#that show is made to sell new toys every year

[quibbs126]

Honestly if I were to ever rewrite CRK, first thing I’d do is streamline and solidify the timeline

Because I feel like there’s millennium long gaps in the timeline where nothing much happens, and it’s really vague when certain things happen. And also the lore doesn’t necessarily need to span across several thousands of years. I mean I’m pretty sure actual human civilization hasn’t lasted as long as the lore of the Cookies has, and they had to be made by Witches first

Not only this but as I’ve referred to before, while the Ancients have been established as living for thousands of years, they’re still too young to have witnessed other known important eras in the timeline aside from making their kingdoms and the Dark Flour War (which even some mortals still are around to remember), such as the Beasts or the disappearance of the Witches. Which to me feels like their longevity is mostly inflated to make them sound older, despite it not meaning much in the grand scheme of things

And then there’s the inconsistencies as to when things took place in the timeline. Most famously, the Dark Flour War, since there’s information that tells us it was a very long time ago, but other information that implies that it couldn’t have been that long ago

I also have no clue when the presumed Age of Dragons was, or when it ended. The whole prehistoric era in Ovenbreak confuses me as to its presumed place in the timeline, but considering we’re talking about Kingdom and this was a very recent thing in Ovenbreak, I’m willing to consider that an alternate universe difference. But we know in the Kingdom universe that dragons used to be all over Earthbread but are mostly gone now, so there was an end to their era, but I have no clue when, especially since Tea Knight was there prior to it and was a factor in it. He may be old but as far we know he’s still mortal. Though maybe it’s not established because the dragons aren’t really focused on as their own storyline. Pitaya and the twin dragons have more to do with their respective kingdoms than their relation to dragonkind

I think I’ve rambled on a bit but you get what I’m saying. The timeline is…not great and it needs some work

Personally if I were to do it, I’d streamline the lore to take place over maybe a couple thousand years, and the Ancients are at most 1000 years old. Maybe I’d have them be baked right at the end of the era of Witches, and so their rise to power is like the start of a new era without Witches, where the Cookies pave their own path on Earthbread. Like when the Witches left the Cookie civilization was left floundering somewhat, and so the Ancients stepped up to lead their fellow Cookies. Not entirely sure how to fit in the Beasts and particularly Beast Yeast into this new story, but whatever. Also I’d probably establish the Dark Flour War as happening like, 70 years ago. And subsequently change all the information relating to it to fit in with that time frame. Maybe it could be a bit longer or shorter, but that’s the best time frame I can think of in relation to the Crème Republic elders, since that’s who I tend to base it off of

[niqhtlord01]

Humans are weird: Do not give them Toys

( Please come see me on my new patreon and support me for early access to stories and personal story requests :D https://www.patreon.com/NiqhtLord Every bit helps)

When the human government wished to initiate trade with the Filthrax Conglomerate the Filthrax were understandably cautious. They had always been sensitive when it came to sharing technology with other species. To that end they had an extensive amount of restrictions on what could and couldn’t be traded; excluding much of their more advanced technology from ever reaching the market.

The humans in comparison were technologically inferior to the Filthrax in nearly every aspect so they pictured the humans to heavily lobby for advanced technology to be made available. So it was with some surprise that when negotiations began the humans did not lobby for advanced technology, they instead seemed deeply invested in obtaining the Filthrax toys.

This was not something the negotiators had expected. Research into human culture had showed a deep rooted sense of aggression, towards outsiders and themselves when promoted, which made them believe that the first opening bid would be towards military grade technology.

Sensing the discord, the human diplomats explained that while they would like more advanced technology to be an option, they understood the hesitance and reluctance to trade such dangerous items. They said they would be fine earning the Filthrax’s trust over an extended period of time through trade. It seemed that several human enterprises had their eyes on Filthrax toys and they seemed like a safe enough items to begin trade. The Filthrax agreed and so trade lines were opened between the great powers.

What the aliens saw as a harmless deal was in fact the first foot in the door that could never be closed.

Several million orders for toys were placed almost overnight and the economic boon was felt overnight throughout the Filthrax Conglomerate. None of them understood the fascination humans had with their trinkets but if they were willing to pay then they would be more than happy to sell. It wasn’t until the Nexus Wars began that the Filthrax would come to understand their folly.

The “Nexus” was a series of star systems that held the majority of trade lanes between the core worlds and the far flung resource rich outer zones. Trade through these lanes was deemed to be the most stable for long distance transportation so whoever controlled these regions would make considerable wealth from their stewardship.

Current stewardship fell to the Omicron Empire who had held the systems for the last several hundred years and as such used the profits it generated to fund their empires expansion. The humans wished to control these routes to fund their own imperial ambitions but had never leveled the playing field with the Omicron military to make such a transgression possible.

Then, without warning, the human military launched a series of strikes against Omicron bases and fleets in the Nexus systems triggering the “Nexus War”. The Omicrons raised their fleets and armies and dispatched them to the systems with the full intention of repelling the humans and then carrying on their counter offensive into human space. What they met however was a suddenly technologically advanced human military spouting drastic advances in military equipment not seen.

Human soldiers now carried portable shielding units that blocked everything less than a direct hit from a hover tank, while their ships launched fusion bombs carrying a heavy enough payload to shatter Timbar class battleships in half.

With this new technology, the human military had taken control of half of the Nexus systems within five months of the wars start. Other powers dotting the stars took notice of the sudden prowess of the human military, as well as the calculations predicting that within another five months the Omicron Empire would be driven from the Nexus systems. Some cheered at seeing their old rivals in the Omicron’s brought low, others sent delegations to the human government pledging alliances and treaties, many more came to join the war effort now sensing blood amongst the stars; but to the Filthrax, they quickly came to realize the part they had played in this war.

While Filthrax toys were rather unremarkable, they were unique in the way that their power sources could last an entire lifetime. Through controlled energy distribution, the Filthrax had created a rudimentary power source that, while considered basic in their society, was light years ahead of any neighboring species.

The humans were well aware of this feature.

They knew before negotiations even began that the Filthrax would never part with their advanced weaponry or technology, but they would be willing to part with something they considered nothing more than a toy. Toys that were then torn apart to get to the power source, reverse engineered, and then used to power weapons and machines of human design.

Filthrax toys were now forming the basis for a new galactic power, and they had been fooled into giving them away for nothing more than currency.

The sudden realization sent shockwaves through the upper echelons of the Filthrax. If they admitted this they would be not only be publically humiliated on a galactic scale; but also be portrayed as cobelligerents in the war. Not only that, it would invalidate their own standing treaties with other species which specifically stated they would not trade anything that could be repurposed for war. They could see trade agreements torn asunder for a dozen species with even embargos placed upon their territories. Worse yet was if they did cease trading with the humans the human government could release the information and still black list them to the wider galaxy.

So they sat and watched the war from the sidelines, contemplating that their bobbles may have very well just doomed the universe.

[seabirdtxt]

.Irminsul --amend -m 'Scaramouche'

Nahida has called in the book club to try and start discussions about the Creator's situation. Cyno actually kinda knows what he's talking about and Alhaitham is... mostly there for moral support... [< prev] [Blog Tag] [next >]

Notes: SAGAU, reader is the Creator but no cult shenanigans. Separate warning for my writing being all over the place on this one. all relationships are currently platonic!

WC. 2.6k

----- ⚘ -----

There’s not much to do except wait for Alhaitham and Cyno to show up, unfortunately, so you have taken to chatting with Nahida and Aranyani about some of the games and toys that exist back on Earth. Aranyani seems to be interested in the mechanics of each, comparing them to existing games in Teyvat, while Nahida is more interested in trying them out for herself, someday.

Scaramouche doesn’t seem interested in the conversation, but he sits with the three of you anyway and watches the shadows of birds moving beyond the stained glass windows. 

You’d just been explaining the concept of the rubix cube and algorithms to the two gods when a sure knock is heard on the sanctuary doors. Scaramouche takes the opportunity to make his escape from the conversation, shuffling to the door and opening it for the newcomers. 

Cyno steps in, followed by Alhaitham, and the two of them hold each other at a polite distance as they walk down toward the dais, where the rest of you stand to greet them. 

“Hello, my friends!” Nahida exclaims, smiling brightly and clasping her hands together even as she and Aranyani take a gracious step back to allow you and the newcomers space. “Thank you so much for being here! We have a lot to discuss!” 

“We came as soon as we heard,” Cyno replies, nodding. He then turns to you with a little salute. “Your Grace, it is an honor to be in your presence.”

You put your hands up placatingly. “Please, there’s no need for formality…” you say, shuffling awkwardly on the spot as everyone looks at you. You clear your throat and gesture for the newcomers to continue. 

“We heard about the circumstances after your arrival in Teyvat,” Alhaitham states, stepping around Cyno, stopping at his side and crossing his arms. Straight to the point. “Do you remember the circumstances that led up to your descent? It might help point toward the root cause, and shed light on the ‘how’s and ‘why’s.” 

“Uh, good question,” you mutter, scratching your head about it for a second. “I was probably hanging out in my room or something, really. Playing, uh, games on my phone.”

You wonder if it’s too early to mention that said game was Genshin, AKA. controlling their world. You know they’re marginally self-aware, but the extent of which still escapes you. 

“Alright, and did you do anything different while you were playing on this ‘phone’? See anything strange?” Cyno picks up, pulling out a small notepad and quill. “Anything out of the ordinary, things that you don’t normally do or notice.”

“Well, my phone has been glitching a lot when I play games, lately,” you muse. “And I kept getting these buggy screens while I was in-game, but I figured that was just because my device was overheating or something. You know, they build them faulty on purpose so they can sell you a new one every few years? Apparently in France or something they made companies give people the right to repair their own phones, but we don’t have that where I live…” 

Cyno writes down most of the first half of what you say, but you seem to lose the crowd as you ramble. He looks up from his notepad to fix you with a level stare, though you can tell there's just a hint of confusion behind his expression.

“Can you say something that makes sense to people who live in this world?” Scaramouche interjects somewhere in the middle of your rambling, the first time he spoke since you guys first teleported to the Sanctuary of Surasthana. “Or at least stay on topic, or something.” 

“Oh,” you reply, blinking. “Right.” 

Cyno nods to you again, though he keeps glancing at Scaramouche out of the corner of his eye. Alhaitham doesn’t bother with subtlety, fixing the Balladeer with a level, analytical stare. Cyno clears his throat after a few seconds of awkward silence, preparing his notepad once more. “So, you were saying you played on this ‘phone’ device, aside from the problem you noticed, was there anything else you did differently?”

“Not really,” you shrug. “I was playing the game like I normally would, doing commissions and stuff. No, wait, actually I did do something a bit weird.” 

This causes Cyno to perk up, and he leans forward onto the balls of his feet as he listens attentively. 

“Because the game was overheating my phone, my ping was super slow,” you explain. “So I was lagging pretty badly. I was doing one of the leylines in the jungle and I was spamming the interact button on the flower because I was getting impatient…”

“And then?”

“... And then I think another dialogue box popped up, but I didn’t notice what it said.” You finish, sighing. “After that, I just remember waking up beside a leyline thingy right here in Teyvat.” 

“Do you remember the exact location of the leyline?” Alhaitham asks, to which you shake your head.

