What happens when you give She-Ra, a Physical Goddess, a gun? Well, then to keep narrative tension the Horde needs to be an unmatched industrial powerhouse so that even a magic gun doesn't upset the game board.
World War Etheria
by Keel is in part a Novelization of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power but adds a new character to the story, the war itself, whose logistics are explored in detail. Hordak pulled a One-Man Industrial Revolution so even though the Horde is a war-mongering state its' standard of living is higher than the royal alliance that "opposes" them. The political and social considerations tie into the war especially as the characters wonder who they're fighting and sacrificing for. These set pieces and more get to bounce off each other in a consistent and entertaining setting with massive amounts of world-building and clever tactics.
Mainly a piece of Rationalist Fiction it will reward your thinking as the intelligent exploration of the War for Etheria gets you opening up web pages to check terms and grounding in real wars.
Features examples of:
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General
- Adaptation Distillation: This work doesn't try to be a Novelization of the show episode by episode, nor do the books break cleanly into the show's seasons but major story beats are intact even if the reasons are very different.
- Catra's Suicide Mission to the crimson Wastes isn't due to her lying to Hordak but because she severely endangered the life of his wife, Entrapta.
- Adora isn't captured in the Crimson Wastes against her will but because she wants to talk to Hordak and convince him not to activate the portal.
- The ending shows things going Off the Rails: In the far future only Adora, Catra, Hordak, and Entrapta are still alive, having outlived all the others.
- Adaptation Origin Connection: Double Trouble is essentially the same class of entity as the Obtainer (read: Shadow Weaver), stabilized, however, and focused more on the form than power.
- Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: Most characters' relationships have been changed somewhat, usually by having them be at more advanced stages than they were in canon to go along with the Age Lift.
- One of the most dramatic changes is that Hordak and Entrapta have been married since before the beginning of the story, and he is genuinely devoted to her.
- Aerith and Bob: The fic continues the source show's thread of keeping the 1980s characters' frankly terrible job names mixed with mundane modern names. Each species will have some quirk to its naming system, like feliform having punny names or like something out of Warrior Cats, Fauns and Satyrs will have inexplicable normal names, and so on.
- Age Lift: A lot of the teenage characters are explicitly in their early twenties or older in this fic.
- Antiquated Linguistics: The Alliance uses older forms of speech and vocab while the Horde is closer to modern parlance.
- Artistic License – Military: Largely averted, the Horde has Court-Martials and disciplinary procedures much like an early modern military. The alliance is largely stuck in the renaissance period though Adora starts giving pretty comprehensive lectures that have a wide attendance. When the time comes to integrate their forces against Horde Prime this effort comes in handy.
- One example fresh off the bat is letting Adora go after the successful rescue mission of Bow and Glimmer means Catra gets Court-martialed; she has to explain her actions then gets busted down an officer grade.
- Ascended Extra: Quite a few of the characters from the show, some only named in captions, get fleshed out with actual character traits, impact, and motivations.
- Huntara becomes a runestone princess and a political player in her own right.
- Lonnie ends up the leader of the combined Etheria resistance.
- Serenia was one of Mara's crewmates and part of an extended polycule who dedicated her life and those of her comrades to find a way to stop the Heart.
- Author Vocabulary Calendar: Reify to make real, which is used to describe the intractable illusions that Light Hope generates. Cthonic for the subterranean First One's architecture that doesn't adhere to reality given the structural requirements for how deep it goes.
- Bloodier and Gorier: The fic is far bloodier than canon, with chapter 5 alone having Glimmer kill two Horde soldiers. It explores just how dangerous runestone powers could be when used on people.
- Botanical Abomination: Perfuma makes multiple examples of these during the war, compared to the show it showcases how terrifying an opponent she is.
- They first debut in the Rescue Arc for Bow and Glimmer, comparable to Megafauna in size, form, and appetite. She starts making more and more as the war heats up.
- After showcasing her ability to create explosive gases Adora gives her the idea to go for quantity over quality and makes thousands of little critters that run-up to armored vehicles and detonate.
- In the war against Prime she makes an out and out War form, which is called a dragon several times, it makes her an equal to any moonstone princess.
- Continuity Cavalcade: All the Word of God that got dropped after the show ended from various
members of the Crew-Ra shows up here.- Entrapta's hair is explicitly a cybernetic enhancement here, where previously it was a debate amongst the Crew-Ra about whether it was magic or science.
- Competence Porn: A large part of what makes this a rational fic, that said it doesn't guarantee a given party's success as their opponents are likely equally competent.
- Cyborg: Showcasing the fanfics move into sci-fi quite a few cyborgs show up. Entrapta has been one for a while and Catra becomes one after a failed attempt to capture She-Ra with some experiments by Entrapta. She gets an eye later on and new legs after a bad game of Russian Roulette and sanitization by Horde Prime respectively.
- Their abundance is in part due to Catra retrieving First One's tech that lets the technology proliferate. Rogelio becomes one and of course, there's Tallstar and Jewelstar of the Star Siblings.
- In the extended epilogue cyborg tech becomes much more widespread, Entrapta goes through the full conversion procedure.
