#the original series was completely transformative for tv at its time

[peetum]

My parents were hippie nerds who watched the original. So I watched the vhs's of the original and Star Trek The Next Generation with them, and watched Deep Space Nine on tv. There's episodes with lots of complex thought and direction put into them. Then there's episodes where an alien gets an ear job (like a hand job but on his ears 🤪) or where someone turns into a salamander because they went REAL fast. One day while I was super sick my spouse asked me what I wanted to watch - I said a specific episode of Star Trek (one where the autistic coded android has a day off and wants to use the big computer to play sherlock holmes) its a fun and silly episode with a bit of serious rumination on conciousness and what defines life. This got my spouse hooked in it :3 (especially as they saw themselves in the android character). Quite literally no one isndoing it quite like Star trek!

I love how strong and passionate the star trek fandom is. It actually makes me want to watch the show. Like why are there so many of y'all? Why have you been here for *so* long? There must be a reason and the answers must be in the show

[crowleysgirl56]

The year was 1996. Growing up in Australia one of our free to air TV channels (channel 7 specifically) had a kids morning program that would show random cartoons (shout out to anyone who understands when I reference Agro’s Cartoon Connections). One particular morning I woke to a new cartoon. The animation style reminded me of Transformers and its theme song began with a catchy guitar riff.

🎶Fighting evil by moonlight. Winning love by daylight!🎶

Wait. What?! This is certainly something that Ive never seen before. Intrigued I watched with rapt fascination. There was a talking cat and a girl with beautiful long hair who was actually a secret super hero.

Her name was Sailor Moon.

I was 12 years old and completely hooked. I immediately started wearing my hair in pigtails (I was never able to grow my hair long and it was always terribly thin. Oh that hair envy never went away). I fantasied about how I was also a secret moon princess and one day my Tuxedo Mask would find me and whisk me away. I would look for Luna on every corner, but the talking cat never showed up.

I remember crying so hard when Serena and Darian (original English dubbing!) were separated and ached for them to be reunited (gee, funny how those kinds of obsessions never go away. Or just get transferred…). It was only ever season 1 and 2 that aired here and I was lucky that they replayed it at least three times over the years. I remember there was this one tiny shop at my main shopping centre devoted to anime (a rare thing in the 90’s and early 2000’s) where you could buy VHS copies of season 1 and 2. Unfortunately a poor high school student could not afford $36 a tape.

Years later when Sailor Moon Crystal started, the same English dub cast redubbed the entire original series as well. I eventually collected them and watched them all on DVD, and watched all the episodes I never saw (man, Sailor Moon Super S really rambles doesn’t it).

I loved Crystal because I thought the retelling in a more condensed version (without the filler episodes) got us to the point of the arc much quicker. And I like that Usagi and Mamaro didn’t hate each other to begin with.

With the second part of Sailor Moon Cosmos now watched it brings my Sailor Moon journey to an end (well…not quite an end, I never did get around to reading the mangas). But as a 40 year old woman who’s been obsessed with this show since before I was a teenager, I’m always amazed I still love it as much as I do. So whenever anyone ever tells you “this is just a passing fad. You’ll grow out of it” or somehow makes you feel disparaged for loving something so intensely, remember the things you like are for you and you alone and no one can tell you how to go about loving them.

So here’s to my first love. My first obsession. My first hyperfixation. The first couple that I desperately wished could be together, whose love never strayed far from my mind. Thank you for the journey!

[bakerstreetbabble]

Granada TV Series Review: "The Copper Beeches" (S02, E01)

Season 2 of Granada's The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes starts with a gripping, dramatic episode, complete with a creepy "bad guy" (played to great effect by British actor Joss Ackland), a winsome heroine (the late Natasha Richardson playing Violet Hunter), and a bloodthirsty hound (not that hound, mind you). Honestly, re-reading "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches" just now, I felt like the Granada series took a fairly average story and made it into something much more exciting. Overall, they were very faithful to the source material, but they managed to rearrange a few plot points and use a fine cast to elevate the adaptation beyond its original form.

For one thing, Joss Ackland is extremely creepy as Mr. Rucastle. Sure, he's jovial enough most of the time, but Ackland is a talented enough actor to make every line seem sinister. From the very first time we meet him, we feel as if things just aren't quite right with this "generous" employer. Meanwhile, Natasha Richardson as Violet Hunter gave the role the right balance between a young lady who's getting more and more frightened and the kind of ingenuity that obviously wins the great detective's respect.

Jeremy Brett and David Burke are excellent, as usual, and there's a particularly delightful sequence at the opening of the episode where we are treated to one of Holmes's rants about how Watson has injected too much romance into the stories that Holmes thinks should be cold, logical case studies. We also are treated to a classic Holmes line, as the detective and his sidekick take the train to meet up with Miss Hunter: “Data! data! data! I can’t make bricks without clay.” (This line, which happens back at the flat at 221B Baker Street in the story, is moved a bit later in the TV episode, which I think works quite well.)

I should also mention the little detail of the slight change of setting of Mr. Rucastle's daughter's prison: in the original story, it is merely a mysterious, shuttered wing of the Copper Beeches estate. In the adaptation, however, it has been transformed into a mysterious "turret," which I think works a bit better.  That's what I enjoyed about this episode: the writers, while staying quite faithful to the original story, made minor tweaks to the plot, which ended up giving the story a lot more drama and forward momentum.

This was really a top-notch episode to begin the second season of the successful series. Before I wrap up the review, I should probably mention the entertaining final scene, in which Watson is clearly reading his most recent write-up of the events at the Copper Beeches, with no little delight at the effect his "romantic" storytelling has on his friend. By this point in the series, one can easily tell how comfortable David Burke and Jeremy Brett were becoming in their own roles, as well as in the camaraderie shared by the two friends. It really was a very fine episode to begin the second season!

[princesscolumbia]

https://www.furinkan.com/features/articles/pregnant.html

About a week-ish ago, the above link was posted to the r/Ranma subreddit. I took a look at the article and the tl;dr seems to be as follows:

Once upon a time there was a person who put forth the question to Rumiko Takahashi on whether Ranma's transformation from boy-to-girl was complete enough that Ranma could experience all the consequences of such a transformation, the logical conclusion being, "Can Ranma get pregnant?" The rather infamous 'quote' of "I don't think about that, and neither should you," is purported to come from this question, which told the audience one thing: Don't fucking ask about Ranma's sex life or by Kami-sama, Takahashi-sensei will gut you! This stood as an uncontested truth until the pandemic when someone decided to try and track down the exact source of the quote, at which point they realized this was NOT said at a convention (as had initially been circulated via rumor at the time), but in an editorial that stood in lieu of a an interview that took place over a sit-down dinner between Takahashi and an editor who would wind up garnering a reputation for ginning up drama for its own sake. It's likely a heavily 'interpreted' quote that probably didn't have the intent to come across as cutting or biting and likely had a LOT of questions left on the table that could have been asked as a follow-up. So now that we've answered the question of whether Takahashi-san was actually a rude bitch or not (likely not), if you want to know whether Ranma can get pregnant you are a smelly sex pervert who most likely has cooties and should just drop dead and save us all the trouble of shunning you.

Am I taking liberty with my summary? FU~HUH~HUH~UCK YES! If you want to see what they actually say, follow the link and read. It's not tremendously long and, save for the author's unconscious purity cult bias, is a pretty solid piece of reportage into the infamous "quote," even if the question isn't actually answered. What follows is what I posted to Reddit in the comments section for that link:

I take issue with the foundational premise that the question of whether or not Ranma could get pregnant is inherently puerile or vulgar, which is not only the foundation of the original misquote but also the basis of the article's author's premise. Guess what, people f*ck, including at least two people you (yes, YOU) know. This should not be controversial. Now, I'll grant that, maybe...maybe in the 1990s when the question came up it might have been one of those giggle-behind-a-hand-in-shock kind of things, but we're entering a phase in world culture where uterus transplants for transwomen are being put through clinical trials to allow them to get pregnant. The rights of trans and gender-non-conforming folk are being trampled on the world over. Some transmen are choosing to become pregnant and have children. The hypocrisy of "cis het people get to talk about pregnancy without everyone assuming the question is about f*cking, but you'd better not talk about someone who's even a little bit trans or you're clearly doing it to be filthy, nasty perverts" is being exposed for the comp-het that it is. Asking "does this character who, canonically, transitions back and forth between one biological set of sex organs and secondary sex characteristics multiple times per day have to deal with all the concerns, consequences, and benefits of both forms?" is no longer the automatic, "You can't say that on TV!" that is used to be (and, honestly, never should have been). Soun, canonically, has f*cked. Nodoka, canonically, has f*cked. Genma, canonically (goddess help us all), has fucked. The operational premise of the primary conflict of the series is whether or not Ranma and Akane are going to, eventually, f*ck. The question of "What happens if Ranma gets pregnant?" should only ever be problematic if Takahashi at some point declares that Ranma is an ace transwoman and never wants to birth children, at which point it would be a thing that shouldn't be considered for hard/soft canon purposes because it would violate Ranma's choices in the matter. IMHO, in the reboot I think an episode where Ranma has to deal with attending both the boy's and the girl's sex ed classes would be tremendously funny. It would also have the knock-on effect getting people to think about things like "consent" and "consequences," something our current culture rather lacks.

This was auto-banned on Reddit because, apparently, saying the word "fuck," even with the self-censoring and used in the appropriate context, is a bridge too far for a subreddit attended by people old enough to know what sex is.

This isn't the first time I've encountered problematic behavior on the r/Ranma subreddit. When I pointed out that Ranma's basically saying that s/he just plain forgot about their gender and they only wanted the cure for Akane's sake, this is basically Ranma declaring that they don't care about their 'curse' and is genderfluid/NB, just lacking in the language that we have for those gender presentations (or non-presentation, as the case may be) that we have today, I got the clapback of, "NUH-UH! You're wrong! Ranma's a cis guy!".

(Yes, a cis guy. A cis guy who has 'his' own bras and likely has to carry around period products "just in case" and grows at least a cup-size canonically over the course of the show's run as commented on by Nabiki...and don't tell me Nabiki's not at least bi!)

This was on a conversation about whether Ranma was trans, which is a challenging question given the best word at the time for what Ranma is was 'newhalf,' a term that has come to be associated with sex workers and holds the same cultural niche as "sh*male" in American culture; it's a bit derogatory and is considered to be a slur that is used specifically in a sexual connotation. Couple this with the anime and manga being, at best, parallel continuities (there's SO many places where the two are different timelines I could probably do an entire series of posts just breaking down the differences) AND the fans stitching the two together to create fused variant timelines for their derivative works means that we just don't, at this point, have a solid answer.

Thanks to THAT episode of the anime:

Am I... Pretty? Ranma's Declaration of Womanhood (Peacock link)

...pretty much no transwoman on the planet is going to question that anime Ranma is a transgirl. The parallels to our own experiences that (femme)Ranma talks about during her dissociative state hit entirely too close to home and if a member of the writing team for that episode wasn't part of the queer community I will eat my bra with spaghetti sauce.

It's important to note, as well, that because of the anime, Takahashi is NO LONGER THE FINAL AUTHORITY ON ALL THINGS RANMA. If 'death of the author' is a thing, Takahashi committed honorable sepuku and gave creative control over to a writing and directorial team that is not her.

