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n7punk · 1 year

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Selling a Dream Fic Notes

Selling a Dream (SaD) is done! This one took me way longer (and was way bigger) than I expected, but it was lots of fun. I'm gonna miss these girls, I already do, but BOY is the fic long enough 😂

Epilogue Life:

Adora continues focusing on cosplay and traditional photoshoots for her career, taking on commissions as well sometimes (more on that later). With the reboot now on, and thus the studio focusing on their new iteration of the characters, Adora doesn't do any more official work with the studio (at least as a host), though she is invited to a few events as an influencer. Adora continues to use the original She-ra as her signature cosplay, though she does recreate the new She-ra outfit too and wears it occasionally, but the other one is beloved (by her and older fans), it's what she's known for, it's more revealing (read: gets better traction on Instagram), and also, you know, Adora looks like the original She-ra so she's a good match for the cosplay whereas another amazing cosplayer would be a better fit for reboot She-ra/Mara.

Adora has warmed up to professional modeling now it's something she chooses and sometimes she has a lot of fun doing it, but it can be a little hard on her self esteem depending on the director/requirements, so the part of her "job" (confluence of jobs, more like) that really makes her happy is being influencer/cosplayer - especially the cosplay part, and especially doing "casual" photoshoots with her friends/for Instagram where she doesn't have to be perfect or fit the vision of a stranger. Her commissions let her dip her toe into the prop business sometimes (if they involve props, anyway), though she has no desire to return to it full time.

When she and Catra move in together almost a year into their relationship, Adora officially joins Wildcat Workshop and starts coordinating her commissions through there. She works partially at home (mostly for sewing/basic cosplays), partially at the BFS workshop (also cosplay, especially with more advanced elements, and light propwork), and partially at the workshop. She still goes over to the BFS house (now just Glimmer and Bow's house technically, but they all decided before she even moved out that it would always be the BFS house, especially with Catra now included in the squad) to spend time together/work together (and use the laser cutter). She has also built up a good friendship with Scorpia, plus a closer one with Entrapta, so she has a really great place to work no matter where she goes or what she needs.

Sometimes Adora helps on projects (that aren't hers) at Wildcat Workshop, but an average day might see her and Catra waking up together, going into the shop for a bit, and then Adora heading over to BFS to work on cosplay with Glimmer and Bow while Catra continues her work. Or that order might be reversed, depending when Glimmer/Bow are going to be home. Come evening, Adora and Catra will head home together or go hang out with one of their friends.

Catra's career is only just beginning. Once she has worked on one show(/for one propmaster) it's a lot easier to get work on others and she ends up making a steady business between commissions and propwork. When season two of the reboot rolls around, they hire her again for a few more key pieces, and Adora has a greater hand in helping with the builds this time around now she is an official employee.

Catra ends up admitting she loves Melog after he stops eating one day and they find out he has an intestinal blockage when they take him to the vet. It turns out fine and they're able to clear it without surgery, but she decides he should live with her and Adora after that because they can monitor what he eats better there. He sometimes goes with Adora when she goes to the BFS workshop because he's easily bored, but he's also very willing to let somebody lead him around and thus is pretty easy to take places.

At Catra and Adora's place, they end up with an entire closet dedicated to costumes. Catra cosplays with Adora (and Entrapta) a bit more here and there, though she does it the same way she did it with Entrapta before now and doesn't do any in-character events or anything (even if she kind of plays along with Adora when she is acting in character herself).

As implied in the fic, Scorpia and Perfuma start flirting via text and very quickly fall into a relationship, which makes it a bit easier for her to warm up to Adora as she becomes a frequent face at the workshop. Entrapta, despite doing her damnedest otherwise, doesn't build or hack anything that gets her prison time. She is definitely on a list, though. Overall, Wildcat Workshop is successful and they're all able to find work that let's them stay and build together. At one point they discuss moving to a bigger space, but, well, this one is important, not just to them but to Entrapta long before they showed up, so they always just end up cleaning, rearranging things, and maybe downsizing or relocating unnecessary materials/equipment. All of them end up with extra materials stowed in their garages for when needed, though.

