicting the awkward and weird parts. it is so rare to see a movie depict girls and their silly interests without condemning or judging them. they just let the girls be girly, noisy, and silly.

fuck the hate this movie got on its release. i could go on for hours about society's uniquely shitty attitude towards teenage girls and their interests. there are countless examples. remember the feverish hate for twilight, a series aimed exclusively at young women? what about the hunger games? teenage girls were the first ones to fall in love with elvis and the beatles, and critics treated them like a joke. that is, until adult men started liking them. funny how that works. justin bieber fans, one direction fans, vsco girls, girly girls, tomboys, emo girls, indie girls, bookworms. you will see every single type of girl being made fun of for every conceivable interest a human being can have.

at a certain age you feel forced to make an arbitrary choice. lean into your feminine side and continue to get mocked for 'being shallow', 'only caring about your looks', 'being annoying' etc. or lean into your masculine side and get called a pick-me or told that you just want to get with their guy friends. you like things that are popular? you’re basic. you like things that aren’t as popular? you’re trying too hard. it is the entire reason why so many girls internalize this misogyny, why they start saying things like "im not like other girls."

i certainly wasn't immune to that trap. i didn’t fit the mold and got ostracized for it. the only validation i received for the longest time was from boys, when i turned my anger back on girls and girlhood. i was sold that narrative so many times that i wore it like some sort of badge of honor. it took years to unlearn. i feel sad when i look back on my younger self. i was so sad, so angry, and so scared all the time.

we get insulted for being happy. we get insulted for being sad. we get insulted for being mad that we were insulted for being sad. we get insulted for trying to forget what happened and act happy again. we get insulted for feeling hopeless. they beat the confidence out of you very early.

and it angers me how the emotions of teenagers as a whole are so often neglected. when you're around that age and grappling with big emotions, you've quite literally never felt anything that strongly before. a failed test, a best friend's betrayal, being cut from a sports team. it all feels like a rejection of your entire person, your entire being. you haven't lived that many years yet, and it's the first time you've felt this horrible. you don't have anything to compare it to, and it feels like nobody else could have ever survived feeling this bad before.

it's not petty teenage drama. it's not immaturity. it is a normal human reaction to the worst pain you've experienced, and it is happening at a time when your body is going haywire and your feelings feel impossible to control. you don't know how to cope with it, you can't possibly know, because it's the first time you've had this bottomless well of pain tearing you up inside. you can't look back at previous times you've felt this way to reassure yourself that it will be okay eventually. the first time is the worst and hardest and you have no resources to get through it yet.

a lot of adults scoff at and dismiss the feelings of teenagers. "you're young, you'll get over it"' they've decided that because you haven't dealt with this feeling before that you must be overreacting. sometimes you are, and sometimes you're reacting exactly how any adult would. it's an absolutely shitty thing to express to anyone. a teenage girl's pain is not any less real than a 50 year old's pain. so what if it will get better? it doesn't matter that it isn't going to be the worst thing that ever happens; it matters that right now it very much is the worst thing that's happened.

yes, teenagers overreact over a lot of things that aren't as important as they feel. as if adults, who don't even have the excuse of inexperience with deep emotions, don't? no one should ever dismiss someone else's pain regardless of their age or circumstances.

​im turning 20 in a few months. find the small joys of life, and don’t you dare let anyone take them away from you. if there is a teenage girl reading this, i love you, i am sorry, and it does get better.

[thesensteawitch]

Messages From Your Ancestors 🎃🌻💚

🥀Halloween Special

Pick A Pile Reading (Harry Potter Edition 👻⚡)

--------(Left to Right- Pile 1, Pile 2, Pile 3)---------

Hello, Senstea Souls!

This is a magical reading! Those who respect the dead and feel grateful to be alive are welcome to take this reading. 🪄

Pile 1

Tarot Cards- Judgement, Five of Pentacles, Ten of Pentacles, The Empress, Queen of Cups, The Emperor, Nine of Pentacles, Ace of Pentacles

Bottom of the deck- Three of Swords

Zodiac signs- Capricorn, Taurus, Virgo, Aquarius

Your House- Gryffindor

Charms- Fairy, Snake, Angel Wing, Pegasus.

Message from Hogwarts

Magic only touches the lives of the people who think out of the box. We love weird wizards. So don't be afraid to bring something new to our door.

Welcome Pile 1 to the world of ancestors. Apparently, they are all in Hogwarts celebrating Halloween. They are here to give a very special message. They didn't want to visit Hogwarts at first because the idea of it seems nowhere near to the idea of heaven. But they noticed that their following generation is fascinated by the school of wizardry. Sometimes guardians have no choice but to enter into the world of their children. And sometimes they even find it fun. This Halloween your ancestors are asking you to believe in the power of words but do not let illusions or narratives fool you. Try finding the truth with the help of words. They see your thoughts piercing your soul. You have such a sharp mind and such sharpness must be dealt with caution. Keep your hands stable while writing your story. They are telling you that you are brave but don't fool yourself into thinking that bravery is only needed to overcome the challenges. Bravery is also needed to have fun and be playful. You are so fascinated by fantasy. They want you to know that go there and enjoy by all means but don't forget where you belong. Don't forget the real world where you are sent to perform actions, where you are supposed to write your story. Don't forget to come back to the reality. Fantasy is beautiful so take inspiration from it. Manifest enchanting things in your reality. Pile 1 I clearly see that you are creating something, bringing more life into this world. But sometimes it feels too exhausting for you to believe that you are even going to reach your destination. But your ancestors are telling you not to lose hope. You are about to find your answer. You are about to find the hope you've been looking for. But you must not let your inner spark die because only that can take you to your desired places. Very soon you're going to be so blessed pile 1. Abundance is soon to be found. Your cards are so favorable and beautiful. Love, finances, victory, creation everything is coming your way. Just don't be too rigid or serious. Enjoy the flow of life with all its ups and downs. You're soon going to hit your luck! Your ancestors are supporting you and are warning you to not let melancholy dim the light of your joyous heart. You need to change the way you look at the world and the world you look at will change. Your ancestors have a very clear message which says that fulfillment is just around the corner. Do not worry at all. You're soon going to find your home. You just need to click a button in your life that will bring inspiration and spiritual flight. Take care of your health and have faith in your plans. You're about to get showered with so many beautiful blessings. You are going to bear the fruits of your hard work. Much love to you, pile 1.

Book your Halloween Reading only at $10. Click ‘here’ to land on the order form. You can drop a message in my inbox in case of any questions.

Pile 2

Tarot cards- The Hanged Man, The World, Three of Pentacles, Seven Pentacles, Page of Wands, Eight of Swords, Ace of Cups, Two of Wands

Bottom of the deck- The Magician

Zodiac signs- Aries, Sagittarius, Cancer, Leo

Your House- Slytherin

Charms- Squirrel, Pegasus, Angel Wing, Key

Message from Hogwarts

Do not block the messages we have been sending you. You're being invited to claim your power.

My dear pile 2 your ancestors have been communicating to you through synchronosities/angel numbers. They are telling you that there is a way out of the situation you think you are stuck in. They have been asking you to come out of the limbo phase. It's like you've tied yourself down within the cage of your thoughts. They have been warning you about someone or something for a very long time. Your ancestors also want you to know that this Halloween they are hosting the party at Hogwarts. And in the middle of all managing all the things they found some time for you to reach out to you. This means that they want you to come out of your comfort zone. They can't see you in pain. They aren't asking you to exhaust yourself in the pursuit of productivity. They want you to have fun too! They are saying that you have a long way to go and are you are giving up so soon. They don't want you to sacrifice to the extent that you lose sight of your destiny and life. You overdoing some things in your life. They are asking you to find balance. Do you remember the golden egg in Harry Potter? The same card came in your reading too. There's a truth that you are not seeing. You need to open your heart to get access to this golden egg and finally hear the beautiful truth that will put you out of the loop you're currently in. Only in the quiet, you can listen to the voice of the divine mother. Spend time near water, it will bring answers to you. Your ancestors are asking you to get comfortable with vulnerability. Tears and heavy chests will bring the weighing answers. The illusion will be washed away from your sight and soon you will see the truth if you allow yourself to get comfortable with some difficult questions. You have the key to get out of this situation. Don't think you're alone. Nothing in your life is a coincidence. There's a divine intervention happening in your life. There's a book they are asking you to read. And I sense it's regarding the situation you are going through. Your ancestors want you to know that your mind has great capabilities. It can manifest things so easily. Use it for your benefit. You are fooling yourself by thinking that you are being patient. It's not patience it's resistance. Perhaps you think that you are not ready yet and that's why you're not seeing any results either. Focus on the solution and not the problem. You will find your way out. You don't need anyone else to complete you. You are a whole person. God bless you, pile 2. May you find your way out of this tough situation!

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Pile 3

Tarot Cards- Eight of Wands, The Emperor, The High Priestess, Six of Wands, Page of Pentacles, Knight of Cups, Knight of Swords, Temperance

Bottom of the deck- Seven of Cups

Zodiac Signs- Gemini, Libra, Scorpio, Pisces

Your House- Ravenclaw

Charms- Musical note, Dolphin, Eye, Lock

Message from Hogwarts

We want to see what lies at the core of your heart before your marksheets and degrees. We know your speed so we hope that it will take no time for you to walk in with an open heart and quiet mind.

Your ancestors are quite confused about what to take to the Halloween party at Hogwarts. They have heard a lot about Hogwarts so they don't know what precious gift would fit for such a place. It's their first time attending a Halloween party. But they are trying their best to keep their calm. And in the midst of all this, they are here to convey a message. Your life may be moving too fast lately and you may be asked to make a quick decision. You impulsively may have made a few mistakes too. They want you to take your life like a musical note. No matter how fast or slow the music is, if you resist it you will never be able to flow with it. Dance with the song of life. They are asking you to not take things so seriously. They know that you have a future ahead and it's life we are talking about so how can you not be serious, right? Wrong! That's the point. It's just life it'll be over before you know it. Recall how you started things. With passion and hope. Be a bit naive there's nothing wrong with that. We are all a student in the school of life. You must enjoy it a little. Give gifts this Halloween. Balance your emotions. Life is a mix of pleasant and unpleasant moments. Your ancestors are saying that you're so smart they don't even need to tell you this. After all, you belong to the Ravenclaw house. It's good that you have things planned out but don't let your life be so insignificant to be designed on a sheet of paper. I also see that you are either too emotional at times or too rational. And when you are put off balance you choose to become rigid and like an old man who doesn't smile. Emotions confuse you and you sometimes try to escape them. Thoughts challenge you but being too much in your head makes you lose your wit. It seems that you have your life in balance but you don't. Your logic comes in the way of your intuition. The war between your logic and intuition has left you confused and tired. But your ancestors are giving a wink and asking you to fool your thoughts. Do things with your heart. Trick your mind and treat your heart. Don't let your mind steal the joy out of your life. Use your intellect where it's needed. In the matters of love use your heart. You are singing the wrong note. You are not letting the world see your playful spirit. I hope you find your balance, pile 3. Sending you love and light.

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[mdhwrites]

thoughts on Lilith Clawthorne? Her redemption or her time a villain etc?

So I actually haven't of just Lilith and this is going to be fun for me because if you talk about Lilith, you have to split her into two halves. S1 and everything beyond. This division is not about villain versus protagonist though. Her narrative role does change into that but the thing is that those are secondary roles to her main roles.

Namely, that of a straight man vs comic relief.

In comedy, the straight man is given the veneer of seriousness for the sake of having someone who will react to the jokes in a way that helps elevate them where a laugh wouldn't. This is your stick in the mud who hates sarcasm or puns or stuff like that. They see the absurdity happening and clap back. People like Red from that 70's show, or Doctor Cox from Scrubs, are straight men who help play on jokes through contrast. This isn't even that they cannot be funny themselves but that usually their humor is more rooted in a grounded sense, such as Doctor Cox ranting at someone after they've been stupid because they've been stupid, rather than the absurdity the other characters revel in.

For The Owl House, especially Eda's sister, this was a masterstroke. One of the biggest issues TOH has with its comedy is actually a lack of reaction to them. Few people laugh along and almost no one will ever get upset, not unless they themselves are the butt of the joke. My favorite jokes in TOH are essentially all rooted in someone actually killing what you'd expect, such as Gus saying he gets it when Luz says no offense to him for saying Willow is stronger or the monster hunter who has always dreamt of pushing children off giving a deadpan "I was a weird kid." But no one in the series really has it as a dedicated role besides Lilith.

The only problem, and this is a core issue with her character, is that she's actually not a very good straight man. She never has barbs to throw back or moments of actually winning against the others comedically. Yes, we like seeing the straight man suffer, which Lilith does, but we love just as much when he can actually fight back. Lilith never fights back, not with comedy. She'll shout and throw a tantrum but honestly, she gets so frustrated that it isn't even a comedic reaction like a straight man should have. She never has that normal groan, roll your eyes and then bring your paper up as you put a wall between you and stupid. Instead she gets loud and meets Eda every time on her level which is NOT THE POINT.

