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primatechnosynthpop · 9 months

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If You Push Them Too Hard, They're Going To Break

Part 1

It all started with Mel.

She ran up to them on the street one day grinning like they'd never seen before, wearing a multicoloured poofy dress that looked like it belonged to a princess in a fantasy story. The whole outfit was bedazzled with dozens of shiny pink hearts. The most prominent of these hearts was a gemstone on her breast, with little wings on it and frilly white ribbon surrounding it like a valentine. In one hand she carried a giant hammer like it weighed nothing. She showed up looking like that and had the audacity to ask with a coy giggle,

"So... do you notice anything different about me?"

"...Yeah," Bret said, confused and a bit unnerved as he looked her up and down. Her getup was a lot to take in. "You've got new clothes and a big hammer."

"Sure, there's that, but anything else?" She set the hammer down and fluffed up her hair, which was decorated with a cutesy ornament, all without taking her glimmering eyes and wolfish grin off of them for a second. "Do I seem more beautiful or anything? Like maybe you're suddenly seeing me in a whole new light, having feelings you never would have anticipated...?"

"No, not really," Bret said honestly.

"I see you in the new light of having a giant hammer," Jemaine put in. "I'm not sure how I feel about that. It's a bit odd."

The look of shock that flashed across Mel's face was actually jarring. She froze in place with her hands still playing with her hair, and after a second that seemed to stretch on for at least five, her breath audibly quickened and her eyes began flicking back and forth between them as if searching for something that wasn't there.

"B-but you've gotta feel something towards me now, right, guys?" she asked, an edge of desperation creeping into her tone. "Something you never felt before like, say, uncontrollable maddening love?"

Without thinking better of it, Bret and Jemaine made faces of disgust and shook their heads at that.

"No, not at all."

"And the rule about us not dating married fans still stands, by the way, so..."

"...Oh..."

Mel's whole body had visibly deflated, and her voice along with it, as her sigh was quiet and resigned. The fairy tale dress dissolved off her in a dull shimmer, leaving her in her usual street clothes. She muttered a reluctant goodbye to them, turned around, and trudged back to the car where Doug was waiting for her. Bret and Jemaine just watched, not sure whether to be more dumbfounded by the magically disappearing clothes and hammer or by Mel voluntarily ending an interaction with them so quickly. They weren't going to look a gift horse in the mouth, though, so when she gave up and left them alone they only stood there pondering the strangeness of it all for a few seconds before shrugging and carrying on their way.

That meant they didn't hear the conversation Mel had upon climbing into the car and slamming the door. Doug turned to her to offer a sympathetic comment, but it was one of many moments where her husband may as well not have existed-- no, her attention was on the furry white alien blinking innocently at her from the backseat.

"You tricked me," she snarled through the tears that were pressing against her eyes. "You said my wish would come true, and I wished for Jemaine and Bret to fall madly in love with me, and they haven't!"

She punctuated the accusation by giving the seatbelt a sharp tug down to fasten it. Kyubey just licked its paw, unbothered.

"But that's not what I wanted!" Mel's voice broke into a choked sob as she dug her nails into the upholstery. "It should have been obvious that I was talking about my favourite band ever, not some random guys I don't even know."

"If she wanted someone else to substitute for Bret and Jemaine, she's already got me for that," Doug put in wryly, in a poorly timed attempt to lighten the mood a little. He couldn't even see Kyubey, and would have thought his wife had finally had a complete mental break having these one-sided conversations if it wasn't for the fact that she had magic powers now.

Pointedly ignoring her husband's remark, Mel slumped back in her seat and said in a quiet voice thick with tears, "And what do you mean I don't have enough potential to make them fall in love with me? They could love me... they probably already do deep down and just-- just can't admit it..."

She trailed off, feeble words giving into a sad little hiccup. She didn't even believe what she was saying. If she really thought her idols already felt that way about her, she wouldn't have needed to make a wish. But to think she had a chance, a real chance to get everything she wanted, only to have it ripped away from her... it made her want to curse Kyubey for tricking her, curse Bret and Jemaine for not loving her, curse Doug for not being them. She wanted to curse everyone.

"Ugh, I feel terrible," she sniffed. Her hands clenched at her sides, one of them around her soul gem. "Doug, can you drive me downtown? I sensed a witch there earlier. I need to fight to blow off some steam."

Kyubey watched idly from the backseat. It said nothing about the dark blotches dancing across Mel's soul gem until they blotted out the pink. After all, she hadn't asked.

The next time Flight of the Conchords had a gig, Mel wasn't in attendance, which meant nobody was in attendance. The gig after that was an unwilling charity stint (Murray made it sound like they were going to get paid) at a hospital cafeteria. Mel wasn't there either. Partway through that one, a teenager with bandaged hands got up, threw a music player at them with an enraged shout, and stormed out. The sharp corner of the music player happened to hit Bret right in the eye, and he was temporarily without depth perception for the rest of the performance.

Later that evening, while Bret pressed an icepack to his eye and Jemaine turned up the volume on the tv to drown out his whining about how much it hurt, their door rattled and Eugene came in holding a squirming white catlike creature under one arm.

