#as Perfuma would say ‘your negativity is not appreciated’

[parts-of-spop]

Quick question: why am I getting so much anti-Catradora in the Catradora tag like... I get it... that’s each to their own but I just really feel like that should Not Be There and tbh I don’t understand the logic of posting ship-hate with the ship name in the tags At All.

It’s okay not to like it or even hate or find problems with it. That’s valid and I understand that different people have different perspectives but at the same time can y’all not be respectful and just put that somewhere else? It’s not hard. I don’t need that in my life. Be nice.

[theseerasures]

Conspicuous Media Consumption, 2020

it’s that time of year again! *saddest toot from the party horn*

for those of you just joining us: it’s a “consume a different content every week for 48 weeks of the year” challenge. for a longer explanation, check out last year’s write-up here, and as always, feel free to pop in and ask questions about any and all of this content.

(same disclaimer as last year too: content for this project ONLY here, and not certain...*looks at my billion Sad Cop Lady posts*...hyperfixations.)

(man remember when i was big into X-Men comics earlier this year? better times than these, if only because no one's discoursing about Emma Frost’s woobie/war criminal ratio anymore--her w/w, if you will)

(...i swear at one point i didn’t exclusively like platinum blondes but alas)

Bitter Root (comic, 1 issue finished 1/1/2020): still very cool on a basic concept level, but runs into the Image Comics problem of just not having enough content to keep my interest beyond that. part of that is on me, for picking it up again BEFORE the second arc rolled out, but the first five issues didn’t really follow (or resolve) any cohesive story either, so...meh.

Immortal Hulk (comic, 3 trades finished 1/17/2020): still not gonna be something i care deeply about (maybe one of Bruce’s Hulksonas dyed his hair???), but i do want to give kudos to Al Ewing for sheer consistency in terms of sustaining this level of quality storytelling month by month for more than two years now. working with the dense archive of the Hulk mythos and managing to make it interesting and thoughtful is impressive even if i personally would not expend the same effort.

Disco Elysium (game, finished 1/18/2020): honestly i should have twigged onto what this year was gonna be like when the third thing i drew from the barrel was pure uncut Eastern European flavored depression. i faintly recall people ragging on it for being pretentiously cynical, but i actually thought its core slid more towards idealism than people give it credit for. also gratified that i haven’t heard anything about Robert Kurvitz using slave labor to finish it, which is a thing we have to say about our video games now!!! fun.

Watchmen (TV, 7 episodes finished 1/27/2020): i am a fool who wants to believe in Damon Lindelof and I WAS RIGHT!!! honestly still cannot believe that he pulled off this highwire act with such deft aplomb. might be my favorite TV this year, which is a pretty high bar given how much TV i ended up watching.

On a Sunbeam (comic, finished 2/1/2020): Tillie Walden rightly deserves all the praise for inventive queer storytelling, but i will say that on reread--since i first read this as a webcomic--there ARE some issues with pacing here that clearly come from the foibles of its original intended medium. still just excellent, even if after some plot significant haircuts i was having trouble telling a few folks apart.

Lazarus (comic, 1 trade finished 2/8/2020): it’s so good and i want moooooorrrreee--though obviously Rucka and Lark have the right to take all the time they need. the newer longer issues work really well with the epic prestige drama vibes of the story! i’m into it.

The Good Place (TV, 4 seasons finished 2/18/2020): i’m gonna be super honest: i actually wasn’t a big fan of the finale, nor the last season as a whole. it felt like all of Eleanor’s flaws vanished for a majority of the season, and the Chidi-centric episode where they tried to give a legible justification for why he’s Like This was...i didn’t care for it. still, it’s so good and unique on the WHOLE that we’ll literally never get anything like this ever again, and that counts for a lot.

The Old Republic (game, finished 2/21/2020): it’s an MMO so it will never actually Be Finished so long as the servers aren’t shut down, but i caught up on the content i’d missed in the intervening months. Onslaught thus far has mostly been...kinda bland tbh; going back to Imps vs. Rebs after all the shakeups in the previous expansions feels like a waste.

High Road (album, finished 2/22/2020): someone should tell Kesha not to say that word!! otherwise i was very happy with this album, and happy FOR her even though we don’t know each other. being able to find joy again in the same genre of music you made while you were being horrifically exploited is very cool.

