#Star Trek Discovery is really really good by the way | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

quasi-normalcy · 2 months ago

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So there's this thread on the Star Trek subreddit asking everyone what exactly they don't like about Discovery, and, inevitably, most of the answers are pretty bland, surface-level whining about "people crying" or whatever (something that famously has never happened before on Star Trek)

(He's just rubbing his eyes, don't mind him)

But I actually wanted to get into the weeds of it a fair amount, and so I wrote a post that became way longer than I anticipated. So below (specifying first that I don't actually hate it by any means), here's my in-depth critique of Discovery as a science fiction writer and fan:

Basically issue is this: much has been written about how Star Trek is a utopian future, a positive vision for humanity and yada yada yada…and all of these things are true. And in fact, I believe that Discovery—after its first season, at least—fits into this tradition. And I’m glad that this is true of Star Trek; I wouldn’t like it half as much if it were like, say, Babylon 5, or Battlestar Galactica.

But.

Star Trek is also fundamentally a science fiction story. And more to the point, it’s a specific kind of science fiction story: it’s science fiction in the vein of Isaac Asimov. When it works, a good Star Trek story—like a good Asimov story—works as a sort of a mystery or riddle or logic puzzle. Our heroes are faced with some problem, and we, the audience, are given clues to the solution. And if we, and the heroes, are clever, our perspective on the problem shifts and there’s this beautiful Aha! moment when suddenly everything falls into place.

Why is the Horta killing those miners? It’s a mother protecting her young.

Why does everyone keep disappearing on Beverly? The don’t; she’s the one who disappeared, all of this is a false reality, and her friends are trying desperately to save her.

How are they going to bring the Romulans into the war? By making it look like the Dominion murdered their senator.

Now, not all Star Treks (nor all Asimov stories, honestly) fit into this mould. Sometimes the problem is poorly set up; sometimes the solution doesn’t really make sense. Too often, they’re just technobabble problems with technobabble solutions and you’re just left wondering why anyone should care. And indeed, some of the very best Star Trek episodes have an entirely different structure. Like I think that “Living Witness” is honestly the best Star Trek story ever told, and it doesn’t even try to fit into the mould. Nor does “Family”. Nor does “Bar Association” or any number of my other favourite episodes. But I still think that this is the baseline Star Trek plot: clever people in space encountering problems—whether scientific, diplomatic, political, engineering, or moral—and solving them by being clever.

This applies, by the way, even when it’s not really the main thrust of the episode. Like in the latest season of Prodigy, there’s this episode where the gang are taken prisoner by the Vau N’Akat, and Jankom has his prosthetic hand confiscated by them. How do they get out? Jankom reprograms a tricorder and hacks his own prosthetic hand! It’s a minor plot point but it’s clever and it’s fun to watch, because it plays fair with what we’ve established about the universe and the characters and how technology works here.

So then. Getting back to Discovery, my issue, straightforwardly, is that I doesn’t really have this plot structure. I mean, it does sometimes—I think that the solution to “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad” is very Asimovian, and I can see how the outline of it in the resolution to the Klingon War, though I don’t think they really sold the solution. But it seems more or less absent after season one. I can’t think of a single moment in the last four seasons (and maybe this would change if I watched them again, but that won’t be for another few years at least) where I could point at the screen and say: “Aha! That was clever!”

It’s not that it’s dumb writing, by the way! Often times, particularly in season 4, the scriptwriters go out of their way to show their work (or, well…Dr. Erin Macdonald’s work, let’s be honest) to render their scripts scientifically plausible. But they feel somehow…paint by numbers.

Like, I liked season 4! It was my favourite! I think that the 10C were a cool concept and that the episode where they communicate with them was the best in the series. But did anyone ever seriously doubt how it would play out? The 10C didn’t know they were hurting people; we talk to them; we work out a mutually beneficial compromise. For Star Trek, that’s pretty much a stock plot; except here, it last 13 episodes. Or “Whistlespeak”; Michael and Tilly beam down to this jungle planet, participate in a ritual race…is there any chance that this won’t end in human sacrifice? Again, it’s competently executed, but it’s nothing new; nothing clever; nothing that makes me point at the screen and say “Aha!” The entire final season was a scavenger hunt literally based on solving riddles, and none of these riddles really rose above an escape room level. And what’s worse, none of these riddles really required elements that had been introduced beforehand. It never really felt like they were playing fair with us.

And ultimately, I think that all of this is a manifestation of the big, overwhelming problem with Discovery: everything—plot, character, worldbuilding—is driven entirely by theme. “We want to do a season on xenophobia / authoritarianism / COVID anxiety / etc.” Okay, well then this, this, and this need to happen, this character needs to act this way because they represent this, and then this needs to happen to convey this message. There’s no roomfor the story or characters to evolve organically; there’s no room for play. And that’s what this kind of cleverness is: it’s play. It’s the writers picking up the pieces that they’ve laid out and finding clever ways to use them. It’s the writers having fun. And if the writers are having fun, then the show is fun, and the audience is having fun! But if you just pick a theme and subordinate the logic of character, plot, and world to advancing this theme, it just becomes a sort of dour ritualistic pantomime, even when fun is had on screen.

Anyways, that’s my take.

#star trek discovery #science fiction #isaac asimov #long post

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communistkenobi · 1 year ago

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Hi, genuine good faith question if you'd like! How is TOS racist? It was my understanding that the OG Series was like, huge for equality in media?

I’m speaking primarily about the content of TOS itself, not its historical impact - I understand it had various historic firsts in terms of having characters of colour in respectable roles, which I’m not dismissing. My experience with the discourse on here surrounding the show is that people front-load these character representations as emblematic of the show’s progressive politics. Which, if we want to go that route, TOS was contemporary to the US civil rights movement, which provides us with a handy measuring stick to see how TOS actually grapples with race, not just the presence of characters of colour themselves. I'm going to be kind of defensive in this explanation, not towards you specifically, but because I have had this conversation with people online many, many, many times, and so any defensiveness on my part is in anticipation of arguments I know will come up as a result of making the basic claim that a show made in America in the 1960s is racist. I'm also going to be copy + pasting from an older post I've made on the subject since it's been a while now since I've watched TOS so some of the details are fuzzy.

Like okay, the premise of TOS is that the Enterprise, as an ambassador of Starfleet/the Federation, is seeking out new alien life to study. The Prime Directive prohibits the Enterprise crew from interfering with the development of any alien culture or people while they do this, so the research they collect needs to be done in an unobtrusive way. I think this is the first point at which people balk at the argument that TOS is racist or has a colonial conception of the world - the Enterprise’s mission is premised on non-interference, and I think when people hear ‘colonial’ as a descriptor they (understandably, obviously) assume it is describing active conquest, genocide, and dispossession. Even setting aside all the times where Kirk does directly interfere with the “development” of a people or culture (usually because they’ve “stagnated” culturally, because a culture "without conflict" cannot evolve or “develop” beyond its current presumed capacity - he is pretty explicitly imposing his own values onto another culture in order to force them to change in a particular way), or the times when the Enterprise is actually looking to extract resources from a given planet or people, I’m not exactly making this claim, or rather, that’s not the only thing I’m describing when calling TOS racist/colonial.

The show's presentation of scientific discovery and inquiry is anthropological - the “object” of analysis is alien/foreign culture, meaning that when the Enterprise crew comes into contact with a new being or person, this person is always read first and foremost through the level of (the Enterprise’s understanding of) culture. Their behaviour, beliefs, dress, way of speaking, appearance, and so on are always reflective of their culture as a whole, and more importantly, that their racial or phenotypic characteristics define the boundaries of their culture. Put another way, culture is interpreted, navigated, and bound racially - the show presents aliens as a Species, but these species are racially homogeneous, flattening race to a natural, biological difference that is always physically apparent and presented through the lens of scientific objectivity, as "species" is a unit of biological taxonomy. Basically species is a shorthand for race. This is the standard of most sci-fi/fantasy genre work, so this is not a sin unique to Star Trek.

