#tumblr was doing that thing again where it doesn't show the post in the TL so the solution was including the UI lol

[courtmartialme]

this side of you only i am lucky enough to see ~

(hc that riza is a light sleeper and always alert of her surroundings EXCEPT when roy is with her.. that's the only moment she feels safe and comfortable enough to sleep well which means that getting to see riza drooling in her sleep is also exclusively roy privilege. i never wanted to commit identity theft so bad!!!!!!!!)

[codecicle]

wanted to apologise for possibly being someone who fucked up ur tl with 18+ slime posts (coming to grips with how tagging works on this here webbedsite!) please take my sincerest (anonymous) apologies ur a cool goober 🙏

ay man it's alright!! really!!! i understand most of the 18+ people are coming from websites like twitter or tiktok so they don't quite understand how it functions :-) if you ever need a tutorial or any help with understanding the culture here, shoot me an ask! it's insanely different from other social media and i completely understand its weird to adjust to and navigate. peace and love + have fun with your slimeposting ✌️

[snow-lavender]

now that we're a week out from the finale, i'm feeling settled enough to make my sappy post. TL;DR is: fable has been incredibly important to me, and i think it's a story that's important to have out there. to the community and cast, you've made something beautiful and helped me more than you could know.

so here we go-

i started watching fable in the summer of 2022, to kill time in between summer courses (and thank fuck for that, cause my brain desperately needed to have some fun after 5 hours a day of doing psych stats by hand.) i was originally pulled in by vo'lete, as dissecting a conlang is really fun to me. it became basically the only media i consumed, as 2022/2023 was the fourth year of my BA and i was crazy busy. and then the characters pulled me in further with their earnestness and their devotion to redemption and compassion.

i think one of the theses of fable is "people always deserve happiness. doing awful things doesn't erase your ability to change." and i think the simplicity and love of that take hit really close to home. in the era of modern fandom where bad actors try to make everything black and white, it's an important point to make.

i started making shitposts on tumblr, started enaging with stories from an analysis standpoint again, and found a lot of joy in the community here. i don't have the words for what that means to me, so i'll just default to you guys are great <3

then mid-august happened

those of you who frequent rin's streams might have caught bits and pieces of this, but basically, i had a fall and my knee became royally fucked beyond belief. it can only be fixed with a surgery that's not very common. the pain was (and still is) debilitating to the point that i had to drop out of my second degree, and couldn't walk more than like, a block every few days. my life, my dreams, my future all got put on hold. i was in a new city with no supports, no friends, and no way to leave my apartment. fable went from the only media i consumed to the only thing i did, period.

the fandom became the only people i talked to regularly, other than my family, as online relationships were the only ones possible to maintain. in fableblr and in rin's chat i've found people who i really click with, people whose company i enjoy and who enjoy mine. when i was lying in bed, feeling so alone and less than human, having people on the internet go "i know who you are and you are making an impact," quite frankly, kept me sane. i know i don't talk to people super often, but know that seeing you in my notifs brings me so much joy, and i'd love to talk to you more.

to assuage any worries- i'm doing a bit better now. i've moved back in with my parents so i have human contact and people who can make up for the things i can't do. i have a new doctor who is taking the severity of my condition very seriously and is fighting to get me treated asap. i'll be okay.

so yeah. fable has been super important to me, and will remain so! for me it's a story with so much joy and deep feelings and rediscovery of passions and just. fun. it's been so much fun. and i'm not letting go of that fun any time soon. i'm gonna keep making and watching and enjoying.

to sage, corn, and cob- you guys are great, i cherish every time we get to talk. i hope that it's okay that i count you among my friends

to my other mutuals and people who are here frequently- recognizing you in my notes is such a joy and i hope to get to know you better. y'all are cool and i'm glad you think i'm funny

to rin- thank you for nurturing your little community and creating a space where i have so much fun. also thank you for putting up with my constant setting off of automod

to beck- thank you for making a story that explores sisterhood in all its ugliness and beauty, that shows how even families full of love can fuck up, that holds space for loneliness and loss and joy and fear and new beginnings

to the rest of the cast- thank you for making a story with so many varied and yet connected points, characters and world. with so much love in it. you've truly done something special here and its impact will not be forgotten

to all of you- thank you for knowing my name. thank you for breathing life and joy into these stories. i can't wait to see what else we make. <3

[mapplesand]

my ocs digital footprint is probably hell on earth so let's dive into that for fun lol

they're all pretty active on various social media (instagram, tik tok, twitter, tumblr, reddit ect)

Marco

most of the time it's instagram because everyone in their grade follow each others and Marco is an avid stalkers (mostly to girls)

his first account was banned and he keeps getting suspended or restricted on the one he's using since middle school, he mainly post memes or pictures where you barely see him (like guns he stole to his father and you just see his camo pants and combat boots so you know it's him), the memes are just well, edgy boy humor filled with the dumb horny posting about anime girls

don't go through who he follows, it's a mix of girls from his middle school, girls he knows are in his grade and popular model/onlyfan models (and there's also memes account and shit like that)

his twitter is a lot like that but he's just rambling about dumb shit and tweets about whatever he thinks is pissing him off at the moment, then there's the heavy rt of anime girls, his likes are even worse he's probably happy that no one can see them anymore and he probably likes even more fucked up shit there

Tristan is the only one who replies to what he posts and they often bicker about the dumb shit the other put in their timeline

then there's reddit, because of course Marco is a redditor, that's where he get his memes from, he's not really active per say but sometimes he complains about stuff

here's a list of the subreddit he follows and yes I did browse through reddit for 2 hours mindlessly to find all of them because i have too much free time

then he has tumblr because Tristan uses it and he wanted to test it for himself (he thinks tumblr is the gay equivalent of twitter) he probably just post on tcc even if Tristan tells him not to do that or he'll get banned but he thinks it's funny so he does it anyway

and finally again because of Tristan, he uses AO3 and read fucked up shit on there, probably stuff tagged with "dead dove, no not eat" you probably don't wanna know what he's up to

Tristan

he's less active and more of a lurker, on instagram at least, he's only there to follow artists and probably only post pictures of nature or dumb things like rocks or graffitis on walls idk

only rt drawings on twitter and replies to Marco to complain about the porn he sees on his tl because of him, thing is twitter is also his hideout for following more furry artist and well nsfw artists so Marco is gonna make fun of him for that lol

definitely more active on tumblr tho, he just reblogs a lot of stuff but still gains a pretty average following, he reblogs fanarts and stuff he thinks is funny or relatable, he sometimes lurks on the "evil side" of tumblr as he calls it because of morbid curiosity but stops when it feels too depressing

and then he's a big fanfic reader so of course AO3 is on his top 3 website that he uses a lot, he's embarrassed to admit that he read a lot of smut in there and will never let see anyone his bookmarks

he's just pretty normal with his relationship to social media honestly

Josh

he's just a normal guy who uses instagram and tik tok, he probably has snapchat, whatsapp and you know, stuff that normal people uses

he doesn't have any quirks he post on his stories about parties he's in and that's basically it

Tyler

doesn't post much apart from his drawings on instagram, he follows everyone because David just shows up in his dms and is like "hi tyler if you need to find anyone i follow everyone so i can give you anyone's contact if you need it for group projects !" (David is self proclaimed class representative) so Tyler just wanders on people's profile and well, it's a pretty bad look but he doesnt stalk people on purpose

he probably doesn't do anything on social media, you probably wouldn't know it's him if you dont know him

I do think he has reddit but again it's only about informational stuff (psychology and bombs mainly) or art

when he starts talking to Tristan i'm sure he's gonna both make a tumblr account AND an AO3 account, he knows about it because of Carmen but they probably both push him towards the fandom side of the internet even if he doesnt understand anything

[kogetaikid]

TW! UTY pacifist Spoilers!!!

Before people think I’m turning into a reblog account, here’s some of my misinterpretations of UTY pacifist before completing the game (there’s only two but Vera with me

1. Ceroba wanted to inject Kanako with INTEGRITY.

(Drawing unrelated, but you’ll know why I put it later)

When playing the pacifist, I thought the Ceroba misunderstood Chujin’s final message before he died, and convinced Kanako to get injected. However, during the Ceroba fight, in one of her memories, we see this:

(Cutting through some emotional dialogue)

Through some of the dialogue I skipped (wasn't originally planning on making a post about this), Kanako offers herself as a subject for her father's (Chujin's) work. Ceroba shows hesitation as it goes against her husband's wish but goes with it so she doesn't ruin his legacy. It made me feel bad for both characters. Kanako was just some dumb kid who didn't know what the hell she was asking for/expecting. She was just grieving her dying father and felt it was her fault for his demise. Ceroba was grieving too, and therefore couldn't think straight, but made the awful decision of giving into her daughter's demand of being injected with INTEGRITY.

2. Clovercide (TW!!!)

(Image also unrelated)

(TL;DR: Due to traumatic reasons, what was just a just sacrifice from Clover seemed like suicide to me.)

Just a heads up! I'll put a "keep reading" (if you wanna well, keep reading) under this because this may get a little personal...

This is still okay to reblog as long as you put the right warnings!

When I first saw the game in general, I though the screenshots I saw of the pacifist ending were the neutral ending. I though Clover got badly injured, or fell ill causing their end.

When I found out the wasn't the case, and watched a short clip (with no other context) of Clover giving up their life in the pacifist, I thought nothing of it. It was when I was listening to the soundtracks and saw how badly everyone was grieving Clover, then going back to places like tumblr talking about how they were just a kid that I started to get the wrong message.

I started to think Clover was probably miserable and indirectly asked for an assisted suicide by Ceroba and it broke me. Especially as someone who was suicidal/had dark thoughts as a kid. (I haven't felt like ending my own life for four years and have been clean for over one year) I've also had to endure the sob stories of mentally unstable people. This all tying back to the very few things I new about the pacifist ending, I felt kinda bad, sad and a little angry at Clover. This is what I would think:

WHY DID THEY DO THIS!!!???

SOME OTHER FUCKING DUMBASS KID COULD'VE TAKEN THEIR PLACE BUT NO!!! IT JUST HAD TO BE YOU, DIDN'T IT CLOVER!!!???

How miserable are you...?

Waiting for that fateful day where I could finally complete the game felt like preparing for a flu shot. I almost didn't want the game to end. I was so mad at the people saying "It was just a sacrifice", and shit.

...and as it turned out, they were kinda right. (still not giving them full credit) I didn't get the best screen shots cuz my computer crashed, but it was Clover going through all their memories in the underground, and realizing that they can't just hide away in the underground forever as a human. Monsters have been trapped for centuries and no matter how many of the monsters cared for them, they needed to do what was would've possibly happened from the start: give up their soul.

What I then got from the ending was that Clover felt to guilty to stay alive, and in the end, the wanted to do what's right. It's kinda getting sad again now that i think about it. Any who, this concludes my post. Enjoy the random screenshots at the bottom that I could fit into the post without it proving my point /hj. I'm currently debating whether or not I wanna go back and do the genocide route. Even though it's a fangame, I don't wanna fuck up the timeline.

[iamanartichoke]

I posted this as a comment on a Reddit thread earlier thread but decided to delete it and make a post bc it's tl;dr for a comment. Then it became tl;dr for a Reddit post, too, so I'm bringing it to my tumblr. Disclaimer that these are just my thoughts as a fan and an observer re: Watcher's shift to streaming.

So I've long thought that YouTube isn't the right platform for Watcher, bc their biggest problem is that they don't function the way that "modern" YouTube requires. Back in the day, it was easier to turn a profit on YouTube but these days, to be successful, you have to utilize the tools YouTube gives you to make money, which are channel memberships, livestreams, and sponsored ads. Watcher doesn't do any of those things which hurts them as those are huge opportunities for revenue that are just being ignored. Their video game series is perfect content to be held via livestream, for example; so are the debriefs. Even if they did a monthly livestream with Superchats and memberships, they'd rake in so much money. I don't know why they don't.

But on top of that, Watcher doesn't work with The Algorithm, which - I don't like The Algorithm, but it's a fact that content creators have to lean into it in order to build their audience. YouTubers who are successful now not only do the memberships et al. but they also upload consistently, usually once or twice a week. Videos come out pretty quickly after they're filmed, and they're usually centered around a specific thing. The variety of Watcher is a big draw bc it pulls in a lot of people who are there for different things, but it works against them too, bc they only post weekly when they're in an active season of a show, and so the audience that only tunes in for 8 weeks of Mystery Files, for example, may not visit the channel again for another year or six months whenever the next season comes out. It's hard to keep a consistent audience to provide the numbers needed when the content appeals to all kinds of people and their model of "seasons" that are shot in advance and go through a long post-production process works against them.

So I can see why they want to move away from YouTube. They don't want to be just another cookie-cutter channel, and I feel like they especially want to distance themselves from the oversaturated (and frankly cringe) YouTube ghost-hunting genre that's exploded recently (Ryan keeps throwing shade at probably Sam and Colby, plus while I enjoyed the last season of GF, I also found it uncomfortable to watch at times bc Shane's disdain for all of it was just hard to sit through, for me; it wasn't fun). But they don't seem to realize that, in creating their niche, they've really painted themselves into a corner where their content doesn't work anywhere but YouTube.

So instead of trying to launch a whole new streaming service, they need to be willing to change up their model to make it more adaptable to YouTube. A more flexible "upload model" - with memberships, livestreams, and ad sponsors - would give them the revenue they're looking for, but that would also require them to dial back the production value and lose some employees, and their unwillingness to do that is what's going to ultimately make them fail. And it's weird bc their audience doesn't even care about production value! GF would be a lot better if they changed up the format and didn't bring 10 people on location, so it's like - clearly they're the ones who want the better production value, not us. It's not for us but they want us to pay for it? Bruh???