Otherwise, how is she as a villain? Well, she only has the VENEER of seriousness, like I said before for this role. She is knocked down in almost all encounters with her and made into a fool in some way. In some way made out to be honestly kind of bad at her job which she shouldn't be. She's the only witch on the Isles who can compete with Eda, the literal only representative of the EC proper before the S1 finale and the best member of the EC. If she's a joke, what are we supposed to think of the main villain faction as a whole? It's like if instead of Zuko in S1 of Avatar, it was Azula who was the bumbling fool, constantly failing to catch Aang, sometimes in comedic ways.

The saving grace for her though is three things: A lack of screentime and paced out far enough from each other mostly that it's easy to respect her title and forget how much often she gets punk, the fact that usually it is some sort of trick that beats her, even if it makes her look foolish and finally her relationship with Eda. Mind you, that last one is actually really shallow. There's nothing really here besides the fact that they care about each other but are on different sides. We actually never get an exploration of why they're on different sides, minus the curse obviously but that's hardly personally driven, that was inflicted on one of them by the other, how they've dealt with this divide, how they actually see each other even, etc. like that. Most of their adventures honestly portray them as not even giving a shit about the core conflict between each other because they're more than happy to goof around, bend the rules, BOTH OF THEM, and just act like they're teenagers to be frank. It's shallow but it's effective enough to make you want to see them getting along.

Then I will admit she gets a good finish and an act of redemption that feels entirely correct for the fact that Lilith really wasn't much of a villain ever but had committed a grievous mistake upon someone else. A good finish to a character who was entirely unremarkable besides a kick ass design. That's S1.

You all remember that I said TOH had a problem of having NO OTHER STRAIGHT MEN OUTSIDE OF LILITH?

Okay, I defined Straight Man, let's talk about comic relief. Now, we actually need to acknowledge, thanks to a bit of lingering strength to Lilith's writing, that comic relief is not actually a character trait. Comic relief itself is a writing tool. It is just anytime comedy is used to help ease tension. That's what it's relieving. Much of the time, there will be one character who is better at this than others. Sokka is the comic relief of Avatar much of the time. However... He's not a comic relief character because his existence is not the joke.

That inherent fact is the reason why 'Comic Relief Character' is purely negative. By the mandate of the label, all they are is a joke. They are entirely 2 dimensional and exist only to insert comedy when comedy is decided as being necessary. Now you might go "Wait, isn't the Straight Man all about comedy?" but hear me out. The veneer of seriousness means that a good straightman gives as good as he gets. When he rolls his eyes, the joke isn't rolling his eyes. The joke is whatever came before and the gesture amplifies it. Meanwhile, when King has a tantrum about not being taken seriously, the tantrum is the joke. We're supposed to laugh at King, not laugh with him. S1 King, S1 Gus, HOOTY, all of these characters in TOH function like this to the point where when they do have focused episodes, they feel out of character because to try and give them something more to do, they inherently have to get rid of the one core trait you laugh at and that's their entire identity. This is why Gus and King become drastically less fun, and honestly less interesting, when the shift is attempted with them, and stuff like King caring about Luz going or not comes out of nowhere, just like Gus' anxieties do. These characters are so much dedicated to their comedy that even trying to play on shifting perspective of it rings hollow unless you're REALLY good at it.

SO. What about Lilith? Well, through Affearances, she's actually pretty good because is comic relief, not a comic relief character. We see elements of it brewing, the fact that she is definitely being taken less seriously, the fact that she just is less serious and the fact that while we have in the past pitied Eda for her helplessness due to lack of magic, we're meant to laugh at Lilith. Following through on the finale though is seriousness enough and gives her enough genuine personal motivation that while many scenes are played for laughs, she still feels distinctly Lilith.

The second Coll Aunt Lilith shows up, old Lilith is dead and buried. All there is now is the comic relief character. We laugh at her version of nerdy, while Luz is accepted. She is now all about history, a trait she barely had before now, and is for the most part entirely oblivious to anything going on around her because she's just a comic archeologist now. She has barely two brain cells to rub together, questions nothing and even her trauma, her losing EVERYTHING, in a manner very similar to Hunter but way more effective because she actually had something to lose at the time unlike Mister "My Uncle is gonna kill me anyways, may as well turn good," is treated as a joke. Maybe the most offensive line, just singular line, to any of the core themes and things TOH technically claims to care about, is "I'm realizing I was bad at my job." The fact that we are meant to laugh at that, laugh at the ONE accomplishment Lilith has ever had in life and sacrificed so much for, and so sacrificing it made S1's finale powerful... Fuck you.

And you might go "Well, she became comic relief because King and Gus, as I said before, stopped. So they were the straight men, right? Or Hunter?" No. They aren't. Because they don't react to jokes like Lilith did. So much of the sparse humor in S2 and 3 is just joke and then crickets. Worse yet is that the comedy isn't fast enough to make the dead reaction to jokes actually work. It's why the like ONE good joke I can think of in S3 is Amity yes anding Luz talking about who might want to eat Stringbean because SOMEONE reacted to the fucking joke. Otherwise, the lost comic relief relief characters (and honestly, Hunter is so pitifully framed that it's hard to take him seriously and he almost comes across as primarily comic relief too, especially after his second appearance) are just boring now.

The degradation of Lilith is emblematic of so much that is wrong with TOH as a piece of entertainment. That is an important element to remember after all. We talk about fucked up themes, arcs, etc. in the show but as a kid's product that IS a comedy, how well it entertains is an important question. How well does it make you laugh, stay engaged and be entertained?

And well, by the end, the greatest joke of all is simply the show itself. See you next tale.

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Btw, I think there's something to be said that Luz actually acts as a straight man but uh... You might have noticed that I mostly listed assholes. Luz gives us, by far, WAY more than anyone gives her, negative reactions to other people being themselves. She does most of the subversive humor, she doesn't like Hooty, her most expressive faces are almost always someone expressing themselves and her being against it or thinking they're stupid. For a show that wants to preach 'be yourself' and 'self expression is king' having your main character be a judgemental bitch about these elements is a... Choice. It also makes her poorly suited to be a straight man because instead of elevating a joke, it just comes across as mean spirited or hypocritical.

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[zuzuthelord]

After about 2 days of writing, I've done it. I wrote a full rant about all my thoughts on C//A. This whole thing is about 10K+ words, and it's not favorable to C//A, so if this somehow ends up in the C//A tag, my apologies for that. I really don't want discourse on this post, so if y'all like C//A, it's cool, but please don't interact with this. That being said...

I just saw a post (I can't find it but all credit to the OP for this sentence) which said something along the lines of "All the other characters carry Catra's redemption arc," which is just so true. Everyone around her just... drags her through her entire arc. She had to pushed into doing a good thing by Glimmer, she had to be saved by Adora to join the heroes... Catra did one good thing but beyond that, she really has no agency in her redemption. She doesn't go out of her way to make up for what she's done, she just goes along for the ride with Adora because she has nowhere to go. She doesn't offer more than a vague apology for her actions, and another way her arc is carried not by herself but by others is that they go out of their way to forgive her instead, rather than her putting in work. They actually don't hold her accountable and just... accept her, rather than her acknowledging her mistakes, which ends up furthering the trend of everyone else having more agency in Catra's arc than Catra herself. The lack of acknowledgement of her actions cheapens her arc and reduces her agency in it, because she can't and doesn't have to work if everyone does the work of forgiving her already. It is the actions and behavior of the people around Catra that make her seem like a good person, not anything Catra herself does. Like, Glimmer doesn't even bring up Angella. You know, her mom who's gone now because of Catra's actions?

Catra's insecurities and issues aren't dealt with so much as they just disappear or are toned down and written to be a non-issue even after we spent so much time building them up. The people around her just conveniently ignore the magnitude of her actions, and the narrative tries its damndest to downplay and excuse her actions, because the writers know they don't have the time to redeem Catra properly if they actually consider the magnitude of what she's done. So, the characters conveniently forget the more egregious things she's done, her more unsavory qualities are toned down, her personal and emotional conflicts are ignored or shown as a non-issue, or even sometimes portrayed as the right viewpoint to have so that it doesn't have to be addressed. All this ends up making it seem like Catra hasn't changed at all. She still has prejudice against the princesses, she still blames Adora for leaving her, she is still selfish and wants Adora to focus on her rather than others.

Her whole problem was that because of the abuse she suffered, she leaned on Adora to be her protector and felt betrayed when Adora left her because she always thought Adora was SW's favorite and therefore had a responsibility to protect her. Catra feels like Adora gets "everything she wants" and feels like she is always overshadowed and overlooked because of her, and that translates to a resentment of her and an expectation that Adora should stay by her side and protect her, since she's supposedly SW's favorite and Catra's friend, so of course that's her job. Which is why she feels betrayed when Adora leaves and she blames Adora for things that never were her fault to begin with. She was obsessed with taking Adora down because she thought Adora betrayed her and hurt her, which is because she was so focused on herself and what she was owed rather than understand the abuse that Adora also suffered. But come season 5 and her supposed redemption, she is still blaming Adora!

I understand the thought process that she is still in the beginning of her redemption and that she has a lot more growing to at the end of the series. I think Catra can truly be a genuinely good person and that she has the ability to change. But the series presents it as though she has already changed. She is not held accountable for everything she did. In fact, she barely acknowledges it, and she cracks jokes about it instead. If it was a one-time thing it would be fine, but there are many jokes about how Catra hates Princesses, and these are treated as comedy than acknowledged as the unwarranted prejudice that she holds. Entrapta even says it's normal for Catra to hate princesses as though it's some quirky character trait and not something she needs to work to overcome.

She also behaves passive-aggressively and blames Adora for fighting her during their previous conflicts when she was always the instigator. She is still possessive of Adora, treating her choosing to save the world over her own well-being as Adora choosing SW over her. Even at the end of the world, it's still about how Adora is hurting Catra's feelings. It's about Adora choosing something else over what Catra wants for her. Sure, maybe Catra is right that Adora is neglecting herself and what she wants for the world. The problem is that she gets angry at Adora for it and takes it as some personal offense to herself, and she makes it about Adora putting someone else before her. Her words are coming from a place of self-interest and not genuine and selfless care for someone she supposedly has loved her whole life.

Even when Adora is begging Catra to stay, she leaves, because it's never been about supporting Adora and wanting the best for her. It's about Adora doing what Catra wants for her, which ties into what Catra herself wants, which is for Adora to choose her. Catra asking Adora what she wants and then leaving when Adora expressly says "Stay, I need you," is the summation of their entire dynamic. In which Adora gives and gives to everyone, and Catra rebukes her for it, but only because she wants all the focus to be on her. This scene would be a lot more impactful if Catra wasn't the person who helped make Adora this way, if Catra wasn't the person who wanted to take away Adora's choices, if Catra wasn't the one who wanted to possess Adora and keep her to herself, if Catra wasn't the one who made Adora feel like she had to be the one to protect everyone else and that she couldn't fail.

Catra wanted to possess Adora then and she still does now. She hasn't changed and she still can't see beyond herself. She still wants Adora, her entire redemption revolves around Adora. She didn't do a good thing because she realized she was wrong, she just did it because she realized she maybe shouldn't let the person she loves die. She's always known she was doing horrible things and she still enjoyed doing them. She knew the harm she was causing, and she didn't care. One line about how it wasn't what she really wanted does not erase the sadistic, gleeful smiles and the world domination and the threat to end the world out of hatred and spite. And the fact that she changed, just for Adora, does not bode well, because it means she still doesn't care that she did bad things, and that she still would gladly be doing them if not for one solitary person on the other side. She's not a colonizer anymore, but it's not because she thinks it is wrong.

Glimmer was held more accountable than Catra for far less crimes, and Catra was treated like she had a mean argument or a falling out with the BFS rather than that she actively tried to kill them multiple times. She did do a good thing, I won't deny it, but it should take more than that to actually be forgiven, considering everything else she did which is like, way worse, and it didn't. Like I said, I understand the thought that she is in the beginning stages of redemption and has a lot more to change about herself. But if that were so, then she shouldn't be in a romantic relationship, or even any kind of relationship, with Adora, her victim, before she has truly done all the work to undo at least most of, if not all, of her toxic ideas. She shouldn't be portrayed as being healed and healthy. How can you be in a relationship with someone you abused if you're still victim blaming them? How can Adora, a heroic person who has a deep sense of right and wrong and is empathetic and selfless, be with someone who still doesn't feel guilty over everyone they hurt, who still carries irrational hatred for the people she loves and who cares only about themselves? Because that's who Catra is. She's the same old Catra.

