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shealwaysreads · 4 years

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the plant that doesn’t bloom

A fic for @fae-vorite and the stunning art and concept she shared with us all! I hope you like this, darling! ❤️

Drarry | 2k | 8th Year, EWE, cursed!draco, when a curse is not a curse

Summary: Apologies, and homecoming, and forgiveness tucked into the petals of a rose.

Read it on Ao3

...

Malfoy had come back to Hogwarts different.

The war had tempered him. His trial had quenched the fire in his eyes. Rebuilding Hogwarts had smoothed the rough edges of his ego, his trauma, his regret.

They had all had a week off, before term began in September, after toiling under the summer sun to restore their school. Big magic and small. Levitating fresh stones to rebuild towers, spinning panes of glass out of sand from the shore of the Black Lake, learning how to cast spells without the fear of the Carrows.

Malfoy hadn’t spoken at first, not to anyone. Harry wondered if he’d been cursed mute, for a while, until he heard him approach Hermione with a grave face and a quiet voice.

“May I have a moment of your time, Granger?”

That was the first of many approaches he made over July and August. Harry watched him step towards them all; Ron, Neville, Ginny and Luna, and students Harry didn’t even know. Always serious, always respectful, always quiet. He spoke to almost everyone, even the teachers. But not to Harry. Not until the final day of their summer labours.

“Potter. May I—can we talk?”

Harry looked around at his friends—they wouldn’t judge him if he said no to Malfoy. Ron had told him that Malfoy had apologised to him when they spoke, had admitted familial responsibility for the generations old feud between their families, even offered restitution. Ron had accepted the end of the feud, but rebuffed any payment. He’d said Malfoy seemed to have grown a backbone, and a conscience. Ron thought he was still ‘a posh twat’, but that maybe, maybe Malfoy wasn’t as bad under it all than they had thought. Maybe even Malfoy had learned a thing or two about right and wrong, in the end.

Harry wasn’t sure he wanted to know what Malfoy would say to him, wasn’t sure what kind of apology he would receive, wasn’t even sure he had the strength to lose the stability of hating Malfoy.

(But he hadn’t hated him. Not since Sectumsempra. Not since the Astronomy tower. Not since ‘I can’t be sure’. He’d pitied him, despised his misplaced loyalty to his parents, wondered how he survived—but not hated. Harry wasn’t sure he was made for hate.)

“Alright, Malfoy. Have at it.”

Malfoy led him to the shade of the big oak tree, away from the rest of the group, near the shore of the lake. He looked anxious, clenching his jaw and fussing at the cuff of his robes.

“Potter, I would like to formally apologise for… Well. For everything, I suppose. For my own actions, for my father’s too. From our first meeting I have been an example of everything I now understand to be rotten at the heart of my family, and—”

Harry interrupted him. “I don’t want an apology from your father or your family, Malfoy. You can only really speak for yourself.”

Malfoy swallowed, hard. “I am sorry. If I had ‘just�� been a bully that would be bad enough, but I wasn’t that. I was cruel to you and your friends, and then dangerous and violent too. I could blame it on my upbringing, the prejudice I was raised to believe, but—” he lifted his chin, steeling himself for something. “But it started because I was jealous and angry, and that’s inexcusable. So. I apologise.”

Harry wasn’t sure what to say to that, he didn’t think he was ready to digest it, really. What do you say when someone apologises to you, but you don’t want to forgive them?

“Thanks. For saying sorry.” That would do, wouldn’t it?

But Malfoy didn’t walk away, or anything helpful like that. He reached into his robes instead, and pulled out a tiny silver box, engraved with delicate curlicues that glinted in the late summer sun.

“This is for you. It’s not a gift, you understand. It’s yours by right.” He held it out to Harry, and for want of a better option, Harry took it. “My mother...took things from the Black household when she was younger. For her own use. But these were Sirius Black’s diaries, and I understand she never managed to read them. Anhaga boxes are infamous for their loyalty to their owner.”

It was like a punch to the gut. This tiny box, no bigger than his palm, held Sirius’ secrets, his life recorded in his own words.

“If she couldn’t—how can I?”

“Blood, I imagine. That kind of privacy is pricey. But you’re his godson. That’s family, more than any relation he had to my mother. It will work.”

And with that, Malfoy turned and walked away, leaving Harry in the dappled shade with a handful of Sirius’ precious thoughts.

Malfoy had been right. A drop of blood was all it took to enlarge the Anhaga box, and to open it. Out spilled parchment, notebooks, letters, folded posters and flyers, and dogeared photographs. Most of it was in Sirius’ own scratchy handwriting, but some of the letters were in James’ scrawl. Harry’s dad had written them to Sirius. Moments of youthful joy and intimacy, secrets and mundanities, quotes and song lyrics, newly discovered spells, and stories of flings and firsts, shared between best friends. Brothers by choice.

Harry had wept, and read, and laughed, and read, and for the first time in his life he knew what his father thought about Quidditch teams, and Bowie, and how no hair potions worked on him either (much to Sirius’ delight), and that he had adored Harry’s mother—adored her, had written long paragraphs doubting his worthiness of her time, of his hope she might smile at him, that she might want him back, one day, no doubt seeking the reassurance and commiseration from Sirius.

It hurt, but he read them all. It hurt, but it was a gift. It hurt, but Harry touched each piece of paper like a talisman, like a blessing.

The first of September was bitter-sweet, but alongside the taste of loss, Harry was excited for his last year at Hogwarts. Returning to his first real home, with his first—and best—friends by his side. No doom lay ahead of him, no danger. Just homework, and exams, and treacle tart.

And Harry had never dreamed of much, not much more than space and light and safety and people who loved him, but he had found them all when he walked through the great oak doors of Hogwarts, and not even a war—not even dying—had taken them away.

They might be adults now, grasping onto the fading threads of childhood before they launched themselves into the unknown, but Harry thought they’d earned this. A year’s respite from the world. A warm interlude to relax, to lick their wounds, to dance in the stark joy of life, to take back that stolen year.

The Welcome Feast was stupendous, and Harry’s face hurt from grinning so widely when Professor McGonagall stood to give her first speech as Hogwarts Headmistress. Seamus blew up a goblet of spiked Pumpkin juice, Ginny snogged Dean, and Harry was flanked by Ron and Hermione—warm, and full, and content.

He was even happy the next morning, waking up to cold flagstones and a shared bathroom, Ron’s monosyllabic pre-breakfast grunts, and Neville’s rather excitable Flaming Geranium (he was pretty sure the House Elves could fix the curtains around his bed.) He was happy striding through the halls down to breakfast, head and shoulders above the tiny little first years who were more interested in finding their way to class than looking at his forehead. He was happy until he heard the whispers about Malfoy, and glanced reflexively across the room to the Slytherin table.

Malfoy was different. Still pale, still silver-eyed. But his skin was marred by dark twisting shapes, writhing against his skin. Cursed were the whispers. But Harry had never seen a curse like this. So he watched.

“Harry, don’t you think—oh, never mind.” Hermione broke off, sighed, and turned to talk to Parvati.

His first lesson was Potions—he wasn’t sure he wanted to be an Auror, but he wanted the option so he was back in Slughorn’s class—it was an eighth year only class with all of the houses mixed, so of course Malfoy was there too. He sat with Terry Boot, and seemed to work well enough with him. Harry followed him to the supply cupboard when he went to fetch ingredients, and took the opportunity to look closer at the strange marks on his skin. They were briars, curling around his wrists, his hands, trailing up his throat, to the line of his jaw. Green-black and thorny, they seemed to move with him, breathe with him, even as the points of their barbs pressed against pale skin.

“New tattoos?” He asked. He still wasn’t sure what to make of Malfoy’s apology, of his quietude, of the tumult of confused emotion that stirred in Harry’s chest whenever he was confronted with him. The feelings that boiled inside him, worse than ever, after he gave Harry Sirius’s papers.

Malfoy sighed. Clearly Harry wasn’t the first to ask. “No, Potter, not a tattoo.”

“A curse, then?”

“Of a sort, yes.” He reached past Harry’s face to take a jar of lacewing fly. “You can have these when I’ve taken a couple.”

And then he was gone, leaving Harry confused and lacewing-less in an empty cupboard.

At lunch, Harry squeezed in beside Hermione and her towering pile of books, the question spilling out before he gave it conscious thought.

“Have you seen the things on Malfoy? They look like—”

“Harry, really? It’s been one day.” She was laughing as she cut him off, though, and so was Ron next to her, even though he pretended to be very interested in his plate. “Look, before we start this, are you suspicious of him, or are you just curious?”

He paused, his sandwich halfway to his mouth, and thought for a moment. “I think I’m just curious.”

She sighed, but smiled as she answered him. “Well, okay then. I think it’s a Motus Charm.”

“Not a—“

“No, not a curse. Though, functionally, I suppose…”

She trailed off, and Harry could sense an incoming debate about the differences between spell classifications and the intention of the caster (all eighth years had been enrolled on a new course in magical ethics, and the debate across the first class that morning had already been fiery) so he interrupted her before she could get on a roll. “Hermione, what does it do?”

“Well, it creates markings on a person’s skin that give an insight into their emotional state. It gives movement to what moves them.”

“So...those thorns are how Malfoy feels?” Harry wasn’t sure how he felt about that. About Malfoy feeling, well, restricted by vines, pressed against by thorns. As far as metaphors went, it didn’t look good. Worse still, Harry wasn’t sure how he felt about the world getting to see it all. It was bad enough when the papers made up nonsense about how Harry was ‘coping emotionally’ post-war—he couldn’t imagine the agony of them actually knowing for sure.

“It appears that way. I just wonder who cast it on him, he didn’t have them during the summer, and apparently he had them at the welcome feast—so it wasn’t done by a student.” Hermione was frowning, the same crease between her brows when she didn’t agree with something. She hadn’t said much about what Malfoy talked to her about when he apologised, just that he was ‘thorough and straightforward’. Since then she’d not been friendly toward him, but she’d certainly been civil. Apparently he’d made enough of an impact on her that she disapproved of him being cursed—or charmed—like this.

“Can it be cured?”

“According to Flitwick, it fades naturally, once the witch or wizard under the charm begins to actually talk about their feelings. Or, at least, begins to feel understood. So, it depends, I suppose.”

Harry looked over at Malfoy, he was flipping through a book, sipping tea, and studiously ignoring the stares he was receiving from half the student body. The briars were slow moving, more settled than when Harry had spoken to him during their Potions class. Maybe that meant he was calmer. Maybe that meant that Harry stressed him out.

But as he stood and left the Slytherin table, those coils of dark vines and thorns writhed again across his pale skin. Harry was up and out of his seat, following him into the corridor beyond, without a second thought. Behind him, Harry could hear Ron muttering something to Hermione about ‘feelings’ and ‘curiosity’, but he didn’t have time to stop and question it. Not when Malfoy was already ahead of him, and Harry wanted to catch him before the press of the rest of the school filled the halls.

“Malfoy! Wait!”

And Malfoy did wait, which was weird enough that Harry almost did an about turn and scurried back to the Gryffindor table. He stopped and turned as Harry jogged up to him, and he looked calm and collected—his face impassive and carefully blank—but the barbed stems that licked up to his jaw, and curled over his knuckles, were black and razor-sharp.

“I wanted—” What had Harry wanted? To ask, to interrogate, to find out who, and when, and why? But looking at Malfoy now, and the discomfort written on his skin for all to see, Harry suddenly felt disinclined to ask him to expose himself further. So, no questions. For now. “I wanted to say thanks. For Sirius’ things. It was—I really—You didn't have to.”

Malfoy rolled his eyes, but the thorns at his throat seemed to lose their keen edge. “No, I suppose I didn’t. But you’re welcome. I’m glad it opened for you.”

“And about your apology,” Harry continued, eyeing the litmus-test of foliage on Malfoy’s skin. “I wasn’t sure how I felt, in the summer, when you said sorry.”

“It’s okay Potter, I know I don’t have any right to—”

He broke off, silent and staring as Harry stepped forward and held out his hand, and for long moments Harry wondered if he might not take it. If this time, it would be Malfoy leaving Harry with his offer of connection hanging, rejected, between them. But then Malfoy reached out his own arm and took Harry’s hand in his, and it was pale and wand-calloused, and his fingers were slimmer than Harry’s, but his grip was firm and steady, and warm.

“Apology accepted, Malfoy. I reckon even we might deserve a fresh start this year, don’t you?”

Malfoy didn’t speak; but before Harry’s eyes, those dark vines slowed, ripened into a spring green, and flowers bloomed on Malfoy’s skin. Pale roses unfurled, soft and blushing at their centre. One curved around the back of Malfoy’s hand, where Harry still held firm, and another blossomed at the spot where his collar was loose at his throat.

Maybe Harry didn’t need Malfoy’s words. Words had always been hard for them. For now, maybe he could learn to understand him through thorns and petals.

❤️ to @tackytigerfic for the always-excellent beta read, and @slytherco for the cheer-reading!

