#these monsters are priming to do something unspeakably evil and then say 'but we told the civilians to leave!'

[nabulsi]

Israel told the tens of thousands of people sheltering in AlShifa that they have 1 hour - One Hour - to evacuate the hospital

[ramblings-of-a-mad-cat]

How do you feel about Catra, Shadow Weaver, and Hordak? I know you said you find SW interesting but like on a scale how redeemable do you think these characters are. Ive seen a lot of infighting in the fandom cause some people love one and hate another and I just figured you would approach the topic nicely

Oh damn, happy to respond! (Under the cut because I don’t know how to shut up.) 

I think I’ve seen some of the posts that you’re talking about, and my friend did tell me that there was apparently tension between Entrapdak and Catradora shippers for that very reason. Still, I should start off by saying that the only character who is probably completely irredeemable is Horde Prime. And knowing this show, they’ll find a way to humanize even him if they are so inclined. The great thing about She-Ra is that there aren’t so much heroes and villains as there are complicated people. Undertale is the same way. This might sound weird, but I legitimately hope Horde Prime does get humanized, because otherwise it’s just way too easy for all of the characters to band together and take him out for a happy ending. This show has never had a character that was pure evil before, know what I mean? 

With that in mind...let’s talk about Hordak. 

I know, I know...before Horde Prime was known to us...Hordak basically was Horde Prime. That’s the role he played in the show, and it’s not like he isn’t guilty of countless war crimes. He’s a conqueror, and yeah, conquerors should not get off scot-free. But...Hordak is also clearly an abuse victim. That doesn’t excuse him from what he’s done, but I can’t just ignore it. He was so eager to get back to Horde Prime, so determined to please him and prove himself to his “big brother.” and the moment that they’re reunited? We see what a nightmare it is for Hordak, see him get mentally violated and brain-washed. This can’t be the first time it’s happened, and yet all Hordak wanted was to return to Horde Prime. This man is so sheltered and so emotionally stunted in relationships, that I doubt he understands the full ramifications of his actions. He certainly doesn’t understand that he’s in abusive relationship. Hordak is just doing what he knows. He could learn better, if he learns to accept what a monster Horde Prime is. (But first he’ll need to break from the conditioning.)

 I genuinely like how it took Entrapta, a character who isn’t really loyal to either side, to reach out to him and help him understand how it feels for a person to care about him, and not fear him even when he tries to be intimidating. And whether or not you ship them, (I do, I admit it) Hordak clearly has feelings for her and that guides his character in Season 4. I don’t know if Adora and the others will agree to take him in...but Entrapta will remember the bond they had. I just feel so bad for this guy, even if he has killed countless innocents. My philosophy about redeeming villains is very much a pragmatic one...will Hordak’s redemption spit in the face of all his victims? Perhaps. Will it bring them back to life? No. But neither will executing him or throwing him in prison. If he can heal, if he can learn better, and do better...why should we waste that growth? Why shouldn’t he be allowed the chance to make up for what he’s done? It seems to me like there is everything to be gained, and nothing to be lost, in letting him redeem himself.

Of course, there are many types of crimes...let’s move on to Shadow Weaver.

....She’s a child abuser. Plain and simple. That is a hard pill to swallow, that is a very difficult thing for me to look past. I don’t think I can do it. The way she treated Catra, the way it’s ruined Catra and Adora’s relationship...it’s unspeakable. She manipulates Catra one last time and leaves her high and dry so she can escape and go to Bright Moon...whereupon, she starts grooming Glimmer the same way she did Micah. I know it seems silly to be more upset about child abuse than what probably amounts to genocide on Hordak’s part...but part of it is how relatable the crimes are. There’s a reason most Harry Potter fans hate Umbridge more than Voldemort. Most people don’t know a mass-murderer, and excusing a character like Hordak won’t change their perspective on murder being wrong. But plenty of people might know an abuser, and abusers thrive on a culture that blames victims and downplays the effects of abuse, or otherwise excuses those responsible. We need to get better about sending the message that abuse is real, and wrong. But the great thing about She-Ra is that it depicts the cycle, from Shadow Weaver to Catra. If Catra is redeemable, why not Shadow Weaver? 

And here’s the thing...I’m not saying she isn’t redeemable. Just that I don’t expect this show to fully redeem her, and I’m 100% behind that outcome. She could be allowed to live in peace with the other characters, her victims might forgive or at least tolerate her. (Especially if she wins over Micah again.) But even if I find her genuinely compelling...I’m not seeing too many outcomes where she would deserve this mercy. Shadow Weaver has done terrible, selfish things, and her only loyalties seem to lie with knowledge and power. She’s completely unrepentant, and while she acknowledges that she was “hard on Catra” she also refuses to apologize. Shadow Weaver strikes me very much as a kind of “no regrets” type of person. But she also has a fascination with power, and any time she sees a youngin’ with a lot of potential, (Micah, Adora) she seeks to train them. Considering how poor her record is...she needs to stop doing this. I might be inclined to forgive Shadow Weaver, if she acknowledges her own short-comings, apologizes to the people she’s hurt, and realizes that looking after children is not something she’s cut out to do.  