She may have taken a first step, but that's all it is. The most annoying thing is that the show actually shows that she is still not there yet, and that she still carries many of her toxic traits. She is still cruel and selfish, and she still has her abusive tendencies. She's just not literally a colonizer anymore. These are all traits that the show has shown are bad and damaging to both Catra and the people around her. But in season 5, somehow, they are supposed to be... endearing? It's not supposed to be an issue. It's played for laughs. Her arc just jumps from one extreme to another. All the insecurity and hatred she felt for Adora just... vanishes, somehow. She is suddenly comfortable with being around her and kissing her, but in the finale of the previous season she was still blaming Adora for ruining her life. And somehow three episodes later and with no build up whatsoever, she's gotten over it, apparently? Where did her resentment and anger go? The show pushed for C//A so much that it had to erase all of Catra's conflicts, because there was no real way to deal with them and get her together with Adora, because the solution to most if not all of Catra's internal struggles is to be away from Adora, and that can't happen if they're supposed to be endgame.

It's really obvious that the story for season 5 was written around C//A and not the characters themselves. The penultimate scene in the finale is the kiss between Adora and Catra. The whole confession Catra gives just shows how the show failed to take into account the characters and their arcs. It just slapped all the romance tropes it could into the story without thinking about how it came across considering the previously established relationship between Catra and Adora. For example, we had Catra ask Adora what she wanted and when she got to choose. A classic trope, of course, the love interest being the only one to see the real person behind the hero's facade. Only, it doesn't work, because like I said, Catra is the one who spent most of the series making Adora feel like she had to protect everyone and everything even at her own expense, that everything was Adora's responsibility and that she couldn't fail. She's the one who spent the whole series resenting Adora because "Adora gets everything she wants!" And so, this line coming from Catra as though she is the only one who actually cares about Adora means nothing. Especially since we never saw Catra actually confront her insecurities about Adora. Throughout the series, we actually have Glimmer and Bow say things like "You'd be so annoying if you were perfect," and "we don't like you because you're She-Ra, we like you because of you," to Adora (I'm paraphrasing but that's mostly right), and they were sidelined so that Catra could ask Adora something she realistically has no business asking or even caring about.

Because she doesn't care about it. She still doesn't. After running away, she reveals the reason for why she is so upset. And it's "Adora chose Shadow Weaver! Adora doesn't want me! Not like I want her." On the surface, it's a common romantic trope. This would be a beautiful trope if used in an otherwise healthy and supportive relationship. Watching the normally supportive character finally be sad because they are afraid of not having their feelings returned and having a misunderstanding with the other character because of it is a great trope which I do love very much.

But in an effort to slap it onto C//A, the show neglected one very important thing. It's the fact that Catra has historically been possessive of Adora and has abused her for leaving her and not putting Catra first. So, to have Catra be like "Adora is choosing other people over me! She isn't loving me the way I want her to!" is really weird. Because she's used these same excuses to abuse Adora for four seasons. And to portray this as a romantic misunderstanding rather than the toxic and abusive mindset it is, is pretty gross. Again, if it were a one-off thing, it would be fine to implement this trope. But this is a repeated behavior for Catra, this is something she has been saying throughout the series, and it's something she has used as justification to abuse Adora. The fact that Adora chose the Rebellion over her made Catra abuse her, the fact that Adora just wanted to be friends with someone else made Catra attack her. Now treating this as some sympathetic moment is just ignoring everything that came before. Just because it's toned down to look romantic doesn't mean it's not problematic in the context of their previous relationship.

Again, in any other context it would be fine, but in the context of C//A, it just shows that Catra hasn't changed her toxic mindset, she still feels entitled to Adora's feelings, and her support is conditional on if Adora will cater to her needs and feelings. The fucking world doesn't matter if Adora doesn't want to kiss Catra. Adora is in a lot of emotional pain, she is afraid and hurting, and she needs someone who loves her more than ever. And Catra leaves, because "Adora chose SW over me!" Which could also be fine. Even the most supportive of people can be overcome by their emotions. They can feel resentful of always being placed second. But since Catra historically has an issue of being possessive of Adora and punishing her for wanting something other than what Catra herself wants, or for wanting to simply be friends with someone who isn't Catra, this trope just does not work.

Catra, who spent about 4 seasons trying to hurt Adora for leaving her even though she never did, is now actually abandoning Adora in her time of need because Adora didn't choose her. Her whole speech about asking what Adora wants is pointless because she ran away for a whole other reason, which is because Adora didn't choose Catra like Catra wanted her to. It's just Catra, yet again, being possessive of Adora and being selfish and cruel to her. It ends up showing us that Catra has not changed. Because after she spent so long punishing Adora and hurting and abusing her, she really has no right to expect Adora to feel a certain way about her, and she has no right to get mad about it. And yet, she does, because she's only thinking of herself and doesn't spare any thought to Adora's feelings and pain.

Catra is obsessed with Adora. She doesn't actually love Adora for who she is, she is still obsessed with the idea of who Adora is to her. She realizes she doesn't want to hurt Adora anymore, but only on a very surface level after she's lost everything. But she still hasn't dealt with all the insecurities and resentment she feels for Adora, and it shows. She still believes Adora abandoned her, that Adora likes being perfect and a hero, and that Adora should choose her over everyone else. She is still basing her self-worth on Adora and making unreasonable expectations of Adora because of this. Adora possibly not loving her back is enough to make her feel like she is unwanted, and this turns into her blaming Adora for choosing SW, and she externalizes it and leaves Adora kneeling in the dirt and calling for her. This is exactly what she's been doing all this time! She's tied her self-worth with Adora, and pushed Adora to validate and protect her, which put a lot of pressure and responsibility on Adora. And when Adora left, she felt so betrayed that she tried to murder her over and over, and even then, her self-worth was tied with Adora and taking her down and winning against her.

To let go of her obsession, Catra needed to find new friends and new people to care about her, and to let go of this obsession. She needed to find new value in herself as a person, and she needed to find her own identity and individuality. But in comes C//A, where this obsession that make Catra abuse Adora is a good thing actually and isn't it so romantic that Catra still doesn't have a healthy sense of self that isn't dependent on her victim, no it's not unhealthy or toxic even though that's what we've been saying all this time, it's true love! And it's like... it's not wrong at all to depend on other people and need them. But it has to be mutual, it has to be a give and take. It has to be healthy, and it shouldn't be a cause of pain to anyone. This relationship where Adora gives and gives and Catra takes and takes is the definition of codependency. And this leads Catra to abuse Adora and hurt her when she feels like her needs are not being met. Like, missing someone and thinking all the time about them isn't inherently an unhealthy thing. But it can't literally be the only thing you do. Catra is just obsessed with Adora to the point that this consumes any other ambitions or wants she might have (you know, other than SW's love, and that is also kind of tied to her obsession with Adora). And she can't open herself up to anything other than Adora and her obsession with her, and it negatively impacts her.

This scene where she runs away from Adora also kind of shows this, that it's still just about Adora and how she only cares about her and is obsessed with her. She is part of the Rebellion, a group that's pretty much the world's last hope, and she just... walks away, because she feels like Adora doesn't like her back romantically. And before this, she tried to get Adora to stop taking the failsafe even though it was the planet's last hope. She is willing to abandon the world for Adora, and not in a selfless way, because she's on board with letting the planet get destroyed if it means Adora gets to stay (for how long I wonder, since the planet is gonna be destroyed), and later she abandons Adora because Adora didn't choose her, which makes it seem like she was alright with letting the planet be destroyed so that she could keep Adora for herself, not out of genuine concern for Adora. It makes it seem like Catra just wanted Adora by her side so that she herself could be comforted and validated and loved the way she wants, because she leaves when Adora doesn't do what she wants.

Her leaving when the world is about to end just because Adora doesn't want to kiss her itself does such a disservice to her character. It could have been a moment of Catra finally doing something for selfless reasons, finally looking past her own pain and her own issues to do something for others. To show that she's grown. She once was ready to let the world end because she wanted to possess Adora and wanted to spite and hurt her, but now she is willing to do whatever it takes to save the world, even if it means losing Adora. That's what Catra's arc could have been. Her really realizing what she wanted and the mistakes she made, and working hard to fix them and make the right choices. Instead, we got that awful scene where Catra abandons Adora in her time of need and leaves her crying and alone.

It makes her asking Adora what she wants also meaningless, because when she is alone, she admits that it's really because she wanted Adora to like her romantically, and that thought that she didn't feel the way Catra wanted her to feel was enough for her to just up and leave Adora when she needed Catra by her side. It ends up showing us that Catra still ties her own self-worth to Adora, and that she still externalizes it when she feels unwanted. This is why she is so possessive. She wants to be needed by Adora, and that means that Adora can't need anyone but her. She's wanted SW's approval but was denied it constantly, so she clung onto Adora instead. Her desire to be needed and the way she relied on Adora for her self-worth is why she felt like she was abandoned by Adora, and so she abused her for it. And once more, this needed to be addressed. Catra needed to find self-worth and an identity outside Adora. She needed to be able to love herself, and not be so desperate for the approval of others. That would make her happier, and it would also mean that any apology she gives genuinely comes from actual remorse than her desire to be needed by someone.

However, that didn't happen. Instead, Catra being dependent on Adora is treated as romantic, like an "oh look how important Adora is to Catra, look how sad she is when Adora doesn't choose her!" And the problem is that that's not all it is. It's that Catra feels worthless if Adora doesn't love her back, she feels like she is unwanted and unloved if Adora doesn't feel the way about her that she wants. And she punishes Adora for it by leaving her alone. This is their dynamic. Catra depends on Adora for everything, from protection to validation to affection to her own worth as a person. And Adora, who internalized being needed and being responsible for everything, tries to please and protect others at her own expense, and this is what she does for Catra.

It's unhealthy for both of them, because it causes Catra to place heavy burdens on Adora that reinforces her martyr complex and causes Catra to feel worthless when Adora can't meet those expectations. This makes Catra take out those negative emotions on Adora because she blames Adora, because she can't blame herself. This starts the cycle of Adora giving everything she can (which reinforces her self-sacrificial tendencies and her own lack of self-worth), and once something happens that makes her unable to behave the way Catra wants, Catra descends into self-hatred and externalizes it onto Adora, and punishes her for it. This is why most of their dynamic in the flashbacks and in season 5 is Adora comforting Catra even after Catra slashed her or yelled at her, and Catra then responding with some kind of positive emotion. Adora leaving Catra made Catra feel abandoned, and she spent plenty of time trying to kill Adora for it, even though the problem was that she didn't like herself. And in the finale, Adora choosing to sacrifice herself reads to Catra as Adora choosing SW over her, i.e., not doing what would make Catra feel better, and she leaves Adora in her lowest point.

Again, Catra leaving would be fine if she had been a supportive, constant presence at Adora's side all this while. Because even the most supportive of people have their breaking point and have conflicts with their loved ones that cause them to walk away, and people make mistakes. But having this here with Catra just makes her come off as a douchebag, because she's only been with Adora for like, a few days? And she spent the time before this short team-up hurting and abusing Adora, and now she runs off once again the moment she has any kind of disagreement with Adora. Even as Adora begs her to stay and tries to reassure her, she just shoves her away and runs when Adora needs her most. This could be a standard conflict, except it makes it seem like Catra's support is very conditional on Adora catering to her needs. Out of context it's fine, but when taken into consideration with all the moments in the show, it just drives home the point that Catra hasn't really changed much at all.

She's so dependent on Adora and so unable to see outside that bubble that she doesn't even care about the world that's about to end. And you know, considering that Catra was once willing to let the world end just because of her selfish wish to not let Adora win, it paints a bad picture that she's asking Adora to not do the thing that might save the world, showing that Catra still doesn't give the slightest shit about anyone else other than Adora, which... considering her past as a colonizer who never really admitted that maybe world domination is a bad and horrible thing, is kinda icky. One more point in the "Catra hasn't truly changed as person" box.

This scene also uses the trope of the supportive character putting their foot down and calling out the love interest. Which is fine and dandy until you realize Catra has been using Adora's martyr complex as a way to emotionally abuse her all this time, and she made worse what SW instilled in Adora, that it is on her to protect others with no regard for herself. Catra spent the whole series exacerbating Adora's martyr complex, and the fact that she is the one who calls it out as though she has been endlessly supporting Adora and not actually making it worse, and that the characters who always affirmed Adora's importance and had her back are not involved in this is really gross, especially since the fact that Catra did this is never actually addressed or even brought up.

Catra asking Adora what she wants is... rich, for reasons I explained above. But another thing is the way that Catra blames Adora for this. Adora does have a martyr complex and does try to take responsibility for everything. But what else should she have realistically done? Let the world burn because her formerly (debatable) abusive girlfriend says she doesn't have to save it even though she's the only one who can? Does she have another plan? Is it that Adora chose this option that would sacrifice herself out of other options that don't involve her sacrificing herself? Because that's what Catra is yelling about when she says, "Why are you like this?" This very much is not Adora's fault. And yet Catra is taking the time to yell at her about not choosing for herself. She's placing fault on Adora for something Adora never did. It's so guilt-trippy and gross.

The show makes it out as thought this is about Adora's martyr complex, when it really is not. It doesn't present any other solution. What about this being the only way can be read as Adora wanting to always sacrifice herself? Catra is blaming Adora for things out of her control. And the problem with this is this is a tactic Catra used to abuse Adora and excuse herself of doing it. So, for her to do it again and for it to be portrayed as a good thing is... fucking disgusting? One more time for emphasis, if Catra had never done this before, it would be fine as a conflict. But making an abusive tactic of hers into her being the only one who cares about Adora is really strange considering her past. She should be dealing with things in a different way if she truly had changed.

