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tippenfunkaport · 1 year

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"She-Ra is bad bisexual rep because all the bi/pan characters end up in m/f relationships!"

Not true! Perfuma is bi/pan and she ends up with Scorpia!

"Oh, well I like to headcanon Perfuma as a lesbian."

...so then you understand that's not the show's fault, right? That that's just a problem you made up in your head?

Excuse me a second, I need to scream about this...

Because this has come up over and over (esp on Twitter and TikTok) with people who want to claim that every bi/pan SPOP character ends up in a m/f relationship... by conveniently pretending Perfuma is not canonically bi/pan herself. And every time they are asked to elaborate why they are ignoring her canon status, they give the same answer: that they consider Perfuma a lesbian because now that she's with a woman, she's "not bi anymore"

And... yeah... you know that's not how it works, right? That being bi/pan is not just a phase you get over? That a bi/pan woman dating another woman doesn't suddenly make her a lesbian any more than it makes a bi/pan person dating someone of the opposite gender magically straight?

The person you are currently dating does not change your bi/pan status. Ever. And insisting it does, especially just so you can score some points by making up an issue about a show to be mad about, is super GD harm harmful to the real bi/pan people in your life.

(This is the exact same thing The Owl House fandom does with Lumity and why Dana had to make Luz present a whole slideshow in the cartoon reminding everyone she is still very much bi even though Amity is a lesbian. TOH fans kept insisting because Luz is dating Amity now, she's a lesbian. Nope. Her and Amity can be married for a billion years and that wouldn't change Luz's orientation.)

"But I heard that someone's roommate's cousin who worked with someone on the show once liked a fanart that showed Scorfuma with the lesbian flag so it's basically canon!"

First of all, the legend of this grows daily and I think it's really telling that this archival obsessed fandom only talks about this mythical like and yet has never been able to produce a single screenshot of it.

But for the sake of argument, let's say that this really happened and actually exists, that someone related to the show, however distantly, liked fanart once that implied Perfuma was a lesbian somehow. That still doesn't make it canon. People related to the show and even ND himself have liked and reblogged all sorts of stuff that isn't canon, including g/a, and have been very clear that the only canon is what happens within the show itself.

And, in the show, Perfuma is canonically bi/pan. We see her crushing on Bow, She-Ra, Huntara and Scorpia. The fact that people want to pretend the Bow thing never happened when he's the only character we see her actually date over the run of the show AND it's a major Season 1 plot point is wild to me and just shows the lengths people will go for bi/pan erasure.

And I get that some people enjoy using Perfuma to tell a story about comphet or coming out as a lesbian later in life and I am fully in favor of doing your thing with your headcanons in fanworks. But when it reaches the point it has now where fans are attacking other fans for saying Perfuma is bi/pan or attacking the show for not having any bi/pan character in same sex relationships when Perfuma is CANONICALLY bi/pan is ridiculous.

Keep in mind that your headcanon is literally just something you made up in your head. It's pretend. Fun, yes, but NOT something you can use as justification to attack people over!

Especially when it's something like this that causes real world harm by perpetuating harmful stereotypes about bi/pan people being "just a phase" or a temporary state that changes based on who you date.

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wrens-wramblings · 2 years

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A massive problem with how fandom - particularly queer rep - is going right now on this website is how quick people are to jump ship onto the next thing and then immediately start trashing the everliving shit out of the old thing.

Steven Universe (not a perfect show by any means) while it was coming out was celebrated constantly. The Garnet reveal? Pearl being in love with Rose? The Rupphire wedding? SU was revolutionary and has been quoted by cartoon creators now for being a big reason people are allowed to bring their stories to life. Say what you want about the show, but it broke boundaries and set precedents for a lot of the shows that you now love. And the show's plot lines regarding the diamonds has been taken in completely bad faith - do yall really think the half Jewish queer person meant for you to get "Let's all forgive Nazis" from the Diamonds redemption arcs??

After Steven Universe ended a large majority of people jumped to She Ra and the Princesses of Power and when they mentioned SU at all it was to put it down as a show with terrible representation and all round bad writing.

During SPOP's run it was massively popular, with a lot of buzz around the main ship, Catradora. I know this is gonna be taken in bad faith so a quick note - while I do like Catradora, I do feel that there should have been another season for Catra to properly acknowledge the harm she did to Adora and actually grow as a person before entering into a relationship. Catra was forgiven too easily, but that was in part due to Netflix not wanting to give the show another season to properly flesh out the redemption arc. The final season was rushed as all hell, and so many story points would have been better with another season to flesh them out further.

But I digress - during the show's run it was constantly talked about for it's representation, having multiple queer characters, including a nonbinary character.

The show ends and again, the fanbase jumps. This time, it's to the Owl House. People start talking about how SPOP was actually horrible representation and, my personal favourite, they "added gay people as a cash grab."

Yeah okay guys, I'm sure a queer nonbinary creator is writing about queer people because they actually dislike the gays and want to wring money out of us. That is definitely the situation here.

And now I'm worried that in a year or two we'll have the next big queer cartoon and the posts will start popping up -

"Amity Blight is the mean lesbian stereotype."

"Raine and Eda's relationship is problematic because-"

"Amity and Luz started out as rivals, which is toxic because-"

"The romance didn't start until later in the show, it was added at the end for a cash grab."

Again, I'm certain there's gonna be bad faith takes on this -- I'm not saying these shows are perfect. They all have flaws somewhere. No media is completely without it's faults and its good to recognise those faults, that what critical reading is. But calling someone an abuser for enjoying SPOP, or a Nazi sympathiser for liking SU (actual accusations I have seen on tumblr.com) is frankly a little ridiculous.

As for the bad rep argument - every show on this list has one thing in common: a queer creator. No one experiences queerness the exact same way - the only thing that harassing queer creators for not showing your experience does is make other queer creators... not want to write queer characters. No one wants to receive death threats because, for example, they based a character with their sexuality off of how that actually affected them and someone on the Internet decided they were feeding into a harmful stereotype.

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spop-romanticizes-abuse · 8 months

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I like ur takes and I just wanted to share some stuff from another side. I watched spop as I was in my teen years, incredibly sheltered, queer, and lashing out because I was also dealing with abusive family dynamics. So… yeah I shipped it. I idealized it. And I heavily identified with Catra. But unlike with Zuko(who I also identify with) Catra didn’t change.

Every time she’d travel to a new part of the world I thought omg her moment is coming! Escape!! But she’d just get into a slap fight with Adora and then go back to the Horde. It was so strange it felt like every other character was in a story progression show and Catra was the villain of an episodic show until s5

And s5 was…. Weird. I don’t understand how Catra has a change of heart by getting more hurt by Horde Prime. She was getting hurt the whole series??? I still cried and was elated at the series finale but only bc I wanted an Adora who’d forgive me and love me and say I wasn’t bad. And I think a lot of people are like that.

Everything about the way Catra is framed points to her redemption even in the first episode… but it just makes me feel insulted now. To me as a survivor… it’s like they waved a magic wand and killed off the abuser and gave Catra a gf and that was supposed to fix it. It doesn’t work like that. My abuser died and it made things WORSE for a while (I think it would especially damage someone like Adora since Shadow Weaver “sacrificed” herself and therefore can’t be bad ever) . And I’m not looking for hyper realism in a Princess cartoon but at the time I watched it I couldn’t have really used yknow ?? Some guidance??? Something that wasn’t a fantasy lala ending that once the initial high wore off left me feeling confused and hollow. There is nothing in spop that teaches you how to get that kind of happy ending. Especially if you’re Catra who just says I love you and is suddenly resurrecting ponytail Jesus. To the me who identified with her, it was mostly about wanting to FEEL redeemed through her. FEELING strong and badass and GOOD and like things would be okay even if I was never a princess type. The actual result was feeling like I would never attain a happy ending of any sort because Catra’s didn’t feel real and her “arc” had no footsteps to follow in. How do you make a kids show and not teach good lessons??? Idk the show bad no matter who you identified with was my whole point.

At least I had/have zuko.

Also shipping zuko x sokka x suki is based I do too lmao.

first off, i'm so sorry about all the trauma you went through. i hope you are healing now, and thank you for sharing your story.

secondly, i think this is what a lot of fans felt. i can understand that people relate to catra. hell, even i relate to her a little. i know what it's like to be considered useless and weak, and to desperately want validation from a parent. i get it. when i say i dislike catra, it's not because she's a traumatized child or even because she adopted many of the toxic habits that shadow weaver portrayed. it's that she faced no consequences for any of this.

as much as spop tried to be mature, in the end, it was really childish. s5 got rid of all the complexity and just went "everyone deserves forgiveness", ignoring all of the glaring issues it had yet to solve. the protagonists forgave catra because the writers wanted them to, not because that's how it would have went down in real life.

most spop critics aren't heartless monsters who despise abuse victims, they are people who relate to either catra or adora. and they just want to see a better representation of abuse victims.

it would have been much more fulfilling and satisfying to have catra and adora take some time explore themselves and heal from their trauma, separated from each other. this kind of relationship is harmful for both of them. as long as adora is with catra, she'll continue blaming herself and putting pressure on herself, feeling as if she was responsible for everyone's problems. and as long as catra stays with adora, she'll continue deflecting her issues and being envious of adora. they needed time away from each other, but spop chose to invalidate trauma instead.

it's a pity that spop was one of the very few representation we had, at the time it came out, so people genuinely believe that c//a is a healthy ship, because they don't have many other examples to compare it to. i'm glad there are more and more queer shows coming out lately, and most of them seem to portray healthy relationships.

#btw ponytail jesus made me cACKLE #we should all be grateful for zuko #best redemption arc fr #spop critical #spop #spop salt #spop discourse #spop criticism #anti catradora #she ra #anti catra #abuse tw #tw abuse #tw trauma

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evelhak · 3 months

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I felt implicitly tagged by @lilypheria. Here's the template too.

It may seem like I only write KnB these days but I don't consider myself to be done with my SPOP comics yet.

Tagging all my writer friends but I'm going to mention @active-mind-15 because you're kind of new to me. But I really want to hear about all my writer mutuals and followers. By the way if you've written one unfinished fic or tried to start to write your ideas but can't, or haven't written for years, or have any other struggle that makes you feel invalid, you count as a writer.

Going to elaborate under the cut because I felt like it.

My old account was FinFanFun, a Finnish site I used mostly for reading Facebook wall fics about that which should not be named.

AO3 is where I publish my KnB fics though I've considered branching out to see if there's still some fandom corners I haven't reached.

I'm slowly introducing myself to writing smut but the only story I've published has been called mild and soft smut or smut-ish, and I doubt the rest will be much different.

I frequently beta-read for friends, though fanfiction is the minority.

I used to have two beta-readers but they're unable to do it anymore so all my fics rely solely on me for now, which makes me really anxious sometimes. I am pretty desperate for a new beta-reader so if KagaKuro and a million words of "homework" doesn't frighten you, please jump into an adventure with me!