#drarry #drarry fic #drarry fic rec #hpdm #drarry squad #things to read #mine #inspired by art #fae-vourite #hp #isobel writes #my fic

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gotdreamsagain · 4 years

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note: this is a self repost:

Twenty-Four Hours With A Heretic: Hour One

Set in Season Seven after Damon’s desiccation, Bonnie Bennett is struggling with her new normal. Things aren’t made any easier when an old foe appears with the promise of only one day, but a lot of things can happen in a day. Twenty-four hours with Kai Parker seems like a lifetime to Bonnie Bennett, but, at the end of those twenty-four hours, she might just find that twenty-four hours isn’t long enough.

Dedicated to @koiporker, my fantastic boyfriend who has always supported me, and the lovely people at @bonkaishippersclub, whose bookai prompt for samhain inspired me

Triggers: Death, Loss, Violence, Abandonment

Being abandoned by people was Bonnie Bennett’s forte.

Her mother had abandoned her as a child, leaving her waiting for a woman that would never come back.

Her father had abandoned her too, just not quite in the same way. With Abby gone, and faced with the task of raising a child with powers he couldn’t even begin to understand, he kept himself away. He spent her life working, and ever years after he died in front of her, Bonnie found herself remembering phone calls and emails more than the man himself.

Grams had stayed the longest, taking care of her, loving her, being everything the witch could have ever asked for in a grandmother. Though, in the end, she left too. Sheila didn’t leave intentionally, and even when she was gone, she looked out for Bonnie. Unlike the others though, Grams would always be with her, but in time like this, when her best friend chose desiccation in a coffin over her, it was hard not to feel utterly alone.

Yes, being abandoned by people was Bonnie Bennett’s forte, so she dealt with it the best way she could, by burying herself in work so she wasn’t buried by her grief. She chose to obsess over a problem that wouldn’t be so easily solved, the problem of her connection to Elena Gilbert, and the sleeping spell that had been cast of the doppelganger. Before he died, Kai Parker had made a point to tell her what she couldn’t do, he’d tried to steal her hope of ever seeing her best friend awake again, he’d tried to make Damon Salvatore kill her, or rip them apart. He’d succeeded at one of those things, and she’d be damned if a dead man take everything from her.

So, it was another day of going through her grandmother’s grimores looking for answers she knew she wouldn’t find. Searching and scanning every line for some sort of answer, some note she’d missed, a miracle in latin, and just like every other day, she came up empty. She wasn’t sure what time she’d nodded off on the couch, but when she woke up the spell book was still on the couch beside her and the sun had set. With a sigh the witch moved the grimoire to the coffee table, standing up to stretch when she heard the familiar sound of her fridge door opening.

Green eyes darted toward the kitchen and she froze in place. The fridge was out of sight, and she was exhausted, she had to be imagining it. She’d almost convinced herself it was nothing when she heard something that sent a chill running down her spine, a familiar hum that rang out through the silence. It couldn’t be, her mind had to be playing tricks on her, yet she found herself to the doorway, and saw the familiar silhouette standing in front of the open fridge.

“Good morning, Sleepyhead.”

The heretic’s teasing comment was met with silence as the Bennett witch tried to process what she was seeing, and hearing. As if he could read her mind, Kai turned his head around to face her with a brilliant smirk painted on his lips.

“What’s wrong, cat got your tongue, Bon?”

Shaking her head in response, Bonnie finally found her voice, albeit weaker than it normally was.

“You’re not here. You can’t be.”

“Really? That’s news to me.” was all the heretic offered in response as he turned back to the bare fridge and shut the door. He proceeded to turn around to completely face Bonnie Bennett, the two looking across the room at each other.

“Your dead.” the witch insisted, crossing her arms across her chest as she waited for the temporary nightmare to come to an end.

“Tell me something I don’t know.” Kai Parker offered with a chuckle, leaning back against the fridge and crossing his own arms to mimic the witch.

“So, you can’t be there. Therefore, this is a dream, and I’m about to wake up any minute.” Bonnie shot back smugly, simply waiting for enough time to pass for her to wake up.

“Oh, so you dream about me, Bonnie? You’re going to make me blush.”

“That’s not – You know what, it doesn’t even matter, you’re not really here, none of this is happening, so I’m not going to even bother correcting you.”

It all seemed so obvious to the witch, even if she did get flustered at his accusation. The other side was destroyed, Kai had died, and even if he’d been resurrected, he couldn’t even enter the house unless he was invited in. As the only inhabitant, she knew she hadn’t invited him in, so she didn’t have to have anything to worry about. Her confusion and fear was pushed aside for the moment, a confident smirk and a chuckle replaced them. She’d laugh about this later, so why not get a headstart?

“Oh, Bonnie. Sweet, sweet, ignorant Bonnie.”

Before Bonnie had a chance to retaliate to his name calling, the heretic is starting up again, and witch is forced to listen.

“Have you ever heard of Samhain?”

The Bennett thought for a moment, the term seemingly oddly familiar, but, in perfect fashion, Kai cut her off before she could even try and answer.

“Yeah, me either. But, as it turns out, the dead are allowed to come back once a year. Some visit friends… some visit family…” Kai explained, making the move to close the gap between himself and the witch.

Dream or not, his movements brought him too close for comfort, so the witch retaliated the way she always had.

“Motus.”

And… nothing happened. The Bennett witch stared at the Gemini in stunned silence, her smirk fading as she gawked at him. The corners of the heretic’s lips curved upwards and he continued to close the gap between them.

“Funny thing about that… I’m not alive so you can’t maim, kill, stab, or otherwise hurt me, Bon. Also means no magic for either of us, unfortunately. Kind of a bummer if you ask me, but it means that our time won’t get cut short.”

Realizing her position, and the fact that this might not be a dream at all, she fought the urge to take a step back. She was Bonnie Bennett, she wasn’t going to run away from him, not this time.

“… What do you want, Kai?” she finally asked, glaring as he finally closed the gap between them.

“Well, Bonnie, I’ve got a get-out-of-hell-free card for the next twenty-four hours. And, as I don’t have any friends, and I killed all of my immediate family, for the next twenty-four hours, you’re all mine.”

With a satisfied grin plastered on his face, he stared down at her as she glared up at her. Bonnie opened her mouth to argue when she was interrupted once more, but this time not by the Gemini, but rather the old clock ringing out the change of the hour, a noise that brought both the witch and the heretic to look at the clock.

“Make that twenty-three.”

#bonkai #bonkai fanfic #bonnie bennett #kai parker #malachai parker #• ship ♡ bonkai #• repost #• mine #death tw #violence tw #• fan fiction

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maneaterwithtail · 3 years

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SpaceBattles Poster Hangwind on why He-Man isn't the main character and why matters and how

Now, in the time of this thread being down, I have had several more thoughts. Starfox5 tagging you in so you can respond if you want to. I felt dissatisfied with those arguing that He-Man was a main character despite his death but I couldn't quite figure out how to put what I was feeling into words. It wasn't until I read a Spiderman fanfiction that it struck me. He-Man isn't really a character for most of this, even a supporting one. Instead, he is an event. He's Uncle Ben. Think about it. Spiderman, Peter Parker, is always referencing Uncle Ben. He's always quoting him, wondering what he would do, wishing he were there. He's always having flashbacks in cartoon terms. But does that make the Spiderman comics "all about Uncle Ben"? Of course not! And there's actually a very specific reason for that: it isn't who Uncle Ben was that is important, so much as how he died. In fact, Uncle Ben's profile has undergone multiple different revisions over the years without truly affecting the core story of Spiderman simply because he isn't actually a character, he's a set piece. The true value is in the inciting event and the lingering effects of his death. Same thing with He-Man. He went from a main character to a background event in the show. He had part of an episode of actual agency, then he just became another set piece. And right when it looked like he might be about to regain said agency, Smith had Skeletor at least look like he was removing it again. Now, let's take the Spiderman comparison further. With Uncle Ben, Peter took the death as a lesson and became a better person. He became more caring, more involved, more heroic than he was before. A tragedy turned to good. If we had gotten that sort of journey from Teela, I would still be upset about Smith's bullshit bait and switch, but I could at least have enjoyed it on its own merits. But they couldn't even get that right. Instead, Teela takes He-Man's death and did the exact opposite, making things worse for everyone around her. Instead of stepping up and showing what she was made of, she stepped away. I suppose that shows what she was made of, yes, but it's brown and smelly. We didn't get Spiderman. We got someone emotionally immature, narcissistic, bitterly holding onto a grudge for years, utterly convinced of her own righteousness, and so tunneled in on her own perspective that she literally had to have Andra drag her into saving the world. It says a lot that she was objectively worse at that point than fricking EVIL-Lynne. But you know what? There is a person just like that in Spiderman. I just wasn't expecting the origin story of J Jonah Jameson in He-Man. And certainly not with Teela! Seriously, the parallels are ridiculous. Both are self-centered, bitter, entitled problems who honestly can't understand why they shouldn't have the right to extremely dangerous secrets. despite the fact that the secret getting out causes problems and gets people killed. And that is the thing that I think Starfox5 doesn't get. I don't hate OG Teela. I actually really liked her in most of her incarnations. She's an interesting character, acting as both a straight man to a fairly wild cast as well as having the core of the brash and wild warrior in herself. She was the up and comer, the warrior that both wants to get stuck in while also needing to be reliable to do her job. Frankly, I'm not surprised that Teela became the Man-At-Arms. That was a fairly natural advancement for the character, even if I would have preferred a couple of episodes of "show, don't tell". Honestly, I'm not sure that they even told us in particular what event lead to her being promoted? I hate THIS VERSION of Teela because it destroys and perverts her character. That steadiness? She walked away when things went wrong. The passion and brash nature that used to be a great driver for her personality are now used as a poison for her personality. I am DEEPLY unimpressed with them not actually using He-Man but...maybe he got off easily? Because what they

did to Teela was outright painful. Honestly, it comes from a place of not really getting the core concept of He-Man, an intensely and unapologetically positive show. Ultimately, in order to use Teela in the future, I honestly think that her character is going to have to utterly ignore this show's existence. And that's a problem. XXX Split for shift in topic XXX Now, talking about the future. I don't trust Kevin when he says that "there is going to be so much He-Man" in the next five episodes. I suspect that it is going to end with Adam being permanently de-powered, Teela as the Sorceress, and Andra as the new Champion. Partially because I wouldn't trust Kevin at this point if he said "Grass is green". Notably, while he has said several times that there are going to have a big fight in episode seven, he has been suspiciously silent about things after that. This sets off every instinct I have, given the way he used essentially a single episode to make it look like He-Man was actually central to the story. Yeah, I have no faith in them. BUT! For the purposes of argumentation, let's say that the second half of the season is great and exactly what we expect. That actually leads to two problems: First is that the first five episodes have no real reason to exist. They basically end up as the unwanted extra bits, like the bone of a steak. You kind of resent paying for that dead weight. Except in this case, they handed us a massive steaming bone with barely any (man) meat on it, then told us "Don't worry, the next course will definitely be better! You just have to pay again for it!" It is hilarious to see various people both on the forum and not that absolutely rail against big businesses on a regular basis defending predatory practices from big toy and streaming corporations. But there is a worse problem. And that is what an excellent back half of the season will do to Teela's character. One of the showrunners, Wood I think, mentioned that his vision for this series was breaking the characters down to see what makes them heroic. And if suddenly Teela pulls her shit together and returns to being a tolerable, good, or even great character, that makes the answer...Adam. Yup. Apparently, she isn't much of a hero on her own, needing to be dragged into saving the world kicking and screaming. But when Adam is around, hey hero time! That's just not where I think the character should go or how she has been designed. There are ways to do MOTU without He-Man right. First, you need to actually advertise it that way and not have literally every piece of merchandise, most of the trailers, and the FUCKING DIRECTOR focusing on He-Man. Think about a novel; if I picked one up with an obvious Clancy-esque cover, a summary that sounds like a technothriller, and has been put in the Action section, I am going to be pissed if it turns out to be a Kenyon novel. Even though I actually enjoy some of her stuff, it isn't what I wanted when I bought it. Second, you cannot have Teela be a narcissistic deserter. She should have been a hero and commander, holding the kingdom together and forging new ways of doing things even as all the various magics, both war and utility, slowly failed. Seriously, there is so MUCH more that could have been done there. This? This is ultimately very pretty trash.

#masters of the universe #MOTU R #series reaction #spacebattles

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whymustablogbenamed · 3 years

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MotU for the fandom ask meme

Thanks for the ask, this was fun to write!

The character I first fell in love with: I bet you’re expecting Orko, but honestly Evil-lyn. The moment I started liking Motu is when I saw her at the jawbridge in the Cosmic Comet. That was the ‘wait, this show might actually be kind of interesting’ moment that made me stop and watch.

The character I never expected to love as much as I do now: Man-at-arms. When I first watched Motu, he was just...a dude who was there, not really standing out from the rest of the cast. I was more interested in Adam, Teela, Orko, Skeletor, whatever they were up to. But everyone interacts with Man-at-arms, so when I was watching and trying to analyze everyone, I ended up doing the same to him. And this dude’s fascinating. The premise of him is fascinating. The king’s right hand man is lying to him about his own son, he’s best friends (and possibly more) with the Sorceress of Castle Grayskull and even raising her daughter, he’s the person everyone seems to go to for support and reassurance, he’s the guy who knows what’s going on, who everyone wants the approval of. And...He’s just a guy. In a world of magic, superpowers, dragons, he is a dude who builds things. He’s good at it, but that’s it. And on top of that, he has big dad energy and dad characters psychology my parents are not great

The character everyone else loves that I don’t: This might be heresy but I’m not really wild about Dre-elle. It seems like she was created just to be Orko’s girlfriend, but (at least to me) she doesn’t seem to really have a personality outside of that. With Montork, there’s so much stuff to work with, he’s an important person in Trollan society, for 5-7ish years he thought his nephew was dead, he’s also very collected and seems to be Orko’s only family, which raises a lot of questions. Orko/Dre-elle is cute and all, but it just bugs me how she was created just to be a girlfriend.