Because of this however, Kirk and Co are never really interacting with individuals, they are interacting with components of a (foreign, exotic, fundamentally different) culture, the same way we understand that a biologist can generalize about a species using the example of an individual 'specimen'. And when the Enterprise interacts with these cultures, they very frequently measure them using a universalized scale of development - they have a teleological (which is to say, evolutionary) view of culture, ie, that all cultures go from savage to rational, primitive to advanced, economically simple to economically complex (ie, to capitalist modes of production). And the metrics they are judging these cultures by are fundamentally Western ones, always emphasising to the audience that the final destination of all cultures (that are worthy of advancing beyond their current limited/“primitive” stages) is a culture identical to the Federation, a culture that can itself engage in this anthropological mission to catalogue all life as fitting within a universal set of practices and racial similarities they call “culture.”

This is a western, colonial understanding of culture - racially and spatially homogeneous people comprise the organs of a social totality, ie, a society, which can then be analysed as an “object,” as a “phenomenon,” by the scientists in order to extract information from them to produce and advance state (ie Federation) knowledge. The Enterprise crew are allowed to be individuals, are allowed to be subjects with a capacity for reason, contradiction, emotion, compassion, and even moments of savagery or violence, without those things being assigned to their “race” or “culture” as a whole, but the people they interact with are only components of a whole which are “discovered” by the Enterprise as opportunities to expand and refine the Federation’s body of knowledge.

Spock is actually a good example of what I'm talking about, because he is an exception to this rule - unlike the others in the crew, his behaviour is always read as a symptom of his innate Vulcan-ness, where his human and Vulcan halves war for dominance in his mind and character. Bones (the doctor, one of the main cast) constantly comments on Spock's inability to feel things, that he is callous and unsympathetic, ruled by Vulcan logic to such an extreme that his rationality is a form of irrationality, as his Vulcan blood prohibits him from tempering logic with human emotion and intuition. Now you can argue that Bones is a stand-in for the racists of the world, that Spock proves Bones wrong in that he is able to feel but merely keeps it under wraps, that Vulcans are not biologically incapable of emotion but merely live in a socially repressive culture, but this still engages in the racial logic of the show - Vulcans are a racially-bound species with a single monolithic culture, and Spock's ability to express and feel 'human emotions' is the metric by which he is granted human subjectivity and sympathy.

And on the flip side you have the Klingons - a “race” that is uniformly savage, backward, violent, and dangerous. In the episode Day of the Dove, where Klingons board the Enterprise along with an alien cloud that makes everyone suddenly aggressive and racist (this show is insane lol), the Enterprise crew begins acting violent and racist, but the Klingons don’t change. They aren’t more violent than before (because they already were fundamentally violent and racist), and they don’t become less violent when the cloud eventually leaves (because they are never able to emerge from their violence and savagery as a social condition or external imposition - they simply are that way). Klingons are racially, behaviourally, psychologically, and culturally homogeneous, universally violent and immune to reason, and their racial characteristics are both physical manifestations of this universal violence as well as the origin of it. The writers and creators of TOS are explicitly invoking the orientalist idea of the “Mongolian horde,” representing both the American fear of Soviet global takeover as well as blatantly racist fears about “Asiatics” (a word used in the show, particularly in The Omega Glory where a fear of racialised communist takeover is made explicit) dominating the world.

This is colonial thinking! Like, fundamentally, at its core, this is colonial white supremacist thinking. Now this is not because TOS invents these tropes or is the origin of them, it is not individually responsible for these racial and colonial logics - these conceptions are endemic to Western thought, and I am not expecting a television show to navigate its way outside of this current colonial paradigm of scientific knowledge. I’m also not expecting an average person watching this to pick out all the intricacies of this and link it to the colonial history of Europe or the colonial history of western philosophy/thought. But this base premise of Star Trek is why the show is fundamentally colonial - even if it was the case that the crew never intervened in any alien conflict, never extracted any material resources from other people, this would still be colonial logic and colonial thinking. The show has a fundamentally colonial imagination when it comes to exploration, discovery, and culture.

I think a good place to end is the opening sequence. The show's first line is always "Space! The final frontier." I do not think the word frontier is meant metaphorically or poetically - I think the show is being honest about its conception of space as an infinitely vast, infinitely exotic frontier from which a globally Western civilisation (which the Enterprise is an emblem of) can extract resources, be they material or epistemic

#tos.txt #< have more posts in there also

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specialagentartemis · 5 months ago

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speaking of Rowland, what changed your mind on grimdark stories? You used to post about how much you hated them lol

Hopepunk started to annoy me more lol.

It's been several things. Partially, it's just been years; I've gotten older, read more books, found authors I really really loved writing really bleak really sad really upsetting and really fascinating books.

Partially it's that I don't really believe in the definitions people use about grimdark anymore; the more I read, the more I feel it's a strawman stereotype that barely exists moreso than it's an actual social force in literature.

Partially I do stand by my irritation with a lot of dark and gritty remakes/reboots of mostly A/V media; Star Trek does not need to be a dark and gritty war story, LOTR doesn't need to be sexy, etc. They feel lazy and trend-chasing more than they feel like a genuine creative endeavor. Too often, they can feel like they're jettisoning the aspects that made me like them in an attempt to be more Mature by adding Violence and Swearing and Sex. I stand by that Star Trek Discovery wasn't good, and the fact that it felt like it was embarrassed that it had to be Star Trek when it really wanted to be Game of Thrones in Space was a big part of why.

But honestly that seems to primarily be happening in TV/movies, and it's stopped being nearly the inescapable social force it was 6-10 years ago. The zeitgeist moves on and new trends annoy me. In sci-fi/fantasy books, the movement seems to be in the other direction: hopepunk and cozy. And they have just. been bad books. So many of them have been bad in new and frustrating ways. In the same time period that hopepunk and cozy were on the rise in the sff zeitgeist, I also read books like The Fortunate Fall by Cameron Reed, Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee, and The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez... heavy and sad and serious and unhappy and with brilliant artistry that feels like it actually has something to say and isn't ignoring how humans actually act by saying "well it wouldn't be a problem if everyone was just nice :)" I read the bleakest, most upsetting, most depressing sci-fi book I've ever encountered, Harmony by Project Itoh, which he wrote while he was in and out of hospitals dying of cancer and it shows. It's unsettling and unnerving and upsetting and different, and you can tell it comes from the heart. Is it grimdark? Maybe, yeah. And it has value as literature, and I got a lot more out of it than I did from a lot of things touting how important they are for being Hopeful and Cozy and Conflict-Free.

Honestly, part of it is my natural plain contrarianism. When making fun, hopeful, funny, campy, or adventure-y things Dark and Gritty and Violent was held up as better and more inherently mature writing, it annoyed me and made me dislike it; now that violence and selfishness and cruelty and pain in stories seems to be considered immature and unnecessary, and rather hope, softness, gentleness, happiness, cheerfulness, conflict-aversion, and harmony are the Morally Correct and Mature ways to write stories, I resent that too. It ends up feeling trend-chasing and reductive, and when bland nothing books are held up as The Most Ethically Correct And Best Writing Because They Are Hopeful, it makes me just as annoyed as when dark and gritty TV is held up as The Most Mature And Serious Prestige Television.

Also, honestly, the world kept getting worse and sometimes I want media that acknowledges that I feel afraid and hurt and angry, and that things aren't all sweet and good and nice actually. It often makes me feel better, more seen, more understood, than media that goes actually everyone is nice and and problems are easy to solve and the world is basically just and people can be trusted to all be mature and good and reasonable. (And if you're ever impatient, or selfish, or snappish, or mean, or insufficiently hopeful... then you don't belong in our utopia. As someone who *gestures above* can be impatient, snappish, and mean... that doesn't make me feel all that hopeful.)

#which is like. not to say I only like dark depressing stories. I've just come to appreciate them so much more against the hopepunk tide.#anonymous #asks #grimdark #hopepunk #my parasocial internet nemesis

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leonsgotit · 5 months ago

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queerness in star trek discovery is something that can be so personal <3

i’ve always loved star trek (especially the original series and the aos movies bc i grew up with those) and i’ve always loved seeing the underlying queer themes that it has (spirk my ogs, my day ones, my lgbts 💕), but watching star trek discovery for the first time all the way through recently has made me realize just how powerful it is to see canonical queer characters in star trek.

paul and hugh being the first canonical, openly gay characters in star trek is really special and important. and even more so to see them get their much deserved happy ending. they don’t fall victim to the “bury your gays” trope (at least, not for very long) or the toxic gay couple, or the stereotype. they’re just two people who love each other and i think that’s so amazing. i loved watching them grow together throughout discovery.

and discovery having not one, but TWO openly, canonically trans characters was soooooo amazing. i loved the way that discovery handled adira’s coming out moment—it was still treated like a big moment for them, but not in a way that “othered” them the way some other forms of media have treated coming out scenes.

