#or “catra has had enough trauma in her life do you want her to suffer more?”

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

a redemption arc is not a sacrifice.

a redemption arc is not some grand act of selflessness.

a redemption arc is not meaningless pain and suffering.

a redemption arc is simply facing the consequences of your actions, fixing your mistakes and doing better, regardless of whether you will be forgiven or accepted. that's it.

[arcadialedger]

How Catra and Zuko have been saving me lately: A (sort of) meta

A very long, personal post under the cut. This is really important to me, and I could really use some support, so if you could take the time to read and reblog that would be greatly appreciated. I just want to reach out.

Once again, please PLEASE read. I really need help.

Recently, I’ve found myself desperately latching onto the characters of Zuko and Catra, as many have in the past. To put it simply, I’m in one of the most difficult times of my life right now.

I’m transferring colleges because I was doxed by an online hate mob (long story) , and in general because I just didn’t belong at my old school. I went to three different high schools, moved around a whole bunch, and I don’t really belong anywhere. All of my friends are far away, my parents are busy working and I’m alone.

I just feel like I’m wandering aimlessly in darkness, unloved and unsure where to go. I’m faced with making a huge decision about my future with this transfer, and I’m terrified. Terrified I won’t make the right choice, and terrified it won’t be the newfound happiness I so desperately need it to be. But most of all, I’m terrified of being unwanted and alone again, wherever I go.

I’m used to not being wanted. I’m 4’10, not thin, and have been tossed aside because of my appearance my entire life. I’m 20 years old and haven’t been kissed (how pathetic is that). I moved schools and stayed in my room depressed because I never got to lay down roots and establish a foundation. Hell, I never even got to live as a teenager. I’m just behind and broken.

I was hoping Tumblr would be my place, where I could write and analyze and showcase my talents. Be wanted for once. For a while, it looked like it might be. Then a friend blocked me and made a callout post, due to me having a different opinion on a sensitive matter, and a domino effect began. I lost more friends and half of the fandom we’re both in blocked me seemingly at their word. I had featured this friend on an episode of my podcast at, had many fond memories chatting with them, and even bought a zine to support them. The loss hurt, and I was cut off from one of the few things I had. It was all taken away from me. My growth halted as I dealt with months of online abuse: including death threats, suicide baiting (these people knowing I’ve struggled with being suicidal), aphobic slurs (knowing I’m ace), mocking and editing images of my face. My Twitter was hacked, I lost podcast deals with creatives who my friends who blocked me and started all of this went on to interview because of said hacking, and I was threatened to be doxed. I suffered blow after blow while the people who hurt me grew and were rewarded, allowed a place here, and this continues to this day. The damage remains. I have to self reblog a whole bunch to get my content remotely seen in the algorithm.

Because my entire life, it feels I’ve never been allowed a win. I’ve never been allowed to have and keep anything good. I’m short and ugly, talentless with nothing to give to the world, my family has no money so I haven’t gotten to travel or experience a lot of things. I’ve spent my entire life envious of the “hot skinny girls” who’ve been wanted and dating since high school, who live in McMansions and get to go on vacations.

When I work to make good content on Tumblr and build a following talking about what I’m passionate about? It’s taken from me. When I work hard to get into my old college’s honors program and earn a trip to Greece which I could otherwise never afford, a global pandemic comes along and makes sure I don’t get that kind of positive experience in life.

I’m used to it all, being worn down and unwanted and losing. I’ve gone my entire life behind, lesser, and not enough.

And that’s why I’m so scared. I have a big decision to make, I’m at my own crossroads, and I desperately need all of this to come together for me this year. I’ve gone so long without happiness and love. I need this to be the light at the end of the tunnel, newfound happiness. I need to find newfound happiness. All I want is to escape the darkness, find peace of mind and function day to day doing the things I love without being stressed.

So when I see Zuko— so angry at the world for being given the short stick, abused, and never making things easy, and Catra— driven mad by comparison and feeling as though the world takes away everything from her? Gosh, I feel it so hard.

Because that’s just what I do. I get angry at the world for making things so hard for me. I compare. I feel like the world just takes and takes and never gives me a win. And so I’m never happy. I feel their pain and loneliness so deeply, and I’m terrified that I’m the villain because of it. I cry at the anguish and self loathing in their eyes because I have been there. I AM there. 

Like Zuko comparing to Azula, I feel lesser because the world has constantly told me I am so. I feel cheated and given the short end of the stick, as though life has it out for me. I get angry and lash out from my pain.I’m desperate for validation from people who can never give it to me. I’m so scarred from my past, I can’t believe I have a future. 

Like Catra, I’m always left behind. I’m lonely and driven mad by the unfairness of the world. It takes and takes until I’ve lost it all, but it never gives. I’m so afraid of losing anyone and anything else, I refuse to let anyone in. Because why would I deserve love? There’s nobody who wants me, no purpose for me on this world. I’m nothing, just constantly chasing an impossible goal of perfection to justify my existence. 

“You drive them away, wildcat”

Yeah, I know their hurt. I know what it all feels like. To be that broken, that insecure, that left behind and unwanted. The punching bag of fate. These characters suffering is so much of my own.

And that’s why they’re the only thing to give me hope.

Seeing them be where I am now, and where they end up, I allow myself to believe that maybe, just maybe, that can be my future. That I’ll get a happy ending. It gives me the courage to believe that what I’m so desperately striving for can happen. 

Zuko standing up to his father and forging his own path in life, which leads him to a better place as he finds his destiny and happiness after so many years of torment. We both have scars-- if he can overcome his, why can’t I?

Catra, after so many years of struggle, taking agency over her life back from those to abused her, and finally learning to accept the love of those around her. Opening up to pain and rejection and ultimately being forgiven. Catra felt so lonely, unable to see the love around her-- maybe I’ve been doing the same thing. Maybe I’ll find the strength to take my life into my own hands and find my own love.

It’s so empowering, a flicker of light in what feels like eternal darkness. I am so worn out and broken. I’ve never had love, or learned to love myself. In the real world, it is find to find hope.

It is only in these characters, who have felt my pain and found their way to a better place, that I find comfort.

I am one of so many who have been touched by these characters arcs, and they are one of the purest examples of why stories are important. Why the emotions narrative can evoke are important. It is not only escapism, it opens up a door to critical self introspection that can make a real difference in our lives. It holds up a black mirror of our lives, providing an outside view of our deepest, darkest emotions and struggles which can be so hard to understand when they’re inside. 

These characters, and their stories: insecurity, abuse, doubt, comparison, chasing validation, just wanting to find your purpose in life and happiness-- they are the stories of life, stripped down to it’s rawest emotions. 

There is power in redemption. There is power in rising from the bottom. 

As I said in my last post about Catra and Zuko:

“Their stories: being angry at the world, driven mad by comparison and a need for validation, making wrong choices, processing trauma, needing help but being too scared to open up and accept it, feeling as though they don’t deserve love or forgiveness, fighting to restore and maintain valued relationships, convincing themselves they’ve lost it all, feeling conflicted or confused, realizing what they thought they wanted isn’t fulfilling and hasn’t brought happiness, escaping years of mental conditioning which told them they were worthless, not seeing the love they have right before them, constantly fighting uphill for a life which seems to throw everything it can at them… Well, isn’t that just the most human story of all? And so their redemptions give us hope.”

I have been so lost and lonely for so long, and now I’m at a crossroads. I’m so scared to believe that this change, this new path, can lead to a better place, but these characters? They give me strength to. They give me faith.

This has been a rambling post of feelings, and I am thankful to anyone who has read this far. I’m just so tired of feeling this way, and needed to reach out and share this. If you are also feeling this way, know you are not alone. You are so very far from alone.

I just really don’t want to feel unwanted and unloved, like I don’t belong, anymore. I want to have a place here. I probably sound desperate because I feel that way. I don’t know how else to cry out for help other than sharing this.

 If anyone wants to message or send asks about this, please feel free to do so. I want, and very much need, to talk. 

[cruelfeline]

All right, friends and neighbors. We are going to engage in an Angry Post, because I am very, very tired of seeing people complain about and question both Catra and Hordak being “forgiven too quickly.” This may be a bit sassier than what you normally expect from me, so it shall be tagged as “discourse” and should be read at your own risk. It’s certainly not aimed at anyone in particular and is more intended towards a general attitude that I’ve seen. That said, I am having many emotions about cartoon characters that must be worked through, so it’s happening. 

So. Let’s start with Catra. Catra, and the idea that Bow and Glimmer and Adora forgave her too quickly. That they should have demanded she pay for her crimes before providing her with affection and acceptance.

I just... here. Let’s. Let’s just. Let’s even forget about all of the trauma she has been through for the entirety of her life. Let’s shelve Shadow Weaver. Let’s ignore that. Yeah? It shouldn’t really be ignored, of course, but for the sake of simplicity. Okay.

Catra just spent who-knows-how-long on Horde Prime’s ship. Catra was just put through a hellish purification ritual, mind-chipped, and used as a vessel against her will. Catra also fell off of what was essentially a cliff, unconscious and limp, and nearly died. Potentially actually died. Whatever. Point is: physical trauma, emotional trauma, mental trauma.

What, exactly, do y’all want to do to this girl that she hasn’t already suffered? Hm? What further pain and discomfort and terror do you demand that she experience before she’s been “punished enough”?

Do you want to isolate her from friendly contact until she fulfills your random Redemption List? Make her eat her meals alone, without nary a friendly face? Leave her to her nightmares without anyone to comfort her? Shall she live with Prime’s voice and Prime’s memory inside her head, unable to reach out to anyone for reassurance and relief?

And for what? Why? What would be the purpose?

Do you think that would help? Do you think that that would help Catra get better faster? Do you think it would be good for her, to be further isolated and shunned and deprived of affection and sympathy and comfort? Is demanding penance prior to providing love really in everyone’s best interest? Is it in Catra’s? 

And now: Hordak. Who apparently also doesn’t deserve any love or care or mercy until he’s paid his dues.

Hordak was born into a cult. An actual, played-totally-straight, honest to the gods cult. He was manufactured in a little tank for the sole purpose of being a body to use and abuse at his god’s whims. He was programmed and indoctrinated to be loyal and devoted to said god on a legitimately disturbing level.

And when his body started to fail, when it became too much to maintain, he was sent away to fight until battle or illness killed him.

Hordak spent decades on a strange planet, with no support system, fighting and striving in the only way he knew how to be worthy of the same god who threw him away to die. He spent those decades dealing with a chronic illness, alone, that caused him pain, shame, and legitimately threatened his life. When he finally had a brief moment of friendship, it was violently taken away from him. When he rejoined his god, he experienced only humiliation and terror before having his identity taken from him. Afterwards, his despair was so great that he subjected himself to purification agony in order to keep his painful memories at bay.

He has suffered chronic physical pain, loneliness, intense fear of failure, and a sense of self-worth so abysmally low that he thought it was a good idea to go back to his narcissistic monster of a creator in order to feel at peace with himself. He suffered all of this while blaming himself for not being strong enough to singularly overcome things no sane person would ever demand someone to overcome on their own.

Yes, he did terrible things. He waged war. He hurt people. But now? He’s done. And now, he needs support and understanding and multiple helping hands to set things right and recover from this.

Or... what? What, those of you who claim he doesn’t deserve the mercy Adora has shown him, is it that he should receive instead?

Should he be physically dealt with? Shall we withhold his life support from him, just enough to ensure he knows he’s being punished? Or, perhaps, should he be isolated again? Left alone to suffer further physical illness and self-loathing without anyone to reach out to for comfort and guidance? Should love and security be denied him until he’s... what? Rebuilt a certain number of cities? Provided a certain number of new technologies? And how should he handle his pain during this time? Should he just suffer the misery of his failures and his fear and his pain in solitude until the arbitrary Penance Quota is fulfilled?

