#at this point id rather take an episode without edging than with one

[grimbeak]

dont even talk to me right now

[justanothergoldfish]

Greg Lestrade x reader

Handsome stranger

pt. 1 pt.2 pt. 3

warnings: mentions of alcohol/drinking

word count: 950

A/N: this plays during the events of the episode 'Hounds of Baskerville'.

---

It was a rather slow afternoon, all the guests had settled in this morning. You checked the guest book and there were no more reservations booked for today. Since most guests were currently out with Fletcher, the guide for the Hound of Baskerville Tour, it was finally calming down in the “Cross Keys” hotel and bar. There was finally time to refill the ale and the fridge for the sodas. 

This entire story about this monster had brought in a lot of customers in the last month, which is why you were helping Gary, the owner and a family friend, out. He'd asked you to work for him part time so he had more time for management and the paperwork.

Billy stuck his head out from the kitchen and gave you an exhausted look. “You alright up front? We're busy prepping dinner back here, but if you need help just call, okay?” the ginger haired boy panted, wiping his hands on a towel. You just chuckled and nodded along, it was adorable how the staff was still treating you like a raw egg. 

“I'm fine, don't worry. Not my first time being a waitress” you smiled, patting his shoulder before he looked up to the bar. “Ah, customer.” he said, quickly nudging to the door as he retreated to the kitchen. 

You turned around to see a middle aged man with ashy gray hair and a beige, loose jacket. He wore a black button shirt and anthracite pants, on his face a black pair of sunglasses. 

Yeah, definitely a foreigner. 

You tightened your apron as you walked up to the bar, supporting yourself on the edge of the surface with both hands. 

“Hi, welcome to the Cross Keys.” you smiled as he looked around, hands buried in his pockets. 

“Mmh, nice cozy place, innit?” 

Ah, so he's from London. 

“Most definitely, Sir. Away from all the city trouble, it's pure heaven.” You smiled at him and he took off his shades, letting his eyes get used to the light in the room. 

Once they had adapted, he looked directly at you. Big mistake. His eyes were a gorgeous shade of chocolate brown, practically making you melt away at first sight.

No, get it out of your head. He's way too old and probably married.

“You don't happen to have any single rooms available for tonight, do you?” He asked, putting his hands back into his pockets. 

Or maybe not married. 

You pretended to check the bookings, chewing on your lip as you tried your best to look very focused in order not to smile. Despite his age, he was definitely a sight for sore eyes. 

As soon as you had yourself back together, you nodded and looked back up at the man. 

“Actually, we do. That'll be 120£, breakfast is already included and served in the dining room from 7.30 to 9.30 in the morning.” 

The man nodded and pulled out his wallet, “Sounds good. I'll take it.” he says, his voice dropping lower than before. It distracted you to the point you almost gave him the key without having him pay, hadn't he already reached out the money to you. 

“Oh, and your ID please.” you added, taking the money and putting it into the cash register. 

“Sure, one second.” He pulled out the card and placed it on the counter, shoving it over to you. As you took it, you quickly read through his information, calculating in your head. 

So he's 49, damn, from London. 1,80m tall… Gregory Lestrade… handsome man, handsome name. 

Gregory Lestrade. 

You pulled yourself out of your thoughts and cleared your throat, writing down his personal information into the guest book and handing the card back to him. 

“The rooms are upstairs, around the corner on the left.” you said, taking some of the already polished glasses and one by one wiping them down again, just to look busy and to have an excuse to stay up front for a while longer.

“Came to see the creature?” you grinned, and Lestrade seemed to be in thought for a moment. He took the key with the room number and his ID from the counter. 

“Sort of…” he grins to himself, leaning against the bar, hoping to catch a glimpse into the guest book. 

“I'm actually looking for.. uhm, a friend.”

You raised an eyebrow, wiping down another glass. “Oh, a woman?”

Lestrade can't help but huff. He shakes his head as he wets his lips, “Tall man with dark curly hair, probably wore a dark coat, collar turned up for the dramatic effect. Occasionally acts like a drama queen though.” 

Yeah, that rang a bell. 

“With his shorter boyfriend?”

Lestrade took a seat on a barstool, snorting at your confident words. He tries his best not to grin and laugh out loud. 

“Yeah, his, er… boyfriend.” He mumbles in amusement. “So they are here, good. Listen, I'll bring my bag to my room and I'll be right back for a drink. I'll probably need it.”

You put the glass down and tucked the cloth back into the belt of your apron. 

“Great idea. I've just opened a brand new keg of Guinness if you're interested? I'll be here if you need anything else, Mr. Lestrade.” you smile sweetly, taking his appearance in once again. 

Lestrade turned his head back to you as he walked to the door with an amused grin. “Guinness sounds wonderful, and you can just call me Greg, love.” 

Watching him go, you just stood there behind the bar, staring and smiling in awe like a dork. 

Greg Lestrade.

What a handsome stranger...

[ooooo-mcyt]

For real though watching yhs has lead me to the conclusion that despite Grian seemingly has such an active fight instinct....most of the time he actually doesnt respond to situations with half the fight attributed to him.

When faced with a traumatic situation Grian will absolutely bare his teeth at the nearest threat. He's absolutely vitriolic towards Sam at all times without fail and has even initiated physical violence in their confrontations once or twice. He's often on edge, often quick to angry outbursts, just overall rather hostile when faced with a dangerous/frightening/harmful situation. Which definitely indicates his main response to these scenarios is to fight. Hard.

However the more I engaged with fanon the more I faltered. A lot of fanon does portray him as very hostile in the face of trouble. Which should make sense. Canonically Grian knows when to say no, when to argue, and even sometimes when to physically fight back. Any episode with Grian present will likely have examples of him pushing back against harmful situations. And yet something always feels very Off about that being the start and end of it in a lot of fanon. Which led me down an interesting line of thinking.

I honestly suspect that Grian's volatility and will to fight back isn't nearly as strong as one would believe from observing him on surface level. In fact, his on the surface hostility feels like it's borderline a facade altogether to be honest.

I mean look at examples throughout canon of Grian in distressing situations.

Yhs halloween episode. The one where Taurtis got stabbed. And the following situation where Grian is famously forced to dress up like Taurtis. Grian would later be very upset about Sam stabbing Taurtis, however his initial response was to nervously laugh and even give Sam appeasing praise. I mean, Grian says "you weren't supposed to stab him" pretty clearly, but he anxiously laughs before and afterwards and even tells Sam he's proud of him when prompted. Obviously Grian was very upset about the whole thing later on after taking Taurtis to the hospital however in the moment he's mostly silent and when he's not he's just nervously laughing throughout, even agreeing with whatever *Sam* says when he's outright prompted by name for an opinion, then when everyone else tries to play it off casually Grian actually goes along with it almost entirely, even agreeing to let Taurtis drive him home for some reason. Then, according to his own story, he had an opportunity to talk to police at the hospital and he didn't incriminate Sam. He knew they were supicious of *him* but he still didn't incriminate the actual killer. "I told them I found him like that" Grian alleged. Honestly it sounds like he didn't tell them much of *anything* before being released and making the walk back to meet Sam. The next morning Grian was significantly more vocally upset about Taurtis being stabbed and expressed being upset with Sam however he seemed significantly more anxious than he was angry throughout the interaction. Then Grian immediately pretty readily agreed to go with Sam and Yuki to school and willingly put on the Taurtis outfit before the other's even started with the threats in the name of making things 'less awkward'. He certainly objected, however he was once again a lot more anxious than angry, nervously laughing, coming up with really weak unimportant excuses, and agreeing within ten seconds of being asked. Pretty much the rest of his time dressed as Taurtis goes very similarly. He objects to most things he's told to do and brings up Sam stabbing Taurtis multiple times despite the other's not wanting him to but is primarily nervous rather than hostile and he never actuslly puts up enough resistence for it to stick. Even when the other's were stuffing plastic down his throat and he told them he thought it may kill him Grian still did it and told the other's he *liked* it when pushed. Eventually he got out of it by running on Rowan's command and no sooner than being told to get out of there. When Sam found him again Grian immediately even reverted back to doing as he was told and cowering away from him in obvious fear up until Okami and Rowan showed up and shoved Grian behind them. Then he *still went home that night* knowing Sam would be there. When they found Taurtis it was pretty clear that Grian was hoping Taurtis would help him once he got his memory back however when instructed to stop telling Taurtis who he was Grian for the most part did aside from subtle pushing about the familiarity of certain things and then later when Taurtis got his memory back and made it pretty clear he wasn't going to help Grian? Grian conceded. He spent a good few minutes arguing about everything he'd gone through- everything they both had- and insisting it wasn't okay but when Taurtis made it pretty clear he wasn't going to do anything and they collectively agreed Grian was the real problem? Grian kinda...stopped. When Taurtis made it clear he wasn't going to be helping, Grian just kinda fell back into their normal routine with the other's, and when Sam demanded an 'apology soda' from Grian for what he'd apparently done, Grian bought it for him saying "If that's what it takes for things to go back to normal".

Let's also look at Grian's involvement with the law during/shortly-after the Halloween situation. When Sam and Yuki dragged him to join the Yakuza he was upset and objected anxiously but caved as soon as he got pushback. When Sam wanted to steak from the Yakuza he once again got objections from Grian who nervously insisted that it was a terrible idea but once again Sam shoved aside Grian's complaints and once again Grian just kinda fell into place despite being upset. When the police also started threatening the trio's lives to work for them, Grian objected. He questioned if they were allowed to do that and was very openly not happy about any of it, however he very quickly submitted under pressure. Both times Grian was locked in solitary confinement he loudly protested his sanity and both times he voiced how disturbing it was on a really deep level being locked up like that but both times when he was let out he just went with the other two again and let them brush it all off- even knowing full well they let him out to be *death fodder*. He just went with them relatively quietly save for maybe a token remark or two. Honestly the large majority of this bs Grian was involved with was under physical threat and he almost always bent under it. Even down to his fight with Pie over Ellen. Pie showed up and started challenging their relationship. Sam, Taurtis, and Yuki insisted they have a knife fight. Grian said *no*. Pie said yes. Sam, Taurtis, and Yuki affirmed there would be a knife fight. Grian objects more. Everyone else present discusses how the knife fight will work. Grian gets stabbed. Grian suggests they just ask Ellen who they want to date *obviously*. Ellen chooses nobody and leaves. Grian was upset but then just kinda accepts it and goes on with what the whole group was doing before.

And just to round this out with one more example. The Starwars Cosplay Incident. Apparently Sam burst into Grian's room, undressed him, shoved him into Leia Cosplay complete with fake boobs, and locked him in the basement for three days. Grian sits there for three days until Taurtis rescues him.  Grian has a moment of being rightfully very angry and finally even tries to physically attack Sam, demanding to know if Taurtis is aware of what Sam did to him and insisting that they can't expect everything to be fine now. Except it kinda...was. Taurtis stopped Grian from attacking Sam, they both brushed it off as a joke and not a big deal, and then they went to school. And Grian just *went*. He walked with the other two, he wore the outfit Sam put him in, and he just kinda moved on. Grian would later object when the clones tried to pull him out of class, snapping that he just wants to learn and get an education like a normal person and demanding to know why he's not allowed to. But he goes! And when he's released he walks right back to Sam and Taurtis, makes some bitter remarks to them, and let's them shove it all aside as if it's unimportant. Later when it's Grian, Sam, and a member of school staff alone in the closet, some innapropriate remarks are made to Grian. He very quickly says he's reporting the remarks made by school staff but Sam tells him not to be rude and it doesn't seem Grian ever does. Later on when Geode makes a comment about Grian's outfit as well Sam and Taurtis start pondering *giving* Grian to them. Grian repeatedly said *no* but with a lot more despair than defiance and we don't even know if he'd have actually followed through with fighting back if they'd tried to actually give him away because they were interrupted before the situation got to that point. Grian once again just let the other's move on as if that didn't happen and continued following them around, though! And he wore that damn outfit he was very explicitly uncomfortable with. All day.

Which is kinda all to say that when it comes to fighting back Grian is a lot more bark than bite.

Grian throws out a lot of bitter remarks, makes his objections very apparent in most things, and even has more than one vitriolic rant to his abuser(s) throughout the series. But that layer of his responses to things is so fragile that it tends to fall away within minutes- if that, sometimes *seconds*.

Of course ive seen other people take note of this and argue that it means Grian actually *wants* to do these thingd he's objecting to but I think that's silly. If it were just things like group crime or violent acts then id possibly see it but Grian puts up the same kind of response to having plastic shoved down his throat and to being locked in the basement for days which there's no way in hell he was any kind of okay with. The more likely scenario here isn't that he secretly wanted to do any of these things and made his resistence weak so he could pretend he tried while still doing it.

The likely scenario here is that his fight response is much more for show than one would think. Because Grian's strongest most influential response to things really never seems to be to fight. Aggression is really hardly Grian's overall stance on handling a distressing situation.

Much more frequently you see the most influence coming from completely other instinctive responses.

Looking for outside help in adults, friends, and classmates like when Okami and Rowan protected him during his time dressed as Taurtis or when Grian tried desperately to get Taurtis to be on his side and help him after Sam seriously hurt him both when Taurtis first got his memory back after Halloween and when Taurtis found Grian in the basement during the Starwars Cosplay Incident, hell, even during his fight with Pie it can be argued that Grian calling for them to just ask Ellen was an appeal to outside help as he hoped Ellen would agree to end the fight and save him from the situation as a result.

Running away- or trying to at least- from the threat. Most notably seen back during the halloween incident when he quite literally ran out the back of the gym and hid from Sam+Yuki then hiding behind Okami and Rowan when they showed up in an attempt to flee from Sam which is how he got away from the other's at all during that situation. Grian's consistent need to exclaim every so often how much he wants to go back to Europe is a subtler example of this, though, of Grian's urge to get away.

Honestly though being quiet and moving as he's directed seems to be the most common winning response. You see little sparks of reaction from him but most of the time Grian is just quiet, nervously laughing, following Taurtis and Sam around in what they ask of him, and even outright appeasement strategies to maintain a calm environment. This is So common from Grian. This is what usually wins out. His quiet nervous laughter and agreeing with Sam when Taurtis is first stabbed. The fact that he didn't tell the police what Sam did when alone with them during questioning and then immediately walked to meet up with Sam and went to school with Sam+Yuki with literally no objections. The fact that he didn't say no like *at all* to putting on the Taurtis outfit in the name of not making things awkward and complied within seconds of first being asked. How he proceeded to do what he was asked all day and didn't make any move to get away until Rowan outright instructed him to run. The fact that he went back! The fact that he went along with it when they joined the Yakuza and when they stole from the Yakuza and when they joined up with the cops and when they *forced him into a knife fight*. How Grian eventually just lost his spark of defiance after Taurtis first got his memories back and made it clear he wasn't helping Grian, with Grian agreeing to buy Sam a fucking *apology soda* if it meant things would go back to normal after hearing everyone else agree that *he* was the problem in all he'd been put through. The way he just goes back to following Sam and Taurtis after they got him locked in solitary confinement on blatant lies because they *wanted* to. The way he walks around school with the other two while wearing cosplay that made him feel gross and uncomfortable that Sam had literally physically forced onto him and just went along with what he was told in the end.

Grian always puts up a fight but not a good one. He makes side comments, he makes objections, he even has more than one emotional rant about the hell he's put through, however this never wins out in the end and this presenting fight is very frequently just barely holding down much stronger freeze and fawn instincts that usually win out pretty damn quick.

Which!!! In a situation like Grian's it actually makes significantly more sense to have strong freeze and fawn responses than to have a strong fight response! I mean, think about it. A fight response is primarily useful in scenarios in which it's possible to take strong action to remove the threat. You're attacked by a dog so you throw stuff at it till it backs away. You're picked on by an upperclassman so you punch em' in the nose expecting fully that they'll leave you be after. Someone attacks you while you're walking home so you try and stab them with your key. Fighting is an incredibly good response for random/one time attacks. If you're ever kidnapped you wanna scream and punch and kick and make a scene so they can't take you to a secondary location. You fight. Fighting is optimal for unexpected stranger conflicts. That's not the situation Grian's in though. Grian suffers from serious long term physical, emotional, and financial abuse. He's in a country he doesn't have residency or family in, he doesn't have a readily available source of income, he doesn't have his own mode of transportation, it seems that most of the time he doesnt have a clear way home, he's often dealing with long term friends of his and seemingly his biggest source of support prior to this situation, even back in Europe he doesn't have much support system to run to given his parents canonically left him, he's frequently under threat of physical danger, etc. This is not the kind of situation in which an intense primary fight response helps. This is the type of situation in which an intense primary fight response either gets you seriously hurt or wandering the streets with no way to provide for yourself. It would likely be similar if he presented an intense primary flight response to be honest. In long term abuse situations where there's no rational way of escaping safely or no rational place to escape to? Often the primary responses that promote survival are fawn and freeze. Appeasing the aggressor or sinking into the background. Those are your ways to stay alive when you can't expect to 'win' or escape. It absolutely makes more sense for Grian to have primary fawn and freeze responses than a primary fight response.

But then why does he present so much hostility? What's with all the bitter remarks and the attempts to voice objections and the occasional overt insults/screaming? How does a fawn/freeze response present as fight when first pressed at?? Well fun fact, I have experience with that kind of presentation because I *was* that kind of presentation. Oh boy did I try to push strong fight responses towards my abusive father with token resistences and petty remarks even though most of the time I crumpled under the slightest pressure and spent my time ignoring the problem or dissociating or trying very hard to avoid future conflicts. You put up a token front of fight even if that's never going to be your primary response for the sake of your own mental health, really. To assure the world- and *you*- knows that you don't *want* this situation. So you can say you tried. Out of some misguided hope that your attempted bravado won't be seen through and that maybe this time they'll just stop pushing instead of calling the bluff. Which. Makes sense with Grian as well. I mean looking at the times he really truly goes off before reverting back to a more appeasing stance, most notably his rants from when Taurtis first got his memory back as well as from when he got out of the basement during the Starwars Cosplay Incident. Most of those rants were taken up by Grian loudly and passionately reiterating what he'd been through, insisting he was the victim, and calling Sam an awful person before the defiance fades out and he becomes more willing to just go about their day. It's one attempted push hoping the other parties present will vie in his favour and a reassertion that he's not okay with this and that *he* is being hurt which gives way within minutes to a much duller attitude. That's just a painfully familiar format. Adding on Grian's token objections/passive aggressive remarks to many situations that distress him and how quickly those objections give way as dismissed by others. That kind of behaviour feels strongly like an attempt to preserve your own mental wellbeing as much as possible with the knowledge that you tried to some extent and with just generally hearing out loud that you are the victim even if from yourself. Grian's behaviour just really feels like a facade of defiance to cover up general helplessness which makes a Lot of sense for the scenario. Probably more than just plain defiance would.

