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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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valiantarcher · 3 years

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I have random and assorted thoughts on my Constance Savery reads over the past couple of weeks. I’ve categorised them by work (Magic in My Shoes, “The Waswytch Secret”, The Reb and the Redcoats, The Good Ship Red Lily, and Enemy Brothers) so those who haven’t read all of them have the option to (hopefully easily) scroll past the unread ones if they so desire. I have also put them under the cut due to length.

Magic in My Shoes: I enjoyed Sally as the narrator, and the premise was engaging even with me knowing the secret early in the book. I was a little surprised by the accusations of ill-nourishment and neglect against Aunt Persis, but in retrospect, I appreciate that realism - four growing children are not going to flourish off even generous portions for two of them. Which brings me to my main complaint - Tandy and his unwillingness to see gorging himself was selfish and wrong on many levels. Despite the thin excuse that he had been delicate and sickly at times in the past, I really expected Josset (with Laurence’s support) to put his foot down instead of continuing to baby him (after all, as someone remarked, triplets are all of the same age). Tandy didn’t ruin the story for me, but he made certain parts of it very irritating. I did love the plan involving ten-year-old Laurence becoming a schoolteacher and, when Aunt Persis declared that was nonsense, all the children bring up a moral tale with a six-year-old being so studious that she became a teacher as solid proof.

“The Waswytch Secret”: Given that it was in a collection of ghost stories (well, sort of - most had some sort of haunting element, if only a little, but I’m still not sure why “The Red-Headed League” was included), I wasn’t sure what to expect at first. It was thoroughly Savery, though, and an enjoyable read with an element of mystery. It felt slightly different from her novels, and I think that was due to the choice of one of the younger children as narrator.

Reb and Redcoats: This was a reread and I found it a pretty fun one this time around. Randal’s integration into and relationship with the Darringtons was charming. I couldn’t decide whether Tim Wingate’s inaptitude for stealth and secrecy was more irritating or amusing, but I swung towards the latter by the end, especially given his cheerful nature. My main gripe is that I still feel like the Patty switch was kind of cheating.

The Good Ship Red Lily: I struggled with this one a lot even past (or maybe because of) the tense start. Violet was a horrible child, and I loathed Ingram and disliked Sir Timon. Objectively, of course it’s good that there was reconciliation with Ingram and that he repented and asked forgiveness, but I could not make myself invested in it (though the tiny glimpses we had of it from Michael’s perspective helped a little). I enjoyed Toby as primary character a lot and especially appreciated his resolution to deny the pleasures when he felt accepting them would go against his conscience. I wasn’t very pleased with the treatment of Patience, though - Toby said the others didn’t join him in his denial because they were too young to understand; while that certainly makes sense for the younger ones (and Violet is a category in and of herself), Patience is a year older than him and - although not privy to all the knowledge and trust from their father that Toby is - was Toby’s confidant about plans to escape. She showed a lack of wisdom in following Violet up the chimney, but that could partially have been explained by her caregiving to the younger children. Regardless, especially since all knew about Ingram’s betrayal, I think Patience at least should have been given a reason for not seeing the pleasures as a betrayal of their father instead of being pushed to the side and under the general but false umbrella of “too young to understand”.

Enemy Brothers: Especially after The Good Ship Red Lily, I was afraid this one might not live up to the positive recollection I had of it - but it didn’t disappoint. I very much appreciated that, although Dym was the one who had a special connection with Tony, Tony belonged to the entire family and they to him. I know Tony takes it lightly at the end and chalks it up to their keenness for detective work, but James and Porgy cycling 60 miles after him and the German in the car was no small thing. And, while it bugs me a little bit that Ginger doesn’t recgonise Tony despite the marked resemblance to Dym, I’ll let it go with the idea that he thinks he’s familiar but his brain doesn’t provide the correct context while on ship. I have a new appreciation for Dym. On one hand, of course he is gentle and doesn’t take harm easily from Tony - he’s been searching for Tony for years and so he’s been choosing to love Tony for years. And, on the other, you can tell he still hasn’t forgiven Max’s Mutti for stealing Tony and just how much effort it takes for him to choose to tell Tony to still love her and that he will take him to see her after the war. I also appreciate the honesty that Dym had in discussing England’s past and how they were not always on the side of right but that this time, they were. Also, Dym was a bomber pilot! I don’t know the exact statistics, but this was an incredibly dangerous job. I’m sure it varied some between organizations and aircraft, but if you were on the crew of a US B-17 bomber doing runs, the odds were you would only make it halfway through the 25 runs (I believe that’s right for the year it was published?) you were supposed to before being killed, captured, or severely injured. Even if you beat the odds and made it through all those runs (as some did), you would have had multiple crewmembers who did not and so would not have kept your full crew together (Were there rare exceptions to this, crews who made it all together? I hope so, but I don’t know). At any rate, when Euphemia comments to Dym and his friends to leave croquet until the summer when it was warmer and the way they all looked at each other for a moment as if there was no certainty that summer would come hit hard this time. (Oh, I just found someone noting that the RAF flew night missions and had a higher casualty rate than the US bombers, though it did depend on the year, of course - if they weren’t in the worst year yet, they were heading into it.) And the moment when Tony finds Dym and comes up behind him, nervous and afraid, and whispers “Please, George, I’ve come back” is just wonderful. I think there’s an idea of fear and justice vs. love and mercy, along with the hope that the choice of coming back will make a difference, but I haven’t figured out how to put it into words. I’m actually kind of shocked this book has never been made into a movie or a mini-series, especially when WWII stories have been so popular in somewhat recent years. But perhaps the strong Christian threads have put producers off (...not that that’s stopped others from mangling or removing them from other works).

The Good Ship Red Lily and Enemy Brothers: Enemy Brothers feels like a kind of inverse of The Good Ship Red Lily. Both books deal with children meeting and spending time with family members (and because of kidnapping, no less) and making decisions as to where home is and who true family is, but the role of the family is drastically different. In Red Lily, the dapper uncle is the kidnapper. Ingram tries to act like he is filling the kind, wise, but fun adult role and the children do love him for that. However, he is directly and actively responsible for their kidnapping, for previous imprisonment of their father, and for the current attempt to capture their father. In Enemy Brothers, Dym is ostensibly in the enemy role (being English and responsible for Tony’s “imprisonment” in the White Priory), but his actions are kind, loving, and (mostly) wise. Even when Tony is hating him, he can’t deny there’s a magnetism around Dym that all the children, including him, recognise and respond to. It’s not quite that serious, but I am reminded of the exchange in The Fellowship of the Ring about the enemy’s agents seeming fair but feeling foul, while the good may look foul but feel fair. But where an understanding of Ingram’s true nature leads Toby to separate from him and his grandfather, a deeper understanding of Dym and his true character helps Tony to make the hard but right decision about his home and family. In both cases, repentance and returning bring about reconciliation and restoration, but Ingram is the one repenting in Red Lily, confessing and asking forgiveness of his brother. In Enemy Brothers, Tony is the one who comes back, finally seeking the brother who has sought him for so long. He doesn’t ask for forgiveness from his brother in words and indeed doesn’t need to because his actions speak so loudly of it, but is fully received with love and restored.

#Constance Savery #Enemy Brothers #The Good Ship Red Lily #The Reb and the Redcoats #Magic in My Shoes #The Waswytch Secret #books #I'm sure I'm forgetting lots of thoughts but this is so long already #Thanks to past!Valia for having acquired much more knowledge of WWII since the first Enemy Brothers read #No thanks to past!Valia for not having done any research into the RAF #I am also always struck by the reminder Enemy Brothers was written during the war - maybe that's part of why it feels so real #As far-fetched as the premise always seems to me - these things just happened and the timing was such?? But stranger things have happened #Providence after all and I'll forgive it here even though I tend to like a stronger recognition of it #And now to send all the books back to their own libraries *sighs*

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grimoire-of-seven · 4 years

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Could I request the demon brothers reactions to MC falling asleep on them and then getting really cuddly in her sleep and nuzling up close to him

PROMPT :: “Hold me close, and hold me tight.”

Rating: SFW

Words: 300-450 per character

Characters: Demon brothers + MC / Gender-Neutral Reader

Notes: This was so fluffy and I thoroughly enjoyed writing this! I had to scrap some ideas because it ended up with most of the demon brothers bringing MC to bed [the most comfortable cuddle place, tbh]. I had to make adjustments so I hope you like it! Thank you for requesting~

LUCIFER

It was an odd request, Lucifer wouldn’t deny. Well… ‘odd’ is quite harsh.

Perhaps, just bizarre?

You had summoned him to the planetarium, with the order of bringing his comforter and pillow. Being in a pact with you, the Avatar of Pride couldn’t do anything but oblige to the peculiar instruction.

That was a few moments earlier.

Now, he’s lying down beside you, all snuggled up in each other’s arms – all alone in the planetarium.

He chuckled at this little idea of a ‘dinner date,’ [the pizza has long been forgotten] “If you wanted to sleep, we could’ve very well done that in my room, no?”

“Hmm,” You agreed sleepily, cuddling closer and wrapping him in a tighter embrace, “Luke said there’ll be… there’ll be meteor showers seen… seen from Devildom tonight.”

Admittedly hating the fact that you’ve named another man while you’re in his presence, Lucifer couldn’t help but silently thank the little chihua– angel.

You wouldn’t have this lovely idea if not for the do—angel’s words, anyway.

“You can sleep, dear.” He said in an affectionate tone. Lucifer moved your fringe to the side, giving your forehead a gentle kiss, “You look awfully tired today…”

There was a moment of silence between the two of you, he was sure of himself that you had dozed off.

“Sleep well–”

“Hhhnoooo…” You protested, suddenly barely awake once again. With a smile on your lips, you beamed at the obsidian-haired demon with as much energy as you can, “I wanted to see them with you.”

MAMMON

To hell with Lucifer and his stupid rules.

The white-haired demon spun his pen on his hand in irritation at the list of figures before him.

He can’t memorize it all by dawn! It’s absolutely impossible!

“This is so damn frustrating!” Mammon complained; he crumpled up the paper you had prepared for him for his History of Devildom and its Nine Circles exam tomorrow.

Mammon felt you stir beside him. You have fallen asleep by his side, one arm draped around him in a loose embrace.

Both of you were situated by the sofa, a place he deemed where he’s most comfortable to ‘study’ - second only to his bed but you refused to sit there in case he falls asleep on you.

Your peaceful face alone was enough to calm him down from his frustration.

Staring at you for a while, the Avatar of Greed noticed the bags under your eyes, your face visibly tired… Was it because you’ve been up last night trying to make a comprehensive reviewer for him?

At the realization, he feels bad for having to complain when you’ve put so much effort to help.

You were too good to a lazy scumbag like him. His brothers had been telling you to stop hanging around him so you avoid getting ‘infected’ by his scummy-ness.

Yet you still never gave up on him.

Lazily opening the crumpled paper from his hands, he adjusted his position in a more comfortable state for your sleeping form.

He smiled in defeat, kissing the crown of your head with deep fondness, “Alright, I’ll study well… But only because you’re rewarding the Great Mammon too much.”

LEVIATHAN

The night is still young, as Levi announced in the group chat. He had invited the whole House of Lamentation for a late night TSL movie marathon as preparation for the upcoming Vol.9 of the series.

You had asked Mammon and Beel to join you but both excused themselves from today’s screening. Mammon was off being called by his witch friends, and Beel… decided he would come if Levi will provide food.

Levi did not provide food.

“Cause distraction, eating will!” He explained as you and Beel presented yourselves infront of the purple-haired demon’s room. The Avatar of Gluttony left you alone with a sad and hungry expression.

Being the only person to show up for the marathon, Levi saw fit to treat you like the not-normie you are. The two of you sat close together on the floor like ‘true friends’ would.

With his eyes focused on the screen, Levi didn’t notice you nodding off to the movie.

The only time he had realized was when you had draped your arm around him, cuddling close as if to feel more of his warmth.

He couldn’t believe it. It was like both of you are in a shoujo anime.

Like, one of those anime plot where it’s a normal school story where both of you are forced to live together but his brothers were in the way of your love story then he casually asked you for a movie marathon and you two ended up cuddling and then you both fall in love with each other and then Ruri-chan is suddenly alive after hearing that you’re taking Levi away from her and now it’s an action adventure story where the two of you flee from a raging ex-girlfriend in the magical realm of Devildom–

It was safe to assume that Levi could not get himself to focus on the movie marathon with you moving occasionally to embrace him even closer.

SATAN

For the numerous millenia that he has lived under Lucifer’s shadow, Satan was surprised that you’ve taken a liking to him rather than his ‘glorious’ older brother. Of course, he wasn’t going to allow himself to delve too deep in a relationship with you.

A few dates here and there, indulging in the knowledge coming from a mortal perspective… You were human. He’s a demon. It was a relationship with a gap that is far too distant to cross.

And he intended to keep it that way.