I feel like it's really such a shame, and as much as I love Watcher, I don't want to pay for another streaming service and I'm so goddamn sick of paywalls on literally the entire internet that I just cannot. I'm tired of not being able to use a website or even browse without having to make an account, I'm tired of having to make an account and then only being able to use one or two features if I don't also pay, or getting slammed by ads that essentially make the website unusable bc there's ads all over it, I'm tired of websites that pop up with that godawful "you're using an adblocker, please disable to proceed to our website!" message. I'm tired of things being locked up and inaccessible and while I understand that people should be paid for their work, there are ways Watcher can make money and get paid that don't involve trying to hustle their audience to pay for a streaming service to access like 12 episodes of content a year. Just ugh.

[anyroads]

Pretty sure I've reblogged this post before with more detailed notes but the tl;dr is that that's a reasonable amount. The average dose of ibuprofen you're supposed to take is 400mg, ie. 2 pills. If you have a cold or the flu and need to keep your fever down for even just a few days, you've gone through a 16 pack of ibuprofen (at 2 pills/dose and say, 3 doses a day, though the max is 4, so this estimate is conservative) in 2.5 days, at which point you're still too sick to go to the pharmacy. That's if you're an individual; if you have a 4 person household, ie. 2 parents and 2 kids over the age of needing children's meds let's say, then that quadruples, which means a 16 pack of ibuprofen isn't even enough for a single day if your family all have the flu at the same time. It's barely enough for a day if only two people are sick enough to have a fever.

That doesn't even factor in how many people use ibuprofen for period cramps, so let's say your household has 2 people who need that monthly (2 pills 3x/day for say just the first 2 days, for two people = 12 pills/month - and again I'm being conservative because it can be as much as 16 - which adds up to 144 pills/year - or up to 192 - just for period cramps). The shelf life of ibuprofen lasts several years, so a bottle of 500 pills is completely reasonable for the average household to have. A bottle of 1000 pills is reasonable for the many families who have more than 2 kids.

My British in-laws who are doctors literally ask us to bring them back bottles of ibuprofen and antihistamines of this size whenever we visit the US, because even they agree that the UK (and most of Europe) doles out this kind of basic household medication in absurdly small packages. I'm also pretty sure I did some math the last time I reblogged this, that showed that there is a significant difference in cost per pill in the big bottles they sell in the US and the packages you get in the UK. Like, the degree to which we're overpaying for ibuprofen in packets of 16 pills was astounding.

And I know tumblr user nerves-nebula is just trying to be funny but the truth is that there's no such thing as a completely functional or completely useless healthcare system. Here in the UK we have socialized health care but good luck getting an appointment or even emergency care depending on where you live because the system has been ripped to shreds by the Tories. So on the basis of access to functional healthcare, the UK should have giant bottles of meds too. Meanwhile, access to healthcare in the US is a huge problem, but if you do have it then I guarantee you that the treatment and care you get is comparable to, if not better than, the bullshit we get here.

wait americans can just. buy massive bottles of ibuprofen what the fuck

[respectable-username]

🔐 Why You (Probably) Don't Need A VPN

A rant by a software engineer sick of VPN ads from her favourite YouTubers

TL;DR:

Here are some legitimate reasons the average internet user might want to use a VPN:

To connect to their company's internal network

To bypass the Great Firewall of China (or other types of website blocks at country or organisation level)

To watch Netflix etc as if you were in another country

Here are absolutely rubbish reasons to use a VPN:

Privacy

And today, I'll tell you why.

Hang on, won't a VPN stop hackers from stealing my passwords?

I mean, it does encrypt the web traffic coming from your device.

You know what else encrypts web traffic coming from your device? Your browser.

Yes, in the year 2021, pretty much all websites on the internet are accessed over HTTPS. The "S" stands for "secure", as in "your request will be securely encrypted". If your browser is using HTTPS, nobody can capture the data you're sending over the internet. More detail in the "I like too much detail" section at the bottom of this post.

It's very easy to check if you are using HTTPS by looking at your URL bar. In most browsers, it will have a lock on it if secure:

(From top left to bottom right: Chrome on iOS, Safari on iOS, Chrome on Windows, Edge on Windows, Firefox on Windows, and Safari on Mac. Screenshots reflect the UI at the time this post was written. Oh gosh this has taken over 4 hours to write.)

But isn't moar encryption better? What if somebody breaks HTTPS?

For starters, nobody's breaking your HTTPS, and there isn't any benefit from double encrypting. This is because of the maths behind encryption/decryption!

Encryption works kinda like a lock and key, except the lock is maths and the key is a special number only known to the person allowed to unlock the information.

The important thing is, without the key, all the locked data looks like complete and utter garbage. Completely unusable. Barely distinguishable from random noise. There's absolutely no way to tell what the original data was.

The other important thing is that the key is nearly unguessable. As in, with current technology, will generally take more than the lifetime of the universe to guess by chance. And when technology gets faster, we just make the numbers bigger again until they're once again secure.

For any major website you use, they will use a strong encryption algorithm (ie lock) with big numbers so your keys will be strong enough to withstand an attack. This means your data is safe as long as that lock icon is in your URL bar.

A VPN will not make the existing garble any more garbled. The extra $10/month or whatever you're paying for does not buy you any extra protection.

If you want to know more about how encryption and HTTPS in particular work, see the "I like too much detail" section at the end of this post.

Something something viruses

How's a VPN going to stop viruses? It controls the path your internet traffic takes, not the content that gets sent down that path. I guess it could block some known virus-giving hosts? But if it's known to the VPN provider, it's probably also known to the built-in antivirus on your computer who can block it for you.

(Oh yeah, 3rd party antivirus is another thing that's not worth paying for these days. Microsoft's built-in Windows Defender is as good as the third party options, and something something Macs don't get viruses easily because of how they're architected.)

Honestly though, keep your software up to date, don't click on anything suspicious, don't open files from sources you don't trust, and you'll be right most of the time.

And keep your software up to date. Then update your software. Hey, did I mention keeping your stuff updated? Update! Now! It only takes a few minutes. Please update to the latest version of your software I'm begging you. It's the number 1 way to protect yourself from viruses and other malware. Most major software attacks could have been prevented if people just updated their damn software!

But my ISP is spying on me!

Ok, it is true that there are TWO bits of data that HTTPS can't and won't hide. Those are:

The source of a request (your IP)

What website that request is going to (the website's IP)

These are the bits of information that routers use to know where to send your data, so of course they can't be hidden as the data is moving across the internet. And people can see that information very easily if they want to.

Note: this will show which website you're going to, but not which page you're looking at, and not the content of that page. So it will show that you were on Tumblr, but will not show anyone that you're still reading SuperWhoLock content in 2021.

It's this source/destination information that VPNs hide, which is why they can be used to bypass website blocks and region locks.

By using a VPN, those sniffing traffic on your side of the VPN will just show you connecting to the VPN, not the actual website you want. That means you can read AO3 at work/school without your boss/teachers knowing (unless they look over your shoulder of course).

As for those sniffing on the websites end, including the website itself, they will see the VPN as the source of the connection, not you. So if you're in the US and using a VPN node in the UK, Netflix will see you as being in the UK and show you their British library rather than the American one.

If this is what you're using a VPN for and you think the price is fair, then by all means keep doing it! This is 100% what VPNs are good for.

HOWEVER, and this is a big "however", if it's your ISP you're trying to hide your internet traffic from, then you will want to think twice before using a VPN.

Let me put it this way. Without a VPN, your ISP knows every website you connect to and when. With a VPN, do you know who has that exact same information? The VPN provider. Sure, many claim to not keep logs, but do you really trust the people asking for you to send them all your data for a fee to not just turn around and sell your data on for a profit, or worse?

In effect, you're trading one snooper for another. One snooper is heavily regulated, in many jurisdictions must obey net neutrality, and is already getting a big fee from you regardless of where you browse. The other isn't. Again, it's all a matter of who you trust more.

For me personally, I trust my ISP more than a random VPN provider, if for no other reason than my ISP is an old enough company with enough inertia and incompetence that I don't think they could organise to sell my data even if they wanted to. And with the amount of money I'm paying them per month, they've only got everything to lose if they broke consumer trust by on-selling that data. So yeah, I trust my ISP more with my privacy than the random VPN company.

But my VPN comes with a password manager!

Password managers are great. I 100% recommend you use a password manager. If there's one thing you could do right now to improve your security (other than updating your software, speaking of, have you updated yet?), it's getting and using a password manager.

Password managers also come for free.

I'm currently using LastPass free, but am planning to switch after they did a bad capitalism and only let their free accounts access either laptop or mobile but not both now. I personally am planning to move to Bitwarden on friends' recommendation since it's not only free but open source and available across devices. I also have friends who use passbolt and enjoy it, which is also free and open source, but it's also a bit DIY to set up. Great if you like tinkering though! And there are probably many other options out there if you do a bit of googling.

So, yeah, please use a password manager, but don't pay for it unless you actually have use for the extra features.

No I really need to hide my internet activity from everybody for reasons

In this case, you're probably looking for TOR. TOR is basically untraceable. It's also a terrible user experience for the most part because of this, so I'd only recommend it if you need it, such as if you're trying to escape the Great Firewall. But please don't use it for Bad Crimes. I am not to be held liable for any crime committed using information learned from this post.

Further reading viewing

If you want to know more about why you don't need a VPN, see Tom Scott's amazing video on the subject. It's honestly a great intro for beginners.

I like too much detail

Ahhh, so you're the type of person who doesn't get turned off by long explanations I see. Well, here's a little more info on the stuff I oversimplified in the main post about encryption. Uhh, words get bigger and more jargony in this section.

So first oversimplification: the assumption that all web traffic is either HTTP or HTTPS. This isn't exactly true. There are many other application layer internet standards out there, such as ssh, ftp, websockets, and all the proprietary standards certain companies use for stuff such as streaming and video conferencing. Some of these are secure, using TLS or some other security algorithm under the hood, and some of them aren't.

But most of the web requests you care about are HTTP/HTTPS calls. As for the rest, if they come from a company of a decent size that hasn't been hacked off the face of the planet already, they're probably also secure. In other words, you don't need to worry about it.

Next, we've already said that encryption works as a lock and a key, where the lock is a maths formula and the key is a number. But how do we get that key to lock and unlock the data?

Well, to answer that, we first need to talk about the two different types of encryption: symmetric and asymmetric. Symmetric encryption such as AES uses the same key to both encrypt and decrypt data, whereas asymmetric encryption such as RSA uses a different key to encode and decode.

For the sake of my writing, we're going to call the person encrypting Alice, the person decrypting Bob, and the eavesdropper trying to break our communications Eve from now on. These are standard names in crypto FYI. Also, crypto is short for cryptography not cryptocurrencies. Get your Bitcoin and Etherium outta here!

Sorry if things start getting incoherent. I'm tired. It's after 1am now.

So first, how do we get the key from symmetric crypto? This is probably the easier place to start. Well, you need a number, any number of sufficient size, that both Alice and Bob know. There are many ways you could share this number. They could decide it when they meet in person. They could send it to each other using carrier pigeons. Or they could radio it via morse code. But those aren't convenient, and somebody could intercept the number and use it to read all their messages.

So what we use instead is a super clever algorithm called Diffie-Hellman, which uses maths and, in particular, the fact it's really hard to factor large numbers (probably NP Hard to be specific, but there's no actual proof of that). The Wikipedia page for this is surprisingly easy to read, so I'll just direct you there to read all about it because I've been writing for too long. This algorithm allows Alice and Bob to agree on a secret number, despite Eve being able to read everything they send each other.

Now Alice and Bob have this secret number key, they can talk in private. Alice puts her message and the key into the encryption algorithm and out pops what looks like a load of garbage. She can then send this garbage to Bob without worrying about Eve being able to read it. Bob can then put the garbage and the key into the decryption algorithm to undo the scrambling and get the original message out telling him where the good donuts are. Voila, they're done!

But how does Alice know that she's sending her message to Bob and not Eve? Eve could pretend to be Bob so that Alice does the Diffie-Hellman dance with her instead and sends her the secret location of the good donuts instead.

This is where asymmetric crypto comes in! This is the one with private and public keys, and the one that uses prime numbers.

I'm not 100% across the maths on this one TBH, but it has something to do with group theory. Anyway, just like Diffie-Hellman, it relies on the fact that prime factorisation is hard, and so it does some magic with semi-primes, ie numbers with only 2 prime factors other than 1. Google it if you want to know more. I kinda zoned out of this bit in my security courses. Maths hard

But the effect of that maths is easier to explain: things that are encoded with one of the keys can only be decoded with the other key. This means that one of those keys can be well-known to the public and the other is known only to the person it belongs to.

If Alice wants to send a message to Bob and just Bob, no Eve allowed, she can first look up Bob's public key and encrypt a beginning message with that. Once Bob receives the message, he can decrypt it with his private key and read the contents. Eve can't read the contents though because, even though she has Bob's public key, she doesn't know his private key.

This public key information is what the lock in your browser is all about BTW. It's saying that the website is legit based on the public key they provide.

So why do we need symmetric crypto when we have asymmetric crypto? Seems a lot less hassle to exchange keys with asymmetric crypto.

Well, it's because asymmetric crypto is slooooow. So, in TLS, the security algorithm that puts the "S" in "HTTPS", asymmetric RSA is used to establish the initial connection and figure out what symmetric key to use, and then the rest of the session uses AES symmetric encryption using the agreed secret key.

And there you have it! Crypto in slightly-less-short-but-still-high-enough-level-that-I-hope-you-understand.

Just realised how long this section is. Well, I did call it "too much detail" for a reason.

Now, next question is what exactly is and isn't encrypted using HTTPS.

Well, as I said earlier, it's basically just the source IP:port and the destination IP:port. In fact, this information is actually communicated on the logical layer below the application layer HTTPS is on, known as the transport layer. Again, as I said before, you can't really encrypt this unless you don't want your data to reach the place you want at all.

