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Exquisite Figurines Depicting Various Seasons

New York-based assemblage sculpture artist Garret Kane composed a breathtaking series called “Seasons”, actualizing a figment of his own imagination.

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Why Catradora matters

Okay, so I have something to say about She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. It’s going to take me a while to get there, but bear with me. Spoilers below.

(A quick disclaimer: I am a heterosexual cis male. This isn’t a choice, just a fact that I’ve come to accept about myself. But, as the saying goes, I’m straight but not narrow. I have friends and family who are variously gay, bi, trans, and asexual, and I love and respect them all. Still, I’m going to have to discuss some stuff I haven’t personally been affected by in order to make my point.)

I watch a lot of Western children’s animation, ranging from Batman: the Animated Series, to Gravity Falls, to My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, to Clone High, to Teen Titans, to Steven Universe, to Invader Zim, to Avatar: the Last Airbender and Legend of Korra, to Star Vs. The Forces of Evil, and, most recently, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. While I do also enjoy non-Western animation, adult-targeted animation, and non-animated media as well, this medium appeals to me in particular and I seek it out.

The fascinating thing about media targeted towards children is that it cannot help but define and reinforce societal values. Adult media is often a means to indulge in the taboo, the scandalous, the terrifying, and the profane, all of which is well and good. But we don’t show these things to children. The younger a target audience is, the less experience and knowledge they have to process troubling content, so we filter what we show them. What we include, and what we exclude, says something about what society does and does not see as normal.

Moreover, there is often the expectation that kids’ shows will teach their audience a lesson in how to behave, what values to embody. While an adult show might be fine living in a haze of moral ambiguity with no clear answers, children’s shows often seek to show how pro-social behavior leads to positive outcomes for all. This idealism is part of the charm.

Which brings me to the topic of the depiction of romance and sexuality in kids media. There is usually a pretty hard line that nudity or explicit depiction or discussion of sex is not okay in kids shows. But romance is usually acceptable, along with kissing, holding hands, or (if the show is feeling frisky) beach episodes.

This sex-vs-love distinction gets complicated fast when it comes to LGBTQ+ identities. For a long time in American history, being anything other than cishet was seen as a mental disorder or sexual perversion. You don’t show crazy sex perverts to children, so explicitly gay characters were not okay. But, this has changed. Over the last few decades, society as a whole has grown more accepting of openly queer identities, so the guidelines about their depiction has moved from “absolutely not” to “sure, if you’re careful about it”. At the same time, the expectation of promoting pro-social values in these shows prompts many creators to portray these relationships as normal. 

So I’ve watched the media transition from Harley Quinn x Poison Ivy innuendo, to the Korrasami implication, to the gay-but-technically-it’s-not-sex “fusion” of Steven Universe. And I’ve been cheering from the sidelines; good representation is good and I’m all for it. 

But I’ve always had this doubt. Often it feels like this representation is just taking a good romantic subplot, one that could work well as either hetero- or homo-sexual, and deciding “okay, let’s make this one gay”. There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s an efficient way to break the straight-as-default trope. But all of the value is external to the work itself, helping society mature, but the art itself is largely unchanged. And furthermore, romantic subplots are often secondary in kids shows; you could remove romance entirely and leave the show intact, if a bit worse overall. 

And this is where She-Ra is something new and different. Catradora is not token representation for brownie points. It’s not a palette-swap straight-to-gay plotline. It’s not superfluous to the main story. Catradora is the entire show.

The inciting event of She-Ra is, essentially, a date between Catra and Adora; they steal a skiff and go on a joyride. But then, Adora’s status as the Chosen One is revealed, and she’s forced to choose between the comforts of home, and giving up on her own happiness to become a hero. But Catra doesn’t go with her, jealously driving her instead to prove to Adora (and herself) that she’s a tough kitty who don’t need no woman. From there, they start fighting a proxy war, with Adora easily assuming a leadership role in the Rebellion, and Catra clawing her way up as high as she can go in the Horde, each amassing more and more power to try to defeat each other. The cracks begin to show when Catra opens the portal, nearly killing herself and everyone else, and Adora is prevented from martyring herself when Angella takes her place. The conflict comes to a head when Horde Prime arrives and Catra realizes she’s lost control, and that she might be forced to live in a world without Adora, who is prepared to literally kill herself at the drop of a hat. The day is saved when the two combine forces, choose to live for each other, and use the power  of their newly admitted love to save the galaxy.