What is the point of denying him these things? Is it actually helpful? Will it help him recover faster? Will it teach him some sort of lesson he’s apparently too stupid to learn without hurting? Will it undo the damage the war has wrought?

Or will it just satisfy some perverse vengeance fetish some people appear to have?

Look here. I don’t mean to say that Catra and Hordak shouldn’t work to help the people they’ve hurt. That’s fine. I don’t mind it. Honestly, I feel like they’ll want to.

What I mean to say is that I don’t see a point or purpose to withholding love and comfort and legitimate help from these two deeply wounded, ailing individuals until they meet some sort of personal redemption standard. I don’t see the point to it. I don’t see the advantage.

All I see is heaping more cruelty and pain onto two people who, damage though they’ve caused, have suffered so terribly and completely that they will likely be dealing with the fallout of their trauma for the rest of their lives.

And I’m tired of it. I’m tired of these takes complaining about Catra and Hordak “getting off easy.” They didn’t get off easy. They suffered. And extending that suffering to fulfill someone’s completely arbitrary sense of “justice” is cruel. And pointless. And entirely against the messages and themes of this show. 

All right. I’m done. I’ve had my hissy fit. Back to less sassy posts.

[the-maidofmischief]

both zukos and catras characters arcs are great and amazingly written, so i always feel uncomfortable when ppl compare them, because not every redemption arc has to be the same in order to be good.

THANK YOU. This is gonna be long lmao, please bare with me.

Zuko and Catra share some similarities, but at the end of the day they are very different characters, with different backgrounds, story and psychology.

And that’s AMAZING.

It’s amazing because we were shown two different but effective ways to tell a story about how childhood’s abuse can affect a person’s mental health, and how they can get better and grow up, showing that there is hope for everyone, as long as you do the best you can to change.

Want to know why their redemption arcs worked, where others like Kylo Ren’s or Snape’s failed?

I could start by saying that Kylo and Snape where two grown ass men, only written as negative characters with literally no background on why they acted the way they did. Kylo has a change of heart at the last minute (which is okay, because I believe that anyone can change at any point), but its not enough to be redeemed, because he should have also actually took responsability for his past actions. But he didn’t, he simply died for the good side and...that’s it. That’s why it doesn’t work. And also, because, let’s be real, it wasn’t planned for him to get a redemption arc in the first place. He was supposed to be de main villain, Rey and Finn were supposed to be the main characters of the sequels trilogy, but the fans decided that it was all about the white sad man uwu instead, and that, plus the lack of story planning, is what ruined the movies. What about Snape? he was an abusive teacher and a negative character for seven books straight. Then, in one of the final chapter we get his whole backstory and we are supposed to feel sorry for him. And we are, at least I sure was, and I won’t deny that he is actually a complex character, and that not everything is black and white. But it’s still not enough for him to be forgiven of all the bs he put the other characters too, even when he was supposed to be a good guy. So, at the end of the story, when Harry named one of his children after him, it just feels wrong, especially when Harry actually had a lot of positive people in his life that helped him way more than Snape - or Dumbledore - ever did. (I also have the feeling that jkr totally improvised snaped backstory at the last minute, but maybe that’s just me lol)

Both Catra ans Zuko were literally children/teens, and the reasons why they acted the way they did were shown by the very beginning. It is something that makes you emphatize with them, but that at the same time it makes you realize that their past sufference can’t be use as an excuse to hurt others. They both had many wake up calls/chances during the shows to simply join the good guys, but they both do that in the final season because they needed to take a look at themself first, and realized why they fucked up so many times. Because guess what? abuse victims fuck things up. You guys support abuse victims only when they fit your ideals of hurt and sweet damsel in distress, but when they actually have personality/anger disorders they’re monsters. The shows NEVER justified or romanticized the bad things that they did. And if you want a well-written redemption arc, you HAVE TO let the characters do bad guys stuff. What makes them different is that even when they were on the villain’s side, they both showed moments of kindness that enstablished potential for a future change. What makes them different, is that we actually follow their story arcs too, and we see them growing up and changing.

And, most importantly, they actually face the consequences of their own actions. Before joining the gaang, Zuko is already starting to have doubts. During season 4 Catra has constant nightmares of the portal, and she tries to repress the guilt that she is feeling, because she is slowing realizing that this time she hurted a lot of people, and that there’s no one else to blame but herself. And she doesn’t fully accept it until DT slaps the truth to her face. And at this point of their story, what Zuko and Catra need is NOT more punishment, but forgiveness. IF they actually try to be better people. And they do. In different ways, but they do.

Zuko joins the gaang that accepts him and he constantly tries to be good. The only person that is giving him an hard time is Katara (rightfully), but eventually she forgives him too, because she is realizing that he is making an effort.

Catra sacrifice herself saving Glimmer, goes through more physical and psychological trauma and abuse by Horde Prime, and literally almost dies. Then Adora saves her, and Catra joins the squad, but it’s not easy. It’s not easy because she knows that she hurted them in the past, and doesn’t think that she deserves their forgiveness. But she decides to try. She shows genuine remorse of her past behaviour, and makes sincere apologies to the people that she hurted, without expectation of forgiveness. It is easier for Adora to forgive her, because she grow up with her, and knows her better than anyone else. It’s easier for Glimmer to forgive her because they started to bond on Prime’s ship, and the princess realized that they are more similiar that she thought. But they all know that the road to redemption is hard and long, and that Catra need to work on herself. And guess what? she does.

After they join the good guys Zuko and Catra show constant effort to improve throught both big and small actions of true selflessness. And that’s why they works as characters. We can’t really compare them because they have different stories. But that doesn’t mean that one arc is better than the other.

[meg-noel-art]

I just had a thought regarding she ras ending and now I'm mad. Sorry fam need to rant for a sec. Also if ive sent you a similar ask before I'm very sorry I have bad memory.

So (and I could be remembering this wrong idk I refuse to watch s5 again) when Micah finally comes back from beast island and hes too late to see glimmer before she's beamed up by Horde Prime - is we get this weird like arc (sorta) with him and frosta trying to connect and I get it - Micah is trying to grapple with the fact that his daughter is now grown up / his wife is dead? (Or in an inescapable alternate dimension?) And frosta doesn't have an adult / parent figure in her life. And I get thematically what their trying to do and why but imagine how much more touching it would be if we actually got to see some interaction between glimmer and Micah before he was chipped.

Like their first interaction after x amount of years is when Micah is brainwashed (what a copout for drama + tension).

On Top Of THAT at the ending scene of the series we have like a 20 second "Hi I'm your dad!" Moment and then glimmer goes to hang out with the BFS and be all like "we're going to bring magic back to the universe!"

Meanwhile I'm sitting over here like "you just got your dad back??? You dont want to, oh I dont know, Spend Time With Him??? Before going off world?? Maybe you want to work out that grief over losing Angella?

We were robbed of that good father / daughter content is all I'm saying.

Yeah, I agree. I mean I'd say Micah, and the relationship between Micah and Glimmer, got about as mistreated as every other character and relationship in S5.

Was Angella even mentioned once in S5? If she was I can't remember, and that probably says enough about that.

Micah getting chipped, along with Scorpia and Mermista was really lazy as a writing choice because they were all characters that:

A.) Had personal conflict to work out with Catra

B.) Unresolved plot lines (Micah)

I don't think he and Glimmer should have been cool right off the bat (that's why I don't like their reunion scene either) -- they absolutely should have gotten the weird arc they gave Micah and Frosta, to Micah and Glimmer.

For what little we know of the show's own lore (which is a whole other issue but whatever) Micah "died" when Glimmer was very young. She could have hardly known him, and even if they were close -- she's obviously not the same person she was as a child.

Beyond that, I would have been very excited to see a conflicted relationship between them. Glimmer has been afflicted her whole life by the loss of her father. It influenced her disdain for the Horde, her will to fight in the war, and her tension with Angella.

It would have been fascinating seeing her struggle with the concept of having a long lost parent back, but maybe resenting him for 'leaving' in the first place, or the struggle of WANTING to be close to him, but not even KNOWING who he is.

Micah was also implied to have been 'losing it' a little on Beast Island, not knowing how to behave correctly around Adora and Bow -- extending that to how he behaved around Glimmer -- just... NOT knowing how to BE would have been great to see.

Really, there was no chance of this though.

S5 had very little breathing room for ANY characters. SPOP s5 suffered from a bunch of the same issues TRoS did. Which is, mainly, that the plot just happens because the writers need it to. Not because any of the character motivations lead it there. Or lead it there believably. A character may make a bit of plot happen even if it makes no sense for them to influence it that way. That's still a writer bending the story to make the plot what they want. A to Z and skip all the other letters, as it were.

Which is bad writing, plain and simple.

Glimmer and Micah were never going to get a nuanced character study like this, although I wish sincerely that they had.

Father/daughter relationships arent often explored with the nuance I think they should be in media. Especially considering many young kids HAVE a lot of struggles with fucked up father figures (and I speak from my own experience.)

Idk, ultimately spops issue was using the backdrop and drama and trauma of a war to tell a story with ultimately no relation TO that issue and it shows when a lot of these complex ideas and potential dynamics get dropped or get a band aid solution or just aren't approached at all.

This is definitely a frustrating aspect of the show.

Ultimately, I think, the worst thing a series can do is make you feel dumb for ever being excited for it. And I often do feel like a fool for expecting a lot of things that I saw as a natural resolution....or just, how WRITING works. 🤷‍♀️

[bccrsk]

#protectAdora2020

Felt cute, thought I'd post this analysis I wrote a while ago, but I held off because of screenshots, but now I'm too busy to do that soooo.......have fun reading :D -----

The tragedies of Adora's character are rooted in the concepts of identity and choice and what it means to love and accept yourself. You can even say Adora's identity crisis closely parallels that of say, a young queer person from an oppressive background struggling to embrace their sexuality and who they are. 

One of the first facets of Adora's identity is chipped away when she realizes the Horde is evil. She has a rude awakening that the people she knew, the people she looked up to, her family, have all been lying to her. Everything she'd known in her life up to this point was a lie. Because she loves Catra so profoundly, she assumes when she tells Catra the 'truth' that she will turn tail and run away with Adora. When Catra does not and reveals that she knew all along what the Horde was doing, it rips another piece of her identity away. In her mind, her best friend isn't who she thought, and it hurts. In Promise, she gets a glimmer of hope, but their trauma and memories tear them apart because Light Hope wanted Adora to let go of Catra. To activate the Heart, you can't have a heart. Even then, Adora's never fully let go. Note that Adora had no choice but to grow up in the Horde— it's all she's ever known yet her dedication to morals and ideals are so powerful she's able to defect without thinking of the person she loves the most. "I had no choice— I couldn't go back," she says. Ironically, this is one of the few times Adora actually did make a choice, and in her mind, later on, it blew up in her face.

Another piece of Adora's identity is broken away when she learns the truth about her origins: she is not of Etheria; Adora had a family, and she was taken from them without choice. Learning this devastates her for two reasons: 1) people have lied to her again, and 2) she feels robbed of a life that could have been because she never wanted to be a hero. We see this in how she tries intimidating Shadow Weaver— "Tell me the truth, for once." One thing that sticks out in this scene is when SW says, "or perhaps you would have preferred the comfort of lies." SW raised Adora, and she knows how dedicated Adora was to the Horde when she did not see the truth. Adora saw how Catra was treated and yet did not believe the Horde was evil again because, in the Horde, you don't get to form an opinion or identity— you are a soldier and nothing more. The only foundation to build herself on was a higher purpose/goal, which was to free Etheria from the Princesses. So yea, when Shadow Weaver tells her the truth and when Light Hope confirms that SW was, for once, not lying, she's at a loss. The few times people actually tell her the truth are plagued with drastic consequences. She's so demoralized that she chooses to venture to the Crimson Waste, a place known for being barren, deadly and somewhere no one visits willingly. When Huntara betrayed her, Adora was so devastated because it was finally her chance to get answers for herself— to not have to rely on others to reveal her destiny. Then she gets kidnapped, it all goes to shit, and everyone is sad (aka me). 