For the original manga, because Takahashi was unwilling to tackle those questions that give Purity Cultists hives (though why she'd shy away from the pregnancy angle when she was perfectly happy showing Ranma and her mirror clone working as prostitutes is a question I will probably never get answered), it's "open to interpretation" as to Ranma's Genderfluid/NB status, though IMHO the text is as clear as you can get it for the language of the time.

(In retrospect, it's obvious; she should be in the club)

In the anime, though, Shampoo and Ukyo are bi (and fuckin'), Ranma is a transwoman, and Akane is either lesbian or bi and strangled by comp-het to an obvious degree. Ryoga may well be trans as well, though his pig-related curse makes the matter questionable given his lamentations could be either about not having a girl body like Ranma does OR having a pig body, which would suck and result in severe dysmorphia either way.

This is because the anime team chose to tackle those questions, at least tangentially. Rumiko Takahashi, for all she is to be thanked for giving the world Ranma 1/2 (...and a few other things), handed off the baton to other creators. If we want the answers to the questions like, "Can Ranma get pregnant?", Takahashi is NOT the source for that.

That said, if she and I had the chance to sit down over a meal in San Diego during a convention, I'd apologize on behalf of the community for the monstrous tool who misquoted her and ask the questions like another content creator, not some asshat who just wants to stir up trouble for decades to come.

[thatsmutaccount]

Oh boy, this is a difficult one.

Just so we are all clear I'm putting this first thing first: this chapter focus heavily on the theme of incest and has an explicit sexual scene between brothers (both over 18, btw), so if this is something you don't like or find in some way disturbing or triggering, please don't read. The central part also delves heavily into the description of bullying incidents and depiction of a toxic home environment. There is no actual scene, this episodes are only mentioned, still if you find this triggering be warned. These bullying incidents are in no way sexual, btw, just to be clear, just old Rex being an asshole as usual.

Yeah, about this chapter and this theme in particular, let's talk about it. I confess that in canon media it's not something I like. If I read a book or watch a movie or a TV series where there are two characters that are related to each other I do not like to read fan fiction where they are depicted having an incestuous relationship. I explain it in the note at the beginning of the chapter, but basically for me familial love is something completely different for romantic/sexual love, and the two can't be compared or confused with each other. Of course (I think is obvious but better be safe than sorry) I do not support incest in real life and I do not want to romanticize it in any way, the only reason I'm writing about is because is a fictional scenario and because my stories are so out of this world and "cartoony" that honestly something like that could probably never happen.

So, that being said, why am I an hypocrite and write incest stories between fictional made up adults while saying I don't like it? Because I created them to be this way. Rex is messed up, he is in no way a "normal" character: he never had a sane relationship with his family, so he never formed that bond of familial love with them, and vice versa the other never saw him as someone actually related to them. Because his situation is so different and his feeling are so complicated I was able to write this chapter, and others still on this line (you want a real incest-fest? Go read ch 28 of this story, "Family beach fun", that is really messed up XP). Rex is supposed to have this feeling that are not of familial love but of sexual attraction towards the members of his family, and because of this I have no problem writing him this way.

Anyway, rant aside, let's talk story, yay! I like how I wrote it. For once I tried to be more touchy feely with a major hurt/comfort vibe. Still there is a lot of sex and I like how I handled it.

Anyway I'm currently having Rex/Mike brainrot (and just Rex/Mike brainrot) and, for some reason, I want to write more stuff about these two, and by that I mean a lot of chapters with just Mike and Rex being dumbasses in love, and of course I can't because "Rex new life" has its own schedule and has to be balanced with the characters in it. Soooooo... I will probably publish a short long/one shot collection with some prompts that will be just Rex/Mike.

What do you think of this idea? Yay or nay? I would probably take some prompts from around Tumblr and such and just publish them.

Wish me luck not to be banned here in doing so, and enjoy this chapter, see ya dudes!!!!!

*****

CHAPTER SUMMARY: The time has finally come for Rex to confront his brother. Will things between the two finally be explained? Will they get their closure? Or is the gap between them so deep that it can never be bridged?

*****

WARNING: Incest (Borther/Borther); Jerking Off; Blowjob; Anal Sex; Bukkake; Degradation Kink; Slut Shaming; Implied Cheating; Nipple Play; Cumming Untouched; Fingering

ADDITIONAL WARNING: Bullying; Toxic Familial Relationship; Verbal Abuse; Physical Abuse; Unhealthy way of coping; past hospitalization; past charachter death; grieving

[danidoesathing]

I like how Arcane Viktor is both a robot/cyborg and something completely alien to Runeterra. Like, he's still a robot/cyborg of some kind (his voice is mechanical, his skin is metal, there are bolts and screws in his Hexcoreized form, and you can hear faint mechanical whirrs in some of his scenes after he's fully Evolved)-but he's also not the type of cyborg he's normally depicted.

He's less "traditional Cyberpunk cyborg" and more "Spooky Living Metal Alien Robot who wants to assimilate you into the Robot/Alien Hive Mind". Both are still cyborgs/robots, but very different genres of robot/cyborg. (One is Cyberpunk Sci-Fi, one is Space Sci-Fi.) (...Also, the fact that some media uses divine imagery for aliens and/or makes it so that ancient societies worshipped aliens as gods arguably makes this comparison work even better?)

(Slight spoilers for The Expanse.) (The main comparison I use for Viktor's transformations is the Protomolecule Hybrids from The Expanse as a comparison-both the TV and book versions. (The Protomolecule can assimilate and transform both flesh and technology, so it feels a fitting comparison.))

(Also, you should check out The Expanse. It's well written, has great characters and storylines, and has some similar themes to Arcane (class divide and politics) while also being a mostly-grounded Space Sci-Fi series. (Also, Grayson's VA plays one of my favorite characters.) It's on Prime for free, and I cannot recommend it enough.)

YES I LOVE!!! ELDRITCH ROBOT VIKTOR!!! i understand why people were disappointed that they didn't get the Machine Herald from the game (even i will admit i wanted to see that freak in all his glory) but ive always considered him and Jayce Talis as separate guys (as well as the rest of the cast, but those two have the biggest deviation from their original selves. its one of the reasons I call him the Arcane Herald and not the Machine Herald cause. hes not really the Machine Herald) so i was really excited to see him as a fucked up body horror robot wizard. (and honestly i LOVE the switch up the original game lore for his (and jayce's) storyline but the tangent i want to go on is not really relevant to this ask so ill leave it there for now) and i LOVE what we got.

like i keep staring at all this pictures of his in act and im obsessed with his weird ass anatomy. He looks like he's made of wires and fibers but it looks like exposed nerves and flesh. his skin lined with gold and swirls and it pulses and glows, but it's still some intimation of skin. It looks flexible but its still metal. The result of near perfect transmutation using corrupted magic. A cyborg made of the arcane. He's so unnaturally natural. the original was once human and still retains that form no matter what but now its fundamentally changed. fucked up and alien and i love it.

AND THE DIVINITY ASPECT OOOH MY GOD!!! wake up bitch we've forced you into an artificial godhood where you dont know how much control you have over your soul at any time. you will never know how much of your own mind is your own. your own want to help people and insecurities about your body are twisted for the goal of something you cannot understand. You have become the central consciousness for a concept that was never supposed to be conscious. you will kill thousands in it's name, you've ended dozens of worlds, and you do not know how much of it was you, but you drown in your guilt regardless. you wanted to die human but you were loved too much.

(I do like in the concept art you can tell they were making designs for a semi-traditional machine herald (some pretty cool ones tbh!!), but as it goes on it gets weirder and weirder until it's the Arcane Herald. they just kept going he's not enough of a freak yet. keep making him more fucked up.)

I have not seen the Expanse but it IS on my list. and the promise of fucked up hybrids of flesh and machinery AND Shohreh Aghdashloo is. ooooh very nice.

[eliotqueliot]

Happy Valentine's Day, Queliot!

Chapter 3 of you want it darker? || dark king eliot is now live! As a Queliot gift for Valentine's Day!

This chapter does still focus on Eliot's grief, and Quentin's still technically dead (but not really/permanently?). But, as dark and angsty as this story can be, there's a strong emphasis on the Queliot love story. It feels essential to me. Hopefully you’ll agree! Big 🍑❤️ to all of you today (Happy Valentine’s Day, no matter when you read this!) (Yes, today this fic finally earns its E-rating!)

A big thank you to my collaborator @juliawickers❤️who in addition to all the support and inspiration, and creating the original concept, graphic, and fanmix❤️has made an edit for Ch. 2 and now a queliot au: you want it darker? || dark king eliot pin board with Ch. 3❤️

Summary for Chapter 3 specifically:

Eliot sees glimpses of Quentin everywhere. Hears his voice. Feels his phantom touch.

He knows it's really Q. And that no one will believe him. Telling Margo or Julia will only make them worry more.

Meanwhile, attempts to bring Quentin back continue to fail. Will a visit with an old friend help turn things around?

================

Thank you @queliotbingo! ❤️ This WIP as a whole will be marking my Resurrection/Reincarnation, Time Travel, Underworld squares

Thank you @ficwip for Hey, Sweetheart 2024! In addition to meeting the "sweetheart" challenge (several times!), Chapter 3 fits today's themes of 🗺️ Forest and 💕 mutual pining.

you want it darker? || dark king eliot (34561 words) by victoriaandalbert, EliotQueliot Chapters: 3/12 Fandom: The Magicians (TV), The Magicians - Lev Grossman Rating: Explicit Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh, Margo Hanson & Eliot Waugh, Margo Hanson/Julia Wicker, Eliot Waugh & Julia Wicker, Quentin Coldwater & Julia Wicker, Quentin Coldwater & Margo Hanson, Quentin Coldwater & Theodore "Ted" Rupert Coldwater-Waugh & Eliot Waugh, Quentin Coldwater & Theodore "Ted" Coldwater Characters: Eliot Waugh, Margo Hanson, Julia Wicker, Quentin Coldwater, Alice Quinn (The Magicians), Josh Hoberman, Fen (The Magicians), Rupert Chatwin | Dark King Sebastian, Jane Chatwin, 23rd Timeline William "Penny" Adiyodi, 40th Timeline William "Penny"Adiyodi, William "Penny" Adiyodi, Henry Fogg, 24th Timeline Alice Quinn (The Magicians), Kady Orloff-Diaz, Todd (The Magicians), Ted Coldwater, Hades (The Magicians), Theodore "Ted" Rupert Coldwater-Waugh, The Great Cock of the Darkling Wood, The Great Cock (The Magicians) Additional Tags: Grief/Mourning, Canonical Character Death, Canon-Typical Violence, Violence, Blood and Violence, Soulmates, queliot, endgame queliot, Underworld, Resurrection, Dark Fantasy, Margo Hanson is a Good Friend, Julia Wicker is a Good Friend, Quentin Coldwater Lives, Depression, References to Depression, References to Shadeless Julia Wicker, Shadeless Eliot Waugh, Oral Sex, Anal Sex, Hand Jobs, Castle Whitespire, Mountain of Ghosts, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fillory (The Magicians), Goddess Julia Wicker, Crying, Fix-It, Alternate Universe, Suicidal Thoughts, Afterlife, Ghosts, Souls, True Love, royal husbands, Magic, Fairies, High King Eliot Waugh, High king Margo Hanson, King Quentin Coldwater, Queen Julia Wicker, Suicide Attempt, Lucid Dreaming Series: Part 2 of You Want It Darker? Series Summary:

Eliot finds among Jane Chatwin’s things perhaps a way to bring back Quentin—but it comes at an enormous personal cost: during the ritual, Eliot is stripped of his Shade completely. Violently ripping the reigning Dark King from the throne, Eliot assumes the mantle of Dark High King—a truly malevolent force who will do anything to get Quentin back. Even if it means he becomes somebody the man he loves won’t recognize when Eliot rescues Quentin from the Underworld. By any means necessary.

