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legends-live-in-memories · 3 years ago

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Super-Rockin’ Wedding of the Century

AYO! Day 2 of MGI Trope Tussle! Team Enemies-to-Lovers for the win. I bring you another oneshot. but this time i used 3 prompts like a dumbass.

Fics Masterlist

Daminette Oneshot 4.3K words (no warnings except slight cursing)

Summary:

“Marinette is invited to the Super-Rockin' Wedding of the Century and she needs a date. Alya is both her best and worst wingman.”

Day 2 of MGI Trope Tussle, I used 3 prompts to make this thing: 1. "You don't have to like me, you just need to pretend you do." 2. "I like your costume. You look very cute." "Are you making fun of me?" 3. 'Write about a very unusual wedding proposal.' this is the culmination of all my efforts.

without further ado:

It was the biggest news on the internet. Global sensation, international rockstar, Jagged Stone, was officially engaged to childhood friend turned manager, Penny Rolling. Memes and fan theories stormed every corner of the web. Trending topics including #rockstar_wedding and #RollingStone permeated every social media platform. Guest lists were speculated, dress designers were tagged in every post that even mentioned the words ‘wedding’ or ‘bride’. It was total mayhem but none felt it worse than up-and-coming Parisian designer, M. D. Cheng, privately known as Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

The young adult was up to her neck in design templates, and was drowning in half-baked ideas and sketches. While the internet has only heard about the proposal for a solid two weeks at this point, Marinette was in the know for six months. Jagged Stone had contacted her in advance because he needed her help with the proposal itself.

And what a proposal it was.

Jagged had outlined his idea in simple terms but it was still so mind-boggling that Marinette needed him to draw some visual aids to completely convey his idea. Initially it sounded simple enough but the more the man spoke, the more Marinette felt her brain fry at the mental picture. It first involved recreating a scene from Penny’s favourite movie. Which sounded rather romantic, if you ignored the fact that her favourite movie was Bride of Chucky. Then it involved Jagged dressed as the Tinman from Wizard of Oz. Oh, and the proposal had to happen on Halloween because that was the anniversary of their first date apparently, and based on everything else this plan entailed it might as well have been. Marinette’s role in all of this was to simply re-make the white wedding dress Chucky’s bride, Tiffany, wore because Penny already had the leather jacket to match. Of course she did. She didn’t even want to know how Jagged acquired the Tinman suit. Not her barrel of monkeys.

While many thought Jagged was the eccentric one of the pair, due to his loud personality and being an actual rockstar, the more Marinette worked for the two of them over the years, the more she learned how absolutely wrong they all were. It turned out it was Penny’s idea for Jagged to dye his hair purple, and she was the one to ask him out on Halloween all those faithful years ago. Her calm and collected demeanor was an impressive cover for the absolute weirdo she actually was. And Jagged had planned a proposal that was undoubtedly perfect for her. Regardless of how abso-fucking-lutely bizarre it was.

To each their own and let’s move on.

The set-up for the proposal started with Jagged, dressed as the Tinman, playing the part of Chucky, who begins the body-switching chant from the movie. Everything from that point on was resting on Penny’s love for the movie. Without hesitating, Penny, dressed as Tiffany, and playing her part, knew the lines by heart and immediately began reenacting the scene with Jagged. Her lines involved telling ‘Chucky’ to kiss her while she reaches for a knife that’s supposed to be in his pocket. Instead, as Jagged was still dressed as the Tinman, Penny pulled out a slip of paper. On said paper, the words ‘All the Tinman wanted was a heart’ were written in Jagged’s almost illegible chicken scratch. When Penny was distracted with the piece of paper, Jagged had gotten down on one knee and pulled out the engagement ring. The actual words of his proposal were never actually said because, upon seeing the ring, Penny flung herself into the man, clipping her chin into his metal-plated shoulder, but she wasn’t complaining.

So that was how the proposal went.

Wedding planning started almost immediately since the newly engaged had already picked a theme. And this is where Marinette began to regret every life choice she has made since she was thirteen; starting with opening the mysterious box she found on her desk and ending with agreeing to being the main designer for the Rockin’ Wedding of the Century. One thing that wasn’t well-known but not a secret about Jagged was that he was a superhero fan. He grew up enjoying the fictional ones in his childhood comic books and he adored the real ones he witnessed in his adult life. His song that he dedicated to the teenage Ladybug was only one part of his… appreciation. His hero-worship went so far as to beieve that a hero-themed wedding was appropriate. Or he didn’t, but also didn’t care about adhering to societal propriety and went with that theme anyways. So the Rockin’ Wedding of the Century was now the Super-Rockin’ Wedding of the Century. And twenty-three year old Marinette was incharge of the entire wedding party’s outfits.

Perfect.

As a small mercy from some god, both the bride and groom to-be had a rather short list of people in their parties. Marinette was also able to design appropriate hero-themed outfits for all of them and scheduled them for fittings in the coming weeks. That, surprisingly, was the easy part as there were plenty of heroes to draw inspiration from. However, that wasn’t the cause of her current crisis right now.

No. Marinette was up to her neck in unnecessary designs and ideas because she’s been avoiding one particular contingency in her acceptance of the wedding invitation.

She needed a date.

She needed a date because she had promised Penny that she wasn’t overworking herself and to prove it, she would bring a date to the wedding. Rather than call any of the people who expressed interest in her at some point in time, she designated herself to wallow in her situation and distract herself with designs. In the midst of her one person pity party, her phone rang under the sea of ripped out pages. She scoured for the device and hastily answered before she could accidently send the caller to voicemail.

“Hello?” She didn’t check the caller ID and was delighted at the sound of her best friend answering her.

“Marinette! How’s it going over there?” Alya’s voice was mixed in with the busy street life of Metropolis. She had moved there immediately after high school, snatching an internship with the Daily Planet and attending the local community college. She and Marinette don’t call often due to time differences, but when they do it’s like they’ve never parted. She always looked forward to her calls.

“It’s going great, Als,” if she ignored her current dilemma, then yeah, everything was perfect. “But you wouldn’t happen to have an available bachelor willing to be my date to the ‘Super-Rockin’ Wedding of the Century’ in your back pocket, would you?”

Alya’s answering laugh was both comforting and teasing and Marinette felt herself missing her even more. What she said next, however, took Marinette by surprise.

“Actually I do.”

“Pardon?”

“Well,” she took a pause to build suspense. “I know a guy who knows a guy. But it’s nothing shady, I swear.”

“That’s not comforting.” Oh god. What has she unintentionally signed herself up for?

“You know my coworker, Jon? The guy who does the photography for all my field work?” Alya had met Jon as soon as she had started her internship. Both of his parents were top journalists at the Daily Planet so he volunteered to act as tour guide for all the new interns. He and Alya, from the exasperated stories Marinette has heard from Nino, got along like a house on fire. If he was involved, Marinette was starting to doubt even further that this was going to end well for her.

“Yes, I know Jon. How is he by the way?”

“He’s fine, but I remember him telling me how he tried to set up his best friend on several dates over the years and how they all ended poorly. He’s as approachable as a brick wall; not just a prick but the whole damn cactus. Or so Jon says.” How does that sound like someone Marinette wanted to bring along with her to the wedding? “But he’s totally your type so I could ask Jon to wrap him up in bubblewrap and send him your way whenever you want.”

“How,” and Marinette said this with a lot of feeling, “is he my type exactly?”

“Green eyes with daddy issues.”

“ALYA!” Marinette was absolutely floored at her bluntness. She wasn’t even sorry about shouting into the receiver.

“Am I wrong? You have a type and he fits that type. Jon mentioned how this guy and his dad hit several roadblocks when they first met. And I’ve seen pictures of him so ‘green eyes’ checks too.”

“That is not my type of guy.” She can’t believe this was how this conversation was going.

“Adrien.”

“I didn’t even know who his father was at the time, Alya.”

“Felix.”

“His dad is dead! That doesn’t count as ‘daddy issues.’” She can feel her cheeks flaming as the call went on. Any hotter and she was going to set her sketchbooks on fire. “Besides, I dated Luka so he doesn’t fit the criteria.”

“He’s an outlier and that’s only because his eyes are blue.” Okay, fine she had a type. “And besides, you don’t even have to date the guy. You only need him to accompany you to the wedding and you both go your separate ways after. No harm, no foul.”

Right. That was true. No strings attached. She could do that.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this but,” she held her breath and let it out loudly, ignoring Alya’s chuckle at her dramatics.” Give Jon my number to give this guy. And send his number to me.”

“Wahoo! Look at you, girl,” Alya was hooting and hollering over the speaker and Marinette found herself going along with the theatrics. “Okay, I will. But I gotta go, my cab is here. Bye!”

“Bye! Stay safe. Oh before you go, what’s Jon’s friend’s name anyways?”

“Uh, Damian, I think.” The call ended before Marinette could respond, but it was okay she mused. Tossing her phone onto her couch, she flopped down onto her floor and stared at her ceiling contemplatively.

What could go wrong?

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

When Alya had described this Damian guy as ‘not just a prick but the whole damn cactus,’ she was right. Marinette had been texting back and forth with Damian for a month, and the guy was making this idea seem less and less worth it by the day. Whenever Marinette tried to learn more about the guy, he would ghost her for days on end before replying with a half-assed response at best. She knew nothing about him other than that his first name was Damian and that he was from Gotham. She had no idea how the ball of life that was Jon was even friends with someone like Damian. She asked as much to Alya in their most recent call.

“How did they even meet?” She was pacing the floor plan of her apartment, ready to tear her hair out. “Did Damian bully him in school or something?”

“Apparently their dads knew each other and introduced them,” Alya sounded half awake, stifling a yawn; probably because Marinette had called her at 1 am, Metropolis’s time. “Their brothers being friends also forced them to get along.”

“And that’s another thing!” Marinette had paused in her pacing and was now staring intently at a potted plant in the corner of her living room. Any more rage in her glare and the plant would have wilted and died. “He doesn’t tell me anything about him. I don’t need to know all his personal information, but if he’s going to be flying out to Paris on my behalf, I think I at least deserve to know his last name.”

“Hey, M,” another yawn echoed through the speaker, “I love you, truly, but maybe this could wait for holier day time hours?”

“I guess,” a vindictive part of Marinette felt like this was payback for all those inopportune calls when Marinette was busy with clients. “Sorry for interrupting your sleep.”

“It’s no big deal. But have you tried talking to him about it? If he’s ghosting your texts, try calling him. If he ignores you then too then maybe you should try finding another person to be your plus one.”

“The wedding is in two weeks, Alya!” Marinette partially regrets waiting so long to vent her frustration about the situation but she had tried to tough it out. “I would have much preferred if you were my plus one. You sure there’s no way to convince your parents to skip out on the family trip?”