Adora learning she had been robbed of a chance for a happy life devastates her. You can see this clearly when she screams at Light Hope, "Don't I get a choice?" to which Light Hope responds— "You do not get to choose. You are chosen." Recall when Mara says, "I never wanted to be a hero,"—Adora, at this point, is in the exact same boat. She never wanted to be a hero; she was living up to expectations thrust upon her. She was doing what people thought she should be doing. None of this was her choice. She never wanted to leave Catra. She never asked for this.  Catra describes Adora as "earnest, naive, ridiculously easy to manipulate," and the fact that Catra herself pointed this out shows just how well anyone who really knows Adora can work her. Adora's impulsive nature is also positively reinforced throughout the series— she finds the sword, defects and is rewarded with new friends, a new home, and a life she never dreamed she could have. 

Adora's abuse had such lasting impact because it preyed on her naivety and dedication to her morals and ideals; she must do this to serve the greater good, she must be useful or else what good is she? It damaged her psyche so negatively that even Razz comments, "You ran into the woods and asked the first old lady you saw what you should do." Ironically enough, when she punches Catra in the portal, she says, "You made your choice— now live with it!" When you really think about it, though, did they really get to make any choices based on what they wanted? Yes, Adora chose to defect, yes Catra pulled the lever. But is that what they wanted? Earlier on in the portal episode, she comments, "Catra, this can't be what you wanted!" The thing is, even Adora doesn't know what she wants at this point; Adora is doing what she thinks she should be doing because Light Hope bent the truth. Which brings me to...

The final piece of her identity that's chipped away is when she learns the truth about the Heart of Etheria— that she was not chosen to be a savior but to be the key to a superweapon whose sole purpose is destroying worlds in the name of 'peace.' This piece shattering comes to a head when she, for the first time, defies her predetermined destiny. She essentially breaks her sense of duty because, in Mara's words, "you can save the world we love." This is intentional; Mara could have said, "you can save Etheria!" but she instead chose to go for the heart. It's because of this love, not factions, or artificial ideals that she's able to overpower all the magic on Etheria. 

While this may seem extreme given that she's lost in the past against less threatening enemies, it actually makes perfect sense. When Mara tells Adora the truth about the Heart, she says Adora "will be more powerful than they ever planned." We get the first hint of this on Beast Island when she overpowers her fears and insecurities to save her friends, who she loves. The second glimpse we get of this is when she overwhelms Light Hope and even gives Light Hope enough strength to defy her own programming— all because Light Hope loved Mara. And when she awakens the She-Ra within, it will be because she loves you-know-who (NOT VOLDEMORT). 

I'm going to take a brief tangent, now—think about where Adora was raised: the Horde. Now think about how she left everything behind because she realizes the Horde is evil and found the Sword of Protection— aka a First One's artifact. Now think about how she left everything behind to become She-Ra for the 'greater good.' Think about Adora's reaction when she found out she was a First One. Now think about how the First Ones turned out to be not such good people after all. Next, go ahead and think about how Adora is going to grapple with the fact that the ideologies of the place she was born and the place she was raised in completely clash with her own. Though we know She-Ra isn't actually a nefarious being, Adora does not. In Adora's mind, if the First Ones made the Sword and the Sword is She-Ra, then that means She-Ra, Adora, was the villain all along. To top it off, in the Horde, she was always in the spotlight, a centerpiece made for greatness, just like when she was She-Ra. You'll bring peace and order to Etheria, Adora— you are Etheria's champion, Adora, but by the way, when we mean peace, we totally mean destroying everything. That's not gonna ruin anything, right?

Does this hurt yet? Cause it's about to get worse! Now combine everything you just read with Adora's hero complex— everything is my fault. She needs to feel useful to feel like she's worth existing, but what happens when two core parts of her identity are the reasons why there's so much turmoil on Etheria? What happens when, though obviously untrue, she feels like she does make everything worse? Remember when Light Hope told her that her friends get hurt whenever she's around? Remember when Glimmer first called her a heartless destroyer in the pilot? Remember how that came full circle, and Glimmer later blamed Adora for Angella's death? Yea, it's not going to be good, chief. And she sacrificed everything and everyone for the Sword— in a way, the Sword represents Adora, and she willingly destroys it to save everyone else. Adora breaks herself to save the world. Mara, Adora—it all ends the same. Hurts, doesn't it? 

So now that the sword is broken, her relationship with Catra seems irreparable, and Glimmer's been taken by an ominous alien warlord, what should she do? You can tell her spirit is at its lowest point by the composition of the scene: she's alone and small in a dark void, with nothing but broken pieces at her feet. She stares at these broken pieces with heartbreak; this is all a metaphor for her current state of mind and how she is processing everything. She is also realizing, or will realize, that all of this heartache that she's suffered in the name of the 'greater good' was for a lie; she sacrificed everything, gave up her heart, for a lie. 

When she sees Bow afterward, she seemingly hardens her resolve. At this point, however, this resolve is a facade— Adora is terrified, she no longer has a purpose, She-Ra is gone. How is she going to be useful without the sword? She's going to save the universe, but how? In S1E9, when she had to rescue Bow and Glimmer from the Horde, Angella asks her, "How are you going to do that?" In the season four finale, Bow expresses the same doubt— 'what are we gonna do?' When Angella asked her, the first thing Adora did was put on a brave face. Then, however, we see the beginnings of a breakdown; she buries her face in her hands and begins sobbing silently. Of course, the other princesses unite, and they save the day. 

Adora's identity is completely shattered at this point except for one thing: her attachments. Her love. And while Adora herself thinks some of these attachments are broken, the truth is that they aren't. Glimmer obviously still cares. Catra has always cared— it's why she went to such extremes. Her attachments, her heart will become her new compass— not her ideals. When she tries leaving everyone for the greater good, Swift Wind reminds Adora that her friends need her, that they've always needed her. Then she has a moment— she says, "I didn't choose to become She-Ra to fulfill some destiny. My attachments, my friends, are a part of who I am." This will come full circle, especially because of her fight with Glimmer, a fresh wound. Adora's self-worth is tied to what she can do for others, their expectations and Glimmer blaming Adora for her mother's death takes a significant toll on her self-esteem. At this point, Adora (and her hero complex) is probably thinking that this is all her fault and she needs to fix it, which is what she tries doing in Hero, only to learn that Etheria is a weapon, etc. 

There's good news, though; the only way now is up. Adora will only pick herself back up, will only awaken her She-Ra powers within when she chooses to believe in herself and when she chooses what she fights for. Razz will have a big part in this since she always seems to come to Adora at some of her lowest points. S1E3 will come full circle because Razz tells Adora that she must decide for herself what is right. And an essential piece of Adora coming to believe in herself and deciding what she fights for will be Catra. In essence, she's the only person that truly knew Adora before she became She-Ra, and Adora, no matter how messed up their relationship grew, loves Catra with all her heart. The tragedy behind their relationship is that their love is so strong— but the actual thread holding it together was (hehe)...shadow weaved. They were torn apart by lies and misunderstandings and the tragic Scapegoat vs. Golden Child dynamic. 

To conclude, Adora's character arc is so tragic because it deals with the fallout and consequences of a life-altering identity crisis. For many people in the LGBT+ community, that is a very relatable thing. I'd also like to add that Catra's journey parallels Adora's in how facets of her identity heavily influenced by the Horde are chipped away piece by piece until, again, Catra makes a choice of her own to save Glimmer. In the past, Adora and Catra were always brought back to each other, not by free will, but external influences. They were torn apart by deception, manipulation, misunderstandings. Now that their hearts are broken in such a way that each half finally fits with the other, now that the infected pieces of the past are gone, they'll learn the truth. Adora and Catra will find their way home when they both choose each other because of love and trust, and when they acknowledge that love. This new bond, this promise, won't be out of survival; this promise will be out of true love, out of two halves of a heart finding their way home and becoming whole again. 

It's beautiful and compelling storytelling not just for individual characters on parallel journeys to self-actualization and finally believing in themselves and their own choices, but for showing two young women on the cusp of adulthood—both who were abused in different ways that molded their worldview, who have different skill sets, who complement each other like light and darkness—learning to love themselves and recognize their love for one another. Like fire and ice, night and day, good and evil, neither can exist without the other. They are a core part of each other's identity. And the fact that the finale episode is most likely called "Heart"? Can it get any more obvious?

Also, fuck Shadow Weaver.

[acephysicskarkat]

Redemption, Forgiveness and She-Ra S5

So just to spite the anon who told me to stop posting my opinions, I’m gonna post another opinion!

This will contain spoilers for SPOP, Avatar: the Last Airbender, The Good Place, and Steven Universe.

So the most common take that I’ve heard about S5 from Catra stans is that it’s a story about redemption and forgiveness and that if I’m in any way critical of it then I’m saying abusers can never redeem themselves.

To which I say: the second part is a strawman argument, and the first part doesn’t help because it’s a bad story about redemption and forgiveness.

Part 1: Redemption

The problem with S5′s stories about redemption is that they are, universally, undercooked.  For things that the fanbase had been wanting for months, they’re surprisingly lacking in meaningful impact.

Catra’s is the least bad, because Catra is at least on-screen long enough to tell us that it seems to be sticking, but it’s still not good.  It’s rushed, it’s weightless, and it feels like they didn’t even check what she’d done in the past three seasons that she would need to find redemption for.

At no point does she meaningfully confront her actions (which, in case you’ve forgotten, ranged from bringing about the death of Queen Angella (S3E6), to repeated attempts to murder or permanently harm Adora (S1E11, S1E13, S2E5, S3E4-6, S4E3), to bullying Scorpia (present throughout but most obvious in S4E6), to taking part in a war crime (S4E8)), nor does she really confront the jealousy and spite that drove them.  Indeed, the episodes that could have been spent showing us her character development are spent showing us that she still has a very unhealthy attitude towards Adora (S5E6) and telling us that she underwent her character development offscreen, while we were distracted by Double Trouble (S5E8).

Hordak’s is even worse, because Catra at least admits she wronged people, even if the focus is put almost entirely on Catra feeling bad about it.  Hordak realises, accurately, that being made into a cog in a machine of conquest is bad (S5E13)...but he never makes the leap onscreen to it still being bad when he did it to other people, as he did to Adora and the other Horde kids (S2E7).  It treats Hordak’s decision to break free of Horde Prime as if it in and of itself makes him good, overlooking that the life he’s trying to go back to was the one where he ruled over an empire of stolen children.

I don’t even want to get into Shadow Weaver.

AtLA gave a compelling redemption arc to Zuko by having him confront the consequences of his actions.  SU gave a compelling redemption arc to Peridot by showing us, in great detail, her evolution from antagonist to ally.  SPOP just kinda tells us that characters are good now and expects that to work out okay.

And the really depressing thing is that both these characters actually could have sustained really compelling redemption arcs!  I would have loved to see Hordak meaningfully realise onscreen that the universe does not consist of him, Horde Prime, Imp, Entrapta, and a bunch of largely interchangeable pawns for him to treat as he sees fit.  I would have loved to see Catra wrestle with and overcome her resentment of Adora, maybe come to understand that being Shadow Weaver’s favourite fucking sucked actually.  The show just didn’t bother, and so what we got was on par with a bad fanfic or the backstory for a D&D character.