All my fics are self-indulgent in that they're what I want to see play out in the story. They are not personal fantasies, or necessarily what I want to see in real life, but it's what I envision for these characters.

I'm always reading old favourite fics again and I need to branch out actually.

If I'm in need of a short fic to read I will probably pick fluff.

Have written m/m and f/f (and m/? and m/f) but honestly it's weird to put them in the same category when m/m is so overrepresented.

I'm not actually sure if I consider fanfiction as a genre or rather a medium, because all genres exist inside fanfiction. Medium is probably more true but I seem to have checked it anyway because I feel like the point here is whether fanfiction is valid literature and that it is.

I don't know if two fandoms with one being dormant would be considered multifandom so maybe no.

I do anxiously wait for feedback since I'm very community oriented but I'm also very introverted and internally motivated so the lack of it doesn't discourage me. I have patience and I can wait for connection for years and years. Not that lack of connection doesn't affect me, of course it does, but giving up is just a very antithetical concept to my beliefs and life.

I have one on-going long KnB story and one unfinished She-Ra fic that is waiting for a better time. Which is an exception since I tend to finish what I start before moving on.

Editing fanfiction is actually not as bad as editing original fiction because I put much less pressure on myself, partially because you can always edit your fic again.

Always listening to hours long conversations in my head between characters when I'm trying to sleep. They're really bad at shutting up and I'm supposed to remember this stuff in the morning?

I was mildly drunk for ten days straight to write Anything Can Happen. Haven't done that since but it was really fun.

My main KnB storyline gets most of my attention. It's just my thing, I pour everything into it.

I didn't check 'wants to be a professional writer' because after three traditionally published books I consider myself to be that already. I actually went the other way around than seems to be the norm: I was an original fiction writer first and then branched out to fanfiction in my twenties. I can see it greatly affects how I write fic, and it's probably the main reason I feel like a bit of an outsider.

#fanfiction #writing #bingo

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spopsalt · 3 months

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Spop/Catra/Catradora stands: People just don't understand what trauma does to a person. Once Catra is free of it she becomes way less angry and starts to heal. Their relationship by the end of the series is anything but toxic because Catra is actively working on things despite her trauma./ I like this one. Anti catradora ppl don’t realize that their story, the entire she ra story is one of trauma and healing. Making mistakes (even very drastic ones like catra) is apart of healing and growing. If you can’t handle catradora bc their story is so complex just say that./ Don't be so quick to throw shade at Catra. Adora is also not as good as everyone points out. As strange as it is to say, Adora isn't that great of a person either.

Me on my mind: do this people stan abuive relationships, incest ships, bullying, etc ?

Friend, i can't believe that here in 2024 people still explaining how C*tradora is " good and healthy " and excuse what C*tr* has done. I wan't them to explain me how the fuck in s5 did C*tr* had the time to change ? or how she become a better person when she clearly didn't change ?? Also something i found funny is that C//A stans call us C//A antis " Shadow Weavers " for hating C*tr* and C*tradora because when they are weirdos who ship incest, normalize bullying when it's a really bad thing ( after watching how C*tr* bully Adora i understand why Adora wasn't afriad of suicide herself in the epsode of the portal, i mean it's sadly true bullying can get someone in suicide if the problem is not done and C*tr* wanted that Adora literally suicide herself and didn't care if she die or not which make me hate more both C*tr* and C//A. I mean, bullying is not a joke it's something seriously that happens irl but C//A stans took it as a joke which it's so disrespectful and disgusting. What was Nate thinking about making a show that literally shows date your sister and abuse her for years and normalize bullying would save the world ?? I'm really disappointed with the shera fandom friend, but really i mean they took serious stuff bullying or abuse relationships as joke or that is that it doesn't affect but it actually it does. Not only that, they say that even they ship C//A they do not stand abuse irl and i'm like " if you don't stand abusive relationships then why you ship c*tradora ? " ) well my question is what do you think about shera fandom ? and what do you think that they normalize serious topics as joke ?

Thanks for the ask! Yeah, they will try saying that Catra's redemption just started, but if that's the case, why did they have her fate? She has so many problems she needs to work through before she dates anyone, especially her sister whom she resented for so long, it just feels like a cheap way to defend their abusive kitty cat.

#spop criticism #spop crit #spop discourse #anti catra #anti catradora #anti c//a #antic//a #spop salt #anti spop #spop critical

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coffeebanana · 6 months

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20 questions for Fic Writers

Omg it took me ages to get to this but better late than never! Thanks for the tags @rosie-b, @monpetitchattriste, @lesbitorte, @kasienda and @celestialtitania!!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

Um. 107*... It's possible that I have a problem 😂

(*one is on anon. more on that later adfdsd)

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

801,972!!! (fun fact i was just below 800k the first time i got tagged in this game so i was like "oh well i'm posting a new chapter tomorrow...i'll do this game after that so i can pass that milestone!" and then i posted the chapter but it took me close to a week to do this ahaha)

3. What fandoms do you write for?

mostly just ml. i have a few spop fics too but i don't really write for that fandom anymore. or at least not right now.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Gah. okay. I'm going to answer this honestly but to do that I first need to explain that my most kudoed fic is on anon because I'm annoyed it's my most kudoed fic aksjfbksdb. Like. It's only so popular because there's a bit of lila salt? and really the fic isn't about that but i don't really write that kind of thing anymore and i don't want ppl coming to my profile and sorting by kudos and seeing that first. There are other things i'd do a lot differently in that fic now too ahaha.

Break a Leg

Cards Against Ladybug's Identity

Ladybug And The Tramp Stamp

Imaginary Friends

The Sun Will Rise Again

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I do!! I reply to pretty much every comment--unless it's particularly rude/rubs me the wrong way. I know commenting takes time and I appreciate the effort ppl put into it so I like to give my thanks back!

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Probably Every Teardrop is a Waterfall. Although I think Girl Is A Gun is a strong contender too?

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Uh...well, most of my fics have happy or at least hopeful endings. I don't think I can narrow this down to just a few haha.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I don't think I've ever gotten hate? Definitely some comments that aren't super nice but nothing too bad. (now i've probably gone and jinxed it 😂)

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

um. a little tiny bit but not enough to have a particular kind LOL. i've only posted it once so far. but i also have Entangled, which will have smut in the next chapter--and that's angsty smut. which i suppose would be my brand of smut if i ever write any more

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

i haven't! i entertained the idea of an ml/spop crossover a couple years ago but i don't have any interest in it anymore. oh and i ALSO had an idea for a marigami spyxfamily crossover. but i don't know if i'll ever get around to that

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

not that i know of! (*knocks on forehead since no wood is nearby*)

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

no, but that would be super cool!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

i have not! a few times i've planned to write things with other ppl but nothing that ever really made it to the writing stage ahaha. although the littlebug vday zine is a collab in the form of a series--not exactly co-written but similar vibes

14. What's your all-time favourite ship?

to write for, definitely the love square. and then catradora is so special to me because it got me back into writing and also i started IDing as a lesbian in part because i binged spop.

aside from that i can't really decide because like. there are so many shows i've seen and books i've read and ships i've loved for so many different reasons asdfbk. and then i have OC ships that only live in my head but that i love to play with sometimes before i fall asleep at night. so please don't make me choose!!

15. What's a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

uh. i would say none of them? because it's only when i completely lose interest in a fic that i lose the belief i'll finish it. and that's only happened with maybe two of my wips i can think of?

16. What are your writing strengths?

Depicting emotions! And using the setting to do that by establishing the mood/tone/etc...

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

i guess like...self-doubt? not that i'm awful with it. in general i think i'm pretty good that way. but it's my biggest barrier to writing when i have periods where i get in my head about my writing, and it can make me overthink and not know if i LIKE my writing. and i think my writing is at its best when i'm having fun with it (which is probably true of most ppl), so...

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

i think it makes sense when the characters are actually speaking that language for a short time but aren't speaking it for most of the fic? like i have one ml AU set in new york so they're speaking english for most of it and i used french for the first couple lines that were french (and weaved the translations into the narrative). so that's the only time i do that personally--aside for maybe one word lines like bonjour--but as a reader it doesn't usually bother me when i see it used other ways

19. First fandom you wrote for?

ahaha the Vampire Academy book series. and NO you won't find those fics anywhere, even though they are still out there somewhere

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

currently Say Something. and i very much wish i could finish writing it, but it'll happen when it happens!

I think most people I would have tagged have probably been tagged by this point...likely more than once 😂. So whoever else wants to play should do so!!

#tag game #long post

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antispopausandstuff · 2 years

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What's your opinion on Entrapta and Entrapdak ? I personally think she deserves better tbh 😔

i don't think entrapdak works. but i'll get into that in a minute.

as for entrapta, she definitely deserved better. more so than just in writing in general, but as well just how she was treated as an autistic individual.

for starters, i want to comment on her design. she does not look like the age she's apparently supposed to be ( according to nate, entrapta is in her late 20s, early 30s ). a lot of people who have discovered this have commented something to the extent of:

"she's 30?! i thought she was 16-18!"

now, if i didn't know her age or personality, i'd assume she was 19-20. but considering that i do know her personality, i'm not surprised that people thought she was younger. her big pigtails, being short, and the top side of her overalls being out of place all are designed in a way that makes her look younger.

the reason why this is an issue is because, with her design and personality, this is infantilizing. especially because every other adult character looks their age, or at least has obvious implications of looking older ( such as wrinkles under their eyes, wearing makeup, etc. ). entrapta does not.

throughout the entire show, entrapta is extremely oblivious, forgetful, honestly rather careless, and generally is treated more like a robotic nuisance rather than a human being that deserves support and care.

she's practically ostracized by the other princesses, is pulled by them, is leashed by them, talked down to by them, etc. she is not actually treated as someone who is wanted, but rather only someone who might be needed.

this video actually discusses low empathy, how to write it correctly, and how SPOP did a complete disservice to entrapta and the autistic community by their piss-poor portrayal of low empathy and autistic people in general:

youtube

as for entrapdak...

i personally feel like nate made entrapta 30-smth yrs old, so entrapdak would be less weird. i could talk about how hordak is essentially a bum instead of a Big Bad, like he's supposed to be, but that's for another day.

the primary issue i have with entrapdak is that it paints entrapta in a really bad light, more than people might think.

many people seem to label entrapta as morally grey/chaotic neutral ( i'm p sure you can look up the spop wiki and see that ), but i strongly disagree with this label, due to how it is written and how it further pushes a bigoted idea of autistic people.

and no, entrapta being written by an autistic person ( tbh, i highly doubt that ) does not mean she's suddenly even decent autistic rep.

entrapta is perceived as "morally grey" purely because of her low empathy. they use it to demonize and infantilize her, instead of respecting it as a part of her identity.

having low empathy does not make anyone a bad person, or even a morally grey person. donnie, from ROTTMNT, has low empathy, but you can tell he deeply loves his family and tries his best to keep people safe.

entrapta's low empathy is represented as her not caring about the lives at stake, only caring about people unless it involves technology, or only doing things because of technology, and is generally either treated like a lost child or like she's a demon.

