![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahn...so... I recently seem to have got over my problem with watching anything, and while this is not exactly making me into a TV/movies/opera powerhouse, at least I am watching more than the -- was it zero? Oh, no, I watched Hamilton, that was it, and that took me a month -- the almost-zero of last year after April or so. Right now it is She-Ra (2018 reboot) which I'm really liking! I've now watched S1.
This is because ofase, partially as recompense for how -- months ago -- she was all "Hey, I'm watching She-Ra and I really like it!" and then I subjected her to a really long rant about how MUCH I loved She-Ra as a child (though I didn't watch many of the cartoons, as we had music lessons on Saturday mornings) and how my mom at my insistence got me some really really large percentage of the action figures (I give my mom a hard time sometimes. But sometimes she was like, you know what, I'm going to give my child something cool and it's going to be awesome -- and it was awesome!) and they were So Great, much better than Barbie or My Little Pony, because each one had a little gimmick (She-Ra herself had the double costume, Angela had wings that would flap, Glimmer had a glow-in-the-dark wand...). Just like the He-Man toys! also the fact that each one had a little shiny different-colored rhinestone as part of her costume and so this was one of the ways I could get shinies in my life through TOYS clearly had nothing to do with it, also see here Crystal Swift Wind, which I pestered my mom for a Lot even though I already had Original Swift Wind Um. She-Ra was a big part of my child life, that's all I'm saying.
So anyway, once my weird video-antipathy started clearing up, I started watching it, and hilariously I pinged ase after watching the pilot to be like "hey, what a cool origin story they came up with!" and it turned out that apparently it's the same origin story as in the original which I have been unspoiled for for... thirty-five years?? This is what happens when I don't watch enough cartoons :P Anyway, it's still a cool origin story and props to Larry DiTillio and J. Michael Straczynski for it :D It's really well done! Just everything is well done, the character interactions are great, the stories have a good blend of character work and tension and humor, it's got a whole bunch of Tropes I like. It's a kids' show, there are topics about Not Abandoning Friends and Working Together and Stuff but they never get too overpowering.
The one thing where I was shaking my fist a little was -- you will laugh -- Castapella: I remember nothing about Castapella in the original cartoon, but I (of course) had the action figure, and she has a cool shiny rotating disk on her back! I loved that rotating disk! WHY DOESN'T CASTAPELLA HAVE A SHINY DISC ON HER BACK. Maybe it will come in a later season. (Probably they just realized it looks totally dumb. Non-80's me concedes that it does look totally dumb. I don't care!!)
All the characters are just super great. I can't tell you how cool it is to be watching something where there are so many women of all different kinds that they're just... themselves. I love them all, and how all of them are so different (and better in ensemble than apart, which is awesome), but I do have a favorite: by the time we were done with the Mermista-centric episode (1x5) I was the biggest fan of Mermista (and of course my love for her just continued to grow). (I didn't have the Mermista action figure, and looking at pictures on google I am nearly 100% sure that this was... because... her action figure didn't have a rhinestone on it, so I didn't particularly want it. Lol, my child self was so predictable. I guess much like my adult self.) She is such a snarky unimpressed delight :D Also I have a pretty large fondness for Scorpia and am really pleased whenever her low-attention-span cuddly self (but she did attend Force Captain training!) is on screen :D
I'd remembered something was niggling at me about Entrapta and at the time I just chalked it down to confusing her with Castapella -- which I was also doing -- but I had forgotten that she was actually an evil character and once I realized that was her character arc I thought it was so great! :D On one hand vaguely side-eyeing the part where the scientist is the one who turns evil, and on the other hand (a) previous canon (b) Entrapta is so awesome that I don't even really care.
It's like frothy really good candy for me -- really fun and delicious and if I watch too much of it at once I can get a little tired of it? but if I pace myself a bit it's super awesome.
The absolute best thing about it, though, is that E LIKES IT. You guys, this is the FIRST audiovisual media she has ever, in her life, asked for more of!! I mean, it's got: a) swords b) robots c) magic d) lots of fights with swords and robots and magic, so it was basically made for her. But I am soooooo excited about this mostly because I really want her to watch more TV to get more of a sense as to how social interactions and conversations and things like that work, and also to be honest because it's really cool to for the first time share a fandom with her :D (In principle she likes some books that I do, but in practice she doesn't want to talk about them, whereas she is more interested in talking about She-Ra.)
(Though we were talking about Entrapta at dinner last night and D, who has not watched any of it, objected to the names: "With a name like Entrapta she has to be evil!" Which, uh, she is not at that episode yet, so he may have spoiled it for E, who has not yet learned tropes like that. And anyway at that point I told him about Castaspella's name and he had to agree that Entrapta wasn't the worst name :) )
And when Adora raises the sword and says for the first time, "For the honor of Grayskull!" I just. I JUST.