"I'm just doing a little animal control," the landlord said. He held the cat-ish thing up by its scruff and waved it around in their direction. "I found this roaming around the halls. Is it either of yours? You know you're not supposed to have pets here."

"No, it's not ours," Jemaine told him. "We couldn't afford to look after a pet, Bret--" He said that rather pointedly, and Bret pouted because the goldfish thing was one time. "Besides, I'm allergic to cats."

"It's really cute, though," Bret said. He straightened up from his anguished lounging position and lowered the ice pack from his eye so he could get a better look at it. "I'm not sure it is a cat, even. It looks odd. I wonder what breed it is."

Eugene shrugged, not seeming like he cared much. "Well, I've asked around, and you're the first ones who've been able to see that I'm holding anything. So, even if you say it's not yours, I think it might be yours now." He swung him arm back like he was bowling and tossed the little animal toward them. It let him do so without resistance. "Be sure to have it out of your apartment by next week, or I'm gonna have to charge you for it. Oh, and don't forget, your rent's due on Thursday."

Jemaine flinched when their landlord threw the cat. He scrambled backward across the couch to its far corner, knocking the remote to the floor and rudely jostling Bret in the process. Bret glared at him. But Jemaine's reaction was (mostly) justified-- it was a severe allergy. If cat fur got within five feet of him, his face would start to swell up and his throat would constrict. At least that's what he always said would happen. He'd made sure not to go within five feet of a cat for as long as he could remember.

Lucky for him, the creature landed neatly on all fours a good distance from the couch. It stared up at them with a pair of gleaming red eyes that sent a shiver down Jemaine's spine. Cat allergy or not-- and looking at it up close, he had the inclination that Bret was right and this wasn't a cat at all-- this thing was just creepy. It felt like it was staring right at his soul.

Bret, meanwhile, practically radiated excitement and delight. He hopped off the couch, all eye pain forgotten, and held out his hands, making little kissy noises to lure the creature over. It complied, trotting daintily to his feet and rubbing up against his ankles. Jemaine hoisted himself precariously onto the back of the couch to keep as much space between himself and the animal as possible while Bret cooed at it and scratched it behind the ears.

"We're not keeping it, Bret." Jemaine's voice held a warning tone. "It probably belongs to someone else in the building anyway. Wouldn't be right to steal a creepy mutant cat from someone."

"Aw, I know, I know," Bret said in a voice that didn't sound like he knew at all. Jemaine wasn't convinced that Bret had considered a single ramification in his life. "I wonder who you belong to," he addressed the animal, which had now rolled over onto its back for belly rubs.

To his surprise and Jemaine's abject terror, the animal responded, not out loud but with telepathy. <Your landlord was mistaken. I'm known as Kyubey, and despite my appearance, I am not a domesticated animal.>

"Woah, you talk?" Bret asked. "That's amazing. I've never met a real animal that talked before. I've only seen them in cartoons. And there's parrots, but I've never met one in real life."

"What, you're from space?" Jemaine asked warily.

"Have you met David Bowie?" Bret asked.

<I have met many notable figures in human history. In fact, many of them owe their achievements to making contracts with me.> Now that the conversation was getting serious, Kyubey stopped rolling around and sat up to face Bret. Jemaine didn't move from the top of the couch and remained tense. <Although the two of you are not the demographic I normally approach, I have been branching out more lately, and you two seem like your lives could benefit from my assistance.>

"What's a mutant space cat going to help us out with?" Jemaine muttered. "I don't suppose you're going to offer us a record deal."

"Wait, really?" Bret asked, incredulous. His head was already spinning from the fact that this adorable ball of fur was from space and had met Bowie, and now it was saying they could actually become famous? That sounded way too good to be true.

<Yes, really. Of course, the wish comes as part of a contract. You would be granted magical power in exchange for being tasked with fighting witches.>

At this point, Jemaine slid slowly off the back of the couch and to the floor, if only because staying up there was getting uncomfortable. He edged toward Kyubey, still tense, and cringing in anticipation of an allergic reaction that never came. At this point it was obvious they weren't dealing with a cat here. But what exactly they were dealing with, he was still unsure.

"Aren't witches the ones with magical powers?" he asked, curiosity getting the better of him. "I think you're mixing it up. If we get magical powers, then we'd become witches. Why would witches fight other witches?"

The long tendrils hanging down from Kyubey's ears pricked with what might have been alarm, only to relax again as it gave an uncannily humanlike shake of its head. <You misunderstand. Witches are not magical humans, but rather monsters born from curses and despair. They feed on humans, and only those who've made contracts with me can defeat them.>

"Ah, is that so?" Jemaine muttered. He had a hard time wrapping his head around that. "I don't know that I want to be tasked with fighting witches. We're already quite busy with our band."

"We're not really," Bret interjected. Most of what Kyubey had just said had gone in one ear and out the other for him, because he was still caught up in the novelty of having a cute talking animal offering them a wish. "We've got loads of free time."

"Yes, but we like to spend that free time doing what we like," Jemaine shot back. "Like sitting down and watching tv and sleeping. And band practice."

"What kind of wishes did you say you could grant again?" Bret asked, pointedly ignoring his bandmate.