“The Traveler and Wanderer found me not too long after that, and took me straight to the city. They probably have a better idea than I do, honestly. I didn’t really have a chance to figure out where I was, at the time…” 

“Do you recall any distinctive landmarks? Anything that stood out in an otherwise unremarkable location?” 

You shake your head again, trying to remember what you saw. “No, uh, I was a little bit distracted by discovering I was suddenly in- uh, in Teyvat, and-”

“So you were not already aware of your location when you descended?” Cyno clarifies. You nod quickly.

“I only figured out it was Sumeru when the Traveler started bringing me closer to the city,” you agree, wringing your hands nervously under the general’s gaze. “The few little houses and tents that started popping up, the architecture kinda gave it away…” 

“Were there any inconsistencies you noticed between your knowledge of Teyvat and the actual Teyvat when you arrived?” Cyno asks, his head tilted to the side ever so slightly. “Just to make sure you’re in the correct version.” 

“Well, funny you should mention that,” you figure it wouldn’t hurt to share this, given the result of it sitting right next to you. Out of the corner of your eye, Nahida is giving you a thumbs up. “I got hurt touching a leyline, not the same one as when I first got here, though! I got a little cut on my hand, because the leaves are a bit sharper than I was expecting…”

Alhaitham’s attention shifts from the Balladeer back to you. “What happened when you were injured?”

“I, uh, I accidentally made Irminsul recover some deleted information.” You simplify as best as you can. “And now there’s several things that were added back to the world that aren’t technically supposed to be here...”

“I’ve never heard of leylines doing that, before,” Cyno remarks. “Then again, it’s not every day the Creator descends to Teyvat.” 

“Have you tried going back to the same location to see if it yields reverse results?” Alhaitham wonders aloud, seeming amused by the strange predicament. 

“And what is that supposed to achieve?” Scaramouche interrupts again, snorting as he crosses his arms. “Besides going for a leisurely stroll through the jungle, I mean. Irminsul already recovered the missing data, and the location itself doesn’t matter, if you haven’t noticed already, since you can find a leyline just about anywhere.”

“It’s certainly an unprecedented behavior for leylines,” Cyno agrees. “But again, the Creator has never descended before-”

“We heard you the first time,” Scaramouche deadpans, earning him a smack upside the head courtesy of you. “Ow! Do you want to figure this stuff out or not?”

“Be nice,” you grumble, though you do feel slightly annoyed at the repetitive line of questioning. “He’s just ruling things out, right?” You turn to Cyno, nodding encouragingly for him to continue. 

“Ley lines are a complicated but fascinating subject to study,” Cyno states, crossing his arms and tucking his notebook under one elbow. “However, I’m afraid interdimensional travel is a little bit outside Spantamad’s realm of expertise.”

“Honestly, that’s fair,” you give a resigned sigh, but Scaramouche cuts you off.

“But how’s that supposed to help you?” He sneers and rolls his eyes, shaking his head. “It’s like you want to be stuck here forever with no explanation for how you got here in the first place.”

“Can we just chalk it up to magic or something?” You ask sheepishly, a little embarrassed at having taken the time out of two of Sumeru’s most important figures’ days.

“I was looking forward to hearing about how you got into this predicament with your own two idiot hands, honestly.”

“What I want to know,” Alhaitham suddenly interjects, surprising everyone else with his initiative. “Is how the Creator and the Dendro archon are here, cozying up to a Fatui harbinger?” 

Four pairs of eyes blink at him in surprise, while Cyno nods in agreement.

“I think that’s the more pressing matter, here,” he agrees, and you can sense the tingle of static in the air as his previously-relaxed grip on his notebook starts to tighten. 

“Okay, see, that’s one of the things I was talking about!” You say quickly, the words leaving you in a rush in hopes of stemming the building tension in the sanctuary. “He was a harbinger before, but he’s all better now!”

“You say that like it was an illness,” Scaramouche snorts, to which you can only laugh.

“Yeah? As if you didn’t act a little bit sick in the hea-”

Nahida, who up until now has been doing an excellent job of pretending to mind her own business, decides to chime in before the general can come to his own conclusion.

“I apologize for not warning you two earlier, but I do have it on good authority—that authority being myself,” she hides her giggle with the palm of her hand, “that the Balladeer poses no harm to either of you, or the Creator!” 

“It’s also kinda my fault that he’s here, so I mean…” You trail off and give an apologetic shrug.

“How did you know I was a harbinger?” Scaramouche’s eyes narrow at Alhaitham and he crosses his arms as well, mirroring both the scribe and Cyno. “As far as I've been told, the memory of ‘me’ was erased from Irminsul.”

Cyno shakes his head. “No, there is recorded evidence of the Balladeer’s involvement with the sages’ god-creation plan,” he corrects, relaxing very slightly after Nahida’s reassurance but not dropping his guard completely. 

“I was present at the time of the Traveler’s investigation of the Joruri workshop, where they confronted the mechanical false god,” Alhaitham adds. “The person who fell from the machine indeed bears striking resemblance to you, but was confirmed to not be the Balladeer himself. However, Lord Kusanali’s own interjection confirms that you are indeed the Balladeer.” 

“He’s been reformed,” you say cheerfully, but your mind is running a mile a minute. Evidently Nahida and Aranyani are on the same page, because the two goddesses drift closer with curious looks on their faces. 

“So Irminsul has already started patching the holes in Teyvat’s history,” Nahida muses, hands on her hips. “It’s much faster than I anticipated, given the circumstances.”

“Not as surprising as you would think, little sprout,” Aranyani pats her head. “Irminsul is capable of very rapid computation, but the problem lies in resolving as many conflicting histories as possible. Two is faster, but three will cause some things to be shuffled around for a few days, still. The justification of the existence of multiple incarnations of the Balladeer may yet be subject to change.”

“So you’re saying that what we currently perceive as fact, is instead false?” Cyno asks, having retrieved his notebook once more. As the goddesses continue to muse on the subject, he writes down their theories and makes some notes of his own. 

“I’d say sorry for that workshop fight,” Scaramouche says, addressing Alhaitham with a smug grin. “But I honestly didn’t even remember you being there. I guess you just weren’t that noteworthy to me at the time. No hard feelings, right?” 

Alhaitham doesn’t even bother to grace him with a look, much to Scaramouche’s annoyance. Instead, the scribe quietly listens in on the Irminsul discussion.

Meanwhile, you try to remember what team you had when you took on the Archon quest fight. It’s been a while since then, and you’re not sure if you’re thinking of the right fight. Maybe you used Alhaitham in one of your weeklies? Speaking of which, do those boss fights exist in the world of Teyvat, or is that just for you as a player of the game? If they exist, how do the characters feel having to go beat up the same people on a weekly basis? What about the characters who are weekly bosses, like Wanderer, Childe, and Ei?

Thinking about it is starting to give you a headache. 

You decide to tune back in as Nahida and Aranyani finish bouncing ideas between themselves, with Cyno furiously scribbling annotations in the margins of his notepad. What was it they were talking about again? You get the sense that maybe you should've paid a bit more attention. 

“- that’s the case, then we should contact Inazuma and see if there is a new history that came up.” Cyno offers, to which Nahida shakes her head.

“If we ask directly, the answer we will get is the same.” She explains, wringing her tiny hands. “To them, this knowledge will have always existed. They will perceive it as an unchanged fact, in the same way you and the Scribe believe the circumstances of the Balladeer to be a fact. The better people to ask would be the ones involved in the anomaly.” 

“Alright, and how do we find them?”

“See, that’s the funny part…” You begin, only to be interrupted by a sudden swirling pressure in the chamber.

It’s strange to see the teleportation from an outside perspective. You watch as Wanderer shimmers into existence, adjusting his hat. The metal charms on the ends of it chime as they settle. He looks up, catching sight of you first and raises a hand to wave, only to stop short when he sees the other guests.

“... Looks like I’m late to the party,” he remarks, drifting over to Nahida’s side. “Wanna catch me up to speed? Not that I care, but I might as well get the full picture so I can correct you where you're wrong.”

“I asked for the General and the Scribe to come visit so that we could get a better grasp on the Creator’s situation!” Nahida explains, smiling brightly at him. 

“Great, and how did that go?”

Everybody chooses to look in different directions, unable to look Wanderer in the eye. You hear him heave an annoyed, but resigned, sigh. 

“We might’ve gotten somewhere if Buer hadn’t sidetracked,” Scaramouche adds helpfully. 

“And you might’ve gotten the groceries like you guys said you would, too, but here we are,” Wanderer crosses his arms, pinning you and Scaramouche with a pointed look. 

You wince and turn around, subtly leaning over to Scara, whispering: “I actually forgot about that…”

“Me too…” he replies, not quite as quietly as you. You both startle as hands come down on both of your shoulders, Wanderer’s grinning face appearing between the two of you. 

“Isn’t this just a splendid opportunity for you two to go find the traveler and restock our pantry, while Buer and I go over the details of what you clowns didn’t explain right?” 

Scaramouche wastes no time wresting his shoulder out of Wanderer’s grasp with a noise of disgust. “Who do you think you are to order me around, teacher’s pet? I’ll go when I feel like it.” He sneers, stalking off toward the doors of the sanctuary.

You offer a light chuckle and a wry grin of apology to the others, who watch unimpressed at Scaramouche’s display, while Wanderer dismisses you with a shooing motion.

Right. Time to get those supplies. 

[avaantares]

Wait, Zhao Yunlan's gun is actually a...?!

(I've never claimed production meta for @guardianbingo before, but after the amount of time and research I put in on this, I feel like I've earned the "Zhao Yunlan's Gun or Whip" square, haha)

SO. GUYS.

Maybe this is something fandom as a whole figured out back in 2018, but I, who didn't hear of Guardian until 2020, did not realize until now and I need to share the knowledge because when I finally noticed, I made an unholy sound.

I've tracked down where Zhao Yunlan's gun came from -- or at least, what it most likely started as. Not the in-universe dark-energy-maybe-uses-bullets-maybe-doesn't-device-that's-best-not-thought-about-too-long, but rather the actual fake-steampunk-revolver-that-is-best-not-looked-at-too-long-because-it's-awful prop.

Y'know, this disaster:

I was actually working on a different Guardian Bingo fill and needed to look something up for continuity, so I'd flipped through a couple of episodes at super high speed trying to find a scene. As luck would have it, one of my skips forward happened to land on the scene I screencapped above, when ZYL confronts Zhang Shi.

Normally we don't get this clear (or this stationary) a shot of the godawful gun prop. I'd assumed all along they had just taken a plastic gun, glued some extra bits and bobs on it to make it look fancy, and hit it with some dry brushing (fun fact: you can watch the paint flake throughout the series; check out the top of the barrel and the side of the cylinder in the above screenshot!) to make it look #steampunk like the abandoned aesthetic of 25% of the show (as I've said before, I have theories about what happened in preproduction, but that's another post). This sort of thing is exactly what I've done for cheap cosplay weapons or background props for film work that aren't going to be seen at HD detail range.

Anyway, since the detail showed up better here than in other shots, I paused the video to look at the random screws and hex bolts (why??) they'd glued on it, since I recalled that I had the aforementioned gun/whip bingo square to fill.

That's when I noticed a detail that had eluded me before: An inverted V shape at the bottom of the grip.

