#belatedly liveblogging she-ra

[multsicorn]

i wanna do that one good thing in my life.  like you said.  so - come with me.

[multsicorn]

so I sobbed my way on-and-off through the last episode of She-Ra, that is something that happened

no brain only rainbow hearts etc.

gonna go look at several ppls’ tags that I’ve been blacklisting..!

[multsicorn]

THANK YOU AND I”M SORRY 

[multsicorn]

I really like the set-up of She-Ra!  I just watched the first two episodes, and: first of all, the reversal of tropes in which princesses are scary vicious monsters and our protagonist’s home is in The Horde is fun.  Framing the pink-blue-purple pastel people as the enemy, and the more military aesthetic themed place as the site of friendship.

And then!  Setting up a central conflict around ‘everything they taught me is a lie’ - ‘sure, but do you trust these people!? and you’re leaving me!?’ - which I imagine will be complicated a whole lot over the next *checks hand* five seasons, is... very tasty.  Crunchy, chewy, as they say.  Lots to dig into, there!  Who does one trust!?  Who does one side with, protect, and how do you know?

The design is cute, the humor around the party (‘you don’t know what a party is!?’) especially was funny-cause-it’s-true in the best hurting and relevant to (the visible already) themes of... no, how were you s’posed to know?  If no one told you?  Which is so fucking relevant to uh my experience of/the way I think now about childhood, anyway.  And I can imagine it hitting A Lot for some kids.

I’m expecting, as I said, things to be complicated - maybe it seems at the end of ep two that the Horde is Evil and Bright Moon is Good, but I’m preeetty sure we’ll come around to ‘neither is capital-letter either’ in not too long.  Judging by both what I’ve seen so far and tumblr’s enthusiasm for the show.

anyway!  ‘on opposite sides of a war from your best friend’ etc. and all the rest of it about fucked-up childhoods and playing with aesthetic tropes is Exceedingly Much My Jam, and I only can’t say ‘I wish I’d been watching this the whole time’ cause lol I’m so BAD at watching tv.  If I’m not actively in fandom pushing me to keep up with it every single episode, I’ll fall behind... and I’d probably have more avoidance-feelings about picking it back up if I had been ‘failing to watch’ it!  (I know.  I’m weird.)

BUT hopefully this will continue to be fun to watch!  And when I get really invested this liveblogging may degenerate into posts of significantly less coherence... ha.  And hopefully it won’t frustrate me by being too kids-y or betray my hopes in its potential generally... (YES, I was spoiled about That One Thing, that’s why I’m watching lol)... I just guess I will have to see!

[multsicorn]

going back to watching she-ra today for a while.  I just finished ep 8 (the princess prom) -

and yeah, that moment when fighting on a floating iceberg turns on a dime to adora catching catra from falling off the edge after all - in a dance hold - echoing (and reversing) the earlier dip -

that’s what i’m talking about

(and then catra lets go after all)

(and reappears on a ship bc she had a plan)

anyway reversals are good and great and fighting that is also dancing (that is also etc) is the best

[multsicorn]

I've just finished episode nine of season five of She-Ra.  Adora and everyone are back on Etheria.

And I... really really like where this show has chosen to go in its last couple seasons, last season especially.  It's better and better - at least for my tastes.  Conflict within the allies for all sorts of reasons: disagreements on stratgey (and I really like that Catra bringing in a little skepticism of their old heroic paradigm is useful! - it's not that the motivation or determination's wrong - but they've got to think again and find another way, sometimes), personal conflict on a low simmer because not everyone can accept working with an former enemy equally well, (which is something that applies from Catra's POV as much as it does to everyone's POV on her!), the whole 'we don't want to hurt our friends' thing that mirrors the original Catra/Adora split so poignantly.  I love that the villagers the heros are rescuing aren't always necessarily on their side, I love that the 'sides' are all mixed the fuck up now, I love that the hero team includes spiky trauma'd former enemies, I love the mix of magic and ~IN SPAAACE.~  I love that Adora (and the narrative) admit that charging off into space and leaving Etheria on the brink of its biggest battle ever was... probably the wrong choice.  (But we can still make it right!)

And I feel like Adora runs enough interference? translator? whatever, between Catra and the rest of the team, that it's adding a nice layer to the pre-existing good basis of however this ship is finally gonna get together <3.