"Wow, did you hear that? Anything our heart desires, Jemaine."

"Yes, Bret, I heard. In my head and not my ears, which is where I like to hear things."

"So you could make us rich and famous, then."

"Or get us girlfriends."

"Or a new cup so we don't have to keep using Jemaine's roster."

While Bret carried on animatedly chatting with Kyubey, Jemaine crossed his arms with a huff and turned away. Obviously Bret wasn't going to listen to reason here. If Bret wanted to sign away his free time to hunting witches in exchange for a wish, fine. (Not fine at all, actually, but it didn't look like he'd be able to stop him at this rate.) But Jemaine refused to be dragged into it.

"Okay, item one... Bret, stop fiddling with that and pay attention."

"Mm?" Blinking, Bret glanced up from the egg-shaped gem he was turning over in his hands. It was a warm reddish-brown hue, and had the emblem of an ambiguous animal head at the top. "Oh, sorry, Murray."

Murray sighed in exasperation. He opened his mouth looking like he was going to chide Bret only to break off into a gasp, eyes lighting up with recognition. "Oh! Bret, is that a soul gem?"

"Yeah, it is," he said with a smile, pleasantly surprised that their manager knew what a soul gem was. He held it up so Murray could get a better look at it. "'S pretty cool, huh?"

"How do you know what a soul gem is?" Jemaine asked, leaning back in his seat warily with his arms crossed and one eyebrow arched. "Have you met Kyubey before?"

Murray's eyes darted around the office as if to check if anyone was listening in, tongue flicking anxiously around his mouth. "Well, I haven't told you this before-- we're supposed to keep it a secret from ordinary humans, so I'm told--" He leaned in towards Bret, dropping into a conspiratorial whisper. Jemaine leaned forward so he could hear too. "But I've been a magical girl for a while now."

"You have?"

"Yes, for over a month!" Murray grinned, looking quite pleased with himself. Sure enough, now that they looked, there was a ring on his finger with a dull yellow-orange gem set into it. "It's been tricky balancing that on top of my other jobs, but it's important work."

"Is that why we've had even fewer gigs than usual?" Jemaine asked. "Because you've been too busy running around hunting witches to manage us properly?"

"I just said it's important work, Jemaine!" Murray told him sternly. "Stopping innocent people from being lured into labyrinths and devoured takes priority over managing a band."

"What did you wish for?" Bret asked, leaning forward with interest.

Murray leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. "Well, I can't tell you that, can I? You know what they say, if you tell someone your wish it won't come true."

Just then, Kyubey trotted in from seemingly nowhere and jumped up onto Murray's desk. Bret brightened at its unexpected presence. Jemaine shuddered and pushed his chair as far from the desk as he could get until his back was pressed against the wall.

"Oh. Well, then, I'll tell you," Murray said. "I wished to cure Toby's hip dysplasia. He's good as new now."

Neither Bret nor Jemaine had remembered Murray somberly telling them about his dog's medical condition a couple months ago. Bret nodded like he knew what he was talking about anyway, though the vacant look in his eyes gave away that he didn't. Jemaine didn't bother with the pretense and just sulked.

"You could've wished for us to get more gigs."

Murray frowned. "Not everything is about you, Jemaine. You know how important Toby is to me, and I couldn't afford to pay for his medical bills since Shelly cut me off from the joint account again."

"You could have wished to fix your marriage, maybe," Bret suggested helpfully.

"Yes, well, what's done is done," Murray said in the brisk clipped tone of someone who realized just that morning that he could have made a wish like that and was trying very hard not to let it haunt him. "How about you, Bret?" he asked to change the subject. "What did old Kyubey do for you, eh?"

As soon as he asked, Jemaine tilted his head back and buried his face in his hands to muffle a groan of pained exasperation. Every time he remembered what Bret had wished for a few days prior, he wanted to beat either his bandmate's head or his own into a wall.

"I wished that I could breathe in outer space," Bret said proudly, like it was a really clever thing he'd come up with.

Murray's brow crinkled. "Breathe in space? What for?"

"Well, you know, Kyubey mentioned how he'd met Bowie--" Bret angled his head toward the alien in question-- "And it got me thinking, if I ever want to go out there and meet him too, I'd better take precautions in case my helmet comes off."

"I told you David Bowie doesn't actually live in outer space," Jemaine grumbled through his hands. "And even if he did, how would we get up there? We're not astronauts. We haven't got a spaceship."

"Well, maybe that could be your wish," Bret suggested. "For us to have a spaceship."

"Absolutely not. I'm not going to make a contract, for one--"

"Aw, but you should."

"I'm not, and even if I did, it wouldn't be to help you out of a problem you created."

While the band bickered, Murray took a moment to look over his schedule. He'd started putting his magical girl notes on the same pages as his band notes to conserve paper, and while he didn't have any gigs or other good news lined up for the guys, he had sensed a few witches and familiars in the area lately. Maybe he could distract them from the lack of band-related prospects by turning this band meeting into more of a magical girl meeting.

"How about this, guys?" he piped up, tapping a pen against his schedule where he'd written some info on a familiar he'd spotted roaming about recently. "We go on a witch hunt together. That would be exciting, mm?"