[nebraska-is-a-myth]

oh dreammmm. Shut up Tommy.

Okay so I was watching Tommy's stream today and it gave me this very out of character idea for my crime au.

The pilot episode: 2 & 4

Masterlist

Its a few days after the dream teams public execution that terrorized the city. 

Dream, George and sapnap are hanging out in a backstreet bar that's notoriously know to be one of the many criminal friendly bars around the city. Even though all of their faces were partially revealed to the public, nobody seemed to bat an eyelid at the trio. They didn't even look like criminals at all to be honest

They were all laughing and joking and just having an all round good time

Until dream heads home early to feed his cat, and feels a presence behind him as he walks through the streets to his apartment.

He turns round and pins the person to the alley wall just as he felt a hand near his back pocket

“Woah-o-ho okay okay” Dream swears he hears the guys voice crack

“Hey man, that's my bad. I’m sure we can work things out, just please don't shank me, my mum wants me home by 11.”

Dream furrows his eyebrows and looks the guy up and down.

Actually, now that he thinks about it, he looks more like a kid

He’s got a thin frame and straggly hair that he cant tell weather its light brown, or just dirty. His face is red but mostly pale with a few cuts and a large purpling black eye on the left side of his face. The kids facial expression takes dream by surprise. He doesn't look like someone whose being pinned to the wall by, basically a mass murderer. 

In fact, he looks like someone he knows.

“Tommy?”

This is the kid that used to follow techno everywhere.

“Well I mean yes but, h-how do you know that if you don't mind me asking big man.”

Dream releases Tommy and steps back from the wall, the kid looks confused but he follows closely behind when the taller of the two motions for him to join him out of the alley.

Tommy smirks for a second until dream turns back around

“Wallet first.”

Tommy sulks for the rest of the walk

Its a few months later and Tommy looks a bit older, he’s still covered in bruises and his hair is still dirty. He’s sat on top of one of the larger buildings in the city, swinging his legs over the edge and looking down into the street below 

He knows Wilbur will be worrying where he’s gotten to, especially since tensions in the city are so high right now, but he needed to get away. He needed time to think.

He looks up to the stars and thinks of how alone he felt when techno disappeared without a trace. Remembers feeling so upset with the world, so worthless and lost. He still thinks it was his fault the kingpin of the city went away. Maybe he had finally gotten fed up with Tommy, maybe he’d annoyed him too much, he knows he was defiantly being too clingy. And he thinks a part of him will always deem himself to be a burden to others.

But then he met dream, and life changed.

( Or rather, he pickpocketed dream and suddenly this strange man he tried to steal from wanted him in his life )

And suddenly he felt less alone

He learnt very quickly that the man he tried to pickpocket was in fact the masked man he’d been watching all over the news, and man did he annoy the hell out of the dream with the amount of questions he asked.

He didn't know why the older man wanted to keep him around, especially since he knew of his close connections to his ( former ) rival technoblade, but he was very grateful for the friendship regardless.

Dreams friends weren't as quick to trust him, and tommy didn't blame them. ( He did try to steal a number of there possessions )

He remembers the first heist dream ever brought him on. He was supposed to be on crowd control with sapnap, but one of the hostages lunged at Tommy when sapnaps back was turned, wrestling the startled kid to the ground. Tommy was never the best at winning fights, he usually just let his opponents get a few hits in and then they would usually walk away with whatever possessions he had on him, but this guy wasn't backing down. 

He hit Tommy a few times before taking the gun from his hands and pointing it in his face. He remembers this as one of the only times in his life he showed how truly scared he was infront of other people.

The guy tried to use Tommy as negotiation to let everyone out of the bank unharmed, neither sapnap nor George knew how to handle the situation, but as soon Tommy saw Dream re emerge from the vault pistol in hand, he didn't feel scared anymore.

Tommy smirks at the memory and looks up from where he was watching his feet swing back and forth, in the distance he sees the rubble of the bank and he almost wishes he could go back to that day just to see if he could tell if Dreams worry was just another ploy for the public .

The young boy hears the creak of the metal door behind him and he knows its Dream. He doesn't turn around to look at the man, he doesn't even really want to have this conversation, but he cant pretend like there's nothing wrong forever. Dream knows him now, knows his queues and quirks and even through the stress of an incoming war, he knows that Tommy's upset.

“Shouldn't you be in l’manberg”

Dream doesn't join tommy on the ledge 

“You know its not safe for you here.”

Tommy doesn't look at him

“Tommy”

“What dream!”

“Oh so its dream now is it.”

“Yeah its fucking dream”

“What the hell Tommy, what's you deal man .”

“What's my deal? I’ll tell you what my fucking deal is.”

Tommy stands up from the ledge and pushes himself into dream space. “Why were you so persistent to become my friend ay. You knew, you knew I had connections to techno, pretty fucking close connections dream. And even when the people you trusted with your life told you over and over again that I was gunna fuck you over, you went against them to keep me, fucking me in your life. Why the fuck did you want a scrawny ass, shit for brains, worthless fucking kid in you life dream? Was it to get back at techno? Was it ! Because I cant think of any other fucking reason dream!” Tommy was so caught up in his own anger he almost didn't hear dreams reply.

“He asked me to!”

Tommy's breath hitches and he feels like times stood still, for a second he forgets how to breath, how to think. He doesn't know how to feel.

Tommy watches Dreams facial expression, only just notices that he hasn't got his mask on. He watches Dream furrow his eyebrows and then soften as he try's to put his hand on Tommy's shoulder, but the younger boy just swats his hand away. “Don't touch me.” Tommy try's to be aggressive but Dream sees how tired tommy is and he notices the tears building up along his waterline.

Its a while before Tommy speaks again

 “What do you mean, he asked you to.”

“He didn't do it in person, probably would have shot him otherwise. He sent me a letter, few days after everyone realized he’d gone for good. It was smart, sending something that wasn't digital, probably would have been hacked by some shitty fangroup by now. Told me he was going, and that he probably wasn't going to come back. Told me to look out for you, to tell you not to go looking for him, and than none of this was your fault cause he knew you were a stupid kid who would blame everything on yourself.”

Tommy's a lot calmer now, he still feels tears threatening to spill but he doesn't make an effort to wipe them away. “Why didn't you tell me.”

“Didn't think it would make a difference. Thought it would just make you think I was only looking after you because of a debt.”

“Arnt you?”

“You think Id put up with your teenage bullshit for this long if I didn't care about your stupid ass.”

Tommy searches his friends face for anything, any indicator that he was telling a lie. Out in the field when his masks on he’s unreadable, his expression is worthless because everything he does is an act. But when he’s talking to his friends, in the comfort of their headquarters or their apartment, his expressions change like the weather. So when Tommy sees dream give him warm eyes and a soft smile, he cries.

He sobs and falls into dreams arms. He wraps his arms around his friend and for the first time he hugs dream without feeling like a burden of any kind and he feels like the world has been lifted from his shoulders.

Dream lets Tommy sob into his embrace for a while before he addresses the elephant in the room. “Your not safe outside l’manberg Tommy.”

“I know.” Tommy mumbles into dreams tear stained shoulder.

“You know I cant promise that your friends wont get hurt tomorrow.”

Tommy only nods at this

“Knew you'd be to stubborn to give up on this.”

Tommy smiles and lifts his head, “Have my disks thought you nothing old man.”

“Hey! I'm not that old.”

They step away from each other now, Tommy hovers at the door to the roof. The sun would start to rise soon, and he needs to get back to his part of the city before Wilbur has a heart attack. They stand there, so many things left unsaid. Tommy wants to tell dream to spare Tubbo, to make him tell the Dream smp not to kill his friend, but even Tommy's immunity is falling apart at this point. Dream wants to tell Tommy to convince his friends to surrender, he doesn't want the boy to see the bloodshed. Maybe he even wants to convince him not to take part in the war at all, but he knows his attempts would be futile.

“Hey, whatever happens out there tomorrow.”

Tommy cuts dream off and just nods “I know.”

They look at each other one last time, both wishing tomorrow would never come. Tommy's eyes water again, he knows he’s doing the right thing, for him, for his friends, and for l’manberg.

Tommy slips out the door and he never looks back

[mfb-better-fury]

Episode 3

Day

? Leone VS Storm Aquario continued

As the blinding light begins to fade, Hikaru and the others hesitantly uncover their eyes. The stadium is wrecked though both beys are still spinning; Infinite Assault has been canceled out. Hikaru’s gaze however is above the stadium, her eyes wide. From within the waters of Aquario’s spirit appears a mermaid of blues and purples, which Hikaru realizes looks like her mother.

As the others watch the spectacle in amazement, Kenta calls attention to Aquario as it runs recklessly around the destroyed stadium. A quick scan from Madoka brings the discovery that just like Leone, Aquario has suddenly changed forms.

Hikaru’s attention is torn away from the spirit as she takes note of her bey running wild. She pushes for control, trying to tell Aquario to settle down to no avail. Kyoya realizes there is no way for her to crash Aquario to a halt like he’d done with Leone the day before, and the destruction is quickly starting to grow. Noting Hikaru’s growing panic, he quickly calls for Lion Gale Force Wall. Aquario is swept up in the winds along with all the debris it had created. Hikaru watches Aquario’s new spirit swirl along the edges of the twister as if swimming up it, then launches into the sky along with the bey itself.

From the sideline, Gingka shouts to Hikaru that this is her bey and her rules, and she can make it come to its senses if she reaches out to it. Hikaru doesn’t understand, too scared to think straight. The crushing cold has begun to grab at her and it’s getting hard for her to stay on her feet.

Ryo now calls out to her, saying that her and Aquario’s spirits are intertwined. What she wishes for most of all, Aquario will respond to no matter what. He believes in her strength and the others voice their agreements. Teary-eyed, Hikaru raises her head to stare up into the sky where Aquario has not yet come down from. She then shuts her eyes, grits her teeth, and thinks: “All I want is for this to be over. That’s enough, Aquario. It’s enough!”

Out loud, she screams Aquario’s name. A few seconds later the bey glints off the sun as it begins its descent, hurtling towards Leone and ripping through its tornado. There is a huge explosion that knocks both Hikaru and Kyoya back. When the smoke clears, both beys are still upright, but Aquario swerves on its own for just a few moments more before coming to a stop to spin in place.

The others are rushing down to reach their friends; Kyoya is struggling to sit up while Hikaru is too stunned by the events to try the same. She can only roll onto her back and stare at the sky, trying to catch her breath. Even as she lies there she watches Aquario’s new spirit come into her line of sight, now calm and slow, and she can’t help but ask herself silently what in the world is going on.

Tobio and the boy arrive at a tea shop. At this point, the boy is having to lean on Tobio for support due to the exhaustion and injuries he obtained while being chased by Johannes. Tobio calls to Ryutaro at the counter to get the first aid kit; after taking in the situation, Ryutaro disappears to the back. Sitting at the counter with a cup of tea, Tetsuya watches this though has little interest.

Not wanting to make the boy walk much farther, Tobio helps him into a seat at one of the tables and asks another worker to bring over a glass of water. He then asks the boy how he’s holding up. The boy starts to say he’s alright, but decides to say the truth – he’s completely exhausted. Tobio remarks on the battle he’d seen and asks what it was about, but the boy shakes his head and answers that he’s not entirely sure. In his mind, however, the boy muses that the stranger was working awfully hard to stop him, and wonders if he could be…

They are interrupted by Ryutaro bringing the first aid kit over and asking the boy to turn towards him. From what he can see at a glance he can guess there may be a few bruises but there doesn’t seem to be anything serious, though they should clean the scrapes and a slightly bleeding wound on the boy’s hand. He then asks the boy for his name, introducing himself as well.

The boy is once again silent and contemplative for a few seconds before answering – Yuki Mizusawa. Tobio now asks what he’s been wondering about – if Yuki might know Madoka Amano. Though startled at this, Yuki nods and admits something that surprises them both – he and Madoka are cousins. He then adds that he needs to speak to her and Gingka immediately.

After exchanging a glance with Tobio, Ryutaro tells Yuki that he won’t be going anywhere until he’s patched up and rested. Madoka wouldn’t want him neglecting his health just to visit her. Yuki wants to protest but has to admit they have a point.

Tobio assures him that they’ll get him to Madoka first thing tomorrow morning. Today he’s had a rough battle and he won’t be able to explain whatever important thing it is he has to tell Gingka if he can’t even stand on his own two feet. After another pause, Yuki finally seems to drop a little bit of his wariness and thanks them. He then thinks to himself that surely Madoka has noticed what has happened and must already be working toward ensuring the safety of the star fragments.

The main group has relocated to one of the waiting rooms in the arena. Hikaru is curled up on the cushioned bench with Ryo’s jacket across her shoulders; her face is hidden against her knees. The transformed Aquario sits on the table while everyone else is gathered around. Madoka is the only other one sitting, trying to analyze Aquario.

Ryo enters the room with a water bottle, which he tries to give to Hikaru with no response. He sets it beside her and turns to the others, saying that he’s called to have the stadium repaired.

Kyoya is leaning against a wall and staring at Leone. He recalls, like Benkei, the way that the light hit him the night before last. He wonders internally if the same thing happened to Aquario, but recognizes that Hikaru is in no condition to answer questions right now.

Gingka starts to say they can call someone for Hikaru but falters as he realizes he’s not sure who they would call in the first place. It suddenly hits him that though she’s worked with his father for months, they really don’t know anything about her.

Seeing Gingka’s hesitation, Ryo offers to call Hikaru’s uncle. Though Hikaru doesn’t lift her head, she nods. Seeing this Ryo kneels in front of her and gently promises that everything will be alright, and all she has to worry about doing right now is getting some rest. They can meet back up tomorrow and try to figure things out. There’s a pause before Hikaru murmurs an apology about the stadium; Ryo chuckles lightly and assures her that it’s no big deal at all. She was able to get her feelings across to Aquario and prevent it from doing further damage – she should be proud of that.

Hikaru does not respond; instead, she curls in on herself more. Ryo pats her head before standing back up and telling the others to go home and get some rest as well.

Finishing her analysis of Aquario, Madoka closes her computer and tells the others that she’d like their meeting place to be the B-Pit so she can collect more thorough data on the two transformed beys. As she stands up she adds that Benkei should join her now and they’ll get started on fixing Bull, to which he agrees.

They all say reassuring goodbyes to Hikaru and make their way out, with Madoka placing Aquario beside Hikaru on her way. Gingka lingers just long enough to tell Hikaru that she doesn’t need to rush anything and they’ll all be there for her. Ryo steps into the hallway to call Hikaru’s uncle, leaving Kyoya the only one remaining with her. Rather than leave, he looks at her for a moment before walking to the table and taking a seat. Neither of them say a word, though Kyoya glances at Aquario.

As Madoka and Benkei are making their way back to the B-Pit, Benkei speaks up, wondering if he can ask her something. He mentions that she’s seemed distracted since all this started and he wants to know what’s on her mind.

Madoka hesitantly admits that she feels as though she’s forgetting something. ‘Lights from the sky’ feels like something she should know about. Benkei is rather confused by this, and they both spend some time walking in silence thinking it over.

After they’ve crossed a street, Benkei exclaims that she must be thinking about the legends of Koma Village and the origin of beyblade. He’d almost forgotten himself what they’d learned from Ryo during Battle Bladers due to everything else that had been going on. Finding that Madoka has stopped in her tracks with a strange expression, he interrupts himself and asks if she’s okay.

Madoka slowly mumbles the beginning of the legend in question – “Long long ago, a star fell from the sky”. After some seconds of deep thought, she jolts in realization – “That’s it! I’m so stupid!”

As Madoka suddenly takes off running, Benkei is forced to chase after her without an answer to his baffled, “What is it? Madoka!”

In Yuki’s observatory, a phone begins to ring in the darkness. The Caller ID lights up with “Madoka”.

Now in her workshop, Madoka is on the phone in her workshop and slams it down in frustration when she ends up with no answer for what is implied to be the third time. As she tries to think of what else to do, Benkei attempts to ask again what she figured out. She doesn’t seem to hear him until he grabs her shoulder to get her attention, telling her to calm down and explain to him what the problem is.

Though she doesn’t do much in the way of calming down, Madoka explains that it’s complicated, but she knows someone who she’s sure would be able to tell them exactly what’s going on, as her own memories are foggy after so long. Benkei doesn’t understand the latter part of her explanation, but focuses on the former, asking if there’s another way to contact them. Madoka tries again to think while Benkei makes a few suggestions – a different number, an email…

Once again Madoka is hit with the answer and she quickly pulls out her laptop, going to her contacts. She stops at Yuki’s name, then thinks to herself that if he doesn’t answer this time she’ll break into the observatory and dig him out of his research in person.

A car stops in front of a small house, Hikaru in the backseat with Ryo’s jacket still wrapped around her. She doesn’t immediately register when the driver tells her they’ve arrived, then jumps a bit when he says her name. Quickly apologizing, she opens the door and gets out; she stops to thank “Uncle Akito” before heading inside. Aquario is currently held tightly in her hand.

When she enters, she hears the TV on and follows the sounds of an action movie to find the woman from Episode 1 with the long blue hair – her mother – in the living room. After a glance at the TV, she asks if she’s rewatching the same movie as when she and Kyoya stopped by to pick up her launcher. Her mother laughs and mutes it, explaining that it’s not her fault the station decided to play it twice, but she quickly notices the state Hikaru is in and urges her to sit down while she makes some tea. As Hikaru sits, her mother stands with the help of her cane.

After Hikaru has explained everything, their cups are nearly empty and Aquario is sitting on the coffee table. As Hikaru stares ahead at the still-muted TV, her mother picks the bey up to examine it more closely. After a moment of doing so, she admits that she had seen the light enter Aquario, but it had been late and she’d forgotten about it by morning. She then muses that if Kyoya’s Leone had changed in response to his blazing spirit, Aquario’s change must have been prompted by Hikaru’s true attempt to try again. She also believes that Aquario’s new spirit is a sign of its belief in her.