@zygon-commander put it best imo: https://www.tumblr.com/zygon-commander/765893807993667584/i-think-discovery-does-a-good-job-with-having

anyway i just really love this show and i’m so glad that i gave it a second chance after sort of falling off of watching it back in 2018 or so. coming back to it was a genius move on my part.

I LOVE U STAR TREK 💞💞

#star trek #star trek discovery #paul stamets #hugh culber #culmets #adira tal #gray tal #lgbt #gay #queer #trans #nonbinary #lgbtq

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gaykarstaagforever · 1 month ago

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As a vocal Star Trek fan, it occurs to me that at this point, I haven't actually seen most Star Trek.

I've rewatched every TOS and TNG episode 20 times. And all the (pre-reboot) movies. (I saw that first Abrams movie and...no. No thanks.) But beyond that? I've only seen a handful of DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise episodes. And what I heard about Discovery made me mad. And the two episodes of Picard I saw made me madder. Lower Decks seemed okay for 15 minutes but I never gave it a chance.

My point is, I am a fake old man Star Trek fan, and while that's an okay thing to be...I feel bad about it.

Why do I know more lore from wikis than actual shows? That's weird. I should at least give all this other Trek a chance.

So I swallowed my bile and got the Paramount+ app. It's free for a week, plus it's still cheaper for Premium than other similar apps. And this way I can at least shotgun a sample of these and see what I've been missing. I hear this Brave New Worlds thing is good.

But I'm starting with DS9. It premiered in 1993, when I was 11. I didn't really care about Trek then, and when I got into TOS and TNG in high school, I didn't move on to DS9, because "they're stuck on a space station, this is a bunch of boring soap opera crap."

Even after seeing several episodes and liking the characters, I remained sure that my initial impression was correct.

So I'm watching Emissary, Part 1, atm.

This is immediately great. Writing and acting are a little rough, compared to what comes later (based on what I actually know of this show). But being that this is a new show being new, that's to be expected.

This is AWESOME. Everyone hates everyone, and no one wants to be here. Besides Bashir, and he's a creep and an idiot. Sisko hates Picard because Picard killed his wife, and Picard hates Sisko because Sisko is being a total dick about this. Quark is basically a hostage, Odo is a fascist, Kira wants to kill everyone, including most other Bajorans. And Dax is a 300 yo slug, not taking anything seriously, and cracking wise inside of a young woman's body that you know the slug will TOTALLY exploit sexually. Sisko is a Federation human with an obvious atheistic bent, and he's been on this ruined station for like an hour when some Bajoran holy-woman he doesn't care about tells him he's Alien Jesus. And he is NOT COOL with this. But too bad, dude.

This is everything Roddenberry never wanted Star Trek to be...and that's why it's perfect. This place is a shithole and everyone on it is a jackass. And yet it feels 100% Star Trek, because they're careful about how they do it. Like they actually get the heart and soul of the IP and are trying to do something both new AND traditional, at the same time.

It actually has real TOS vibes. I never got that before. It feels like The Cage, like there's a progressive underpinning, but also, what the hell are all these stupid aliens up to, will yelling fix it? No? ...What about more yelling?

I never saw these episodes of this. Maybe it gets boring later on?

Let's find out.

#rant #star trek #ds9

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eastsideofthemoon · 3 months ago

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Discovery's Most Afrofuturistic Episodes

Star Trek Discovery, in general, is Afrofuturism. It's a show that centers a Black woman's story - her trials, tribulations, and triumphs - in a world of science and technology. Also, much of her story is a reflection on what it is like to be a Black woman in today's world. But even with all of that, there are episodes that are especially Afrofuturistic, and since it's Black History Month, I want to shine a light on them.

1. The Girl Who Made the Stars

This story is pure Afrofuturism. In this Short Trek, we get a rare glimpse of little Michael Burnham with her biological father, Mike Burnham, Sr, as he's comforting her by telling a story about how a little Black girl's bravery created the stars.

The story takes place in the village of the /Xam Abathwa, an African tribe, who are called the "first people". This story proclaims that the first people on earth were African - Black Africans.

Also, during the opening monologue of S2.01 (Brother), Michael references this story, linking it even more into the canon of Discovery and Star Trek as a whole.

2. Lethe

This episode tackles both assimilation and covert racism. I don’t believe it’s by happenstance that Michael, who’s Black, is surrounded by white Vulcans. Through a mind meld with Sarek, we see in this episode the extent to which Michael Burnham has had to assimilate, in the worst way, to Vulcan culture in order to integrate into their society. Her hair is straightened, her speaking patterns altered, and any expression that is uniquely her, primarily her emotions, are suppressed. More poignantly, we learn the truth to why Michael wasn’t accepted into the Vulcan Exploration Group. Despite being more than qualified, it was the bigotry of the VEG only wanting to make room for one non-Vulcan participant because of race, not merit. Sound familiar?

But as the Bible says, The truth will set you free. When Michael learns that not only was she lied to about not being “good enough”, but she was set free from feeling she needed to suppress her true self in order to appease a system never designed for her or even trying to include her. And at the end of this episode, we see Michael beginning her journey of self discovery. There’s a lot to unpack in this episode, which I’ll have to do in a separate post.

2. Perpetual Infinity

I really want to write a longer piece on this episode, but I'll keep it concise for now.

This episode shows that Dr. Gabrielle Burnham, a Black woman, was the genius who created the Red Angel suit and cracked the code on time travel. Unfortunately, due to Leland's negligence, this beautiful family's lives were permanently disrupted, and Dr. Burnham uses the time traveling suit she created to try and save her husband and daughter. In this episode, Michael and Dr. Burnham are finally reunited.

This episode is especially important as it firmly establishes Michael Burnham's origins. We learn about her biological parents, who are both scientists, and get a glimpse of her home life before Vulcan. What we see is a loving family, who relished in their daughter's curiosity about space.

Despite the Red Angel saga having mixed reviews, I believe most people missed what that story was actually about: A love story about a mother and daughter. In short, 2 Black women, a mother-daughter duo, compromised of 2 scientists, save all sentient life via technology.

3. The Hope is You pt 1

Michael jumps 930 years into the future, and the first person she meets is a dark skinned Black man, who introduces her to this new world and new tech she's never encountered. The rest of the episode is essentially us following them as our guides into the 32nd century. Seeing 2 Black characters centered in a show, set so far into the future, is still pretty unprecedented, even in sci-fi.

4. Unification III

This is another episode I want to do a longer breakdown, but for now… I like to call this episode "Claire Huxtable in Space". Dr. Burnham aka Mama Burnham, gives a full display of a Black mother. And I believe her portrayal was as authentic as some of TV's most celebrated Black mothers like Aunt Viv and Claire Huxtable.

A lot of people in the fandom have misinterpreted Dr. Burnham's interaction with Michael during the T'kal-in-ket, either as 1) being too mean or 2) rightfully putting Michael in her place. Both are wrong. Dr. Burnham was doing what Black mothers do - supporting their child(ren) by giving them the truth. Dr. Burnham didn't lay out Michael’s short coming to embarrass her, but it forced Michael to defend herself and Starfleet. By doing so, Michael was able to see she did belong, and it ultimately led to her achieving her goal of acquiring the SB-19 data.

DS9 gave us a wonderful portrayal of a Black father in Benjamin Sisko. But throughout Star Trek, we hadn't really gotten a strong portrayal of a Black mother. Thanks to New Trek, we got two in Dr. Burnham and Captain Freeman.

Plus, this episode is full of Black love. We begin and end the episode with tender moments between Michael and Book, we get the Michael and Dr. Gabrielle reunion and the beautiful moment between Michael and her mom, where Dr. Gabrielle tells Michael that she (Michael) always knows where to find her.

5. The Hope is You pt 2

This is the episode where Michael Burnham becomes CAPTAIN Michael Burnham. To see this woman be given a second chance and watch her make the most of it, and see her be triumphant in achieving captain status was EVERYTHING!

Furthermore, to see a Black woman in a position of power while rocking her braids meant a lot to me. Black hair has been heavily politicized throughout American history. The Crown Act had to be created in order to protect Black people from having our natural be discriminated against in the workplace (and in other settings). So, the significance of Capt Burnham’s image being associated with her braids is highly important. (Side note: I may have to do a separate post on Black hair in Star Trek Discovery, as most of the Black characters sport natural Black hairstyles).