The character I love that everyone else hates: Spector. I know a lot of the toy collectors loathe this guy so much, and I can’t say they’re unjustified, but that’s weirdly created a kind of interest for me in him?? I like him mainly on the basis that I can make up a whole new backstory and personality for him and claim him as my own. Also he’s a time traveler which essentially means I can put him anywhere I want. He’s just so flexible.

The character I used to love but don’t any longer: There’s no character I don’t love. I like all fo them, even the assholes because they have their place in the story and spice things up. I’m not as interested in Adam as I used to be, but I think that’s more because I started liking other characters more instead of liking him less.

The character I would totally smooch: *Deep breath* BOWENA. She is in ONE episode of filmation and exudes a gay energy. Or maybe some side character, like a guard who has one speaking line. Eric the guard from the newspaper comics seems nice.

The character I’d want to be like: Marlena is an astronaut and a queen and an expert pilot and is observant enough to know that Adam is He-man. She’s just so smart. Like, she could probably be handling that thing with Adam much better but I don’t want kids so I don’t have to worry about that.

The character I’d slap: Malek. For those who don’t know, this is a Filmation character. Our introduction to him was: Him flipping a table out of fury that Teela wouldn’t date him in college. He blames the fact that she was independent and wanted to be a royal guard, then proceeds to kidnap her. He should really be brought back as a character, he’s so creepy.

A pairing that I love: I’m not much of a shipper, but...Skeletor/many others. To name a few: Skeletor/Hordak as exes with a messy breakup, Skeletor/Ninjor (from the newspaper comics) in a ‘they’re both planning to backstab each other while acting incredibly loving‘ kind of way, Skeletor/Tri-clops as ‘Tri-clops is sexaully frustrated and really needs to get out more, Skeletor doesn’t even notice’. Skeletor is just very shippable and has an interesting dynamic with almost everyone

A pairing that I don’t: I’m not big on Skeletor/Evil-lyn, but I don’t hate it. I just prefer their dynamic without them smooching. (Keldor/Evil-lyn is a different story)

#long post

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iminyourhandskara · 4 years

Text

Chris Wood on FatMan Beyond with Kevin Smith and Marc Bernardin. (Full interview transcript)

A MASSIVE, MASSIVE THANK YOU TO @bwaybenoist WHO HELPED ME A LOT WITH THIS. ❤❤❤❤

to the anon who requested this, and for whoever wants to read this, enjoy!

__________________

Kevin: One of my favorite people in the world, man. If you're lucky enough, you get to work with people you like, and I met this kid on a set and most people on sets, you know, 'not necessarily all likable and stuff like that.

Marc: Careful.

Kevin: Yeah. (indistinct) This kid ain't just likable, he's fucking lovable, man. I was like, goddamn it, I fell in love with him the way I fell in love with Ben Affleck, where I'm like "You should be in everything! Fuckin, you should play Fletch." I still to this day think he'd be the perfect Fletch based on the Gregory McDonald books. When we got lucky enough to work on Masters of the Universe from Mattel on Netflix, I, you know, there was always a like "We could probably get a big cast for this" and stuff, so I played very few cards in terms of like "Well, here's who I think you could get and stuff like that" because Netflix, Mattel, these cats putting up the money, they should tell us who they want and stuff and Teddy who's our Netflix exec, he loves MOTU, so like casting of course with Netflix, the ability to draw talent is gonna be right up his alley. But one of the only names I put forward in the process..I was like “I worked with Chris Wood, and he is SO good, like he would be an excellent Prince Adam and He-Man as well of course, but like, can I put him on the list?” and they put him on the list, and you know, I thought that was gonna be it, “Kevin made a suggestion and we’ll put him in there and then it will never happen.” And he got the job, legit got the job. Mattel loved him, Netflix loved him, boom, he’s our prince Adam! So, here tonight, you got him? Here tonight, man..*Skype sound* Making a little chit-chat, that’s the sound of joy. That means we’re gonna talk to a guest, we get to open the door and welcome to Fatman Beyond, uh, He-Man himself, ladies and gentleman, Prince Adam, I give you..Chris Wood.

Chris: Oh my goodness.

Marc: Look at that intro.

Kevin: And look at that pretty ass man, look at how pretty he is.

Chris: *Plays Jellicle Cats from CATS*

Kevin: Somebody’s been listening to the show!

Chris: Reminiscing about..the Winter Garden Theater.

Kevin: This is actually..I was gonna say..

Chris: My first Broadway show I ever saw, Kevin!

K: Was CATS?

C: Was CATS!

K: I totally forgot as we were sitting here, going “Nobody’s gonna care about us talking about Broadway.” There’s one guy waiting to be on the show who was like “I’d love it if it was all--”

C: I was having the time of my life! This was like Batman, Broadway edition, I loved it.

K: Give us the full rundown of every Broadway show that you’ve ever seen, and when you say Broadway, do you mean--

C: I mean, I mean Broadway.

K: You mean like seeing it on Broadway, not just live theater.

C: No man, that’s where I got my start, that was my whole...the stage was my whole thing. You’d have to sit here for like three hours to hear all of the shows I ever saw..

K: Are you serious? So wait you-

C: It’s got a soft place in my heart still.

K: You uhm, I remember when I was working on Supergirl, at one point Melissa was just like: “He was in Sweeney Todd!” and I was like “What?” Were you in Sweeney Todd?

C: It’s true, yeah.

M: With Victor Garber?

C: Yeah.

K: Yeah, it’s surprising, he was in Sweeney Todd and has worked on a Victor Garber adjacent show.

C: Yeah.

K: I (was) saying before Ben Affleck’s my last card, I’m turning to Chris Wood to make that Victor Garber connection.

C: Yeeees! Hey guys!

M: Hey man!

K: How are you sir?

C: What’s going on?

K: So wait, what- you were a musical theater guy.Correct?

C: That (was) my thing, man. All through college and high school and growing up, that was like-- aside from making movies on my Super8-- that was my, that was my other hobby.

K: What is uh- look, for those who don’t follow very closely: Chris has acted for a long time, I met him playing Mon-El when I was directing Supergirl episodes. Of course as I said, he’s playing our He-Man. What was the vampire show that Mewes loves that you were on?

C: The Vampire Diaries, yeah, yeah.

K: The Vampire Diaries as well and stuff, uhm, and he’s a wonderful actor and gorgeous human being but-

C: You’re always- you have the kindest intros in the world, Kevin. You’re- I come on just blushing every time I talk to you.

K: He’s wonderful (but) this is wanna lay out there: he is a fucking hell of a writer.

M: Outstanding.

C: Oh wow! It’s still going!

K: And you know that like I’m not just saying it’s a butter him up because we could totally just talk about He-Man and that’s it but like-- I’ve read a script that he wrote that took me back to 1994, where I was like-- This is what I felt like when I saw Indie Film. It reignited a love for indie film because the film was impressionistic and wonderful and original and singular in vision and stuff..

C: And nobody will ever make it..*Laughs* All of the qualities of a terrific independent film.

K: You got- you got some pushback on the movie. “Some people like this? What?” but he wrote- didn’t you write a script that went someplace legit or whatnot? Are you allowed to talk about it?

C: I did, yeah. It’s not public yet, but we’re--

K: That’s not public? That wasn’t in the trades or anything like that?

C: Not yet, man. It’s still like..under the table wheeling and dealing.

K: Alright, we can’t say what it is, but I can tell you right now, it’s like- it’s something that you and I (Marc) would work our Whole lives to achieve and we’ve been doing- all we have is writing. And this motherfucker has everything in life and he’s about to have that as well. But well worth it, because he’s wonderful at the written word. What do you attribute that to?

C: The written word?

K: Yeah. Where’d you- How come you’re such a good writer?

C: Well, that’s very- Thank you first of all. Uhm, writing, I always kinda did it. I think I was like you, Kev, when I was a kid I just- no one was giving me pages to shoot or to have my friends put on plays in the garage, so I had to write my own words. So, I kind of always done it. I remember writing plays and I’d write up thirty pages of a script when I was 13 years old and I’d hand it out to my cousins and we’d perform it for all of our aunts and uncles and grandparents. I kind of always done it, just never been paid for it.

K: Yeah, that’s the dream, to get paid for it at the same time. I saw when my man got married, he whipped out beautiful words as well. Like you know, where you get to like say something to your-

M: Your vows.

K: There you go. That’s that word, “vows”

C: “What do we call those *snaps fingers* those promises we make.

K: I smoked those away. *Laughs* Even his vows, were like beautiful, like incredibly well fuckin written, beautiful choice of words, look-

C: My missus..

K: I mean, yes.

C: (Blew me out) the water.

K: Who went first, was it you or her who went first?

C: She went first, that’s why I couldn’ t-- I couldn’t speak through mine.

K: Yeah, both of them got real beautiful.

C: Oh man..

K: The thing is, I knew Woody was a writer because I read his script and what not. Didn’t homegirl open with “I’m not a writer” and then dropped one of the most beautiful fucking speeches that you’ve ever heard in your life? It was really great, really special for me to be there for, man. The point is this kid here writes well, the point is one day he’s gonna take my advice and write himself his own fucking lead in the movie that he should make, particularly that one that I love and make a movie, ‘cause he’s got all the ingredients. Like you know, like me I was like “I wanna make a movie” but like I had to hire actors and shit like that. Well, not hire but beg them to be in it. Thank God they were. But like he could write himself a part and be that fucking part and direct himself in the part, because he’s been on enough sets so knows how the process works.

M: So what you’re saying is he’s unfair.

K: Yes, I don’t want to say it in front of him and embarrass the man but yeah.

C: I’m so sorry.

K: Um, take us into, for those watching at home uh, talk a little bit about Vampire Diaries. When did that, was that the first thing you did?

C: That was one of my early kind of like public roles, um, I had done some stuff before that, nothing really that caught on with a fan base. That was sort of the first thing I did where people got excited about a character I was doing, um and wanted more of them, so they wrote me more stuff, um, yeah that was, I guess, I started on that seven years ago? Eight years ago?

K: And what was the, did you leave? Did they kill you off gracefully? Did you leave because you were like “I don’t want to do this”.

C: Yeah, I was a bad guy, so with like all good villains in our favourite shows, they have to meet some sort of demise or just, you know go into a spin-off *Laughs*. It’s kind of either-or. Or they’re Skeletor and then they just exist forever as an equal force.

K: So after, how long were you done with that show before you went and did Supergirl?

C: So I did a couple of things after that, um, I did a mini-series and I was on a limited series called ‘Containment’ about a pandemic, much like what we’re living in now. A little too timely, I kind of don’t recommend it at the moment, but yeah I did that and then right after that ended, that’s when I went up to Vancouver.

K; So wait, and if I remember correctly, Containment, did Julie Plec do that? Didn’t she also…

C: Yeah, yeah, that was Julie Plec, who did Vampire Diaries. She kind of pulled me across, from that experience.

K: When you’re making it, are you like ��silly fictional world this will never happen.”.

M: “I’ll never need to remember any of this.”.

C: You know what, I feel like in a way the show kind of prepared me for the quarantine because I read so much about the Spanish Flu and about outbreaks and what actually happened, so when this all started happening, I was like “guys no no no, this is real” you know like, when people who play lawyers think they’re lawyers? It was kind of one of those things, suddenly I thought I knew, I was like “send me in I’m ready guys”.

M: Was there any Containment swag that you got to keep like “oh they sent me all these masks, I got all of these masks!”

C: I wish! I think I have some uh, dog tags and that’s about it..

K: Alright so wait, did they come after you to come audition for Supergirl? How does that happen?

C: That was the first time in my career where I got offered something without reading for it. Which was kind of amazing. And I played hard to get for a second because I wasn’t sure if it was the right coloured spandex. I was always more of a Batman guy than a Superman and then eventually it clicked and apparently, there was some part of me that knew I was going to meet my future wife and the mother of my children. *laughs* So I guess it all worked out.

K: I mean, yeah, and aside from just getting to play a hero and stuff, it gave you the rest of your life.

C: The rest of my life, which is a pretty lucky thing to get from a job, usually the job doesn’t serve you that. So that was pretty fantastic.

K: And there are very few people who can walk away from the CW going “and that built the rest of my life”, you know what I’m saying?

C: *laughs* Well it does match, the network that matches my initials should promise me something like that. I think it’s somewhere in the rulebook, I don’t know where.

K: I just put that together.

M: Like the Wendy's girl walks into Wendy's and is like “I will take all of your hamburgers, I’m Wendy."

(all laugh)

K: When you, when they gave you the suit finally, which is something you know, for the run of the show was something you would look forward to and then finally they do give you the suit, looked tight. Was it as uncomfortable as it looked?