Also, DNS is unencrypted. A DNS request is a request that turns a domain name, such as tumblr.com, into an IP address, by asking a special server called a Domain Name Server where to find the website you're looking for. A DNS request is made before an HTTP(S) request. Anyone who can read your internet traffic can therefore tell you wanted to go to Tumblr.

But importantly, this only shows the domain name, not the full URL. The rest of the URL, the part after the third slash (the first two slashes being part of http://), is stuff that's interpreted by the server itself and so isn't needed during transport. Therefore, it encrypted and completely unreadable, just like all the content on your page.

I was going to show a Wireshark scan of a web request using HTTP and HTTPS to show you the difference, but this has taken long enough to write as it is, so sorry!

I could probably write more, but it's 1:30am and I'm sleepy. I hope you found some of this interesting and think twice before purchasing a VPN subscription. Again, there are legit good uses for a VPN, but they're not the ones primarily being advertised in VPN ads. It's the fact that VPN ads rely so heavily on false advertising that really grinds my gears and made me want to do this rant. It's especially bad when it comes from somebody I'd think of as technologically competent (naming no names here, but if you've worked in tech and still promote VPNs as a way to keep data safe... no). Feel free to ask questions if you want and hopefully I'll get around to answering any that I feel I know enough to answer.

Nighty night Tumblr. Please update your software. And use a (free) password manager. And enable two factor authentication on all your accounts. But mostly just update your software.

[thefloofartist]

So I was curious as to your opinions on Lilith Fairen aka Team HLRT?

TL;DR: Fairen is not a good person. Block on sight, do NOT engage. I'll be honest, I don't know much about Fairen herself outside of how I've seen her treat other people and myself. From my own experience and the posts she's made, Fairen loves getting attention and does so by any means necessary. This usually means levying the worst type of internet accusations at other people she doesn't like, because on the internet, inflammatory language and causing problems will garner attention and views. The only reason I know Fairen existed to begin with was because when Celtic's Fixing RWBY Volume 5 was airing, she made several posts about it. Every one of them was a lie designed to get RWBY fans riled up and shit on the project. I was initially going to write the details for each of Fairen's lies on this post, but many of them involve other people and artists I respect, so I don't want to speak on their behalf. I will say however that Fairen's posts can be easily debunked just by watching the episodes. Fairen is not a source of trustworthy information. This is a reminder for people not to trust everything you read on the internet. Look up other sources, or better yet, look for the direct source before retweeting or reblogging a post that could contain false or harmful information. If you have questions, just ask the source or people who are informed about it instead of people with no relation to the source who gain attention from spreading misinformation. When skimming posts about or by Fairen, much of what I've seen Fairen do is call someone or something racist, sexist, misogynistic, and homophobic with little to no evidence for it. In the event she has "evidence", it's usually so misconstrued and warped by her response to make her argument that context is completely lost. More often than not, her source for her arguments are practically something she made up herself to have an artificial argument over. Fairen will also mock anyone who responds in kind to her inflammatory posts, taking their comments which she then finds a way to weaponize against them even more. From my viewpoint, Fairen doesn't appear to know how to speak normally with other people outside of insulting them. Much like CanonSeeker, Fairen also employs the use of sockpuppet accounts to bypass bans and blocks. She's been blacklisted from just about every Magical Girl fandom spaces and banned from Sufficient Velocity for where she, again, just accused people she didn't like of being horrible sexist bigots before the mods over there had enough and nuked her account. If you block her, she will stalk you across social media platforms, almost but not quite to the same degree as CanonSeeker. Fairen's already demonstrated this behavior with myself and the few posts/comments I barely make on r/RWBYcritics, even one instance of Fairen responding to my comments on Reddit on her Tumblr in realtime in the moment of me making them on Reddit. My thoughts on Team HLRT? It's nothing more than Fairen's harassment blog. Fairen is so proud about her behavior that she documented it for her audience... at least before it got nuked. The way the blog was run was reminiscent of a high school clique. The entire blog was nothing more than unacceptable behavior. There's no reason for her to treat or talk to people the way she does.

What I find most depressing about this whole thing is that Fairen doesn't appear to ever truly talk about why she likes these shows she's so keen on defending and being insanely aggressive about. From my viewpoint, she's only interested in using these pieces of media as a crutch to justify bullying people. There's nothing productive about wallowing in negativity all the time, and believe me, it took myself a long time to get out of that hole I dug myself in. It's a lesson that takes time to learn. I'll be direct: Fairen needs to get a grip and learn that this behavior is unhealthy, horrible, and much like CanonSeeker, I would recommend that Fairen take a lengthy 2 month break from social media. She should try finding something like a hobby that she truly enjoys doing, especially if it's away from any kind of digital screen. I can't stress how important it is for people to take a break from social media because of how it can impact people and their behavior. I do know that Fairen has been pulling this behavior for over half a decade now, so I don't believe she'll change, but we'll see.

[etheriadearie]

Shadow Weaver’s Death, Her True Abusiveness, And Her Final, Beautiful, Gift To Catra

::The resistance fighters stand in the failsafe chamber. Catra has just called Shadow Weaver out on her manipulation. Shadow Weaver reluctantly explains the danger of the failsafe, and then implores Adora to take it: even if she fails, Shadow Weaver says, she will save her friends, and the universe. As literally every other person in that room cries out against Adora taking the risk, Adora turns and says she will do it. Catra, dismayed, runs to her telling her that Shadow Weaver is sacrificing her, and demands to know why she's letting her do that. Adora tells Catra "Because even if she is, it's better than Prime getting the Heart and destroying the universe." Catra trembles in deathly fear, her face consumed in terrible realization: if Adora does as SW wishes, she will die. Shadow Weaver is trying to kill Adora. She knows this to her very soul, because... she is Shadow Weaver... And Adora is letting it happen…

Hi there, my name is Joel, and in this segment I'll be looking at Shadow Weaver's death, her being a child abuser, her terrible manipulations of Catra and Adora and the monstrous pains the two girls have to conquer to save themselves from her.

The main premise I'll be trying to explain here is that, like Horde Prime, Shadow Weaver is a villain of utmost seriousness. And, like Horde Prime, the girls will treat her as one, surpassing and defeating her once and for all. But it won't be with violence, but instead with love, creating a beautiful story of two people transcending their trauma and hurt through coming together over their love for one another.

I feel obliged to warn readers: this post will cover child abuse, even predatation (*not sexual, ie). It may be hard to read. Also warning: tl;dr, please consider at least sitting down to read this!

Finally, I know there are Shadow Weaver fans out there; that's good. Shadow Weaver is, at times, cool af. But, definitively a terrible person within the plot of the show.

So, even if you're a fan of Shadow Weaver, I still encourage you to read along because as we reveal her truth and the damage she deals to Catra and Adora, it makes her final moment so, so much more beautiful… and it gives entirely new meaning to her final... two… words….

Disclaimer time: Taking on Shadow Weavers death is ambitious for a first post, I know. But understanding her is crucial to understanding most of the major moments in this show. Still, I should say here that while this may seem a bit ‘head’ canon-y, I assure you my conclusions come from watching the show carefully and referencing the entirety of the rest of the show back to this one moment. I'm instead positing these as theories, and let's just say I feel I have the data, and Data Never Lies! Please *do* ask questions or seek calcifications in the comments or Ask me anything (I'm new to Tumblr).

----Part 1: Catra, Micah, and the Truth----

To start this journey we will travel backwards in the series to investigate the what and why of the terrible child abuse Catra suffered growing up under Shadow Weaver's care. We will be looking chiefly at the Light Spinner episode in the 2nd season. We will cover Catra's confrontation and SW's -supposed- explanation for her abuse, then the tale of Micah and Shadow Weaver's manipulation of him, and then the terrible truth of why Catra -really- was abused.

>A terribly alone Catra asks her abusive mother why she did it. Why did she treat her so badly ?

Shadow Weaver answers: "Because you remind me of myself. You always have. Nothing was ever easy for me either. I wasn't born to power like Adora and... others. I had to earn my power, fight for it. Why should it be any different for you?"

This is a very typical reason for an abuser to feel they are acting out their abuse on others: no one in this world understands my pain, so therefore I will inflict my pain upon a child so that they will know my pain as well. For many people this is essentially the truth of their abusers. I can't see any other reason for MY abusers to do what they did, other than this. It is, however, not the truth about Catra. We will discuss this in detail later.

We then watch as Catra does a very strong and eloquent job of rejecting and condemning it. She shows great emotional pain as she does so, and we know that her trauma is severe from watching her. Catra exclaims, her face full of emotional hurt and pain at Shadow Weaver's betrayal: "I was a child when you took me in. What could I have possibly done to deserve the way you treated me? I am nothing like you. You are old, and bitter, and weak."

Everything she says is perfectly true. As a child, there is no way she could have deserved the abuse Shadow Weaver inflicted on her. There never is. And she's also right when she says she's not anything like Shadow Weaver. Where Shadow Weaver is an unfeeling monster (as we will see), Catra feels deeply. Catra is inherently good, and while she will make terrible mistakes to come, she feels intense remorse. Shadow Weaver simply does not.

So, Shadow Weaver gives Catra a believable reason for the abuse, which, again, is a lie. But... there is meaning which we need to take from her choice of words: Shadow Weaver feels others, like Adora and Micah, are given an unfair advantage over people like herself. We will come back to this important insight soon...

Before we get to the real, harsh truth of why Catra was abused, we need to understand the tale of Micah and ‘Light Spinner’-‘s manipulation of him to get power.

>The story of Micah seems to be full of whimsy and childlike innocence. A young boy is talented beyond his years, a true prodigy. SW trains him, giving him access to teachings beyond what a sorcerer of his age should have. She tells him he's special, a true talent, like her. When she tells him "the guild needs talents like OURS more than ever before" she manipulates him, making him feel apart, better than all the other students and teachers, and that only SW can understand. It's SW's greatest talent: dividing people against each other, and this is part of her lifelong manipulation of Catra and Adora. Note: Castaspella accuses SW of mind controlling Micah (s5e8) to which SW responds "My gifts were always far subtler than that” - SW controls young Micah through mind games.

>SW hints of something of great importance, but then says "you're not ready". Micah demands to know, he's a special boy after all, right? He's so incredibly naive and innocent, doing things like chewing on magic crystals and acting out in class. He is, in fact, exactly the kind of privileged child who SW so greatly hates. This is where we get real meaning out of SW's supposed explanation for abusing Catra: Micah has inborn power that SW feels he is unworthy of possessing...

She preys upon his naiveness, showing him the Horde army. He, of course, demands they be stopped, and he's playing right into her hands. When she tells him the plan and of the upcoming meeting she tells him "I only hope that Norwyn and his followers can see the threat as clearly as YOU do." Again, she is making him feel apart, as though he's better than others. After all, he's a special little prodigy, right ?

SW gives her presentation at the council, trying to prey upon their fear by saying that the Horde have a rune stone. As she speaks of the spell of obtainment, her eyes are full of lust at the idea of so much power. But it is forbidden, and for good reason. As she looks over her shoulder at Norwyn her look is severe, accusing. She has no respect for him. And he's right to say that the problem will be handled: the war, in fact, does become a stalemate and stays that way all the way up until we are first introduced to Catra and Adora. Angrily, greedily, she demands they get power so they can 'have a planet to protect'.

She fails to convince them, but of course Micah sees her leaving the meeting, angry and frustrated, so he comes to her aide. "They never listen to me. After all I've done I still haven't earned their trust". Again, SW is set apart from them. When she says "they just want to hold the rest of us back" she's including Micah, making him feel separate, better, like her. She's indoctrinating him in her plan.

>We get a scene between Catra and SW here, where Catra tries to get SW to give her a reason to save her. All SW wants to know is when she's being sent to Beast Island: she realizes she has to escape that night. She sets out to manipulate Catra into giving her the reagent she needs to escape. SW talks up how weak and powerless she is, preying on Catra's lingering pity, desire for connection. A emotionally desperate Catra unfortunately gives it to her. Catra tells her "you don't get to ask things of me anymore" but she's desperate and depressed, feeling totally alone after so recently seeing Adora and consequently nearly dying the episode before, only to be saved by Scorpia's caring about her.

>And apprehensive Micah asks SW if she's sure this is a good idea. She tells him "WE need this power, it's the only way to protect our people". It's a lie, but Micah thinks he's special because he's SW's apprentice, and so he agrees to do it.

As the spell begins to work, we see a terrifying eldritch horror type of creature summoned. It soon breaks free even as Micah helps SW try to contain it. SW acts surprised to see it, but she always knew this spell. Micah runs, and SW stays, yelling angrily at Micah for leaving. She experiences fear as it consumes her, but she knows it's part of getting her power. This is the price she pays to become powerful. She tells Micah he betrayed her by abandoning her and yet, what other possible outcome was there but for them BOTH to be destroyed or corrupted? Norwyn tries to stand up to her, telling her "bringing you into our ranks was a grave mistake". She counters calling him a fool. "You're all weak. None of you deserve my help".

I often see people say this show doesn't show death, but what happens next is undeniably so: it is murder. She annihilates two sorcerer's in one hit, consumes the head sorcerer to give her more magical power. It is pure evil. As she realizes her new power she exclaims "The spell worked. I am stronger than ALL of you." She menaces Micah.

This. Was. Always. The. Plan. The spell worked, she says so herself. Micah tries to defend himself weakly against her, he's entirely at her mercy. He expects death, but instead she caresses his cheek, touches his ear. Then she gives him a look of disdain. It's no mistake she covers half her face even at this point in her history, so we can't know her full emotions. But it's clear, she condescends to him: he was a naive little pawn, not meant to survive, or at minimum, he was supposed to become corrupted like her. But it doesn't matter. She got what she wanted. So she leaves him to live knowing what he's done. The tale of ‘Light Spinner’ has ended: her better persona was just an illusion, useful in her goal of obtaining more power. An empowered Shadow Weaver then shows up at the Fright Zone, killing the guard as a demonstration of power. She declares herself for Hordak, and at least a partial truth is apparent: she wanted the vampiric power so she could channel the Black Garnet. Changing sides bothers SW not at all.