In this episode, Discovery officially became about a Black female Starship captain in the far-off future.

6. Anamoly

Commander Bryce is MVP! Thanks to his hobby with kitesurfing, he's provides the strategy on how to help Book "ride the wave" out of the anamoly. A Black man saves another Black man with the use of science and technology.

7. All In

Michael and Owosekun, the team up we deserved. This gif above is just pure Black girl joy. Similar to The Hope is You pt 1, this episode primarily follows Michael and Owosekun as they go on a mission to stop Book and Tarka from buying isolynium. And they are dynamic together! They hustle their way to winning big in a fighting ring. Owo reads Tarka down, and Michael proves she's always one step ahead.

8. Coming Home

In the season 4 finale, we not only see Captain Burnham lead her team to success, we also see her standing with earth's president, a Black woman (Stacy Abrams). Seeing two Black women in positions of high power, one being the highest authority on earth was something I didn’t know I needed to see. Lastly, the last image of the season is an image of the continent of Africa from space.

9. Life, Itself

In the series finale, Michael meets her creator, a Black female Progenitor, which, in retrospect, feels like a full circle moment to The Girl Who Made the Stars. In The Girl Who Meets the Stars, she’s told a story that the first humans were Black Africans, and then she meets a Black Progenitor.

Then, in the epilogue, we not only saw that she made it to old age, she and Book are thriving and created their own family, demonstrating that the Black family unit is still intact in the far future. That we as a people and our culture still exists.

And for those who think a mixed or biracial family would be more progressive, well, this family is compromised of a human woman and Kwejian man, and their half human/Kwejian son. So they're mixed/biracial.

In closing, despite Bryan Fuller creating the character of Michael Burnham, it was Brandon Schultz, one of Disco's Black writers, who was the catalyst in moving Discovery into including stronger portrayals of Afrofuturism. I highly recommend listening to his interview with the Syfy Sistas (a phenomenal podcast in its own right). On this same podcast, they interviewed Sonequa Martin-Green (definitely go listen to that interview, star date 12/23/22) and she asked them what they wanted to see in Discovery. (This interview was done before the cancellation was announced.) Based on their suggestions, and the fact that SMG said she was going to give their suggestions to the writers, I have a firm belief S6 would have been even more Afrofuturistic.

Although the term “Afrofuturism” was coined in 1993, the concept has been around for decades. Some of the earliest iterations of it go back to the 1920s. We, as a people, have always seen ourselves beyond the limitations our society has tried to dictate to us.

The Afrofuturism and representation in Discovery, DS9, and Lower Decks ALL MATTER. There is no need to be on some crab in the bucket behavior just because there's a new Black character that others relate to different or more than who you relate to. There's beauty in the multiplicity of our portrayals of various Black characters and their stories throughout the Star Trek universe and sci-fi in general. I just hope more of us learn to appreciate it all.

Happy Black History Month

#star trek #star trek discovery #afrofuturism #afrofuturistic #black history month #dsc

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planetlongjourney · 6 months ago

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I find it incredibly funny when, in Star Trek, they change the look of a species, to make it stand out more, to generally make it look more alien because makeup and prosthetics are getting better or just because they decide the old one wasn’t good enough, but then pretend that nothing ever happened.

I’m not talking about the Klingons, as they actually do talk about their old designs (also their design change was fair enough) but I’m talking about the Trills, who randomly changed up their WHOLE look from that one tng episode, and it’s never mentioned. 😭

Like, are they different species or something??? Their newer design was literally taken from another species, so did they one from each race have a baby together and started a whole new race of people in the span of like, 5 years???

Also, the Bajorans. In tng, Ensign Ro has a weird nose/eyebrow ridge thing that makes her look like she’s really angry (honestly yeah go off) but that is taken away and never mentioned again.

Actually, pretty much every species from tng into ds9 had a design change, or a personality change, and eveyone is just kind of like “ah yes, the way things always were, nothing has ever changed”.

By the way, we don’t talk about discovery aliens here. That stuff was scary. 🫠

#ds9 #star trek #tng #Bajorans #Ensign Ro #tos #prosthetics #ferengi #cardassians #quark #just saying that guy was both types of ferengi #space #Trills #aliens #rant

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theonceandfuturequeenoftarts · 7 months ago

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20 Questions (for fanfic writers)

Thank you for the tags, @cindle-writes and @izharmilgram! I'm procrastinating on other responsibilities, so let's have some fun~

Tagging @i-dream-of-libraries, @chaos-bear, @floatingdandelionseeds, @pitzer, @riverxsong-ao3, @tommarvoloriddlesdiary, @thefangirlibrarian, @hikarimeroperiddle and @blackseatwenty (no pressure, only if you want to! ♡♡♡) and anyone else who wants to talk about their fics -- consider this your tag! ♡

how many works do you have on ao3? 47

what's your total ao3 word count? 226,795

what fandoms do you write for? Harry Potter, Yuri!!! On Ice

top five fics by kudos: A long, hard road; Gone bananas; thrown into the nest; refuge from the miseries of life; unfailingly ingenious at having a good time (surprised the cat!Harry fics are so high tbh) Edit: I can't read... (:‚‹」∠) Top five fics by kudos are as follows: Gone bananas; A long, hard road; thrown into the nest; refuge from the miseries of life; and Coriander (not a big change, but it does explain why the cat!Harry sequel was so high...)

do you respond to comments? uhh... occasionally. Social anxiety kicks my ass and so I put my energy into writing fic instead. I love every single comment I get and reread them any time I need a pick-me-up, but I am a bad author who doesn't reply...

what is the fic your wrote with the angstiest ending? hmm... probably pyrrhic victory, but Capsized is also a contender

what's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? considering I write mostly fluff and crack, this is a surprisingly difficult question to answer... I'm gonna go with either if you like it, then... or thrown into the nest. Or maybe don't blame the stork? (Some lovely reader out there is shouting at their screen, "Flaky, you goof, it's obviously ____!!" and they're correct.)

do you get hate on fics? Nope, not really! Some readers express that they wish I'd done certain things differently, and a couple have said I ended a fic badly, but I don't think I've received anything I'd consider hateful.

do you write smut? uhhhh... sometimes. When it's the best way to tell the story I have in my head, then I'll write smut. But it's still a bit uncomfortable to do. I'd like to think I'm getting better at it?

craziest crossover? I'm not sure I've actually written anything that could really be considered a crossover, but A real voyage of discovery is kind of a mash-up of Harry Potter characters in a Star Trek-y world? And it has alien!mort, and I think he's nifty.

have you ever had a fic stolen? A couple of my fics have appeared on Wattpad without my permission, but other than that, no.

have you ever had a fic translated? Yep, a few! (ㅅ´ ˘ `)

have you ever co-written a fic before? Not yet -- I don't really know how it'd work, and I'm afraid to try (¬_¬") Intensely private about my writing before it's ready to post unless you're Jenny. But! I'm counting the Telephone and the Corpse (coming soon) because they're collaborative (in a way) and have been such a major part of my fandom experience!

all-time favorite ship? tomarrymort~ (honourable mentions to sefikura, madohomu, and viktuuri)

what's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will? Fingers crossed I'm not breaking anyone's heart with this, but probably Let's Talk About Sex, Baby. I have some more written for it, but it's been a while since I've returned to it and other projects interest me more. I have every intention of finishing my WIPs, but... there are only so many hours in a day and my energy is, sadly, finite (´•︵•`)

what are your writing strengths? whimsical finger guns! Poignant fluff? Emotions. silliness, and dialogue, probably.

what are your writing weaknesses? Worldbuilding, continuous narratives (as opposed to short scenes without much context), plot-heavy narratives, description, writing the main characters in true opposition to each other, fleshing ideas out rather than keeping it (overly) brief... I'm sure I'll think of a bunch of other things as soon as I post this.

thoughts on dialogue in another language? I'd like to! I speak French reasonably well, and I'm lucky enough to have some fandom friends who speak other languages, so I'm sure I could beg their assistance.

favorite fic you've written? Hhhhhhh, why must I choose? I'll go with naïve melody, because it still gives me the warm fuzzies. I'm just so proud of the tone, and I really like how that Voldemort comes across.

