#in a toxic environment while both she and shadow weaver abuses adora to hell and back

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

catra: you left me! how could you abandon me like that?

adora during s3: i'm not gonna leave you again, you should come with me!

catra:

[takerfoxx]

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, Season 4, Episode 1, First Impressions!

New season has FINALLY ARRIVED, which means I finally get it in front of my eyeballs! So, it’s first impressions time!

...however, since I’m watching it right after it dropped instead of being kind of late to the party like I was with the previous three, I’m gonna play it safe and seal off my thoughts under the spoiler cut. So yeah.

Anyway!

So the first part of my prediction was pretty much correct, in that it’s about Glimmer’s coronation, and she’s still really shaken up over Angella’s death (and why wouldn’t she be?) and Adora and Bow are trying to be supportive but it’s super stressful, though it did play out a bit differently. Turns out, rather than be nervous about whether or not she could fill her mother’s shoes and that everyone is looking down on her and judging her like I thought, she’s instead mega-pissed about how no one is even addressing the big THE QUEEN, WHO OH YEAH WAS MY MOM, IS SUPER DEAD! and is instead all going on and on about party arrangements and ceremonies and rituals and stupid stuff that doesn’t matter because her mom is dead and no one is even talking about it!

Bow and Adora certainly had the best of intentions, and I like how neither the show nor Glimmer made them out to be the bad guys in this despite them kind of making things worse. Glimmer’s hurting, but just not in the way they were thinking. Fortunately, in the end she got what she needed in hearing Angella’s final message to her, giving her some measure of closure and letting her accept her new position as Queen of Brightmoon and the leader of the Princess Rebellion, which is pretty much what she needed all along.

That having been said, I did kind of feel like her pain over losing her mom was resolved kind of...too neatly, I guess? I get that it’s a new season and they need to move the plot along, but even so. Still, just because she’s gotten some closure doesn’t mean that the wound is totally healed (because it never will be) and that this won’t come up again, so I’ll be keeping a close eye on her.

In other news, the other princesses were as delightful as always in their trying so hard to do things right but completely missing the point. Frosta was...kind of terrifying (poor Sea Hawk!), Mermista’s obsession with her “floral” arrangements were a hoot, and poor Perfuma really needs to get back to her hippie roots and get some meditation in while smoking some kush, because I feel that her patience for her fellow princesses is very close to running out and she’s just going to go all Poison Ivy on everyone. And jeez, someone rein Castespella in!

Though on a side note, I feel kind of bad for this, but Swift Wind continues to irk me. Yeah, I know he’s supposed to be a comic relief character, but at least the other characters were trying to do right by Glimmer in their weird, kind of egotistical ways, but he was making his thing all about him and...look, I’m sorry, but I just don’t like Swift Wind, okay?!

Also, give Netossa and Spinnerella something to do, already!

Ahem.

So, back to the bad guys’ side, that’s where things take a...fully predicted and interesting turn.

So, let’s talk about Catra.

Catra continues to be the most fascinating character in the entire show. On the one hand, she is very much an abuse victim, someone who was mistreated her entire life, who was forced to live in the shadow of her best friend, who was clearly starved for any kind of positive reinforcement but was constantly denied it, who was constantly told that she wasn’t good enough, that she was inadequate, that she was a failure, etc. It’s a terrible situation for anyone to be in, which is why her sympathetic moments play out so well.

But however, despite how she’s been treated by her so-called betters, Catra’s kind of the most competent character in the whole show. Every time she has the freedom to do things her way, she quite often comes out on top, and unless her deeply-seated issues get the better of her or some other happenstance that she couldn’t account for occurs, she tends to win. She is a master of psychological warfare and a terrific and cunning fighter, able to adapt to quickly changing situations and new environments scarily fast and get the drop on her opponents. Hell, she’s gone toe-to-toe with She-Ra and managed to hold her own just through her wits. 

And that has led her to having a rocketship strapped to her back, sending her soaring upward.