SPOP's portrayal of autism and low empathy in quite a few autistic people is harmful and gives the same message that neurodivergent in general have been given for years:

"something is wrong with you."

her being involved with hordak, a literal imperialist, someone who does not care for anyone ( except for entrapta, i guess? ), and is willing to sacrifice anything and anyone for the sake of his goals, in any other way but in an antagonistic dynamic is, at best, offensive and stereotypical, and at worst, dangerous.

if you are not autistic, and you want to write autistic people, you need to do it with respect. genuine respect.

you cannot treat autistic people as if they don't know what they're doing.

you cannot treat autistic people as if they don't care about anyone but themselves.

you cannot treat autistic people as if something is wrong with them.

you cannot treat autistic people as if they have to change to be accepted by anybody.

we are not your props for representation. we are people.

all in all, if you want to write autistic characters, do not do what the SPOP writers did. just don't.

and honestly, hordak is really weak in this show, i-

#spop #she ra #spop critical #spop salt #spop entrapta #she ra entrapta #entrapta #spop hordak #she ra hordak #hordak #entrapdak #nate stevenson #fuck nate #all my homies hate nate #entrapta deserved better #autistic representation #autistic rep

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nny11writes · 2 years

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please post your among us spop fic 🥺

I mean, it doesn't have a true ending and I mostly wrote it 2 years ago, so I'm sure the game's changed since then lol. It'll be a little like Felwood Fling being pretty vanilla WoW :p

But you know I can't say no to you boo.

Oh no. Was almost the only thought in Adora’s head as the game started, boldly proclaiming her and Perfuma as imposters. But it almost didn’t have time to form, barely a line on her passive anxiety sonar as she was hit by her next horrifying thought. I don’t know how to play this game.

Adora was not a gamer. Not really. Not unless solitaire and that one pokemon game where you took photos that she’d obsessively rented from Blockbuster’s when she was 7 counted, and she had a sinking suspicion they did not. She had no survival instincts. She had no fall back knowledge. She was pure dead weight to be dragged along.

“Sorry Perfuma,” she whispered to herself, still not convinced she’d properly muted herself, “and thank you for being nice.”

She bumbled along, following her fellow cold blooded killer as best she could before the doors slammed shut separating them. This was already, officially, Not Good. She was already a liability and a burden and now she was locked in completely useless! Adora whined as she stayed the course, and ended up in decontamination where she couldn’t seem to open the door. Could imposters not open doors!? Oh no!

DEAD BODY REPORTED

Adora fumbled her mic and managed to slip in before anyone started debating, “How do you open doors? I’m trapped at decontamination.” and prayed that it was not just an imposter thing.

“Bae…”Glimmer sighed heavily. “Did you watch any of the videos I sent?”

“You sent videos!?” Adora whined. “I didn’t see any videos! I’m not prepared!”

“Okay, anyone want to hear about a dead body?” Catra asked. “Cuz, you know, I found a dead body over here in medical.”

Adora kind of lost the thread of the conversation after that as she desperately used her phone to try and look up instructions for how to play, because apparently what Glimmer had written her didn’t cover everything.

To be fair, Adora probably should have questioned “wasd/arrows and mouse, it’s pretty self explanatory” a lot more than she did. Damn her trusting and gullible nature!

Her eyes snapped back up as the screen changed to what, for a split second, she thought was a pride flag before realizing it was lava. No one was ejected though, so that was good. Wait. No, the opposite of that. She was rooting for their deaths, right.

Uh, go team Perfuma because Adora was pretty useless right now.

The game started up again. She stared at the closed door again. No one had answered her question. Adora groaned in frustration. God. Damn it!

Okay okay okay! No need to panic! She had, uh...Adora looked at her buttons “Kill” with a countdown and “Sabotage”. Did she have to kill before that countdown ran out? Oh no! She was gonna make Perfuma lose when she’d done so well that first round!

And then the door opened right as her timer ran out. Adora flailed, smacking the button and stared in horror down at Scorpia’s body.

So.

That’s what it was like to kill.

She felt a little nauseous and hit the report button, only to realize she’d never muted so at least that hadn’t bit her in the ass. The debate screen came up and Adora panicked a little as she realized she had no idea what to say. Play it cool! Fake it till you make it! “Uh, okay finally figured out the doors NO THANKS TO YOU ALL, and Scorpia is out here. Dead.”

“Who else was there?” Catra asked.

“No one, why would you ask it like that? D-do YOU have something you want to confess Catra?” What was she doing? Throwing off the scent. Or outing herself. She was such a bad actor, why did she agree to play this game!?

“...excuse me? I’m in security! Nowhere near decon.”

“Weird,” Adora squinted at her screen, “how’d you know it was decontamination when I haven’t said where it was?”

“You literally said that’s where you were last time and that you just figured out the doors dummy.” But Catra’s completely true and fair observation was ignored.

“Hmmmm, trying to blame it on the baby huh? That’s sus Catra.” Glimmer added.

And then it was all chaos.

“I didn’t do it! I wasn’t even over there!”

“You have no problem turning on your friends I see.”

“THAT IS THIS GAME OH MY GOD!?”

“You’re usually not this sloppy.”

“That’s cold Catra.”

“ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME, DON’T YOU DARE!”

But it was too late. Adora watched feeling sick as a little cheery rainbow of death marked Catra.

“Oh I hope you assholes lose!” Catra hissed her final words as they threw her into the lava.

Not that there was an animation showing them throwing her. Adora was just assuming they all surrounded her in a creepy ritualistic style and then threw her into the lava pit. She fumbled for her microphone and wheezed. Why had she blamed Catra!? Catra was never, ever, ever going to forgive that when it would be revealed that Adora was an imposter. She’d barely gotten her friend back but was going to lose her over a video game murder! Okay, well, like, it wasn’t half as dramatic as she’d just made it out to be. Catra was prickly and defensive so sometimes they didn’t talk for like the worst week of Adora’s life every time before she’d be mysteriously forgiven. She fervently hoped it would only be one week and not two, two week fights were the literal worst!

Adora trotted along the hallway before opening the sabotage menu. With a curious hum she selected the reactor and then jumped as a deep blaring klaxon went off in the game. Oh. Oh no, she was going to kill all of them! Did she and Perfuma need to survive? Or at least one of them survive!? Surely they had to have superiors they needed to report back to. It really was a shame she had no idea where the reactor was, but Adora knew that Perfuma would handle it like a pro if need be. As such, she decided to not go back to decon, and instead went down straight into another set of closed doors.

“Seriously!?”

Then noticed a little button that said “Use” and felt like a total idiot.

Several minutes passed with her running around unsure what she was supposed to be doing or at least pretending to be doing because where the hell were tasks even located? There was nothing on her screen to show them and she was supposed to pretend to do them right?

DEAD BODY REPORTED

Adora stared in shock as the triple homicide was revealed. “Oh shit, get some Perfuma.”

“I found the body- oh wow.” Perfuma said with a pause. “Well okay then. I found a body by the telescope, and I saw Bow leaving the area.”

“I was doing my tasks!”

“Walk us through it,” Perfuma said encouragingly and for the first time ever Adora realized she should probably be a lot more scared by her friend than she was.

“Okay, so I was doing wires, and then I went and checked the cams. After that I was going past medical-”

“Hang on, medical is on the other side of the map!” Glimmer gasped. “Bow? How could you?”

“I- wait- I meant- I didn’t do it! ...unless I did? Guys, can you blackout during a videogame? Oh no. What if I did do it?”

Frosta voted immediately and Adora jumped on the bandwagon and hoped they were both dogpiling him.

“Where were the other bodies?” Perfuma asked but it was too late as the chat became unintelligible yelling.

Bow was thrown with only slightly more ceremony into the lava.

Adora was still exploring the map to learn locations when the urge to kill struck again. This time she was feeling confident. She hadn’t lost the game when the timer on her kill button ran out, there was no one really around, and even if they caught her surely Perfuma could still win it alone. It was a case of the wrong place at the wrong time as she took out Frosta feeling equally guilty and awesome- before she realized that Mermista was standing right there. Oops.

Adora reported and in what she hoped was her best acting voice exclaimed, “Mermista how could you!?”

“...are you serious? Guys, Adora just killed Frosta in front of me.”

“Oh! OH!” Adora huffed, brain buffering in a lie. “Trying to pin it on me? I saw you do it!”

Shit.

“Where are you?” Glimmer asked.

“At the tree thingy in the hallway.” Adora reported dutifully as she sweated bullets. “The location where Mermista just committed a murder in cold blood. A child murder.”

Mermista groaned in pain. “Oh my gooooood, guys. We know Adora can’t lie. She is lying. Right now. What were you doing here then huh?”

There was way too long of a pause because she had no idea what the hell you did at the tree thingy before Adora hesitantly offered, “Have you considered...that she deserved it?”

And somehow, people did not start voting.

“Okay well I’ve been with Perfuma this whole round so I can vett her,” Glimmer said, like a fool as she kicked off just a regular debrief of the round instead of kicking Adora directly in the face to send her to the deadly lava pit of OSHA violations.

“I just came up here to learn where things are and then: dead child.” Adora added, because she might be a bad liar but she wasn’t a chump.

Perfuma hummed, “Yes me and Glimmer were together, and we’re at security.”

“Uhm, and I literally just saw Adora kill Frosta here at O2.” Mermista grumbled.

“Sea Hawk and I were together,” Entrapta said, “but then we got separated at the admin offices.”

“Sea Hawk has been suspiciously quiet,” Perfuma added.

“I SAW MERMISTA KILL HER,” Adora all but shouted far too dramatically for the circumstances, “this is an open and closed case!”

“You know what?” Mermista asked, “Do it. Vote for me. I did it. We’re going to lose to Adora and I want nothing to do with it.”

In the last three seconds Mermista was selected as the next lava sacrifice, and Adora slumped in her chair. Oh god she was not cut out for this. Her heart was RACING and she was gonna hurl. Oh no. How did people enjoy this game!?

As the clock ticked on her nerves only got more and more shot, until suddenly the screen faded to a Victory screen with her and Perfuma.

“I do love killing lights,” Perfuma all but singsonged.

“How did that work?” Adora asked, “That shouldn’t have worked!”

“You traitor.” Catra hissed but was buried by Scorpia laughing.

“Oh wow, congrats on your first kill! Ah man, I shoulda known!”

“Thank you. Okay, question-”

“This is not the Adora hour,” Catra mumbled, clearly still butt hurt and wanting to move on.

“Alright, launching us back in now!”

Well that was too dang bad. “Hang on, I have a question!”

“Did you press play again?” Glimmer asked

“Guys-” Adora huffed.

“Seriously where is Sea Hawk?”

“Great job again, I cannot stress how well that first kill went!”

“Can we PLEASE just start again?”

“You are dead to me.”

“Whhhaaaaaatever.”

Glimmer managed to be heard above the the digital sound of too many people talking,“Who hasn’t hit play again? Adora, you pressed play again right?”

“HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW TO PRESS THAT IF I WANTED TO PLAY AGAIN?”

There was a long pause as Adora sighed and pressed the button.

“Wow,” Catra drawled. “Baby much?”

“Fine! Fine! I'm the baby! Wah wah wah!” Adora hissed, “Now will someone answer baby’s question!?”

“What’s up buddy?” Perfuma asked, as if she had not just killed the vast majority of their friends.

“How do you know where tasks are?”

“OH MY GOD!”

“Baaaaaeeeee…”

“It’s highlighted when you’re just a regular joe.” Bow answered, barely audible over the general moaning of their friends.

“Thank you!” Adora grabbed her notebook and jotted the info down with the rest of her notes. “Now how do I do that and not the panic inducing killing thing?”

“It’s randomized, but don’t worry,” Entrapta all but cheered, “you shouldn’t get picked twice in a row!”

“Is Sea Hawk seriously just AFK?” Catra asked.

“Boot him.” Mermista confirmed and away he went.

It took a few more minutes for everyone to actually settle into the spaceship but then they were starting and Adora grinned widely as she waited for it to kick into gear.

This time I’ll be a normal person and learn to play the game! Adora wiggled a little in her seat, only to be met with the imposter screen showing her and Glimmer. No!

“Oh this is gonna be a long session.” Adora groaned as she vowed to actually stick to Glimmer this time.

Only to discover that Catra was sticking to her. Adora tested within the ship, where Glimmer stood watching like a Queen deciding on which court jester she’d keep, but Catra just stuck to her like a shadow. Oh no. Oh shit that was bad. Adora ran her character in a little circle of anxiety. She was going to learn from Glimmer but if Catra was there she wasn’t going to learn anything!

As soon as the three of them were alone, Glimmer killed Catra by the starting ship and Adora ran to keep up with her.

Okay, or that could happen. Wow. Vicious. Catra’s gonna be pissed to die so quickly again. Okay, but she can’t be mad at me for Glimmer killing her right? Adora gulped. Absolutely she could.

Before she could spiral any further, Glimmer did a few cute little circles as if to say, “Good job murder buddy!” Which weirdly did help.

It was almost hilarious how easy it was to stick with Glimmer, considering every time the two of them had a third in a secluded area Glimmer killed them if she could, and if she didn’t do it Adora sucked it up and killed instead. The body count was piling up when Scorpia finally found a someone.

And revealed the six other dead.

“Wow, we are getting our butts kicked,” Frosta grumbled.

“You mean you’re getting sloppy!” Adora didn’t know why the hell she blurted that out but she did. Shoot! “I’ve been with Glimmer this whole time and we’ve just been doing tasks. So it has to be you two.”

It sounded so wooden to her ears, but Scorpia gasped anyway. “Frosta, how could you?”

“What!?”

Adora sat back miserably as she started another argument between her friends. Oh this was her last round of the day. This game was horrifying. She panic voted for Frosta as soon as she could and saw Glimmer, and then Scorpia, voted as well.

Three for Frosta. One for Scorpia.

The Victory screen played.

“ARE YOU KIDDING ME?” Catra yelled at her from across town. “ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME RIGHT FRICKING NOW!?”

Adora winced. Catra was, ironically, the one person she knew who cursed less when she was mad. Oh god, she was in so much trouble.

“I didn’t do it!” Adora whined.

“YOU ABSOLUTE JERK!”

“Caaaaaatra I didn’t do anything!”

“Ouch,” Mermista sighed, “murdering me counts as doing nothing.”

“That was last round, I’m talking about a freaking murder this last round! AT THE START! I’m being targeted!!”

“Guys I can’t do any more, I need a break!” Adora whimpered pathetically.

“Oh yeah?” Catra asked, pure acid dripping from each syllable. “Well I need to murder you violently but we don’t all get what we want dumbface!”

Oh god, she was in SO much trouble!

#adora #catra #modern au #spop #she ra #among us #they are playing in circa 2020 don't at me I've never gotten to play it T-T #yes I'm stealing huge chunks of Mark's video when he played it for the first time #tell me it's not a classic Adora set up #tell me to my face #Catra curses less when she's actually angry b/c it's kinda funny to me #fic doesn't really have an ending but stops decently so here you go??????????????#yes Adora this is a 2 week fight #Sea Hawk's computer overheated and caught fire that's why he's afk

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aprillikesthings · 1 year

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I look at fan art for fandoms/ships I used to be obsessed with and it's this weird nostalgia

Which I think is hilarious because One, the early hardcore days of any given fandom are...kinda rough on the rest of my life, let's be honest; and Two, fandom is so spread out anymore and dissolves into massive discourse so quickly that it's actually kinda hard to enjoy it the way I once did.

(I say that like there wasn't discourse around the k/da server within a month of my starting it--I was coming off one of the worst months of my life so that hit particularly hard at the time. And then later on some dipshit pressured a bunch of long-timers to leave the server out of fear of being harassed. Ugh. Anyway.)

I loved Arcane and would love for more friends of mine to get into it, but I also know I muted a caitvi server I was in fairly quickly because 99% of the members were under the age of 25 and were fresh off the spop fandom and they just do fandom differently than I do. It felt like the "how do you do, fellow kids" meme, and I also knew that once word got out I was a "proshipper" I'd be...side-eyed at best? (For a while I was dipping back in on occasion just to look for good fanart, though. Might do that again at some point.)

(There was apparently at least one more caitvi server of older people that knew each other from Locked Tomb fandom, but ...they all knew each other so I wasn't invited. Alas.)

(Speaking of fandom being spread out more these days. Discord servers for fandom come in two flavors: everyone's invited, which means they quickly become unpleasant/filled with discourse/monopolized by people with bad social skills; or they're invite-only which means if you don't know someone in it willing to invite you, you're screwed. It's shitty but them's the facts.)

I wish I'd felt obsessively fannish about OFMD the way so many of my friends did. ;_: I enjoyed it! I look forward to season two! But it didn't become an all-consuming thing for me, and as so many of y'all know, you can't really control hyperfixations. I'm not the one controlling the on/off switch.

The irony is I do have a hyperfixation right now, my Camino next year, but it's not a fannish hyperfixation so it's not the same. More than half the fun of any fannish hyperfixation is being fannish with other people, that giggly squeeing thing of injokes and meta and fan art and shipping that makes me giddy, plus The Feels I get from good fan art.

I mean, I do get Feels from photographs of spots on the Camino I'm going to be walking through, but it's not fannish! It's a very different kind of Yearning.

Also forums/etc for the Camino are totally not the same thing as fandom forums/etc. Discussing how much you like seeing Character A get railed and how is just not the same as discussing which albergues are better and arguing over whether to use trekking poles.

Also reading tons of Camino memoirs is SOOOO not the same thing as reading fanfiction, bahaha. Although if you often get that feeling of "I want something just like what I just read, but not what I just read," getting into Camino de Santiago memoirs might be for you, lolol

#this post brought to you by a Korean artist posting k/da art #for the first time in like a year or two???#I still have The Feels about that one apparently #and I'm still a sucker for art of them being domestic/cute #and specifically of Eve's lashers betraying her feelings ahaha #jfc I've probably made this exact post multiple times already #my life #life as a fan

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billyboymiki · 3 years

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5 Works Tag Game

Rules: it’s time to love yourselves! choose your 5 (ish) favorite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc.) and post or link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought into the world in 2020. tag as many writers/artists/etc. as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works!

I got tagged by @tippenfunkaport and @caramelaire for this tag game!!

I’m not one to compliment myself on anything honestly. Recently I remember thinking about how I barely drew anything this year. There was a part of my brain nagging at me to check how much I had drawn last year. So, I uh did. Turns out I drew basically nothing?! I triple checked this in fact. My DeviantART, Tumblr AND my camera roll. Nothing . . . I drew 5 very basic pinback button designs and that was it. I couldn’t believe it; but, it made be feel so much better about what I did this year. Basically my whole instagram is all artwork from this year, since I am actually really new to IG. I got super close to 40 works this year!

Now onto the works! They are in order of when I drew them 😊

Glimmer Inspired Patterns

I wanted to teach myself how to make patterns on Clip Studio so bad! I watched a couple of YT tutorials, and I can’t even remember why I decided to make She-ra ones specifically; I’m glad I did though! The Glimmer one means so much to me. Just looking at makes me so happy! The fact that so many people have now called it ‘aesthetically pleasing’ makes me feel as though I actually created a work that others could relate to. That was enough praise for me; to create something for myself that everyone else loved as well 💖

Glimbow Cuddle

This was my first real She-ra artwork. When I saw there was a Glimbow Week again I knew I had to join this one. I don’t know if anyone knows this; but, drawings take me forever to make. I used to be strictly a traditional artist and still prefer to draw rough drafts on paper. I couldn’t decide if I wanted them on Glimmer’s window seat or in Bow’s dads’ library. I was afraid of doing backgrounds; so, both sounded absolutely terrifying. I decided to go for the fireplace even if it meant fancy lighting on top of the background aspect. I think I actually spent more time on the lighting that’s hitting Bow than on anything else in this picture. It was worth it though. I studied how the show did backgrounds and lighting for a while. I tried so many different attempts at how I wanted it to look and ultimately went with this one! I love it so much 🥺

Bow’s list with doodles

Ah, yes the drawings I did for Tippen’s birthday!! I knew I wanted to draw a scene from ‘Tuna Cans’, but I was worried to try something like this. You see, I’m somebody that likes to stay in a comfort zone and only uploaded fully rendered perfect artworks. This year was the first time that I let the ‘fun’ aspect overrule my perfectionism. I’m so happy that I stepped out of my comfort zone for this, because I love Chibi styles so much. I can’t even explain the absolute joy I had drawing these. I didn’t tell anyone what I was up to, so it was just me laughing at myself for being an absolute goofball. The end result and everyone’s reactions were more than I could have ever expected. I’ve decided I’m going to revive this style soon as well so please look forwards to it!!

Space Suit Squad

Okay, so I cheated a little with this one! I couldn’t just pick ONE of the squad. Honestly though, I drew these with the thought of making them into prints in the back of my mind. I taught myself how to draw a space background and I’m really proud of it! So much in fact that the one in the final pictures is the first and last one I ended up doing! If I had to pick my favorites I think I’d have to pick Glimmer, Bow and then Catra. I LOVE the way I draw Catra I don’t know why? Maybe the eyebrows I’m not sure 🤔 It took me a while to decide on expressions and poses; although, I figured these were the ones because I could look at them and go ‘yep that’s them.’