- Dark Fic: Downplayed, spinning out of the canon's own Darker and Edgier take on the franchise: "World War" is a literal descriptor for the story. People get shot and die, sometimes they can get healed but not always. It's explicit that both sides have actual economic systems with winners and losers. That said the characters themselves are largely unchanged, Adora nearly exhausts herself healing a cholera outbreak for example and Catra is even more effective in instilling loyalty with her troops.
- Ditch the Bodyguards: PlayedWith. As a princess, even a combatant, Glimmer is expected to have a bodyguard but her teleporting ability lets her outdistance them quickly and repeatedly.
- Juliet finally decides to be a singular bodyguard and friend to Glimmer.
- Doorstopper: The fic is essentially longer than Lord of the Rings, and that includes LotR's expansive appendices.
- Dystopia Is Hard: Averted several characters point out that in comparison the hordelands are a paradise when set up against the Alliance which is a late renaissance society. It still plays at being a real democracy, however.
- Easy Logistics: Defied
- Even getting the alliance on a full war footing takes a full book and several diplomatic blunders on the Horde’s part. At the start, only Brightmoon has declared martial law with all the power and resources that implies.
- Justified and Reconstructed with Prime, the true Horde covers the galaxy and is close to being a Kardashev Type III civilization, if not larger, with all the power and industry that that implies. The fact Etheria has such overwhelming magic is the only reason it stands a chance against him.
- Elemental Powers: Several new ones are added to the mix, along with a general shakeup.
- Bee-Bee Gun and Big Creepy-Crawlies: The Hive Core is the animal counterpart to the Heartblossom below, it is pointed out it requires some logistics to keep such giant creatures fed of course.
- Temperature Manipulation: What the Fractal flake lets Frosta do in this fic, Mermista is closer to a water bender able to control different forms of water.
- Dishing Out Dirt: What the Stone Heart gives to Huntara.
- Extra-ore-dinary: This is what the Flame Core (renamed from the Spirit Ember in Legend of the Fire Princess) grants the Star Sisters.
- Green Thumb: The Heartblossom (Which looks like a different giant flower each time you blink) lets the wielder influence plants and some fungi.
- Master of Threads and Knows the Ropes: Netossa's powers explicitly come from the Fractal Knot in Mysticor and as such her ability to create energy ropes is even more expansive than in the show. She is terrifying.
- Space Master: What the moonstone gives, which isn’t that different from what’s in the show. It is noted that Glimmer is one of the most powerful users in generations.
- Elemental Baggage: Averted, much like the Avatar series Runestone Wielders have to use what's available to them, Perfuma is a possible exception.
- Energy Weapons: The First Ones use guns that fire holographic bullets, and are only restricted by the power supply, not ammunition. A partial problem with carrying on around is that they don't look like firearms so it's hard to intimidate someone with them.
- Expy Coexistence: The fic incorporates the Star Sisters, background characters in Princess Prom, here as major players for a large part of the story. When the action moves to space the Star Siblings from Stranded show up, and are equally relevant to the plot. Two members from each trio even hook up at the end.
- Exotic Equipment: Mentioned a few times among the various races of Etheria, there are multiple mentions of feliforms tongues for example, doesn't seem to get in the way of relationships it seems.
- Extremely Short Timespan: Only in comparison. The show took about four in-story years to cover the whole war. This fic takes about a year.
- Fantasy Gun Control: Completely averted, in fact, the alliance forges Magitek blunderbuss that shoots farther than the realistic regular arms the Horde manufactures. As the war goes on increasingly complex and deadly weapons start showing up.
- Foreign Queasine: The Hordelands have a few foodstuffs that the Resistance doesn't. Some of these get adopted relatively quickly when Adora introduces them, like coffee. Yet for most western readers the fact that Hordelanders also eat a lot of bugs will just put them off.
- Good is Not Nice: While possessed with many good qualities the heroes are soldiers in a war so by definition they are killers. In action, we've seen them retreat and leave wounded soldiers behind, for capture or worse.
- Gun Porn: Another feature of the fic is the almost loving detail put into describing the firearms and other weapons. These include the ones with rough historical equivalents and extend to the fictional sci-fi examples.
- Homosexual Reproduction: Enforced with magical rituals, these aren't titillating fertility rituals but more like antiseptic medical procedures.
- Hotter and Sexier: Downplayed, there is a lot more sex though the most the reader will see is foreplay or the aftermath. The characters talk about sexuality, attraction and relationships much more directly than the show it was based on, which was admittedly aimed at teenagers. Part of the fun is the unconscious ogling the characters do in the privacy of their own heads.
- Improbably Female Cast: The large female cast on Etheria turns out to be a leftover from the matriarchal society the Eternians of Greyskull had, being formed from his surviving concubines.
- Loads and Loads of Races: Just like the show it's based on, lampshades that no one questions how there are so many races living on Etheria. There is a Book of Blood mentioned that covers whether a given Non-Human Humanoid Hybrid, Half-Human Hybrid, or Uneven Hybrid is possible.
- Elves, which come in many varieties.
- Caniforms, which are dog-like people.
- Dryads are shape-shifting plant creatures that are interfertile with many species.
- Fauns and satyrs.
- Feliforms are cat-like people, several appear in the fic like Bow's ranger colleagues and Catra's mom.
- Humans in their various ethnicities.
- Minotaurs are mentioned, with one or two examples showing up.
- Orcs like Huntara which have ears like elves but are generally bigger and muscular.