When Hikaru expresses confusion at her mother’s claim, she is given Aquario to hold. Her mother explains that this is Aquario’s nature. When its partner reaches a certain point, whether it be by strength, compassion, or just acceptance, the raging waters will shift into an image of their partner’s predecessor. It is a reminder Aquario gives to its partner that they are not alone, and a sign that Aquario believes its partner is truly worthy and capable of great things. When she herself had reached this point, Aquario had taken a form resembling Hikaru’s grandfather. Though, she feels it’s important to add that there’s never been a physical transformation like this that she’s aware of.

“But I believe that whatever that light was, Aquario is telling you that you are capable of taking on what is to come.”

Slightly teary-eyed, Hikaru hugs her mother, who holds her and pets her hair in return.

At the tea shop, Yuki has been relocated to the break room. His injuries have been tended to and he is finishing up a sandwich when something in his bag begins to chime. After quickly brushing his hands off he pulls out his tablet, confused, then surprised when he sees the incoming video call is from Madoka. After a brief glance at his bandaged hand, he shakes his head and answers.

Madoka’s face takes over his screen and she immediately exclaims his name in some mixture of anger and relief, demanding to know why he didn’t answer the phone. He very sheepishly replies that he isn’t home to have heard it, which stops her short. She begins to ask what he means, but cuts herself off and starts over asking where his injuries came from and where he is if not at home. He brushes the injuries off as the result of a fall and admits that he’s currently in her town. This quiets her.

Madoka: “So...It really is time then. Grandpa’s stories…”

Yuki nods, now serious: “Yes. The new star fragment is finally here. And I believe they are aware of it as well.”

Still on the couch with her mother, the movie now unmuted, Hikaru is curled up and idly doodling on her tablet when it notifies her of a new email from Madoka. It reads: “Come over tomorrow morning as soon as you can. I know what’s going on.”

In Ryo’s office, he and Gingka see this email and exchange confused looks.

At Kenta’s house, he reads the email on the computer and wonders if they’re about to get caught up in another big mess.

Kyoya sits on the edge of a rooftop as he reads the email from a beat-up cell phone. He then looks up at the sky, his grip on Leone tightening as he does so.

[per-ineptia-ad-astra]

Star Trek Episode 1.24: This Side of Paradise

AKA Yet Another Creepy Utopia Planet

Our episode begins with the Enterprise heading in to orbit around an Earthy-looking planet named Omicron Ceti 3. Omicon Ceti is a real star, by the way—also known as Mira or Mira A, it’s a red giant and part of a binary star system with its sister Mira B. It’s not a real likely place to go looking for such a nice homey sort of planet, though, because Mira is a pulsating variable star, which means its size and brightness is constantly fluctuating, and it’s hard to evolve life when your sun keeps flickering like a neon sign in a noir movie all the time.

Uhura reports to Kirk that she’s been transmitting a contact signal every five minutes just as he ordered, but she’s only getting dead air in response.  Kirk tells her to keep it up until they get into orbit, then moves on to talk to Spock. “There were one hundred fifty men, women and children in that colony,” he says. “What are the chances of survivors?”

Looks like the chances are, uh...not great. And by ‘not great’ I mean ‘nonexistent’. Spock explains that ‘Bertold rays’ are a recent enough discovery that there’s still a lot not known about them, but one thing that is for sure known is that exposure to these rays causes living animal tissue to disintegrate. Nasty. Evidently this planet is heavily exposed to these rays, because a group of colonists-- “Sandoval’s group”-- came here only three years ago and Spock says there’s no possibility they could have survived. Well why the heck would anyone build a colony in such a place? All Spock can say is “They knew there was a risk.”

Kirk questions whether they can risk sending a landing party down under such conditions, but Spock says the disintegration doesn’t start immediately, so they’ll be alright if they don’t stick around too long. The helmsman reports that they’ve successfully established orbit, and he’s found a settlement—or at least, something that was a settlement at one point. Kirk tells Spock to equip a landing party of five to accompany him down there, including a biologist and McCoy. That’s gonna be a fun mission briefing. “Yes, we're beaming down to a planet bombarded with deadly radiation, but no need to worry, crew, your tissues will probably only disintegrate a little bit."

Sometime later, the landing party—Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Sulu, a blueshirt and a goldshirt—materialize into a meadow near a dirt path and a picket fence. They’ve thoughtfully arranged themselves into a nice alternating pattern.

[ID: A shot of a sunny meadow with a dirt road, a few trees and a white picket fence in the background. Newly beamed down are six Enterprise crewmembers standing in two rows: in the front are Kirk and Spock, in the back are McCoy, a goldshirt, a blueshirt, and Sulu.]

The goldshirt, incidentally, is DeSalle, who we last saw back in The Squire of Gothos. The character was originally written for this story as Lt. Timothy Fletcher, but was changed to DeSalle after the production crew realized they’d cast an actor who had already appeared in the series. Yes, really. AGAIN. The blueshirt is Kelowitz, who showed up briefly in The Galileo Seven and Arena, and likewise started out as another character but was renamed after being cast. I don’t know how this situation managed to happen so often on TOS, but apparently it did. At least they both seem to have managed to hold onto more or less the same positions that they had the last time we saw them, a rare feat for any minor TOS crewmember.

The group walks forward towards some nearby farm buildings arranged around a dirt yard, with a horse-drawn cart sitting out in front of one of them. But there’s no horse to be seen, and no people either. They wander through the yard and over toward what looks like a paddock, but without any animals in it. Everything seems quite thoroughly deserted.

Kirk leans on the paddock fence and glumly muses, “Another dream that failed. There’s nothing sadder. It took these people a year to make the trip from Earth. They came all that way...and died.” Hold on, it took them a year? What, do they not give colony ships warp drives? Did they have to hitchhike here?

“Hardly that, sir,” someone says, and suddenly we see three men in green jumpsuits standing at the edge of the yard, looking very relaxed and also very not dead.

As the landing party all turn around to stare in shock the man in front strides forward and says, “Welcome to Omicron Ceti 3. I’m Elias Sandoval.” McCoy looks like he’s getting ready to spray the dude with holy water.

After the titles, we get a brief captain’s log to sum things up, just in case everyone forgot what happened during the commercial break:

“Captain’s Log, Stardate 3417.3. We thought our mission to Omicron Ceti 3 would be an unhappy one. We had expected to find no survivors of the agricultural colony there. Apparently, our information was incorrect.”

The colonists start happily shaking hands with the landing party—but happily as in “oh, it’s so nice to meet you” not “oh thank god you came to rescue us we’re all on the brink of death”. Sandoval says they haven’t seen anyone outside the colony since they left Earth four years ago, although they’ve been expecting someone to come by for a while. Apparently their subspace radio didn’t work right and they don’t have anyone who could “master its intricacies”. Now, I’m no expert on establishing colonies on alien planets, but ‘person who can work our only communication device’ does rather seem like a position you would want to make sure was filled before you left.

Kirk has to explain that they haven’t come to visit because of the dead radio. He does not explain why they did decide to come when they did. Spock’s comment about the colonists knowing there was a risk indicates that whether or not Bertold rays specifically were known about before the colonists left, they at least had reason to believe there was something dangerous about the planet. So why’d the Federation let them go and then wait another three years before sending anyone to check up on them? Eh, probably just another failing of twenty-third century space bureaucracy.

Sandoval’s not bothered about it, though. He tells Kirk that it doesn’t make much difference—the important thing is the party is here now and the colonists are happy to see them. Then he invites them on a tour of the settlement and casually strolls off, leaving the landing party to stand there and try to process what the hell they just witnessed.

“Pure speculation, just an educated guess...I’d say that man is alive,” McCoy says. Thanks Bones.

Spock says that his scans show that the planet is getting ray’d just as their reports indicated, so that’s not the issue. Under this intensity, the landing party could safely hang out here for a week if necessary, as per the usual Star Trek rule that you can be exposed to a deadly thing and be just fine up until the exact moment it kills you, but there’s a mighty big difference between a week and three years. Or as Kirk succinctly puts it, “These people shouldn’t be alive.”

“Is it possible they’re not?” Sulu asks. Great out of the box thinking there Sulu, love it.

Kirk takes a moment to consider that, which is fair—compared to the kind of weird shit they’ve encountered so far, the walking dead wouldn’t even stand out that much. But McCoy points out that when they shook hands with Sandoval, “His flesh was warm. He’s alive. There’s no doubt about that.” Spock fires back with a reminder that, “There’s no miracle connected with [Bertold rays], doctor, you know that. No cures, no serums, no antidotes. If a man is exposed long enough, he dies.” Okay dude, calm down, all McCoy said was “he’s alive” not “my god! Bertold rays have been fake all along! wake up sheeple!"

As Kirk points out, this whole debate is pretty pointless anyway for the moment—they’re arguing in a vacuum, and they’ll need more answers if they want to get anywhere. So they go to follow Sandoval, who leads them towards a nearby farm house, while a few colonists do various farm chores nearby. Sandoval explains that the colonists split into three groups, with forty-five people at this settlement and two more settlements elsewhere on the planet. Apparently they thought that arrangement would give each group a better chance for growth, since if some disaster struck one group the other two would probably still be alright.

“Omicron is an ideal agricultural planet,” he says. “We determined not to suffer the fate of the expeditions that went before us.” It’s rather vague what expeditions he’s referring to here, since at no other point in the episode are any previous attempts at settling Omicron Ceti 3 mentioned. But given that Sandoval specifically mentions the possibility of disease afflicting one group as a reason to split up, and Spock earlier said that Bertold rays were a recent discovery—and that the colonists knew coming to Omicron Ceti 3 was risky-- it seems possible that previous groups tried to settle the planet and, without knowing about the Bertold rays, mistook their effects for some kind of disease native to the planet. Of course that doesn’t explain why this group of colonists decided it would be a good idea to try to settle here again anyway, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the past few months, it’s that not everyone sees the possibility of dying to a terrible disease as a compelling reason to change their plans in any way.

As they stand in the farmhouse talking about this, a woman steps forward from another room in the house. She’s in soft focus, just in case we might forget she’s a woman, and instead of the green jumpsuit all the male colonists are wearing, she’s wearing green overalls over a lavender shirt, a combination that somehow manages to be an even worse fashion disaster than the jumpsuits themselves. She starts to say something to Sandoval, then stops in surprise as she sees the landing party. But for once the romance-o-vision isn’t for Kirk—it’s Spock that the camera zooms in on as the woman stares at him.

“Layla, come meet our guests,” Sandoval says cheerfully, oblivious to the wistfully romantic background music. He introduces her as Layla Colomi, their botanist. Layla says that she and Spock have met before, but “It’s been a long time.” Kirk gives Spock a bit of a side-eye for that, but Spock offers no details.

Well, all romantic tension aside, they do still have a mission to attend to here, as Kirk reminds Sandoval. Sandoval tells them to go ahead with any examinations or tests they want. “I think you’ll find our settlement an interesting one. Our philosophy is a simple one: that men should return to a less complicated life. We have few mechanical things here, no vehicles, no weapons. We have harmony here. Complete peace.” Oh yeah, that bodes well. Remember the last place we saw complete harmony and peace? At least that explains why everyone on this farm is using equipment straight out of Stardew Valley, which is presumably not the most advanced agricultural technology available by the twenty-third century. I’m not sure why Sandoval’s idea of a simpler lifestyle excludes vehicles, though. They’re not exactly the most recent thing on the timeline of human technological advancements.

Sandoval tells the landing party to make themselves at home, and they all head off. All except for Spock, who lingers just a few seconds more to give Layla a completely neutral look before walking away as well.

Everyone goes off to conduct their respective investigations. Sulu and Kelowitz wander through a yard over towards another farm building. Kelowitz isn’t sure what exactly they should be looking for, though. “Whatever doesn’t look right—whatever that is,” Sulu replies, climbing up to sit on a railing on the building’s porch. “When it comes to farms, I wouldn’t know what looked right or wrong if it were two feet from me.” I hope you enjoyed that line, because “didn’t grow up on a farm” is about all the backstory TOS is going to give us for Sulu until the movies.

[ID: Three screenshots showing Sulu pulling himself up to sit on the railing of an old-fashioned farmhouse as he says, "When it comes to farms, I wouldn't know what looked right or wrong if it were two feet from me." Growing up from the ground nearby are two large plants with thick brownish-purple stems and large pink flowers on top.]

Hey Sulu, what's that about two feet from you? Oh well, I'm sure it's not important.

Kelowitz opens up a nearby barn and notes that there’s no cows there—in fact, the barn isn’t even built for cows, just for storage, and indeed it only looks big enough to be useful for holding cow, singular. Having a storage barn isn’t itself that weird, although the fact that there is nothing currently stored in the storage barn is a bit strange. But also, as Sulu points out, come to think of it, they haven’t seen any animals here, native or imported. No cows, no horses, no pigs, not even a dog. Which is a bit odd for an agricultural colony. They must have had or expected to have animals at some point—otherwise what was pulling that cart?

Back in the house, Sandoval is asking Layla about Spock (once again referred to as a ‘Vulcanian’). She says that she knew Spock on Earth, six years ago. Sandoval, apparently having noticed the dreamy background music by now, asks if Layla loved Spock. She says that if she did, “it was important only to myself...Mr. Spock’s feelings were never expressed to me. It is said he has none to give.”

“Would you like him to stay with us now? To be one of us?” Sandoval asks. Layla smiles at him. “There is no choice, Elias,” she says. “He will stay.”

Elsewhere in the house, McCoy is scanning a colonist. He doesn’t look exactly happy with the tricorder result he gets, but all he says is, “That’ll be all, thank you very much,” and the colonist leaves, passing Kirk coming in. Incidentally, I can’t help but note that this room contains two paintings on the wall and what appears to be a cabinet full of china. I suppose the paintings could have been done by a colonist, but the china could surely only have been brought there. Who decided to pack fancy china on a year-long space voyage to an agricultural colony?

[ID: A shot of the interior of a farmhouse with blue walls, with a large wooden table in the middle of the room, a cabinet with china and glassware in the corner, a wooden desk with a copper tea kettle and some other kitchen items on it against the back wall, and a painting hanging on the wall showing some blurry trees. Sandoval, a middle-aged white man with short brown hair wearing a green jumpsuit, walks past the camera as he says, "Oh, captain, I've been looking for you."]

Kirk asks if McCoy’s found anything yet. McCoy replies that he’s surveyed nine men so far, ranging in age from twenty-three to fifty-nine. And they’re all in perfect condition. Not just healthy—perfect. Textbook responses across the board, from all of them. “If there are many more of them,” McCoy muses, “I can throw away my shingle.”

At that point Kirk’s communicator goes off. It’s Spock, calling in from one of the crop fields. He’s made the same observation as Sulu—there’s no life on the planet aside from the colonists and the plants. No animals, no insects. Spock doesn’t have any explanation yet, so Kirk tells him to carry on with his investigation and hangs up.

McCoy notes the absence of animals as peculiar, and Kirk says it’s especially so because the expedition records show that they did bring animals with them to raise for food. And pull their carts, presumably. But it seems none of them are still around. McCoy says he’d like to see the expedition’s medical records, a request Kirk has apparently anticipated because he’s got the floppy disc on hand with him.

Sandoval comes in and says that he’d like to take the two of them on a tour of the fields, to show off what the colony’s accomplished. McCoy says he’ll have to bow out, since he’s still working on the medical examinations. “However, if I find everyone else’s health to be as perfect as yours...”

“You’ll find no weaklings here,” Sandoval says, which uh, sure is a hell of a way to phrase that. “No weaklings! None of those miserable, pathetic sods with imperfect health! Only the strong survive! THE SLIGHTEST BLEMISH SHALL BE CAUSE FOR EXILE!”

Leaving McCoy behind, Kirk and Sandoval head out to the fields, where Sandoval gushes to Kirk about how great this place is: they’ve got moderate climate, moderate rains all year round, and the soil will grow anything they stick in it. Which is pretty miraculous, considering there’s no such thing as growing conditions that are perfect for every plant. But as we’re about to see, that’s not the only weird thing going on with their farming practices.

The conversation is interrupted by DeSalle arriving to give Kirk the biology report. Sandoval excuses himself to attend to work elsewhere, leaving Kirk and DeSalle alone to discuss the report. At first, it seems to be just as Sandoval said: they’ve got a variety of crops growing here successfully. The weird thing is that they don’t actually have very many of those crops. There’s enough to keep the colony going at the size it currently is, but barely more than that. Which tracks with what we’ve seen of the place so far: a couple of tiny fields that look more about the size for someone’s backyard garden than for a prosperous farm, tended by the occasional person idly scratching at the ground with a hoe. For a supposedly bounteous agricultural colony, that’s pretty weird. What have they been doing all this time?

“It’s like a jigsaw puzzle all one color,” Kirk muses, taking a moment to stroll a few steps away so he can say this dramatically in the distance instead of actually talking to DeSalle. “No key to where the pieces fit in. Why?”

Kirk’s communicator goes off. It’s McCoy, saying Kirk had better get back over there. “Trouble?” “No, but I’d like you to see this for yourself.” Of course. No one can ever just explain something over the phone, can they.

So Kirk heads back to the house, where the thing that Kirk just absolutely has to see for himself turns out to be McCoy just telling him what he’s found out, but he definitely couldn't do that over the communicator for, uh, reasons. What he’s found out is pretty interesting, though: McCoy checked up on Sandoval’s medical records from right before the colonists had left, which said that Sandoval had had an appendectomy, and had scar tissue on his lungs from childhood pneumonia (the weakling!). Yet when McCoy scanned Sandoval himself today, the results came back just as perfect as all the other colonists’. Kirk’s first thought is instrument failure, but McCoy says no, he thought of that and tested it by scanning himself, and it recorded him just fine, down to “those two broken ribs I had once.” Which sounds like an interesting story. But Sandoval’s scan? No scar tissue, and one healthy appendix. That’s right, Sandoval’s apparently managed to regrow an entire organ. Do you think you would notice that happening? Like, would it itch?

While Kirk and McCoy try to figure that out, Spock is hanging out in a field scanning with his own tricorder, while Layla stands nearby smiling ominously at him. Spock muses that there’s “Nothing. Not even insects. Yet your plants grow, and you’ve survived exposure to Bertold rays.” Yeah, how are those plants growing without insects? Presumably the native plants have evolved some way around that, but the ones the colonists have brought from Earth would need some help. Are the colonists just manually pollinating everything? Maybe that’s why they haven’t grown very much.

