claws only, no talons please

when catra chooses to speak up and step out from behind the rubble, giving up the advantage of her hiding place and seemingly as-of-yet undetected presence ~

pushed to putting herself in the middle of it the moment she hears prime set his sights lethally on glimmer after what catra overheard him do to hordak.

and not only does she walk out just in time, but catra goes over to them and steps up to stand next to glimmer, facing prime beside her and running her mouth tryna buy time w bait she knows a guy like this can't resist: more power.

and the fact catra doesn't quit talking whatever kinda shit she's gotta till prime takes his hand off sparkles' face! just melts my mind in some other metaphysical plane but i somehow feel it here wtf

oh & who could forget prime saying "beginning with you" when he was gonna delete glimmer, meaning ofc that his intention afterward was to do the same to her entire planet, etheria itself

well, the fact catra sees exactly what that woulda looked like if she hadn't stepped out when she did well IT GETS TO MEEEE

it's july and i'm still gay all the way so here's a handful of catradora gifs ~

ok but how is looking at catra's crestfallen face here actually eroding my chest cavity ~

catra's caught herself having a lil fun fighting with sparkles instead of against her - and is instantly reminded that time is running out.

is it just me or does prime's interruption of adora's future vision make it sound like the exact sort of "vision" (illusion) that the 'Don't Go' fic* implies prime utilized to psychologically torture catra while he had her chipped and presumably incubated in one of those space-saving lime green goo pods in the purification ritual room?

if so, it would seem like prime's virus hacking the planet allowed him enough access via her wound from the first ones defense system/ the failsafe's attachment to her/ her being the planet's true she-ra to violate her mind,

enough to sift through her thoughts and taunt her with a vision of her simplest, wildest dream, only to appear & haunt her with the belief those are things that she, adora specifically, was never meant to have & never will.

but what really twists my insides is that the key difference in his use of this method with catra is that she was likely trapped in one vision after another, no hope of escape from her own mind. just scenario after scenario

mercilessly held captive in a relentless string of eerie fantasies even after she'd figured out none of it was real, haunted by what she truly believed would never be real again & and heart aching every second at the awareness she'd never get to know for certain if anything between them was ever real. and what might have been real.

ahhhhhhhhdygiilyiahspjtosSssssss *clutches heart* give hugs, sweet brave idiot bitty kitty needs hugs not judge. ..judges.z

<3

* https://archiveofourown.org/works/24280306

“Get out of my head,” Catra whimpers. “Just leave me alone. Don’t you have enough already?”

[ ... ]

watching this bit slowed down, scrolling along the movements of she-ra climbing over the bot to pointedly step down on what's essentially its face, her expressions one smug smirk after another ~

she-ra's just tryna flex, but adora? looks like our gurl's just tryna crawl on top of catra in her head

**edit: the addition of my dumbass crack edit clip of this moment