- Trolls with weird skin tones and curling horns.
- Lensman Arms Race: A good example with both modern technologies getting upgraded while ancient megictech is getting unearthed and used. Each trying to come up with counters for the other's magic and tactics. What's funny is when it loops back in on itself when both sides gang up on Prime.
- Matter Replicator: Dubbed fabricators here, they're essentially very sophisticated 3d-printers able to make organic materials and even other versions of themselves. It still needs the base materials of course but can make circuit boards out of the sand and appropriate metals if need be. Clarified to need pattern crystals, essentially instructions on how to make particular items.
- Morality Kitchen Sink Or Grey-and-Gray Morality: War is never pretty or good. The "good guys" are fighting to uphold a feudal system while the "bad guys" are part of a faux-democratic government that's massively raised the standard of living for its people.
- Morph Weapon: The Sword of Prot- *coughcough* Aegis of Power is this as in canon but here its repertoire includes firearms. In the fic, it takes the forms of such as submachine guns all the way up to anti-tank weaponry. That's not counting its non-weapon forms.
- Mundane Utility: All over the place really. Water control makes defouling ships without a dock possible. While metal control makes industry much easier and temperature control makes settling northern frontiers possible. Healing is great for hangovers.
- Named by the Adaptation: Bow turns out to be a phonetic nickname for Beauregard. All his family share similar weapon or armor nicknames that like him recall their actual names.
- Nobody Poops: Averted, the characters have to deal with this just like regular people. The problem of night soil is a constant headache for the armed forces and cholera outbreaks are common in places without modern plumbing systems.
- No Periods, Period: Also averted, feminine supplies are part of a soldier's load-out and the Resistance explicitly has a power tattoo that helps regulate the cycle or stop it entirely.
- O.C. Stand-in: All over the place.
- Peekablue and Sweet Bee are written as a Captain Ersatz and Corrupted Character Copy of Tattletale and Weaver from Worm respectively.
- The Star Sisters that cameoed in Princess Prom show up as full characters themselves. One of them even hooks up with the Star Siblings.
- Original Character: Quite a few though they're generally bit players. Stand-out examples include the satyr brothers and various feliforms.
- Portal Network: Virtually every runestone also has a waygate that lets the runestones wielder (or She-Ra) open a portal for fast travel. Post portal incident Hordak later makes an artificial version which is a major upset for the war.
- Power Tattoo: Commonly used by both sides. It seems to be a bit of an arms race. More interestingly they're a justification for a lot of the physical feats that Catra and other characters accomplish during the story.
- They can be used to reduce the need for sleep and even smooth out gender transitions.
- Princesses Rule: Explored, many of the leading political figures on Etheria are princesses, but Bright Moon and Candela are ruled by Queens and Mermista is explicitly an Empress. Even Scorpia has privileges and resources in the faux-democratic hordelands. Having a Princess on one side doesn't necessarily mean their polity will follow but it usually will. Further, the exact position each occupies is different: Perfuma is a religious leader for example while Sweet Bee is a conqueror.
- Pseudo-Canonical Fic: Common for Keel, taking information in through multiple sources including the various post series fics and artwork from the Crew-Ra. Presenting scenarios for why Etheria society works the way it does.
- As mentioned above power tattoos are used to explain some of Catra's more impressive physical feats in the show and magical gloves give feliforms like Catra and scorpianas like Scorpia the needed dexterity for paperwork or operating delicate equipment.
- The fact that so many runestones are clustered on one continent is due to the First Ones located their planetary capital there. A few are still positioned outside of the area such as the Fractal Flake and the Hive Core.
- Psychosomatic Superpower Outage: She-Ra especially deals with this, if she doesn't have confidence self-love, or love for others she can't access her suite of abilities same for Melog
- Reimagining the Artifact: There are multiple tweaks. In combination with Composite Character, Mara's spacecraft's original name is now Swift Wind. Entrapta still renames it Darla, specifically the personality interface, and even that changes once Mara fuses with it to become Damara.
- Some of the funnier names are given origins here She-Ra is a corrupted remembrance of Scheherazade, while Melog descends from Melanchola the mournful beast.
- Running Gag: When anyone talks about the Swift Wind being a spaceship, or anything void capable, someone will correct them that it's a spacecraft.
- Setting as a Character: The needs and sacrifices of World War are a constant presence over every character's head. What one has to do and be to get things right, sacrifices that need to be made, societal wrongs one has to ignore. These will never be solved if the Resistance loses the war. When the war's finally over the cast turns their attention to fixing these wrongs which take up much of the Dénouement.
- Sharp-Dressed Man: While everyone wears different outfits in the fic, both practical field uniforms, everyday clothes, and gala outfits. Hordak is a stand-out example, pretty much every outfit character designer Rae Geiger made is included, from dresses to tuxedos and more.
- Strategy Versus Tactics: Catra and Adora are good at these respectively. Thus while the Resistance does win battles that don’t automatically mean they're winning the war thanks to Catra's superior stratagems.
- Sufficiently Analyzed Magic: Downplayed magic muckamuck is magic muckamuck but understanding the science behind it is still useful. Played for Horror when Prime starts bending his considerable intellectual resources to understanding magic having gotten burned before on Krytis and currently on Etheria.