C: Oh yeah, they’re terrible. It’s the worst thing you’ll ever wear in your life. You know, it’s like a giant onesie. A onesie is known for comfort and relaxation and too many zippers. This is as few of zippers and you can have including no accessibility to use the restroom, and you really can’t move in them, it kind of squeezes your everything, if there’s a thing that can be squeezed by the spandex. So things are going like, your elbow is going up to your shoulder and you’re not really sure why. You know that you’re not controlling it. Uh, it’s an odd experience, but um, I’ll tell you what, those lunch breaks were always very, it was like a great release to unzip the spandex and just lay on the couch.*laughs*

K: Tell them what it’s like to be up on the harness thing man, when you have to do flying and shit, on the green screens.

C: The flying is fun, that’s one of the really, that’s when you feel like you’re on the trampoline in your backyard as a kid fighting the invisible villains. It’s literally the same thing, except someone is doing the jumping for you with a rope. But that’s when you get to play and feel like a kid. Those are my favourite, the big action sequences. They’re a bear to shoot because they take days to shoot two minutes, as you know. But when you’re actually doing the thing, it’s a great time.

K: How long before you think, because I know it ain’t happening now, how many years from now do you think it’ll be before you and Melissa are like “let’s watch the episodes and see if we can spot the chemistry, and see if I can see myself falling in love and blah blah blah.” Do you think you’ll ever get there?

C: You know, I think it’s probably all over every second of every frame *laughs*. You could probably just uh, start at the beginning and then the first second on-screen probably in some way, shape or form go “oh there it is, there’s the first bits of it”.

K: I believe that, Mr. Broadway.

C: Mr Broadway!!

K: Can I tell him [Marc] a quick Broadway story? I actually went to a Broadway show, where I got to sit next to Mr Chris Wood.

M: Did you now?

C: Oh man, yeah you did.

K: It’s beautiful. So we go see Beautiful, is the show, the Carole King musical.

C: It was also beautiful.

K: It was beautiful, branded and in my heart. The lead of the show that night is of particular interest to both me and Mr Wood, him a lot more. Melissa Benoist, "rhymes with moist", I learned that from Chris Wood.

M: That sounds awfully romantic.

C: He texts me late one evening..

K I used to say Ben-o-ist all the time, I don’t know why.

C: And then I shot you a text I was like “You know it’s Benoist like moist, like a chocolate, decadent chocolate cake”.

M: That was the most Christopher Walken thing I’ve ever heard: “It’s Benoist like moist”.

K: “And delicious like a chocolate cake”. We’re watching Beautiful and we’re watching Melissa open, this is the debut, the first opening night of the show, and Chris is there um, a bunch of people that love Melissa were there. Fucking Lynda Carter was there, Wonder Woman was there to watch Supergirl, how awesome is that? The curtain opens and it opens with Melissa, she’s up top like bang, singing, right at the top of the show and I’m sitting right next to Chris Wood who is crying. Crying those joyful tears of seeing his lady love’s dream come true. She always wanted, is that her first Broadway performance?

C: It was, first and last. *laughs*

K: *jokingly* She’s not going to do it again?

C: No, no, no, no, no I’m just kidding, no it was her first. Life long dream.

K: She was like, she’s like Chris, she’s a theatre kid. A couple of musical kids and stuff, drama kids.

C: You can say nerds, it’s okay.

K: Drama nerds, the idea of Broadway, that was the goal, it wasn’t like “one day I’m gonna be Supergirl”, that was the surprise and the delight where she met the love of her life and stuff, but the dream was Broadway and her dream came true and as you know, if the curtains open and Melissa was crying, of course, people forgive it because they’re like “Oh look at her dreams coming true” the fact he was bawling, I was like "oh my God, she’s got the right guy." All of the joy he felt for her joy, as she was concentrating on doing the very thing that she dreamed about doing, performing, so she can’t just stop the show and be like “can you fucking believe this?” which is how she feels inside, he’s expressing for her just by emotional, he was crying, it was one of the most beautiful things in the world.

C: I’m not ashamed of it.

K: No!

M: Nor should you be.

K: It was so fucking wonderful so supportive but he is a- point of the story, he is such a Broadway kid.

C: You could say I’m a Jellicle kid.

K: Somebody could explain that.

M: I too was sitting next to Chris Wood when he was crying, but it was in New Orleans, in a waiting room to shoot a scene for Reebot, and he's like "Listen, I gotta fly back to Vancouver and my flight is like twenty minutes from now and we haven't shot yet, and it's 4 AM and I'm a little bit daffy in the brain.

K: *Laughs* It's true.

C: Yeah, we were drinking- we were on coffee number four, at like 5 AM, and I looked at my watch and I went "Oh!! My flight's at 6:30." *Laughs*

M: "Anytime you're ready, Kev!"

C: But we got it done.

K: The boys were so sweet, they came out uhm- Chris and Jesse Rath came out and they're in Jay and Silent Bob Reboot during Chronicon, if you haven't seen it on Amazon Prime.

C: With the most extensive and detailed backstory that any limited amount of screentime has ever had in the history of film. There's a story in those eyes, if you look closely.

K: Oh my God, he's working. But he's sitting next to Mr. Marc Bernardin.

M: Yes.

K: Throughout the night, and it was- we ran up against- what time do we finally shoot you guys?

C: I don't even remember.

M: It must've been like 5:15 or something like that.

K: And then rush them to the airport so they could get on (a) plane and get back to Vancouver, correct?

C: That's right, I had to get back to work.

K: Such a special-

C: But it was such a blast, though. And thank you again for letting us come out and play. That was such a trip.

K: It just means that uh, one day your kids are gonna watch that movie and be like "They're both in this terrible movie? Who are Jay and Silent Bob? Was this before you guys met on Supergirl? Why would you be in a movie like this?"

C: *Laughs*

K: Let's talk He-Man. What-- Had you done voice work prior to He-Man?

C: So, when I was broke, living in New York, in between babysitting for three boys on the Upper West Side to make cash so I could support my acting aspirations, I bought a little USB microphone and I joined this- I can't even remember the name of the site. It was some like, some freelance voiceover site, where you join and you can record audio samples and submit auditions and that was the only voice work I had done. I would- I was making like 100 bucks here and there, doing a voiceover for a animated-- "Hey kids, don't run in the cafeteria!" Like a school PSA, or I did some military PSA teaching soldiers etiquette in the barracks and-- so strange. But that was all I had done.

K: Tell'em about how- what acting in front of a microphone is like, 'cause it is acting-

C: Oh yeah.

K: -And in some ways, it's way more acting than one can do on a camera, on a camera one can be subtle, you can't be subtle behind a microphone. You gotta communicate emotion just with the voice, tell 'em about it.

C: You know it's so funny, I actually would describe voice acting as incredibly physical work, whereas camera acting it's all- you know, it's what you're feeling, it's..they say it's through your eyes, which actually means they're seeing through your eyes, through your soul, right? If you're feeling something you'll see it. But for voice acting, we don't see anything, it's all voice, so you really have to take the feeling and elevate it, and sometimes it helps to physically express it, so people sweat in the booth and they, you know, they grit their teeth and they stomp into the ground, and really, you have to really dig in, to grab the emotion and kinda amplify it, otherwise *monotone voice* you're just kinda talking like you do on film and nothing's really happening, and no one cares. Which is sort of what American acting is a lot of the time, we kinda just try not to seem like we're interesting and care about anything. *Laughs*

K: Is that the secret to acting? Did you just let it-- Is that all acting or just CW acting? What kinda acting are we talking about?

C: I'm actually doing a master class series on early '20s acting and basically, the first lesson is to speak as monotone and enunciate as little as possible.

K: Fucking worked out, you married Supergirl for heaven's sakes.

C: Listen-

K: Mumble away, kids! That's what your future looks like if you can mumble your way through a performance.

C: Mumble core.

M: So what you're saying is, voice acting then is very much like theater acting? Where like you've gotta play to the back row, right? Like you can't see that person's eye from a hundred feet away.

C: This guy!

K: Right? This fucking guy, he made-

C: You've found a way to bring it back to CATS! Wow!

K: Thank you, fucking excellent job, now there's a writer. Marc Bernardin is a writer.

M: *singing* Midnight and the kitties are sleeping..

K: Yes, your theater training really comes in handy in that shit, I never fucking put that together!

C: Yeah! Because you learn how to take a truthful feeling and amplify it, that's what the best stage acting is, right? An emotion that an actor is feeling that can reach the back of the house and, with voice acting is that same sort of thing, but your relationship is with the microphone uhm, and it needs to go through the microphone and then into the character and then the audience gets to it. So it's a whole-- There's a learning curve, I feel like it takes a second. Hopefully we got it right.

K: Now you're way younger than us, so I don't know if like- was He-Man in your wheelhouse growing up? Or that was before you?

C: He-Man, yeah, He-Man was on uh-- we didn't have cable when I was a kid, 'cause we didn't have the money for it. So I was watching, they were rerunning it on-- I'm trying to think what network it would've been. I can't even think of the names of what they were back then, but they were running- it was the rerun after the original series had aired. 'Cause I would watch that and I would watch X-Men, those are my cartoons.

M: Where'd you grew up, in New York?

C: In Ohio. Yeah, Dublin, Ohio, home of Wendy's, yeah.

K: That's true, that's where Wendy's begins, is in Ohio!

C: Yeah and there's a callback to Wendy! So..

M: This guy!

K: There's a writer, there's a writer! *points at both Marc and Chris*

M: High five!

K: What uh-- you know, we gotta be very careful of course, when we talk about MOTU, all of us are NDA'd up the A-H. You gotta play two different characters, what was that like?

C: That was one of the fun aspects of Prince Adam slash He-Man. It's finding these very different placements for the same person, right? So it has to feel like the same character but that, their emotional states are- Prince Adam is sort of in a different place: he's covering, he's deflecting, he's more fun and goofy..And then He-Man we have to drop the truth of his core mission, you know, to save the world, so..I mean, it starts with registers, right? That was the easy part. Prince Adam is supposed to be full of youth so he's a little higher and a little more excited, and then He-Man, *lower voice* go down and be more heroic, down in the basement and use his big fighty-fight voice.

K: It's pretty awesome, like you join a tradition of storytelling in which performers get to be two people, like you know, whoever plays Batman gets to do Bruce Wayne, and then they get to do the Dark Knight, whoever plays Superman gets to do Clark Kent and then they get to do the Man of Steel, so you get to do Prince Adam and then you also get to be his heroic alter ego, man.

C: Right.

K: It's a wonderful fraternity that you join.

C: Although I hear I'm in deep trouble, because the internet has found out that I'm not bulking up--

M: You're not doing the work?

C: --for my performance.

K: Somebody on Twitter was just like "Chris Wood, he's not big enough to play He-Man!" and they meant in size!

M: "Have you seen his thighs? His thighs are not nearly there!"

K: "He skips leg day all the time" but oh my God--

C: You're right! "He can't possibly play the character!"

K: Yeah I had to point out, I was like "I better get in touch with Netflix and see if they'll send Chris some steroids and a fucking peloton so he could do the the voice in an animated series."

M: Also, Chris is not from another planet. That's also an issue. Could you not have cast an indigenous actor to play somebody from Eternia?

K: Who was it tweeted, somebody tweeted something about Griffin Newman, they were like "Oh, tell Griffin we gotta cut his fucking legs off". Maybe it was there, texted that, tweeted that. What uh, now that you've voice acted and led an animated series: is it something that you see yourself doing again? I mean, of course, hopefully we all get to do this one again, but other stuff. You got like one of them Disney voices and you can sing like a motherfucker, man.

C: Oh man, I would love to do Disney too. Let's uh, put that in the bucket list. I honestly, I get a real kick out of it, it's..like you said you can really go to a larger-than-life place, and it all, it always has to come from, you know, something sincere, that sense of play has to be grounded in something. You just kind of yell and scream, I think people can hear that..so there's a challenge to it, but it's also super rewarding because you get to, you know, play characters that fly on cats that are oversized and wear armor and..

M: Jellicle cats?

K: None of that Jellicle shit in our show, Marc! Battle cats!

M: What kind of Jellicle are you? I'm a cringer cat!

K:*jokingly* Somebody point a sword at me, quick. Yeah man, it's a..

C: It's a long life with He-Man too, 'cause this, I mean the character is so fun and obviously..I had the action figures when I was a kid and those toys..I hope to introduce my son to Masters of the Universe via the action figures, 'cause I mean they're so weird! They really went there-- have you seen that special that they do on the toys on the Netflix show?

K: Oh yeah, the toy, the wonderful-

M: The Toys That Made Us.

K: -The Toys That Made Us.

C: Yeah, yeah The Toys That Made Us.

K: Their He-Man episode is unbelievably wonderful.

C: Oh, it's great! And it just shows you- you know they were thinking "what weird crap would a little boy like, put together on a toy?" And then they end up with these wild names, and these characters who do insane things and it's part of why it's so fun. And the fact that they found a way to build a story around those bizarre toys, that was also compelling.

K: Thank God they did--

C: 30 years later, it's amazing.

K: Thank God they did, we all have fuckin jobs, all three of us.

C: *laughs* You're right.

K: Wait so before we let you go, it occurs to me that Melissa just had her episode air of Supergirl, that she directed.

C: Directorial debut!