Young Justice (TV, 13 episodes finished 2/28/2020): given how much the middle stuff dragged--STOP KILLING YOUR HIJABI CHARACTER IN HORRIFIC WAYS--i was...actually kinda mad by how the end managed to stick the landing anyway. the day being saved by Vic’s self-acceptance and Violet’s sublime compassion was A+, and even the Brion/Tara switchup was a pleasant surprise, though it relied on me caring about Brion MUCH MORE than i actually did.

Manic (album, finished 2/29/2020): do people still care for/about Halsey? i feel like even That One Song that was on every tumblr gifset ever has kinda faded into obscurity at this point. this album was...okay. i feel like people give Halsey a pass for extremely obvious lyrical turns that they wouldn’t for other folks because of her subject material--which is fine. not really my cup of tea, but i also listened to lots of Relient K this year, so that’s probably a good thing.

Jade Empire (game, 3/10/2020): the only 3D-era Bioware game that didn’t franchise out, and for good fucking reason!!! the Orientalism and appropriation really haven’t aged well, and even beyond that the story was...standard Bioware faire. even my usual “my wife’s a bitch i love her” Bioware type didn’t do it for me, and i just ended up romancing no one. it did make me think a lot about what level of cultural borrowing is accepted nowadays, and why: people still look fondly at Avatar and talk about how ~accurate and respectful it was, for example, despite it being staffed almost entirely by white folks, and the Orientalism ALL OVER the monk class in DND is still fine for some reason.

Alif the Unseen (book, finished 3/31/2020): interesting to have read this AFTER reading The Bird King last year, because it highlights how the intervening years have shifted G. Willow Wilson’s thematic interest and improved her craft. i’m actually quite fond of how her characterization work is rougher here--Alif is extremely flawed to the point of being insufferable, but it makes his development by the end more satisfying. Dina is also just good and i love her

Baldur’s Gate (2 games, finished 5/31/2020): well, having finally finished the series i’m happy to say that it...still doesn’t really do it for me, sorry. any awesome story moments were overshadowed by the EXCRUCIATING inventory management system and the combat (i still don’t know what a THAC0 is and at this point i’m afraid to find out). these games crucially lack the Home Base that later Bioware games were so good about, and that (coupled with the huge cast of characters you can drop off and never see again) really hurts the intimacy for me. by the time we finally did get one it was the Hell Dimension in Throne of Bhaal, and i was just...trying to get through it. (yes, i did just say that about one of the most beloved expansions ever to one of the most beloved games ever.) THIS particular iteration of “my wife’s a bitch i love her” was very good, but the game wouldn’t let me romance her :(

The Underground Railroad (book, finished 6/19/2020): honestly what is there even left to say at this point! it was exactly as good as every critic on the planet said it was, even with my usual aversion to hype. draining and horrifying in turns but still insistent upon a future for Black folks.

Steven Universe (6 seasons and a mooooooviiieeee, finished 7/11/2020): yes, i DID finish the show and almost immediately begin a rewatch. this series is now one of my top five most formative things, and the amount of love and respect i have for it is incalculable. that said: i once again did not love how the central conflict of Future was resolved (just the resolution--i loved the finale just fine). for all of Steven’s breakdown was built up, resolving it with “EVERYONE HUG HIM UNTIL HE CRIES” felt...cheap, especially since up until this point the show had been so good about treating trauma and mental illness with the respect and nuance it deserves. it made me wish some of the earlier, less substantial episodes had been cut so we could spend more time at the end.

What It Is (comic, finished 8/19/2020): y’all i love Lynda Barry SO MUCH. for the longest time i was worried that One Hundred Demons was more a lightning in a bottle situation but every book of hers i pick up makes me feel obscure emotions i didn’t even realize existed. the compassionate way she’s able to describe her child self and how weird and fucked up she was (and still is) is honestly aspirational.

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (TV, 5 seasons finished 9/26/2020): so here’s a reversal of what i’ve been complaining about with other shows: i was mostly lukewarm-to-warm about She-Ra, but the later seasons and the finale made me much more into it as a whole. more shows should improve in stakes and overall quality as they age tbh!! i still don’t actively love Catradora (my sole quibble with season 5 actually has to do with the way Adora kept backsliding as a character to make certain Plot/Relationship things happen), but i’m very happy for them nonetheless. i can certainly appreciate a show that will go for High Feeling over tight plot. dark horse standout moments: trees growing everywhere proving that Perfuma Was Right, and Hordak and Adora seeing each other--that weirdly intimate moment of recognition.