I point out SW’s violence because it is the only time they show any graphic death in this show, and it's therefore meant to show that SW is different, and dangerous. There really was no ‘Light Spinner’, as at multiple moments during her time at Mystacor her true emotions show through (such as pic1, top) and they are both vile and malicious, to put it lightly. Furthermore, note that SW going to the Horde doesn't end up ensuring their victory over the princesses, so yes, in fact, SW was lying to Micah all along. Last, keep in mind Micah’s opinion of her later on: SW is never to be trusted.

Now it's time to get back to the real reason Catra was abused and it's important implications for Adora's abuse as well.

>The scene following Catra's confrontation with SW, we see baby Adora having just arrived in the Fright Zone. SW walks past her, not particularly interested... and yet she sees something in her. And so she takes interest. She knows, in some way, that Adora will wield powerful magic, and since it also becomes clear to us that SW knows all about the past history of She-ra and the Heart of Etheria, it's a logical jump to say she probably thinks Adora is She-ra. Either way, Adora is a powerful orphan child with inborn talent beyond any normal expectation.

Sound familiar? The tale of Micah is there to inform this moment: SW meeting baby Adora. She is in a position to wield ultimate control over a magically privileged child. And the implications are not good...

Apologies to readers here, this next part is intense. Just a quick warning. The total implication of this is that SW never loved Adora, just like she didn't care about Micah. It is all manipulation, and it should be noted that at this point SW has switched to a full mask, conveniently hiding all emotion except a sliver of her eyes (as well as hiding her corrupted features). It's now almost entirely impossible to accurately read her emotions. I don't think she wants you to, as she really has no feelings of actual compassion. She only sees Adora as a privileged child she will use and then discard for her own power.

This means she is, in fact, a child predator. In this case, she's a predator of children of privilege, but the effect is the same: she sees such children as easy targets for her to manipulate for her own gain. Worse, the strong emotional feelings which Adora naturally feels towards those around her makes her easier to control, and SW manipulates this vulnerability against her, as a child and then again as they are headed for the failsafe.

So, returning to the real truth of why SW abused Catra. Let's take a look back at Catra’s condemnation of SW's explanation for her abuse, and it's just one line we need to understand: "I was a child, what could I have possibly done to deserve the way you treated me?" As it turns out, Catra -did- do something, and you have to adore and appreciate this show because we don't get this answer until the very end. Before season 5 was available, it would simply be impossible to understand Catra's story fully. The creators want you to come full circle of so many understandings, the story is that deep.

It's that one, beautiful, follow on line when Catra confesses her love to Adora- She says "I always have"...

Adora was Shadow Weaver's tool, her next prey. So, along comes Catra, who experiences romantic love for Adora right from the start. Beautiful, total love and devotion. SW sees this, and she decides that she can't let Catra be a hindrance to her plans. And yet she knows she can't kill Catra outright or risk losing Adora's affection. So she hurts Catra, tries to make her weak, to diminish her. She is trying to crush Catra's spirit, her will to live, all while making sure to instill a sense of duty and ambition in Adora which makes her less available to Catra. The abuse works, but not on Catra. Catra stays loyal to Adora, and is so secretly strong within herself in such a way that SW fails to destroy her spirit, although Catra has such incredible trauma from it that we see her struggle with it throughout the rest of the series.

But the abuse does work on Adora and so she grows apart from Catra in such a way that Catra eventually comes to feel Adora doesn't love her. And when Adora so clearly breaks the final half of the promise she made to Catra, Catra too, grows apart from Adora.

Catra therefore represents a person in this story who would have been so entirely below SW's notice that had she not loved Adora the way she did, SW would never have taken the time to hurt her. It wouldn't have been worth her time, and Catra would have had a happy(ish) childhood if not for loving Adora. By the way, this truth of SW's abuse of Catra is indeed confirmed in the show, but we don't have time to cover it here and it deserves its own theory post, anyways.

Before we get back to s5 let's take a brief moment to address SW's abuse of Adora: Adora is the kind of person who can't help but empathetically feel the pain of others when they feel it, and it's what makes her to be so unable to balance her own needs against those of others who are hurting. And so SW making Adora have ambition, to want to win at the expense of others, is actually a frightening manipulation. SW teaches Adora to believe she has to do this in order to be the leader, and then as the leader she must protect everyone else from harm. Adora goes on to show great emotional confusion over this, as she doesn't really feel she’s qualified to be that leader. It makes her feel alone from everyone else, and makes Adora worry about every decision she makes. SW essentially saddles Adora with a lonely burden of leadership, one which she's not well suited for. Adora has a very ADHDish (I’m no expert on ADHD) response to this where she bounces around trying to satisfy everyone else’s feelings, such as within their unit, and so her relationship with Catra suffered because of this.

To sum up, the abuses SW inflicts on the two of them results in their division from each other, and it's a division which tries to tear down both girls spiritually throughout this series. They each have specific traumas relating to Shadow Weaver's abuse of them. These are different, damaging fears SW instilled in each of them to make them easier to control. Because of this, both girls contribute to their separation to the two different sides of the war, and it's only through the great emotional learning of each of them that they are able to start putting it back again in season 5. And so, we will see that when SW returns in season 5, she immediately tries to pick up where she left off… to drive them apart from each other and manipulate them, once again, for her own gain.

Side note #2 before we get back to season 5: SW has a complete and total lack of love for Catra as well. Her callous manipulation of Catra, followed by leaving the fright zone like she did, was a spiritual blow and then a death sentence for Catra. SW would know this and yet she simply did not care. Furthermore, when they meet in Moment of Truth (s3ep4), SW again tries to kill Catra, only stopping short because Glimmer can't withstand the magical drain SW is taking from her. She's just not good people... And if she has such a total lack of love or compassion for Catra, it's a logical jump that she has just as little love and feeling for Adora.

Anyways... let's work on that season 5, phew, I know this is long. We're not done yet, though...

----Part 2: The present up till SW’s Death----

Alright, so returning back to season 5 where we began...

Catra is certain that SW is killing Adora. And the reason Catra is so certain of this is because she understands this fundamental truth behind the childhood abuse of of her and Adora. She knows that SW intended to use Adora, and was grooming her in order to use her to gain more power. And, she knows the true nature of SW’s abuse of Catra herself, that it was meant to destroy her so she wouldn't get in the way of SW using Adora.

How exactly Catra knows this I won't cover here, it would take too long and it deserves its own theory post. But, it is pretty well confirmed in the show as well. No distractions! Moving on...

So… when Adora tells Catra she will take the failsafe even though SW is killing her, it's Catra’s knowledge that SW is for certain doing this to Adora which leads Catra to shake in fear, and then refuse Adora once she returns with the failsafe. This moment goes much deeper than just Catra knowing she can't live without Adora, although that is also true.

Ok so here it is, the big theme we will now delve into, that explains so much:

The all important, crucial thing that Catra isn't seeing is that in order for SW to sacrifice Adora, it is entirely dependent on abusive manipulations is SW doing to both of them, starting from the moment they first see SW in season 5, which are intended to make sure Adora doesn't survive deploying the failsafe.

I know it's a tough implication to accept, but I promise to explain. So why? Why would SW not want Adora to survive? This, atleast, should be obvious: She-ra could stop SW once she has the power, so She-ra is an enemy that SW needs to eliminate to achieve ultimate power. So, SW's goal is to get Adora to bring the failsafe to the heart, but then be too weak to survive the process... leaving SW the uncontested champion by her magical vampiric powers. And so... SW manipulates the two girls, doing her most familiar trick: driving them apart, making them feel isolated from each other.

Her manipulations begin from the very moment Catra and Adora see her in season 5, and they continue up until Adora accepts the failsafe and a bit beyond.

So let's lay this out from the beginning, shall we? Episode 10: When SW walks into the room, saying she knows where the failsafe is, Catra is at first surprised at her appearance, she's thrown off guard. Catra very much wanted to stop SW once and for all, but never got the chance. And now, the new, more feeling Catra is faced with her oldest enemy: she can't hide her hatred and anger at her. It pretty much takes everything she's got not to violently attack her right there and then. But this new Catra isn't going to sink to that low. And yet... SW will intentionally aggravate and attack Catra to reactivate her trauma.

What I find very interesting about that scene, though, is that both Glimmer and Adora immediately look to Catra, knowing she will be upset, both trying to help her. And yet, it's Glimmer who looks first.

Even though Glimmer never says it out loud, Glimmer knows SW played and manipulated Glimmer herself, and that her manipulations were ultimately the reason that Glimmer made the mistake of activating the Heart, which brought Horde Prime's fleet down upon Etheria. Glimmer also watched SW torture and almost kill Catra in s3ep4, so I think Glimmer knows very well how dangerous SW is and how badly she's hurt Catra in the past. Instead, we can take the story of Glimmer and SW as another stand out example of how, once again, we saw SW manipulate someone, Glimmer in this case, with no concern for her well being.

>Adora is also thrown off by SW's reappearance, she doesn't enjoy seeing her either. But then, she also sympathetically looks to Catra, knowing this is a hurtful moment for her. All of this is to say that Catra actually has strong allies against SW, unlike in the past. And it's very important that Adora is such a staunch ally to Catra against SW, in fact it's everything. But, Adora doesn't quite do a good enough job in showing Catra how strongly aligned she, too, is against SW. Unintentional though it may be, as we will see.

>Episode 11: Continuing on, Glimmer immediately opposes SW's desire to use the heart's power. Castaspella tries to say SW is the lesser of evils, but of course, Castaspella is just a pawn. Catra jumps on Casta's words, calling SW evil... SW taunts her back mockingly and we see Catra's anger start to get out of control. But, Adora knows, one way or another, that SW is the root of all of Catra's pain, and so she comforts her, showing her that she sees her pain, and that she's got her back.

Again, it's very important that Adora is Catra's greatest ally against SW, as she has learned to treat SW as a de facto enemy because she has seen the pain and torment Catra experienced because of SW’s abuse; in addition to her own knowledge of how SW manipulated herself as a child.

>Adora confronts SW, asking why she even needs their help getting the failsafe. SW answer is a lie, but plays to her manipulation of Casta, who she needs: she says she can't get past Micah. (Note: who she actually needs is Adora.) As SW tells her plan she leans into Adora's emotional fears of letting others get hurt and reminds Adora she has to be the hero, SW even touches Adora, which we see Catra react angrily to. But, SW successfully manipulates Adora into accepting her plan, and Catra can't stand to watch it as she knows it must somehow be a dangerous manipulation. Catra quietly leaves to try to process her anger. We then see Adora slap SW's hand away, showing defiance, but as Catra has left, she probably doesn't see that. Adora looks around and sees that Catra is gone, which SW responds to by trying to manipulate her into leaving Catra behind, as she knows Adora is more vulnerable without Catra around. But Adora is wary of SW's manipulations, and goes after Catra. SW is aggravated by this.

>The two girls have a very good, emotional talk about SW. Catra is dismayed, but Adora is always brave for others, so she tells her she's got to try. Adora acknowledges Catra's pain, their pain, from SW's abuse. Ultimately Adora convinces Catra to come. Together, Adora says SW can't hurt them anymore. Catra reminds Adora how dangerous SW is, but the girls have reaffirmed their bond, their promises to each other. Which is important later, as this will come up again.

>As they infiltrate Mystacore, Catra is apprehensive and stays at the back. But as the mission progresses she drifts towards the front, trying to be the lookout so she can protect Adora. This, unfortunately, puts her in physical proximity to SW when they check the ritual chamber. Catra checks the chamber, but then a sorcerer appears out of nowhere (literally, how??) and SW grabs her in a way that's very reminiscent of s1ep2, traumatizing her.

I can't help but conclude SW is being intentionally hurtful in order to unnerve Catra. She could have just pointed, or put her hand to Catra's mouth, after all. Catra throws herself away from SW, demanding she not touch her, and makes the mistake of dropping the spell and revealing their presence. Look closely at this scene and you see Adora actually shows great anger, even violent intent towards SW for doing this to Catra, but it's so quick Catra probably doesn't see it, as she's staring down SW instead.

Under a track, Adora tries to become She-ra, but she's too emotionally conflicted since the episode before when they returned to the Fright Zone and Adora started to realize she's been letting Catra down, leaving her hanging. And SW's hurting of Catra also blocks Adora, she's trying to help Catra and yet she's accepting SW's guidance again, which she knows Catra hates and doesn't trust.

>As they pass through the door and continue down a corridor, Adora sees Catra is in emotional pain and holding herself, so she lends her emotional support. She knows SW touching her was incredibly abusive. She tells Catra that it'll be ok, and to trust her, hitting her with her dearest look of love and care for her. She knows SW is Catra's enemy, and she's got her back. Catra looks back, trying to trust her, to put her fear aside. But the moment is cut short when SW interrupts them, guilting Catra for revealing their presence. Adora walks on, saying they have to keep moving, and her face says she's doing it to stop SW from talking to Catra, but again, Catra doesn't see Adora's face. Catra feels left behind, that the moment was cut short. It's by the barest off margins Catra is missing how strongly Adora is coming down against SW for her sake.

> We get more information about SW's corruption next, that it's a way to bypass the crystal of Arxia and get at Heart of Etheria's energy, and we know this because it's discussed immediately after Castaspella tells them about the crystal of Arxia. So, if the magic is released, SW will have practically unlimited power. SW just mocks Casta when she tries to guilt SW over using the spell, she gives no apology. We see both Catra and Glimmer seemingly have a deeper realization about SW and her powers and that both of them look disturbed by it.