Today was a book date. Out of all of your dates, this one was the one Satan was looking most forward to. The blonde loved books and the information that came from it. He had invited you to his humble little nook, his own make-shift library inside his room.

“It’s not much compared to Lucifer’s library…”

The Avatar of Wrath knew humans were, to a fault, most curious of things unknown to them. You were no different.

“What? Are you kidding? This is amazing!” The way your eyes lit up at the sight of his room, despite seeing it for the second time already, made the butterflies in his stomach flutter.

You’re not being fair here, you know…

You both settled by the indoor balcony of his room, given that there was no space on his bed, on the floor, and even on the sofa. Everything was riddled with his limitless books, after all.

The two of you discussed everything and anything that intrigued you inside the tomes that were laid out. From astronomy books to history books to anything related to angels, humans and demons.

The day passed by within a blink of an eye. Satan was happily telling you about how the stars and planets aligned in the year–

He felt your head drop on his shoulder. What?

As if your head wasn’t enough, you had made yourself comfortable beside him, hands embracing him as if he’s a comfortable pillow.

“…” He sighed with a small smile in his visage, closing the book and letting you sleep on his shoulders.

What would he do with you?

ASMODEUS

The Avatar of Lust upholds his beauty to such a high standard. He is a demon of high-class charm, and with such charm comes with great maintenance to his appearance.

For thousands of years, Asmodeus revels in the enjoyment of seeing his beauty. However, now that he has you, a trip to the spa, or going out shopping, or having his nails manicured, or doing his skincare routine become twice as much enjoyable with you around.

Today was no exception.

The peach-haired demon barged to your room unannounced with sparkling wide eyes, explaining to you that Majolish is presenting a new line of high-end clothing and shoes today… and that he has to have it.

Like, right now.

With a smile that made his heart flutter with a million passionate emotions, you agreed to accompany him.

Upon your arrival to the monumental department store, the Avatar of Lust was met with a hundred new options to try for himself and your person. You refused to accept anything super expensive but was immediately met with a begging Asmodeus, unable to accept your rejection.

At the end of the day, both of you were at the bus with several dozens of paper bags and boxes on hand. He was completely satisfied, eager to see you wear the beautiful clothes he has chosen.

The ride was comfortably silent with only a few passengers on the vehicle. Asmo was checking your pictures with a smile. Everything really that caught your eye and deemed comfortable looked amazing on you!

“Hey, love, which was your favourite–” You shuffled beside him, taking his arm as you cuddled closer to him from your seat.

It took Asmodeus all of his strength and willpower as the Avatar of Lust to not squeal in delight at the sudden movement, his heart jumping at the sight of your peaceful sleeping expression. He was ten billion percent ready to smother you with kisses but fought himself off the moment he thought of it.

Asleep means you do not consent to kissing or anything else he wanted to do! For now, Asmodeus told himself that a picture would suffice to capture this blissful moment.

You’re not gonna sleep much later after this, though - not after showing such a rare sight.

BEELZEBUB

Surprisingly enough, RAD’s roof deck was a wonderful place for students to eat their lunch. It was like one of those school scenarios on Levi’s anime.

For Beelzebub, he loved eating there with you or any one of his brothers. The view was spectacular, showcasing the dim sun that shone over Devildom.

As of now, it was only you and him.

The others were busy with their prior schedules and exams. As you were a human exchange student, Diavolo was expecting much of you; hence, your motivation to study well.

Beel noticed bags under your eyes, your focus on the exam reviewer was lazer sharp even from the exhaustion.

“You’re going to ace the exams,” The Avatar of Gluttony started, eating his packed lunch contentedly with you beside him.

“Thank you, Beel. I’m sure you’ll do great on yours, too!” You replied, yawning as the fatigue sets in slowly.

“You can sleep on my shoulder for a moment.” He offered, ruffling your hair affectionately, “I’ll wake you up fifteen minutes before the bell rings so you can review more.”

To his surprise and delight, you gave in to the tiredness.

He’s really worried about you, not sleeping well like that. Beel heard that humans need eight hours of sleep to be healthy, but you don’t do that much.

If you keep that up, what would happen to your fragile mortal body?

Before he could continue his thoughts, you snuggled closer to him, making yourself more cozy in your sitting position. He ruffled your hair once again, adjusting himself so you can sleep better.

Belphie would’ve loved to join you in this hug.

For a moment, all his worries disappeared. You’re a very strong human, the strongest he’s ever met - both in soul and willpower. There’s no storm you wouldn’t conquer.

BELPHEGOR

Belphie wanted to take you out on a date to Ristorante Six.

That was all there is to it.

He needed money so, now, you and Belphie are working part-time in Hell’s Kitchen once again. As a rule, the two of you decided that whenever you go out for dates, the bill should be split in half.

The ravenet refused it at first but then agreed, remembering that both of you would’ve had to work first before actually getting the money to go out.

And working together meant more time together.

It was a perfect opportunity to be with each other’s presence more!

After a long day from school, then going straight to waiting tables at Hell’s Kitchen, the Avatar of Sloth noticed that you seemed more tired than usual today.

Was it from the school? From working at Hell’s Kitchen? From the walk home? Or perhaps your human body isn’t accustomed to such heavy workload?

He held your hand and led you to his shared room with Beel. Beel wasn’t in the room when you two arrived, much to Belphie’s relief.

“Do you have anything to show me, Belphie?” You asked innocently, trying your best to stay awake despite the weariness on your voice.

Belphie sat on his bed comfortably and pulled you in, letting you settle on his lap.

“W-Wh–!”

He smiled at your reaction, opening his arms for a hug, “If you’re tired, I’ll let you sleep in my arms.”

“You had me worried, Belphie!” With an amused laugh, you cuddled close to him, making yourself comfortable in his warm embrace.

In mere minutes, you had fallen asleep, his hands were gently caressing your hair, “Only for you…”

#obey me headcanons #obey me imagines #obey me shall we date #obey me game #obey me #lucifer #mammon #leviathan #satan #asmodeus #beelzebub #belphegor #anon ask #headcanons

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unpopularly-opinionated · 3 years

Text

FINALLY FINISHED NARUTO AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

Honestly, and this might sound harsh, but I think I give the series overall a 6/10. Being generous, I’d say it’s maybe a 7/10, but I’m deducting one point because I’m almost positive the only reason I’d rate it that high is because despite all it’s flaws, after watching 720 episodes across two series and 10 movies, you’re just going to be attached to the characters and show regardless of how you feel about it.

I know it’s super popular, or was anyways, and I can absolutely see why, but there were just too many issues that bothered me personally. It’s frustrating because I want to like it, I really do. There’s so many elements at work here that are so just perfectly me that it’s almost weird that I don’t like it, but I don’t. Obviously I liked it enough to spend hours upon hours watching it, but I think I just kept expecting it to get better at some point, and that point never happened.

More about my issues with it below...

I don’t know how to frame this (I never do) so it’s mostly just off the cuff.

I’ll start with the easily dismissible criticisms, the movies. Obviously all but one of the movies are non-canon (and I’ll get to the canon one shortly...), and they’re made by other studios so it’s not entirely fair to criticize the series based on them. I’m far too used to this weird format from Pokemon and their non-canon movies, so it wasn’t a huge deal to me. I will say that, much like the Pokemon films, almost all of the Naruto films followed the same exact format: Naruto goes to a location we’ve never heard of before and will never hear of again and is forced to protect someone abrasive and annoying until the enemy is defeated and they become BFFs that we’ll never see or hear from again.

I’d say, in order from best to worst:

Road to Ninja - Naruto the Movie

Naruto the Movie 2: Legend of the Stone of Gelel

Naruto Shippuden: The Movie 3: Inheritors of the Will of Fire

Naruto Shippuden: The Movie - Bonds

Naruto Shippuden: The Lost Tower

Naruto the Movie: Ninja Clash in the Land of Snow

Naruto Shippuden: The Movie

Naruto the Movie 3: Guardians of the Crescent Moon Kingdom

Naruto Shippuden the Movie: Blood Prison

The Last: Naruto the Movie

Yes, you read that right. The one canonical movie I put in dead last. Originally I thought that position was reserved for Blood Prison, which offended me because of just how utterly contrived the plot was and how out of character everyone needed to act to get it moving. But somehow, The Last took last place because of just how bad of a movie it was that for some reason has the audacity to be canon. And look, I know why it’s canon. It’s where Naruto and Hinata ‘officially’ get together and it ‘explains’ some missing plot elements from the series (more on that...), so of course it’s canon.

But come the fuck on, the last movie in the franchise, the one canonical movie, the one that may or may not take place after the Great Shinobi War, I.E. the big final battle of the series, has Naruto going into the fucking hollow earth through a cave portal that takes him to the moon, which is falling because the man on the moon is an incel and hates earth? What kind of methamphetamines were the writers on for that one. The Hinata and Naruto bits were fine, but holy fuck was that plot bad. They may as well have put Naruto in a spaceship and sent him to Mars to fight Martian Shinobi, I mean if we’ve already crossed the line, why not run a marathon beyond it.

The movie was meant to explain away a one-off line made in the series, that admittedly I did sit and ponder whether or not they’d ever explain it, about the Sage of Six Path’s brother, Homura, who went to go live on the moon after they defeated their mother Kaguya. It was mentioned so briefly and only once that I thought for sure it wasn’t ever going to be brought up again. I also wondered where Byakugan came from since we’d gotten an explanation for Sharingan and Rennigan during the series, but never for Byakugan. I actually don’t mind the explanation that it came from Homura’s bloodline, I think that tracks well enough. The man on the moon bit was...odd, but when I thought of how strong Homura was, I didn’t think much of it. I actually thought he somehow was going to still be alive and he’d come down to earth after they defeated Kaguya, but that never happened.

Here’s the rub though, and one of my issues with the series as a whole, which is that the show seemed to keep writing itself into these weird corners where they’d be forced to do something completely nonsensical, purely because they were the ones who wrote them into those corners. It would’ve been simpler to just say all visual jutsu was derived from Kaguya’s power, or the Homura died so there’s no man on the moon, or that Tsunade died so Kekashi needs to become Hokage, etc. They didn’t have to write themselves into these scenarios, but they did anyway and the end result was them having to write complete and utter nonsense to rationalize why they did it in the first place.

Kekashi becoming Hokage doesn’t really make any sense, like at all. They literally bisected Tsunade during the war but willed her back to life when they could’ve just as easily killed her then and there since she’s largely irrelevant to the rest of the series after the war, and then it would’ve made more sense why Kekashi, the man who on numerous occasions said he didn’t want to be Hokage, would then be forced to become Hokage as he’d be the next strongest (eligible) shinobi after Tsunade. I feel like it was all meant to be a payoff to Obito’s dying words to Kekashi which told him to become Hokage, which even then I found myself asking why the fuck would he say that? Kekashi almost was Hokage once before and was so relieved when Tsunade woke up from her coma so he wouldn’t have to.

Also can we talk about how bad that final episode was? I mean don’t get me wrong, it was cutesy as fuck and actually brought a tear to my eye (when Naruto asked Iruka to be his dad I fucking lost it, I won’t lie), but they cut it off before the wedding? Before the aftermath? Before he becomes Hokage? Like I understand Boruto exists, but I don’t feel like that’s a justifiable excuse for ending your long-running series on merely the assumption that he’ll become Hokage in the future. Maybe if the show was a whole 500 episodes shorter I’d be comfortable with it ending on a vague, yet hopeful ending, but when I’ve spent fuck knows how many hours on this series you bet your ass I’m expecting some mother fucking payoff.

Also do not even get me started on Sasuke. What. The. Fuck?!?!? My guy literally just sends a note via carrier pigeon to the wedding? That’s it? Did I just fucking hallucinate the last 720 episodes or wasn’t Sasuke supposed to be like the second main character??? The absolute absurdity.

This isn’t even much of a comparison because it’s so much shorter than Naruto, but it’s all I got in the moment, but imagine if at the end of Return of the Jedi, Han Solo just decides to fucking dip. He’s just not there. He and Chewie hopped into the Millennium Falcon the moment the Death Star was destroyed and just dipped. No longer in the movie, just gone. Didn’t say anything to Luke or Leia, just up and left. That would be insane.

It’s even more offensive knowing him and Sakura end of together. My. Fucking. Gods. This has been the relationship I’d been dreading since the start when it became abundantly clear they weren’t doing even the barest minimum to actually establish a relationship between them. As it is, when I watched The Last, I thought to myself: “Well, Naruto and Hinata’s relationship hasn’t been the most well-developed relationship I’ve seen, but it’s still leagues better than whatever hatchet job they’re going to pull to convince me Sasuke and Sakura end up together”. We didn’t even get the hatchet job. That’s just how little of a shit they gave. They did not even bother pretending to give any explanation as to how I’m supposed to believe they end up together. I’m quite literally just supposed to believe it because I know it will happen. There’s no rhyme or reason to it, it’s just something that is and therefor I must accept it. Absolutely ridiculous. As it stands, the show gave us more reasons why Sakura and Lee should end up together than they did for her and Sasuke. Fuck, I’d even buy Sakura and Inu before I’d buy Sakura and Sasuke.

