She Runs A Blog

Gee

1. Punching Catra in the face- that was self defense on Adora’s part since Catra was beating her, scratching her, pushing her, pinning her and restraining her

2. Shoving Catra with her elbow: I don’t know if you’re referring to that moment in s5 when Adora pinned her or the s1 moment in the promise episode so I’ll explain both-

In s1 Catra was stalked by Adora, so the reaction was natural

In s5 Catra kept being difficult and uncooperative when they tried to help her

3. I swear I never saw Adora pull on Catra’s hair- are we gaslighting ourselves now?

4. you mean in white out where Adora pointed her sword at Catra and Catra said: “oh please, you never had the guts.”

Gee

‘I don’t understand this’ They’ll explain it if you wait.

‘I don’t like how this episode left things hanging’ There’s a continuation next week.

‘This character is flat’ Wait for them to be fleshed out.

Catra antis: Clearly, this is Catra having all the power and therefore no longer being abused.

Oh jeez I’m sorry I didn’t see this until now.

Reasons why I think Catra is autistic-

Being touch adverse or liking personal space

This is also related to her trauma (but keep in mind autists being touched against our will over and over is traumatizing) but there are plenty of us that don’t like to be touched unless it’s by the Special Person (ie Adora) and only like to be touched on our own terms. Catra is not a very touchy person, even with people she considers friends and clearly likes to have a wide circle around her.

Copying- a lot of autists, especially girls and women, tend to do this as a way of social blending and we tend to do it on the sense of “Oh this is just the way Things Are Done” and don’t question it, even if it causes us great distress and pain. Catra tends to copy Shadow Weavers behavior, despite it obviously not being her true nature and causing her to eventually crumble (see S4). She also tries to copy Adora in someways as well as other recruits. It seems to give her a sense of safety and that This Is The Way It Must Be.

Alexithymia: Catra, while have very strong and all consuming emotions (also a symptom of autism for some of us) doesn’t seem to understand them very much and often misinterprets them, which also leads to some other autistic traits I’ll get into. She misreads her sense of loneliness and wanting love and safety as wanting power and responsibility and to be In Control. She doesn’t seem to fully register her feelings for Adora to be love until S5 and seems to compartmentalize her emotions and have a hard time reading them.

Meltdowns and Bridge Burning

Meltdowns are common and all of us autists are familiar with them, and to me hers looks like mine a lot, crying, yelling, screaming, breaking things. Often when she’s overloaded she’ll hit or claw something, cry uncontrollably, and can’t console herself for a good while. She even pulls at her hair.

Bridge burning is a little lesser known subject, I’d call them “social meltdowns”. Pretty much “this person/suitation is making me feel bad and overwhelmed and therefor Is Bad and I must cut off all connection and push them away” which we see Catra do with multiple characters; Adora, Scorpia, Entrapta, etc. often happens more in times of stress and when we feel we have the world on our shoulders.

Masking: in this case, sometimes literally

She tends to conform to what others expect of her and hides her true self and feelings, doesn’t let others see her be vulnerable or breakdown. She puts on the front she believes others want to see or will keep her safe. ND says she’s a “hufflepuff trying to be a slythirin” for lack of better terms.

Stimming:

I interpret a lot of her cat sounds (purring, chirping, hissing) as stims for either when she’s happy or overwhelmed. She’s also seen flapping sometimes or doing repetitive movements with her hands- her tail flicking and swishing I also interpret as stims, ones that show her true emotions.

Autistic people often have RIGID senses of Morality. But what we never talk about is that Morality is subjective even for autistic people.

Catras sense of morality (until she's forced to re-evaluate it) is based off of loyalty and keeping promises. According to her (albeit skewed) Moral Compass if you love someone or care about them you have their back no matter what. In the beginning according to her, Adora broke that by allowing Catra to be tormented while covering for her and then choosing to leave the Horde when that has violent consequences for Catra. She does re-evaluate this later, but yeah that rigid Loyalty is above All Else mindset is very much an autistic trait.

Also the water thing, yes its a cat trait but there's a reason why autistic people are often compared to cats. She hates water, well guess what a lot of autistic people hate too? She also seems to have other sensory related issues.