I'm Sure There Are Already Many Notes About This, But Given This Post Starts Out Being About How The

Is it bad that before I finished reading your sentence my brain autocompleted it "himiko as her pokemon"?

desperately need someone to draw ochako as a pokemon protagonist and himiko as her rival

¡Pura Vida!

Had to jump on the trend and sketch out a Costa Rican Miku as soon as I could! 🇨🇷

catradora and the perfect victim complex

(i literally fucking think about this all the time so this just gonna be a rant lol)

i really, truly think that people in general don’t put the effort into understanding characters who are imperfect victims. for them, it destroys the appeal of victimhood. victimhood (especially when the victims in question are girls, women, femme presenting people, etc.) needs to be beautiful and tragic. think characters like ophelia, snow white, odette, juliet, the lisbon sisters. otherwise, their victimhood is no longer attractive.

catra is an imperfect victim. shadow weaver’s abuse did not make her soft, weak, timid, or fragile. it made her bitter, angry, and resentful.

i once saw a catra anti saying some bullshit about how they might’ve liked catra more if the writers had spent more screen time showing shadow weaver abusing her, specifically her when she was a kid.

this person wanted to see catra’s pain as beautiful. they wanted to see her ONLY as a child to be pitied, the little kid who cowered in fear instead of fighting back, and not have to acknowledge catra’s more complicated character traits.

i also think this is why these same people often talk like they love adora, like “adora deserves better than catra” and all that shit. adora (to them) is easier to see as a perfect victim. shadow weaver’s abuse made her obedient and self-sacrificing. it made her put others before herself, even to the point of fucking death. adora is selfless and brave. she’s so determined to be a perfect hero, to protect people, to care for people, to love people. these traits are easier to romanticize. it makes her seem beautiful.

if you ask me, this is a really fucked up way of viewing adora. i don’t love adora bc she’s a “perfect victim”, i love adora bc she, like catra, is also flawed. adora’s determination to be perfect leads her to abandoning catra. her inability to empathize with catra leads her to behaving the way she did in taking control. adora isn’t fucking perfect.

(for context i do also think that catra was in the wrong in that episode too, but i feel like we don’t talk enough about how badly adora was handling the situation. like seriously girl catra is here basically telling her “i don’t trust you bc i don’t believe that you could ever love me bc i’m inherently fucked up and unlovable” and adora’s immediate reaction is to blow up at her. it makes sense given what adora has just done for her, but it’s another example of adora being incapable of empathizing with catra. also calling her a stubborn brat? yeah uh that wasn’t funny adora, especially not with the ways that shadow weaver talked about catra.)

but i love that adora is flawed, and i love that catra is flawed. they’re not archetypes. no real person experiences abuse like they did and comes out perfect. catra’s intense fear of abandonment and resentment issues are a very fucking real response to the way she was traumatized. regardless of how ugly it is.

at the end of the day, i think that people can’t wrap their brains around this concept and refuse to empathize with imperfect victims bc they don’t want to admit that they, too, are imperfect victims. the perfect victim isn’t real. it’s a fucking myth.

in real life, people are messy and complicated, like catra and adora. it’s why i love them :)

ugh i could literally go on about this FOREVER i swear.

madoka loves her swagless cringefail lesbian disaster gf

Charlie: Well I get my looks from my father, so "devilish" is technically accurate.

from chapter 2 of my Chaggie fic The First Guest

x / x / x

original thread 1

original thread 2

I mean, how did she even experience that? Because theoretically she should've lived through a whole lifetime in which Madoka didn't exist and Homura never met her. Madoka didn't just alter the last month and a half, she altered ALL time. But Homura was so experienced with time travel (or so in love) that she couldn't forget. So did she just live a whole life with these memories, that she knows can't be real, of saving this girl Madoka who doesn't exist over and over again, as well as inexplicable timestop powers? Or was the Homura we all know just dropped into the new timeline with with all her memories, hopefully not erasing that timeline's Homura, but instead gaining her memories of a life without Madoka in a world without witches.

Wraith arc must've explained all of this I guess, but I've never read it.

Okay but like what do you think Homura was thinking on the day after Madoka became a concept? What did she do on the day she realized her mission was over?

Interesting Devil

This Past Wednesday I was talking to a friend about interesting interpretations of the devil, as one does, focusing somewhat on the lord of the hells from Critical Role EXU Calamity, and I said "I've also been thinking about a version of the devil that's like... a yandere to God. Like actually wants to be helpful and be with God but doesn't understand what God cares about and ends up causing harm." The next Monday (yesterday) I watched "Madoka Magica the Movie Part III: Rebellion"...

YESSSSS!

I always felt people underrated how much the Horde Prime lifestyle contributed to Catra's hange of heart.

Catra was always about rugged individualism and believed in a brutal meritocracy she could rise through.

She hated the Princess Alliance and its message of peace and love because she felt like it made everyone conform to their positive vibes and lose their own individuality. Because they treated everyone well, she thought it left people without a reason to strive to be exceptional.

But then she got involved with Horde Prime and learned what it was ACTUALLY like to be stripped of your identity and to be kept from being your best.

And she realized how wrong she'd been before.

Hive Minds creep the fuck out of me. As somebody that values their autonomy and individuality, that level of “connection” to others is just too frightening for me.

No wonder Catra betrayed Horde Prime and saved Glimmer. She took one look at that “community” and metaphorically shit herself. As anyone would or should.

HORDE PRIME: “Little sister”

*visibly shivers*

That was not going to be her future. Subjugation was never on Catra’s bucket list. It’s why she kept running off on her own to try to “defeat” Adora. It was purpose. Trying to convince herself of her own self-worth - even in the eyes of her friend-turned-enemy. Horde Prime really frightens Catra because he wants nothing from her but total allegiance and domination via Hive Mind.

They found the one thing that would scare her so thoroughly that she would drop the act of being the villain and fight for what’s right,… for who she loves.

Saw people talking about this on Twitter, apparently the new promo art for the Art of Amphibia book has a little message reading "A Strange Voyage is Coming" 👀 graphic novel WHEN