—summary from you want it darker? || dark king eliot [graphic + fanmix] by victoriaandalbert

[kylesvariouslistsandstuff]

INSIDE OUT 2 slowly treks to possibly unseating Photoreal LION KING, now playing in Japan where the original made around $30-35m USD, while DESPICABLE ME 4 slowly climbs towards the big billion. If it does so, that makes it the first film in the franchise to do that since the third movie way back in 2017. MINIONS: THE RISE OF GRU was close but no cigar two summers back.

Both movies continue to fill up the auditoriums at the cinema I work at...

However, a new movie on the block with a curious helping of *2D* animation in it... Is not... The Sony release HAROLD AND THE PURPLE CRAYON, directed by Blue Sky alum Carlos Saldanha (ICE AGE 2, RIO 1 & 2, FERDINAND) in his live-action debut. I know some are having a lark at the weird Zachary Levi FX vehicle arriving a year after completion with no marketing, bombing hard, but I can't help but think... That just sucks.

And a big case of "what could've been?" Hollywood's been trying to adapt the Crockett Johnson-written book, first published in 1955, since the 1990s. Animated shorts and a TV series were made, but the movie just stalled and stalled, shuffling through different directors and iterations... And mediums. Sony Animation at one point, in conjunction with Amblin, was supposed to do a feature based on this... So now we got this movie, finished some time in early 2023 with an MPA rating and everything... Months before its initial release date (late July 2023), with no trailer in sight, it quietly packed its bags and left for this summer. I guess they were concerned that being wedged between BARBIE and MUTANT MAYHEM wasn't exactly the best idea...

So, it tried to arrive - unnoticed - nearly a month after DESPICABLE ME 4. Both DM4 and INSIDE OUT 2 charted higher at the weekend box office than CRAYON, which only took in $6m stateside. It's another "animation director goes live-action" endeavor that ended rather poorly. Andrew Stanton and JOHN CARTER OF MARS, Brenda Chapman and COME AWAY, even Brad Bird with TOMORROWLAND. Saldanha now has a picture called 100 DAYS lined up, an effort the Brazilian director is pursuing in his home country, so that's good for him.

It's also another largely live-action family/kids movie - not made by Disney - that didn't add up. They just become rarer and rarer by the year, it seems. I remember when those kinds of movies were everywhere. All your STUART LITTLEs and BABEs and LAST MIMZYs, off the top of my head. I think around the late aughts/early tens, they started to slowly go away, many of them just came up short most of the time. If they do exist, and aren't part of a movie franchise (like, say, WONKA and the SONIC movies), I feel they go to Netflix or whatever. There was IF this year, but that didn't make back its budget despite strong audience response/great WOM. So they still kinda exist?

Anyways, the summer belongs to emotions and gibbering tictacs on the family end of things... Though I saw quite a few parents taking their 4-7yos into DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE, and hey, some of today's kids probably see and hear worse elsewhere lol. I recall being allowed, weirdly, to watch SOUTH PARK circa 1999 when I was in 2nd grade but certain levels of violence were off-limits. I don't think my folks would've taken me to see an R-rated Deadpool/X-Men movie in 1999, haha.

So that probably ends the summer seasons, animation box office-wise. I know the autumnal equinox technically begins two days after TRANSFORMERS ONE opens, but I peg the beginning of it there. Bring on the robots!

[talenlee]

The Brilliant Fool

Normally when I write here about a Transformers character, it’s a character who has some significance to me as – well, honestly, as an example of a kind of person I could be, growing up. Blades gave me a lesson about quelling the want for violence inside me and also how defensive violent bf /softboy medic bf was a top tier pairing, and Dinobot gave me lessons about dying well in the face of oblivion, a lesson that I thought I needed really soon when I got it. There are Transformers I love because of jokes, Transformers I love because of association with toys and there are some Transformers that I love because they are, through no fault of their own, completely useless doofuses.

Let’s talk about Wheeljack

Wheeljack is an OG Transformer. Not only was he present in the original TV series, he was the first ever Transformer to be animated, the first one to appear on a cell and the first one to say or do anything. Wheeljack was also in this privileged position because he was from an earlier time, an earlier toyline, one of the diaclone toys that needed minimal changes to come on over. And not only was this the 1980s but this was a Japanese toy from the 1970s, so his toy was a really nice model that was also, coincidentally, made largely out of die-cast metal and had all sorts of lovely detailing and stickers that you could use to show how good you were at putting on stickers unless you were a fumble handed gallumphus like myself.

Don’t worry, I never had a Wheeljack, but I knew someone who did, and that toy was nice.

Anyway, Wheeljack as a character was one of the huge cast of Transformers who got a personality written up in what feels in hindsight like filling out a spreadsheet, where the writer got a picture of a character and had to devise a name and personality for them and keep moving, while also doing everything they could to keep them from overlapping with one another, which, of course, they did. Did you know that Grimlock (A t-rex) and Fortress Maximus (a city) and Brawl (a little guy about the size of a VW bug) are all listed as the strongest Autobot? Making sense of these original bios was like digging through Biblical harmonisation, but at least Transformers admit they’re making stuff up.

Anyway, Wheeljack got given the personality up front of being a crackpot mad scientist working for the good guys, which meant you took an archetype normally full of potential malice and potential goofiness and then just stripped out all the malice. Wheeljack in G1 was a guy who would invent things, and those things would have to be useful to pretty much only anyone in exactly one episode. This meant Wheeljack was either solving the problem of the episode by techno-babbling up a device that would fix it, or causing the problem of the episode by techno-babbling up a device that unfixed something, and sometimes both.

Wheeljack served a good, steadfast, mechanical role in the story of the show and to that end he hung around a lot. He also had a really easy face to animate – rather than flap a mouth or move a visor, his face lit up when he was talking, which meant you just changed its colour. Real convenient, real nice when you wanted to have him talk at length.

But this is just ‘why Wheeljack showed up a lot,’ it’s not by any means an explanation as to why I liked Wheeljack. What I like about Wheeljack is instead something created in the negative space of the character by what the people making it didn’t intend to do.

Here’s how it cooks out. First of all, Wheeljack is an inventor who is memorably depicted screwing up and eating dirt, regularly. He’s an inventor but it’s easy to feel like his hit rate is half and half, and a bunch of the things he makes have the weirdest solutions to them and ways they work. It’s not true in the comics, mind you, those are written a bit less for, y’know, four year olds in the 1980s, but the ‘crackpot inventor’ element sticks around.

The other thing is that Wheeljack’s disguise sucks.

It’s not that he doesn’t look like a car, he sure does look like a car! But Wheeljack doesn’t turn into ‘a car.’ Wheeljack turns into a sports car.

Well, so what you may say, it’s not like sports cars are that rare.

And then I go, he turns into a Lancia Stratos

And you’d interrupt me, comically, — Well, okay, no you wouldn’t, you’d say what and I’m embellishing for the bit — and say, hey, no no, see, you’ve got a specific name for it, a model, that means it got made in some degree of mass production,

And I respond with yeah, we know how many of his type of Lancia Stratos got made. He’s the Group 5 Lancia Stratos. He has specific racing regalia on him for sponsor material. Because he didn’t copy ‘a car’, he copied a race ready Lancia Stratos Group 5. There were only 500 Lancia Stratos made, and only a small number of them – like, less than ten – were ever put into racing colours, and then they were deomissioned. Imagine if while trying to blend into a location you picked the disguise of ‘recognisable celebrity,’ or maybe tried to blend in at the zoo as an endangered animal of which they knew they only had two. This means Wheeljack was in a position to scan the Lancia Stratos Group 5 (which wasn’t run in many races after it failed!) and then drove around after it left!

It plays into the way that his inventions seemed to fail a lot, or seemed to work in weird ways. It depicts a person who has somehow a skillset that’s suited to making big, impressive, technically challenging accomplishments and not a goddamn lick of sense about what he can do with it. This is a guy who can invent a teleportation machine and his idea of how to use it to solve the war is to let humans move more quickly to and from the base to update them on what the Decepticons are doing. This is a guy who makes a blender with a frappe setting that retasks a satellite. This is a guy whose first appearance on screen is using a machine he built that then immediately backfires and sets the tone for him for the rest of his life.

Wheeljack is one of my favourite Transformers, but only in the way that I love to watch the way fans talk about him, because of the beautiful alignment of super genius and fantastic idiot.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[maximumwobblerbanditdonut]

“Monsieur Spade” series (Prime Video)

Monsieur Spade is a TV series directed by Scott Frank in 2024 and based on the characters from the book The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett, first published in 1929. The TV series features Clive Owen, Rebecca Root, Oscar Lesage, Cara Bossom, Inès Melab, Luke Tinson, and others.

The series revolves around the detective Sam Spade, created by writer Dashiell Hammett, who has been leading a peaceful retirement in the small town of Bozuls in the South of France. The year is 1963, the Algerian War has recently concluded, and soon Spade’s tranquillity will also come to an end.

The famous detective Sam Spade ( Clive Owen ) is now 60 years old and lives as an expatriate in the south of France in 1963. Monsieur Spade was an original story starring the character, bringing the iconic literary detective out of retirement in the south of France as Spade pursues a tortuous web of criminal conspiracy revolving around a mysterious young man.

Is Monsieur Spade Based On A Book? Monsieur Spade has interesting connections to a literary work from the 1930s as well as an iconic Hollywood film. Starring Clive Owen as the titular character, Monsieur Spade is a new mystery series from AMC. The show follows the exploits of Sam Spade, a once-successful private detective.

Choosing 1963 France as its main setting, the first season of Monsieur Spade tells a six-episode story that finds its main protagonist diving head first into a murder case. In the story's period, Clive Owen's Sam Spade is years past his prime. Having left the life of a private detective behind years ago, Sam is enjoying the lack of excitement in his everyday activities when he is suddenly forced back into action. As for where this all leads, that remains to be seen. However, this is not to say that Monsieur Spade is a completely original story. It is rooted in the existing material.

Sam Spade is the protagonist of the 1930 novel “The Maltese Falcon”

Sam Spade made his first appearance in The Maltese Falcon, a 1930 novel by Dashiell Hammett, before spearheading a series of short stories by the writer. The book was published as a serial in 1929 and published as a novel the following year. A private detective gets involved in a case to find an expensive but mysterious statuette and indulges with three criminals and a liar.

The novel proved popular enough to be adapted three times in the decade following its publication. While the first two adaptations were not well received, the third adaptation starring Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade is considered not just a great adaptation but one of the great films of the twentieth century.

During this era, stories about “tough detectives” became incredibly popular, with writers such as Hammett, Mickey Spillane, and Raymond Chandler penning some of the best-known entries in the mystery subgenre. Many of them, including The Maltese Falcon, ended up getting the Hollywood treatment.

