The core of Catra and Adria’s relationship is that they value each other more than any mistake the other could or did make. Something about seeing that kind of forgiveness and grace in a context that very clearly parallels ex Christian experiences rewires my brain.
my brain melting when i hear the digital bath by deftones ♡
casings by ethel cain is SO catradora-coded that it's driving me fucking insane and i can't think about anything else.
ethel asking "am i not good enough for you, is there something wrong with me?" and literally all i can imagine is catra not understanding why she wasn't good enough for adora to stay with her :(
and catra thinking that adora replaced her with glimmer and bow, how adora was so willing to give everything up she had with catra for them
ofc we, as the audience, understand why adora left (we understand adora's savior complex and her moral drive), but the only explanation that catra can imagine is that she never mattered to adora as much as as adora mattered to her.
and actually, if you ask me, i think that's partially true. shadow weaver made is extremely fucking clear to catra that she had no worth outside of adora. without adora's affection, catra meant nothing. growing up, catra's whole sense of herself is so intrinsically tied to who she is to adora. adora is her lifeline.
this isn't true for adora. her worth is tied to her usefulness, her strength, her obedience. shadow weaver also made that incredibly clear to her too. it's why becoming she-ra in the first season is the worst possible thing that could've happened to her.
it's why she leaves and catra stays and grieves.
it's not to say that adora doesn't love catra. adora loves her so, so much. she loves her with everything that she is, but she can't let herself love catra, because she has to be perfect. the perfect soldier, the perfect she-ra, the perfect hero, etc.
ugh the catradora angst is just unmatched. and now every single time i hear this stupidly beautiful and heartbreaking ethel song, all i can think about is them :((
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.
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.
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.
i’m sorry to say that this part of catra’s story hits a little too close to home :(
i love her sm
dude…… the nuance with which she-ra netflix reboot approaches a relationship an abuse victim has w their abuser…. the fact that catra hates shadow weavers guts for everything she put her through but also fundamentally cannot help but care about her…the fact that despite everything she still wants shadow weavers love and approval even if its unhealthy and she knows externally that shadow weavers not worth it…….. bro the understanding of the complexity of these things that the show exhibits……
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
stop it hurts :((((((
jumping into the abyss goodbyeeeeeeeee
the actual fucking chills that i get listening to perverts ♡