#catra: i have self loathing issues :(

[living-for-fiction]

I've been putting together a realization over the last several months, since I moved in with my girlfriend and metamours; and since an extremely close, important, but ultimately toxic relationship ended.

I love fiction. (No fucking shit, look at my username.) And when I get into a piece of fiction, I tend to latch onto characters that I identify with. Often they are my favorites - not always, but often. Rarely are they the protagonists or the good guys (on occasion they are) and, if they are the antagonists or bad guys, they are sympathetic. They tend to have a few things in common, though.

They're messy. They often have a good core, or once strived to be good people. Then they were badly hurt, usually for a prolonged period of time, generally by people meant to protect them. They began to hurt others, either intentionally or unintentionally. Sometimes it was in search of a greater good; sometimes not. Sometimes they're redeemed; sometimes they aren't. But they tend to have these traits: either started out good or have a good core, which becomes buried very deeply under trauma; either starts lashing out from pain or making decisions that harm others in a misguided attempt to minimize pain; hurt and misunderstood, but also genuinely have committed atrocities that cannot be undone.

Lotor. Sam Winchester. Catra. Shigaraki. Toga. Castiel. Dabi. Angel Dust, to an extent. These are the characters I can think of off the top of my head that I've connected to like this recently (by recently I mean within like the last 12 years lol).

Anyways, I had a bit of a realization today when I made a throwaway comment about relating to Catra, and it's that... I don't, anymore. Not as strongly, at least. Oh, I have the strong memories of being so consumed in pain and self-loathing, of knowing that I'm hurting people around me and being unable to stop and sometimes bitterly feeling like I shouldn't need to stop because it's not fair that I have to hurt so much alone. Certainly an incredibly unhealthy way to feel, but I felt that way for... honestly, for most of my life. And I think that's a big reason why I connect with the characters I connect to; the ones who scream out their pain and who end up putting misery into the world, even if they started with the desire to put goodness into the world. Because that resonated with me.

And now, I can connect with that feeling more from memory than from actively feeling it.

I'm currently living in a place where I am accepted wholeheartedly, warts and all. Where the things about me that are strange aren't brushed off when they affect me, minimized, looked down on, anything like that. Where when something feels wrong, the response isn't "get over it" "that's not a problem" or "what the fuck is wrong with you" but "we'll figure it out." Where making accommodations is just part of the way we do things rather than some kind of big fucking deal.

Living in a household with three pther neurodivergent people, I no longer feel like no matter what I do I am HURTING others and like I have to repress parts of myself until I stop hurting them or explode and make things worse.

It's not to say it's a utopia. Four neurodivergent adults living together, of course there are times we run into issues - but that would be the case with four neurotypical adults living together. L has meltdowns, J doesn't always communicate well, S tries to take on everything herself, I have memory and sleep issues... but we don't treat these as moral failings. Because they aren't. We give each other grace and understand that no one is trying to hurt anyone else.

I don't have to feel like that hurt, broken THING screaming into an unhearing void and desperately trying to do good while hurting others with my coping mechanisms or even just by being myself.

[antispopausandstuff]

i debated just not replying to this at all, but why not?

everyone else, don't harass this person, please. should go without saying, but just making sure.

to start off, i didn't say it had to be exactly like the movie. i was simply comparing the differences and why Catra doesn't have sympathy or a desire to see her redeem herself from me. you came to that conclusion on your own.

second, where is your evidence that Catra committed war crimes, abused multiple people, killed Angella, and was at least partially responsible for Horde Prime finding Etheria in the first place was from a source of her supposed self-loathing? or are you saying that her lack of proper accountability in s5 is from that self-loathing? either way, that doesn't make sense.

if you mean the former, from the very first episode, Catra's goals aligned with the Horde's, taking over Etheria and destroying the Rebellion, and the moment Adora stepped out of the circle, Catra retaliated by hurting her and threatening to do it again for the sake of bringing everything back to the status quo and eventually taking over the Horde themselves, which Adora never wanted.

she always wanted power to look down on the ones who looked down at her first ( mainly Shadow Weaver ), and used Adora to get it rather than actually putting in any work herself.

just because she supposedly deals with self-loathing in s4, after she killed Angella, nearly destroyed the entire universe, tried to commit a murder-suicide, sent Entrapta to Beast Island, essentially a death sentence, and threatened to do the exact same thing to Scorpia, who had been nothing but supportive and trying her best to understand Catra, if she didn't stay quiet, lied to Hordak about Entrapta's loyalty, and was overall the worst fucking person because of one moment she doesn't even think about anymore, doesn't mean that it was because she hated who she became. and even if she did, what exactly does that take away? nothing.

her spiraling in s4 ( after repeatedly spiraling already in previous seasons, mind you ) wasn't anything but self-pity, self-justification, and being an abusive authority figure, just like Shadow Weaver and Hordak, to the point not even Scorpia wanted her. she spirals because no one wanted to be around an abusive, violent, lying piece of garbage and she ends up alone. the only even somewhat stable relationship she had, with DT, was entirely because she had nothing on them to use against them.

DT was untouchable, so they were the only one Catra couldn't have abused or take advantage of.

if you mean the latter, this isn't nuance. it's called character assassination. Catra didn't care about approval before, didn't care about being seen as a monster before, she didn't care about any of that, especially after s3.

her supposed self-loathing results in her putting Adora in more danger, making Glimmer panic without care, and making everything even worse for Etheria. so, again, what does that change? nothing.

her apology is empty, meaningless, and far too late.

it's the same with her sacrifice, honestly.

throughout the entire time Adora tries to save her, it's a mix of victim-blaming, self-pitying, and when it seems like she finally turned around, accepting Adora's help, she turns right back and becomes insanely hostile for no good reason other than just because.

after Taking Control, she doesn't actually change, either. she just gives even more empty apologies, is hostile with Glimmer and Bow, constantly insults everyone, her 'anger issues' aren't ever being worked on again, implied Scorpia is a coward, continued to blame Adora for her 'abandonment', when it was entirely Catra's fault that she was still in the Horde, did nothing to help the Rebellion or Adora, complained when Frosta, rightfully, attacked her ( where did that guilt go, huh? ), did absolutely fuck all to help Adora with the Failsafe, then shoved and yelled at her for 'choosing' Shadow Weaver over her, all before finally gaslighting her for the millionth time by claiming she's always loved her, and STILL believing she was the one left behind by saying "so, please, just this once, stay!".

i won't deny Catra is self-destructive. that's obvious. but hating herself? that is a stretch. and, even if she did, people are still dead, people are still abused, Entrapta still almost died, Horde Prime still found Etheria, and all they got in return is "i'm sorry".

and what the fuck is that last sentence?

( warning - vent // trauma dumping. sorry. )

"if you withhold sympathy for someone because they don't immediately understand what they did wrong and how to do better, you never actually cared about helping that person in the first place."

okay.

first off, you don't know shit.

i've given sympathy to people who didn't deserve it, and guess what? now i'm a victim of abuse and have my family being stalked, yippee. and guess how many apologies i've gotten that resulted in the person actually working on changing? one. who was the person? my own fucking mom, because she's the only one i could depend on out of everyone else in my life and she knew that. she knew she had to be better for my siblings and for me.

but i'm still a victim. that's not changing. the only person that changed for me was because they knew that, if they didn't, i'd be entirely alone, because no one else wanted me. she wanted me. so, don't you dare fucking say that i never cared about helping the people that ended up taking advantage of me and abusing me even more, because i fucking did.

in terms of the people who didn't abuse me and simply just fucked up, i've forgiven those people, because i knew they just messed up and we could talk it out.

and you act like having sympathy for someone means that you have to forgive them and accept what they throw at you in order to help them heal. you don't.

i have someone in my life who is actively making their life worse, again, and i have sympathy for them. i understand that they're a victim of severe abuse, likely have C-PTSD, amongst several other mental issues, but i am only one person and i can't help someone who won't help themselves, especially when that person has a tendency to be violent or aggressive.

same thing for most of my extended family, to be honest. i understand generational trauma, but i will not help people who won't help themselves and don't even see themselves as being the problem, no matter how many conversations have been had over at least two decades.

second off, i never said that Catra had to immediately try to be better. i said that Catra should've had remorse for hurting Adora if she genuinely cared about her. but she continued to scar her, physically, emotionally, mentally, and there is nothing in the world, in the universe, in anything, that could excuse or reason that.

i don't care if Catra was supposedly hating herself or believing she was undeserving of love. i don't care if she felt so guilty that she ended up expressing it in the most roundabout ways. i don't care if she became someone she never wanted to be.

because that's not what the show said until the final season. after she terrorized, killed, abused, lied, manipulated, threatened, all of this shit, because Adora dared to walk away from the Horde, even after offering her a safe space.

sympathy can only go so far, and the message you're sending could, and has, put people in danger.

if Catra really thought she was a monster this whole time, then she never would've hated Adora for leaving in the first place. but she did. and she wanted to make her suffer, make Etheria suffer, make the universe suffer, because of it.

i don't care.

here's the thing:

if the show really wanted Catra to hurt Adora, then fine.

but the problem is that there is no remorse.

bear with me, but let's look at the 2007 TMNT movie for comparison.

Raph and Leo were at odds, because Raph was hurt that Leo left and then came back expecting everything to be more or less the same, while Leo was hurt that Raph seemed to hate him for trying to be a better leader for him and the others.

in Leo's time away, Raph became a vigilante, which could've ended badly for their family ( they were in hiding ), and Leo had a justifiable reason to be angry about it, but Raph had a justifiable reason to be angry at Leo, too.

they were both in the wrong and in the right, in a sense.

however, after their verbal and physical fight, Raph's senses began to click in and he realized that he had just hurt Leo. while he wanted to show that he was better off without him, Raph never wanted to hurt his brother to prove that. at the same time, Leo realized just how strong his little brother had gotten in his time away, so, maybe he didn't need actually him anymore.