In 1941, John Huston wrote and directed a film adaptation of The Maltese Falcon and cast Hollywood legend Humphrey Bogart in the lead role of Sam Spade. The story, like the book it is based on, saw Spade engage in a multi-part quest to find a seemingly priceless bird statue called the Maltese Falcon. Bogart's performance in the film and Dashiell Hammett's handling of the story helped transform Sam Spade into one of the famous actor's best-known roles.

The events of Monsieur Spade take place well after the events of the book

Although the story told in Monsieur Spade is not based on a book, its protagonist comes from a classic novel. In Monsieur Spade's canon, the events of The Maltese Falcon are in the past. It acts as a sequel to the original 1930 novel. Everything that occurs in the book happened in the series, but it's been decades.

This makes sense considering Monsieur Spade's 1963 setting. Hammett's Sam Spade stories have never ventured this far into Sam Spade's life, meaning that while the show may explore the history of the Maltese Falcon through flashbacks, its overarching narrative must be an entirely new story, making it impossible to predict what happens just by looking at Hammett's work alone.

The series arrived on 14th January 2024

#MonsieurSpade #SamSpade #CliveOwen #AMC+ #TheMalteseFalcon #HumphreyBogart #JohnHuston #DashiellHammett #Hollywood #novel #series #drama

[rescue-ram]

6, 11, 18 for the writer asks

6. First fic/pairing you wrote for? (If no pairing, describe the plot)

Kdjfjd. Don't remember the first real proper fic that I wrote, but I think the very first fic I ever posted to the Internet was like. "What if Pippin had a Yokomon." And it immediately got deleted by the mods on FF.net for being ""spam"" kfkdk.

11. Weirdest thing you’ve ever written/thought about writing/etc.?

I got pretty wild with Kinktober this year- I think the wildest thing I published was the Hawnk voodoo doll fic kfkdkd, though Trapper Jesus is probably a v close runner up in terms of deranged premises. I- and I am genuinely mortified about this kvkkfd- almost wrote a vore fantasy fic (aka character fantasizing about vore/cannibalism, not enacted.) I half-started it and then realized no- no matter how convinced I am this character could plausibly do that- I absolutely can't publish that kdkdjkf.

ACTUALLY 18. How old were you when you started writing fanfiction

Like 10 or 11 kfkck

EDIT I'M AN IDIOT AND COPIED THE WRONG QUESTION FROM THE ASK MEME BUT I SPENT TOO LONG ON THIS LVKDKXJCM

18. Favorite Fic By Another Author

I COULDN'T PICK JUST ONE Links and squeeing below the cut.

Your Cowboy Days Are Over by Sam Donne is one of those fics I read a little too young but is so good- it's exploration of memory and trauma and parental love and the trolley problem is woven in with this great sci-fi setting and a resistance story. Absolutely phenomenal. Another fic by Sam Donne- Nebraska, an Iron Man fic- is a fic I read once a year every year for over a decade and made me weep uncontrollably at multiple points every time. It's one of the most intensely psychological fics I've ever read and dealt phenomenally with depression and autism and the nature of consciousness, and it fundamentally shaped my language of grief. It also currently only exists as a print out in a fire proof bag next to my social security card. The thought of losing that fic forever genuinely makes me gnaw on things!

One other SGA shout out: A Farm in Iowa by sheafrotherdon. My best friend and I were completely obsessed with this series in high school. Sweet wholesome AU fluff, absolutely bucolic.

In adjacent Stargate fandom, cleanwhiteroom recently posted a revised version of Force Over Distance to AO3 and is working revising on my personal fave of her stories Mathematique! Incredibly compelling slow-burn of a plot with deliciously ambiguous relationships and consciousness blending that questions the nature of self and other. Extremely concept rich story.

The Heart's Obligations by schemingreader I THOUGHT was lost media but it is found!!!! Augh. The ULTIMATE transformative fic to me- so wildly AU from its source material, Harry Potter, it's practically an original novel and yet the knowledge that this ISN'T original and IS informed by outside context changes the way you read it. Really well written and well researched historical novel with lines that have stuck with me for well over a decade.

For Man from UNCLE, couldn't decide between Wonderland and Partners, both by Pat Foley. Really interesting and realistic take on the canon material and makes great use of the Cold War setting.

Force of Nature by Jenna Hilary Sinclair for Brokeback Mountain is an ABSOLUTELY TRANSCENDENT "What if Jack didn't die" fic that is so so realistic and well written and touching. Not a happily ever after fic, but also not needlessly cruel, but a very compelling story of Jack and Ennis making a real relationship work while staying closeted in rural New Mexico. Incredible characterization, good OCs, plotty and long enough to lose yourself in, incredibly influential on my writing in ways I can't even express, you WOULD NOT BELIEVE MY SQUEE when I saw she was writing a sequel after a ten year hiatus!!!!

Graduation by bat400 takes some of the dark storylines from Star Trek Enterprise and plays them out without giving them a neat resolution an episodic TV show demands. Fully explores the depths of tragedy but still pulls it back up to that Star Trek optimism at the end without undermining what came before at all. There are some annoying formatting issues in the AO3 copy from when it was imported, but the story itself still shines. A really well written story about grief, moral injury, and recovery.

Okay we've officially exhausted my "off the top of my head" all time favorites and I'm now mentally gibbering to myself about what else I should mention because clearly I have many favorites that rotate in the back of my mind the way normal people think about scenes and quotes from real books or poems jfkdn.

We will close with Sins and Virtues by Quordle, because I VIVIDLY REMEMBER the experience of reading this I think in high school. I remember pawing thorough livejournal for TrapHawk fic recs, absolutely QwQ at the dearth, and there was like. A single line in a review for another fic, "inspired by the excellent Hawkeye/Mulcahy fic Sins and Virtues by Jane Carnall" and I was SO COMPLETELY GOBSMACKED by the concept of shipping Mulcahy with anyone but especially Hawkeye, I just had to track down this fic. I eventually found her personal archive and started reading the series like "Okay... Okay... Augh. AAAAAAAUGHHHHHHH." I was seriously getting up to pace multiple times during Such as We. Something that really made the series stand out to me was how DIFFERENT it felt. It didn't follow the usual rhythm of tension and release in shippy fics, used none of the usual tropes or short hands- it felt very original, and I loved how historically grounded it was. Like I'm sure you've already read it but if anyone else reading this hasn't, highly highly recommend!!!

[mediaevalmusereads]

Redshirts. By John Scalzi. Tor, 2012.

Rating: 4/5 stars

Genre: science fiction

Series: N/A

Summary: Ensign Andrew Dahl has just been assigned to the Universal Union Capital Ship Intrepid, flagship of the Universal Union since the year 2456. It’s a prestige posting, and Andrew is thrilled all the more to be assigned to the ship’s Xenobiology laboratory.

Life couldn’t be better…until Andrew begins to pick up on the fact that:

(1) every Away Mission involves some kind of lethal confrontation with alien forces

(2) the ship’s captain, its chief science officer, and the handsome Lieutenant Kerensky always survive these confrontations

(3) at least one low-ranked crew member is, sadly, always killed.

Not surprisingly, a great deal of energy below decks is expended on avoiding, at all costs, being assigned to an Away Mission. Then Andrew stumbles on information that completely transforms his and his colleagues’ understanding of what the starship Intrepid really is…and offers them a crazy, high-risk chance to save their own lives.

***Full review below.***

CONTENT WARNINGS: gruesome deaths, blood, dismemberment

OVERVIEW: I generally respect John Scalzi as a storyteller. I read Old Man's War a while ago, so it has been a hot minute since I've picked up any of his books, but I figured I'd give one a go since I needed something relatively light. Overall, I enjoyed myself and I understand what Scalzi was doing: poking fun at sci fi tropes while simultaneously deploying them. There's a lot to like, especislly if you're a fan of Star Trek. I guess my 4 star rating is entirely subjective; as much fun as I had, I wanted a little more from this book, so while it was a blast to read, it ultimately could have had a greater impact.

WRITING: Scalzi's writing is fine for the type of book we're working with. The prose is quick, so you can get through it pretty fast, and it revels in a particular brand of humor that some will enjoy. The prose is also heavily weighted towards dialogue and telling (versus showing), which I normally wouldn't like but works in this context precisely because it's imitating the dialogue of TV shows like Star Trek.

CHARACTERS: I'm not going to look at individual characters in this book because a lot of them blurred together for me. Because the plot is partially meant to mimic an episode of Star Trek, there isn't much meaningful character development, and the differences between the characters are not so impactful that they make them feel like individuals. I often mixed some of the supporting characters up, which I guess could be indicative of some aspect of sci fi, but personally, I wish some of the "redshirts" had felt like real people.

PLOT: The plot of this book follows a group of new recruits aboard the spaceship Intrepid, which has been mysteriously experiencing a high number of recorded crew deaths every time there is an away mission. Led by Ensign Andrew Dahl, the recruits try to get to the bottom of the phenomenon while avoiding their own untimely- and nonsensical- demise.

This story is more enjoyable the more you know what it's trying to do. It pokes fun at the running gag on Star Trek the Original Series, in which "redshirts" (low-ranking crewmembers) are killed off at astonishing rates and in ridiculous manners. It also pokes fun at Star Trek's imitators and episodic TV, primarily at shows who bend the rules of physics or use character deaths for drama. At the same time, Scalzi deploys these same tropes to construct a story that is quick, silly, and ultimately, something of a love letter to sci fi (in the way Galaxy Quest is a love letter to the same).

But what made this book most meaningful for me were the 3 codas at the end of the book. The codas are a little different in tone and reflect more seriously on the idea of what makes a life (and death) meaningful. Personally, I loved this meta-analysis and wished more had been sprinkled in throughout the novel as a whole.

TL;DR: Redshirts is a humorous look at the life of "expendable" sci fi extras and episodic TV writing, poking fun at the nonsense physics and meaningless deaths in shows like Star Trek. While readers familiar with these tropes will get a chuckle out of the narrarive, the codas at the end of the novel will really bring the story into more contemplative territory, and my rating is partially a reflection of my desire to see more from the codas explored throughout the rest of the novel.

[quartzroolz]

Fuck it Rider run through rankings

welp, this is it. My magnum opus. Back in 2023, I decided it was a great idea to watch through every Heisei kamen rider season and keep this post as a little tribute to my journey. well, that fell apart, because I eventually decided that "oh, 25+ years of karate bugman isn't enough, let shoot for the full 50+". so this is it. my opinions on every season of kamen rider, ever, without exceptions, updated as I finish seasons. Original Description: OK so, I have decided to go through kamen rider from start of heisei to end of heisei, in order. Kuuga to Zi-O. And I already Regret it but here goes a long form attempt at consolidating my feelings on this stupid fucking franchise. Currently Watching: Showa: 1971 (part 3: Ichigo again) [ON HIATUS TO CURE BURNOUT] Heisei: Wizard [ALSO ON HAITUS, I NEED TO WATCH OTHER FUCKING TV SHOWS] Reiwa: Gavv

KAMEN RIDER (1971) EPISODE 1-13

Here it is. the one that started it all. so In part for digestibility (the original kamen rider series is 98 episodes long) and in part because of factors I will doubtless get into, I have made the decision to tackle 1971 as multiple parts. the main reason, aside from aforementioned digestibility, is that 1971 changes a lot over those nearly 100 episodes.

as it stands, episodes 1-13 are the bits of kamen rider which everyone who has watched the original series agree are great. this is because, put simply, its what the show was meant to be. those 13 episodes are the purest version of Shotaro Ishinomoris' vision for the character and the world.