I could go on, I really could, but it’s late and I’m just looking forward to putting this behind me. At some point, probably not too soon, I will watch Boruto. As it is, my watch schedule is pretty thoroughly booked up for a while. I can’t foresee myself ever watching this again. I know I sound harsh on it, but I wanna reemphasize that I want to like this show. It’s not a show I think is bad period, it’s a good show I think was just done rather poorly. It all felt very off-the-cuff, much like this shitty review. I don’t know what the manga-to-adaptation pipeline looked like when the show was live, but clearly something got fucked up somewhere. This really feels like the Fullmetal Alchemist to Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, and I can’t help but want Naruto to get the Brotherhood treatment...if such a treatment even exists.

#random rant #random #anime #personal #review #pls don't scream at me for my bad opinions #I get that this show was obscenely popular #still is to an extent #it was as painful for me to write this as it was for you to read it #I feel so conflicted on this #like I want to say I loved the show #because many many parts of it I did #but so many more parts just completely failed for me

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popculturebuffet · 3 years

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House of Mouse review: “The Three Caballeros” or State of Your Outfit Donald

The Ride of the Three Caballeros continues, and with reviewed paid for up until legend, we’re fueled up and ready to ride on for some time now. This admittedly has taken a bit longer than I like to get back on the ride, due to a number of reasons, but i’m back on the ride and these next two were both a pleasure to get to and cover a show that was LONG overdue to show up here: It’s the House of Mouse! For those of you who haven’t heard of it House of Mouse was a Disney show in 2000 that ran on it’s one Saturday morning block, the follow up to the Disney afternoon. It also holds a close place in my heart as these are the versions of Mickey and Co I grew up with, as I had Disney Channel as a kid and they reaired it a LOT, so the show is sorta soaked into my DNA, and is likely the reason why I like Donald and Goofy so much, as their shorts here and their personalities outside them really drew me in. I’ll still be objective mind, but the show means a lot to me and i’m not going to hide that.

The show has a really amazing setup: Mickey and Co run a club for Disney characters. While no tv characters showed up, anyone who had been in the movies was fair game, and everyone from Hades to both forms of Simba somehow to the horned freaking king showed up. The only exceptions were as I said Tv characters, though Pepper Ann makes a cameo in the pilot, and the Pixar characters.. which is more fair than you think. Keep in mind at the time of this series, there were only three Pixar Movies: Toy Story, a Bug’s LIfe and Toy Story 2, which came out the same year as house of mouse. Not only that Pixar wasn’t owned by Disney at the time, so there was likely a fear they could loose the rights to use the characters at some point and thus didn’t want to chance it. But yeah this setting is used for great jokes, it’s the source of the “No one does X like gaston!” meme and it’s funny every time they do that gag. Though the main stars of the show are still mickey and co with each having a fitting position in the club’s hierachy: MIckey and Donald, being equal stars, co-own the club, though Donald sometimes feels overshadowed. Mickey, with his people skills and cheer is the MC and host. Donald, given his jack of all trades nature and butt monkey status, is guest services, in charge of taking care of the club’s featured guests and naturally having it backfire, as well as sometimes envying Mickey’s spot and trying to take it over. Minnie, being level headed, keeps things running, planning the show and managing finaces as well as calming Mickey when he gets panicky. Daisy runs guest services while trying to break out on her own and is somewhat of a ditz in this series, though not overly dumb or incompetent, just a bit of an air head is all, and her sweet bubbly nature makes her very likeable. That and outside the shorts at least, she’s very nice to Donald here and their realtionship is very sweet, hence it being one of the four versions of it I like. Goofy is head waiter, which fits him because.. I dunno they needed one. But he does the job well even if he naturally screws up a bunch because Goofy. Pluto is also around as a personal assitant because eh why not. But what really stood out abotu the show to me, even more so as an adult, was the supporting cast. As a kid, I was introduced to a lot of the disney side characters i’d never heard of before, all of whom get a decent amount of screen time over the series, while as an adult, I find it heartwarming they brought these characters back and fleshed them out after not being used on screen for so long, with one big exception that was still nice of them to use and helps bridge the generation gap.

The rest of the HOM crew consisted of Hoarce, Mickey’s friend who was used a lot early on and who works as the club’s engineer and handyman, Clarabelle, also often forgotten but thoroughly defined here as a loveable gossip and acted wonderfully by the incomparable April Winchell. I credit this show for making me love both characters especially Clarabelle and wanting to see them more.

We also have Gus, a far more obscure on screen character. Gus is Donald’s Cousin, and as of this writing is the ONLY one of Donald’s three majorly used Cousins to have not shown up in the Ducktales reboot. Gus is also the only one whose not a comics original, to my shock, instead showing up in the short “Donald’s Cousin Gus”, communicating only through honks and eating all of Donald’s food. He was naturally adapted for the comics, where while still having a huge appetite became more bossed with being a lazy while working with Grandma Duck, his and Donald’s Grandma. He’s so different between mediums I genuinely forgot he was in this show and didn’t realize he and the chef from this show were the same person. Still it’s nice to see him and hopefully he’ll make the reboot before it ends. Finally rounding out the supporitng cast we have Huey Dewey and Louie, who mostly show up as the quackstreet boys to dance and are kind of inbetween their classic designs and their quack pack versions: They have the hair from quack pack, but seem more like their 12-13, a bit older than standard, but sitll not as old as they are in Quack Pack. They also don’t talk which is a vast improvement over Quack Pack. And finally, and more prominently, we have Max, who as I said bridges the gap between generations and I think was an amazing inclusion. He not only gave younger viewers like me a character they knew better, but allowed the character’s story to continue a bit, clearly taking place after xtreme but having him actually go on a date with Roxanne. Thank you House of Mouse Writers. your doing Golb’s work. Antagonist wise we have Pete, as usual trying to muck things up and presumibly flush with post divorce cash. He’s the club landlord, and wants Mickey out for reasons that are never explained, but as long as the show goes on and Mickey pays rent on time, the show goes on. Being Pete, he naturally tries to sabotage things. It’s a good device. The other is Mortimer, probably the series deepest cut alongside Gus as he only shwoed up in one short but the series easily made him one of my faviorites: A Sleazy asshole who tries to pick up on Minnie (who thankfully this go round is not at all receiptve), tries to get on the card, and constnatly says Ha-Cha-Cha. Maurice LaMarche, this show had a REALLY talented voice cast can you tell?, really owned the character and has been his voice since and really took him from a one dimensional douche to a LOVEABLE asshole.

Granted most of this.. really isn’t relevant as only the main cast show up, but it’s an aspect of the show I like so I went into it anyway. Plus i’ll defintely be coverng the show again so this saves me time for later. Back on point though, the show’s format was a problem of the week, ranging from guest troubles to pete shenigans to internal strife in the club to just general sitcom shenanigans, going on at the club, with shorts inserted in from a previous Mickey Show, Mickey MouseWorks. MouseWorks was a short lived, pun intended, show that didn’t do so good, so they had a bunch of these shorts sitting around including some that never aired on the show, and thus inserted them as cartoons being played for the club patrons. It was a great device and the shorts, while varying in quality , are mostly pretty good and were the first Disney Shorts I saw. It was a good format, allowing the main stories to have plenty of time, but not have to overpad them or anything and with so many shorts on hand they could simply write the story to be as long as they needed and then insert however many shorts were needed. It worked well.

So yeah as you can tell I truly love this show and it introduced a lot of stuff to me. And naturally.. that includes the Three Caballeros here, with their song here being stuck in my head for years and this being the first time they’d shown up in decades... which is ironically how long it took for me to see their movie but regardless. The boys were back, and you can see how the show did with them, under the cut.

Something to note, No Disney Plus this time.. because BAFFLINGNLY the show is not on there, despite no rights issues holding it up I’m aware of, and the show having every other mouse and duck related animated series on there. I know, I’ve talked about this before, even in this very retrospective.. but I keep bringing it up because it’s something you easily forget about. Something that may slip away. But don’t let it. Let them know, and get our shows on there already. Christ. Anyways, due to the show’s format of sliding the shorts in, and to make thing easier on me for house of mouse reviews i’m simply going to do the shorts first, then the main plot. Good? Good.

This one only had two, though it varied on how many they used, and some were just super short shorts anyway, so it all balances out and as I said, i’ts better they just told as much story as was there than tried to rush it. So without further adue...

Donald’s Fish Fry: Poor Poor Humphrey Yeah I didn’t like this one. The premise is using the old character Humphrey the Bear.. only here instead of being the antagonist the ranger present basically bullies the poor bear, while the other bears constnatly get more fish than him when it’s their registered time to fish. It’s just agrvating.. and when the poor boy finally GETS a fish, Donald snatches it. Donald isn’t unsympathetic here, he found the fish fairly.. but it’s hard to tell who we’re supposed to root for here. Humphrey, who just wants what’s his, or Donald whose oblivious but technically in the wrong. This kind of slapstick just.. dosen’t work as well with both sides being sympathetic. It can work with say bugs and daffy, because both are equal, but there’s clearly an antagonistc force in elmer fudd. But this type of shenanigan just dosen’t work when neither side deserves the punishment, and Humphrey did nothing wrong. I felt like this for supporting him the whole time.

And it ends with the ranger getting the fish. Because he wasn’t unlikeable enough clearly. Though Humphrey does get some beans so yay? Also the house segment after has Ranger Dickhead stealing Humphrey’s dinner, which given he’s at the club he CLEARLY paid for because it’s too fatty. Fuck you dude. I hope Goofy threw you out for that one. Just not a fun sit. I’ve seen this kind of shenanigan done better, in disney classic shorts even. I’ve seen Don as the villian better, See Trick or Treat for a good example> There’s just.. nothing here and it goes on forever. This is a good chunk of the episode! Lordy! Just a genuinely bad short. Thankfully the next one while not as word inducing is also not as headache inducing How to Be Smart: Now THESE were my faviorites as a kid. I loved goofy, so shorts about him were no brainer but even now.. these are still funny. Basically a narrator would follow Goofy around while he tries to learn how to do something, in this case how to get smarter after loosing on a gameshow .. and owing the show three milion dollars. There’s not much ot go into, it’s basically a series of jokes about Goofy going to school from elementary to college and learning his way up while Dealing with Ludvig’s bratty nephew and his own stupidity. It’s a funny short and really well done and these are easily some of the show’s best shorts and this is no exception. Unlike the Humphrey short, where this essentially happened.

My soul and I gladly enjoyed How to Be Smart. Dare to NOT be stupid and check this short out.

The Wraparound: And I”m Donald Duck! As for the main segment it’s pretty good. We open with Mickey hyping up tonight’s act, which is naturally the Three Caballeros! But trouble sets in as Donald, while proud at first, is rightfully annoyed that a man on the street segment shows NO ONE remembers he was in the group. Including his best friend goofy. Only Pumba does, somehow. I dunno maybe he dated Panchito once before meating timon. Point is Donald dosen’t take this well, even if we get a nice moment of Daisy swooning over the fact.. even if being HOM Daisy, she can’t get the name right. But given i’ve had trouble spelling it right, I’m one to talk.

So being Donald he overreacts, which I like as.. well it’s Donald. Of course when given a very resonable reason to get upset he takes it a step too far. In this case he’s gotten an army of lawers, refuses to speak to mickey and has put ... THIS on. I showed it at the top of the page but.. well it bears repeating.

It’s like every bad thing about the early 2000′s, from the douchey shades, to the rings, to the golden knuckles, to the hat that looks like a penis, to the no donald logo. There should be all the donalds, ALL OF THEM. He also has an army of lawyers, and naturally resorts to hot doggin and grandstanding: Signing autographs during the show, putting a giant poster of himself up. It works okay, as it makes him unsympathetic for the next part to work and is really funny which is the point. Even if again he looks like the feces that’s produced when shame eats too much stupidity.

Instead of just getting Dale Gribble in there, Mickey is at a loss for a solution till the boys show up and.. it’s a mixed bag. Carlos Alazraqui is excellent as Panchito, slipping into the roll well. Unlike last time the character showed up, they did NOT get a mexican actor, but Carols is still Latino, so it’s still better than what they did for Jose, and still big of them to actually bother to get a Latino actor to play a latino role. Jose on the other hand.. is played, and not very good, by Rob Paulson. And before anyone throws stuff at me, I love Rob. I will be gushing about him when I get around to reviewing the animaniacs reboot. He’s a god among voice actors and I love him. But his voice, at least in this ep dosen’t really .. FIT Jose, and he dosen’t really match the characters energy which is VERY weird given Animaniacs was right before this. The guy can DO energy and it’s one of his best talents. He STILL can as evidenced by both TMNT 2012 and the Animaniacs revival. It’s just not one of his better performances. I love the guy but even gods have off days. And of course there’s the bigger issue of the very white Rob shouldn’t be playing the very Brazilian Jose. Not matching nationatlies is one thing, it sucks, but The Three Cablleros had a much bigger budget than HOM likely did. HOWEVER, it couldn’t of been that hard to find two latino voice actors in 2000, especially when you found at least one. I get this wasn’t as big a thing but when the 1940′s did better than you, you know you screwed up.