Part 2: Forgiveness

For my money, one of the best stories about forgiveness in modern media is in a third season episode of The Good Place called “A Fractured Inheritance”.

Explaining it with as few spoilers as possible, protagonist Eleanor Shellstrop discovers that her cartoonishly neglectful mother Donna faked her death and seems to have built a new life where she’s a good stepmother to a child.  Eleanor spends most of the episode convinced that her mother is running a scam, but eventually concludes that this does appear to be sticking and gives up her plan to reveal Donna’s secret, cautioning her not to go back to how she used to be.  At the end, she opens up to a friend about the trauma she sustained as a result of her upbringing.

SPOP could never.

"A Fractured Inheritance” tells a more compelling story about forgiveness in 15 minutes of screentime than she-Ra S5 managed in four and a half hours because The Good Place cares about Eleanor’s trauma.  It’s portrayed as pretty understandable that she has a grudge against her mother, and working through that takes time and sustained proof that Donna has changed.  More than that, forgiveness isn’t portrayed as a magical button that instantly solves Eleanor’s issues; just because she’s letting go of her anger towards Donna doesn’t mean that the harm she suffered as a result of Donna’s neglect goes away.  Her fear of opening up or being vulnerable, stemming from a childhood of constantly being shat on when she did, is still there, even after reconciling with her mother.

Contrast this to She-Ra S5.  The second Catra says she’s sorry, Adora is willing to forgive her and go across the universe to help her (S5E3), even though in their last interaction, back in S4E3, Adora actively tried to kill her for pretty darn compelling reasons (you may remember those reasons from S3E4-6).  Adora gets, like, a brief rant in S5E4 where she seems to be confused about this, but there’s never a point where she meaningfully seems to process the trauma she’s suffered as a result of Catra’s treatment of her, which we know has been toxic, controlling and unhealthy since they were kids (S5E3).

More than that, there’s never really a point where any of the people Catra victimised in the first four seasons gets to deal with that.  Glimmer seemingly never realises that Catra is why her mother is dead (S3E6), which is especially jarring given that the effects of Angella’s death on Glimmer drove the entire previous season; Entrapta barely remembers that Catra betrayed her and sent her to her presumed death (S5E6); Bow thinks someone who’s done nothing but attempt to hurt his friends for as long as he’s known her is adorable (S5E8); Scorpia forgives her before she even finishes saying sorry (S5E13); and both Frosta decking her in S5E9 and Perfuma’s understandable irritation with the woman who bullied her GF in S5E10 are portrayed almost as jokes, the latter never escalating beyond mild rudeness.

This also extends to Hordak, who, after his tissue-thin face turn in S5E13, gets a baffling montage that tries to portray his picking up an abandoned child and indifferently turning her over to an abusive sorceress (S2E7) as somehow heartwarming and a big bonding moment, and then the notion that Mermista might have some grudges against the guy who burned down her home and displaced her people (S5E7-8) is framed as comic.

I’m not even saying that neither of these characters should never be forgiven by anyone!  Just that the forgiveness they get in the show is lacking in dramatic weight, because the actions that are being forgiven don’t feel like they mean anything.  Catra has hurt Adora, Glimmer, Entrapta, Scorpia, Mermista and countless unnamed innocents, and it’s all treated like it has the same impact as borrowing Adora’s Xena DVDs and forgetting to give them back.  Hordak should be considered Etheria’s greatest monster given the number of people who’ve died as a result of his actions and maybe one person is slightly irritated at the prospect of having to send him a Christmas card this year.

(This is without getting into the fact that Glimmer and Entrapta are expected to deal with the consequences of their actions to some degree, with each getting an episode focused around that (S2E2, S2E4).  It’s kind of wild that Glimmer nearly destroying the world because she took a reckless risk in a desperate gamble to try and save the people she cares about from the Horde blitzkrieg, a gambit that she immediately tried to fix when she realised she’d fucked up (S4E10-13) is treated as something that causes a notable rift in her friendships, but Catra nearly destroying the world because she was just that jealous of Adora (S3E3-6) is breezed past with an “I’m sorry.”  Entrapta building the robots causes the Alliance to hold grudges; Hordak waging 25 years of warfare is [shrug] Just Horde Clone Things.)

3. Salvaging These Plot Points

Now, as I implied above, the notion that I think these characters are irredeemable is a bullshit strawman, a thought-terminating cliche that Catra stans use to dismiss criticism without processing with it.  So how would I go about it?

Catra

I would start by having Catra and Glimmer be in the same escape.  Having her attempt to sacrifice herself in S5E3 had some weird thematic issues given her previously established self-destructive streak (S2E5, most of S3).  If we have to keep the bad plot point where Adora recovers the friend who loves and cares for her and immediately goes “well, we gotta leave our friends back home to deal with a colonial invasion while we charge across the universe to save my abusive stalker ex who’s never respected my personhood or autonomy”, I’d probably look at the two biggest missed opportunities in the season: S5E6 and S5E8.

S5E6 is terrible, and should just be expunged mercilessly with fire for its baffling endorsement of the sentiment “yes i abused u but now u hate me so i’m the victim really”.  Its replacement should probably be focused around Adora genuinely processing the harm she’s sustained as a result of Catra’s treatment of her, probably deciding at the end that she’ll accept Catra’s help but is still understandably suspicious of her given the established mistrust (S1E8) and hostility (S4E3).

S5E8 is easy to fix, though; instead of it mostly being the characters bumbling around a haunted house, I’d make the setting actually do stuff for the characters’ arcs.  We already know that First One ruins can bring up memories, so I’d turn it into a reversal of S1E11 where Adora and Catra’s friendship can actually be rebuilt, probably culminating in Catra saving Adora from falling off a cliff as a symbolic rejection of the resentment she would have been struggling with throughout the episode.  This is probably where Adora starts to actually believe that Catra has become a better person.

Basically, the goal here is to show the audience that Catra is working to overcome her issues and become a better person, instead of telling us that it happened offscreen.

Hordak

The problem with Hordak’s face turn is that at no point in the show, including after we’re supposed to treat him as Good Now, does he seem to give a shit about anyone not on a list that contains maybe 4-5 names.  I’d probably put in some scenes earlier where his experiences seem to be actually changing him for the better: maybe his response to Entrapta asking him to spare Catra isn’t to commute her sentence to a suicide mission, or he feels a sudden sympathy with a captive Etherian after the fall of Salineas, as the shared feelings of loss line up, and orders their release.  Basically, the idea is to put in some groundwork so that it actually feels like he might be safe to have around, instead of him betraying his tyrannical overlord because he misses his life where he was, himself, a tyrannical overlord.

I also would not play the idea that people might be a little bit suspicious of a man with a 25-year history of ruthless oppression, colonial violence and unprovoked warmongering as a joke.  Just one of those personal quirks.

4. Summary

In conclusion:

S5 is a bad story about redemption because it doesn’t give the characters being redeemed engaging or compelling redemption arcs, favouring a blind rush to the ending, and it’s a bad story about forgiveness because it treats the actions that are being forgiven as though they don’t mean anything, even when episodes or entire seasons have been built on the effects of those actions.  It’s not that these ideas are bad in general, that these characters axiomatically couldn’t be redeemed or that forgiveness is problematic; it’s just that the execution is bad.

Anyway, thanks, jackass anon, for inspiring me to set down my thoughts in detail like this!

[the-nado-hunter]

So i just finished watching infinity train book 3, and god damn i’m thinking a lot about all the characters with trauma in animation and whether they get a redemption arch or not.

So when should a character get a redemption arch? When should they not?

I wound up thinking about some of the paralells between simon and catra, both of them have similar bouts grasping for power and control, both of them do some really bad things, and both of them blame someone else for “making” them do bad things.

So what’s the difference? Why did Catra end up redeemed and Simon died in probably one of the most horrific ways I’ve ever seen in modern western animation that’s generally aired with a familly audience in mind (save for maybe the hanging scene in Tarzan)? What’s the difference between the two?

I think for one Catra was actually manipulated, and Simon only thought he was being manipulated. Simon was convinced anything that didn’t align with what he thought had to be a lie. He was abandoned, even if on accident, that’s hard for a kid in a scary place to go through, and he latched on to Grace early on but he retained trust issues after that.

Catra was abused and manipulated by shadow weaver who had pit her against adora since they were children and never ever given the attention and love she needed as a child. She learned that climbing for power in the hoard was the only way to not be hurt. In her mind, everything would be fine if she could gain control.

Simon also felt that control was the best way to cope. Being a part of the Apex as a leader by Grace’s side meant he felt fulfilled and never had to deal with either the consequences of their actions due to the apex members convincing themselves that non-passengers were all liers/manipulaters, so it made it easy to harm and destroy them because they convinced themselves they didn’t need to feel empathy for them because they were “nothing”. Even if people like Lake, Hazel, Tuba, Samantha the Cat, and Atticus have all shown us to this point that they certainly do have feelings and act in self preservation as well as feel loss on a deep level. Its actualy being around and getting to know Hazel due to mistaking her for a passenger that lets Grace begin to see that... but Simon resents Hazel from beginning to end, wheels Tuba and feels no regret for it, even before knowing she wasn’t a passenger he didn’t treat Hazel with any empathy despite Grace begging him to “think of how you felt when you lost your friend when you were her age”, and treated Hazel as a means to an end at best. Because Hazel upset the status quo he felt initially, his control was slipping, he couldn’t tell everything that was going on with Grace all the time, and he reacted violently.

Then in She-Ra... eventually Catra listened, she felt guilt, she was open to being wrong, while she had her moment of anger of being treated unfairly and tried to blame adora for all her problems despite adora offering to help and let Catra come with her numerous times... she realized she needed to change, she realized she needed to work through things, and realized that if she wanted adora to stay in her life, she had to show Adora she cared and stop pushing her and everyone else away out of fear.

Simon on the other hand... never questioned himself. Even when repeatedly hurting and trying to kill someone he supposedly loved. When he hurt Grace he didn’t feel remorse, he felt there was something wrong with her for feeling hurt. When Grace didn’t act or say the things he wanted, he got angry and violent. He invaded her memories and her mind and forced her to relive trauma- giving the excuse that if she hadn’t lied to him, this wouldn’t have happened. This a tactic a lot of abusers use, they blame the victim for making them act that way. Its a way of control by trying to tell the victim “if you do what I say, you won’t get hurt” Sure, when he shoved Grace off the train and thought she had died, maybe somewhere deep down there was a thought of “oh god what have I done” but he still reacted violently. His trauma consumed him, because he didn’t want to change, he was unable to see anything wrong with what he was doing because he was right. I’d theorize that even in that moment where his expression shifted then shifted back, even then he was justifying in his own mind that it was necessary, that Grace made him do that.

The train couldn’t help someone who can’t change. Its tragic, because when we see a character like that on screen and watch him through the lighter moments in the show you... hope that he’ll be redeemed... right? Have a change of heart? But he didn’t. If he had any remorse at all, it was too little too late. That is a real thing that happens, you hope that people will change, get help, turn around and redeem themselves... but sometimes... that doesn’t happen. And it’s not on the people around that person to “fix” them, its not their responsibility to feel guilty for not “doing enough” or “doing the right things” when that person refuses to do anything differently and continues to harm people and act in violence. That’s full on victim blaming, and no one ever deserves that.

Even when Catra is in full villain mode, as Double Trouble pointed out you can tell her heart isn’t in it. What she did to Entrapta in a moment of panic haunted her, loosing Scorpia was a wake up call of how she pushes people away. She came to the conclusion that she wasn’t right, then in the last season she stopped blaming everyone else, she stopped blaming adora, she and adora both stood up to shadow weaver for constantly trying to tear them apart and torturing Catra to try and make Adora do what she wanted.