Raph runs away, because he realized he messed up. we see it in his face, the realization, processing what he just did, and how he's essentially afraid of that.

we don't see this with Catra. if Catra had a moment of anger, where she hurt Adora really badly, but came with this realization of what exactly she's doing, then sympathy and growth would have more room for her. but the problem is that none of this exists.

even when they're young, Catra never apologizes to Adora for hurting her in any way. it's always Adora apologizing for making Catra upset about this or that, even when, most of the time, didn't actually do anything to Catra herself.

and, when they're older, Catra still doesn't actually hold herself accountable for anything, while Raph is wracked with guilt over Leo and him being kidnapped, not being able to save him. it's to the point where Raph is completely self-deprecating, saying he understands why Splinter chose Leo as the better son, when that isn't the case.

if you want a hotheaded character to hurt someone and be redeemed, then you have to show them having remorse for the actions they took. unless it was justified, obviously.

honestly, if c//a's dynamic was inspired by Leo and Raph's in the movie, then Catra would've garnered a lot of empathy from me, too. but it's more of a bastardization, if anything.

[literaphobe]

🎁

god u know what i’m thinking about right now? the fact that my official (i guess) first crush told me he liked me from the beginning and wanted to ask me out a long time ago but decided not to because he thought i just wanted to be friends? anyway i thought this whole thing was just a fun lil exchange of “lmao we used to have feelings for each other”

but the thing is after we told each other this stuff he was like “oh so what should we do about this? should we go on a date?” so i think i’ve said here before that i freaked out for hours and took like at least one really cold shower(?) and then proceeded to dodge meeting him irl for 1-2 months? yeah well i remember the full reason why now

my brain literally was like “oh no you’ve somehow managed to trick him into liking you. you can’t see him now. the second he sees you he’ll realize this was all a mistake and he was stupid for saying that he likes you. maybe it’s a lie and he’s pretending he used to want u when actually he didn’t. and he’ll realize it’s not worth the lie once you see him again. he’s going to realize he doesn’t actually like you somehow and you’re gonna go back to being unwanted” which is the dumbest thing because. we used to go to school together???? he would see me every day????? but then i managed to convince myself also that i somehow was hot at the time (but didn’t realize it because back then i also thought i was undesirable) but NOW i am no longer hot and am somehow very ugly and disgusting.... there’s no winning huh

[comicaurora]

Are there any romance stories or romantic subplots that specifically worked really well for you? Maybe because they were "good friends being good friends" plots first and "romance" plots second?

it is very depressing to me that for a while I could only give a conditional "yes" to this one. There are romantic subplots I liked up to a point that the writers made decisions about them I thought were weird and dumb, or that I liked in hindsight but didn't really appreciate at the time. And despite having watched a not inconsiderable amount of live-action media, every single halfway good example I could conjure up was from a cartoon.

Catra and Adora have a fascinatingly tumultuous arc to me, but I spent the entire show genuinely believing we'd never get a payoff, and when we actually got the big kiss I was too busy being shocked to really process the ramifications. In my head I'd filed them right next to Charles Xavier/Magneto and Optimus Prime/Megatron, enemies so clearly soulmates with each other but in that special murdery way. I've been planning a full rewatch, so I might get to fully appreciate it this time!

When I watched through Ben 10: Alien Force I remember being genuinely surprised at how much I liked the romantic subplot between Kevin and Gwen. I think because they were both kinda assholes about it, but in very synergistic ways. He's the platonic ideal of an Edgy Emotionally Repressed Lancer but he's kind of too blunt and straightforward to remember to be emotionally repressed all the time, and she's a smart snarky ass-kicker who figures out that they're clearly into each other immediately and bluntly asks him when he's gonna ask her out in like episode three, which completely throws him off his game. It was very cute, and Kevin got in a few good "take the bullet for the love interest to save her" moments that I'm always a fan of, but after the first couple seasons something shifted in the writer's room and Kevin got shunted back down the "actually a dickhead" route and the characters stopped acting like they cared about each other so much. It was a bummer, and since the characters stopped acting consistently in-character I kind of disengaged. But I did like how they handled it early on!

I am, obviously, broadly a big fan of the romantic subplots in ReBoot, as I am with all other major parts of that show. The main one that got focused on was between protagonists Bob and Dot, which was kind of standard background will-they-won't-they fare for the first three seasons - some miscommunications and arguments and daring rescues - until they get in a big kiss in the finale. The problem, as ever, is in season four, when they start doing some really weird sitcom telenovela twists, including a second Bob popping out of a portal and claiming to be the real Bob, and everyone in the show spontaneously sheds 90% of their braincells to forget the fact that their Bob is the one who saved the day over and over again since getting fished out of the Web, so everyone ignores our best boy who actually did the heroics to play favorites with Other Bob. Obviously Other Bob turns out to be a bad guy in disguise, but this is revealed at his wedding to Dot, and it's just fuckin stupid that it would get to that point at all. This is a big part of why I mentally carve season 4 off the canon timeline and just let it end at the season 3 finale.

The other romantic subplot is between Matrix and AndrAIa, who meet as children in season 2 and have a cute kind of mutual crush thing going on before they get lost in the games in the season 3 timeskip and, offscreen, grow up together and enter a fully-established and completely solid relationship. Aside from a brief "matrix gets jealous" subplot in the back half of season 3 that really just serves to reflect his fascinating cocktail of trauma-induced self-loathing issues, they're remarkably stable and play off each other well. I think the fact that we skipped all the romantic will-they-won't-they drama and went straight to "they did, they have, and they're totally good" did it a lot of favors - and despite Matrix being, by any metric, an asshole, it never feels like AndrAIa is settling or putting up with him or tasked with fixing him. It's more like they're each the only person the other truly feels safe and whole around, so Matrix is truly an asshole to everyone but AndrAIa (and later Bob and Dot, his other loved ones) and AndrAIa is not guarded or defensive around Matrix.

Gargoyles also had two different romantic subplots I liked - one between heroes, one with villains. Goliath and Elisa have a great dynamic that's a little less will-they-won't-they and a little more of an unspoken agreement, "we're both really into each other but we also don't really think this can happen on account of being fully different species and we're too mature to get dramatic about it." Since they're basically on the same page about it, they don't have much in the way of drama or miscommunication, it's just all that good "rescuing each other from peril" content I like.

On the villain side, David Xanatos and Fox had a surprisingly wholesome relationship considering they're full-blown villains for the first couple seasons. It's a case where their romantic subplot made them both better people in the long run as they developed priorities that weren't selfish. They ALSO skipped all the will-they-won't-they and went straight into a wholesome, committed, mutually supportive relationship.

I do also recall being genuinely surprised how much I liked the romantic subplot between Trevor Belmont and Sypha. I think what made it work for me was the tendency for them to clearly and honestly communicate with each other - about more than just their romantic subplot. There's a great bit in season 4 where they just sit down and are like "everything's been happening a LOT lately, let's talk about how we feel about that", and I appreciated the moment I think is in season 3 where they're like "hey… maybe… leaving Alucard alone in his dead parents' castle ten minutes after helping him kill his dad… was bad for him?" It's a romantic subplot that doesn't feel like it eclipses the rest of their characterization and it doesn't mean they stop caring about anything other than each other. And it also skipped over the will-they-won't-they, so honestly no wonder I liked it.

I know there's more, but I genuinely had to google lists of shows to remind myself of the one-in-a-million examples I actually liked, so let's leave it here for now.

[adhdgwen]

"just this once, stay" is a truly terrible line.

Catradora's problem wasn't that adora wouldn't stay, it was that catra wouldn't leave.

Adora never abandoned catra, she left a toxic situation and asked catra to come with her. Catra said no. Catra *kept* saying no for three seasons, until adora said fuck it and fuck you. And stopped asking.

Then season four, after she successfully pushed adora away, showed her going down the most self loathing rabbit hole, like she just... went to the depths of despair and damn.

Then season five, and she finally goes through some character growth (because the previous seasons was just her doing the same old shit and expecting things to be different), the message is a bit weakened because it's implied that she still didn't want to leave but fuck it, I'm desperate I'll take it.

Then the confession scene happens and she *still* thinks Adora left her and was wrong for it, and it's like... what the fuck were we doing for four seasons?

If there was one problem I had with Catra's character was how selfish she was. It was mostly a passive problem, mind you, because there was a lot more that was interesting about her character arc than there was stuff i hated but the confession scene was like... the worst of the catradora dynamic painted in the most romanticized light which is why i hate it.

It is still Catra trying to hold on to adora at *literally* the expense of the entire planet and blaming her for leaving, and it is still adora letting her get away with it at the very real expense of herself.

And I'm a big fan of the "I'll let the world burn to save you" dynamic in ships so normally, i'd be all for it but this isn't what adora wants. Adora wants to save people, and yes right now it's at the expense of herself but the issue wasn't her wanting to help. The issue is she felt she had to do it alone and that she didn't try to care about herself in the process. But she still wants to help people and idk, catra doesn't.

Catra is only in the rebellion and the best friend squad because of adora, she doesn't really care about the princesses. like sure, she won't hurt them anymore and she's sorry for the harm she *did* cause but she doesn't attach as much an importance into saving them as the rest of them, she is really only there because of adora.

And i don't care about that okay, I'm fine with morally dubious villains. I find her apathy fascinating. I'm good with that, but that isn't adora.

Adora is in the rebellion because she wants to help, because she feels the need to. Because she saw them suffering and wanted to relieve it, because she really does want to do some good. That's adora's schtick: complete selflessness.

But Catra's schtick is, when you boil everything down to it's base core, selfishness (or whatever you call "wanting what you want at the expense of everyone and not caring about who you hurt in the process")

Neither of it is good for them, but making the love confession back to Catra being selfish once again, cheapened it. Like just fucked it up, ruined whatever character development that was hinted at, and just made her the very same person at the beginning of the relationship where she wants what she wants and this is literally the only time that "what she wants" and "what is good for adora" lined up.

They could have done anything else for that confession scene, could have had catra offering to take the failsafe away from adora, could have even just replaced just this once stay with something along the line of "I'm never leaving you again" and i would have been cool with it.

(also i know I'm focusing on catra a bit, but another issue is how adora doesn't really understand catra at all. but that's an issue for another day)

[ericamzdm]

S5E11 - You Ruin People (Pt 1.5)

[Part 1 HERE]

[part 2 HERE]

Taking a break from the blow-by-blow breakdown - I actually find these specific lines (“You ruin people! You ruin any chance they could ever be happy!”) kind of frustrating, given where we are in the story.