Fetch the Bolt Cutters (album, finished 10/7/2020): again i find myself not having much to say that no one else has said. it’s good! once again love it when an artist reclaims something they’d attached with negative affect (anxiety, depression, disordered eating) for better and brighter things.

Solutions and Other Problems (comic, finished 10/25/2020): i was very into Allie Brosh’s ambition with this book, which feels weird to say but i stand by it. it’s cool to see an artist try to make a new medium work for them instead of just sticking to what already works. not all the experimentation was 100% effective, but it was still delightful and occasionally devastating to read, so.

Legend of Zelda (3 games: Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, Link Between Worlds, finished 11/1/2020): this was the third time i’d played Ocarina of Time, which made it the nice, comforting groove i settled into before Majora’s Mask blatted me in the face. i’m not usually a completionist Zelda person because...the gameplay in Zelda is bad, do not at me it just is, but i really felt like i HAD to be one for Majora’s Mask since the whole point is to get attached to the banalities of the town. i’m sure nobody’s surprised that i loved it, even if it gave me an existential crisis about how life goes on in the game for NPCs when you’re not there to save them from it, and there’s not enough time to save them all all the time (also not a surprise to anyone: Romani and Cremia gave Personal Feelings). Link Between Worlds...bad. not like in a “this is a bad story by every measurable gauge” way, but i was already struggling with the 2D playstyle shift enough that for the whole story to end with some “yes it’s v sad that Lorule is Like This but trying to steal Hyrule’s privilege is Even Worse Actually” noblesse oblige bullshit left a VERY poor taste in my mouth, this year of all years. i did audibly gasp when Ravio took off his mask, though. i’m currently playing Breath of the Wild in cautious increments; it’s the first time i’ve enjoyed early Zelda gameplay, but if they wanted fully voiced cutscenes i wish they got voice actors who...knew what words sound like.

folklore (album, finished 11/6/2020): my belief that Taylor Swift is Just Fine continues, i’m afraid. i LIKED this album, don’t get me wrong, and respect her constant drive to innovate, but i didn’t love it substantially more or less than any other Taylor Swift album. mostly i’m just tickled by how she thinks leaning into the indie aesthetic means borrowing Vita Sackville-West’s entire wardrobe, though i will admit to feeling Something when she swore in a song. i think it was like. savage vindication?? you go ahead and swear, Taylor Swift. you deserve it.

Shore (album, finished 11/19/2020): do people still care about the Fleet Foxes? i think there was some Drama with Josh Tillman a while back but i don’t remember where the discourse landed with who was being more problematic. it was nostalgic for me to listen to their new album--made me remember being an undergrad who exclusively listened to men who mumbled and played acoustic guitar all over again.

Star Wars (3 movies: original trilogy, finished 11/27/2020): there is So Much bad Star Wars these days that every time i rewatch the original trilogy i’m afraid that they will suddenly be bad, but guess what! they’re not. i love these children and their hot mess stories, i love that Lando doesn’t know how to say his best friend’s name. what stood out to me this time was the way Obi-Wan described the Force in A New Hope, which strongly implied that ANYONE can be Force Sensitive; that obviously faded with each subsequent movie, but part of me does wish they’d kept it.

X of Swords (comics, 22 issues finished 12/5/2020): i am enjoying Hickman’s X-lines!!! not so much here for the Grand Conspiracy or whatever, but the character work and highkey weirdness is fabulous--they FEEL like X-Men, despite all the shakeups in-universe. this crossover is a nice microcosm of all that: grandiloquently all over the place, but still full of cool standout moments and genuine hilarity. ILLYANA DOESN’T KNOW HOW TO SPELL MAGIC.