Catra... broke out of it. When she saw Adora and how angry she was after Catra opened the portal, when Double Trouble gave her a reality check, and I’d argue especially after she was rescued from Horde Prime and Adora, incredibly hurt said “you don’t have to see me anymore” fully realized she has to figure out how to stop pushing others away, because she doesn’t like that she’s hurt her friends, and she accepts responsibility and tries to help. She’s not going to be perfect, we still see that she lashes out and pushes people away here and there even after being saved from horde prime, but the difference is she wants to change, she wants to do good, she not only wants adora in her life, but wants adora to be happy, and it infuriates her when Adora feels like she has to sacrifice herself for everyone else.

Simon didn’t stop when he saw Grace was hurt, crying, scared of him, growing away from him, and instead of feeling sympathy, sitting down and talking to her not going “what’s wrong with you??”. When grace realizes Simon is hurt when in the cabin with Samantha, she immediately goes after him and says “this must be hard for you, i’m sorry I didn’t see it... this is why I’ve been distracted.” But even then, Simon still seems to take Grace’s problem as a threat, something that needs to be fixed so things can go back to “normal” I.E. when he felt in control. Grace herself pointed out he was making everything about him. Because at all points when he sees her upset, he blames her, tells her she’s been brainwashed, that she’s not acting “normal”. He blames her every step of the way then plays victim. By the end he’s become an abuser through and through, the whole time blaming everyone else for his own actions. He invaded Grace’s mind, forced her to relive her most traumatic memories to trap her in her own mind, then tried to kill her right after she saved him.

I think that’s the difference between the two. One wanted to change and recognized their actions hurt people and felt guilt for it... anything Catra did is a byproduct of what the Horde raised her to be, for anyone that was found as a child by the hoard and manipulated and played against Adora by Shadow Weaver. She was trained to be a soldier, and told she would suffer if Adora fell out of the Hoard’s control. When she has her breakdown when she’s supposedly at the top of her game, its because she deep down doesn’t want to do this, she’s climbed her way to the top hoping that she’ll stop feeling and be “happy”, but she’s got to the top, and lost everything that she really cared about, and it gets to her.

The other insisted they were right and if someone was hurt by him they made him do it right up until the end. He became the leader of the Apex, his whole body covered in numbers, more than anyone - but as long as Grace was around to question him, his control wouldn’t be absolute. There’s still a certain amount of doubt to be eliminated.

And that’s why one got a redemption arch and was given the chance to change... and one was completely destroyed by their own actions. Catra (and also Glimmer honestly) shows how you can come out of trauma on the other side and begin to heal while still acknowledging that your trauma doesn’t justify your actions when they hurt people, but you can take steps and accept help that make it so your not having to face it all alone.

Simon is a cautionary tale about how when trauma goes un-dealt with, when don’t want to change, accept help, or even consider any other view point , and don’t take accountability for the damage you inflict on others, it consumes you and inevitably destroys you. And eventually the trauma he inflicted on everyone else came back to bite him.

Last thing I’ll say is fucking good for Grace for telling him to his face she’s not responsible for him and his actions, and no longer taking all the blame he was throwing at her for daring to have empathy, be kind, and want things to be different.

Those are my thoughts at least. I’m so glad these shows are taking a serious hard look at these topics, and now we can say we have shows that cover these topics in an adult way and don’t sugar coat it. Simon is a well written character, because it shows how someone can become abusive and violent resulting from trauma... but unlike a lot of movies about serial killers and whatnot, it doesn’t for a moment try to say he’s justified in anything he does. We feel the very real emotions from Grace coming to terms with changing her own views and also the horror and hard emotions that come from this guy that was her closest friend turning on her and hurting her like this. Those are some really... really complicated emotions to go through in a short animated show, but god damn... they did it

[princessofgayskull]

The last chapter of UWS, right when catra and adora meet up at the bakery before their date

HEY GIRL I’M SO SORRY THAT I HAVEN’T GOTTEN AROUND TO THIS WHEN YOU WERE SO NICE AND THOUGHTFUL TO HAVE SENT IT IN i COMPLETELY UNDERESTIMATED MY AMOUNT OF FREE TIME BUT HERE WE GO I HOPE THIS IS WHAT YOU HAD IN MIND!

So a little backstory about the last chapter: usually a chapter of about 16k-20k will take me about a month, if I’m lucky not to have enough off days. I got this chapter done, (I think it was about 33k words?) in about three weeks. I was full on sprint writing because I wanted to be done before season three dropped on what was either August 3rd or 4th? Anyways, I was eating, breathing, sleeping upper west side. Almost all of the big plot points I’d spent a lot of time dreaming up for the past nine months so they ended up just flowing out of me. I’m still amazed I got it done and it was cohesive enough for the audience because I was spent. 

I got this chapter up, lost my mind over season three- especially because I’d written Angella in this chapter and it gave me and quite a few readers EMOTIONAL WHIPLASH- and then I took the entire month of August up from any writing.

I have no idea why Rob was Scottish but I am LAYING IT ON THICK WITH THAT SHOW DON’T TELL RIGHT THERE. I was exhausted by the time I was writing this part, because I write linearly, so I just wanted to be done. 

I get asked this question enough to say I’m not sure what the significance of the migraines was in upper west side. There’s no canon equivalent, so I think I was just putting a little bit of me in Catra to I dunno, help with realism? At this point I’d only suffered with chronic pain- fibromyalgia to be specific- but back in April of 2020 I started experiencing migraines and my first thought was “HOW COULD I DO THIS TO CATRA?” Life imitates art.

This will be discussed more in cruel summer, but I wrote Catra as having Borderline Personality Disorder. I’ve never been fully diagnosed with BPD, but I’ve struggled with some syndromes of it, and she comes across that way to me in canon (she fits a DSM-V profile to the letter, almost). I’ve always wanted to have mental illness as a fundamental element of any of my stories because in my own life, I’ve experienced many barriers there and there’s just almost no positive rep for M.I, especially not unconventional disorders like BPD.

So Catra is talking about how she cycles through the entire spectrum of human emotions as a result of everything that’s happening to her, but also just how her psyche is reacting to it. To me, if you feel anger really intensely, the flip side can be feeling happiness really intensely, and I can testify to that.

For being completely exhausted I don’t think that first paragraph is actually too bad.

Catra has such a unique voice in Upper West Side; it’s what I believed her voice would be like if she’d been raised in the modern world, so there’s a lot more cursing and aggravation and even sarcasm, because not only is this the modern world, she’s also about three years older than she was at the end of canon. 

One of the things that I think is being expressed here is the idea of resilience. Catra is resilient by nature, she’s a born fighter, and so she breaks but she gets back up. I think the biggest difference between her and Hordka- and the reason why Catra survives such an onslaught of abuse and mistreatment but doesn’t need Adora to whisk the bad out of her- is that Catra is psychology resilient. And I put her through the wringer in this universe so I wouldn’t her resilience to be very loud and apparent. 

Entrapta is, without a doubt, a cyber criminal in the uws universe. But as they say, BE GAY. DO CRIME.

They won’t be ghosts for much longer, Catra.

But look at that progress! One thing that I think is really jarring for people when they start she’s god and I found her is that Catra seems to have regressed to being against the vulnerability she seemed so open to in this scene, but I’m never not dealing with some sort of cognitive distortion in a character’s head. When you’re mentally ill, you can be pro-recovery and can be making changes and strides, but you’re going to get set back, and it’s much easier at the start to get moved back to square one than say after months or years of therapy and meds. One thing that I hope people who move through this universe remember is that Catra is at the beginning right here. She’s having one of many hundreds of epiphanies you have when you are going through recovery. In Cruel Summer, we’re going to see how she’s moved forward and what she’s doing to keep herself moving forward.

 I think I got the idea of the “curiosity killed the cat” motif when I was making a pinterest board for this story. See, pinterest boards DO work for inspo!

“Walk cock excuse for a human.” I stand by that ASDFHGJK

I love the line in Alessia Cara’s song “My Kind” (which was a HUGE inspo for uws, that whole album was) “I wish we could’ve told those little girls they’re gonna be okay”/ “Wish somebody would’ve told me that we'd be alright.” It just hits me so hard. So there’s a repeated element I want to carry through the universe of “If my past self could see me now, she wouldn’t be so ready to give up 24/7”

I love writing thirsty!Catra, almost as much as I love writing thirsty!Adora.

Okay, just how obvious is that I know nothing about alcohol? I grew up Mormon, and I’d drink now but I can’t because, you know, meds, so I feel like I'm always overcompensating when I write about drinking. 

I really, really like working in motifs.

My, my, my, how the turn tables. Definitely a nod to Season 2 when we all lost our minds.

This moment feels very finale Best Friend Squad, which we’ll see more of in Cruel Summer. 

Writing a character with a broken arm, I have to say, was strange. The cast is just one more out of a million things to keep track of in your working memory. Writing Upper West, especially as the seasons continued to drop, sometimes felt like I was balancing stacks and stacks of plates on my head, hands, and one foot while trying to whistle Beethoven. 

I love that she keeps Sea Hawk’s bracelet and that she adds her “What Would Scorpia Do” to it and wears both.

I have spent hours listening to AJ and Aimee’s voices. Between the actual episodes, youtube clips, and interviews because I am so worried that my characterization is not going to transfer to readers. When AJ is playing Catra as teasing, she sometimes will go up in her register and so that’s what I was going for when she’s teasing Bow. 

Also, writing PDA is hard.

Because I go hard on the angst, I have to go hard on the fluff, of course. 

And the humor.

I THOUGHT HAVING THEM BE AT THE WINDOW WAS THE FUNNIEST THING IN THE UNIVERSE I’LL HAVE YOU KNOW. 

Writing confident and flirty Adora is sooooooo fun, especially because I don’t think that’s really how the fandom thinks of her, but she can be like that in canon, so I like to bring her out when it’s appropriate. And because, obviously, Catra is whipped for her.

WRITING KISSES IS SO, SO, SO DIFFICULT. THREE SO’S OF DIFFICULTY. It can so easily become gross or unbelievable, but I didn’t want every single time they kissed to be the same, so then they each have to be different in some way. 

Catra’s mentality of doom is a result of years of trauma and untreated mental illness. It’s branching off of learned helplessness that she and Adora both suffer from. It also sets up for the universe to be explored more beyond the end of this story.

For those who didn’t catch it, the last line of upper west side and the first are the same: “Bright Moon, ugh.” She speaks it here, instead of thinking it. That was the plan from the very beginning to have them kiss in front of the bakery and for her to say this. 

Thank you SO much for sending this ask and letting me divulge all of my random thoughts about this scene. I had a blast and I hope it lives up to expectations! Thank you for reading!

You can find upper west side here, and the follow up series, she’s god and I found her, here, and keep a look out for the third series, cruel summer, coming soon!

[hobbitkiller]

She-Ra, Supergirl, and Tangled: A Tale of Three Female Relationships: Part 3

*SPOILER WARNING FOR SHE-RA, SUPERGIRL, AND TANGLED: THE SERIES*

Previously on “A Tale of Three Female Relationships” AKA HobbitKiller clearly misses grad school but not enough to find secondary sources for a multi-part tublr. post (or thoroughly proofread):

In Part 2, I discussed the impact narcissistic mother figures, resentment for chosen ones, and repressing emotions has had on three female relationships in three different series: Adora and Catra from She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, Lena and Kara from Supergirl, and Rapunzel and Cassandra from Tangled: The Series/Rapunzel’s Tangled Adventure.

These posts are a deep dive into where these relationships went wrong and will eventually culminate in a discussion of what these relationships say about the portrayal of female characters and female relationships in media.

For today’s installment, I will be covering two subjects: Blond Bulldozers and I Don’t Care (I Ship It). WARNING: This one gets reallllllly long. Like, possibly multiple sittings.