- Technologically Advanced Foe: While the "Evil" Horde is this they are not a magically advanced foe, being outstripped by the princesses, their Runestones and Mystacor. Which are all major war assets for the resistance.
- The Galactic Horde is this but are arguably on a less advanced level than the First Ones whose tech is the focus of an Archaeological Arms Race.
- Technology Uplift: Justified Hordak explicitly did this; given Horde clones are effectively biologically immortal here he had almost a century to work in, his genius for politics and organization got the ball rolling on Etheria and this led directly to others taking up technological and societal development. For much of the story, he is the chancellor of a “democratic” government. Being an expansionist war-mongering nation where the leaders have to be okayed by Hordak before standing for election throws a lot of doubt over this statement. Later he explicitly seizes power.
- As in the show Entrapta is noted to be a major help here.
- No Delays for the Wicked: Averted the logistics of the different invasions the Horde carries out is described in detail.
- War Fic: The novel depicts a formalized war without dipping into Artistic License – Military; detailing all the politics, tactical maneuvering, and logistics that a globe-spanning conflict entails. More in-depth than showcased in the series but still keeps the characters at the forefront.
- What the Romans Have Done for Us: As stated multiple times throughout the fic, while the Horde is an expansionist warmongering state it also made huge strides in infrastructure, medicine and legal structures. They technically don’t have a death penalty but their alternative is definitely a Fate Worse than Death.
- Wizards from Outer Space: Real-world physics predominate; bullets hurt, escaping gravity takes a lot of energy, and Interstellar distances are vast. That said magic exists and is largely a known factor and a studied discipline on Etheria.
- More importantly book 7 showcases a magic arms race between Horde Prime and the natives as both seek to use the heart of Etheria.
- World War Whatever: Right there in the title, this is the first world-spanning war in Etheria in modern history. However it is not the first in ancient history however, numerous wars are also mentioned such as the colonization wars.
- Writers Cannot Do Math: Averted given the author has an appreciable understanding of physics, unlike most fanfiction authors. As an example, when dealing with a fake labyrinth of "unimaginable" length the characters find it's actually not that far celestially, only about a third of the way from Etheria to its closest moon.
Book 1 The Presence of Will in Spite of It
Bravery is not the absence of fear, but—
- Adaptational Early Appearance: Octavia appears as early as Adora's first encounter with Mermista here.
- Awkward Kiss: Glimmer kisses Adora at Mysticor, but misinterprets the situation and just makes things awkward between them.
- Ballroom Blitz: The abduction at the princess prom rapidly turns into this.
- Blackmail: Shadow Weaver accuses Catra of doing this to her, Catra counters that she was roping SW into a conspiracy.
- Cats Are Lazy: Discussed and Averted. Catra is noted to have put in a lot more effort to surpass Adora than her canon-self, to the point the narration notes how uncharacteristic it is for a cat to be such a hard worker.
- Clingy MacGuffin: When she finds the sword, it transforms into a bracelet around Adora's wrist and she can't take it off. The idea of just cutting it off is immediately shot down.
- Crush Blush: Adora blushes when Catra dips her at Princess Prom.
- Dances and Balls: Princess Prom gets focus as the highly charged diplomatic event it is and it's pointed out that the abduction staged here and in canon was more then enough to sway the nations of Etheria against the Horde.
- Everyone Can See It: Bow and Glimmer immediately realize Catra and Adora are into each other, even thinking they were girlfriends that broke up after Adora left the horde.
- Eye Scream: Bow shoots out a Horde Soldier's eye, which easily establishes his skill as an archer.
- Faking the Dead: Catra reports to Shadow Weaver that Adora is dead after her defection, this is a lie to get her to see Catra immediately.
- Flirtatious Smack on the Ass: Spinerella does this to Netossa at Princess Prom.
- For Want Of A Nail:
- Unlike in canon, Shadow Weaver is immediately informed of Adora being She-Ra by Catra.
- Thanks to being part of the Horde navy here, Scorpia has a prior relationship with Octavia and is fond of her.
- Frigid Water Is Harmless: Averted. When Adora is kidnapped on the high seas she lands in the water. Her friends need to warm her up otherwise she would likely have died.
- Garden Garment: Perfuma is introduced wearing such attire at Princess Prom, these later show off their utility when the rescue party wades through the sewer at the hordelands capital.
- Gut Punch: How Adora defeats Catra in their first fight.
- Hates Being Touched: Downplayed. While Catra is fine having sex with Scorpia, she isn't really into cuddling with her.
- In a Single Bound: Thanks to her enhancements Catra can jump from a semi-submersible to a ship that is over a dozen of meters away on her own.
- Insistent Terminology: The princesses lead an alliance, not a rebellion as they are not under the power of the hoard, to begin with.
- Lethal Harmless Powers: Teleporting small objects seems harmless... until said object ends up in a person's body. Glimmer demonstrates this by teleporting sand into a man's lungs, causing him to drown in it.
- Loophole Abuse: When she and Catra decide to go joyriding, she uses her new position as an officer to take a skiff and claim it is for a recon mission.
- Mentor Occupational Hazard: Wolfclaw taught Bow everything he knows and is a major reason he's such a competent ranger, so of course, he dies here in the opening act at the Siege of Thaymor.
- Neck Lift: Glimmer does this to Adora, despite being shorter than her.