"I don't--" Jemaine started to say, but Murray carried on without letting him get a word in.

"Tonight, then. It's settled. Bret, we can see how powerful you are, see if maybe I can give you some veteran tips from one magical girl to another--" Bret's brow furrowed at that, because a little over a month didn't sound like much of a veteran to him, and he didn't care for being called a magical girl anyway-- "And Jemaine, maybe you'll be inspired to make a contract too. Imagine that-- a novelty band made up entirely of magical girls! That would draw in a crowd, eh, guys?"

Bret screwed his lips to the side and contemplated the idea, doubtful. Jemaine didn't bother pointing out that most people didn't know magical girls existed. Or that the term "magical girls" usually applied to girls and not adult men. Sometimes when Murray got onto something you just had to go along with it.

The park was cold and empty at night. The steel frames of a children's slide and swingset gave off an eerie silver glow in the moonlight. A motion-activated streetlight flickered on as the three figures making their way down the cobblestone path stepped beneath its halo. There was a missing poster taped to the streetlight, but the light it cast was too dim to make out the face, and they weren't paying attention to it anyway. No, they were paying attention to the strange entity buzzing in circles high above their heads.

"I don't think this is a witch."

Murray paused with his soul gem raised halfway up in the air, about to transform. He cast a glare over his shoulder at Jemaine, who hung several paces back with his hands in his pockets. "Honestly, Jemaine, I've about had it with you and your negative attitude today."

"He's right, though," Bret pointed out. He was standing closer to Murray, also ready to transform-- or at least he had been, but now he was having second thoughts. "It's a familiar. They feel different when you sense them compared to witches."

"You said you were going to hunt a witch," Jemaine said. "This isn't a witch. It's not going to drop a grief seed."

"Right, well... I don't suppose you realize this, but there are plenty of other magical girls in this city, and they can be very territorial," Murray told them. He didn't say as much, but he'd found that out the hard way by being repeatedly attacked by some extremely aggressive teenage girls over the last month. "They're all after the same witches. But if we hunt familiars we can still save lives without getting wrapped up in any nasty competition."

"But I won't be able to purify my soul gem," Bret said, regarding the gem in question with a pout. Its glow was only ever-so-slightly diluted since all he'd done with his magic so far was transform and detransform a few times and, much to Jemaine's chagrin, fire off some practice shots with his weapon. "We need grief seeds for that. Kyubey explained it all the other day."

"Well, Bret, if you don't want to take part in this hunt then you can go stand and watch with Jemaine over there," Murray told him with a curt wave of his head. Then, dropping into a somewhat wobbly defensive stance: "Ah, here comes the familiar now!"

Sure enough, a dull buzzing in the air grew louder and a scribbly-looking black mass swooped towards them. It was about half the size of a person, with knives and forks protruding from within it with all the pointy bits sticking out and yet dripping an inky ichor as though it had been stabbed. It gave off an odour halfway between tobacco and an ambiguous alcohol.

Jemaine took a few extra steps back at its approach, eyes widening and eyebrows raising, with a flat but emphatic "woah." Bret, who had sensed the presence of witches and familiars throughout the city since contracting but hadn't felt like getting into fights with them, had a more subdued reaction but similarly ducked out of the way. He didn't want to waste his magic on a fight that he wouldn't get anything out of.

Murray tossed his soul gem in the air, and in a shower of sparkles and ribbons his magical girl outfit took shape around him. And yes, despite none of them being girls by any measure, anyone who saw the getup had to admit that magical girl was the only term for it. The top was mottled green and looked like an army uniform aside from the cute little ribbons in place of buttons, and he had a matching cap with some feathery decals sticking out of it. On his chest, his soul gem gleamed like a medal of honour. His skirt was black and businesslike without much frill, but it was still a skirt, which was a little startling to see their manager in. Finally, a pair of knee-high army boots tied off with ribbons wound themselves around his legs, and a pirate's cutlass manifested in his hand.

With the transformation complete, he wasted no time leaping forward and jabbing his blade at the attacking familiar. Steel ground against steel as his weapon slotted neatly between two tines of one of the forks. From the sidelines, Bret frowned in concern and Jemaine shook his head in disapproval. This already wasn't looking good. But Murray, who had refused to give up on the band he was managing despite never finding much success and rarely receiving any gratitude for his efforts, certainly wasn't going to give up now. He pulled his sword back and lunged again, this time aiming for the roiling shadows that lay between the cutlery.

To his elation, he just managed to nick the familiar. It screeched and flew into the air. He tried to follow its trajectory from there, but it moved too fast.

"Murray," Jemaine called, frame tense with more anxiety over their manager's wellbeing than he would have admitted to feeling. "Look out, it's--"

Before he could finish that sentence, the familiar slammed into Murray from behind. At least a half-dozen knives and forks drove into Murray's back, sending blood spurting out and staining his uniform. Jemaine cringed and leaned even further away despite already being well out of the splash zone. Bret gasped. Almost unconsciously he transformed in a burst of sparkles. A wooden bow decorated with the animal emblem from his soul gem shimmered into existence in his hand.

