mam0ssa

[mam0ssa]

this is too wholesome

Concept: A witch cat that’s too fat to fly

[mam0ssa]

at least abuela didn’t try to kill anyone

this is from my priv twt. i’m right

[mam0ssa]

honestly, if they planned for catra to have “loved adora this whole time” the writing for over three quarters of the show make absolutely no sense and don’t fit into this supposed narrative at all. too much “telling” and no where near enough “showing.” 

unless you count the numerous murder attempts & maimings as catra showing just how much she “loves” adora.

The thing about C/A is that “it’s not abusive, they’re on opposite sides of a war, moron” does not meaningfully address the problem. “Enemies-to-lovers” and “abusive trainwreck” are different things, correct, but they’re also not mutually exclusive, as this kind of smug condescension fails to realise. It’s not that we’re too stupid to realise that it’s supposed to be an enemies-to-lovers arc; it’s that we actually noticed the problems with the writing.

The thing is, Catra’s constant attempts to inflict physical and emotional pain on Adora are not justified by them being on opposite sides. At various points, she tries to destroy Adora’s new home while taunting her about her inability to save it (S1E13), reduce Adora to a near-mindless weapon under her control (S2E5), tries to blow up the world out of spite that Adora wants to save it (S3E4-6) and tries to agonisingly BBQ her on the power grid (S4E3).

(The attempt at bringing about Armageddon is especially notable given that it costs the life of the only positive parental figure Adora has ever had, something that really should have been dealt with in some way. Of course, that would mean Catra had to deal with the consequences of her actions, and S5 is terrified of that, so.)

Like, take that classic enemies-to-lovers moment where the heroic one is in the villain’s crosshairs, and they can’t bring themselves to take the shot. There is no point between S1E11 and S5E1, a timespan that is not only half the show but that they knew when they were planning this was half the show, where it feels like Catra wouldn’t immediately pull the trigger. She is literally willing to die just to cause Adora pain (S2E5, S3E4-6), and her big guilt-dream moment in S4E3 is set the morning before she attempts to sadistically kill Adora with electricity.

Most of the time, she’s also taking called shots right at Adora’s deepest insecurities, taunting her that she either won’t be able to save people or that they’re only in danger because of her (S1E13, S3E5-6, S4E3). It’s not like she’s even particularly loyal to the Horde; she’s literally only staying on that side because Adora is on the other one.

It can’t be written off with “well, they’re on opposite sides”; the cruelty is way too personal for that. “They’re on opposite sides” generally tops out at, like, a sexually charged sword fight, not a sustained effort to inflict the maximum degree of physical and emotional pain.

As for Adora, the show doesn’t really sell it from that end either: sure, she starts out trying to reach out to Catra (S1E2, S1E5) but this rapidly graduates to suspicion (S1E8), which is only justified when Catra first attempts to murder her (S1E11); from there, it graduates to a legitimate (and justified) fear that Catra will murder her friends and force her to watch (S2E4) to outright giving up on Catra ever finding redemption (S3E6) and finally being willing to resort to lethal force to stop Catra from harming others (S4E3). Note that S4E3 is also, very literally, the last interaction they have before Catra’s rushed and clumsy face turn, which Adora instantly and uncharacteristically accepts at face value, in S5E3.

This pacing and structure is bad. I’m not arguing for a Lily-Orchard-ish “hook your characters up at the midpoint” setup, but the show should at least have started trying to move away from the enmity before it reached the “put her down like Old Yeller” stage, or, at most, shortly afterwards, instead of having Catra continue doubling, tripling and quadrupling down on the villainy for another fucking season.

Nor does it help that the flashback in S5E3 establishes that, far from the mutually supportive “us against the world” friendship hinted at by S1E11, Catra and Adora’s childhood relationship was toxic, controlling and one-sided. The foundation of the flashback is literally Catra inflicting physical harm on Adora for developing friendships outside of her, and while this could usually be written off as children being shitty, Catra spends most of the show still trying to do that. She’s even trying to frame Adora leaving the toxic environment of the Fright Zone and their deeply unhealthy relationship as “abandoning” her in the series finale.

And even this could have perhaps been overlooked if the show had framed it as a toxic relationship that is gradually being healed or a complicated mess, but it doesn’t; it rushes to Adora hooking up with someone who had until recently been obsessively fixated on causing her pain, then portrays it as a fairytale conclusion that everyone should be happy about.

