Not Trying To Be Discourse-y On Herebut Catra’s Gender Presentation Is Key To Her Character Arc And

she is beautiful ⋆˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖⋆

my great comeback

FOUNDERS OF YURI 💜🩷

some catra faces i feel like ranting about

^^here have some silliness before the wounds below <3

their only direct interaction all of season 4 whyyyy does it kill me so much to know that. damnit. it's not all that surprising catra would feel it confirmed: adora's done with her. the look she gives catra after she hops out of the way just in time says only one thing to me- "dodge it or don't. idfc."

that little smile on catra's face when she says "don't sound so happy to hear me" - because she's so fucking happy to get to hear adora one more time. just kill me already, i'll even dig the grave myself aight

this is a darker thought forsure, just a heads up, but i've always been fairly certain (and i don't think it's an uncommon theory) that at some point between catra's ragged breathing in adora's arms and her complete lack of breath when she attempts to heal her - catra has actually died. and i've kinda come to theorize this is the moment she exhales her last as her head tips back and to the side, looking up at adora and almost sorta smiling. it would make sense too as to why adora doesn't bother much with tryna be careful w her after that point - it becomes more crucial to get her out of there and somewhere safe for her to try n heal her asap.

and the moment catra sees adora just gave up. the first time she yells her name cause she knows that's what adora had just done. are you fcking kidding me 💔🪦

and closing w this one cause well the way adora smiles when she looks at her is just dumb amounts of sweet <3

catra in her princess prom suit, gotta be one of my favorite genders

“your trauma doesn’t define you” no actually it does. it dictates every aspect of my shitty life.

i think it’s really funny that my favorite show is she-ra. i wear heavy black eyeliner, leather, combat boots, and generally dress alternatively. then you ask what my favorite show is and i’m like “the sparkly lesbian princess cartoon!” and i won’t have it any other way.

Five Years Since Catradora Kissed.

Five years ago on this day, a certain ship from kids cartoon that I love named Catradora became canon and kissed and saved their whole goddamn universe. And I don't think anything in any peice of queer media has hit me the same way since then. It still fills me with warmth and happiness just as it did all those years ago.

Catradora isn't just two girls from this really well written show that got together at the end. It's a testament to what stories in our modern age can be capable of doing, the stories they are capable of telling.

Yes, that has come with some caveats, how the creators of these stories are treated like dogshit by the powers that be, as well as 'certain' parts of their audience, not to mention the corporations owning these stories force their queerness into their rainbow capitalisc assimilationist horsecrap. But even still... just seeing how Catradora makes other people feel, how other people have been able to discover themselves because of them tells me that they have a power that no corporate suit will ever understand.

Catra is literally my transition goals for instance and I see so many people identify themselves as an "Adora" or a "Catra" kinnie. Their stories have helped people feel seen and be okay with themselves in a way I haven't seen so openly possible for a long time.

As for myself... Catradora has been there for me for every rough spot I've had the last few years. That no matter what, they give me some comfort. I've seen a lot of drama and bs in the She-Ra fandom, the likes of which I know drove some people away... but I am still here, because my love for these two dorks will always be there. If everyone in the Catradora fandom was to just give up and go to another fandom somewhere else, I would still be here. I would literally be the only Catradora girl alive if that were possible.

I know that in my personal expereince that I've made a lot of mistakes in my time in the fandom. Since I've been off my main social media places a lot the last few months, it's given me a time to think on how toxic and cynical I could be at times, how sometimes I'd make terrible mistakes that would make some people uncomfortable or how toxic some She-Ra fandom spaces were. This is not a callout post by the way, I don't do that kind of thing.

I don't expect everyone to forgive me for some of the things I've done in the past or things I've said. As much as I would want nothing more than to make ammends for anything I've said or done that's warranted any reputation I might have, I realise I can't force people to change. Adora didn't force Catra to change after all, she did it of her own volition and Adora's freinds likewise accepted Catra because they wanted to, not because Catra forced them to.

But I will say this... I am genuinely sorry for everything. For any conversations or ideas I might have worded badly that made people uncomfortable, for going on giant long cynical rants and vents because I was in a bad place, for all of that. I am truly sorry and I hope that I can at least be friends with some of you again.

And while I was only an observer for a lot of the other She-Ra fandom drama, I am sorry to everyone who left the fandom because of that too. I am so goddamn sorry that a bunch of sometimes justified internet drama and arguements caused you to no longer enjoy a beautiful series like She-Ra. I am sorry people did racist shit to Catra that made POC in the fandom deeply uncomfortable, I am sorry that so many people rallied behind good ships like Glimmadora and Entrapdak to harass Catradora stans because of the internet media ilteracy that trained them to hate Catra. I am sorry that these last five years haven't exactly been the best for a lot of you and I know that I alone can't exactly do much to fix that.