“Sorry, M. Once the news about the proposal hit the internet, I tried everything. I even tried to use work, saying that I could cover the ceremony for the newspaper. My folks won’t budge though. My dad’s aunt is important to him and he wants us all at the funeral.”

“Right, right, I forgot about that.” Now she felt like an ass. “Send you dad my condolences when you see him again.”

“Will do. Good morning, Marinette. And don’t worry too much about the guy. Everything will turn up great. I can feel it.”

“Thanks, Alya. Good night, get some sleep.”

The line went dead and Marinette let out a rather weary exhale. She had no idea how this was going to work. She pulled up her contacts and searched for what she had Damian saved as.

‘Douche’ flashed on her screen and she hit the call button without remorse. She didn’t care that it was also currently 1 am in Gotham. He didn’t deserve that much consideration from her.

“What?” His voice was gravely and deep. And also really pissed if his clipped tone was anything to go by.

“Damian? Hi, this is Marinette, the girl you’re accompanying to the wedding in two weeks?” Her voice was pitched as if she was dealing with an irritating customer. Fake and polite.

“I know who you are. Why are you calling me at this unreasonable hour?” Fair, but Marinette was still aggravated at him so she wouldn’t concede.

“I’m calling because we need to talk.” She heard him scoff over the line and she felt her blood boil even hotter. She took several calming breaths to reign her temper in. “Don’t hang up.”

“Look,” She didn’t give him a chance to refuse and kept talking, getting everything off her chest. “This wedding is important to me and I promised the bride I would bring a date. After that you can delete my number and we never have to speak to each other ever. You don’t have to like me, you just need to pretend you do.”

“Whatever,” he sounded less annoyed from when he first answered the phone. “I will act as cordial as the situation requires, and nothing more. I also have my attire secured for the wedding and accommodations in Paris already prepared. I will see you at the wedding.”

“Than—” The sound of the call ending interrupted her and her frustration was back tenfold. With a cry in anguish she flung her phone onto her couch and stomped into her kitchen to channel her rage into baking.

Three loaves of bread and a dozen eclairs later, Marinette felt calm enough to finish the final touches on her outfit for the wedding.

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

It was the day of the Super-Rockin’ Wedding of the Century. The Rolling-Stone’s, as they were asking to be called, had kept the ceremony small. Relatively. Only two hundred invited guests, few of which were asked to bring a plus one. Marinette was over the moon at the array of outfits people were sporting. Some chose full-on cosplay while others, like herself, went for more subtle nods to the heroes. In honour of a previous Ladybug, Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons, Marinette based her outfit off of Wonder Woman’s uniform, Hippolyta’s daughter. A navy blue sequined halter top bodice that flows into a blood red A-line skirt. She paired it with a thick silver belt, silver gladiator heels rather than boots and broad silver arm cuffs. It was simple but effective. Besides, all attention should be on the bride and groom today.

A tap on her shoulder caught her attention and she turned only to come face first with red with black spots. Ladybug. Someone chose her as inspiration. How flattering. Looking up to see who was wearing the Ladybug-themed suit jacket, she stared at a pair of deep forest green eyes and a sneer to ruin that ridiculously handsome face. She recognized him from the photo Alya had sent some time ago. Damian.

“Hi, Damian,” at least one of them had to be civil and Marinette knew it was going to be her. But the idea that of all the heroes for him to choose from he chose her sent her into poorly stifled fits of giggling. Images of him going ‘Lucky Charm’ and ‘Miraculous Ladybug’ were almost too much to bear.

“I don’t know what’s so amusing about my choice of attire,” his face was starting to flush in similar shades to his jacket and that made Marinette laugh harder. “Ladybug is a well respected heroine and I thought it appropriate to pay homage while in her home city.”

“No. No no. There is nothing wrong with it. I like your costume, you look very cute.”

“Are you making fun of me?” His irritation was rather cathartic for the still giggling woman.

“No, I just didn’t think you would have put that much thought into your outfit for today. You always gave me the impression that you were ready to back out at any time.”

“I made a commitment and I had all intentions to see it through the end.”

“Could have fooled me.” And her snark was back. Now was not the time to pick a fight with the guy, he did fly all the way to Paris on her behalf after all.

“I’ve been meaning to ask,” and Marinette wanted to know how he managed to sound so condescending with that statement. “How did you even get an invitation to this wedding anyways? You’re not a celebrity and you don’t look like family either.”

“Actually,” she said it with more force than what was probably necessary but his slightly accusatory tone was just so irritating. “I am the lead designer for the wedding party,” her chest was swimming with confidence at the chance to talk about her job. “I’ve worked with the bride and groom for years; M. D. Cheng, Marinette Dupain-Cheng.”

Marinette will deny to her grave the rush of satisfaction at the absolute gobsmacked look on Damian’s face. A real fish out of water. Mouth open wide ready to catch flies. She wished she could capture this moment forever.

The moment was over too soon because Damian was regaining his composure and slipping into his default stoic expression. He cleared his throat and fixed a look at Marinette. It was rather intense.

“I believe I owe you an apology then.” He looked put-out at admitting something so menial. “I believed you were nothing more than a socialite chain climber.”

“A what?”

“When Jon reached out to me saying that a friend of one of his coworkers needed a date for an event, and when that event turned out to be the wedding of someone of such popularity, I figured you were only trying to increase your own social status by showing up with me on your arm.”

“And you said ‘yes’ anyways?” Marinette was confused but pieces of the mystery that is Damian were starting to fit in place. But something else stuck out as odd to her. “Also, how would you being my date increase my social status anyhow?”

He scoffs before answering. Bitch.

“What? It wouldn’t be the first time one of Jon’s set-ups ended that way. Besides, we’ve had an agreement that I can’t turn down an offer until meeting the person face to face.” Weird deal but some friendships are just like, Marinette supposes. “And being seen with me is enough to make anyone more popular.”

“...And you are?”

“Damian… Wayne…” He spoke as if he was talking to a small child. As if it should be obvious who he was like he was some celeb— Oh shit.

A name had flashed into her mind. On the finalised guest list, Marinette had only seen it once in passing, there was a name that belonged to someone Jagged was rather excited to see. He said the friend was an old college buddy. She remembered that much. She had completely forgotten that ‘a billionaire playboy’ was also attached to the name. Damian was the son of Bruce Wayne. Suddenly everything in the past few months made perfect sense. The cold shoulder, the ghosting, and his prickly disposition. He was overly guarded because he had justified reasons to be. Now she felt like an ass.

“Oh.” Real intelligent, Marinette.

“Oh? What, you didn’t know?” He sounded incredulous at the notion and he had every right to be. Marinette could only shake her head. Words were failing her now, her brain trying to rewrite the memories of every interaction the two ever had.

She was saved from further mortification by a call for everyone to find their seats. The wedding was about to begin.

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

The ceremony was beautiful. Penny’s dress was a silver grey, tied back with a golden belt. Instead of a long train, Marinette had attached a black cape that shimmered in the right lighting. Penny wore a tiara with two peaks to imitate the ‘bat-ears.’ A Batman-themed wedding dress was not something she ever saw herself making, but she was proud at how beautiful and confident Penny looked in it. Jagged was adorn in a royal blue suit with bold red lapels. He also had a matching red cape. His hair was styled in the familiar sleek way Superman wears it. The two made quite the pair.

The reception was a lively affair. Jagged had dedicated several songs to his new wife and they dazzled the crowd on the dance floor. Marinette didn’t pay much attention to the speeches beyond a quick glance at Damian when his own father stepped up to the podium. He had buried his head in his hands, looking like he wanted the floor to swallow him whole. A courtesy pat on the back was all Marinette gave to him.

The two hadn’t really spoken much since the revelation that they had completely misjudged each other. The awkward tension was almost palpable. As Marinette was gathering the courage to speak to him, to try and officially clear the air, she was being dragged by one of the bridesmaids onto the dancefloor. It was time for the bride to throw the bouquet. All the unmarried women were being corralled into a tight cluster and Marinette got swept up in the tide.

Marinette wasn’t focusing on the actual game, trying her hardest not to get trampled, when she saw something move in her periphery. Years of being Ladybug had left her with finely honed instincts so she could not be blamed when she immediately jumped and caught the incoming object. The bouquet. She had caught the bouquet. Oh that was just her luck. Deafening squeals of delight brought her out of her own head and she was suddenly being embraced in Penny’s arms. She returned the hug, sharing in her delight, before breaking away to sit down.

“Nice catch.” His voice had surprised her, she hadn’t expected him to speak to her for the rest of the night.

“Uh, thank you. Just lucky, I guess.” Damian didn’t get the chance to respond because he was being dragged by his own father to join all the bachelors in catching the garter. Marinette was equally uninterested in this spectacle and had let her mind wander to other things.

A loud uproar caught her attention again and her eyes zeroed in on Damian holding the tossed garter. He made his way back over to her, dropping himself into his seat gracelessly. The two sat in silence, contemplating the implications of them both catching the garter and bouquet. The games were done purely for tradition’s sake, with total disregard of what it was supposed to symbolise. Still. One’s mind couldn’t help but wander. Minutes ticked passed and Marinette was beginning to wonder if someone was going to talk about the elephant in the room.

“So,” Damian’s voice was slightly strained, like he wasn’t used to being this flustered. It was kind of endearing. Wait what?

“So.”

“While marriage seems far out of reach for right now,” Oh god. He was going to talk about it. “How does dinner sound, next Friday?”

“Wait,” he wanted to spend more time with her? After their disastrous first impressions? “Really?”

“Really. I believe we started off on the wrong foot,” he let out a soft chuckle, almost self-deprecating. “Which isn’t really new for me, but it’s not everyday I meet someone who doesn’t recognise me at first glance. I think you’re someone who I would like to get to know better. If that is something you are also interested in.”

“Yeah,” Marinette knows all about wanting to get acquainted with someone who she’s had a bad first impression of. Just look at her past relationships. Wow, she really does have a type. Damning thoughts for later. “Friday works for me. Seven pm?”

“Perfect. I’ll text you the details then.”

“Wonderful, I can’t wait.”

The rest of the evening was spent in companionable silence with small bouts of conversation in between. They shared a couple dances on the floor and parted ways at the end of the night with budding anticipation for Friday.

As Marinette was preparing for bed that night in the comfort of her apartment, she sent a text to Alya that her friend would see later in the day.

