#hmah

As one can clearly tell, if I am not stopped I will literally not stop talking about this fic, so I’m gonna choose out one of my favourite moments and give a bit of context on that. This part is from chapter one, and usually when I refer to it I call it ‘The Feet Scene’:

It’s thirty two minutes in when Adora’s foot finally brushes against Catra’s, and it’s light and could have easily been an accident, but it doesn’t feel that way. It feels wholeheartedly intentional, like it’s meant to have an effect. Initially, Catra’s breath hitches, and her foot instinctively moves back, Adora’s foot being ice cold and Catra’s being warm from the heat of her blanket (it has always been like that, hot and cold, yin and yang, polar opposites balancing each other out). Then, exhaling, eyes still on the tv screen, she blindly moves her foot closer, as she tries to find Adora’s again. Clearly, it isn’t ignored, and it’s hard to with all the low level rustling it causes amongst the otherwise silence and voices of Élio and Oliver. This time, her foot just barely taps Adora’s, and she has to fight the urge to recoil from the near icy temperature. She taps the front of her foot, eyes still forward, biting the inside of her cheek, time ticking by slowly as she waits for Adora to accept the absurd invitation. To think this is the first real contact they’ve had in months is—

Adora’s foot moves closer to Catra’s, accepting her touch, and she nudges it a couple of times, as if trying to make a point. Catra looks over to see her wearing a grin on her face, and she’s positive it’s not because of the movie. In retaliation, she presses into her foot a little more, with more pressure, being more bold and when she glances over, she can see Adora’s smile has faltered, which makes it hard not to smirk in triumph. Not backing down from the challenge though, Adora tries once more to get a reaction out of her, rubbing back and forth on her heel a couple of times, and it’s impossible to ignore, so Catra turns to face her, eyebrows raised in a rendering question. It’s only once Adora turns to look at Catra too that both grins are washed away and replaced with—

While Heal Me After Hurting was in no way comedic or funny or intended to be…I do remember reading this and just laughing at how ludicrous this was; how I actually wrote (And kept it in) my fic; and how I felt like this is something that Catra and Adora as #1 disaster lesbians would totally do. So, although there’s an element of absurdity which Catra does point out, this whole interaction was meant to be a baby step, a piece of hope, in the mess of a first chapter where Catra is mostly extremely volatile, not to mention how this moment acts as a starking juxtaposition to events covered later on in the chapter. Yeah, there was a lot going on. 

Most importantly however, I think it highlights Catra breaking her walls down a bit, despite everything and how she currently feels pretty ambivalent towards Adora. Adora extended her hand (or her foot) and Catra reached for it, as a way to say ‘I do still care and I do see you’. It’s kind of reminiscent of the innocence of holding hands with your crush in the back of a movie theatre for the first time, and the thrill and giddiness you feel with it. Only, they run into another wall when they finally acknowledge what they’re doing with more that two brain cells and they both share this look, which is initially Catra being like “what the fuck are we doing?” But then, Adora looks at her and they both share this realisation of: “Oh my god…what are we doing? We haven’t talked about anything and now we’re doing this.” Then the overthinking kicks in, and in a way they both feel like they’ve crossed a boundary, Adora more so, causing her to be more reserved which then worries Catra immensely as she instantly thinks she did something wrong, when in reality, they’re both hot messes. 

Thankfully, Adora doesn’t reel in completely, and the sudden dip in the somewhat friendly atmosphere isn’t destroyed, and from that interaction, Catra not only lets her defences down slightly, but also learns (even if she doesn’t immediately realise it) that Adora really is trying to amend things, and that there is still hope there, which causes her to soften up a bit.

Oh, and the high-key competitiveness is not to be ignored, as it wouldn’t be Catra and Adora without them being weirdly competitive over everything they do. I imagine in the early days of their relationship and when they were younger that they would be oddly competitive about things — like their first kiss definitely happened as a result of one of them teasing the other. Because of the fact their teasing was often so non platonic, that was also another thing which definitely contributed to the “oh fuck” moment.

Last thing I want to mention before I end this hell of a rant was the inspiration for this, which is fairly obvious, as Catra literally compares their moment to a scene in Call Me By Your Name, and coincidentally they’re watching it! The moment in the movie is much more subtle and sudden, Oliver touching Élio’s foot under the table at a dinner; in the book however, there is much more detail and you read it play out, and specifically Elio’s reaction to it, which very much mirrors Catra in this situation, and I just thought that was pretty neat. So I decided it could work here, obviously with a shift in dynamics and lot more tension of course, and I’d like to think it worked well!

Okay, I had so much fun writing that (too much), thank you for the ask! If anyone else wants to send me an ask similar to this, feel free to, and here’s a link to the post if you’re baffled on what this ask even was: director’s commentary ask

Also if you’re reading this post (you deserve a medal) and is completely confused to what fic I’m talking about, here’s the link to it: Heal me after hurting