But what am I going to do? I'm going to try and keep being postive and making things that I at least hope make someone happy, that put a smile on someone's face. I have over 200 fics about Catradora alone posted on AO3 and probably much, much more planned in the future. Heck, the day this goes up, I'll be FINALLY properly making a start on the big post-canon She-Ra series I've always wanted to write.

I want to try and be a beacon of hope and positivty for anyone who visits my pages. I was told by I think @catras-breakup-song and @witch-apologist that I have somewhat of a repuation for being a nice blog that shows up in people's feeds on here and I hope I can still be that for another five years.

Catradora are in a way... an inspiration to me. Creatively, by writing tons of stories about them. And for their happiness giving me such hope on the days I feel so dark.

So here's to the next five, hell, next TEN years, because hey, if Korrasami can keep people going for ten years, Catradora most certainly can!

May Catradora and everything about She-Ra keep you happy for a good long time, my friends. I hope to see some of you again soon.

oh god yes, “don’t go” does an awesome job of filling in the gaps in canon :)

me bc i probably re-read it like at least once every two weeks or so lol

understanding catra in taking control s5: ep 6

(lots of awesome people have already said some amazing things about this, but it’s been on my mind a lot especially since i’ve been seeing some anti catra bullshit lately)

first off, i want to say that i don’t think that catra is necessarily handling the situation well, but i often see people saying some crazy shit about how she’s so “ungrateful” to adora for rescuing her or whatever and just generally being incredibly insensitive to her.

you have to remember everything that catra has gone through up until the point. horde prime had just completely violated her body and mind, electrocuting her in the baptismal pool, cutting off her hair, and infiltrating her memories. catra, who is already deeply afraid of the losing control (namely to shadow weaver, who taught her that power and control were necessary to be safe from her abuse), just lost all of her autonomy in the most fucking disturbing, pseudo-religious way possible.

before this, catra fully expected to die. i’ve seen a lot of different takes and i’m relatively open-minded to about what it is that catra thinks specifically when she remembers that scene with her and adora’s younger selves in corridors, but i think that it’s something along these lines:

“all i’ve ever done is hurt adora, and all she ever tried to do was love me instead. i’ve loved her and wanted her more than anyone else, and still all i did was hurt her. adora finally gave up on me, like i deserved all along anyway. but maybe, just maybe, the last thing i do could be for her. maybe that last little piece of goodness in me could live on in her.”

hence the:

“all i do is hurt people. there’s no one left in the entire universe who cares about me.”

anyway, my point is that catra has been through fucking hell :(

adora rescues her, and in the moment, catra is (obviously) relieved, shocked, surprised, confused, even. (“why did you come back? we both know i don’t matter.”)

the confusion is the main thing i want to focus on. catra really truly believes that adora hates her (shadow weaver has conditioned her to believe that she has always been inherently worthless and unlovable), so catra can’t understand why adora would ever come back for her.

catra eventually comes to the conclusion that adora just wanted to feel like a hero. she just came back to rescue catra to prove her virtue or her moral superiority to catra.

so she lashes out. she feels so completely out of control, and bitter with adora for her actions, convinced that there is no way that adora came back for her out of love.

adora handles this like shit. the literal first thing she does is throw the mattress onto the floor, and later slams catra into the wall. adora lashes back at catra, hurt that catra doesn’t “appreciate” adora’s love for her. adora doesn’t even try for two fucking seconds to understand where catra is coming from.

(adora does have a consistent issue with only seeming to be able to empathize with catra’s emotions when catra is weak, vulnerable, and powerless throughout much of series honestly)

ugh and calling her a stubborn brat? like i love you adora, but that makes my blood fucking boil. it is SUCH condescending, shadow weaver-coded language to use toward catra. i understand, catra is being “difficult” or whatever, but god it’s so easy to see why catra is acting the way she is.

and ofc catra is scared of entrapta! obviously, catra wronged entrapta deeply, and catra has never lived in a world with grace and forgiveness. shadow weaver physically abused her all her life, and hordak suffocated her for losing shadow weaver and lying to him about it. catra knows that she hurt entrapta, so naturally she immediately assumes that entrapta is going to fucking kill her the minute she has a chance.