But it probably dosen’t help the two.. barely do anything. Despite the episode being named after them, they only show up towards the end and just sorta say hi to mickey, get cool entrances, and then seeing Donald being a dick and Mickeya sking for their help, humble him with their musical number. And the Musical Number IS really good, it’s been in my head for years and is just as catchy as the classic “Three Cabllero’s Song”.. why they didn’t sing that I don’t know, but this original one, a light knockoff of la bamba is still really fun and bouncy and the gags are good. It’s a really good climax and Donald deserves his punishment. The only really issue is the ending, as.. no one leaned anything. No one acknowledges how forgotten Donald felt, Mickey dosen’t seem to get the issue as his “promoting Donald” at the end to make sure he’s not forgotten.. just has a bunch of jabs at his expense, and Donald dosen’t apologize..t hougH daisy is really sweet to him so we got some Donsy at least. It’s just a weak ending to an otherwise excellent wraparound. Final Thoughts: This one was.. okay. Shorts aside, i’ve said my peace about them, the wraparound is a lot of fun, as is the musical number, even if the “artist formerly known as” joke was played out even in 2000. I mean yeas Prince changing his name to a symbol was insane, I get that.. but by then everyone had clowned on that decision and given he did so in a bizarre act of defiance towards his label, at a time where we now know how scummy record labels can be, it hasn’t aged well. It’s just the weak climax, song not included, really drags things down. The Cabs are just.. a cameo in their own damn episode, even with the full musical number and could’ve been around more. They don’t get to show off personalities or really do anything but teach Donald a lesson and are basically one indivdiual here. It sticks out even more because Rosa had both be utterly distinct and showed the utmost care while here.. their just sorta tossed in so they could have Donald be a primadona.. which itself is funny but on the whole this episode was just.. disappointing to revisit. It was disheartening to learn one of my favorite episodes as a kid wasn’t that good. It is worth checking out if you like Donald or the cabs, provided you skip the first short. Trust me, trust me, but is far from the best the house of mouse has to offer and hopefully the next one will show that. Next time when the Ride continues, my gig at the house of mouse gets held over another night as Jose teaches Goofy manners and Panchito helps deprogram him from that. Before that I hope to get to the next chapter of life and times and some other stuff i’ve had hanging, including the next loud house and the next part of the tomtropsective, as well as some new things that have come up like said review of the animaniacs reboot and a review of Adventure Time: Distant Lands, Obsidan. Until then if you liked this review, please check out my other pages for more, follow me to see them, and if you’d like to comission your own, just hit me up in my ask box for my discord or personal message me here on tumblr. Until then, ther’es always another rainbow. I’m out.

#The Three Caballeros #the ride of the three caballeros #house of mouse #donald duck #Jose Carioca #panchito pistoles #mickey mouse #minnie mouse #goofy goof #gus goose #daisy duck #the 2000s

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countdown-to-destruction · 4 years

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Inuyasha Sequel: a rant

Put this up this earlier on a post I re-blogged, tried to edit a part or two where I didn’t like the way I had phrased it, and ended up messing up the whole format I wrote this in. Luckily I wrote this as a draft earlier anyways! So I did a some fixing and now I’m just copy-pasting it again and making it a text post instead. This will be very long and a little nit-picky but I wanted to make a post ever since I heard about the upcoming sequel to Inuyasha, Hanyō no Yashahime. I did put a TLDR at the end for those who don’t want to read everything. Not sure how many people in the fandom still follow me and will see this, as it's been a long time since I was actually active in the fandom, but it's hands-down both my favorite manga and anime of all time and I’ve been feeling nostalgic lately so I had to post something. Before reading this be sure to read all of the translated character bios for Towa, Setsuna, and Moroha so that this makes sense.

When I first heard that Inuyasha would be getting a sequel I was excited! But after reading up on it, to be completely honest I'm not feeling this sequel anymore. I know it’s an unpopular opinion but hear me out. Firstly, it seems like Rumiko is mostly involved in the character design aspect and the writing is up to Katsuyuki Sumisawa. The music will be produced by Kaoru Wada which is great! And from what I’ve seen and read online a number of others who worked on the original series will reunite so hopefully the story will go well. However, knowing Rumiko isn't personally writing and not knowing how much input she has or will give makes me unsure about watching. The original Inuyasha anime followed and was based off of the events in the manga, and there was no manga prior to this for it to be based on. Depending on what happens this could be an alright sequel or a total miss. Unfortunately sequels in general are known to be disappointing in some way.

Secondly, if I hear anything about Rin being the mother of Sesshomaru's twin daughters I'm out. This part will be a SUPER long and in depth explanation on why I think this way, feel free to skip if you're not interested. Please don't come for me on this, I'm here to explain my thoughts and feelings on the sequel and the theories around it so far, not start an argument. I'm more than aware that there's plenty of controversy out there on this pairing and personally I do not support it. I never saw their relationship as more than a friendship, or something akin to child and guardian as Sesshomaru and Jaken are basically Rin's caretakers up until she goes to live in the village with Kaede. He definitely cares for her deeply but I can't see it in a romantic way, being that Sesshomaru isn't even a character focused on romance to begin with. He learns compassion through Rin's second death but that doesn't mean he loves her romantically. As a reminder his main goal is to seek power and be powerful, and it's stated that he needed to learn compassion and grief in order to mature. It's what helped him learn to wield the Tenseiga at its full potential. In addition, she was really young when they first met and still was when she went to live with Kaede. The idea of Sesshomaru (an adult) having romantic feelings for a kid under ten years old (around eleven at the end of the series, and still a literal child in all ways) and waiting for her to age with the intention of marrying her sits totally wrong with me. Age wise I realize that Inuyasha is decades older than Kagome and that his father was much older than his mother, Izayoi, as well. The difference here is that Kagome was a teen when she met Inuyasha (who not just physically, but more importantly mentally was also a teen) and clearly Izayoi was old enough to conceive Inuyasha and give birth. As far as the audio dramas (more specifically "Asatte") go they're generally considered as an outtake reel and are essentially parodies, or a form of satire. Some will debate on this but realistically there’s plenty of reasons this is true, and those who take the time to properly check them out understand that. For me I've always had a headcanon that at some point in her teen years Rin would inevitably develop a one-sided crush on Sesshomaru and that he would ultimately set boundaries and reject her, seeing her as more of a close companion than a love interest and wanting her to live with someone she can grow old with. He gave her the choice to follow him and it's most likely that she would, but I think that once she began aging he would want her to have somewhere to settle, given that he enjoys roaming and seeking out other powerful beings to battle. It's strange to me that they decided to give Sesshomaru hanyō/half-demon children in general but based on the artwork we've seen it's fair to guess that they might have made Sesshomaru and Rin a pairing in this sequel.

IMPORTANT NOTE: I want to clarify that if you ship them together I'm not writing this here because I want to hate on your ship for no reason, or in order to create an argument on if the pairing makes sense, these are my thoughts and opinions on the matter and I’m voicing them because it’s what I believe. I already know that somebody won’t like this and will take it personally. People usually say that once Rin is an adult the pairing is acceptable but I disagree. I find it quite creepy that someone would think it would be alright for an adult to wait around for a kid to grow up with the intention to marry and/or sleep with them. Watching from a distance is the same exact thing, after making an impression on the child... let’s not normalize this. In this situation it would be grooming. We all have our own opinions when it comes to our ships and fandoms and I try to respect that but I can’t get behind this one.

Next we have the apparent lack of parental figures for the heroines. Where are the original Inuyasha characters at? Moroha's character bio says she barely knows her parents (Inuyasha and Kagome, our former main protagonists) and has been alone since she was young! It makes me think either something has happened to them or some kind of bizarre event separated them. And sorry, not related, but why does she transform by PUTTING LIPSTICK ON?? That part threw me for a loop.

When it comes to Setsuna and Towa their parents are absent too. I find it difficult to believe that Sesshomaru wouldn't keep track of his children given how he treats Rin and reacts to her going missing in any capacity. Especially if he happened to be fond of whoever their mother is. One daughter works as a taijiya/demon slayer for Kohaku and the other mysteriously transports to Kagome's era and is raised by Sota (I thought we had finished with the time jumps when the well closed but apparently not. When the Bone Eater's Well closed after Kagome's return it gave a sense of finality and closure to the story, and showed that Kagome had chosen where she was most happy and felt she belonged. I think that bringing the theme of time travel back into the sequel makes it feel repetitive, like something right out of a predictable fanfic. Props to Sota for taking in and raising a child who showed up out of nowhere though).

Another thing that came to mind when I read these character bios was why Inuyasha and Kagome's daughter and Sesshomaru's daughters are the exact same age. Of course there's nothing wrong with that. It only struck me as odd because suddenly everyone is having kids at the same time. And so far there's no mention of other characters like Sango, Miroku, Shippo, Jaken, Kaede, or Miroku or Sango's three children or where they are. One might expect that a story focused on the children of some of the original Inuyasha's main characters would feature appearances from those who had important roles in the previous series and their children. Which brings me around to wondering what made twin daughters a trend? Two sets of twin girls is a unique choice (Sango and Miroku's twin daughters. For such a small group of parental characters, what are the odds of two sets of twin girls? Where is the creativity and again why the repetition?).

Lastly, Sesshomaru's daughters lack some of the common yōkai/demon characteristics we see on Inuyasha and other characters. Their ears are human, and they have no markings or otherwise (that I noticed) with the exception of Setsuna's mokomoko/fur which is similar to Sesshomaru's. So perhaps they take more after their human mother? Given that Inuyasha seemed to inherit strong genes from his father it's interesting that they did not. Their ages also interest me as they appear to age the same way as humans do. Yōkai/demons are known to have a longer lifespan than humans and appear to slow down or almost stop aging at some point. Perhaps this confirms that the slowdown in aging occurs once they reach the equivalent of a human teen?

Overall Inuyasha was a fantastic manga and great anime on its own, and I never got the feeling that it needed a sequel. As a stand-alone it was everything it needed to be. I thoroughly enjoyed both formats of the original, though I do have a tendency to disregard certain parts of the anime. I always preferred the manga more when the anime dragged out certain scenes (Shichinintai/Band of Seven arc for example) or straight-up excluded, changed, and added others. Taking that into consideration the sequel might end up being the same for me in that way, but rather than one scene that plays out for too long or an excluded, altered, or unnecessary added scene, if it’s not any good I’ll simply disregard it altogether. When the anime comes out I certainly plan to try watching it out of loyalty to the fandom, and due to the fact that it's "technically" canon (without Rumiko being the writer I don't necessarily consider it canon, much like how some folks do or do not consider the movies canon) but I get the feeling that I'll wind up giving up on it in disappointment.

TLDR; Overall I'm left questioning if the sequel is worth watching (for me) given what I've read and heard so far, but nonetheless I will give it an optimistic try! I'm currently wondering how much we'll see of the original Inuyasha characters, if we get to find out what happened to them, if the number one pairing I'm not fond of will make an appearance (and cause me to drop the whole thing), and questioning parts of the character backstories and designs (why is there a repetitive and recurring theme of time travel and does it end up hindering or ruining the story, why do the protagonists all lack parents, and why do the hanyō/half-demon characters lack common yōkai/demon traits and does it make them more human than demon?).

#inuyasha #hanyo no yashahime #sesshomaru #please don't be sessrin #kagome #a feudal fairytale #internal screeching #my thoughts #my opinions #unpopular opinion

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hellsparadiseessays · 5 years

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Aza Brothers Week - Day 5

I released that essay on r/Jigokuraku back in early July, about one month after the infamous chapter 56 got out. It wasn’t a fun topic to tackle, so as a result I’m leaving the warning I put at the start of the essay before the cut. Because chapter 56 was not ok. Though keep in mind that I’m not mad at UG for it - quite the contrary, his intent is clearly not to make the chapter sexy. However, I heavily suspected the fandom to not find it as obvious because well, we have our own cultural issues. And considering how this essay has been received, and the stuff I noticed even in the Japanese side of the fandom... Well, this essay is in my opinion much needed to explain why chapter 56 is more brutal that it seems. It’s also a good follow-up on yesterday’s post, which stopped at chapter 55.

Warning : This thread will contain references to rape, so if the topic is sensitive to you, I suggest you avoid reading it. This thread will contain spoilers for the most recent chapters as well, so read it once you’re up to date with the manga to avoid being spoiled and know what I am talking about.