#tag game #fic talk #tomarrymort

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tprings-hair · 26 days ago

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@self-made-purgatories thank you SO much for asking <3 this is going to be a lot to read so buckle up!

so by the late 19th and early 20th century, a lot of the world had been charted (and colonised) by various world powers. the british empire had their huge navy and their whole "sun never sets on our empire" thing. ww1 hadn't happened yet, and while america was becoming a power of its own, other british colonies were making noise about independence too. this is an extremely rough overview, but I'm setting the scene. a few german and norwegian scientists starting writing about all the fascinating things they were sure they could find in antarctica, a continent which had only been seen, not explored. some norwegian and belgian ships became the first to set foot there. the british got competitive and sent their own teams, because nobody does colonialism like them. the south pole really was Where No Man Had Gone Before, and who did they send for the challenge?

robert falcon scott was a royal navy torpedo lieutenant, and the royal society picked him as the captain of a number of antarctic expeditions. he made a point of collecting scientific data (water temperature, species of bacteria in the water, documenting marine life they saw) that is still used in assessing climate change and sea conditions. he inspired absolute loyalty in his men, and they seemed willing to follow him to the ends of the earth (literally). that said, he was extremely inflexible, didn't like adopting customs outside of the typical british way, and he continually miscalculated the amount of rations he and his crew would need for long journeys. frostbite and hard work is bad enough, but it got a lot more difficult when everyone was undernourished.

I should note here that this post has early sketches of each main star trek character, and kirk's says this:

As with similar men in the past (Drake, Cook, Bougainville and Scott), his primary weakness is a predilection to action over administration, a temptation to take the greatest risks onto himself. But, unlike most early explorers, he has an almost compulsive compssion for the plight of others, alien as well as human, must continually fight the temptation to risk many to save one.

ernest shackleton was a merchant navy officer on scott's team on one of his early expeditions. to quote his wikipedia article:

this sounds a lot more like a certain james t kirk! on their one and only expedition together (the discovery expedition), scott chose two men to accompany him to the highest possible latitude, shackleton and edward adrian wilson, a doctor and artist with an interest in science and an unfailingly good attitude. the men called wilson uncle bill because he would support the younger men and show them how to do things. as far as I can tell no one had anything bad to say about him. he isn't a one-to-one match with bones, but I can see elements of him in there.

on this three-man trip, scott did not bring sufficient food and shackleton developed scurvy so badly that he often couldn't walk or pull the sledges and was eventually sent home when they were safe. shackleton always spoke well of scott in the press, but he never went on another expedition with scott again despite offers, and there were rumours (how true they were I don't know) that he resented scott for sending him home and then writing in his account of the voyage that he was ill and weak.

shackleton led his own expedition a couple years later, the nimrod expedition. (shackleton asked wilson to go along, but wilson declined out of loyalty to scott.) they made it within 100 miles of the south pole, but there were personality conflicts, and the food they brought with them was tainted, making them ill. when they reached their food depot, they found that another member of their party had restocked it with all kinds of luxuries (cakes, crystallized fruit, eggs, gingerbread) the likes of which were probably heavenly after months of sledge rations. (additionally, the fruit was very good for preventing scurvy, the thing that knocked shackleton out of commission on scott's discovery dash.) the food discussion isn't necessarily relevant to star trek (unless you're thinking about the kirk backstory episode where they revealed he lived through a famine). it's mainly to illustrate the difference between the two here. shackleton understood and accepted the importance of small luxuries in a way scott didn't or chose not to.

not to be outdone, scott announced that getting within a hundred miles wasn't good enough. he could put together a party and make it all the way to the pole. it helped that there was a norwegian team making the same claim, and they simply had to beat the norwegians for king and country. how did it go, you ask? well, after two years on the ice, scott decided to push forward in bad weather because he wanted the victory of reaching the south pole first for britain, and on the way back, he and four good men (our pal wilson included) slowly weakened and starved, eventually freezing to death. it's obviously disturbing, so be warned if you decide to look up the terra nova expedition that it doesn't end well. people have defended scott in a number of ways, and to be entirely fair to him the miscalculation with the rations was due more to nutrition being a new science. his diary is genuinely confused at what happened and heartbroken at what he has led his men into. it's a very difficult read toward the end. (and the rest of it too, but maybe that's because his writing style just wasn't to my taste.)

I became a little bit obsessed with this expedition by reading the worst journey in the world by apsley cherry-garrard. he was an expedition member (and was on the team which eventually found the bodies of the polar party) and through his writing I honestly feel like I got to know a lot of these men. sometimes when something reminds me of that book I find myself thinking "oh, like cherry said!" like he's an old friend. I genuinely have so much affection for him. cherry, I love you with all my heart and I wish we were friends. (and I know there's no way they were thinking of him for chekov's character, but in my headcanons, chekov is a little like him.) if you want to get attached to a bunch of polar explorers like I did, the blogs @worstjourney and @polarexplorerspoll are fun to check out. (worstjourney has made a graphic novel of some of the terra nova's adventures based on cherry's book, and I believe they're working on volume 2 now!)

I'm not the biggest fan of scott's leadership for a few reasons (which I'm sure you can figure out from this, and if you want a different perspective on him worstjourney is definitely the blog to visit!), but I think part of the inspiration taken was exactly what worstjourney describes here: that scott's expedition wasn't just about what they did, it was about their reasons and how they did it. this strong sense of fair play is definitely at work in star trek tos. (additionally, a lot of the surviving expedition members writing about it later talked about it in much the same way I like to imagine the enterprise's crew talking about kirk.)

this is getting way too long and shackleton's next voyage on the endurance deserves entire books written about it. in fact, there are books written about it. I'll give you the extremely brief summary: the ship sank, the men had to camp out on the ice, shackleton had to keep morale up,they went through a hell of an ordeal and at the end of it every man was still alive. not only that, but plenty of them signed up with shackleton for another voyage. there are plenty of insane details that made me want to laugh or cry because of how deeply human they all were.

I learned about it by taking books out on libby, starting with the ship beneath the ice by mensun bound. he mentioned that he had a historian making a podcast about how they finally found the endurance, which led me to dan snow's history hit podcast, and I listened to that nearly constantly on transit last year. it's very british, but if you can get past the assumption that you know some major events in british history (I'm canadian and I know more than the average person my age about 20th century world history, but that didn't help me when they're like "yeah we all know what richard iii was known for") but you can usually catch up with a quick google search and their interviews with historians are always engaging and fun to listen to.

anyway, while I was listening to other subjects there, I took out shackleton's way: leadership lessons from the great antarctic explorer by margot morrell and stephanie capparell. this one was way more business-focused than I would have preferred, but I stuck with it because it had details about shackleton and how he kept his men going that I hadn't been able to find anywhere else yet. (including that, during an interview to see who he might pick for his expedition, he asked if they could sing. not well, mind you. he just wanted to know if they could shout a bit with the boys.) I left shackleton's book south unfinished because it felt a little too self-aggrandizing (worstjourney is absolutely right there, shackleton never passed up a chance to market himself) but the business book used a lot of quotes from it. none of this is related, it's just here in case you need reading recs.

speaking of books: a ship's captain's logbook is often filled with very brief accounts, just mentioning the weather conditions and what issues they might be dealing with. the real meat is in the diaries. most expedition members had diaries (being educated and used to keeping diaries at home, but this isn't always the case for sailors, and I think in times of war sailors and soldiers were actively discouraged from writing what they were up to). those diaries had a day-by-day account of what happened, who said what to who, what they ate, how they celebrated christmas, and so on. it's there that you find that great personal stuff. cherry's book often quotes from letters sent home by other expedition members and his own diary, and it gives it the sense that you really are reading about somebody's life. that's the thing star trek was after for the storytelling, and it's the thing I'm always looking for.

anyway, my interest in shipwrecks started with an interest in the titanic from when I was little, and recently I've been going through some of the american inquiry transcripts. you can read them here.