- Pet the Dog: Angella mentions she is fond of Bow for being a positive factor in Glimmer's life.
- Relationship Upgrade: Glimmer and Adora start dating in chapter 11. The same chapter shows Catra and Scorpia have moved on to a sexual relationship as well.
- Rescue Arc: Goes much smoother than in cannon even if it's drawn out over an effective week. Each princess uses its powers intelligently and infiltrates the Hordelands as a team to rescue Bow and Glimmer. Frosta and Mermista make an Pykrete boat, Perfuma provides plant suits to wade safely through the sewers. Further the context of Catra letting Adora go. Because otherwise, Adora threatened to shoot herself in the head.
- Sex for Solace: A major reason Catra hooks up with Scorpia is to relieve the stress of her job and Adora leaving with sex.
- She Is Not My Girlfriend: Bow and Glimmer's reaction to Wolfclaw thinking they're a couple, he's very amused by their reaction and guffaws easily.
- Taught by Experience: Angella mentions that the reason she got Glimmer in the military was to learn from experience and from her superiors.
- Tracking Spell: When Adora asks Catra how she found her, she mentions that Shadow Weaver cast one of these to find her using previously casted spells on them as proper beacons.
- Villains Out Shopping: The final chapter shows Catra and Scorpia out at a trashy bar with amazing food.
- You Called Me "X"; It Must Be Serious: After being injured by Adora in their fight, Catra calls Shadow Weaver mom to help her heal, which the narration notes Catra has never done before.
Book 2 Out of Love and Desperation
We do not hurt those we hold dear out of malice, but—
- Adaptational Mundanity: Razz isn't a nonlinear being here but rather an old woman suffering from dementia. This doesn't make her any less of a badass, because she taught Mara independence to defy Eternia and was trusted to look after the infant Adora.
- An Arm and a Leg: Catra lost her entire forearm after Glimmer teleports it off her, this shouldn't have happened by the way but someone (Mira) messed up the ARW-PPE, (an anti-magic charm).
- Catch Your Death of Cold: Razz almost gets done in by a blizzard after collapsing gathering firewood.
- Character Death: Cometa gets killed by Catra, Dave's brother gets killed, a few characters that were actually interesting get the ax too, war sucks.
- Depower: Adora deals with this due to ARW-IS an Anti-Magic Injection Serum which locks her away from her She-ra form for the last few chapters of this book and some of the next one.
- Flipping the Bird: One barkeep does this to Catra after she insults his establishment. This is also the position that Catra's severed arm is locked in.
- Glad-to-Be-Alive Sex: Catra describes her relationship with Scorpia as this "Either of us could die tomorrow" and they get into a few life and death situations here and in later books.
- Growing Wings: Healing from She-Ra causes Glimmer's wings to manifest, which tear through her clothes and necessitate advice from her mother on how to use and live with them.
- Misery Builds Character: Like canon, Shadow Weaver claims she did this to Catra. After seeing how strong Catra has become, she considers it a success.
- "Near and Dear" Baby Naming: Adora becomes the namesake of Mermista and Seahawk’s daughter after saving the baby’s life by correcting a cleft lip. The Alliance doesn’t have the lifesaving semi-modern medical technology the Hordelands do.
- Noodle Incident: Adora once transformed her sword into a motorbike and used it to traverse the city. She isn't doing that again.note
- The Power of Love: Glimmer theorizes that Adora's powers are fueled by this.
- Robosexual: As noted by Catra, Entrapta is effectively flirting with the Universal Fabricator when she unpacks it and starts examining its capabilities.
- Small Role, Big Impact: Razz gave birth to Mara and made sure she had a hand in raising her daughter when she was explicitly forbidden. This gave Mara some of the independence that led her to incite mutiny that wound up placing Etheria in Despondos.
- Super Breeding Program: Razz, Mara, and Adora are all participants and products of this.
Book 3 The Humility to Ask for Help
True strength is not unyielding fortitude, but —
- Adaptational Early Appearance: Double Trouble shows up early to spring Catra from the prison Hordak got her sentenced to for endangering Entrapta, they're doing this for Catra's fully deniable suicide mission to the desert.
- Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: Sweet Bee and Peekablue are a married couple here.
- Archaeological Arms Race: Forms a major part of the book given how the Lost Technology can so easily shift the balance of the war. The two major events are exploring the Snows and the Crimson Wastes but there's mentions of going through old vaults and more.
- Big Beautiful Woman: She-Ra becomes one after Adora adds extra "padding" so she is better equipped to handle cold temperatures. Glimmer refers to the new form as "an 8ft tall version of her".
- Circle of Standing Stones: The Waygate in Honeydew takes this form, compared to the more formulaic arches other waygates have.
- Citadel City: All Alliance cities are this to an extent given they're essentially a medieval society that warred with each other before they ganged up on the horde. Honeydew is a noticeable example though in that it is a modern planned version of this trope.
- Duel to the Death: Tung Lashor's duel with Catra is explicitly this; he isn't left in quicksand, he has his head cut off.
- Land of One City: HoneyDew is this given that it's less than a decade old, built over an existing city, and the capital of conquered territory taken by Sweet Bee.
- Named by the Adaptation: The barmaid Huntara flirted with is named Melissa here. The goat humanoid and lizard woman Catra forcibly recruited are named Mira and Ximena respectively.