Only looking more closely, that's not an inverted V. It's a symbol that I've seen a whole series of variations of over the past 15+ years... every time there's a new installment of the Assassin's Creed video game series:

So I started hunting. The principal weapons in each game turned up no matches, but eventually I found a gun that looks almost exactly like ZYL's:

It's not a perfect replica, but the details are certainly all there: The stylized logo; the leaves and swirls on the grip; the feathers up the back; even the Victorian scrollwork beneath the barrel.

Now, what's really interesting is that this gun isn't actually from the AC game series. It's part of an elaborate fan project by artist David Paget that started as a class assignment back in 2014. Even though it gathered a bit of steam in the AC fandom and generated a couple of forum role-play groups, OCs and the like, nothing about this artwork was ever connected to a real Assassin's Creed title. So why would there be a physical version of a gun that was only someone's fanart?

This is where the smoking gun (*rimshot*) goes missing, because I can't prove any of this, and it's been long enough that digging through the archives of the internet to find answers is going to take way more time than I can afford to spend on a project I'm not getting paid for. But there are two likely possibilities:

Scenario A: Some employee in a toy factory somewhere in China got told, "This Assassin's Creed franchise is really big, so we need to be producing replicas from those games to sell. Work up some designs." So the employee Googles "assassin's creed gun," finds David Paget's very professional-looking art, and whips up a replica to mass-injection-mold without realizing it's not actually from a game. Later, someone on the cash-strapped Guardian production team needs a gun to mod, and finds a cheap toy revolver on clearance after several years of sitting in storage because there was little demand for a replica of a gun that was never in a game. They buy several, glue hex bolts on the cylinder for reasons unknown, and poof! Instant pseudo-steampunk!

Scenario B: Other fans were involved in the design. Someone did build a 3D model of David Paget's design that's still available on Sketchfab (screenshot below), and it's not unreasonable to assume that other fans could have thought it looked cool and built 3D printable models. Later, someone on the cash-strapped Guardian production team needs a gun to mod, and acquires the 3D print file of one of those models from the interwebs. They mod the file a bit, print some, glue hex bolts on the cylinder for reasons unknown, and poof! Instant pseudo-steampunk!

Personally, I find Scenario A far more likely than Scenario B, for two reasons: First, the hero prop looks more injection molded than 3D printed, especially given the technical state of 3D printing back in 2017-8. And second... Budget-challenged dramas do have a history of picking up bulk video game replicas and using them as cheap props. I made a post back in 2019 about the WoW Horde shields we spotted in a different drama...

Anyway, no firm answers about the source of the hero prop -- the world may never know! -- but we have now confirmed that in some alternate universe (possibly one of the first eighty?), Zhao Yunlan and/or Zhao Xinci is an Assassin.

Wait, wait, wait... *recalls mechanics of how the whole Assassin's Creed frame story is supposed to work* Uh... so... who wants to write a genetic memory explanation for the whole Kunlun -> [lots of lifetimes] -> Zhao Yunlan thing?

.

(I did actually check the catalogue of a friend of mine who makes replicas of props from various media franchises to see if he'd done a commission of the David Paget design, since a surprising number of his custom pieces actually do end up on film and television, but while he has a gorgeous replica of a revolver that actually appears in an AC game, it appears he has not done the Zhao Yunlan gun. I didn't really think it likely, since he's in the U.S., but you never know.)

[natsumebookss]

Tragic Yuri or Tragic Yuri: On Female Autonomy, Reclaiming the Narrative, and 2011's Moodiest Magical Girls

(contains spoilers for Madoka Magica and Heartcatch Precure, very slight spoilers for Winx Club, topics of loss and depression, and the author screaming into the void about anime bullshit that happened over a decade ago)

If you've spent any amount of time in the Precure or PMMM fandoms, you've probably come across this quote. It's natural in many ways for Urobuchi to feel the way he does--imposter syndrome is intensely common for artists and I'd imagine attempting to write a subversion of a common genre while a piece of media from that genre is wrapping up a super successful run is challenging. While I won't pretend Heartcatch reached the levels of popularity that PMMM ended up at, it was the highest-selling season for years in terms of toy sales and many still remember it very fondly. (I'm a bit more critical of it, personally, but more on that later.) And so much was made of Urobuchi confessing he hadn't seen Heartcatch at the time of writing his own show, with PMMM antis saying that meant he had no real appreciation for the genre.

But what if I were to tell you that not only would PMMM have been significantly worse if he'd made it more like Heartcatch, but Heartcatch would've been better off if it had been more like Madoka?

A disclaimer before we go any further: I am not suggesting that Heartcatch should've retooled into a darker series, or that it even had the ability to since the shows were made pretty much in tandem. The damage done to Heartcatch, in my opinion, was already done before Madoka's finale even aired. This is purely an exercise in comparing two magical girls from roughly the same anime season (one ending about when the other was starting) and seeing what they could learn from each other. Also note that my title on my main blog is literally "Heartcatch Precure finale anti," so there will be some bias involved. With that out of the way, let us proceed.

Context

Pictured: a completely normal Facebook discussion about a kid's anime character from almost 15 years ago.

For those unfamiliar, Cure Moonlight has essentially built up a reputation for being the Leafpool of Precure. For those unfamiliar with Warrior Cats, this is one of the worst things you can be called in fandom--someone with legions of fans who got screwed over so badly that those fans will never shut up about it. Being a Leafpool is not merely being a tragic character, but being actively fucked over by the narrative at every possible turn.

Let's explore Cure Moonlight in a bit more detail before comparing her to Homura and how, I argue, Homura did a similar story path to hers better. Like Homura, Cure Moonlight is first seen fighting a massive threat to humanity inside our pink magical girl Tsubomi's dream. The dream cuts off before we learn her fate, but all we can see on her face is pure sorrow before it does. The minute she is introduced, she already knows loss.

Throughout the show's run, we get to know her as Yuri Tsukikage, a veteran magical girl forced into retirement after her transformation item has been shattered. She has half of the broken Heart Seed that remains, and her foil Dark Precure, who broke the seed, has the other. Yuri is intensely depressed for this exact reason: she has lost her powers, her duties to the world, her fairy companion (who died in the battle with Dark Precure), and her father has also mysteriously vanished. The audience first sees her as a friend of one of the lead's older sisters, a senpai who excels at both sports and academics, before revealing her to be a broken person inside. The goal of Yuri's narrative, seemingly, is to restore her Precure powers, allow her to confide in new friends, and find her missing father.

The first two are accomplished in a pretty straightforward but heartwarming manner--Yuri begins to find a new purpose in training her Precure kohais and eventually regains her powers through hard work and determination. Typical kid's show stuff, even if seeing Cure Moonlight reappear for the first time is indisputably badass. It's the third one, however, that I have the most problems with.

Frequent followers of my main blog @curemoonliite may be familiar with a term I have called "moonbitching." This is what I call it when I rant at length about the Heartcatch finale and what it did to Cure Moonlight's character, or even just allude to it in the tags. Since this post will already be long enough without it, I'll go light on the moonbitching, but do just enough of it to give you the facts.

In the last few episodes of the series, Yuri learns that her father was brainwashed by the main villain of the series, Dune, and that Dark Precure was cloned from her genetic material while he was brainwashed. This is legitimately a fascinating plot point that, by itself, I have no problems with. However, soon after learning about this, both Dark Precure and her father are killed off in the final battle and all Yuri can do is watch.

Her father sacrificed himself for her in a moment of clarity, she didn't even get time to really process that she's been fighting her sister all along, and she's lost everyone all over again. She started the show with just her and her mother, and the second she sees hope at having a family again, it's taken away from her.

Her kohai Tsubomi, upon seeing this, begs Yuri not to take revenge on the Big Bad that's stolen everything from her. This isn't the Yuri I know, she shouts. But somewhere along the line, we've lost the Yuri we know. All her development, all her growth, has been torn away the minute she's forced to lose everything again. Her path as a character is now uncertain, the narrative deciding it won't allow her to pursue even the slightest act of revenge.

And all Yuri can do is watch alongside us.

Homura and Yuri

The minute I saw this finale for the first time, I was reminded of how a classic piece of children's/family media handled a similar plot point. Allow me to be cliched for a moment, but if we look at someone like Inigo Montoya, we can see that his decision to pursue revenge is never really questioned by the narrative. This is something that's always bothered me about female characters in media, especially magical girl stories--a magical girl can never just say "give me my father back, you son of a bitch." They may want to, but due to sexist notions about women and violence, they're always expected to take the high road.

Oftentimes, this is done by using the magical girl leader as a mouthpiece to directly dismiss their teammate's desires--Bloom and Aisha go through something very similar in S4 of Winx Club when Aisha's fiancee is killed. Neither Bloom nor Tsubomi are naturally dismissive people, and the narrative tends to characterize them as kind, but they are briefly mischaracterized in moments like this to give the typical "revenge is bad" message that kid's shows tend to have. A message that is often distinctly missing from boy's cartoons, but I digress.

Aisha is at least allowed the dignity of separating from the main team for a few episodes to join some extremists, but Yuri doesn't even get that.

And Homura gets so much more.

I'll admit, I still have mixed feelings about Rebellion to this day, but what I do appreciate about it is that it isn't hampered by these restraints that magical girl media made for children seem to have. That villain arc the Facebook commenter from before said Yuri should've had? It was too late for her by the time the finale ended, but it wasn't too late for Homura.

Homura is, in many ways, an anti-Yuri, and a lot of that comes from her having autonomy within the narrative. Female autonomy is something we see discussed in the social justice sphere a lot, but not quite as much in the storytelling sense. Probably the main difference between the two is that Homura, as a time traveler, can stop the ones she loves from ever being killed. In fact, that's also her greatest weakness, as she wears herself down with the timelines so much that she can barely bring herself to care for anything else sometimes.

Homura's depression comes from the idea that she Can Stop The Thing, but can't figure out precisely how to. Yuri's depression comes from the fact that she Can't Stop The Thing, thinks she knows how to, and gets herself into more trouble along the way. One of these makes for an intensely more active character that doesn't feel unfairly dunked on by the narrative, and oddly enough, it's not the kid's show character.

Yuri, as a children's character, is kept from doing certain things by what that entails. Homura, however, has no such restrictions. She can travel through time and repeat everything over literally until she breaks herself. And that she very, very much does.

Homura doesn't have to be convinced in the finale to let Madoka go, she just peacefully comes to terms with it herself. That alone gives her more autonomy than Yuri had, even if we recall that Rebellion's ending was not the original one that Urobuchi had planned. However, Rebellion's ending serves as an ultimate rebuttal to the narrative that a magical girl must simply allow hardship and loss to happen to her. If the world isn't fair to her, if not even time travel works out, why not just remake it?

This action comes at the cost of stripping Madoka of a lot of her autonomy, sure. But it is, in a way, the natural conclusion of how magical girl leaders are often made to strip their "angsty" team members of theirs. Homura's fall from grace is a flipping of this script in every way possible, and even if it's far from the best decision for her to make, we can see that it's 100% fully her own.

The revenge is complete. No one is there to stop her. Even the writers don't really know what to do with her now. Homura has now transcended the fate of the purple magical girl, and that's the best thing that could've ever happened to her.

