this is a viable skill, yes?

[kayliemalinza]

It only took me 3 brief shots and two lines of dialogue to realize that a random guest character on Xena was played by Marton Csokas. He was tied to a cross at the time, which may have helped. In my mind Marton Csokas is permanently associated with bondage, ok, don't judge me

Comments

[kayliemalinza]

This is funny because I just fixed a few typos in the post an hour ago. Clearly the universe is protecting my image by cleverly hiding evidence of me being a dumbnut.

Well, there's a LOT of bondage in Xena, then that Bourne scene I mentioned. I think he gets tied up in Kingdom of Heaven-- at any rate, he's a powerful man who is then defeated and humiliated. Trevor Goodchild in Aeon Flux might not have gotten tied up but he was manhandled and dommed by a woman iirc. Csokas plays submission and dominance both so well, and bondage is a symbol of that rather than a necessary component (but more bondage is always better.) He just. He makes me very happy onscreen. :)

Caesar has Caesar hair, duh! It's very dark and cropped short in that stupid Roman haircut, although he doesn't wear the pretty gold circlet until much later. The biggest difference, however, is that Caesar keeps his shirt on (mostly.)

Also, though Caesar has a fair chunk of episodes, Cupid only shows up as a minor character in maybe two. He's the main character in one episode of Hercules, but that's about it.* So no, they're not obviously the same person. Which is kind of sad, really, for precisely the reason you cite. :P

*that episode is adorable to the max because Cupid is crushing on Psyche, a mortal, and Aphrodite is trying to protect her baby boy (and is also a tiny bit jealous that everyone thinks Psyche is prettier than her) and badgers Hercules into having A Talk with Cupid. Unfortunately, Hercules accidentally gets hit with an arrow and falls in love with Psyche who is all like, "FABULOUS! I'mma marry a hero!" and Cupid is all like "I HATE YOU, UNCLE HERC! LEAVE ME ALONE, MOM!" and then he kidnaps Psyche and is all like, "I uh, like, brought you some food, if, you know, you're like, um, hungry or something? Please don't hate me." D: His sad face is epic.

I think you should watch "Destiny" first, definitely. What Caesar does to Xena fundamentally changes her emotionally and physically. It's a great episode, too, that makes me want to write some filthy/sweet BDSM smut about the love triangle. You'll see what I mean.

AND YOU SHOULD BE EXCITED FOR BORIAS. If you don't love Borias I think I'll cry. I should probably stop inflating your expectations, in that case, but I can't help it. HE'S SO SWEET AND BADASS AT THE SAME TIME. His love story with Xena is beautiful and tragic, and you know that I don't really say things like that.

Fun fact: Karl Urban is also in a S1 episode called "Altared States," which rewrites the Isaac and Abraham parable. It's a fun little episode; not really significant one way or the other but Gabby gets drugged and it's hilarious. Urban plays a jealous older brother and he's such a twat. So if you get a hankering for some Eyebrow/Lip Action, check it out.

TFA was quite enjoyable, and I bookmarked a YouTube channel to check out more later. Also, is it just me, or is Ratchet a little familiar? I'm not sure if the Grumpy Doctor is a common trope or if someone on the production team watched Star Trek as a kid, but either way I think Jim now has an alternate nickname to threaten Bones with. :P

[stunt_muppet]

Ah, see, I've seen neither Aeon Flux (didn't like the cartoon) nor Kingdom of Heaven (never got around to it, also didn't want to cop to still thinking Orlando Bloom is cute), so that's why I'd have missed it, and for some reason the only other film of his I can think of was that teeny tiny role he had in Lord of the Rings where he was onscreen for maybe a minute. He was Galadriel's husband. There was no bondage. I'm not sure elves believe in it.

*askomdaoishf I want to see that episode so very badly. The thought of Urban!Cupid pouting and sulking at Kevin Sorbo is a mental image I shall treasure forever, or at least until it is replaced by an actual image.

I LOVE SWEET BADASSES. That makes me even more excited for Boreas. And for a love story on TV I might actually like, which doesn't happen all that often. Also I went and Googled pictures of him and he somehow manages to be very, very lovely without normally being my type. I think it's all the braids. They're so intricate and I want to play with them.

Xena's beaded-headdress thing and warrior armor are also lovely, while I'm on the subject of Google Image Searches.

I don't think I have enough Karl Urban!Eyebrows in my life, so, adding that episode to the queue as well. :)

Ratchet does get a "I'm a medibot, not an engineer" line later, so I'm thinking the production team is doing that on purpose.

...would that make Prowl Spock? I think it would. Optimus isn't really swaggery enough to be Kirk, though. Maybe Bumblebee could be Kirk - movie!Kirk so he wouldn't be too young - and Optimus could be Pike. The only problem is I don't know who Bulkhead would be; Trek's sort of lacking in Big Guys who aren't villains.

Why yes I did think about this while I was writing essays about Shakespeare. Stop laughing.

[kayliemalinza]

I didn't like the animated series either-- I watched a couple of episodes as a child and it gave me a phobia of severed limbs that persisted for years. Blegh. :/ The movie is much more palatable; it's not as dark and Aeon doesn't die horribly every 20 minutes. I remember watching it more than once, so I must've liked it. There's one sort of spine-shudder/gross-out moment I remember, but there's an element of body horror to it (not mindless gore) so you'll probably like it. (which is not to say you won't also be squicked, but oh well.)