- No Kill like Overkill: Angella threaten to have Shadow Weaver massacred and fed to pigs and crows if she betrays the alliance.
- Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves:
- Huntara is left in the desert by Catra after she kidnapped Melissa and used her as a hostage for Huntara's cooperation to ambush Adora, Bow, Glimmer and Juliet.
- Juliet is pissed at this and wants to leave them there but Bow doesn't have any truck with it.
- Sex for Services: Catra attempts this with Tung Lashor. It fails since he's gay.
- Sinister Surveillance: Sweet Bee does this with her legions of lesser insects. Seems that if you conquer a region and make a city from scratch like Honeydew you need some way to make your citizenry behave.
- Sled Dogs Through the Snow: Shows up in Chapter 5 which focuses on the mushing our heroes have to do to get across a frozen wasteland to a major northern Tech signature. It's pointed out how uncomfortable it is when you have certain biological necessities you need to do.
- Virtual Ghost: The hologram Mara left behind is a personality construct but is left in the ship with hardly enough memory to hold a fifteen-minute conversation. Worse, she needs to reload each time and can't remember previous talks.
- Wretched Hive: Invoked Yelsie in the Crimson Waste is called this in the story, Discussed when Huntara talks about the societal conditions and political attitudes that create the conditions that make such a place possible. Including the so-called disposable people that find themselves washed up there.
Book 4 Who Cares When You are Gone
Home is not where you live, but —
- Brandishment Bluff: Glimmer turns Double Trouble by using an elementary marking rune that persists even when they change shape. Glimmer fools DT into thinking it's a permanent curse and gets them to turn on the Horde.
- Deadly Environment Prison: Beast Island is a place of various monsters mental and reality-altering effects as a result of being a dumping ground for First One's weapons. It's such a dangerous horrible place that following the Portal Disaster there that almost everyone, prisoners and guards, didn't return to reality. So the main camp is completely deserted . Remember this place is meant to be a substitute for the death penalty in the Hordelands but it's an open secret that being sent there is a Fate Worse than Death.
- Defiant Captive: Double Trouble is disrespectful as ever but really doesn't like having a “brand” that can’t be shapeshifted away. They throw a terrible temper tantrum and completely destroy the room they're in, not stopping even after being repeatedly shot.
- No Endor Holocaust: Averted as opening the portal plunged everyone into their personal dream world and there are a lot of people in preindustrial societies bearing the brunt of those societies' failings a lot choose to stay in the dream when they exit.
- This only makes both sides work more efficiently as the remaining members of ‘’both’’ armies are made up of people who actually want to be there. It impacts the Horde negatively since quite a few of their industrial slavery population disappear too.
- The Gambling Addict: According to Catra, Octavia is this and has accrued a lot of debt.
- Go Seduce My Archnemesis: A rare heroic example during Glimmer’s pragmatic period she sends Double Trouble back to seduce Catra and manipulate her better. Eventually breaking her like in the show.
- Hate at First Sight: Just like canon, when encountering her in the Alternate Universe, Scorpia, usually genially disposed to everyone, hates Adora at first sight for reasons she can't explain.
- Intentional Heartbreaker: Double Trouble says they've done this a few times when working for Hordak as an intelligence asset. They get to show this when Glimmer sics them on Catra in the final phase of the world war.
- Lotus-Eater Machine: Just like in canon, the effects of the portal place everyone in a reality where, superficially, their lives are perfect. Adora never left Catra or the Horde and successfully sacked Thaymor, they're in a relationship, with Shadow Weaver's approval. The effect is global so everyone is exposed to it with consequences explored in the next book.
- Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors: The Lensman Arms Race causes constant changes in combat tactics. Fire advantage from the horde? Have the runestone princesses get creative with their abilities. Protection seals against runestone abilities? Get more tech like a leftover spacecraft. Horde finds more tech, have a spacecraft capable of taking out said manufacturing base? Create a distributive system for manufacturing, also nuclear bombs make a good deterrent.
- Tally Marks on the Prison Wall: Exaggerated after only two days Adora has tally marks in the measure of hours, starts writing poetry on the walls in various First One's script and makes several portraits including a detailed one of Catra. All with a simple screw she procured from a bed.
- This is all because she didn't have any reading material, when she's moved to a different cell she's content to read.
- Teleporter Accident: Just like in the show this is taken up to eleven given the portal experiment. Justified though given it's already been explained that unreality fields can be used to create realistic illusions that can interact with reality. Those operate on a scale of .5 to 3.1 however, basically what is seen in the show with interactive holograms and full hallucinations. The breaching of the Despondos barrier makes for 11.5 unreality field.
- Teleport Interdiction: After the above incident Hordak learns how to produce portals on demand. As part of the constant Lensman Arms Race a counter is put together by the Mysticor sorcerer corps for this fairly rapidly but it only gets used in Brightmoon. Despite this, the portals are enough of an advantage to rapidly turn the tide of the war.
- Gets used on a much wider scale by both sides when the Galactic Horde shows up.
- The moonstone grants teleportation that is too fast for the anti-teleportation wards to stop.
- Villainous Breakdown: After learning Adora was right about the portal being dangerous, Catra breaks down like she did in the show and attacks Entrapta.