K: That's right! Did you- Did the Wood-Benoists or Benoist-Woods- did you guys like kick back and watch it together?

C: You know, we didn't because *laughs* we don't have cable. So, no!

K: Don't let CW hear that, or perhaps do and they'll pay for cable! Why don't you have cable? Where are you quarantining?

C: We're in California, so we're home, but we're usually not home.

K: Right! Oh my gosh, that's right!

C: As a fortunate actor you move to California to never be there. I was shooting in New York and she was shooting in Vancouver when this all started and we were lucky to get home quickly but uh, but yeah I mean, we don't spend that much time in our house, so we don't have cable!

K: Tell 'em why you were in New York. Was it the- that's been announced, right?

C: Yeah, yeah for Thirtysomething, Thirtysomethingelse which is an ABC show that hopefully, knock on me, hopefully ends up going when we get out of this situation with Covid. Yeah, it's a reboot of Thirtysomething, another 80s classic.

K: Oh my God, that's-- you'll have two, you'll have fuckin MOTU and Thirtysomething. I watched Thirtysomething in real time when I was a kid, I loved that show, my mom watched it so I watched it with her and stuff, so I know all about Hope and Michael. I saw that they were redoing the show and I saw that fucking Chris was involved and I was like "What?!", and I texted him "Are you fucking for real?" and shit, and you're playing Hope and Michael's- did they announce that? I don't know

C: Yeah, yeah, I'm their son, yeah.

K: So he's tied in-

M: He's a legacy character!

K: Legacy character and like-

C: Legacy! This is what's all about.

K: That's fucking dope, man. So I mean, look I can't wait to watch that, but I have seen and heard four animatics so far of MOTU and-

C: Oh man.

K:- your performance..

C: I cannot wait.

K: It's wonderful, you did a great, great job and made me proud as the guy who was like "You know who'd be good? This guy." Put you forward--

C: This guy and they're like "who's that?" and you're like "hang on, let me tell ya!"

K: Yes, "Here let me pull up IMDb". They knew who he was, they know you, man.

M: If you did like The Music Man it wouldn't have been an issue: “You know who’d be good? Wood would be good, if he could do that, I bet you Wood could.”

C: *Laughs* Well, you got He-Man, my friends. (inaudible) city.That was a, that was a deep cut.

M: Hell yes.

K:Look at you, look at how you came to life with a little theater ref, man. Jazz hands all around.

C: Oh yeah, you can feel the jazz hands from there in the Cantina.

M: Touching us all over

K: Go back and enjoy the rest of your Thursday night, thanks for hanging out with us, say hello to the good lady Benoist and whatnot.

C: Thank you gentlemen. It was wonderful seeing you both.

M: Good to see you, sir. Be well.

C: Alright guys, be well.

K: Give it up for He-Man himself, Chris Wood, everybody.

M: *cheers*

K: Mon-El..flies away. He’s so good, such a good guy. I forgot he was such a fucking theater kid, that’s right, and we were like talking theater and shit. And I forgot his connection to Garber. One more we wrote in.

M: We have another point of entry.

K: That’s true, that’s good. Man, I’m telling you, I ain’t fucking around, his script was one of the most impressive thing I’ve ever read,

M: Yeah, that’s awesome.

K: It did make me feel jealous where I’m like “he’s that pretty and he can write like this? Like, all I had was writing, fuck!”

M: That’s a problem.

K: God, what a good guy.

#chris wood #kevin smith #marc bernardin #fatman beyond #melissa benoist #melwood #mon-el #masters of the universe #MOTU #he-man #prince adam #masters of the universe netflix

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sheblah · 4 years

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Honestly, I could see DT having a real name that they don't consider *flashy* enough, like 'Duality' or 'Reflection' or 'Twin'. Sure, their name gets to the point of what they are, but it isn't gonna be catching any ears and staying in their heads. A two syllable rhyme, though? DEFINITELY memorable.

Tumblr ate this ask the first time I submitted so hopefully it works this time 🙃

I actually really like Duality. I first saw that on the "Unofficial Masters of the Universe Biographies" fb page.

Actually I first found it in a Google image search for Double Trouble, and I couldn't find any other record of this being the original DT's real name, so I'm assuming these people (person??) came up with it. I don't know what inspired them to make all new designs and bios for the entire MotU cast, but it's pretty awesome.

Anyway, I like Duality because it fits the general on-the-nose naming scheme of Etheria while maintaining the "double" theme. I also like how it's literally just a Word, but it could be used as a name - like Serenity or Charity or Felicity.

I could see them naming themself Duality, and then later adopting Double Trouble as a flashier stage name that people are more likely to remember. Then "Duality" would be a secret just for them to know and nobody else, and I find that very appealing.

#double trouble #spop #she ra #ask

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croc117 · 5 years

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She-ra Pipe dream

Okay, so I’ve been a fan of MotU sense I was a kid, that’s He-man, She-ra and the few reboots that came before SPOP.

Now I’m hoping at some point will get some He-man character’s in the series at some point, but I know that’s unlikely at this point do to, in part, of licensing issues due to the Masters of the Universe movie being produced, meaning certain character’s aren’t up for grabs to be used in the show.

But there is one character I really want to see come back, and he hasn’t been in any of reboot’s and I think he’s such a cool character.

That is

Granamyr

For those who aren’t familair with this character, Granamyr is the leader of the Dragon’s of Darksmoke, and is an ancient powerful being, who’s power is vaguely alluded to being as powerful, or more powerful than the Ancients who made Greyskull.

In his first appearance, He-man seeks his help to save Man-At-Arms who’s been turned to stone. Granmyr tells him to being his a sentient tree known as Sky Tree to have it burn in his first pit. He-man goes to retrieve it but refuses to do cut it down because he “Won’t take a life to save a life.” Granmyr is impressed by the wisdom of decision, and the fact He-man came back to tell him his choice and he give’s He-man the knowledge to save Man-At-Arms.

After this he appears in several more episodes, and even make’s an appearance in the She-ra series, making him one of the more recurring character’s outside the main cast.

Now why I think he could work in SPOP. For one, it’s highly likely that he’s not one of character’s that can’t be used, given his low likelihood of use in the movie.

Second, the episode of the original She-ra series he appeared in involved She-Ra being sent to Eternia through a malfunction portal and it sends her into the past and he helps her get back to her own time and dimension. This could being used with another character who’s already been tossed into a malfunctioning portal. Queen Angella. I would love to see her in Eternia, and given the ban on use of many MotU character’s, Granamyr could be a good choice for a powerful ally to help her get back.

Third, and the purest of speculation. With Horde Prime likely making an appearance in the show, it would be cool in the good guy’s got a powerful ally as well to keep the balance in the show. Horde Prime in the original series was sort of kept away from the action because he was to strong, with Hordak being more than a match for the hero’s a more powerful enemy wasn’t much in the cards except in a distant way.

Yeah, this is a pipe dream, but damn it, I want him back in the franchise. The most he’s gotten since the filmation day’s was a cameo in a stain-glass window in the comics.

He’s such a cool character. He’s a big powerful dragon, but his most defining trait is his knowledge and wisdom. And it you hear him talk in the original series, his voice isn’t loud and brutish, but quiet elegant, which isn’t what a lot of people expect when seeing his design.

The fact that some of the best episodes from the filmation day’s included him make’s me really hope they bring him back

#she ra pop #she ra #MotU #masters of the universe #He-man #queen angella #Hordak #horde prime #spop #granamyr

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thebeardedsoliloquy · 6 years

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She-Ra: Thoughts and speculations

A little context, I’ve been a fan of Masters of the Universe for a long time, I watched the 2002 show when I was a little kid, but I have no idea whether or not that holds up or not. My recent interaction with the franchise has been the Classics Universe, where they tried to build a cohesive universe out of all the disparate entries in the franchise. But that mostly consists of toy bios, and thus lacks emotional stakes or connection.

So let me say that the new She-Ra show is everything I’ve ever wanted from MOTU. They managed to take all the whacked-out eighties toyline stuff and forge it into a compelling and human story with engaging characters. They even manage to make the almost universally stupid character names sound natural. The show also nailed MOTU’s weird mix of sci-fi and fantasy without boiling the plot down to “Magic good, technology bad” and created a unique and interesting aesthetic.

I can’t say enough good things about the show, go watch it. It’s getting compared to Voltron a lot, which I think is a tad disingenuous. Outside of sharing the keywords: Animation/Netflix/Dreamworks, She-Ra has a very different tone and aesthetic. I thought it was a lot closer to Steven Universe, though She-Ra doesn’t yet reach the heights of depth and drama, it has the same kind of sincerity and positivity that makes that show so fun to watch.

Now, let’s talk about things I would like to see in the next season, spoilers for season one:

More Ensemble Focus: While this whole Princess team was featured heavily in the marketing, the majority of the show is focused on the trio of Adora, Glimmer, and Bow, with about half of the other princesses getting a single episode of focus. This is especially noticeable for Netossa and Spinnerella, as they are established as being on team Rebellion from the very start. I called pretty early on that the full Princess team wouldn’t be assembled until the end, so I hope that now the team is assembled, future seasons will spread the focus around and develop the secondary characters more. The prison break episode showed just how fun it is to watch these characters bounce off one another, so I hope we get lots more of that in the future.

Entrapta: I think everyone with prior knowledge of the franchise knew that Entrapta was going to join the bad guys, but the way it was ultimately handled was very interesting, all the good guys think she’s dead, and she (with some manipulation from the bad guys) thinks the good guys have abandoned her. That’s gonna lead to some juicy character drama and I can’t wait to see it unfold, especially when you account for her you know, almost killing the planet.

Fleshing out the Horde: The antagonists were one of the strongest elements of the season one, Catra is a great example of the sympathetic, Zuko-type villain, but was more legitimately menacing than Zuko. Hordak also has a great presence, but I like how he has a largely inactive role in the conflict, at least for now. At the end of the season Catra becomes second-in-command of the Horde, so I wouldn’t be surprised if part of the next season’s conflict comes from Catra having to deal with other Horde leaders trying to undermine her. I would also like to see more secondary villains, Scorpia and Entrapta are great, but them yucking it up while Catra tries to be serious could get old. The show already kind of wasted one of the OG Horde characters, Grizzlor, but there is still a colorful cast of characters to pick from. The Horde employs some straight-up freaks, and I would love to see this show’s take on characters like Leech, Mantenna, or Modulok (google image ‘em).

Backstory: Okay, so I know that it is unlikely for He-Man elements to pop up in She-Ra, I believe there’s some sort of legal difficulties. But they still use the Grayskull phrase, and “Eternia“ is used as a password by the First Ones. We also see brief flashes of what are presumably Adora’s memories which could indicate her origin in Eternia.

The most interesting connection is when Light Hope tells Adora that the previous She-Ra, Mara, shifted Etheria to the dimension of Despondos, which is kind of like the Phantom Zone from DC comics. More importantly, in the Classics continuity, it’s where King Grayskull, ancestor of She-Ra and He-Man and the first guy to wield the magic sword, yeeted Hordak and the Horde after fighting them on Eternia. After Grayskull died, the sword was reforged into two swords, one entrusted to the Sorceress of Castle Grayskull, the other entrusted to Light Hope on Etheria. Now, the Horde putzed around in Despondos for like a thousand years, before finding and invading Etheria. But Hordak still had ways to contact Eternia, and became the evil tutor of Keldor, He-Man/She-Ra’s uncle and the dude who would eventually become Skeletor. Hordak got Keldor to try and kidnap his brother’s twin children, for prophecy reasons, but he was only able to get one, Adora, and sent her to Etheria, to be raised by the Horde. Now I don’t expect most of this backstory to make it in, but who knows.

It is also unlikely for any kind of He-man spinoff to spawn from this show, I wouls love to someone to put as much love and care into He-man as this show, but He-Man has a very different vibe, and frankly, a less interesting setup. But I could see those elements popping up in She-Ra in a limited fashion, who knows? She-Ra is dope and I can’t wait to see where things go.

#she ra #masters of the universe #motu #he man #she ra spoilers #she ra 2018

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claracai · 2 years

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Birds flying through Wisconsin this spring may be carrying tiny backpacks that help scientists track them

The wonder of spring migration is playing out across much of the globe as millions of birds are shifting from wintering to breeding grounds.

The annual cycle is a matter of survival for most species — they must escape cold and snow and spend winter in a more hospitable location where they can find food and shelter.

And now, as hours of daylight increase and the temperature warms in the Northern Hemisphere, it's time to travel once more.

As they fly north this spring, some of our feathered friends will be adding critical data to the understanding of their migratory paths and habitats.

The birds are among tens of thousands fitted with tiny transmitters as part of the Motus Wildlife Tracking System.

Some, including species with relatively poorly understood migratory paths, could be passing through your Wisconsin neighborhood any day.

"It's eye-opening to me what is still being learned," said Jennifer Phillips-Vanderberg, executive director of the Western Great Lakes Bird and Bat Observatory near Port Washington. "Motus is definitely helping us answer some questions as well as helping us ask better ones."

Phillips-Vanderberg is among a cast of thousands who help coordinate Motus, an international collaborative research network run by Birds Canada.

The program uses an automated radio telemetry array to track the movement and behavior of small flying animals, mostly birds but also bats, butterflies and dragonflies.