Fire Emblem (4 games: Sacred Stones, Path of Radiance, Radiant Dawn, Awakening, finished 12/14/2020): this was the thing that i was closest to giving up early on, but i ended up hyperfixating on it instead. that’s a credit to what the gameplay does to my lizard brain more than anything else, because the story and character writing is...insipid. it was very bizarre to witness this franchise blunder around with its animal-people racism allegory around the same time i was getting back into RWBY, and ITS animal-people racism allegory blunders. Awakening was the first time i felt anything for the franchise beyond “teehee red units disappear make exp bar go up and brain go ding,” so i’m excited for more mature storytelling in subsequent games (they MUST get better. they MUST). the child husbandry thing is...very bad tho, and Apotheosis being “challenging” entirely through the game changing all the rules is also bad.

once again no vidya games that came out this year--i’ll probably pick up Spiritfarer or Hades after the New Year, though (or maybe TLOU II! but probably not. sry Laura and Ashley). more TV and franchises this year, which made me feel In Touch with the Children but was also kinda exhausting. nothing was so egregiously terrible i dropped it without finishing! in a year like this that feels almost like an accomplishment

[spiderdreamer-blog]

Assorted/Jumbled Thoughts on She-Ra: The Final Season (MASSIVE SPOILERS WITHIN)

Well.

I think I can safely say I was not expecting much of that to occur. So in lieu of either incoherent screaming or a larger analysis post (though I might do that upon a full series rewatch), I’ll instead offer miscellaneous thoughts on the final season of Noelle Stevenson and DreamWorks Animation’s Netflix Original Series, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, below in bullet point format.

-So I was admittedly a hard sell on canon Catradora endgame leading up to this. I thought the relationship itself was great: complicated, messy, and full of both positive and negatives that they had to work through while still caring so, so much about each other. But a lot of the fandom was, well, let’s be real, pretty obnoxious about it and the usual kinds of infighting occurred that I think are really petty and stupid (call it Klance Syndrome). Surprise surprise, when you actually involve good writing and acting instead of weird fan projections, I’m way more invested! In particular, Aimee Carrero and AJ Michalka do their series-best work by a longshot in a number of scenes here, particularly The Big Gay Moment. Well done.

-Tying into the above, I thought Catra’s “redemption arc” (as noted, I’m on record as hating that phrase/it should be called “self-improvement arc”) was extremely well handled, probably on the level of Zuko’s if in some notably different directions. The key, as with our favorite fire prince, is that she makes a dramatic, notable change in behavior and has advocates to back her up. Glimmer spurs her into action and is the first to sell others on the idea that she’s changing, and it’s enough to convince Adora to keep reaching out. What I also appreciate is that the frustrations and hangups still play a role: Adora gets aggravated by Catra’s continued reluctance to open up to people, while Catra finally articulates her big problem with Adora’s self-sacrificial tendencies in a way that leads to real emotional breakthroughs. Even things like Bow teasing her about her cuteness or Perfuma making a connection with her through their shared bond with Scorpia make a real difference in how she is seen and perceived (also, Perfuma offering to help her with meditation techniques to start unpacking “your abandonment issues and negativity” is Genesis Rodriguez’s funniest line delivery in the whole series).

-Micah being afraid of not being seen as a Cool Dad thanks to interactions with Frosta is deeply fucking hilarious. I love that Daniel Dae Kim gets to offer a quirky performance here that is reminiscent of Reshma Shetty’s work as Angella, Sandra Oh’s Castaspella, and Karen Fukuhara’s Glimmer, thus showing how he fits of a piece in their family. And the big mind-controlled fight with him and Glimmer in the climax is one more great emotional beat to add to the whole pile of their reunion.

-Melog is a good space kitty and I’m glad Catra gets to have them. That is all.

-ENTRAPDAK FUCKING RIGHTS.

-Okay but seriously no, Hordak asserting himself and tossing Horde Prime’s ass off a ledge Palpatine-style is one of THE most triumphant moments in the series. I’m intensely glad my dumb bat-eared son got to be with his autistic science girlfriend.

-On that note, were it not for the rest of the cast, especially MIchalka and Carrero, doing the aforementioned series-best work (Lauren Ash and Krystal Joy Brown also really shine as Scorpia and Netossa in their respective focus episodes, and I have to give Noelle props as well for getting to give Spinnerella some varied emotions, esp. since she’s not a “traditional” VA), Keston John would easily be the season’s voice acting MVP. As Horde Prime alone, he gets to do so much in building a proper endgame villain, by turns cool and collected cult leader (seriously, that backup group of chanting clones is massively fucking creepy), then slowly trying to wrest control of the situation, and finally a gleefully ranting extremist brought down by his own hubris. But THEN, he not only does “our” Hordak in a new and intriguing “lost” way, he does all the other clones in their clipped-but-pleasant manner AND the delightfully unexpected creation that is Wrong Hordak, who you just want to give a hug within about five seconds and is also the provider of much of the best dark comedy in the season.