I've found it surprisingly similar to going through diaries. diarists were often reserved, maybe knowing that someone else was going to read them or maybe just thinking "I'll know what I meant", and reading direct replies to questions is so raw. these inquiries took place only a few days after the survivors arrived in america. some of them are obviously shaken. some of them are resentful at being questioned. some of them change their stories. some of them stick by their stories even when the inquiry insists that it couldn't have happened.

the inquiries were primarily conducted by senator smith, and he knew plenty about railway safety and next to nothing about maritime customs. you can tell in the early days of it that he's looking for a smoking gun. did the titanic hit the iceberg because there was an employee of the white star line aboard urging the captain to go faster? were any of the officers acting in contradiction to their duty? did they shut the gates and lock the third class passengers up to die? the officers being questioned give very flat responses, especially second officer charles lightoller, who says "no sir" about five times in a row at one point and refuses to elaborate on nearly any answer unless questioned further. (smith asks him at one point if any of the officers he ordered to man the lifeboats wanted to do it. at sea (especially in thise days), if someone higher ranking than you tells you to do something, you do it. lightoller just says "I did not ask them." which seems about right for a commanding officer in the middle of an emergency.)

(smith also asks what an iceberg is made of. the answer is "ice", btw. imagine surviving the sinking of the titanic and now this guy is telling you you can't go home until you've answered all of his questions.)

they're all asked where they're from at the start, and from that I can imagine their accents. the first class passengers are allowed to speak for entire paragraphs at a time. the second or third class passengers or members of the crew (especially ones with stronger accents) are continually interrupted and questioned. smith has a problem with interrupting, to be honest. sometimes the entire page is just him repeating what the witness just said. he also says "I wish you would tell me" a lot, which is not the point, but it gets on my nerves because if you're conducting an inquiry you don't just lightly float the question, you ask it. (also funny: at one point smith says "tell us what happened", completely interrupting steward charles hogg AS HE IS DESCRIBING WHAT HAPPENED, to which hogg replies, "very good, sir. I have started it, right now." which is a lot more patient than I think I would be under the circumstances. I would love to have heard the tone he used.)

I found out a couple of days ago that our friend shackleton was called in as an expert witness in the british inquiry (who better to talk about sailing through ice?) so I'm definitely looking forward to reading the british inquiry too.

in short: danger, adventure, hierarchy, survival, logistics, fair play, poetry quotations, glorious failures, glorious victories, being far away from home in a vast lonely place with only crewmates for company, the difficulties of command, and the deeply human humour, joy, fatigue, and sadness that run through it all.

this is way more than I expected to type, but I hope you enjoyed!

#polar exploration #robert falcon scott #ernest shackleton #titanic #ask #shacklekirk

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zsakuva · 1 month ago

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Hello!

I was just wondering if you have any queer media pieces that you’ve really loved and possibly even inspired you? Books, movies, etc… Sometimes I believe good ones are hard to come by, so I wanted to hear your thoughts.

Thank you..! :-)

Honestly, I have none. And if I do consume anything like that, they don't inspire my works. I don't tend to watch media where queerness is the main story; I like media that portrays queerness in the way it should be: as a natural part of life—where it's not vilified or viewed negatively—such as The Expanse, Foundation, The Sandman, The OA, The Wheel of Time, and Star Trek: Discovery. Sense8 is another example, though I love that it explores the hardships of a trans woman (one of the main characters) alongside the broader story.

On hindsight, it's interesting that every recommendation I've given is sci-fi/fantasy, but they are two of my favourite genres so maybe that's why haha.

#zsakuva #queerness #queer representation #queer tv shows #recommendations #scifi #fantasy

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morkitten · 1 year ago

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KAMEN RIDER MEGAPOST

I've been deep in the Kamen Rider hole after taking a blind chance on it about a year ago and it's been one of the most rewarding discoveries I've had, so I'm doing a megapost where I try to convey what's so interesting and unique about this series that you can literally just start anywhere. There's a Kamen Rider series for everyone, and I hope to convince you of it and point to where you can give it a try for yourself. Click on the read more to see more!

WHAT IS KAMEN RIDER?

Kamen Rider is a superhero that rides a motorcycle who's often bug-themed, but not always. The Kamen Rider franchise started in 1971 and, with the exception of a few periods of dry spells, keeps making new yearly series to this day. It's part of Japan's many, many decades old craft of special effects-focused TV shows and movies, called "Tokusatsu" (literally, "special filming"). It was conceived and spearheaded by Shotaro Ishinomori, an incredibly famous mangaka in Japan, responsible for not only Kamen Rider, but also Super Sentai, Cyborg 009, Zubat, Kikaider, and many other TV series and mangas. The amount of works he has produced in manga and TV is incredibly huge, and his works have been incredibly influential to Japanese culture as a whole. Kamen Rider can be argued that is his biggest, most important contribution.

A consistent theme in early Kamen Rider series is that he's a lonesome, grieving hero, in which his sadness fuels his righteous anger at the evils that he's fighting against. He's been transformed into a monster against his will, and now must fight against the very forces that created him. In every Kamen Rider series, the power that the protagonist wields is the same power that fuels the evil forces he fights against. In a way, you can see it as a metaphor for Kamen Rider's production itself: It must use the evil power of mass media to carry its anti-authoritarian messages that go against the very forces that even allow it to exist. It's the tale of every artist trying to create something earnest and culturally and artistically enriching in the cynical mass media space.

WHY WATCH KAMEN RIDER?

I was never really sold on Kamen Rider at first. I remember watching a bit of Kamen Rider Black when I was very young, so I was always nostalgically curious about it. But whenever I saw the newer Kamen Rider stuff pop up on Twitter or whatever, I had always dismissed it as "eh, whatever bug bit you I guess made you interested in that". Something about the super toyetic costume designs and super fake CG just never really inspired my attention, and it was easy to dismiss it as something for kids, something in that same place in my mind as "what shonenheads are into". I guess what I mean is that I saw newer Kamen Rider as "low art". It's easy to categorize it as such, people in silly suits selling toys, doing really silly comedy, with silly CG. I've seen Power Rangers before, it's just that. It has to be cynical!

I had never done such a big 180 before. Yes, Kamen Rider is "for the kids" (with some exceptions), yes it has a ton of silliness to it, but there's also a lot of good cinematography, fantastic stunts, and really great, serious drama. Kamen Rider is seen as a cultural institution in Japan for all those reasons. It's a way to keep a lot of theater traditions alive in a modern space, a way to have many young, extremely talented actors have a big break, a way to keep tokusatsu traditions and craft (analog special effects, stuntmen, martial arts actors) alive, employed, and continuously evolving, to create something that bridges the gap across all generations in Japan.

It's difficult to explain, but Kamen Rider has the important positive qualities of extremely good older television like Star Trek and Columbo. A TV show that doesn't want to aspire to be a hollywood movie like Netflix series cheaply try to do, but that sees the value of theater and theater skills in television.

Another thing to note is that because Kamen Rider is such a huge cultural institution, if you enjoy anime and japanese video games, there's so so much about what you love on your favorite anime and games that are directly inspired by Kamen Rider. Every japanese action game you've enjoyed? Ninja Gaiden, Shinobi, Devil May Cry, Viewtiful Joe, Hagane, Bayonetta, they -all- have an incredibly huge amount of Kamen Rider in them. Nearly everything Gainax, Hideaki Anno and Studio Trigger made. Pokémon, Digimon, Dragon Ball, One Piece, Yu-Gi-Oh (especially on the superb monster designs), Taiyo Matsumoto, every japanese character that has ever stricken a dab. It's not just references, there are fundamental things about pretty much all of these games, mangas and animes I've listed that are directly attributed to Kamen Rider. So if you enjoy anything I've listed, you ought to give it a try.

OKAY, WHERE TO START?

One of the greatest things about Kamen Rider is that since every series is its own closed continuity (there are crossover movies but they largely don't matter), you can pretty much start anywhere you'd like. Of course, with this many ice cream flavors, one can't help but become paralyzed by the abundance of choice, even though, and I can't emphasize this enough, every Kamen Rider series I've watched so far have all been pretty good to fantastic. I'm sure there's a couple of stinkers I've avoided, but a hitrate like this feels miraculous, I don't understand how does Kamen Rider from so many different eras can keep such a consistent quality even when they can feel so different from one another and be spearheaded by such different creators. You can maybe look them all up and decide what theme you're most attracted by, or, I can maybe help you and tell you about the ones I've watched!

