#she-ra thoughts

[applecidersstuff]

Can we just talk about how terrifying Entrapta can be?

She’s like doctor Octavius but you can’t disconnect her ‘tentacles’ from her. If you throw her into battle she’ll be able to just strangle everyone on the field with her hair.

She can lift herself with it and drag Hordak with STRANDS OF IT. I honestly think she can just lift people by their feet and keep them there for a while because you can hardly do anything about it if you’re hanging feet up.

[immortalcheesewedge]

Adora And The Dangers Of Atlas Personality

I know that we’re all crying over CatrAdora and the ending in general but I wanted to bring up something else that’s been a bit glossed over that’s also fairly important, and that’s this scene.

This moment is so important. I’ve Identified with Adora very heavily because we both have an Atlas Personality, aka someone who holds the whole world up on their shoulders and puts others before themselves even when it’s bad for their own safety or emotional wellbeing. There’s the saying put your oxygen mask on before helping the other passangers, well Atlas Personality is not putting on your own mask at all until everyone else on the plane has their own on. Sound familiar? Because that’s Adora to a T.

And one of the biggest, most important, and least common questions you have to ask when you throw yourself into the fire for other people is what do you want, what do you need? I cried when I watched this because these are words that I myself needed to hear and I’m sure my fellow Atlas Personality sufferers feel the same way.

When you only think for others, when taking care of yourself makes you feel guilty, it is inconcievable that you are allowed to think about your own wellbeing. It is unfathomable that, as Mara says, you are worth more than what you can give to other people. That you deserve love too. That you’re worthy of other’s effort and time. That you don’t have to take everything on yourself.

And while this could’ve been adressed a bit more, I am absolutely thrilled to see this be brought up at all, Atlas Personality is very rarely shown as a problem, selflessness is the mark of a true hero in almost every other story I have ever seen, but in reality it’s a very dangerous thing to your own wellbeing, physically and emotionally. It’s not bad to take care of others but it is bad to do it at the cost of your own hapiness or your own life.

So, thank you She-Ra. Thank you for not only being incredible representation for LGBT+ members, for POC, for abuse victims, but thank you for being a ponient representation of Atlas Personality.

[avese23]

Finally putting my response to she-ra in words (and not even scratching the surface of my emotions)

What She-ra has done a really good job at is allowing so many people of various backgrounds and identities to be seen, which is hard to find. Media is often targeted at a very specific demographic which can be isolating to those with intersecting identities, or underrepresented ones. What I love about She-ra is that in making its show so diverse it caters to a very diverse audience, which is probably why it has for the most part cultivated a healthy fandom. As a cosplayer of color, it means so much to me to have characters in the main cast who look like me. People with skin tones or body types that are seen as "other" can often be invalidated by the cosplay community, especially when so many popular cosplays are of thin and light-skinned characters. While not perfect, the show managed to include in-depth and engaging character and story arcs in a very short amount of time. Something I have noticed about depictions of queer relationships and characters is they are often lazily written in comparison to their straight counterparts, either because they were thrown in as an afterthought, or because parts of their arcs were cut in order to appease a more conservative audience. When watching She-ra it was incredibly clear that the show was made by a queer creator and one who understood fandom. As a queer teen and a fangirl it's refreshing to see a show which is willing to embrace the fanbase and our ideas and emotions and identities instead of treating them as a joke (Supernatural), something to be exploited (Teen Wolf) or less valid than the authorial intent (Harry Potter). Even when fan theories aren't "canon", the show's creators don't treat those theories as lesser, and there's no expectation that a head-canon be dropped just because the show ended up going in a different direction. The show as a whole was so powerful, season 5 in particular. I'm not exaggerating when I say it took me months to recover from watching it, and I still get teary when I think too hard about the Catradora kiss. Shows like she-ra open so many doors for the future of animation and children's entertainment. It makes me so happy that my sister (who's as close to the target demographic as you can get) will grow up with shows like She-ra, or Kipo, or the Owl House. That so many kids like her have been introduced to important (yet often censored) topics such as gender and sexuality, escaping abusive relationships, and self-love. The show also introduced me to Noelle Stevenson. While I was aware of both Lumberjanes and Nimona, I haven't read either yet so I wasn't familiar with their author beforehand. Noelle is probably one of my greatest inspirations. Besides being a total icon, she's shown queer artists and writers like me that we can get our stories told through something as mainstream as a Netflix show.

[maddog1595]

It’d be funny if they made Kyle, He-Man. lol just a thought

[immortalcheesewedge]

Not to alarm anyone but when season 4 starts it’s going to start with literally everyone depressed ESPECIALLY Glimmer who’s probably going to be shut in her room.

Imagine if you will, Glimmer lying curled up in a ball on her bed silently. Bow opens the door slowly, carrying a plate of food for her since she hasn’t left her room at all in days or perhaps even weeks. Bow asks ‘Are you hungry?” in an attempt at a cheerful tone, ‘I brought you dinner.’ He says as he takes her plate from lunch and puts down the dinner plate, said lunch plate completely untouched, just like her breakfast plate that morning. It’s clear Bow is seriously concerned but he doesn’t say anything. Glimmer doesn’t say anything either, she just curls up tighter. Bow opens one of the drapes to let a little light into the room and tries to start a conversation but she doesn’t say anything in response. Giving up, Bow leaves, but before he closes the door he says one last thing ‘I care about you Glimmer. We all do. If you need someone to talk to, we’re all here for you.’ And he leaves. Glimmer shifts to look at the door after he closes it and turns back over, starting to cry again.