But, yeah, I'm just thinking!  From my perspective, of course I enjoyed the show this whole time - I wouldn't have kept watching through multiple seasons if I didn't.  But this latest ~glow-up~ is a huge improvement, and if you could do *this*... why wouldn't or couldn't you do it earlier?  You didn't need that many episodes and seasons worth of relatively lighter and simpler conflicts, really, I mean, you didn't need 'em to establish a baseline.  Or anything like that.

But presumably the 'Best Friends Squad' type stories are what the creators wanted to tell, and what their actual target audience (not me!) wanted to see, so I'm not complaining here.  Don't think that.

I just think it's *interesting.*  Why choose to turn the knob darker and the scope broader now?  And not earlier, and not never?  I don't know that there even is an answer... I'm just curious.

[multsicorn]

also: going from smashing human-ish-sized robots to smashing SPACESHIPS, LEAPING AROUND, IN SPACE, is one hell of a glow-up, Adora!!

(catra’s a lucky girl ;))

[multsicorn]

"Save The Cat" is Really A Lot.  I don't know that I have anything more to say about it than that... but....*continues to ramble for several paragraphs, apparently, after all, lol*.

Catra trying to throw herself off the edge... Adora jumping right off after her... (they really do have a Thing with cliffs, ha)... that absolute reversal from despair that Catra's wiped to shocking triumph that She-Ra can fight using what must be the full power she's never been able to unlock before, while holding her unconscious being-rescued girlfriend in her arms!!!  (well, okay, they're not girlfriends *yet,* but.)  Could one ask for anything more??

I mean the way they don't even attempt to weigh risks and priorities properly does, actually, put a limit on my investment - it makes sense because it's a children's show, but ultimately I prefer life-and-death stakes taken seriously by the characters and the narrative... which is just, y'know, my preference.

But putting that back aside - somehow.  All the extremes, all the contrasts, the fact that Catra only decided that she wanted to defend the planet and her friends rather than attacking and destroying them only an episode or two ago - makes it somehow really powerful, that she becomes powerless only when she's finally decided to be 'good.'  And that Adora puts her ahead of everything else, also, *immediately* - cause Adora's always been conflicted inside, she stopped letting it affect her plans and fighting and so forth, but she never stopped *caring.*  Shows?  Underlines, emphasizes - the depth of the feeling that's always been there.

And then the repetition of the Catra/Adora fight that we've been seeing through the whole series, but this time with the twist that Adora's correct when she's trying to get through to Catra!  And Catra doesn't really want to fight!  (She's mad cause Adora's risking herself, but that's all.)  It really makes you feel how they've gone through so much to get to this point etc etc.

And the BADASS RESCUE from DEPTH OF FEELING and the TEARY-EYED REUNION with HEALING.... yep yep yep these are just good tropes.  Beats, things.  And when you put 'em on top of seasons worth of periodic fraught fighting, totally nothing that looks like pining, etc., it is VERY GOOD INDEED.

And there's nine more episodes to go!  I bet there will be even higher heights.

[multsicorn]

the power of #iconic fuckery

finished s4 of She-Ra

'Wow... stars' must be an amazing mind-fuck to the literally almost everyone on the planet who didn't even know there was such a thing.  And brings to mind, of course, all sorts of sf-nal questions of 'how would civilization develop differently, if one couldn't see the stars'... but most relevantly here, well it's an extremely literal (and awe-inducing) way of raising the stakes by widening the board!

Smashing the sword that was lost and found etc.!  Also has a ton of dramatic #epic type impact.  It's a wonderful character beat to break Adora down and ask 'what now.'  (I'm sure that something now, though, I'm sure there won't be a last season of She-Ra without She-Ra.  Although it would be a cool development I could see happening in a book series!)  But also going back to the power of image/tropes/etc., ... breaking the magic sword of destiny to create a 'the sword that was broken' as a successful last-ditch move is really just quite a lot.

And then!  Continuing with the trope fuckery.  I also enjoyed the subversion(?) of 'and with our combined powers, we will be more powerful!'  Cause, yes?  But also no, if you can't control it, you're negative powerful, and it's a horrible thing that you need to defeat... but maybe yes again.  There's still one more season, there's a war on a bigger scale than ever before, and if Glimmer said at the end of s4 that Adora was right re: they can't risk using the weapon, maybe it'll come around the other way by the end of s5 - maybe they will have to, and will be able to after all, find a way to use that power safely and controllably (enough).

