#cheetara

I know I wasn’t tagged… but it’s one of my fave tv shows so, I’d like to fill it out. Maybe even make some new friends? 👉🏻👈🏻 (I don’t bite)

The original is located here and I saw it on @northstarfan’s blog.

How old were you when you became a ThunderCats fan? (and/or) How long have you been in the fandom?

I think I started on the second run when it was in Cartoon Network? My first memory of it is hazy but I remember checking out VHS tapes.

Who is your favorite ThunderCat?

It’s always been Tygra.

As a young kid he was another father figure I could run to (my family wasn’t toxic and I loved my dad so whatever that means) and I looked up to him a lot. His voice was/is very comforting in a way I can’t explain. Like having a bad day? Go watch Thunder Cats and hear him talk and you’re relaxed.

When I got older that childhood reason turned into half crush and well o////o.

I still think it’s funny I became a Graphic Designer and he’s a “designer” in his own way. 😅😌

Who is your favorite reoccurring villain?

This one is hard. 😅 I think Jackal Man. The other mutant voices bother me and minus Mumm-ra …

Who is your favorite ThunderCat ally?

Willa (and her sister) and the Berbils. She cracks me up and I love how powerful she is without magic. And who doesn’t like robot teddy bears with candy fruit?

Who is your favorite one-off villain?

The driller!!! He used to terrify me as a kid. Kind of still does now.

What is your favorite episode?

I have several:

My original favorite episodes that I checked out at the movie store repeatedly: Pumm-ra, The Ghost Warrior, and Trouble with Time. (I still get that nostalgic feeling each time I watch them and it makes me feel like a kid again - it’s such a weird warm feeling that’s hard to explain)

My newer ones after I got the DVDs:

The Fireballs of Plundar (if I need a Tygra hit of dopamine I’ll put this one on 😅)

Silky

Keystone

The Dream Master

The Wolfrat

The Micrits

The Mumm-ra Berbil

Trapped (For that sweet Tygra and Kit moment at the end where she jumps in his arms)

Out of Sight (invisible Tygra being a polite ass hole - what isn’t to love?)

The Thunder Cubs Movie

The Chain of Loyalty

Return of Thunder Cubs

Locket of Lies

Bracelet of Power

The Wild Workout

And then the outlier of my usual preference in episodes:

The Totem of Dara

Mr - “Don’t Drink the water, Kit and Snarfer, it’s dangerous and poisoned” then proceeds to drink said water and passes out - Lion-O 🤨😭

The joke was: this is season one nonsense, Lion-O. Not season 3. You’ve moved past this or so we thought 🙃

What is your favorite canon character dynamic?

The adults taking care of the kittens.

My biggest head canon is that Tygra and Cheetara are the kittens adopted parents. And in so many episodes you can see it and I love it.

The other big one is Tygra becoming more confident.

After the keystone where he explains being nervous and stuff all the the time and noticing it in previous episodes- it’s cool watching him move on from that.

It was also an interesting character dynamic that you really don’t see until you’re older. I always thought he had it together and was the real leader of the Thunder Cats while Lion-O was the face of it until he was old enough to handle it.

The five of them being a “family”

Most of the episodes up there are where the five of them are co-existing in some way and just being themselves. I don’t like when they are separated in later seasons. It still wrecks me that Tygra stays on 3rd earth and Cheetara and the kittens go to new Thundera. I’ve written SEVERAL stories off this trying to fix it 🤪😅 (and yes I know my head canons aren’t real but watching them realistically 65% exist with them and then splitting up?? 😞🥲)

What is your favorite ship?

Tygra and Cheetara hands down.

I will admit though in a very far left (all the way over light years away to the original location of Thundera) alternate universe if Lion-O wasn’t aged up in an adult body that he and Kit would be cute together. Kit, Kat and Lion-O were around the same age and so it would make sense in a weird way.

Do you have a ThunderCats OC? If you do, give their name and a little backstory if you'd like!