[immortalcheesewedge]

So I watched SPOP Season 3

And oh okay that hurts I don’t know if I can smile ever again- Okay just kidding that was so incredibly emotionally charged and felt like a REAL finale unlike season 2 and... Wow.

I’m so completely and utterly blown away that I don’t even know what to say.

I’m just going to talk about the finale because I want to shut up

We went everywhere we’ve ever been. We saw Micah. We saw Mara. We saw a warped ‘perfect’ reality of what could’ve happened. We watched these character’s we’ve come to love and care about fade from existence. 

When Scorpia vanished, it was abrupt, it didn’t have emotional weight because Adora didn’t know Scorpia that well. 

Then... Then we saw Lani vanish, scared, confused... It was just as abrupt but it hurt. She knew what was happening to her, ADORA knew what was happening to her, WE knew exactly what her last moments in this warped reality was like.

Then Catra remembered. And the two fought. And Catra seemingly fell into the portal. Adora was destroyed. We were destroyed. 

We saw Raz. A small bit of comfort in this horrible situation. We saw this wonderful character we haven’t seen since the very first season and episodes reappear, only to somberly walk right into her demise.

We saw Micah. We saw Angela. We saw Bow and Glimmer. We saw what a happy family they would have had if Micah was still alive. We saw the life Bow would have had, a life he didn’t want. We saw that while almost everyone was changed in some way by this reality that Glimmer’s stubbornness, her bravery, it all stayed intact. 

We watched as Angela realized that this wasn’t right. We watched her realize her husband was dead. We watched her fly off, leaving him to die, his last words being ‘I LOV-’ before he faded away back into the cold abyss of death.

We watched as Entrapta knew exactly what was going on, we watched her realize what was happening. With an incredibly heavy heart, I cried as I watched her slowly fade away with a smile on her face, encouraging the others to go. The first ‘big’ death of this sequence. I’m crying right now just thinking of this scene. Those writers really knew what they were doing...

We watched the best friend squad go to the tower. We watched Adora try to leave them behind but neither of them would let her. We watched them tell Adora how much they care about her. And we watched them fade away, encouraging Adora that she could fix this. 

And then we saw Catra. An awful half-destroyed version of her. We watched Catra voice every single fear and doubt Adora was feeling. We watched her fight and beat up Adora. And then..

We watched Adora rebuke her. We watched Adora finally find the strength to Let. Go. Of. Catra. We watched her cast away the emotional weight that had been dragging her down, the guilt... 

We watched as ‘Catra’ disintegrated.

We watched as Adora fell into the void, her hands slowly vanishing just as all her friends had vanished. But then...

Angela came in. She saved Adora and brought her back, away from the ruined world. There they stood together, right in front of the key to ending it all.

But, the catch... If Adora closes it, she’ll be trapped in limbo. Forever.

But Angela wasn’t going to let that happen. She stood there, she told Adora everything. About how she was a coward, how Micah was the brave one, how much Glimmer reminder her of him... How proud she was of all of them...

And then...

Angela was brave for the first time. She sacrificed herself to close the portal. 

I was sobbing during that entire scene. And then everyone was back.

And Glimmer started talking about how her mom is going to ground her for the rest of her life, and all Adora can do is walk over to Glimmer and hug her, tears in her eyes. 

Angela is gone. Glimmer’s only family left is gone. 

The reality Adora found herself in was ‘perfect.’ Catra didn’t hate her. Shadow Weaver wasn’t nearly as abusive. Glimmer had both her parents, she had a happy life learning magic and getting help from her dad. Bow was a historian, he wasn’t in constant danger of getting hurt in a fight. Entrapta had all the robot friends she wanted, she was safe in her lab and not en route to Beast Island with Hordak assuming she betrayed him. Scorpia was safe, not stuck seeing the girl she loves turn into a horrific monster. 

But it wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t right. Nothing is perfect. Etheria, just like our own world, is inherently flawed. So is life, that’s just how it is.

The world, reality itself, is broken. It has flaws, it has downsides, but it’s still good. Yeah... Still good.

[immortalcheesewedge]

I just realized something

Remember this scene?

Something I hadn’t even thought of occurred to me

This came shortly after episode 7, the episode that delved into Adora’s abusive relationship with Shadow Weaver. Glimmer saw all episode how she was unraveling with complete and utter fear and paranoia, Adora told her and Bow all about their completely toxic relationship, she knows what this awful woman has done to Adora. And here she is, trying to take Adora away from her, from them, from everyone, to take back to that same toxic, abusive environment with her memories wiped so she’ll stay there contentedly, unaware of howawful the Fright Zone is because that’s all she’ll know. 

Glimmer watches this, she had been told that she’ll be traded for her mother,  the rebellion will be no more, the Horde will have no resistance, all will be lost. She tried to teleport at that, but she couldn’t. This time however

As she reels with what exactly Shadow Weaver is doing to her friend, of how she will literally take Adora away from them all and be free to hurt her again...

Something happens.

This time, she absolutely can’t allow herself to fail. She can’t. She powers through her restraints and teleports out of them, screaming out in anger as she delivers a magic infused punch to the horrible woman that’s hurting her friend

She hits her hard enough that Shadow Weaver is down for the count.

She didn’t do this thinking ‘Adora is in pain right now,’ she did this thinking ‘If I don’t do something the Adora I know will be gone and she’ll be trapped with this monster again.’ Glimmer is one hell of a friend.