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spop-romanticizes-abuse · 19 days

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it is interesting how the spop fandom has just randomly decided that certain things are canon even though they’re not. “catra has BPD” being the most popular out of all of them, despite the creators not even mentioning BPD. you can’t diagnose a fictional character. you can have a headcanon, sure, but you can’t insist that it’s canon. in that case, i could just say that horde prime has NPD or something, and that y’all are ableist for hating him.

similarly, people seem to think that guided meditation is somehow.. therapy? it can be part of therapy, sure, but guided meditation alone isn’t going to do shit for you if you’re actually struggling with a mental illness, especially something like BPD, if you really believe that catra has BPD. personality disorders can’t be “cured” with just guided meditation lol. they can’t be cured, period, but if you want to learn how to deal with them better, you need proper therapy and medication. trauma from abuse also cannot be healed with just guided meditation. meditation is just a small exercise to help you relax and/or focus. that’s it. it does not replace proper therapy and healing. perfuma is NOT a therapist, and she is NOT qualified to be one, considering the way she treated entrapta. you can’t just look at one scene where perfuma offers to help catra open up and say “perfuma is catra’s therapist!”

there are also some others, like the whole “catra only hurt she-ra, not adora” but these two are the ones that piss me off the most because these people pretend to care about abuse and mental health, when they clearly don’t know shit about it. they talk about how much catra has suffered and how unstable her mental state is, and then act like she can be healed with the power of true love and a few sessions of meditation and positive affirmations.

#tw ableism #tw mental health #tw mental illness #tw trauma #spop critical #spop salt #spop #spop discourse #spop criticism #she ra #anti spop #anti stans #the fact that they think catra and adora can heal while being in a relationship itself is proof #that spop stans don’t give a shit about abuse victims or mental health issues #neither catra nor adora is gonna be able to heal in this situation #if you actually care about catra you would know that

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takerfoxx · 5 years

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She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, Season 4, Episode 1, First Impressions!

New season has FINALLY ARRIVED, which means I finally get it in front of my eyeballs! So, it’s first impressions time!

...however, since I’m watching it right after it dropped instead of being kind of late to the party like I was with the previous three, I’m gonna play it safe and seal off my thoughts under the spoiler cut. So yeah.

Anyway!

So the first part of my prediction was pretty much correct, in that it’s about Glimmer’s coronation, and she’s still really shaken up over Angella’s death (and why wouldn’t she be?) and Adora and Bow are trying to be supportive but it’s super stressful, though it did play out a bit differently. Turns out, rather than be nervous about whether or not she could fill her mother’s shoes and that everyone is looking down on her and judging her like I thought, she’s instead mega-pissed about how no one is even addressing the big THE QUEEN, WHO OH YEAH WAS MY MOM, IS SUPER DEAD! and is instead all going on and on about party arrangements and ceremonies and rituals and stupid stuff that doesn’t matter because her mom is dead and no one is even talking about it!

Bow and Adora certainly had the best of intentions, and I like how neither the show nor Glimmer made them out to be the bad guys in this despite them kind of making things worse. Glimmer’s hurting, but just not in the way they were thinking. Fortunately, in the end she got what she needed in hearing Angella’s final message to her, giving her some measure of closure and letting her accept her new position as Queen of Brightmoon and the leader of the Princess Rebellion, which is pretty much what she needed all along.

That having been said, I did kind of feel like her pain over losing her mom was resolved kind of...too neatly, I guess? I get that it’s a new season and they need to move the plot along, but even so. Still, just because she’s gotten some closure doesn’t mean that the wound is totally healed (because it never will be) and that this won’t come up again, so I’ll be keeping a close eye on her.

In other news, the other princesses were as delightful as always in their trying so hard to do things right but completely missing the point. Frosta was...kind of terrifying (poor Sea Hawk!), Mermista’s obsession with her “floral” arrangements were a hoot, and poor Perfuma really needs to get back to her hippie roots and get some meditation in while smoking some kush, because I feel that her patience for her fellow princesses is very close to running out and she’s just going to go all Poison Ivy on everyone. And jeez, someone rein Castespella in!

Though on a side note, I feel kind of bad for this, but Swift Wind continues to irk me. Yeah, I know he’s supposed to be a comic relief character, but at least the other characters were trying to do right by Glimmer in their weird, kind of egotistical ways, but he was making his thing all about him and...look, I’m sorry, but I just don’t like Swift Wind, okay?!

Also, give Netossa and Spinnerella something to do, already!

Ahem.

So, back to the bad guys’ side, that’s where things take a...fully predicted and interesting turn.

So, let’s talk about Catra.