I do. Her name is Emma/Snowy. I made her up as a kid and when I got back into TCats, I expanded on her, giving her a better back story.

She is Tygra’s daughter that he had with his first Wife (a blue tiger) Amara.

Amara was killed because of her magic that scared other cats in power. Emma was born a rare golden tiger because of her mother’s genes mixing with Tygra’s clan.

Her stripes aren’t always visible because she can’t control her magic very well. She has Tygra’s invisibility powers but she can’t control them. Her actual powers are the ability to control ice. (I made her up a decade before Frozen was even thought of) the way she meets the others is by freezing Lion-O solid when he scares her.

She was kidnapped as a cub but he thought she was dead. Tygra was so distraught and upset at the death of his family that Claudis and Jaga blocked his memory. So he only knew Cheetara after that. Panthro and Cheetara both knew the cub and the mom but were sworn to never speak of it.

Tygra’s memory block is removed by accident during Lion-O’s annoinment (sp) trials when he uses a lot of his mind power, and it all goes down hill from there.

Once she’s back, he’s super protective and helps train her magic.

What is your favorite Sword of Omens ability?

Sight Beyond Sight.

Tagging wise: @kibaweissvulf and I had a friend who had a lion-o icon also in the CATS fandom and I think they changed their icon - I can’t find them.

Lion-O Reborn, Tygra Reborn

I had soooo much fun coloring her hair, if you've got the right alcohol markers you really can do some crazy fun blends. Her design influences include Egyptian influences like Lion-O, especially depictions of Cleopatra & Nefertiti, and the goddess Mafdet (especially the staff redesign), and also Xena Warrior Princess.

Cheetara's Reborn AU Backstory

Cheetara was orphaned very young at the hands of Mutants in the final days of the Plundarrian Occupation. Raised by her extended family, this childhood terror and sorrow, awakened mystic powers in her at the near unprecedented age of seven. With a ferocity and gusto that wracked her mind and body that she spent nearly a year bedridden. Nightmares and true visions were difficult to sift between, the chief of which being the impossible promise of the planet’s eruption.

Despite her caretakers’ best efforts, the toll of these powerful visions began to gravely threaten her health. Some within her clan were even afraid of her, as unlike other vessels of the Sixth Sense, she could only seem to foretell bad news. So she was sent to the Hall of Mystics in the hopes it would not only allow her some control of her abilities, but save her life as well.

Cheetara was lonely for much of her early days, pitied and even ostracized by a student body significantly older than her. The only teacher whom she felt understood her, undisturbed or befuddled by the instability of her gifts, was Lynx-O. A Thunderian elder whose powers had also awakened by great tragedy. Who studied the old powers in his late adulthood and decided to remain as a teacher. Even going so far as to call in favors from his past to examine all known avenues through which Cheetara’s vision of destruction could occur. All of which came up as false alarms. Eventually causing Cheetara to concede that it simply must be a reoccurring nightmare, despite her lingering doubts.

(The rest of her origin and my art process photos are under the cut!)

What do you MEAN jaguars are symbolic of the line between life and death in Mayan and other Mesoamerican beliefs? That's literally PERFECT for Jaga he's literally haunting the narrative!!!

What do you mean gods of chaos, darkness, fire and evil like Apophis and Set often took the form of a snake (Mumm-Ra anyone?!) and there's a straight up story of Ra taking the form of a CAT to kill Apophis?! Like, multiple gods and goddesses (Maahes, Sekmet, Mafdet etc) who protect Ra and Osiris have feline features and a ton of the obstacles in Duat are serpent related!

Find some dark angel references in Pinterest, and immediately I wanted to draw Lion-o in his evil form. After he defeated Mumm-Ra, the Ancient Spirits of Evil turned him into their new Servant.

From covers for the UK Thundercats comics, plus from a toy ad. File name says which issue. If you want to credit, I’m Silvercat17 on Dreamwidth or WingedTyger on Tumblr