Finally, there’s Catra. 

In many ways, she’s my favorite character. (Though I also might go with Glimmer.) The story is largely centered around Catra’s journey alongside Adora’s...she might as well be a secondary protagonist. What’s more, she’s a character who we basically know is going to get redeemed, Noelle has all but told us that it’s going to happen. I’m fine with her getting redeemed but so help me god if she dies in the process....if any aspiring writers are reading this, please stop killing your villains to complete their redemption arcs. Let them enjoy being redeemed. Please. Anyway, where was I? Ah that’s right, Catra. There have been times that I was beyond frustrated with her because she was purposefully choosing to be “evil” as Double Trouble lampshades at the end of Season 4. By the time she opened up the Portal, after sentencing Entrapta to die, nearly dooming the entire world, causing Angela’s death, and despite it all she still blamed Adora even though she only did all of this because she wanted to beat Adora...yeah, I was really running out of patience for Catra. And even now, I can’t really bring myself to agree with the fans as they draw parallels between Catra opening the Portal and Glimmer activating the Heart of Etheria. I’m sure this was intentional, too. The echoing of two characters dooming everyone through an impulsive, reckless choice. However...as I said, Catra was pretty much going off the deep end when she opened the Portal. She just wanted to stick it to Adora. I realize I may be biased as a Glimmer stan, but Glimmer was at least trying to defeat the Horde. Her intentions, however misguided, were noble. She thought she was doing the right thing. Catra just didn’t care. 

All this, and you might think I’m Anti-Catra, that I await her inevitable redemption with gritted teeth. But that’s not true at all. Catra is a character who is her own worst enemy, and characters like that have a knack for winning my sympathy. She continues to dig herself into a deeper hole and hurts those around her in the process. Part of her journey is realizing that and presumably working to change it. This is why I love how distant she becomes from Lonnie and the others in S4. Why I love Double Trouble betraying and completely shutting her down with their monologue about her. Why I cheered louder than you can imagine at “You’re a bad friend.” Because it was such an amazing crossroads in the development of both Scorpia and Catra’s characters. To be clear, I love these moments not because I dislike Catra, but because I genuinely like her as a character, and Catra as a “good guy” is a lot of fun. I don’t know how many people remember what it was like in the first episode when Catra and Adora were still besties, but it was just generally fun. I miss that dynamic. I want Catra to learn from her mistakes. Because I rambled on about the terrible things Shadow Weaver has done, and onscreen those were primarily done to Catra. She’s a character that I am rooting for one-hundred percent. A character who is almost a deconstruction of the tired writing trope “They had a hard childhood, and now that you know that, they are redeemed.” Catra turns that on it’s head. “Promise” is one of my favorite episodes for this very reason. Few moments have gotten me as choked up as Adora saying that she thought Catra didn’t care about being Force Captain, and Catra exploding with “Well I was lying, obviously!” It was a reveal that I genuinely didn’t see coming, but it makes so much sense, and demonstrates how much Catra has sacrificed for Adora and how much that weighs on her every time she makes a villainous decision. 

TL;DR: I am one-hundred percent on board with Catra and Hordak redemption, and tentatively on board with Shadow Weaver redemption.

[laguera25]

Movie Review:  Glass--SPOILERS

Most critical reviews are decidedly meh about <i>Glass</i>, but it resonated profoundly with me because it's situated within a disabled perspective.  Oh, there's some window dressing about human evolution and the advent of a new superhero age, but at its heart, it's about exploring the world from a disabled perspective and is a fine bit of disability horror.  While Glass, with his osteogenesis imperfecta and his wheelchair, is the most obvious symbol of this worldview, Kevin and David are part of it as well, and while a lot of reviewers are pissing and moaning about the tedium of the hospital interlude, I found it mesmerizing because it perfectly encapsulated the darkest horrors and unglamorous realities of disabled life.

If you are disabled, you are robbed of the illusion of control that is so freely granted to everyone else as soon as they can walk or crawl or otherwise propel themselves through the world.  Your life is not your own.  You can say no, but there is no guarantee that it will be honored, and, in fact, a good chance it will be ignored, and if you protest or disagree, you will be punished.  The parameters of your world will be defined howsoever they choose, and there will be no escape, and the doctors and orderlies who possess the power to expand or contract your horizons as they see fit will tell themselves--and you, ad nauseam--that it is for your own good. Disagree, and they will wield your intransigence as further proof of your unfitness for society.  After all, if you were truly rational, you would see that the world isn't safe or meant for you and would be grateful for their protection, which manifests in isolation, regimentation, and a cocktail of punitive drugs.  And if you persist in trying to slip the yoke of their charity, well, they'll just have to manhaul you into surgery and laser your brains out to make you more tractable.