Through sort of a fluke, she was made Force Captain in Adora’s place and kicked ass. She out-thought Shadow Weaver and deposed of her, taking her power and her job. She made herself out to be the biggest threat the Rebellion has ever seen (I can’t remember the figures, but Entrapta once said that under her leadership, the Horde saw a massive leap in efficiency). When she was exiled to the Crimson Waste pretty much to die, she took it over in a day, captured Mara’s ship, took Adora’s sword, and brought it back to Hordak when he had pretty much written her off.

Point is, when she has her eye on the prize, Catra is almost unstoppable. And here we are shown what that prize is. She wants the Rebellion crushed and Etheria ready to offer up on a silver platter when Horde Prime finally arrives, as expected, though I truly doubt that has much to do with actually believing in the Horde’s right to rule and has more to do with it being because the Rebellion is where Adora and Shadow Weaver are. But regardless, it’s always been made very clear that she is in it for herself, and not out of any kind of loyalty to Hordak. I mean, after he treated her last season, why would it be? And now she has had it up to here with his constant moping despite having a distinct advantage that he’s not pressing.

So she decides to do something about it. Namely, she does to him what she did to Shadow Weaver: exploit her knowledge of his weaknesses and make him her bitch. 

Damn. I mean, we all saw it coming, but damn.

Catra’s...running the Horde now. I mean, Hordak’s probably still going to be the front, but she’s going to be the real power from now on, and that is really bad news for the good guys. And I have no doubt that that’s where Double Trouble comes in.

But anyway, as sympathetic as Catra’s story is, and as impressive as her actions have been, that doesn’t take away from the fact that she’s kind of become a really terrible person. Which is totally deliberate and the writing is great, don’t get me wrong! But she’s replaced both Shadow Weaver and Hordak, and like them, she has her own victim of her abusive behavior. 

Scorpia.

That scene honestly broke my heart, even if I saw it coming. Scorpia honestly is pretty much my favorite character. I love how she’s this big, powerful, intimidating person with a totally sweet, caring, awkward, and kind of ditzy personality. Her crush on Catra was pretty obvious from the get-go, and I loved their dynamic...for the first couple of seasons anyway. But as much as I got into the Scorptra train, it’s clear that it’s not going to work out, given how toxic Catra’s become, and Scorpia knows it, and it’s tearing her up. I am very interested in how her arc is going to turn out this season. I mean, she’s got an entire solo episode coming up, which I am very much looking forward to. But I hope that this is the catalyst that causes her to finally stand up to Catra and break away from the Horde. At the very least she doesn’t buy what Catra did to Entrapta one bit, and I love that she’s still looking after Emily. Maybe she and Hordak can team up and go to Beast Island to rescue our favorite autistic gadgeteer princess. 

But getting back to Catra, if the last season was seeing her at her lowest point, then this one will be seeing her at her highest, but on the side of evil. I predict that she’s finally going to get everything she’s convinced herself that she wants only to lose it all at the end, leading to her final arc in the final season. Now, will that be a true redemption arc like everyone is hoping for? Will Hordak redeem himself as well?

Well...probably not. 

See, I am totally on board with the two of them finally confronting the years of abuse that made them the way they were, breaking away from it, and actually becoming better people, but redemption does kind of mean making up for all the pain and damage that you’ve caused, and I’m afraid that they’re in waaaaaaaaaay too much debt to do that. 

However, they are perfectly capable of having a reformation arc. Because just because you can’t make up for what you’ve done doesn’t mean you can’t better yourself going forward.

Not Shadow Weaver though. Don’t think I didn’t notice you lurking around in that one scene. Honored guest my ass. She’s totally up to something.

[takerfoxx]

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, Season 3 FINALE, First Impressions.

=slowly sits down with my head in my hands=

=heavy sigh=

All right.

Let’s do this.

When we last left Adora, she had been instructed to “go back to the beginning” without really knowing what that means. But first she took a detour (with Madam Razz’s blessing) to go get Glimmer and Bow first. And when she arrived.

Oh. Oh no...

At first I thought reality had molded itself exclusively into what Catra wants. But now we see that it was doing it everything, creating a superficially perfect world. And in Glimmer’s perfect world, she has a wonderful relationship with her mother, Bow is still around but working as an apprentice historian (which, uh, raises...questions), and...