Kingdom of Heaven is wonderful and Orlando Bloom isn't cute so much as angsty and unwashed. The story is quite serious and beautifully done. Liam Neeson, Jeremy Irons, David Thewlis, Eva Green, and Edward Norton are in it, which is a good sign, and as far as I know (being personally ignorant of Arab culture) it isn't whitewashed. Stephanie bought it from the Wal-mart Bargain Bin iirc and we watched it many times. In fact, I just nipped over to Amazon and bought a used copy for five bucks; I've been meaning to get it for a while.

You know Karl Urban was a Rider of Rohan in LotR? Eomer, I think. I was distracted by Viggo Mortenson so I don't really remember, but I do know he had v. pretty blonde hair. It was wispy and long enough to properly grab and yank. Um. Not that I like that sort of thing. >>

* lol I made you keyboard smash. :P The episode in question is "Green-Eyed Monster" from S3 and is slightly cringy; Hercules is lower in quality than Xena, imo, and there's some dated CGI and stilted dialogue. But if you know it's cheesy going in (which, come on, it's Hercules) that shouldn't be a problem.

You know, once the show figures out what it's doing (near the end of S1, imo) most of the relationships in Xena are pretty well done. Xena is unabashedly bisexual and a total stud. I must warn you about the Caesar episode, however: Lawless and Urban are smoking but the sexual banter is gloriously bad. Bad in a "I know this pick-up line sucks but I'm so incredibly sexy it'll work" sort of way. Lawless and Urban take that cheesy dialogue and do wicked things to it. Or maybe that's my vulva talking. Whatever. :P

Isn't that headdress just delish? Like I said, this is my favorite version of Xena. In "Adventures in the Sin Trade" she gets an animal headdress with cute little antlers and I love it to pieces. (although I watched those episodes again and the Mary Sue montage I told you about isn't there; I'll let you know when I find out what episode it is in, if you're interested.)

THAT MAKES ME HAPPY. Bones is such an awesome character, and I'm not just saying that because he's Southern. :P Prowl is sneaky like Spock, but Spock doesn't have many other ninja or loner tendencies so idk. You're right that Optimus is too mild-mannered to be Kirk but when it was revealed that he got expelled from the Academy I lol'd. I think Ratchet is the only good analogue, BUT it would be very easy for the Enterprise to stumble upon the autobots during one of her five year missions. Can't you just imagine how excited Scotty would be? And Sulu and Prowl can face off while Chekov and Bumblebee cheer them on.

[stunt_muppet]

and Aeon doesn't die horribly every 20 minutes

Oh, good. I was wondering how they'd make a movie work around that. (Er, I knew that they couldn't do that in the movie, but that was the main thing I remembered about the cartoon besides Aeon's impossibly tiny waist, so I wasn't sure how the movie would do without the cartoon's main gimmick.)

Heeey, I didn't know Edward Norton was in Kingdom of Heaven! I enjoy Edward Norton greatly (though I...have very mixed feelings about Fight Club) and am always looking for more movies he's been in. Didn't know David Thewlis and Eva Green were in it either. I will have to check this movie out as well.

You know Karl Urban was a Rider of Rohan in LotR? Eomer, I think.

I did know that! That is actually what I remembered him from when I saw his name in the cast list of Star Trek, which was very surprising because I wouldn't have matched the two characters by sight. And because I thought McCoy was very, very handsome while Eomer was all-right-looking. I think his blond hair in LotR didn't really work for me; the length was okay, but it looked overbleached and strange and didn't match his very brown stubble and eyebrows.

Lawless and Urban are smoking but the sexual banter is gloriously bad.

Isn't that true of most sexy banter, though? Something that just sounds silly when said under everyday circumstances suddenly works when one's in the right frame of mind, i.e. when one's watching Lucy Lawless and Karl Urban sex each other up. ;) Besides, I've seen Lucy Lawless on Burn Notice and some of her dialogue was...very cookie-cutter (it wasn't the strongest episode) but worked well enough because it was Lucy Lawless talking and she can give even the most blatant pick-up line a lovely frisson.

I admit the Prowl-Spock thing is mostly because I visually associated Spock's pointy ears and Prowl's pointy glasses. And Optimus mostly got kicked out of the Academy because Sentinel Prime is a big jerk rather than because of anything he did, but the parallels are amusing nonetheless.

Given your fanon that Kirk is at least familiar with old SFF and pulp, do you think he'd be familiar with the giant robot oeuvre? Given that a metric ton of giant robot shows have come out of Japan, I can't imagine that slowing down into the 21st and 22nd century, so Kirk might have a passing familiarity with the concept of large sentient robots if nothing else, and would appropriately geek out over the Autobots when he encountered them. Which would be adorable.

I'm also wondering if even Kirk would have to give up on hitting on the bots. I'm thinking despite geeking out over giant robots even he would see their scale as something of a deal-breaker. Or maybe not.

dammit now you're making me want to write fic and I can't be writing fic because I'm working and homework is more important than fic and I already have 200 words of Blitzwing fic that I'm supposed to be finishing. STOP WITH THE ENABLING. :<