You were right, I do have a type :(

#maribat #daminette #maridami #mgi trope tussle #mgi- server event #enemies to lovers #speedrun #i #like a dumbass challenged myself to use three prompts and i delivered #i hope #i hope yall enjoy #tumblr do me a solid #dont hide my posts #please #im begging #ml x dc #mlb x dc #tumblr please stop hiding my posts #no beta this is tussle

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tobiosmilktea · 4 years ago

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umpah umpah! smau

↪︎ bokuto x f!reader x iwaizumi

[027] — trust the victim!

masterlist | prev. | next

a/n: i literally just bought christmas gifts for my entire family and my bank account said 📉📉📉

“no, i’m good, thanks.” satomi deadpans for the umpteenth time today.

sure, those bear costumes were adorable and the cafe just behind the pair of mascots looked like a good place to eat, but this was not the time. if she were to be late to work, she hasn’t have the slightest clue on what her boss, mr. kono would think. she just hoped and prayed that she wouldn’t be fired, but especially after that one time went out with iwaizumi, she wasn’t sure anymore. missing work as a healthcare worker was already a serious ordeal, but being part of a professional team’s sports medicine team was on another level of seriousness. hell, she got suspended for an entire week just for a night, she couldn’t spare another minute.

“are you sure?” the shorter bear asked again, “your dessert will be on the house if you eat now!”

satomi had a lot of patience. considering she’s good friends with bokuto and the physical therapist for the black jackals, it’s almost essential to have such a trait. yet by now, her patience was wearing quick.

“we’ll even throw in a free drink!” the taller bear added. their voices sounded awfully familiar.

granted, everything seemed awfully familiar today—from the couple she tried to help back at the coffeeshop and that random girl that accidentally bumped into earlier, but it didn’t matter now. she could not sacrifice years of hard work in medical school while finessing her way up the ladder to even work for a division 1 volleyball team for a stupid mistake.

something within satomi snapped, “i said i’m fine.” she huffed, pushing through the bear’s stuck arms holding promotional flyers. she stomped away, relishing the slight inkling of relief course through her as she finally escaped the pair. however the relief didn’t reign supreme for long once her eyes checked her phone.

shit, satomi thinks. i’m fucking late.

it was then did she push her weight off her right leg, running towards the gymnasium just a few blocks away. she felt like she was about to throw up her heart at any minute thinking of the consequences she would have to face once she entered that damned building. man, did she regret a lot of things by now. she wished to ignore the rising sting of her thighs that grew fatigued by the second, yet she’d rather think about the pain than beat herself up over her regrets.

satomi was well aware that she wouldn’t even be in this predicament if she didn’t say yes to iwaizumi. and yet, there was no way in hell did she regret going out with him. besides, she has a good feeling that their relationship could actually happen. maybe getting him drunk that one time was the best idea she ever had.

why else did he ask her out if he didn’t like her back?

her breath heaved as she pulled herself into a stop. entering the stadium doors, she was greeted by the security guard. she greets him back with a faux smile melting across her face as she reached into her bag for her id. “where the hell?” she muttered, “where’s my wallet?”

“is there a problem?” fujiyoshi, the security guard asked.

an annoyed scoff emitted from the girl. great, she thinks, can this day get any worse?

“sorry, fujiyoshi-san.” satomi says with the timbre of her voice suddenly turning sweet and provoking, “i don’t i have my id on me right now.”

the guard’s usual hard expression didn’t soften in the slightest and it kind of took satomi aback. usually guys would fall her sweet words, but she honestly wasn’t surprised that someone that’s a beefy security guard with muscles bigger than her head wouldn’t fall for that.

“you know i can’t let you in without a form of identification that you work here.” he dictates.

“oh come on, fujiyoshi!” satomi exclaimed desperately, “you see me walk inside every, just let me through!”

“no can do, ms. yahagi. we’ve been having security issues lately and this is just a necessary precaution.”

satomi rolls her eyes, just put me out of my misery. “but you can't just—” she suddenly pauses as the black jackals and the rest of their sports medicine team make their way into the gymnasium. “bokuto! iwaizumi!” she shouts their names. the volleyball player and the athletic trainer look their way towards the girl a few meters away, held back by a security guard and the safety railing. “can you please tell this guy to let me in?”

by now the entire team was looking at her like a museum exhibit as all of them knew of all the fucked up things that she did. but honestly, if it wasn’t for sakusa and tomas holding back hinata and atsumu, who knew what those two would’ve done—maybe yell at her or just spoil all the fun of her suffering.

there was a level of confusion of satomi’s face when they all just stood there doing nothing. she gets that it’s strange seeing their physical therapist not be let in cause she forgot her id card, but things felt... different and she didn’t know what. did she have something on her face?

iwaizumi looks away, forcing himself not to look at the girl who used him for her own accord. he opted to think about you instead. meanwhile, bokuto continued to stare daggers at her, holding back a smirk as the sound of clicking shoes echoed from one of the hallways.

“hello?” satomi calls out again, “are you going to tell him to let me in?”

“that won’t be necessary,” a deep, guttural voice says, followed by none other than her boss, mr. kono, all suit-clad and his hair gelled back. “let her in,” he tells fujiyoshi.

“thank you!” she rolls her eyes before pushing through to the other side. she approaches the group of volleyball players and her medicine team, but is immediately stopped.

“come with me to my office.”

“what?” satomi asked, brows furrowing together as she walks to her boss instead. “did something happen?”

“i think you know,” mr. kono flickers a look towards iwaizumi before he disappeared into the gym. in an instant, satomi felt her breath hitch at the realization. she opened her mouth to speak. she tried so hard to force the words to come out between her lips but no excuse was good enough for her to get herself out of this one. maybe this day did get worse and she was absolutely speechless. “from personal experience, i always trust the victim.”

fun facts! —

when bo said that “it was time” it meant that they were going to report satomi, which wasn’t the plan at first since iwaizumi didn’t want anyone else to know

hinata, sakusa, atsumu, and tomas only knew of what satomi did, but they didn’t know that she did it to iwaizumi so they were extra mad

the entire msby team and their sports medicine team found out then so now she’s: ✨f-i-r-e-d✨

meanwhile, y/n, yuko, suga, kaori, and semi ended up eating at the bear cafe (they felt bad for akaashi so they order him takeout)

taglist: (closed!)

@moonlightaangel @elianetsantana @k4tiepie @memorableminds @wheeshllumi @suhkusa @kitsunetea @airybby @noeminemi @truly-a-snitch @keichan @cosmicmermaid25 @bap-kingdom @saturnfarie @kwdflash @ennos-baby @dinablossom @chrisrue15 @seikamuzu @nestlevanilla @chasekudo @yammmers @pixcldust @iwaizluv @h0ngh0ngh0ng @emogril @tiredandkindaoverworked @tsumue @underratedmage @bokutosuwus @kellesvt @unstableye @oh-tapeworm @scrappyfka @alittlebitofrain @mxngy @tpwkatsumu @atsumuwoah @macchiatoast @dicerawr @kageyamasbabygorl @some-random-stranger-007 @vhskenma @wntrmn @little-plants @stargirlara @kissungjae @je11yfishwriter @sbaepsae @apollochjld

#haikyuu!!#haikyuu #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu scenarios #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu smau #bokuto koutarou #bokuto x reader #bokuto scenarios #bokuto imagines #bokuto smau #iwaizumi hajime #iwaizumi x reader #iwaizumi scenarios #iwaizumi imagines #iwaizumi smau

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mrvltwimagines · 4 years ago

Text

You Deserve Better

SPENCER REID X READER

SUMMARY: Most coping mechanisms weren’t that healthy, you just couldn’t seem to give yours up.

WARNINGS: Self-Harm, Self-Deprecation, Insecurities/Low Self-Esteem

WORD COUNT: 4.4k

REQUESTED PROMPT: Hey. I was wondering if i could request Spencer Reid x Reader where reader struggles with self harm (cutting mostly) and self esteem issues, half convinced he should leave them for someone more mentally stable? - i changed it up a bit so it’s not that he should leave them, but more so go after someone “better”

You groaned at the sound of your phone ringing, pulling you out of your deep sleep and waking you up in your room that was still only lit by moonlight.

“This is y/n,” you answered your phone without looking at the caller id.

“Good morning, or rather good night, whatever - it’s three am, either will work,” the bright voice of Garcia sounded out over the speaker. You couldn’t help the chuckle that left your mouth.

“Do we have a case?” you ask, getting her back on track.

“Unfortunately so, can you get into the office soon?” she asks.

“Yeah, i’ll be there in twenty minutes or so,” and with that you both said your goodbyes and you were quickly getting out of bed.

With your first initial stretch you flinched at the pain that spread through your arm. You lightly soothed the ache you felt on your wrist, refusing to pull up your long sleeve and look at the horrible work you did to yourself last night.

You loved your job. You couldn’t imagine yourself doing anything else, but most of the cases were hard on your mental health. It made it all that much harder that while you’re an official part of the team, you still feel less intelligent and needed as everyone else. They never said anything to indicate that you could be better, or that you were even a bad team member to begin with, it just sat badly with you that you didn’t know as much as Spencer did (although, no one does) and that you weren’t able to piece things together quite as quickly as everyone else on the team. You were the youngest one, and also the newest one having joined just under two years ago. You were always learning and picking up skills to better your ideologies and techniques to catching serial killers, but in your head you could do better.

You knew there were better ways to cope with your stress and feelings of incompetence than taking it out on your own skin with a razor, but it’s what you’ve been doing for years and with your job it was the quickest way to feel any type of peace.

Luckily for you, your job was also one that made you forget your own emotions and issues, at least during the time of working the cases. There wasn’t much time to dwell on your own problems when you were busy trying to find a murderer. At least your job can remind you that there is worse in the world than the hatred you hold for yourself.

In just under thirty minutes you were dressed, packed and walking into the conference room just as J.J. showed up too, the whole team ready to get a move on with the case. You made eye contact with Spencer and he sent you a gentle smile as you took your usual seat in between him and Rossi.

“Alright team, it’s a doozy,” Garcia chirps, filling us in on the details of the case we were about to set out on. After reading through the files and seeing the pictures, it was a quick “wheels up in thirty” from Hotch that lead everyone out of the conference room to do whatever they needed to do or gather before heading off to the jet.

“So, did you guys plan on matching, or is that just a soulmate thing?” Derek asked as he drank his coffee and walked backwards in front of you and Spencer leaving the conference room at the same time. You looked at Spencer’s outfit seeing his purple attire and couldn’t help the smile from forming on your face seeing you were wearing a long sleeve shirt about the same shade as his.

“Maybe I felt it in my soul that he was going to wear that so I chose my purple shirt,” you quipped, rolling your eyes at Derek as he winked and turned back around to head to his desk and grab his bag.

“So how was your day off?” Spence began, “Did you do anything fun?”

Your mind flashed back to the last twenty-four hours, thinking about how you spent it. The burning on your arm became more apparent and you could feel your face flush at the secret you were hiding from him. The two of you were closest on the team. It might have helped that he was only a few years older than you, or that you had the same views on everything, or that you were able to understand a lot of what he says or even just his nerdy jokes. You loved being around Spencer, and if you could have it your way you two would be more than just friends. Within the few seconds after his question the air was silent and you felt yourself go through a range of all your emotions.