...um...

...and her father is still alive.

We finally meet King Micah, and he is every bit the loving and supportive father and husband he’s been made out to be. I was already steeling myself to be emotionally ravaged by this episode, but that got me. And it goes back to what I’ve said a hundred times before: execution is everything. I’ve seen this trope so many times, where a main character wakes in an alternate reality that’s happier than the one they’ve known, usually complete with a happy relationship with an absent parent. And normally it doesn’t do anything for me, but because this show had worked so hard to make me care about these characters, seeing King Micah there with his wife and daughter...it got to me. And it’s interesting to note that the “perfect” reality is constantly remodeling itself. When Adora was in the Fright Zone, the invasion was well underway with her having led the attack on Thaymor that we saw in the pilot and they were all gearing up to go after Mermista. But since the Fright Zone had been consumed by the collapse, the invasion had never even happened, and those in Brightmoon didn’t even know what the Horde was.

Unfortunately the collapse is still underway, and it comes to Brightmoon. Fortunately Glimmer and Bow come to believe Adora and they make their way to go see Entrapta for advice, but not before Glimmer’s home is destroyed, and not before Angella remembers who she is and has to say goodbye to Micah for the second time. What makes it worse is the heavy implication that this Micah isn’t some illusion conjured up to make her and Glimmer happy, but might be the actual Micah, returned from the dead. He seems to actually remember everything for himself and realize what’s going on...mere seconds before he’s consumed. 

Fuck.

Anyway, reality starts really breaking down then, and the BFS start getting shuffled around from place to place at lightning speed, all the while watching people they care about disappear. Fortunately, Entrapta lasts long enough to let them know that not only is reality collapsing around them, but it’s following Adora specifically since it was her sword that opened the portal. That’s why different places don’t seem to fall apart until she goes there. Entrapta also let’s them know how to bring things back to normal: they need to find Adora’s sword. Unfortunately, doing to will force whoever removes the sword from the portal to stay behind. When I heard that, I knew.

And well, they set off to do just that, but by then things have already gone too far. Reality is now truly fucked, cycling them through space and time. We see the old Etheria before it was removed from the universe. We finally meet Mara, hundreds of years in the past.

And we watch Bow and Glimmer disappear as well.

Yeah, I knew they were coming back, but by then I was so wrapped up in what was going on that it utterly destroyed me.

But Adora isn’t allowed time to grieve, because the long-awaited confrontation has finally come. Catra has found her, and she is so obsessed in denying Adora any sort of victory that she’ll gladly let time and space collapse in on itself and kill them all if it means that Adora loses.

Their battle through various various places we’ve visited throughout the show is in many ways a follow-up to The Promise, which was probably my favorite episode in the first season. They used to be so close, but now things have gone too far, and their relationship is all but unsalvageable. 

It’s then that Adora finally realizes that she can’t save her former best friend. Catra’s just too far gone. And as much as I love Catra and really do want her to find some measure of peace, Adora snapping back that no, she’s not the one to blame for how Catra turned out and punching her with an emphatic, “You made your choice! Now live with it!” was incredibly satisfying. Because she’s right. No, what happened to Catra wasn’t her fault, but ultimately she has to start taking responsibility for her own actions and stop blaming everyone else.

Well, Shadow Weaver could still stand to shoulder a good chunk of that blame...

And then we get to that scene. 

Well, you’re not wrong. And in the wise words of one of my childhood heroes...

I mean, I called it, didn’t I? I knew that the big tragic event was coming, and while I only figured out that it would be Angella, I still figured it out. But even though I saw it coming, even though I had time to brace myself, it still...

...

Fuck it.

Look, I have a very...complicated relationship with my parents. My dad is pretty mentally ill. At the very least he’s bipolar, and probably has several other things wrong with him too, causing him to be subject to sudden and extreme mood swings and paranoid thoughts. On top of it, he badly hurt his back when I was a kid which has left him in constant pain to this day, and what little details I’ve heard of his own childhood has painted him as being a damaged abuse survivor (sounds like someone else I know). As for my mom, well, she’s kind of like me, only a little less so. She’s a bit on the spectrum herself, and I’m pretty sure that even if she’s not outright aromantic, then she’s pretty damned close, and she has her own shit from her own past to work through. As such, he went into marriage looking for love, companionship, and support, while she was just getting married because she felt it was the thing to do, and she also wanted kids.