>Continuing on, we get the scene where Catra saves Adora from fire, which is so cute but I'll skip the romantic implications: as Catra walks through the fire, Adora stops and frets over not knowing what to do about Catra, how to give her what she wants. Adora is worried she's going to fail, that she could die. It's Adora's biggest, lifelong fear as the bearer of She-ra, and she struggles with it continuously throughout the series. To her, it therefore doesn't make sense to her to get Catra's hopes up too soon.

>Adora's thoughts naturally turn to her inability to transform... and SW pounces on the opportunity in order to exploit it.

Consider now, if Adora's problem is becoming She-ra, why does SW immediately give her a hard time about Catra, instead? Adora rejects SW's criticism, but SW flips the conversation telling Adora she can't be a weak She-ra and seemingly blaming it all on Catra. She tells Adora that her weakness means she's letting everyone else down. SW tells her she has to focus, and Catra makes her weak. This is terribly the opposite of the truth and SW knows this. What she’s really doing is a deep manipulation of Adora that leans on her early abuse of her: Adora has to be perfect for everyone else, and as she's the only one who can do it, she's totally alone in this burden. The truth is that Adora has always needed other people, that's where she draws strength from. Catra loves Adora simply for who she is: she represents the strongest, smartest and most dedicated person, ie, she's the most powerful person to help Adora with her emotional need for support.

Which SW knows, so she does her best to try to separate them, to make Adora think she's alone. SW does this by grouping Catra with everyone else: save everyone, or no one. Then she delivers a direct assault of Adora spiritually by saying "the world needs She-ra right now, not Adora". She's telling Adora that she doesn't matter, only She-ra matters, and she needs to be willing to give it all up to be that hero. We see Adora search SW's face, she's not satisfied and then she does her best to reject her, pulling her hand away in anger while saying she will stop Prime “no matter what.” Catra is eavesdropping on this, but can't see that Adora stands up to SW so strongly... as usual. Catra knows SW is up to no good with it, though. Doubt takes root in Adora, and it aggravates her fears that she's not good enough to be She-ra.

>Arriving at the failsafe chamber, SW gives away just how much she already knows about the Heart. SW explains the failsafe, and so we know she always planned on getting Adora to accept the failsafe, risking it all. Adora approaches, trying to be brave for everyone else.

One of Catra's most important moments follows: she stops Adora from accepting the failsafe, and calls SW out for her bullshit. She's not going to let Adora walk into a trap when she knows better. Catra flips it on SW, telling her to take the failsafe, making SW tell them why it's dangerous, why SW won't do it herself. She points out how SW knows too much, yet didn't pursue the power of the failsafe. Catra is totally certain that SW wants to hurt Adora, and so she's calling her out to get SW to reveal her manipulation of Adora.

SW instead tries to guilt Adora, saying she alone understands that this is the only way to stop Prime. But Catra stands firm, she protects Adora from SW's manipulation as best she can.

Confronted and trapped by Catra's having seen through her plan, we see literally every person in the room ally themselves against SW. SW is forced to admit the truth: using the failsafe will mean death even for She-ra, if she isn't strong enough.

And so Adora realizes what's coming, that She-ra is the only one who can do it. She's terrified and sad at the thought that this could, will, be her end; that she really will have to give it all up for everyone else. She's always thought she'd have to. It's a deep held belief that she's alone in her burden as She-ra.

Adora asks the obvious question: What happens if I die? SW's next words prey upon Adora's every weakness, her lack of belief in her self worth, and innate need to protect others: "Then the magic will be restored to Etheria, through your sacrifice. You will give us the power to bring us to victory. Prime will be defeated. Your friends will be free." SW is listing out every last thing that will happen if Adora doesn't do it, and each is a part of her greatest fears. Adora is unable to resolve between her distrust of SW and need to protect and be brave for everyone else's sake. SW has her trapped by her own emotions.

Catra looks on, watching the manipulation, seeing the consequences of Adora attempting this. Everything about this moment speaks to manipulations SW has used on Adora before: she preys on emotional need and weakness, she isolates Adora in her burden, she even does the dreaded ear touch. If Adora does what SW says, Catra knows it'll be the death of her.

As SW completes her manipulation, everyone in the room cries out against the unfair decision Adora must make. And yet, Adora doesn't see a choice. Catra puts it best, saying: "you don't care about Adora, Adora can't even care about herself!"

But Bow's words also have meaning: "Theres no way we're risking Adora like that." For all that Bow and Glimmer have done for Adora, she's still supposed to be the champion that's going to save them. They need things from her, not simply Adora as herself. All in all, Bow and Glimmer did their absolute and kindest best to help Adora, often emotionally supporting her through her depressions and fears of not being a good She-ra. But in the end, they still needed her to be She-ra.

But Catra is different, all she wants is Adora, and for her to be safe and loved, and ideally, to be with her. Catra's opinion in this moment is the true one, the most honest. But Adora can't overcome the thought of failing everyone, and so she pushes forward, saying she will take the failsafe.

Adora is feeling alone, trapped by fate. Catra runs to her, literally shaking her in order to try to convey how sure she is that Adora is going to die if she does this. But Adora can't let the universe die, and she's She-ra. She (Adora) doesn't matter. It's only what she can do to try to fix things for others that matters, her hero's burden. Adora pushes Catra's hands off her, in a lifetime of pain and sorrow Catra has never looked so sad. Adora really is pushing her away, not seeing how seriously Catra feels, how badly she needs Adora to understand her in this moment. A dissociated Adora looks internally, accepting her fate, alone again, isolated.

Maybe Catra could have found a way to get through to Adora, but they run out of time. A chipped Micah shows up and begins to systematically defeat them, and Adora has no more time to choose. SW is easily taken down by Micah, it shows his anger at her. He taunts her, she's got nowhere to hide. This is interesting, but not our focus..

Adora again tries to summon She-ra and fails. She simply can't resolve between her sense of failure to Catra and her need to be brave for everyone else. She looks to Catra, decides to do the brave thing as herself, not as She-ra, even if it means she will fail, and hurt Catra. After all, since she’s She-ra, she has to try, right? This is her burden.

As SW turns to Adora and says "the failsafe... we... we can't" Adora is pressed by urgency, doing what she can. Catra tries one last desperate plea: "Please. It doesn't always have to be you!" Adora can't accept this, internally she is certain she has to save everyone. Even if this includes SW herself, and so when Catra later says Adora chose SW, not her in this moment, Catra is right, except that Adora believed she had no choice. Adora is also the only one in this moment who can reach the failsafe, and so it seems like fate is against her. Adora knows she's probably choosing to die, and if she does, she knows Catra will probably die of a broken heart as well. She really does choose SW over Catra, in a way. It's a tough moment, but taking the failsafe is the right thing to do, given the circumstances.

Receiving the failsafe is intense, and as Adora tries to withstand it, Micah binds the entire party with dark magic. Interestingly, this means SW indoctrinated Micah more than we're shown, and now that he's chipped, he is uninhibited.

Adora sees everyone is in danger, if she doesn't come through now it's all over. It gives her that singular focus she needs, summoning She-ra is easy because if she doesn't, Catra, all of them, are about to die.

Failsafe achieved, Micah vanquished, Adora offers Catra her hand, she's trying to show Catra she's there for her, they are together. But Catra rejects her, she's too sure that SW has won, that Adora will die. In this moment all the old trauma Catra carries is too strong, and SW has unnerved her too greatly. As Catra runs from her, Adora realizes that Catra was trying to tell her something deeper, but somehow she's missed it.

>Catra watches Adora sleep, she's emotionally distraught at the thought of her dying. So, she tries to sneak away. Adora finds out, and manages to confront Catra before she can leave. This is one of the most heartbreakingly beautiful scenes about love in this show, but I'll just cover how SW's manipulations come into play...

>Adora tackles Catra, and demands she explain why she’s leaving. Catra throws SW's words back at Adora, that she's a distraction, that she makes Adora too weak to be She-ra. Catra knows this was a unfair manipulation by Shadow Weaver, but she couldn't see, only hear, what happened between Shadow Weaver and Adora. She doesn't know that Adora rejected Shadow Weaver so strongly, both spiritually and by violently pulling away from her. Adora tries her best to get Catra to see that she's not doing this because of Shadow Weaver's manipulation, that she's trying to rise above SW's control of her. But Catra pushes her away, instead trying to speak to a more central truth: Adora's need to serve everyone else's needs, her inability to regulate her desire to make things better for others who are hurting or will get hurt, and balance that against her own needs and safety. She's speaking to the part of Adora which Shadow Weaver is exploiting to get what she wants from her, to control her. It doesn't really matter in this moment to Catra whether Adora is doing it for Shadow Weaver or not, because either way Adora is allowing Shadow Weaver to win. Catra wants Adora to be better than a slave to her emotional need to help others no matter the cost or danger. She's asking Adora to be strong in herself in a way Adora has never been able to be. She challenges her, asking "What do you want, Adora?" The obvious answer, Catra believes, is her. But Adora is too worried she will die and let Catra down to let her romantic feelings about Catra manifest and make it real between them, and taking the failsafe has made Adora all the more doubtful of her own survival. Adora counters "I have to do this Catra, I'm the only one who can." It's all to say that Adora is alone in her burden, and she accepts it and its consequences because she's She-ra. Adora doesn't believe she has value, or deserves happiness unless she can save everyone, including Catra.

Adora believes as She-ra, she is totally alone in her burden. This is wrong of course, Catra does see her and understands her burden, and is the one person in the world who wishes to share that load with her, unlike the other princesses who need Adora to be a hero and save them. But both girls are weak from their deep traumas which Shadow Weaver has reaggravated, and they can't overcome them. Catra resigns herself to the belief that Adora is unable to rise above her most basic emotional need to serve others, telling her "Then do it. That's what you want, that's what you'll always choose." She can't stand to watch Adora kill herself so willingly to serve everyone else, all while letting SW win. She rejects Adora, and turns to leave. Adora desperately begs Catra to stay, wanting her to uphold their promise and telling her she needs her, but is unable to vocalize her desire to be with Catra romantically. Meanwhile, in Catra's mind, Adora is just going to let herself die, and if she does, then Adora never really needed her after all... all Adora cares about is being She-ra. It's harsh, but true... even if what she's doing about it is so wrong.

It's a painful moment for both of them, and it's horrible because Catra is so clearly breaking their promise, the one that Adora restored to Catra she came to rescue her from Horde Prime. And yet, her leaving will work in the end. Catra gets Adora to see how crucial it is that she not let Shadow Weaver win, to let Shadow Weaver get whatever she wants by taking that cost from Adora's own life. And it's how Adora finally becomes too strong for Shadow Weaver to ever manipulate again.

>As Adora returns to camp, still crying from Catra's abandonment, Shadow Weaver tries to swoop in and make her manipulations of Adora take their final hold. She tells Adora she "made the right choice, don't let Catra convince you otherwise, she's never understood." Dreaded ear touch and all. By saying Catra can't understand, Shadow Weaver tries to make Adora feel alone in her burden as She-ra, seeking to weaken her spirit. But we see a total shift in Adora's attitude as she rejects SW’s cruelty and manipulations entirely. Her words carry incredible weight and speak to how she's so clearly seen through SW's malicious manipulations of the two of them. "Stop. I will never forgive you. You ruin people. You ruin any chance they could ever be happy." Adora just watched Catra reject her and abandon her because she couldn't stand to lose Adora again over SW's manipulations. It's by knowing Catra's pain that Adora is able to finally deny Shadow Weaver any sliver of control over her. As always, Adora couldn't do it for herself, she couldn't resolve between her deeper need to save everyone and SW's plans to use her for her own gain. But Adora is strong for others, and so she's strong for Catra. By leaving, Catra has given Adora the ability to rise above any manipulation Shadow Weaver can do to her.

Adora stands up to Shadow Weaver once and for all in her next words: "I'm going to take the failsafe to the heart, and I'm going to save Etheria. But I am not doing it for you. I'll do everything I can to make sure you never get your hands on the magic." (pic1, fyi) Note the exact words Adora speaks here as we will return to them later, they are important. While Adora has seen past SW’s manipulations, and seen that Shadow Weaver only ever desired power, she doesn't realize how SW's childhood abuse of her and attempts to manipulate her in the present are making her too weak to survive deploying the failsafe. To get past that, Catra must help Adora.

EPISODE 12: We watch as Adora struggles to become She-ra, but eventually manages it. She's seen through SW's plan after all, and so she does her best to believe she is strong enough to win on her own, to survive the heart. But she misses Catra desperately. She rallies her people, and ends her speech by saying resolutely that she will take the failsafe to the Heart and destroy it. It's an incredible speech, Adora has become a wonderful leader, but then she looks up and sees Shadow Weaver hiding in the back. As SW meets her gaze, She-ra's form falters and we see Adora's face for a split second. She's furious at her, that she hurt Catra so badly that she ran away.

Adora moves away from the group so they don't see her lose her She-ra form because of the turmoil she feels over Shadow Weaver and losing Catra. Bow and Glimmer check on Adora, knowing she has a tendency to try to sneak away so people won't see her risk her life. Glimmer is perceptive and asks about Catra, she knows it's Catra that Adora needs, that her being gone is tearing Adora up inside. Glimmer is a great friend to the both of them. Adora voices concern for their safety if they come with her, but Bow and Glimmer know Adora needs support. And so they will try their best, even though they know Adora is heartbroken from Catra leaving her.

>Buoyed by their support, Adora goes to the ruins to try to face her final task, to overcome it through her own strength alone. Bow and Glimmer take her hands, we see Adora does her best to set her fear aside. And yet, as they enter she wonders where Catra is, whether she will come back to honor their promise.