And... yeah its really good. Like its shocking how good the series is off the bat, for something 50 years old at this point. The action is fun and mostly well filmed, and the sometimes herky-jerky techniques employed to sell the super-heroics really work. Its also really violent. like its still a "kids show", I don't think I would be worried about younger people watching it even now, but like... people die pretty frequently and in a few cases quite gruesomely. The extent of how horrific it can be is undercut by the interesting and creative ways by how its chosen to be depicted but like... there are man-eating scorpions in this show that disintegrate people and its legitimately pretty horrific, especially when put into the mindset and context of 1971 in japan.

thematically its on point too. so much of these episodes go to hongo dealing with the loss of humanity in his transformation into a cyborg. its genuinely effective and evocative. the tragedy of hurting a child when he goes to comfort them cannot be overstated.

maybe the one factor I think is potentially lacking is costume design on the Kaijin, but I also acknowledge that we have been spoiled by modern techniques in that regard. for the time, most of them are pretty good and evocative with this designs. only really weak links are in the last couple episodes, especially Tokageron who is so clearly a case of "we need another episode to fill time, heres a half finished costume".

and... yeah, as to why they needed that extra episode and why I am only doing the first 13 episodes here and splitting 1971 into multiple parts. during these first 13 episodes, Hiroshi Fujioka, the actor playing Takeshi Hongo, was doing his own stunts, both in and out of the kamen rider suit. however, during filming for... probably episode 11 but I dont know if there is any conformation on that, a bad motorcycle accident took fujioka out of commission for an extended amount of time. episodes 11, 12 and 13 where completed using a combination of reused footage, and Takeshi Hongo doesnt even appear in person until the closing shots in 12 and 13. behind the scenes, this was taken as an oppertunity to heavily rework the show as well, as Kamen rider had been receiving complaints from parents on the content, which lead to changes in the next batch of episodes, 14-51, and overall the rest of the franchise moving forward.

overall... I mean its got to be a 9/10 on this doesn't it? its the purest, most unrefined version of an IP I love. its the bit that gets remade every time they decide to remake Ichigo. its the bit that The First and Shin draw on the most directly, and its probably the most foundational part of so much of the Henshin hero genre. and most importantly, ITS STILL GOOD. it is still worth watching, still worth checking out.

KAMEN RIDER (1971) EPISODE 14-52

it took me a while to complete this batch of episodes because, while 1971 is still good and Takeshi Sasaki as Hayato Ichimonji is a great replacement for Hiroshi Fujioka as Takeshi Hongo... but its also where kamen rider starts to drag a little. Like this show has 98 episodes and no over-arching stories. some more modern seasons, with only 50 episodes and more long-term storytelling suffer from dragging and being slow, and 1971 is double that.

like to be clear: its still really solid. this second batch of episodes goes lighter and funnier, introducing a larger supporting cast which includes a set of stupid idiot bimbo girls who hang around with Hayato and I love them so much, as well as Taki who is functionally 1971s secondary protagonist/rider, hanging around and helping out in more episodes than either of the actual leads combined. we get introduced to the Tachibana racing club as a location which serves as the origin for Home-bases in the franchise, which is fun. also, the monsters are pretty decent. theres less that specifically stick out in this batch, but as shockers plans grow ever more cartoony in-line with the new tone, the monsters get more interesting. in this batch we also get 2 main commander-type figures, being colonel Zol who I liked a lot and Dr. Shinigami who I do not as much. Like Shinigami has the Menace and gravitas but hes an old man with weird ill-defined powers who spends half of his time in a wheelchair.

finally, towards the end we get a few episodes with Hayato and Takeshi hanging out and fighting together and its always a lot of fun. the two have an undeniable chemistry and I love them a lot.

overall I think the second part of the series is fun but it lacks the weight of the early show and suffers for it. still highly recomend, but I would say its lesser overall than what came before.

KUUGA (2000)

kuuga is the best season of Kamen Rider I have seen. Its not my favourite, but its basically as close to "Objectivly perfect" as this dumb bugman franchise gets.

the characters are likable, the plot is well structured, Godai and Ichijou are gay as hell and I love it, The Mystery works really well, the action is well choriagraphed and outright brutal on occasion (y'all who have seen this show know exactly the occasion I am talking about), and it is paced really well.

if I have to compalin about anything, and I probably do, yeah forms are spaced out a bit weird and if your watching in the modern age the gurongi are subtitled which might hurt your experience somewhat (It didnt for me but I can see an argument).

9/10, amazing show.

AGITO (2001)

I would like to give a solemn Apology to the Agito stans: I don't like this show, and I honestly do not get why some people do. Yes, the suits are really cool with all of the mechanical stuff they can do, like Agitos horns or Gills mouth, etc. but as for the actual Plot itself... its painfully slow, the mystery aspect is boring and poorly executed, and the show meanders around for the majority of its run.

Shoichi regains his memories briefly midway through the show, just to basically imediatly lose them again, delaying any actual story progression even further. Ryo Spends 4 episodes (a month IRL time) dead in a river, and once again it really goes no-where.

Now I do like G3. I think its hilarious that the G3 Armour is literally in the wrong show. I like Hikawa (even if hes just Diet coke Ichijo from Kuuga) and I think that actually tying back the story of Agito to Kuuga is cool and something I wish rider would do more.

I also think the show picks up significantly once another Agito is introduced and the plot gets going. problem is at that point the majority of the season is already gone and potentially interesting character arcs and stories are speedran. whats there is good, I just wish it started earlier and lasted long.

3/10. sorry agito stans. glad you like this one, it aint for me.

Ryuki (2002)

Ryuki is the season of all time. its... kind of similar to agito, which is strange because I actually ended up liking this one. I think this works because its the first time Rider did a season where everyone, sans main Character Shinji Kide/Ryuki, is a massive prick, and that works because your going to see all of these characters die on screen so that helps soften the blow.

which is not to say that Ryuki suffers from unlikable characters, even the most detestable characters (exceptions of Gai and Ouja not withstanding) have moments which help humanise them.

pacing wise, yes, it kinda has the agito problem where the main plot happens all in one go right at the start and right at the end and the middle is mostly kinda filler, and I do think that if ryukis time had been used better we could have seen all 13 riders in the actual tv show, rather than relegating Femme, Ryuga and Verde to the Alternate ending movie, but its not a huge deal really.

also, the Mirror monsters almost certainly gave some japanese kids nightmares and I count that as a good thing. Mirror monsters, while their designs can be kinda so-so, are a wonderfully scary concept. Consider how often there are Mirrored or reflective surfaces in your day to day life. the extreme paranoia the concept conjures is wonderful

Final score, 7/10. Ryuki could do a lot better in some places (and was, in seasons like geats and also Dragon Knight or so I hear? IDK not watched dragon knight yet) but for what it is it is more than solid.

Faiz (555) (2003)

Faiz is one of the less talked about entries within the western sphere of the fandom... which is Fair. I think Faiz is an OK season but I did find myself tiring with it. the suits are rad but none of the characters ever really stuck, Powerups are often barely utilised which raises the question of why have them in the first place and like... Yeah IDK it just never really Gel for me.

the ending kind of comes out of no-where as well, plus I think (Spoilers) MURDERING A CHILD FOR SHOCK VALUE at the end is bad writing and was not very fun. Kiba becoming a major villain also felt forced as his fall from grace and redemption happen very quickly just do not feel congruent with his character up to that point.

I think my biggest Faiz Takeaway is the surprise that this is japans favourite season? this kind-of-just-ok entry into a franchise which has far better and more re-watchable entries? this?

(also this is not the fault of faiz but DO NOT FIND YOURSELF READING ORPHENOCHS AS A TRANS ALAGORY, WORST MISTAKE OF MY LIFE. I acknowledge that this is a me thing, it was almost certainly not what the writters where going for... but Damn Sweaty that aged.)

so its like a... 5/10? that feels right. am I maybe lowballing the ranking for the sake of a "haha kamen rider 555 is a 5 out of 10" joke? maybe but honestly I just did not feel this one.

Blade (2004)

Frankly all I can say is that blade sure is another Early Heisei series. I don't want that to come off as bad or negative, its not meant that way, but once you have watched from agito to here back to back you start to notice how repetitive things feel in terms of pacing and story.

not to say that anything about blade is actually that bad, however, I did end up quite liking this series even if the hostility between its main characters got really grating at times. like seriously guys, can we go 5 episodes without someone being labelled a traitor or evil?

also on negatives, Kenzaki is kind of a wet cloth of a protagonist. Hes not bad, I do like him, but Hes far from the most interesting MC the series has produced. luckily this is made up for with the supporting cast, all of whom are great characters. Tachibana and Hajime especially are compelling secondary Main characters and I did really want to see them happy.

on the subject of happy, the one thing that always has to come up in blade discussion is the ending, which while I pretty imediatly picked up on other ways the characters could have resolved it the second they found out about the whole "the joker cant be the last undead standing" thing (Mutsuki just mcfucking use remote on shima before you defeat the catagory King of diamonds, then you wouldnt have had to go through any of this shit) I do feel that, with how the series plays out, its ultimately the best ending the characters could have hopped for. its not perfect, but it means that everyone gets to live, and despite what I know about the post series novels, I do firmly beleive that, yes, one day Kenzaki would figure out a way to defy their fate.

oh and one other thing. I dont like Chalices design. or, rather, I guess, I do like it but it feels weird to find out that chalice is visually just the catagory ace of hearts undead despite looking nothing like any other Undead in the show. it kinda reaks of contrivance and I dont like it, but honestly its fine all things considered.

7/10. Good show, enjoyable, but god I want early heisei to stop repeating itself.

Hibiki (2005)

Oh Hibiki, I was so torn on how to talk about this fuckass seasons. Because, like... heres the thing. This should be easy. This should have been a 10/10. This season should have been the second coming of kuuga, and for 30 episodes it was... and then it happens.

Hibiki is infamous for its production history, with the entire creative team being fired and replaced around episode 30, with the new team being sent in by toei to make the show "more kamen rider". And thats the problem.

Hibikis first half is brilliant because it breaks so many series rules. Its different, its fresh, its so cool. The tone is so different from anything that came before. Being a rider in this season isn't a great thing, its a job. More than any other season Hibiki is a coming of age story, one where we watch the shows real main character, Tag-along kid Asumu, grow into an adult. The characters are charming and grounded. The world of Hibiki is steaped in a level of fantastical realism which sets it apart from anything else. Fights take place in the Forests and natural areas rather than cities and quarries. Its all just perfectly different enough to be unique

And its great. Its so good. Its near perfect. And then the writers change. and the show gets bad. its gets so bad that for me it tainted the first half of the show. gone is any of the creativity or freshness of the series. Now Hibiki feels like any other rider season. And thats what killed it for me. My response to Hibiki as a whole is driven purely by an emotional response to its last 18 episodes, but its a rough 18, and frankly and 18 I have no desire to ever experience again.

To give the second half its due, the Movie is pretty decent and the final episode actually kinda sticks the series's thematic landing despite the majority of the second half fumbling most aspects. I can believe that it ends how it was always going to, even if characters like Kiriya would not and should not have been there.

If you only watch episodes 1-30 (and the movie fuck it) then Hibiki is an easy 9.5/10. Top Tier season. But that's not Hibiki. Hibiki is the full 48+movie run. and that full run is, to me, and I am sorry to say this, a 1/10. Maybe 1.25 due to sticking the landing on the ending.