Chapter 56 - A commentary on power and powerlessness

I have been keeping it to myself (and occasionally kinda raged about it on Discord join us) ever since chapter 56 was released, back in April. I’ll be honest with you, despite me joking with everybody else on Discord, that chapter really hit a personal chord and I had a hard time working on this commentary because of that. Let’s just say I regularly had to stop and come back to it a few days later, once I got my head cool again and my brain fully functional – I didn’t want my emotions to get in the way of the analysis.

Here we are now, ready to tackle a difficult topic: the borderline rape of Chôbe by Rien. And I say “borderline”, only because it was Chôbe who successfully did his Chôbe thing. He remains in a dangerous position, one I certainly don’t envy, and one that he himself strongly dislikes.

This commentary will be divided into three parts: firstly, the use of rape as a comedic device in mainstream media and how it trivialises a situation that, in fact, has dramatic consequences. Then, we’ll study Rien has a character through his past and present actions, to establish the nature of his interactions and the way he perceives himself. Finally, we’ll address Chôbe’s reactions while facing danger, and how he deals with his emotions.

I. Rape as a comedic tool

One of the many reasons why this chapter makes me uncomfortable is my personal fear for jokes made about that sort of situation. Why, you may rightfully ask? Because it is very much present in mainstream media, be it in Japan or in Western countries. Considering Reddit is mostly Western-oriented, I chose to pick a reference that focuses on rape in Western media to build my argument around, and I strongly suggest you to watch the video before you continue with this commentary. “Sexual assault of men played for laughs”, by Jonathan McIntosh from the Youtube channel Pop Culture Detective, thoroughly explores the issue through the lens of North American media, which have an area of influence that goes way beyond North America itself – especially with the massive worldwide use of internet. While not all the items of this video fit with the commentary at hand, it nonetheless points out an especially interesting argument: the man who failed to be a man – the one perceived as in control of the situation -, is subjected to various mockeries because it’s fair after all, he wasn’t really being a man when it happened, so he failed as a person.

I think we could even see this issue as a double insult to both men and women with that issue: 1) women can’t be in control because it’s not their role, 2) men who aren’t in control are perceived as emasculated, and thus the jeering is entirely justified because how dare they consider themselves men, right? Basically, this sort of joke is based on a perception of power and who is supposed to hold it. And power is what sexual assault is about. It’s not about lust or provocation. Sexual assault is the act of abusing your power over someone else to the point of robbing them of even their intimacy. This is something that tends to break people, or at least seriously damage them. Yet, this loss of power is something that remains mocked or silenced. And while women are starting to speak up, it’s still rare to see men open up about it. In Jonathan McIntosh’s video, the example of Terry Crew in reaction to the Harvey Weinstein affair and the following #Metoo movement is telling: losing power (what is perceived as such), especially as a man, is still treated in a demeaning manner that should only be mocked or ignored, not as something serious that can affect the victim for years and have a negative effect on their life in general.

Sexual assault of men as comedy is destructive, yet still awfully present in the series and movies we watch – even kids’ shows. Yes, you read it well. Kids’ shows. It gives a certain inclination to joke about rape – especially when it happens to men -, by internalising the issue and not realising how demeaning it actually is. It’s even visible in the most mainstream manga and anime (Naruto’s 1000 years of pain, anyone?) and we’ll play a little game about that: in your comment, I invite you to point out sexual assault as a joke in a manga/anime you know (and maybe enjoy). Keep in mind that I’m not doing that to slam the creations or their authors, it’s just to point out how surprisingly common it can be. I also wish to point out that, in chapter 56 of Jigokuraku, UG didn’t go that way at all. On the contrary, he made it clear that Chôbe was in danger and painfully aware of it throughout the chapter, while Rien... Was being Rien, with his own perception of who he is and the power he holds.

II. Rien: the perception of power

Now that we’ve established the basis about the way sexual assault with men as victims is perceived (especially in the West, a point of view vastly predominant on Reddit), we can start digging on Rien’s case of A God I Am.

As soon as Rien gets his first appearance (chapter 26), his status is made clear: among the boss level characters we’ve seen so far (Ju Fa, Tao Fa, Zhu Jin), he is one cut above and presents himself as the uncontested leader, the patriarch of a family who rules and serves punishment when he deems it necessary. From his point of view, he’s the head of the Tensen family as well as (potentially, it depends on Jofuku being alive of not), the ruler of the island – or the head scientist of the giant laboratory that is Kotaku. It means that Rien isn’t just the most powerful being on the island (though the notion of power can be discussed there, considering the power system used by UG), he also perceives himself as such and demonstrates it with an iron hand: the way he treated Mei before she escaped is good enough as a proof.

Behind his position as the head scientist, he shows a ruthless cruelty and a readiness to not even consider other people as persons. Mei herself, suggested as being one of the first successful experiments by Jofuku – and thus being “family” to Rien -, gets banished, mutilated and used as a living experiment material for the very thing she dared openly call out (the massive use of humans for experimentations). Rien even openly states, in chapter 26, that he’s the only one with the right to punish family members when Ju Fa injures an already weakened Zhu Jin. It gives us an idea of what Rien may mean by “punishment”. Go against his will: die or become an experiment. Disobey him: get severely injured if you’re part of the Tensen family, I heavily suspect death may be the sentence when you don’t have that luxury – and so does Chôbe. Until now, Rien has thus been shown as having a general behaviour that could be qualified of sociopathic: being indifferent towards others to the point of not seeing them as people, dehumanising anybody, using the “we’re family” or “I’ll tell you everything” tactic to try and keep people on his side. Interestingly, between him and Mei, he’s the one who has spend the most time with the other Tensen, and it is visible in their behaviour as well: they show similar sociopathic traits (Mu Dan’s experiments he seemed to find most amusing, Ju Fa qualifying Chôbe of “it” and “livestock”...).

However, no matter how godly Rien thinks he is, he remains surprisingly human and this has been shown to us through the point of view of his latest victim, who managed to do what, I suspect, no other character in the story would have been able to pull off without seriously getting in trouble for it (meaning: die immediately): he momentarily reversed the power dynamic to save his skin for at least a moment.

III. Chôbe’s status as a victim and how he handles it

Since the start, I’ve been claiming left and right that Chôbe is probably too smart for his own good, but it’s not just that. It’s an accumulation of everything that happened to him and his brother. Chôbe is very intimate with the notion of powerlessness. He’s been living it repeatedly since he’s a kid, slowly losing his place in society until he became an outcast. As a consequence, the way he thinks isn’t based on honour or revenge: it’s about survival, first and foremost.

The first time we see him go full survival mode is when he and Toma momentarily run away from the Sôshin that are outnumbering them, to find a better position to fight. In that chapter (chapter 9), we witness another way to survive that is very much Chôbe’s own method – no other character has done it, not even Toma -: instead of resisting a power stronger than his own, he integrates himself into the equation by mirroring the person who’s displaying power over him. By doing so, he creates an impression of kinship he can exploit to his advantage. As a kid, he mutilated himself to the point of losing sight in his right eye and being seriously scarred to “pretty himself up” by looking more like the bandits who were planning to harm Toma and sell them both. Doing so created a strong impression in their captors’ mind, and Chôbe used that impression to claim a place among the bandits – a first step towards claiming his power as an individual capable of thoughts and choices back. By integrating himself like that, he managed to become the leader of the pack, the chief of an entire village of bandits, causing so much trouble it warranted death penalty for him.

This method of mirroring the person holding power over him is visible again during the entirety of chapter 56. This chapter starts with Chôbe being captive, literally tied to a bed and clearly uncomfortable for many reasons: he’s been beaten to the point of passing out after having been treated like a wonderful unicorn (not a person), wakes up in an unknown place, tied to a bed in a peculiar position. By that point, Rien already marked a lot of Creep Points, and Chôbe has a lot of reasons to find the situation disagreeable. But it’s not enough, and Chôbe ends up facing actual blackmail: cooperate or become Tan (which is pretty much like dying, but worse: your life force is sucked out of you while you’re in a fake wonderland. Chôbe had a taste of it and saw what it looked like while he was in the Tan pit, both him and Toma weren’t enthusiastic about the situation and quickly got out of the pit). During the entire chapter, Chôbe weighs his options and stalls time by asking questions and gather more information on his situation to pick the best option to stay alive. It’s a daring move, to do that while facing the local godly being, but Chôbe isn’t stupid and understands having the choice of cooperating means he has value somehow. And to squeeze all the information he needs from Rien, to better weight his option and understand what’s going on on this unnatural island (he realised it’s unnatural in chapter 54), he does what we’ve already seen him do in the aforementioned bandits’ village flashback: he mirrors the one having power over him to gain some agency back through deception.

That’s where something we’ve seen him do a lot happens: he smiles. Mind you, it’s not a genuine smile. Chôbe isn’t really a smiling person, we’ve seen that everytime we’ve got even the smallest hints regarding his true feelings. However, Chôbe uses his mask as a tool for deception and picked this habit as a kid: a grin to the bandits even though his face was heavily injured to convince them of keeping him and his brother, a grin when he steels himself while facing the Sôshin, a smile when he tries to deceive Gabimaru before suddenly attacking him. It’s the vicious, weaponised grin of someone who figured out what to do and where to go, while keeping others’ attention down. He even smiles while sweating when he is nervous, at the end of chapter 55, because he has no idea what’s going on but somehow he’s tied to a bed and someone one-sidedly decided to have sex with him (yes, in case you hadn’t noticed, Rien didn’t care about his consent, because Rien doesn’t see him as a person). However, during chapter 56, we slowly see him integrates himself in the equation again by imitating Rien’s moves to numb his wariness under the guise of complying with the cooperation request. His actions mismatch his thoughts exactly for that purpose: his first thought is about a way to escape, but he realises it may be too dangerous for him. So he renounces - for now - to by himself some time and repeats his mantra, to adapt and figure things out, and gives Rien what he wants because it’s the only viable option for survival.

Since then, qualifying his attitude towards the Tensen of “bad faith” could be an understatement. He may be willing to concede certain things under the threat of death, but he will still have the guts to stand his ground, even while facing a whole group of people who could kill him – and openly threaten to do so. It takes a certain kind of madness to do that sort of thing, and oh, it’s exactly what the bandits said about him when he purposefully injured himself just to prove a point. Chôbe is too smart for his own good, but he still manages to get his agency back when it’s stolen from him, and that’s what makes him incredibly dangerous, even for the Tensen. Even in real life, it takes a certain kind of character to pull that sort of thing off. Still, despite all of his wrong, what happened to Chôbe during his childhood as well as chapter 56 qualifies him as a victim, and UG handled it incredibly well, making it tragic (if not outright nerves wracking, at least in my case) instead of using it as a comedic tool. Thank you for that, UG.

This commentary took me about... At least 10 days just to be worked on, despite the very small amount of references needed for it.

Without giving away too much information, I empathise strongly with Chôbe’s predicament and generally find him very relatable, at a personal level. His tactics are easy to recognise not just because they’ve been made fairly clear by UG, but also because there’s a pattern I know all too well in them. So yeah, that commentary tackled some difficult topics for me, and I had trouble keeping a cool head while writing it. It was a difficult birth, chapter 56 still makes my skin crawl. However, I hope you found this write up informative or entertaining. Don’t hesitate to share your thoughts, answer my little challenge (an example of sexual assault played for laugh in a manga/anime you know), ask questions, scold me for yet another Chôbe rant...

#jigokuraku #hell's paradise #chôbe #rien #tensen #chapter 56 #tw: rape #omg please UG give our beloved bros a break #can Chôbe have a nice day once in his life?#his life really is a series of misfortunes #poor murder bae #essay #my stuff

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i-am-a-closet-fanfic-fiend · 5 years

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Sexiled (Part 11/23) ~ Steve Rogers x Reader College!AU

A/N: Hi my lovelies! I hope that all of you who are celebrating holidays this time of year are enjoying your festivities. And if you’re not, I hope you are still enjoying this season. So I wasn’t planning on posting another part so soon, but this one spoke to me and I had to share it. So I hope you enjoy.

Summary: A serious conversation between you and Steve. Are things about to change?

Characters/Pairings: Steve x reader, Bucky

Rating: T

Warnings: Serious talks about intimacy, maybe some language

Word count: 1699

Series Masterlist | Main Masterlist

After lunch the guys decided to go play basketball, and you used the time to clean up your room which had fallen into complete disarray during the last two weeks of midterms. You also opted for a long hot shower – well, as hot as crappy dorm showers got – to relax and ponder over what you and Bucky had discussed.

You knew he was right, and you knew that after last night, you couldn’t just push off the conversation. Mainly because you didn’t want to. You wanted to cross that line with Steve, but you weren’t sure how.

You dressed in your comfiest pajamas and Steve’s hoodie and made your way to his room with a box of popcorn since he had run out the night before. Bucky was waiting for the elevator when you stepped out of the stairway.