A girl who seeks revenge is a devil. A girl who cannot become a princess is doomed to become a witch. But ask yourself, is the fear of becoming these things worth becoming a spectator in your own story?

And, if that's the case, is it truly better to reign in hell than serve in heaven?

[morkitten]

KAMEN RIDER MEGAPOST

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

WHAT IS KAMEN RIDER?

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

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

WHY WATCH KAMEN RIDER?

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

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

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

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

OKAY, WHERE TO START?

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

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

SHOWA ERA (1971 - 1994)

KAMEN RIDER (1971)

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

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

KAMEN RIDER AMAZON (1974)

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

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

KAMEN RIDER BLACK (1987)

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

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

SHIN KAMEN RIDER PROLOGUE (1992) (MOVIE)

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

KAMEN RIDER ZO (1993) (MOVIE)

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

HEISEI AND REIWA ERAS (2000-Present)

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

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

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

KAMEN RIDER KIVA (2008)

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

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

KAMEN RIDER W (2009)

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

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

KAMEN RIDER OOO (2010)

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

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

KAMEN RIDER FOURZE (2011)

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

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

KAMEN RIDER AMAZONS (2016) (WEB SERIES)

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

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

KAMEN RIDER ZERO-ONE (2019)

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

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

KAMEN RIDER GEATS (2022)

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

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

SHIN KAMEN RIDER (2023) (MOVIE)

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

KAMEN RIDER GOTCHARD (2023)

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

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

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

[sirianasims]

A few days later I made my way to GeekCon, feeling excited.

For one weekend every summer, the famous Casbah Gallery was completely transformed and filled with cosplayers, merch stalls, and a plethora of geeks.

I had never been able to attend in person, Copperdale was too far away, and the online pass just wasn’t the same.

The gallery shop, normally selling tickets and art prints, was now filled with comics and collectibles, snacks and toys. It was honestly a little overwhelming.

I decided to start from the beginning and looked at the MySims display. I had quite a few already, but I really wanted Violet. She was a little expensive though.

I went through my budget in my head and decided that she would be my reward when I hit 50,000 subscribers. Then I moved on to the Voidcritters.

Everyone knew Voidcritters, but it always felt a bit too much like a children’s game for me. Still, I did occasionally stream myself playing video games, and it might be nice to throw in something more casual – although few Voidcritter fans had anything resembling a casual relationship with the game.

Either way, it could get me some new viewers.

My train of thought was derailed by a guy next to me clearing his throat.

“Hi… uh, are you Jules? From DesignedByJules?”

“Yeah, I am.”

“I knew I recognised you! Sorry, I’m Marten, I’ve followed you for years -“

He stopped abruptly.

“OK, it sounds super creepy when I say it like that, but I do follow your channel. Do you play Voidcritters? I’ve never seen it on your streams.”

“I’m considering it.”

His eyes lit up.

“Who are you gonna main? Please don’t say Vulpes, newbies always pick Vulpes just because it’s one of the main characters.”

“Actually, I…”

“You should go for the Earth types, everyone thinks Void is special but Earth is actually stronger if you know what you’re doing.”

“Actually, I was considering Wind. I kinda like Meduso.”

Marten wrinkled his nose.

“Wind is kinda finicky though. If you’re starting with a Common critter, you should try Nymphaea.”

He gestured to one of the decals on the wall.

“If Nymphaeas are in danger, they produce these fungal spores that invade animal hosts so they can propagate the species in a safer environment. In episode 19 there was a bunch of Nymphaea that took over a flower shop and started reproducing like crazy and Leif had to free his friends from their hypnotising pollen and relocate them to a remote nature preserve – the Nymphaea, that is, not his friends.”

“I see.”

I started moving through the shop and Marten followed, still talking at breakneck speeds as if determined to impress me. It was actually a little adorable.

“And you know how Vulpes is based on a fox and Suintor is a pig and such? Some of the fans actually believe that Nymphaeas are based on a real thing.”

“Except water lilies usually don’t have hypnotising pollen.”

“No, but what if something did? I saw this discussion on one of the fan forums once where someone claimed to have heard that there was a rare flower on Sixam that did something like that.”

“It sounds a little farfetched to me. I mean, most super powers are just made up, right?”

He shrugged. “Maybe. I guess we’ll never know where they got the idea from, none of the original creators of the show are still alive and there has been no communication with Sixam for decades. Maybe Sixam was never even real. They could have faked it all.”

I thought of the old pictures of a little blue boy in grandpa Eric’s house.

“No, Sixam is definitely real. My great-grandma went there.”

Marten didn’t seem convinced but dropped the subject. 

beginning / previous / next

[taldigi]

What is the FC: Faerie Festival Arc?

I was catching up on Komi-san AND playing the new poke DLC and was kinda lamenting how like, where I live- we don't really have culture celebrations like some other places do. We have farmers markets and harvest festivals but nothing as culturally poignant as some of what they have (not just japan, other countries too)

Sooo I thought it might be fun to have a little festival specific to this story! Very geared to the faeries established presence- so i did some light research- stuff like festival foods and traditional clothing--!!

"Wouldn't it be wise for Ladybug and Chat Noir to keep an eye on a faerie festival?" Marinette asked, arms folded and leaning back in her chair, prompting a sour look from Felix. "It would be wise for them to stay away from the event entirely." He remarked, "TsuTec hardly has a clean reputation. It could be a trap." "Actually." Alina grinned, strained, as she grabbed both their arms and forced them into a huddle, "It would be wise for Marinette and Felix to accept their very good friend Kagami's very generous offer." The trio looked over their shoulders, as Kagami stood akwardly, a wet look peeking out from behind her bangs. Marinette and Felix wilted with guilt, as they cast a glance at each other.

So some preface if you aren't aware: TsuTec's main role in the story is developing something known as Faeglass, which is refined, pressed Faerie Dust harvested from Faeries. The thing about Faeglass is that it's gorgeous. Anything made with Faeglass is mildly addictive and very alluring. The QuaMii toys (in-universe Tamagatchi) were a trial run of using the glass to make things, and have been wildly successful- almost everyone has one. Fury/Richard Sphinx invested in the project, and now has a partnership with TsuTec to develop new Slot Machines for his casino using this Faeglass- rendering an already addictive activity doubley so. A side effect/double edged sword element of the Faeglass is that Faeries can "infest" the glass, taking it over and hiding within it.

Anyway, the gist of the festival is that it's a new thing developed by TsuTec to further market and strengthen their brand, disguised as a "Faerie Festival". Here, they sell masks infused with the glass/dust that line up with their QuaMii characters, and paired up with food, music, games, and culminating an odd event known as the Faemoon.

The Faemoon It's a new thing that started happening since the Faewild was cracked open (by Tsutec, to harvest Faerie Dust) and faeries started inhibiting the real world. The moon turns pink at roughly 11-Midnight, and at this time, and a bit before and after, the faeries- overloaded with magic -start getting rambunctious and a little silly. The more you fight against it (scolding, trying to silence them, ect) the more chaotic it is. But if you play along and have fun, the event goes smoothly. It happens once every few months, but the festival happens only once a year, when the Faemoon is at it's strongest.

So the masks themselves, like I said, are themed after popular cartoon/Tsutec characters. You get to purchase one based on what QuaMii you have (if you have & show one, you get a mild discount, which in conjunction with the faeglass/dusting means everyone has one at the festival) however, the Faemoon/Faeglass combo means that the power boost+infestation event means that during the Faemoon, the faeries can temporarily override the personality of the mask wearer (if worn on the face, not on their head. For story/visual clarity reasons.) In fact, St. Claude is possessed by Mimic for the majority of this "arc" because he doesn't really have a strong willpower + Mimic is very very intense.

The mains are influenced or can be posessed, but unlike Mimic; Tikki, Plagg, and the other main Faeries do genuinely love their chosen and don't abuse that trust by doing anything heinous. Tikki and Plagg (in Mar and Felix' bodies) dance together, and the masks mimic a smooch at the end by bopping noses. (i am not immune to Plikki)

Null is drained by the faemoon/would rather not challenge faeries when they are at their fullest, wildest power- and chooses to stay away from the event. Which is why the event is ultimately safe for the protags, even if they themselves don't know it. Also, the masks are worn by multiple people- lots of people have black cats and red puppies/ladybugs and bees and such, the protags do not have unique masks... except Kagami. She has a wholly unique mask and QuaMii toy. (Felix too, technically, but his is a prototype of a popularly retailed one, and Marinettes is modified/customized after she broke hers.) Which means that the even is just fun for them (because the characters deserve to have fun.)

Not to say that the festival doesn't have ulterior motives. The event drew a lot of wishmakers, and so it drew a lot of faeries- who shed a lot of Faerie Dust due to the moon, ultimately causing the event to be a successful harvest method for TsuTec, who also gathered a census via the mask distro. The mains, fortunately, accidentally avoided this census, because Kagami invited them and gave them their masks personally.

Ultimately, there isn't a "set story" for what happens during the festival, it's sort of freeform for whatever stories I might want to tell with it/worldbuilding event- like the Plikki dance or the Mimic!Claude thing. (and also having fun designing outfits and masks!)

[bigkingxl0]

NEW FIC: BODYBUILDING

The creaking highlighted his waddling steps into the kitchen. The same path he took every hour or so, hands cradling the warm bulge of his gut, hungry for more. All those years ago, he'd had no soft dough to hold. But that was years ago. He fished two beers out of the fridge and emptied them into his belly, feeling it expand under his pudgy fingertips. He returned with an armful of snacks, but by the time he managed to start his stream, they were gone.

He flexed for his fans, but his arms grew tired from holding up the thick ring of fat sagging where his bicep hid. He smacked his gut and let loose a rolling belch for the camera. He could barely move under the weight of his food, and the more he moved, the gassier he got. Not that he cared. 

"It all started in that gym!" Chet slurred, head spinning from the combo of weed, pounds of food, and alcohol. He laughed at the photo.

The Chet in the photo flexed in front of the squat rack. It had been shot on a polaroid in a gym that no longer stood, not far from the CUNY campus where he'd studied Personal Training.

His life had been going perfectly. Right out of college he made a name for himself. Although the gym he worked for was fresh, it showed potential -- and so didn't Chet. He too was fresh, his mind was sharp and he was damn good at his job. By design his only hobby was training hard. Obsessively tracking macros and calories. He ate right, never cheated, and cranked away day and night, exercising his body. Lifting heavy, then heavier. He’d won his fair share of "natural" competitions, his name had value in the right circles. He loved that his body put him in the spotlight: Exactly why he needed the self-gratuitous photo taken.

"Chet's happy place!" His gym rat buddies had joked.

He ended up with his pictures in magazines and on websites. He racked up a social media following. He trained a dozen and one Hollywood stars, and catapulted into fitness fame. Chet found his new happy place -- alongside a well-paying spot as the face of the best new fitness brand.

Now, he looked like a slob, half naked body surrounded by a pile of plates and filth. Lifting weights had become lifting the remote. He tweaked his swollen nipples and flexed again, the effort making him fart. He breathed it in, getting worked up and squeezing another out for good measure.