Writing about Hibiki makes me sad. I hate this season because I loved this season, and I just hope what comes after can get me past this massive blemish.

Kabuto (2006)

god finding a gif for this one was hard, given I am reliant on the tumblr gifs feature and most people seem to have been simping for the hell twins which like... fair tbh.

Kabuto is a very good season, working pretty heavily on a pure "cool" factor because like... yeah the kabuto riders are kinda inherently cool. cast off, as an idea and an in universe mechanic are amazing and the clock up idea is brilliant. this show, from 2006, made on the budget of, well, a kamen rider season, achieves some stunning speedster action sequences that surpass some higher budget productions (I am looking at the CW flash here, to be clear).

kabutos story is a little slapdash, its kinda all just happens at the end and there's not a huge build up but it also really doesn't matter. the cast is excellent and that carries the show. again, operative word here is "cool" and thats really all that matters.

all of that about it being "cool" said though... I think it suffers in hindsight. I am gonna ignore the potentially problematic aspects of the depiction of the Worms and the Native, "aliens as allegory" being a well documented minefield and to be fair Kabuto never really goes there. no I think the real hindsight problem is Geats. Because frankly for as good as Kabuto is, and it is good, Geats is "Kabuto, But better, and cooler". Its not really fair to look at it that way but like... that is how it feels. then again when it takes 18 years to do better than this I guess that is acheivement.

8/10. Souji Tendo is a Mary Sue (complimentary) and gods Favourite child. and he deserves it.

Den-O (2007)

you know the most frustrating part of watching a highly popular and loved season of TV? when it really is that good.

Den-O is revolutionary. Its lighter, its funnier, its more actively episodic, it more or less sets the tone and style which would later be picked up by W. its defiantly a prototype for that style, and theres still some of the more infuriating aspects of early heisei present here, but overall den-O is the first time I saw aspects of what I like In later kamen rider manifest in early heisei.

and Thats great, because it gives Den-O an identity, unlike Blade or Faiz, because even if I liked those seasons they where so samey. Den-O is fresh, its new, and its all carried by an extended cast of fun side characters.

the taros (and also Seig and Deneb) are great. They are all very simple, almost archetypical characters, but they all bring something fun to the group dynamic. obviously Momotaros is the standout, probably having the most defined Characterisation out of the bunch, but all of them are very enjoyable characters to watch and follow.

RYOTARO IS A GIRLFALIURE. HES GREAT. we need more cringe fail rider protagonists to balance out the borderline Mary sues like Tendo and Ace. but hes also a compelling MC and fun to watch.

the story does bog itself down a little right at the end and I do kinda wonder what was going on with some parts. its not that they are not explained but the ending is maybe a little quick to wrap up. still, theres a decade and a half of postseries to clear that up, which I am eagerly awaiting to watch.

8/10. Ore Sanjou indeed

Kiva (2008)

Kiva, Kiva, Kiva. How I wish you where better. This is probably the show with the most interesting premise I have seen so far. The Main story is set across a 22 year time gap, with one half being set in the past of 1986 and the rest being set in the (then) present of 2009. Thats a really cool idea, and it bolstered by the Castlevania/Gothic horror aesthetic of everything. The Kiva suit is really cool (albeit notoriously heavy, resulting in the need to the final form to debut early), the Fangire as monsters are a really nice concept design wise, Being styled after Stained Glass windows which is such a rad concept. the only problem is that the actual main character SUCKS!

Ok Lemme just step back a bit. Wataru, the Main character of the 2009 section, the Person who is the titular "Kamen Rider Kiva", is fine. pretty likable actually. No the problem is his dad, the main character of 1986, Otoya. Otoya is a creep, Hes a Womaniser, Hes a Perv, He Gaslights 1986's secondary Protagonist Yuri into being in love with him Taming of the shrew style then dumps her for a WOMAN WHO IS ALREADY MARRIED (albeit to a different abusive asshole) and who is also A FANGIRE! I think Otoya might be the most despicable Character Kamen rider has dug up, which would be one thing, but the biggest Issue is that he is a creep and most of the plot is love triangles.

and these repetitive, boring and occasionally creepy (Jirou tries to Assault Yuri at one point, which is ick and also kinda feels out of character, more on that later) Love Triangles never really stop, and drag on, and frankly it was the most tedious watch ever.

no I do like somethings in this show. the Arms Monsters are all fun characters and I really liked Jirou as a character, I thought he was fun for the most part and kinda cool. issue is that, once Otoya gets in range, everyone in this show has a % chance to be corrupted into as much of a creep as he is. Jirou was always Kinda weird about yuri from his intro, but the moment Otoya starts his beef with Jirou the man just falls off and becomes as bad as his opponent.

In general I think the Present cast is stronger than the past one, mostly because no Otoya (apart from that one time)... but also once again, Kiva only knows tedious love triangles so the Wataru V Taiga over Mio arc is long and drawn out and dull. again, this series has one level, and its love triangles, and they all kinda suck.

Despite ALL I have said above, I will say the final arcs are a lot of fun... mostly because of how stupid they get. Time travel is re-introduced, because that will certainly help us clear up our plot, and Wataru goes back in time to Commit self-abortion by making sure his parents never bone, which is frankly a hilarious setup and it leads to some really fun interactions and briefly even makes Otoya borderline likeable, which is then immediatly followed by the final arc where Wataru Gets dripped out of his Goard and there are some really fun action sequences.

if it wasnt as necessary for the story as it is, I would recomend kiva with all of the 1986 sections edited out... but that is a terrible idea as in a lot of way the 1986 story is more of the main story than the 2009 story. with that in mind... its got to be a 4/10, right? I wanted to like it, Kiva has a sick as fuck design... but its not good. its really not good. Fuck Otoya Kurenai. All my Homies Hate Otoya Kurenai

G (2009)

ok wtf do I even say about G? that its shockingly good for a 15 minute special designed to celebrate TV Asahi's 50th anniversary? that its so ridiculous that I burst out multiple times? that I think the idea of the driver is legitimately cool and I kinda wish this was a full series for that alone? That I kinda Love G's Design unironically? that the villain is gonzo nuts and its great?

IDK there isn't really anything to analyze here. Its a short special that has only ever aired like once because of complicated legal stuff with the actors agency. its fun, its fast, if you like kamen rider already theres no real reason not to check it out for the bit, I mean... its good?

like 7/10 but also, again, 15 minute short. that 7 does not mean nearly the same thing it does for a proper series. I know Fuck all about SMAP btw, sorry if you where expecting more.

Decade (2009)

you know, unlike other shows where I have felt pretty confident in what I want to say about them long before I get done, I really am not sure how to approach decade. part of me is wondering if I even should be writing this section yet, as Decade doesnt really "end" as such when you finish the episodes, it just kinda stops, and then it keeps going on in the background until minimum the WxDecade movie or at Max the last 2 episodes of wizard, or even beyond to Zi-O.

in the way decade really is a weird beast of a show, plus I just really do not know what to say about the show as it exists in its shortened 31 episode form. Like, to be clear, I like decade. I actually really Like decade. I like its own main cast, I really like how they remix the themes and settings of older series's in the rider worlds, I actually like how its not really a crossover, because had it been a crossover it would have trodden on the toes of happy endings from series's I loved, and I think its better for not doing that.

its a good fun show and I really think that it has some of the most on point original suit designs in the franchise. Decade is iconic and unqiue in a way that rider haddnt really done before this point, but it is a change in aesthetic that would certainly effect shows to come. I think this is probably the biggest steppingstone between the more detailed but still somewhat showa-compliant designs of early heisei and the wildness of designs in shows like Ex-aid or Drive.

but again I really dont feel qualified to pick apart decade, or even write about it because it just straight up does not finish at the end of the series. I have too, the point of this post is to only really talk about the show in and of itself, but like that just doesnt feel appropriate for decade.

7/10. like IDK man, I liked it but how the fuck do I even approach this thing

W (DOUBLE) (2009)

I have like 3 go to series which I use to introduce new people to Rider, and the one I think I personally am Happy re-watching the most is W. Yes, its very episodic. Yes, because of this the background plot ends up getting resolved in 2 episodes ultimately. Yes, Akiko can be really annoying sometimes. Yes. I know its not perfect. I do not care.

W is pure fun. It is one of the funniest seasons the show has to offer, and also one of the most heartfelt. The show can go from sidesplitting comedy to actual serious moments in a heartbeat and it manages this without once experiencing tonal whiplash. the entire cast is likeable, the story is light and not super high stakes but fun, the individual clients that the cast encounter are great, the Music SLAPS (nobody's perfect is an under-rated rider banger IMO, love that song), and the suits are immaculate (even if most of the riders are just W retools).

speaking of other riders, the side content here is A+ too, with the WXDecade movies W portion being a really solid explanation of the backstory and giving us time with the best kamen rider who unfortunately doesn't have more screen time, and Gaia memories of fate is also just a good time, with a good set of villains and some really cool action.

also Phillip and shotaro are just funny. I love Wikipedia and crap sherlock holmes, they are great.

8.5/10. cant give better because it is not perfect but I love it.

OOO (2010)

OOO is a mess. Like, the plot changed 5 times behind the scenes kind of mess. like I hear that during the seasons development and even airing who the final boss was going to be was constantly shifting between Ankh, Date, Maki and the eventually Cut-save-for-one-canonically-questionable-movie Giru. This, like many things, I blame on Decade... because its all Decades fault. However, despite all that... yeah OOO is kinda good innit?

OOO still stands as the, objectively, best execution of the Mix-and-match Rider gimmick. OOO does not have super forms in the traditional sense, everything is just a variation on the base form, and the closest to super forms that you do get, the combos, are not very reliable long term. also, what forms the character has access to change constantly through the series based on what Medal Eiji has, meaning that you never get OOO at their full power. hell the series ends with Eiji with almost no medals, making them (debatably) the weakest they are in the whole series. its a very interesting dynamic and its something I wish would be done more often in rider. (Geats does get close and I applaude that.)

Also... you know, its just well written. I love all of the characters, Ankh is an amazing foil to Eiji, Goto and Date make fun Secondary Riders, Mr Kogami is Amazing and I love that they keep bringing the character back in unrelated media, best part of super hero senkei fight me.

yeah. OOOs good. I wish I could be more analytical with this particular season but I cant. my brain does not allow it. 8/10. great season.

Fourze (2011)

how the fuck do I talk about Fourze? Its a great season, don't get me wrong, but I think its the most uncomplicatedly "good season" I have ever seen. like its just good. its not good in and interesting way, its not good in a way that is worth talking about in any depth, its just Good.

and theres my problem, because I dont like that, I really want to have thoughts on these seasons because otherwise... what am I doing here, wasting my time writing about funny Bugmen on the hellsite. but really, fourze is just good. its got good characters, its got a good story, its got good vibes, its just good in a very uncomplicated way.

my biggest criticism, which isnt even really that much of a criticism, is because the show has to get through 40 astroswitches, a good number either never re-occur during the show or are just kinda weird and pointless in their function outside of their specific focus period. But even then thats so minor because the 40 astroswitches are never really that much of a focus and also, once again, the weird and whacky ones are just fun.