Catra continues to be the most fascinating character in the entire show. On the one hand, she is very much an abuse victim, someone who was mistreated her entire life, who was forced to live in the shadow of her best friend, who was clearly starved for any kind of positive reinforcement but was constantly denied it, who was constantly told that she wasn’t good enough, that she was inadequate, that she was a failure, etc. It’s a terrible situation for anyone to be in, which is why her sympathetic moments play out so well.

But however, despite how she’s been treated by her so-called betters, Catra’s kind of the most competent character in the whole show. Every time she has the freedom to do things her way, she quite often comes out on top, and unless her deeply-seated issues get the better of her or some other happenstance that she couldn’t account for occurs, she tends to win. She is a master of psychological warfare and a terrific and cunning fighter, able to adapt to quickly changing situations and new environments scarily fast and get the drop on her opponents. Hell, she’s gone toe-to-toe with She-Ra and managed to hold her own just through her wits.

And that has led her to having a rocketship strapped to her back, sending her soaring upward.

Through sort of a fluke, she was made Force Captain in Adora’s place and kicked ass. She out-thought Shadow Weaver and deposed of her, taking her power and her job. She made herself out to be the biggest threat the Rebellion has ever seen (I can’t remember the figures, but Entrapta once said that under her leadership, the Horde saw a massive leap in efficiency). When she was exiled to the Crimson Waste pretty much to die, she took it over in a day, captured Mara’s ship, took Adora’s sword, and brought it back to Hordak when he had pretty much written her off.

Point is, when she has her eye on the prize, Catra is almost unstoppable. And here we are shown what that prize is. She wants the Rebellion crushed and Etheria ready to offer up on a silver platter when Horde Prime finally arrives, as expected, though I truly doubt that has much to do with actually believing in the Horde’s right to rule and has more to do with it being because the Rebellion is where Adora and Shadow Weaver are. But regardless, it’s always been made very clear that she is in it for herself, and not out of any kind of loyalty to Hordak. I mean, after he treated her last season, why would it be? And now she has had it up to here with his constant moping despite having a distinct advantage that he’s not pressing.

So she decides to do something about it. Namely, she does to him what she did to Shadow Weaver: exploit her knowledge of his weaknesses and make him her bitch.

Damn. I mean, we all saw it coming, but damn.

Catra’s...running the Horde now. I mean, Hordak’s probably still going to be the front, but she’s going to be the real power from now on, and that is really bad news for the good guys. And I have no doubt that that’s where Double Trouble comes in.

But anyway, as sympathetic as Catra’s story is, and as impressive as her actions have been, that doesn’t take away from the fact that she’s kind of become a really terrible person. Which is totally deliberate and the writing is great, don’t get me wrong! But she’s replaced both Shadow Weaver and Hordak, and like them, she has her own victim of her abusive behavior.

Scorpia.

That scene honestly broke my heart, even if I saw it coming. Scorpia honestly is pretty much my favorite character. I love how she’s this big, powerful, intimidating person with a totally sweet, caring, awkward, and kind of ditzy personality. Her crush on Catra was pretty obvious from the get-go, and I loved their dynamic...for the first couple of seasons anyway. But as much as I got into the Scorptra train, it’s clear that it’s not going to work out, given how toxic Catra’s become, and Scorpia knows it, and it’s tearing her up. I am very interested in how her arc is going to turn out this season. I mean, she’s got an entire solo episode coming up, which I am very much looking forward to. But I hope that this is the catalyst that causes her to finally stand up to Catra and break away from the Horde. At the very least she doesn’t buy what Catra did to Entrapta one bit, and I love that she’s still looking after Emily. Maybe she and Hordak can team up and go to Beast Island to rescue our favorite autistic gadgeteer princess.

But getting back to Catra, if the last season was seeing her at her lowest point, then this one will be seeing her at her highest, but on the side of evil. I predict that she’s finally going to get everything she’s convinced herself that she wants only to lose it all at the end, leading to her final arc in the final season. Now, will that be a true redemption arc like everyone is hoping for? Will Hordak redeem himself as well?

Well...probably not.

See, I am totally on board with the two of them finally confronting the years of abuse that made them the way they were, breaking away from it, and actually becoming better people, but redemption does kind of mean making up for all the pain and damage that you’ve caused, and I’m afraid that they’re in waaaaaaaaaay too much debt to do that.

However, they are perfectly capable of having a reformation arc. Because just because you can’t make up for what you’ve done doesn’t mean you can’t better yourself going forward.

Not Shadow Weaver though. Don’t think I didn’t notice you lurking around in that one scene. Honored guest my ass. She’s totally up to something.

#she-ra #she-ra and the princesses of power #spop #glimmer #bow #adora #angella #catra #hordak #scorpia #reaction

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