So, here's a list of the Kamen Riders I've watched, with short descriptions of each of them and what makes them appealing, and a mini-list of recommended episodes to sample, in case you're still not sure whether to jump in:

SHOWA ERA (1971 - 1994)

KAMEN RIDER (1971)

The original, and also the least I've watched so far, haven't even gotten to 10 episodes yet. It famously started with an incredibly small budget and it's magical to see what tricks the production employed in order to make it work and be exciting and fun while spending as little money as possible. The stunts are very dangerous but very cool to see. A long, very episode-by-episode affair, but if you get excited on cheap sets and cheap cinema tricks and special effects used very cleverly, this is going to light you up like a christmas tree. It also employs some thriller-inspired cinematography that is very exciting. The writing doesn't offer much substance, but it has this quality where it really believes in itself and in the ideals that Kamen Rider is supposed to represent that is very easy to feel wrapped up in. Might bore you if you're not already sold on the appeal of old tokusatsu.

RECOMMENDED EPISODES TO SAMPLE: Episode 6: The Grim Reaper Chameleon! Episode 7: The Grim Reaper Chameleon Showdown: Old World's Fair

KAMEN RIDER AMAZON (1974)

It's basically just the 1971 Kamen Rider but the main character is Tarzan. It runs only half as long as other Kamen Rider series so if you wanna do a whole Showa-era KR series quickly, it's a very solid recommendation. It's very violent for a children's show, with Amazon often slicing and mauling his monster opponents in bloody messes, and it looks really sick. The suits and special effects are better than how the original Kamen Rider starts off, but it still has that appeal of being old and budgeted for a TV show, which in this case is a huge positive, imo. Also again, the writing isn't much to write about, so don't expect big narrative payoffs or anything like that, you really have to enjoy it on an episode-by-episode basis, which is fine, because the monsters and special effects are extremely cool, the characters are charismatic, and the little episodic plots are fun.

RECOMMENDED EPISODES TO SAMPLE: Episode 4: Run! The Raging Jungler! Episode 11: The Golden Snail is the Grim Reaper's Envoy!? Episode 16: Garanda's Tokyo Sea of Flames Operation Episode 17: Mt.Fuji Big Explosion?! The Tokyo Fry Pan Operation

KAMEN RIDER BLACK (1987)

This was supposed to be a revival of Kamen Rider into public interest after being dormant for a while, so it also feels like a retelling of the first Kamen Rider in a sense, has a lot of common elements, but with slick 80s production and sensibilities all over. If you love how 80s action, sci-fi and thriller movies look like, you'll love the cinematography and production of Kamen Rider Black. It's edgier, sleeker, and even scarier, borrowing a lot of horror/thriller elements that were in vogue at the time, while still being a hopeful, heroic and uplifting presence for children. Has an overarching plot that develops over time but it's, again, really about enjoying it on an episode-by-episode basis, as the overarching plot develops veeeery slowly and in very small portions. I supremely love how this series looks, I love the special effects, I love the suits, and it has my favorite transformation sequence.

RECOMMENDED EPISODES TO SAMPLE: Episode 1: Black!! Transformation Episode 2: Monster Party Episode 18: Sword Saint Bilgenia Episode 20: Rider's Grave Episode 23: Marumo's Magic Power Episode 24: College Girl's Nightmare

SHIN KAMEN RIDER PROLOGUE (1992) (MOVIE)

This doesn't have anything to do with the Anno movie, the Shin here is written differently. A movie that celebrates the series' 20th anniversary that tells its own story with its own Kamen Rider, so it feels like a "reboot" or "re-interpretation" of Kamen Rider. It's darker and scarier, with a Kamen Rider that looks much more like a monster than an armored hero, and leans more into the horror side of Kamen Rider, being more adult-focused. Very violent and very cool.

KAMEN RIDER ZO (1993) (MOVIE)

This was supposed to be a full-fledged Kamen Rider series but the 80s bubble popped and they decided to shift production into a short movie instead. Might be a good introduction point, since it's a short 1-hour watch, and has a ton of really great special effects. Everything that is great about Black's cinematography, propwork and special effects apply here, except since it's just one movie, they're really throwing everything they've got into it

HEISEI AND REIWA ERAS (2000-Present)

Kamen Rider went dormant in the 90s until it was revived back into its TV format by Kamen Rider Kuuga, which was a major success. Since then, there's been yearly new Kamen Rider series on Japanese television, non-stop.

The difference between the Kamen Rider of old (Showa era) and the Kamen Rider series past this revival (Heisei, Reiwa) is that newer Kamen Rider series, despite also being monster-of-the-week romps, tend to have a more complex overarching plot which they tend to lean more into, and less of dangerous stunts and practical effects. Episodes also tend to be two-parters, so maybe calling them monster-of-the-week is innacurate, it's more like monster-of-every-two-weeks. This shift is fine because their reliance on denser plots with a much larger supporting cast of characters, more than makes up for it. It feels less that they're stretching episodes into two-parters and more like they're filling these episodes with so much other stuff that making them 2-parters makes sense.

Also, to note, as modern Kamen Rider goes on, there's more reliance on CGI, but all the monsters (and Kamen Riders) are practical suits and there's still plenty of practical effects, so don't let the super artificial candy-colored videogamey CGI effects trick you into thinking that that's all there is to modern KR.

KAMEN RIDER KIVA (2008)

Kiva is the only "Heisei phase 1" series I've watched so far (early to late 2000s), and I absolutely love it, one of my favorite Kamen Riders. It's considered to be a bit of a black sheep of Heisei phase 1 Kamen Riders but I think fans severely overlook and misjudge Kiva. Kamen Rider Kiva is vampire-themed and is about this shut-in, extremely shy boy who, mysteriously, is also the heroic Kiva, that springs into action whenever Fangires (vampire monsters) are about to kill humans. However, it also takes place 20 years before, in the 1980s, where Fangires are also attacking, but there's no Kiva around to stop them. Instead, humans have created a secret vampire-hunting association and are developing their own technology to stop them. What's the connection between the characters from each time era? Mysteries...!! It has a large cast of characters and incredible soap opera drama and romance that'll keep you heavily invested in all of its twists and turns. It's a very narrative affair which makes it difficult to recommend episodes out of order since it can be confusing to catch things out of context. The fact that it takes place both in the 2000s and in the 80s means every episode has both an A-plot and a B-plot, which avoids the pitfall of some modern Kamen Riders of two-parters that don't have enough going on, because Kiva is absolutely overstuffed with great characters and narratives. The drama is great, the romance is great, the comedy is superb, and the fights are awesome too. I really can't recommend it enough.

RECOMMENDED EPISODES TO SAMPLE: Episode 1: Fate: Wake Up! and Episode 2: Suite: Father and Son Violin (2-parter) Episode 17: Lesson: My Way and Episode 18: Quartet: Listen to Your Heart's Voice (2-parter) (I have trouble recommending more episodes out of order because this series is very narratively-involved!)

KAMEN RIDER W (2009)

W is a very well-received and loved series, and it's easy to see why. It's one of those things that if you watch it you immediately go "oh, if I watched this as a kid I would be so so into it". It has fun, charismatic characters that you want to see every week, simple to understand and easy to like. It's detective-themed and the Kamen Rider is actually comprised of a fusion of two people - Shotaro, who wants to be a tough, hard-boiled detective but is unintentionally kind of stupid and goofy and isn't seen very seriously by people around him, but has a heart of gold, and Phillip, who is an androgynous autistic introvert that basically has the entirety of Google inside his mind, and uses this to help find information to solve cases. Together they transform into Kamen Rider W (W as in "double", get it?), with each controlling a literal half of the suit (right and left), that they can switch properties of and create different combinations. They're great characters but who really steals the show is the comedy relief sidekick, Akiko. She's an immensely funny actress and character.

RECOMMENDED EPISODES TO SAMPLE: Episodes 1 and 2: W Search Episodes 9 and 10: S Terror Episodes 23 and 24: L on the Lips Episodes 25 and 26: P's Game

KAMEN RIDER OOO (2010)

OOO is another extremely beloved Kamen Rider series, and the one I actually started with. Its themes are "desire" and "currency", and the evils and necessities of living in a world that depends on them. The main character is a lovable homeless hippie (Eiji) who's egged on by his extremely androgynous edgy greedy demon boyfriend (Ankh) to collect "medals", because said demons are greedy for them and require them for power. These medals also allow Eiji to transform into Kamen Rider OOO (pronounced "Os" or "Osu"), and different medals can be slot into his transformation belt to create different combinations. Other demons, that are not Eiji's demon babygirl, want to use humans' desires as piggy banks to generate more medals for their own greed, at the cost of these humans' lives. Eiji needs to stop them and collect all the medals before they do. Again, easy to enjoy, easy to see why it's beloved. Filled with a light-hearted fun energy that you can feel as soon as you watch the ska-inspired opening. There's a small stretch of it that feels a bit by-the-numbers, but the drama ramps up and pays off immensely well as it goes on. An extremely fujoshi Kamen Rider series.

