so, this amazing post already went over all of the autistic traits that entrapta has, but i wanted to delve into something that i haven’t really seen discussed yet–something that isn’t necessarily a trait but rather a byproduct of the experiences that autistic people often have.

i want to talk about entrapta’s connection to animals and robots.

in entrapta’s intro episode, we see a lot of animals. her kitchen staff knows to make the cupcakes shaped like a little piggy. when adora and glimmer are falling through her castle, we see a little robot with a guinea pig/hamster design. while entrapta is guiding them through her castle, we see two framed portraits–one of a little kitten, and another of a little dog.

autistics tend to be drawn towards animals because, frankly, they make more sense than allistics do, and are thus much easier to interact with. there are no complicated social rules to follow (see: entrapta’s confused response to being imprisoned, trying to return to her restraints in order to fit the role of “prisoner”), they won’t judge you for being “weird”, and they won’t tell you to shut up as you yammer on about your special interests.

interestingly, allistics just love to compare autistics, particularly autistic children, to animals, in order to dehumanize them and justify abusing them, advocating for eugenics, or trying to “cure” them. instead of taking a moment to understand them, just as autistics do when approaching animals (or, y’know, allistics who insist on eye contact for some reason), people just write them off as a burden.

i highly recommend reading this poem for another perspective on this topic.

entrapta herself has major issues empathizing with other people. we’ve seen her defend her friends, and wait 45 hours for them to come back for her, and cry in front of the enemy when realizing they weren’t coming back for her, and brighten when catra told her about finding a place in the horde not just for tech but for belonging. yet, she wanted to take she-ra apart as if she-ra was another robot and didn’t ask before touching scorpia’s tail. that’s something she struggles with, and something that i think she’ll learn to understand as she interacts more with other people.

now, as for entrapta’s robots…

she’s very fond of her robots, isn’t she?

it’s even implied that she built robot parents for herself.

this is most obvious when we see her interacting with emily. a reprogrammed robot that didn’t need a name, but got one anyway. a reprogrammed robot that she referred to as her new friend. a reprogrammed robot that she refused to leave behind, just as she expected her friends to refuse to leave her behind. a reprogrammed robot who not only had enhanced weaponry, but also enhanced ability to give and receive affection–a completely “useless” upgrade to someone who doesn’t care about making connections.

when scorpia is talking about her connection with catra, entrapta relates to it on the basis of her own connection to emily. to her, emily is a friend and someone she’d never leave behind. someone she’d protect, just like she’d protect any of her other friends.

entrapta clearly craves emotional connections and values friendship, but it seems that she finds that much easier with animals and robots than with other people. she knows that she’s different and annoying and burdensome, but realizing (from her perspective) that it meant that her “friends” wouldn’t even come back for her after saying they’d “leave no princess behind”–when she went back for emily–was devastating to her. catra knew exactly what to say to her, and it wasn’t just, “we have cool tech!” she validated entrapta’s robot and entrapta herself before even approaching that particular perk.

despite her emotional connections to both, entrapta is not a robot or an animal. she’s a person. she’s a person who’s different, and, in the wise words of princess bubblegum:

Also can we talk about how adorable Scorpia is? Because she’s a sweetie and deserves the universe

scorpia is amazing. she is so genuine and compassionate and friendly and protective and lovely. you couldn’t ask for a better friend, honestly. ~~also when will she respond to my marriage proposal?? where is my luka/scorpia fanfiction???~~

it makes me sad to think of her life before she met catra if she’s so excited to be hanging out in someone’s room. we know that the other princesses alienated her because she wasn’t their idea of a Proper Princess, but did members of the horde also avoid her because she’s still a princess? was catra the first person to truly accept her?

regardless, i’m glad that she’s found happiness with her super pal trio. it’s what she deserves. she has so much love to give!

even though catra can be abrasive, and is resistant to being referred to as scorpia’s best friend, she does truly trust scorpia. that is huge for catra, given that she’s just suffered (in her eyes) a major betrayal. even after scorpia revealed that she was a princess, which catra instinctively distrusts, catra continued to trust her absolutely. it’s hard to doubt scorpia’s good intentions when she’s…herself.

vixensheart
replied to your post “Honestly, both sides seemed more interested in what Entrapta had to…”

I mean Adora was very protective of entrapta when Catra talked to her during the prom as well! (“Leave her alone!”)

oh, yeah! not showing active interest in someone doesn’t mean you don’t care about them or you’re doing them wrong. what catra is doing to entrapta is actively cruel and manipulative, but for most of the rebellion characters, they just struggled to connect with her (and horribly regretted it soon enough).

adora was devastated and blamed herself for entrapta’s death because she does care, even if she wasn’t about to invite entrapta over for tea and snacks. scorpia, OTOH, would be ecstatic to have a sleepover with entrapta, because she likes entrapta and thinks she’s fun and considers her part of their super pal trio.