Playlist:

This fic didn't have a playlist, though I was listening to Fletcher's "Girl of my Dreams" album a lot for the first half of it. For the second half, it was a few songs on loop: "Uh Oh" by Tate McRae (CH6, 7), "Nonsense" by Sabrina Carpenter (CH8), and "Dressed To Kill" by the Wombats (CH8, 9).

Chapter 1:

I did not think the premise of this AU was specific/unusual until readers told me so, but in hindsight "Cosplay AU" isn't even a tag, so maybe I should have known that. I genuinely thought the cosplay creation process was common knowledge within fandom as a whole and not just cosplayers themselves. I knew some of the machine talk was specific, but I definitely underestimated things.

Adora's social media presence is split three ways, technically. Instagram (feed/posts): Photo shoots/photos of herself, both in cosplay and out of it (typical hot influencer shit), along with some workout posts and the occasional build video (she uses reels for those). She also does announcement posts (a con she is going to be at, an event she is going to be hosting, new prints dropping, etc) on there and her stories, but once they "aren't relevant" (like when a con has passed) she deletes them to keep it clean. She does a lot of thirst trap posting because she likes the validation, but it's also great for engagement. Instagram (stories): cosplay/sewing/builds and con "liveblogs". She saves all her costumes and con stories into playlists or whatever they're called so people can go back and look at the making process for one character or a particular con. Her main focus for her "career" is on her Instagram. It's the only place she has really monetized, with like sponsored posts on occasion and stuff (she also sells prints and posts when they're going up). Her Twitter is more "personal" where she just tweets about whatever, interacts with her friends more (at least publically, she's in her friends DMs and stuff on Insta), and generally feels less "pressure" even though she still has a lot of followers. She'll also livetweet cons on her twitter sometimes, and she has more nerd shit on there than on her insta.

Catra mostly posts photos and videos from around the shop (now that she has left the Horde, that mostly didn't fly when she was there) and of commissions/builds/personal projects. It's basically a portfolio page for the shop. She does some videos of builds, mostly timelaspes or focusing on one small part of the build because she can't give away all her secrets. Her stories lean more towards shop shenanigans, and she also shares her friend's posts there. If she does a cosplay shoot, it will end up there unless she really wants to show off the prop, and then it will make it to her main page. Her Twitter is a mix of more casual posts and photos of builds, but she wouldn't treat it as casually as Adora does hers just because it is still her business social media and she needs to seem put together, if not professional. Adora's business is being hot LOL.

I find it really disruptive to my immersion when another property is brought up in a fanfic. This includes mentioning it as a fictional thing, or "cameos" from other characters. I don't know why, but it really throws me off and that made using real characters for their cosplays an instant no. It's usually weird to me to have something else IRL be fictional within an already fictional universe, hence the main property for this fic... basically being the original property of the show.

Catra only got one of Adora's presents, but because Adora messaged her every birthday she knew she sent two. The first one she sent to their old apartment, where Catra was no longer living. Later that week, Catra posted a photo of her hanging out on the balcony of her new place with a caption about how much she liked having a balcony now, basically signalling to Adora that she had moved. Adora considered resending the present, but she didn't know if that would be creepy and tenacious, so she waited for the next year, this time sending it to the Horde workshop with Catra's name on it. Catra got that one.

Adora was a litol buzzed when she sent the New Years message, hence the spelling. Catra was too, and she almost replied to it.

They both changed their numbers after leaving the Horde; Catra immediately, and Adora like a month later after she got a flaming voicemail from her ex-boss upon him seeing she had secured a job that, a month ago, would have been the Horde's.

Like 50% of my knowledge for this fic was from Simone Gertz/Laura Kampf/Evan & Katelyn videos (all maker Youtubers), like 40% from the cosplayers and sewists I've followed over the years, and then like 10% Mythbusters.