PART VI: BLOND BULLDOZERS

In my first post in this series, I jokingly mentioned that one half in all three of these relationships is a superpowered blonde who saves the world.

There are of course many implications in the fact that, though all three of these shows strive for increased diversity compared to their source material (It is also interesting that these are all shows based on pre-existing franchises), the main character continues to be a fair-skinned blond woman. 

That’s mostly a matter to be discussed another day, but I do find it interesting that all of these relationships feature one blond and one not-blond. Lena and Cassandra have black hair, and Catra is...well...a cat-person. Beyond that, the blond is not only the hero, but is typically depicted as morally superior and more righteous. Kara, AKA Supergirl, was literally declared the “Paragon of Hope” in the latest CW crossover, Crisis on Infinite Earths. That title could just as easily have gone to Rapunzel whose chief characteristics are her optimism, desire to see others achieve their dreams, and belief that everyone gets a second chance no matter their criminal past and exploits (seriously, everyone in Corona--the name of the kingdom unfortunately for right now--gets one total pardon as long as they’re sorry even if the tried to kill multiple people). Adora is a little less cotton-candy that Kara or Rapunzel. She has the same moral righteousness, but actually has more of an edge to her than many of her friends due to her upbringing as a child soldier. Still, all three blondes are meant, for the most part, to be the moral center of their shows.

But, the thing is, when I look at these relationships, I can’t help but think of another popular blonde/not blonde friendship that went wrong:

Ahhh, Wicked, the prototypical female friendship story for so many of us. Wicked aims to take this classic dynamic of the morally pure blond protagonist and their dark-haired frienemy and turn it a bit on its head. Throughout the musical, Glinda is treated as pure, superior, and good because she is flattering and pretty. In reality, Glinda is often selfish and lacks the courage to stand up to people and systems she believes are wrong. Elphaba, on the other hand, is treated like an outcast because of her green skin and social awkwardness. Yet, for most of the musical, she is the one with the moral righteousness. She is labeled “wicked” by those in power for challenging them and standing up to them.

We’ll discuss Wicked more in the finale of this multi-part post.

For now, I’d like to contrast that relationship to the three being analyzed right now. None of these three shows goes as far as Wicked did to undermine this trope of the perfect blond versus the darker brunette. This makes sense as none of the three properties is seeking to deconstruct their source material or turn it on its head in the way Wicked aims to do so for the Wizard of Oz (the movie more than anything else). They seek to update and diversify certain aspects to be sure (someone heard loud and clear the criticism that there are no people of color in Tangled), but not to challenge them.

That being said, each show does try to layer in flaws in their blond protagonists approach to relationships. These flaws tend to be more subtle than those of the people around them, perhaps to protect said blondes from becoming too unlikeable, but they are clearly there.

In the last post, I talked a lot about the resentment of the non-blondes in these relationships and how that helped lead to the relationships falling apart. Those characters are also much more the aggressors in said relationships and are much more set on taking down the other party.

However, the blondes in each relationship are not without blame for it falling apart.

In the previous post, I discussed how being friends of a so-called “chosen one” or “golden child” can breed resentment. I also mentioned that raising someone as a “golden child” is its own form of abuse. It creates a level of unrealistic expectations to always be perfect and responsible. It can be the same for a “chosen one.”

Adora, Kara, and Rapunzel all feel a tremendous amount of responsibility as the “saviors” of their respective worlds. This manifests itself in a need to constantly “fix” everyone else’s problems. Adora frequently describes her need to fix whatever goes wrong in the Rebellion. Kara feels it’s her job to fix things so much that she contacted her former boss’s estranged son behind her back to try to reconnect them. Rapunzel frequently becomes involved in the personal lives of her friends for the sake of fixing their problems.

To an extent, this is a good quality. All three of our blond saviors have good hearts and don’t want to see anyone else suffer, partially because all of them have suffered their own childhood traumas from being raised as a child soldier to witnessing one’s entire planet and species destroyed to being held prisoner for 18 years.

However, as the title of this section suggests, all three of these characters tend to take a bulldozer approach to their involvement with their loved ones’ lives. This creates tension in many of their relationships, not just those discussed in these posts. Adora’s attempts to help her friend Glimmer after Glimmer becomes queen come off as controlling and as though Adora doesn’t respect Glimmer’s position of authority. Kara, in addition to the incident with her boss’s son, had also tried to control the life of another alien (and eventual boyfriend), Mon El as well as did things like break into her sister’s apartment when she was sad. Rapunzel promises to fix everyone’s problems, which leads to friends feeling betrayed when she can’t follow through. She also frequently intrudes in Cassandra’s life and plans.

One of the most threatening things for people like Catra, Lena, or Cassandra is to feel as though they do not have control over their lives. When you already have trust issues, feeling like someone else is trying to control you can feel like you’re being trapped. Control is particularly important to Lena. In many ways, she has the same feelings of responsibility as Kara. Like Kara, Lena, having been raised by one of the most powerful and influential families on the planet, feels a sense of responsibility to be a world leader. She feels that even more keenly in light of the villainous actions of her mother and brother--that she has to restore honor to the family name. As discussed in the previous post, this feeling in Lena manifests itself in her actions towards her friends through buying them things or trying to solve problems for them such as buying Kara’s and James’s place of work, Catco, to save it from being purchased by a scumbag.

This need to take back control of her life and legacy, to me, is why Lena reacts so drastically to discovering that Kara is Supergirl. Being mad at Kara for keeping secrets is, frankly, hypocritical on several counts. Not only does Lena keep many, many secrets from Kara throughout the show, but she is also fine with the fact that Alex, Kara’s sister, never told Lena explicitly that she was an agent of the Department of Extranormal Operations (DEO). Of course, the reason why Lena wasn’t mad at Alex is because Lena had already known who Alex was, thus giving her power and control in that relationship. Finding out that her friend had successfully hidden her identity for years and had been influencing events without Lena’s knowledge took away the control Lena felt she had over that relationship.

Cassandra also feels a keen lack of control over her life and her relationship with Rapunzel due to the fact that Rapunzel is both her monarch and direct employer. Cassandra serves Rapunzel and that is the first avenue through which they formed a relationship. Early in their relationship, Cassandra resented Rapunzel’s attempts to become friends and said the chance of a Lady in Waiting and a princess becoming friends was a million to one. Rapunzel, by nature of being “irrepressible” (as her friends call her), manages to worm her way into Cassandra’s heart to the point that Cassandra almost forgets that she and Rapunzel are not equals.

What I find interesting about both Cassandra and Lena is that they both, in some ways, considered themselves the protectors of their naive blond friends. While it’s true that Cassandra always knew her station was below Rapunzel, part of her job early on was teaching Rapunzel how to be a member of the court--what to do, when to curtsy, who was who, etc. In fact, Rapunzel had so little exposure to the outside world, Cass was partly responsibly for teaching her how to interact socially in general. There’s also the added factor that Cassandra is 4 years older than Rapunzel, which can seem like a lot at their ages. Lena, as previously discussed, saw herself as a major figure in shaping the future of the world. She went out of her way to help Kara by buying Catco and tried to protect Kara if they were ever in physical danger together.

Both of these characters suffered from an abrupt challenge to the relationship roles they previously thought they had. Cassandra in this scene and Lena when Lex tells her that Kara is Supergirl.

It’s interesting that, in that scene, Lex emphasizes the idea that Lena has been a fool. (And, fair enough, I’m pretty sure everyone who’s ever watched the show found it hard to believe that Lena never once realized her best friend was Supergirl. I mean...really, glasses?) But this idea, that she had been a fool plays right into Lena’s fear of losing control. It’s the idea that someone else was pulling strings while she was oblivious that taps right into her deepest insecurities.

Catra’s issues with feeling controlled by Adora are mostly revealed in the episode discussed last post called “Promise.” They come up again in the third season finale when Adora tries to convince Catra to come with her and leave a world that is crumbling out of existence and Catra declares that she will never  go with Adora, and that she won’t “let you win” and “would rather see the whole world end (which it’s doing BTW) than let that happen.” Catra believes the way to get control back from Adora is to “win” at any cost. 

In the end, this idea of “winning” becomes part of all three relationships. It’s no longer about working together or “us against the world” for the not-blondes who have felt crushed under the weight of their friends. Now it’s about achieving their goals in spite of the collateral damage.

And the most frustrating part is that the blondes are largely oblivious to the fact that they make their friends feel this way or that they are overstepping boundaries. They just think they’re doing the right thing because they’re “taking care of” or “fixing” the problem. They’re so concerned with taking care of or protecting their friends, that they don’t realize how patronizing and condescending that can feel.

So, even as these relationship turn so sour, why are so many people not only rooting for the friendship to return, but for our ladies to go the next level beyond?

PART VII: I DON’T CARE (I SHIP IT)

I sometimes wonder how the greatest point of contention, the biggest source of toxicity, and the most exhausting part of fandom became shipping. I have seen more nastiness among fans and toward creators and actors about shipping than just about anything else.

Shipping has a long history in fandom, though that term is relatively recent. People have been writing fan fiction about Kirk and Spock getting together since the show was on and fan fiction was written and shared at either in-person gatherings or through semi-underground fanzines. 

And, trust me, I’ve been in the trenches of a ship war. Back when Avatar: The Last Airbender was airing, I was a hardcore Zutara shipper. And, to be more honest, it made me a jerk. Part of that is just because I was a teenager at the time, and teenagers don’t always realize the potential impacts of their actions due to brain chemistry etc, etc. But still, the intensity with which I argued that my ship either would or should become canon when the creators of the show clearly preferred the other relationship embarrasses me when I look back at it.

These days, fandom shipping has gotten even more complicated and contentious.

Back when those women (and it was mostly women) were typing their Kirk/Spock fan fiction and mailing it to other fans, they knew Kirk and Spock would never actually get together on the show. That was the case for the majority of fandoms until very recently--that there was no expectations of actual canon lgbtq representation. People could claim there was deliberate subtext or coding, but very few, if any people, expected shows to actually have openly lgbtq characters.

Then, it started to actually happen. Not just in a, “the actor said they saw their character as gay” or “the creators said they coded that character as gay” way. Characters actually started being lgbt on screen in ways that weren’t demeaning or stereotypes. Major characters, too.

For me, a big moment that gave rise to the hopes of many that their lgbt ships might actually have a shot at being confirmed as canon was, funnily enough, the sequel show to Avatar: TLA, The Legend of Korra.

The above was the closest the couple got to an on-screen intimate moment, and some fans didn’t believe it was romantic until it was later confirmed by the show creators. Nickelodeon was only willing to go so far, after all. The followup comics, however, are much more explicit with the relationship and the two share multiple kisses and intimate moments.

Many fans argue that Korrasami (as the ship between Korra and Asami is called) was too subtle to be considered real representation. But a wave could certainly be felt throughout the world of animation afterword. Shows became even more bold about confirming lgbt characters or at least became less subtle in their coding. 

And suddenly, the idea that a main character’s finale pairing might be anything other than straight became a real possibility and, in some cases, an expectation.

In addition to the growing visibility of lgbt relationships in media, another change was slowly taking place within fandom. 

For much of modern fandom, the most popular ships have been male/male (mlm). Back when I was getting into fan fiction (because I love reminding people that I’m old), this was called “slash.” Slash was exclusively a term for mlm relationships. Same-sex relationships between women (wlw) were labeled “fem-slash,” and were much more rare.

Multiple people have discussed theories for why mlm was, and continues to be in many cases, the most popular type of ship. Some believe it has to do with the prevalence of straight women in fandom who might fetishize mlm relationships. While I have no doubt that’s partly true, I believe the other common argument has a great deal of merit: there were more mlm ships because male characters were more interesting and more prevalent. 