[multsicorn]

The ‘liveblogging’ She-Ra tag might be almost true?  Some thoughts on “Boys’ Night Out”... not about the boys:

So on the one hand I think it's really neat that although Adora and Glimmer came together to catch Double Trouble, their friendship is still struggling - and if anything, the cracks are only growing wider.  It doesn't feel like what they're fighting about is exactly what Double Trouble tried to stir up between them - doubt, jealousy... but it's not entirely unrelated, maybe?

But on the other hand: what IS it?  I'm not sure, I don't think it's that clear.  (Maybe it would be if I went and rewatched, but... lol.)  But my best guess is: that it's basically a scaled-up version of the conflict during Glimmer's coronation, the same one that naturally occured without Double Trouble in the picture at all.  That Adora has to insist that everything will be fine, will be fixed, just give her a chance and let her do it... cause she doesn't know what else to DO.  If she stops running at a problem then she'll just *stop*; if there's one thing she can't accept, it's giving up faith in the future.  Or sitting still.  Okay, that's two things ;).  But this is the pattern that's she's developed over the time she spent as She-Ra, as well as whatever she's bringing with her from the Horde and growing up.  CAN"T STOP WON"T STOP.

Whereas Glimmer... has lost her mom, has the weight of responsibility newly fully planted on her shoulders - whereas Adora's dealt with 'how could I let this happen' in earlier seasons (and found DON"T STOP is an answer), Glimmer's never been queen before, never felt quite this sense of... we need to stop and acknowledge the loss.  Of COURSE we have to keep fighting, anyway, it's not like she wants to give up - but we have to keep fighting in a way that takes into account that we COULD lose.  Cause loss is right there front-and-center for Glimmer, in her mind if nowhere else - Adora can't look at it and Glimmer can't hide from it.  I think.

Or maybe I'm trying to make it too neat, or too abstract, or whatever... anyway.  Onwards to episode 9!

[multsicorn]

as i continue what is (for me) blowing through she-ra at an astounding pace, at the end of s2:

I really love some of the more self-indulgent-feeling episodes the show chooses to make?  The one where Adora and Catra are trapped in a dungeon of Learning To Grow, for example, or the one that’s all D&D-style war planning that’s animated in different characters’ imagined styles.  ... and it’s interesting how in the target age group I wouldn’t have had the concept at all of ‘the animators having fun playing with style,’ but as an adult with a smidgen of media consciousness, it hits one over the head with obviousness.

I love how Adora is continually literally fighting the Catra inside her own head, i.e. we’ll see a fight and then it’s just imaginary, yes that’s a very fun choice.

I’d thought after watching the two-part pilot that the good/bad dichotomy between the Horde and the Princess Alliance was set up only to be complicated, which... wasn’t exactly wrong?  But not exactly right, either.  No, in fact, the Horde is (literally lol) cartoonishly evil, in its objectives and in the overall behavioral patterns of its command structure... but it’s still made of people, and they’re not all evil to each other.  In everything from Scorpia’s adoration of Catra to Catra’s reluctant care for Shadow Weaver, from Lonnie picking up the slack for her emotionally distracted squad-mates to Kyle befriending just-a-little-bit Bow, to even Hordak ~opening up a little... although they don’t pause in destroying Etheria.  Since they do care about some people, perhaps one can use that to change their minds?

The Princesses, otoh, are also obviously flawed and not perfect, and I respect that some messages like ‘I just want to prove that I’m a big kid and can be responsible!’ are Relevant to the show’s target audience in a way they’re not to me.  But if I was hoping/expecting for the heroic-ness of the Princesses wrt the people they’re princessing over to be gone into... maybe that’s still coming?  (See, for example, Bow’s dads).  But maybe it’s not, really, cause a kid’s show called She-Ra and the Princesses of Power is not interested in addressing the problematic conceptions of monarchy built into the fantasy genre ;).  That is okay!!  I think I was more expecting ‘questioning princess-hood’ than needing it.

I really like the way that the scope of the show is widening - and the genre shifting - just a little bit... I don’t think it ever goes too much into the aliens/portal thing?  Or at least I haven’t gotten any hints from spoilers that it does, and I think we met all the characters I’d heard of already in s1.  (Why was I more aware the Scorpia and Entrapta exist than Glimmer and Bow?  Lol, but I can guess, ah, fandom.)  But in any case I like the slow reveal of ‘Etheria isn’t just not Earth, it’s relevant that it’s one of multiple planets.’  And that the Old Ones tech is potentially relevant through this connection to the Horde.  Yayyy, magic and (a bit of) space!