“It was fine. I just laid around, read some books, watched some tv. The usual,” you shrugged, removing your eye line from his, feeling as if he was able to see inside your mind and see the true things you actually did. Like standing in front of your mirror pointing out all the flaws on your body, or working out until you felt like you were going to faint, or not so carefully carving lines into your own flesh. You were a mess, and you knew that, but the less the team knows the better. You were terrified you’d be kicked off the team, and not only did that mean losing your dream job, but also losing the chance to be working alongside the only man you’ve ever felt even the tiniest bit of love for.

“What about you, did you do anything fun?” you asked, not wanting to give him the chance to question you more about yourself. As you both grabbed your bags and all the way to car that was driving you to the jet he told you about the little things he did, and all the things he learned and read up on. One thing was for sure, you never felt any true resentment towards how knowledgable Spencer was. If anything you were just always astounded that someone could retain as much information as he does. You knew Spencer was an impossible standard to hold yourself to considering he was an actual genius, you just wish you had something as astounding as his intelligence that others looked to you for. Instead you were just the young, average agent on the team.

You made small chat with the others as you boarded the jet, and after Garcia hopped on the cam to tell us a little more information as we bounced ideas off of each other, we were left to be on our own for an hour long flight. You and Spencer always sat with each other, but just a few minutes into our own personal time he got up and went across the jet to sit with J.J. to talk to her about something. As much as you just wanted to look out the window and space out, you couldn’t take your eyes away from their interaction and see how hard he smiles when he’s with her. It was dumb to think anything of it considering she has Will and Henry so you knew their interactions weren’t romantically intwined, but you still couldn’t help from floating over her frame and seeing all that you were not. You weren’t skinny like her. You didn’t have a beautiful face, and beautiful hair to frame it. You were average, and you hated that.

You quickly stood up and made your way into the bathroom, locking the door and pressing your forehead against it with a big sigh. All you wanted at the moment was your razor, but you knew the only one you had was buried deep in your bag that was still out where you were sitting. You felt ashamed with yourself that you even felt it was necessary considering all that you did last night, but you were hurting. Without thinking, you pulled your sleeve up, wincing at both the sight of your wrist and the feeling of your shirt sleeve running along the lines. You scratched a bit, letting out a sigh of relief when you felt and saw some of the scabs come undone, leaving small beads of blood to sit on your skin. You felt satisfied enough to grab a wet paper towel and clean yourself up some before pulling your sleeve back down and leaving the bathroom again.

When you got back out, Spencer was back in his seat and awaiting your arrival.

“You feeling okay? You look a little pale,” he acknowledged, tilting his head a bit as he inspected you. You habitually connected your hands behind your back as you nodded, telling him you just feel a little nauseous from having woken up so early and not ingesting anything other than coffee. You sat back down next to him, not hesitating to close your eyes and lean on his shoulder. You didn’t see it, but he couldn’t stop himself from looking down at you and smiling. You had your feet tucked underneath you, and your arms resting on your lap.

He would’ve usually felt a bit creepy looking at you so closely, but the sight of the tiniest bit of blood seeping through your shirt cause his brows to furrow and his attention to be stuck on it.

“Hey y/n?” he whispers, gently nudging you with his shoulder enough for you to groggily open your eyes back up. You looked up at him, concern written all over his face.

“What’s wrong?” you asked, sitting yourself up fully so you can take in his entire face. He seemed to be battling with himself on what to say, and for a second you held your breath thinking he was going to say something along the lines of professing his feelings for you, but instead he just offered a “never mind” and shook his head before looking back down to the files on his lap. You couldn’t hide the disappointment from you face, so you simply turned your head the other way and settled in for a short nap, this time not wanting to touch him.

Throughout the rest of the jet ride, and all the way to the police station Spencer couldn’t get his mind off of your shirt sleeve. He didn’t know whether it was his business to even question you about it, so he backed off, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to just forget about it.

He watched you while you worked. He couldn’t help it. He did it out of both concern and admiration. He considered you two best-friends. You had never judged him or made fun of the little things he knows. Instead you always laughed at his jokes or asked him more about a topic if you didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. You had been there for him both inside of work and outside of work, helping him cope with tougher cases, and also helping him cope with his sick mother. You know just about everything in his life and have never showed an ounce of judgement, so he’s trying to do the same, but it deems harder the more he sees the signs. You’re constantly pulling on your sleeves, as if they’ve somehow rolled up your arms on their own. Sometimes you’ll squeeze anywhere between your wrist and elbow and display a look of relief. If he looked closely enough, he could still see the little droplet of blood that he saw earlier, but he determined that if there was anything wrong going on with you, you’d tell him. Right?

You hadn’t missed how Spencer was watching you more than usual. During cases you’re used to working closely considering you bounce off of each other so well, but he doesn’t usually spend so much time looking at you when you’re not even talking. Your mind goes on overdrive, your insecurities settling in. While in one sense all you want is for him to see you, like really see you in a romantic way, in another all you wanted was for him to never look at you that way because then he’ll see your flaws. He’ll see your disproportionate body or your anything but clear skin. You hated to think he’d see you how you see yourself. So when you caught him looking at you for the millionth time that day, you escaped to the bathroom to look at yourself. Your reflection showed nothing out of the ordinary. Your clothes hid whats underneath relatively well, and your makeup hadn’t grown splotchy or anything. You looked how you usually did when you were in your professional setting, so you really can’t pinpoint what the hell he could be looking or thinking when looking at you, but it sure as hell made you uneasy.

The rest of the day working on the case felt like it went on forever, and then the second day, but finally on the third day you were able to locate and arrest the unsub, saving yet another person from being killed. You loved that part of your job, and you tried to embrace the days you get to the unsub before they’re able to kill another innocent person.

You reminisced on the flight home, and felt a feeling of personal victory. Due to rooming with Prentiss, you didn’t have enough privacy to do anything harmful to yourself, but the entire trip was a bit of a success in the sense that you didn’t feel the need to bring your blade out.

You sat in your usual spot next to Spencer on the flight and spaced out as you looked out the window. Your focus was disturbed at the feeling of his elbow nudging you.

“Would you want to have a movie night tonight? I think i’m finally down to watch that one cheesy vampire movie that you’re always going on about,” he suggested. Your eyes widened as you let out a small squeal, sending a small but gentle clap to his arm.

“Yes! I’d love that! It’s really bad and cheesy, but i love it and definitely want to experience making fun of it with you,” you laughed, your cheeks burning red. You knew he had an eidetic memory, but the fact that he wants to spend time with you and watch a movie that you’ve only talked about wanting to watch with him over the span of months made you feel a bit warm inside. You both agreed on going to your apartment right after you get your reports turned into Hotch just in time for the jet to land and you all to head back to the office.

Time flew and before you know it you were back at your apartment, doing a quick clean of the small messes you created before leaving for the case as you waited for Spencer to show up with the Chinese food he said he’d grab on the way over. You went into your closet, opting to change into a pajama shirt and shorts before turning to your mirror and grimacing. You’ve worn pajamas exactly like this in front of Spencer many of times, but tonight just felt different. You looked bigger than usual, and you couldn’t stop yourself from turning to the side. Did you somehow get fatter over just a few days away?

The sound of knock at the door and it opening alerted you that Spencer was here.

“Hello!” he calls out just as you walk out of your bedroom, trying to forget your previous thoughts.

“Sorry i took so long, i decided to stop at home real quick to put on comfier clothes,” he commented while setting down and spreading out all the food on the coffee table without looking your way. You gnawed on your lip, thinking about how you weren’t hungry anymore but leaving it be and forcing yourself to be in the mood for Chinese for the sake of not wanting to seem rude.

“It’s fine! Thank you again for picking up dinner,” you mumbled out, walking closer to him and taking a seat on the couch. He didn’t hesitate to sit down right next to you and put his arm on the back of the cushion behind you.

“So, you have the movie ready?” He asks while looking down at you. Your mind was on overdrive at how close he was and how you could smell his cologne coming off of him. You could feel the warmth of his side on your own and in that moment all you wanted to do was cuddle into him, but you doubt he would want that.

You cleared your throat, declaring that it was ready, and you quickly leaned forward to grab the remote and hit play. The beginning scenes to Twilight began to play, and Spencer leaned forward with you to begin plating his own plate full of chicken, noodles and rice. You watched to see how much he put on his plate, envious that a man his size could eat so much and not gain any weight. You plated your own, only taking a little of each entree he got, not wanting to seem ungrateful. He didn’t seem to notice, and you both poured all your attention into the movie.

He watched you plate as little as you could of each entree, and a frown settled on his face. He wouldn’t say you’re a big eater, but he knows for a fact that you would usually plate more than you had. He ignored it this once, assuming you just weren’t that hungry and it wasn’t his place to comment on what you eat. He was just happy to be as close to you as he was, and embraced the warmth he felt radiating off of you.

All throughout the movie, his mind kept floating back to him watching you over the last case. You definitely had something bothering you, and he took notice that you wore long sleeved shirts every day even though the case was in Louisiana in the middle of spring, so it was at the very least short sleeve weather. Even now you opted for a long sleeve pajama shirt.

“Hey y/n, can i ask you something?” Spencer spoke up in a quieter scene of the movie. You took your eyes off of the screen and looked towards him, your brow furrowing a bit. He sighed, and leant forward to grab the remote and pause the movie entirely. He lifted one of his legs up on the couch to face you more, leaving you with a slight tint to your cheeks at even more of his body touching yours.

“I don’t want to overstep my boundaries, but i consider you my best friend so at this point i feel like there aren’t many boundaries,” he started to ramble, as you just nod at his words. He paused to look at your face, and in that moment you felt a bit exposed.

“I’ve just noticed some habits of yours that concern me a bit?” he stated, but it sounded more like a question. Your heart rate picked up, and your eyes grew wide. This conversation could go so many ways, and to be honest you didn’t think there was any one way you wanted it to go. He took your silence as a go to continue what he was saying, even though he could tell by your facial expression that you were a bit uncomfortable. He just wouldn’t be able to forgive himself if he didn’t at least question you about it.

“Can i look at your wrists?” he bluntly asks. You’re taken aback, your entire body physically flinching away at that question, and your eyes grow wider than before. You didn’t know what to say, or if you could even say anything that wouldn’t make you seem guiltier than actually showing him your wrists. You kept opening and closing your mouth like a fish stuck on dry land, and you could tell by the look on Spence’s face that he already knew the truth behind the habits he was taking notice of. Your eyes welled up a bit, before simply laying your hands in his lap and looking away from him. He knew what you meant and you shuddered at the feeling of him rolling your sleeves up.