Murray staggered, vision swimming and tinged with red. He took a gasping breath and it got stuck in his throat. Blood dribbled out of his mouth when he coughed and ran down his chin, staining his beard. No doubt Bret and Jemaine thought he'd go into a hysterical panic or completely shut down. Maybe they were even expecting him to keel over right then and there. And yes, alright, the first few times something like this had happened that may have been exactly how he responded. But he was the senior magical girl here. He had to be professional and set a good example for the guys.

While Murray swayed on his feet and tried to convince himself that this wasn't really so bad, Bret notched an arrow and drew back the string on his bow. He squeezed one eye shut and pursed his lips in concentration. Jemaine watched him from the corner of his eye, breathing fast and not quite believing what he was seeing. How was Bret so calm about this? He'd only been a magical girl for a few days. This was his first actual fight. And the familiar was still hovering right behind Murray, ready to strike again. There was a very good chance Bret's arrow would miss the target altogether and impale their manager. Especially since, from what he'd seen so far, Bret wasn't a very good shot.

Bret's heart pounded in his ears. He barely managed to keep his breathing deep and mostly even, though he couldn't stop it from coming in and out quicker than usual. His fingers trembled against the arrow as he lined up the shot. He'd practiced with this weapon a few times in their flat, and it hadn't gone particularly well. But Murray needed his help. He swallowed hard, and though steeling his nerves would only do so much for his accuracy, his hands grew steadier as he pulled the string back as far as it could go. He glanced at Jemaine over his shoulder in a silent message: Stand back. The last thing he wanted was Jemaine getting in the way, especially if things went wrong.

Luckily, Jemaine didn't have to be told. By this point he was so far away from the streetlight that Murray was battling under that he was almost at a completely different streetlight several metres down the path. Satisfied that his friend was a safe distance away, Bret released the string.

The familiar launched itself into the sky as the arrow flew toward it, but the arrow was magic, so it arced upwards like a homing missile to follow the target. When it connected, a bright flash of light burst forth. The familiar screeched, a truly grating sound, and when the light cleared it looked like a chunk of it had been scooped out or dissolved. Hissing, it zeroed in on Bret. He fired another arrow, and while the familiar dodged taking another hit head-on, it did knock loose a couple of knives which skittered to the ground and then crumbled away. Bret probably could have fired off a third shot if he stood his ground, but he didn't want to risk it. He dove to the side and rolled out of the way. Jemaine, who was left standing directly in the enraged familiar's path, barked out an indignant exclamation at Bret's abandonment.

Meanwhile, Murray had managed to pull himself together. Funny thing about being a magical girl-- injuries didn't hurt as much. In fact, if you just turned part of your brain off they didn't hurt at all. He righted himself and charged towards the familiar with a battle cry that made it pause in midair before it could reach Jemaine. Jumping as high in the air as he could manage (which was much higher than it was before he made a contract) Murray clasped the scabbard of his blade with both hands and drove it into the familiar from above.

The familiar had put up a good fight for what it was, but it was only a familiar, after all, not a full witch. And Bret had already weakened it considerably. Its unstable form surged and crackled in the wake of Murray's precision strike, dribbling its drug-scented ichor onto the ground and making the pavement sizzle where it landed. Finally, it imploded. Cutlery fell in a shower, creating a clatter that drowned out the thud of Murray's boots landing him firmly on the ground.

Jemaine, who had been about three seconds away from getting eviscerated, toppled backwards onto the ground as his knees gave out. Adrenaline kicked in too late to do anything useful, leaving his heart pounding and chest heaving to catch his breath. His eyes, blown wide from stress, flickered over to the patch of grass where Bret had landed. Upon seeing his friend sitting up and picking leaves out of his hair with a pout, Jemaine relaxed. He wasn't hurt, but he was humiliated-- good on both accounts. Served him right.

"I could've gotten killed just now," he grumbled as he got to his feet. "It's a magical girl's job to protect ordinary humans, isn't it? Not jump out of the way and leave them to be run through with cutlery."

"Sorry, man," Bret said with a shrug. At the very least he actually sounded apologetic, but it wasn't enough to dispel Jemaine's annoyance or make him want to go on any more witch hunts with him anytime soon. "It was coming right at me. I got scared."

The soft woosh of magic from a few feet away caught their ears, and they turned in unison to see Murray holding his soul gem in cupped hands with his eyes shut and his face pinched in concentration. A warm orange glow surrounded him. When it faded, the strain of pain was gone from his face and his posture seemed more natural. The blood vanished from his clothes when he detransformed, but a bit remained matting his beard.

"Are you alright, Murray?" Bret asked cautiously.

"Oh, you boys don't need to worry about me," he replied cheerfully. "Healing magic is my specialty. I can fix myself up in the blink of an eye!"

Bret and Jemaine exchanged an apprehensive glance. Murray said that, but his whole body was still trembling. He must have been in shock. And the surface of his soul gem was tinted notably darker than it was when they headed out. For their first time on a witch hunt (not actually a witch hunt), this didn't bode well.

Part 2

#hey did you know that i write stuff sometimes?