Embiggn had come to him with an offer he couldn't refuse. He had been getting bored of the rat race. He won often, and made money, but it was dull. For a long time he toyed with the idea of starting his own guru brand, and for no good intentions. The company knew he was perfect for their brand: he was a vain, egocentric meathead that needed to get bigger by any means necessary. He took their sponsorship and ran with it, shilling out Embiggn programs and equipment and gym memberships and sponsored nutritionists. He was the biggest face in fitness, and Embiggn grew to become the best selling fitness brand in the US. Sex sells, but sex appeal sells better. Chet and his brand had millions of fans worldwide, and he was plastered all over their merch.

"And now the new life-changing product from... from my one and only sponsor... Embiggn!" he said, like he didn't know what the words meant.

It was the ultimate fitness device, according to Embiggn. It looked like a large crate-like box, marked with the trendy logo and fitted with a touch screen. All you had to do was open the lid and punch in the serial code. After many brain dead tries, Chet managed to enter the short code, and the device sprang to life. It wasn't terribly loud, but very flashy and overdesigned. It moved mechanically at first, then seamlessly slid under him for his "workout", then dispensed several electrodes and simple instructions.

With a clearer head he would have felt ridiculous, but not then. He'd been the perfect beta tester, watching hours and hours of videos training him to be a mindless pig without even knowing. Hours spent gorging, lounging, and growing while he was convinced nothing had changed.

He leaned back into the couch, feeling the prods of the self-assembling parts. Two cold cups suctioned onto his swollen nipples, six electrodes adhered to his stomach, and two to his temple.

"Ready?" A soft voice asked him.

"Hell yea-mmmmph!” The machine had hardly waited for his confirmation. A tube snaked down his throat and pumped his gut full of lard. He moaned around the tube, feeling his already swollen body swell more with every pump. Chet didn't feel bloated; he just felt hungrier and hungrier. Eagerly he sucked the mix down, and as he sucked, his mind withered more and more. 

It had specifically been programmed for his brain — decades of user profiles in their database. They knew more about him than he did. It knew his need to get bigger, and it would help him acquire the level of fitness he wanted. Embiggn hadn't lied. They had formulated each machine to reach into the depths and create perfection. The seat cradled him no matter how much his ballooning body shifted. The machine tugged at his sensitive chest, and milked his cock, all the while pouring pure fat down his throat. Chet realized, dimly, that he'd never felt better in his whole life. And like that, his life was reduced to the machine.

After years of eating up the material on the Embiggn apps, in his mind, he was just as buff as he'd always been. He didn't need an Embiggn brand VR headset to see his body getting stronger instead of fatter, but it had certainly helped. That paired with the spent years eating up the fattening "health supplements" and food around him. 

Desperately he sucked at the tube. He needed more. His wide ass blew right through his tarp like shorts. His tight skin glistened with sweat, his breathing quick and shallow. Between his elephantine thighs, the machine quickened its pace. He thought that his overfilling might end at orgasm, but when he finished three containers to no mercy, he truly gave up. Helplessly he sucked down the fattening cocktail--not that he had much choice--and the last shred of humanity he'd had was lost. A bubbling fart slipped from his ass, and he shot his load. The machine deemed this to be enough pleasure, and relinquished him. The machinery repackaged itself to charge, leaving Chet propped on a couch too fragile to support his weight. It splintered beneath him in pieces, but he was too dazed to notice. 

It was quite a feat of engineering they had managed. As long as he streamed on an Embiggn platform, his image would be one of yesteryear. The Embiggn AI generated a perfect likeness of him, only with his beefy tanned body, and not his hoggish form. When he flexed his cellulite, his digital muscles bulged. Instead of his gut hanging out of his custom Embiggn Personal Trainer tee, his shredded muscles filled it out. Any dopamine spike detected by the program would beef up his digital self even bigger, and bigger they had grown.

It was a new age. The program had changed his life for sure. If he hadn't glossed over his contracts, he'd have known what he signed up for. But no one ever read the contract, the suits at Embiggn knew that. They marketed their ultra fattening, brain melting products as uber-healthy supplements decorated with fitness gods, while the fitness gods that took it became uncontrollably obese, and Chet was no different. Then they provided them with the ultimate distraction, a fantasy world of fame that kept the pigs docile, distracted, and addicted. 

And like sheep, the masses would follow. More people would pick up Embiggn -- through word of mouth, through flashy advertisement, through the millions of bots pumping out positive info. Then it wouldn't just be gym bros made to be massive hogs. In fact, according to the spreadsheets, nearly 45% of all traditional gym goers had given up a physical location for an Embiggn package. That number climbed exponentially every single quarter, and with the release of their New Year's Resolution package, the future looked even fatter.

Chet ended his stream in which his viewers had watched a massively strong man reach his new personal best. In some way, he really had. Three tubs of Embiggn Gainer pumped into his ruined body, three pounds of pure fat gained in one session. He sighed, content with his crippling obesity. After all, he could see he was still the shredded muscle God of his dreams. He smiled for the camera, sluggishly flexing and farting.

His cock ached from overstimulation, but he teased his nipples anyway, drool spilling out of his mouth. He liked being dumb and fat, even if he had no idea that he was. It made his tiny cock hard, and made him cum. And he liked that a lot. Too bad he was too wide to reach the little chub hidden under his massive fat pad. And even if he were to try, all that lard wobbling would tire him right out. Chet needed the Embiggn machine. 

Dependency. That was the future too.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Like my work? Want to support it? Head on over to my link.tree and drop a donation! https://linktr.ee/bigkingxl

[imcutebutimdepressed]

Nancy’s Twin (Stranger Things Fanfic)

VOL 1 Chapter 1: The Start of It All

It took me 30 minutes to figure out a title for this chapter. This is gonna give me a headache to having to make sure everything is not an error or out of place.

ENJOY. Let me know if there's errors or punctuation errors.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

November 6, 1983, Hawkins, Indiana.

Years past since the Jaws movie for Mickey, and not once has she past the opportunity to watch more horror movies. During those years, she would give her Dad a chance to watch horror movies as long as she takes her the times he goes during when he's done from work. Of course he said no that she's too young to watch them, but a little deal was made with a 8 year old girl and her 37 year old Dad.

"Daddy if you let me watch the horror movies that you go to with me having all the snacks I want, I won't tell mom you went to see Jaws." Mickey keeping the professional stance with her notebook hugged to her chest.

"How do I know she'll believe you honey?" Ted was just ready to leave the house.

"I can recite the entire movie to her step by step."

"Ok I can take you, but no snacks."

"Did I mention that I know you're the one that took Mom's 20$ that she was gonna use for our candy bags on Christmas to buy yourself a 10 pack of beer?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That's how the deal started. Every certain days, Ted would use his breaks during his work to pick up Mickey from school and go see movies.

Movies like Deep Red, Race with the Devil, Rocky horror picture show, legend of the werewolf, terror of Frankenstein, Jaws 2, don't hang up, and assault! Jack the Ripper.

Her favorites started listing like crazy.

Carrie, King Kong, The clown Murders, Halloween (she's really into Micheal Myers), Alien, Tourist Trap (It did scare her a little), Dracula, Friday the 13th, The shining, Evil Dead, Poltergeist, and Creep-show.

Of course she still watched other movies like Rocky, Freak Friday, Star Wars, The rescuers, Pete's Dragon, Cinderella, Grease , Lord of the rings, Battle star Galactica, Star Trek, Muppet Movie, Lupin III, Indiana Jones, Annie, The dark crystal and Pop eye.

You can say she found ways to watch movies almost every day. She would save up her money from the amount of toy cars she sells to kids in her school including secretly selling money worth of candies from Halloween to buy herself movie tapes to rewatch.

Until the years gone by and she just stopped the deal with her Dad. Ted didn't know why, but she just acted quiet for almost a whole year. He didn't make it a big deal and decided to just let it be.

Mickey stopped having physical touches with her family after she was 10. No hugs, no shoulder pats, no surprises, no grabbing her face to kiss it. No touching.

On her 11th birthday, Ted gave her a cassette tape player that she can hear music in. Of course Nancy just wanted new dolls and dresses, but all Mickey wanted was the opposite. She would never want to wear a dress again.

Now 8 years of complete hell was coming and going for Mickey. In her room listening to The Poppy Family as she reads a spider man comic while laying on her bed wearing a graffiti t shirt.

"I can't help crying"

Honestly, Mickey can relate to that one sentence.

"You are my whole , babe"

"My heart and soul, babe"

Distracted from the song, she just tosses the comic to the floor and keeps listening to the song instead. Even at the age of 16, she's curious to how people find such a perfect partner. After watching The Goodbye Girl, Mickey never really sees herself falling in love with a man. Of course she got a huge crush on certain guys from movies, but in an actual relationship, hell no.

After everything that's happened in those 8 years, Mickey would never in her life settle with the boys in Hawkins.

A slight open of her door snaps her back to reality. She removes her headphones and lifts her self up to see it's Dustin, one of her brother's friends.

"You need something Dustin?"

"Actually I wanted to ask if you wanted this last slice of pizza? It's sausage and pepperoni." He says with his adorable childlike smile.

Mickey gets off her head and walks to him. Looking down at the pizza, it's pretty good to eat, so she takes it and thanks him.

"For this free pizza, I shall honor you one of the great trades of them all good sir."

Dustin is already excited.

"What would that trade shall be, oh Lady of the Village Halla?"

Mickey goes to a box under her bed, takes something out of it, and gives it to him.

"8 dollars in cash." She said with a smile.

"Holy shit!! You serious?!"

"It's also a thank you for buying me some big league gum and skittles. Spend wisely my freind."

He smiles and starts to leave, while she goes to eat the pizza, which is pretty good for a free slice.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"There's something wrong with your sister."

Mike looks at Dustin with confusion. When it comes to having two sisters, it's a little hard to know which one any person is talking about depending how you describe them. Mickey and Nancy always have something wrong with them, but simple things.

Like when Dustin asked what's wrong with Mickey of why she allows her brother and his friends hug her but not anyone else, or the time when he asked what's wrong with Nancy with why her and Mickey don't get along. 

"What are you taking about?" Mike asked.

"Nancy has a stick up her butt."

Now he knows which sister he's talking about.

Lucas adds, " Yeah. It's because she's been dating that douchebag, Steve Harrington." While preparing to ride his bike back home.

"She's turning into a real jerk Mike." Dustin getting on his bike.

"She's always been a real jerk." Mike clarifies.

Dustin disagrees. "She used to be cool. Remember when she dressed up as an elf for our Elder Tree campaign."

"That was four years ago!!"

"Just sayin!!" Before he could leave, he turns to Mike.

"If there was a chance I can date your sister, can I date her?"

Mike raises his brow with a "wtf" look.

"Which one?"

"Obviously the badass one. Mickey."

"Oh my god no Dustin, I mean she is a badass but I'm not allowing you to date her."

"She likes me!!"

"As a brother, and you're too young for her plus it's a Hell no!!"

"4 years Mike!! 4 years!!"

"You can't blame him Mike." Lucas says with a side smile.

"Bye!!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Nancy don't even lie about stealing my damn lip balm, either give it back or I'm taking one of your pants as my own."

Nancy holds Barbara on the phone again and looks at her with an impatient look on her face.

"Why do even have one? You hate makeup."

Mickey raises her brow.

"For your information, the lip balm keeps my hot blood lips from drying like a mummy while makeup is just an enhancement for certain girls to wear to impress their target."

"Their target?"