Just to make it explicit: Adora is talking about herself. This sequence is entirely about Adora finally recognizing her trauma as a part of herself. But that recognition - that acknowledgement - ends up being undercut by not having her say that with her actual words.

We are told that Adora has owned her shit - but not enough to be able to speak it, to say “You ruined me! You ruined any chance I had of ever being happy!”, even as we careen into the series finale. That even now she deflects, framing her pain as that of generic “people”. Which is kind of a problem, given the context of the rest of the episode.

At the beginning, before they leave for Mystacor, we see Adora start to deflect - to use “we” to ask Catra to come - before correcting to “I”. (Although there’s no proceeding epiphany; I can’t pinpoint the moment where Adora apparently(?) recognized that saying “we” when she means “I” is both something she does, and, you know, a problem.)

And she’s generally on-point on the issue for the rest of the episode, to the point of cutting Catra off when she tries to deflect on why she’s leaving.

This is not just a failure to move Adora’s arc forward - it is an explicit regression.

===============

Now, character regression isn’t strictly speaking a writing failure - Adora actually has an established pattern of immediately yeeting epiphanies into the repression box - it’s just ... between her “growth” at the start of the episode lacking context as to it’s significance, or how and why it happened and the fact that it’s just so late in the game ... it just doesn’t quite work for me? It feels like the narrative is pulling it’s punches, when it should be going all in, if that makes sense.

It also doesn’t help that ...Adora is just wrong? Like, obviously she’s wrong; “Abuse ruins you forever” is not the moral of this show. But even within the context of Adora, and this moment in the narrative, it’s just obviously untrue when not viewed through through Adora’s haze of self-loathing.

Micah grew up and got married and was happy. His survival on Beast Island was pretty much entirely driven by the fact that he knew what happiness looked like for him; his desire to return to the people he loved and who loved him.

Scorpia took most of the series to get to a good place, but she ultimately found one! It lasted for less than a full episode, but for those 10 - 15 minutes of screen time? Scorpia was happy in herself. She knew who she was and what she wanted, and that she was loved. 

And Catra? Yes, Catra is unhappy in this moment, but honestly? Looming Armageddon aside? she’s not actually in a bad place. She’s taken ownership of her own feelings and actions, and she’s no longer pinning her happiness on Adora getting her act together. Leaving a situation that was not making her happy is a pretty critical step to finding one that will!

Yea, Shadow Weaver deeply scarred a lot of people, in ways that they are going to carry for the rest of their lives. But they still live those lives, and are able to find happiness and a future.

The only one who still doesn’t seem to know how to wear those scars, the only one who feels truly, irrevocably ruined? Is Adora.

[soranis-sunshadow]

Why Hordak and all of his brothers are cult victims suffering from Religious Trauma Syndrome

A detailed (and very, very, veeeeryy long) explanation on why I take issue with dismissing Hordak’s trauma as “daddy issues” that is frequently done as a way to hand wave his background and the context for his actions all while attributing said cultic abuse and indoctrination narrative to a character that, though has a tragic, abuse-laden past has never actually been part of a cult. *cough* Catra *cough*

Lets see how deep the rabit hole goes shall we?

First off: The Galactic Horde is based on a suicide cult, with Horde Prime as its leader.  

That is irrefutable fact. It has been stated by the show runner and there are plenty of in-show examples of religious speak, religious themes pertaining to Horde Prime and his acolytes and even the interior design of Horde Prime’s ship is that of a grandiose Cathedral.

The source of this is an article by Polygon where the show runner breaks down what went into creating Horde Prime. (link in the notes)

Onto The Etherian Horde – though totalitarian in nature, it is not a religious institution – merely a military operation. Though the argument could be made that propaganda is used to instill an anti-princess agenda, no horde members are ever seen spouting doctrine or discrimination against their very own Princess in the ranks – Scorpia. Not only is she not discriminated against, she holds the rank of Force Captain. She also has the respect of her peers.

The only person that seemed to have taken it seriously is Adora, who - due to Shadow Weaver’s personal attention – has been raised with the specific mindset of a self-sacrificing martyr. After learning of the fact that Shadow Weaver has always known about the Heart of Etheria, it is not a huge leap to assume that in her bid for more power, her plan had always been to have Adora unleash the planet’s magic, possibly sacrificing herself in the process. Shadow Weaver had groomed her for this specific purpose.  (It’s one of the reasons for which the subject of Adora’s martyrdom hurts Catra so deeply –she had been witness to the manipulation taking place but was powerless to do anything about it for most of her life)

The other cadets are more well-adjusted and don’t seem to care much about the horde’s ideology or goals, not even Catra who has suffered the brunt of Shadow Weaver’s psychological and physical abuse and has been subjected to her manipulation too.  

The above exchange proves that even if there had been any indoctrination in The Etherian Horde, it has failed in affecting Catra’s judgment. I am legitimately surprised on how little credit her own fans give her and on how her perceptiveness and intellect is dismissed to have her fit into this “brainwashed victim“ agenda for more “sympathy points”.

With that having been said I’ll start this off with a bit of a definition: Religious Trauma Syndrome is a common experience shared among many who have escaped cults, fundamentalist religious groups, abusive religious settings, or other painful experiences with religion.

The symptoms of Religious Trauma Syndrome are comparable to the symptoms of complex PTSD. The symptoms are as follows.

(link in the notes)

I will discuss all of the symptoms and causes by turn and expand upon them.

1)      Cognitive: Confusion, poor critical thinking ability, difficulty with decision-making,

negative beliefs about self-ability & self-worth, black & white thinking, perfectionism,

Hordak’s whole misguided crusade on Etheria is an act of confusion. What on green Earth had ever convinced him that it would work in proving his worth to Prime? Hordak had been confused on the reason of his rejection, self-delusional even.  Hear me out:

Despite what Hordak himself believes, he wasn’t excommunicated because he was useless, he was abandoned for being born defective, aka for existing as he was created.

His inborn defect, by nature of being an unchangeable fact was not something that he could overcome in order to earn back the acceptance of his Maker. To a certain degree, he was aware of this but had refused to acknowledge it and as such, he has framed it to himself as “his defect makes him worthless”.

By overcoming uselessness and proving his competence in furthering Prime’s goals, he had convinced himself that he would be welcome back into his brother’s flock.

He had convinced himself that by proving his usefulness, it would erase his defect. He had given himself a reason for rejection that, unlike an inborn one, could be overcome - worthlessness.  His logic being that Worthless=Defective, if he were useful, he wouldn’t be defective anymore.

He has framed his accidental stranding on Etheria as a trial of faith, not a chance at freedom or bid for power and self-actualization.

In his confused reasoning, he had not realized that by attempting to prove his worth to Horde Prime, he would be in essence, proving that Prime had been mistaken about his deficiency. This was anathema to Horde Prime’s own doctrine – that Prime is all knowing, all powerful and Horde Prime is Never Wrong. His attempts were always destined to fail from the start, the premise was flawed at the core but Hordak’s own wishful thinking prevented him from seeing the fault in his mission.

This is how Hordak sees himself:

This defect => useless => worthless mentality can be observed when he projects onto Catra. I swear, everyone projects onto everyone else in this series.

This is an example of him emulating the only leadership he’s ever known  - that of Horde Prime and exerting Prime’s judgment over a supplicant or Prime – In this case Catra (what Prime would have done to him in the same situation). He imitates Prime’s way of speaking and even his facial expression during Prime’s “speeches” (look at position of his ears in this scene and that little dimple damnit!!!)

(yes, *sigh* I did a spacebat ear position diagram)

Horde Prime has that ear position even when possessing his little brothers to give his grandiose speeches:

Hordak’s and other little brother’s “default” ear position:

It’s worth adding that perfectionism is not only part of a symptom of his cult trauma but also a tenant of Prime’s doctrine making it a double whammy.

2). Emotional: Depression, anxiety, anger, grief, loneliness, difficulty with pleasure, loss of meaning

As they say, a picture says a thousand words…

To call Hordak depressed is like calling the ocean mildly humid.

He is alone, on a planet of primitive aliens (from his perspective) surrounded by potential enemies and in an incredibly vulnerable position due to his illness with no clear end to any of it in sight. He feels nothing for this world other than irritation at his inability to leave it. His only meaning and purpose is returning to his congregation, a purpose he is no closer to fulfilling than he was when he had started a few decades ago. The only open displays of emotion he manifests are that of anger, self-loathing., frustration, fear – in the blanket scene before he comes to his senses completely and starts masking the fear with anger… at the blanket… there was nothing else in the room to be angry at… ridiculous spacebat.

After Catra deceives him about Entrapta, he openly manifests grief and apathy as well.

3).   Social: Loss of social network, family rupture, social awkwardness, behind schedule on developmental tasks, sexual difficulty (no snu snu for religiously repressed spacebats... yet  *wink wink*)  

This one is self-explanatory.  He is in essence an exile on Etheria, away from all he has ever known. He is the only one of his kind on the planet, even Imp - his attempt at replication is not a proper replacement for the community provided by the Hive mind.

From a social perspective- he is a recluse and is not seen interacting with anyone in anything but a “professional “ manner.  The only exception to this is Entrapta’s interaction to him. Due to her indifference to his posturing, she is immune to his attempts at self-isolation. “Get out!” and vague threats of reprimands don’t work on her. Their shared interest in science allows Entrapta to force the interaction on him. (At least in the beginning of their collaboration)

Later, after having become accustomed to Entrapta’s companionship and having that ripped away, he tries to form a connection – at least of commiseration – with Catra:

 Even after she did this to him:

he still tried to form a connection through their shared need to prove their own worth.  

Did you catch that little detail? : “Victory is ours” not “mine”.

4.) Cultural: Unfamiliarity with secular world; “fish out of water” feelings, difficulty belonging, information gaps (e.g. evolution, modern art, music)

…                                

Do I really need to expand on this one? *Sigh* … he is literally an alien to this world, “fish out of water” would be an understatement.