Layla says this can be explained, but when asked to do so, she just says, “Later.” Spock looks annoyed and remarks, “I have never understood the female capacity to avoid a direct answer to any question.” Hey! Cut that bullshit out. No one on this colony has directly answered a question since you got here, there’s no call to go ragging on a whole gender for it. Besides, just saying “Later,” is hardly a stunningly deft diversion, it’s not like she threw a smoke bomb down and disappeared.

“And I never understood you,” Layla says, walking over and placing a hand on his chest. “Until now. There was always a place in here where no one could come. There was only the face you allow people to see. Only one side you’d allow them to know.”

[ID: Three screenshots of Spock and Layla, a white woman with a lot of long blonde hair wearing a lilac shirt and green overalls, standing outside in a field with a large tree in the background. Layla, seen from behind, is pressing her hand to Spock's upper chest and saying, "There was always a place in here where no one could come." Spock replies "you know that's not where my heart is right".]

If Layla was hoping this little speech would prompt Spock to cry out that yes, she’s figured him out, he does love her but has never been able to show it! she’s disappointed, because he just looks uncomfortable and steps away. He tries to steer the conversation back onto the mystery of the colonists. “If I tell you how we survive,” she asks, “will you try to understand how we feel about our life here? About each other?”

That’s a pretty vague thing to make a promise about, so Spock deflects by saying that emotions are alien to him; he’s a SCIENTIST. “Someone else might believe that—your shipmates, your captain—but not me,” Layla says. Oh sure! Obviously none of the people who have lived, worked, and risked death alongside Spock can be expected to know anything about Spock. Only you are the Spock Expert, gifted with incredible insight by virtue of having a crush on him.

“Come,” she says, sauntering off through the field with her hand outstretched to him. Spock rather pointedly folds his hands behind his back instead and follows her.

Back in the house, Kirk and McCoy are struggling to have a conversation with Sandoval. Kirk tells Sandoval that he’s received orders from Starfleet Command to evacuate everyone on the colony, since, y’know, deadly rays and all that. He expects Sandoval to start making preparations. But Sandoval, calmly, casually, says, “No.” It’s not necessary, he insists—they’re in no danger.

But...but the Bertold rays. Sandoval is unmoved,  pointing out that as McCoy’s own instruments show, the colonists are in perfect health and there have been no deaths. Okay, what about all those animals? What happened to them? “We’re vegetarians,” Sandoval says blithely. Which, as Kirk points out, does absolutely nothing to answer the question. Actually it raises further questions.

Sandoval remains thoroughly unbothered and thoroughly unhelpful. “Captain, you stress very unimportant matters. We will not leave,” he says, and goes back to gazing out the window, evidently considering the conversation over.

Elsewhere, Spock and Layla are still walking, and Spock is getting annoyed that Layla still hasn’t explained just what it is they’re going to see. “Its basic properties and elements are not important,” Layla says helpfully. “What is important is that it gives life, peace, love.” Oh boy.

Spock is dubious, but Layla pulls him forward, over towards another one of those large pink flowers. “I was one of the first to find them,” Layla says. “The spores.”

[ID: A gif of Spock approaching a large pinkish-purple flower and saying, "Spores?" The flower then sprays a cloud of white spores all over his face and torso while Spock recoils.]

For a moment Spock just looks startled, but then he starts clutching his head and falling onto his knees in the grass, dropping his tricorder and gasping, “No--” For the first time all episode, Layla’s absolute serenity starts to fracture slightly. Over Spock’s agonized protests, she insists that it shouldn’t hurt—it didn’t hurt any of them. But, as Spock gasps out, he’s not like them. Whoops, did the biologist forget to account for biological differences before handing out a facefull of spores? I bet you didn’t even check if he had any allergies first, did you?

Just as it’s looking like this might put actually put a crack in Layla’s blissed-out impassivity, Spock stops thrashing about and starts seeming less anguished and more confused. Layla’s concern vanishes once again, and she goes back to smiling happily while stroking his face. “Now...now you belong to all of us...and we to you. There’s no need to hide your inner face any longer. We understand.”

Spock still seems unsure, but then he takes Layla’s hand in his and smiles. Not the slight hint of a smile or sardonic quirk of the lips you’d expect to see from Spock, but a huge, broad grin from ear to ear. “I love you...I can love you,” he says, and then he kisses her.

Hoo boy.

After the break, we get a quick Captain’s Log to recap:

“Captain’s Log, supplemental. We have been ordered by Starfleet Command to evacuate the colony on Omicron 3. However, the colony leader, Elias Sandoval, has refused all cooperation and will not listen to any arguments.”

Sure enough, we see Sandoval exiting the farmhouse, followed by McCoy and an extremely frustrated Kirk. “Captain, your arguments are very valid, but do they not apply to us,” Sandoval says, as calm as ever. He tries to walk off, but Kirk grabs his arm and pulls him back.

“My orders are to remove all the colonists,” he says, “and that’s exactly what I intend to do with or without your help.”

“Without, I should think,” Sandoval says, and strolls off, leaving Kirk standing there fuming.

Sulu and Kelowitz come walking up to report that they’ve checked out everything and it all seems normal, except for the missing animals. Of course, they also both said they had no idea what to look for in the first place, so maybe take that with a grain of salt. Kirk tells them about the evacuation orders, and says he wants landing parties to start gathering the colonists and preparing them to leave. And by the way, where did Spock and DeSalle go? Sulu says they haven’t seen either one in some time, but McCoy says DeSalle was going to examine some native plants he found. Native plants, huh? I think we can guess what happened to DeSalle.

Since Spock still hasn’t reported in, Kirk gives him a call. Or tries to, at least—Spock doesn’t pick up. On the other end of the line, we see why that is: Spock's communicator is laying abandoned on the ground, while Spock himself, now dressed in the same horrible green jumpsuit as the colonists, is stretched out on the grass with Layla, watching clouds. The communicator beeps away while Spock happily describes how one of the clouds looks like a dragon. "I've never seen a dragon," Layla says. BEEP BEEP. "I have." BEEP BEEP. "On Barengarius 7." BEEP BEEP. "But I've never stopped to look at clouds before." BEEP BEEP. "Or rainbows." BEEP BEEP. "You know, I can tell you exactly why one appears in the sky, but considering its beauty has always been out of the question." BEEP BEEP.

"Not here," Layla says (beep beep), and they smile dreamily at each other before going into another makeout session. Meanwhile, Kirk is still on the line, and not getting any happier about it. Layla finally picks up the communicator and holds it up for Spock, who takes a break from kissin' to say, "Yes, what did you want?"

Naturally, this throws both Kirk and McCoy for a loop. While McCoy stands there with a "what the fuck" look on his face, Kirk takes a moment to recover and then demands, "Spock, is that you?"

"Yes, captain, what did you want?"

"Where are you?"

"...I don't believe I want to tell you."

[ID: Three shots of Kirk and McCoy standing in front of the farmhouse, Kirk holding his communicator while McCoy looks on. Kirk has a stunned expression on his face and looks around with his mouth open, trying to figure out what to say.]

Kirk plows on ahead, telling Spock that, whatever the hell he thinks he's doing, he's got orders: they're getting the colonists out, and Spock is to meet back at the settlement in ten minutes.

"No, I don't think so," Spock says casually. "You don't think so, what?" "I don't think so, sir."

Kirk has to take a moment after that one. It's rather amazing that McCoy's made it this far into the conversation without saying anything himself. Presumably he's just in shock. Eventually Kirk tells Spock to report in immediately, but by now Spock and Layla have gone back to kissing, leaving the communicator open but abandoned in the grass once more.

"That didn't sound at all like Spock, Jim," McCoy says, putting in his bid for the Enterprise’s bi-weekly Massive Understatement contest.

"No, it--I thought you said you might like him if he mellowed a little."

"I didn't say that!"

"You said that."

"Not exactly,” McCoy protests, and then somewhat grudgingly adds, “He might be in trouble.”

I'm sure McCoy did say that, or something like it, but "I hope Spock has his brain taken over by alien spores" was presumably not where he was going with it. He obviously sees this sudden change of behavior as something to be concerned about--even moreso than Kirk, who seems more irritated than anything. But then, it's only been a couple episodes since McCoy had his own run-in with an alien influence making people act a lot more mellow than usual, and he didn't enjoy that experience at all, so it's not surprising that "trouble" is his first thought here.

Kirk tells McCoy to take over the landing party detail and start getting the colonists up to the ship, and to make sure the party works in teams of two, with nobody being left alone. Meanwhile, Kirk himself takes Sulu and Kelowitz and heads off to find Spock, using the open frequency from Spock's communicator as a homing signal. They follow a dirt path out of the main settlement and soon find said communicator, laying open and abandoned in the grass just off the path. As Kirk picks it up, they hear laughter nearby, and Sulu points in astonishment further down the path, where Layla is watching Spock dangle upside-down from a tree branch like a kid on a jungle gym.

[ID: A shot of Spock and Layla among some trees at the end of a dirt path. Layla is standing on the ground and holding hands with Spock, who is hanging upside-down by his knees from a large tree branch, laughing.]

For a moment all Kirk can do is stare weakly at this weird spectacle. Then he collects himself with a stern AHEM and marches over like a principal about to deliver some very serious detention.

Meanwhile, back at the main hub of the colony, the landing party seems to have gotten well underway with preparations for departure, with several colonists and crewmen piling up luggage and equipment in the middle of a field while McCoy stands nearby overseeing everything, a job I’m sure he’s enjoying since we all know administrative work is McCoy’s favorite thing. Then DeSalle arrives, carrying a couple of the spore flowers and tells McCoy to take “a good, close look” at them, because they’re very interesting. McCoy steps forward to check them out right before the scene cuts away again, leaving us with little doubt as to what’s about to happen next.

During that little interim, Kirk and his crew have made it over to where Spock and Layla are cavorting. Spock just grins happily at Kirk, clearly not bothered one bit, even as Kirk asks if Spock’s out of his mind. He didn’t report to Kirk, he says, because...he didn’t want to.

Kirk glances back and forth between Spock and Layla, who’s standing there smiling rather smugly, and tells Layla that she’ll need to come get ready to evacuate with the rest of the colonists. Spock cheerfully says that there’s not going to be any evacuation. “But perhaps,” he adds, “we should go and get you straightened out.”

That really doesn’t bode well, but rather than ask just what Spock means by that, Kirk tells Sulu that Spock is under arrest in Sulu’s custody until they get back to the ship. Which will certainly work out well because it’s not like Spock is strong enough to chuck Sulu all the way across the field barehanded or anything. Not that Spock seems especially perturbed about being under arrest; instead he just shrugs, drops down from the tree, and says, “Very well. Come with me,” before heading off across the field, leaving else to follow in confusion. That’s how you arrest someone, right?

Of course, Spock leads them right to another group of spore flowers, which the group stops and stares at obligingly for a moment. Then the flowers explode a bunch of spores at them. Somehow, even though he’s standing right next to Sulu and Kelowitz, Kirk manages to totally avoid getting any spores up his sinuses, while the other two are immediately affected. “Yes...I see now,” Sulu says blissfully, with that trademark Very High grin that George Takei does so well. “Of course we can’t remove the colony. It’d be wrong.”

Kirk grabs him by the shoulders—Kirk’s go-to method for snapping people out of it--but when this somehow fails to bring Sulu back to his right mind, all Kirk can do is say that he doesn’t know what these plants are or how they work, but “you’re all going back to the settlement with me, and those colonists are going aboard the ship.” This stern proclamation has absolutely no effect on anyone. The whole group just stands there happily watching Kirk stomp back toward the colony. “I can see the captain is going to be difficult,” Spock remarks.

Kirk’s day isn’t about to get any better, because upon making it back to the colony he’s greeted by McCoy, who we can immediately tell is under the influence as well because his accent is absolutely out of control. It’s so thick even the subtitles pick up on it.

[ID: A screenshot of McCoy walking through a meadow with his communicator out, saying, "Sho’nuf."]

“Hiya, Jimmy boy!” McCoy very happily says to a very unhappy Kirk. “Hey, I’ve taken care of everything. Now all y’all gotta do is just relax. Doctor’s orders!” With a very resigned look, Kirk asks how many plants McCoy’s beamed up to the ship, and McCoy says it must be going on a hundred by now.

So Kirk beams up to the ship and heads right to the bridge, where he tells Uhura to put him through to Admiral Komak at Starfleet, though what he expects Komak to do about all this I don't know. But it’s too late. Uhura turns around to show that she’s smiling as happily as everyone else, and says, “Oh, I’m sorry Dave, I mean, captain. I can’t do that.” She’s short-circuited all the ship’s communications, except for ship-to-surface, since they’ll need that for a little while yet. Then she leaves, pausing in the door of the lift to tell Kirk that it’s really all for the best.

Kirk stands there seething for a moment, then stomps over to grab a plant that’s been left in Spock’s chair. He throws it across the bridge, and the camera lingers ominously on it as Kirk heads back into the lift.

Things aren’t any better on the rest of the ship. Kirk soon finds a long line of crewmembers of all different shirt colors, patiently waiting to transport down to join the colony. Out of what I can only assume is some desperate futile hope that someone will follow his orders if he just keeps trying, Kirk orders them all to go back to their stations at once. Unsurprisingly, they all ignore him. Kirk points out to one of the redshirts that this is MUTINY! but it doesn't get him very far.

[ID: A gif showing a young white man with brown hair wearing a redshirt as he says, "Yes, sir, it is." The camera then zooms in very dramatically on Kirk's stunned face.]

So...they’re all going down to join the colony? All four hundred thirty of them? Or four hundred twenty-nine, I guess, if Kirk refuses to join the fun. That’s almost ten times the amount of people the colony currently has in it. That seems like it could present a bit of a problem, because if you’ll recall DeSalle told Kirk earlier that right now the colony’s growing enough food to feed their current population, with little left over. How are they going to handle such a large and sudden influx into their population? Do they have housing for all these people? Or are they just all going to eat dirt and sleep on the ground because they’re all too high to notice anyway?

After we’ve had a commercial break to contemplate this shocking turn of events, Kirk takes some time out to give vent to his feelings in a captain’s log:

"Captain's Log, Stardate 3417.5. The pod plants have spread spores throughout the ship, carried by the ventilation system. Under their influence, my crew is deserting to join the Omicron colony, and I can't stop them. I don't know why I have not been infected, nor can I get Doctor McCoy to explain the physical, psychological aspects of the infection."

And indeed, just in case we had any doubt, we then see McCoy strolling through the field and happily telling Kirk, “I’m not interested in any physical, psychological aspects, Jim-boy. We all perfectly healthy down here.” Kirk grumbles about how much he’s been hearing about things being perfect lately. “I bet you’ve even grown your tonsils back.” “Sho’nuf!”

Kirk tries desperately to get McCoy to do something to figure these spores out—run a blood test, take a scan, type the symptoms into WebMD, something, anything—but McCoy is more interested in rambling on about mint juleps.  Meanwhile, back in the farmhouse, Sandoval’s having tea with Spock while they talk about how nearly everyone’s beamed down from the ship and things are “proceeding quite well.” Kirk storms in and demands to know where McCoy’s gotten to, and Spock says he went off to make that mint julep. Which could prove quite difficult unless this tiny half-assed farm colony has somehow managed to set up a working distillery around here somewhere, but Kirk’s got bigger concerns right now than where McCoy’s going to get his bourbon.

Sandoval wants to know why Kirk won’t join them in their private, spore-sponsored paradise. Kirk asks where these spores came from, anyway, and Spock exposits that there’s no way to know—they just drifted through space until they arrived at this planet, which is perfect for them because it turns out they actually thrive on Bertold rays. The plants act as a repository for the spores until they can find a human—or half-Vulcan—body to inhabit. No explanation is forthcoming as to how Spock knows any of this.

Spock and Sandoval insist that the planet is “a true Eden” with belonging and love and no needs or wants for anyone, but Kirk is skeptical. “No wants, no needs. We weren’t meant for that. None of us. Man stagnates if he has no ambition, no desire to be more than he is.” Of all the things wrong with this situation I’m not sure “BEING TOO HAPPY IS BAD FOR YOU” is the take I would go with, but okay. Spock says that Kirk doesn’t understand, but he’ll come around...sooner or later.

Kirk, disgusted with this whole conversation, goes back to the ship. The bridge is dark, silent, and utterly empty. We get a slow pan of the blinking lights and displays of the consoles, with no one left to man them. Kirk walks over to his chair, hits the intercom, and starts calling one part of the ship after another, with no response from any of them. With nothing else left to do, he sits down in his chair and starts glumly recording a captain’s log so angsty it could be a LiveJournal entry:

"Captain's Log, Stardate 3417.7. Except for myself, all crew personnel have transported to the surface of the planet. Mutinied. Lieutenant Uhura has effectively sabotaged the communications station. I can only contact the surface of the planet. The ship...can be maintained in orbit for several months, but even with automatic controls, I cannot pilot her alone. In effect, I am marooned here. I'm beginning to realize...just how big this ship really is, how quiet. I don't know how to get my crew back, how to counteract the effect of the spores. I don't know what I can offer against...paradise."

Hold on hold on HOLD ON what do you MEAN the ship can be maintained in orbit for several months? Every time someone takes their hands off the controls for five seconds we get told that the orbit is decaying and they’re gonna plummet into some hapless planet within a few hours at most but now all of a sudden it’s fine to hang out up there for several months? MAKE UP YOUR MIND.

Kirk gets up to go sit at the helm, just to get a change of scenery mid-mope, and as he finishes his log/rant the camera slowly pans down to reveal the spore flower that he chucked across the bridge earlier. Which is weird because we just got a wide shot of the bridge and that flower definitely wasn’t there then.

[ID: Two shots. The first is a wide shot showing Kirk alone on the empty, darkened bridge, preparing to sit down at the helm. There is nothing in on the floor in front of the helm. The second shot is a closer shot of Kirk sitting at the helm with his chin in one hand, now with a large spore flower poking up in the front of shot.]

The flower promptly shoots Kirk in the face, and for a moment he just continues to sit there with spores in his hair and a “yeah, this might as well happen” expression. But then he slowly starts to smile, suddenly as happy as everyone else. Exactly why Kirk’s been unaffected by the spores up until now, even after hanging out for quite a while on a ship that’s supposedly been thoroughly contaminated by them, is never really explained. Maybe he's just on a lot of Zyrtec. But it seems even Kirk’s determination to not be happy can’t hold out against a point-blank spray in the face. He calls Spock to say that he finally understands now, which Spock is happy to hear. Kirk says he’ll be down just as soon as he packs up a few things, so Spock says he and Layla will wait for him at the beamdown point.