Winter Glimbow

This one took me soooo long; I actually had to tell myself that I should put my pen down because it was done and I should stop touching it!!! I was sketching pictures in my sketchbook to make more patterns for my Redbubble account, and of course I’m like 100% Glimbow brainrot. My brain went, oooo you know what would be cute? If this skate was actually Bow’s and not just generic. So, I ended up sketching Glimmer’s as well. The heart that their skates make is like the cherry on the top for me, it had to be done! I’m not sure I did the background justice on this one? It doesn’t matter to me though because the concept was worth the effort. It was snowing here and I needed this picture like I needed air, even if it wasn’t even December at the time I posted it 🤣 I liked this one so much that I have similar ideas for the other seasons sketched out as well 👀

I’m sorry that I ramble so often. I’m like this quiet person; yet, it’s hard for me to get out everything I want to say? I’m horrible at it actually my brain runs at a hundred miles a minute and I’m not good with words most of the time. This turned out as more of a thought process than my actual feelings on each one I suppose. SO, in conclusion. I drew A LOT, I stepped out of my comfort zone, taught myself digital art and patterns. I let myself come to terms with the fact that not every piece of art has to be ‘perfect’. I drew at least 5 FULL backgrounds and I never used to draw them! I’ve also always been one for simple shading and lighting, and I do think there’s a time for that type of style, while other times sometimes a more difficult one might be appropriate. I’m glad that I did both because now I know I can do both, and they each give a characteristic that I adore 🥰 Thank you to everyone that has followed me through this journey, or just anyone who read my rambling! I have an honorable mention under the cut and some originals for anyone that made it this far! 💖

I’m not going to tag anyone; but, if you want to do this PLEASE do it. It was so great to reflect on what I did this year, it really surprised me and I think what you have done will surprise you as well! It’s been a rough year, and in the end we have been here supporting each other and that’s one of the most rewarding parts of being in a fandom! 💜

Glimmer screencap redraw

Another picture where I really tested myself on drawing a background! I love it even if it killed my hand!! The background definitely took the longest on this one too. My sister literally said ‘Wait, you did the background? I thought you just drew her?!’ And that was the only validation I needed!! I ended up thinning out Glimmer’s outline so she matched the background better. If you use the vectors on Clip please use this feature! You can do the opposite as well, it’s super useful!

Oh hi! Remember when I said I couldn’t decide between the two locations? Truth is, I also couldn’t decide if I was going to make it traditional or digital. I ended up getting really mad at the traditional version unfortunately. I haven’t gotten the hang of traditional backgrounds. In the end, I should have also done it in Copic and not cheap pencil crayons 😫

Just some space friends! There is something so rewarding about traditional art. Yes, I can see the mistakes and the proportions are most likely off; yet, it doesn’t bother me? I wanted to also show these bonus drawings because nobody is perfect and I thought some of you might like to see some of my process. Being able to hold it in my hands is something I will never tire of, in a way it’s super rewarding. I keep all my art actually and sometimes I like the rough drafts more than the finished work 👀 Outlining artwork can actually ruin the charm every so often 😔 I do really love the final versions of these though!

Annnnnd the last bonus!! As you can tell the final version stayed pretty true to my sketches! I almost went with a more realistic look and made the symbols ‘stitched’ onto the skates. In the end it felt like it didn’t fit the rest of the drawing unless I wanted to add extra details to the clothing as well. The wings on Glimmer’s skates turned into ‘Shwings’ PLEASE tell me other people know what that is? I had a pair a few years ago and misplaced them. I was doing the rough draft and it popped into brain and I treated it as a joke at first, until I gave it a proper chance XD In the end I fell in love with it!!!

#she-ra #spop #fanart #tag game #billyboymiki #Miki speaks #long post #sorry #my art #I actually cried a little writing all of this 😱#the only thing I wanted to do really bad this year was make an spop amv #I might juggle art and making one so I can get one out at some point

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pennamesmith · 2 years

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It’s “Crack (Friend)Ships” time for @spop-palentines again, so here is a sequel to last year’s Adventure Time crossover, Parallels :p

Intersections

“So anyway,” Simon said, “That’s the story of how my fiancée turned into a gigantic unknowable god of chaos.”

Hordak nodded sympathetically. “That is abrasive, my friend.”

They were both perched on the sofa at Marceline’s house, drinking mugs of hot cocoa while Entrapta and Bubblegum sat on the floor sorting through the bits and bobs that used to be Marcy’s electric amp. In theory they were only trying to add a 13 to the volume control, but the project had stretched on so long and the two scientists were speaking to each other so rapidly that by this point nobody else really knew exactly what they were doing.

Marceline floated in from the kitchen. “‘Sup Simon. ‘Sup Batman. Anyone need refills yet?”

“No thank you, Marcy, I’ve got plenty!” Simon chirped. “Oh, um, it’s gone a little cold, though.”

“I will gladly have more,” Hordak declared, holding out his empty mug. “You may inform Catra that her recipe is improving dramatically under your tutelage.”

Marceline took both their cups and drifted back into the other room, where a cat-eared woman was quietly cursing over a saucepan.

“How did the video make this look so easy?” Catra muttered, furiously stirring the chocolate.

“Your dad says you’re doing a good job,” Marceline offered, adjusting her altitude.

Catra blanched. “Hordak is not my…! Oh, whatever, it’s fine. You know, when your geek girlfriend and his geek girlfriend fell into each other’s science projects, I didn’t exactly expect it to lead to this.”

“Nothing ever goes the way you expect it to,” Marceline shrugged, slowly somersaulting in midair. “But that’s not always a bad thing. It can be nice to be surprised. Plus, between us? Your girl loves it here. If you want I can show you where the best dungeons are for date nights.”

Catra seemed to seriously consider this. Then something occurred to her and she looked around in sudden confusion. “Hey, where is Adora, anyway?”

“Outside on the deck playing Dare or Dare with Finn. It’s a hero game.”

Catra looked out the window where Marceline was pointing. Sure enough, both headstrong blondes were there, squaring off in honorable combat. Several crushed cans of Super Porp littered the boards at their feet.

Adora held a squirming thing with too many legs out towards the boy. “I dare you to eat this bug!”

“Ha! Thath eashy!” Finn smirked through a crunching mouthful. “I dare you to do a kickflip off the roof!”

“I dare you to fight me with one hand! Wait, sorry.”

“I dare you to name your first-born after me!”

“All right, I think that’s enough,” Catra said, hurriedly climbing out the window to retrieve her girlfriend.

“But Catraaa,” Adora whined as she was dragged inside, “I made a Royal Promise!”

Back in the living room, Entrapta and Bubblegum had reassembled the spare parts into… something. It didn’t look like an amplifier, but somehow they’d managed to plug Marceline’s ax into it anyway. The setup vibrated with unstable energy.

Entrapta bounded over and held the guitar out to the vampire. “The gelatinous one and I have completed our improvements! Test it out!”

“Hang on a hot sec before you do, though,” Bonnie cautioned, donning blast goggles and a pair of massive earmuffs.

Marceline noticed that Simon and Hordak had left the couch to build a sandbag bunker in the middle of the room. Everyone else hastily climbed inside and disappeared from view. A moment later, a purple ponytail in the shape of a thumbs-up popped back over the top.

“Okay, we’re secure! Give it a shot!”

Cautiously, Marceline plucked at the smallest string. The walls shook. Oh well, she thought. I have been meaning to remodel this place.

She struck a chord.

“Wow,” someone said, after all the dust and wreckage had finally settled. “Music really is powerful, man!”

#spop #she ra #adventure time #fan fiction #simon petrikov #hordak #princess bubblegum #entrapta #marceline #catra #finn mertens #spop palentines #silly stuff #smith stuff

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princessofgayskull · 3 years

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Hi sunflower, what's your thoughts on T Swift's Betty being a catradora song???

Me, taking a break from spop to focus on my mental health and setting better boundaries:

Me, reading this ask:

This ask woke me up from like a deep, sleeping beauty type slumber, not joking. I don’t get asked to talk about Taylor Swift often, despite being a fan of hers since I was nine years old (I’m 22 now *wink*) and we are about to find out why. But I pride myself on taking any fiction piece of media I interact with and connecting it somehow to Taylor Swift. I can do so to varying degrees of success (usually depends on the ships and romance of the world) but there are so many songs of Taylor’s that have just fit Catradora so well for me, both in and out of canon.

Some of my favorite examples: out of the woods (AND IT KEPT ME UP AT NIGHT WHEN NOELLE SAID THIS WAS HER TAYLOR SWIFT SONG FOR CATRADORA LIKE GAH CASUAL TS LISTENERS WILL NEVER UNDERSTAND) bad blood, lwymd, don’t blame, dancing with our hands tied, the archer, breathe, you’re not sorry, the way I loved you, forever & always, should’ve said no, safe & sound- I could go on.

But I won’t because I wanna stay on topic and talk about betty. Now I have a number of songs from the folklore/evermore series that are for me catradora songs (we’ll get to that in a minute) but this one is… challenging. Because I could be like “yes, because [insert casual reason here]” or “no, because [insert casual reason here]” but I can’t because Taylor feeds her children well and there’s several aspects of this song I feel like should be considered.

This biggest one to be considered, for me, is the love triangle aspect. Folklore features at length the betty/james/Augustine love triangle, each of them having one main song on the album from their POV. Betty's is cardigan, augustine’s is august, and james’ is betty. (also I’m going to throw out the gender component for a second; I know taylor says that Betty is about a guy’s apology and I totally vibe with her reasons why she wanted to write a song about a boy apologizing BECAUSE HOW GREAT WOULD THAT BE?) The love triangle makes the application of Catradora iffy at best. Because it’s like, who would be who? I am going to go out on a limb and assume that you’re seeing Catra as James? I think that personality wise, Adora as Betty and Catra as James is not a stone’s throw away from fitting actually really well. Adora’s canon journey is one of coming to realize “I know what I want and I know that it’s okay to want it” and a big part of Catra’s arc is her being like “Well shit… there goes my plans. Kind of feeling like a dumbass rn” especially in s4/s5.

(That s4/s5 distinction is important; I’ll show why in a second)

But for me, there’s no augustine. Or one that’s obvious anyway. I never imagined that either Catra or Adora dated or even had any inclinations with anyone else during the five season run- that’s just my personal opinion, people are completely welcome to feel free to disagree. I don’t think Catra acted even out of distraction with Scorpia or DT, and I think Adora was so focused on being She Ra that when she wasn’t thinking about failing/abandoning Catra when she alloted time to do so, she was thinking about the crushing weight of her responsibilities. So you know, not that much time to get back out there. So I rule out what causes James to apologize in the first place- cheating.

Side note about James cheating- I’m pretty sure Taylor confirmed this, in the long pond studio sessions doc, when she’s telling Jack Antonoff (MY BOY JACK) and Aaron Dessner ( GRAMMY AWARD WINNING KING) that James “was a fool!” And James did sleep with Augustine as confirmed in august, but cardigan makes it seem like he was definitely dating Betty before the summer. Maybe Taylor took inspiration from friends and they “were on break.” I also believe that the kiss in the Heart is the first kiss, that Catra and Adora were never ‘together’ together before Adora found the sword and defected (again, that’s just an opinion, but Adora just looks so wonderfully gobsmacked), so…

We can rule out cheating, and I think we can accomplish this and still reserve the essential meaning of the song of “I did something wrong, I see that now, I apologize for doing it, and I still love you” by widening the lens of what the “did something wrong” was (or “did something bad” you know *wink*). In that wider lens really you could fit either Catra or Adora into the song, but I’m still going to assume Catra is the James in this scenario based on how much of her redemption arc is formed around her refusal to say sorry and then eventually doing so. Of course there is no standing your porchlight but rather standing while wrestling a bunch of murderous clones…. Hmm….