This is because of
ase, partially as recompense for how -- months ago -- she was all "Hey, I'm watching She-Ra and I really like it!" and then I subjected her to a really long rant about how MUCH I loved She-Ra as a child (though I didn't watch many of the cartoons, as we had music lessons on Saturday mornings) and how my mom at my insistence got me some really really large percentage of the action figures (I give my mom a hard time sometimes. But sometimes she was like, you know what, I'm going to give my child something cool and it's going to be awesome -- and it was awesome!) and they were So Great, much better than Barbie or My Little Pony, because each one had a little gimmick (She-Ra herself had the double costume, Angela had wings that would flap, Glimmer had a glow-in-the-dark wand...). Just like the He-Man toys! So anyway, once my weird video-antipathy started clearing up, I started watching it, and hilariously I pinged ase after watching the pilot to be like "hey, what a cool origin story they came up with!" and it turned out that apparently it's the same origin story as in the original which I have been unspoiled for for... thirty-five years?? This is what happens when I don't watch enough cartoons :P Anyway, it's still a cool origin story and props to Larry DiTillio and J. Michael Straczynski for it :D It's really well done! Just everything is well done, the character interactions are great, the stories have a good blend of character work and tension and humor, it's got a whole bunch of Tropes I like. It's a kids' show, there are topics about Not Abandoning Friends and Working Together and Stuff but they never get too overpowering.
The one thing where I was shaking my fist a little was -- you will laugh -- Castapella: I remember nothing about Castapella in the original cartoon, but I (of course) had the action figure, and she has a cool shiny rotating disk on her back! I loved that rotating disk! WHY DOESN'T CASTAPELLA HAVE A SHINY DISC ON HER BACK. Maybe it will come in a later season. (Probably they just realized it looks totally dumb. Non-80's me concedes that it does look totally dumb. I don't care!!)
All the characters are just super great. I can't tell you how cool it is to be watching something where there are so many women of all different kinds that they're just... themselves. I love them all, and how all of them are so different (and better in ensemble than apart, which is awesome), but I do have a favorite: by the time we were done with the Mermista-centric episode (1x5) I was the biggest fan of Mermista (and of course my love for her just continued to grow). (I didn't have the Mermista action figure, and looking at pictures on google I am nearly 100% sure that this was... because... her action figure didn't have a rhinestone on it, so I didn't particularly want it. Lol, my child self was so predictable. I guess much like my adult self.) She is such a snarky unimpressed delight :D Also I have a pretty large fondness for Scorpia and am really pleased whenever her low-attention-span cuddly self (but she did attend Force Captain training!) is on screen :D
I'd remembered something was niggling at me about Entrapta and at the time I just chalked it down to confusing her with Castapella -- which I was also doing -- but I had forgotten that she was actually an evil character and once I realized that was her character arc I thought it was so great! :D On one hand vaguely side-eyeing the part where the scientist is the one who turns evil, and on the other hand (a) previous canon (b) Entrapta is so awesome that I don't even really care.
It's like frothy really good candy for me -- really fun and delicious and if I watch too much of it at once I can get a little tired of it? but if I pace myself a bit it's super awesome.
The absolute best thing about it, though, is that E LIKES IT. You guys, this is the FIRST audiovisual media she has ever, in her life, asked for more of!! I mean, it's got: a) swords b) robots c) magic d) lots of fights with swords and robots and magic, so it was basically made for her. But I am soooooo excited about this mostly because I really want her to watch more TV to get more of a sense as to how social interactions and conversations and things like that work, and also to be honest because it's really cool to for the first time share a fandom with her :D (In principle she likes some books that I do, but in practice she doesn't want to talk about them, whereas she is more interested in talking about She-Ra.)
(Though we were talking about Entrapta at dinner last night and D, who has not watched any of it, objected to the names: "With a name like Entrapta she has to be evil!" Which, uh, she is not at that episode yet, so he may have spoiled it for E, who has not yet learned tropes like that. And anyway at that point I told him about Castaspella's name and he had to agree that Entrapta wasn't the worst name :) )
And when Adora raises the sword and says for the first time, "For the honor of Grayskull!" I just. I JUST.
no subject
Date: 2021-01-26 06:54 am (UTC)I came in to it not having seen the original (or not having retained any memory of doing so, at least) so enjoying reading your recollections!
no subject
Date: 2021-01-26 08:19 pm (UTC)It's funny, because I had lots of memories about the action figures, and apparently very few about the actual show, lol :D