9/10. I wish I could say more, but its fourze

Amazons (season 1) (2016)

it has occurred to me after finishing Geats I should probably include the oddities in this post/run-through because even if they are not "Main seasons" they are certainly worthy of discussion (and also I do intend to include showa here at some point, even if I am not watching it yet. who knows, by the time you are reading it maybe the showa shows are included). they give us a glimpse at ideas and characters which cant be explored normally in rider, and grant potentially interesting re-interpretations of age old characters.

with all that said... I don't really care for Amazons. season 1 specifically, I have not yet finished season 2 and it was removed from amazon prime so there goes one of the few ways to legally enjoy this franchise.

on its own its fine, like I dont think this is a particuarly bad attempt at "kamen rider but adult, violent and edgy" but I do feel that ultimatly thats all that Amazons really has. its unbearable dower and dark and features so few really likeable characters. I get why its so violent, the violence was the defining feature of original Amazon and so of course with an adult re-imagining you lean into that, but it still feels really tryhard, and more than anything, just miserable.

I might come back to this particular entry at some point because Honestly I think season 1 warrants a re-watch from me and maybe I will get it more or care more for what its doing. but all that said, 7/10. its fine. if you want Violent rider this is violent rider. I just dont feel like its that much more than that.

Zero-One (2019)

Zero One was my first season, and its a pretty well loved season by the wider community. its one of my 3 go-to "if you want to get into Kamen Rider, Start here" seasons, and its the one I point too most often when that question comes up because its the most recent, and therefore has the best VFX of any of my go-tos.

so when I say that I fucking hate this season, that might come as a surprise. if I hate it, why do I recomend it?

well its simple really. Zero-One has major, Ground up Writing and stakes issues which makes it, at best, a very frustrating watch.

Death is meaningless. most of the characters who die are AIs who are revived in the very next episode with no cost, and remembering everything that happened to them prior to their death. only 1 character death, in the whole show, Sticks, and thats Wazu (I will be using Izu, Azu and Wazu because Is, As and Was would get confusing), and that episode set is ultimatly kinda unimportant and Wazu's death is forgotten, never to be bought up again.

the ending is a mess, mostly due to covid causing constant changes to the series plans, but those final few episodes are rough and I wish that the series had ended with the Ark as the main Badguy, rather than having Aruto Heelturn and then making Horobi the final boss.

also, and I try not to bring up post-series in this because its broadly unimportant, but zero-ones post season content is utter dogshit. the movie is ok, although reviving Izu not only retroactivly makes the series ending dumber but also effectively means new Izu was murdered and her body was jacked by old izu (WHICH THIS IS NEVER EXPANDED UPON, IT JUST HAPPENS), but what the hell was zero-one Others? yeah, sure, just kill off all of the interesting characters who could have had really interesting post-series stories, Lets character assassinate everyone in this show, and then lets also kill off the secondary rider in the cruellest way possible because fuck you I guess. No I am not over Fuwa, I will never be over Fuwa, but even more so I am not over Ikazuchi and Naki. those two where Criminally underused in the show, but now we will never get a chance to get more time with them. Thanks toei.

with all that having been said... IDK, Zero one is fine. its far from the worst season I have seen, and I do still recomend it as a starting point for the franchise as a whole because its a good "onboarding" point if you will. its about as basic as a rider season can get.

Despite everything I have said: 5/10

Saber (2020)

Saber is also really bad, but kind of in the same way that Fourze is really good. Its bad but I don't really have much to say about it. by all accounts, it would have worked much better as a Sentai season rather than rider given the heavy team focus and a core Red-Yellow-Blue Main trio.

Saber is largely forgettable. its plot meanders around, its characters exist, and its individual story arcs tend to just happen. its not a very interesting series, and I think that really its problem. if it was as bad as it is but in an interesting way, i would probably prefer it because at least I would get that it was trying something, but really the Series is just kind of bland.

However, its not completely pointless. The henshin jingles and standby loops are A+ tier, Special shout-outs going to Slash. Desast, while he does nothing most of the season and his existence is confusing, is a fun character and I am glad he is back in recent media (although I... haven't watched any of it yet, maybe it sucks). and, of course, the Crossover Movie with Zenkaiger is Excellent. you do not have to watch saber, but you owe it to yourself to watch that film. its a wonderful, heartfelt love letter to both franchises and I love it.

but in all... saber kinda bad. I think the biggest example of why is found in Durandal, who is introduced as this big problem... but then the moment Touma figures out his gimmick hes now nothing. while this is the biggest example, its kinda an inherent repeating problem for the whole show.

2/10. not 1 because it has some good aspects... but ultimatly I would rather be angry at a season than bored with it.

Revice (2021)

So its... kinda a catchphrase of mine to say "Revice is fine, y'all are just mean" but also like... I do Get why some people dont like it. the second half can feel strange as compared to the first, Vice is a very Abrasive character to have around for every episode, and a lot of its best aspects are in side content.

but like... man I like revice. I like its themes of Freedom VS saftey, I like how it handles the aspect that being a rider pretty universally sucks for all of its characters. I like how Morally ambiguous the majority of the cast are. I like how no-one is treated as irredeemable, even if some of them are.

and mostly I like Ikki and Vice. this season lives or dies for you based on if you like the two characters at the center of it. all of the awesome suits and interesting villains mean nothing if your main characters are not likeable. and I think these two work. they bounce off of each other well and I really like the sort of broadly unstated fact that vice is all of the parts of Ikki which Ikki rejects. Ikki is humble and selfless to a fault, mostly quite and reserved, while vice is loud and narcissistic and energetic. I think their dynamic works really well.

it also plays into a theme of the season which I really enjoy, the Idea that the characters inner demons are the parts of themselves that they reject and that they ultimately have to come to terms with those parts of themselves. by the end of the series, Ikki is a bit more like vice, and is much more comfortable with the "Vice" parts of himself (even if he doesnt know why because of tragedy and heartbreak). In comparison, the other igurashis have done the same. Sakura is much more comfortable with the parts of herself she considered weak, while not letting that over ride her kung-fu Girlboss attitude. Daiji has come to terms with his Middle-child angst and insecurities. and Genta has come to terms with the mistakes of his youth and is looking to grow past them.

revice is not perfect, its storytelling can be a mess sometimes, its barely a crossover/anniversary season, the last 4 episodes feel more like Vcines than actual episodes of the show... but Damn it Revice meant something to me. this was the first season I watched as it was airing, but even regardless it stands out to me on how well handled this was. I have yet to really dive in on post series and god I hope they dont fuck it up like they did with zero one... but For me, Revice is special.

8/10. Revice is Fine. Y'all are just mean

Geats (2022)

Kamen Rider Geats is... something else. I am writing this literal seconds after finishing the final episode, because I have known what I want to say about this season for a long time but after seeing its ending just... wow.

Put simply: Geats is the first time (as far as I have seen) since Kuuga that the show has reached this level of pure, technical "greatness". Not since Kuuga has the writing been this good, the suits this good, the fights this good. and remember, I consider Kuuga to be the best season this show has done. Geats is that good.

its rich, its deep, its beautifully shot and choreographed, Its characters are layered and interesting. Geats is a tour-de-force in terms of this franchise. I thought revice was going to be a hard act to follow but geats blew it out of the water.

I do want to stress that while I consider Geats to be up there in terms of quality, I don't necessarily enjoy it as much as other seasons. Reminder that Enjoyment and "objective" quality are frequently two different things, but I would be lying if I said that I did not also still love this season.

also Geats says eat the rich. I will not elaborate further but if you have seen the show you know what I mean.

9/10. only losing a point because the disaster arc kind of never went anywhere

Shin Kamen Rider (2023)

fuck it this counts. As of Writing this part, I have not actually seen the original 1971 Kamen Rider series. I wholly intend to some day, I just haven't gotten around to it. so please bare in mind that some stuff I have to say about this movie may just be accurate to what that show is like.

now I am going to leave the Pacing of the film alone as far as criticism goes. even though Shin deviates heavily from the source material, it is still trying to adapt the broad strokes and tone of a 90-odd episode TV show from the 70s into under 3 hours. Plus, this is nothing new for the Shin Japan Heros films, Shin Ultraman also suffered from this.

what I will criticize is the fight scenes. Hot take but like... Geats was better. a TV show with a fraction of the budget and half the development time has better fight scenes than the big budget movie. so much of the action, especially in the first half, is weirdly edited and lacks cohesion. this does pick up towards the end, and, yes, I cheered in delight when Takeshi and Ichimonji went sicko mode on the shocker riders. like audible yell of "YEAH!" chear, but again those first few fights are weird and not great to watch.

beyond that honestly pretty major criticism, the film is very good. its kind of melodramatic and dower a lot of the time but given its specifically aiming for the tone of those 14 episodes of 1971, from what I know that's fine, that's how those episodes went. Plus, I am not going to say it isnt effective. I cried, I cheered, a good time was had by all.

This is not my favourite piece of Kamen rider media. honestly I dont know If I will revisit it for a long time. it lacks a lot of what I enjoy in this franchise. that said, this is a phenomenal work. I respect if for what it attempts, and enjoy it regardless of my aversion to the style. 9/10. Kamen rider in its purest, most raw, most uncut form.

Gotchard (2023)

Geats was always going to be a tough act to follow, so when I say that Gotchard is kinda mid in comparison to its predecessors know that I still think its good. Gotchard is, for better and for worse, a lighter season. Its not taking itself too seriously, its here for a good time and it knows that. its perfectly average as a rider season and that's fine.

If there is one thing which Gotchard does excel at, its suit designs. I love Evocative Kaijin and the Malgam are damn evocative. the additional arms, the look of being made out of strips of metal. this of course continues to the main antagonists, the Abyssal kings. this is not to diminish the riders designs, Gotchards use of chrome is striking and Valvarad and Majade are both very solid designs in their own right. I think the only real costume miss is the final big bads design with his fucking HUGE tits, like holy shit Glion calm down

oh yeah, and Majade. the first Girl secondary rider. I wish she did more tbf, Rinne is very important to the story and yet also feels sidelined alot, but she is a historically important character and a big step on the way to a Girl MC for the series.

Aside from that... yeah Gotchard sure is a kamen rider season. big up for its distinction of only introducing secondary riders at roughly the mid-point, it has been a long time since there wasn't 2 riders basically from day one. Also uh... the ending is kinda underwhelming and they very much fridge all of the abyssal sisters with the half-hearted promise of "oh we will revive them in the post series its fine" which is super dumb. Did lachesis really go through all that just to die as part of Spanners character arc? Big cringe.

Gotchard gets a 6 out of 10. pure average, but average is fine and I think that if you want a fun season of kamen rider you cant go wrong with Gotchard.

Gavv Section Coming once Gavv is done and not a second sooner.

[denimbex1986]

Two of Europe's hottest stars sit in a green leather armchair each between a movie poster adorned with a bouquet of flowers. They look like two carefree unshaven Irish lads who could be on holiday in the sun. Paul Mescal wears a white t-shirt, while Andrew Scott sports a turquoise "No problem" t-shirt emblazoned with pop culture alien ALF, the 80s sitcom character whose name stands for "Alien Life Form" .

Perhaps a subtle reference to their new film, "All of us strangers"? It is certainly not about aliens, but is in any case a cosmic love story about two extraterrestrial aliens who find each other in a lonely world. At the same time, it is a kind of supernatural "ghost story" about a queer son who gets a second chance to talk to his dead parents.