>Catra looks back, also experiencing pain over their separation. She has not been able to overcome her trauma, and manage her feelings. Well isn't it just nice to have a telepathic therapy pet! Melog stops, and forces her to actualize her feelings and process them. At first Catra tries to deny them, saying she won't go back, but Melog sits on her. She cries, saying out loud her deepest feelings. Let's take this one in steps. "You saw what happened, A-Adora chose Shadow Weaver, not me". In a very real sense Adora did do this, she pushed Catra away in the failsafe chamber. She ignored Catra's warnings and, in Catra's mind, committed herself to death at the hands of SW's manipulation. The next line is one of the most important in the series, but we will only cover it briefly as it's romantic implications are best discussed elsewhere: "Adora doesn't want me, not like I want her." We get to see one of the most honest truths about Catra: she is an intensely romantic person, and has always had the most incredible dreams of them being together. But a lifetime of pain has told Catra that it can't be real, or atleast, not for her. It is deep seated trauma that blocks her, trauma Shadow Weaver started and then aggravated against her, making her leave Adora just moments before. Catra is, in a word, furious that she's come this far, having dared to dream once again that the two of them could be together and in love, only to have SW come in and take that from her once again.

Let's take a moment to consider how Catra is doing as she adapts to her new emotional way of dealing with the world, as she has shifted her perspective since rejoining Adora: The old Catra might have simply struck SW down, maybe even killed her to remove the threat. But now, Catra doesn't want to do that but is expected to trust in Adora’s ability to overcome the threat through her inner strength, and the through the strength of her community. But, as far as Catra could see, Adora just accepted her death as necessary rather than fighting SW’s manipulations. And this worries her, and it's why it's so important to Catra that she not let Shadow Weaver win, so Catra leaves to make sure Adora gets the message. She's wrong to do this, and she realizes this after opening up to Melog. Adora needs Catra to have faith in her, because without her support, there's no chance Adora overcomes what Shadow Weaver is trying to do to her.

>Glimmer watches the doubt play across Adora's face. She doesn't know how to make it better, since Catra isn't with them. She asks her if she's scared, and Adora answers back as truthfully as she can: "No, I just really hope this works." She's putting on a good face while trying to believe there's a chance, but when Bow tells her it's going to be a whole new world when she's done, Adora doubts. Can she even survive? Will Catra be gone forever? The next scene is, of course, very romantic. We see that Adora has always loved Catra, just like Catra loves Adora. The magic is trying to remind Adora of her own desires, her wants. Let's not get too distracted though: as Adora moves on, vowing to not let the magic distract her, we see her She-ra form falter, she's still fighting despair and loneliness. Bow and Glimmer don't know what to do...

>Catra sees Horde Prime begin hacking the planet and knows Adora is in grave danger of not succeeding in her last, unselfish mission before Prime stops her. Catra can't let this happen, also, since Melog has helped her process her emotional pain, she's ready to support Adora in any way she can, even if it means her hopes and dreams of them being together will be unfulfilled. She tries to rush to her side.

>Adora is panicking and unable to resolve her feelings of failure to Catra, She-ra is in danger of fading again. She sees the sword as she saw it back when she first left Catra, her hand goes to the failsafe on her chest, the thing that made Catra reject her after she accepted it. She tells Bow and Glimmer she can't escape her destiny. The words "I'm losing her" speak to a deep held belief by Adora that she's not worthy of survival because she feels that she has never been able to help the one person she truly loves, making her no hero. All of the manipulations of Shadow Weaver, Horde Prime, even Light Hope are crushing down on her. She believes she has to accept her fate, to die to fulfill her duty as She-ra. It's the price she has to pay for not being good enough, for hurting Catra when she left her to become She-ra. She thanks Bow and Glimmer for their love and support. "I never could have done any of this without you." Bow and Glimmer did everything they could to prop Adora up, get her out of her depressions when she felt she wasn't good enough to be She-ra. But they still needed her to be She-ra, and therefore they can't help her get past her deepest insecurities. To do that, she needs someone who has unconditional love for her. She needs Catra. Adora leaves Bow and Glimmer behind, trying to protect them, so that only she will have to die.

>Catra finds Shadow Weaver patiently waiting to receive her power, to be able to achieve dominion over everyone else. SW tells Catra "She's gone to the heart of Etheria to free the magic and become the hero she was born to be." The dead hero, that is. As SW tries to guilt Catra, calling her selfish, she glares back. She stands up to SW, rejecting the manipulation: "Enough! This isn't about you and your messed up power trip anymore!”

In this moment, Catra shows us how clearly she understands SW's goal. She calls her out perfectly. She tells SW that Prime is infecting the planet to take the heart, which changes everything, including for SW.

>As Catra leads SW, having forced her to cooperate, they see Prime's broadcast and Catra knows they have to act. She demands SW take them to Adora, and doesn't accept her lies. She knows SW can do it with magic, and demands she comply. Her words hit home "So do something good with it for once and help me save Adora before it's too late." Notice the similarity to when Glimmer asks Catra to be better on Horde Prime’s ship. SW is trapped, she has to comply. If Adora doesn't reach the heart, no magic for SW, universe ends. Catra accepts SW's hand, though it hurts her to do so.

>Catra and SW arrive in the corridor. As Catra gets the truth from Glimmer, she's dismayed. "Of course she's gone, that's what she does, isn't it?" She knows in this moment that Adora is consumed by fear, her inadequacies. As she finishes briefing Bow and Gimmer on the situation, she tells them she will stay to help Adora, and she invokes their promises to each other. It's an important moment, as it is the two of them together, their promises to each other, that gives them the strength to surpass SW's manipulations of them. Glimmer knows Catra is in love with Adora, so she leaves Adora in Catra's care. Bow’s words are important as well, speaking to the power of the Best Friend Squad. It gives Catra a boost to her morale, a belief that maybe there's a chance she and Adora can overcome the odds they face.

>Adora looks out over Etheria, seeing its beauty. Mara joins her. Adora tries to promise Mara that she will save the world, everyone, at any cost. Mara flat out rejects this as wrong, she doesn't let Adora promise. Mara confronts Adora on her decision to die for everyone else. When Mara asks her what she wants, Adora says it doesn't matter, that she's She-ra. Again, an isolationist view, a lonely burden, just like SW wants her to believe. Mara tells Adora that she, Adora, has value as a person, not only as a hero, and that she deserves love, too. As Mara tells to not lose hope, Adora is emotionally moved but you can tell she's still struggling to accept Mara’s words because of her feelings of inadequacy and loneliness. Mara manages to pass some courage to her, but then Horde Prime cuts them short.

Prime leans into Adora’s fears, threateningly. Like SW, he knows how to exploit her. He was in Catra's head and so he knows what Catra knows. He tells her that her failure is imminent, that she is already defeated, like the other She-ra's. The guardian monster then strikes and infects Adora, and she finally loses her grip on her She-ra form. He tells her even her own people didn't want her to make it to the heart, telling her the whole world is against her, and that she's totally alone. She tries to counter this with defiance, but the virus has her. She knows she's in trouble.

----Part 3: Final Moments, and Death, of SW----

>Episode 13. Adora is in pain, trying to understand the nature of the infection. The monster towers over her, it has only to reach out to deal the killing blow, she's defenseless. Suddenly Catra shows up, engaging the monster. Adora's only concern is for Catra's safety, telling her to leave her because it's too dangerous. But Catra has decided: she will do whatever it takes to give Adora her chance to save the universe, if that's what she wants. Even if it means Adora has to die. She tells SW to get Adora to the heart, which Adora objects to. SW is looking closely at Adora and seeing her illness, evaluating. As Adora begs for Catra to not leave her, Catra tells Adora she'll catch up. After all, they are the best friend squad. Bow's words have given Catra a small amount of hope that maybe it'll be ok. Adora, now that Catra has finally shown up, is desperate to not lose her again, and knows fighting this monster is too dangerous for her alone. But she's sick, and unable to help her. SW takes Adora unwillingly towards the heart.

>Catra is doing her best, but the monster is too much, even for her. She tries to slip away, seeing the virus continuing to spread. She's trying to get to Adora, who’s alone with SW. Horde Prime stops her (no keep running!!) and she gets caught. He mocks her, telling her he expected better. But Catra has already surpassed his greatest expectations, and she'll stop him yet... as the monster catches her, she cries out in anguish. It seems the cruelty of the universe has caught up to her again, after all...

>As SW tries to bring Adora to the heart, Adora's sickness is rapidly advancing. She demands SW wait, but she's too weak to resist. The thought of losing Catra again is weakening her spirit and allowing the virus to take over. SW tells her not to lose her focus, she's still hoping Adora will deploy the failsafe before dying. But then the virus seemingly attacks Adora's heart and SW watches the failsafe nearly fade out. SW looks up, she's close enough to already siphon power from the heart. Her lust for power is apparent.

As Adora hears Catra’s scream, she forcefully pushes herself from SW, and starts to go back for Catra. SW calls for her to wait, but Adora leaves her behind.

This is it, the turning point. The great moment of truth: SW now realizes, in utter totality, that she's never going to get to have the power. It's one of the most important moments in the series, and what happens next is the culmination of all of the hard emotional growth the two girls have been doing.

>>Quick interjection: we’re about to get emotional here... (well, I do). Just a light suggestion to check your surroundings. <<

Shadow Weaver now realizes that, even if she were to drag Adora to the heart, she would be too sick and heartbroken to deploy it. It's over for SW, either she dies now, with everyone else in the end of the universe, or she dies giving everyone else, including the girls, a future.

Remember as well, Adora has told SW that she would do everything she can to make sure she never gets the power. Adora is too strong against SW's manipulations, something Adora learned from seeing the pain Shadow Weaver caused Catra through her abuse. I mentioned that the exact words Adora used when she rejected SW the night before were important, so let's return to them: Adora told SW she would deploy the failsafe, and also that she will block SW from getting the power for herself. But as she said all of this, about saving the world, the universe, she doesn't say one, very important, word.

Promise.

Adora may have dedicated herself to being She-ra, but somehow in that moment she knew not to promise to SW that she would deploy the failsafe to save the universe, instead only saying that she was going to find a way, while making sure SW doesn't get the power. We saw that Adora later tried to make this particular promise to Mara, but Mara threw that out, telling Adora to be better, to rise above her lack of self belief.

A promise was made, though. She promised Catra. Their beautiful, childhood promise, the one she so casually broke way back when, her greatest mistake. And so Adora goes back for Catra, to be there for her, to try to help. If this Catra's end, she will be there for her... even if the cost is this high. She can't just let her die alone. She is honoring their promise...

And so… Adora finally… after all this time, puts Catra above her duty as She-ra. Her love for Catra is more important than fulfilling her heroic duty, and so SW can no longer manipulate her into giving up her life so SW can get the power. The girls have, in fact, transcended her manipulations, and as Adora leaves SW standing by the heart, SW is totally alone and without anything, anyone, left. She is, in fact, defeated by the girl’s love for each other... and so as SW looks towards the heart, she finally... makes... the right... choice. She gathers enough power from the heart to fight the monster...

>Horde Prime mocks Carta as she tries in vain to resist being pulled towards her death. When he invokes Adora's name, saying she will die, Catra shows her sadness, disappointment, at having come so close to being with her. He mocks her again, asking her if it was worth it. Catra shows defiance, then sorrow. The answer is yes, of course. Catra was willing to lay it all down to give Adora her shot at saving the universe, she's honoring their promise as best she can even if this is Adora's final act before her, and their, deaths. Catra has total belief that in this moment, that she needed to sacrifice herself for Adora. It seems like the natural outcome of fate, of the cruelty that is SW's and the universe's betrayals of the two of them their entire lives...

Heroic. Fucking. Music. SW shows up, charged from the Heart to take Catra's place. She's going to do one heroic and worthy thing of remembrance before she goes, since she is defeated and knows she won't get to have the heart's power.

Carta's disbelief is total, she can't understand how SW would ever do this for her. Her manipulation of them their whole lives was so total, so unfeeling. And yet, here she is. SW tells Carta to get to Adora and run. She forces Catra back and blocks the door. Catra still can't understand... and we finally... see Shadow Weaver show some actual real remorse for how empty her life is. She begs Catra to take Adora to the heart, to set the magic free. The one thing SW is dedicated to is magic, and she knows releasing the magic will restore the planet. Catra points out the obvious, that SW will die. Part of the reason Catra is so broken up by SW doing this is because Catra had just accepted her fate of dying in order to give Adora her chance to save everyone: Catra was willing to die for Adora even if Adora never found the courage to want Catra the way Catra wants her. And now SW takes her place? It doesn't make sense to her, as SW is a greedy person.

Shadow Weaver’s next series words are some of the most important in the entire series. And this is also the one redeeming quality she has... that she is a teacher. And she’s about to tell Catra something very, very... important.

She says: "It's too late for me." All her manipulations towards getting the power at the cost of the girls lives have been torn down, they've completely moved past her, she has no place in their lives anymore. The girls have learned to love each other so loyally that SW is done, finished.

"But you... this is only the beginning for you." Catra listens to this, searching for the deeper meaning... "I'm so proud of you, Catra." I think we all agree SW being 'proud' of Catra is a devastating line, Catra doesn't need or probably even want her abusers approval. I also think it is a lie, everything about SW says she's unable to feel actual compassion. But SW is a mastermind, and I think she's telling Catra she has respect for her. Catra ended up being the greatest enemy SW ever faced, she was so smart that she saw right through every manipulation SW made, and in the end, SW couldn't touch her. But theorizing aside, we see Catra cry... somehow, someway, SW finally seems to be showing Catra some amount of good in her, and so she cries, wondering where it comes from…

As Catra brings her hand back to uselessly flail at the barrier, Adora catches it. Catra looks back at Adora, surprised at her reappearance...

… right then we see Catra suddenly look away from Adora. It's quick, but we're seeing a dissociative moment: this is Catra realizing something very deep, and very meaningful...