Book 5 Kindness is a Choice
''Life is seldom gentle, but—’’
- Adaptational Abomination: Melog is even more dangerous here than they are in the show. They're terrifying and its ability to drive off Horde Prime is entirely believable.
- Adaptational Context Change: Catra gets her hair cut on her own initiative to show Prime her new allegiance to him. This ingratiation just makes her sudden and inevitable betrayal all the more shocking for him and helps to sell the bait and switch for the reader.
- A.I. Getting High: Damara can get drunk from real alcohol but also has an off-switch to return to sobriety.
- No Biochemical Barriers: Justified since Prime specifically chooses hypoallergenic foods that Catra and Glimmer could safely eat.
- Bequeathed Power: Played Straight though this is atypical for planetary defenders like She-Ra, the beast melichor makes Catra the new Melog after its death.
- Brought Down to Badass: Netossa reminds her that even without all the She-Ra stuff Adora is still an amazing strategist, leader and friend.
- Forced Sleep: Gimmer does this to Catra, works as a shortcut to help Catra access a meditative space that lets her commune with previous holders of the Melog power.
- Gentle Giant: Glory here is a bird the size of and elephant with wings made of something tougher then carbon fibers. He also treats Adora like a little lost chick whenever he sees her.
- Giant Flyer: Glory is a giant Owl that can transverse interstellar distances and is large enough to carry big enough packages to count as a shuttle by himself. He’s also, somehow, a conduit of starlight like Adora.
- Good Prosthetic, Evil Prosthetic: Shows up when Catra is sanitized. Her legs having been shot through in her rampage on the Velvet Glove she chooses, while under mind control, to replace them with clawed digitigrade legs. These get tossed after She-Ra's resurrection causes all her limbs to grow back.
- How Do I Shot Web?: Part of Catra's efforts to understand her Melog powers. She has an easier time thanks to Adora and Damara sharing their experiences. She can also meditate and talk to previous incarnations.
- Insult of Endearment: Adora and Lonnie engage in this in the first chapter.
- Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better: Certainly seems to be Prime's design philosophy, they do require more maintenance than First Ones Energy Weapons though.
- Love Redeems: Of all people Double Trouble, Peekablue and Sweet Bee are able to engage with them on an intellectual level that they found thrilling, so there's a bit of I Love You Because I Can't Control You.
- Make-Out Kids: Perfuma and Scorpia have become this after dancing around having a relationship in the last book.
- Mercy Kill: What the mission to Krytis ends up being. Instead of recruiting Melog, a being that's been alone for centuries, they help it die by destroying the Heart of Krytis. Which is the only reason it's still alive.
- Obstacle Exposition: The shaft inside the planet Krytis is deep going all the way down to the center. Even free falling in a vacuum would take hours. With the existent air resistance, it'd take almost a day, the Starlight Brigade works around this by making a platform so they can descend the shaft and not have to ascend under their own power.
- The Heart of Etheria has an even more complex obstacle for itself, making its shaft labyrinthine of near astronomical proportions on top of the mindscrew elements.
- Omniglot: The reason for Prime being able to instantly understand the language of Etheria.
- Spaceship Girl: Mara is upgraded by Entrapta into a permanent personality construct and soon after fuses herself with Darla to become Damara. It helps the group in making Damara into a powerful ally to get them out of a tight situation fleeing Etheria to save Glimmer while pursued by Prime's Void. However, based on previous actions it's likely meant for Mara to cut ties to her previous identity and all the friends she left behind.
- Tarot Troubles: Deconstructed, even in a world of literal magic tarot cards don't have any meaning except what is given to them. Glimmer points out that she's just supplying keywords for a given card and Catra's subconscious is filling in the meaning.
- Team Mom: Damara slots herself into this position easily for the Starlight Brigade, serving as a catalyst for spacecraft-wide positive character growth, including herself.
- You Called Me "X"; It Must Be Serious: To get Adora to trust her while she's on Horde Prime's flagship she send a message with the short nickname "Ad", Adora uses "Cat" for Catra.
Book 6 We Can Do Good and That Must Be Enough
The labors of reparation will never undo tragedy, but—
- Attack Drone: One of the main equalizers between Prime's forces and the resistance are the Buddybots invented by Kyle. They aren't independent constructs but automata that run off of intentionality controllers. Each infantry man has at least three and the Princesses have customized models that help them supplement their abilities.
- Back from the Dead:Catra does this to Cometa, well She-Ra does the actual healing but Catra undoes the brain death.
- The Bet: Castaspella reveals she and Angella made a bet on whether or not Glimmer and Bow would be a couple. Casta won as Angella thought they would be in their twenties when they did so.
- The Bus Came Back: Mira, the researcher Catra effectively condemned to death back in book two managed to get off an assignment to the front lines.
- Cannot Spit It Out: Adora and Catra have this dynamic, unable to truly process their feelings with each other. While at different points getting discouraged from pursuing the other.
- Contrived Coincidence: Since part of Melog’s powers is explicitly luck, things go a lot easier for heroes after Catra gets empowered.
- Drowning My Sorrows: Shadow Weaver ends up doing this when Adora boots her from active duty following typical SW conniving. She quickly becomes a pathetic wreck until Catra snaps her out of it and forces her to help save the day.
- Fighting from the Inside: Showcased here more than previously. People under Primes control must follow his wishes but they can make certain comments now and then to let information slip.