"Yeah. Boys, boys with bikes, boys with cool cars, boys with CuTe hair, boys that are nice, and boys who you just feel In LoVe."

Mickey mocking the words "cute" and "love".

"Is this about me dating Steve? He's nice and is really cute, and his hair is cute too. Sounds like someone is just jealous that I have a boyfriend."

Mickey just laughs.

"HAH!! First of all I was just telling you to give me back my lip balm, and second of all, I don't see any reason to be jealous over a guy that probably doesn't even use actual hairspray for his hair."

She looks around for the lip balm until she sees it on a table close to the door. As she grabs it, she looks back to Nancy.

"Does Mom and Dad even know you have a boyfriend?"

Nancy eyes widen a bit, which means to Mickey that it's a no. Why is she not surprised? Nancy tries to counter a comeback.

"Do they even know you have a monster truck without their knowledge?" She smiles.

"I'm making money out of that badass truck, thank you so much for reminding me." As she leaves, she hears Nancy mutter "druggie" before she continues on the phone with her freind. As Mickey closes the door, she mutters "Princess" before she opens her door and closes it to lay back down on her bed.

It is getting late so she'll have to sleep. That means she'll have to wish graduation comes quick. She changes into a simple oversize Christine movie shirt and heads to bed.

"Please just for once let tomorrow be okay." She whispers before closing her eyes. The entire room only lighten by a nightlight of a candle that makes the whole room smell like roses.

Let tomorrow be okay? If only Mickey Wheeler knew.

I gotta practice on Computer for putting Wattpad works of mine to Tumblr. The plan is to use Ao3 and Tumblr when I finish anything for Wattpad. Wish me luck!!!

[astoundingbeyondbelief]

Kaiju Week in Review (June 25-July 8, 2023)

I picked a bad time to skip a week lol

Ultraman Blazar, the 35th entry in the Ultra Series, has made the scene. Episode 1 throws us right into a battle between humanity and a space monster. Blazar's the pushy type, all but forcing Gento to transform, but he doesn't speak Japanese—just yowls. For now, that makes him the show's central mystery. The show's defense team, SKaRD, won't actually form until the next episode, at which point we should have a better sense of it. But I'm intrigued so far.

Free streaming TV service Pluto TV has added a Godzilla channel. It boasts, or should soon boast, all of the Japanese Godzilla films minus King Kong vs. Godzilla and Shin Godzilla, plus Rodan, all the Mothra movies, The War of the Gargantuas, Godzilla (1998), and Godzilla: The Series. A Blu-ray.com user has composed a detailed rundown of the versions of the films used—short version, nothing we haven't seen before apart from a few small changes.

I got to see Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken before its official June 30 release date thanks to Regal's Monday Mystery Movie series. I guess I didn't retain much memory of the trailer, because it surprised me how early in the film the title character first grew into a kaiju. I can't give it an especially enthusiastic recommendation—comparisons to Luca and Turning Red are inevitable and don't flatter Ruby at all. But I get a kick out of seeing kaiju in such alien territory as a hyperactive animated kids' movie, and they continue to show off their flexibility as metaphors (Ruby is plainly neurodivergent). 7 outta 10.

Nimona dropped on Netflix the same day, and that's one anyone reading this column should sprint to watch. It saves its kaiju for the third act, and I've held off on posting much about that part of the story yet, but trust me, Ishiro Honda would be proud.

After years of lackluster Gorgo home video releases, Vinegar Syndrome seems poised to finally do it right in 4K Ultra HD. (If you're like me and don't have a way to watch such discs yet, don't worry, it comes with a Blu-ray.) New scan, new audio commentary, special features both new and old, and a killer cover. For those unfamiliar with the company, note that this release is "only available on [the Vinegar Syndrome] website and at select indie retailers. Absolutely no major retailers will be stocking them."

Every episode of Chibi Godzilla Raids Again is now subtitled, a fine excuse to get acquainted with one of the Reiwa era's biggest surprises. No stakes, no budget, just a bunch of Toho's biggest stars acting like a bunch of fools.

There's always more Godzilla toy news than this column can hope to cover, but a few highlights:

Bandai's ever-expanding Movie Monster Series will release Gamera 1965, Gyaos 1967, and Battra larva later this month. The defunct Daiei Kaiju Series last offered a Showa Gamera in 2006, and never covered any of his foes from that era; here's hoping Gyaos is the first of many.

Hiya Toys now has the license to produce figures from the Toho Godzilla films, not just the Monsterverse.

Super7 will be selling ReAction figures of Godzilla chomping some helpless people on a subway train at San Diego Comic Con. They just get it (and hopefully the many of us who aren't going will have some way of getting it that doesn't involve scalpers).

The new unit in Godzilla Battle Line is Monster X/Keizer Ghidorah. The former evolves into the latter after his first death. Keizer is a heavy hitter with a twist: he regains 20% of his health with every defeated foe. Great against swarms, but you don't see too many of those these days.

Believe it or not (many are still in denial), but Pacific Rim turns 10 on Wednesday. Thankfully, per this Tweet from director Guillermo del Toro, the effective start of the Kaiju Renaissance (and one of my all-time favorite films) won't go unrecognized on its first big anniversary. I'm guessing a cast reunion?

More translations from Noah Oskow await on Toho Kingdom, these a collection of synopses of early versions of Godzilla vs. Mothra, Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II, and Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla from the Toho DVDs. Much of this has been translated in greater detail already, but the later drafts are interesting.

[aj-needs-2-sleep]

After watching Ted Nivison's Barbie lore video i took a deep dive into it at 1am and here's my conclusion:

There was a Barbie clone society hiding within the world, with one "main Barbie" at any given time, who in one generation secretly owned Mattel, stopped being a clone, and in a future generation saved the universe thus ascending into godhood. Let me explain further. For over 500 years there has been one main Barbie that has been cloned over and over again until “perfection”. When she is young she is a Chelsea, then Skipper, Stacy, then a full-fledged Barbie. If a clone fails to become a proper Barbie then you are “removed” as seen with Kelly. When she ages past "Barbie" she then becomes either an aunt, mom, or grandma Roberts aiding future generations of Barbies. There are also Kens, also clones but they are rougher models and are more there as a kind of love interest for new Barbies during this time. 

If we start the timeline from Barbie vlogs, we see this generation's "main Barbie" whose life and career we witness in most of the movies and shows, aided by other Barbie clones. Not only that but in every movie she stars in there is a lesson, thus aiding other Barbies striving for “Barbie perfection” aka enlightenment. As she grows in stardom, she ends up with enough money to start her own business, Mattel. With all the money the Barbie clone hivemind had made over the past 500+ years, they moved outside of normal society thus creating "Barbie land". Not only do they move to this new "Barbie land”, but they remove all Barbie clones that can't be used as inspiration for mass-produced toys the main Barbie sells under Mattel, and effectively become "dolls" themselves. This allows for Kens to grow from rougher models to dolls as well, thus getting more diversity in all dolls. It also sets the stage for any of the Barbie movies where she is a doll in them, thus telling the life of the next generation's "Barbie", who (like she was when she was a mass clone hivemind) had every job known to man at some point in time. Thus we can understand how there is a town in which every movie or show in which she is a doll then has an explanation for its cursed existence. 

In the live-action Barbie, we then see the previous generation's "Barbie" now older, as the original creator of Mattel. Yes, the Barbie hivemind became a doll society that fuels capitalism, keep up. Not only that but we see "stereotypical Barbie" played by Margot Robbie, who is the doll Barbie we see in previous shows and movies who chooses to become real in the end. She doesn't continue the clone line, not knowing it ever existed, thus Mattel passing on separate from this universe's "main Barbie" but still making “Barbie” products and pushing the idea of “Barbie perfection” for this and future generations of Barbie to see. 

Several generations later we get to the furthest in the future's Barbie with the movie Barbie Starlight Adventure with space and star-dying stuff. We can see in this movie that even though this generation's Barbie is far past the clone hive-mind Barbie in time the generations of knowledge still pass on through Mattel as she can USE THE FORCE. Then she STOPS THE HEAT DEATH OF THE UNIVERSE, REMAKES THE WORLD IN THE BARBIE IMAGE AS HER HIVE MIND FOREMOTHERS SOUGHT TO, THUS HITTING BARBIE PERFECTION, REACHING NIRVANA, AND ASCENDING TO GODHOOD.

Oh, also mermaids, pegasus, pegaponies (very distinctly different from pegasus), and several forms of fairies canonically exist in the "Barbie Cinematic Universe". There’s also a separate possible dimension fairies live called Gloss Angeles too that exists within the BCU.

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk (which is how Ted should have ended the video)

[mosaictart]

STORES THAT SELL CHILDHOOD

I know we all have nostalgia,

nostalgia from a scent you pick up in the middle of the road which takes you from being a normal person with an average height and a little guilt passing life ordinarily to being 6 with 43 inches or so to yourself and having two big gaints (your parents) holding your little hands each from one side.

Nostalgia from a tv show you saw when days weren't filled with thoughts of getting a job, giving mid-terms, finding a life partner, having a place in this world.

Nostalgia from toys , from little clothes which probably wouldn't even fit in your arm now.

I had a childhood and so did all of us. There were so many little things which made our childhood what we remember it to be that in this hustle of teenage and adult life we tend to forget them. The world is changing , generations are , 9 year old kids nowadays are into skincare(ig you heard what kids did to Sephora) while I didn't knew more than a soap and a moisturizer for me. This made me think that kids are having a total different experience into childhood as compared to us. I have my exams coming up and I wanted some stationary. I've been taking a new way home since a few days so I decided to visit a little scrappy shop I always pass by, I used to be so intrigued to that store everytime I'd see it, it seemed so tiny but loaded with so many things that you couldn't even fit any at once in your eyes. It was the kinda store which looks like it has saw this footpath change from concrete to paver blocks, the kinda store which has an old owner who spent life selling new things to people but barely got any for himself. Whenever I would pass by it I'd notice there weren't a lot of people coming there but I wanted to see every little thing that shop had in it. So I made a justified excuse of buying stationary cause of exams to myself and went there. But to my surprise, this one time it was a little crowdy there , a perfect chance for me to stand back and buy myself time to look at everything that little store was hiding in itself. As I spun my eyes around the store I couldn't believe what I saw. Little erasers shaped like rainbow, dinosours,clouds,icecreams,cats,rats what not , I remember being obsessed of collecting all the shapes and taking them to my class with little benches to little people like me just so we could count who had more of them. I saw that big fat pen we all used which used to have all the colours in it , I saw little sticker packets hanging , I saw slates with Disney characters on them, I saw my childhood come to life in that store. I saw little me getting excited for all those things in that store. And I realised that maybe some kids would share the same fragments of their childhood as me and maybe there are these little stores hiding somewhere that sell childhood to kids and adults with children in their souls. I bought all that stuff home and got laughed by my brother but now I know as that dinosour eraser rests in my pencil case, my childhood is alive and breathing there.

-K.

(and yeah that's little me in that picture, credits to mama for telling me how to pose;)

[gayelectro]

Thirst: A Ten Year Retrospective

On June 7th, 2013, at 7:30 PM, The Hub Network aired Transformers Prime’s 60th episode. Title: Thirst. Just five episodes before the conclusion of the series (and a post-series “movie”), the last few episodes of any serialized show can have a lot weighing on them, as you need to wrap up story threads in a satisfying fashion. 