You were embarrassed. You were ashamed. You were really fucking scared. What if he thinks less of you now? What if he reports you to Hotch? What if he’s disgusted by you and this ruins everything? Your mind was going crazy, and he still hadn’t said anything even though you know he’s had plenty of time to take in the sight of your cut up wrists.

“Oh y/n,” he sighs, and the sound of his voice gets you to look at him again. He didn’t hold judgement or pity in his features, simply just concern and something else that you couldn’t pinpoint.

“I know it’s a stupid habit and that i shouldn’t do it. But it helps and no one’s found out so far,” you shrug, a few of you tears falling before you grab your wrist out of his grip to wipe them away. You felt more guilt than sadness building up inside of you, along with a large amount of insecurity.

“Well i just did, so what are we going to do about that?” He asks. you shrug again, looking away from his face and down to your exposed arms, quickly pulling your sleeves back down.

“How about you tell me why you do it? Or things that make you feel like that’s your last resort.”

You look back up to him, so badly wanting to tell him everything that goes through your mind, but if him finding out about your self harm isn't enough to drastically change your friendship, telling him all about your insecurities sure as hell would.

“I don’t know, Spence. I don’t want to put all of this on you and have it ruin our friendship,” you whispered out, using your sleeve to wipe another escaping tear.

“I’m telling you right now that nothing you say could change the love i have for you, i can promise you that,” his words struck you. You both have said you love each other, it comes with being best-friends and living a dangerous life where you never know where the next moment could bring you, but this confession of love felt different and made your already faster heart beat raise a bit more.

“I...” you pause, not knowing how to form your thoughts into sentences, “I just get frustrated about- i get upset about everything about myself,” you start off. You looked at him semi expecting him to have something to say but instead he just nods, like to indicate for you to keep speaking. You let out an exasperated sigh, almost in disbelief that you were even in this situation and having this conversation.

“I’m not good enough for you,” you spit out, bringing your hand up to cover your mouth as you just stared at him. His brows furrowed and you knew he was thinking deeply about your confession.

“I’m so in love with you, Spence. I love how smart you are and how you can answer any of my questions. I love the tangents you go on, and how you’re still able to be charming and funny. But you’re also crazy attractive and i feel beyond selfish to even think i deserve to be with someone like you. I’m so average. I’m not skinny, i’m not that pretty, i have fucking cuts lining my entire arm. The only good thing i’ve accomplished in life is graduating college and landing a spot in the team, but even then i feel like i don’t deserve my spot when there are so many others who are smarter and quicker to do my job better than me,” you spoke. Your words came out without you making the connection between your brain and mouth, and by the end of it you were embarrassed. You let yourself say too much, and you were worried this would be where Spencer would want to leave.

“I never mean it lightly when i say I love you, you know that right? Both within the team and outside of it, i’ve only said I love you to five or so people, and never have i meant them like i do for you,” he started off, grabbing your hands back from you so you were forced to face him and look him in the eyes, “You’re fucking beautiful, scars and all, i don’t care about them. Well, i do because i hate how they got there and i want to help that stop, but i don’t care that you have them. I don’t look at you and see the imperfections that only you seem to notice. I see my best friend that’s helped me through so much. I see a sweet, intelligent, beautiful person who treats me well and brings me so much comfort. I think you’re a badass agent, and i know the team would agree with me on that, and hopefully i can help you see that, but it’s fine if you don’t see any of this right now because now i get to stay by your side and help expose the truth about you to yourself.” he spoke. you nodded throughout everything he was saying, taking every word in and finding so much comfort in everything.

“okay,” you mumbled out.

“Okay, you’ll let me?” He questioned, “You’ll let me stay by your side?”

“Of course, Spence. I love you, and i’m so grateful for you,” at that point you didn’t know what else to say. You were surprised to hear him say so much good about you, but you knew Spencer didn’t lie. He found telling the truth was always the best and easiest option, it was something he took pride in.

The rest of the night was spent with him actually physically not leaving your side. After a bit more talking, he unpaused the movie and you joked throughout the rest of it with your head leaning on his chest while he combed through your hair with his fingers. You felt the ball of guilt leave your system and instead felt your body flood with relief. He knew your secrets and he was still here. You should’ve never doubted him, and you had wished you confided in him earlier, but now that you have you feel like you have a second chance. It’s been a long time since you’ve had a constant someone in your life, and now having the man that you love know your deepest secrets, things are bound to look up.

#spencer reid x reader angst #spencer reid x reader fluff #spencer reid trigger warning #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid angst #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid x you #spencer reid x y/n #cirminal minds angst #criminal minds fluff #criminal minds imagine #spencer reid tw imagine #spencer reid x reader self harm #spencer x reader

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per-ineptia-ad-astra · 4 years ago

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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."]

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.

#star trek #star trek TOS #star trek TOS season one #recap tag #star trek TOS recaps #1.24 This Side of Paradise #1.24 This Side of Paradise recap

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sucuretcannelle · 3 years ago

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hi! may i please request a matchup for danganronpa?

she/her, bi (m over f), 18 yrs old. ISTP-T

i’m 5’8 roughly, 146 lbs. i have black hair, green eyes, tan skin. have 8 different piercings (one nose, rest ear). i have a tall, slim athletic build. i have a small button nose, full lips, and full eyebrows. i always wear winged eyeliner.

my outfits are usually casual, such as boyfriend style jeans and crop tops, or sweats and crop tops, flannels over hoodies when it’s chilly 😼

for my personality, i’d say i’m more on the introverted side, yet i am pretty assertive and don’t find it hard approaching people. i enjoy making my friends laugh, but i’m usually the one to take situations more seriously when it comes to my friends. i would consider myself the “level headed one” of my friend group. i struggle taking risks and usually stick to what i know. i’m rather moody and unpredictable (as my family describes me).

i’d say with my personality, i struggle the most with my temper. i find it hard to not lash out on others when i’m irritated and this often causes issues with my friends and family. i don’t have too much of a filter so if you’re bothering me i make it very apparent and usually snap, and that can lead me to saying some nasty things i don’t really mean. i’m also a terrible procrastinator and this often causes me more stress and anxiety than what id really be enduring if i had not procrastinated.

my hobbies did consist of the sports i was in, varsity track, varsity basketball cheer (captain), and color guard, but now that i’m graduated (as of two weeks ago) i don’t know what i’m gonna do with myself :,) however i do enjoy sports a lot and hope to play some in college! i also like drawing, playing video games, and shopping!! i also enjoy working a lot. i take out a lot of time in my life to work my part time job.

in a partner, i wouldn’t want them to be super uptight. i prefer naturally funny people, not people who try to be. i also don’t want someone who’s too clingy and respects my physical boundaries, i don’t like being touched, i have to be in the mood for it. also if you’re emotionally unavailable i don’t want you ^-^

thanks!!!

My top match for you is Akane!

—Tbh she's just doin her own thing

—She's the exact opposite of uptight, and she doesn't force herself to be funny

—She's just super carefree in general

—You would have to tell her that you don't like her clinging to you, but after that she'll calm down ab it (or at least she'll try her best to)

—She might get on your nerves a bit before you two dated, but she learned ab what gets you annoyed so she doesn't do it anymore

—And anyway if you lose your temper, she knows you don't really mean it so she won't get butthurt about it. But she does apologize anyway

—It was pretty easy to tell that she wanted to get to know you

—I mean, she's very introverted and doesn't think before she speaks most of the time (in a good way I swear) so she would outright tell you if she wants to be with you

—She's literally your personal cheerleader. I mean that as in she's super supportive and she tries to motivate you to get things done

—She finds your unpredictability rather amusing tbh

—Going shopping with her is certainly an experience

—She literally only trusts you to pick out new clothes for her, so she often just drags you out of the house (with permission) because she doesn't wanna go alone

—Its good that you like sports, because she's really competitive

—But if you just wanna play for fun, that's fine with her too

(Alternative matches for you would be: Rantaro, Nekomaru, and [non-despair] Junko!)

#danganronpa #danganronpa sdr2 #sdr2 #sdr2 matchup #danganronpa matchup #akane owari #sdr2 akane #danganronpa matchups #danganronpa akane

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skullvins · 4 years ago

Text

random fuckin gender ramble scroll if ur not interested in my gender bs

aaarrrggg i hate that radfem bs has caused me to still associate butch and femme with being lesbian only terms (even though i KNOW they’re not) and thus making me associate both of them with being women, even though i KNOW theyre historically not. its so hard to unlearn???

like, the overlapping lesbian/butch/transmasc history is so hard to navigate as a funky lil enby/genderqueer because a lot of terms are either too masc or too fem for me to be comfortable with, and now that im TRYING to explore exactly how my masculinity and femininity work its so weird!!!

I’m in solidarity with queer men and queer women, both trans and cis or gnc or whatever and figuring out my personal relationships with those communities is hard!!! I relate to my cis female peers as someone who’s only started socially transitioning in recent years, I relate to their issues as someone who doesn’t pass well, I relate to transmascs in terms of wanting to be seen as more masculine, in wanting to physically transition, i relate to trans mlm in terms of sexuality, i relate to lesbians/wlw in terms of sexuality too! some of the best comfort and solidarity ive found is in amab enbies and even some transfems when it comes to comfort and gender expression. the two amab demiguys i know make me feel comfortable exploring masculinity because i feel safe around them BECAUSE they’re not cis, and like, i can be ‘one of the guys’ with them without having to be A GUY, and i relate so so so hard to gnc guys or amab enbies when it comes to presentation. i almost want to transition JUST so i can reembrace femininity in a masculine way.

i dunno, i feel this insane pressure outside of the queer community to either be as masc as possible to pass and be taken seriously, and that’s gotta be at least partially due to the way radfem bs has spread, especially here in the uk.

i wanna be read as masc, i wanna be read as fem, i wanna be incomprehensible! I wanna wear men’s shirts and t shirts and polo shirts with a skirt because i can!! because skirts are fun and cute and i enjoy wearing them. i really do wish i was amab because it would be so much easier to present the way i want to, I think, but then again, i don’t have bottom dysphoria, not really.

all this changes though, really i might just be genderfluid, but i hate the binary connotations of that too. so many enby words are stolen or defined in terms of binary gender: being bigender to most means being male or female, being genderfluid means being fluid between them, being nonbinary is being not male or female, when people equate being nonbinary to being genderless it kills me because I am not binary! but i am not genderless! my gender is here and present and part of me and part of my relation with the world around me and with other people and part of my sexuality and orientation

i dunno, this is turning into a big queer rant. this isn’t me trying to shove labels onto myself, I’m fine with rejecting them if that’s what’s needed - i don’t define my sexuality any further than queer even though hypothetically i could probably id as bi or pan or any mspec label, but I choose not to because being QUEER is my orientation. perhaps my gender as well (i do id as genderqueer as well as enby) but i want to really truly understand my gender AS queer, rather than just brush it off as queer because I cannot define it to myself or understand it. i want to understand my relation to the world around me and to other queer people.