-It was also really good to see Entrapta come into her own and genuinely focus on doing the right thing while still getting to be her glorious nerd self. I like how her hair began to act a a visual conscience/reminder of the important things she NEEDED to do in particular.

-The more I think about Shadow Weaver’s final moments, the more I like them? She’s always been a character defined by believing in her own bullshit, but this season starts to show some real glimmers of self-awareness (asking Castaspella to stop her if she tries to take the Heart for herself) even as she continues being awful (gestures at everything else). Yet I don’t think it’s as simple as “she Finally Realized She Cared”; even as she tells Catra she’s proud, there’s something else going on there and how she takes off her mask for the “You’re welcome” callback, appearing truly vulnerable before us for the first and last time (her flashbacks as Light Spinner still had the partial face veil, after all). I’m not sure what it is, and I think that’s the point? Catra and Adora were both hurt and abused by her, but they also did look up to her as a genuine figure of authority and trust. They’re going to have to live with their complicated feelings about that and not ever knowing who she TRULY was as a person for the rest of their lives even with the happy ending they’ve been granted.

-I think this season finally had what I could call some really great action scenes and fight choreography, and a big part of that is the immediately raised stakes via Prime and his clones/drones. The generic Horde soldiers were always pretty pathetic/easily swatted aside cannon fodder, but these guys don’t mess around. The use of the chip zombies also adds a lot of great tension to power brawls like Netossa and Spinnerella, or Mermista and Scorpia showing off their powers in truly dangerous-to-others ways. It’s still not up to the level of, say, a Studio Mir-animated series or something like DuckTales with its variety of chases and fights, but I welcomed the smoothing out of the series’ key weakness visually.

-I suppose one could say there are “flaws”: some worldbuilding that could’ve been fleshed out more (we mainly get it explained to us how Horde Prime and the First Ones brawled for control; a flashback might’ve been cool), some arguable conveniences that crop up (they JUST SO HAPPEN to be by a planet that holds Prime’s weakness, guys!), and characters I would’ve liked to see more of (Double Trouble, though their big cameo is awesome, Huntara, and the newly introduced Star siblings). But they’re ultimately small things/probably a Pressed For Time issue.

-Though I will say the one reinvented character who’s never really worked for me is Swift Wind. Which is frustrating because it’s not like he’s awful/a drag/I want to get out the shotgun every time he was onscreen. I think it’s because he’s always felt jarring as a screen presence with his comedy stylings and that I’ve never really been sold on him as this boon companion for Adora, especially since her relationships with everyone else are so compelling. He gets some okay moments here, but it’s the only real misfire in the series in terms of updating characters for me. Ah well.

-Bow got to step up in major ways this season as a leader, getting a big heroic rallying speech and everything. It’s what he deserves/I’m proud of the guy. I also appreciated things like Glimmer telling him he could still be mad at her as long as he needed, but that she wasn’t going to give up or leave him. And while I’ve never been a shipper for them, the moment where they admit their feelings before running off to battle IS genuinely sweet. It was also fun to see his dorky dads again and get a truly awful/wonderful dad joke in the process.

-I enjoy how the series doesn’t give us a “where are they now” epilogue like many other recent series, but leaves things off on a note where the future’s just ahead and able to be defined by our Best Friend Squad, now with a fully enveloped Catra. That feels right.

That’s it for the moment, though as said, there might be more posts, even longer ones, in the future. For now, I wanna say thank you to Noelle Stevenson, Josie Campbell, Katherine Nolfi, Shane Lynch, Jen Bennett, Adam Henry, Chuck Austen, Sunna Wehrmeijer, Mary Elizabeth McGlynn, the aforementioned terrific voice cast, animation studio NE4U, and everyone responsible at DreamWorks and Netflix for making this wonderful, queer-as-fuck show. I wish them all the best in their future creative endeavors and look forward, like Adora, to what’s over the horizon.