The transmitters are fitted on the animals like tiny backpacks; they are battery- or solar-powered. Each tag has a unique signature, similar to a "chip" in a domestic dog or cat.

The signals are picked up by 1,346 Motus receivers in 31 countries on four continents, most in North America.

Wisconsin has 12 active receivers, including at Afterglow Farm near Port Washington and at the Milwaukee County Zoo in Wauwatosa.

As a tagged animal flies within range of a receiver, a computer records the data.

The system can determine the location of the "hit," the speed of travel and how long the animal stays in the area.

The data is then centralized at the Birds Canada National Data Centre, where it is filtered, analyzed, archived and disseminated to all researchers and organizations in the network. The public, too, can view the results on motus.org.

The purpose of Motus is to facilitate landscape-scale research and education on the ecology and conservation of migratory animals.

Scientists have long known the health of most migratory species rests on a triumvirate of habitat needs: breeding, wintering and migratory, or stopover.

As human development and resource use continues apace it's becoming more important each year to determine birds' exact travel routes and stopover sites.

Habitat bottlenecks occur for many species on their migratory paths; if the most critical chunks can be saved and protected, it could prevent a species from becoming endangered, Phillips-Vanderberg said.

Davor Grgic, a Wisconsin Society of Ornithology board member who lives in Sheboygan, volunteers to extract the data twice a year from Motus receivers in southern Wisconsin so it can be uploaded to the international system.

Information from Motus towers in Wisconsin has yielded many surprises. One of the most unexpected was Swainson's thrushes from western British Columbia flying through the Badger State on their fall migration, Phillips-Vanderberg said.

"These birds flew over the Rockies and across the Great Plains and then south along Lake Michigan," Phillips-Vanderberg said. "Later, one was detected in South Carolina and Florida on the way to Central or South America. It's such an amazing journey."

It would have been easy to assume Swainson's thrushes seen in Wisconsin were only birds that nested directly north in Ontario. Now it's known they could be from virtually anywhere in the breeding range.

Motus is also integral to a golden-winged warbler project being conducted in Wisconsin. That work, led by Amber Roth of the University of Maine, tagged several of the threatened warblers last summer near Rhinelander. The birds later were detected by Motus migrating through southeastern Wisconsin.

Visit cpe bag homepage for more details.

The researchers are hoping the birds will be detected coming north this spring.

To date 31,235 individuals of 278 species have been tagged worldwide as part of Motus.

The quest continues to add more receivers and tagged animals to the project, including in Central and South America, where many birds that breed in Wisconsin spend the winter. Each receiver costs about $5,000 and each transmitter about $200, Phillips-Vanderberg said.

Phillips-Vanderberg recently submitted a grant proposal to help fund additional receivers in Wisconsin. The receivers, typically placed on roofs, have a range of about nine miles in optimal conditions.

She and other Motus collaborators await the 2022 spring migration as eagerly as any birder.

"The data Motus is gathering is so important," Phillips-Vanderberg said. "And if we can continue to build the network, it will help make even more significant contributions to science and allow for better decisions to help birds."

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henrik-mikaelson · 6 years

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mother of mine / self para

Location: New Orleans Mentions: Esther Mikaelson, The Mikaelson’s, Hazel Prince, NPC witches Warnings: blood, mental distortion, hexed, murder Summary: once upon a time a mother cast a spell on her son so he would suffer hellish nightmares of his past whenever he falls asleep, they did not live happily ever after, the end

Having chosen to stay behind after Hazel had acquired her object, his intentions were as wavering as the wind. See, on the one hand, he just wanted to explore but on the other, there was something he felt in the cemetery that urged him to stay and check it out. The sense of familiarity, the feeling of unfiltered dread, it only lasted a few seconds, but it was enough for Henrik to grow a new shadow of paranoia. He only ever felt the way he did when he was on the other side and Esther was drawing close, always alerting him to run the opposite way. The only difference now was that he wasn’t running, he wasn’t dead - he didn’t have to fear her... So why was he walking around stiffened by the thought? After three days of nothing but his growing tension, Henrik chose to try another path to draw out a possible threat. He’d had himself cloaked so he could scope things out himself but now, he decided to walk around without such protection. If someone wanted his attention, they only needed to make an appearance. Henrik sat outside of a bar, feet up on the opposite chair, drink in hand. He began to think he had just overthought the entire thing - that day in the cemetery messed with all their minds, he didn’t think himself an exception. A couple hours passed and as the sun was setting, the warlock was about to call it a day.

He stood up, placing his bill down on the table when he stilled, hand on top of the money, eyes catching the approaching figures strategically closing in on him from all angles of escape. Henrik lifted his eyes up and took an almost nonchalant glance around, sensing instantly they were witches. “Ladies,” a hint of a smile crossed his lips as he stood up straight and was almost pleased that his paranoia was seemingly about to show him that he was right to feel that way. The faces void of any emotion, albeit some obvious dislike, would unsettle the lesser man but despite their number, there was only one witch that would ever unnerve him. “If you’re wanting a drink I’m afraid I’m just about to call it an evening.” Henrik could have done something to escape but he was far too curious to know what they wanted. After all, the best way to get to the plot of a plan was sometimes allowing yourself to be captured. “You’ll walk with us, your presence has been requested.” One of them spoke, bringing a lift onto Henrik’s brows. “By who?” The obvious question, he thought - lucky he hadn’t expected an answer, it made the attack that rendered him unconscious much less surprising.

Henrik awoke with a miserable groan, taking a few seconds to really come around he sparked back to his senses when his hand pressed against a cold floor that caused the chains on his wrists to clatter. Rolling onto his side, he blinked his eyes and inspected the binds before looking at the dank den lit up by candles that he’d been forcibly dragged to. “Fractos.“ Henrik watched the chains snap from his wrists and sat up. That was far too easy, these witches had to know he could do that. “Henrik.” A voice sounded from the side of him, a voice firing a chill that practically launched him to his feet to turn in the direction of it. Eyes widened, he lost his balance at the sight before him and when he stepped back, a ring of fire blazed around him, prompting his quick return to the center of it until the flames dulled down. There was a quiver in his fingers and to his surprise, it was more anger than it was fear. Too long had passed, too many events had happened, he’d come so far, he wasn’t about to let her best him now, not when he had everything he wanted. “Been a while, mother.” Henrik cast his eyes up to her his expression one of clear distaste as his hands curled into tight fists. Taking a glance around, he noticed the witches from his assault stood around, yet, Esther, was sat down a mere two meters away from him. Something was off. “I have to say, I’m a little underwhelmed,” Henrik stretched his hand out towards the edge of the ring, watching the spark blaze back up, only confirming there wasn’t an escape without meeting a fiery end. “This is a little basic for your talents, isn’t it? I know the counterspell...” It was more of a statement made in an attempt to egg her on and get to whatever point this held. Henrik wasn’t yet convinced this was her, he had his doubts, his suspicions that the witches surrounding him were cloaking a witch to just look like her. Hence, why he remained inside the circle.

“I wished to speak with you. Letting you see me as you recall... I thought I would earn a keener ear.” Esther’s eyes bore into his and she allowed him some time to join together the dots. “You’re still dead.” The relief in his voice was apparent. Gesturing to the surrounding witches, he sighed quietly. “But you can communicate with the witches, use them to appear as yourself, use one to speak... How?” His eyes narrowed, even now - still skeptical. For all he knew, the witches had this planned from the start. What if they only had to make Henrik believe he was speaking to Esther? “You recall our meeting on the other side. Our agreement.” She spoke. Oh, she was smart, given that agreement was only between the two of them, Henrik quickly realized she was giving him proof. “You broke your word, Henrik. You were not to chase your siblings.” Henrik hummed in the back of his throat. “I was a frightened child who would have agreed to anything just to be alive.” That was his defense, it was true after all. “But as you well know, I never made it to shore.” He, along with his love, died on the ship to England where his siblings were rumored to have been residing. “And then you ran from me for a thousand years after.” Her tone was empty, bitter, one might say. “Nothing personal, it’s just- Mm, no, actually it was completely personal.” Henrik curled his lips into a smirk that was quickly removed by the use of magic that brought him to his knees. “You dare speak to me with such distaste. Look at me, boy.” Rising from her chair, Henrik lifted up his head, a growl under his breath and an expression that matched her own. “You defied my order. You defied nature a third time to return from the other side and now you choose to surround yourself with a family that will only see to your destruction.” Esther would sound concerned to an untrained ear, but all Henrik heard was an attempt at manipulation. “You want to talk to me about defying nature? Joke of the millennia that is. They’re my siblings. A life is not worth living if it is not spent with those who love you.” Henrik stood back up and pinned his shoulders back.

“And you’re certain they have accepted you back into the fold, Henrik? Has Niklaus accepted you?” Esther started to step around the outside of the ring and Henrik closed his eyes, breathing out a sigh as he rolled his shoulders. “He will in time. After centuries of betrayal and torment, I’m not holding his resistance against him. Enough with the mind games. Why am I here? What are you trying to do, turn me against them?” Turning around to face her when she paused behind him. “You have angered a lot of spirits Henrik. With your return, with your reckless visit to free Hazel from her ancestors, with her resurrection and now, by stepping into their grounds and taking what does not belong to you.” She referred to the object Hazel needed. “They demand justice.” That made the warlock laugh. “Justice? It’s not the word I would use. You’re bitter, twisted, out for payback. Bloody loopy if you ask me, time was certainly not kind to your mental state.” Henrik narrowed his eyes, a vicious twang to his tone. “Nor was it kind to yours, son. You used to hold such light in your eyes, now all I see is pain, grief... You never did recover from the loss of Amelia, did you?” Esther took a step back and the witches stepped forward. “What do you know about her?” Henrik snapped. Amelia had remained by his side for five hundred years until one night she was pulled from him by something he still couldn’t explain. “You.” His voice came out quiet, a furious shake of his head as if he couldn’t believe the realization. “You did well elude me, Henrik. A pity your girlfriend was such a sacrificial lamb. I knew if I couldn’t get to you...” she paused, knowing Henrik would finish off. “... You would do something to ensure she paid the price.” Henrik bowed his head and closed his eyes. His hands came up to cover his face, needing a moment to let that sink in.

“You took away the one person I had. The one person who saved me from being alone.” He sighed out, looking back towards her. It was much more than that, of course - they both knew it. Amelia was the first person he connected with after Esther brought him back to life. Just a boy, a lost boy in a sea of abandonment, Amelia shone like a light in his eternal darkness. He loved her, breathed for her, adoration would never be a strong enough word. As the seconds passed, the thought sank and rage quickly bubbled to the surface. If he didn’t hate his mother before, he certainly did now. “Lihednat Dolchitni.” His sour face became more of a curious one, until it registered which spell she was using against him. The air in his lungs started to leave, though he tried not to panic and make it worse... It was difficult when he was literally fighting against his own airways closing in. Knowing he had only a few seconds to think fast, his eyes landed on the chair behind her. “Motus.” Henrik choked out, sending the chair into the back of her. Throwing her off her focus, he took a deep breath and used his magic to throw the circle of witches off the walls. “Vatos!” Henrik yelled, ducking for cover as the windows and various objects surrounding them shattered and made a B line straight for his targets. The fire surrounding him died out and he took a few seconds to catch his breath, slumping onto the back of his legs and glancing around.

All but one witch seemed to have perished or was at least unconscious. The remaining witch looked to be the one who appeared as his mother, now in her true form since the spell was broken. “Who am I speaking with now?” He asked, wondering if it was the witch, or if Esther was still using her as a gateway. The witch began to laugh, in spite of the many glass shards cutting into her flesh. “Your mother was right about you, you are tenacious. Pity, it won’t save your soul.” She smiled, manically towards him and funnily enough, the elder felt no need to retaliate - she’d be dead from blood loss in a matter of minutes. “You’re aware this hasn’t achieved anything?” At least that’s what Henrik thought. He and Hazel knew they were linked now and what it meant. Esther was still dead, any loyal followers she had would surely meet the same fate these ones did. What he couldn’t figure out was why she went to so much trouble to speak to him herself. “What did you gain out of this?” Henrik frowned, bringing forth another choked laugh from the brunette. “Retribution. You defy everything that is natural, your mother granted us a gift in exchange for the chance to speak with you, it was a small price.” With her breathing growing shallow, Henrik found himself asking a whole new set of questions, but the biggest. “What did she do to me?” It seemed like the logical one to ask - he was unconscious for who knows how long, he’d be a fool to think they hadn’t used that to an advantage. So what was it? A hex? A spell? What? “Go home, Mikaelson,” she spat, blood trickling out her mouth, but with her dying breath, a smile crossed her lips and a bone-chilling comment passed. “Oh, and sweet dreams.” The way in which she said that, said a lot and yet at the same time, nothing at all. The light left her eyes and Henrik slammed his fists against the concrete. The warlock already had trouble sleeping, now it would seem a new literal nightmare was going to be waiting for him whenever he shut his eyes to rest.

#self para #this got long but i'm quite proud #considering i made it up as i went #for those who cba to read it all the juice is in the last 3 paragraths #paragraphs*

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theoriginalkidwithapen · 4 years

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Principia – De Motu Corporum II

CW: Violence, foul language, gore, amputation, terrorist attack, disaster

“Every body perseveres in its state of rest, or of uniform motion in a right line, unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed thereon.”