Star Trek: The Original Series had only two main female characters and neither of them was given close to the emotional depth as Spock or Kirk. Lord of the Rings, which was one of the most popular pieces of media on which to write fanfic when I was younger, has so few women the movies had to add in a boat load of new scenes for Arwen.

Recently, though, not only have more shows invested in writing dynamic, interesting female characters, but they have included multiple diverse female characters with relationships with each other and not just the men in the shows. 

So, not only do more people ship wlw ships, but more people expect to actually see those ships represented in their media. Never before has a wlw ship becoming “endgame” seemed more possible.

In many ways this is fantastic. More representation being not only more possible but more expected is absolutely necessary for our media to progress and grow. This has, however, lead to some growing tensions in communities where shipping has, in some ways, become its own form of activism, which means that there is not only people’s personal feelings and preferences for ships on the line, but people who feel that fighting for their ship to become canon is a proxy battle for their own acceptance. 

All three of these wlw ships mean a lot to the people who ship them, and all three have been met with the desire, and occasionally demand, of canon validation as well as a heady mess of coding, accusations of queer baiting, and the lingering question of which, if any, relationships might get the same, and hopefully more explicit, validation that Korrasami had.

Let’s start this deep dive into these relationships as ships with the one that has, in canon, already been resolved.

Yep, that’s definitely a Disney twirl going on there.

One of the first points often made when the validity of a mlm or wlw ship is questioned is that, if you say an m/f couple do the same thing, no one would question that it was romantic. This makes it interesting, and sets off the shipping alarm for anyone who’s a fan of wlw ships when Tangled: The Series goes out of its way to not only give Cass and Rapunzel (ship name: Cassunzel) romantic moments like the above “Disney twirl,” but also directly parallels relationship moments that occurred between Rapunzel and her canon boyfriend/future husband Eugene (AKA Flynn Rider).

Look familiar? It’s almost a shot-for-shot remake of Rapunzel and Eugene meeting for the first time. In this episode, Cassandra accidentally wipes Rapunzel’s memory to the point where Rapunzel thinks she’s still in the tower. It plays out, in part, as “What if Cassandra had found her instead of Eugene?”--something every shipper had doubtless already asked themselves at least once.

Another major moment of paralleling between the two relationships is the endings of both the movie and the series. 

Eugene dies in the end of Tangled only to be resurrected by Rapunzel’s love. Cassandra dies in the series finale of Tangled: The Series, only to be resurrected by Rapunzel’s love. And it is love, that much is very clear.

The only debate really, is whether it’s romantic or platonic love. 

Cassandra and Rapunzel never get official validation in the show or by the executive producers. The most confirmation fans get outside of the text of the show are comments made by some people who work on the show saying that they deliberately coded Cassandra as gay as they could whenever they could.

Yet, for the most part, the creators of this show are largely given a pass by Cassunzel shippers for not making their ship canon. Most understand that, as a Disney property, many hands are tied, particularly given that, due the previous establishment both form the end of Tangled and from the short Tangled Ever After that Rapunzel and Eugene do get married. The reaction seems to largely be that Disney and the show got about as close to confirming it as they could without doing so.

So let’s transition from the show that met, and in some ways, passed expectations to one that has set expectations super high: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. 

She-Ra is perhaps one of the most lgbtqia coded shows out there right now. The first season even ends with them saving the day with a rainbow.

Here is show-runner and executive producer Noelle Stevenson on queerness in her life and She-Ra:

Yet, despite these deliberate attempts to show representation and to challenge heteronormative ideas, the show has yet to show any of its primary characters or even second tier characters in queer romantic relationships. We have seen a few parents, one pair on in a photo, and their is one married couple of women, but none of these characters are prominently featured on the show.

She-Ra has set expectations incredibly high and has yet to deliver.

Even so, part of what sets She-Ra apart from the other two shows discussed here is that there are multiple queer shipping opportunities. Catra and Adora (ship name Catradora) are one of, if not the, most popular ships, but both Catra and Adora have other female characters with which they could be just as easily shipped.

On the one hand, the pressure is pretty high to establish at least one major queer ship before the end of the show. On the other hand, the pressure is much less that the ship specifically be Catradora.

The near-certainty that there will be one or more wlw ships confirmed before the end of She-Ra means, to me, that Catradora has the greatest chance to become canon.

So, there’s Cassunzel that never really had much of a chance for canon confirmation and Catradora, which has a better chance of becoming canon, but also has less pressure to become THE ship. Where does that leave Lena and Kara?

Anyone who has been in the Supergirl fandom knows that it can feel like a battleground. While all fandoms tend to have their issues, Supergirl’s can be so contentions that it, frankly, makes watching the show less fun. This doesn’t all fall on one groups shoulders, I’ve seen nastiness from many sides over different issues. However, the biggest point of contention tends to center around the potential ship of Lena and Kara (Supercorp). 

Supercorp, as a ship, is completely valid. Kara has way more chemistry with Lena than she has had with any of her male love interests, and two of those guys were played by people whom actress Melissa Benoist was actually in relationships with (though the first was an abusive dirtbag, so lack of chemistry probably makes sense there). Lena once thanked Kara by filling her entire office with flowers. There are cuddles, and Kara’s unwavering (until recently) faith in Lena’s goodness. It’s hard not to ship them.

The issue in the fandom, is not so much that people ship Supercorp (though there are increasingly more people who have issues with the ship itself, which is something I’ll address about all three of these ships in the next post) but the vehemence with which some who ship Supercorp approach whether it will be endgame.

In a way, the frustration is understandable. Supergirl is, in many ways, a show that has made a point of including LGBTQ representation. The second season featured a multiple episode story arc of Supergirl’s adoptive sister Alex Danvers (I will stan her until the end of time) realizing she was a lesbian, coming out, and eventually starting a relationship with another woman. Supergirl also made headlines for featuring the first live-action trans superhero on tv with the introduction of Dreamer in Season 4. The trans actress who plays Dreamer, Nicole Maines, has even had input on how the character is represented including a recent episode that discussed the often ignored violence targeting trans people, particularly trans women of color.

She-Ra and Supergirl have different approaches to representation. She-Ra takes place in a fantasy world and appears to take the approach that nothing about identity or sexuality should be assumed about anyone. There is no heteronormativity in Etheria, yet no major characters are in non-m/f relationships. Supergirl on the other hand, is set in a world more similar to ours which has heteronormativity, homophobia, and transphobia, which leads to the show making episodes and story-arcs specifically about those topics while also somewhat constraining the show. There are arguments to be made about the worth of both approaches and both can serve a purpose for viewers, particularly young viewers, who are searching for characters like them in media.

So, why are the people behind Supergirl so often accused of homophobia?

I mentioned in the Blond Bulldozers section that it is a bit telling that all three shows being discussed here attempt to create diversity while having the whitest, most mainstream character as the lead. There are many who would argue that the true values of the shows are represented by their main characters, and that the rest are window dressing to try to make the show look good as a form of tokenism. The point being that shows won’t really show a commitment to diversity until the main characters are just as diverse as the rest of the cast.

These are all valid arguments. 

A less valid argument is the claim that Supercorp is being deliberately baited by the creators of the show. Queer baiting is a term that seems to have a lot of subjectivity tied up with it. The general idea is that it is when creators purposefully use queer coding or other means to inspire queer shipping of characters as a means to draw in the queer community to their show but then never delivering on that potential.

In some ways, all three of these shows could be accused of queer baiting. The direct parallels in between Cassandra/Rapunzel and Eugene/Rapunzel were no accident. The coding and “anything can happen” while very little does on She-Ra is much the same. And Supergirl is trying to center a large part of the show around the relationship between Kara and Lena, a relationship they know many of the fans see as romantic.

Yet, to me, Supergirl, is actually a less guilty party, at least when it comes to Supercorp. One can, again, argue that the canon LGBT ships and characters exist to pander and draw in those audiences, but Supercorp, I believe, genuinely came out of a place of wanting Kara to have a strong female relationship with someone other than her sister, mother, or boss, and I’m sure this falling-out was in the plans fairly early on.

Has the show completely shut down the idea? No, I don’t think they would be foolish enough to do that. But I don’t believe that it rises to the level of baiting. Shows like Sherlock or movies like Pitch Perfect 3 are, to me, much more egregious examples.

Still, as I said, I can understand the frustration of Supercorp shippers, I just feel like the level of anger directed by some not just at the creatives who make the show but at other fans as well is not fully justified. (And yes, I know “not all Supercorps” and I also know other fans have been jerks. Sanvers shippers who are being asses about Kelly are just as bad.) And who knows? I’d never say never to the ship maybe becoming canon eventually after Kara and Lena work out their issues.

That being said, all three of these ships, regardless of canon status, are incredibly popular, and I want to examine more of what that is and the reason some people are wary of these ships and the potential messages they send. This leads me to our topics for our next installment:

MY WIFE IS A BITCH AND I LIKE HER SO MUCH

and

POISON PARADISE

I will try to make the next one shorter. Also, sorry for typos, I did not give this a thorough read-through. I used all my brain power just writing it.

[horde-princess]

Catradora in “Promise”

This ep has so much going on, I wanted to work through it chronologically and try to peel back the layers of their relationship. What are Catra’s motivations? What drives her to turn on Adora and leave her for dead? This gets kinda intense sorry but I add fun pictures to make up for it :’)

So the first flashback shows us how Catra came to rely on Adora for friendship and protection. After they relive this memory together, Catra instinctively saves Adora’s life, and they joke around a little--the heartwarming memory having briefly resurrected their broken friendship.

But as the episode continues, the cracks in their relationship start to show--cracks so deep they were hidden from both of them until they grew older. Catra casually jokes that Adora never had much faith in her, and when Adora agrees, Catra says she doesn’t blame her. This little exchange says a lot about their dynamic, since Catra always had so much faith in Adora (even when Adora may not have earned it). What I believe they’re talking about here is how Catra didn’t really work hard as a cadet, or do anything that would show her strength of character and thus allow Adora to respect/trust her. Catra was simply never given the opportunity to prove herself in that regard.

Then, Catra asks about Adora’s childhood memories. “It wasn’t all bad growing up in the Fright Zone, was it? I mean, you still have some good memories, right?” Considering the awkward way she asks this, you can kind of translate her question to mean “so, exactly how easy was it for you, leaving me behind? Did all the years we spent together really mean so little to you?” 

In the next flashback, they’re older, and we see how Catra is struggling to hold back resentment towards Adora now. They are evenly matched fighters--actually, Catra might be better because she’s craftier than Adora--but somehow it’s always Adora who ends up getting all the praise... and Adora never noticed how unfair it was.

When we met Catra in the first episode, she came off as kind of lazy and rebellious, right? But in this episode it’s revealed that she only took on that persona when she realized she would always be seen as second best to Adora. She chose to protect her pride rather than put effort into something she would never get due credit for--from Adora, Shadow Weaver, or anyone else. 

Basically, she had three options: 1.) fight against Adora and risk their relationship; 2.) work hard, accept her place as second best, and let everyone view her as weak (including the girl whose respect she desperately craved); and 3.) pretend she just didn’t care about her work. The implication of option 3 is that she chose to prioritize her relationship with Adora over her ambitions. But as Catra eventually learns, suppressing who you are is not a reliable coping mechanism.

After this, back in the beacon cave, Catra is attacked by a giant spider robot. She defeats it herself then gets extremely offended when Adora jumps in to try to save her from it. So we’re seeing how Catra’s past memories with Adora are affecting her motivations in the present day. She wants her respect but she’s not getting it. Now she’s back to being angry with Adora, and Adora (as usual) doesn’t understand why.