So Kirk goes off to his quarters to pack up a suitcase, the contents of which seem to mostly consist of uniform shirts. Apparently paradise for Kirk does not include one of those green jumpsuits, which, really, who can blame him. He opens a small vault by his bed and pulls out a couple of black cases, one of which he opens to reveal a medal. This seems to stir some sense of conflict because he sits down and stares at it for a long moment, but then puts it aside and heads to the transporter room, where he puts the suitcase on the platform and then prepares to set the controls.

But then Kirk hesitates, and stands there for a moment looking conflicted. Possibly he’s still having feelings about those medals, or maybe he’s having second thoughts about whether he packed enough shirts. In any case, he eventually exclaims, “No...No! I...can’t...LEAVE!” Then he punches the console for good measure.

Apparently this little emotional outburst is all it takes to cure the spores, because Kirk gasps a little, looks momentarily confused, and then seems to be back to his old self. “Emotions...violent emotions. Needs...anger,” he tells the empty room. “Captain’s log, supplemental. I think I’ve discovered the answer...but to carry out my plan entails considerable risk. Mr. Spock is much stronger than the ordinary human being.” Then he treats us to this remarkable line:

[ID: A shot of Kirk in profile at the transporter controls as he says, "Aroused, his great physical strength could kill."]

um

Down on the planet, Spock and Layla are still waiting at the beamdown point when Kirk calls Spock up and says he’s realized there’s some equipment on the ship that they’ll need for the colony, and he needs Spock’s help to get it all beamed down. Really, you’d think there’d be quite a lot of equipment on the Enterprise that a farming colony could make good use of, but I guess they’re really determined to stick to the whole no-technology approach. Despite this, Spock cheerfully accepts the explanation, gives Layla a quick smooch, and beams up.

But upon materializing, Spock is greeted not with a smiling Kirk ready to go move some equipment with his bro, but Kirk standing there holding some nonspecific heavy metal rod thing that he’s smacking threatening against his hand. “All right, you mutinous, disloyal, computerized half-breed,” he says, “we’ll see about you deserting my ship.”

Spock reacts to this bar-brawl-starter with nothing more than a nonplussed expression and polite correcting Kirk on his syntax. Kirk, determination unshaken, continues laying into him with a stream of insults that would have made that fucker from Balance of Terror go, “Whoa, hold on there a minute.” Undeterred by not being able to use any actual expletives, he compares Spock both to a machine and to various fairy-tale creatures, makes fun of his ears, and rounds it all off by having a go at the entire Vulcan race. He even insults Spock’s parents.

[ID: 1. A shot of Spock standing in the transporter room looking perplexed as Kirk, off-camera, says, "Whose father was a computer and his mother an encyclopedia?" 2. A gif from Monty Python and the Holy Grail of John Cleese as the French knight on the battlements yelling, "Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!"]

Spock stands there taking it all stoically for quite a while, even as the background music gets increasingly tense. He finally starts to crack when Kirk goes after Spock’s relationship with Layla, and when Kirk keeps going despite Spock angrily telling him, “That’s enough,” Spock finally flips out big time. You know what that means, it’s time for a STAR TREK FIGHT SCENE! This one’s got it all: close-up shots of the actors intercut with long shots of very obvious stunt doubles; cardboard props getting punched; even people picking up random unidentifiable bits of starship equipment that may or may not have ever been there before to use as weapons. The only thing we’re missing is Kirk doing some kind of weird wrestling move.

[ID: Three gifs showing a fight scene between Kirk and Spock. First we see a long shot where Kirk and Spock are clearly being played by stunt doubles, as Spock punches a metal rod Kirk is holding, bending it in half. He then punches Kirk in the jaw, sending him careening into the wall. Then a close-up of Nimoy and Shatner as Spock advances on Kirk and throws a punch but misses, denting the control panel in the wall behind Kirk. Kirk dodges out of the way towards the console, and Spock throws another punch that hits the side of the console. Then back to a long view with the stunt doubles as Spock throws Kirk into the opposite wall, which Kirk careens off of, falling on his back on the floor, while Spock picks up something resembling a square metal stool or stepladder and raises it over his head. Finally, we see Nimoy and Shatner again as Kirk lays on the floor looking up at Spock, raising the thing he's carrying over his head.]

We dramatically cut to black as Spock stands poised above Kirk, raising whatever-the-hell-that-thing-is over his head threateningly. Apparently the ad break gives him enough time to cool down, though, because instead of bringing the thing down on Kirk’s skull, he hesitates.

“Had enough?” Kirk asks. “I didn’t realize what it took to get under that thick hide of yours.”

Spock slowly lowers the thing, looking a bit regretful about having to do so. Kirk says he doesn’t know what Spock’s so mad about, anyway. “It isn’t every first officer who gets to belt his captain...several times.” Dude, you just stood there and unleashed a screed of personal and racial insults at your best friend here. A “sorry” probably wouldn’t go amiss here.

“You did that to me deliberately,” Spock realizes, and then realizes that the spores are gone. “I don’t belong anymore.” Kirk explains that since the spores are “benevolent and peaceful,” violent emotions overwhelm and destroy them—that’s the answer. Which...definitely makes sense, chemically speaking. Sure.

Spock, still looking pretty glum about all this, points out that Kirk’s method might have worked out alright for curing one person, but they’ve got over five hundred infected people down there, and trying to pick a fight with all of them probably isn’t going to go so well. But no worries, Kirk’s got another plan. He wants Spock to rig up a subsonic transmitter that they can hook up to the ship’s communications system and then broadcast to all the communicators. Spock says he can do that, but hesitates as Kirk turns to leave. “Captain. Striking a fellow officer is a court martial offense,” he points out.

Kirk mulls over that one for a moment. “We-ll...if we’re both in the brig, who’s gonna build the subsonic transmitter?” he says, and Spock concedes the point. Besides, it’s a bit late to be worrying about striking fellow officers now.

[ID: A gif from The Naked Time of Kirk and Spock standing in an Enterprise conference room. Kirk slaps Spock across the face, and Spock retaliates by backhanding Kirk so hard he is thrown across the table in the center of the room and falls onto the floor on the other side.]

But what with the insults and the punching and de-sporing and everything, it seems that something has clean slipped Spock’s mind: Layla’s still down there waiting for him to come back. As she stands around the field, McCoy wanders over and asks what’s up. When she tells him that she’s been out here for some time now waiting for Spock and Kirk to come back, he gentlemanly offers to fix that for her and calls the ship. Spock picks up, and Layla asks if everything’s okay up there.

With obvious discomfort, Spock tells her that yes, he’s...quite well. Layla, oblivious to anything being wrong, asks if she can come up there, because she wants to talk to him, and besides, “I’ve never seen a starship before.” Wait a minute, never seen a starship before? You’re on a planetary colony! What, did you drive here?

Spock asks if she’s still at the beamdown point, and if McCoy’s there. Layla says yes to both, so Spock tells her to give the communicator back to McCoy, since she won’t need it to transport, and he’ll have her beamed up in a few minutes. One might think that at this point they might take this easy opportunity to also beam up McCoy and get him cured (it shouldn’t be hard, McCoy is already 85% comprised of negative emotions to begin with), so he can start investigating these spores, just in case Operation Go For the Eardrums doesn’t work. But they don’t. Kirk awkwardly asks Spock if he’s sure about talking to Layla while she’s still spore’d, but Spock just nods and heads to the transporter room.

He beams Layla up, and she happily runs over to give him a hug—they’ve been parted ever so long, after all—but when he just stands there stiffly, not reacting at all, she slowly pulls back and says, “You’re no longer with us, are you?”

Spock says it was necessary. Layla begs him to come back to the planet and belong again, but he says he can’t. She starts crying and saying she loves him. "I said that six years ago, and I can't seem to stop repeating myself. On Earth, you couldn't give anything of yourself. You couldn't even put your arms around me. We couldn't have anything together there. We couldn't have anything together anyplace else. But we're happy here. I can't lose you now, Mr. Spock, I can't." Look, if the only time the relationship you want can possibly work out is when the other person is being mind-controlled by alien spores, I think it may be time to consider whether this is really a relationship you should be pursuing in the first place.

“I have a responsibility to this ship...to that man on the bridge,” Spock gently tells her. “I am what I am, Layla. And if there are self-made purgatories, then we all have to live in them. Mine can be no worse than someone else’s.”

Layla soon realizes that all this anguish has resulted in her getting de-spore’d as well, and she’s not happy about it. “And this is for my own good?” she demands angrily. Well...yes, I mean, it is, but Spock doesn’t say that. Nor does he respond when she asks, “Do you mind if I say I still love you?” but she hugs him again anyway.

[ID: Layla tearfully embraces Spock and says, "You never told me if you had another name, Mr. Spock." Spock replies, "You couldn't pronounce it."]

ROMANCE

We’re obviously supposed to read this little story arc as the tragic tale of true love destined never to be, because Spock is only able to express his feelings for Layla under the influence of the spores. He has experienced paradise, but alas, he cannot linger there, and so on. It’s never set all that well with me, though. The problem is we never really get Spock’s side of the story and so it leaves open the question of how much he actually did want this relationship in the first place. Layla said earlier that “Mr. Spock’s feelings were never expressed to me” so evidently he never outright said “I love you but I can’t be with you” or anything of that sort to her. When they’re alone in the field before Spock gets spore’d he seems stiff, standoffish, awkward, and deflects all of her overtures with what appears to be discomfort, even annoyance. He clearly has no interest in talking about whatever history they had together, even when they’re all alone. For all that Layla goes on about how she can see a side of Spock that his crewmates don’t, we see interactions with those crewmates multiple times throughout the show that prove that Spock is perfectly capable of showing people that he cares about them, even if the ways he does it are usually a bit atypical. We don’t see any of that in his initial interactions with Layla.

If we accept the premise that the spores only make people act as they would if they had no inhibitions or fears holding them back, then yes, Spock saying he loves Layla after he’s been spore’d would indicate that he did secretly love her all along. The problem is that we know the spores make people do things that they would not ordinarily want to do. You think all of those four hundred thirty people on the Enterprise secretly longed for a quiet life among the soil but all chose to instead join the space navy for some reason? Should we believe Scotty is actually deep down perfectly okay with abandoning his beloved ship to a slowly decaying orbit? I doubt that Kirk has always harbored a subconscious desire to give up exploring the final frontier to pursue a peaceful agrarian lifestyle, but he very nearly does do just that. So the question of how much a relationship with Layla is what Spock “really” wanted seems to be a bit hazy.

Mind, I’m not saying this makes Layla an evil person who deliberately drugged Spock so she could have a relationship with him or anything like that. It’s clear throughout the episode that the spores induce those who are infected by them to spread them around to anyone nearby who’s not in the spore fandom yet, so there’s no reason to believe Layla would act as she did if she wasn’t under the influence herself. I just personally find it hard to buy into the tragic romance of a star-crossed relationship when the thing crossing the stars is that one of the participants is only enthusiastic about the whole thing when they’re not fully sober. It makes me question how much of their previous relationship really was Spock having feelings for Layla but being unable to express them, versus Layla projecting a lot of feelings onto him and writing off his disinterest or discomfort as denial.

Kirk and Spock go back to working on the signal, while Layla deals with her heartbreak by disappearing into thin air for the rest of the episode. Spock says that the sound they’re going to send out is on a frequency that won’t be heard so much as felt, but apparently it will be felt quite emphatically. Kirk compares it to putting itching powder on someone. Which may seem like another silly technobabble deus ex machina, but speaking from personal experience, driving someone into a frantic frustrated fit by playing an obnoxious noise just on the edge of hearing sounds totally legit. All they need to complete the sensory overload meltdown experience is find a way to simulate some flickering florescent lights and put tags on the backs of the uniform shirts.

And indeed, as the device starts to work, we see Sulu and DeSalle working in one of the fields—for a certain value of ‘working,’ anyway, they’re kind of just digging around aimlessly—when Sulu accidentally elbows DeSalle in the back. He apologizes, but DeSalle shoves him back, and before long they’re having a full-on brawl right there in the field, which can't be good for the crops. As the device on the ship hums away, two more crewmembers start their own fight over by the farmhouse, and when a third tries to break them up he promptly gets dragged into it as well.

The effects haven’t quite reached everyone just yet, though, as we see McCoy chillaxing under a tree with some unspecified concoction. Sandoval strolls up and says that he’s been thinking about what sort of work he could assign McCoy to. When McCoy protests that he does one kind of work and that’s doctorin’, Sandoval says that he’s not a doctor anymore—they don’t need any doctors here.

This does not go over well.

[ID: A gif showing McCoy reclining against a tree in a grassy meadow, a stalk of grass in one hand and a grass of something brown with several leafy stalks in it. Sandoval is standing over him. McCoy says, "Oh, no?" and then slowly stands up, tosses his grass stalk aside, looks Sandoval in the eye and says, "Would you like to see just how fast I can put you in a hospital?"]

Undeterred, Sandoval says that he’s the leader and he’ll be assigning McCoy whatever work he wants to, but when he tries to walk away McCoy pulls him back and snarls, “You’d better make me a mechanic. Then I can treat little tin gods like you.” Sandoval throws a punch at him, but McCoy dodges and whacks Sandoval in the stomach, putting him out flat on the ground. See, I told you it wouldn’t be hard to cure McCoy. Everyone else on the Enterprise was perfectly happy to give up their careers to go do a bit of light farming, but tell McCoy he can’t be a doctor anymore and no amount of spores are going to save you.

While Sandoval is busy rolling around on the ground, McCoy stands there looking confused for a moment, then—presumably having only just now noticed that instead of a mint julep he’s actually been drinking a coke with a bunch of cilantro in it—throws his drink aside and admits that he’s not sure why he just clobbered Sandoval. But Sandoval has other concerns for the moment. With a look of dawning horror familiar to all us chronic procrastinators, he abruptly realizes that they haven’t actually been doing anything all this time. “No accomplishments, no progress. Three years wasted. We wanted to make this planet a garden...”

McCoy points out that the colonists really will have to leave—they can’t survive here without the spores handling all that radiation for them. But the dream’s not over; the colonists could be relocated to start again somewhere a bit less deadly, if that’s what they want.

“I think I’d...I think we’d like to get some work done,” Sandoval muses. “The work we set out to do.”

McCoy calls Spock and says that Sandoval wants to talk to Kirk. Spock notes to Kirk that the crew are all starting to rather sheepishly call in by now. Sandoval tells Kirk that the colonists will fully cooperate with the evacuation now, and Kirk tells him to start making the preparations. Real ones, this time.

Sometime later, everyone’s back on the bridge getting ready to head out. McCoy reports that he’s examined all the colonists and they all remain in perfect health. “A fringe benefit left over by the spores.”

One would think that this would have been quite the eventful afternoon for the medical sciences, given that they just discovered spores with such incredible healing powers that they can make people regrow organs, and McCoy just confirmed that anything healed by the spores stays healed after the spores are gone. Sure, they’ve got some side effects, but Kirk’s already discovered a simple way to get rid of the things once they’re no longer needed. Strap someone to a bed, give em a facemask full of spores, let them lay there for a while having a nice buzz while they heal their cancer or whatever, then play an irritating noise at them until they sneeze the spores back out again. Boom. Done. You’ve solved medicine. Or, y’know, we could vacate the planet and never speak of it ever again, that works too.

Notably unmentioned by anybody during this little denouement is the fate of the other two settlements on the planet that Sandoval mentioned back near the beginning of the episode. The length of the timeskip isn’t specified, so it’s possible that the crew went and collected them as well in the interim, but we never get any details as to how that little adventure went, assuming that it did happen and that the Enterprise isn’t about to get halfway to the next starbase before Kirk realizes he forgot something.

As they watch the planet diminish behind them on the viewscreen, McCoy muses that this was “the second time man’s been thrown out of paradise.” Kirk disagrees. "No, no, Bones, this time we walked out on our own. Maybe we weren't meant for paradise. Maybe we were meant to fight our way through--struggle, claw our way up, scratch for every inch of the way. Maybe we can't stroll to the music of the lute. We must march to the sound of drums."

Spock remains unimpressed by this bit of philosophizing. “Poetry, Captain. Nonregulation.” Kirk notes that they haven’t heard anything from Spock about this whole ordeal, since, y’know, that definitely seems like something Spock would want to talk about. He says he’s got little to say about Omicron Ceti 3.

[ID: A close-up of Spock on the bridge as he says, "Except that for the first time in my life...I was happy."]

oh my god someone needs therapy

On that INCREDIBLY CHEERFUL note, the Enterprise flies away and the episode ends.

It’s somewhat baffling to me that of all the quite reasonable objections available to the whole situation with the spores, the main problem that Kirk—and by extension, the episode—seems to have is that “the spores make things too EASY and mankind was meant to STRUGGLE!!!” I mean, effectively what we had going on here was people being drugged without their consent into a state that overwrote their own desires, ambitions, emotions and much of their individual personalities and replaced them with bland, happy conformity to a goal and lifestyle none of them actually chose. That seems a bit worse to me than “people weren’t working hard enough.” Kirk goes on and on about how the spores made things too easy, but what they really did was make people apathetic to whether they succeeded at anything or not. Sandoval’s horrified when he’s cured of the spores because the colonists had much different plans for their colony; far from making those plans easier, the spores made them impossible. The dreams and desires of the Enterprise crew for a life of exploration among the stars would have been forever unmet if they had permanently joined the colony, they just wouldn’t have been able to care. Kirk seems to believe that the ultimate evil of the spores is that they deprive people of ambition; to me it seems that the worse evil is that they deprive people of their individuality and their autonomy.

Then there’s the fact that while the spores make people happy and friendly, they also make them remarkably blasé about the well-being of anyone who isn’t part of their collective. They have to be—caring about whether someone else is upset or hurt would make them unhappy, after all. Spock and McCoy are completely unconcerned with the mounting distress of their best friend, and beyond peer pressuring him to get with the program and take the spores like everyone else, they don’t seem to much care if he remains the only unhappy person on the planet. The colonists seem completely unbothered by the fact that all the animals they brought with them died a rather grueling death by radiation poisoning. Everyone on the Enterprise is happy to abandon the ship and join the colony with no message left behind for Starfleet, with apparently not a thought to spare for any friends and family back home, who would only ever know that their loved ones disappeared into space never to be seen again.