Melog was a "new arrival", hence why Catra was reluctant to claim him yet. He was actually born in the shop shortly before they cleaned it up, and had slipped in and out of the area, but he was Extremely Cautious of them, so it took a few weeks for them to even notice A Cat in the area, and a few more for them to suspect it was the same cat living nearby, and then they slowly realized he wasn't just mousing in and around the shop when the garage was open, but that he was actually living there. And then there was the slow process of charming him, which was made easier by how long he had been hanging around. He was already accustomed to them, and fairly young/tameable, but he had only just been "tamed" when the fic started (Catra had been in her shop for six months total).

Adora's whole deal in this AU is based off a professional cosplayer I met when I was like, 12 at a con who I have NEVER been able to remember the name of, just that I think it started with a J.

Adora's username is a reference to an (I think) well known Adora cosplayer, whose feed partially served as inspiration/reference for this AU. I gave some of the characters more "generic"/professional handles since social media is important to their jobs, but it also just made coming up with usernames easier. I hate coming up with usernames even for myself.

Catra hung up so fast after Adora said she tries to show she respects her now because she realized she was right and she wasn't ready to deal with that.

I had a lot of fun thinking of what personal touches Catra's workspace would have, because every workshop I know of has some kooky shit from a goofy build, or a prototype that didn't work out or that they just don't want to throw away.

Chapter 2:

Between rereading an old fic and writing summaries for SW&D to match TOHT, I was kind of feeling writing chapter summaries again even though I know I used to hate writing them (and wow, it's still hard). Anyway, I decided to throw in some odd ones from the "perspective" of the cosplay for this fic to match the chapter titles.

I use the pleading emoji a lot, and I see it a lot, but like 1 out of 20 times I see it I want to pick it up in my hands and squeeze it until it pops so it stops looking at me like that. I can't explain it, but it feels like a very Catra instinct to me so I included it.

"If Catra was any of her other friends, she wouldn’t hesitate to tell her how hot she would look as Skeletor, but it’s Catra, so Adora can’t just say things like that no matter how badly she wants to." Mayhaps that is why Catra doesn't think you love her. You fucking idiot.

BannetCon was named after a guy named Bannet. He did some important things in the video game industry and then founded one of the first video game conventions on the West coast accidentally. It's been around for a long time.

The jacket I described for Catra is based on a real one (but like, taken up to 12, and that jacket already started at 11), but it was a one-of-a-kind piece that sold on Etsy so the best record of it now is random Pinterest posts.

"I'm not She-ra without [the lights]" Yeah it's Adora so she's still insecure XD She-ra/cosplay in general has been a big crutch for her interactions with the public (as is discussed in the next scene) and she was on the verge of a panic attack at the thought of having a dead or a damaged prop for the panel where she would be talking about cosplay in front of everyone. She did end up talking about the battery dying and other mishaps that happen at the panel and how you have to adapt on the fly with stuff like that and how a simple "casualwear" cosplay is always good to pack, but with the danger passed and the prop working, it was easy for her to talk about - because she had her crutch.

The panel Adora was on was called "Cosplay & Community".

While writing this chapter I had to shove Marlena's body back in the closet. It just flopped out I don't know what happened. In the process I made Adora autistic on accident.

Chapter 3:

Glimmer's paint job on the mannequin head looks like a bad knockoff of a Monster High doll. My dress form doesn't even have a head and I still throw a cloth over it to make it less creepy. The arms are detachable and one time my mom *screamed* when she was helping me move stuff and saw the hand hanging off the top shelf of a closet.

Adora's VHS set up doesn't actually take up a lot of room because she has a pretty small CRT TV and the player is right on top of it, with the boxset displayed there. She likes having it because if she is in A Mental Place™️ where she wants/needs to be watching She-ra, then she likes being able to just ball up in her room and not venture out to do it - both because it's more comfortable (physically and emotionally) and because she doesn't have to enter the living room and alert her housemates to her mood. Then they'd try to help.

