Shadow Weaver - Tumblr Posts - Page 3
Something something religious ideology blah blah blah lesbianism uhhh
Trauma Holodeck - Asking Questions
I’m on vacation and can’t sleep - which apparently means it’s time for another Problematic Adora post!
Let’s travel back to Promise. Specifically, let’s look at ~ 10 minutes in, when Adora asks a question about asking a question:
Adora: “Can I ask you a question?”
Catra: “Can I stop you?”
Adora: “Why did you help me escape, after Shadow Weaver captured us?”
Catra: “Not this again.”
Catra is still very emotionally closed here - she’s trying to shut down the conversation, keep it safely away from her feelings and motivations. ( “Can I stop you?” , “Not this again.”). All Catra wants is to get out of Creepy Ruined Temple, and go home. She doesn’t want to indulge Adora, or Adora’s prying.
Which is to say: Adora is the driving force here. She’s the one who initiated this conversation, who is forcing it to happen in spite of Catra’s discomfort.
And if Adora is driving this, we should be concerned with her motivations. Why is she demanding Catra explain herself? What does she hope to gain?
What do you want, Adora?
Her own short-term survival?
Nah, Adora just needed to walk away for that; the spiders are only after her because she’s insisting on “protecting” Catra.
Catra’s safety?
Also no. If anything, by pushing Catra’s buttons she’s increasing the risk of Catra running off alone and coming to harm.
An apology?
That’s what she wanted a moment ago, when she was looming and screaming about how Catra had gotten Glimmer cursed.
But it’s not what she wants now; in fact, she’s completely reversed tack here - she’s flipped from blaming Catra for the curse Shadow Weaver placed on Glimmer, to laying all accountability for the capture Catra orchestrated at Shadow Weaver’s feet.
With this changed framing, there’s nothing for Catra to apologize for - Adora has removed her culpability, reducing her to an innocent bystander.
(These rapidly changing moods and framings do so remind me of another character on this show…)
Genuine bafflement?
Adora can be dense, but she isn’t that dense. When she says “It’s the one thing I can’t figure out.”, she is not expressing confusion; it’s a rhetorical device to finish setting up a leading question.
Let’s follow the bouncing ball here. Starting from the open question of “Why did you help me escape?”:
She fixes accountability solely on Shadow Weaver - “after Shadow Weaver captured us“ As mentioned above - this strips Catra of culpability (and agency), framing her as a victim and not a participant.
She inserts a pair of declarative statements - “You didn’t have to do that.You could’ve gotten caught”). This cuts Catra off from answers that Adora doesn’t want ( “I had to.”, “No one was going to stop me.” )
She asks a loaded question - “Why risk it?” The assertion that Catra took a great personal risk is baked in here, in a way Catra can’t easily reject, again shaping her response.
She equates the original question - “Why did you help me escape[…]?” - with the newly constructed one - “[Why, as an innocent bystander, did you risk helping me escape, when you didn’t have to and you could have been caught?]”
And just like that, a (relatively) open question - one where Catra could have responded or deflected in myriad ways - has been seamlessly transformed into one where, really, there’s only one possible answer.
An answer we already know Adora wants.
Adora wants Catra to say she needs “likes” her.
That’s what she’s looking for here - she so much as says so a few minutes later, after Catra seems to have cracked.
Adora wants Catra’s dependence love, but is unable to admit that, even to herself - she needs Catra to be the one to do the confessing.
And some of the tools she uses to get that result … well. :| This isn’t all I have to say about this scene, but this is already quite long, so I’ll save the discussion of why Catra cracks for it’s own post.
[ETA]
Which can now be found here: PART 2
Thought I might as well dig up another batch of sketches I've had saved on my phone ^v^
I should also mention, I'll be away on a road trip for the next few days. Expect photography!
it bugs me that we still don’t seem to have any videos mashing up Glimmer socking shadow weaver with the FALCON PAWNCH! like not the game or anime, wth is wrong with this fandom?
“There were of course those, who doubted the young princess for her youth and her compassion. However those who mattered most knew of her importance, her strength and her beauty-.. and beautiful she was, truly a fantastic specimen. To behold her was to hold the world in your arms and all its glorious light. Yet still there was a tale to be told; This, is the tale of Euredian.”
-The Great Dragon
Oh happy day, we’ve renewed our vows :)
Picrew of Kathika and her wife Beatrice 🥰🥰
“She and Me”
-KIV
It is honestly so crazy to me how much Kathika has changed since the very first time I drew her all those years ago. Shadow Weaver had changed a lot as well but not quiet as drastic as the dragoness’ has. I don’t know if I’m genuinely coming back to the fandom because it seems mostly dead anyways but, I miss my wives, Tails. I miss them a lot. Have at thee!! /lh
Funny trend with my She-Ra OCs as well as Catra and Shadow Weaver; Kathika, Shimmera and Gaius.
80's She ra headcannon : As a result of being raised by Hordak and Shadow Weaver, Adora has a habit of breaking out into glorious hammy laughter whenever she is extremely happy.
This is a flashback of Skeletor telling Adora of his past, how he stole Adora, and found out how to travel between dimensions. Skeletor spent some time in Etheria serving the Horde, they invaded Etheria and he enslaved Brightmoon (in a scene that made my childhood cry) but he can’t find the Crystal Castle.
We also got a bit from Shadow Weaver’s past, she was pregnant when she was recruited into the Horde and Hordak pretty much took her soul and her unborn child’s soul as a price. I guess it makes sense why she was so attached to Adora but honestly I rather would have liked it better if that attachment would have come out of Shadow Weaver raising Adora (because dead babies is kind of a cliche and it would be cool if someone like Shadow Weaver, who never planned to love anyone or have a family, to learn to love Adora).
We also get Shadow Weaver/Skeletor, apparently she was the only person he sincerely loved after becoming Skeletor (and she loves him too, noticed how she touches his cheek? That comes in play later on).
From He-Man: The Eternity War #7
Yeah, this might be a little bit controversial, but...
I think Shadow Weaver was a better mother figure than Odalia Blight.
Yeah, I'm shocked too.
One of my favourite things about shera is that the show always makes me empathetic and genuinely like some of the main villains. take hordak, he’s committed war crimes but I still feel bad for him. all the villains (except hord prime) have compelling backstorys, their still villains, still people who’ve done terrible things. yet their complex and are really quite sad. shera has an amazing ability to show that almost no one is ‘born evil’ events have to happen to push that person into a desperate enough position to be like this. They exactly never say that they should be forgiven for their actions simply why their doing them. while many of those villains got somewhat redemption arcs but I thought it was done in an amazing way.
Specifically characters like catra, shadowweaver and Hordak. I could rant about thier redemption arcs for a long while but I would like to do that separately, so I’m gonna leave this off here. Hordak is genuinely one of my favourite characters so he’ll probably go first as i may be a little biased. Hope you enjoy!
Bro…i really hate shadow weaver like i RREALLY hatte shadow weaver i really really hatte shadow weaver so much oh my god
I know she's mean but Shadow Weaver was my favorite character!