“Hey, doll.”

“Hey, Buck. You headed out?”

“Yeah, the black box theater is showing horror movies all night. I’m going to head down there with Sam and Riley.”

“Oh that sounds fun.”

“Wanna come?” he asked with a smirk, knowing you hated horror movies.

“Hard pass. I kind of like sleeping without nightmares.”

“I’m sure Steve would chase the bad dreams away,” he teased.

Your only response was to stick your tongue out at him, making him chuckle.

“On a more serious note, I won’t be back until tomorrow, so if you want to have any important conversations, I promise not to interrupt.”

“We’ll see if I have the guts for that particular conversation.”

He opened his arms for a hug and you went to him gratefully.

“Be brave, doll. It will be worth it,” he whispered as he held you tight.

“Thank you, Bucky.”

“Any time. Have a good night.”

“You too.”

He squeezed your fingers before nudging down the hall towards his room. He gave you one last encouraging smile before you knocked on the door.

Steve answered as he pulled on a shirt, hair still wet from his shower; he lit up when he saw you.

“Hey, sweetness,” he greeted you with a kiss on the cheek as he ushered you inside.

“How was basketball?”

“It was fun. It’s been a while since we played. Sam and Riley kicked our asses. Don’t tell them I said that though.”

“My lips are sealed,” you promised.

“What did you do today?”

“Cleaned up my room. It had gotten really bad. And since you kept my busy actually studying I didn’t procrastinate by cleaning.”

“I’m sorry?”

You waved away his tentative apology.

“No need to be. It’s a good thing.”

“Good. You’re welcome then,” he announced smugly, and you smacked his arm. “Ouch. Now what movie do you want to start with?”

“Mom’s Got a Date with a Vampire!” you cheered immediately.

“You’ve got it, sweetness.”

He put the movie on and turned out the lights, making sure to lock the door handle and the chain.

“Buck’s not coming back tonight,” he explained when he noticed you leaning over the edge of the bed watching him. “And I don’t plan on leaving that bed unless it’s for a very good reason.”

“I approve of that reasoning.”

“Thought you might. So do you need anything before I come up there?”

“Just you,” you told him honestly as you moved to make room for him.

“I’m all yours,” he grinned as he crawled into bed behind you, stretching his legs out on either side of you and holding you close. “Comfy?”

“Perfect.”

You both kept up a steady stream of commentary throughout the movie, giggling as you pointed out flaws.

“You know if they had both just gotten on the coffin, then the plan probably would have worked,” Steve huffed at one point.

“Maybe they were concerned it would sink if they both got on it.”

“Like Jack and Rose from the Titanic?”

“You’ve seen Titanic?” You glanced back at him, surprised.

“Becca made us watch it with her. She was in loooove with Leonardo DiCaprio.”

“Who wasn’t?” You laughed.

Steve scoffed and you rolled your eyes at his obvious annoyance.

“Teen Leo was a heartthrob. It’s a verifiable fact.”

“Anyways. Yes, I’ve seen it. And I still think Jack could have lived if they had both been on the stupid plank.”

“I feel like they tested that on Mythbusters, but I have no idea if it was true or not.”

“Regardless. I think it was dumb to have her hide in the bushes like he wasn’t going to find her. He’s a vampire.”

“Agreed. But to be fair, he’s like 13 so higher reasoning isn’t quite so developed.”

“True.”

“Now shush. They’re having the sass off. It’s my favorite part.”

He grumbled slightly but quieted, content to rest his chin on your shoulder and pull you even closer.

“When I was little, I thought Budapest was a type of seasoning,” you admitted when the movie ended.

“How did you get that?” He laughed pausing the movie so you could both stretch.

“Well when he says ‘I should have finished you in Budapest’. I thought… I mean… he was going to bite him. I thought Budapest was a way to make him tastier before he did.”

“Oh, and how would one finish you off in Budapest?”

“I don’t know. Feed me cookies so my blood is sweeter,” you teased pointedly.

He kissed your shoulder, “Hmm, but you’re already so sweet.”

Steve continued kissing from your shoulder over to your neck and instinctively you leaned your head back to give him better access.

“Whatcha doin’, Stevie?” you giggled nervously as he found your pulse point.

“Havin’ a taste,” he hummed, and you could hear that he wasn’t really paying attention to the question.

Part of you wanted to stop him – to talk things through first, but the other part was begging for him to keep going.

“Steve!” you gasped out as he nipped at your earlobe.

The note of hysteria seemed to snap him out of a haze.

“Oh my god, y/n, I’m so sorry. I got carried away.”

He tried to scramble away and give you both some space but that was difficult considering you were sitting in his lap, tangled in his arms.

“I can’t believe I did that. I’m so sorry. I crossed a line. Please forgive me,” he rambled.

“Steve,” you whispered as you turned, remaining between his legs but now you could face him. “Breathe, love.”

He followed your instructions, calming himself down, but you could still see the panic in his eyes.

“I’m so sorry, y/n.”

“Please stop apologizing. I was thoroughly enjoying myself.”

A momentary smirk flitted across his features.

“But this is new territory for us,” you continued. “I know we’ve been physically affectionate since we met, but…”

“This is different,” he finished with a serious expression. “I agree.”

“So what are we doing here?” You sounded helpless.

“I don’t know.” You frowned, but he continued before you could get too disappointed. “But I’ll tell you what I do know. I love you, y/n. And I love the relationship we have. I don’t really know how to put into words what that is, because I’ve never felt this way about anyone else, but I would never ever do anything to jeopardize that.”

You smiled as he ran a thumb over your cheek.

“I wouldn’t either. But I need to know what we are before we take another step.”

He was quiet for a moment, measuring his next words carefully.

“I guess I’ve been so hesitant to label what we have because the term girlfriend doesn’t really do what you mean to me justice. Does that make sense?”

“Completely.” You exhaled a breath you didn’t know you’d been holding, relieved by his admission. “You’re so much more to me than a boyfriend. And I was scared that if we labelled us, we’d feel pressure to do something that we… I would regret. I know it’s not that big a deal to most people, but it is to me. Is it dumb that I care this much?” You sighed, feeling childish.

“Not even a little bit,” he assured you, lifting your chin so he could look into your eyes. “It’s serious for me too. Talk to me though. I need to know what you’re thinking.”

You gnawed your bottom lip as you tried to gather your thoughts.

“Sweetness?” He coaxed softly after a few minutes.

“I’m thinking. Not ignoring,” you explained.

He nodded, content to give you all the time you needed.

“Physical intimacy scares me. More than emotional intimacy. And I feel like that’s backwards.”

“I don’t.”

“You don’t?” You couldn’t hide your surprise.

“No. I don’t. I don’t think you can have one without the other.” You were about to argue, but he knew where you were going. “We aren’t talking about meaningless sex. We’re talking about a physical connection, an extension of the emotional intimacy. And I couldn’t have that with someone I didn’t trust completely.”

“Neither could I.”

“Y/n, I trust you. And I would love to show that to you physically. But we will not do anything you don’t want to,” he assured you.

“I want you too. I want to share that with you.” Your fingers tangled in the hem of his shirt as you searched for something to ground you.

He covered your hand with his, squeezing gently.

“Does that scare you?”

“No. I feel like it should scare me. But it doesn’t.” You leaned your forehead against his as you whispered, “I trust you, Steve, with every part of me. And I want to be close to you.”

“I want to be close to you too. We’ll take things slow though, okay?”

“Okay. Will you stop me if you don’t feel comfortable?”

“I will. I promise.”

You shared a quiet understanding smile as you both took each other in.

“Can I kiss you now, sweetness?”

You nodded.

“I need to hear it, sweetness.”

“Kiss me, Steve.”

You expected fireworks when the two of you finally kissed, but instead it was like sinking into a cloud. Like everything with Steve it was comfortable. You relaxed into the kiss as you threaded your hands into his hair, tugging him even closer.

A/N: So EEEEEE?! Haha I hope that this was worth waiting for. I rewrote this scene about a million different ways but this finally felt right. Thanks for reading!

Sexiled Tag List @yourspecialcrush @part-time-patronus @impala-with-wings @the-stories-in-my-head-95 @zlixlle @peter-parker-steve-bucky @encounterthepast @holygaygal @hista-girl @steves-on-a-plane @juliagolia87 @pastelsweaters-and-bubble-t

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#Steve Rogers #Steve Rogers x Reader #College!AU #Sexild #Ongoing #Part 11

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maculategiraffe · 6 years

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OK, darlings, bear with me. I'm almost ready to post the new chapter of Refreshment, but first I gotta get this Hill House thing off my chest.

This post will not contain specific plot spoilers, but it will discuss-- arcs, and themes. So if you haven't watched it yet and are already planning to and don't want any more information before watching it than "so far it's my favorite thing in awhile" and "it's so goddamn good, I cast myself down and wept," then maybe avoid this one until after you've watched it. (Or skip it altogether! I'm gonna get long-winded here, I can feel it.)

If, on the other hand, you aren't sure yet whether you want to watch it, and you want to know more about what the viewing experience might be like and why I found it to be so good, then this would be a good thing for you to read before watching it, maybe, to help you make up your mind whether it's for you.

Or if you've already watched it, then just, here's why I loved it.

One: It's not an adaptation; it's a lovingly transformative fan work.

You know how gleeful we all got about the fact that The Shape of Water was literally Guillermo del Toro's Cold War AU Creature/Kay fix-it fic of The Creature from the Black Lagoon? Because fuck yeah, beautifully shot high-budget fanwork that develops and builds upon themes and possibilities latent in the original work and wins Oscars in its own right?

I really love the book The Haunting of Hill House, and I'm predisposed to hate adaptations of things I really love, because they always fucking get things wrong. I've become a bit more open-minded about this as I've aged-- I will now grudgingly watch a Jane Eyre adaptation with a blue-eyed Rochester (although I still get so Goddamn Pissy about how Goddamn Pretty everybody always is in a Jane Eyre movie adaptation when both the romantic leads are canonically Changeling-Looking Motherfuckers, and that's, like, IMPORTANT, okay)-- but mostly adaptations seem to me to have missed an important point about the original. At LEAST one! Do you know what I mean? Like in the movie of The End of the Affair where they made it so the guy she was secretly meeting with was a priest, and like... the whole POINT was--! Or like remember how mad certain people got about Tom Bombadil being left out of LotR, and how much they (we) wanted to explain to you (anyone who was like "meh, fair enough, he didn't have much to do with anything anyway") that the whole POINT of Tom Bombadil was--!

Anyway sorry the point is, that this isn't an adaptation. It isn't The Movie Of The Book, or The Show Of The Book, which always gets things wrong. (Except the movie of The Princess Bride, which in my view was essentially the second, improved draft of the novel.)

It's a fanwork, about the book, and, like all great fanworks, it gets the book-- in some ways, yeah, I'll say it-- righter than the book itself did. Because it loves the book, and it takes things that are peeping out at the corners and between the lines of the book, or merely glanced at by the text and hurried past, maybe for pacing purposes, or that you thought about when you were reading the book for the seventh time, and it develops those, and interacts with them, and brings them out into new contexts, and-- just, altogether, instead of being like watching an adaptation of a thing you loved, it's like reading a fantastic fanfic series of a thing that you loved. Instead of watching it butchered, you get to watch it, skillfully and thoughtfully and thoroughly, loved, and in a way that you wouldn't have known how to by yourself.

Two: It's scary like wasabi is hot.

I love wasabi, because, like many very strange humans whose behavior is a puzzlement and a dismay to rational plants everywhere, I like eating something that makes me feel like my head is going to explode, but unlike some of those strange humans, I don't like the pain to linger. I avoid super-hot chilis, because I don't like a burnt-mouth feeling. I like wasabi because while I'm eating it it makes tears stream down my face, but then once it's gone, it's gone. Well, I like my stories like I like my wasabi-- super intense while they last, but with a discrete ending to the pain. I love wallowing in exquisitely painful hurt/comfort depictions of a character's anguish and terror and desolation, because I know the comfort part is coming. If it doesn’t, I feel kind of hurt and burnt.

Well, I like my horror the same way. I like things that scare the living starlight out of me while they're happening, but that wrap up in a way that leaves me not-scared for later. My previous best example of this was probably The Others (remember The Others? Nicole Kidman? 2001? I never hear about that movie any more, I feel like it's really underrated. I saw it in the theater and there was one moment when everyone in the theater collectively stopped breathing and then everyone let out this crazy collective shaky what-was-that laugh), but I also feel that way about The Babadook, and Alien, and-- I could probably list other examples, but you get the point. I like Cabin in the Woods, but it (and others like it) work by defusing the horror while stuff is happening, which is different from movies that commit wholeheartedly to scaring you while they're happening but after you're done watching them don't leave you scared to go to sleep in case the Thing is under the bed or peering out of the mirror. You know?

