Have you noticed that after the catradora fight™️ when adora is told to let go, when the horse breaks her out of that unconscious state adora comes to the realization that her bonds with people are the reason she is she-ra? Was it just me or did that seem like foreshadowing a reunion between them

i think that episode 11′s flashbacks were specifically chosen by light hope to help convince adora that attachments were Bad. light hope even showed other flashbacks involving adora’s new friends when really trying to drive that point home at the end. 

i’m not sure if catra and adora will end up reuniting in the castle again, but if they are, maybe light hope will have realized that she-ra’s true source of strength is her love for her friends. if that’s the case, maybe light hope can choose some different flashbacks that time around, to help bring them back together. 

now that my powers are unleashed: 1) who is your favourite character and why is it entrapta 2) ok but in all seriousness – favourite parts? least favourite parts? hopes, disappointments, theories, general opinions? 3) it is with a heavy heart that i must announce there is unnecessary discourse and yes, it is about catradora

FINALLY i get to answer this! 

1) 

yes, my favorite character is indeed entrapta. she’s incredibly relatable and complex and autistic and wonderful. i’m convinced that she was actually written by an autistic person, because holy shit, i’m so impressed. 

i can understand why people would be annoyed by the autistic character being “amoral”, but i think that’s a fundamental misunderstanding of her character and her motives. catra needed to convince her that she’d been left behind before luring her in with tech for a reason. 

yes, she’s doing very bad things right now without thinking of the consequences, but i’m certain that as soon as she realizes that the rebel princesses thought she’d died, she’ll come right back to them. like, fuck, can you imagine her reaction to the memorial garden that perfuma created in her honor? if we thought her reaction to being abandoned was sad enough… 

i also really love catra, for her intense complexity, and scorpia, because i want her to be my girlfriend, and seahawk, because he’s fabulous, and bow, because he’s a sweetheart and the heart of the team (and i’m weak for boys who are the heart of the team, as you know), and–well, i could go on. 

i can’t think of a character that i dislike honestly. shadow weaver was fascinating and a creepily accurate portrayal of an abusive parent. hordak was smart in a way that i could respect even though he’s, y’know, evil. 

2) 

my favorite parts are the complexity of the characters. i’d like to see them interact more together, but i feel like those complaints are kind of…premature? they only just decided to commit to the princess alliance in the very last episode, y’know? so i can understand why people might be frustrated that we barely saw the princesses working together aside from basically two episodes, but i think we have many wonderful interactions to look forward to! 

i also really liked that the characters’ motives made sense. it’s hard to contrive a situation in which the hero’s bff actually aligns with the Bad Guys even though she doesn’t actually believe in what they do, but this show did it perfectly. it’s also hard to contrive a situation in which the autistic character aligns with the Bad Guys without being Problematic, but this show did that too. everything felt thoughtful. 

my least favorite parts were some of the earlier episodes’ plots. like, perfuma’s episode’s “moral” was literally copy-pasted from the original she-ra, and not in a good way. same with entrapta’s episode’s “moral” about not relying on your powers. they felt so simplistic compared to the rest of the series. 

the animation wasn’t great. i loved the colors, but, yeah, a lot of frames could use work. i’m guessing s2 will have a bigger budget though. 

i can’t say that anything really disappointed me. there was that review that completely misunderstood the joke about bow not realizing what netossa and spinnerella actually do, claiming that it was Bad Rep because of that, and i’m…amazed at how off the mark it was. like, wow. it’s literally just, “bow doesn’t realize that their names are literal”, not “lesbians are stupid.” 

i hope that catra gets an amazing redemption arc. i hope that we get a major explicit endgame wlw romance–but even if we don’t, i’ll know that noelle tried her best to make it happen, and i’ll be happy with that too. i hope that scorpia marries me someday. 

some theories… she-ra is an avatar-like state, light hope intentionally showed those memories to tear catra and adora apart, entrapta is going to use that tech she recovered earlier to corrupt she-ra again… i think all my theories are the common ones, haha. 

3) 

lemme guess–that it’s toxic and abusive? idk what people expected. this is friends-to-enemies-to-lovers territory. catra is going to be Problematic and hurt adora until she redeems herself. we already saw her instinctively protect adora multiple times in the first 10.5 episodes, so like, jeez, give her a chance to go through her development. 

i think this fandom is going to have a huge problem with gray morality. i’ve already gotten one idiot basically accusing me of condoning gen/ocide…all because i wrote a catra meta. god forbid i examine the complexity of the villains in this show, right? jeez, it’s not like i’m saying catra Did Nothing Wrong, which can’t be said for a lot of people stanning male Problematic Faves, so, hm. 

i think the reason why catra is so jealous of adora’s new friends (beyond the obvious) is because: 

a) as highlighted in this episode, the two of them were very attached to each other but, particularly for catra, their other attachments were rather limited. while adora was always able to socialize with the rest of the team, albeit on a superficial level, catra was always alienated from them. when adora left, catra lost her only friend, and the only person she’d ever connected with. i think this is why she’s so resistant to befriending scorpia, even though she trusts her and enjoys her company. 

b) rather than interpret this as adora choosing the side of good vs. evil (as adora herself has explained), catra has repeatedly viewed it as adora choosing her New Friends over catra. i had expected catra to soften when realizing why adora was even in this place to begin with (to heal glimmer), but that actually wouldn’t align with catra’s previous actions. glimmer and bow symbolize adora’s abandonment of her, far more than the rebellion or bright moon or anything else, because she only sees it in these extremely narrow, short-sighted terms. 

I started watching she-ra and honestly first episode when adora directly went in for the whole honor of grayskull spiel I was like “girl. Girl you just learned you were lied to by the mysterious leaders of your fraction your whole life. Why are you directly following the next mysterious leader who could absolutely be lying to you again????”

one of my roommates actually criticized that too. like, why was she so easily convinced that the horde was Bad and the rebellion was Good without doing some independent exploration? the simple answer is that this is a kid’s show and they didn’t have time to delve into the reality of breaking away from an oppressive regime when they preferred to tackle different nuanced/complex ideas (the cycle of abuse, for example, and how that keeps catra tied to the horde), but, yeah. 

it’s not a shadow weaver mind trick. it’s a light hope mind trick. light hope believes that she-ra can only realize her true potential by abandoning any emotional attachments, so she specifically chose to make them relive these particular memories in order to push them apart and make that process easier.