So while I’m glad that my brother, my sister, and I were brought into the world as a result, it’s clear that they never should have gotten together. Their relationship was constantly toxic and often mutually abusive, moreso on my dad’s end. And when you’re an autistic kid craving a stable and predictable environment growing up in a house that was anything but, when an offhand comment is perfectly fine one day but grounds for a full-on blow up the next, well, it’s...not exactly ideal. I was never physically or sexually abused or something like that, but one day he could be the goofiest, friendliest person in the world and the next one tiny joke will set him off. I mean, it wasn’t all bad. Hell, some of it was pretty great. He really did try to be a good father, and we shared a lot of the same interests, but he was a broken man in so many ways, battling demons that were just stronger than he was.

Anyway, they finally divorced when I was eighteen, and while that was pretty volatile, that was when I finally started to break out of my shell and develop into being my own person. Since then I’ve developed much healthier relationships with both of them. My mom and I have always gotten along great despite us sharing very few interests and having polar opposite political beliefs, and I still stop by to visit every other week to go to the movies or whatever. As for my dad, well, time, distance, and reflection have helped me to understand him better. I always knew that he truly does love us and was trying his best to be a good father, but he was sick and in constant conflict with his mind, with his body, and with his marriage. Nothing ever seemed to work out for him, and it got to him. But I’ll never forget this one story my mom told me about how soon after he had broken his back and lost his job as a result he would force himself to walk to job interviews despite being in so much pain that he could barely cross the parking lot, just because he felt that he had to provide for his family. I’ll always respect that about him, and while it doesn’t excuse the way he would often treat us when his demons took control, I understand him much better, and I pity him more than I resent him.

So, all of that big, long personal tangent to say this: I kind of am a sucker for stories about parental figures who are deeply flawed but do genuinely love their children and just work so hard to do right by them even if they don’t really understand how. 

I bawled at the end of Logan despite not really being a big Wolverine fan. Yondu’s funeral in Guardians of the Galaxy 2 is probably the only time a Marvel movie made me tear up. Brave might be considered one of the lesser Pixar movies, it will always be one of my favorites. 

Angella had been devastated by the loss of Micah, and that made her terrified of losing anyone else. It’s what caused the rift between her and her daughter. It’s what made her too scared to act. But despite labeling herself as a coward, she ultimately performed the bravest act, willingly laying down her life in order to save Etheria while trusting her daughter’s safety to Adora. 

Oh, Angella, you were the bravest one of us. I hope that wherever you are now, you found Micah there waiting for you.

The portal is closed, and reality is restored. But there is plenty of damage to go around. That glare that Adora shoots Catra tell volumes about how their relationship is now. And just that sad look on Hordak’s face as he touches the stone (which bears the run for Loved in First Ones’ Language!) in the armor Entrapta made for him also said so much. You know, I never considered the idea that an evil overlord might have some kind of redemption story. Those are usually reserved for rivals like Catra or good-hearted minions like Entrapta. But if they go that route...I’m not at all opposed. At the very least he has a very compelling character arc, and I really do hope he and Entrapta reunite.

Also, while I am okay with Shadow Weaver working for the good guys now, I hope she’s not let off the hook for all the pain she’s caused. Catra’s wrong about a lot of things, but she is right about how it’s messed up that Shadow Weaver just gets to be one of the good guys after all she’s done. Still, I trust this show to handle it right.

But poor, poor Glimmer. She’s the queen now! She’s the head of the Rebellion! She finally got what she wanted, but in the worst possible way.

And as for that stinger...shit. Reality might have been saved, but Hordak succeeded in getting his message out. And now Horde Prime is coming, and he’s bringing the Horde, the real Horde with him

Well, I guess that wraps that up. I’m all caught up with the show and it’s about halfway through its planned run. Thank you so much to everyone to pushed me into watching this show, I thoroughly loved it. Now we wait together.