Look, I’m not saying you can’t ship it. But I would at least like you to stop assuming that I’m stupid just because you have no idea what good enemies-to-lovers arcs look like. Because that’s the thing: I fucking love enemies-to-lovers, and I fucking hate C/A, because it’s bad enemies-to-lovers, and the uncritical worship it got from an army of Catra stans makes me worried that a lot more shows are going to fart out bad enemies-to-lovers arcs.

[mam0ssa]

literally all of my feelings on c//trad//ra in one post <3

Upon rewatch, I noticed a consistent pattern in Catra and Adora’s relationship, which repeats at least four times during the show:

1. Adora does something that Catra feels is threatening their relationship.

2. Catra hits and/or insults Adora, essentially punishing her for making a choice she doesn’t like.

3. Catra runs off, forcing Adora to resolve the conflict entirely on her own and framing her as the guilty party.

4. Adora chases her down and apologizes despite doing nothing wrong in the first place.

We see it in the very first episode, where Adora gets a (completely deserved) promotion, is called a bootlicker people-pleaser, and has to make amends for her success. While there is injustice here, it has nothing to do with Adora and everything to do with Shadow Weaver. Yet she is the one who takes the full brunt of Catra’s anger.

We see it in Corridors flashback, where Adora tries to befriend someone other than Catra and she retaliates by hitting Lonnie (off-screen), scratching Adora’s face, and stomping on her stomach. Also worth noting that Catra expresses zero remorse for doing this whatsoever and explicitly refuses to apologize.

We see it again when Adora decides to defect, at which point Catra’s immediate reaction is to stun her with a weapon meant for enemies. Twice.

This is the point of divergence however, because now is the first time she didn’t come crawling back. Adora has finally chosen to prioritize something else over Catra’s friendship (namely, her moral code). And she wasn’t supposed to do that. She was supposed to run after Catra like always, to comfort her like she always does and then things would go back to normal. Adora’s refusal to continue the pattern is perceived by Catra as a personal betrayal.

Catra can be nice and sweet but only as long as Adora stays within her role — Catra’s (and her only) friend, protector, shield from the rest of the world. As soon as she steps out of line — suggests they befriend other people too, refuses to be a part of an oppressive regime — it’s like a switch’s been flipped. Adora goes from her best friend to arch-enemy in half a second.

And the scariest part? We see it again in Season 5 near the grand finale, when Catra pushes Adora to the ground for no reason other than to express her frustration with the latter’s decisions. Catra still thinks it’s okay to hurt Adora when she disagrees with her. What does it say about their shared future? Is Adora forever stuck in a relationship where she can’t have her own opinions? I hope not, but the show has done nothing to convince me otherwise.

Notice that every single one of these instances occured with them being allies. What does Catra do when they’re enemies? She tries to brainwash her. Turn her into a human weapon, the same way First Ones and Horde Prime were so fond of. When her usual means of controlling Adora failed she moved on to the more literal mind-control, even verbalizing this as her intention for viewers who are too dumb to figure it out themselves (“I finally get the chance to control Adora, I’m not giving that up!”).

Does Catra have reasons to act this way? Why, of course. In fact, this whole dynamic can be traced back to Shadow Weaver casually threatening Catra’s life and safety while making it clear that Adora is the only reason she’s still around. Catra being utterly terrified to lose her only stability in life is perhaps understandable. Does it make these actions any less of abuse? No.

Catr*dora is a textbook example of an abusive relationship. It features all major signs: power imbalance, desire to control, physical & verbal violence on a regular basis. Adora’s needs, values, and traumas are not equal to Catra’s, they don’t even matter in the long run. By the end, Catra got what she wanted as opposed to what she needed and Adora’s agency was thrown into open space to make her nothing more than a lesbian eye candy with Glimmer and Bow cheering on from the background. It’s not cute and it’s not romantic. Season 5 was an insult to abuse victims.

[mam0ssa]

anyways glimadora is canon queen !!

[mam0ssa]

Salty S5 memes because I say so

[mam0ssa]

you’d think if C//tra actually gave a sh*t about Adora then she wouldn’t have tried to kill her as much?

[mam0ssa]

wait this is actually such a good point. they could have had C//tra try to redeem herself sooner and not go as far as she does and we probably would have gotten a much different show. 

One of the things that astounds me about SPOP is that for all the noise it made about That Fucking Promise it just…had no payoff?

Like, there is no point where C*tra seems to understand that she also promised to have Adora’s back and had plainly never actually lived up to that. No point where that promise really seems to mean anything to the plot beyond the episode being an excuse to have C*tra just be really horrible to Adora in ways that diehard fans inexplicably seem to think is romantic. No attempt to connect it to Double Trouble’s callout post in S4, where they very accurately rake her over the coals for always expecting everyone else to have her back but almost never doing so for those others!