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limbobilbo · 7 months

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Wikipedia is WRONG about flight of the concords

On the wikipedia page for sally returns it says that jemaine being called ‘mr clemaine’ is the first time in the series we hear either bret or jemaine’s last names.

But this is wrong. In bret gives up the dream just before ‘Boom’ starts bret tells coco his last name is McKenzie.

Cant believe it.

#196 campfire #flight of the concords

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pennypyro · 1 year

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Jemaine Clemaine

Bret McKet

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vampirebandmate · 3 years

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Time and time again I use my iMovie powers for evil... /hj

#flight of the conchords #fotc #jemaine clement #jemaine clemaine #bret mckenzie #bret mcclegnie

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dancinginashesandshadow · 4 years

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#dracula #richard roxburgh #gary oldman #jemaine clemaine #claes bang #frank langella #gerard butler #christopher lee #louis jourdan #bela lugosi

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grrrenadine · 4 years

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Bret and Jemaine of Flight of the Conchords.

#fotc #flight of the conchords #jemaine clement #jemaine clemaine #bret mckenzie #my art

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jemaineclemaine · 3 months

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Flight of the Conchords - S1E7 "Drive By"

kiwi racism time!! jemaine trying to make an actual bird will never not be funny to me hes so silly <3 he and bret are so real for crying at kid's shows 😭 happy jemaine clemonday!

#dave is also silly in this ep #jemaine's hair was so good #jemaine clemonday #jemaine clement #bret mckenzie #flight of the conchords #fotc #jemaine clemaine

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martymcflown · 8 months

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youtube

Sometimes I'll think of takes I've heard from men in my life and just remember this bit from FOTC.

#also jemaine the character's dad being implied to be part of his life is interesting #the differences between jemaine clemaine and jement clement ya know #fotc #feminism #Youtube

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cinemasis · 4 years

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Recommendation for the weekend

The mockumentary follows the lives of four flatmates, which are clumsy and old fashioned vampires in Wellington, New Zealand. Directed by Taika Waititi, the movie is an underrated piece of comedy, very ironic about the entire vampire genre.

What We Do In The Shadows (2014)

#what we do in the shadows #wwdits #vampire movies #vampire #taika waititi #jemaine clemaine #jonathan brugh #cinemalover #cinema blog #cinematography #cinema #movie lover #movie of the day #movies

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primatechnosynthpop · 8 months

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Incredibly silly self-indulgent oneshot that I let marinate in my drafts for approximately one thousand years. Bonjour monsieur puppy woof woof

As if the whole falling down a well situation wasn't strange enough already, now there was a man with dog ears. A beautiful man, really, although Jemaine typically pretended not to notice such things. But he was in the middle of the woods with nobody else around, and the beautiful dog-eared man wasn't going to judge him because, if the arrow sticking out of his chest and pinning him to the tree was any indication, he was probably dead. That was a shame. Jemaine had been hoping he could find someone to ask for directions.

---

When he took a step closer, the beautiful probably-dead dog-man's ears twitched. Oh. So maybe he wasn't that dead after all. Fighting back a sudden thrumming sensation in his chest, Jemaine stepped up onto the roots that wound around the pinned figure and cleared his throat.

"Excuse me... sir? Do you know how I could get back to Wellington from here?"

"Mmn..." Now it was the dog-man's nose that twitched. The nose was less noticeable than the ears, but it was dotted with black, again like the face of a dog. Without opening his eyes, he murmured a name. "Coco? 'S that you?"

"Er, no, sorry."

"Why'd you go and shoot me with that arrow, Coco? I thought we had a good thing going on..."

"Well, as I just said, I'm not Coco. This conversation doesn't really seem to be going anywhere, so..."

He shuffled back a step, only to lose his footing on the roots and almost fall. Quick as day, a hand shot out and grabbed him by the wrist, catching his fall. He blinked, startled, up at the now fully awake dog-man before him. The dog-man returned the expression with equal shock.

"Oh, wow, you're not Coco at all," he said. "Funny--you smell just like her."

"Do I?" Jemaine asked skeptically. He couldn't imagine smelling that similar to a lady. It wasn't like he wore perfume, or... jewelry... or whatever else women did.

"Well, you mostly smell like her," the man pinned to the tree went on with a shrug. "Maybe a bit worse."

Jemaine's face scrunched in offense. "Hey."

"But if you smell like her, maybe you've got the same priestess powers. Maybe you could pull this arrow out and break the spell."

"Ah, yes, there's an idea," Jemaine mused, nodding. "If I do that, could you help me get back to Wellington?"

To his great disappointment, the dog-man pursed his lips and shrugged. "Dunno. I don't think I know where that is."

"You don't know where Wellington is?"

"Well, I dunno about the -ington part. But there's a well a little ways back that way." He angled his head in the direction Jemaine had come.

"Yes, I know about the well. I fell through it and ended up here. I'm looking for the Clemaine family shrine."

"Oh, a shrine. So you are a priestess like Coco, then--or a priest, I guess, since you're a man."

"No, I'm not either of those things. I'm a university student." He gestured to his uniform, now tattered thanks to his tumble through the well and subsequent tromp through the forest, as a visual aid.