And then we get to a really pivotal moment. Adora apologizes for leaving, admitting she never wanted to leave Catra--just the Evil Horde. Then she says, “you could come with me, you could join the Rebellion! I know you’re not a bad person, Catra.”

Catra doesn’t respond but her conflicting emotions are written all over her face. Catra is not a bad person. She isn’t doing evil things just for the sake of hurting people or gaining power over people, like Hordak. She wants power to protect herself. Her morality is gray.

Catra was raised in an abusive, evil environment, trained to believe that people only respect you when they fear you. People only love you when they fear you... Except for Adora. Adora’s unconditional love was the foundation on which Catra had built her life. Through all the abuse and misery, it’s what gave her hope that things would be better one day. It’s what she clung to for survival. 

When Adora abandoned her? That foundation of love and friendship crumbled to dust. Catra was forced to fall back on the only other method of self-preservation that she knew: power. Control. With Adora gone, she would do whatever she had to do in order to avoid ever becoming a victim again. 

So at this point we can start piecing together Catra’s motivations... she is being driven on one hand by her childhood trauma (which Adora played a part in), and on the other hand by Adora’s betrayal. Adora is clueless about it all, which I sort of get since Catra never confronted her about anything. I think Adora is only just beginning to understand the extent of the emotional trauma she unintentionally inflicted on Catra, and there’s a lot of growth that needs to happen there before Catra will be willing to extend forgiveness. But I do think reconciliation is possible, and Catra’s reaction here when Adora says she’s not a bad person gives me hope that she can still be redeemed.

Moving on, there’s a flashback where we learn about Shadow Weaver’s abuse, and it sparks an argument where Catra yells at Adora for not protecting her “in any that would put [her] on Shadow Weaver’s bad side.” I won’t go into this since there are other posts analyzing it, but clearly Adora had broken her promise to Catra continually throughout their childhood without really realizing it. Anyway, then Adora asks why Catra won’t just leave with her and join the Rebellion, and Catra reveals it’s because she’s tired of living under Adora’s shadow.

Ok. Imma get deep for a second. So we’ve established that Catra hates feeling like she’s second best to Adora, and that’s what she thinks would happen if she joined her team. Strangely enough, in addition to Catra’s pride and ambition, my theory is that there may be a romantic element to this as well. Catra doesn’t want to be Adora’s sidekick, but... I don’t think her goal is to be better than Adora, either. I think what she wants more than anything is for Adora to see her as an equal. (Not once in the show does Catra say that she wants to be stronger than Adora. instead she says things like “I’m stronger than anyone ever thought” and that she wants Adora to feel weak. That’s a lot different than comparing their strength.)

Remember in the second episode, Catra tells her “it doesn’t matter what they do. The two of us look out for each other. And soon, we’ll be the ones calling the shots.” Catra was dreaming of the day when she and Adora would rule together, side by side. No more fighting for Hordak’s approval, no more relying on her protection. No more golden child vs. reject, but partners. Just the two of them at the top of the world. Maybe then, Catra would finally feel worthy of accepting Adora’s love. But how can they ever be equals, especially now that Adora is an 8 ft tall magical hero?... Well, they can’t be.

At least, not as long as they’re fighting on the same side. 

It’s only on the battlefield where they can be seen as equally powerful, equally respected... by their kingdoms, and, most importantly, by each other. It makes sense in a twisted way. After all, there’s a thin line between love and hate.

So I believe this is part of the reason she refuses to join Adora’s side of the war. Catra thinks she needs to win Adora’s respect in order to balance out their relationship. Even if achieving this goal costs one of their lives. That sounds horrible but, as I wrote earlier, Catra’s faith in love was shattered by Adora’s betrayal, and now Catra is utilizing her abusers’ teachings that people only “love” you if they fear you. 

[whew.........congrats if you’re still reading this lmao we’re nearing the end finally]

The last thing I’ll go over is the “promise” itself. Little Adora says the lines that Catra repeated wayyy back in the 2nd episode: “It doesn’t matter what they do to us, you know? You look out for me, and I look out for you. Nothing really bad can happen as long as we have each other.”

In what is possibly the most SOUL CRUSHING MOMENT IN TV HISTORY.... the girls walk off hand-in-hand, except little Catra turns back to look at her future self. and if I had to guess what was going through her mind it was probably something like, “I wish I could warn you, Catra... she’s going to break her promise. And your heart.”

Wow. This episode is an emotional journey. It shows that it wasn’t just one act of betrayal that turned her into a villain, but it was all the years of Adora unintentionally putting her down, despite promising to protect her. Catra sacrificed so much for their relationship, and in reliving this memory she realizes that she mistakenly placed all the faith she had in a girl who would one day throw it away like it meant nothing. 

So, it’s with this swirling mix of emotions that Catra, for the second time this episode, finds herself with the choice of saving Adora’s life or letting her fall. 

And now that she has had some time to reflect on it... well. What had valuing friendship ever done for Catra in the past?

edit: i’m in love with Adora, I just criticize her a lot in this post bc I was thinking from Catra’s perspective. I think Adora only had the best of intentions, but she was abused herself, and she certainly suffered under the burden of being Catra’s protector. Catra may have wanted her to rebel against Shadow Weaver w/ her when they were kids, but if she had done that then they both would’ve been screwed, and that’s something Catra doesn’t want to accept. Instead she wants to fixate jealously on the way Adora benefited from the special treatment. There is probably some truth to her accusation that Adora loved being the favorite (because, who wouldn’t?)--but that doesn’t change the fact that everything, everything Adora did was to keep Catra safe. Unfortunately, this arrangement still caused an inevitable status disparity, with Adora looking down on Catra and Catra stuck gazing up at her. god this ship is so tragic i love it ajsldjfl

[dougydoug8797]

@spop-romanticizes-abuse you speak the truth

a redemption arc is not a sacrifice.

a redemption arc is not some grand act of selflessness.

a redemption arc is not meaningless pain and suffering.

a redemption arc is simply facing the consequences of your actions, fixing your mistakes and doing better, regardless of whether you will be forgiven or accepted. that's it.

[floxalopex]

Why, to me, Adora didn't solve her trauma. Or at least, it was supposed to be only about that. Spoiler: anti Catradora and anti Glimbow. Please, this are just my opinions. Don't wish my death. These ships are canon anyways so yhhhh you won, ok? Everything is fine 🌈

Yh, I'm doing this very depressing, very akward and inappropriate post at last. With of course, a lot of self-centered story nobody wants to hear because I need examples to explain emotions. Hi.

So. I don't hate Catra. I vibe with her a lot. But I can't stand when people erase Adora's trauma saying Catra's was worse. Everyone has the right to experience their own sorrow. Pain is a subjective feeling.

I was always the Catra while my sister was the Adora. I was the nd who needed to go to the psychotherapist causing my family to spend money, not to mention other healt problems. My sister doesn't even wear glasses. I took three attempts to get a stupid car license and still have panic attacks when I need to drive. My sister is a talented pilot. I was more good at school than her, but she was always better at living. And you can't change that with anything.

Still, I never hated her. Nor was I jelous. I awlays loved her and will always do. We are very different but we balance eachother. You may think that she got it easy. She didn't.

My parents are amazing. And I love them, they never raised a hand on me. But it was hard. It's hard to love a kid everyone depicts as "creepy", "not normal". But they did.

I watched the episode with Catra and Adora's childhood flashback with my sister. We had goosebumps. Before that I believed I was the only one suffering, while in reality I wasn't. It's not easy being the "golden child", "the normal one" either. My sister was so used to being referred as "the non weird one" that she developed a very closed personalty. She is a ray of sunshine, always smiling, but she won't tell anyone if she is feeling bad. She has to be perfect. She has to be all right all the time. I tell her to open up, at least with me, but it's not easy.

Trauma can have many faces. And honestely I blame myself I lot for having caused this to her. If only my parents weren't so focused on me and my so many problems that started since the day I was born (so far I risked to die at least 4 times) they wouldn't have had so much stress. They would have focused more on my sister. We talked about this and she says it's not my fault and honestely after so many years I want to believe her.

Adora has a post traumatic response. She has a martyr syndrome so strong she even feels that sacrifing herself is the normal course of actions. "You deserve love too" means that you also deserve to be heard. Your feelings matter.

Now. *Sighs*. I don't hate Catra, but I don't like Catradora at all.

Another sad story.

I never liked in my life the troupe of the "best friends" who grow up togheter and are supposed to be soulmates. I don't believe in destiny. There's no superior order in life.

I know there are many cute and real stories of couples who start and end togheter. Honestely some years ago I would have felt envious of them, now I fell like the freest of birds.

I had a childhood friend. He was born exately 20 days before me and, since our mothers were best friends, those were the only days in our first 10 years of life we were apart. We grow up togheter like brothers. Of course (of course, because eh you know, hormons, not destiny or whatever) we ended up having a relationship when little.

I didn't have so many friends and he made sure of that. He isolated me from everyone. He was possessive and mean. He was aggressive and now that he is old he is even a racist, sovranist, fascist, sexist and lots of other amazing qualities.

He was my first good diagnosis. Cushing syndrome. So yh, even if I'm super short he is shorter than me due to the therapy he has to endure. (By the gods, I generally don't mind physical appereance, I've even recentely found out I'm panromantic so yh, I don't care about gender either... but dam, can I have a partner taller than me? It's not even difficult.) Honestely, sickness apart...he is not so very good looking. Neither was I when little, I was very chubby. With the difference that I still saw beauty in him, but he never did. He mocked me with his friends. He said things like "If I don't love you who ever would? I've known you for so long, that's the reason why I tolerate you". I always stood by his side when people bullied him for his frail body structure or because he couldn't swim (which in Sicily it's almost a disability). He never did the same for me.

We broke up badly. I wasn't the one who left him but anyways. We don't even say hello to eachother.

I know by some relatives of his (who adored me) that is he depressed and lonely now.

It's... hard. Not to care for him. I know I shouldn't, I don't even want to. But the sentiment is there. I was never enough for him while he was everything for me. I don't love him, I would say I even hate him (and to make me hate someone you really must work very hard). But...hate is an emotion too right?...the point is that he will forever be a part of me. Even if I wish we never met in the first place.

Anyways.

I don't have positive opinions on Glimbow either. I love Glimmer but dam she is possessive. I like Bow but he should have been more true with his feelings and not end up with her only to please her. Choose Sea Hawk or Perfuma.

In a childhood relationship platonic love, habit, hormons, friendship meld togheter in a ...peculiar way. But let's be honest, we change with aging. We are not mature, we are not sensitive enough. Polite enough when little. We are not aware enough.

I'm monogamus yes, but at least sexually speaking. In reality you should have experiences. Know other people to know yourself better.

It, again, may be my bad and traumatic relationship speaking. But said relationship never gave me positive personal growth. It was rather toxic.

Adora, dear. Humanity is not lost. But you can't save everyone. Not by risking your own happiness. Caring for somebody deeply and having sexual attraction for them...isn't enough. And you too Catra. Let it go, there are people out there (cough cough Scorpia) who can and will give you the world if only you let them. Give others a chance. Maybe you are not in love with a person, but with the memory and the idea you had of them. People change, it's not theirs or your fault.

People leave and you don't own them.

Lastly yes, I will put the Entrapdak tag. Really not for visibility, I have more feet than followers (no, I'm not an octopus monster) and honestely I don't give a fuck. (Yhh mean Floxy). I'm just here to say emberassing things and be a stupid fucking nerd.

*inhales*.

Entrapdak=the love of my life. The relationship between two adults. Two people who didn't know eachother and passed puberty (...Hordak baby, you there?) a LONG time ago.

Two people who reason with their minds and not entirely with their hormons. I'm clapping while typing.

No drama, no doubts. I could talk for hours but honestely this no sense is already a pain in the gut of everyone who reads so far.