Hill House ends that way, but-- disclaimer-- it's a 10-episode series, and if you stop watching at any point before the last episode, like I did, you might be creeped out and have to sleep with the light on, like I did. (After, specifically, episode 5. I already loved it but it had spooked me out badly.) It is genuinely terrifying while it's happening, but it gets-- steadily, artfully, beautifully-- less scary as it goes along. But not by becoming less intense. The ratio of emotional intensity to spooky business steadily increases, until at the very end, you are far too busy sobbing your soul out onto your sweater to be scared.

which brings me to my next item:

Three: It's a deep, and deeply cathartic, exploration of how grief and trauma work.

Do you know the quote-- I think I've reblogged it here a couple of times, lemme just, here:

My therapist says I can’t

make the monsters disappear

no matter how much I pay her.

All she can do is bring them

into the room, so I can get

to know them, so I can learn

their names, so I can see clearly

their toothless mouths,

their empty hands,

their pleading eyes.

So that's what it's about.

It's not about how there was never anything to be afraid of at all. It's not about how the monsters can't hurt you unless you believe in them. That's part of what the show looks at, is denial, how corrosive it can be, and in what ways, to deny the reality of what happened to you and how much it hurt you and how it changed you, and how important the things were that you lost, and how different you are because of what's happened to you, and what's still happening. And yet how understandable it is, to try to close your eyes to it, try to white-knuckle it away, fix it yourself, close the door on it, build a wall to block it out, make yourself blind to everything so you don't have to see the one unbearable thing.

It's not about how the monsters can't really, or won't really, or didn't really, hurt you.

It's about learning to understand how they can, and how they did, and how they do, and what they are, and that's the beginning of learning how you're going to live now. And that you are. And that-- and how-- it's going to be beautiful.

Four: It's about love.

The ways love is messy. The ways love makes mistakes. The ways love fails. The ways love oversteps. The ways love overwhelms. The ways love, when accompanied by fear or bad judgement or incomplete information or the other ways we all stumble so helplessly through life, can even lead us to hurt and harm people. Beloved people. Or be horribly hurt by them. The ways love is not, in and of itself, a safeguard against doing the absolutely, catastrophically, unbearably, unfixably wrong thing.

And the ways love lights our path. The ways love brings us back. The ways love makes life, no matter how much it hurts, worth living. The ways we can't do without it, nothing means anything without it, no matter how much it hurts-- and it hurts, it hurts, it hurts-- but that's what it is to be alive at all. To be able to feel, and feel deeply. To rejoice, and despair, and panic, and regret, and hope, and grieve, and breathe, and love. And love.

That’s what it’s about.

#the haunting of hill house #and why i loved it very much #an essay by maculategiraffe age 35 #grief #horror #love love love

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ourdreamsrealized · 6 years

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Chapter One: To Love a Hero

Chapter: 1 | 2

A/N: So...while creating the cover for this short fanfiction, I accidentally made a cover that would be perfect for a gladiator!Thor series, so that’s probably going to be happening somewhere down the line. Fair warning. This one is set in the Marvel universe and will be using it’s timeline. I’m really excited because I love this man, and he deserves the love because I don’t think he gets enough. This first part is just the beginning, so bear with me, the romance and sex will come shortly. I will also probably be updating this on a weekly basis (trying to be realistic) though I will aim for it to be updated more often. However, this is a short fanfiction, and I planned only five chapters, each being 2000+ words. I hope you guys enjoy.

Fandom: Marvel

Pairing: Thor Odinson (God of Thunder) x Reader

Synopsis: When you meet Thor for the first time, he’s a happy-go-lucky hero in need of your help, but as more chance meetings happen and a relationship begins to blossom between the two of you, you begin to realize that there is a lot more to this amazing man than meets the eye.

Inspired by @champion-ofthe-sun‘s post: { x }.

Rated: PG

Warnings: Alien Invasion & Light Gore

The first time you met Thor was during the Battle of New York City.

You were in your last year of college, working towards graduating with a Bachelors in Science of Nursing and a minor in mythology. Now, one would wonder how the two fit together, and the truth of the matter was they did not. You enjoyed being a nurse, caring for people and learning about the human body, but mythology, particularly Norse mythology, had intrigued you since you were a young girl. Stories of King Odin’s conquests, his children, and the people of Asgard were things you treasured, and each time you re-read one of the ancient tales, you discovered something new.

Minoring in mythology also gave you the chance to meet many different people, as many different majors decided to take classes in the field. You had made a few good friends in these classes, and it just so happened that one of them had an apartment in the city. Classes were winding down, and the lot of you only had a few finals, none really worth worrying too much over, so you all decided to stay in the city for a long weekend.

The apartment was gorgeous, a penthouse suite, which your friend whose family owned the place, had failed to mention. Needless to say, you spent most of your time while in the place trying to keep it clean.

You were one of the first to arrive, your last class being Wednesday, May 2nd, so you headed into the city after it, car already packed. You settled in, bought some groceries from a local farmer’s market, and made yourself some dinner. Heather and Jamie, who came earlier in the day, left a note for you on the counter, letting you know that the small room in the back was yours for the weekend and that they were going to be out for the evening.

Knowing Heather, she wouldn’t be back the next day. Her boyfriend lived in the city, so she would probably spend most of her time with him.

Honestly, you and Heather weren’t really close, so you didn’t really mind her absence. Jamie was the one who offered to share her family’s place with you, and she was much less moody. She was your closest friend in the group; she was a very go-with-the-flow kind of gal, and you loved her to pieces for it.

Thursday brought one of your other mythology friends, Anna. She was similar to Jamie in a lot of ways, so the three of you had a lot of fun staying in and watching a few movies.

Friday started normally; well, as normal as a day could be for a college girl staying in a New York City penthouse. You went out after sleeping in to get some more groceries from that farmer’s market, and you also did some window shopping. You had asked if Jamie and Anna wanted to join you, but Jamie liked to sleep in well passed twelve while Anna wanted to use the time to study a bit for her upcoming exams.

So, you were wandering down the street by yourself, making your way towards the farmer’s market, your hands on the faux leather strap of your satchel, when the skies opened up.

You paused, eyes fixed on the spectacle above you. A high-pitched cry came from the hole above Stark’s tower, and you watched with bated breath as figures entered New York City from the sky. Around you, people who had also frozen in the middle of their day-to-day lives, began to run, some screaming as they did. Others asked questions, wondering what was going on.

“It’s the end of the world!” Someone exclaimed, making many others scatter.

You? For some reason, you could not will yourself to move. Your mind was racing, trying to figure out if this was real or some weird dream you were experiencing a little too thoroughly.

“Look! It’s Iron Man!”

You turned your head, seeing that it was indeed him, flying around up there and blasting whatever those creatures were out of the air. But some still got through, despite his best efforts, and blue blasts hit the streets, turning over cars, causing explosions and fires.

And they were close. Too close.

You forced yourself from your spot, taking off with many others to avoid the destruction. You took cover under a table at a nearby café, and others had the same idea, including a couple of waiters and hungry patrons. Cabs stopped nearby, their occupants joining you or fleeing into the alleyways between buildings.

One particular blast had you gasping for air, dust and rubble flying around you. You coughed, quickly moving to cover your mouth with your forearm.

An agonized scream from the table next to you had you opening your eyes, trying to makeout the figure. The man was on his back, holding his leg to his chest, blood oozing out between his fingers.

Without much thought about it, you crawled over to him, grateful that you had worn jeans despite the warmth of the day, and put a hand on a shoulder. “What happened?”

“Glass...from a cab window,” he hissed between clenched teeth. He grunted, shifting his leg a bit for you to look at it better.

You lifted his hands from the appendage, studying the wound as it came into view. Luckily, it was a rather large piece of glass that was lodged, making it easier for you to pull it out carefully rather than go looking for a knife to help you cut it out. Tears streamed down his dirt-stained face as you quickly pulled the jagged piece from his skin and put it off to the side. You then took out the travel-sized alcohol rub that you always carried in your purse. You put some on your hands, ignoring a loud crash that came from beside you. “This is going to sting...a lot,” you quickly explained before squirting some of the clear liquid on a tissue from your bag.

You blotted the wound, the man sucking in a breath as he squeezed his eyes tight. You handed him some more tissues, asking him to keep pressure on it. “You’re going to need stitches…”

He nodded, swallowing thickly, “Thanks…”

You gave him a small smile, then turned at the sound of thunder, your eyes moving to the sky to see...a man?

He was lofty, with broad shoulders and thick arms, and his armor made him appear even more intimidating. A hammer was in his right hand, his large fingers wrapped around a string on its handle as he slowly descended. When his feet touched the ground, he caught the weapon, electric blue eyes finding yours. “Are you alright?”

His deep voice took you by surprise for some reason. Of course, you expected him to have a baritone, considering his formidable appearance, but not quite this...smooth?

“Who are you?” you found yourself asking instead of answering. You stood slowly, dusting yourself off.

“I am Thor, Son of Odin.” His lips curved into a proud smirk as he said this, while you were still trying to process who he claimed to be.

Thor? As in, the god of thunder? You have read many of his stories, known of his stubbornness and prowess. But this man could not be him, could he?

Well, he did look like he just stepped out of a viking movie, with the plates of metal that covered his muscular form and his long, golden locks. Your stare moved to the hammer in his hand. It did appear as Mjolnir did in many drawings you had studied of the legendary weapon.

“And who are you?” he asked, stepping towards you.

“I’m Y/N,” you answered, blinking as he wrapped an arm about your waist. “Um...what are you doing?”

“I saw you give aid to that man. I could use your skill with others,” was the explanation you got before shooting up into the air.

A yelp escaped your lips as you frantically clawed at him, eventually managing to hold onto his neck, your face buried into his chest, which shook with a low chuckle. You glared up at him, but it did not clear the amused look from his face. “You are angry? I thought you would have been freaking out by now.”

He brought up an excellent point, but you just saw a bunch of weird, alien-looking things come from a large hole in the sky. Now a very attractive man, claiming to be a god, was flying with you in his arms? Things could be worse for you.

“Who said I’m not freaking out?” you asked, peering up at him and earning you another hearty laugh.

Moments later, the two of you were on the pavement again, and you realized just how you had taken having your feet planted firmly on the ground for granted.

This part of the city had seen a worse attack, and you saw a child and a woman, you assumed to be his mother, hiding behind a parked cab, with various superficial cuts on their faces, all bleeding a bit.

“I will go find more victims and bring them to you,” Thor stated, getting ready to take off again, but you stopped him.

“You shouldn’t bring them to me. A hospital would be better. I can only do so much with a purell bottle and a travel pack of tissues.”

Thor considered your words for a moment before nodding, “Alright. Then I shall bring you with me for emergency purposes.”

“As I said--”

“But what if you could lessen the damage?”

His question had you swallowing whatever words you were originally going to say because, frankly, he did have a point. It might be better for you to stabilize or at least make it easier for some of these people to travel to a hospital.

“Alright,” you nodded before turning to the mother and child.

After removing a few shards of glass and cleaning them up a bit, Thor took you to a few other places in the surrounding area. He also would leave you for a few moments, taking very serious cases to the nearby hospital, before zooming back to your side.

“It is over,” he remarked after one longer trip, his eyes on the now spotless, blue sky above Stark tower. He turned to you, taking your hand in his and leaning down to brush his soft lips against your knuckles. “Thank you, Y/N. Your help is greatly appreciated.”

You felt your cheeks warm at his heartfelt comments. “It was no trouble, but how about I take a look at your shoulder before you get going?”

His brows rose high on his forehead as he straightened. “How did you…?”

“You are favoring your left side.”

Thor smiled sheepishly. “You’re quite observant, a good trait for a healer, but I must go. I have to take my brother home to Asgard.”

“Brother?” As far as you knew, Thor had no blood brothers…

“Loki,” he replied, lifting his hammer. “He is the cause of this.”

The God of Mischief? Well, considering his history, you supposed the god would have some issues. Honestly, you had always felt bad for him, considering how Odin would treat him sometimes.

“Ok. At least have someone look at it,” you said, glancing at his shoulder.

His smile was pure sunlight. “I will.” His thumb caressed the back of your hand before he let go of it. “Thank you, again. I won’t forget how you have helped this day.” And those were his last words to you before he disappeared.

You fisted the hand he had held, trying to calm your fast-beating heart, before taking your phone from your satchel’s back pocket. After such a disaster, you had several calls to make, but everytime you mentioned Thor to the person on the other end, you were unable to fight the sudden curve to your lips.

It would take you years to realize that the feeling was the beginnings of love.

TAGS: @champion-ofthe-sun, @fucmeupfandoms, @jumpingmanatee, @magnitude101999, @jmberries, @en-chant-ress

If there is a strikethrough through your name, it means I could not tag you.

TAGS ARE OPEN!