- I Am a Monster: Catra deals with the fallout of her actions across the story here.
- The Nothing After Death Or Void Between the Worlds: Where the imperishable spirit of Horde Prime is imprisoned and where Angela got bodily sent.
- Reduce Aggro: Called misdirection here, these are known and recognized as less energy-intensive than making a given target optically invisible. Micha even manages to hide am entire golem with these spells.
- Third-Act Misunderstanding: Used to preserve the drama of Adora's and Catra's relationship, the fact that they grew up together as adoptive sisters are acknowledged as a bit of a squick factor.
- Heroic Safe Mode: Zigzagged Getting the Failsafe Rune and finding that it’s essentially a death sentence doesn’t do much for Adora’s mood but what gets her into full depression is Catra leaving. She remains more or less functional throughout.
- Plant Person: Perfuma reveals that she is part-dryad, which saves her when she gets impaled by a sanitized Meteora.
- Spit Take: Catra does this when Adora talks about them having kids.
- Urban Warfare: Happens frequently, the main example is in the unnamed capital of Candila where the combined resistance assaults the city Meteora used her Extra-ore-dinary powers to booby trap the entire city with the help of Huntara. Collapsing buildings, civilian casualties and chokepoints all come up in the battle.
- There's also the assault by Prime on Sanctuary II, in Light Hope's former castle, it is effectively a city by that point so the same issues apply.
- We Have Reserves: Horde Prime operates on these tactics he does use effective strategy but he has a gigantic economy of material behind him.
- Willfully Weak: What Catra correctly deduces Shadow Weaver to be. Despite talking up how powerful Micah is she's able to match him. She's definitely powerful but is equally good at manipulation and started to lean on that when using magic threatened her life. Here she fights Prime to a standstill when he has the power of the Heart of Etheria behind him.
Book 7 What You Do With The Rest of Your Lives
A happy ending is not a thing you win, but—
- Arms and Armor Theme Naming: Well theme nicknaming really, it turns out every member of Bows’ family is named after some form of weapon and armor.
- They’re nicknamed Lance and Georgenote with their children (listed alphabetically) are Ax, Blade, Bow, Edge, Gun, Jav, Knives, Kris, Pike, Rock, Shield, and Treb.
- In that same order their real names are Lunacastellus and Geographilus; with the kids being Alexander, Vladimir, Beauregard, Edgar, Gunnar, Yovany, Constantiffe, Kristopher, Pericles, Rikarto, Sheldon and Tristram.
- Babies Ever After: ‘natch, the various Spin-Offspring don’t get a lot of focus.
- Celebrating the Heroes: The final chapter has the Starlight Brigade return to the Etherian system to celebrate PrimeFall, the thousandth year since Prime was defeated.
- Destructo-Nookie: Two planetary defenders deciding to get it on can be damaging to furniture and linens. Averted in that the furniture was already sized for their increased frames and using the fabricators to make silk bedspreads.
- Distant Finale: We leave our heroes 1000 years after the end of the series.
- God Couple: A thousand years after the end of the story Adora and Catra are this; arguably demigods already a millennia has given them the chance to explore their powers and develop their skills.
- Good Girls Avoid Abortion: Averted Scorpia and Perfuma decide to abort an unplanned pregnancy but they aren't condemned for it. True to cannon they have a lot of kids afterward.
- Idiosyncratic Ship Naming: Kyle did this In-Universe for Catradora.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Many of the characters have to go through some form of court-martial for their actions in the War. Catra has a near mental breakdown for getting all her crimes listed off for her.
- Living Forever Is Awesome: The fic firmly takes this stance, Discussed in the characters acknowledge it still means dealing with loss of friends who don't have, or want, their lifespan.
- Outliving One's Offspring: Averted, immortal planetary defenders don't have to worry about this trope thanks to advanced medical technology.
- Post-Scarcity Economy: Major fallout of all the advancements and technology discovered and unearthed; between the easily available First One's tech which includes fully functional fabricators, the free travel offered by the portals that Hordak invented along with easily mastered magic pioneered by Micah and finally the free labor that civilian Buddybots offer.
- Glimmer leads a democratic revolution with the wide support of the other princesses, just to head off the populist uprising on the horizon.
- Shapeshifters Do It for a Change: This trope is always present when Double Trouble is involved. But no less than three characters become shapeshifters in the series Catra, Perfuma, and Adora to a minor degree, and the possibilities they open up are implicitly explored.
- Shapeshifter Identity Crisis: Implied With the death of both his spouses the immortal Double Trouble abandons their identity and moves on. Never to be Double Trouble again. To be clear the being that called itself Double Trouble survives but the identity has been discarded.
- There Are No Therapists: Finally averted, the practice is imported through the Nebularian Roost. While still a case of a muggle therapists both Catra and Adora are early adopters of the service and it has a very positive effect on their emotional health.
- Throwing Off the Disability: Adora gets much better at writing following the destruction of the Heart. Possibly because she gained the ability to shapeshift like Catra. She starts writing her own books about her experiences.
- Weddings for Everyone: A lot of the post series is taken up with the planning of one wedding or another, the doe and stag nights, the ceremony and receptions afterward.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Played With Those who disappeared in the portal disaster are not seen again, even with Melog's dimensional travel abilities they are lost to the world.