 As we have established, he fits the bill of Religious Trauma Syndrome to a T. He presents all of the symptoms.

Now let’s move onto the causes of it:

 1). Suppression of normal child development – cognitive, social, emotional, moral stages are arrested

This one is self-explanatory. The horde clones and by extension Hordak are severely stunted in their psychological development and that is by design. They are deliberately kept from developing an adult mentality so as to never become a threat to Horde Prime or ever be able to break away from his control. Prime keeps them in a child-like dependency on him as a way to exert his power over them.  Should they ever develop even a budding sense of self, their indoctrination compels them to submit to correction and erasure ensuring that they never surpass this state of learned helplessness. Horde Prime encourages this self-flagellating behavior, deeming it a mercy, even a favor to be granted – to suffer in His Name.

Hordak shows almost no emotional coping mechanisms and manifests child-like tantrums of frustration as an only outlet for his emotions throughout the show. He attempts to hide any other attempt at emotion, with differing degrees of success.

Wrong Hordak is emotionally unstable and is prone to fits of crying. (However, due to the comedic fashion in which his arc is written, I suppose that this could be taken with a grain of salt)

The clones are not only prevented from growing and maturing mentally, they are also robbed of childhoods –having been born in adult bodies and with the necessary knowledge to serve Prime literally programmed into them so as to make them able to serve efficiently from their first breath. As such, they are robbed of their formative years where one individual grows and develops naturally. Those precious experiences are replaced by Horde Prime’s literal programming through the hardware they have installed in their bodies to facilitate Horde Prime’s control over them (without their consent).  In essence, they are a people born pre-”chipped”

Regardless of their actual age, and despite the fact that they are intelligent, capable and responsible individuals, I see the clones as having the emotional maturity of toddlers.

They never had the chance to develop any emotional coping skills, they were never allowed to have emotions to begin with.

2). Damage to normal thinking and feeling abilities -information is limited and controlled; dysfunctional beliefs taught; independent thinking condemned; feelings condemned

This is The Galactic Horde’s core belief:

Along with:

Incidentally, Hordak does his version of this speech trying to puff himself up in front of his soldiers… buuut Catra pushes the Failure button and that snaps him out of his little Prime impersonation moment.  

More dysfunctional beliefs:

Condemnation of independent thinking:

Results in this:

No further explanations are necessary…

3). External locus of control – knowledge is revealed, not discovered; hierarchy of authority enforced; self not a reliable or good source

Prime exerts his dominance throughout S5 by force,

and coercion:    

He is even petty and vindictive enough to force himself into Hordak immediately after his speech and to kill Entrapta with Hordak’s own body.

As for the self not being a reliable narrator… Hordak believed this about his former position.

He is not prone to exaggeration or deception being woefully incompetent in the latter – both perpetrating and spotting it.  We have to assume that this is the way he saw his position in the Galactic Horde.

Season 5 revealed that all of the clones are equally disposable and interchangeable, there are no ranks. They are all equal tools whose sole purpose is furthering Horde Prime’s agenda. Horde Prime has no need for generals or delegating since he is able to inhabit his little brothers and be in more than one place at the same time. Hordak’s job in S5 was that of hall monitor and planetary acquisitions guy…

@cruelfeline​ goes into detail about the dissonance between what Hordak believes and what is actually his position in The Galactic Horde. A link to it is in the notes because Tumblr is being fussy. 

4.) Physical and sexual abuse – patriarchal power; unhealthy sexual views; punishment used as for discipline

Some people have seen this, ugh… form of penetration… ugh again… as rape allegory.

Not a hard thing to do since Prime himself is rape personified and he consistently forces himself onto and into his little brothers, Catra and later, the chipped Etherians.  Prime does nothing but "bad touch" people all of S5 and is particularly enjoying his disciplining of his "wayward little brother", the most unworthy and unlovable amongst his brothers. (According to the extended scene)

Here’s some more of Prime’s touching with rape subtext:

Here’s more of Prime forcing himself into his little brothers – they all seem to fight it and find it painful to some degree despite the fact that they have been conditioned to accept it and welcome it. Prime’s touch is a good thing, even when it hurts them.

Ironically, the one who fights this violation the least is Hordak himself. (this could be either because he’s extra repentant and wished not to further draw Prime’s ire or that his condition of chronic illness has raised his pain threshold)

The process of possession is not seamless and some of the clones appear to be unsettled by it after prime retreats from their bodies.

As much as this Utter Disaster of a clone wanted to finish his little speech about dirt and as much as he was gleefully enjoying it, after Prime was done with him… he just wanted his task over with…

            The very nature of their indoctrination makes them unable to escape what has been done to them nor change their whole world view without outside intervention – which is exactly the help that Wrong Hordak received immediately after being abducted from the collective by people who slowly de-indoctrinated him and offered him a supportive environment for all of that growth and healing to happen.

When the Best Friend Squad kidnapped him, he was ardent about his service to Prime and he only followed them because they deceived him in believing they were servants of Horde Prime.

By providing clear irrefutable evidence of Prime’s fallibility, deceit and the squad’s (mostly Entrapta and Glimmer)  moral support throughout this moral crisis, they (just Entrapta here *coughs* ) were able to wean him off of his programmed behavior and offer him an informed choice.

This is information none of the other clones, not even Hordak were privy to.

Even with this information, Wrong Hordak is still in emotional turmoil (though the show plays it for laughs – yuck)

The closest Hordak ever gets to walking away from Prime’s doctrine is this moment:

He was considering indefinitely putting it off to stay here, with her, and her worldview that he could be worth something, imperfect as he is. He is offered her emotional support and guidance.

Unfortunately... Catra nipped that in the bud before it could lead anywhere.

 After convincing Hordak that Entrapta betrayed him, her message of inherent worth was rendered null, to him - her unconditional affection and the notion that he could to live apart from Prime were a manipulation. This further radicalized him in his faith and need to prove his worthiness.

Not only did Catra remove Entrapta’s influence over him, she goaded him even further with this cursed little speech and her whole “yass queen moment!”. you know the one...

“Get.Over.IT! You don’t need Entrapta. You never did. You don’t need a Princess in your life telling you what to do. Look at what you’ve done without her. You’ve build an army. An empire! You and me, we don’t need anyone. Forget them all. No one matters, nothing matters but this mission. You want to prove yourself, prove your worth? Then do it! You and I are going to conquer Etheria. And then, they’ll all see!”

Both of them were in clear downfall in S4 and they amplified each other’s most negative tendencies. I will not hold this against her. 

             The last thing I want to mention is that for cult victims, it is incredibly hard, if not, almost impossible to leave their cults by themselves. The first step for leaving a cult in the real world is looking for outside assistance.

It takes enormous amounts of strength – an almost imaginable degree of resolve – to leave a cult, particularly when you may have been born into one and have no friends or connections on the outside world. Cult survivors are often ostracized by everyone they have ever known who remain within the organization. To a cultist, the world outside the cult is a hostile, sinful and dangerous place. The assistance of someone from the outside is crucial.

Only with the assistance of a “friendly outsider” or a support group can the former cultist change the world view with which they had been indoctrinated with (sometime since early childhood).

A cult and set of beliefs warps your whole world view to the point of delusion. Faith in the cultic creeds is more important than factual evidence. As  a matter of fact, the evidence in itself is evil, a contradiction to the creeds of faith and successfully denying it is an act of faith fulfilled. This mentality is encouraged in cults.

Many people in this fandom have claimed that Hordak, once pulled through the portal was free to do as he pleases. (he didn’t chose to come to Etheria – his arrival on the planet was accidental)

This is not really the case. Hordak never decided to leave the cult. He was still part of the cult when he was sent to his death on the battlefield for his defect and he was still a believer when the portal delivered him to Etheria.

In essence, Hordak didn’t leave his cult so much as he was forced apart from it, physically. In spirit, he still believed in Horde Prime’s dogma.  His experience is the equivalent of a religious man getting stranded on an island in the middle of the ocean. He is apart from his church, but his faith is still with him. Hordak’s faith hadn’t waned in the decades of separation. His purpose had always been returning to Horde Prime –hence the focus on building a portal and not on levelling towns with an arm laser cannons. He has proven in S4 that, had his main mission actually been conquest, he could have done it with not much difficulty – He wasn’t half bad at it actually. Instead, he delegated the conquest to his underlings and focused most of his attention on attempts at reuniting with Horde Prime via investigating rogue portals and trying to build one of his own.

Due to the nature of his “upbringing”, Hordak’s whole world view is warped. He has not had the benefits of a “moral” education from a human’s standpoint. Why would training cadets to become soldiers in your army be morally reprehensible when you, yourself, had been bred for war and have served your God with your first breath?

This was Hordak’s idea of a “normal” childhood:

What could he possibly know about the healthy raising of children?

Why would conquering a planet be a morally reprehensible thing when his God did this to places?

And this:

Before one ascribes evil motivation, for the sake of evil – one should bear in mind that these creeds were literally programmed into him. This is not a life he has chosen for himself– this is something he was born into, literally manufactured for, this is something that was done to him.

And for those that would have wanted him to regret his actions on screen, keep in mind that it will likely  take a lot of therapy and reeducation before he even comprehends the nature and magnitude of his crimes on Etheria.

(besides the fact that he had spent 99% of season 5 in an amnesiac daze doesn’t help with the whole remembering his crimes bit either)

The show runner has declared in one of her post show interview that he will make reparations for the damage he’s caused.

What more do people want from a person born and flung into an impossible situation besides his head on a plate?

Phew!

Long post was long

[johannas-motivational-insults]

Jo’s Top 10 of 2020

I see lots of artists doing that thing where they post a piece from each month of the year... unfortunately my content creation isn’t necessarily consistent and it’s hard to track what month individual fic chapters were posted in, but I figured I’d do something similar and post my Top 10 pieces of content I created in 2020, what they’re about and why I love them. I actually did get a fair amount done this year thanks to the lockdown, but I’ve narrowed it down to these ten that I’d like to reflect on. (To be fair, I’m probably forgetting something huge. Feel free to leave comments if you think I passed over something important lol.)