Or at least, they would if things actually went according to plan, which they probably wouldn’t, because the spores also made everyone cheerfully oblivious to the idea that anything could potentially cause a problem or pose a threat to them. After all, if Kirk hadn’t had a recovery at the last minute, the Enterprise would have been left unmanned in orbit around the planet, with no way for anyone in the colony to get back onboard. Uhura also goes out of her way to make sure that they no longer have any off-planet communication. So it’s probably not going to be long before Starfleet notices that one of their prize starships has abruptly gone incommunicado, and I’m willing to bet they’d be a bit quicker on that investigation than they were about checking on a tiny backwater colony (although it is Starfleet, so who knows, really). And since they know exactly where the ship was headed on its last recorded mission, it probably won’t take them long to find it. If Starfleet sends another ship along to investigate quickly enough, they’ll find the abandoned Enterprise hanging out in orbit around the planet, and Kirk’s log clearly lays out what happened, so all the other ship has to do is figure out how to neutralize the spores and everyone’s going to get rescued from Omicron Ceti 3 pretty quickly whether they want to be or not.

If Starfleet doesn’t show up in time...Kirk says the ship can be “maintained in orbit” for several months, but then what? It can’t stay up there forever. Sooner or later, the orbit will decay and the ship’s going to crash into the planet, and if it crashes anywhere near one of the colonies, their magic healing powers are going to be put to the test. Also their magic agriculture powers--rich soil and mild weather is all well and good, but is that going to be enough to carry all those crops through the ensuing environmental effects of an impact that big? Especially since, as already mentioned, the colony has enough to feed them and that’s about it—so they really can’t afford to lose any crops for very long.

Sure, maybe the Enterprise wouldn’t crash close enough to any of the colonies to ruin them, but why take the risk? All they had to do was have a helmsman set it on a course out of orbit, then take a shuttlecraft back to the planet. Doesn’t occur to anyone, evidently. Nor do we see anyone bothering to bring any supplies or equipment from the ship to the colony, even though there’s gotta be lots of stuff up there that would be useful. All in all, it seems quite likely that Paradise would have eventually collapsed in on itself simply because the spores make people unable to pay attention to any potential threats or obstacles long enough to do anything about them.

So what’s the moral here? ‘Society can’t survive if everyone is stoned all of the time’? I mean, okay? Sure? Cool? Glad we sorted all that out.

That said, despite having ranted for the past nine hundred words about the weird moral, I’m not saying this episode is bad. As a serious point about human nature I don’t find it especially compelling—YMMV, but I just personally tend to side-eye stories that center around the idea of “wouldn’t it be awful if we all had it too easy??”--but as fifty minutes of extremely Star Trek-y silliness it’s glorious. We’ve got Spock hanging from a tree and talking about dragons while making out in the grass, McCoy going full Georgia and wandering about with something he thinks is a mint julep, Kirk stomping around in increasing agitation as he tries to get some sense out of somebody and then making emo log entries while he sits on the bridge alone...it’s great.

The original draft of this episode apparently had the romantic subplot be for Sulu, who would have been motivated to stay with Layla after having been diagnosed with a serious medical condition that was cured by the spores, kind of like the eventual plot with McCoy in For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky. D.C. Fontana rewrote the story to focus on Spock, since if you have an episode about something that causes a strong emotional reaction, throwing Spock and his ever-present internal conflict into the mix is kind of the most immediately obvious way to generate some pathos and drama. The spores originally granted those affected with them telepathic abilities, enabling them to link with everyone else who’d been spore’d and form a hivemind. There are some traces of this in the final episode with spore’d people talking about “joining us” and “being one of us” and so on, but without the telepathy part it just kind of makes it sound like they’re in a cult. Also, the cure for the spores would have been consuming alcohol, so presumably in that draft McCoy never got infected.

For the purposes of the Trek Tally I’m going to count the spores as a Space Disease, which might be broadening the umbrella of that term a bit but hey, close enough. Next time we’ll be looking for life, Jim, but not as we know it, in The Devil in the Dark.

[aurantia-ignis]

The Alola Pokemon League is coming to an end in the anime, with Ash vs Gladion in the finals. I’ve translated some snippets of the interviews that Okamoto Nobuhiko (voice actor of Gladion) did.

—

Okamoto’s first encounter with Pokemon was Green, which he bought when he was a second year student in elementary school. At that time, his home was very strict with the rule of ‘Only one hour of gaming per week.' When his friends played popular RPGs, they would clear the story before he even got past the first stage. When Pokemon Red/Green were released, he was playing it behind his parents’ back. He was to be in bed by 9pm, but he would hide under his futon with a light and play until midnight.

During that period, Pokemon was highly popular even in school, and he would battle his friends. In his first battle, Okamoto’s highest levelled Pokemon was a Nidoking at Lv. 80, but his opponent had six Lv. 100 Mewtwos. He was roundly defeated, but despite feeling upset about the loss he also developed a strong resolution to win.

Interviewer: “The bitterness of defeat became a springboard for you.”

Okamoto: “Yes. Somehow I really wanted to defeat the opponent’s Mewtwos without using Mewtwo, so I went through a lot of trial and error. First I tried Hypno, who could withstand Mewtwo’s Psychic, and used a combination of Hypnosis and Dream Eater, but the opponent quickly countered that with Substitute.”

Interviewer: “Huh? Weren’t you in elementary school?! That sounds rather like some high level strategising. (laughs)”

Okamoto: “I think we both took it pretty seriously (laughs). The next thing I tried was to use Chansey with Minimize. It doesn’t matter how powerful the attack is if it can’t hit.”

Despite his efforts, he never managed to defeat the Mewtwo team. Both he and his opponent were crazy about the game at that age. In middle school, he still played Pokemon, but he didn’t really continue with competitive battle after clearing them. When he entered university, his passion for Pokemon battles returned again with Diamond and Pearl.

During that time, Okamoto was spending so much time raising Pokemon that he sometimes forgot to eat or sleep. He was pretty serious about competitive battling then, creating teams around Garchomp.

When XY came out with Mega Evolution, he often used Mega Kangaskhan, armed with Power-Up Punch.

Interviewer: “In the anime, Ilima also used a Mega Kangaskhan with Power-Up Punch.”

Okamoto: “Yes! As expected of Ilima, he knows what’s up (laughs)“

Interviewer: “It’s amazing how Guzma’s Scizor managed to take those blows (laughs)“

Okamoto: “Guzma’s strategies worked out well for him. It’s not possible in the game, but in the anime, trainers can call out to warn their Pokemon to dodge attacks.”

Interviewer: “’DODGE IT!’ That's the dream of every Pokemon Trainer's in this world…”

Okamoto first started watching the Pokemon anime every week in elementary school as well. The SunMoon anime has a peaceful, slice-of-life feel, but he remembers many touching, tear inducing episodes in the original anime. He was especially touched by the scene where Ash was using his body to protect Pikachu from the Spearow. Pikachu hadn’t wanted to listen to him before, but that was the turning point where their bonds began to grow. Other memorable episodes include Bye Bye Butterfree.

When his manager said that he had an upcoming job in Pokemon as the heroine’s brother, he thought “Isn’t that Gladion? Awesome!!” 

Interviewer: ”How did you feel when you were casted as Gladion in the anime you love?”

Okamoto: “I was just really happy. When I said the line ‘Ash!’, it really felt like I was having a conversation with the Ash I watched in my childhood, and my heart was shaking.”

“My character Gladion is a cool character. The process of recording him really dug deep into the question of ‘Why is he cool?'"

"Gladion is a trainer who analyzes battles in real-time. 'If they use that move, I'll counter with this move'. He's always thinking. That's why he doesn't speak much, and watches the battles calmly, rather than getting heated. That's why he's cool.”

With Lillie and Lusamine, he shows a softer side, more of him as a young boy, because they are his family. The cool side of him retreats when he's with them. When he battles Ash, since he's older, he behaves more like an older brother teaching a younger junior.

Interviewer: “Teaching Ash sounds like it’d be rather stressful (laughs)“

Okamoto: "Yes, I almost wished to erase Okamoto Nobuhiko's memory. In my mind, Ash is this amazing skilled trainer who has gained lots of experience. But in the SunMoon anime, Ash is still young, and has less battle experience than Gladion."

Interviewer: ”Did you also have difficulties playing Gladion because there was an established impression of Game Gladion in Okamoto memory?”

Okamoto: “It was hard (laughs). I had to think of it as a different world from the game. Game Gladion was in Team Skull, but in the anime he wasn’t, and there were various other small differences. I managed to make that shift smoothly.

“His relationships with his family are quite different too. Game Lusamine had a terrifying side, while in the anime, she's a kind mother. Lillie, too, was slightly different. Though this may be different depending on person, I could sense a bit more pushiness in Game Lillie. When I was playing through the story, I suddenly found myself fascinated by Lillie. In the anime, however, I never really felt that pushiness. Though perhaps that’s due to Shindo Kei (CV for Lillie).”

Interviewer: "Lillie's speech when she performs Z-moves are totally influenced by Gladion…”

Okamoto: “She became an edgelord too (laughs). Lillie, you too!? I laughed without thinking.”

Interviewer: “How would you fight Ash if you were using Gladion’s Pokemon?“

Okamoto: "He'd definitely use Pikachu, so I'd have Silvally hold the Ground memory. I’d start with sending Umbreon out and observe how he goes. Umbreon would hold Lum Berry, moveset would perhaps be Curse/Payback/Hypnosis/Quick Attack or something. Depending on what Ash leads with, it could work. But Ash's Melmetal has extremely high defense, so I wonder if I can beat that… There are no Pokemons with really high Sp.Att in Gladion's team, so defeating Melmetal might be difficult.”

Interviewer: “That’s more from a game POV, how do you think it will go from an anime POV?"

Okamoto: "I believe the key would lie in how Zoroark uses his Illusion. It will break if he gets hit by an opponent's move, so I’d use the DODGE IT quite liberally (laughs). Maybe he could turn into Umbreon and use Dark Pulse, to continue fooling the opponent.”

Okamoto: ”Anime Silvally can change memory mid battle, so he can switch to whatever type he wants. Theoretically that makes him the strongest. But Ash’s Lycanroc is probably going to be a tough battle. He has Counter. Moves in the game that would KO can be survived in the anime with effort, so we'd have to watch out for the Counter after that.“

(Note: I used the words ‘edgey’ ‘edgelord’ in place of chuunibyou, for want of a better word. Gladion is described in the artbook as having chuunibyou traits (Source: https://www.animatetimes.com/news/details.php?id=1567911392)

---

Okamoto: “Gladion is a composed character, so whenever I put in a bit more energy, I’d be advised ‘That’s too desperate. At this point, it would feel too much like he’s on the losing side.’ I struggled over how to play Gladion as a cool character without losing that intensity.”

“Although I’ve played other cool characters, the approach to playing Gladion is different. He’s not exactly just cool; instead, he’s rather passionate. In spite of his heated passion, he analyses based on observing the Pokemon’s moves, so I thought ‘It’d be good if he could appear cool.’ (….)

“Gladion says things like “Rocks drenched in the Z aura of the azure moon” “Demonic eye of the moon! Shine upon the labyrinth of darkness!” and other edge-y lines, but I was tasked to voice them in a way where those are the ways he cheers on his Pokemon. It’s kind of like his routine towards victory. Other characters don’t do speeches like that, but his sister Lillie does the same, so perhaps it’s in the blood. (laughs).”

“There was a scene where Guzma’s partner Golisopod, returned to his pokeball after being damaged by Pikachu. At the recording studio, people were asking ‘Why did he go back into the ball?’, and I really wanted to tell them that ‘That’s Golispod’s ability, Emergency Exit.’”

“With regards to Golisopod, the staff did actually give an explanation. What surprised me was that they told me “The only one who’s ever been able to talk about the Pokemon games like this at the recording studio is Okamoto-san.” People who have been in touch with Pokemon since a young age (like me) are called ‘Pokemon natives’ by the staff.”

(Source: https://news.mixi.jp/view_news.pl?id=5780551&media_id=54&from=twitter&share_from=view_news)

[gentleknj]

soft bias tag !!!

i wasn’t tagged but i got permission to steal this from the cutest cutie aka @goldenscript so here we go!!

1. who’s my bias?

ok so if it isn’t apparent through all of the bias wrecking i’ve been through; my ult of all ults to ult is namjoon

2. what made you notice them?

mm, it was a slow build to be quite honest. i had first noticed him when i saw the run mv, he stood out from the others but i hadn’t a clue what drew me to him. and then his voice. his voice was deep and soft and lovely all at once, and it struck a chord in me. and then i think it was also his dimples. i’m such a sucker for dimples.

3. what’s your favorite thing about them?

oh god, i could go on and on. but the short version; his mind. the way he analyzes everything and makes the best decision that will have the best outcome in the future, whether or not it is an easy choice. he contemplates existence, emotions, the way music can influence others, his own actions, everything. he is so beyond beautiful and it’s not even just because he is handsome. his mind is the most beautiful i have seen, and i’m convinced that i will never love someone the way i love him purely based on the fact of his mind alone.

4. who would initiate skinship more?

i’m not one who is huge on skinship unless it’s with someone i am genuinely captivated by, so i would have to say that i probably would. i figure that he may be the one to initiate like 40% of the time, but i would definitely be itching to hold his hand or kiss his nose, touch his shoulder or something more than he would be to show skinship with me. cos once i’m infatuated by you, i want to show you off and show you that i love you at every possible moment.

5. who would hog the blankets more?

i’m sure that he would. i don’t like sleeping with a lot of blankets and i usually end up without one (or partially covered) so he can have them all.

6. who would be more clingy?

as romantic and thoughtful as we all know namjoon is, i would be the most clingy. personal sloth? yes indeed, that’s me!

7. who would say i love you first? who would easily be flustered?

he would. i would wait to say it until he did. i’m a firm believer in actions speaking louder than words, but i overthink things easily so i would rather him say it first. and that answered part two as well, i would be easily flustered by a mile.

8. what cuddling position would you have?

oof, it depends on the mood. but for the most part? definitely the super intimate face to face, limbs entangled cuddle for sure.

9. what colors remind you of them?

brown; the kind that is in a coffee shop hidden behind an apartment building in seoul. mustard yellow; like the feeling of a sunset that was long awaited, warm and comforting. white; gentle, soft and inviting. namjoon is my home and any color that gives me a feeling of comfort automatically reminds me of him.

10. what season would you like to spend with them?

autumn/fall. i could see us walking through the park on the riverside (a fat guilty pleasure of mine cos the han river is so comforting) and setting up a picnic where there weren’t many other people. and while we eat, i could definitely see a long and casual talk about the way people change like seasons and how we’ve come so far. and maybe even going off on tangents of stories from our childhood and things of that nature.

11. who would bake cookies and who would steal the batter?

i would bake and he would steal the batter. i love to cook so i would take full control of the kitchen unless he surprised me. just casually baking cookies and as i go to grab the cookie sheet and prep it for the oven, i could see him dipping a finger in the batter and looking at me with wide eyes when he’s caught. uGh my uWuS

12. who would want to adopt 50 cats and dogs?

both of us. please, for the love of everything good in this universe, don’t leave us alone in the pet store.

13. which one of you would nearly burn down the kitchen trying to microwave a pop tart and who would come to the rescue?

c’mon now, it’s namjoon. my big goofball would put the pop tart in the microwave rather than the toaster and it’s become a big mess. my poor heart would break, that good would be so panicked™️. he may be the dom in the relationship but let’s face it, i’d come to his rescue.

14. who likes to lean over tall railings and who pulls them back?

he would lean over the tall railings all fearless and if pull him back. hES SO TALL ID BE SO WORRIED HED GO OVER THE EDGE AND THEN ID PANIC and pull him back and scold him for being so reckless (i may even tear up cos the thought of namjoon getting hurt actually makes me cry why dID I DO THIS TO MYSELF)

15. what would watching a horror movie be like with them?

it depends. if it’s got good special effects and the plot line isn’t completely garbage, i could see both of us clinging to one another for support. but considering i’m a horror connoisseur, if the special effects or anything was off, i’d probably be too picky and point everything out and we’d get into a long discussion about how good horror movies should be made and forget it was even on the screen. (i would kill for a long, philosophical talk with him ugh)

16. who would be the cheesy flirt and who would be the smooth flirt?

both of us would be both. we all know namjoon is smooth, but he is also a big goof so he would probably pull some overused one liner he stole from jin. i’ve been told by @jungk0oksthighs that i’m quite smooth and flirty and that would leave namjoon in a blush mess. but in actuality i’d also hit him up with some failed one liner and be a hUGe cheese ball.

17. who would be more competitive?

me. namjoon is more laid back and works towards every accomplishment in a more level headed manner, minus the few run episodes where i could’ve swore his neck vein was going to burst. but once i get wind of the adrenaline that comes with even a simple challenge of “i could beat you at mario kart”, oh ho ho, it’s all over man.

18. who sends memes and who sends cute “i miss you” texts at 3am?

do you know who i am? if i can’t think of a response (which is often) i send memes like it’s an adequate response. and although i would send cute texts, i could see him sending “baby, i miss you” at 3 am whenever we’re apart.

this was super fun and cute and tamed some of my namjoon softness for the moment so i’m tagging @jjiminssii , @thoughtful-yoongi , @high-on-food , @promixity , @tokyoseo , @hipstaa-pleazz , @jungk0oksthighs , @anawritesgaypoems , and last but never least @kihoslisp

[leo-lucid]

Bewitching Which Monster Chapter 7: The Cliff-side

While I didn't want to talk to Endrian given that he tried to bite me before I even knew his name and he wasn't enthusiastic at all about me in general, I had to. There was space on the calendar for him and he deserved to know that he had an opportunity along with everyone else. Besides that, I was actually a little worried about him since it was getting late. Zam told me that he often stayed out late, so there was no need to worry or wait for him. Still, not even the wildest party-goers I knew back home would be out this late.

As I debated on what to do while staring out the window, I couldn't help but think about Endrian and his attitude. He was pretty rude, secretive, and seemed to have a rather short temper. He didn't seem close to anyone in the mansion. The way he treats me was less than pleasant. Was that he treated my grandmother? My grandfather? If he did, I doubt that Grandmother Rosemary would allow him to stay in the mansion, curse or not. It seemed that he wasn't confined to the house, just the town.