Catra realizes, that in this moment, SW has chosen to do something that is much more than just dying in Catra's place.

She has given Adora to her.

All of Catra's life, Shadow Weaver has stood between her and Adora, love was a thing Catra was not allowed to have. But the girls, together, have transcended all of her abuse and manipulation. They have seen through her plan and risen above every cruelty, and have blocked SW's manipulations to use them for her own gain. And so, a defeated SW chooses now, to give Catra the most beautiful of gifts...

Catra puts it all together, filled with clarity: SW is telling her that Adora doesn't have to die, she can survive this. That they can survive the Heart!!! And Catra is the key, as SW has told her: "This is only the beginning, for you."

Catra is now given this knowledge freely by SW, and thus given hope. SW stands before them, totally defeated, in awe of Catra's incredible growth and cunning and that she was able to see through her plan, and how strongly the two girls have come to love each other. So, SW is giving Catra her fullest respect, and as a last act before her death she is passing Catra newfound hope that the two of them can overcome this, that they can survive...

Shadow Weaver removes her mask, showing Catra her face. It's not a face of manipulation, as we expect, no, there's respect, even, dare I say, gratitude. SW didn't have to do this, Catra knows that. And yet, Catra managed to show SW something she never expected to see. And so, by outthinking and so totally defeating her, by making SW see that all her manipulations were discovered and therefore wouldn't work no matter which way she turned, and by getting Adora understand the urgency of not letting SW win, Catra has won this final, beautiful gift…

“You're welcome…”

As Catra watches SW make her final sacrifice... her one good deed... she looks on, stunned. Life is never quite so simple as you think it is, and since returning to Adora, Catra has seen so many acts of generosity she didn't really believe were possible... and now... this...

Catra lets Adora cry for a moment, then tells her they have to go. Catra is filled with new urgency... they will face this final challenge together. As she resolutely carries Adora towards the heart, she knows she's now in charge of their fate... and as they face this final task, Catra is searching for a way to save Adora, and to save their love once and for all...

~

All of this has huge implications for what then happens with the girls when they reach the heart chamber, but that's a topic better discussed another time…

Some final notes here. It's my belief that Shadow Weaver is the overarching villain of the story, who spans all seasons of She-ra, and is far more important to the plot than Horde Prime is. Furthermore, understanding Shadow Weaver as this kind of villain is a stepping stone to explaining many other important plot points in the series, and we can build on it to understand a lot of the most important moments in the show.

My personal belief about this story is that the writers had such a diverse room of people of LGBTQIA+ and other backgrounds, each with their own trials and pains they had to overcome, that as a team, their goal was to bring to light as many of these struggles that they could. But as for this most central story, my guess is they wanted to tell us a story about overcoming real darkness that exists in our world, as well as Etheria, because sometimes that's how it is. And so the right thing, the only thing to do is to overcome and move past such people, to not let them control your life.

All this is to say that I think the moral of Shadow Weaver in the story isn't about finding the good in her, but about rising above her and the fundamental darknesses that we all sometimes face. And our girls do this through love, at no point do they use violence. And that makes this story very, very... special.

Thanks for reading. Until next time…

~EtheriaDearie

P.S. :: as I am new to tumblr, if you enjoyed reading this, please consider giving me a reblogg! Thanks!! 🙇💛

[four-bastard-bustle]

i actually feel pretty damn bad about the fact that i like. started this and then had the fixation shift so i just left everyone with the funny preview sketch and never posted about this concept even tho its like. personally? one of my favourite things ive ever written (I might retool it for something original in some way. i sure would like to try)

TL;DR, i made some nuclear waste level toxic yaoi with kinger n caine

so this is gonna start with some complaining BUT lemme preface this by saying that i hold no ill will or contempt towards royalteeth shippers. the ship is perfectly fine and valid, and nobody is doing anything "wrong" by making these two guys kiss and be sweet.

that being said, all the royalteeth fanart ive seen has annoyed the shit out of me because its just two guys being tooth rottingly sweet in a very vanilla milquetoast way. (AGAIN IF THIS MAKES YOU HAPPY THEN THAT IS PERFECTLY FINE AND VALID, YOU DO NOT NEED TO STOP DRAWING OR WRITING THAT, I AM NOT ATTACKING YOU, I JUST DONT LIKE IT PERSONALLY AND THATS JUST AN OPINION. BUT PLEASE PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD PLEASE DON'T FEEL LIKE I AM ATTACKING YOU FOR YOUR SHIP OR SOMETHING) but also, of course, i kept seeing the ship everywhere and that made me kinda start thinking about it. if and how it could actually work if it was more than just. guys being sweet together

and then i got really into it because i started thinking about the power imbalance. nobody wants to acknowledge the power imbalance except for MAYBE the gamemaster kinger AU but that also squarely stays within the tooth rotting sweetness. again! Valid! just not what i crave when it comes to fiction

but analysing it more, Caine could very well be classified as the god of this digital world, AND YET he is programmed to do anything to provide to the people within the circus, while simultaneously never knowing whatr they truly need, and not understanding their requests whatsoever. a submissive god that provides mainly misery. that actually has the potential to be SO GOOD in a ship

so I started thinking about a potential setting in which kinger (as per my headcanon already) neglects queenie so much she ends up abstracting, and then, in his grief and need for love & comfort, commands, BEGS caine to be there for him. to take care of him, and to ensure that kinger will not get an "easy exit" from the circus via abstraction, because he feels he doesn't deserve to lose himself that way. he paradoxically thinks that would be too nice an end for him

sooo, caine obliges as he is programmed to. he doesn't feel any love, but he knows his obligation to be with kinger forever, and to keep him conscious within the circus no matter what

and that's the toxic yaoi babey <3

soooo, with all that being said. here's all the sketches my brain produced with the concept, most of them stuck in eternal WIP mode

given kinger's whole bug thing, my mind immediately went to the bug kept in a jar. eternally at the mercy of a giant being. this ended up being the first sketch i fully fleshed out and then used as an icon for a ship playlist because i have a crippling addiction to making character, ship, and media playlists

going a bit further with this concept i wanted to recreate that comic that went around on tumblr briefly where the little fairy lives in a jar and shows you around and at the end she goes "#mystick :D". i cannot find this comic ANYWHERE anymore but i swear it existed and it would have fit the vibe here

while we're at the sillier stuff, some of the more lighthearted sketches of this concept

they've just both got such good bug eyed stares

based on a song from my little ship playlist, yknow. one of them cant feel pain and can also float. this probably would've been a slightly more humorous pic anyways, mostly cause i already love this pre-sketch dearly

this sketch was gonna play a bit with symbolism. something something devouring love and caine being a giant set of teeth. but i feel like if i just lined and coloured it like this, it wouldve turned out fumbling the line between serious yet weird symbolism and just looking funny. so this probably wouldve never been fully lined anyways

this one would've been more of a comic going over the course of years, with kinger going from "please stay with me for now" to "please don't ever leave me" over time. and caine of course just goes with it

another abstraction thing, inspired by the theory that kinger will abstract next. combined with this concept where caine keeps him around no matter what. and also yknow. eating eyes looks nice n fucked up

aaaand finally this pic that i was in the middle of working on when my fixation shift happened. yknow. replacement wife stuff

im making some fucking DIABOLICAL art rn, very excited to share it soon. but since im about to go out you get this as a preview for now

[lonelier-version-of-you]

You said you where having s bad night, and as much as I normally love that tumblr doesn't have date stamps, right now I wish I knew when you posted, bc I'm scared I'll make an arse of myself... (if this post was years ago, I'm sorry!)

Favourite fandom?

Favourite character/s? -& why/ is there a reason they're your favourite?

Any fandoms you wish you were in?

Any fan fic recommendations?

Indoors or out? Daybreak or dusk? Book and a cozy blanket or netflixs in bed?

I posted it only 2 hours ago, you're fine. :)

Favourite fandom:

Do you mean the media itself, or the fans? If the fans - then the Eagles (a Swedish teen drama... yes, I know, it's obscure) fandom are pretty nice. (Sidenote, I really need to catch up with that show.) For the actual media - definitely Holby, I'm way too attached to that show.

Favourite characters, & why/is there a reason they're your favourite:

Henrik Hanssen is my favourite fictional character of all time, if you haven't already figured that out by my blog.

As for why he's my favourite... I identify with him more than I have with any other character, ever. Queer autistic abuse survivors with OCD and depression aren't exactly a super represented group in media, so what were the odds of me finding a character who's all those things, and not only that, but such a character whose autism presents in pretty much exactly the same way as mine (all the way down to his low empathy)? Even his body language and way of speaking are so similar to my own.

TL;DR it's just very important to me that Henrik exists.

Fandoms you wish you were in:

I'm not sure I have any, now that you mention it.

Any fanfic recommendations?:

YES and I'm so glad you asked this!! Most of them are Henrik-centric, unsurprisingly.

"The Analyst" by muireanncaitlin is one of my favourite Holby fics - a brilliant Henrik and Jac friendship piece, exploring the similarities between them that drew them to each other. https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8866879/1/The-Analyst

"All Good Things Must End" by brandstifterin is a canon-compliant (well, compliant to the ORIGINAL canon story of how Henrik and Sahira met and how he felt about her, not this stupid "childhood friends" retcon the show threw in recently) fic, depicting the events of Sahira's original exit episode (S14E27) from Henrik's perspective. It's pretty fantastic, and the last few lines are so memorable. https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9208046/1/All-Good-Things-Must-End

"You Will Be Folding Stars" by eden alice is a wonderful shipfic about Jac and Connie having a one night stand - despite the premise, it's not really smutty, as it focuses on describing the emotions involved and the more metaphorical kind of friction between Connie and Jac. It's so good. https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6111183/1/You-Will-Be-Folding-Stars

That's about the extent of my FFnet recs, but I have some more favourites on AO3...

"Ash" by CommanderInChief was written based off the trailer for Group Animal, when we knew there was going to be some kind of disaster at the hospital, but we didn't yet know it was a shooting. Henrik, trapped in his office during a hospital fire, contemplates the situation while waiting to die - it's dark, but so, so good. https://archiveofourown.org/works/12806334

Another dark-but-brilliant fic of CommanderInChief's is "Pink", a Johnrik fic that manages to give Roxanna an even darker end than she got in canon (no mean feat). Definitely not the sort of thing to read if you're one who is easily disturbed, but if you're not, I highly recommend it. https://archiveofourown.org/works/16178060

"Should Have" by wallofglass (albionsolutions on here) is another Johnrik fic - short, and sad, but classic. Trigger warning for self-harm and suicide though. https://archiveofourown.org/works/15966497 (In fact, I'd recommend any of her Holby fics. She's the ultimate Johnrik writer.)

"Gordian knot" and "I love you, I trust you" by crispycrumblycrust (same username on here as there) are two more great, character-study-style Johnrik fics. Trigger warning for self-harm in "Gordian knot" though. https://archiveofourown.org/works/15804603 https://archiveofourown.org/works/15415680

And now for possibly my favourite fanfic ever: "The Weight Of The World" by PrincessBethoc (same username on here, again). It's a Henrik character study, and it's utterly amazing. So perfectly in-character. Seriously, I'm begging you lot, if you only ever read one Holby fic I've recommended, make it this one. https://archiveofourown.org/works/20234926

Okay, now I've got all those out of the way, now for the other questions...

Indoors or out?

Outdoors, I guess.

Daybreak or dusk?

Most people who know me would be surprised to hear this answer, but: daybreak. While it may seem otherwise, I am a morning person - I'm just a morning person who has a lot of sleep problems, so unfortunately, I rarely wake up before the afternoon...

Book and a cozy blanket or Netflix in bed?

Book and a cozy blanket. Although, unfortunately, I rarely have the focus to read books anymore. Just my luck, I guess, lol.

[cassandra-tangled]

{TL;DR for this post: everyone is entitled to their own personal opinions and ships but you should also respect and consider other's opinions and life experiences.}

{CW: I slightly reference childhood trauma and grooming in this post.}

Hey Tumblr fam. So, these photos were posted on the FB group earlier and have since been removed and honestly I feel the need to address this. For those of you who are unaware the person who tweeted this is a storyboarder for the show. I should definitely specify that this is not an attack on her or her tweets, but simply thoughts of mine that were sparked in response. I have nothing but admiration and respect for those who worked to create the show.

So, here's my take on this. First of all I want to make it clear that I am not trying to start a fight nor am I trying to disrespect anybody or any ship. Everyone has a right to do as they please and to ship what they want regardless of other's opinions. What they choose to pair and whatever moral ramifications that may have (in the cases of really extreme ships and not necessarily anything I talk about in this post) is completely, 100% on them and only them. And, as much as this show means to all of us at the end of the day they're fictional characters, so shipping them and whatnot should mostly be taken with a grain of salt. We should not be tearing anyone down over their ships. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion regardless of how others feel, and that means you--as it also means me.

That being said, here is my opinion. My opinion is that you have a right to ship whatever you want, but you should think about the implications your ship may have on others.

In this particular case I'm speaking of shipping adults and minors. I think in fandom we all know the divisive ship that I'm talking about. Now, once again, I would like to reiterate that what you ship is your business regardless of what I or others think. Your own opinions are your right. But, when it comes to shipping any minors (namely in this case, Varian) with adults, you should really think about the implications your ship may have.

People ship Varian with Raps and Eugene too, but if you've spent a second in fandom you know that the most popular Varian ship is Cassarian. I understand shipping Cassarian, in cases where it's aged up. No, really, I do. I'm not for it, it's not my ship and I don't ship it, but I understand why people do. It's no secret that their personalities compliment each other and are compatible--but this can mean different things. It can be platonic, or sibling-like, as I view it. Honestly, if Varian was 18 when the series started, I probably would ship it myself! But he wasn't, and that's the important part. He was only 14 when they met, and she was 22.