10. Friendship in the Horde (meta): This is something I’d wanted to write for a while but finally got around to finishing in February. It’s basically a sociology paper lmao, an analysis of the social hierarchies and systems of the Horde. It was also a convenient excuse for me to gush about Catralonnie, an underrated (friend)ship. But honestly this was an important piece for me because I have always identified with the Horde characters way more than any of the rebels (other than Adora, who grew up in the Horde) and part of why is how they are in an unsafe environment and end up forming relationships that are helpful for survival but hinder them psychologically. And I think to understand the Horde characters and really evaluate their motives and choices you need to understand this first.

9. The Sting in My Eyes: On the surface this is just a run of the mill hurt/comfort oneshot, but it was a really important post-canon processing fic for me. I had a lot of feelings about Catra’s relationships with Shadow Weaver and Melog in season 5, particularly about how Catra must have felt really conflicted after Shadow Weaver told her what she wanted to hear all those years but in a way that felt unearned and out of the blue. It was really cathartic for me to write a scene where she struggles with those mixed feelings but has Adora and Melog to help her process them. And I had long associated the song the title is from with Catra and Shadow Weaver’s relationship, and the way she died trying to redeem herself really solidified that connection.

8. Hail Mary, chapter 6: This was supposed to be a short chapter mostly about the backstory between Catra and Scorpia in this au, with some Catradora yearning thrown in. It evolved into a massive, sprawling thing that is very atmospheric in terms of how the setting and vibes are described and how in the moment it feels. Hail Mary is like that sometimes but that type of narration is usually about football games rather than parties, so this chapter was a fun change of pace in many ways. It was really nostaglic for me to write too, the nerves of being a teenager at a party with your crush and how intense everything feels. And the Scorptra stuff really is delicious, it was nice seeing them have that conversation they never got to have in canon and truly make up, and the tiny sliver I added of Catra’s earlier history was heartbreaking in the best way. So this was not what I intended to write, but it turned out way better for it.

7. A Better Son or Daughter (AMV): I’ve done other Adora AMVs, but this one is really my iconic piece. The song is perfect for Adora, so perfect it’s on Noelle’s Adora playlist. The vid itself is a character study about Adora’s mental health struggles and the way she represses them, as well as a tribute to her resiliency and her eventual triumph of getting to a better place in her life. This is a song that gives me a lot of feelings and once I was making it about Adora it gave me even more, so this was a very satisfying piece to complete. I wish Noelle had gotten a chance to see it but oh well, maybe down the line.

6. Hail Mary, chapter 12: This is the chapter that much of the fic had been building to, Catra and Adora in conflict because Catra finally got the chance to be Adora’s hero and Adora shot her down. It’s painfully analogous to canon, both in terms of how (I suspect) Catra felt in Thaymor and Adora’s tendency to victim blame because she’s so pragmatic. There’s definitely some tones of Taking Control in there but Lonnie does a much better job of examining Catra’s psychology and needs than Glimmer did in canon (a writing error imo, Glimmer should have had more insight). Adora just wants to help but sometimes in her quest to do so she disenfranchises others, and this was a much needed look at that aspect of her character. It’s also an excellent illustration of what it’s like to play a peacekeeping role in an abusive household and how stressful it is trying to protect others while also protecting yourself.

5. Unstoppable (AMV): This is not my favorite Catra AMV I’ve ever done, but it might be the cleverest. The soundtrack is a song about mental illness masquerading as a song about being a bad bitch, which is basically Catra in a nutshell. The lyrics are incredibly fitting for her and her arc as it develops over seasons 1-4. The vid itself takes a hard turn in the interpretation of the lyrics, going from talking about how no one can stop Catra to how she can’t stop herself because she’s in such a terrible sunk cost fallacy spiral, and I think I got several death threats over that twist lmao. As someone who primarily deals in angst, there’s hardly a better compliment to be paid.

4. Demons, chapter 31: This one got real dark on me. The concept of this chapter was originally an examination of how comparing abuse can get really dicey but you also have to respect that other people have had different experiences from you and you have to be careful not to equate things or make it sound like you’re talking over someone else. I guess it’s also a bit of a look at how autistic people (like myself) will often explain why they can empathize so others know they understand rather than saying empty platitudes, but that can come off as insensitive or like they’re making things about them. I mean, in this case Adora kinda was making things about her, but she was provoked into it by a parade of comments insinuating she didn’t suffer at all, which was also unfair. Anyway it’s one of the more important Catradora fights in Demons and something I’d written bits of over a year prior, it was that important to the plot, but it also took a turn I was not originally planning. I finished the chapter when I was in a really bad depressive and self-loathing spiral and that bled onto the page, but it worked perfectly for Catra in this scenario... that push and pull of feeling like the world has hurt and victimized you mixed with knowing you’ve done some bad things yourself and feeling like you don’t have a leg to stand on when mourning the ways you’ve been hurt. It’s intense as all fuck but it’s excellent.

3. Hail Mary, chapter 11: Speaking of dark Catra content, this chapter... whew. It was really something else, to read and to write. I have written flashbacks in Demons that are more detailed and even include explicit violence but because those scenes are always in flashback form I never really got the chance to sit in the head of an abuse victim waiting for the other shoe to drop for an entire chapter like I did here. It’s quite different from the rest of Hail Mary stylistically and is both highly sensory and extremely internalized. It took me back to some terrifying moments in my own life so it was difficult but also extremely cathartic to write. It’s important too because it really sets up where Catra was at mentally heading into her big fight with Adora, and that chapter is in Adora POV. This chapter is ranked so high simply because it’s... polished, as @malachi-walker put it. It almost is its own story within the story and really noteworthy as a piece all its own.

2. Demons, chapter 26: This chapter is very similar thematically to Hail Mary 12, just based in the canonverse. It deals with one of the core (but highly neglected by fandom) conflicts between Catra and Adora, where they both need to feel like they can take care of and protect the other but also detest feeling weak or vulnerable themselves. It leads to Adora’s ego making Catra feel disrespected and Catra’s behavior confusing Adora and making her think she’s an ungrateful brat rather than someone who needs so badly to be needed, just like her. There’s definitely some power struggles in this chapter but finally they’re able to get to the heart of it and seeing them talk it out is so satisfying. Getting this chapter published was also important to me on a personal level because, like I said, this aspect of their conflict and relationship is rarely acknowleged for how important it is when really it’s one of the deepest conflicts between them in the series. It’s a scene I started writing pretty much as soon I knew I was extending the fic into something longer because I just needed them to have this conversation, so finishing it was so satisfying.

1. Satisfaction, chapter 3: This chapter took me a really long time to write, both in terms of time to get it published and time I actually spent working on it. It’s the crown jewel of a fic that’s really important to me and I had to get it just right, so I spent more time agonizing over every detail and rewriting things to get them absolutely perfect than I usually do (I’m a perfectionist anyway, but this took it to a whole other level). But in the end it was worth it, because this chapter is damn fine. It’s really hot, as you’d expect from a smut fic, but it’s also an excellent character study of how both Catra and Adora were affected by their abuse and trauma and the issues it raises for them in terms of sex and intimacy. Also, come on, we need more BDSM fics out there that focus on the actual point of it all (the trust involved) and promote communication and do the character work to explain why they might be into it in the first place.

BONUS (from December 31, 2019): One of my favorite pieces of 2020 technically came out in 2019, but I posted it on New Years Eve so most people first saw it in 2020. It’s an absolute banger of an AMV called I’m Not Jesus that’s all about Catra and Adora’s anger towards Shadow Weaver and their refusal to forgive their abuser. Funny enough this came out before Adora’s iconic “I will never forgive you” line, and Shadow Weaver definitely made things more complicated with how she went out, but I think the sentiment still applies.

[cruelfeline]

I find this to be one of my favorite Entrapdak scenes. Well. "Favorite." It's not heartwarming, obviously. Hordak is at his worst here: the most aggressive he's been towards Entrapta since she installed herself in his Sanctum. It's unpleasant to see, the sort of thing that makes one cringe upon viewing, and yet... it's interesting, this show of aggression. It's interesting to pick apart, to understand why he turns on her so suddenly, to assess if he's actually dangerous, abusive, when acting this way, if he truly means her harm. And, at risk of bringing down the wrath of a huge portion of this fandom, it's interesting to compare it to some rough Catradora moments, too.

First and foremost: why does he lose his composure here? Is he simply angry about the portal not working, as he suggests? Is he using his aggression to force Entrapta to work faster, to intimidate her as punishment for a lack of progress? Mm... I don't think so. I don't think his aggression is an attempt to bully or hurt or control Entrapta in any way. If it was, we’d have seen it more often during their other scenes together.

To my eyes, Hordak has abysmal emotional coping skills. Like, he is almost entirely deficient in any sort of ability to identify, manage, and resolve his own negative emotions in a healthy manner. Which isn't surprising, y'know? He's a clone soldier who was likely never meant to live his own, free life; he would have never had any sort of education in emotional coping skills.

In this scene, Adora says the magic word. She says "fail," and we all know that Hordak cannot handle the thought of being a failure, of being a defective clone good only for death on the frontlines. 

He loses his composure immediately upon hearing this word, and said composure loss leads to a flare-up of his condition. His armor sparks, he collapses to his knees, and he experiences what is not just a moment of weakness in front of an enemy, but essentially a confirmation of this failure.

I can imagine how he feels: beyond just the physical pain of the flare, I can imagine his shame, his self-loathing as his weakness is laid bare for this supposedly ineffectual young girl to see. I can imagine that little voice in his head telling him that she's right.

And because Hordak lacks any and all healthy emotional coping skills, he addresses these painful thoughts the only way he knows how: with anger. Now, you'd think he'd direct that anger at Adora, but he actually does something I've seen stressed, emotionally aroused, frightened animals do: he redirects the aggression.

Redirected aggression is a term describing what happens when an animal, displaying aggression towards a particular subject, cannot reach that subject, or is interrupted in some way, and instead redirects onto someone or something unrelated. Think of... oh... getting bitten while breaking up a dog fight. Or trying to comfort a cat hissing at a stray outside the window, only to have the cat bite or swat at you instead. The animal's aggression isn't meant for you, but you are the closest thing to vent their distress upon, so you end up getting hurt.