[multsicorn]

it's great, but it could be great-er

Liveblogging She-Ra continues!  Episode 10 of season four, where Glimmer and Adora split up:

The Best Friends Squad splitting up really gets to me, if only cause they've spent the last several seasons refusing to EVER split up, or to ever give up on each other - and they've saved each other with this determination time after time.  And I'm into allies splitting up over strategy, over 'we can't risk doing this' vs. 'we can't risk not doing this,' for example!  ... but it'd make everything that much stronger if the choices that Adora and Bow vs. Glimmer were splitting up over felt more deeply rooted in their characters, issues, histories, etc.  One can maybe make arguments!  That Adora feels more responsibility for the First Ones tech, and Glimmer more for the princesses' kingdoms... but, yeah.

(I just like thinking out loud about how stories work.)

And Catra missing Scorpia!  Being all fucked up about it!  When she didn't value Scorpia's friendship and loyalty really at all, when she just took it for granted when she had it - it's so interesting to compare this to 'how did Catra feel after Adora left'?  Cause I feel like we got to see less inner conflict then... it helps that she could tell herself that Adora had BETRAYED them (her) and become an ENEMY, whereas... she could do that with Scorpia, too, but she doesn't know that yet!  And anyway it's just interesting that first it took a pattern of Catra repeatedly turning on her supposed friends (first Entrapta, then Emily) for Scorpia to realize she should leave... and now, it's taking the same sort of pattern, the 'maybe if it's everyone, then it's you' repetition, for Catra herself to realize that people leave her cause they're HAPPIER ELSEWHERE.  For Catra to somehow admit that her anger is frustrated grief - she doesn't want to punish her ex-friends!  She just wants them back!  And starting that with a friend who she'd devalued in the first place cause she couldn't take that first best friend's place - yeah, that's good.

[multsicorn]

she-ra s4, or, the power of friendship among the enemy

I'm currently in the middle of s4 of She-Ra.  Scorpia has just left the Fright Zone.  And... I really enjoy how:

* Although Catra didn't pause in trying to destroy the planet, afterwards, she is haunted by nightmares about it.  ... Which we can see only inside her head; her external behavior still hasn't changed in any visible way, except perhaps to make her angrier and more determined that destroying everyone everywhere is the right path, it must be.  Both the slowness of change happening on reflection, not right when it's needed, and the process of reflection happening internally and invisibly prior to (one assumes eventual) change, feels realistic and right to me.

* How Scorpia accusing her of being a 'bad friend' gets to Catra (even if only a little! and not usefully!) more visibly than the whole 'almost destroying the planet' thing does.  She's with the Horde, right, she's supposed to destroy things... but destroying friendships even within the Horde, even without people leaving her or politics necessitating it?  That's where it's real, that's where it hurts.

* Scorpia has finally Had Enough of being turned away, lol - cause one kept asking, how much of this will she take?  I loved how 'if you ask me to turn on one friend, maybe you're right... but if you demand that again and again, then it turns out the pattern is you.'  Again, the time taken to come to conclusions and then act on them is a great thing!  (er, for a narrative to do.  Obviously it’d be better in their world if the characters could evolve more quickly...)

* ... and all of this ties into 'the power of friendship'!

* Speaking of which - it's unfortunate that the heroes' struggles don't land nearly so well for me.  Misunderstandings in fundamentally functional relationships?  Friends who mean well but just wanna be included/respected/etc. and go about it in somewhat clumsy but not seriously hurtful or destructive ways?  I don't... really care, lol.  (I mean, it's fun enough to enjoy watching, if it wasn't I wouldn't *be* watching it, but I'm not deeply emotionally engaged.)

* But 'the power of friendship' among the ENEMY, too, among the Horde soldiers who are actually also people - and even the leaders, lolsob!  Hordak and Entrapta as hard-to-connect-with people finding friendship in being lab partners!  THAT, okay, I am HERE FOR.  And I'm loving how it's slowly coming apart...