– Sir Isaac Newton, “Philosophae Naturalis Principia Mathematica”

Ewan Finchley fidgeted with his wedding ring as he waited in the lobby. While as a public servant of thirty years in the United Earth Ministry of Inquiry, he was no stranger to briefing the Director of his section on the goings-on in the world of organized crime and terrorism, this was the first time he was summoned to a joint briefing with the Minister for Inquiry herself. He had to give the best presentation in the room – his section, and quite possibly his career, depended on it. Rumor had it that, ever since his section apprehended the leadership of the Lunar crime syndicate simply called “The Organization” and ended a 50-year regime of corruption, murder, and narcotics dealing, there was little demand for organized crime policing in the august eyes of the Global Parliament, and his section was up for consideration for budget cuts.

A rather short-sighted decision, Finchley thought, especially given the new evidence he was about to present that would conclusively demonstrate that the power vacuum left in The Organization had recently been filled, meaning that all their hard-won victory had bought them was a brief reprieve instead of a permanent change in the status quo.

“You may go in now, Mr. Finchley,” the Minister’s Public Secretary said. Time to make Section 5 proud.

Finchley slipped his ring back onto his finger, stood up, and entered the Minister’s office. It was an ostentatious wood-paneled affair, a 22nd century reproduction of 1960s boardroom finishing – it reminded him of the lair of a supervillain from period spy movies.

Including the Minister, her Private Secretary, and Private Undersecretary, there were 12 people in the room, seated around a wooden conference table with decor matching the rest of the room. Finchley immediately noted the presence of the Director of Section 1 – Foreign Investigations – as well as the Parliamentary Observer and his stenographer. Despite the perfection of dictation software more than 200 years ago, tradition – as well as the law – required that a human being take the official minutes, especially if they were for a report to Parliament.

Finchley took the empty seat next to his superior, Director Salazar Amaro, at the table. The door closed, and panels in the walls slid back, revealing monitors concealed behind them, which immediately activated and displayed the Seal of the Ministry of Inquiry.

“I’d like to begin by thanking you all for appearing at this hour on a Friday,” the Minister stated in what Finchley suspected was a not-so-subtle reference to her hijab, “I would also like to remind you all that this meeting is classified Ultraviolet, and that apart from official documentation to be shared only with persons of the appropriate security access, nothing said or presented during this meeting is to be discussed beyond these walls. I would like to call upon the Director of Section 1, Mr. Yen, to make the opening statement.” Yen Shang, a diminutive Cantonese man who unironically wore a suit with a Mandarin collar, stood up to speak. He drew a pair of corrective lenses – an affectation in an era of advanced corrective surgery – perched them on the bridge of his nose, and summoned a holographic document in front of him with an almost casual gesture.

“This meeting of the Ministry of Inquiry Directors has been called to determine whether the services of certain sections as complete divisions are required any further,” he read from the azure spectral brief hovering as if he were holding it in his hand, “Section 1 Undersecretary Alin Vasilescu will present our argument in summary.”

Do your worst, Finchley dared silently, I insist.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Darkness gradually turned to light as Sara regained consciousness. She could make out four light sources in front of her, arranged in an all-too-familiar pattern. I’m sick of that goddamned ceiling, Sara thought as she recognized it as belonging to her cell. The ventilation grille still had that dent from the last time she went berserk. Clearly they’d sedated her this time. Sara sat up, stiff and sore. “Fuck…” she muttered. Out of the corner of her eye, Sara saw motion in the cell across from hers. Turning her head, she saw no fewer than four security guards escorting an elegantly-dressed woman inside.

“Hey, guard!” Sara called, “What the fuck happened to me at my therapy session!?”

“Oh look,” one of the guards said, “La Puta is finally awake!”

“Yeah, looks like you got triggered bad back there,” the guard continued as he swaggered over towards Sara, “You got crazy loco, and tried to tear that shrink apart with your bare hands! It took a flashbang to the face to put you down!”

“Sounds pretty nasty,” Sara commented.

“You fucked him up so hard, he’s gonna be in a body cast for months,” the guard leered. He stopped at the door and conspicuously checked her out. “You know…” he said as he made a profoundly indiscreet advance at her, “I could get you a day off pickin’ soybeans if you showed me some of that spirit. I like me a rough rider…”

Before Sara had a chance to refuse his offer with a few cutting remarks about his questionable parentage and insufficiently-sized sexual anatomy, the entire cell block shook violently as a rambunctious rumble reverberated through the room.

“What the fuck was that!?” one of the other guards yelled as the lights turned red and klaxons sounded.

“Decompression alarm!” the first guard shouted as the room broke out into chaos and confusion.

All of a sudden, everything but the alarms went silent. Sara could almost hear the creaking of steel and polymers – she certainly felt the deck pitch and heave beneath her feet, and from everyone else’s expressions it was clear that she wasn’t the only one who was afraid.

“Espinosa, Kwan, Akash!” the second guard barked, “Go to the equipment locker and get decompression gear for all of us! I’m gonna keep trying to contact dispatch!”

There was a loud rumbling, which quickly grew to a roar as the room shook as if it were in an earthquake. A mighty gust of wind blew the guards off their feet and out the door. The second guard desperately grabbed onto the threshold, but this last-ditch effort at self-preservation ended in a bone-crunching snap and a spray of blood as the blast doors slammed shut, severing his arm at the elbow.

The gale died down the second the doors sealed.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

“This concludes my report,” the deputy director of Section 3 wrapped up. As she returned to her seat, Director Salazar Amaro rose. “To deliver Section 5’s rebuttal, I would like to present Inspector Ewan Finchley, of the same section,” he announced, “Inspector Finchley was instrumental in Section 5’s recent arrests of the leadership of the criminal cartel known as ‘The Organization.’” Finchley rose. “Minister, directors, observers for Parliament,” he began, “We have seen many fantastic studies, projections, spreadsheets, cost-benefit analyses, and other data and insights on how the Ministry’s resources can be most efficiently allocated, and all of it – all of it – leads to a recommendation to restructure Ministry expenditures.

“It is the observation of Director Amaro and myself that the sole purpose of this joint briefing is to justify the elimination of Section 5 from the Ministry’s budget and dividing its organised crime investigation and counterterrorism functions among the Ministry’s other sections.” Finchley got a small amount of satisfaction at the look of indignation on the faces of the Parliamentary Observer and the other section directors.

“I bring to Section 5’s defence not bureaucratic figures and craven rationalisations,” Finchley continued, “but evidence that Section 5’s services are still required, as is.”

“I would have expected Section 5 to conjure up all kinds of fascinating evidence to preserve its lavish misappropriation of Ministry resources,” Mr. Yen commented, “but the simple truth is that Section 5 has outlived its usefulness.”

“With all due respect to the director of Section 1,” Finchley countered, “that would be a premature assessment, as I will demonstrate.”

Mr. Yen sat down disgruntledly. Finchley’s face may have betrayed a smirk.

“Computer, access presentation file hotkeyed Finchley-036 and display,” Finchley ordered. The room obeyed, and a holographic slideshow materialized behind him. “On the 14th of June, 2292 at precisely 07:18 and 31 seconds East Africa Time, agents of the Ministry of Inquiry, Section 5 raided 47 facilities – 15 compounds throughout South America, Australasia, Eurasia, and Antarctica; 8 space stations in Low Earth Orbit; compartments on 9 orbital colonies in the Earth Sphere; an illegal mining base on Cruithne; an unlicensed gambling den on Eros; narcotics laboratories on Pallas and Vesta; an annex in the Discretion Compartment of Spoke Three on Ceres–”

Finchley’s presentation disappeared as the monitors in the room turned a threatening hue of red and displayed the words “DANGER – TERROR ATTACK IN PROGRESS” in 12 different languages – French, Igbo, Yoruba, Amharic, Spanish, Arabic, Hindi, Chinese, English, Japanese, and Russian. The Parliamentary Observer and the Minister for Inquiry appeared briefly distracted – behavior typical of people listening to a message over an implanted inner earphone – before the Minister addressed the room. “I have just been informed that a terrorist attack in Earth territory has just begun,” she announced, “The Ministry of Security have issued a Code Red lockdown alert. No one is permitted to enter or leave this room for the duration.”

“Where did they strike?” a shocked Mr. Yen nervously inquired, “Venus? Hygiea?”

“An orbital colony at Earth-Moon Lagrange-One.”

A terrorist attack in the Earth Sphere, 384,400 kilometres away. That’s far too close, Finchley thought to himself.

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Words cannot adequately describe the cataclysmic scope of the destruction of a space colony. Despite being immense structures half a kilometer across and five kilometers long, they were incredibly fragile constructs held together by the tensile strength of their structural members, and structural failure could easily cause the force of the station’s rotation to tear itself apart.

This is because in order for a structure 500 meters across to simulate one Earth gravity at its extremities, it must rotate more than 1.33 times per minute, granting objects there a velocity of 70 meters per second in the direction of rotation, or more than seven times the force of Earth’s gravity. A structural failure at that speed could cause the entire colony to explosively delaminate, casting millions of tons of scrap metal in all directions at a rate of 252 kilometers per hour – more than enough to destroy any spacecraft unfortunate enough to collide with it.

Fortunately for the people of Earth, this was not how EML-1 #7 “Fasal” died. An immense jet of white-hot flame exploded from the docking area at an angle against the station’s direction of rotation. The jet only blew for a moment before it faded, replaced with a spiraling shower of incandescent metal fragments. The mighty station shuddered for a second, and then what remained of the dock burst open, evacuating the station’s atmosphere and everything not tightly secured out into space.

Over a million people lived on Fasal. None could yet say how many survived the disaster.

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Out of the estimated 400 billion stars in the Milky Way, approximately 9,100 of them are visible to the human eye from Earth. Naturally, when a new light appears in the sky, astronomers take notice, no matter how briefly it shines.

Neither Jon nor Misty were astronomers or astrophysicists, but as spacecraft crew they were familiar with the location and appearance of most celestial objects. A brief flash brighter than any planet or star as seen from Earth apart from the sun, in the direction of the first Earth-Moon Lagrange Point drew their attention away from their stargazing.

“Jon! Misty!” Tallen barked over their suit radios, “We have a situation!”

“What kind of situation?” Misty asked with concern.

“Just get back in here!”

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“Minutes ago, the agricultural orbital colony EML-1 #7, ‘Fasal,’ suddenly exploded in what early reports are calling a controlled thermonuclear detonation…” the news anchor began to the backdrop of a clip of the ill-fated space station exploding, repeated ad nauseam.

“Holy shit…” Tallen exclaimed in a whisper as he watched the spectacle of repetitive cataclysm unfold on one of Peregrine’s monitors. Jon, followed by Misty, climbed through the hatch to the control deck, still in their spacesuits. “Report!” Jon barked.

“An orbital colony at EML-1 just exploded,” Peregrine’s soprano voice lyricized over the speakers, “Micronesia T.C. is hailing.”

“Put ‘em on, Peri!” Jon ordered as he leapt into the pilot’s seat. He began to strap himself in, a habit acquired from years of experience.

“Micronesia T.C., this is Manju Ray,” Jon replied as he answered the hail, “Please advise, over.”

“Manju Ray, be advised – one of our space colonies has exploded,” the traffic controller responded, “The entire EML-1 traffic control area has been declared a no-fly zone under the jurisdiction of United Earth Space Peacekeeping Operations. Reorient to point retrograde and burn 34 meters-per-second to avoid entering the restricted area, over.”

“Negative, T.C.,” Jon replied with irritation. A course change away from EML-1 meant that instead of delivering their cargo directly to Surveyor City by way of the Grimaldi Space Elevator, they would have to hire a lander to do the job, which would be costly and time consuming. After the long haul from Saturn, they didn’t have enough food, water, or air to wait around for a berth at another station. “We intend to render aid in search and rescue efforts, over.”

They’d also miss their rendezvous with Sharqi’s associate. Even though it was unlikely that she survived, they could still try to make the pickup while doing the good works.

“All right, people!” Jon called out, “Strap in! Peregrine, I need a minimum duration maneuver plot to that space colony now!”

“Coming up now,” Peregrine responded as Tallen and Misty followed Jon’s order and took their seats.

The plot appeared on the flight control monitor. It was a map of the Earth Sphere, denoting traffic control zones, the locations and orbits of other spacecraft, markers for Peregrine and her destination, and the projected course and relevant data. The proposed trajectory was unlike any of the orbits on the chart – in a world of ellipses, conics, paraboloids, and the occasional hyperboloid, this one was a straight line, its path neatly divided in half by an arrow rounded back on itself like an ouroboros – an icon that represented a maneuver called a skew-flip, where the spacecraft cuts all thrust and rotates to face the reverse of its previous heading. It was a maneuver rarely necessary except for a course change like this one – a brachistochrone trajectory. While horribly inefficient, it was also the quickest way to one’s destination.

“Your assistance is not required,” the traffic controller replied, “Alter course immediately.”

“Negative, T.C.,” Jon argued, “we have limited life support aboard. Waiting in orbit indefinitely is not an option, we must proceed to EML-1. We can rendezvous with the relief effort to resupply.”

“This is wrong…” Misty commented to herself with concern as Jon continued to argue with the traffic controller.