Now, Hordak is obviously not an animal (does this happen in humans? I have no idea), but he appears to behave along similar principles: angered by Adora's words, distressed by his health issues, he reacts violently toward the gentle touch of Entrapta's hair. Not because he's angry at her, or because he's trying to intimidate or hurt her, but because he's in a stressed state and snaps at even a slight stimulus. He likely would have reacted this way to anyone, and it's just bad luck that Entrapta was the one to provide that stimulus.

It's like a dramatic version of being grumpy after a bad day at work and snapping at your friend when they ask you what's wrong.

Is it a good thing, or even a neutral thing? No, obviously not. It hurts Entrapta and potentially leaves her wondering if perhaps he is rejecting her (especially, I think, once she’s been on Beast Island for a while). It’s something that he should apologize for, should he ever get the chance, because it was entirely uncalled for and hurt someone who only wanted to offer him comfort. 

That said, is it a truly dangerous, abusive thing? Is it intended to hurt and control someone close to him? I don’t think so, really. I can’t see it as such. Rather, it’s an indicator of Hordak having poor emotional responses because he does not know how to handle his own sense of inadequacy and shame. And acting out because he has underdeveloped coping skills. 

A bit of an aside: does Hordak need to learn to extinguish his anger? Well; I would say that that’s a bit more complicated. 

While Hordak would certainly benefit from learning to handle his emotions in a less damaging fashion (eg. not lashing out at others), I don’t think the answer here is teaching him to suppress anger. Anger, healthily experienced, is a perfectly normal emotion; it should not be marked as a negative thing. More importantly, it’s not the root of his problem. The root of Hordak’s problem is his own dismal opinion of himself, the shame he feels when his body falters, or when he’s unable to immediately succeed in a task. This is what ultimately needs to be addressed; once that happens, I have a sense that these sorts of outbursts would diminish and eventually cease.

Now, I’m going to switch gears here and talk about some similarly unpleasant moments between Catra and Adora, mainly because these moments, to me, appear much more indicative of a dangerous relationship and serve as evidence of emotional abuse. They serve as a good counter-example of what I would consider abuse, rather than what Hordak does to Entrapta.

if I disappear in the next 24 hours it’s because the Catradorans have retaliated ;)

So. How are Catra’s interactions with Adora more abusive than Hordak yelling at Entrapta and swatting away her hair?

Actual physical fighting/clawing/legitimate bodily harm aside, when Catra taunts Adora, there is a sense that she is specifically targeting her in a way that she knows will hurt. 

It’s difficult to read these moments as “Catra vented shame and self-loathing on someone who touched her at the wrong time.” In many of them, Catra is entirely in control of herself and the situation, not off-balance in front of an enemy, recovering from a shock as Hordak was. She takes her time to engage Adora in a very deliberate manner. She’s cunning. She’s practiced. She’s predatory.

She belittles Adora, focusing on aspects of the girl’s life that she knows cause insecurity and doubt. Aspects like failing her friends, failing the world, being at fault for other people suffering and dying. She does this with complex, thought-out dialogue, planned jabs at Adora’s self-esteem. There is a legitimate cruelty to how Catra speaks to her, for she appears to delight in watching Adora distress and doubt herself as a result of her taunts. 

Comparing these moments to Hordak’s outburst, one can appreciate the difference: these calculated personal attacks are a world apart from someone briefly lashing out in an instance of sudden pain. There is no mistaking that there is an intent to harm here. Rooted in a traumatic childhood or not, there is no discounting that a targeted, focused emotional assault on someone, specifically picking out and using their deep insecurities, is an abhorrent thing to do. 

So. Back to Hordak and Entrapta. Certainly not their finest moment, but it’s not something that makes me worry for Entrapta’s safety (while Adora’s safety in terms of Catra... hmm...). Rather, it makes me sad; I know that it stems directly from Hordak’s insecurities and, rather than being something he truly meant to do, likely contributes to his low self-worth. I would not be surprised if his snapping at her ended up being one of the things that led to him believing Catra’s lies: he was mean, he was aggressive, and so he didn’t deserve Entrapta’s friendship. He lashed out at her, so she left. She left, and it was his fault. Not true, of course, but I can see him rationalizing it like that.

My takeaway: he needs to work on this, of course, but like many of his issues, I feel that the key to resolution lies less in manipulating his specific behaviors (ie. there’s no reason to punish him for it) and more in addressing the root cause. Hordak needs to unlearn the shame and self-hatred he’s been taught to feel whenever he falters. At the same time, he needs to learn healthy ways of expressing his emotions. And while he may end up making further missteps along the way, I don’t worry for Entrapta or any future companions he might have. There’s nothing predatory, nothing cruel about this aspect of him. Rather, there’s further proof of deep-seated insecurities and inexperience that can be eased by patience and care.

[n7punk]

how do you think it would've went if catra actually had defected with adora? either on episode 2 or in promise. I can just imagine that it would've made it a lot harder for them to recognise the flaws in their relationship, especially the codependence.

absolutely! i think about this a lot actually. ok going with episode two because i really cant see adora saying the right thing to get her to defect in promise: i think it would have been bad for them at first. they might never get over their codependency, and even if they tried to i think catra would just see it as adora pulling away from her now she is in this shiny new world that accepts her. she doesn’t just need catra’s validation to her anymore = catra must be worthless to her, right?

i feel like catra would REALLY struggle in bright moon at that point in her arc, especially since adora would not be used to it either and couldn’t help her (if she would even accept help). her inferiority issues would be terrible since she would be dealing with the self-loathing of just following adora, and she would constantly be aware of the fact that no one wants her there, they just agreed because they want she-ra and catra is her sidekick. 

i think she would be very possessive and defensive of adora, making it more difficult for her to do she-ra shit with catra trying to protect her, but to everyone else it looks like that “protection” is a horde cadet trying to slow down the rebellion’s new, greatest weapon. i think that if they gave her the opportunity to prove herself early they could see how worthy of a fighter she is in her own right, start using her properly on missions aka stroking her ego and assuring her she is strong/enough/wanted, and that would help them smooth things over and maybe realize their issues but if they don’t do that early enough i think her problems would get worse (which they do in the show anyway but). 

it also would not help so much with the personal issues between them, although being exposed to healthy relationships in bright moon would help. catra basically got one (1) example of trying to fix your mistake instead of doubling down from glimmer and turned her whole life around because of it - but she was already at a really low point anyway, and it clearly took a few days if not weeks for her to actually rescue glimmer, plus the big push of knowing adora was coming. i think season one catra would be a lot less willing to learn by example.

i could honestly see her defecting BACK to the horde briefly if shadow weaver managed to get her alone and get in her head. i feel like she would p quickly realize how much being in the horde without adora sucks even compared to how much she hated bright moon and try to go back, but it would put even more strain on them until she was forgiven/proved her loyalty. basically it would be a shitshow from start to finish and take her a long time to be comfortable there anyway i think

[yakityyaku]

also just some thoughts on Shadow Weaver bc I've read a few posts abt her final scene that have spurred some thinking.

I don't think Shadow Weaver's sacrifice was meant to fully redeem her. I think it's more a parallel to Catra's own sacrifice earlier in the season.

Glimmer tells Catra to "do one good thing in her life," and she does that by sacrificing herself. She doesn't just do it out of kindness. While she obviously shows she's empathetic towards Glimmer, and we know she isn't as heartless as she has pretended to be, her main motivation is to help Adora and use her own death as a way of fixing their relationship- which wouldn't work if she had died and they never actually resolved their issues.

Shadow Weaver is also making this sacrifice not because she's just good, but because there are the few people she cares about (mostly Micah imho) at risk, and dying to save them is better than dying after failing to get Adora to focus/watching Catra be killed

That said, I think she did love Adora, Catra, and especially Micah. In her backstory episodes, they made it very clear that she DID love Micah. She always puts herself first, but that doesn't negate that she can still love others. She used him, but she loved him all the same.

Adora is a parallel to Micah in her dynamic with Catra and Shadow Weaver. SW sees the potential in Adora that she did in Micah. She's her new golden child and she's desperate to cling to her not only for the power she wants- but to recapture the dynamic she had with the young king.

Catra, on the other hand, is Shadow Weaver. She's strong, but not enough. She's outshone by Adora, and having someone else being better than you means you're worthless in SW's eyes. She loved Micah, but wanted to use him to make herself stronger because she feels she HAS to be the strongest.

I think Catra's self loathing is indicative of SW's feelings about herself. Feeling weak is unacceptable, and both are willing to do anything to feel stronger than everyone else. Shadow Weaver loved Catra as she loved herself- cruelly.

In the end, she knows that no matter what she isn't surviving, and while it doesn't absolve her or isn't some grand moment of heroism in it's context, she still chooses to save Catra and Adora.

If she had survived as Catra did her own sacrifice, I think she would have been set on a similar path of redemption- albeit much slower. But she didn't get that chance, and maybe she didn't deserve it.

I don't think we need to decide if she died a hero or villain, and I don't think that's the point.

This is a show about love, and while some may just want to paint her as a one dimensional caricature of a bad guy, I think that Shadow Weaver DID choose love in the end, and that whether you are good or bad or something in between, love can always be your motivation.

[etherian-affairs]

Prompt: Hordak is depressed and unmotivated after Entrapta's "betrayal". Catra has enough of it and challenges him for the leadership of the Horde. She manages to defeat Hordak. As he lies wounded at her feet, she tells him what really happened to Entrapta.

Hordak is defeated. Struck low by vermin. Yet he cannot bring himself to care. It is what he deserves, after all. An entire life culminating into nothing but failure. Worthless. That is what everything he has ever attempted has shown him he is.

He was a fool to ever think differently.

His armor is battered but it is the exposed parts of his body that have taken the brunt of the damage. Slashes, gouges, blood and pain. At least these things let Hordak know he is here. That he is not so worthless as to never have lived at all.

Catra stands above him, no doubt smirking down at her former Lord as he stares at the ground on his hands and knees. He hears her start to shout. "Look at your former Lord!" She declares for all.