In this warped world, Elijah and Kevin aren't evil monsters who derail trains and eat people, but victims trying to buck the status quo that fears difference so much that it is willing to quash it by any means necessary, even if it means mindfucking superheroes and drowning them in puddles to keep the truth from getting out.

The counseling session is a masterclass in manipulation and malignant ableism.  Of course you're not special, Dr. Staple tells them again and again.  You're not something greater.  You are, in fact, broken, delusional aberrations who need to be convinced of your weakness, your need to be shut away.  Because you are incapable of seeing the truth, don't you think it would be best if you let us take care of you?  Stay in an institution.  Out of sight, out of mind, and no one will have to be burdened by knowledge of you.  For someone who meets this attitude on a subliminal level every day, this is prime nightmare fuel.

I'm not sure how aware of these implications M. Night Shyamalan was when he was filming, but two scenes make me think he had an inkling, a shadow glimpsed from the corner of his eye.  The first is the memory elicited from Elijah by the laser when Staple tries to scramble his brains.  In it, he's a young boy at a fair with a pair of enormous stuffed lions under his arms.  We watch as he gets on a ride called the [something] Tornado that looks like a bigger, more hurl-inducing version of the teacup ride.  We know there is only one way this can end as he climbs into the seat and buffers himself with his stuffed lions and wraps a scarf around his hands to insulate them from the bone-jarring g-forces of the lap bar, and my heart broke because even as the fusty, jaded adult in me was foaming at the mouth at him for doing something so cataclysmically dumb, my heart cried out in anguished sympathy because he just wanted to be a kid and go on all the whizzing, whirling rides like everybody else, to know the exhilaration of feeling like you could touch the clouds.  He just wanted to do something fun without having to hold referendums on whether he should and strategize about it like it was a goddamn military campaign, and for anyone who recognizes that yearning, what happens next is excruciating.

It doesn't work.  The lions slide to the floor and the scarf unwinds from his hands, and gravity and inevitability do their awful work.  The joyous wonder in his eyes as he whirls around and around becomes terror as realization dawns and then agony as bones shatter against gaily-colored steel.  It's not fair.  The cold reality of his disability has won over his hope and idealism.  No matter how much he wishes it, he will never be able to move through the world as easily as everyone else, without the grim, unwelcome knowledge that every movement could bring unspeakable pain and life itself is an act of endurance and howling defiance.  It's the innocence of childhood juxtaposed against the inflexible cruelty of what is, proof that magical thinking doesn't always beat the monster.

The second comes at the end of the climactic battle in the hospital yard.  Kevin/The Beast has discovered the truth about Glass' motives and shattered his sternum.  The injuries are fatal, and his distraught mother rushes to comfort him.

"I wasn't a mistake, Mama," he croaks.  It's meant to be an affirmation, but it's uncertain, fifty going on five, and he searches her face with raw need.

"No, baby, you weren't.  You were spectacular."

And that's the heart of this movie.  The maternal affirmation that every heart seeks but so few disabled hearts get.  All Elijah wants to hear as his life slips away is that he wasn't regretted by the one who should have loved him most.  It's such a low bar to clear given that mothers of rapists and kiddie fiddlers will sob and swear that their precious baby isn't bad, just misunderstood, but it might as well be hurdling Everest in a world where parents become martyrs by blogging to the whole world how much it sucks to be the mother(it's almost always the mother)of a disabled child.  Everywhere we look, we see markers of how unwanted we are in a world not made for us and that makes zero effort to make it so, and even our families often treat us as a burden assumed rather than a vital new thread in the family tapestry.

I suspect Shyamalan suspects this, too, which is why he gives us a hopeful ending that falls flat.  Despite Dr. Staple's best efforts to quash all evidence of superheroes, Elijah has outfoxed her by making sure footage of the final battle and their executions is uploaded to the web and disseminated to anyone with a connection.  

"This is our ticket to the rest of the universe," Mother Glass says hopefully as the video goes viral and people watch in disbelief.

It's a lovely sentiment, but sentiment is all it is because you can see by the news chyrons at the bottom of every screen how it will be presented.  As far as the media is concerned, these weren't superheroes murdered to suppress their existence, but three escaped lunatics under the influence  of psychosis and adverse drug interactions who were killed for the public good.  In a day or two, the hamster wheels that spin the public attention span will veer in a different direction, and the secret will remain safe.

Of course most people are whinging about the dearth of badass superhero fights in this movie because the story Shyamalan told, whether he meant to or not, wasn't calibrated to their frequency and didn't reflect their emotional landscape.  They've never had to worry about visibility and freedom because they have always assumed both, and the titanic struggle for recognition and integration happened in a language they will never speak on a level beyond flying fists and bulging pecs and artistic explosions.  If there isn't an epic fight and an epic fuck, it's not a story worth their time.