So, She-Ra’s overall narrative is two people, with mirroring emotional baggage, progressively making things worse until they finally resolve their issues through love. If you remove this throughline, the entire show collapses: either Adora never leaves the Horde and becomes She-Ra, or she does does and she easily defeats the inept Hordak. The conflict of the show is incited, driven, and resolved by the love of these two characters. That’s super cool and incredibly rare in any medium, let alone kids animation.

But is it gay? I mean, trivially yes, they’re both women. But on a deeper level, does this need to be gay? 

Yes, I think it does; if Catra were Cat-bro it wouldn’t work. I think a big part of this is, ironically, because the show is relying on the historical invisibility of gay romance in media. For any of the early seasons to have believable tension, it can’t be immediately obvious that Adora and Catra are going to end up together at the end of the show. The flirt-fighting that Adora and Catra engage in constantly throughout the show starting as early as S1E8:”Princess Prom”, would be instantly recognizable if it were a hetero relationship; we’ve seen this song and dance before, we know how it goes. But make it gay, and suddenly the audience is unsure. Even in a show with an extremely gay supporting cast, even if you recognize the sexual tension between the two leads, you have to question “Are they really going to go there?” And, according to some interviews with Noelle, it almost didn’t.

In-universe, it works because of a particular component of the gay experience (as it’s been explained to me): the doubt of not knowing if someone you have a crush on is into your gender. The statistical reality is that hetero people can often assume a compatible sexual orientation in a potential partner, but gay people cannot. This feeds into Catra’s extreme reluctance to admit that she loves Adora, and the driving conflict of the entire show is much more believable as a result. 

This means that She-Ra isn’t just a good show with a good gay romance in it. It is a show that could only be as good as it is because of the great gay romance at its core. It is a show that can only exist in a world where LGBT experiences are celebrated on their own merits, and not isolated into “special interest” sections or forced to conform to cishet experiences. It builds on all of the efforts of representation that have come before, and then takes a leap forward into uncharted territory.

That is why Catradora matters.

now you too can be nostalgic for a game that doesn’t exist

super late but here’s a very specific ship dynamic i’ve been obssessed with recently

some fucking resources for all ur writing fuckin needs

* body language masterlist

* a translator that doesn’t eat ass like google translate does

* a reverse dictionary for when ur brain freezes

* 550 words to say instead of fuckin said

* 638 character traits for when ur brain freezes again

* some more body language help

(hope this helps some ppl)

yES

i'm need to know,,, if i wrote something (a scenario or fic) about my oc, would any of you be interested in reading it??

What kind of cars the gang would have

Ashlyn winds up with a jeep. 100%. Though, she doesn’t exactly drive all that often. She tends to carpool with the others, seeing as it’s kinda illegal to drive with earplugs or muffs

Aiden absolutely has a truck or something with four wheel drive that he can take off road. I also feel like he’s been introduced to mud bogging since coming to Georgia so I wouldn’t be too surprised if he had a second car or even a buggy for that. Honestly leaning towards a Ford Bronco car wise though.

Ben something more practical, definitely some sort of sedan. He’d want something with pretty decent safety ratings especially if he’d be driving around with his sister. I can see him having a Toyota Camry.

Logan. Another sedan, though something on the smaller side, for sure. Maybe a Corolla? though I think him having a scooter would be likely as well. they’re fairly cheap plus I kinda can’t unsee it.

Taylor. You can’t convince me that she doesn’t wind up with an older truck or car that she’s personally fixing up. If it’s not her everyday car then it’s def a passion project. But for the most part she would have the oldie and let Tyler have a car of his own.