"look at the failure that is Lord Hordak! See that his time is done!" She's being theatric. At least Catra learned to do that correctly. Hordak almost laughs at his own petty insult. Simply because the absurdity that this is what he has stooped to apparently.

He senses Catra kneel down, and he glances up at her. She's smiling in that mischievous way of hers. She's watching him like a cat watches a mouse. Hordak cannot bring himself to want to keep fighting her. He could. He could push away the pain and continue against her. He could win.

But what would be the point? To sit once more on a lonely throne? To know you will never accomplish any of you goals?

No. Let Catra have this miserable existence. It is what she deserves.

"You're nothing Hordak." She whispers to him. "A gullible shut-in who I was always going to defeat."

He just looks back down at the floor.

"You know I wasn't sure you'd believe me. When I told you about Entrapta." Catra humms.

That forces Hordak's gaze back up. Her tail is swishing behind her.

Catra smirks. "You didn't question it at all. Just went along with whatever I said."

"What are you talking about?" Hordak hisses out.

"Entrapta never betrayed you Hordak. I got rid of her. I got rid of her and watched you fall apart."

The world freezes, and turns over on itself. Entrapta did not betray him? Catra lied? Got rid of Entrapta?

Got rid of Entrapta.

Got rid of Entrapta.

Despair vanishes. Self loathing burns away. A red sea of hatred and rage fills Lord Hordak. He has failed so many times. He has been proven worthless in so many things. Entrapta was there anyway. Entrapta did not care. Entrapta helped him succeed. Entrapta cared. He cared in turn.

He can see Catra's smug expression turn to fear for just a moment before his talons wrap around her face and slam her into the ground.

"Traitor." He growls as he stands, grabbing Catra by the leg and throwing her to the other side of the throne room.

"Insolent Welp!" He shouts now, marching toward the recovering cat again. The pain and injuries he's sustained are meaningless. They do not slow or weaken him in the slightest. He will see her pay. He will break her.

It is only when Catra shouts out that Entrapta is on beast island that Hordak ceases his relentless assault, and as he leaves the only command he issues is to keep Catra contained until he can return to finish her.

[redscullyrevival]

Animation, as all mediums, can be whatever creatives craft it to be. Animation’s form, exclusively how it is visually designed and presented through movement, line work, and coloring, defines and leads content. Looney Tunes isn’t expressing that going out and dropping an anvil on someone would be okay because it’s funny; Looney Tunes is dropping anvils on characters within individualized contexts to be funny. We all pretty much inherently know and understand that. 

In the world of Looney Tunes consequence is never permanent (and thus is where much of the humor is derived) and we know that because we are shown it. 

The squash and stretch animation; the shifting line work dependent on tone set scene by scene; background work reminiscent of reality but detached usually by being empty of anything other than direct characters; and “unnatural” color choices ensuing within jokes (anvil falls and things flash red, yellow, blue, green, you get it - you’ve seen Looney Tunes); the intentful design and presentation of Looney Tunes, the form, overwhelmingly expresses the content. 

Watching Looney Tunes explains how you are to understand it. That is generally how the medium of animation works.   

When we get to more thoughtful titles like She-ra or Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts then transactional reader-response and implicature is going to be what it is (and that exists between a viewer and Looney Tunes too though, to be fair!) but with aesthetic stylistics accounting for much of animation’s content then there are general levels of how the audience is being guided to understand a story’s content as well.

Based on how She-ra and Kipo are designed, how they depict violence, how they present the “reality” of their character’s worlds via color and staging - I do not think the intended audience (kids) are so much meant to be correlating Hordak Prime and Scarlemagne to Hitler or Stalin or whathaveyou so much as they are to generally stifling, overbearing, narcissistic adults. I don't believe the form dictating these stories intentionally crafted for children are meant to be positioned to be understood by those children with direct political ideology. For She-ra, the focus of all the harm and hurt characters in power (or not!) enact is still largely framed narratively and visually as interpersonal and thus the efforts of conflict resolution are also presented as such.  

My theory on why adults tend to get hung up on animated kid shows is because they're often times working at suspending disbelief they haven’t actually been asked to suspend.

My only real concern with any big vocal adult fannish push back on which characters “deserve redemption” or not when it comes to art like She-ra is that I believe the connectivity the intended audience (ya know, kids) may have towards a character finding their self loathing and abandonment issues can be overcome is the REAL goal - and not a realistically defined expectation on weighing war crimes, or something. For older voices to rise up going, "Oh no, no no, Catra shouldn't have been redeemed, that's unrealistic and dangerous to present to children. She didn't pay for her crimes enough to be loved." LIKE I DUNNO - it kinda freaks me out y’all!!! Making art to be felt and understood by kids shouldn't be dependent on realistically portraying the damage and choices of adults but rather the power and agency of children. At least that’s what I think. 

Over concern for the “reality” (sigh) of what these shows are imparting as lessons to kids is just gonna come with the territory and frankly adults should be aware of what children’s media is peddling - but it really feels like there are also vast misconceptions on the part of adult viewers who are too focused on story words like “war”, “battle”, and “warrior” without taking in and weighing how a show depicts those words/concepts visually and so they go on to misunderstand the level of intent those things are to be understood.

If She-ra swung her sword and chopped someone’s arm off and blood came out then yeah, instantly and without hesitation, Catra’s redemption would then be totally hollow and tonally weird once we got to it. That change in form changes the content; a severed bloody stump instantaneously alters the emotional reality of the show and thus the bearing and weight the audience is being asked to place on events and those event’s meaning when understanding and interpreting themes. BUT! What was designed to happen in She-ra as it exists is a magic sword swooshes rainbow light at unnamed baddies who fall over in a forest of purple trees that is never really explained in position to other known locations. The named baddies return again next episode even when they also get hit with the rainbow light, or things explode, or get shut down. Maybe there is a reason for that.

[echoes-of-realities]

love taught me to lie (and life taught me to die) - 3/3

[ao3]

[From the beginning] || [Previous chapter]

Summary: Trying to untangle her emotional trauma is incredibly exhausting and so much harder than just getting a magical hug from She-Ra that heals all her injuries.

The consequences for cutting her heart out are difficult to navigate, and she finds herself stumbling and falling and failing more often than not, and her knees are scabbed and her palms are bleeding from how many times a day she trips over her own guilt and self-reproach, how many times a day she gives into her still lingering anger and bitterness and resentment.

But every time Catra falters and considers just giving up because it would be so much easier to just take the familiar path back to the darkness—the one that calls to her like an old friend welcoming her home—she fights against her own fear and guilt and self-loathing to push herself back to her feet and stumble forward.

And, to her never ending surprise, no matter how many times she falls, there’s more than one set of hands reaching out and helping her back up.

Notes: Somehow this ended up being like 10k even though I thought it would be around 5k like the last two chapters, so..... whoops? More author’s notes below the cut!

I really wanted to show that not all of Catra’s progress is necessarily positive, because she goes from one extreme (letting her bitterness and resentment and anger consume her in the first 4 seasons) to another (seemingly just repressing all of her bitterness and resentment and anger in most of season 5 instead of dealing with it) until she starts to find a relatively healthy middle ground.

Because like Catra swings so delicately between believing she must suffer for her past (i.e., believing there’s nothing left for her on Etheria, deciding to sacrifice herself and not really caring that the consequences will be her probable death, telling Adora that she shouldn’t have come to rescue her because she doesn’t matter, falling back into believing that she doesn’t really matter to Adora because of Shadow Weaver, running away when she thinks Adora is going to leave her again by sacrificing herself, etc.) and actually starting to genuinely heal in healthy ways (i.e., asking Adora to stay with her to remove the chip, apologizing to Entrapta, admitting that she wants to go home, protecting the BFS on Krytis without a second thought, not pushing Melog away when they bond/imprint on her, opening up to Perfuma a little, essentially telling to Shadow Weaver to get fucked, taking the first step to make amends with Scorpia, finally acknowledging how much she loves Adora, etc.).

Working through abandonment issues when you have no good examples of healthy coping mechanisms is uhhhh incredibly difficult, believe me. I kinda did the opposite of Catra and repressed everything for most of my life only to get really angry and bitter and start lashing out by like age 17-20, before eventually finding a healthy middle ground after going to therapy and learning how to work through my issues in a healthy way, so her emotional journey regarding her abandonment issues really hit close to home for me.

And also listen……. “Open Hands” by Ingrid Michaelson is a Catra song and I will not be taking criticism at this time, and it’s what I listened to A Lot while writing this chapter especially the part that covers 5x11

[rebelcourtesan]

My Thoughts on Redemption in Season 5 of She-Ra

Our three candidates are Catra, Hordak, and Shadow Weaver.  

I’m not against redemption arcs, but for me redemption shouldn’t be as simple as “I’m on your side now!”  “Yay!  Let’s be bestest friends!” 

All the shit they have done doesn’t just get swept under the rug.  The years of war that Hordak brought shouldn’t be ignored by all of the characters, Shadow Weaver’s abuse and manipulation not be forgotten, and Catra’s actions not so easily forgiven.

And also, these characters shouldn’t go down the redeeming path without losing what what made them so fascinating.  

To he deserving of redemption, the character must recognize their actions as wrong, wish to make amends without benefit to themselves, and has no wish to cause further harm.  

If Hordak is to be redeem, it will be Entrapta that sets him down the path, which began back in season 3 with her open acceptance of him.  

Living his life as a clone of a hive mind, he was either an outlier that found his own consciousness or came across it naturally through unforeseen events.  His ‘defect’ as a clone is what sets in motion the events we see in SPOP.  Upon crash landing on an alien planet, he sets himself on a mission of self-worth and proving himself to a brother he could never please.  For years, he wallow in self-loathing and doubt of his worth until Entrapta openly befriends him in a beautiful show of acceptance.  

I’ve already spoke at great length about their growing romance.  Going forward, once Hordak is reunited with Entrapta, my prediction is he’s going to go through a state of severe depression from the open and brutal rejection of the being whom he had struggle for so long to appease.  It is going be through Entrapta’s love and acceptance that will break him out of his melancholy and set him on the path to redemption.