so am I butch? am I femme? maybe it changes? is that allowed to change from day to day? my gender doesn’t FEEL like it changes but that presentation does, maybe! maybe I need to try new pronouns, but using she/her like i want to is hard when i associate it with misgendering and failing to prove myself as trans enough to cis people.

i wanna be masc with women and fem with men, but the latter is hard due to fears that come from experiences with misogyny. a lot of cis men ARE scary to me - I’m an 18 year old afab for fucks sake. i wish i could have that re-embraced femininity, but I’m not flat when i bind or build masc or tall or fuckin. anything! and hormones aren’t an option yet because a lot of my mental health is too unstable, the nhs is in shambles, and I don’t have money. i can’t embrace that yet unless im in the right circles, with the right people, and i can’t be that in society, I don’t trust it. I don’t know if I wanna dress fem and have people see me as masc or fem, i don’t know what pronouns i want them to use, i dunno man!!!

i wanna reach out to older queer people but again its hard, we’re in lockdown, i don’t live somewhere with a big queer community, i’m not a fan of bars and such and there’s not any in my town so i’d have to travel a bit, i wish i could just feel at home!!! i wanna be feminine without being female but also without being male, at least not fully male! I’m not male, i have this connection to femininity and it doesn’t feel male to me, I don’t want to be included in explicitly male or explicitly female spaces, I wanna be with everyone or no one, i dunno

again, i wish butch and femme didnt feel so gendered to me personally, and that’s not just this site but also what ive grown up with, my mum used to always say i was a wannabe ‘butch lezza’ whenever i was trying to get her to take my NONBINARY identity seriously and I’m not that! not because it’s bad to be, but because that’s just not me. I’m not a wlw, I’m not even sure on my attraction to women, or to men, or to anyone, I’m just attracted to queerness, and i dunno it’s hard. being ‘butch’ to me, somewhat, still means wlw, even though it’s not true, and i hate how radfem bs has ruined the word for me. i wish i could understand my identity in terms of being butch or femme, or whatever i am, and i wish those words weren’t tainted for me in the first place. i guess all of us are just ‘failed women’ in the eyes of society, huh.

characters who are feminine, but still explicitly male, or have some relation with masculinity, or are fluid between it, or who return to masculinity as a default give me so much euphoria just to witness. I’m in desperate need of a haircut and i don’t know whether to grow it out properly again or cut it short

either way, I’m gonna dye it purple

#purple is a queer colour #DONT rb unless you have some advice or something #then again my replies/inbox exists #dont send me shit accusing me of being some flavour of bigot im figuring out MY relationship with this shit #if someone calls me homophobic or transphobic or something over discussing my own queer identity on my OWN DAMN BLOG ill eat my fucking hat #this is all without applying the aro lens but idk how much that applies to this either #my aromanticism affects my relationships with people and how i approach them but that's more on a personal level than a GENDER kinda level #though perhaps my unique approach to relationships and my approach to gender are linked #especially with how being alloaro causes me to often prioritise different things in relationships #is that linked to gender? who knows #queer tag #illusion.txt #again dont rb unless u have a point to make #older queers PLEASE interact #older butches and femmes what is your wisdom #gender tag

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lockefanfic · 4 years ago

Text

Business Trip: Pt 30 - Mission

Author’s note: no smut in this one :P

---

On one of the van's monitors, you watch a live video feed from Sana as she sits in the cafe across the street from the SM HQ main entrance, the long lens DSLR on the table next to her pointed right at its front doors. The camera makes a series of clicking sounds as Irene emerges from the building and steps into a waiting black car, an air of haughty arrogance following her every step of the way. From the back of the tech van, parked a few blocks away in a secluded alleyway, you watch as the still captures from her camera appear on a monitor.

To say there was a tense atmosphere in the van was a bit of an understatement.

You were thankful, at least, for the presence of Jihyo, who was sitting between you and Jeongyeon in the rear of the van, the three of you facing the bank of monitors, laptops, and other tech equipment that Jeongyeon was somehow operating - all at the same time, it seemed. Silence weighed heavy in the air, aside from the tapping of Jeongyeon's fingers as she typed out some indecipherable code on a terminal that you presume kept everything running smoothly.

Doing your best to ignore the tension in the air, you focus instead on the jittery picture on one of the main monitors - the live video feed from Nayeon's jacket camera. You watch as she nears the alleyway that contained the side entrance door to SM - the entrance code to which she had convinced Jay to give up earlier in the week.

"Command, Blue 1. At staging point. Ready to commence operation."

---

"Well that sounded unpleasant."

You don't bother to look up from your desk, where you have buried your head in your hands. By the sound of her voice and the heavy click of the oversized combat boots she is wearing, you know that the young woman who has just entered your office is none other than Jeongyeon. The large black mens' boots gave her outfit a distinctly Jeongyeon vibe, given the fact that the rest of her clothing consisted of a rather formal looking leopard print cocktail dress.

You hear her close the door to your office and pull up a chair as you rub your face one last time in a vain attempt to rid yourself of stress.

"You wanna talk about it, boss?" she says, sounding genuinely concerned.

She was clearly referring to the way Nayeon had left your tech test meeting in the parking lot; given that the door to the van was open Jeongyeon likely heard everything that was said between you, including the way the older girl had stormed off after noticing Sana's clothing choice for that day.

"What's there to talk about? Just another goddamn issue to deal with on top of the shit sundae that has been my life in the past six months or so."

Jeongyeon crosses her arms and those long perfect legs, a look of worry on her soft features.

"I guess it has been... rough for you the past little while. Maybe we should cancel or postpone this op until Nayeon gets over this? She seems a little... emotionally compromised at the moment."

"It's fine," you answer, "she's nothing if not a professional. She'll be there at 3."

Jeongyeon glances over to the wall clock. It was 1:15.

"What exactly happened between you two?" she asks, hesitation plain in her voice, "I mean, I know what happened in your past is none of my business... but you two clearly have some history. It was a little hard to ignore the little soap opera scene that was playing out fifteen feet away from me."

You look up at the young woman and take a moment to compose yourself.

"Nayeon and I met in university. We dated - long term. But then I got a job offer from JYP that necessitated me moving away, and she got accepted into a Masters' program; so we broke up. It wasn't a... smooth breakup, to put it simply."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"It is what it is. Believe me when I said her showing up to help us with this whole Irene thing is a surprise - to be honest, I never thought I'd ever see her again. She was the first person on the list of problems I hoped I'd never have to deal with."

Jeongyeon takes a moment to gather her thoughts, bringing a slender hand to her mouth and tapping her lips with a fingertip. A couple of moments of silence pass.

"You... seem to have a lot of girls on your list."

You are taken aback by Jeongyeon's words - a little offended by her insinuation that you didn't know how to manage your relationships with women.

"You know about my relationship with the girls on the team. You've never had a problem with that. And is it so hard to believe I've had past girlfriends?"

"No, it's not that - not that at all. I don't mean to judge you."

"Then what do you mean, Jeongyeon?"

The young woman takes a moment to compose her words, apparently taken aback by your defensiveness.

"I just... I guess I've just been bumped down another spot on the list."

She casts her eyes down and away from you as a look of sadness overtakes her features. She had made plain her feelings for you, and to see yet another woman enter your life vying for your attention must have hit her hard. You immediately regret speaking so defensively.

"I... I'm sorry, Jeongyeon. I misunderstood you. I didn't mean-"

"No, it's okay," she says, waving a hand away, "I didn't mean to make things so serious all of a sudden. I'm sorry. I should go. I'll see you at 3."

Jeongyeon stands and turns to leave your office, but she is stopped - when you reach over and grab her by the wrist.

You weren't even sure how you did it - your body seemed to move of its own accord, quickly rising and reaching out for her slender arm, doing something, anything, to keep her from leaving. It was almost automatic, involuntary; and it didn't sink in that you had done it until Jeongyeon turns around to look you in the eye. Her eyes are glistening.

"Jeongyeon," you manage to say, "I'm sorry. Please. Don't go."

You stand there in silence for a few moments that seem to stretch out into infinity, your hand clutching her wrist, your eyes searching for something in each others' that neither of you were quite sure could actually be found.

"I need to know," Jeongyeon finally says, her voice surprisingly stern, as though she were mustering every ounce of courage she had to speak, "I need to know if we're ever going to happen. I've told you I would wait for you while you figured yourself out... but I'm tired of waiting. I need to know. I need to know if you're ever going to be with me."

"Jeongyeon," you say, unable to come up with anything else to say. Jeongyeon's eyes are glassy with tears, but the tone of her voice is strong and confident.

"I need to know if you feel the same way. I need to know if I'm ever going to be more than just another girl on your list."

"I..."

"Why can't you see it?" she interrupts, her frustration and anger lending her voice strength, "Why can't you see how much stress and drama and heartache all these other girls are causing you? Momo, Sana, Nayeon - all these other girls - all they do is burden you. All you do is deal with their bullshit. Why can't you see how easy it would be if we were together? Why can’t you see how much I care about you?"

You had known for a long time about Jeongyeon, and how she felt about you. She had told you as such on multiple occasions - and it was evidently obvious enough that others around the office had noticed it, too. You are suddenly unable to look at her in the eye anymore, and instead your gaze drifts down to where you are still clutching her wrist - except you aren't holding her there anymore, your hand having drifted down of its own accord to hold her hand in yours.

It wasn't until just then, with your hand clutching hers, that you realized how you felt. Everything she said - everything she said about the drama the other girls had brought into your life, and the unending need to handle everything they threw at you - it was all true.

And here was a woman who wanted you, only you, and nothing else. And yet you'd done nothing but lead her on, nothing but merely acknowledge her feelings for you even while you went off and dealt with other women, even while she waited for you, patiently, waiting for you to realize how wonderful a relationship with her could be. She was beautiful and smart and funny and everything you ever needed - why hadn't you seen it earlier?

You want to say something to her, something that will lay bare your feelings - but she doesn't give you the opportunity. She lets go of your hand, and your heart aches at the separation.

"You know what hotel room I'm in," she says, her tone still strong even if her eyes were not, "come to me tonight, once this is all done. Then I'll know. If you don't, then we can forget anything ever existed between us. I'll give up my feelings for you, and we can go back to just being co-workers with benefits."

She turns and walks out of your office, but she lingers around the door before leaving.

"Either way, I'll be one less problem on your list."

---

"Command, Pink 1. Positive ID on VIP leaving the building. Sending confirmation images."