I don't miss VHS because it was a pain, but also, I do have some Nostalgia I was working out.

Adora was 100% lying and scrambling when she said she wanted to send the thirst trap to Bow for Totally Normal Shoot Equipment Reasons.

Starla and Adora (like 95% of the viewers) both shipped She-ra and Teela so it made sense to go all in on a ship photoshoot, but also lowkey Starla was just like 👀 yeah I'll climb that. Her brother knows this, and loves her, so he put up with it.

Adora did pay for the sword, even though it didn't end up being ridiculously more than Clawdeen's material/time costs, partially because she believes in compensation, partially because she doesn't want to strain their friendship, and partially because Catra didn't exactly want a Clawdeen costume from her, especially not the way Adora wanted the sword. Catra didn't charge her full price, though, just something close to the difference between the costume and the sword's costs.

Some stuff about the She-ra show: I've only watched like, two episodes of Xena, so mostly I only have cultural knowledge about it and used it as a touch-point for the live-action take on a warrior princess. The She-ra show in-fic had some plot similarities with the original She-ra/He-man shows, kind of a fusion of the two shows with He-man elements in general (partially because this just made sense when half the She-ra characters were already in the fic as "real people" and partially because I wanted to play with them).

The overall villain was just "Prime", but certain seasons/arcs were focused on other villains. Skeletor was a servant of Prime that had shown up in earlier seasons and was then the big bad of season three and made minor comebacks here and there until season six when he had a prominent role alongside Prime again.

Season three was set in an entirely new location, the Crimson Waste, which had been referenced a number of times but never seen. It was also shot at a new location to give the appearance of a desert, the plot roughly being that Skeletor managed to kidnap Teela "between seasons" and brought her into the heart of the cursed desert where he thought She-ra could never survive as a being of light and love. She faced opposition from both Prime's minions, the harsh landscape filled with mutated creatures, and the criminals who had been banished there and survived, forming an outlaw society that Clawdeen was the self-declared queen of. She was an anti-hero figure for the season, but She-ra would not have been able to rescue Teela without her help in the end. She was a Huntara-like figure in the desert.

Season 3 was shorter by a few episodes than the other seasons, due to the whole "written around a pregnancy" thing. The show ran for 6 seasons with just over a 100 regular episodes, 2 special episodes (Christmas episode and a drug PSA episode because it was That Era) and two TV movies.

The second TV movie came two years after the show ended and introduced She-ra's long-lost brother He-man. It was wildly hated for fucking with (or outright contradicting) the lore so much and is generally regarded as a cashgrab for more toys. Teela had to be written out of it because her actress didn't even return for it, officially because she was focused on her family, but pretty much everyone knows she was very attached to the franchise and would have only wanted to be part of a good movie. She-ra's actress did return (there wouldn't have been a movie without her), but she was unfortunately closely associated with She-ra and having trouble finding any prominent roles because people just looked at her and saw She-ra (similar to what happened with George Reeves and Superman) so she kind of felt like she had to. Her worry turned out to be somewhat misplaced and she managed a fine acting career in supporting roles after that, but she was never a headliner again.

Most people consider the movie non-canon, Adora included. After all, it establishes that at some undisclosed point after the series ended, She-ra and Teela parted ways because She-ra went out seeking information about a family she knew to be dead and for some reason Teela just... stayed behind?? With the implication at the end of the movie being She-ra then goes on to have adventures with her brother now instead of the woman she loved for years? Yeah it was a set-up for a sequel show that never happened and it was unacceptable. Adora has never run into a He-man cosplayer at a con and she would probably break character around them because it would be awkward, though she would take a photo with them if they asked, she just wouldn't do a photoshoot. People would probably call her a fake fan LOL.

Chapter 4:

This chapter was supposed to cover weeks/months. Instead it covers *checks watch* a day. I intended to get all the way to the con, to the first day with them going to sleep and the next chapter focusing on it through to the entire end of the con. Yeah. Uh. Oops. I didn't account for how fucking horny they would be.