Again, Catra made Adora this way. At the very least, she greatly exacerbated Adora's martyr complex. So for her to be telling Adora not to sacrifice herself without any push-back from Adora about how this is what Catra always told her she should do, from blaming her for not standing up for her against their mutual abuser to blaming her for the world domination and the end of the world that Catra caused, is bad writing and another example of the narrative bending over backwards to excuse Catra by not acknowledging her actions, and stripping her of responsibility and accountability for her actions so that she and Adora can kiss without seeming like it's still toxic.

And the "fight" part of this trope, the "falling out" part is also really bad, because it fails to take into account their previous dynamic, in which Adora always tried to take care of Catra's emotional needs and was hurt for it. And she's doing the same thing again. Instead of being supported in her hour of greatest need, she is once again comforting Catra and trying to reach out to Catra, while Catra herself is lashing out over some perceived slight that she makes out to be about herself when it's really not about her at all. Again, if it was just this once it would be fine, but this is a constant and repetitive dynamic in their relationship that has been shown to be toxic, so why would you put this at the end of Catra's arc, when her relationship with Adora is supposed to be repaired? I understand why she does it. Catra wants to be loved. She is also being manipulated by SW. That doesn't make it any less of a dick move, especially since this is the series finale and the end of Catra's redemption arc, where she is supposed to be a better person. She isn't supposed to still be blaming Adora. And her coming back means nothing, because even during her love confession, she is still blaming Adora!

The right way to go would be for Catra to confront Adora (even though she isn't the right person for this at all, but if it really has to be her), but continue to support her, even though she disagrees with her and even if she doesn't like what Adora does, even if what Adora does doesn't benefit her. Having her leave just makes her look like a real fucking asshole, and her coming back and saying she's going to stay loses a lot of its meaning. I don't trust that she'll support Adora unconditionally after this, because she's so erratic about it. She saves Adora from Horde Prime but continues to blame and insult her after the fact. She leaves Adora feeling hurt and sobbing on the ground, but comes back to save her and confess her love. This just paints a really unsatisfying picture. She comes back when Adora is on the brink of death but can't be arsed to stay by her side otherwise if it's inconvenient for her or if Adora isn't doing exactly as she likes.

My point is that all these romance tropes that are added to develop the C//A romance just end up making their relationship seem worse. The need to build up a romance in about half a season after having them be enemies for four whole seasons clearly made the writers stuff it with romance tropes with no consideration for how it would come across if you looked at the whole relationship portrayed throughout the show. For example, another trope used is the "character gets mind controlled and forced to fight their love interest," trope. This tries to get you in your emotions by putting the character through the agony of having to fight someone they love and being determined to save them. But again, this doesn't work with C//A because Catra isn't doing anything to Adora that she hasn't already done consciously and gleefully. And the show wants us to forget about all that and get us in our feels about Adora having to fight Catra now, ignoring the fact that Catra has attacked Adora plenty of times before this, so seeing them fight isn't anything to be horrified about. It just sort of reinforces how Catra has treated Adora all this time.

And another line from the finale is "Of course she's gone! That's what she does, isn't it?" Which could be fine, even great, out of context. But it completely ignores everything about the characters. Catra's whole thing is that she perceives Adora leaving as a personal betrayal and as her choosing others over Catra, which is a source of resentment towards Adora. Adora always leaves, she always takes everything from her, Adora gets everything she wants. And the whole point is that Catra is wrong about this! She's so obsessed with controlling Adora, with wanting her to protect Catra and take care of her and be only with her, that anything that Adora does that goes against something Catra wants must be that Adora is taking things from Catra, that she is leaving her. She never acknowledges the abuse that Adora herself suffered, because she is so caught up in her resentment of being SW's scapegoat. Because Adora didn't leave Catra. She asked her to come with her multiple times. She protected Catra with her own body when they were children. She didn't get "everything she wanted."

So Catra spends most of the series victim blaming Adora for escaping a toxic environment and resents her unfairly, because she is possessive and controlling. She spends the whole series obsessed with hurting Adora and showing her up. She spends the whole series being obsessed with Adora, whether it be getting her back or hurting her with no regard for Adora's well-being, because she felt like something was taken from her. Adora running wasn't her leaving Catra, it was her escaping a toxic and abusive environment because she realized how bad it was, not only to her but also to so many innocent people. But Catra was selfish and possessive, and she made it about herself. And this line just shows that Catra is still blaming Adora for leaving as though it was wrong of Adora to do so, as though Adora didn't try to reach out to Catra multiple times and help her too, as though Adora actually did betray Catra somehow. It's still victim blaming, and just because Catra saw it as personal betrayal doesn't mean it is. If Catra really knew Adora, if she was the person who actually knew Adora best, she would not continue to believe that Adora left her for real, and she would understand why Adora left. If Catra truly overcame her resentment of Adora and really was the person who saw what Adora wanted and actually wanted what was best for her, she would know this, and she wouldn't still be blaming Adora for leaving.

Hell, the confession falls apart if you look at it.

"You've never given up on anything in your life, not even on me."

Ignoring the Season 3 finale where Adora glares at Catra, letting her know she's done with her. And she never tries to reach Catra in Season 4. Adora did give up on Catra. It was an important moment for her character in the show, when she finally stops blaming herself and putting pressure on herself and blames who is truly responsible. It is a moment where she reclaims her agency and self-worth. It is an important moment where she rejects Catra's manipulation and gaslighting and her abuse, and it is important because it shows that you don't have to stick with abusive people and try to save them just because you care about them. You can leave. No one is responsible for their choices but them, and you don't have to continue to be hurt. And yet, this moment is forgotten in order for Catra to make her confession. This is yet another trope, where the character is the only one to have never given up on their love interest, except it just erases a whole part of Adora's arc to make this false claim that Adora never gave up on Catra, even when she rightfully did so.

"I've got you! I'm not letting go!"

Ignoring the fact that Catra never has let Adora go. In fact, Catra's whole problem is that she wouldn't let Adora go. She's always been obsessed with her and that has sunk her deeper and deeper. I understand that in the context of this confession, this line seems alright, and it is actually alright for what it's supposed to mean. But considering the overall narrative, I don't think Catra should be the one saying this. Her arc in S1-S4 revolved around her obsession with Adora a lot, and if she were truly to heal, she had to get over it and recognize Adora as an individual with her own wants and needs. She never does do this, because she still blames Adora and gets angry at her for not putting Catra's feelings first. She is still obsessed with Adora. She changed in that she doesn't want to kill Adora anymore, but the way she thinks of Adora isn't all that different. Her obsession was good in the first 4 seasons because it was portrayed as unhealthy and toxic for both Catra and Adora. It is less so in Season 5, where it's not addressed at all, and instead turned into the peak of romance, even when it is still deeply unhealthy. Someone like Glimmer or Bow should be saying this, not Catra, who should have ideally let Adora go.

"Don't you get it? I love you! I always have!"

This is wrong on so many levels. Because then Catra loved this girl, and she chose to abuse her despite it, or maybe even because of it. She chose to let the world end to spite the person she's loved all this time. And we've already established that she hasn't really changed all that much. Their relationship is not healthy now and it's not going to be healthy. Because if Catra loved Adora all this while, we know how this love is going to manifest, and that love won't stop Catra from hurting Adora. Catra still has her abusive traits, she still refuses to acknowledge that Adora was justified in leaving and she still thinks Adora wronged her. She's not attacking her anymore, but since she still holds onto the same justifications and hasn't changed her mind, it will never be a healthy relationship. Not until Catra stops blaming Adora, and sadly that didn't happen in the show.

"So please, just this once, stay!"

As though Adora left her. I already talked about this, so I won't go into it again, but it just shows that Catra doesn't actually know what Adora needs or doesn't know her at all, really. She's still clouded by her own emotions about the situation to be able to understand that Adora needed to leave for her own good.

This confession is deeply self-centered. It's still Catra asking Adora to protect her feelings and do things for her. It's still Catra blaming Adora for doing something for herself. If this was from any other character, it would have been a wonderful way to emphasize Adora finally choosing something for herself, as the character who stood by her side to help her carry the responsibilities she took on also helps her choose something for herself. But the fact that it is Catra, who spends the series being selfish as all hell, who always demands things of Adora and blames her for everything that goes wrong in her life, who is saying this, it sort of taints the whole thing. Hell, the request to stay would make sense coming from Glimmer or Bow more than it does from Catra, because they bore most of the brunt of Adora leaving them behind and "running away" because of her need to take responsibility for everything (which isn't actually running away, it's pretty much the opposite, but that's a conversation for another time). Adora running away from them is due to her martyr complex, which does make her leave them behind even when they don't want her to and when even she doesn't really want to, while Adora "running away" from Catra is an act of reclaiming her agency after learning that her whole life is a lie. And take a guess at which one is actually called out!

This is why I can't get behind the idea that their future romantic relationship will be healthy. Because none of the issues that made Catra abuse Adora have actually been resolved. She still hasn't come to understand that Adora was also abused, that Adora shouldn't have to always cater to her emotional needs, that Adora didn't abandon her and Catra was in the wrong for thinking that. Without these realizations, we can't truly say that Catra will not abuse Adora anymore. Especially since she still shows some abusive behaviors, even if the excessive violence and murder attempts have come to an end. They'll probably have a brief period of happiness, like a honeymoon phase, if you will, but when Catra's insecurities begin to rear their heads again, I have full faith that she will go back to doing what she's always done, hurt Adora because she wants to own her, because none of the issues she has with Adora that made her abuse her have actually been solved. "But she confessed to Adora that she loved her!" you might say. But just loving Adora has never stopped Catra from hurting her before. Catra has always loved Adora. That's the problem.

Any decent redemption would take steps to address Catra's obsession with Adora. It would make Catra develop an identity outside Adora, it would make Catra realize she was wrong to pretend that Adora had it all easy, that Adora escaping the Horde is not a personal betrayal of her but rather something that Adora needed to do for her own well-being. Catra has an image of Adora that is warped by hatred, and that has to change. But we never saw that. Their relationship only got worse and worse until Catra miraculously just... changed her whole tune about Adora with no build-up to the moment, and Adora just forgot everything Catra did and rushed off to start throwing herself at her. This just came out of nowhere. Catra has spent her life connecting her insecurities to Adora. She's happiest when she's not thinking about Adora.

Adora quite literally gave up on Catra in Season 3 and spent Season 4 not giving a damn about her. There was nothing, nothing, that changed about their relationship to prompt Catra into changing her mind. She was even accusing Adora of taking everything from her in the Season 4 finale, and she never even spoke to Adora after that. One talk with Glimmer about Adora doesn't erase years of resentment and feeling inferior, and it doesn't erase Catra's abusive behavior. What the show shows us is that the girls are better off apart. Catra is happiest when she isn't focusing on Adora. Adora is better off once she gives up on Catra. And yet we get them coming together without any kind of proper reconciliation and they just don't address anything Catra did, as though one good thing just erases everything else. And Adora just starts trusting Catra in such a short time without Catra really showing her that she's truly changed herself, like they just had a small falling out instead of the murder attempts and abuse. Catra fights alongside her, sure. She protects her, sure. She also continues her emotionally abusive tactics, whether she means it or not. She continues to be passive-aggressive and continues to victim blame Adora, she continues to be possessive and selfish.

Even her apology is lackluster. "I'm sorry, for everything!" What is this "everything"? Is it how she treated Adora? Well, she hasn't really changed much on that front. She's still victim blaming and possessive. Is it for trying to take over the world and subjugate its people? Well, she has never once expressed regret over it, so that doesn't track either. What even is Catra sorry for? We, the audience, don't have any idea. Especially since she continues to believe more or less the same things she believed as a fascist, so like, what is this apology for? She seems to fall back onto old habits the moment she's been rescued, blaming Adora and accusing her of playing hero, like she's been doing all this time. She refuses to own up to her actions and take accountability for them, which shows that really, she isn't all that concerned about the feelings of the people she hurt. For fucks sake, she literally yells, "I know you all hate me!" in an accusatory tone, like she is hurt and offended by the thought that people could hate her after everything she's done. And the show rewards her for avoiding responsibility by having everyone forgive her instantly.

There's such a whiplash in the portrayal of Catra, that one moment Catra is saying she's sorry, and the next she's pretending like she never did anything wrong. The "It never stopped you before," line is so gross in that way because Catra is being bitter about Adora fighting her even when they were friends. This is, of course, ignoring the fact that Catra herself started all those fights, that Catra was the one who enjoyed hurting Adora, and that Catra basically forced Adora to fight her to defend herself and the world itself. And here, she acts all passive aggressive about Adora having fought her and pretty much blames her for it by saying that she didn't like that Adora fought her and holds a grudge against her for it, when, like, it's entirely her fault? This is like a robber being annoyed at the victim for catching them. Catra has no right to be annoyed about this or to act accusatory towards Adora for this, considering she abused her and tried to kill her. She's the only one in the wrong for attacking Adora. She really has no reason or right to be bitter about Adora having attacked her, and she is not justified in blaming Adora for doing so.