- Although the role scared the crap out of me, Andrew Haigh's script was the most original I've read in ages. Everything in this film is rooted in tenderness and love – and who doesn't dream of going back and redefining the relationship with their parents, Andrew Scott wonders rhetorically, making a gesture where he is given the opportunity to discreetly flex one of his biceps at a zoom screen from London.

For a Swedish audience, he is perhaps best known for the role of the arch-villain Professor Moriarty in "Sherlock Holmes" and "the hot priest" that Phoebe Waller Bridge becomes obsessed with in the second season of "Fleabag".

Andrew Scott believes that "All of us strangers" is the most personal thing he has done.

- I love the mix of naturalism and surrealism in this film, it's completely different from anything I've played before. I've always wished I was in Derek Cianfrance's tragic love story "Blue Valentine" and suddenly I get a chance at a film similar to "All of us strangers". I've never before brought myself into the role in the same way and for once I didn't have to work on my accent, smiles the Dublin-born actor who has long lived in London.

In "All of us strangers" he plays Adam, a gay writer with writing cramp who slowly falls for his mysterious neighbor Harry (Paul Mescal) who lives in the same soulless and deserted apartment complex in London's East End. Parallel to the budding romance, he commutes to his childhood suburb to meet his dead parents (Claire Foy and Jamie Bell) exactly as old as they were when they died in a car accident when he was 11 years old.

Andrew Haigh got the idea from Taichi Yamada's novel "Strangers" from 1987. After much effort and trouble, he managed to transform the rather traditional Japanese ghost story into something more poetic, psychological and personal.

- I ignited this whole idea of ​​meeting his dead parents again and being able to reconcile with his own past in order to help with the future. It was of course crazy risky, but it wasn't about making a traditional ghost story, but about creating something vulnerable, true and honest that would be an emotional experience, says Andrew Haigh.

In the past, he has directed wayward films such as "45 Years", "Weekend" and "Lean on Pete", as well as TV series such as macho "The North Water" and "Looking", which revolves around three gay friends in San Francisco. "All of us strangers" is his most personal film to date. To get closer, he made the main character a gay writer.

- I am gay and this is a story I have wanted to tell for a long time, a film about the experiences of "queerness", non-heteronormativity, and how it can make people feel like strangers in their own family. The concept of going back in time and dealing with the complicated issues of growing up queer within a family has its own challenges. It's also about the difficulty of parenting and saying the right things at the right time, says Andrew Haigh.

- For me, the film is also about the writing process itself. To investigate one's own past through a fictional world. Not that I look back on my upbringing with a desperate sadness, more curiosity, melancholy and a strange nostalgia. But just like the character Adam, I look back on my own life, says Haigh.

For the director, it was also a highly private experience. Among other things, he filmed several scenes in his real childhood home in Croydon, south London, which he left 40 years ago.

- It was a ghostly experience. Like walking into a haunted house, but it was my memories that were the ghosts. We designed it the same way as when I was a kid. When we finished, I closed the door behind me and experienced a catharsis, as if I was free and could move on, says Haigh.

Nevertheless, it is still not straightforward. In the same vein as he was to film a key scene where the grown-up Adam talks to his father, Andrew Haigh visited his father in the dementia home.

- Although I had the same partner for 18 years, he asked me: "Do you have a wife?". My first thought was, "Oh my God, am I going to have to come out again?", but then I pretended it was raining. Oddly enough, I felt a bit terrified about having to tell him I was gay again - even though he was fine with me coming out in my 20s, says Andrew Haigh.

- So that scene with Adam was extremely difficult to write. I wanted to make it a moment that was as simple as it was meaningful. I was incredibly moved, he says.

In many ways, "All of us strangers" is reminiscent of "45 years", which is also a kind of ghost story. A fate-filled drama about a struggling British couple (Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay) who are suddenly haunted by an old love story just in time for the couple's 45th wedding anniversary.

- Yes, I think there was definitely a similarity between the films. But I've always been interested in the past versus the present because that's how we learn throughout our lives. Our first fifteen years have such a dramatic and profound impact on who we become as an adult, he says.

In "All of us strangers" he fills it with pop music from his upbringing in the 1980s; Pet Shop Boys, The Housemartins and, not least, Frankie goes to Hollywood's "The power of love", which becomes a signature song for the entire film and not least its emblematic final scene.

- There was something in that song that spoke to me already as an 11-year-old without me really knowing about it. A bombastic pop song that is loaded with longing. Actually, it was quite subversive to be mainstream, there's a melancholy and darkness lurking beneath the surface, says Andrew Haigh.

Although Holly Johnson's "The power of love" wasn't exactly Paul Mescal's cup of tea, it helped him get in the right emotional mood during the recording.

- Andrew has interpreted the power of love in the most extraordinary way. This is his way of saying that Adam and Harry's relationship is also a grand love story that has its place up there in heaven with all the other heterosexual love stories. I think it's very beautiful, says Paul Mescal who was Oscar-nominated last year for his performance in Charlotte Wells' Aftersun, where he played a tormented father on his first joint charter trip with his eleven-year-old daughter.

He does not think that the self-confident but traumatized Harry is an essential character from father Callum in "Aftersun".

- Harry belongs to a certain kind of family of characters that I have played, but is also completely different. Subconsciously, I'm obviously drawn to this kind of material that deals with tormented masculinity and humanity, smiles Paul Mescal.

Like Andrew Scott, he is a great admirer of Andrew Haigh's films. In addition to the script, Scott was also a decisive factor in his acceptance. Before "All of us strangers", they had admired each other from afar. The recording turned into a bromance in full bloom that ended with intimate scenes where Paul Mescal "went down" on Andrew Scott co-star and licked a kind of cake mix from the co-star's body. In interviews, Mescal has explained that it was such a powerful moment that it almost scared him.

- Yes, there was a special charge between us. We were both very aware of how intense it was and how we were somehow aware of how committed we were to each other. It is very beautiful that the story often lies in the character who is listening, which is quite unusual. The challenge was to tell a story via sexual intimacy. We treated the sex scenes as if they were dialogue scenes, the only thing different was that we were half-naked, smiles Paul Mescal.

Andrew Scott believes that sex scenes between two male actors often tend to be about raw sexuality, but that "All of us strangers" felt radical because it was more interested in highlighting the tenderness between the characters.

- The first scenes when Adam and Harry meet in the elevator and at the front door trigger the film's sexual charge. When they are separated after the slightly awkward meeting, it creates an urge in the audience for them to reunite. When they finally sit next to each other on the couch and they stare at each other, it gets very, uh, sexy. I like the scene where Adam forgets to breathe because he hasn't been with anyone in a long time, says Andrew Scott.

Like the director, Andrew Scott talks about working on "All of us strangers" as a kind of cleansing bath. Before the recording, they both talked about their experiences in the loneliness of growing up queer in the gap between the 80s and 90s.

- Going back in time can be both anxious and nostalgic. For me, the challenge was trying to bring together Haigh's story with my own story, both the pain and the joy, says Andrew Scott the day after the film's Irish gala premiere in Dublin.

Although he was not entirely comfortable with the idea of ​​being in the same room as his parents when they watch the sex scenes in "All of us strangers", he seems to have managed it without a pillow of shame.

- It was a magical evening in my hometown. My family was there and all the other people I love so much. Suddenly it was as if I saw this whole journey that I've been on, realized that this is a deeply personal film that hit me right in the heart. I really love this movie.'

[whitepolaris]

Nantucket UFO

On July 16, 1999, a flying saucer-four to five hundred feet in diameter by one witnesses's estimate-was seen over Nantucket and across the sound off the shores of the Cape by several different witnesses who had no knowledge of each other. The first sighting happened just before eight p.m. over Mara Vista on the southern part of Cape Cod, according to the following reports submitted to the Web site www.MythicalUniverse.com.

The first witness, "Carl," described what he saw:

We were flying from New Hampshire to Florida (private aircraft) for a two week vacation. While over Mara Vista, we noticed what seemed to be the landing light of another aircraft approximately 10 to 15 miles of our location. Since it appeared to be on approach for landing and quite a bit lower in altitude, we did not think much of it. Then, in a matter of seconds, what we thought had been an aircraft, was right along side of us. It kept a distance of about 3/4's of a mile to our east and approximately 1,500 feet higher in altitude.

We were able to clearly see the shape and color of this, now non aircraft, object. Its shape was as if you took two pie pans, inverted one on top of the other and placed a much smaller inverted pie pan on top. It was completely smooth and was dull gray in color. The other peculiar thing we all noticed about this craft, is that it had no windows and the once prominent light was now extinguished. The plane we were flying is equipped with an aircraft avoidance system, and this object did not set off any of the warnings as it should have. Approximately 30 to 40 seconds later, the craft went straight up and disappeared from sight. It did not tilt back and go up, it remained level while going upwards, until it was out of eyesight.

Approximately twenty minutes later, Robert M., who was leaving a restaurant on Nantucket, saw something similar:

I accompanied [four other people] to a seafood restaurant on Nantucket Island. As we left the restaurant and headed towards our rental car, we noticed an unusually bright light to the east. At first, it did not seem at all out of the ordinary until it moved from its original position in the sky to another in the blink of an eye. I would say it traveled ten to fifteen miles north in just a few seconds times. It then seemed to either vanish or become transparent. A few moments later, it reappeared in the same position and then moved across the sky at an extremely high rate of speed to the East, near where we had first observed it. The light that beamed from it changed from a very intense white to a blue color that closely resembled that of a power transformer exploding. When the light went out, we were able to see the faint silhouette of a disk shaped object. The shape of this object reminded me of the space ship used in the "Lost in Space" TV series. After the object hovered for a few seconds, it rose straight up and disappeared from sight. My best guess as to the distance from our location to the object would be approximately two miles. The objects size: three to four hundred feet in diameter.

Paul H., who was also visiting Nantucket, reported a similar sighting. He estimated the time to be eight twenty p.m., Paul wrote:

I'm not sure exactly where to start, so I'll begin this from the time we left the seafood restaurant on Nantucket Island 16 July 1999. My wife, son, daughter in-law, and I had just walked out of a local seafood restaurant. When we saw a group of four to five dressed young individuals pointing at a very bright light in the eastern part of the sky. My first thought was they were just waving to a friend who was about to land at a local airport. As I fumbled with my keys, my son and daughter in-law said in unison, "Did you see that!" When I glanced up to see what all the fuss was about, the aircraft had moved . . . to a location approximately fifteen to twenty miles north. At its new location, it hovered for a few moments, then as if someone had flipped a light switch, the light went out. A few seconds later, the light reappeared and moving back [to its original location].

The aircraft covered the distance in a matter of seconds. Seconds later, the bright light again went out, giving us a clear view of its shape. Its shape resembled two pie pans, one inverted and on top of the other. Having flown several missions in Vietnam, and military career of twenty years. I have seen many of the "Top Secret" aircraft our military has, but none that have the capabilities to move as silently and quickly as this object did. I have to disagree with the others on the distance and size of this object. Distance from our location approximately one mile. Size: Four to Five hundred feet in diameter. The light did change from a bright white to a bright blue in color. As stated by Robert, the color did in fact resemble an electrical transformer exploding.

Otis Air Force Base is less than eight miles from Mara Vista; however, Otis is not known for its secret aircraft testing-the area is simply too heavily populated. Clearly SOMETHING was in the skies over Cape Cod and Nantucket that night. The question remains as to just what it was.