Meta: Random Musings

Unless you’ve been paying no attention whatsoever (and hey, maybe you weren’t, there is a pandemic and police riots going on) you’ll know that the fifth and final season of She Ra dropped on Netflix last month, a season which just happened to coincide with the seventh episode of the second season of DC’s animated Harley Quinn.

Both shows revolve around the intense relationships that exist between their two (rather damaged) female leads, and on May 15th, both culminated in a Big Damn Kiss.

Ecstatic by the success of their escape from a giant prison-pit, Harley and Ivy spontaneously kissed each other before recoiling in shock, while over on She Ra, Adora receives (and returns) a kiss from her long-time rival/childhood friend/mortal enemy/love interest Catra while on the verge of death.

Two very different contexts for two same-sex kisses, but as you can imagine: there was much rejoicing.

Naturally comparisons have been made to The Legend of Korra, whose final episode depicted Korra and Asami walking off into the spirit world together, but also the most recent Star Wars film in regards to the way the two leads spend most of their screen-time on opposite sides of a conflict, with the latter going through a redemption arc before they eventually reconcile. Naturally I have stuff to say about all this, as most of the discourse (that dreaded word) has sparked reactions ranging from bemusement to irritation to “what the hell are these guys talking about??”

But it’s a fascinating time we live in, and so below the cut are some random musings on the intersectionality of redemption, enemies-to-lovers arcs, and Sapphic love…

(Warning: I'm gonna talk more shit about Star Wars, so if you're sick of that, best give this a miss...)

Reading/Watching Log #53

Lockdown has finished in New Zealand, and hopefully we’ll be moving into Level 1 soon, which means a loosening of the social distancing and ongoing disinfecting regulations we’re currently living under (and subsequently, an assurance that we’ve flattened the curve on the spread of Covid-19. At the time of this writing, there’s only one active case left in the country; everyone else is recovering).

With the end of lockdown, I moved back into my New Years Resolution of focusing on women-centric stories, though a few variations on this rule slipped by during quarantine, in which I returned to a lot of my favourite films from childhood/adolescence. Some I hadn’t watched in years, and it turns out I had great taste in my younger years, considering they all hold up extremely well today. It got a little surreal at times actually, as watching things in isolation that were so formative to my childhood (which already managed to mess up my sense of the passing of days) was like stepping into a time vortex.

So in here we've got treasure islands, secret gardens, stage magicians, wild swans, Greek gods, magic carpets, sentient robots and undead mummies. Plus, another win for LGBTQ happy endings. Man, a part of me is going to miss having all the time in the world to race through so many books and shows...