It may not seem like it, more like survival because if Horde Prime should get his hands on Hordak again, it’s likely he’ll do away with the defect once and for all.  So Hordak is going to be in a position to help the Rebellion against Horde Prime which will make him quite instrumental as he would know more about the Imperial Horde’s inner workings.  

Yet, this would begin as a benefit to himself, but it can transition to something he would do solely for Entrapta.  He may project his desperate need for acceptance onto her, but also find it in others.  I can easily see Bow, who is ever quick to offer his friendship to enemies (Kyle and Catra and Adora, when they first met her).  

Honestly, I don’t think he’s going to be an openly accepted member of the Rebellion or BFF squad.  Realistically, (Granted this is a kid’s show) he won’t be accepted by everyone because of the years of pain he had caused with the Evil Horde.  When the show ends, I strongly believes he will leave Etheria to undo the damaged caused by Horde Prime by teaching freed clones to become individuals and dismantling the Empire by returning freedom to the universe.  

And maybe Entrapta will by his side.

It’s harder for me to make predictions for Catra.  After Double Trouble’s earth shattering “It’s not them, it’s you” speech, it depends on what Catra wants to do with that revelation.  

Was it enough to push her to changing her ways or is it going to take another trigger?  Perhaps its seeing Glimmer getting abused while she’s the favored girl in Horde Prime’s eye.  The one thing that Catra had yearned for was acceptance and validation from a parental/authority figure.  Shadow Weaver never gave it to her and Hordak only gave it to her after she betrayed Entrapta and outright lied and deceived her way into Hordak’s graces.

Horde Prime gives her the validation she so craves while Glimmer is locked away in her ‘guest chambers’, but she’s still not happy.  

If she’s to start the path of redemption, then it would have to be through Glimmer, the one she has wronged the most.  True, she has caused many problems for Adora, abused Scorpia, and betrayed Entrapta, but she was the cause of Glimmer losing her mother and pushed her to using a Weapon of Mass Destruction to destroy the Horde.  

It’ll be an uneasy alliance of mutual benefit to be freed to Horde Prime, but it’s a good place to start.  However, Catra would have to make amends with the others she had hurt.  I can see Scorpia and Entrapta forgiving Catra easily, but Adora will have a hard time trusting her after years(?) of fighting each other on opposing sides.  

Don’t forget, the first season Adora saw Catra as someone as still being manipulated by the Horde and Shadow Weaver and had hoped she would come over to the Rebellion side with her, then in season 2 thru 3 it became a bitter rivalry between them.  

Then at the end of season 3, when Catra opened the portal out of spite, it crossed over into outright enemies.  It won’t be as easy to transition back into friends/lovers so quickly.  It might take the whole season for that to happen.  

And above all, if she wishes for redemption, her pattern of abusive behavior and allow herself to care for others and let them care for her.

I have very mixed feelings about Shadow Weaver.  Good villain, but terrible mother figure.  She’s the cause of the rivalry between Catra and Adora and is the instrument of most of Catra’s issues.  Not to mention, being the likely cause behind the Horde’s success in subjugating most of Etheria.  

She’s a manipulative, power hungry witch who uses the potential in others to realize her own goals.  Twice she had switched sides.  She tried to gain power through Micah and when that backfired, she switched to the Horde.  When Catra imprisoned her, she switched sides to the Rebellion and weaseled herself into being Queen Glimmer’s mentor.  

I wouldn’t trust this person not to offer her services to Horde Prime, but the biggest difference is that Horde Prime is a self-confident narcissist who’ll see no need of a mentor or advisor.  So if she tries that, she’s going to get screwed over royally which she’ll deserve.  

If she’s going to be redeemed, she has to be sorry for her actions.  Thus far, I’ve seen no sign of remorse on her part for her treatment of Adora and Catra and betrayals.  

I do see her aiding the Rebellion against Horde Prime for survival.  I’m not sure what the writers have in store for her, but we got less than two weeks until we find out.    

[yesbpdcatra]

4. iron

So, I’m back at my song analyses thing. The fourth song of the Catra(dora) playlist is “Iron,” Within Temptation, and it’s a top Catra song.

Left in the darkness Here on your own Woke up a memory Feeding the pain You cannot deny it There’s nothing to say It's all that you need to fire away

This is all about Catra’s vicious cycle of revictimization, abandonment issues, trauma and consequently self-harming tendencies. Let’s be more specific. She has been left, and not left in a position of safety and comfort, but in a dangerous situations where she would suffer the consequences of Adora’s defection and the general consequences of being alive and stealing someone else’s air, because apparently all she’s been taught is that she doesn’t deserve to be alive unless she proves herself worthy. From here, “left in the darkness,” in the worst place ever, full of hate and fear and pain, old or new. Moreover, she has been left not only by Adora, but by everyone she knew, by the end of S4. Both people she cared about, and people she had mixed feelings about. By everyone. People leaving her has become such a constant in her life that she almost doesn’t feel anything anymore, the pain is so much that has numbed her and she’s there, “on her own,” feeding it because it’s the only way to punish herself for what she’s doing and becoming. She’s arrived at the point where she ‘prepares herself’ for the moment a new person would leave, so that she’s not taken aback, but she “cannot deny it”—no matter what she does, she’s always taken aback and she always suffers the consequences of abandonment. Except she doesn’t want to be this way, this weak, because she lives in an environment where perceived projection of strength is everything, so she uses this pain. She even causes it to grow and rapidly expand by recalling memories and hurting herself, revictimizing herself in the process, so that pain would devour everything else and would make her numb again, ready to “fire away.” 

Oh damn, the war is coming Oh damn, you feel you want it Oh damn, just bring it on today

This is very clear. The war has always been there, but is now speeding up, and she’s gonna lead it as Force Captain. She “feels she wants it” because she feels betrayed and robbed of everything, she feels left behind and especially she realizes she feels dependent and vulnerable, that Adora’s presence was an anchor for her, and she doesn’t want to feel this way ever again. She gotta be independent, she gotta survive by herself. No more “you promise?” Also, she needs power, and war could grant her exactly that; she needs power not because she is greedy and elitist, but because in her experience power is the only way in this world to feel safe. She has never once felt safe, and she won’t feel safe with the whole Horde power in her own hands, but at first she deludes herself she maybe could. Moreover, she has to make it all worth the pain and the abuse and the suffering. There has to be a prize at the end of the road for those who stuck with the hard part and withstood everything. So fuck it, “bring it on today.” What else is there to lose?

You can’t live without the fire It’s the heat that makes you strong ‘Cause you're born to live and fight it all the way You can'’t hide what lies inside you It's the only thing you know You’ll embrace it and never walk away Don’t walk away

She can’t live without “the fire” because she has been fighting to survive since she was a child and she doesn’t remember any other way of existing that doesn’t imply some levels of ‘constant threat.’ The heat makes her strong because she has been taught by an actual child soldier training program that she is to exist merely to kill or be killed, and so she does what she can: she takes strength in knowing she can has a chance to prove herself, deluding herself to have some sort of agency over her life. That is why she thinks “she’s born to live and fight it all the way”—because it’s the only identity she has, without it she’s nothing, she’s lost. So, from here the desperate choice to stay in the Horde and not follow Adora in the Rebellion, not even understanding her defection, and the stern self-fabricated awareness that “this is what lies inside her.” She dives into darkness and chooses to embrace it, because it feels to her there’s no other viable, solid option. And that “don’t walk away” repeated many times is actually heartbreaking, because it could be either Adora miserably trying to convince her the Horde is not the solution, or Catra telling Adora not to abandon her, not to walk away.

Raised in this madness You’re on your own It made you fearless Nothing to lose Dreams are a drug here They get in your way That’s what you need to fight day by day

This stanza is very important because it underlines the essential flawed mentality in which Catra was raised. “In this madness” because the Horde taught nothing but hate, orders and unhealthy repression of human emotions to its recruits, resulting in Catra having a broken moral compass that couldn’t help her understand what was good and what was bad (this doesn’t apply to Adora because Adora got special treatment, the most vile parts of the Horde were a secret to her, probably because they were aware she’d have defected much earlier if she had known what was really happening), or worse, thinking she didn’t even have the right to understand the difference unless it was told her by someone higher in the chain of command. “It made you fearless” is almost a sarcastic line, because granted, we know Catra wants to appear fearless, but truth is that she lives in fear every single second of her life, precisely because of the madness in which she was raised, where no one owned their very life and couldn’t choose to walk away if they wished so, where her very peers thought it funny and acceptable to bully her because a scapegoat can always be bullied without repercussions. It’s true, instead, that she has nothing left to lose, at some point. She slowly becomes like a caged animal, with nothing to lose but a life they don’t care of living and a toxic environment of false victories and paranoia where it’s better to have yet another night terror than a dream because “dreams get in your way,” they give you false hopes and you can’t afford them, the collateral damage is too heavy. The only remaining thing is to fight, day by day, fight and fight again.

You need not fear us Unless you have a dark heart A vile one who preys on the innocent I promise You can’t hide forever in the empty darkness For we will hunt you down like the animals you are And pull you into the very bowels of hell 

This stanza is the most creepy thing ever sung, it’s threateningly whispered and I love it, because it really seem that your own head is turning against you, talking to you in your ears. I basically headcanon Catra having psychotic episodes during her mental breakdowns, especially the last ones in S4 where she was sleep deprived and likely food deprived too, and this is what she might hear. “Us” refers basically to her own conscience, to the many people she indirectly or directly killed during the war, who are now coming back for her, hissing in her brain like a virus composed of extremely high levels of self-loathing and self-sabotage. She blames herself for “having a dark heart,” for “preying on the innocent,” for driving people away, just like DT said. It’s like she’s somehow trying to punish herself. “You can’t hide forever in the empty darkness,” because your “villain mask” will fall down someday and everyone will see what a shattered wreck there is underneath, and you will have to deal with the consequences of your actions. “We will hunt you down like the animal you are” is such a violent, aggressive, suicidal thought to have... typical of a person who has reached a peak of instability and is now bordering the full-blown unhinged. Also, if you think about it, these might be things Shadow Weaver told her over the years. “We will pull you into the very bowels of hell” sounds like a classic ‘threat of punishment’ line.