Hell, the point where they could have put a montage of scenes from prior episodes as C*tra looked back on them and suddenly realised what they looked like from outside, they put…a scene where C*tra was not only not having Adora’s back but was punishing her for having autonomy and expressing her own wants and needs instead of being entirely devoted to C*tra’s. Which was never brought up again, and the toxicity of that whole concept is never meaningfully addressed.

If I got to ask these people just one question it would be “why did you do so much setup that you never tried to pay off, even when paying it off would have improved your scripts?”

[mam0ssa]

wait wait wait but you forgot the best ones:

> Adora is suspicious of C//tra, who has been clearly planning "something” that could hurt others and because Adora WANTS to protect people she’s been trying to watch her to keep her from doing so.

> C//tra basically admits to having done something bad to one of her new best friends, meaning Adora’s fear of C//tra doing something to hurt others that night becomes oh sO COMPLETELY VALID

and then there’s this screen shot:

> A look of sheer terror... and for some reason C//trad//ra shippers never like talking about what happens right after their “dance.”

> Adora gets understandable pissed.

> And then attacks her. Something she had clearly been trying to refrain from the entire night because the rebellion was trying to get on Frosta’s good side.

> Real creepy how C//tra just laughs at the thought of hurting others.

> And then at the end of the episode it shows C//tra having kidnapped both Glimmer and Bow. Basically confirming Adora’s worst fears that C//tra really was planning on hurting people that night, specifically hurting Adora, by hurting her friends. 

While the show seemed to make a joke out of Adora being so panicked at C//tra being at princess prom, and shippers seem to think Adora was following her around as an excuse because she “had a crush on her” or some sh*t, it’s clear that she had an OBVIOUS reason to. Her suspicions of C//tra were RIGHT.

In no way is this romantic. It’s traumatizing and toxic as h*ll.

> and then the PART SHIPPERS LOVE TO FORGET. Adora’s left hanging by her HAIR PIN on the side of an ice tower in the SAME DAMN EPISODE that a scene c//trad//ra shippers love to use as “reasons to ship C//A.” Meanwhile negating all of the actual context of the scene & episode as a whole.

Noelle could get away with the excuse that when C//tra cut the vine Adora was hanging from in the crystal castle, C//tra “assumed” the castle wouldn’t let Adora die.

but this one???

>  Are you joking? There’s no excuse for this. The episode just ends right after this:

> Adora, yet again, is left alone and crying, one sweaty palm away from death. As the audience, we aren’t aware that anyone from the prom or any guards know that Adora is here (who could rescue her), nor do we see C//tra having any concern about Adora possibly FALLING TO HER DEATH.

If C//tra were really “in love with Adora this whole time,” then you’d think she’d be at least a little more concerned with the obvious prospect of Adora’s death in this scene. but nOPE!

Gotta love people acting like Princess Prom is a Catr*dora moment when this is literally what Adora looks like once she realizes she has no choice but to dance with Catra:

I don't know about you, but this expression reads more like “urgh, why do I have to do this” than gay longing or whatever.

And then this is Adora throughout the whole thing:

Look at her. She's so fucking Done.

“Catra knew Adora wouldn't refuse to dance with her!” Yeah, because Adora was already under scrutiny from Frosta, and being “mean” to one of the guests she slighted previously might've cost the Rebellion a powerful ally.

And that's on C//A stans completely ignoring context to make their ship look not as shitty as it is, once again.

[mam0ssa]

it literally depicts C//tra, an abuse victim, turning into an abuser. people can say it’s only a “reflection” or “learnt behavior” all they want but it doesn’t erase the fact the C//tra is hurting Adora. them being “enemies” doesn’t excuse it.

Adora is 100% C//tra’s victim. It boggles my mind how this is actually something that has to be explained to people.

“Shadow Weaver is the REAL abuser, not Catra”

Both of them:

Blame Adora for everything

Act like she's responsible for their own actions

Treat her decisions like childish tantrums

Project their desires on her

Make Adora doubt her sanity

Use painful mind-control to force Adora into staying with them and turning on her friends

Isolate her

Convince her that she's weak

Assign Adora qualities she doesn't have to justify their treatment of her

Touch her face despite Adora being visibly uncomfortable with it

How are you gonna say Adora deserves better than one of her abusers while wanting her to make out with the other one?

