#turtletotem

What… what was it supposed to be

Is it crazy to see a certain amount of Catra in this type?

Not at all crazy! Catra in the first four seasons absolutely has the scheming guile of the type, of course, as well as the almost uncannily incisive understanding of other people with the occasional massive blind spot, the incredible resourcefulness and rapid-fire adaptability to changing circumstances, the unhesitating use of deception, manipulation, and tricks (whether concealing extremely pertinent information or just brazenly lying), even the ways that characters of this type often drop the machinations and lash out when their scheming is recognized or crumbles (both Lucrezia and Kirk, for instance, are very prone to going from polite regret to an arctic blast of righteous fury if blamed for what they do to survive).

There are two things that are fairly important to the type that she doesn't have, though—and I'd say, not simply lacks, but which are fairly anathema to her. Catra is only performative in the sense of presenting a face that's herself but stronger and cooler and less vulnerable. But she is absolutely unwilling to pretend to be unlike herself as a person. She is so emphatically, aggressively Catra—playing nice to the point of developing an un-Catra-like alternate persona (or many, as Percy, Lucrezia, and Kirk all do) represents surrender and submission to her, for extremely understandable Shadow Weaver-shaped reasons. It's a common and thoroughly refined tactic for the classic type, but would be deeply wrong for her.

The other big difference between Catra and this archetype is that part of the appeal, for me, is that the hidden personal agenda that fuels the skilled maneuvering and crafty genius of this type is generally not selfish—essentially, not what you'd expect from a ruthless manipulator at all. Even when their goal is self-interested in some way, it's usually justifiable or at least somewhat heroic, even if there's something dubious or ambiguous about the ruthlessly slippery quality of these people. So I actually see S5 Catra as verging closer to the type than she was originally: the show emphasizes that she remains wily, crafty, resourceful, ready to brazenly lie and good at it, and hyper-adaptable, with a steely resolve that stops at very little, but all these are now in service of a more complex and selfless agenda. So she ends up pretty close in the end and she was one of my absolute favorites in the show, even if she's not quite the exact type of character I was thinking of.

hiiiiii <333

5. What genre did you read the most of? My calibre library tells me it's nonfiction

17. Did any books surprise you with how good they were? I said this before but I randomly checked out a collection of Konstantinos Kavafis's poems at the library bc they were left unshelved on a table and I absolutely loved it.

asjdlads, I had somehow missed this ask 🤣

ok, so the gay slur comes from María. An old form of diminutive in Spanish is with -ico, -ica, so marica, is literally, little Mary. But nowadays you don't think of Mary if you hear marica. Most people probably don't even know it comes from María.

I don't actually know which came first, marica as a slur, or mariquita for ladybugs, but I can assure you, no one associates mariquita with María, we're all internally thinking of those cute bugs as little f****s.

If it helps, at least in Colombia, marica has lost a lot of its slur meaning. Of course, it is still used as slur, but not only it has been reclaimed by the queer community, most young people affectionately call their friends marica, even between women.

This is how sheltered I was as a child: I started reading Anne McCaffrey’s books when I was like, ten. But I was in my late teens before I realized green riders were gay.

Man, I still have so many feelings about those books. I think about them a surprising amount, really. Val and Alin were my first gay ship, and the first time I cried reading a book.

Oh, yeah, it definitely was the first time I saw queer people in media and was like, I love these characters. I think I might have seen Anne McCaffery's gay green riders first, but I never liked how she portrayed them

I FREAKING WONDERED IF THAT WAS ABOUT ‘THE CAPTAL’S TOWER’

The timeline of Harrow breaking into the Tomb is all kinds of screwy due to her not remembering Gideon’s existence. Which in turn means she knew Gideon’s blood had something to do with her getting the Tomb open, which is very interesting. You’re right that even with Gideon’s blood, she should have needed a thanergy burst… I wonder if the particulars of her 200-child-semi-haunting mean she carries enough thanergy around on the daily to fudge it?

I think if she suspected that something about Gideon's blood was what allowed her to pass the blood ward she would have said something about it to Gideon during the Pool Scene, wouldn't she? Although, you're right, the whole thing she said to John about, I'm not sure how I did it, I must have just been super clever, or it's because I'm the descendant of Anastasia does kind of sound like some memory was erased by the brain surgery there. Or maybe at ten years old and only having worked with bones she didn't quite have all the details on how blood wards worked yet and assumed that any blood would work, or something, and then wasn't able to piece together why that had worked after she learned differently?