Tyler stumped me a little I was caught between a smaller truck or even a sedan or suv but I think he’d go for a truck. Something on the smaller side though, he doesn’t seem like the sort who would have a big luxury truck or anything like that. At most Taylor has given it a makeover under the hood, though nothing overly loud.

The forbidden icecream sandwich

Snowstorm followed by a sand storm in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia. (SOURCE)

Workout For Daily Life

imagine, if you will, a sbg fantasy au

I don't know if anyone's done this yet but here we go! I'm a huge fantasy nerd, so I might be biased here, but I think sbg in a fantasy setting would go hard. now you could really throw in any ships, but personally, I built this idea around Tyden and Taylyn

so consider this:

(fair warning, this got a lot longer than I thought it would, I kinda ran with it)

Tyler and Taylor are the prince and princess of the kingdom, but they've essentially been running the country since they became teenagers what with their father having passed away and their mother being unfit to rule due to her mental state after her husband's passing. After their father died, Tyler still takes on the role of caretaker of sorts. Sometimes he even has a habit of burning himself out, Taylor and Ashlyn have to remind him often that it's okay to take a break. Ashlyn actually pulled him to the side one night and practically forced him to let Taylor start taking on more responsibilities, just so that he wouldn't fall under the weight of the kingdom.

On the subject of Ashlyn, her parents served in the king and queen's royal guard, and she even followed in her parent's footsteps. Considering both her lineage and the fact that she basically grew up with Tyler and Taylor, she winds up becoming the personal guard of the prince and princess(the twins) and the acting captain of the royal guard once she's deemed ready (which considering it's Ashlyn, is relatively quick). When it comes to her hearing, she'd definitely have some sort of wool or something put in her helmet to help muffle any loud noises. But her hearing also makes her a perfect guard, even allowing her to keep surveillance a fair distance away.

Eventually, it comes a time when the advisers decide that Tyler is of an age that he needs to find a suitor. The twins manage to fight it for as long as they can but when they turn 19, there's no getting around it. This would be around the time that Aiden and Ben show up, though for an unrelated reason.

See, Aiden is a prince himself, and Ben is a nobleman(title unknown) with close blood relation to the throne as well. Aiden isn't exactly all that into being a prince though, he'd rather go out, have fun, and be an adventurer (which is exactly what he's doing in the twin's kingdom) Ben is there to make sure Aiden doesn't get himself killed or cause any trouble with any foreign powers (friendly or otherwise).

As for Logan, well, his knack for astrology isn't going to waste, that's for sure. See, he's the apprentice of the kingdom's Royal Astronomer. And he absolutely loves it. Not only does he get to study the stars and be able to help support his grandparents, who would still run a flower shop in the capital's town square

Now of course rumors floating around the castle staff that Taylor has a secret love. Granted they can never catch a glimpse of the mystery suitor, (thanks to Ashlyn's super hearing) but the kitchen staff has it on good authority that it's someone from the royal guard. (Ashlyn and Taylor likely would have kept their relationship on the down-low for a bit in the beginning, but would eventually take it public, I mean, who's gonna stop them? the twins run the country, and of course, their mom just wants them to be happy and maybe give her a grandkid or two if either of them wants to have any)

That being said, the idea of little secret late-night rendevous where they wander the castle grounds talking and maybe wind up stargazing in the gardens is too good to pass up (They may not know as much about astronomy as say Logan, but they would definitely make up their own constellations and stories to go with them)

As for our other pair: Naturally, Tyler has a very strong opinion of Aiden. He's not exactly princely, and he does NOT like the fact his attitude when it comes to the politics of being in a royal family. But at the same time, this not-so-princely prince isn't like any other noble or royal he's ever met. He's intrigued. Deep down, there's a part of Tyler that wants to know more about Aiden and the world that he's gotten to explore and adventure through.

In the end, Aiden may or may not be the one who manages to get Tyler to enjoy his youth while he can, convincing him that the weight of the world doesn't have to fall on his shoulders alone. And Tyler may or may not have found himself a suitor in the process.