And importantly, they weren't friends either, so the fact that Catra would treat Adora the way she did and still have the gall to say that Adora attacked her friend is ridiculous. She just pulls the friend card out of her ass now just to blame Adora for attacking her. Catra didn't think of Adora as her friend. The one episode they did spend as friends again ended with her letting Adora hang off a cliff to fall and die. And later she expresses that she would very much like to kill Adora herself. Catra treated Adora so horribly and hated her, and yet held an expectation that Adora should have not fought her because they were friends. She still thinks Adora should have thought of her as a friend and not attacked her, showing that she still has those expectations for Adora to cater to her and look after her even if she herself won't let herself be held to those standards, and even if she won't return anything Adora does for her.

She still thinks Adora is the wrong for fucking defending herself! And it's like, do the writers want her to seem like a dick or do they believe this? She's not really regretful about hurting Adora because she thinks Adora defending herself was Adora hurting her, who was supposed to be Adora's friend apparently. So what was her apology even about? She begrudges Adora for defending herself, so clearly, it's not because she realized trying to kill her was wrong, so what is this undefined "everything" that she mentions? If she truly took responsibility for what she did and admitted she was wrong to hurt Adora, she wouldn't be bitter about Adora defending herself!

And this isn't the only time. The line "I know you all hate me!" which I mentioned previously also reads this way, especially since Adora just went out of her way to risk her life for Catra. Catra legitimately sounds accusatory, like she's calling out Adora for hating her, like she's offended by it. Like "I know you really hate me even though you pretend not to, and I've had enough of it, so fuck off!" It sounds like she's calling out a toxic friend group. I actually have experience with having a group of friends pretend to like you when they say horrible shit about you behind your back. This is how I felt, angry and hurt, when they kept trying to pretend to be nice to me when I knew what they said about me behind my back, that I was stupid and weird and stuff. So I get the feeling behind that line. I get why she feels that way, in her flawed perspective.

The problem lies in the fact that it's toxic and is victim blaming, since Catra abused Adora and did plenty of other horrible things, which makes Adora's and her friends' resentment of her perfectly justified. You see, any redemption for Catra would mean that she finally learns that she shouldn't do horrible things anymore, that she finally learns to see Adora as a person, that she finally acknowledges that she had no reason to hurt her and that she is at fault for their relationship. But that's not what happens. Catra saves Adora, sure, but she continues to play victim, she continues to accuse Adora of hating her or whatever without acknowledging that Adora should be allowed to do this. If Catra was truly remorseful, she would accept it. As it is, it leaves me wondering why Catra even saved Adora? It's one thing to be called out for pushing people away, but it's different with Adora, because Catra didn't push her away in Catra's mind. She thinks it's Adora who left her. And she has a whole assortment of other issues with Adora. So, her turn to save Adora makes no sense, because she spent 4 seasons trying to kill her for these reasons, and nothing changed about these feelings when she decided to save her. If Catra truly had changed and realized her mistakes and how she hurt Adora, two things would have happened in this scene.

A) Catra would understand that Adora doesn't hate her, not really. Because she's been looking at Adora from a resentful and negative perspective all this while, without recognizing who Adora is. And redeeming herself would mean that Catra has to acknowledge the truth, that Adora didn't abandon her or hate her, and that using that as justification for her abuse is wrong.

I do think that Adora never truly hated Catra. She was resentful, and she did make the decision to give up on her, but I don't think she could truly just hate her. But she did give up on her, and it was a very important decision which was erased from her arc. Of course, Adora would want to save Catra, but she also did give up on her. I would have liked to see her feel conflicted about Catra. I would have liked to see her want to save Catra but also be hesitant about trusting her and letting her into her life again after everything she's done. As it is, Catra just blames Adora, proving that she still holds onto that negative and flawed view of Adora that Catra used as justification to abuse Adora. And Adora is expected to take the step to mend their relationship in which she is the victim and where Catra is at fault. One vague apology isn't enough to mend years of hurt, especially since Catra hasn't changed in a way that matters.

Catra views Adora in a flawed and untrue light, and instead of her realizing she was wrong and giving Adora a heartfelt apology, we get a vague sorry for some undefined "everything." And instead of Catra coming to see Adora for who she is and treating her as she deserves, Adora is supposed to prove to Catra that Catra is wrong about her, instead of Catra putting in the work to unlearn her toxic view of Adora. Adora is expected and made to put in the effort to help Catra heal, despite the fact that this is something Catra should do on her own, away from Adora. Because Adora doesn't have to do that for her, and because Catra being around Adora will only make her double down, and as we see, it does. She still accuses Adora of playing hero, she still blames Adora for her mistakes, she is still antagonistic, and she doesn't want to assume responsibility for her mistakes.

B) Catra wouldn't be yelling at Adora about how she knows Adora hates her, because she would understand that Adora should be allowed to have negative feelings about her.

Which she doesn't do. She's offended by it and hurt by it. As though they don't have a reason to hate her, and she's unhappy that they do. Catra is still placing the blame on Adora for hating her, almost like she thinks it's unfair. And then Adora has to comfort her and reassure her that she never hated her. She has to console Catra when she's sad about people hating her for valid reasons, and she isn't allowed to assert her right to be resentful after everything Catra has done, which completely ruins her moment in the season 3 finale. The narrative excuses Catra and never wants her to be sad. We're only ever supposed to feel sorry for her and want her to be happy, and that also means ignoring everything she did and the consequences for that. Because actually having other characters have self-respect and rightfully disliking Catra for what she did would make Catra sad, and we can't have that, now can we? We're only allowed to feel sorry for Catra, which is why the show keeps focusing on her trauma and giving more weight to how she feels while conveniently ignoring how her action make others feel and the impact it might have on them, like the abuse Adora suffered at her hands and Glimmer's loss of her mother. Because Catra needs to be portrayed in a good light so that C//A can happen, and if that comes at the expense of other characters, so be it.

Ultimately, there is no reason Catra is with the Rebellion other than Adora. One reason she fought in the Horde is to spite Adora, to prove herself over Adora and take her down. Her obsession caused her to sink lower and lower, and the episodes in the Crimson Waste seemed like they were setting up the idea that Catra would have to let go of Adora to be happy, because Adora represented everything that caused Catra pain. Which is not Adora's fault, and that's something Catra needed to realize as well, which could only happen if she distanced herself from Adora and her resentment towards her and gained an outside perspective. She needed to be apart from Adora. But Season 5 not only reaffirms Catra's warped view of her victim, and also portrays her obsession as a good thing. Catra is stripped of any personal identity or motivation in the final season outside following Adora around and eventually kissing her. She gets Melog, but Melog is like a cop-out for Catra actually putting in the work to change. She says she's working on her anger, but we never get to see her do it, or even why she comes to the conclusion that she wants to work on it at all, considering she's never thought much of it before. She says she'll do it one episode and she's pretty much over it the next.

Her issues and mistakes are, as I said, overlooked or downplayed so that they don't seem as problematic as they are. This is because making all the characters remember her actions would force them to acknowledge the magnitude of all that she's done, and then it would really be a yikes moment if she were to get together with one of them. Because they knew they couldn't make her come back from all she's done within the span of half a season and still manage to completely repair her relationship with her victims and even end up with one of them. The writers spent too much time on developing the enemies part of enemies-to-lovers, and they didn't have enough time for the lovers part to make it seem believable. So, they (the writers) had to gloss over her mistakes and never really address it. They downplayed it and ignored a lot of it so that they didn't have to put too much work into showing us that she's changed, so that it wouldn't seem OOC or just plain awful when they made Catra kiss the person she abused for years with just a little "development." I don't necessarily disagree with the story arc they planned for her, and I don't think that she's irredeemable or anything, even as she got worse and worse. But her actual turn was rushed to hell and back, and it cheapened her whole story, because if all it took was a few vague apologies, getting a haircut and one good action after a lifetime of evil, then what was all that build-up for?

There was not enough of a resolution for all that build-up, and that hurts all the characters. It hurts Adora's character, who's inspiring moment of asserting her self-worth and choosing to stand up for herself is forgotten in order to have her go back to falling over Catra and trying to reach out to her while getting none of it back again, with no acknowledgement of the fact that she once gave up on Catra entirely. It hurts Glimmer's character, whose grief over her mother is invalidated when she barely spares a mean look to the person responsible for it and smilingly invites her to sit next to her. It hurts Entrapta's character, when the pain she suffered at Beast Island where she was sent to die after being betrayed by someone she thought was a friend was diminished, and all was forgiven with just one sorry from Catra. It hurts Scorpia's character, when she forgave Catra in an instant without even a proper apology even though her whole arc was about standing up for herself and asserting her self-worth and that she deserves to be treated well. It hurts characters like Bow and the others who Catra hurt, who were stripped of their self-respect and rightful hatred of her and who accepted her immediately, because any of them actually not forgiving Catra would make her sad and that's not allowed. And it hurts Catra's character, who could have been an inspiring and wonderful character, who showed us that no matter how far you fall, you can still improve yourself, and you can still find a better life. We could have gotten so much, and their stories could have cemented themselves as one of the most nuanced and compelling stories of all time, with wonderful and uplifting messages that show people that they aren't alone, and that all hope is not lost. That they can change, and choose their own path, and find happiness and love and a better life.

Instead, we got SPOP season 5.

[wellhalesbells]

ooh I didn't know (or, well, I probably knew at some point but my brain is full of holes, sorry 😞) you started with handwritten stuff? is that like, notes, outlines, or full-on excerpts?

chinhands, i'm fascinated with the inception of it all, where does it start, how do you magically make there be something where there used to be nothing? how solid and defined does a thing need to be in your head before you miraculously bring it out of the ether and into existence?

I definitely do not start with anything written. I always start in a Google doc and just hope I can outrace my shit memory, LOL. When I can't, what usually ends up written down are half-assed outlines if the fic has sprawled beyond what my brain can hold. Sometimes dialogue I don't want to forget ends up on there to punctuate the scene, sometimes vibes, but the point of it is to get the sequence of events down so I don't forget where I need the thing to go and what I need it to hit on the way there.

I wish I could say it needs to be super solid and defined for a thing to become a story (or for me to even want to write it down) but this fic exists because of this exchange that randomly popped into my head:

Erica: “Stiles will be there." Derek: “Fine.” Scott: “He won’t be there, though.” Erica: “I don’t care where Stiles is or isn’t.”  Scott: “Then why did you—”  Erica: “But if there’s somewhere you want Derek to be, there’s no better way to get him there than telling him that’s where your sidekick will be.” 

that's it, that's all there was and then I was like: well let's not not finish this too so what's next? This fic literally exists because I was like: slush is a fun word, I don't use it or its imagery enough. SLUSH FIC. This because I wanted to make a Pokemon Go joke. This because I woke up overheated in a hotel room. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I COULD GO ON. I will say that most of the time I have absolutely NO PLAN. I have one line of dialogue or a location or imagery or just ~vibes (I wish this weren't true and that it also didn't account for such a LARGE PERCENTAGE, lol) and I build around it. I honestly think There's Monsters at Home was the only thing I went into like: ..... I think this is what I'm gonna do and even that was just like *splats up a sticky note* Sourwolf!Derek *splat* Demons!! *splat* Blind!Stiles *splat* Fire Monster. But even that is.... entirely more detailed than I normally start off with, lol, and I made myself track at the end of each chapter what monster was dealt with, how Stiles and Derek's relationship progressed, and how the Pack progressed. And that is WAY MORE PLAN than I'm used to.

[charmspoint]

🌿for the writers truth or dare!

Thank you for the ask!

Ask game

🌿 ⇢ give some advice on writer's block and low creativity

Cradling your face in my hands

YOUR BODY IS NOT A MACHINE. NEITHER IS YOUR MIND.

Idk about you anon in particular, but I've found that I often have writers blocks the most when I push myself too much. I'm currently in a writing low, which is normal because I'm right off a really really big project and I need to replenish my energy. I also had a really big writing block when I came crashing down from 2021 when I wrote a truly dumb number of fics for me. This one happened because I got caught up in the fandom craze and tried to pump out a lot of high quality fics fast, because that is what fandom demands from writers and artists these days. Fast and quality. This of course wasted a lot of mental and emotional energy which couldn't be compensated by the at the time abysmal comment frequency (Recently I've been getting a lot more comments and I hope everyone else is too. It would feel nice to be out of this dark feedback era).

So to reiterate.

Your body is not a machine.

Think about what is happening around you in life. Are you stressed about school, college, work? Are you having social problems? Are you spending too much time online? Do you feel like you constantly have to be pumping out projects or people will stop paying attention?

From my experience, writing block is very rarely about the inability to write itself. Inability to write is a side effect of something else. A big project, complicated outside factors, external pressure, or just the fact that you got a new game and you are using all your time to play your game and not doing anything else (person who is not obsessed with BG3 atm). Usually when these are dealt with and you renew energy after them, writing will come back on its own.