Adora's sword had a lowkey "preview" in the stories from the set, but they were from so far away it didn't even come across as a different sword, although in retrospect the proportions were off and the lights were definitely different. Still, the majesty of the reveal was kept intact.

Scorpia didn't message Catra until they were already all but making out, and Catra didn't even have her phone on her, so she didn't see it until she got in the car after they were all done.

The Larry the Lobster joke was from a whole exchange with Meta, that would later play out in Chapter 6, but was set up here in chapter 4. Also I'm like 90% sure Larry the Lobster is from Spongebob but I don't even know for sure tbh because I didn't watch it. I just vaguely get the joke and think it's funny.

They were on the roadside for about an hour, but that includes solo shots, their pair shots, setting up and planning out shots, and then packing everything away and saying goodbye afterwards.

Glimmer sat in the backseat hoping Adora would join her there and they could have their "confrontation" there, but Adora saw a free passenger seat and went "sweet". Glimmer couldn't tell her to sit in the back without tipping her off.

Catra is a flirt, but not nearly as much of one as Adora thinks she is, because Adora's sample is so skewed. Catra flirts with her so much, and she does see Catra flirt with others sometimes, so she assumes Catra is always pretty flirty, which just isn't true. Catra also doesn't have the same intent with others that she has with Adora, which Adora is totally blind to.

Chapter 5:

I hate coming up with handles, as stated earlier, so I just kind of muddled around and gave Perfuma "ivyscousin" as in "Poison Ivy's cousin". Not directly stated, so it doesn't break my immersion too much.

When Adora asked if Scorpia knew who Perfuma is she was mostly asking because Perfuma has a Very Strong Brand as an advocate for trans and women's rights, especially in the fandom/entertainment/cosplay space ie stuff like "Cosplay is not consent" and respecting a cosplayer's personal gender identity no matter what gender(s) they choose to cosplay. She's known for hosting similarly to Adora, but her focus is on queerness, whereas Adora is known more in her fandom circles and for being a maker, and thus hosts fandom-related events and cosplay workshops. Adora was also lowkey asking if Scorpia knew she was trans (something Perfuma is also vocal about). She wasn't sure if Scorpia was or not at that point, but she did suspect given things like her display name and Vibes she got.

Adora's difficulties communicating here are partially related to her autism. She says something factual or literal and neurotypical people draw a different conclusion/correlation based on it, leading to her followers thinking she's dating or her booking a single room on accident.

It's also part of why they can get so close to crossing the gap and then either Adora pulls up short, doubting her read on the situation, or she does something that makes Catra pull up short because it seems like Adora wants her too. That's also just because they're best friends in Lesbians tho.

Catra sleeps naked to minimize fur-pinching potential now she has her own bedroom, so when she knew she would be sharing a room with Adora, she pulled out the matching pajama set as quite literally the only pajamas she owned.

When I was planning this AU I was like "how funny would a hotel mix-up be" and joked to my friends about sprinkling in All The Tropes for this one. I absolutely could have written the same thing with them having two beds - they would still share during the day to watch the TV since it was at the foot of only one of them, etc - but... it was more fun to write there was only one bed.

Chapter 6

Catra smiles when Adora mentions the chisels because she's remembering how much she likes them and how many times she has used them.

When Adora goes to a con, she usually tries to wear Just The Character's Costume and hold Just their props. It's easier when she's at a con with someone who doesn't mind carrying a bag (or when the character has pockets, which isn't that common for her), but that's her general goal. If she wants to buy stuff, unless she's worried about it selling out immediately, she usually waits until she's about to leave the con anyway (to go to lunch or something) and then gets a bag (sometimes buying one, sometimes bringing a drawstring bag or something, whatever works) and does a sweep through the hall picking up everything she's scouted throughout the day. Then she'll go to lunch, dropping the stuff off at her hotel room if it's close or keeping it in the car until she leaves for the night otherwise. They were doing their vendor sweep before going to lunch on Saturday in this case.

