Happy Five Year Anniversary Of Catradora! This Is A Holiday For Me.

my great comeback

not trying to be discourse-y on herebut catra’s gender presentation is key to her character arc and i wish people would look outside of the femme fatale associated s4 outfit and her facade

oh my god this is so fucking beautiful <3

I owe u a black eye and two kisses!!! (teeth eater)

Both Catra and Adora defying death at the height of their character journeys in such a powerful and subversive way. Whenever I think about it deeper, both deaths were very traditional and demeaning ’feminine’ deaths. Catra had a man literally controlling her body and mouth to fight against her friend (and lover) for seemingly his own amusement, and when she resisted, he disposed of her by throwing her off a cliff (the gwen stacy method), she was barely present in the entirety of the episode, her agency stripped (not for the first time), the emotional stakes were felt, but by Adora not catra and how bad she felt to see catra this hurt, even though catra was the one in pain, we don’t focus on catra’s perspective at all during it, so if she did die at the end of it, she would have just been another name to add to the list of female love interest violated and killed by the hand of men for the development of the main character’s story. Except she didn’t die! that wasn’t her end, but her beginning, that part was just a step on the rest of her life that she grew and recovered enough to have power to control. To change.

As for Adora, there’s no shortage of self sacrificial women and female martyrs both in history or fiction, it’s been romanticised and encouraged since the dawn of the patriarchy for girls to grew up being conditioned into giving up their own needs, desires and even lives and health for the convenience and goals of others, and when they obey that to the extreme (like with the failsafe) they’re celebrated as the ultimate heroes. The perfect women are dead women after all. but instead Adora doesn’t die not just because of her power or sense of duty but because she learns to be selfish and choose something for herself for once and that’s what ultimately saves her. She rejects her conditioning and the message of what a hero must be and choose to live for her own self. Self love is radical.

“she was afraid in the end. and she suffered”

can you hear my heart breaking :((((((

Looking at utenanthy official art, I love how genuinely happy Anthy is portrayed in art that is meant to be post-anime.

Look at how happy she is!! Another notable detail is that she tends to be more in control in comparison to her art with utena as the rose bride (I mean, that's a bit obvious considering she was the rose bride but I still feel the need to point it out)

She is held (damsel in distress style) by utena, who looks to be more in control and still has the prince mentality. (not all the art before the ending is like this, but a lot of it is). So it makes me really happy to see a genuinely happy and free anthy be more in control. They're in love!! They're free and they're happy!!

This post doesn't bring anything new to the table and I'm guessing this has been pointed out a million times before, but I want to gush about 90s anime lesbians. I love them dearly. Did you know they changed my life forever.

THEY ARE LIKE THE SAME I SWEAR

Idk how often this connection has been made but raven and apple from ever after high are literally glinda and elphaba variants

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 :)

everyday i wake up, read the news with my cup of coffee, pull my hair out, cry, scream, and then try to recover by reading catradora fanfic

living in america is fucking shit rn, but at least i still have catradora

- 𝘪𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘮𝘦, 𝘬𝘦𝘦𝘱 𝘪𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧.

@mothercain ୭ ˚.⁺⊹