But there are some stupid friends! I wholeheartedly believe Catra is James because of the dissing of Betty’s friends. That’s what Catra does to Bow, Glimmer and the rebellion et al., for most of the show and by the end of s4 she has no friends for Adora to even mock (terrible and cruel of me, I know, but it’s true). Also I know people are like “he called her friends stupid and then expected betty to take him back?” but I scream sing the line “WILL YOU KISS ME ON THE PORCH IN FRONT OF ALL YOUR STUPID FRIENDS?” every time. It brings me serotonin.

Along those lines we can ask “Who’s Inez?” in this situation. When I think gossip no one from the show really comes to mind, well, expect for Double Trouble. But Double Trouble doesn’t ever speak to Adora about Catra. This happens vice-versa, and in Betty, James reveals that Inez told Betty he cheated on her.

I want to say something controversial… Glimmer comes to mind when I think “who’s the Inez?” And this is based off of two things: 1) Inez’s closeness to Betty, and 2) Inez drags James out to dry, rightfully so. And when I think of that I think of Glimmer screaming “Do one good thing in your life!” directly in Catra’s face. James gives Inez a bad wrap in Betty. Not cool James.

Of course there’s the pivotal, “would you tell me to go fuck myself?/ or lead me to the garden?” To me this a fun way of showing there’s vulnerability to what James is doing, so automatically I’m led to is the scene where Catra asks Adora to stay, or each time in s5 when Catra risks, basically an identity crisis to let Adora in how she really feels, but there’s always the potential that Adora could spurn her by not returning her feelings or rejecting her outright.

I think the best argument that can be made for “is betty a catradora song” can really be encapsulated by the lyric(s): “the worst thing that I ever did is what I did to you” and “the only thing I wanna do is make it up to you.” That is what about the song SCREAMS Catra to me. And yeah, it could be argued that Adora hurt Catra pretty brutally (Shadow Weaver makes that point EVEN THOUGH SHE HAD NO RIGHT TO) that she messed up by abandoning Catra- but Adora feels guilt for... literally breathing. Adora is the quintessential embodiment of “pick your battles, no that’s too many battles, put some back,” but Catra picked one battle first and foremost (yes, she had a few others but this was the one) and that was Adora. Everything that motivated her was surrounded around a narrative of surpassing Adora for a multitude of reasons, and because of that she pretty much hurts Adora every chance she gets after Promise. Adora is really Catra’s first casualty, it makes sense that she has to be her first apology. And I think that after being vibed checked back to back by DT and Glimmer and realizing “oh hey fuck, I’m still in love with her” and then almost dying just to not die because Adora saves her, I think much of Catra’s motivation shifts to “how to do I get Adora to want to stay?”

That’s my logic for how Betty could be a catradora song in canon. Now not all of my Taylor associations are with canon catradora, many of them do belong to uws catradora, because it’s a lot easier to apply the more modern details of Taylor’s songs to a modern au. The song Breathe is big that way. (it’s in Upper West Side, it’s the song Adora listens to and cries to after that first ride, I just never mentioned that it was taylor because my conditioned reaction to bringing up taylor is to have my head bit off with someone’s semi incorrect and slightly sexist opinion that I never, ever ask for) And this ask got me thinking about what it would look like if I applied not Catradora to Betty, but Betty to Catradora. What would it look like if Catra skateboarded and wore black lipstick, Adora wore a cardigan and they had homeroom together until Catra really messed up? What would it look like if they were seventeen when they admitted their feelings for each other instead of 21? What would it look like if they spent a summer fighting but dreaming of each other? What would their love story look like if Catra and Adora were in that town where Taylor envisioned this “same event that affected three people in different ways?”

I think it’d look something like this.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/31141973/chapters/76952048

what do you guys think?

quick but INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT thank you to @gimme-tea-bitch for helping me with this, being my beta, and listening to me talk about folklore/evermore.

#I am literally SHAKING as I post this you guys have no idea #like vibrating through a wall shaking #i've been working on this for like the past two months #and I know everyone wants cruel summer but my goblin brain is like #AHHHHHHHH WRITE A FOLKLORIAN AU FOR CATRA AND ADORA YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO #IT'S 23K WORDS NO ONE WILL NOTICE #this was supposed to go up with two parts but tbh with you guys i have high key been feeling when jenny slate said #'i don't get the love until something beautiful goes out'#please be gentle with me

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coralcatsea · 2 years

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A: Your current OTP.

Arthur with either Gilbert or Alfred.

B: A pairing you initially didn’t consider but someone changed your mind.

PrUK, EngGer, RUKUS, Americano, AmeLiet, PruLiet. Feel free to ask me why!

C: A pairing you wish you shipped, but just can't.

I don't wish I shipped anything.

D: What was the first thing you ever contributed to a fandom?

Roleplaying, I think.

E: Have you added anything stupid/cracky/hilarious to your fandom, if so, what?

I came up with the crack ship France x Yzma, drew a picture, and occasionally try to promote it for no reason.

F: What’s the longest you’ve ever been in a fandom? What fandom was it?

I've been in Hetalia for ten years now. Never left.

G: What was your first fandom?

Tokyo Mew Mew, if only roleplaying it with my own friends I already knew in real life counts. If not, then Hetalia.

H: Do you prefer real-life TV shows or animated TV shows?

Animated.

I: Has Tumblr caused you to stop liking any fandoms, if so, which and why?

No, but they certainly make some of my ships look bad.

J: Name a fandom you didn’t care/think about until you saw it all over Tumblr.

Good Omens.

K: How do you feel about the other people in your current fandom(s).

They're like people in any other fandom. Some fun, some frustrating.

L: Your favourite fanartist/author gives you one request, what do you ask for?

Art of my redesigned version of fem England. OR art of fem PrUK with my redesign of fem England and canon fem Prussia. OR art of fem USUK with my redesign of fem England and my redesign of fem America. I would be...😍🥺✨

Then, for fanfiction...PrUK or PrUKUS smut with England topping. 👌

M: A person who got you into a fandom and what fandom they pulled you in to.

My cousin got me into Hetalia.

N: Your favourite fandom (for the people; not the thing you fangirl over).

Hetalia. So many unique styles, so many AUs, so much creativity. It's not perfect, but no fandom is.

O: Choose a song at random, what ship does it remind you of?

[Insert random song] [insert OTP because I'll imagine them to anything]

P: Invent a random AU for any fandom (we always need more ideas).

Disney Fairies/Hetalia crossover

Q: A ship you’ve abandoned and why.

Giripan because I never really found justification of chemistry. They make good friends, but I don't see many depictions of them as such, let alone lovers.

R: A pairing you ship that you don’t think anyone else ships.

There's always at least one person who also ships even my rarer ships, but the hardest to find content for is stuff like PrUKUS and PrUKmano.

S: What's a headcanon you have?

Arthur LOVES the ocean. Maybe an unpopular opinion, but I don't care. Dangerous or not, he finds it fascinating.

T: What are your favourite male/male ships or female/female ships?

USUK, PrUK, EngGer, Engmano.

I don't really have Hetalia female/female ships unless you count the same ships when they're all girls, which of course includes EngBela. But non-Hetalia? Raven Queen x Apple White has been growing on me. I kind of like Catradora and Scorptra, but I also have mixed feelings on them and feel they should probably get therapy first.

U: What are your favourite male/female ships?

EngBela, AmeBela, Link x Midna, Flynn x Rapunzel, Entrapdak...

V: Do you have any 3-way ships? If so, what?

PrUKUS, PrUKmano, PrUKGer, USUKBela, GerUKUS, AmeLietmano.

W: 5 favourite characters from 5 different fandoms.

- Groose from Skyward Sword

- Carmen and Devineaux from Carmen Sandiego (they're tied, okay)

- Shego from Kim Possible

- Eda from Owl House

- Entrapta, Catra, and Scorpia from SPoP (another tie)

X: 3 OTPs from 3 different fandoms.

Aaravos x Viren 😂

Saiki x Coffee Jelly

I kind of like InoTanZen or whatever it's called from Kimetsu no Yaiba.

Y: A fandom you’re in but have no ships from.

Attack on Titan.

Z: What's a ship that you want to ship publicly, but everyone on Tumblr hates it so you keep your mouth shut about it?

I sometimes feel like USUK has to be shared secretly in a dark alley since it's so **problematique** 😆

Antis really believe their perspective/interpretation of a relationship between fictional landmasses is the only one that exists. They're convinced it gives them a free pass to act morally superior and insult people just because they're mad it's getting attention. In the end, though, that says more about them than it does me, and I have nothing to be ashamed of so long as I act like a reasonable individual.

#hetalia #aph #hws #aph england #hws england #arthur kirkland #aph america #hws america #aph prussia #hws prussia #prukus #pruk #usuk #nyotalia #ukus #engpru #usukus

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ninjakittenarmy · 3 years

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I’m really fucking tired of people automatically accusing people of hating redemption arcs and not realizing people can change because they complained about ONE redemption arc being ill conceived or poorly executed. Like yeah, people can change and grow to be better people, and being redeemed doesn’t mean others need to forgive them, but guess what? That doesn’t mean that the redemption arc was good! It doesn’t mean that the arc was satisfying or well suited to the show! If your villain crosses certain lines, then they’re going to be very hard to sympathize with when they have a face turn. That’s just how it is.

Take Steven Universe: I’ve been an avid fan of that show for years, I love it to death, and I will be the first person to tell you that anyone saying that it supports fascism is a fucking idiot. HOWEVER, I also think the Diamonds’ redemption arc was horrible. It basically required one to focus on the family drama and relationships of the diamonds at the expense of what made them actually EVIL.

Sure, perhaps they were always meant to be a depiction of toxic family relationships as viewed through a lens of cartoon heroes fighting cartoon villains, but the fact of the matter is that even if you want the whole conflict to be a metaphor/consequence of realistic family drama with much more wide reaching consequences-which can TOTALLY be done btw, that’s perfectly fine- you still need to set things up in a way that makes reconciliation believable and not a huge miscarriage of justice.

The Diamonds were HORRIBLE people who killed countless of their own subjects, turned dead revolutionaries into twisted monsters still suffering in immense pain in a bid to destroy humanity, and wiped out countless worlds (admittedly, the writers said that humans were the first sentient organic life they found), and yet because they had an epiphany about their home life, we’re just supposed to accept that and move on. It doesn’t work like that. Even if the whole conflict is a dramatization or metaphor for familial strife, you still need to pay attention to the literal events actually happening. I’m not going to disregard the actual war going on and the consequences thereof because we’re focusing on the personal feud at the center of it all and it happens to be resolvable. I admire their attempts to resolve some of these issues in Future, where Yellow is shown in the process resurrecting the subjects she murdered, but the arc itself was still very forced.