“Negative, Manju Ray,” the traffic controller countered, “Do not proceed to EML-1. Reorient to your radial vector and burn for EML-2. You will be able to resupply there.”

“Enough of this bullshit,” Jon muttered, “Peri, release hands-on control to me.”

“Kinky,” Peregrine replied playfully, “This is handoff to you.”

“Micronesia, Manju Ray,” Jon announced, determined, “Under the Rescue Agreement of 1968, this ship is obligated to render aid and assistance to any spacecraft in distress. We are therefore proceeding to EML-1 under our responsibility to detect and avoid. Be advised, our flight plan is being amended to include a brachistochrone approach maneuver in T-minus three-one seconds, over.”

Jon had just invoked a seldom-used navigational rule that dated back to the age of sail – when a ship was a de facto city-state with her captain as absolute ruler. Under this rule, the captain could take responsibility for navigation without regard for the wishes of an external authority. This had the side effect of ending any traffic control aid and was generally inadvisable, especially at spacecraft maneuvering speeds. This ancient tradition – nearly 800 years old – carried over to aviation and later, aerospace navigation, and remained a crucial part of a captain’s authority.

Now, all that remained was to see if Traffic Control would honor his decision. Everyone in the room waited with bated breath.

“Uh, Manju Ray?” the traffic controller responded after a long, awkward pause, “Micronesia. Roger, service is terminated. Proceed on your own responsibility, and retain your current beacon code. Micronesia out.”

“Roger, Manju Ray out,” Jon replied, and closed the channel, “All right, everyone! Brace yourselves for 7.3gs! We’ll accelerate for 32 minutes, 57 seconds, then skew-flip and brake for another 32 and 57. Peregrine, send a tightbeam to Union Hall explaining our situation and attach all relevant flight recorder logs.” Jon opened the throttle, and Peregrine’s main engine roared to life with incandescent fury. The seats in the control compartment tilted back to a reclining position to ease the effects of extreme acceleration on the crew.

For a Martian like Jon, one Earth gravity was difficult to endure, and for a Spaceborn like Misty, it was punitive. Seven gravities, the equivalent of 68.6 meters per second of acceleration, was a crushing, immobilizing, oppressive, sadistic, flattening, choking, heart-stopping, smothering, compressing, callous, forbidding, conquering force which the human body was never built to endure for long. While the acceleration chairs and reclined position helped, it was still a strenuous, grueling ordeal, and while Peregrine was equipped with acceleration suits, there wasn’t enough time to don them.

“Sorry about this, Misty,” Jon said regretfully. This wasn’t going to be easy for her.

“Don’t blame yourself, anata… This has to be done…” Misty panted breathily as she began to fade from consciousness. The abyssal strain of acceleration was rapidly overwhelming her fragile spaceborn body.

“Peri…” Jon groaned as his lungs stubbornly resisted his will to do more than breathe shallowly, “I need you to be ready to take over in case I black out…” “You got it, commander,” Peregrine replied, unaffected by the forces her astral heart inflicted on the crew.

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It had been nearly 15 minutes since Finchley’s abortive presentation had been interrupted by the destruction of an orbital colony and the projected deaths of over a million people. It would be over an hour before the first CETU patrol destroyer would arrive to secure the area, and another day before the first relief effort could get underway – in that time, many of the survivors could die. It was infuriating to watch this tragedy unfold and be unable to do anything about it.

He may not be able to do anything about this catastrophe, but he might be able to prevent the next one.

“This tragedy could have been prevented,” he said to the preoccupied room, “if Section 5 had been granted the resources we requested last year.”

“I beg your pardon?” the Parliamentary Observer asked with rehearsed indignance.

“Minister,” Finchley addressed her formally, “I have reason to believe that the destruction of the colony at EML-1 was a terrorist action ordered by Mars. My presentation today was meant to establish the connection between The Organisation and Martian Covert Operations. With your permission, I would like to resume.” The Minister nodded in approval. “Computer,” Finchley ordered, “resume presentation.” Finchley’s slideshow failed to appear.

“Computer,” Finchley dictated impatiently, one syllable at a time, “resume presentation.” The slideshow was conspicuous by its absence.

“What the hell is wrong with this bloody thing?” he asked rhetorically.

“We are in a Level Red lockdown, Inspector Finchley,” Mr. Yen patronized, “All computer functions except for essential operations are suspended to devote as many resources as possible to Intelligence system processing.”

“Fine,” Finchley sniffed, “You may examine my evidence once this crisis is over.”

Finchley straightened his posture, and continued with the air of the expert he was. “In the months leading up to the recent arrests of The Organisation’s leadership, we were able to identify a large number of transactions between shell corporations known to front for The Organisation and the Mars Colonial Militia. From what we have been able to determine, The Organisation smuggles materiel and personnel in and out of areas under Earth jurisdiction, as well as supply and maintain safehouses for Martian covert operatives in exchange for funding and use of some of their advanced technology.”

“Inspector,” the Minister inquired, “are you saying that these people are aiding and abetting a foreign adversary?”

“Yes, Minister,” Finchley answered, “We are confident that this is the case.”

“However,” Mr. Yen interjected, “wasn’t The Organization’s leadership crippled by Ministry raids? Surely they cannot be in any position to aid anyone.”

“That was the conclusion we came to in the months following the raids,” Finchley clarified, “but that preliminary assessment has since proven to be inaccurate. Seven months ago, we began to receive reports from our undercover informants in The Organisation that indicated that someone had begun to fill that power vacuum.”

“Internal politics?”

“Yes, Mr. Yen. The person of interest is named Juda Sharqi – a 51-year-old Selenite, male, born in Surveyor City, clawed his way up the ranks from a common grunt to an influential information broker, although not enough to attract our attention at the time. He was able to leverage the information at his disposal to blackmail his enemies and consolidate power. It is our determination that he could not have accomplished this in so short a time without outside help.”

“The Martians, you mean,” the Parliamentary Observer concluded.

“Yes, sir.” Finchley confirmed.

“And if Section 5 had been allocated the Intelligence processing time requested,” the Parliamentary Observer continued with interest, “this catastrophe could have been avoided?”

“In all likelihood, yes sir.” Finchley answered, “The indications were all there, it would just be a matter of collating and processing the information.”

“Director Amaro,” the Observer addressed Finchley’s superior, “do you concur with your subordinate’s assessment?”

“I would not have asked him here if I were not confident in Inspector Finchley’s conclusion,” Amaro replied.

“Well then, Minister,” the Observer declared, “with your recommendation, I will draught a proposal to Parliament requesting additional resources allocated to Section 5, for countering the threat of Martian covert operatives and their co-conspirators.”

“That is outrageous!” Mr. Yen roared as he abruptly stood up, “Foreign counterintelligence clearly falls under the exclusive purview of Section 1!”

“Zimi Beli!” the Minister shouted at Mr. Yen, who sheepishly sat down and shut up as she had ordered.

At that moment, the monitors all changed color from red to white. “All clear,” announced a synthetic voice over the public address system, “All personnel, please return to your scheduled routine.”

“Well, I suppose that’s enough for today,” the Minister declared, “Meeting adjourned.”

As they began to file out of the room, Amaro discreetly stopped Finchley. “Well done, Ewan,” he conspired, “You may have just secured Section 5’s place as the dominant intelligence agency on the planet.”

“Yes, sir,” Finchley answered.

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scifigeneration · 7 years

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Thor: Ragnarok, a joyous, trashy, retro-nostalgic comedy, is the best of the Marvel films

by Ari Mattes

Thor: Ragnarok - the latest addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe – is the best of the Marvel films. The third in the Thor series, directed by New Zealand wunderkind Taika Waititi, its narrative follows the battle between Thor (Chris Hemsworth), the brawny god of thunder, and his sister Hela (Cate Blanchett), goddess of death.

Hela makes a push to claim the throne of the kingdom of Asgard; she wants to use this power to conquer the rest of the universe, which, she believes, rightfully belongs to the Asgardians. Thor, assisted by a diverse group of allies, including his shifty brother and occasional enemy Loki (Tom Hiddleston), undergoes various trials and tribulations, before coming up against his evil sister in a final epic battle, waged over the fate of the cosmos.

Though the story does connect with and extend elements from the earlier Thor films, Thor: Ragnarok feels like a different beast entirely, and I can understand why diehard Marvel fans (I’m not one) might be disappointed.

From left, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Tessa Thompson and Tom Hiddleston. Marvel Entertainment, Marvel Studios, Walt Disney Pictures

Whereas the earlier Thor films featured numerous pompous, posturing monologues about heroism, virtue, and fate, the spirit of Waititi’s film is diametrically opposite to this. It offers a joyous kaleidoscope of colour and swirling psychedelic imagery, underscored by a crisp, retro-synth soundtrack. The flamboyantly designed action sequences, including one where the Hulk battles a giant wolf, are frequently punctuated by moments of genuinely hilarious dialogue.

Hemsworth is in his element as the hunky God, appropriately shirtless for at least one scene, albeit a short one. He plays the part with a disarming humour, as though sending up his public persona as Hollywood heartthrob, mimbo of the moment. Jeff Goldblum’s performance as Grandmaster, the blue-eye-liner wearing DJ and megalomaniacal ruler of the planet Sakaar (basically an intergalactic waste dump), is comically delirious. Mark Ruffalo is equally a pleasure to watch as Bruce Banner (aka the Incredible Hulk), even if his stint in the film in human form feels short.

Jeff Goldblum as Grandmaster: comically delicious. Marvel Entertainment, Marvel Studios, Walt Disney Pictures

I will be eternally suspicious of Cate Blanchett playing a super-villain after her painfully hammy turn as Irina Spalko in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008), but she is surprisingly restrained, here, as the malevolent Goddess, keeping the character grounded with her superb physical presence.

Cate Blanchett as Hela is surprisingly restrained. Marvel Entertainment, Marvel Studios, Walt Disney Pictures

None of the actors offer poor performances – an incredible feat in itself, given how much of the film would have been shot in front of green screen. Tessa Thompson is appealing as a Valkyrie warrior, Hiddleston is fine reprising his role as Loki, and Anthony Hopkins as Odin, playing the sage, greybeard type he seems destined to repeat for the rest of his career, thankfully, only appears in a couple of scenes. Perhaps Idris Elba is wasted. As Heimdall, a warrior-guide on Asgard, Elba has a thankless, inconspicuous part for an actor of his stature and magnetism.

Idris Elba as Heimdall has a thankless part. Marvel Entertainment, Marvel Studios, Walt Disney Pictures

In contrast to Blade Runner 2049, the other mega blockbuster recently released, the cast and crew here look like they’re having fun. This is, after all, one of the primary motivations for these ritual stagings we call cinema – and it lends an infectious vitality to material that could otherwise seem tawdry and trite, demanding that viewers, too, participate in the party.

The brilliance of the film, indeed, resides in its audiovisual qualities. Its look is magnificent, especially the segment on Sakaar, and the brilliant synth score by Mark Mothersbaugh is alternately spritely and hypnotic, a perfect homage to the scores of the electro-infused, smoky-neon-lit VHS fare upon which the film’s makers clearly grew up.

The look of the film is magnificent. Marvel Entertainment, Marvel Studios, Walt Disney Pictures

Astonishingly, Thor: Ragnarok does not shy away from a thoughtful, though conventional, depiction of what are probably the two biggest political crises of our time. In the depiction of the planet Sakaar, the film cleverly situates problems of waste management within the broader ecological discourse of global warming – isn’t it the ultimate dream of the big polluters to have another planet on which to dump Earth’s waste?

And it has a few things to say on the ways in which forced migration and asylum seekers act upon, test and strengthen the tenacity of identity, culture and kinship.

The whole thing is perhaps a little opportunistic in its trashy, post-Stranger Things retro-nostalgia trip. And perhaps this is more evidence of the cynicism of Hollywood producers, willing to modify their output to fit whatever is “trending”. But it is just so well done that I challenge any viewer who came of age as a cinema-goer in the 1980s not to embrace it. This is like the live-action Masters of the Universe film that never got made (including teleportation design that recalls the saturated prismatic colours of MOTU).

In addition, this is one of the best comedies I’ve seen recently – it is a comedy in superhero guise – but its humour is far from the sentimental, saccharine gags of other films from Marvel, like Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) or The Avengers (2012).

The well-conceived situational humour of Eric Pearson’s sharply written screenplay is brought to life by brilliant comedic performances from the actors, including Waititi himself, who plays Korg, a Kiwi-bro made of rock. His first line to Thor is: “I’m made of rock – you don’t need to be afraid, unless you’re made of scissors.”

Taika Waititi as a Kiwi bro made of rock. Marvel Entertainment, Marvel Studios, Walt Disney Pictures

Thor: Ragnarok is one of the best films I’ve seen this year – which is something I never thought I’d say about a Marvel film. We can put this down, I suspect, largely to the direction of Waititi, a master of low-key humour, who shot to fame with his second feature film, Boy (2010) and followed it up with New Zealand hits What We Do in the Shadows (2014) and Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016). If this one is anything to go by, Waititi will be making Hollywood films for a long time to come.

Ari Mattes is a Lecturer in Media Studies at the University of Notre Dame Australia.

This article was originally published on The Conversation.

#movies #Marvel #Science Fiction and Fantasy #thor ragnarok

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