#pathetic. selfish to degrees that i hope hell is real for so you bitches can burn in it.

[jvzebel-x]

Real talk: you would rather a republican president? I know it won't make things better to have a dem president, but it can't make things worse.

real talk: i don't see the difference. &until i am given a reason to see the difference other than, "the other guy is more cartoon-style evil than us so you're a bad person if you don't vote for us", i'm going to hold up my threat to beat the shit out of anyone with a baseball bat who has the balls to try to tell me anything. especially if they cannot provide me with actual proof that they have a right to talk down to me via real life work they've done. because I have put in the work. I have done things other than try to ease my guilty conscience with the only thing the more&more openly fascist government allows us to pretend we have. it will be a cold day in hell when one of these vote-pushing little clowns thinks they can step to me&not leave bloody for their trouble. "can't make things worse". that's the problem with you cunts-- why are you always fucking operating on how much worse things could theoretically be FOR YOU instead of putting in any real effort to thinking about how much BETTER they can be for EVERYONE ELSE? pathetic&self-defeating. lazy&uneducated.

you know how close Oregon was to losing their blue status last election cycle? do you know how much it hurt me to have to push electoralism in my real actual life to keep this stupid fucking state from swinging right? how many people were out who can't even fucking vote because of their status as either illegal or former convict, but were still out pushing for electoralism? well, we fucking won. the state is still blue. since that election, dozens of laws&regulations have been pushed to make life for the unhoused not just unliveable-- actively deadly. just as one example, they have made it illegal to hand out tents on the streets. do you have any idea how much blood these politicians have on their hands just from that one decision?

no. of course not. because people like you don't have any idea what real work looks like, &you have no fucking respect for the people who are willing to put their own problems aside to try to help the greater good. how the fuck would any of you know what that looks or feels like? you get the imaginary image of the orange boogeyman coming for you, &suddenly no one+nothing else matters. your complicity leaves blood on your fucking hands that no amount of "real talk" will ever wash off.

[nny11writes]

Shadow Weaver, One Good Thing, and Moral Shades of Gray

Some Season 5 rambling for whoever wants it regarding Shadow Weaver, her actions, and the end of her character arc.

I might revisit this later more from her perspective, that scene (you know the one) felt very complex to me and I have a few different feelings about it, this is one of them. 

Spoilers below the cut!

Okay, I really loved Shadow Weaver this season. I’ve loved her every season, she’s such a great character and her concept, animation, and voice acting all work flawlessly together to breathe some real life into her. I just love her! Great bad guy!

And this season? No one is letting her fucking breath without body slamming her.

It was one of the things I loved about her interactions with everyone, that she’d say something and immediately get told off. No one was falling for her shit. And you can see the way she’s super annoyed and confused, amazing how much a mask can portray, “Excuse ME I’m a GOOD GUY now?????” No one was forgiving her, no one liked her, they barely even tolerated her. I feel like it was wearing her down. I haven’t re-watched yet, but I think we saw Weaver with or near cups several times, but regardless, for sure when Catra found her she was drunk. She was half fucking slurring as she drank at what could be the end of the world. It was a rather pathetic sight, and now the joke about Shadow Weaver being drunk at 8AM makes more sense. This is just some stuff to keep in mind as we mosey along.

Noelle has talked before about shades of moral gray in the series and how people can shift and move along that line, and how people can also still be good people making bad choices or bad people making good choices.

I think Shadow Weaver is being used to display that. She is a few baby steps away from the beyond Vanta Black of Horde Prime. She is not a good person, she is not a hero; even if some of the things she’s done are good for others or could read ‘heroic’.

There was also a running theme this season of “One Good Thing”.

Catra is an obvious one, “I just want to do one good thing in my life!” And she goes from thinking she’s made a heroic sacrifice of sorts by saving Glimmer to getting the chance to actually move forward. And even if her steps faltered, Catra moved forward and did far more than just one good thing.

Hordak had a few moments of getting to see him lower his walls with Entrapta, but the thing that stuck out to me was his face as he held a happily cooing Adora. “Oh…okay, I guess- I guess this baby is mine? WAIT NO, CAN’T DO, ABORT, NO EMOTIONS, EMOTIONS ARE FOR HORDE PRIME, GET THIS THING AWAY FROM ME!” (Okay so that wasn’t all just his face, but that’s the gist). Hordak didn’t kidnap Adora, he went where sensors showed a portal would be and found a baby. He could’ve left her there, he could’ve done a lot of things, but he had a one good thing moment where he chose to take that baby with him. Cradled close. It’s a kind action in some ways, and not in others. I think Hordak hoped the baby might have an answer or solution to the portal (talk about high hopes buddy). But I think he also didn’t want to leave a baby to die alone in a field. It’s not a big great declaration or heroic moment, but it is still a good thing. Hordak’s one good thing.

I think Shadow Weaver has always held a twisted sort of care and love for Adora, and I also really think that Shadow Weaver would have held just as disgusting and awful a brand of ‘love’ for Catra if Catra had done/been what she’d wanted (which let’s be real was unrealistic and was a bar she would’ve kept moving). Shadow Weaver’s love is not pure. Perhaps as Light Spinner it could have been. As Light Spinner she was still an awful person willing to use anyone including children to get what she wanted. She wasn’t a good person. But even bad people can feel true love for others. I’m not saying that her love was pure or was always good intentioned as Light Spinner, just that I think she had the capability for it. But once that entity/parasite consumed her? Once she let her lust for power overwhelm her basic humanity? No. I don’t think her love would have been good in any form FOR SURE after that.