Steven Universe really is the perfect example for this discourse because it has one terrible redemption arc amidst a sea of good ones. Lapis and Peridot had great redemption arcs that dealt with their personal issues in ways that made us like them and sympathize with them. Peridot was easy because she was mainly comic relief, but it was still a very moving redemption when she was shown getting her first taste of freedom and growing to love the planet. Lapis, while somewhat divisive, was an even better one in my opinion. Sure, it took a while, and even towards the end, she still had major issues throughout, but her character was built in a way that made it so you WANTED her to come around, and even though she had major issues throughout, it was always clear to the audience that she was never a BAD person at heart, and she never went too far down the path of evil to be forgivable.

Spinel is probably the one of the best redemption arcs I’ve ever seen, definitely in my top 3. I’d even put her above Zuko in some respects, though mostly due to personal preference. That’s really impressive considering that not only did she try to blow up the planet, like the diamonds did, but she also came soon after the polarizing Diamond redemption arc I just cited as a bad example. Spinel was everything the Diamonds should have been. Menacing and clearly unhinged, irrational in her goals of vengeance, and extremely dangerous, willing to end the world for what is for all intents and purposes a personal dispute with a relative (a very serious one but nonetheless), yet somehow still sympathetic throughout.

Unlike the Diamonds, Spinel was a character the audience WANTED to see redeemed throughout the whole film, even through her actions were still pretty terrible. A part of this is that we see more of her personality and struggles in the film than we see of the Diamonds’ in the whole series. We learn to like her and sympathize with her plight. It helps that she’s extremely entertaining. The other part is the main crux of the issue at hand really, and that is: SPINEL NEVER KILLED ANYONE!

This is the main issue I have with this whole debate. People get accused of refusing to let people change or let characters have any flaws when all they do is hold people accountable for anything AT ALL. Yeah, if a character crosses certain lines, I won’t want them redeemed. Sure, what those lines are depends on the scale and scope of the work and how seriously these actions are treated/ what consequences they had, but they exist and some crimes simply aren’t forgivable.

It’s easy for me to forgive Spinel because her actions caused mostly temporary damage. No one died. The Diamonds killed tons of people, including humans defending their home from destruction. Liking one doesn’t mean I have to like the other. Forgiveness doesn’t come for everything. Yes, I know the victims don’t need to forgive the villains as part of a redemption arc, but you know who does? THE AUDIENCE. The audience is pissed at these people too, you need to win them over. Their forgiveness doesn’t come just because the author says it should.

“Oh, but some people are more forgiving than you.” Fine, let them like this stuff, but if every fucking show I watch redeems villains after making them seem like the worst people ever, I won’t like it and I WILL express my opinion on the matter. I’m sick of every villain NEEDING a redemption arc. So many works go for the forgiveness angle in the end with little to no buildup.

To be clear, I don’t hate redemption arcs. In fact, I love them. Some of my favorite characters are ones who underwent redemption arcs. My favorite character ever (Crona from Soul Eater, but you don’t necessarily need to be familiar with them for this) started out as a villain before becoming a hero. I actively prefer the anime version of the show they’re from because it gave them a happier ending. Catra from Spop is another fantastic example. Both of these characters hit many of the same notes as the positive examples I listed above. Those are just the two best examples I can think of for redemption arcs in my opinion, but there are certainly more.

I’ve even desired redemption arcs for characters we WEREN’T supposed to want one for. Chara from Undertale, Seryuu Ubiquitous from Akame Ga Kill, possibly Toga from MHA though I’m actually somewhat hopeful about her (if Endeavor can have one, she should too). All of these characters are ones I feel are compelling enough characters that I actually waved my usual threshold for crimes I can forgive. I still get why it didn’t happen, mind you, I’d just kind of like it.

So yeah, I love redemption arcs. When used well, they can result in some of the most interesting characters in the work. But that doesn’t mean my love for the trope is unconditional. Like any trope, it is a tool. It can be misused, and when it is, it’s fucking infuriating. Nothing is more rage inducing than a villain not facing consequences for their actions. A redemption arc that doesn’t work is literally just that presented as a good thing. Few things are as infuriating as a work have something infuriating happening and telling you to celebrate. It’s like someone punching your teeth out and demanding payment for the dental work.

#redemption arc #fandom discourse #steven universe #atla #soul eater #shera #spop #akame ga kill #undertale #my hero academia

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floxalopex · 3 years

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About Entrapta's "redemption" and how she was treated in Launch.

I'm just going to add this stupid thing of mine.

I like to help others, but sometimes a lot of their problems seem to be very...stupid, non sensical. I'm very immature for my age in my opinion (not in any way related to autism, just me being an idiot) but I can have very serious opinions. I still remember when I once was invited by some classmates in middle school to spend an evening togheter. At that time it was trendy to make fake phone calls as a joke. Yes, I ruined that "super funny" joke. I didn't do anything really, I chose willingly to stay away because I didn't find that amusing at all, but I accidentely hitted a plastic chair that felt on the floor making a loud noise. Those people my age (even a bit older) stopped calling whatsoever they were calling and started yelling at me, saying that I ruin everything; one of them was so enraged she even started crying. I remember I was scared, I hate when people yell at me. It makes me panic so much and I start to tremble and I lose my voice. I was so confused, I didn't know what I did wrong. Maybe they just found an excuse to never have me around again. Almost 10 years later I still don't know. The only thing I know is that those were real tears, and the motivation behind them felt...very idiotic. My disgusting town is small, I met that girl once, said hello for politeness, only for her to start laughing in my face. It hurts so much. I know I say I don't care but it hurts so bad.

So, about "stupid reasons to get angry".

This wasn't the case in Spop, Glimmer was in danger. Still, Entrapta had nothing to do with her. In theory she could have just said "who cares". But she is, despite what people may think, very sensitive (yh, being left alone for 30 years and being left to die twice can do that to a person). I personally think that the most painfull of things one can say to a person suffering in front of you is "who cares". At least it's painfull for me, that's why I always try to help, even if I think the problem to be stupid sometimes. And people don't say thank you, or they say with disgust "help, by YOU?". But that's another story.

Entrapta wants to help, but nope.

First the princesses get enraged due to her clear prosopagnosia and inhability to remember names (if I were to pick the worst symptom of mine, this would be that symptom).

Second we say she has to hurry. Do you know how a connection works? I get that Etheria is very ignorant in technology (I can relate a lot) but if you yell at your wifi the signal doesn't magically become stronger.

She is even patient, she gives a try. Because yes, that's how she is. Unlike someone.

Plus yh, let's freaking yell at her because she doesn't understand tones. Honestely, I have that problem too and do people think we are actually proud of it? It's so emberassing, I can't get jokes, sarcasm and even insults most of the times. I get tones wrong myself, I don't know why there's this lack of coordination between my facial expressions and my voice. Most of the times I look scared in my face but my tone is that of a pissed person. It's getting better now, I'm training looking at a mirror. But dam, it's still a problem. I understand it's not people's fault if they don't understand me, I can't blame them nor be angry at them because honestely I don't even understand myself sometimes. But I'm starting to just accept that I CAN'T CONTROL THAT. I can get better, I'm trying to get better. I even fucking managed to not stim in public (I mainly hum loudly making tiny fists and closing my eyes). 90% of the times at least. Do you have any idea of hard that is? It's as if I try to, idk, mentally rip my hands.

It's so draining. It's exausting. But I try and it's getting more fluid and natural. It still feels wrong anyways.

Now, why can't some NT try as well. I'm putting my effort, even if you think I'm content and don't care about my weird behaviours. Put a bit of effort too. I didn't ask to be like this.

But still, we are trying to make sense of a scene whose allegory was that of a DOG on leash.

#entrapta #and the #Entrapdak #tag #for visibility #sorry #I'm not depressed #nor angry #just sad #NO VICTIMHOOD #but I really didnt want to ruin THAT amazing post with this #still I wanted to express it

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cruelfeline · 4 years

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Anyone who hangs about Twitter potentially saw an unfortunate Hordak take cross their timelines today.

As is custom on this blog, I’ll be taking it apart for my own personal amusement (and for the amusement of any of y’all who like to watch me do so). I doubt the poster will see this, as they’re on Twitter and not apparently on here, but in case they do: this is for my own enjoyment and the enjoyment of followers; it absolutely does not need to be responded to if that’s not your cup of tea.

So, that little disclaimer in place, let’s see what we can make of this! Because this is on Medium, I’ll be using screenshots as quotes; just a heads-up.

So... this first bit isn’t really anything Hordak-related. It’s more... fandom drama, I suppose? Not really something I can pick apart. I can, however, give my own personal opinion on this sort of thing, for what it’s worth.

It’s true that people can and should be able to feel whichever way they wish about a character. And to talk about that character.

However: it is also true that people who dislike Hordak can be very unpleasant in making that known to those of us who enjoy him. Including descending into personal insults for no discernible reason. Add to that the fact that his character means a great deal to some fans for intensely personal reasons, and it is not difficult to see why some fans aren’t keen to see anti-Hordak content on their timelines, in their mentions, etc.

Censoring character hate isn’t a requirement, but in some circumstances, it can simply be a polite thing to do. It doesn’t take great effort, and it prevents people from experiencing just another bit of unpleasantness on their social media. And if you don’t want to do it? Well, that’s your right; but don’t be shocked when people voice their displeasure by replying to your words. Because that is their right.

And that’s all I really have to say about that.

Odd way to phrase things, really. These aren’t “reasons to forgive.” The first two scenes involve Catra’s asphyxiations and are things that would need to be forgiven, not things to forgive.

Though, y’know, I really only apply that to the first scene, where he assaults her without her necessarily doing anything wrong. Mind you, I believe he does it out of a combination of needing to maintain a hierarchy for safety purposes (this is a man who needs people to be afraid of him to maintain his own safety) and poor leadership skills mimicked from a narcissist, but it’s still a terrible thing.

However! The second time? After he asks her about Shadow Weaver? This isn’t torture-fun-times. This is Hordak neutralizing a threat to the entire Horde. Because that is what Catra is in this moment: a threat to the security and wellbeing of him and the entirety of the Fright Zone. She lies about a critical mistake. She proves herself to not only have poor judgment in serious matters, but to be very willing to lie about it in order to guard her own selfish motives. While I can’t condone the method Hordak uses, I do wish people would stop using this second instance of punishment as some sort of proof-of-torture. He does not do this for no reason. He does it because Catra released a dangerous prisoner into the wild and lied about it. And his concerns over it ultimately prove correct.

This entire qualification doesn’t have much to do with whether he deserves forgiveness or not, but it’s a point I want to make because it combats this idea that Hordak did this to an innocent girl “for no reason” or “just to be cruel.” That’s simply not the case; no matter how unpleasant the method, Hordak is a military leader punishing a subordinate for seriously endangering him and everyone else in the organization. Badly. I don’t know what the equivalent would be in modern military, but Catra’s error is massive. It doesn’t make what Hordak does right, but it does give a reason other than a simple “he’s a bad, bad man.” So.