Thinking about it further, if he was free to roam the town, then she definitely wouldn't have let him stay with her if he acted like a distant brat. I doubted that she let Zamuel handle everything all on his own too. Surely, everyone had a job to do or part to play. My grandmother was kind and liked to take care of people. This place was a bed and breakfast on the side after all. However, nothing was for free. The would all have had time to relax and figure out what to do, but I'm positive that they all had expectations.

I wondered what Endrian's expectations were.

The grandfather clock in the room chimed as it hit three in the morning. After fifteen minutes, I got up from the couch and began to get dressed. Simple blue jeans, a fitting purple turtleneck sweater, and a black flats later, I was heading out the door and into town. The walk wasn't too bad. Only thirty minutes. The only issue I had was that it was pretty chilly outside. The autumn night air was starting to bring in the cold. I thought about turning back to grab a jacket, but I figured that I already walked so far anyways. It wasn't too bad as of that moment.

Finally, I stumbled into town. Of course, most of the buildings were closed and the lights were off, the only lights illuminating the streets being the streetlights and small neon signs to stores that just about every town had. Not many people were out either. For a minute, I actually thought I wandered into a deserted town. It felt like I was in an episode of The Twilight Zone. It wasn't until I heard the faint sound of rock music that I was reminded that I was indeed not completely alone.

I followed the noise until I saw a dimly lit bar with a few patrons still sitting inside through the windows. A motorcycle along with some cars were parked outside. Someone with fire red hair and a black leather jacket sat at the bar, facing away from the windows. That had to be him. It was hard to mistake that red hair for anyone else's. I took a deep breath and walked in, a small bell ringing to signal my arrival. No one bothered looking up, not even the bartender. This really was a small town if no one was going to look up and ask for my ID. Well, it wasn't like I planned on drinking anyways.

I nervously approached Endrian, clearing my throat to see if that would get his attention. No dice. He simply continued to drink his glass of red wine, something that was apparently served here which was a surprise. I then decided to take a seat next to him, the bartender finally looking up and quirking a brow. Instead of asking me to leave or ask for an ID, they asked what I would be having. That's when Endrian gave me a side-eye. A rather annoyed looking side glance at that. "I-I'll just have some water. Thank you."

"What the hell are you doing here?" Endrian hissed under his breath. I felt my cheeks heat up at his tone. That tone really didn't make me feel good. A glass of water was set down in front of me, which I gladly took and began sipping from.

"Y-You missed dinner and there's a fill-able calendar up. I-I was also-"

I was cut off by the sound of him setting his now empty glass down harshly on the wooden counter top. His head was turned to face me, his red eyes as cold and intimidating as ever. "Like I said before, I don't care about you or getting to know you! Go home, Anise. Go home and don't come back. This is the one place I can get some peace."

I flinched at his words, beginning to feel like a fool for coming. His glass of wine was topped off, a sigh escaping his lips before he raised his glass to drink. I held my own glass, staring down into it before downing it all. My hand reached for my wallet, but the bartender shook their head. Water must've been free around here. That was nice and good to know. At least there was one positive thing I could get out of this trip.

"Sorry. It won't happen again. I-I just. . . got worried is all. I'll leave you be from now on." I quickly wrapped up, finishing what I wanted to stay before I was interrupted. It didn't take me too long to stand and make my way out the establishment. Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw Endrian's hair shift slightly as he went to look back at me. It was probably just my imagination though. I didn't stop to look and confirm either. I was usually pretty persistent, though I hated confrontation.

This time I got the message loud and clear.

Stepping outside, I felt a light breeze along with the drop of a couple of degrees. It got colder in such a short amount of time. The iced water wasn't helping me feel warm either. The opposite, actually. I figured I better hurry home and head to bed to get warm under the covers. I should sleep as well. It wasn't in my nature to stay up for as long as I did. Zam was right. I shouldn't have waited around. Heading to bed would've been better for me and for Endrian.

My hands went up to rub my arms, trying to warm my skin underneath my sweater. A slight shiver even ran up my spine. I really should've stayed home or at the very least grabbed my jacket before heading out. My only option was to use some magic. I stopped walking, closed my eyes, and began to imagine that my soul was on fire. Slowly but surely, my hands began to emit some more heat, the warmth spreading throughout the rest of my body. This would get me by for a while. Using raw energy like this, straight from the soul without a channel, was going to drain me quickly though. I had to hurry home unless I wanted to pass out on the street.

A few minutes later and I was already starting to get tired. I had to stop putting out so much energy, already missing the warmth. Another slight shiver ran through me as more and more of the cool night hit my skin. Suddenly, I heard the sound of a motorcycle rapidly drive up next to me. Instead of continuing to drive forward, it braked beside me. Endrian took his helmet off, an agitated look on his face. He then pointed behind him with his thumb.

"Hurry up and get on." He demanded. I wasn't really expecting the command, so I blinked, figuring that I probably misheard him.

"I-I'm sorry?"

He rolled his eyes and began to put his helmet back on. "Come on. It'll take you forever to reach the house."

What he said was true. It would take me more time to walk back to the house versus hopping onto the back of his motorcycle. I hesitantly took a step forward. There were way too many articles and documentaries I've seen about motorcycle accidents. He must've sensed my hesitation, revving up his bike and waved me over. "Let's go! Hang on and you'll be fine!"

Sucking it up, I walked over and got onto the back of the bike, my hands barely hanging on to his waist. With one last rev, he sped off down the street. The sudden acceleration was not what I expected at all, causing me to wrap my arms tightly around his waist. This was not cool. How did people like this kind of transportation?

Endrian briefly looked behind him, no doubt rolling his eyes under his helmet. He then shouted something that I just barely made out. "We're taking a detour."

What? A detour? Where could we possibly go at this late hour? Before I could question him or protest, he made a swift turn and sped ahead. We were heading onto a road that led towards the forests and towards the top of the mountains. It only took a few minutes to get to a cliffside parking area given how fast he drove. We eventually slowed to a stop and the bike was cut off. Endrian removed his helmet, putting it down on the seat once I got off.

I approached the edge of the cliff, protected by a wooden fence. There was the neon and streetlights down below in the town. Meanwhile, hundreds of stars shined in the sky. The town didn't give off much light pollution, making the stars visible enough to make out hundreds of constellations. Suddenly, I didn't feel that nervous about making that detour. As I stared straight up towards the sky, Endrian stood beside me, putting his arms on the gate and leaning forwards to look down at the town. There were no words exchanged between us, but it didn't feel as awkward or intimidating like usual. I was content with not saying a word.

A loud sigh came from him which made me look back to him. His eyes were still trained on the town. "I liked your grandma. Mrs. Rosemary was actually pretty nice to me and helped me. Your grandfather was nice too. He taught me how to fix the bike. But now they're gone and there's only you."

I pursed my lips, unsure of what to say. I was finally starting to get it. For him, he was still grieving. I had my time to mourn when I heard the news and attended the funerals. That was many months ago. By the time I learned I had inherited the manor and everything in it, I had already cried it out. I was able to move on. Endian however, didn't seem to be ready to let go yet.

"I was the second that arrive at the house. This town. Zamual was here before me. I was angry and confused. I didn't know why I suddenly couldn't leave. I would ride my bike for miles and miles, but always end up back here. I eventually tried taking a different route that led me to the mansion. Despite me losing my cool, your grandma still tried to talk to me. Mrs. Rosemary sat through all of my shouting, gave me a place to stay, and said that she can try to help." He continued on, his brows furrowing and his fists balling up.

His hand then suddenly slammed against the gate. "They gave me everything I needed and put up with me for so long! They gave me support and a home, and I just complained about everything! I never got a chance to pay them back. I promised myself I would when the curse was lifted. Then, they passed away. Mr. Devane first, and then Mrs. Rosemary. No curse lifting and no one left that I could trust. Just when I thought I was getting over it, you come along and tell us this stupid way of breaking the curse!"

I didn't say anything. There was nothing that I could say that would make it better. I remembered taking the new pretty hard when I heard of their passing. The only thing that got me through it were my mothers. Endrian was taking this all by himself. There wasn't any way I could relate to that. I could only listen. However, his hands relaxed and he let out another sigh, this time sounding relieved, like he's been bottling this up this entire time.

He then looked towards me, the resentment I felt every time he looked at me gone. "You look a little like Mrs. Rosemary. Skin tone, wavy hair, blue eyes. She didn't have freckles or dye her hair purple, but you are definitely her granddaughter. I just. . . I just wish I could pay her back. One last chance to see her and give her an actual thanks at least. There's just you though."

He was right. I wasn't my grandmother, and unfortunately, I didn't hold the power of necromancy or spirit channeling. Although, I just knew my grandmother would say that he didn't need to thank her. Just pay it forward. That's usually how she rolled. So, I relayed that same message that she taught me so many times when I was younger. "I know I'm not my grandmother and I honestly can't imagine how much you've been hurting over her death. I don't envy you. If you did get to talk to her one last time though, I think she would tell you to smile and simply pay her kindness forward. That's probably not what you want to hear. It's just the truth."

There was no response. I was only met with silence and an intense stare. Resentment or annoyance didn't fill his gaze yet. I couldn't detect what he was thinking. Feeling a little awkward again, I looked back up at the stars. Endrian then stood up straight, looking like he wanted to say something. It seemed like he was working up the courage to say something. ". . . I'm sorry I've been a complete jerk to you since we met. I shouldn't have taken stuff out on you. You. . . are as blind and confused as we all are. You're just trying to help."

At that, I actually gave a small smile. I felt like I made some progress with Endrian. I genuinely thought that we could turn out to be good friends if he just opened up. There was no need to force anything and I wanted him to take his time. This was a huge step that I mentally celebrated for him. Grandma would've been proud. "It's okay. I understand. I'll keep to my promise and not bother you as much. Take all the time you need."

I turned, rubbing my arms from the cold and looked towards the bike. "I think I'm ready to head home now if you don't mind."

Endrian nodded, beginning to walk to the bike. His red eyes still stared at me, making me think that perhaps he was thinking about something concerning me. The leather jacket he wore was shimmied off and held out towards me. His face was turned the other way, preventing me from looking at his expression. "Here. Take it."

The gesture made my heart skip a beat for a moment. There was some hesitance, but I took it. It would be rude to decline. Besides that, I felt that he would shout at me to make me take it anyways. I put the jacket on, his own body heat lingering on the satin inside. The shivers went away as I began to feel warm. "Thank you, Endrian. I mean it."

"Yeah yeah. Just get on the bike already." He played off. As he got on the motorcycle after removing his helmet, I swore I could see a faint blush on his cheeks. Before I could get a real look, his helmet was on and he started the engine.

Going just as fast as before, we sped home. It was really late and I was exhausted. We quietly entered through the garage door, making sure we didn't wake anyone up. As we ascended the stairs, I took off the leather jacket and handed it back to him. "Thanks for showing me the cliff-side and talking to me. I had a good time, even if riding on the back of your motorcycle made me nervous."

"Tell me about it. You were hanging on like your life depended on it. Well, I'm heading to bed. See ya." Endrian curtly responded, turning on his heels to go to his room. I gave a yawn, figuring that I should finally get some shut eye as well. It had been a long night.

"Yo, Anise? You're. . . a little cool after all."

Before I could turn to see Endrian one final time or even reply, he had closed the door to his room. I smiled to myself and headed to my own. I was called "cool" by a motorcycle riding, leather jacket wearing vampire today. That was pretty cool.

[fallendeckerstar-old]

Lucifer 2x12 random thoughts

So disappointed the sex scene was a dream. I feel like the writers couldn't push their relationship that far without it going too fast, but they were definitely using sex to get better ratings. Tom mentioned in an interview that it was a "true plot point" and I'm just like "Nope." The only thing it shows is that Chloe still has doubts about whether Lucifer is the actual devil, which could lead into 2x13, I suppose, but meh.

OMG, the ass slap!!! I literally screamed. Also, you can tell Chloe is vanilla, 'cause a) she doesn't cup her hand properly and b) she had to extend too far and lost some momentum. She should take some pointers from Maze.

Chloe's giggle. My life is Chloe's giggle after slapping Lucifer's ass. How many takes did Lauren get to slap Tom's ass? Do actors have to consent in their contracts to sexual contact? Are their agents like, "Please take special note of Section IV on consent for ass slapping." *ponders*

"Sex with friends." OMG, Chloe’s wink. *snort* Someone is horny. And that someone isn't the devil.

LUCIFER SPENT 21 MINUTES TALKING ON THE PHONE WITH CHLOE AT 9:23PM YESTERDAY! I can only imagine the awkward/cute conversation as Lucifer tries to figure out whether Chloe actually likes him, and then Chloe starts falling asleep because she's used to waking up early to get Trixie to school and Lucifer just listens to her gently snore for a couple minutes before whispering sweet things in her ear... which leads Chloe to dream about him... Someone write this fanfiction, stat!

(Cut for length and cursing like a sailor)

I'm not quite sure what made Dan finally snap, "Dick," back at Lucifer calling him, "Douche." Is is because Charlotte was there and he felt he needed to defend his manhood? He heard about Lucifer and Chloe's kiss? Lucifer and Dan were so chummy in the last episode.

Chloe is so frustrated with Lucifer ignoring her advances and it's so cute! "Have you ever made out in a library?" Fluffy Chloe pick up lines for $100, please.

"How do I look?" "Beautiful" Awww!!!

Lucifer, don't drink from random cups at parties. You're going to get yourself roofied. Huh, that could be an interesting fanfic.

I like the fact that Lucifer brings in actors of color. I'm totally down for a dreaded African American woman being a selfless doctor. Not down for the carnage that follows. Holy shit, Lucifer writers decided to take the M rating all the way. I was fine with the steamy sex scenes, but ugh!

Chloe's jealous face. Must gif all the faces of Chloe being jealous.

Aw, Lucifer was smoking pot with the sorority girls and talking about romance. Takes me back to many a drunken conversation I had in college (although with the nerds, not the sorority girls). We had less bean bags and much smaller dorm rooms.

MUM, STAY AWAY FROM LINDA!!!

I really don't get what Mum's game is. Why does she want to tell Lucifer that Chloe is a gift from god? She realizes he may be upset and not believe her, but why would she provide that information? Doesn't she realize this will wreck her plan to bring them together? Ah, right. "It might send him over the edge against his father." Mum wants to turn Lucifer against his father and convince him to rise up and rebel and reinstate Mum to Heaven. She's too narcissistic to realize how he's going to take this revelation.

"So what you're saying is I need to find someone Lucifer trusts who is foolish enough to help me tell him." My first though was Dan. Second, Amenadiel. Maze was not in my thought process.

Ugh, I did not sign up for disposal splatter. *shudder*

Lucifer's hurt face when Chloe says they can't get emotions get in the way of them being a team and he admits someone might get hurt. ALDKFJLIEOWAFLASDKJF!

Lucifer's honest, "Get well soon," to the poison victim is so innocent and cute. And then I think about the fact that Chloe's going to be in the hospital next week, and it's suddenly heart-wrenching.

The professor saved his laptop rather than the college student. One word for the poor sap. "Backups.”

Seriously, I even have my fanfiction under revision control. Use google docs if you must, it at least keeps a record of your changes.

Dear Lucifer writers, "Lame" is an ablist slur. Please remove from your vocabulary.

Dan: "That's a rash move." Says the man who turned Warren Smith over to the mafia to be killed.

Lucifer emailed Chloe, saying "I found this video on the interent [sic] last night". I wonder what video he found? More fanfic fodder.

Chloe's username is c_decker and her user ID is 03-33658-1. Saving for the final round of Lucifer trivia whenever we finally get to season 5 and start having Lucifer conventions.

OMG, PEOPLE! Ok, so the Lucifer writers have triggered my pet peeve. Lucifer said, "We proved your theory wrong." A theory is a proven fact. You test a hypothesis. Be smart like Ella and use science jargon correctly.

"Granny panties Decker, a miracle?" Gotta love Maze.

Oh FFS Lucifer, not the wrists. Just prick your finger or something. Ok, writers, that was gratuitous. Someone should have put a trigger warning on that. Oh, wait. Shit. Maybe it's foreshadowing for next episode because Lucifer needs to kill himself to get to hell? Oh, this is bad. Like worse than when Killian Jones stepped off a roof to get the attention of his dark one girlfriend.

Yeah, uh, that was a bit much. Professor Creepy Mask doesn't have a fast-acting poison he'd rather use that will be less painful than bleeding out? Yeah, I'm not a big fan of the gratuitous violence in this episode.

"This is real, isn't it?" Forehead bumps are the best! And that moment where he finally puts his arms around Chloe and AHHH!

"The Detective and I--sorry, Chloe and I are real." F*CK ME GENTLY WITH A SPOON, he used her actual name! Next, he needs to actually use it to her face. But baby steps. *breathes deeply*

Amenadiel's 70s patterned shirt and leather jacket cracks me up. Plus the velvet curtain and towel dress. Tattered edges and washed-out exposure on the photo. A+ to the props team.

It was real Lucifer. It's going to take him a bit, but deep down he knows Chloe is honest and true. He's said so on the stand.

Peace out! Hope you enjoyed my colorful rant/review!

[womeninbusinesspodcast]

How To Be An “Alpha Female” In the Investment Community? Evan Katz CEO of Crawford Ventures, Inc

Evan Katz is CEO of Crawford Ventures, Inc., a graduate of Wharton and Harvard Law School, and a twice-elected director on the Hedge Fund Association (HFA) Board of Directors (2014-2019).  He has received numerous finance and Wall Street awards and honors, and frequently speaks and is interviewed as an expert regarding hedge funds and investing in general, and also successful fundraising in particular.

Mr. Katz’s investor relationships include some 1,000 endowments, foundations, funds of funds, insurance companies, multifamily offices, pensions, and single-family offices, which collectively have several trillion dollars of investable capital, and allocate hundreds of billions of dollars to hedge funds (typically $10-$100+ million per investor per fund).

He and Crawford may be reached at (212) 904-0909, EKatz@CrawfordVentures.com.

“Best Practices from A to Z for Successful Hedge Fund Fundraising from Family Offices and Institutional Investors – 26 Top Fundraiser Secrets and Tips of the Trade” 

Tell us about yourself? – Grew up in Long Island, New York, was a finance major at Wharton, and then Harvard Law School (same class as Michelle Obama, then Michelle Robinson).First practiced intellectual propertylaw (patent, trademark, copyright and computer/Internet law).