then adora’s reaction is to fucking shove her into the wall and tell her to “grow up”. catra just looks fucking terrified, backed into the corner in her little horde pjs :(

adora backs off for a moment and tells catra that she would respect her wish to drop her off somewhere, catra realizes that adora really could leave her, and immediately rushes to beg adora to stay, kneeling on the ground, reaching up for her hand. something about that whole scene just absolutely fucking breaks my heart.

it kills something in me when i hear people say that catra didn’t do enough for redemption. it’s never what her redemption was ever about. catra is genuinely so, so much more complicated than that. and so is adora! i’m still sad that adora never really made up to catra for some of her shitty behavior.

i don’t believe that their arcs are meant to be done at the end of the show. there’s still so much room for them to grow. and that is what the post canon fics are for lol

oops this ended up being wayyy more of a rant than i intended; i think about catradora all the time :)

first off i wanna preface this by saying that i’m not actually a trans man/masc, but i had an experience with my mother in high school that i think definitely relates.

so i come from a super conservative fundamentalist christian household. like my mother has a fake ass degree in christian apologetics (if you don’t know what that is, you don’t wanna know) and helped found some crazy christian mom podcast dedicated to teaching parents how to “protect” their kids from secular culture. you know the type.

when i was 14 i was forced to come out as a lesbian. my parents completely freaked out and put me through fucking hell because of it. (i won’t go into details bc it doesn’t relate to this specific story but it was like. conversion therapy type shit. i was super isolated too, i wasn’t allowed outside the house except to go to my private christian school and they took my phone away)

anyway my mom is obviously super into conservative bullshit in general, but that summer she got ESPECIALLY into anti trans rhetoric, in particular anti trans masculinity rhetoric. i don’t think people realize how big this is, specifically in fundamentalist christian circles. they run with this idea of “the left is confusing young girls!! they’re targeting and preying on young girls into thinking that they can be men! they’re demonizing godly christian femininity!” and this idea gains fucking traction in these communities. for exactly the reason that you think that it does.

my mom made me go with her to some stupid conference, and there was this lady there who gave this awful speech on all trans men are really just confused, young, impressionable girls who need to embrace their god-ordained christian womanhood. i’ve been to many events like this one and heard a lot of bullshit but to this day i think that was the worst one. my blood fucking boils just remembering it.

at some point i couldn’t fucking take hearing that lady talk anymore bc i was fighting tears and shaking with rage and ran off into the bathroom. i’m not a trans man/masc, but i’m queer and oh i don’t know a fucking HUMAN, and my 14 year old self couldn’t take hearing that anymore. my mom found me in the bathroom and made a scene about it later.

i don’t know if it was that incident or if perhaps my mom thought so before and that’s why she dragged me to the conference, but she was incredibly strict with how i could dress and present myself from that point onward. all my life she’s been strict about what i could wear, but before then it was very much in a modesty-focused way. like, no short skirts, no tops that showed off my figure, no bikinis, no crop tops, etc. that all changed suddenly. suddenly i was forced to wear dresses, flattering tops, anything that looked stereotypically “feminine”. this drove me fucking crazy bc i don’t feel comfortable presenting myself super femininely. i don’t really usually present myself overtly masculinely either, but i definitely don’t like to be perceived as feminine.

even at the age of 14 i knew that my mother wanted control. she wanted power of my body, my sexuality, the clothes i wore, and even the fucking thoughts in my head. which really is just the same as the rest of the fundamentalist christian right.

The way mothers allow themselves to treat their daughters is already fucked up enough but when their kid is a trans man/masc it just gets so much worse. I’m literally not allowed baggy clothes, the simple and normal act of wearing baggy clothes, which is banned for me in particular because they don’t “frame my figure.” I should only be wearing clothes that cling to my body and show off my hips, and this is because my mum has some weird idea that if my “feminine form” isn’t on show at all times, I will turn into a masculine weirdo because I’ve already expressed my transness to her before and she’s doing everything in her power to stop it, and therefore I’m not even allowed the option of wearing baggy, loose fitted clothing. This is such a small example of the long list of things I’m not allowed to do in order to keep me from transitioning, but even something that small is incredibly fucked up to me because the level of control in forcing me to wear clothes that show off my “female” body to snuff out any masculinity is 100 times worse when you throw in the fucking immeasurable, painful dysphoria that I have to deal with by walking outside in clothes that basically have a neon sign over them telling people to look at the least favourite parts of my body.

And this is apparently normal, because mothers just want their daughters to be proud of who they are. And if those “daughters” happen to be trans men, it’s only in their best interest to detransition them back into daughters. Or whatever the fuck excuse we’ve given to them to treat their kids this way.