i read your analysis posts about catra & adora in "taking control", and i'm curious what your take on "don't go" is, since it's supposed to kinda fill in the gaps of that episode?
Short answer: I haven't read it, and don't particularily intend to?
Longer answer: I don't assign much weight to supplementary materials in general; while con panels, early drafts, cut scenes, etc can be interesting for the insight they give into the creative process (and can absolutely be mined for fun headcanons or fic ideas), at the end of the day, the show is the show.
If there are parts that didn't work as aired - the only way that the majority of the audience is going to interact with it - then those parts didn't work, and I'm more interested in understanding why they didn't than in finding an after-the-fact fix.
And I feel the need to repeat: my frustration with Taking Control isn't in any particular diagetic event - it's in how those events ended up being framed. "Adora, desperate to regain Catra's affection, lets her worst impulses get the best of her, realizes that, backs down, and in so doing gets a taste of the prize she's been so desperately trying to seize." is a perfectly solid plot, and absolutely the right beat for that point in the narrative.
It's just badly undermined by a camera that seems to be sitting there going "oh, but really, those worst impulses aren't so bad."

