For me though, Thirst missed the mark. Pretty hard.

When this episode aired, I hated it. And when posting my grievances on Tumblr, I was met with a lot of backlash. This naturally compounded the hatred I ended up brewing for this episode, as I felt as though couldn’t even talk about it with people without hearing some seriously stupid counterpoints or outright attacks to my character over not liking an episode of a children’s cartoon to sell toys.

Well, a lot of time has passed since then. It’s been a decade and I want to lay this whole thing to rest. I was 16 and still in high school when it aired, and now I’m a whole ass married 26 year old adult with a job. So I feel that getting all of my thoughts and feelings out, while also reflecting on how the Transformers fandom (and myself) have changed, might finally quell this beast for good. Aiming for the spark, as it were.

Skip the readmore if you don’t want to encounter a genuinely and insanely long post full of rambling and Transformers media consumption.

Naturally, disclaimers, because this is the internet.

Don’t go and read this and give any guff to anyone who worked on this episode or in Transformers Prime in general. I shouldn’t have to say this. Even as I speculate over what writer’s intentions or unconscious biases were back in 2013, it still gives nobody any reason to find these people and bother them. I’m allowed to criticize a show but I see no need for anybody to send shit to people who were likely just trying to get their paycheck from Hasbro.

Another disclaimer: I don’t have any problem with people who like or love this episode. I have friends who do. And I can see what positive points about it shine out for them. But I’m still allowed to have differing feelings about it and express them. At the crux of it, I think it’s just that simple. Everybody should be able to coexist within a fandom and deal with someone not liking your favorite episode or someone loving an episode you hate.

And I think one last disclaimer: the fact is that a lot of my anger towards this episode is partially baked in due to immediate fandom reactions at the time of release and my own disappointment in the episode not being what I hoped it to be. I’m going to dissect that where possible in this post. But fundamentally, I just don’t understand people who are like “you can’t hold it against a piece of media for not being what you wanted it to be” in regards to being misled. There’s a vast difference between letting fan theories get in the way of the author’s intent and being misled due to the way something is advertised. And while yes, the show isn’t to blame for how the fandom reacted to the episode, it still leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. How could it not? Human brains are wired for pattern recognition. How am I supposed to forget the way I was treated for not liking this episode? How am I supposed to be objective about this short of amnesia to experience the episode for the first time all over again?

Anyways, now that that’s out of the way, let’s dive in!

Now let it be known that I was thrilled for this episode. I was an avid Transformers Prime watcher. I made a whole event around every new episode airing. And I watched the promos like a hawk. I was obsessed with Transformers Prime when it was airing and convinced that it was a masterpiece. Truly, the apex of Transformers media.

So, the promotions really emphasized the zombie aspect of this episode, with a sneak peak at what they would look like. I don’t consider myself a horror fan by any means, I’ve always been squeamish and jumpy, but I think there’s an aspect of horror that lends itself to the curious mind. I wanted this episode to be scary. Knowing the Y-7 rating, I knew that this was going to be horror that likely fell within my comfort zone while also possibly pushing the envelope a bit. After all, Samurai Jack creator Genndy Tartakovsky had spoken at length about how much violence he could get under the radar in kid’s TV by having all of the “gore” be robots and aliens. I assumed that this episode was going to do much of the same.

Let me get it out of the way right now, one good thing about Thirst is the “zombicon” designs. I think they’re great. Personally would not change a thing about them, they’re pretty darn perfect.

But, being a weenie, I did try my hardest to steel myself against what the episode might throw at me. I was expecting the absolute worst they could get away with in regards to robot gore and violence and jumpscares. I wanted this episode to be scary. Sure, Y-7 scary, but still scary. I probably expected too much, given that I didn’t understand why shows stuck so hard to just 22 minute time slots at the time. But I was an easily startled kid, I figured they could still deliver... And, well... I just didn’t get that at all.

More or less, the episode rips itself into pieces. If one is being generous, about 1/3rd of the episode is veering on horror. But 2/3rds of the runtime are easily just comedic slapstick and banter between Knock Out and Starscream. While this is fine, it certainly wasn’t to my taste and was a let down. This episode obviously really really wanted to be funny and Decepticon focused. And while it was the only episode of Prime to not have a single Autobot in it, I still found its humor to be. Well.

Now, a tangent:

The writers and this series relationship with its queer-coded characters is complex and strange, to say the least. While I do love and appreciate a gay villain, it’s still very telling that the most flamboyant and clearly gay acting characters are Decepticons. Starscream in his literal stiletto heels and effeminate shrieks, Knock Out with his foppish behavior and just about everything said behind the scenes about him... It’s undeniable that they’re intended to be read as gay and it feels as though it varies from episode to episode whether them being gay is supposed to be humorous, relatable, or dastardly.

Thirst definitely feels like... The worst of this to me.

I’m going to focus more on Knock Out, just because he’s realistically more near and dear to my heart. But the fact is, I saw myself in these characters growing up. I was a young queer with no representation in the media I enjoyed. So of course I would cling to the gay, sexy robot. Regardless of if writers wanted him to be someone the audience saw themselves in, I did.

Of course, I believe at this point that everyone is familiar with “The Botcon Incident”.

[ALT TEXT : When asked at BotCon 2011, the Prime writers said that there is no designation for gay, or straight, for that matter, on Cybertron, where Transformers are created by the AllSpark, not through sexual reproductions. They also said that Knock Out is a knock out, and that the Nemesis is a very "don't ask, don't tell" place. And then they jokingly deflected the matter, claiming that Knock Out's mannerisms are not caused by any particular orientation, but are simply eccentricities caused by "a glitch in the AllSpark" the day he was created... which is unintentionally so insulting to gay people that it could create an awkward silence in the Void. ]

On one hand, Knock Out acting gay is seen as a defect. A mistake or some sort of source of humor. At the same time, there was still a lot of love given to him by the writers. In panels, they’ve expressed that they refused to let Knock Out be killed off (regardless of if any other character lived or died). Part of this was because he was really the big “original” character for the show, but part of it also definitely has to be some sort of genuine love for the character, I think.

So, it’s a weird act to juggle as a queer fan, right? The writers loved Knock Out but it feels like they still wanted to poke and jeer about how gay he was (without even really confirming him to be gay, but we can all admit he acts gay and that’s WEIRD, am I right guys).

To wrap around to Thirst: I feel like this is part of why I don’t find as much humor in the slapstick Knock Out/Starscream moments in the episode as other fans do. This feels like the most brazen and obvious part of it: the humor in the episode feels like it comes from a place of “how funny would it be to make the fags run around the ship screaming their heads off”.

By season three, the animation in this show became so beautiful and utterly expressive. And that’s a great thing. But the level to which they pushed Knock Out and Starscream’s run cycles was just... Like I get it, it’s funny when scared gay person does a silly effeminate run. Not to mention how these characters have established run cycles, we’ve seen them run before, no, in this episode they flail about helplessly because it’s sooooooo funny.

I do feel like there were undercurrents of homophobia in this show. It released in 2013 and thus was probably written back in 2012. To act like the writers room was completely devoid of the influences of homophobia would be absurd. I’m not saying that the episode is explicitly homophobic, nor that it’s homophobic to put gay characters in horror scenarios, nor that everyone who worked on Transformers Prime is a homophobe. But I am saying that this show was a product of its time, and 2012 was a very homophobic time, and that I think we can talk about that without assuming the worst in those bringing it up or the worst in everybody who worked on the media in question. Multiple things can be true at once. I just want to talk about how the vibes are off, man, it feels a little gay bash-y.

Part of what I’m trying to describe here is, to put it another way, would this episode have worked the way it did with any other characters being at the forefront? Thirst, but with say, Shockwave and Soundwave? Airachnid and Megatron? Or Arcee and Bulkhead? Or Ratchet and Wheeljack? However you switch this episode around, I’m almost positive the characters’ mere presence would not be treated as inherently comedic into itself. It feels very telling that this was a Knock Out and Starscream episode, because Knock Out and Starscream are the most obviously queer-coded characters.

Getting off of that tangent which I’m sure has already turned the few readers of this away, let me get back more into the meat of this retrospective.

Another thing that infuriated me about fan reception to this episode is that a lot of fans reduced everything to shipping wars. If there’s something that’s really changed with time in the Transformers fandom, thank fuck it’s the shipping culture. A decade ago, any and all issues I had with this episode got reduced to “You’re a KO/BD shipper and you’re angry because this episode had KO/SS moments”. To this day, I cannot express how such a dismissive and us vs. them attitude makes me see fucking red! If anything, the fan’s combative nature is what made me come to dislike KO/SS as a ship-- not the other way around.

The fact is, the banter between Knock Out and Starscream is entertaining. I do like that aspect of the episode. When they open up to one another in the bunker, it’s a really sweet moment! We have two Decepticons being vulnerable and open with each other, which is a rarity, given how cold living on the Nemesis is! It was a genuinely touching moment that gave us insight into both Knock Out and Starscream as individuals, which I really did enjoy.

The way they speak to each other throughout the episode is actually one of the things that makes me wish I could come back to this episode more (and hopefully now I can). It’s telling how they can open up to one another only to immediately throw each other under the bus the very next moment. It speaks to the Decepticon’s culture.

But anywho, there was also just the... Blatant ignoring of what actually was said in the episode to fit an agenda. Ardent “only-one-ship-may-rule” KO/SS fans insisted that Knock Out’s behavior in this episode ““proved”“ that he didn’t care about Breakdown. This thankfully has died off overtime in the fandom, now that more people can accept multiple ships coexisting in peace instead of making conflict where there doesn’t need to be any.

But even if we take shipping out of the equation entirely, you have to be either not listening or willingly deluding yourself if you think that any of Knock Out’s actions in this episode are showing that he did not care about Breakdown, regardless of if you think that relationship was lovers, friends, or just close coworkers.

“Despite your justifiable lack of regard for his human side, it doesn’t trouble you to watch what remains of your former partner endure your scientific endeavors?” “Not really. Besides, Silas once had poor Breakdown pinned to his lab table. I think my former partner would be pleased to be a part.”

This was the big exchange that really got under people’s skin. Watching it live, I loved this reaction from Knock Out. It spoke to what a sadist that he was and how he went about extracting revenge. He saw the perfect bookending of stories; Silas experimented on Breakdown, so it was only fit for Knock Out to experiment on Silas. Just as Silas had used Breakdown’s corpse as a suit to trounce around in, Knock Out would treat his body just as such. Just a shell, not any remnant of the soul that was once inside.

But certain people just heard the deadpan “not really” and just stopped listening. Like, I’m sorry, but these guys are alien robots. They probably already don’t have exactly the same feelings around corpse desecration as we do, and even if they did, Knock Out is kind of a freak anyways.

And once again, when I saw this episode, I was single. Now I’m married. I can see even more now how love can push you to weird, freakish, even ghoulish extremes. I personally could think of hardly anything more romantic than my wife torturing and experimenting on someone who wronged me. And I certainly wouldn’t be kind to someone for wearing her face in the event of her passing.