What about when Catra touched Adora’s face in 1×13?

catra is trying to continue the cycle of abuse, but she isn’t quite doing it right. she’s mixing up the approaches because she still loves adora on an instinctive level.

when shadow weaver abused catra, to make her feel weak, she did so primarily through overt violence and intimidation in situations where catra had absolutely no chance to fight back.

when shadow weaver abused adora, to make her feel like she was only ever powerful by her side, she did so primarily through gentle touches and false affection.

although catra is being violent towards adora at this point, going so far as to horribly scratch her back, it’s in the context of a fight between enemies. it’s very different from what shadow weaver did to catra.

catra is trying to make adora feel weak, the same way that she’s felt all these years, the same way that she thinks adora wanted her to feel all along. it’s a sick form of revenge for something that adora never actually did.

however, catra is trying to make adora feel weak by emulating shadow weaver’s approach towards adora, which doesn’t quite make sense. is adora the scapegoat or the golden child, or neither? is catra’s heart really in this? does she know what she really wants? would she let adora fall again, outside of that flashback hellscape?

catra is deeply convinced that true power is associated with creating fear, because she felt powerless and afraid all her life, and she wants that power for herself now. she literally wants what shadow weaver had, and has said so multiple times now (”i need to impress hordak so he’ll make me the new shadow weaver!”).

what she needs to realize is that this won’t make her happy, that this isn’t right, and that she’ll be no better than shadow weaver if she continues down this path.

i’m confident that she’ll realize the error of her ways soon enough, but in the meantime, her path is not a bright one.

Honestly, both sides seemed more interested in what Entrapta had to offer than in her as a person. She sounded more as an asset instead of a friend and her relationship with Scorpia and Catra managed to feel more genuine than the one she had with the other princesses.

to an extent, yeah! catra is clearly using/manipulating her in order to gain power, but scorpia just sees entrapta as a cool new friend to hug. in comparison, the only one who seemed genuinely interested in entrapta as a person on the rebellion side was bow. perfuma clearly had strong regrets about how she interacted with entrapta, but i think they could’ve been good friends if they’d had more time; perfuma was just frustrated that entrapta kept endangering their mission, which is understandable.

i’d be…intrigued to see catra react to entrapta realizing that catra was only using her and thought of her as an annoyance otherwise, like everyone else. i think it might force her to confront the reality of the path that she’s going down, because, like adora said, catra is not a bad person. if she sees someone who has done her no wrong hurting because of her own carelessness, she might have an epiphany.

when people say that entrapta is emotionless and only cares about her tech/doesn’t care about friends, i’m like

bitch where??

she literally cried thinking about how (in her perspective) no one even cared enough to come back for her. she could’ve gotten out on her own much sooner (as she herself pointed out), but she waited forty-five hours in the vents so that her friends could find her more easily. she truly believed that they would come back for her, and when she realized (incorrectly) that they had abandoned her, she was devastated.

we saw in her introductory episode that entrapta was incredibly isolated. it’s implied that she actually created parent robots for herself because her biological parents had died and no one else raised her in their absence.

when she went to the princess prom, she focused on the “social experiment” because she so rarely had the opportunity to just…watch people interact with each other. it was all theoretical to her, until she found the princesses, and, well, that didn’t turn out so great for her.

we’ve also repeatedly seen entrapta take measures to protect those around her, so the idea that she lacks any kind of compassion is simply false. she has a lot of empathy issues (see: her response to she-ra, touching scorpia’s tail without asking), but she doesn’t want anyone to get seriously hurt/die.

her primary motive for joining the horde was to find a place where she belonged, to find people who wouldn’t abandon her. her secondary motive, after that was established, was to gain access to new tech, on the basis of actually being valued and fitting in rather than being seen as the weirdo geeky princess.

catra knew that entrapta craved a sense of belonging, and she played entrapta like a fiddle.

rogelio-said-gay-rights:

heyyyyadora:

mustloveshera:

so, is it that kyle doesn’t realize how much rogelio cares about him and his opinions due to his insecurities, or is it that rogelio doesn’t really listen to him? i’m inclined to assume the former, given how often we’ve seen rogelio looking out for kyle in various capacities–grabbing him during dangerous situations, bandaging his wounds, etc.

So this was explained that there was a disconnect between the writers and artists, the latter of whom have been the ones hinting at a relationship between the two. So it’s now just being explained away that Kyle is an idiot who doesn’t properly understand how Rogelio cares about and listens to him and they’re still gay okay???

Confirmed by Mickey Quinn

thanks for the info! that makes a lot of sense.