You need to be kind to yourself.

I find this to be the best advice in many situations.

Pushing yourself to do what you can't do at the moment will only result in further frustration. Yes, it's good to have a writing habit, but I advocate for that to be a low goal one. My goal is 200 words a day. Sometimes I don't manage to do this because life is complicated but 6 days out of 7 I do. This keeps you on track, doesn't let your brain stale, but also isn't just torturing you.

If you are lacking in creativity you need to EXPERIENCE THINGS. Read that book you've been putting off, start a new manga, watch a movie, beyond that, take a daily walk, go to a museum, discuss ideas with your friends. I hate the phrase media consumption but I do like eating imagery and your brain NEEDS to eat. It needs to experience different art forms to be able to produce ideas of its own. Fanfiction is fine too, but unless you know a really amazing writer who brings a lot of new things into their work, I wouldn't recommend it, because in the end fanfiction is just exploration of a familiar thing. Thing you are stuck on. DON'T function only on fanfiction.

Let your material REST. If you are stuck on the fic, shove it in a folder and don't look at it for a week. Try not to think about it too much, do some of the things above and let your work rest. After a week you'll forget the finer details of it and will be able to look at it more objectively, which might help you resolve the thing you were stuck on. Also sometimes when you read your own fic a fresh you get those 'I´m a fucking genius' moments which is always great.

BE KIND TO YOURSELF.

Don't create on anyone's schedule but your own. I know how incredibly hard it is, I've felt it too, with fandom today which is overly picky, overly judgy and not very grateful. With a fandom that seems to more and more treat its creators as content machines instead of people sharing their passion projects. DON'T WRITE FOR THOSE PEOPLE. It's hard but don't write for the comments in your inbox. Don't set a schedule you can't meet. I've been writing a 17 chapter fic for almost 3 years now because I want a weekly release schedule but I don't want a weekly writing schedule. If your fic takes 6 months, a year or 10, let it take that times, don't shove it out before you feel ready.

BE KIND TO YOURSELF!!!!!!!

Realize that sometimes writing just won't go, no matter what you do. Realize that you aren't a failure or a fraud for this, that it means nothing when it comes to your skill and ability, that the greatest writers ever had struggled with the same thing. Some days you don't have time to write, some days you aren't in the mood to even do the bare minimum. These days will exist and be kind to yourself on them. Your writing won't escape anywhere. Come to terms with being human and come back to it tomorrow.

Hope any of that rant helps hzbjhvh!!!

[nickolox]

((( long ramble post)))

trying to figure wtf is going on with your own mental health without the help of a professional + having a mental illness that already fucks with the way you perceive things (ocd) is genuine hell

like, I HAVE a psychiatrist, but he's fucking. awful and always puts medications first over like, figuring out what the fuck is going on

and everything about this whole procedure just feels like, off???

tldr: local man questions if he has The Dissociative Disorder™ whilst being simultaneously given red herrings and blatantly obvious eye opening signals at the same time, and has the same realizations 30 times over because i am in a constant cycle of denial, forgetting and then rediscovering this bullshit

so to put it in a nutshell most of my psychiatrist discussions about the big disorderly things go like this:

psych: so what are you experiencing me: i keep like, having these massive gaps in my memory, where i have no idea what happened or what i did or anythign for hours and hours at a time, and i looked up what that means and its apparently called dissociating? what does that mean? psych: right, that's a stress response. me: yeah, That makes sense. But I've also been unable to remember major events like my sister's wedding or my graduation... psych: well... obviously you were just anxious lol me: *remembers the photos i have as the only proof i have that those events happened, and im smiling in all of them* maybe?? i mean, it didn't seem like that was the case. psych: (completely ignores that) hmmm. okay. anyways- me: also I've been hearing voices??? psych: where? externally or internally? me: internally psych: (visible relief) oh thank god i was concerned it was schizophrenia for a moment, having an internal dialogue is normal :) me: i can't control the voices though, and they don't sound like my own voice in my mind. they're distinct, and it's not like my OCD either. psych: that's normal, sometimes people just imagine things ^_^

so, it was "anxiety" the first time, came back. told him this shit is still happening, and then he blamed it on my medications, and now i'm on a new set, which i suppose needed to happen anyways?

But like, he told me that brain fog and memory loss are a thing with prozac (what i was taking before) and i was like "huh no one told me that" to which he said "well no one says the full list of side effects because no one would want to take the meds otherwise"

i get home, i look up the fucking manual that comes with prozac when you go on it for the first time, and no where. NOWHERE. is this shit on that list of side effects. i look up a list of the side effects, dozens of sites, NOTHING!!!!

I speak with my bestie and he reminds me that,

I dealt with these problems prior to going on medication (something i didnt even remember, lol)

it has literally nothing to do with anxiety bc he himself has crippling anxiety and deals with none of the shit i do

i'm going to shit bricks dude what the fuck is wrong with my stupid brain, it feels like such a wild challenge compared to when i found out about my OCD, like, dude at least with that bitch it was consistent, it was 24/7. as shit as that was at least I knew it was always there, always there to be a bitch, but undeniable none the less.

This current mystery disorder is like, oooOOOooo i'm going to be here SOME OF THE TIME!!! to make you DOUBT it exists!!! and im sitting here like, is this a symptom or is this my ocd fucking with me bro

i feel like i might have some kind of dissociative disorder, but the problem I'm having is that it's not CONSISTENT??? like, some days I'll be like yeah this is the dream and then other days I cannot physically do anything, remember jack shit, feel like my soul is leaving my fucking body all god damn day?

why do people always talk about alters too, it's like, the one thing I don't experience, or at least, the one thing that's rare enough to not hinder me like the actual dissociation problems.

I feel like I can't be certain, and that sets my OCD off, because my brain goes "what if we're faking- what if you're overreacting" which in turn makes me go. insane. I am going insane.

there is sooo much more i could say, but i just realized it;s half past midnight. I should um. probably go to bed.

Goodnight.

[sonxofxgondor]

@kissofthemuses asked: you say that like it's a bad thing.

The Most Cliche Lines of Dialogue \\ Kahlan Amnell

Wielder of steel sword better than any man in the army, delicate features the replacement to typical facial hairs and grime-ridden brow, the eyes of blue that looked back onto him were surprising. Boromir rendered speechless - the drop of his mouth low and ugly - far beyond the expected appearance of an elder son trained best, the captain of many and the leader of hundreds. Shocked all the way down to the ivory of his bones, those unbroken or disturbed by the obligations of his birth, Boromir changed his startled expression for something more amicable. Good natured, familiar, receptive to the circumstances that had routed him, tipped the scale onto the opposing end of the confrontation. Grip on the handle loosened, whole blade returned to its sheath, the farming homestead restored to a place of comforts, crops planted all in their rows, sprouts surrounded by brown dirt and the evidence of stronger natures.

A shy smile graced onto his lips, Boromir brushed about his own hair, ducked his chin to his chest and tried, for a moment, to advert his gaze. Boots moving the small clumps of earth by the tip; until they turned to dust, floated into the breeze and moved beyond the farm, the home that it had known.

"Oh! Never, Miss! Please, do not take my words as so. I didn't intend to insult you nor your family home. You see, you merely surprised me."

Boromir explained, cheeks more colored than not. "In my time as Captain, I have not had the pleasure to meet a woman of the sword. It is not a bad thing, never! I have just... the men of our army, the army of Gondor, it is so full of, well, men. Women do not take the call as they do, not like that of our neighbors in Rohan. I meant no insult, truly I didn't. I would be honored to fight alongside you, Miss, if given the chance! Your handle on the weapon - not even my most trained of men could compare! My, however did you learn the art of the sword?"

"Though, I do suppose I deserve to be as shocked as I was, don't I? It was I who came onto your homestead in the first place, prancing around as if I owned and tended to it. My apologies, Miss. I forget myself sometimes. My father, Denethor, he has asked that I speak with all of those who live along our land's boarders. Being so distant from the City, he feared that you were within danger's path. There is no telling what the forces of Mordor would seek - and he, just as much as I, want to ensure that every one of our people is safe. I am Boromir, the steward's eldest, and Captain-General of the Guard."

"If I may, Miss, may I know of you? Besides my unannounced intrusion onto your farm, have you and yours been well? Are you safe? Do you need of anything or have you gone without? If not just to prove how sorry I am for my past behaviors, I do intend to provide for what you may have lost. Perhaps you are no official member to the army, but, Miss, I know you understand the losses our people, our lands, have been dealt. It has not been easy, and anything that our steward may do for you, what I could do for you, would be done without complaint, freely and with thanks. We'd have so little hope without the efforts of you and yours, truly."

[rxttenfish]

Ship opinions: polly x vick :3

Shipping meme.

HM HMMMM

okay, so the main issue you need to keep in mind first off is that i don't really care for the PCs very much. not anything special, just the same thing as always where, by proxy of having literally no writing or Anything about them or describing what they were like, they never felt like actual characters to me and the recent work in roadtrip and the like, trying to flesh them out, is trying to work uphill and only makes them seem criminally flat and boring to me. i could tell you far less about vicky and what she cares about and what her inner world and emotions are like than i could tell you about scott or about valerie or about basically any other characters. and this, combined with how much the fandom loves them and uses them as self inserts (not a bad thing necessarily, very much intended by design) has not greatly endeared me to them either. they're charming little designs, and IMO they should have remained that way.

which is always going to have to be the disclaimer i give with all the PC ships, you know? i don't really know how to describe the PC side of the equation, which means its very hard to describe the relationship between the characters. one of these characters is much more interesting and dynamic, designed with a synergy between their personality, appearance, history, plot, and voice, and the other looks pretty with a personality coming in two games later.

i understand a lot of people love PC ships! and they love the PCs! i understand they mean a lot to a lot of people!

its just also sad that unfortunately they do not mean very much to me and that's going to impact how i think of them in ships.

so... for polly and vicky, we have someone who believes in celebrating life and love and the moment while you have it, who is very aware of the ups and downs of life and has dealt with her own, who is smarter than what people take her for but cares less about correcting this as much as she cares about using it to pull the wool over their eyes, but who is sometimes careless and prone to getting carried away, sometimes forgetting to look back and make sure others can keep up with her or that they haven't become collateral damage. and you have vicky, who is smart and spunky and intense, surely, with a perfectionist streak.

i think, on my first impulse, that polly might have an issue, since i imagine vicky would easily pick up on how smart polly is, and while polly doesn't mind the cognitive engagement and fun that comes with knowing how to pick apart something complex, i also don't see herself as particularly wanting to paint herself as a "smart person". vicky feels like she might tend to want to push polly towards that, as perfectionism tends to also end up projected onto others, especially others who have potential but aren't using it, and again, polly doesn't really want to use it like that. she's not ambitious, she's just doing what feels good, exploring and finding new avenues for pleasure and to sate her curiosity. polly wants engagement, less so fulfilling a prerequisite list of expectations.

vicky certainly gets into a lot and she throws herself in with her full heart, and polly does something similar, but polly's less committed to the outcome. she's not trying to succeed, necessarily, and i don't think she actually cares if she fails or loses so long as she enjoyed herself doing so. polly manages to succeed and to be damn good at things mostly out of rule of funny, but also because she is actually sincerely skilled, just skilled in an entirely different way than what vicky's used to.

honestly, i think these two might get on each other's nerves a lot? vicky seems to me like too much of a tryhard, too high strung for polly, and polly just doesn't care about all of the things that vicky has used to measure herself by, seemingly making a mockery out of them even when she's not trying to, chronically unable to take anything seriously. this feels like an extremely bad combination to me, something that, while it could work in the right circumstances (because, realistically, every potential combination of personalities could as a relationship, don't take this as me giving relationship advice or saying what will or won't work), isn't something that i see happening easily or even something that could happen in these circumstances. i kinda see this as the worse version of polly x liam, where the other party is too stiff and too set in their own ways and own way of looking at things to consider polly's own perspective and feelings, and to respect her own fears of commitment in a way that isn't just judging her for feeling that way.

[leclerced]

do you ever feel like you just know you’re falling behind? like you know your friends are gonna achieve great and amazing things and you’re always gonna be two steps behind them, or you’re never gonna be better than them. because i’m sick and tired of being second best and always being compared especially to my friend who’s younger than me. being younger than me makes it feel all the worse

yeah. you just gotta remember that life is different for everyone, the best moment of someone else’s life is happening when you’re having your worst and vice versa. your friends are having moments that you’re missing out on right now, but you’ll experience them eventually.

and the people who compare you to others and make you feel less than, don’t deserve your time or energy. you know your friends will achieve great things because you believe in them and you have unwavering confidence that they’re going places in life. you need to have that confidence in yourself!!

i skipped college n went straight to working n my fam neverrr lets me forget it nd im like … so are you paying for it orr?? cause i cant afford that shit. meanwhile all of my friends graduated n went to school. i get sad ab it sometimes bc thats what i always wanted and it wasn’t really possible for me but thats not smth i can change. im ok w my life, i really do like my job. it’s cool, and i sometimes make merch for celebs humble brag. if you had asked me five years ago, what i thought i’d be doing today, i’d say i would be in my senior year of college getting ready to graduate, but clearly that didn’t happen. and i want to go eventually but its not in the cards rn. im not gonna stress ab things that are out of my control tbh and i know thats hard not to do but you honestly just have to remind yourself that you just lead different lives.

you got dealt a different hand than your friend, just means you have to learn to play the cards you have, y’know? enjoy the good parts of your life and don’t compare it to other’s because no matter who you are, you can always find someone who has a ‘better life’ than you do

[fanficwriter284]

hey fan its your favorite annoying prick!

anyway i was wondering what illnesses everyone has. im super bad at making lore/ giving characters traits and was looking for inspo. i feel like if i give people something to relate to it would help make my content better especially if thy wisdom comes from you!