* How the central(??) relationship of the show - Catra and Adora - (is it more central than the friendship of Adora and Glimmer and Bow?  I'm not sure.  How one would quantify this.  But anyway.) - started off also as 'friends in the Horde'!  But that came apart because Adora left the Horde, and Catra wouldn't.  Now, though!  We have Entrapta's relatively shallow friendships both with the Princess Alliance and with Catra and Scorpia replaced by a 'lab partner' friendship with Hordak that (weirdly!) seemed to suit her better, and got ripped apart... Shadow Weaver is another Horde member who left/was thrown out, though she never seeemed to have made friends in the Horde - which maybe makes sense if most Horde soldiers grew up in it?  Whereas Shadow Weaver was always 'in, but not of' the Horde... and now, finally, we have Scorpia (and Emily <3) leaving the Horde, because of a friendship that was forged within the Horde!

* So, uh, yeah.  There's something here about friendship as a force that tends to promote disassembly, when 'you're literally called the Evil Horde'!  Maybe on a smaller time-scale it's what motivates you to fight.  But on a larger one: Catra's not the only person, and her friendship with Adora isn't the only relationship, for which the poisonous culture of the Horde ultimately makes one choose between one's friends and the Horde.  And if the most sympathetic reason anyone has to fight for the Horde is because their friends are there... yeah.

* “I JUST WANNA PROVE MYSELF TO” a pile of corpses that definitely approves of you.  Doesn’t work great.

[multsicorn]

re: mermista's murder mysteries

I'm always here for a good 'let's pretend we're some other genre for a change' - maybe just cause it's fun to change things up?  Or maybe cause I like the implied meta-fictional issue it raises of 'what things do change when we shift genres'... idk how deep to get into it!  But it is a fun time.

And I wonder if the chaotic shapeshifter force of Double Trouble is gonna end up not that loyal to the Horde... after all, they just joined up for fun!  And they seem pretty indifferent to the larger conflict... not that one could trust them on the Alliance side either.  Anyway, an enjoyable character.

BUT OKAY MY POINT WAS: I'm pretty sure the show's not interested in going any more into it than it already is, but, yeah, just cause Shadow Weaver may have joined the Alliance against the Horde, doesn't mean that Adora is or has to be okay with her ~as a person,~ as a former abusive mother figure.  And I'm interested in that!  Especially in light of the eventual Catra/Adora.  (Cause Shadow Weaver was much more awful to Catra... but she was pretty fucked up to Adora, too!)

[multsicorn]

sympathy for the devil, aka catra

Thoughts on finishing season 3 of She-Ra...

I thought Catra would have to make a different choice!  When Adora went from one person to another, out of time, out of space, etc., in 'this isn't real,' I thought it'd be Catra who'd have to decide not to pull the lever, retrospectively.  But apparently we're not there yet...

No matter that she chooses and won't take it back to DESTROY THE WORLD, though, I still love her.  And sympathize with her!  More than anything.  Of course I can't be ~on her side,~ but, like Adora says, she makes bad decisions!  LOL.  But I - we - still ~care.~

If anything, in her development so far, I'd say that she's become even more of a villain.  Which is so interesting.  She's gone from just doing what she's told, what she's always been told, following the Horde's orders - and making her own plans, but (save some extra-curricular trying to get Adora back) always in the context of trying to prove herself to Shadow Weaver, Hordak, and the Horde at large.  To making it as the Horde's second-in-command, being thrown out, and turning on THEM too.  She's gone from trying to destroy the Princesses Alliance because she's trying to be the very best little Horde Captain she can be, to pulling a lever to destroy the whole world cause she feels hurt and abandoned by everyone she most cared about.

Adora left her, and that was bad enough, but then everything she's done after that - gets thrown back in her face!?  Shadow Weaver chooses Adora over her (again, after Adora's left them both).  Hordak throws back in her face everything that she's done for the Horde - when she had to fight Adora for the Horde, in the first place.

(Poor little kitty!  World-destroying kitty, maybe, but lol, y'know <3.)

ANYWAY this is a very nicely sketched-out descent into darkness... like, destroying the world is B A D, but you can see why she feels everyone leaves and/or turns on her.  (While poor Scorpia's so devoted and loyal!  But Scorpia's easy, and Scorpia's not one of the people she imprinted on trying to please or impress or wanting to make happy, so Scorpia fundamentally Doesn't Count.)  And there's two more seasons left to get us to 'okay, whether the world's for me or not, I'm going to be for IT.'  Or however that'll go.