RECOMMENDED EPISODES TO SAMPLE: Episode 1: Medals, Underwear and a Mysterious Arm Episode 2: Desire, Popsicles and Presents (2-parter with Episode 1) Episode 13: A Siamese Cat, Stress and the Genius Surgeon Episode 14: Pride, Surgery, and a Secret (2-parter with Episode 13)

KAMEN RIDER FOURZE (2011)

Fourze is written by Kazuki Nakashima, the Studio Trigger writer responsible for stuff like Gurren Lagann, Kill la Kill and Brand New Animal, so that may be something that's either going to extremely excite you, or make you very wary of it. I personally feel he's not a very good writer, but that's okay, because the rest of the production is fantastic, and I still enjoyed Fourze a good amount! The main character is an extremely likeable and charismatic school delinquent that wants to befriend the entire school and creates his own Kamen Rider school club after being bestowed with the Kamen Rider Fourze technology thanks to, uh, a portal that sends him to a space base on the moon? So it's a half-and-half school theme and space theme Kamen Rider. The school club has a large cast of characters but the show doesn't really know what to do with them unless the episodes focus on a specific club member. Fourze really, really drags in the middle (this is when the problem of two-parters feeling stretched out when the writing isn't very strong hits hardest), but as it crescendos to its finale it gets -very- good again. This might be the weakest Kamen Rider out of the ones I've watched, imo, but still, I think there's quite a lot to enjoy here.

RECOMMENDED EPISODES TO SAMPLE: Episodes 1 and 2 (Youthful Transformation and Space Superiority) (2-parter) Episodes 5 and 6 (Friendship, Inside and Outside and Electric Shock, Steadily) (2-parter) Episodes 13 and 14 (School Refusal and Stinger Onslaught) (2-parter)

KAMEN RIDER AMAZONS (2016) (WEB SERIES)

Wait, didn't I review this one before?! No, no, this is AMAZONS, plural! It doesn't actually have that much in common with the original Amazon, being very much its own thing, and what it borrows from Amazon is mostly just to help frame this series as a more adult, violent affair, since Amazon, despite it being very much for kids, was back then known as "the violent Kamen Rider". It's also an Amazon Prime-exclusive series, so they did it for Branding, too. A very dramatic, violent, adult Kamen Rider show that's spearheaded by my favorite Kamen Rider director, Hidenori Ishida. He's a supremely good director that brings his A-game to this series. It follows an extermination team that hunts terrifying man-eating monsters called Amazons. There's two Kamen Riders, Alpha and Omega, that are also Amazons but they largely fight against other Amazons. Alpha is set on killing every Amazon, while Omega has just awakened into an Amazon and a Kamen Rider himself, and has to decide what he wants to do and who and what to fight for. At least this is the premise of Season 1, Season 2 I will not spoil but it is the production going "oh, Amazon season 1 did well enough for us to do whatever we want, and we'll do exactly that". It's the most well-equipped artists in tokusatsu breaking off their shackles and doing a dramatic magnum opus. It's dark, edgy, but also earnest and sentimental. It's my absolute favorite Kamen Rider show. Also, the fact that the monsters are called "Amazons" is used for extremely pointed stabs at Amazon (company), which is hilarious.

This series is completely narratively-driven, so I can't recommend episodes out of order! Watch the whole thing!

KAMEN RIDER ZERO-ONE (2019)

Robot-themed! Zero-One takes place in a future where robots and humans live together, like Megaman or Astro Boy. It's about the struggle of humans and robots to live in harmony with one another, and it develops those themes and its world extremely well. The main character (Aruto) is very goofy and wants to be a manzai comedian but his lame puns always bomb. He is, however, also the heir of a massive company that builds all the robot people! Aruto is suddenly, unexpectedly, thrown into the company as its President after his grandfather dies. This responsibility is too much for him, but he decides to take on the mantle as he wants to bring a smile to people's faces, and that he legitimately cares about robots, as he was raised and saved by one as a kid. With this in mind, he takes on his grandfather's KAMEN RIDER ZERO-ONE technology and uses it to attempt to stop a terrorist robot faction (METSUBOUJINRAI.NET) that's bent on killing all humans, and corrupting other robots for that goal. All while also trying to advocate for a harmonious relationship between humans and robots. This is honestly fantastic, and may seem super goofy at first but gets very complex as it goes on. Very great balance of lighthearted comedy and serious drama, and another one of my absolute favorite Kamen Rider series, right up there with Kiva and Amazons.

RECOMMENDED EPISODES TO SAMPLE: Episode 1: I'm the President and a Kamen Rider Episode 2: Is AI an Enemy? Ally? Episode 5: His Passionate Manga Path Episode 6: I Want to Hear Your Voice (2-parter with episode 5)

KAMEN RIDER GEATS (2022)

Battle-royale themed Kamen Rider, with a lot of inspiration on korean dramas and reality shows. It definitely feels inspired by, say, Squid Game. Gods select people to compete in a Kamen Rider battle royale, and the winner of the final round gets to remake the world in whatever way they see fit. The production is a bit cheap after the last two KRs before Geats underperformed, and they had to scale the production down. The fact that the series tries to convey the excitement of extremely high stakes so often only for those stakes to completely deflate thanks to how the premise works, creates a situation where you don't know what to care because anything can get undone and completely changed so often anyway. Near the end the series gets particularly bad with this. Still, it has some good characters, some nice drama and some fun comedy, so it's not bad, but definitely on my lower tier of KRs alonside Fourze. Again: No KR I've watched was bad! So, even the ones that might sound that I'm down on them I still very much enjoyed.

(Too narratively-driven to recommend episodes out of order! Try the first couple of episodes!)

SHIN KAMEN RIDER (2023) (MOVIE)

Hideaki Anno's film! Hideaki Anno is a huge Kamen Rider fan and it really shows throughout the movie, with a lot of pulls from the Kamen Rider manga specifically, while also being nostalgic for a lot of the original Kamen Rider TV show from 71. Still, it ends up feeling less like "a Kamen Rider movie" and more like "an Anno movie" with a Kamen Rider-theming to it. It doesn't put its focus on the stunts and the fight choreography that you'd see in other Kamen Rider productions, but more on Anno's style of cinematography, his sense of timing, special effects and animation. It also retreads several of the themes and elements that he's drawn from before, a lot of Evangelion is in this. It's good, I like it!

KAMEN RIDER GOTCHARD (2023)

Currently ongoing! Very Y2K nostalgic, with a Kamen Rider suit that has that Y2K aqua color to it, and is themed around... Pokemon cards? There are these creatures called Chemys, that are contained inside alchemical cards that have been let loose and need to be captured again, or at least kept away from the villains. The main character is this super earnest, almost helplessly naively optimistic schoolboy called Ichinose that has been unexpectedly thrown into the secret world of alchemy and given the power to become Kamen Rider Gotchard, as a powerful benevolent alchemist dies in his arms. As a promise to him, he vows to find the Chemys. Ichinose also believes that they're extremely good-natured beings that are only corrupted by human malice, and really believes in the friendship of Chemys and humans, while other alchemists feel Ichinose's ideas of Chemys are too naive and soft-hearted. It's, uh, I don't know what to think of it, honestly! The first couple of episodes really did not sold me on it, but it gets better and better as it goes on, though, it's also, like, a lot of Big Important things keep happening in rapid-fire in a way that I can't tell whether the show has a higher plan for all of it or if it's just throwing things for easy hype. Nearly every episode there's a new Kamen Rider transformation, it's kind of insane. Still, this is preferrable than the stretches of not much happening that plague some other KR seasons. I've been enjoying it a good amount, honestly!

RECOMMENDED EPISODES TO SAMPLE: Episode 5: Burn! Fight! Wrestler G! Episode 7: Goodbye, Saboneedle

And those are all the Kamen Riders I've watched! Something else that can help you decide on which series to try out, is that the NHK made a public popularity poll of Kamen Rider series, with the results being found here! From here, you can tell which KRs are most beloved and well-remembered in Japan, and use that as a guidance for yourself, if you'd like. But again, I must emphasize, you can really start most anywhere, so feel free to do exactly that!

#kamen rider #kr #tokusatsu #gotchard #shin kamen rider

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