Haha hi again and oh that’s certainly and interesting ask!

Chucky-

Let’s start off with the man himself.

Chucky is far from perfect, especially from what he’s been through and dealt with in his life…

Chucky has extreme panic and anxiety attacks. Which leave him extremely vulnerable and exhausted since he often goes through various episodes when he has them. He often needs someone there to calm him down in order to ease the attack.

He has PTSD. If someone even resembles his father or does a motion similar to his dad to will make him freeze. He can’t move and he can’t speaks. He’s just there existing watching time pass. He needs someone to help pull him out of his hazed state.

He has chronic aggression and psychosis. From the events of his father and years of neglect from his biological mother he never was fully there as a child and this came into full effect when his brother died. (Thankfully this lessened when he lived with his mom and later on his Foster Father but once his mom died he ran away and these came back and hit him like a truck) When he’s having a panic attack or his sanity is flattering he hears and sees things…Mainly his father and dead brother in his head and it drives him mad.

And he’s a Sociopath…But you probably already knew that so he’s horrible at understanding emotions.

Tiffany- Self Worth Issues.

Due to the vast amount of belittlement she ensued as a child, this was bound to happen. Despite her mother being long gone she can help but pick out her flaws and fixate in them. Similar to what her mother did to her, leading to Tiffany becoming very insecure about her self and image. Luckily she has her husband…he doesn’t understand it and is horrible with emotions but he tries.

Glen and Glenda- They both just have anxiety. Nothing much. And nightmares. But that’s pretty much it.

Slappy- He wouldn’t really call it an illness and actually embraces it. He has ADHD. So he can be a handful at times and be a bit too hyperactive. Which can be a struggle for other people especially for his best friend Chuck. Since Chucks very sensitive around loud and chaotic stuff that’s besides the sound of slaughter. So Slap does his best and tries not to overwhelm Chucky. Though it can be quite a struggle for him.

Sometime he forgets to do things because he jumps around from task to task and often forgets to eat or drink. THANKFULLY his wife always makes sure he has something in his system so he doesn’t pass out.

Slappy also has extreme abandonment issues since he was dumped down a sewer drain and left to be forgotten by his father. So that left him very jumpy and on his toes, giving him extreme trust issues. He often tries to cover up his many insecurities with jokes and laughter to divert his and other peoples attention away from the matters, despite how uncomfortable or anxious he is. It’s not healthy at all, thankfully he has Anne and Chuck.

Annabelle- Social Anxiety. She doesn’t like dealing with people or being in heavily crowded areas. They over whelm her and make her feeling claustrophobic. However being with her husband always makes it easier.

Jig- Just has Sensory Processing Disorder and OCD. And he feels no physical pain and has issues understanding others and their emotions and the reasoning behind such.

Jig is overall focused on the way he presents himself if he keeps the outside clean and proper he will be okay. However if his suit gets dirty he will hyper-fixate on the stain and white until it’s gone sometimes he’ll go past the suit and onto his own skin and will keep going till he bleeds. He need someone to snap him out of it or me could go it bone.

He feels that he is someone on the outside looking in analyzing every obstacle and object in his perimeter he is very calculated and doesn’t factor human emotions into the equation. He feels no connection and just distant. The only people he care about to some degree is his family and even that connection took YEARS to develop.

His home is always clean and neat and if anything is it’s of line he will loose his mind.

Billy- Really doesn’t have an illness but…He’s horrified of himself and the wrathful nature he suppresses. He often downplays his other emotions expect the ones related happiness. He’s always smiling even when he’s not happy. This is due to the environment in which he was living in prior to meeting his family. His mother didn’t like it when he frowned so she forced a smile on his face until he could to it on his own. He was raised to be a killing machine that smiles his way through the job…nothing more.

This can often lead to anxiety attacks but don’t appear that way about he’s hides away, and smiles through the pain. And he loves marking others smile how can he do that if he isn’t smiling…..

(I hope this is good enough! 😁)

[aliypop]

That's Alright for Such a Night

(Rewrite Chapter 2)

Word Count: 2.666

Writers Note: A rewrite to the original, I realized I had wanted to expand on the story again

Warning: mostly fluff / Historic Language and Values

Pairing: POC OC x Elvis

Plot: During the Louisiana Hayride two breakout stars meet in a rush only to learn they've dealt their cards in the hands of fate.

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8

 Lousiana, 1954

"Say you wanna join my bandmates and me. We're going to a diner just up the street,"

"I... Don't know-"

"CECELIA!" her mother shouted,

"On second thought, I change my mind."

"So you'll come with us," Elvis asked, a grin on his face as Cecelia nodded. Cecelia, Elvis, and The Blue Moon boys had made their escape. They were walking down the brisk streets of Louisiana. Cecelia shivered a bit, forgetting her cardigan sweater in her mother's car. Elvis had taken off his pink suit jacket and wrapped it over her shoulders, 

"You didn't have to do that,"

"Eh, wouldn't want you gettin sick here." he winked at her as Cecelia playfully rolled her eyes at him. 

"Well, thank you kindly, Mr. Presley. But I can take care of myself..." 

"Anytime, Ms. Valmos. And I wasn't sayin you can't." He responded back to her, the two walking closer toward one another. 

"CECELIA!!! CECELIA!!! IS THAT YOU!!!" Everyone, including Cecelia, had turned around when they heard the yelling from behind getting closer to them,

 "Sounds like you got fans."Scotty smiled,

"Rosa Calhoun!!!!" Cecelia ran towards her. Rosa had been best friends since Cecelia and her mother moved to Georgia when she was sixteen. The one smiling face she could always find in a crowd.

"What're you doing in Louisiana," Cecelia questioned,

"Well, I was in town shooting a movie, heard you were performing, and- Are you okay?" Rosa whispered, taking notice of the guys around her, "They ain't following you, are they..." 

"I'm fine, Rosa. Actually, this is my friend, Elvis Presley, and his group, the Bluemoon Boys." Cecelia smiled, introducing her to them all. 

"Cece... the curl is drivin' me insane..." Rosa blushed, staring at Elvis' cowlick. Elvis winked as Rosa pretended to swoon, or at least Cecelia hoped she was.

"Mind your P's and Q's, will ya." Cecelia nudged her shoulder.

"Say you should join us..." Scotty winked as Rosa clutched her chest. After all, she did have a thing for men who were a bit older than she was. 

 "Where you fella's going?"

"To the first Lunch Car, we see..." Bill Black responded.

"But it's dinner time, isn't it," Rosa questioned, 

"That's just its name, Rosa." Cecelia winked,

Arriving at the diner, they had taken their seats in a booth. Cecelia sat next to Elvis, and Rosa sat between Scotty and Bill while Sam pulled a chair to the table. 

"This may be the first integrated place I've been in," Cecelia mumbled as Elvis nodded, 

"I'd have to agree on that. Well, no, there's this one place in Beale Street an-"

"California is pretty spiffy on it," Rosa shrugged, "But uh, what're we orderin'?" she asked as Cecelia laughed along with her.

"A celebration feast!" Scotty and the boys shouted,

"Why not! On me, my treat." Elvis smiled, 

"Are you sure? " Cecelia asked as Elvis looked into her brown doe eyes. She really was being sincere, "You don't have to spend your 18 bucks, I-"

"Cecelia..." his blue eyes looking deep into her soul, "Allow me to treat the soon legendary rock n roller to a meal." Cecelia nodded as he put his arm around her.

"Alright, but don't spend it all in one place, Pres." she ruffled up his hair as he brushed it back.

"Alright, so everyone knows what they're orderin?" the waitress asked, 

"6 of everything," Elvis winked as Rosa and Cecelia laughed. Sometimes, he swore he was so charming. 

"Alright, make it 6 of everythang..." the waitress said,

The food had come, and they had all eaten everything. Rosa and Scotty had taken it upon themselves to share a Milkshake. Bill and Sam were by the phone, and then Elvis and Cecelia were by the Jukebox. He was mesmerized by her, and she felt the same way as him. 

Earth angel, Earth angel, will you be mine?

"You wanna dance?" He asked,

"I'd like that..." Elvis led her to the dance floor. His hand was on her lower back, as hers was on his shoulder.

Earth angel, Earth angel, the one I adore

Love you forever. And evermore.

I'm just a fool, a fool in love with you.

The two swayed to the lyrics as she looked up at him. He was tall and handsome, but she wasn't his, and he couldn't be hers, and it pained her heart already that she knew this. 

"Practicing for a dance, huh?" Cecelia said, her head on his chest, 

"Oh, uh yeah ... yeah." he had damn near forgotten about being Dixie's prom date,

 "And you, you must get a slew of guys just uh waitin to ask you out to any dance, really."

"Actually, I don't," 

"Why's that..." The two kept dancing, 

"Picky with love, I guess," she glanced at his lips. Those beautiful pillowy pouty lips that she just wanted to place hers on top to feel and taste what it would be like to know what pure bliss would feel like. 

"You deserve to be picky,"

"Whys that Pres."

"Well, Valmos, You're pretty, an you got talent. I'm sure you got a great brain in that head of yours and..." he was lost in her eyes again. And the light reflecting on her tawny brown skin, enamored by her very features that he wanted to kiss so much, not to mention her body in her wiggler dress, but damn, he had a girl back home who he promised to be true to. 

"And what else..."

"Nothin', I forgot." 

Oh, oh, oh, Earth angel, Earth angel, please be mine.

My darling dear, love you for all time.

I'm just a fool, a fool in love with you.

"There you are!" Midge and Cheryl burst through the door. She was still in his arms as Midge groaned, "Denise is going to murder me..."

"Midge... Cheryl. Hi, have you met Elvis..." she introduced him as he waved, not dropping her from the dip he had her in

 "Your mothers looking for you, and she's pleased and pissed at you,"

"Oh great..." Cecelia sighed as Elvis brought her back up from the dance floor. 

"Does this mean I..." Midge and Cheryl nodded as she sighed, but she was having so much fun. For once, Cecelia felt,

"Time to go and say goodbye to uh.."

"Elvis, Ms. Guess, I'll See you around, Cecelia."

"If I'm not dead, Pres." she winked. Elvis walked back to the booth, a bit broken-hearted. What if he never saw her again?

Midge took her back to her mother's car as if it were a walk of shame, "Your mother will have your entire ass for fraternizing with a group of White boys, you know." Cecelia only rolled her eyes as she kept walking, 

"Don't see how, when she literally sings with Sinatra..."

"He's Italian."

"Well... I had a swingin good time, okay." Cecelia sighed. She could feel the glare coming from her mother through her Mercedes car window. 

"Where were you..." Denise asked as Cecelia mumbled something under her breath.

"I went to go eat with some friends I made..."

" Cecelia, something could've happened to you."

"Rosa was there!"

"Hiya, Mrs. D," she giggled as she made a phone motion towards Scotty.

"Once again, something could have happened to you both..." she sighed, "Do you not know what they're doing in the deep south to girls like you." Denise groaned, 

"Hey, Rosa..." Denise glared at her daughter again, "I thought I told you to stay away from her... She's fast..."

"Sorry, Mam-" Denise glanced at Cecelia, "Mother... It won't happen again."

"It's better not. Now, you two get in. I have news." 

Rosa sat in the back as Cecelia sat in the passenger seat.

"Lousiana Hayride wants you to perform every Saturday Night starting next year." Cecelia smiled, 

"But they were going to pay you less, so...I pulled a few strings..." 

"Like what..." Rosa said, 

"Well, remember how I said we're moving to Nashville,"

"Yeah, you did..." Cecelia looked confused.

"Well, if cut you a country blues hit or a rock one before the Hayride and its sales, you'll get the same pay." 

"Well, how soon can you operate that studio of ours?"

"Now you're making sense. 

Nashville Tennessee, 1955

"That's all of it." Denise sighed, "Here we are back in the country..." she groaned as Cecelia grinned, sitting on a tree branch in their spacious yard. Denise could take the girl out of the country, but never the country out of the girl. Cecelia and Denise had now moved into Valmos Manor, owned by Cecelia's great-grandmother Calpernia. 

"Hey, Cece!"

"Rosa!"

"Oh, Jesus..." Denise laughed,

"Seems we're neighbors!" 