"University student..." the dog-man echoed, sounding like he didn't know what Jemaine was talking about but was too polite to say as much. After a beat he brightened and extended a hand in greeting. "I'm Bret."

Jemaine's eyebrows raised a little at that--it was a rather ordinary name for a man with dog ears pinned to a tree in the middle of the forest. No last name? he wanted to ask but didn't. Instead he returned Bret's handshake and introduced himself in turn. But even while they were shaking hands, his eyes kept drifting back to those ears. Something tugged at his core, a stupid impulse that he tried desperately to ignore, but it was just so maddening...

"Are the ears real?"

"Yeah, they're real."

Jemaine licked his lips anxiously, hands twitching at his sides. "Can I... touch them?"

Bret recoiled, dog nose wrinkling. "No way. That would be gay."

"It wouldn't be gay," Jemaine argued. "It's not gay when you're petting your dog and you touch their ears."

"I'm not a dog, though," said Bret defensively, drawing himself up as much he could with the arrow in his chest holding him in place against the tree. "I'm a man!"

"You've got the ears of a dog."

"Well, I'm a half demon."

"Ah, yes, a half demon," Jemaine echoed, nodding. "That explains it."

That explained absolutely nothing. It made things far more confusing, actually. Was this how Bret felt when he brought up Wellington and university?

"Maybe if I just touch your ears," he pressed on without even knowing why he was so set on doing this, "And not any other part of you, that wouldn't be gay. I'd only be touching the dog bits and not the man bits."

"...Maybe," Bret relented. He leaned his head down, slightly floppy fuzzy brown ears exposed among his curls. "But be gentle with them."

"Of course."

Trying to ignore the way his heart sped up, Jemaine put his hands gently around the dog ears, fingers against the furry side and pad of the thumb against the soft pink middle. He rubbed lightly at them, making them sort of twitch up and down. A little noise escaped from Bret. It sounded suspiciously like a whimper, which was itself quite doglike, really. Jemaine pulled back, afraid he'd been too rough and equally worried that the whimper had another meaning behind it that he didn't want to unpack.

"Sorry," he mumbled.

Bret turned his head away as far as he could, which wasn't very much with all the giant roots winding around and boxing him in. "...Don't worry about it. Just hurry up and get me down."

Nodding, Jemaine hesitantly closed his hand around the shaft of the arrow. It had clearly been weathered with age, suggesting that Bret had been up there for a while despite still being perfectly healthy. A bright purple light flared up when he touched it. Jemaine flinched at the glare and threw his other arm up over his face to shield himself. He had no idea how he was supposed to pull an arrow out of someone safely, especially not without being able to see what he was doing, and he had just opened his mouth to voice that complaint when the arrow crumbled. The glow faded, and his hand closed around empty air.

"What, is that it?" he asked incredulously.

Bret nodded, an eager smile creeping onto his face. Jemaine hadn't noticed before, but his complexion had been a little washed-out; now the colour crept back into his cheeks and a renewed energy seemed to roll off him in waves. The roots that were holding him in place began to rapidly rot.

"Yeah, that's it. Thanks, man."

"That wasn't hard at all," Jemaine pointed out as he gingerly made his way down the quickly crumbling roots, tripping over himself and catching himself against the tree in the process. "You said only someone with magic powers could do it. That didn't take magic powers. You could've gotten yourself down ages ago."

Bret pursed his lips and shook his head. "No, I couldn't. I was asleep until you showed up. And only someone with the same powers as Coco could get one of her arrows out."

"Well, I don't have any magical powers," Jemaine said, deliberately ignoring what had happened with that centipede monster in the well a few minutes earlier to get him to this forest in the first place. "So maybe you just should have tried harder."

By this point all the roots had rotted away to dust like the arrow before them. Bret hopped to the ground, briefly landing on all fours before springing back up to a standing position, and shook himself out. Jemaine took a couple steps back to avoid being hit with residue, but there wasn't any. After doing a couple stretches and flexing a set of claw-tipped fingers, Bret sniffed at the air a little more and made a little "hm" noise.

"No, you've definitely got magic," he said. "I smell it on you."

"Do I?" Jemaine asked cautiously. "...How's it smell?"

"Nice, I guess. Sort of invigorating."

A bit of heat crept into Jemaine's cheeks at that. "I thought you said you didn't like my smell."

"No, it's not bad at all. It's just, y'know, Coco is pretty hard to beat..."

"Oh yeah? What's she smell like?"

"Herbs, mostly. And magic. A lot like you."

"I don't smell like herbs."

"Not yet, but if you're training to become a priest..."

"I told you I'm not a priest. Or training to become one."

Almost without realizing, the two had begun to walk along in tandem as they bantered, away from the tree and back towards the old well Jemaine had climbed out of mere minutes before. Though they didn't realize it yet (at least Bret didn't; Jemaine suspected but didn't want to admit it) this day would change the whole course of their lives going forward. In fact, it would change their whole worlds.

#when i said mashing these guys up with anime comes naturally to me i truly meant it #hey did you know that i write stuff sometimes?