Entrapta actually hates having crumbs in her bed and Catra has watched her get out of bed after going to sleep and strip it to remake it more than once at midnight, but there's a disconnect there between "don't want crumbs" and "don't do the things that make them (eating in bed)".

PGS is Pacific Geek Show, a con Adora and Spinnetossa both went to but never found time to meet up.

Adora's "mindless glower" is her autism stare, where she's trying to figure out the thing she's supposed to do/say to come across as a socially attuned human. She just thinks she's socially awkward and a bit worse at interacting with strangers in general.

The line about the reboot tarnishing memories of something she loves is just a factual concern, but it's there because that was the exact reason I didn't watch the new She-ra show at first.

The reboot itself, however, was not at all meant to be a meta reference and was entirely there to set up Catra getting the prop job. Adora meeting Mara on set was one of The Scenes for this fic, the last one both chronologically in fic and to occur to me.

I went to Clare to ask about what exactly Masters of the Universe meant because I didn't want to "misuse" it here even if She-ra in the fic universe is pretty different from how it is IRL.

The fic summary mentioned consequences and now, in chapter 6, we finally get to them.

I have weirdly specific headcannons about porn for them. Adora does watch it, sometimes, mostly to figure herself out/what her kinks are, but because sex is focused on her partner for her, it doesn't do a lot for her aside from introduce her to stuff. Catra doesn't like watching it, it makes her kind of uncomfortable, but she does enjoy nudes/lewds that people post and might look at them while getting off.

When Adora did watch porn, trying to figure out her kinks or prepare herself for theoretical future sex, she definitely found herself gravitating towards stuff featuring magicats if it was an option and she couldn't decide if it was worse to be projecting her friend onto it/thinking of her while watching or to just have a thing for magicats, because then she was like oh no what if I'm fetishizing them and had a small spiral (the answer is she has a Type that she might have even if she hadn't grown up with Catra, but she was also definitely Projecting).

She saw the tail thing years after she first pulled Catra's tail, and she knew tail-pulling could be a bullying thing, not to mention seeing it on TV portrayed just as a rude - or sometimes straight up disrespectful - annoyance, so she knew it wasn't universal even before porn prompted her to look it up and found it was pretty common but not universal. She just immediately wrote it off as something Catra didn't have.

I talked about this in the author's notes, but chapter 5 was supposed to run all the way until they woke up together on the second day of the convention, chapter 6 was supposed to be that entire second day, with them in the hall, the tail pulling, and both of them getting off and cuddling together that night, talking about emotions, falling asleep together, etc, and then ideally also include the panel with Perfuma as a final "comedic button" on the two convention chapters. I did not think that was such an unrealistic expection, and yet.

The tail-pulling leading to a makeout against the wall and them rushing up to their hotel room was The Scene for this fic and the entire reason it exists, though when I was writing it I became extremely partial to the photoshoot chapter as well.

Chapter 7:

This smut is 0% what I planned, but tbh I didn't have much of a plan except Catra curling around Adora and getting her off, and then Adora got all giggly. Even after two years, these two find new ways to surprise me/have sex that I wasn't anticipating.

Catra: "Adora's going to make us move for dinner." Adora literally the next scene: "We can stay here until it's time to eat." Catra had her number lol

In my earlier fics I kind of had a running thing about Catra not wearing underwear, but I stopped it because I felt like I had to repeatedly bring it up every time there was smut or it would seem like I "forgot" to remove Catra's underwear as part of it. For this fic I kind of returned to it, but with a twist by having it be that thongs are the only thing comfortable for her (which is absolutely a thing). Adora's just a bikini briefs girl, but she does wear thongs or no show underwear (or very rarely, go without) if a costume or photoshoot requires it.

I find Perfuma really interesting because she's positive but she works so hard for it, to the point where at times it seems (to Catra) to be a little disingenuous, when really it just means that she's trying hard to be "good," and that taking work doesn't make it any less genuine, it just comes across as more suspicious to Catra.