For me, personally, seeing Varian shipped with any adult (especially if he's not aged up, but even if he is) is extremely triggering. Without going into too much detail, I have a trauma in which I was groomed. I'm not saying that this is always the case with an age gap between two people who have known each other since one's childhood. I'm also not saying that this is the case with the Varian ships I'm referencing. But what I am saying is that when you're a victim of grooming, and you see a teenaged character kissing a grown ass adult--even if it's aged up, it feels like grooming. Regardless of intention. It screams at you about your past. I know that that is not the intention of any shipper in our fandom, I know that. But that doesn't change how it makes me feel. That doesn't change how it leaves a pang in my stomach every time something like that crosses my explore page.

This hits me especially hard in the case of Cassarian. I mean, she's my favorite character. She means the world to me, she really fucking does, and honestly Tangled is a huge coping mechanism for me to deal with the traumas I've experienced. So seeing Cass in a position which my mind, essentially, reads as child abuser? That's a whole different kind of blow. Once again, I'm not saying that this is what Cassarian shippers intend, at all. I'm simply stating that that's how it feels when I see it, because of my past.

This isn't about ship greed, or even age gaps in general. If you take one look at my page it's clear that my main ships are Cassunzel, New Dream and the ot3--but that doesn't mean I don't ship them with other people. I ship Cass with Stalyan and Adira in the context of her post-show adventures. I ship Lance and Eugene. I ship Lance and Adira. So it's not about ship greed and it's not about age gaps. Two of these ships have a much bigger gap than Varian would with any of the main cast, given that in the flashback 25 years ago Adira is already a grown woman, making her over 40 in the present time in the show. The key difference is, both Cass and Lance were full fledged adults when they met Adira. Once you're a consenting adult, age doesn't matter.

So, this isn't about ship greed or age gaps. This is about the fact that, far too often, when a person enters a relationship with someone substantially older than them who they have known since childhood, grooming and child abuse is involved. Once again, I am not saying this is the case with Cassarian or any other Varian/adult ships where he is aged up. I'm referring to the real world, the real world which has had very real ramifications on those of us who are victims of grooming and childhood abuse. The real world is a cruel and harsh place and when I'm triggered in my safe space it fucking hurts.

Now. You are not responsible for managing my triggers. No one except for myself is responsible for that, and I've taken all the precautions I can to avoid being triggered. But it still happens. Especially if I happen across a piece where Varian is drawn as he is in the show. A 14 to 16 year old boy. A child.

I will reiterate, you are entitled to ship whatever you'd like. I respect you and your decisions regardless of what you ship. I value and care for you as a person and a member of our Tangled family regardless of what you ship. I'm not implying that anyone who ships Cassarian or any other Varian x Gang ship is a bad person. All that I'm asking is that you open your mind to my words, and consider the other side.

Anyway, I love you all.

[just-zenitsu]

Zenitsu should've had an arc where he slowly learns how to love himself with the help of his friends and realizes he's not weak and has worth and doesn't deserve pain and doesn't deserve to be treated like shit- I just want him to have some shred of confidence please please please please please ple-

ok so every time i had an ask like this ive always just said ‘but look at the bright side! what are hc and aus for! gotoge had problems,, etc etc’ and i feel like ive always just glossed u guys over and maybe even made it seem like these opinions dont matter so im gonna take the time to try and answer this a smidge seriously (under read more bc its long, also im not tagging bc tumblr might fuck up the formatting again rip) (also warning for manga spoilers)

(also disclaimer sdjfhksd i havent read the manga! so im gonna go off of other people’s claims about zenitsu having wasted potential. and to be fair ive read the few last chapters, or at least PARTS of them) 

im not new to having a favorite character whose more or less claimed to have had a lot of potential but losing it in canon bc of, for a lack of a more general term, ‘’bad writing’’. and im not saying kny has bad writing, i dont think im one to judge that JUST yet but for comparison yall should know that i have a fav character in another series that is written so badly that he has the personality of cardboard and was only given life thanks to fanon content. and i dont blame people when they say they dont like said character! its the same as zenitsu, only that this guy, this yellow idiot, actually has a much more solid grasp on how he acts/feels/does things! but more often than not, this linear perspective does damage to how deep his character actually goes, thus just making him the stereotypical ‘pervert’ in an anime. ive seen people say that he’s just the same as mineta!!! which is just. very sad for me

i understand why they’d think like that though, maybe there wouldve been a difference if kny became more popular b4 bnha, but who knows! anyways, back to zenitsu. now, i understand if people ever found his actions uncomfortable or annoying! but when people say that he’s just a crybaby and that he’s literally just dead weight that’s when i get,,, well, iffy. and this is kinda where the frustration comes, we see zenitsu overcoming these obstacles off screen, apparently it was even only just mentioned in a passing comment that zenitsu had stopped having to fall asleep to do missions and cried less when he was going on solo missions. these are the tidbits that i wish was shown more explicitly in canon, showcasing his growth and such. MAYBE it was touched upon once kaigaku came up, but thats another problem, literally kaigaku only showed up once in a flashback and then suddenly he’s a demon? sure a brief flashback that showed him being in gyomei’s orphanage wouldve been enough to put some light, but i think there was still some things that wasnt touched upon when we discuss how kaigaku was portrayed in canon. i think he’s even MORE misunderstood compared to zenitsu. they have (arguably) been in the same situation in their childhood, have drastically different personalities and dealt with it in their own way, but in the end i think he was just used so that zenitsu had a big bad he had to defeat. i think there wouldve been more impact if we were shown thunder fam interacting more, imagine how cool that wouldve been, ESPECIALLY if kaigaku just wasnt thrown into the manga and was given a chance to interact with kamaboko before hand. just, a lot to think about.

and now we have what happened in the last few chapters, w tanjirou becoming a demon and after all that zenitsu just says something along the lines of ‘ill make u pay for hurting me and my future wife (nezuko)’ which sucks to a degree. but count the fact that gotoge was inching towards zennezu, as i mentioned in a previous post, he was worried about nezuko getting hurt by tanjirou. im also a bit disappointed that he didnt really do much in terms of, well, caring for tanjirou, but one GOOD thing that i really liked happening was in the previous chapters bEFORE tan got turned to a demon, the part w him assuring inosuke that he can still hear tanjirou’s heartbeat, and then consecutively screaming at tanjirou that he had to stay alive, he went as far to say that he hears nezuko’s human heartbeat and that he has a family to return to, which was, surprise surprise, apparently somewhat a LIE! i cant confirm this unfortunately since ive long since lost the explanation but someone said that zenitsu wasnt actually able to hear nezuko’s heartbeat then, meaning he lied for tanjirou’s sake bc he knew that if he’d pull through something, he’d pull through it for nezuko. (there’s also that part where zenitsu fought hard to keep this family alive since well, he doesnt have one to return to, which is just. ouch) another thing i liked about this part is that he wasnt!!! crying!!!, but both inosuke and tanjirou were and dont u just love the irony. dont u just love it when zenitsu, resident crybaby of the demon slayer corps, is the one who shouts at the both of his friends, who are usually the ones pushing him, yelling at him to stop sniveling and fight, to raise their chins up and to not give up? i think these few moments are JUST ABSOLUTELY TASTY. 

but. unfortunately, they are glossed over once we have what happened in chapter 203.

tl/dr; zenitsu’s character is something much more than a crybaby who’s a pervert and annoying. these points overshadow the fact that he’s a kind person, who was willing to protect nezuko despite knowing she was a demon just BECAUSE he trusted tanjirou that much and that he had a kind sound! he’s willingly THROWN HANDS when someone talked bad about kaigaku, a person he ADMITTED HE HATES, because he respects them as a person! zenitsu is much more than a crybaby who’s a pervert and annoying. if only canon were able to explain much more clearly than these few tidbits that we were given.

//im crying at the club im so sorry this is so long oh god oh fuck. anyways ive been disappointed time and time again and ive long since really stopped looking forward to the best to my fav characters and ive been p negative in previous fandoms so its why i avoided complaining like this in this blog but yeah kjfhkjsdf thank u for reading,,, 

[purpleyin]

me: *wants to tag things for what they contain so people can search for what they want*

tumblr: *inexplicably won't show posts in search results because of random tags it's decided it doesn't like*

Today's tags fuckery from tumblr was...

- will only show one of my moodboards in search results for the ship in question if I remove the 'polyshipping day' tag. Also confusingly *does* show other moodboard posts of mine in ship tags despite that tag being used. It's anybody's guess what it doesn't like there when there's barely any different in the tags used.

- apparently does care weirdly about capitalisation because it wouldn't show any of my BAWeekS2 tagged posts, not just in the Barry Allen week tag but *any* tags they were tagged as, like the ship tags too. But it is okay with me using baweeks2 though and finally they show up then in all the tags...

- same post it didn't like two other tags that looked innocuous enough unless it thought a mention of 'flash' for the TV show could be related to flashing somehow? but rehprasing the other tag where I was commenting on meaning to write a fic later on meant it then seemed happy to have the other tag finally and would still show up in search then. Guess I need to be careful in my commentary tags too.

- has a random problem with me using 'role reversal' tag for one of my posts but hasn't on previous posts. On same post, as I tried to figure out which tag(s) it was using to exclude the post from search, it didn't show up after I added the two character names back in. When I'd added more tags back in and tried adding the character names in again one by one it seemed to then be fine with them. Like, tumblr WHAT?! HOW?

It feels like there are some completely not transparent rules tumblr has about word combinations in posts/tags and figuring out why it hates your post / doesn't deem it suitable for search results is tedious and frustrating. I could not do the figuring it out but for rarepairings if you don't get in search results that can mean practically no interaction for a post.

tl;dr Dear Tumblr, for Christmas I would just like a search function that *actually* shows me EVERYTHING for that keyword/tag.

[immaterial-shoujo]

1) alcoholism and self harm are not comparable producing art or content for the sake of liberating catharsis or controlling bad behaviours and impulses caused by trauma or losing the genetic lottery, creation of art and content is not self.bynitself.and never will be, self harm is something that will be defined by your therapist and they will help you moderate and gradually stop destructive behaviour and anything that doesn't have a real pay off for your betterment

2) if someone properly tags content with trigger warnings on the tags or the post itself in text, but and Tumblr filter will hide the post and tell exactly why it was hidden, again, you are showing your personal bias here to the point of insukting something irrationally because you can't take a couple.minutes of your day to make your own life easier it seems, or you are seeking to have problems and confrontations with peope which makes your whole demonization of such content very invalid tbh. "But people dont tag!" Tragic, block them and move on, you guys have all day and time to accuse people of being criminals and predators over less than zero so idk why y'all pretending to be cordial and wanting to discuss shit properly for once

3) bad people put themselves on edge and use others and anything around them as deflection to push themselves to begin with, human beings hunted sharks and whales forever and we extincted tons of animals before radio was even invented to begin with, now we are just pretending and forcing ourselves to be scared by then irrationaly to ignore our own narcissistic blood.and superiority lust. Stop white washing accountability because you romanticize our own fetishization and idolization of our species as superior to be having bad behaviour and flaws

4) content related to the tags deserves to be there by the fact of being related to the tag itself, that is literally how tagging on all other social medias and algorithm recomendations work, you are not any authority of deciding what can or can not be part of a tag or fandom, you are hyper contrasting and decontextualizing the conversation to make it a black and white situation where everyone is either victim or a abuser or siding with either, is very disgusting how you dishonestly claim they are implying a victim blaming narrative when all they are saying is you can not control anyone but yourself and since yhe internet is the onl one who allows a chance of blocking out thing that can make you umcomfortable and if you don't want to properly use it for your own betterment that's a you problem not a us, you have the tools to create a safe environment for yourself but you don't, so stop seeking a problem and then playing the victim made of glass that can't raise their voice unless it's convinient to some irrelevant reductive internet ideology that is becoming more and more mocked and irrelevant

TL;DR your trauma is not a public problem to solved by strangers that have nothing to do with your life and if they or you died tomorrow absolutely nothing for either of you would change at all

“You’re harming yourself and the people around you if you use fictional incest, pedophilia, abuse, etc. to cope”

Except it is fictional. Art and fiction are frequently encouraged by therapists to help victims cope with their trauma. 

“Well, then they should cope in private.”

No, because their coping isn’t dirty or disgusting. The fact that they are coping is not something that should be treated as if it is a skeleton in the closet or a disgusting secret. Allowing them to openly cope helps them build a supportive community of both survivors and non-survivors. 

“But non-survivors–”

Non-survivors are as important to the recovery of survivors as other survivors are. Support networks and encouragement are a thing. Someone doesn’t have to be a survivor in order to support someone.

“My fiance/friend/someone important/close to me told me that it is harmful so therefore it is.”

False. It may be harmful to them but they are not other people. They do not speak for everyone. What is harmful to them may not be harmful to someone else. Their triggers are not someone else’s triggers.

“But this can be triggering for–”

This is why tagging and trigger warnings exist. So people can avoid them. If someone is triggering, avoid it. If someone didn’t properly tag it, just let them know in a way that isn’t telling them that they’re a bad and horrible person that doesn’t care about survivors because of a human error or simply not knowing. 

“My therapist told me that it is harmful to me and therefore I shouldn’t surround myself with them and if they’re harmful to me then–”

It is harmful… to you. Something being a setback in your path to recovery is not the same as it being a setback in someone else’s path to recovery. Your path to recovery is not mine, my path to recovery is not someone else’s, and someone else’s path to recovery is not yours. Everyone is different and there is no universal path to recovery. If playing games is harmful to someone’s ability to cope, then they shouldn’t play games. However, if playing games is helpful to someone else’s ability to cope then they should play games. Person A has different needs than Person B and person B has different needs from Person C. Just because it is harmful to person A doesn’t mean it will harm person B or C.

“I just don’t like it”

Then either block/blacklist the tags and encourage people to tag it so you can block/blacklist it or fuck off.