And the line “You’re no Breakdown” got wildly misinterpreted too. Somehow people thought that meant that Breakdown was “lesser” than Starscream, which... What? How? Like it’s obvious that Knock Out is contrasting his former relationship to Breakdown to the relationship he has to Starscream here. Starscream and Breakdown are vastly different people, that’s not to say anything about shipping. Once again, even if you only see Breakdown as Knock Out’s assistant, his relationship to Starscream is still vastly different to his relationship with Breakdown. Starscream is his superior officer whereas Breakdown is either on the same rung as him or a step lower. This is not a value judgement on either ship! It’s just basic chemistry and writing! One of them is a quiet brute while the other is a commanding fruit. I’m not understanding how this could lift up or put down either ship, so to see people do that (admittedly on both sides of this stupid fucking ship war) was just aggravating.

Once again, I can’t stress enough how by and large, the fandom’s attitude has shifted away from that bullshit. I see people gleefully talk about shipping all three of them together or just shipping their own favorite thing without needing to bring the other ship into it at all in an adversarial way. It’s great. Wish that could’ve been here all along. I could only imagine the kind of blood that would have been shed if someone had conducted the Transformers Husband Poll or Canon Ship Poll back in 2013, but now people can just have a good time with things the way we’re supposed to.

And then we get to the part where I actually take issue with the writing of the episode itself, regardless to fandom reaction.

Airachnid. 

Okay, so can we finally talk about this part? Because when I took issue with this when the episode aired, I got a lot of “wait and see, they still have time to do something with this”. Which. No they fucking didn’t. They opened up like five new plot points, for no reason, right at the end of the series, and then did not follow up on them at all.

I can’t wrap my head around this, even now. Why did they even take this character out of stasis? They fridged her before only to let her out for five minutes to fridge her again. This is so absurdly stupid, like I still cannot even find a silver lining to this part.

Airachnid having a hoard of zombie Insecticons on one of Cybertron’s moons did not even get a mention for the rest of the series.

What was the point of this? Legitimately, was there some sort of reason they needed to write out the Insecticons so badly? They hadn’t really been important in any regard for a long time. At that point in the show, they were barely a step above Vehicons when it came to being Decepticon cannon fodder. Was there any reason to make Airachnid extra dead with more steps? Because this doesn’t provide more closure than her already piss poor exit from the show with her being in stasis, frozen in a pod, as a trophy for Megatron.

Nothing, and I mean nothing, would have changed for the rest of Prime if Airachnid had stayed frozen in her pod and the Insecticons stayed aboard the Nemesis. I can’t think up a defense for this, I can’t conjure up an explanation, just... Why? I’m still left feeling like this was fucking strange. Maybe someone’s femdom hypnosis vampire queen fetish, I can’t fucking tell.

Now that the series is over, I’m hoping at least people can acknowledge that this was pointless, stupid, and just unnecessary. Or at least give me any reason why this isn’t the dumbest thing ever. Because this was the big thing in the actual canon of the episode that made me go “wow, that was an awful episode”.

And while I’m still left scratching my head over that, I do feel... Relieved. The more I think it over, the more I can see how the fandom has changed for the better in a lot of respects. And upon rewatching this episode, I can better see the parts that I actually like. Sure, some shit still bothers me, but I do feel better about it now.

And of course, watching Prime as it airs at 16 is a very different experience than trying to rewatch it... Basically any time once you hit your 20s. I still love Prime, but I’m older now and can see its flaws, especially since we’ve got the whole story to work with. I still recommend Prime as a starting point to people with certain tastes who wanna get into Transformers. But doing a full rewatch of the series for me is a chore now due to some of the glaring writing issues and pacing. It’s a good show, but not the pinnacle of Transformers media I used to think of it as. And that’s okay! Tempered expectations help a lot with disappointment.

With something like ten years, a lot has changed in the Transformers franchise. We now have a plethora of canon queer characters and relationships, all treated with respect. We have a nonbinary Autobot in a children’s cartoon, and I know that would have changed my world as a kid if I had grown up with that. And while it sucks that my favorite character in Transformers Prime, Breakdown, got killed off so unceremoniously, so many continuities after that have tried to make up for it by having him survive and thrive.

Another positive note is the way my feelings for this episode have impacted my real life.

Back when my wife was still just my girlfriend, I ranted and raved to her about how much I hated this episode. How stupid it was. How it was the worst episode of the whole show. Back then, she had no interest in any media pertaining to robots, let alone Transformers. But something about how passionate that got me made her curious. She checked out Thirst, and concluded that if that was the worst the Transformers Prime had to offer, then it might be a pretty good show overall. She ended up watching Prime, and with that gateway, I was able to get her to watch and enjoy more Transformers media. Which lead to more robot media as a whole. Now we have so many more fandoms and shows that we enjoy together, all because my hate boner for this episode piqued her interest! Sharing my love of robots with my wife has been a wonderful facet of our relationship and I simply don’t know how we would have gotten there without this entry way!

All of this to say... I think after ten years, maybe this isn’t the worst episode of the series. I can’t be bothered with a whole rewatch to find out, as the episodes that bore me aren’t ones that I’d bother to watch again just to rate. The shit with Airachnid was mind-achingly stupid and maybe some of the slapstick hasn’t aged the best, but otherwise it just is what it is. I liked Silas dying, I liked the character interactions we got between Starscream and Knock Out, I always adore Darren Norris’ performance as Knock Out and this episode does wonders to show off his skill (“Precisely my-- WHAT”), and the zombie designs were pretty baller.

I thank this episode for what it’s given to me, I’m going to let go of the ghosts of fandom’s past, and now I set it all free.

Here’s the whole episode on Youtube, TFwiki just links these if they’re available, apparently.

[marshallpupfan]

Marshall Merchandise Update!

I tend to call these posts "New Marshall Merchandise", but not every item here is actually new. I'll just call it an "update" from now on.)

I had a little extra money this week, and as always, there were some Marshall items that caught my eye, so I decided to buy them! As such, I've got plenty to show off today!

Firstly, I finally managed to get that new Pup Squad mini vehicle! I had to go to Target for this one, as my closest Walmart still hasn't filled its shelves with the new Mighty Movie merchandise yet. It's your typical toy, but hey, I still like it!

You know, now that I think about it, I haven't heard any info on whether or not they'll make some True Metal vehicles based off of the Mighty Movie. I wonder if this is all we'll get?

Next, this lunch bag. I think it's insulated to keep whatever's inside hot or cold, but I'm not sure. Truth be told, I seen it on Ebay for about $5 with free shipping, so... how could I say no?

And now, one of the two items I was waiting for to show up in the mail. This one, as you can probably tell, is another doll from GUND! It's Marshall in his winter cap and scarf, which... come on, that's just super cute! Then again, when is he ever not? Did you see his smile on that lunch bag?? Cuteness overload!! Er... I'm going all fanboy again, sorry about that. lol

I believe this item was released last year. I'd seen it listed a bunch on Ebay, but sellers kept asking for twice or three times the price. Thankfully, I found one on Amazon at normal price, and I decided to order it with another item to get free shipping. What other item?

The new Marshall Water Blaster! I'd seen this a few times on some international Ebay pages, so I wasn't sure at first if they were going to sell it in the United States. Sure enough, it recently popped up on Amazon, so I made sure to grab one! It's a shame it doesn't include his hind legs or tail, but... come on, Marshall sticking his tongue out is always so cute! Wait, I better stop before I go fanboy again. lol

That's all for now! It might be a while before I get anything else, but I do still have my eye on a few pieces of Mighty Movie merchandise I hope to pick up soon. Speaking of which, did you know they're making a board game based on the movie sequel? Check out this Youtube video to see what it's like, but what I'm interested in is the fact it contains a unique wind-up toy of Marshall! You know I'm going to have to track that one down someday! :)

[trashquisitor-shirozora]

Oh my god the Mandalorian s3 decisions being a push to make Bo Katan more marketable for women makes so much sense.

I’ve been watching the flames of season 3 for afar wondering what possibly possessed them to sideline the wildly popular duo of Din and Grogu in favor of this Bo Katan stuff, aside from the obvious future content advertisement… it’s because it’s popular with women…

Like it’s a known pattern that corporations hate when something they’ve created aimed at men is disproportionately popular with women because they strive to keep a very distinct line between Boy things and Girl things. Anything Star Wars is for men, except the acceptable Girl Things like Leia and Padme and Asoka. But then the Mandalorian became wildly popular with women and they can’t just cancel a cash cow like the Mandalorian without milking everything they can from it so they’re like “well let’s bring in Bo Katan she’s for the Women now start making the toys”

I am so late to this but that meant time to simmer and seethe over Disney's decisions before and lately, and things I've read over the years about how corporations market to their target audiences, and how little things have changed.

I saw rumors and theories that KKKennedy (y'all sorry I keep calling her that but iykyk) meddled a LOT with The Mandalorian and Jon even threatened to quit, but at the end of the day the Mouse House has the final say and we're stuck with their decisions. I really don't know how the final numbers will look, how it'll affect their merch sales, and what it means for the future seasons of The Mandalorian. Maybe the hard pivot to redeem Bo-Katan for the bajillionth time will be the new cash cow or the canary in the coal mine (for The Mandalorian; I'm sure Ahsoka will be a hit no matter what). Maybe they gambled right or they've lost too many viewers who wanted Din and Grogu to be the heart and soul and center of this particular show. It's called The Mandalorian after all. If they want to claim that it could be any Mandalorian who's The Mandalorian of these season, then maybe Season 2 should've followed a different Mandalorian and established this before scamming us with Season 3. They were already trying that with TBOBF before having Din and Grogu steal the show.

But now that I've seen those rumors and theories, I could not fucking stop thinking about what happened when the ST was rolling out and when Rogue 1 and Solo came out. I could not stop thinking about the casting choices for Rey, Jyn, and Qi'ra, could not stop thinking about how white and brunette they were. I could not stop thinking about KKKennedy and others talking about how they wanted to bring more female fans to Star Wars, acting like Star Wars was exclusively a male space, which, what a fucking insult. I could not forget pictures of her wearing "The Force is Female" shirts and pushing this message so fucking hard that it would keep showing up in critical reviews of TLJ/TROS/ST as proof that Disney didn't know what it was doing.

Rey, Jyn, and Qi'ra were lucky to not have the kind of long history that Bo-Katan already had in the gffa by the time she made her live-action debut. It didn't take much to google her involvement in TCW and Rebels, and see what she'd done. I've seen commenters say she redeemed herself in Rebels by rallying the Mandalorians but are you sure about that? Are we still having trouble with writing redemption arcs after the fucking horrible one Disney put Kylo Ren through to the detriment of every other character not named Rey?

I wouldn't have minded Bo-Katan having greater involvement in Season 3 if she didn't basically take charge of not just the COTW but also the entire show. Watch out for the new merch of her with the Darksaber now. Probably the most we'll get out of Din is whatever happens to him in the season finale because Disney gotta make more money, amirite? Grogu got a new accessory so that Disney can sell new versions of him, so why not Din?

I truly envy the poeple who are having a good time or don't need to have these thoughts constantly in their heads while watching. I didn't have a good time and I can never turn those thoughts off. I don't have the luxury so I'm never shutting up about this.

ftr I unfollowed Okiro after the billionth time he called Din, Grogu, and Bo-Katan "Clan of Three". what the fuck had she done to earn equal footing?