Adding this scene is... actually kind of odd because he doesn’t really do anything to Adora here. And also: this scene is... what’s the word... meaningful-in-hindsight, so to speak. Essentially: in this scene, Adora is claiming that Hordak is responsible for stealing her, for robbing her of a peaceful life with her family. And Hordak is claiming that he neither knows nor cares who she is, and that she does not matter to him.

The interesting aspect of this scene, and something that OP fails to acknowledge at all, is that both Adora and Hordak are wrong.

let’s see if I can talk about this without crying... nope, already starting to tear up

Hordak never stole Adora; Light Hope did. Hordak did not orchestrate this unfortunate life for her. Rather, Hordak, a lost clone dealing with his own insecurities and fears and problems, found an equally lost infant in a field and gave her the only home he really knew how to create (and one that, for its flaws, was still better than the absolute nightmare he was “raised” in). In all likelihood, given Light Hope’s lack of understanding of infants, he probably saved Adora’s life by doing this: without him, she may well have perished alone in that field.

Hordak likewise does remember her, eventually. And she is not inconsequential to him: by saving her, he ends up saving himself, and all of his brothers. By forging this near-unknown bond with her all those years ago, by choosing to take in an infant rather than letting her die, he plays a key role in deciding the fate of the universe.

This scene that OP sarcastically claims is a reason Hordak shouldn’t be forgiven has a sibling:

The fact that OP apparently fails to recognize this and realize that these are the only two moments in the series during which Adora and Hordak directly interact, that they’re a pair, means that OP misses the connection between the two and the significance of how they misjudge one another initially. It indicates a lack of understanding of the themes of the show: themes centered around connections with other people, love, and forgiveness. Which, given the contents of this essay, is unsurprising.

Moving on!

Y’know, whether or not one believes, in terms of definition, that Hordak is a colonizer (I personally don’t for pedantic and clone-cult reasons, but that’s not really relevant to this post), it’s interesting that OP notes how Stevenson confirms that he is... but conveniently leaves out the part where she confirms that he did it because he was brainwashed.

That’s... an important piece of information to leave out when discussing whether Hordak should be forgiven or not. A very important piece.

And it doesn’t really matter whether he’s a colonizer or a conqueror; the reason it comes up is because people seem very stuck in the mindset of “if it’s a colonizer, it must die” without acknowledging any sort of nuance. There’s also the question of whether what Hordak did actually caused the same sort of upheaval and lasting damage we see resulting from legitimate colonization, and all of the implications of that, but this isn’t really the place to go into that. Honestly, I don’t really think SPoP as a whole is the place to go into that.

No. Hordak is not the person who taught her all of these things.

Shadow Weaver is.

Hordak did not personally teach her that Princesses are evil. He did not teach her that wanton cruelty is fine in getting one’s own way. He did not feed her propaganda.

Actually, as an aside: can we even confirm that Catra ever thought that Princesses where evil? I mean... she works with Scorpia, and she has no apparent morals to speak of. She does as she wishes for her own personal gain, not because she displays any sense of “fighting the evil Princesses.” And in terms of disposing of Entrapta because she was “manipulated” into viewing Princesses as evil: Catra disposes of everyone. She manipulates and uses everyone. That is one of the key aspects of her arc: she uses and abuses people for personal gain. She does this whether they are Princesses or not: just see Lonnie, Rogelio, and Kyle. Add to this the fact that Catra, from the first season, knows that she and Adora have been lied to, manipulated, and that the Horde is in fact evil, and... this entire line of reasoning falls apart.

None of this is an attempt to “absolve Hordak of blame.” Hordak just... legitimately had no hand in raising any of the children. That was not his role (and while I know that this was confirmed by Stevenson at some point, I don’t have memory of where; potentially the last podcast?). And Catra did not operate on any sort of propaganda that she actually believed in: she simply used and disposed of people as she saw fit because she cared more about her own rise to power than she did about those around her. This was one of her major character flaws, and really? Trying to pin this on Hordak, or even fully pin it on Shadow Weaver? It absolves Catra of the blame, of the intentional bad choices she made (as emphasized by Adora) and thus weakens her entire arc.

All in all: Hordak may have created a poor environment for the raising of children, but of note is the fact that only Catra turns out this way. The other kids, whatever their problems, are not in the habit of manipulating friends, lying to them, using them, and then tossing them aside. That is a Catra Problem. Part of this can be attributed to Shadow Weaver (who only treated Catra in the poorest way), and part of it is just... Catra being not-the-best.

All right. Now we get to the really disingenuous portion of the essay.

First, as just stated: Hordak is not Catra’s abuser. Shadow Weaver is. Hordak had no hand in raising her. Hordak did not direct Shadow Weaver to abuse her. Hordak did not personally feed Catra anti-Princess propaganda, and even if he had, we know by the first season that Catra sees through whatever propaganda she was exposed to and has no actual moral objections to Princesses. But that’s not the main aspect of this portion that irks me.

The main aspect that irks me is that this is not the scene Hordak stans mark as abusive. And I cannot imagine that OP does not know this.

But let’s talk about this scene, for a moment, before getting to the actual, legitimate abuse.

OP talks about his scene almost flippantly: “Hordak finds out Catra lied about Entrapta, he becomes angry and attacks her with a clear plan to kill her.”

Yes. Yes, he "becomes angry.” He becomes angry and attacks because as far as he knows, Catra killed Entrapta. This isn’t some annoyed “you lied to me!” moment. He legitimately thinks Entrapta is dead because Catra sent her to Beast Island. OP just blissfully glosses over the fact that Hordak is attacking Catra in rage and grief because Catra, as far as either of them know, killed his only friend and then lied about it for approximately a year. Like... how do you gloss over that in discussing this scene? How do you gloss over the enormity of what Catra did, and the unimaginable pain Hordak experiences when finding out?

So. The writeup of this scene is poor. It misses all of the emotion, all of the reality of what Catra did and what Hordak felt. But! That’s not even the unfortunate part of this portion. Let’s get to the real disingenuity.

This is the abusive scene. This is that stomach-turning moment when Catra removes a disabled man’s ability to move with dignity and without pain solely to force him to escalate a war for her own personal benefit.

Hordak is not a danger to her here. Hordak has not been a danger to her for a while because he has been holed up in his private quarters, trying to deal with the emotional fallout of Entrapta supposedly betraying him. He wants nothing to do with Catra. He wants to lick his wounds and gather himself and somehow heal from this deep personal pain that’s been inflicted upon him.

And that’s a problem for Catra because it stands in the way of her using the war as a way to best Adora.

So Catra identifies Hordak’s physical weakness and exploits it for the purpose of spiting her ex.

The fact that OP completely fails to acknowledge any of this is... well. Disingenuous. Absolutely so.

The next portion of the essay talks about people feeling that Catra was too easily forgiven and isn’t really Hordak-centric; I won’t really go into it here. Moving forward:

Ah, one of the most annoying questions I see asked. Let’s, again, acknowledge and move past the fact that Hordak was not actually Catra’s abuser...

When, pray tell, was Hordak supposed to show this remorse? When? While he was serving on Prime’s ship, trying to forget the pain of losing Entrapta, of failing to prove himself, of losing everything? Should he have done it while screaming in agony in the purification pool? Should he have done so while alone on Prime’s ship, trying to serve quietly while piecing together his memories?

Not only was Hordak simply not in a position, narratively, to go into a whole remorse bit, but he had other problems. Like, life-endangering problems.

The appropriate time to go into his feelings on Etheria and the Princesses and All of That would have been after Prime’s defeat, upon Hordak’s re-introduction to Etheria... but then the show ended. So.

Agh, vulgar. Taking a brainwashed, conditioned slave and bastardizing his triumph at finally seeing himself as a real person, instead claiming that his intent was to glorify his own misdeeds. No. Just... no.

Again: this is not the time for guilt. And it is a demonstration of why guilt and remorse were not front-and-center in Hordak’s arc during season five: his arc was about finally realizing that he was his own person, a person worthy of identity and love and care and freedom. And this arc culminated in him separating himself from his abuser and declaring his personhood.

That is what this scene is: not Hordak reveling in his makeshift empire, or in the terrible deeds he’d committed, but in declaring himself his own person.

I should hope that he is proud of doing that. I’m proud of him for doing that daunting feat, of defeating his abuser and defying his god and recognizing that he is worthy of more than what Prime thought of him. And I recognize Entrapta’s role in it: not as the sole inspiration for his change, but as someone who showed him a foundation of love and acceptance, someone who introduced him to the idea that he was worthy of care and happiness and affection simply because he was a living being, no strings attached.

Trying to shoehorn in some sort of claim that this is about pride in his misdeeds, rather than joy at finally accepting his own sense of self is a massive misinterpretation of this scene, a misunderstanding of Entrapta’s role in Hordak’s arc, and... can I say it’s disingenuous again? Because I’m going to: it’s disingenuous.

All right; we’re at the end. And while the first sentence here is something I absolutely agree with - the decision to forgive Hordak is personal and subjective both for viewers and for in-show characters - the whole conclusion falls apart from there.

It highlights another glaring omission from OP’s arguments: the fact that Hordak is a brainwashed clone slave.

Hordak did not choose to “spend his life trying to prove his worth to Horde Prime.” He did not choose the method of said proving: that Prime would look kindly upon conquering rather than some other task. And he did not choose to have certain concepts and ideas (all beings must suffer to become pure; all creatures, no matter how small, have a place in service of Horde Prime; failure is when something ceases to serve a purpose) conditioned into him.

Hordak was manufactured as a cultist slave. He was “born” with hardware implanted into his body against his will to better control him. He was indoctrinated and brainwashed to the point that he believed that Horde Prime was his literal god - and in a way, Prime was, because he could mentally invade and possess and physically control the clones whenever he wished.

Hordak was not allowed to have a sense of self. He was not allowed to have a name. He was not allowed to express emotions. He was not allowed to live without that life serving to glorify Horde Prime. Hordak was so absolutely sick with this mentality that he saw himself as a failure due to physical disability and assumed it was his responsibility to fix that.

The idea that Hordak simply chose to do what he did, that he had the same foundational morality and mindset as any “normal” person might, shows a glaring lack of understanding even the basics of his narrative.

Yes: Hordak did bad things. But he did them for legitimately tragic, nigh-horrifying reasons that this essay just ignores for the sake of... I don’t know? Trying to justify OP’s distaste for the character? I am uncertain. But it’s a mark of a poor essay, of a poor understanding of the character, and is honestly just disappointing to read when the show itself tries so hard to drive home its wonderful, hopeful themes through Hordak’s story.

Whether one forgives Hordak or not is one’s personal choice, but I certainly hope one makes said choice with better insight into his character than this essay provides.

#discourse #hordak #I wonder if I come off as too sassy in this but honestly this essay was a chore to read #so much was just ignored or misinterpreted #it was like a willful misrepresention of Hordak's character and I did not like it

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