[mam0ssa]

“oh no, how dare Glimmer yell at Adora and be kind of a b*tch in season 4, meanwhile, I love C//tra despite her throughout 4 whole seasons literally beating the f*ck out of Adora, trying to kill her multiple times, ending the universe because C//tra didn’t want Adora to “win,” kidnapping her friends, almost killing bow, and removing Adora’s bodily autonomy when C//tra has first ones tech and threatens to use Adora’s berserk She.ra to slaughter her own friends, but omg, couple goals <3 <3 <3″

bruh

"But GLIMMER immediately regretted it so"

She immediately regretted THIS

And only because Adora finally cracked and started crying

She did not immediately regret/try to apologize for

This

Or

This (trying to touch her when she's uncomfortable and getting mad at her for it)

Or

This

Or

This

Or

This

Or

This

[mam0ssa]

I will never understand c//trad//ra... It really seems like their “bond” was based off of obsession rather than “real” love. Too bad the writers can’t tell the difference :/

Have you guys seen the recent article? 👀

Highlights:

“But after watching Catra brutalize Adora for four and a half seasons, the show’s celebration of the characters’ sudden romance felt jarring, even troubling.”

“A trauma bond is not the same thing as a loving partnership, and the series doesn’t really give Catradora a chance to form one.”

“Representation shouldn’t be confused with endorsement. However, in pairing Catra with Adora in the final episodes, and portraying this as a victory, the show almost sanctions her behavior. It says: You can treat someone this way and still be a viable romantic partner without first making deep amends.”

[mam0ssa]

HOOOW. actually how.

C//A stans be like “Anyone who thinks C//A is abusive has clearly never watched the show 😒” and then this is their fucking defense

“not once”

At this point if the whole Catr*dora thing turned out to be an elaborate prank I would just sign in relief.

[mam0ssa]

More people are finally starting to see the issues with C//A and write about them, I'm glad. Please read through the article if you find the time!

[mam0ssa]

Ngl kind of sick of writers and shippers alike using obliviousness as an excuse for piss-poor relationship writing.

Not being knowing a fact doesn’t stop it from being true and having an effect on your life. Paraphrased:

A character who isn’t aware of their own feelings towards someone should not act the exact same way they would if those feelings didn’t exist.

Even if a person is oblivious to being in love they still show signs of, you know, being in love. That usually includes: thinking about their crush more than they think about other people, seeking physical contact with them, feeling warm and fuzzy around that person, deriving strength and inspiration from them, etc etc etc.

Obviously not all of these signs indicate romantic interest and not all romantic interest looks like this, but there should be something between the characters that regular people who don’t wear shipping goggles could pick up on.

Writing a relationship that is painfully, embarassingly one-sided and then going “Oh, they were in love all along! The Clearly Disinterested Character is just a tsundere/incredibly confused!” is a lazy cop-out.

(Especially if the show suddenly becomes all about romance, throwing its previous themes out of the window.)

[mam0ssa]

Conflict between Adora and Glimmer vs Adora and Catra

Same goal, but different methods of achieving it vs different — and incompatible — goals

Both Adora and Glimmer want to protect Etheria from the threat of the Horde — their opinions differ on how to do that most effectively.

Catra doesn't even understand why Adora cares about civilian casualties to begin with, let alone shares her view on it.

Outbursts and immediate regret vs calculated attacks and sadism

Glimmer blurts out something horrible in the middle of a heated fight:

[I'm trying my best. Why can't you see that?] “Well, maybe your best isn't good enough. If it was, my mother would still be here!”

But backs down and apologizes as soon as she realizes the effect her words had on Adora:

“A-Adora… Adora, I'm sorry—”

Catra repeatedly and deliberately targets what she knows are Adora's deepest insecurities:

“And it won't be over until I see the looks on your friends' faces when they find out that you failed, that you were too weak to save them.”

“If you hadn't gotten captured, your sword wouldn't have opened the portal. If you hadn't gotten the sword, and then the world's worst She-Ra, none of this would've happened.”

“You're the one who left the villagers unprotected. You're good enough at hurting your friends without my help.”

And openly revels in the pain it causes Adora:

A rough patch in an otherwise good relationship vs a “rough patch” that just never ends

Glimmer has been nothing but supportive and encouraging to Adora throughout the first 3 seasons and continues to be that once their conflict is resolved:

Catra consistently uses Adora as an outlet for her negative emotions:

And, of course, Glimmer never once hit Adora once they stopped being enemies. Catra did that no less than six times.

Taking Glimmadora & Catr*dora and saying “both of these ships have issues” has the same energy as taking someone who litters & someone who commited first degree murder and saying “both of these people broke the law” — as in, it's technically correct but putting them on the same moral level and acting like people are hypocrites for being more lenient towards the former is fucking bonkers.

[mam0ssa]

*catra shoots adora*

catra: adora doesn't want me!