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wonderfulworldofmichaelford · 5 years

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Psycho Analysis: Tamatoa

Sometimes all you need is one scene to make a lasting impression on an audience. This is because, when it gets right down to it, it isn’t the amount of time you’re onscreen that matters, it’s what you do with it. Look at Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter, for instance; his screentime in The Silence of the Lambs wasn’t even a fourth of the film’s runtime, and yet he’s perhaps one of the most beloved and important villains in all of film history. You don’t need a lot of time to be good, because if you’re good your time will be well spent.

And that brings us to a certain Disney villain, one who you might say shines in a sea of underwhelming twist villains… That’s right: Tamatoa, the shiniest bad guy who has ever existed. In a sense, Tamatoa is a twist villain, with the twist being that he exists at all; his appearance in Moana is not one that was really marketed all that much. Of course, this only serves to make him far more interesting and all the better because of his absence in marketing.

Actor: Jemaine Clement of Flight of the Conchords fame voices this giant enemy crab, and let me just say that I don’t think they could have lucked out any better than getting the Maori man who can do the best David Bowie impression out there to play their giant evil David Bowie crab.

Motivation/Goals: Well, he wants to be SHINY! Tamatoa has a serious hoarding addiction and an obsession with decorating his shell and making it look more beautiful; we don’t get a full explanation as to why, but his song does hint that Maui has something to do with it. Maui DEFINITELY has something to do with Tamatoa’s missing leg, and since Maui has a tattoo where he’s shown fighting Tamatoa it’s clear there’s no love between the two, which is reason enough for the crab to lay the smackdown on Maui when he comes for his hook. While it would have been nice to get some more explanation, for the two’s past conflicts, it is pretty impressive that for such a short time so much is laid out for the audience to pick up on and infer.

Personality: He’s vain, he’s shallow, he’s campy, and he has an ego even bigger than he is, especially considering he has an entire musical number dedicated to stroking his ego. He is also, despite all appearances to the contrary, quite intelligent and downright scary when he needs to be; this is a guy who goes for the throat of the “Be Yourself” message that Moana’s grandmother taught her in the opening lines of his villain song and then later cheerfully describes how he is going to dismember someone in song form while beating the snot out of them, after all. It’s interesting to note that Tamatoa is actually sort of a dark mirror of how Maui is; much like Maui, Tamatoa decorates himself in an attempt to cover up his cripplingly low self-esteem; however, where Maui truly wishes he didn’t need his self-esteem to be defined by his heroic deeds and the praise he receives for the, Tamatoa absolutely REVELS in the fact that he is overcompensating for his insecurities, openly admits this, and outright says that his way is the way to go. It’s honestly kind of neat to see a villain not only draw a comparison between themselves and the hero, but also wholeheartedly accept the flaws they share with the hero as a good thing. Of course, as he’s only in the one scene these concepts sadly never really get expanded on, which is a shame as there is a truly brilliant rivalry sitting here, but still, it’s impressive how much character they were able to cram in to a villain with less than ten minutes of screentime.

Final Fate: Moana and Maui make their escape by geyser, a geyser which knocks the treasure-encrusted crustacean onto his back… and unfortunately he’s a bit too top heavy to get back up. He appears again in the film’s stinger, still stuck, and begs the audience for help, saying that we’d help him if he was Sebastian from The Little Mermaid. He shouldn’t even worry; I’m more inclined to help him because he’s Tamatoa.

Best Scene: He only has one extended sequence in the film, but easily the standout of his brief appearance is the incredible David Bowie tribute “Shiny,” which is perhaps the greatest Disney villain song in years, and second only to a certain French judge’s song about insurmountable lust consuming his soul with sin.

Best Quote: From his song “Shiny” comes the lines “Far from the ones who abandoned you/Chasing the love of these humans/Who made you feel wanted/You tried to be tough/But your armour's just not hard enough.” This not only reveals a dark truth about Maui, it also serves as an extremely effective breaking speech, showing that under his goofy facade he’s actually a really cunning bastard.

Final Thoughts & Score: Tamatoa is that rare modern Disney villain that actually feels like he would fit in with the classic bad guys of the Renaissance; not since Facilier has their been a villain that this could easily be said about. Even King Candy, the only other Disney canon villain in recent memory worth mentioning, does not evoke that feeling. Maybe it’s because of Clement’s hilarious performance, maybe it’s his design, maybe it’s the awesome tribute to Bowie that is “Shiny,” but Tamatoa is just a Disney baddie worthy of standing alongside the all-time greats. Despite his limited screentime, despite the potential that ultimately went underutilized, despite the flaws I could nitpick here and there, I think Tamatoa truly earns a nice, shiny 10/10.

Frankly, Tamatoa is a perfect example of the effective utilization of screentime in establishing a villain. Look how much mileage I got out of, what, maybe ten minutes of screentime? In that time he manages to establish a clear personality, a connection to a major character in the story, act as an important obstacle to overcome, and sing an amazing villain song - more than Bellwether, Yokai, Hans, or Evelyn Deavor ever did. He is second only to Vincenzo Coccotti in terms of one-scene wonder villains, and that is incredibly high praise.

#Psycho Analysis #Tamatoa #Moana #Shiny #Disney #jemaine clemaine

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