So her insistence that, “Didn’t you hear? I’m one of the good guys now.” rings just that much more hollow and cracked. Her motivations have always been selfish and her choices rarely take other’s into account beyond ‘how can I use this to my advantage’. Her kindness is faked, her goodness is incidental, her love is poison, everyone else knows that. Everyone else treats her the way they should, cautiously at best and hostile as needed. But Shadow Weaver doesn’t get that. She truly believes that she’s a good person now and is baffled that no one else will believe her and if frustrated/upset that she can’t even go ‘pure evil’ because she doesn’t have the legs to stand on for it. “I’m a good guy,” fuck you.

I think this shows with Catra. She’s still an absolute bitch and a half to Catra, and again I’m not saying what she did or said was good or right. But I think Shadow Weaver had a few moments of legit thinking, “Okay, fine, gotta tone this shit down because I’m a good guy.” She was always in control of her behavior and this was such a fine razor to cut with. It’s like the idea of an abuser who just “loses control” and destroys things then apologizes. It’s never their things they destroy and they don’t help to clean up or replace anything. The apology is a lie. They never lost control, they knew what they were doing. Same with Shadow Weaver. It was disturbing to watch her interact neutrally or her warped ass version of nicely with Catra. Because we all know it’s not that Shadow Weaver was out of control before, so we know she could have acted this way the whole time. It still wouldn’t have been good. But I think going from torturing kids and threatening them with death, to basically cold indifference is a half step forward and a full step sideways. It still would’ve caused harm, it still would’ve left destruction in its wake but a different kind of it. I don’t know, I just thought this was a wonderfully god awful way to show that. It also shows that she thinks she can either smooth things over or control the situation, which good luck with that.

Got distracted a hot second there, my example in this is actually when she grabs Catra to cover her mouth. It’s a move that if literally anyone else had done it wouldn’t have felt so fucking skeevey. But it’s Shadow Weaver physically touching Catra, her favorite chew toy. Catra has a very justified reaction to that, and you can still see the wheels turning in Weavers head. “Ungrateful, I’m trying to save you, I’m a good guy!” Fucking hell this lady.

So here we are, with a genuinely awful and bad person who believes they’re a good person now and trying to pantomime what they think a good person would do. With her very twisted version of “love” and the realization coming ever closer that she’s not in control of anything, no one trusts her, and no one likes her. I think she absolutely is thinking about her legacy right here, I think she is definitely trying for one last manipulation to put a big underscore on “Shadow Weaver was a good guy”. 

I also, however, think she manipulates so well because she always draws a grain of truth into what she’s saying.

My example of this is her “You remind me of myself and I wanted you to be better, stronger than me.” Bullshit. Catra might have reminded Shadow Weaver vaguely of herself, but the rest is pure bullshit. Shadow Weaver doesn’t hate herself and certainly never did shit to make Catra a ‘better and stronger’ person. It’s 90% lies, but that 10% helps her sell her abuse.

So I think in her final moments there, Shadow Weaver does some complex mental gymnastics. She knows that Adora has to make it to the heart for anyone to survive. She knows that Adora loves Catra and that Catra loves Adora. She may know that if she doesn’t save Catra it is very likely that Adora will very likely not survive. Adora has always been ‘distracted and pulled down’ by Catra, so now she needs her ‘crutch’. I think Shadow Weaver also knows that once this is all done, no one will have a use for her and I don’t think she wants to face a world where she has no power and no control.

So she steps forward and puts one last manipulative play into motion.

And I think she sells it with a semi truth.

I’ve always thought it was interesting that even after joining the Rebellion that Shadow Weaver seemed so dismissive of Catra. Even as Catra was steam rolling them in Season 4. That Shadow Weaver didn’t even have a moment of, “Well damn, don’t like you still but I guess there was something competent and worthwhile underneath it all.” I can’t even remember if she mentions Catra at all by name when they aren’t in the same room together.

I think that Shadow Weaver was impressed, to some degree. She had always seen Catra as a pest, a gnat flying in her face and distracting Adora. Worthless, small, weak, and dumb. I think seeing how far Catra actually does make it is impressive to her. Not “oh wow that’s amazing!” impressive. More like, “huh, okay then” with a side of bitchiness. I think she never mentions Catra directly because of that. She hates Catra. She doesn’t want to admit she’s impressed by anything Catra’s done. She hates her and hates it and hates the whole thing.

So when Shadow Weaver removes her mask (definitely to play on them seeing her as a person first and not a monster) (although I think it also is a very good way to remind the audience that monsters are human too and that is far scarier to deal with, think about those photos of Nazi’s smiling on their weekend away from work where they helped kill thousands) and says, “I am so proud of you, Catra.”

90% is a lie, 10% is truth. Shadow Weaver might not think that’s the ratio, she might really be buying her own line. That’s something to explore another time perhaps.

And then she goes out in a blaze of glory with no need to face her own bleak and uncertain future, ‘protecting’ Adora, who she holds a dark and twisted affection for, and secures her legacy as a good guy. One final, “I fucking told you so”.

Shadow Weaver’s death is not a redemption. I think she hopes it is, and knows that even if it isn’t, Catra and Adora can never deny the impact she had on shaping them. That they’ll never really be free of her, and therefore no one else will either.

She will never truly have to face the consequences of what she’s done. For all that the other characters shut her down, no one gave her the true blue knock down drag out no holds barred VIBE CHECK she deserved. And without that this ending is very unsatisfying for some. For others that missing piece adds.

My take?

She’s a bad person, doing her One Good Thing, not realizing that it doesn’t take her from bad to good. Her sacrifice is, in this way, in vain. She’s a bad guy and will be remembered as such. She did her one good thing. 

She’s still a monster.