Catra gets to be a little protective of her friends. As a treat.

Perfuma is not too classy to say fuck, she just only uses it in certain contexts.

I had to retype like two chapters worth of notes here because my computer restarted and I hadn't saved.

Chapter 8:

I got kind of "stuck" on chapter 8, not because of anything to do with it, but because I fell down a Mass Effect hole and did a replay through the entire trilogy while writing it, so progress was slow. Once I finished, I wrote in 2 days more than I'd written in the last 2 weeks. Then of course I had to get sick/have health issues for another two weeks, slowing me down again.

Catra's in a small bedroom next to Entrapta's master because it's actually supposed to be the office, but she was the last to move in, so it's what's left. It used to be Entrapta's secondary work/storage space, until they got the shop all cleared out and organized and there was actually room for stuff there.

Side note: Entrapta loves sharing space with people who - on some level, at least - understand her. She's had room/workmates in the past who just couldn't handle her and those small incidents added up to her working alone in a steadily-deteriorating workshop because nothing else had worked out. Like, she had friends of course, but she usually only saw them IRL a few times a year. Living or working together every day had not been a success.

Adora taking the pencil out of Catra's hand again isn't so much a callback as maintaining continuity, but it's there to show how far they've come since the first chapter. Catra doesn't even really notice it.

Mara's wife is of course Light Hope, and she is looking into the camera with a dead stare to show what she thinks of this, but at the same time she has agreed to it because she loves her wife's enthusiasm, no matter how shitty and plastic the costume is. Teela's outfit is, as typical for the series, missing pants (the lack of pants in the original She-ra/He-man is fucking ridiculous y'all) and also strapless and thus lowcut, so it wasn't something Light Hope was going to just wear, hence her donning it over her clothes, which kind of completed the joke of being "forced" into this despite everyone (who knows them, at least) knowing she agreed to it.

She-ra's original actress was, at the time of the series filming and airing, officially an "ally". There were implications and rumors of course, but she didn't come out until over a decade later. It was pretty much one of those open air secrets, but she was already under national scrutiny portraying something very queer on TV and didn't want to deal with more.

"Leatherman" is a brand of knife multi-tools of some repute.

Catra proposing to bring Adora in was basically "Look, I'd be an absolutely terrible partner if I didn't do my best to bring her in on this. Besides, she's great at finishing so I might have her weather some of the props." She had to kind of trickle the requests out so she didn't seem like a crazy fan or something, but the fact that Adora was already known to the brand - as both a superfan and an occasionally host/brand rep for them - helped a lot with getting the screen test delivery set up. Anything they approved with Adora could eventually be promo, at least once it wasn't secret anymore.

Chapter 9:

I heavily considered including chapter nine just in the ending of chapter 8 since it was short anyway, but the time skip made it feel better to do as something separate. Also I would have had to pad out two Adora POVs in a row, which is easy enough with social media posts or some texts, but I wanted the "cliffhanger" moment so it would sink in for the reader similar to how it did for Adora.

There's a few weeks gap between the end of Chapter 8 and when all the props were done and ready for shoot.

I decided to capitalize "she's going to host multiple Lives" about this to make it a little clearer I'm talking about Instagram Lives, even though no one capitalizes it in casual conversation. They also don't add "Instagram" to the front of it, making that feel more awkward, so I went with the capitalization to make things clearer. I might change this later tbh (like on a subsequent read).

Adora did get a bit of a headstart thinking about how she would make the new She-ra costume, which let her draft some ideas, but she didn't actually start making anything until the first official photos/trailer dropped, both for NDA reasons and because having photos to reference is really important if you have her level of dedication to making something look right. Memory is inherently faulty, and it would be easy to remember two strips of armoring instead of three. She had materials lined up and ready to go once it was time.