"Pink 1, Command. Acknowledged. Standby for further orders."

To say there was a tense atmosphere in the van was a bit of an understatement.

"Command, Blue 1. At staging point. Ready to commence operation."

"Blue 1, Command. PID on VIP leaving the building. Be advised, nest is empty, lights are green," Jihyo answers.

"Blue 1 acknowledges. Commencing."

You might have just imagined it, but from the second Nayeon had declared she was starting the operation the way she walked seemed to have changed - if the decreased shakiness of the video feed was anything to go by; her steps seemed more stable as she adopted the persona of an SM employee. As you had predicted, she was nothing but professional once she got to work.

She reaches the keypad to the nondescript black door on the side of the building, and without hesitation - for she knew she was probably on camera - she punches in Jay's code on the keypad next to it. Through the camera's audio feed you hear a loud beep and the click of what was probably the door unlocking. The three of you in the van breathe a sigh of relief, thankful that Jay's code had actually worked - the first of many hurdles.

Nayeon opens the door and enters the building. The hallway she steps into is basic, nothing out of the ordinary. Jay had said that Irene used this entrance as a way to meet contacts that she didn't want to be seen walking in through the front door, and so you weren't surprised by the mundane nature of the hallway - a stark contrast to the otherwise sleek, hypermodern design that pervaded the rest of the building.

There is a single door to the left, and Nayeon strides toward it, every step confident, self-assured, seeming to anyone watching (and she probably was being watched, if the numerous security cameras were any indication) that she belonged there.

Beyond the door is a simply furnished waiting room, with two leather couches in the middle of it, a coffee table between them, and a desk next to the only other door out of the room - a desk with a very surprised looking receptionist.

The receptionist, a young woman, stands, seemingly surprised by Nayeon's entrance. She bows cautiously and greets her in Korean. Even without understanding the language you know she is asking what Nayeon's business is, and presumably whether she has an appointment. The two begin to converse politely.

"Nayeon told her she doesn't have an appointment - but that Irene is expecting her," Jihyo translates, "she's telling the receptionist she'll just wait in Irene's office."

Nayeon continues towards the door to Irene’s office, not giving the receptionist an opportunity to stop her. The nervous looking receptionist does her best to physically get in Nayeon's way, an apologetic tone in her voice as she gestures towards the leather couches, presumably so she could confirm Nayeon's identity with Irene before allowing her inside.

Nayeon's demeanor changes - and even without knowing the meaning of her words you can detect the introduction of venom into her tone.

"She's insisting Irene is expecting her, and that she should be let into her office. The receptionist wants her to sit and wait for Irene."

The two go back and forth for awhile, and the faux impatience and anger in Nayeon's tone steadily rises. The girl could act - the sheer, utter confidence she carried in her personal life served her well in her professional one as well, it seemed.

"She's threatening the receptionist," Jihyo translates with a small, subtle grin on her lips, "she's saying if she doesn't let her into Irene's office, Irene will hear about it and it'll cost her her job."

The young receptionist is visibly flustered, and you feel a momentary sense of pity at the situation Nayeon had put her in. Nayeon, however, feels no such sympathy, and with a few more terse words that sound like a command and a sharp nod of her head towards the door, the receptionist reaches over and opens the way to Irene's office. The receptionist bows deeply in apology as Nayeon enters and slams the door behind her.

Nayeon was now where she needed to be - Irene’s office, where she decided there was the best chance for finding something to incriminate Irene and SM. The office consisted of a large wooden desk with a laptop on it, and behind that a series of minimalist filing cabinets. Irene’s leather desk chair was large and opulent, but facing the desk for her guests were two spartan chairs; it was a layout meant to place Irene in a position of power with whomever she met, leaving no doubt as to who was in charge.

"Command, Blue 1. I'm in. Commencing search."

Almost immediately a sense of urgency that wasn’t there previously overtakes Nayeon, as though a switch had been flipped inside her; she dashes over to the desk, producing a USB drive that Jeongyeon had equipped her with. She quickly plugs it into the presumably locked and encrypted laptop.

“Give me five minutes,” Jeongyeon says, as she quickly begins typing code into a terminal.

Nayeon doesn’t waste any time, and she quickly turns to the filing cabinets. She pulls the first one open and begins rifling through the paper files she finds inside, pulling a few folders out and placing the contents onto the desk. She pulls out her phone, and immediately begins taking photos of the documents.

This goes on for a few minutes, and while there was no immediate threat to her, you still found yourself worried for Nayeon’s safety; at any moment SM security could have burst through the door and caught her red handed. Every second she spent on SM property, she was in danger.

“I’m in!” Jeongyeon announces, seemingly having gained access to the contents of Irene’s laptop, “I’m downloading to the drive.”

“How long will that take?” Jihyo asks.

“About ten minutes. There’s terabytes of data here,” Jeongyeon answers. As Nayeon’s device downloads text and images, previews of each file scroll on one of the monitors in front of you.

“Blue 1, you’ll have to hold for ten minutes,” Jihyo relays.

“Understood,” Nayeon replies, not skipping a beat as she returns the files she is working on to the drawer before grabbing another handful and starting again. You don’t have time to look at exactly what she is photographing, but you do catch glimpses of the JYP logo - several black and white photo of members of your team, obviously taken from a long distance.

You watch Jeongyeon bring a hand to her mouth in shock as several photos of her at a cafe with Choa flash briefly on the monitors.

“Fucking bitch,” Jihyo says out loud. Briefly, her entire service record flashes on the screen - her resume, her case records, even her psych evaluations.

“How the hell did she get all this shit? What the hell is she planning?” Jeongyeon hisses, still in shock. Neither Jihyo nor you are able to answer. Your fists clench in anger at the scale of Irene’s newly discovered treachery.

“Jesus, there’s a lot here,” Nayeon quips as she flips through another folder and snaps more pictures, “plenty enough for invasion of privacy charges, at least.”

“That’s not enough,” you snap, “we need to catch her on more. I want her in jail.”

“I agree - there has to be something more substantial,” Jihyo adds, “something that implicates her in something big.”

Nayeon continues her search, finishing up with her current folder before returning it to the cabinet. Instead of grabbing the next one in order, she flips through the files, evidently looking for something with an interesting label.

Her fingers stop suddenly when a black folder comes into view - it is grainy and blurry on the video monitor, but even you can see that it was clearly a folder of importance.

On the label for the folder are two stark letters: YG.

“That’s it,” Jihyo says with a tone of urgency, “that’s gotta have something on the YG case!”

“The YG case?” You ask. You had known that Irene had played some part in the recent fall of one of the larger companies in your industry, but you didn’t know many of the details.

“YG was one of the big players, “Jihyo explains, her eyes not once straying from the monitor where Nayeon has begun combing through the file, “until a few years ago, when Irene brought down their leadership with a combination of blackmail and bribery. Rumour had it their R&D group was on the verge of a tech breakthrough - until all four members of their core research team disappeared.”

“Disappeared?” Jeongyeon asks.

“Yeah - one day they were here, the next day they were gone. Since everyone knows Irene had a hand in bringing down the company, everyone just assumed she had a part to play in their disappearance too, but there isn’t any evidence to prove that. SM didn’t debut any new tech after taking down YG either, which they would have done if they’d had a hold on the R&D group’s work.”

“Jesus…” Jeongyeon hisses; she knew first hand what Irene’s people were capable of, having been a victim of it herself. “Is it possible that the team went into hiding? What if they knew Irene was on their tail, and they went underground to keep SM and Irene from getting their hands on the tech they were working on?”

“That’s a possibility,” Jihyo answers, “we know SM wanted to take YG down because they were a business rival, but the possibility of stealing their tech at the same time is probably what motivated them to send Irene after them.”

Nayeon continues her scanning of the files - until a knock on the door of the office startles her and the three of you in the van.

Nayeon freezes for only a moment until her training kicks in and she moves, with admirable calm, into action.

“Command, Blue 1. Update on the drive?”

“Blue 1, Command. Six minutes,” Jihyo answers after glancing over at Jeongyeon’s screen.

Nayeon closes up the YG file and places it on top of the laptop, covering up the USB drive, before walking towards the door. Taking a breath, she opens it swiftly. On the other side of the door is a tall, slim man in a perfect black suit, the earpiece in his ear and his overall appearance marking him out as a likely member of SM’s security team. Next to him is the receptionist, a nervous look on her features.

Nayeon questions the man with a terse tone, as though she were annoyed at his interruption. The man answers politely but firmly, seemingly asking for confirmation of Nayeon’s identity.

Nayeon lets her confidence and body language speak for her, answering his questions with a haughty and arrogant tone to her voice, as though she couldn’t believe the man had the gall to bother her while she was waiting for her non-existent appointment with Irene.

Nayeon lets out a scoff, as though she couldn’t believe what was happening. Finally she invites him into Irene’s office with a disgusted wave of her hand. When he steps inside, she slams the door behind him - but not before shooting the receptionist a sharp look.

“Nayeon says the security guard can wait in the office with her if the receptionist is so worried,” Jihyo translates.

The two converse in Korean. Nayeon slumps into Irene’s desk chair as if she owned it, crossing her legs and idly browsing through something on her phone. The man sits in one of the chairs opposite her, likely surprised by the sheer gall and arrogance on display by the stranger in front of him who was sitting in his boss’ chair.

“She’s hitting on him,” Jihyo says with a smirk, “she says that the receptionist was annoying but at least he’s cute. She’s asking him if there are any good places nearby to get a drink.”

The security guard seemed surprised at Nayeon’s sudden change in tone, but he seemed willing to indulge her at least. It sounded like he was suggesting a few places nearby. Whatever Nayeon was saying to him, it sounded like his tough exterior was beginning to crack.

From her interrogation of Jay you knew Nayeon was not above using her body to get what she wanted - and while you knew it was for the good of the mission (not to mention her own safety), you still found yourself hesitant at what you were about to witness.

Nayeon rises from her chair and walks around to the front of the desk, each step accompanied with an exaggerated swing of her hips. She leans against the front of the desk, crossing her legs in front of her. The guard seemed a little tense at her new proximity, shifting nervously in his seat as Nayeon continues to make small talk with him, her tone slowly becoming more and more flirtatious.

He finds enough courage to say what appears to be a joke, if Nayeon’s reaction is anything to go by.

She lets out a short giggle - the kind of giggle a girl gives when she is not truly amused but rather wants to appear as cute as possible. You don’t understand what she says next, but you imagine she is telling him how funny he is.

“She says she’s bored of waiting,” Jihyo translates, “and that there must be something they could do to pass the time.”

You fidget in your chair in the cramped van, uncomfortable at having to bear witness for the second time in a week as your ex-girlfriend seduces a man. At least this time there was more than just a pane of one-way glass separating you, not that it lessened the discomfort.