Tell us about what you mean to be an Alpha Female in the investment community? – Play on words, because of the meanings of “Alpha Male” (aggressive) and hedge fund “alpha” (explain).

What type of funds do you raise investor capital for? – Mostly hedge funds, private equity funds, venture capital funds, and real estate funds.  I also raise investor capital for operating companies (mostly technology and medical life sciences companies).

What do investors look for when they invest in a fund? – The “Three P’s” – Performance (track record), pedigree (at or came from top firms), and process (e.g., infrastructure, repeatable edge).

How did you get into this business? – I was a practicing attorney, had a great career in intellectual property law, but discovered that I was even better at fundraising for my clients.

You support women in the investment world tell me a little bit about your experience? – We try to (a) hire women, and (b) raise capital for funds that are owned or managed by women.  And out of the 1,000 institutional and family office investors that we work with, many take that into account.

How is raising capital for a PE or VC Fund vs Hedge Fund Different? – Similar, but different professionals at the investors.  That is, different investor professionals cover HF, PE, VC, RE.

Tell us something that our listeners would find interesting about you? – Love to cycle, and had a wine-themed wedding.Also, very proud to have gotten 15 people jobs and 8 people married!

I saw you wrote 44 (previously 26 A-Z) Top Fundraiser Secrets and Tips of the Trade (Please share some of those secrets with our listeners) – PPT is on our website.  I will review several tips.

How can someone get a hold of you? –EKatz@CrawfordVentures.com.  And our website.

When you went to Wharton, what percentage of your class was women?  How did you feel about that?  And what do you think that it was like for the women? – About 15%.  Challenging.

How do those percentages compare to the HF and alternatives industry now? – Very similar.

You once mentioned that you have attended “100 Women in Hedge Fund” events, now “100 Women in Finance”.  What was that like being one of the only men in a room with 100-200 women? – Initially, awkward, then fine.  I also first met my wife at a 100 WIHF event.

How do you try to recruit and hire more women? – By every year attending dozens of finance, hedge fund and other Wall Street events.  And we used to attend women’s finance events, but now must do not let us do so.  So, we no longer can use that as a recruitment method.

How do you and the industry try to get more women and girls interested in finance and Wall Street? – It has to start when they are young, with math, science and the math/chess teams!  We recently did a CFO search, got 100 resumes and there was not one single female applicant.  Perhaps about half of hedge fund IR is female, but less than 10% of PM’s are.

How do the returns of woman-run funds compare to men-run funds? – Similar, but less tail risk!

And how do many women-run funds and global leaders tend to handle risk differently than most men? – I will discuss differences in both hedge funds and also in the response to Coronavirus.

Investors get hundreds of thousands of pitches a year.  And they often will not even open or read pitches from people they do not know.  So, hire someone who already knows investors and has longstanding relationships with them.  He or she will close orders of magnitude more investments then you cold calling.  Give the example of two people walking down the street.

Have the right fundraiser at your firm and fund.  For example, someone who knows investors that allocate to your fund type and strategy, and has raised money for such funds.

Similarly, a fundraiser who has raised money for a fund of your size and stage.

Pitch investors that are suitable for funds with your type of strategy, size and stage.  For example, if you are a higher volatility emerging manager, more family offices will allocate to you then most endowments and foundations, which tend to look for older and less volatility funds.

Nobody invests anymore in a one- or two-man or -woman band.  You need some infrastructure and people.  If you cannot afford great infrastructure, top service providers and a dedicated CFO, sell a piece of your management company in order to get operating capital.  Getting diluted a little will be more than made up for putting yourself in a position to make your fund 50-100x larger.  Would you rather own 100% of a $10 million fund, or 80% of a $500 million fund?

Stick with standard fund structures, places of incorporation (e.g., Delaware and Cayman) and also industry standard fee structures.  Give examples of HF and PE funds that had “better fee structures for the investors”.

Be nice to the administrative assistants and treat them with respect.  They deserve it and also are the ones who can help set up your investor calls and meetings.

“Polite Persistence” – Tick tock between e-mails and calls.  A non-response is not a no!

Make a fund video!  We live in a YouTube and video age.  It gives investors a “free look” at your fund and firm, without making them commit to a 30-minute call.

Make certain that your e-mails and PPT are mobile friendly.  Not minute font!

Never e-mail investors at night or over a weekend!  I work lots of nights and weekends, and schedule the e-mails to go out the next business morning.  All major e-mail apps support.

Highlight your fund’s strong points in your e-mail header

Always give some details in your e-mail.  Use bullet points.  But not too long.  And never just say “see the attached”!  Why they should bother to look.

Always attach your documents as PDF’s.  Do not use Dropbox links.  Investors cannot access them!  Explain why.  And they definitely cannot if they are on an airplane!

Don’t repeatedly call investors until they pick up.  They have Caller ID too!

Check out this episode!

[alecia0]

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[infocampuspvt]

Future of Java: Predictions

2018 has been a fascinating year for Java. As we move into 2019, how about we investigate a portion of the things to look for in the New Year in Java and related innovations, and have a fabulous time by attempting to anticipate what may occur.

Java 11 begins to see little, yet critical appropriation

This may be the least dubious forecast on this rundown. Java 9 and 10 saw basically no arrangement to creation. Numerous groups appear to hang tight for a post-8 LTS discharge to arrive, and now that it's here, a little yet relentless appropriation of Java 11 will start to show up.

A major driver for this appropriation will be microservices and containerized applications, the two of which are fundamentally simpler with Java 11 than Java 8. Greenfield arrangements of shiny new applications will be the conspicuous spot for groups to start embracing Java 11.

Prediction: Java 11 is generally 10% of the by and large detailed Java creation establishments toward the finish of 2019.

No huge scale porting of existing applications from 8 to 11

As of not long ago, the Java redesign way for applications was genuinely perfect. Moving from 6 to 7 or from 7 to 8 was, in practically all cases, absolutely effortless. The equivalent can't be said for the 8 to 11 redesign - noteworthy work is generally important to move a non-trifling application onto the new form.

Not many application gatherings have the assets to embrace a port, a rearchitect and a full retest of their applications just to remain on the present adaptation of Java. Therefore, I don't hope to far reaching porting of Java 8 applications to Java 11, without some other convincing outside motivation to do as such.

Prediction: No particular quantifiable forecast.

No simple of the Python 2/Python 3 separate

Much has been said about the likelihood that with the coming of secluded Java, the biological system will section along the lines of the Python 2/Python 3 split experienced by that network.

I don't anticipate that this should happen for a few reasons - however the primary one is that Java 11 is certainly not an in a general sense distinctive language, at a syntactic or a semantic dimension. Python linguistic structure and the importance of key datatypes (for example Unicode strings or aches) changes between variants, so library and application creators should intentionally pick which language rendition is being focused on, and this decision infests the whole biological system on a for each venture premise.

In the Java case, then again, it is the decision of the application proprietor whether to grasp measured quality or not; and the decision of the library designer with respect to whether to send as modules, and provided that this is true, which fallbacks to offer to Java 8 applications. The workaday Java software

engineer proceeds with much as in the past, and programs in fundamentally a similar language whether the undertaking they are chipping away at is focusing on Java 8 or 11.

Prediction: No particular quantifiable expectation.

Proceeded with steady selection of Graal

For those activities which have moved to Java 11, intrigue is probably going to develop in the Graal venture. This incorporates the cutting edge JIT compiler, which may reach (or even outperform) the C2 compiler (otherwise known as - server) for Java 11 out of 2019.

That Graal-JIT will, at some point or another, outperform C2 appears glaringly evident - Graal's plan (particularly the way that it is executed in Java) implies that it is generally simple for the Graal group to actualize any new streamlining that could be executed in C2.

The umbrella term "Graal" likewise incorporates Oracle's semi-open GraalVM venture for multilingual runtimes. In any case, it is imperative to take note of that Graal-JIT is accessible for Java 11 and up, while GraalVM just covers Java 8.

In this way, the client network for Graal may well shape two disjoint gatherings - one concentrated on execution of Java 11 applications, and one concentrated on bilingual applications utilizing the Java 8 environment.

Predictions:

·         30-40% of Java 11 applications are utilizing Graal-JIT in their Java 11 creation organizations

·         Making Graal the default JIT compiler is truly talked about for Java 13 in any case not executed

·         GraalVM generation arrangements stay uncommon, yet are progressively being explored different avenues regarding by application groups.

OpenJDK turns into the market head for Java runtimes

Prophet is finishing their responsibility for OpenJDK 8 undertaking, and Red Hat has offered to take over as pioneers. The equivalent likely could be valid for the OpenJDK 11 venture, as that task will be surrendered by Oracle when Java 12 is discharged.

Numerous engineers miss the way that Oracle's LTS contributions are just for paying clients, so later on the main free-as-in-brew bolster contributions for Java 8 (and 11, when Java 12 is discharged) will originate from non-Oracle associations, for example, Red Hat, Amazon, Azul Systems and the multi seller, network driven AdoptOpenJDK venture.

With no further free updates to OracleJDK being made accessible to the network, at that point I hope to see a fast progress to OpenJDK as the creation stage of decision for Java applications.

Fortunately for serverside applications (and progressively for work area Java applications too), OpenJDK is a drop-in swap for Oracle's JDK.

Prediction: Over half of both Java 8 and Java 11 creation runtimes are utilizing OpenJDK as opposed to Oracle JDK, toward the finish of 2019.

Arrival of Java 12

Java 12 is highlight solidified and is expected to be discharged in March 2019. Excepting a noteworthy episode, it is difficult to see that this won't transport on schedule.

It's anything but a long haul bolster discharge, and is probably not going to see wide selection (similarly as Java 9 and 10 were not broadly received).

Prediction: Java 12 discharges on schedule, and has adjusting mistake creation arrangements toward the finish of 2019.

Arrival of Java 13

Java 13 is expected to be discharged in September 2019. No subtleties are accessible of any highlights right now focused at this discharge.

Similarly as with Java 12, it is a component discharge, not a LTS discharge. In like manner, there is no reason as of now to assume that it won't dispatch on schedule. Similarly, it is probably not going to see wide reception, with groups rather concentrating on moving Java 11 into generation.

Prediction: Java 13 discharges on schedule, and has adjusting blunder creation organizations toward the finish of 2019.

Worth sorts does not dispatch as see in Java 13

Worth Types are the push to bring a third kind of crucial incentive to the JVM, nearby crude sorts and item references. The idea can be thought of as loosening up a portion of the guidelines of the Java type framework, permitting composite information structures increasingly like C structs, without the things, while holding full Java type security.

Brian Goetz, the Java language modeler, utilizes the expression: "codes like a class, works like an int" to portray how he imagines a commonplace engineer will utilize the worth kinds include, when it has at last been conveyed.

There has been supported, proceeded with advancement towards worth kinds, however as of the finish of 2018, just exploratory, in all respects early-get to, specialists just alpha models have ever been created.

This isn't astounding - esteem types are a standout amongst the most principal and profound attached changes to the Java stage that have ever constructed.

The intricacy and the aspiration of this element, and the comparing sheer measure of designing work important make it all around far-fetched that this will be conveyed, even in an underlying structure in 2019.

Prediction: No type of Value Types is incorporated, even as a Preview Feature in Java 13.

Starting adaptation of match articulations delivers as review in Java 13

Switch articulations are an essential for match articulations. Without an articulation structure present in sentence structure, it is difficult to convey coordinate articulations inside the Java language. For sure, without match articulations, there is next to no reason for presenting switch articulations by any stretch of the imagination.

In like manner, I expect institutionalized change articulations to be pursued quickly by straightforward types of match articulations. The element is probably going to be restricted to type coordinates just at first, with no destructuring or other propelled highlights.

Prediction: An underlying, restricted type of Match Expressions is incorporated as a Preview Feature in Java 13.

Unobtrusive development of Kotlin

The Kotlin language from JetBrains has pulled in expanding enthusiasm from engineers as of late. Specifically in the Android space, there has been a blast, and a predominance of Kotlin for new ventures on Android.

Be that as it may, no practically identical blast has happened in server-side Java, the customary heartland for JVM dialects. In 2019, I see proceeded with continuous selection of Kotlin, however not a whirlwind of activities/groups moving to it. There will be a few prominent undertakings that are openly utilizing Kotlin to expand upon.

Prediction: Kotlin will keep on winning fans in the center Java people group, however won't get through, and will stay littler than the Scala biological system.

The above features a portion of the progressions at the front lines of Java. In any case, in the remainder of the Java world (the hinterland of Java) at that point it will be one more year of business as usual. Java's IDEs, libraries and the remainder of the biological system will fundamentally proceed on a similar direction.

Java's strong position and force inside the business will keep on conveying it forward with no significant miracles.

[anneedmonds]

Elemis Peptide 24/7: Round-the-Clock Skincare | AD

Elemis have launched two new moisturisers into their Peptide 24/7 range; a clever, multi-tasking day cream – Peptide4 Adaptive Day Cream* – and an overnight mask called the Plumping Pillow Facial*, which must be one of the most inviting product names I’ve ever seen.

The new products have been formulated to work with the skin’s natural rhythms, helping to balance excess oils during the day and boost hydration overnight and they do both things beautifully as well as priming the skin for makeup (the day cream) and cooling tired faces (the night mask).

Find the Peptide 24/7 range at Elemis online*

The idea behind the new launches is that they offer effective solutions to your skincare needs without you really having to put too much thought into the whole thing – a balancing, hydrating skin routine for busy people, without any unnecessary faff.

I’ve been putting both to the test this week because I’ve had an absolute shocker of a time, with ailments and child chickenpox episodes and a projectile-vomming dog; to be quite honest, doing my usual convoluted skincare-choosing game every morning and night has been beyond me. I’ve been too busy, too stressed and my head hasn’t been in its usual place in terms of beauty testing. I’ve just wanted straightforward products designed to do what I need them to do and so the Elemis Peptide 24/7 launches have been something of a Godsend.

So then, step forward product number one: the Elemis Peptide4 Adaptive Day Cream (£50 at Elemis here*). This moisturiser feels light and feathery to apply but hydrates nicely – there’s no greasy residue but skin feels as nourished and comfortable as it would with a far richer cream. It’s surprising then that this leaves a velvety matte finish – not dry-matte (which is the sort of finish that fills me with horror these days) but silky and smooth and with the sort of grip that’s brilliant for applying foundation on top.

Shop the Adaptive Day Cream*

There’s also a subtle blurring effect to the finish – not quite the kind you’d get with a dedicated blurring primer, but a soft veil that just takes the edge off if you’re feeling less than dandy. (Which I am. I must have had about three hours’ sleep last night; I won’t go into my darker ailments but they had me spending more time in the bathroom than in the bedroom. I was reading the news online at 3.30am!)

This is a good all-rounder day cream with ingredients to help support the skin’s natural barrier and oil-absorbers that don’t leave the skin dried out. I’d say that it’s suitable for all but the driest skin and is to be applied after cleansing and before sunscreen/makeup, if you’re using one. (Remember your SPF if you’re out and about folks – ’tis the season. ‘Tis always the season, really, but particularly now.)

Now for new launch number two, the Peptide4 Plumping Pillow Facial*. I mean. Has there ever been a more tempting name for a night cream? It’s actually a Hydrating Sleep Mask, which makes me love it even more, because it suggests that you’ll have the sort of deep sleep you’ve always dreamt of – it suggests balmy, languid nights, the sort when you have to have the window open and when the breeze billows the curtains and everyone slumbers peacefully on as the owls hoot (country version) and the foxes rip open the binbags on your driveway (city version).

Whatever the name of it, this is the sort of night treatment that floats my skincare boat; plumptious and bouncy and mightily effective without leaving you dripping with oils come morning. (Since buying outrageously expensive pillowcases, my new hobby alongside killing house plants, I’m more selective about my night skincare. I even sleep on a soft towel if I’m using something new and untested!) It’s quenching but not remotely greasy – a pea-sized amount spread over the skin is enough to form a plumpifying barrier that helps to reduce moisture loss throughout the night.

The Peptide4 Plumping Pillow Facial (£52 at Elemis here*) is cool and fresh to apply, which was rather a nice surprise on the first try, when my sinuses were playing up and my whole face felt as though it had been filled with hot BBQ coals. I usually hate it when people suggest putting beauty products in the fridge – who an earth has the time? – but when I use lovely cooling things like this I sort of get the point. It’s mildly erotic, it’s so good. (Look, you have to get your kicks where you can when you have small children.) And this hadn’t even been in the fridge.

Elemis say that this mask is “powered by flowers”, which is an appealing notion; there’s an ingredient called Star Avensis, which sounds like an intergalactic insurance company (“how long have you had your provisional space shuttle licence, Mrs Barrett?”), and then wild-harvested Indian Night Jasmine, which couldn’t sound more lovely and exotic, and both of these things help to lock in moisture overnight and leave your skin refreshed and dewy. Good for absolutely all skin types due to its lightness of texture and greatness of hydrating effect (not sure that’s proper English but carry on), Plumping Pillow Facial can be used nightly after cleansing. This is not a mask to be saved for special occasions – every night’s a treat night!

Shop the Plumping Pillow Facial*

As a Brucie Bonus, the Plumping Pillow Facial (and the day cream too, incidentally) smells divine. It’s a joy to apply and it makes you take the time to inhale the scent – ylang ylang and sweet orange both wonderfully relaxing and soothing to the soul – and if something forces you to slow down, even momentarily, then I’m a fan.

Elemis’ current campaign has the tagline Make Every Minute Count and is partly about busy lives and saving time and finding clever modern skincare solutions, but I think making every minute count is as much about choosing to luxuriate and taking time to appreciate and enjoy something as it is about finding short-cuts and multi-tasking. It’s just as important to be able to enjoy your skincare routine if that’s what you want to spend your time doing. Personally I’m all for rushing in the morning and being sloth-like in the evening, but each to their own!

You can find out more info on the Peptide 24/7 range at Elemis here*

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The post Elemis Peptide 24/7: Round-the-Clock Skincare | AD appeared first on A Model Recommends.

Elemis Peptide 24/7: Round-the-Clock Skincare | AD was first posted on May 31, 2019 at 12:11 pm. ©2018 "A Model Recommends". Use of this feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this article in your feed reader, then the site is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact me at contact@amodelrecommends.com Elemis Peptide 24/7: Round-the-Clock Skincare | AD published first on https://medium.com/@SkinAlley

[lucindatracey-blog]

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