I was going to make the director "he" (a vague ND insert, since that's what he's favoring these days), but then I worried people might picture a, like, old hollywood dude ordering the lesbians around for the remake of this very queer show, so I just had them be nonbinary. Their name is Diana because of Diana Huh from crewra and because it is ND's middle name (the D part).

Catra is allowed to say the studio she's working for, though she really isn't supposed to, and she had no intention of doing so until much later. Once the show's embargo (for reviews and the like) was up shortly before premier, she was allowed to actually talk more about what she worked on, and after the first episode airs she posts some photos of the sword cosplayers love her for (other than Adora, who already has everything she needs - and already loves her). Adora, for her part, gushed about the show and getting to visit set like crazy on her Instagram stories once the show was airing.

In the extended show credits, Wildcat Workshop is listed under props (along with everyone else who was part of that production team), and under Wildcat Workshop it lists the names of everyone there, plus Adora, as she was technically a consultant on the sword project. Not with a paid contract or anything, but she was signed onto the NDA and helped Catra spitball some ideas, as well as offer input whenever a design tweak was needed. Basically, Catra worked with the studio, but Adora also worked with Catra.

Mara isn't really "in the show's fandom", especially not online, but she does have a boxset and enjoys it in her personal life. However, she heard about Adora when they were in pre-production because the director was talking about the sword some cosplayer made that proved practical effects could photograph/film well and make the show a little more timeless than the original (the magic effects are really dated), and when they pulled it up to show Mara, they realized the sword was actually made by a propmaker (thanks to clicking through Adora's tag, which they hadn't done before, just assuming it was another cosplayer since she was also credited as Clawdeen). That's the inciting conversation that eventually led to Catra being hired, mostly because when Diana went to the propmaster asking about it he was just like okay why don't we just hire that person to do it then? (Propmasters don't necessarily make the props for a production, often commissioning, buying, or renting them, and this way no one else had to figure out how to reproduce a similar effect, even if they ended up needing to make some changes for it to hold up to the stress of production). Mara has had a scroll through Adora's Instagram following that conversation, as well as later seeing a video of her hosting that fan night from when the production team were later discussing letting her onto set per Catra's request because it was mentioned she had done work for them in the past and been reliable.

The show does end up being good. Different from the original, but with the same heart behind it, just a little more "serious" and modern. Adora loved waiting week-to-week for each new episode - something she never got with the original - and she really likes the new version, but the original will always be more special to her for many reasons. Mara is an amazing She-ra, obviously.

I considered ending the chapter with a final social media post or two from when the review embargo was up, but that was a big timeskip and I thought might be confusing and make it seem like Adora didn't keep her word/respect the NDA. The gist was that Catra posts a photo or two from the build of the sword, like a glamor shot and one progress shot, with a caption talking about how fun it was to work on the project and what an honor it was. Adora then shares that post to her story and the fans who only follow her just lose their minds over her dating the person who made the new sword. Adora also posts about visiting set and gushes about meeting Mara on her story, but she tries to be normal and professional about it while she does so, even though it's very obvious how excited she is.

The effects for the sword Catra made aren't identical to Adora's version of the prop, but it does have lights even if their placement and trigger mechanism are a bit different, as well as their colors and modes. The show will be using digital special effects as well, but combining that with practical makes it look all the better.

No original outline, this was pretty close to everything I planned initially, it just ended up being a Lot More than it was in my head. The only thing that changed is initially, instead of them cosplaying She-ra and Clawdeen, they were supposed to all be part of a group cosplay involving both their friend groups (which is what roped them into talking and having the conversation where they kind of made up in the first place), and Adora & Catra just happened to get a pair of characters that were dating. That was a vague idea in my head that changed once I started writing.

Next Project: I would love to tease my next AU here because I'm pretty sure of what it's going to be, but I'm going to be real with myself: I'm actually probably going to do some scattered one shots (AU and canon) since I have like a dozen WIPs clinging to my ankles.

#SaD #ficmeta #fic notes #i'll post the share link soon

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