Nayeon bends over until she is just inches away from the guard’s face - and you could tell he was trying awfully hard not to take a glimpse down the tantalizing cleavage of her low cut blouse.

She taps his nose with a finger - which would have been cute, if she didn’t immediately follow it up by tracing her finger along his admittedly sharp jawline. Her finger falls slowly down to the red, perfectly knotted tie at his throat, and with her long, delicate fingers she undoes the knot and pulls on the red silk until it is completely off.

She stands, playing seductively with the red silk, until she is standing behind him. You don’t understand the content of the lustful sounding words coming from her mouth, but you do understand her tone. She bends to whisper something in his ear as she wraps the tie around his mouth and knots it behind his head, the red silk filling his mouth and keeping him from speaking. She continues to speak seductively into his ear, and as her fingers fall down the front of his chest to slowly undo the buttons of his white shirt, you brace yourself for what was about to transpire-

-until Nayeon abruptly whacks the guard over the head with what appeared to be a heavy steel stapler.

You didn’t even know when she picked it up from Irene’s desk, nor where she hid it while she seduced the guard - all you knew was that said guard was now on the floor unconscious, and Nayeon was rushing back to the laptop to retrieve the USB and its now-completed download of Irene’s data. She snatches the YG folder from the desk and quickly makes towards the exit.

“Command, Blue 1. Leaving.”

“Acknowledged, Blue 1,” Jihyo answers, a small, impressed smile on her lips.

Nayeon slips out of the office and finds the waiting room empty - dismissing the absence of the receptionist, she quickly heads towards the hallway door that will lead her to the outside of the building.

In the hallway to greet her are half a dozen more guards.

In that moment time freezes; there is a look of utter shock on the guards’ faces when Nayeon appears, and it seems to take forever for the foremost amongst them to acknowledge Nayeon’s presence by raising his hand and shouting something in Korean. It is just enough time for Nayeon to make a decision - the one to run.

She dashes as quickly as she can down the hallway, the six guards in close pursuit. She reaches the door first and bursts into the alleyway.

“Command, Blue 1! Request for hot extract!”

“Blue 1, acknowledged!” Jihyo answers quickly, already scrambling towards the front of the van and the drivers’ seat. She starts the engine and before you can get a hold of anything the van is already moving, throwing you off your seat and to the floor of the vehicle. Jeongyeon is just as surprised as you, and the sudden jolt of movement causes her to lose her balance and fall quite literally into your arms. Your arms wrap themselves around her as Jihyo pushes the van out into the busy street.

You barely have time to get upright before the van screeches to a halt a few seconds later, sending both Jeongyeon and yourself tumbling forward uncontrollably. You land roughly on top of her, and you immediately give her a look of concern, but she is a tough one, and a shake of her head dismisses your worry.

“Fuck, we’re stuck!” Jihyo snaps. You raise your head enough to peer through the front window to find a large dump truck has begun to back up into an adjacent construction site, stopping traffic from both sides from progressing.

“Can’t back up!” Jeongyeon shouts as she looks out the rear window. It was rush hour in Seoul and cars were already packed behind the van.

“Shit,” you hiss. You look up at the monitor where Nayeon is still running away from the guards, the video feed bouncing and rattling with the pace of her run. From the way she was running she was still clearly being chased.

“Blue 1, this is Command,” you say quickly into the microphone, “make for the shopping mall across the street. We can lose them in the crowd. I’ll meet you there!”

“Okay!” Nayeon manages to answer.

“I’m gonna go grab her. Jihyo, once this clears up pick us up from the mall!” You shout as you open up the rear doors of the van and scramble out, wanting to do something, anything, to save Nayeon from her pursuers.

—-

The mall is crowded, as you expected, but it at least gave you a chance to lose the SM guards in the rush of after-work shoppers - or so you hoped. It doesn’t take you long to find Nayeon - there is a loud commotion at one of the entrances, and before you know it Nayeon is there, running towards you, half a dozen suited men in close pursuit.

“Run!” She shouts, and before you know it the two of you are running, ducking and weaving around the busy crowd of startled shoppers. The crowd shouts and yelps in alarm as you ran as fast as you could, unable to avoid the occasional unintentional bump of a started onlooker.

The guards are close behind - you needed to do something to throw them off. Taking Nayeon by the wrist, you duck into a hallway apart from the main shopping area that contained the mall’s washrooms and admin areas - and it appears you’re successful, as you risk a glance behind you and deduct from the retreating source of the commotion that the guards are heading in the wrong direction.

You and Nayeon breathe a sigh of relief, happy that you’d lost the guards for now. Satisfied that your pursuers have been sufficiently thrown off, you head back into the main shopping area-

-only to quite literally run into a guard; the same one Nayeon had knocked out in Irene’s office.

It takes the both of you a split second to recognize each other, but when the guard finally recovers enough from the shock to realize who you and the woman behind you were, a look of anger quickly appears on his face.

He raises his hand to his mouth, presumably to report to the radio microphone in his jacket cuff. He begins to speak-

-only to be punched in the mouth and knocked out cold for the second time in the last half hour.

Yoo Jeongyeon is there, suddenly, shaking her fist as she stands over the guard’s fallen form, a grimace on her face.

“Fuck, they never tell you how much it hurts to punch someone,” she hisses.

Nayeon and you take a moment to register what just happened, until a loud shout from the other side of the mall snaps the three of you back into the moment. A split second later you watch as the six SM guards, realizing they’d been heading in the wrong direction, begin to head back towards you. Evidently the knocked out guard got enough across to tell them where you were before Jeongyeon laid him out.

“Shit!” Jeongyeon snaps, before the three of you quickly dart back into the hallway. The sound of the heavy shoes stomping after you, and the shouts of alarm and anger from members of the crowd as they are pushed aside, tells you the guards are in close pursuit.

Nayeon, leading the way, heads towards the end of the hallway, where a red emergency door seemingly leads to the outside of the mall. It might have been locked, it might have led to a dead end, but at the moment it was your only option.

Nayeon barges into the door with her shoulder, which thankfully gives way and reveals an alleyway. You are only a few seconds ahead of your pursuers, but when you step across the door you immediately turn and brace yourself against it, holding it shut as best you could. Jeongyeon notices what you’re doing and she too braces herself against it.

“Run, Nayeon!” You shout, and you watch as Nayeon stands momentarily frozen, debating whether or not she should do as you say. The second passes, and Nayeon quickly turns to begin to run away - but she only runs to a nearby pile of trash, where she retrieves a heavy looking bin. Jeongyeon scrambles to help her pick it up, and together the three of you push it up against the door.

And you do so just in time, as the door bursts almost halfway open when the guards on the other side throw themselves against it. The bin is heavy and helps the three of you keep the door shut, but you knew it was only a matter of time before the men on the other side eventually overpowered you and forced their way out.

“Fuck, Nayeon, just get out of here. Get the data to Jihyo,” you snap as you push as heavily as you could against the bin and the door. The guards on the other side are shouting as they try to pry the door open, all of them appearing to throw their weight behind it.

You make eye contact with Nayeon, and in her eyes you see her inner conflict - she didn’t want to leave you there, didn’t want to leave you to be captured by SM, not when she knew what they were capable of and what had happened to others that had crossed Irene. But the information in the file and on her USB drive were vital, and someone had to get it out there…

For a split second Nayeon’s eyes quiver, as though she were afraid of having to live with her decision - but then before you know it she is gone, dashing away, running as fast as her legs could carry her. You watch as she turns the corner and disappears out into the busy street.

You know that she was just doing what you had ordered her to do - what made the most sense in that situation. The information in the folder, and the USB drive, might have been enough to finally bring Irene to justice. Someone had to get it out into the public. Nonetheless, it hurt you to see her run and leave you to deal with the SM guards, even when you knew it was the most logical course of action.

Next to you, Jeongyeon is struggling to push back against the door, a look of hard effort on her face as she leans as hard as she could against the cold steel and the heavy bin. She could have run right along with Nayeon, but instead she decided to stay.

“You didn’t have to come for us,” you manage to say.

“I didn’t come for her,” she answers, “I came for you.”

You reach over and clutch her hand, covering it with yours. You smile at her, a sad smile; you were both about to be captured by dangerous people with ill intentions, and while you would have been happier knowing she was far away and safe, a small part of you was still happy she was there, with you, when she could have easily stayed in the van with Jihyo.

Jeongyeon smiles back at you.

The door bursts open and the guards spill out into the alleyway, the force of their exit knocking you and Jeongyeon to the ground. You quickly crawl over to Jeongyeon and help her to her feet, the six guards quickly rising themselves as they finally confront you.

You clench your fists and step between them and Jeongyeon, unwilling to go down without a fight and wanting to protect her for as long as you could. You are surprised to find that Jeongyeon has stepped out from behind you to stand side by side, a look of determination on her face as she glares angrily as the SM guards as though taunting them into attacking her. A small stream of blood is falling down her cheek from a gash she must have received as she fell.

In her hands is a length of scrap wood that she must have picked up off the ground, clutched in front of her like a sword.

The SM guards tense, ready for the confrontation that was about to come. The first of them inches forward, and reaches into his suit to draw a collapsible steel baton. You breathe and ready yourself as best you could for what was to come.

There is a loud screech that could only be that of burning rubber, and everyone in the alley freezes to watch as a van pulls up on the entrance of the alleyway, directly behind you and Jeongyeon. You immediately think it is Jihyo, but this van is white, not black. The side door flies open. Time freezes in that moment, and you manage to make out every single detail of what awaited you inside the van.

In the van are three women. One was unfamiliar to you. The second you recognize as the fit stewardess on the flight to Seoul from Hawaii last week - the one that had taken a keen interest in you and Jeongyeon.

The third woman was one you knew well. She is beautiful, as she always was, even if this time her face is heavy with intensity. Her eyes, those large, expressive eyes of hers, are wide open with alarm and determination. It wasn’t until that moment that you realized how much you’d missed her, how much you’d longed to see her again.

But there is something about her that looks a little different, a little out of place. It takes you another split second to realize why she looked so different - her hair, usually in bangs, was now swept off to the side. And while the fact that she was now your rescuer added to the fact, you were convinced that she had never looked more beautiful.

“Get in!” Hirai Momo shouts, her hand extended towards you.

You immediately rush Jeongyeon into the van before taking Momo’s hand and letting her pull you into the vehicle. The stewardess shuts the sliding door behind you just as the guards reach the van and try in vain to open the locked door.

“Floor it, Chaeyoung!” Momo shouts. The driver, a young looking girl with a short haircut, shifts the van into gear.

“Hold on!”

With the sound of screeching tires, the van speeds away from the alleyway, whisking you to safety.

#kpop fanfiction #kpop fanfic

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