"Seems so!" 

"You going to the concert tonight!" Rosa nearly shouted as Cecelia looked at her mother. While she was now hanging upside down from the same branch.

"You have a record to cut..."

"For research..." Cecelia cheesed as her mother shook her head. 

"Oh, alright, but I'm coming with you girls."

Cecelia silently groaned. She wanted one show to herself and a friend at least once.

"Who's the headliner?" Cecelia asked. Rosa then shouted back from her fence.

"I don't know, it's like a bunch, but Scotty is gonna be there and Elvis Presley is goin-"

"Elvis..." Cecelia gasped, "I'll get dressed right now!" Cecelia ran past Midge like she was Jay Garrick

"Where's she going..." Midge asked, "Is she testing her lipstick again?"

"Again?!" Denise questioned what she meant by again.

Dresses, slacks, blouses, and jeans were all scattered around in her room as she tried to pick the perfect outfit. Cecelia hadn't seen her friend Elvis in a year since 1954, which was like an eternity. 

Sure, they wrote to each other, but now he was near where she lived! And she could see him tonight if she could find something to wear. Picking out a vibrant pink pencil skirt dress and her pink scarf around her neck to match, she finally felt ready. That was once she'd put on her iconic red lipstick and her hair in a poodle updo. 

But before she left, she had one more thing to do. She kissed her Elvis poster and her Dean Martin Poster next to it. Running down the stairs, Cecelia saw her mother, who gave her a smile as she glanced at Rosa.

"I can see all of your imagination in that dress ..." Denise shook her head at Rosa,

"Perfect!" she giggled. Rosa walked in with her black and white Polka dot dress, waiting for Denise to go upstairs to show Cecelia it had shorts underneath, 

"It's cute, why the shorts?"

"In case Scotty wants to pick up where we left off,"

"Wouldn't you do a dress then... Woah, wait, are you and Scotty boiling the cabbage."

"Yeah,"

"Lucky..." 

"You could boil yours too, kid. If you put down the comic books once in a while and saw the babes in front of you."

"I'm savin myself for someone special." Cecelia smiled. She was proud of that. And she meant what she said.

"Like who Elvis Aaron Presley~" Rosa teased, "You wanna pull his cowlick? Don'tcha? Play a little house..." 

"I wanna do more than just that, I wanna-"

"Want to what..." Denise glanced,

"Uh, go to the concert." Cecelia smiled, clearing her throat as Denise pulled the top of her dress up,

"That's what I thought."

Overton Park Shell Memphis Tennessee 

"Oh, he looks furious..." Rosa mumbled, watching Elvis Perform.

"The guitar isn't his, and it's missing two strings... " she sighed. She knew how that felt. She lost her Falcon once during a performance. And it threw her off.

 Elvis had tried his hardest to focus on the slightly crappy night he was having until his eyes saw, "Cecelia," he mouthed as she waved. Scotty shook his head playfully as Rosa waved,

"People can see you two..." she hit her playfully as Rosa laughed.

"That's the point." 

"Your mother can see you too..."

"Shit..." Cecelia groaned.

"I'd uh, I-I like to invite a friend up, if that's okay..." Elvis said as Cecelia playfully frowned, "Don't know if I can find her, she's, uh, in pink and... Oh, found her!"

Helping her up on the stage, Cecelia took his hand. Silence filled the crowd, a few cheers, mostly deathly glares, but Cecelia was used to it. After all, she'd been this color her entire life. Might as well be comfortable in it, she figured. Denise and Midge were worried, and so was Rosa, 

"Don't worry about them..."

"Pres..."

"Do you trust me," Elvis whispered,

"I don't know if I should," Cecelia whispered back

"Good enough for me, doll."

"I don't have a guitar." Cecelia began to look around,

"Use mine." another man said, giving him her guitar.

"Thanks?"

"Ready when you are." Elvis smiled,

"Lovesick blues boys." she said as the song started, "I'm gonna sing you, lovely folks, a song about heartache, it's got pain and misery written all in it. So pitch an ear an listen," she said as the band played. 

"By the way, I'm Cecelia Valmos." she saluted as Scotty, Billy, and Elvis followed her lead.

I got a feeling called the blues, oh Lord

Since my baby said goodbye

Lord, I don't know what I'll do

All I do is sit and sigh, "Oh Lord."

Cecelia grinned as she danced a little, Elvis following her steps. The crowd was wild. As Cecelia looked back at Elvis, she had asked him to join her in the last part of the song. It was the start of something legendary, and Denise, although regretting it, could certainly taste it.

"Lord, I love to hear her when she calls me sweet daddy."  Elvis turned to her as Cecelia nearly laughed at his attempt to yodel. 

"Such a beautiful dream. " Elvis leaned into the microphone as Cecelia watched him sing to her, beckoning her to come closer to him, which she did.

"I hate to think it's all over; I've lost my heart, it seems." Cecelia leaned into the microphone, the two playing their guitars. Rosa and Midge were impressed, but the papers wouldn't be.

"And I'm lonesome. I got the lovesick blues". 

When the song was over, they went backstage, laughing and giggling, picking up where they both left off. 

"Elvis, that was brilliant!" Cecelia chuckled as she held onto his shoulder.

"Didn't take you for a Hank Williams girl."

"My daddy was a Blues and Folk singer, so... it runs through me like a bad meal." she joked as he laughed. Denise was in the corner with Hank Snow, talking business. At least it was what Cecelia supposed was going on, 

"Oh, uh, sir, your guitar." Cecelia tapped him on the shoulder, 

"Call me Johnny Cash." he winked at her,

"You can call me any time..." Rosa mumbled as Scotty looked at Rosa, who was making a call me gesture to him.

"Don't mind her. You were amazing out there." Cecelia smiled, 

"Me, no, you and him, that was amazing. I would've thought you made it up the way you came up there. You two fooled us." Johnny then walked off. 

"You gonna tell him,"

"Nah," Cecelia laughed, "So you're touring in Memphis?"

"I Could ask you the same thing," Elvis smirked,

"I live in Nashville now." Cecelia smiled,

"You moved here!" he grinned as she smiled at him, 

"Yeah, we settled in today!"

"So we could go out?" he mumbled,

"I wouldn't mind. It gets lonely, and I'm usually just makin records under my mama's label. I haven't even any friends but Rosa..."

"Scotty darlin! I'm just messin with you!" 

"Are you really."

"I wouldn't leave you for that glass of country singin water." 

"Promise?" 

As the two began to walk off, Hank and Denise both walked down towards the two, 

"That don't look good..." 

"Ms. Valmos, How'd you like to headline For Elvis Presley in Texas?" Hank asked.

"Sounds fine. Why do you ask?"Cecelia questioned,

"Cause you're going on tour,"

Taglist: If you wanna be tagged let me know!

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MORE TO COME IN CHAPTER 3!

[mdhwrites]

In an answer to another question, you said that Amphibia acknowledges how change can be beneficial but also difficult and harmful, partly because the ‘quick’ and ‘forced’ change Andrias inflicts on Amphibia by trying to bend the world to his will is presented in a negative light. This is a very good point, but isn’t there a bit of a double standard when it comes to the forced change inflicted by the Guardian?

At journey’s end, the Guardian drops Anne back in Amphibia with three shards for a one-way trip home. It was nice of them to give her a ticket back to Earth…but it also forces Anne into a position where she has to leave a world she loved enough to give her life for, and potentially never see her found family again.

Now, it would be pretty hypocritical for Anne to talk a big deal about accepting that things change whether we like it or not in All In, only to turn around and pick a fight with the god of the multiverse out of a refusal to tolerate being separated from the Plantars. But the Guardian didn’t even consult Anne or ask her if she’d be okay with this before putting her in this position. They just…sent her back, left a little note saying “TTYL,” and didn’t even explain why they couldn’t give her a way back to Amphibia.

Sure, the Guardian knows how much damage was caused by creating the stones to see what mortals would do with unlimited power. Recreating the stones for Anne would have easily risked another disaster happening. But if the Guardian is truly all-powerful, surely they could have given the Calamity Trio a two-way portal that couldn’t be exploited by the wrong hands?

And in the deleted alternate ending, the Guardian does recreate the stones anyway when an old Anne forgets the deal she made and forces them to start their search for a replacement all over again. Now, this alternate ending isn’t canon, so it might not actually be what the Guardian would do, but again, the Guardian never explains why they’ve given one-time-use-only shards.

By all appearances, this is a quick and forced change to inflict on Anne, Sasha, and Marcy. You say the forced changes Andrias inflicts on Amphibia are portrayed as bad, but the narrative doesn’t even question the forced change brought about by the Guardian. Nobody raises so much as a word in condemnation of its actions. Not once does Anne even think to look up to the sky and ask ‘What gives? I sacrificed my life to save Amphibia, and you won’t even give me a two-way portal?’

I understand two-way transportation would have contradicted the message of accepting change and how love transcends distance. But throwing an entity who supposedly could, but won’t, give them a way back muddles things, in my opinion. A big part of Anne’s arc was learning to stand up for herself. Shouldn’t she have stood up to the arguably unfair hand she was dealt?

(Sorry for how long this ask was, I just have a lot of thoughts on this stuff and I get carried away rambling sometimes XD)

So for the sake of focus, I'm going to take all the stuff about the two way transportation and Anne supposedly being out of character for not arguing about the stones and put them to the side. One: because you yourself admit that approaches are flawed, Two: things get deleted for a reason. I could literally probably give you a clear, logical, narratively consistent reason why EVERY storyboard we're shown for TOH was changed or deleted, and Three: I could genuinely go into each topic on its own and so it would make this blog incredibly long.

Instead, I'm going to focus that while it wasn't my first point, I did continue for one more line about why Andrias' change upon the world was so destructive. I specifically point out that it is forcing the world to be something it is not and to bend it to his own will. It is selfish and uncaring of others and the show's themes of community always punishes selfishness.

Instead, the Guardians' final choice... Actually evokes the first sin in Amphibia's timeline, at least for the trio. The Guardian's logic is actually pretty easy to figure out after all. After what the girls did, especially Anne, they deserve a chance to go home, even if the Guardian is now done with allowing inter-dimensional travel, at least easily and by his intervention. So they're given shards to allow them to choose what form of change they want, what sacrifices they will make, but change HAS to happen either way. It is simply best for everyone, you yourself admitted this and a two way portal would not magically fix the issues with it, from the Guardian's perspective to keep the worlds separate..

It is not selfish. Instead, he is doing it for the best of the dimensional community... Just like Marcy's father was going to make them move likely for the sake of keeping his job or a promotion or any number of reasons that were likely motivated by trying to keep his family together or help them prosper. The change it would inflict on Marcy would not be of her own choosing, just as we cannot control the change those around us inflict upon us, but it wasn't done maliciously, nor was forced to be faster than the nature of the change required. There is no way to make a change like that smooth or consequence free. It was always going to hurt, much like when someone around you dies.

Instead of running though, the trio embrace it and head back home where they'll have to deal with reality the most. It's a stark contrast to, while still paralleling, the actions that began the show. A scared girl running from inevitable change and deciding a fantasy world was better than her actual home. For an ending, it's perfect.

So why not show the pain? Well... Because a story needs to end eventually. Amphibia in the end is extremely optimistic about good intentions, community and change so showing Anne or any of the trio cursing God himself for not giving them a fairytale ending makes literally no sense to include in the finale and just adds more time whining when that time could be better spent saying farewell to the characters and staying committed to the hopeful message that it has.

That's something I don't think a lot of people entirely get with stories. There are actually plenty of TOH scenes I've dug into HARD not because there isn't a logic to them or I couldn't explain to you why the characters are behaving the way they are or because it is literally written badly but because, you know... It needs to actually serve the story and the point of a scene. Even if it doesn't 100% adhere to pure logic, it needs to adhere to the thematic and emotional logics of the piece. Those are ALWAYS more important.

Otherwise, you get people bitching at SpyxFamily for the fact that trained spy Loid doesn't give a shit that his wife has literal superhuman capabilities. Logically, they're correct. But... The show IS a comedy. And 90% of the time, Yor's strength and skills are used comedically because that is the tone and purpose of whatever scene is going on. It adheres to the logic of what the show at least pretends to be. It's actually why I find myself questioning the serious portions of the show more. Not because they make less literal sense but because they make it so when the show shifts back into silly times with Anya at school, it is fucking JARRING.

And for Amphibia's ending, the point is how much good change has done these characters. Saying farewell and embracing how much both the characters and the audience have treasured the characters they've been with. There's a reason why the epilogue, and even the farewell before it, come across like a curtain call to a play as much as a natural scene. A final chance to say farewell before we probably never see them again. And, you know, because they commit to that instead of trying to prove they're so smart or address every potential thing someone might claim is illogical about the show mostly set in a frog world, it is able to genuinely say goodbye to those characters and stay emotionally and thematically consistent throughout.

Because those things, in 99% of stories, is WAY more important than being 'logically correct'. It's also why I don't really think there is a better version of Amphibia's ending. Period.

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