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theinsanecrayonbox · 7 years

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the great FOP review mega dump

ok so apparently the rest of s10 was aired at the end of June through July of this year. now granted, i do not get NickToons and used a friend’s DVR to record it, so there’s a margin for error, but i don’t recall any of these episodes ever getting recorded. i could be wrong, my memory sucks, BUT TVGuide is stupid and has a habit of putting the wrong names/numbers on things and if the guide doesn’t list the episode as new because half of it already aired, then it wouldn’t get recorded. so again, huge margin for error.

basically, i hadn’t posted these yet because i didn’t realize they’d aired; i was trying to avoid spoiling anything for people. Nick sucks at their programming schedule. these first viewing reviews are nearly a year old in some cases, since it was about a year ago that i was given links to watch some of these online after they’d aired in other countries. so yeah, probably a little dated, might not hold up, but here they are so we can be done with this.

Which is Wish:

Chloe is a vegetarian??? Has this been said before??

I feel like everything in the garage there was in the attic when Dad made Timmy clean that out before…not that that isn’t plausible, since that’d be one way to “clean” the attic lol. Just thought it was a neat commentary.

But yes Chloe, unleash your organizational skills. Color coded labels are awesome! Cleaning sucks, but labels lol

And yes, switching bodies always works so well doesn’t it Timmy…but heehee he called Chloe pretty XD though in fairness…doesn’t this mean Chloe is still eating the meat, because Tim’s in her body…or do they just *look* like one another? See, that’s the gray area…

Ok I do not like all these moments of Dad seeing Cosmo and Wanda; they’re glossed over yes, but still. That should break Da Rules though, because they’ve been revealed (not to mention Crocker knows about them a million times over I know). it just seems like a cheap gag that they don’t need, and it’s annoying.

“Chlimmy Turnermicheal” lol, I need to draw a fusion of my Opals now XD;;;

Ok yes, they’ve body swapped, not glamoured, so Chloe *did* eat the meat after all, thank you for explaining that

Seriously, it’s Cosmo loosing the wands (for the umpteenth time) that is going to cause the problems here -.-

Yay more Chloe parents! They aren’t 1 or 2 offs! Though…why were they absent up until this point? Did they decide to take a sabbatical from work after the booby incident? That’d be nice

OMR Danny, Vlad (wait nasty Dan? Hu oh well), and Dudley puppets. That is too cute for words!!

And a Little Shop joke. Eeeeeeee!!! I know they’ve done man-eating plants before, but still!

Chloe’s dad faints at failure? Hm, that could be useful.

Tim admitting he’d miss Chloe is sweet, especially since it wasn’t with any mention of loosing his fairies

Hahahaha dressing up as each other/themselves, that’s great. Cosmo’s head blowing up is getting old though.

All in all I give this episode a huge A+. It is a cliché trope of a plot, but I feel it was executed really really well!! Nice balance of magical aspects with non-magical ones I thought, and gave development to both kids and their families.

Fairy Con:

Ok first of all, I thought Fairy conventions were held every thousand years or so, and was actually just for the fairies. Granted, this “Fairy con” could be a different event OR they changed the event after Timmy’s bathroom one, since that could’ve been the first time a godchild was involved? Also, Timmy is you go “every year” that shows that this is at least 2 years after you got your fairies (because you had Cosmo Con, then assume one after that, then at minimum this one), so why are you still 10?????? (and don’t go saying “the time stopping wish in secret wish” because uhg)

Crocker in the fridge….ok…but adding in Crocker to crash the Con…yeah this is a complete plot reusing of Cosmo Con, just updating it a bit

Look Girlfriend the cat isn’t dead!!

If you’ve had their hair samples for that long why haven’t you cloned them before?? But “off brand cloning machine” is sorta funny. Also, Kenny G? that a Spongebob shout out or not?

Ok if it merged the cat DNA with the fairy why didn’t it merge the fairy DNA together too? Also, missed your mark to have a real “fairy cat” show up (though no Sparky so we don’t need it anymore I guess)

Oh but Chloe’s enthusiasm over her first con, I am so happy at that ^^ I just had my first comic con, and I was spazzing like that too when I wasn’t freaking out over being ditched and lost.

Ok that is yet ANOTHER unique birthday for Timmy. He’s up to what, 5 now since the series started? (Boys in the Band, Birthday Bashed, Birthday Battle, the one mentioned in Birthday Battle about the dinosaurs) the kid is at least 14 now, he has to be!

I like all the backgrounders. Some look super squashed, but still neat.

Tooth fairy returns! Yay! We had mentions of Cupid and Mother Nature before, so it’s nice to see the magical celebrities are still around and not forgotten.

Ahhh! The return of the Crocker Pot which captures fairies!! Ok I am giving this writing team an A- on doing their lore homework because they are getting so many things right (though the Fairy Con being thrown off is still deducting points sorry)

There was a blonde fairy that looked like Samantha in the background O.o

“Chloe Carmichael, any normal person would give up right now. But you are NOT normal!” - omr Chloe I love you and your “never quit” song was good and humorous, I still love you

Timmy how can you not know what Crocker is up to? He’s always up to the same exact thing. If he’s in Fairy World, I’m fairly sure there is a 1000% chance he’s there to capture fairies. Geeze.

OMR Princess Morebucks was in the seats at Cosmo’s panel, I’m not joking.

All in all, it wasn’t a giant impacting story, but it was a good one, even though it was a total reusing of a plot. I feel like the writing team did their homework pretty decently (for the most part). Plus, the magic of cons ^^

The Hungry Games:

This is the B-Story to Fairy Con…interesting choice…more fangirl!Chloe…

I love her “Katniss hair”, heck I just love seeing alternate hair on her

Heh “Ketchup Everdream”, wow, ok, sure

That might be the wrong movie, but it sounds interesting. What movie was that Cosmo?

Aw Chloe lost…but yay call back to screaming in her closet

Lol Crocker is once again, king of dystopian world. That is perfect. This is all perfect. Maybe it’s because I liked the Hunger Games movie that I can thoroughly enjoy this parody, idk. But this is great. I am loving this episode.

And cue the pointless Dad part…wait Mr Bickles?? Where have you been?? Why are you here???

I like the blonde/pink haired backgrounder

I really loved this episode! It was so nice how Timmy did this for Chloe and stuck with it even when it was bad for him, then she turns around and does something nice for him at the end. It let Chloe fly her freaky fangirl flag on so many levels. Like I said, I liked Hunger Games, so this was a great parody that was loads of fun. I really really enjoyed all of it.

As a whole episode, these two really show us what a geeky girl Chloe is I think. She’s not just the over achieving little Ms Perfect she was at first, she’s got her weird hobbies and obsessions too. And the fact that she was so into Fair Bears AND dystopian doomy future really says a lot about her, and really speaks to me on many levels. It’s just solidified my love of Chloe even more.

Dimmsdale Daze:

And we start off with jokes about barfing…well it is a roller coaster so I can let it slide…just don’t spiral out of control with them…

Heehee “vines” joke, that’s great. Because it highlights their age AND that they are more naturalist

Oooo Connie said “shyster”, that’s pretty borderline…

Chaining yourself to the tree in town…wouldn’t that be the same tree that Tootie did the same thing to in the first live action movie? I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing…

Did Chloe’s middle name change? O.o but lol to the “when you’re a parent you can make the decisions” because I head canon them meddling after Chloe’s divorce, but I know that line is the plot fodder, so I’ll just push the head canons away for now

Lookit that adult!Chloe though!! I’m not that far off the mark with my design (plus you know, there are several older!Timmy designs and none are more true than the other, so my older!Chloe being short and bustier is still plausible). And hey lookit! Cameo of the adult!Timmy from Big Problem AND confirmation that if one of the godkids breaks Da Rules they both loose the fairies TOGETHER

Neither Clark nor Connie really look too much like Chloe as children (ok Connie *does* but when you consider they made child Dad look exactly like Timmy before, it’s not quite enough)…just another tick in my adopted column, just saying…

Why did that child in the bounce house have lipstick O.o

Chloe’s earring is like, in the wrong place and it’s bothering me…

“But I have the mind if a child” “It’s true, he’s been tested” – I…wow, just…yes?

And of course Connie and Clark get assigned Cosmo and Wanda, I don’t know why I didn’t see that coming honestly ^^;;

You know, even though this is sort of a rehash of Big Problem and The Switch Glitch I thoroughly enjoyed this one! Single mom!Chloe was great, it feeds my future headcanons. It proved that Tim and Chloe do share the negative effects of the fairies. And it was just a really good Chloe episode that Timmy was just a supporting character in. I really did like it. A+

As a whole, I think both parts (this is meant to be paired with Spring Breakup) work nicely together. It’s a lot of Chloe and her family, so if you want some serious Carmichael development, do for this set most definitely.

Chip off the Old Crock:

Ok before getting into this one, I just gotta state that since I read the description for it, I’ve been ITCHING to see this. How does Crocker have a nephew if he has no siblings? (*current thoughts: i’ve since this review come up with a plausible scenario*) What would this child be like? How could I use him for Superverse conveniently?? And then I saw screencaps and saw that he was a mini Crocker and got disappointed…

But now we are to watch so let us see how that unfolds…

What’s with that redheaded backgrounder?? He looks like a Lebowitz!! *files that away for layer usage*

Still laughing that he’s named Kevin since that is a “name of evil” in our games and what not ever since my brother used it as a placeholder name for a badguy in a storyline; ever since then “Kevin” had been the badguys who are sorta pointless lol

But still…”study abroad” um…you still could’ve used that since Crocker obviously has family in Canada; studying in California would then be considered “abroad” if he was Canadian. And that way, he wouldn’t have to be his literal nephew, but his 2nd cousin, but they just call each other uncle/nephew because it’s easier. That might sound confusing, but at least it makes more sense then just randomly implying he has siblings when he never has. I’m gonna headcanon this from now on, and no one can convince me otherwise. (*current thoughts: again, i’ve figured it out since writing this; i’ve left the original thoughts though to prove my though process from point A to point B*) Plus you miss out on Canada jokes this way…

Awww Kevin, I’m starting to love you…that’s weird…

Everyone pick a partner-no one pick Kevin, classic. However…redhead boy had 2 partners, why didn’t Crocker notice and stop that? There’s no reason why Chloe and Tim needed to pair up with him aside from plot relevance…

Ah sweet Chloe, standing up for the misunderstood and outcast, trying to find the good in them and make others see it too. I love you sweetheart ^^ go make friends with Francis now please

Why isn’t Dolores fawning over Kevin? You’d think she wouldn’t let her *grandson* out of her sight, considering the coddling we’ve seen her give Denzel at times. Unless she’s busy with her *other child* I guess…but in that case why isn’t she belittling Denzel for not being like *his sibling* and having kids and not living in her basement? I’d love to see Denzel look like a looser compared to this *sibling* he suddenly has, and it suits the family dynamic as we know it. Or perhaps the *sibling* is more of a looser, but Dolores still sings their praises because they did move out and have a kid, unlike Denzel who has a steady job and whatnot because *sibling* is a total bum. I mean, I get that it would only slow down the storyline, but it just feels out of character, plus the sudden introduction of a *sibling* just is wrong too…I should stop analyzing the Crocker family and just go back to the actual plot

Kevin wants to be a dentist??? O.o are you related to Dr Bender??? That…would explain nothing honestly, idk why I went there

“Sorry I’m too busy being a loner” haha that’s a good one

Hey callback to Crocker wearing ladies clothes. Nice.

“It’s a blueprint so shouldn’t it be blue?” hahaha that was funny

Chloe how did you get to the top of the rock wall without a rope?? Did you boulder your way yup there?? And Tim! You should never rock climb without a belier(sp?) geeze, rock climbing 101 there dude

And toilet joke…but I will let it slide because I am actually enjoying Kevin

“Unleash your inner looser” omr yes best line

Ah the build up to the betrayal “aw you guys actually like me” “well yeah you’re not evil” *does the evil thing* “we hate you now because you are evil after all”

Unsuspecting Van is back whoot!

Ninja!Chloe and Tim with a light saber; nice, but what a missed opportunity…also Chloe has a ninja suit…she really is replacing Tootie isn’t she…

And Kevin saves the day by wishing none of this ever happened…just like Chester did in Fairy Idol hm…

But at the end of it, I’m actually very surprised how much I liked this despite all its flaws. It’s riddled with clichés and huge plot holes/continuity errors, but I genuinely liked Kevin (and whole heartedly look forward to writing him into Superverse…also would it be too weird if he was Kyler’s father? I think it’d be weird…). I think it’s a nice B-story to Cat and Mouse and together they make a pretty good episode.

Space Ca-Dad:

Off topic a moment here; rewatching the theme and it just dawned on me…maybe there’s a “fairy shortage” because no one’s enforcing the rules over fairies being revealed/discovered. I mean, if everyone Timmy knows knows about his fairies and yet he keeps them, then other kids must be doing that too you know. Just saying Jorgen, you caused this problem yourself man…and honestly, why not outsource the fairy jobs then to other magical creatures, since Fairy Idol proved any magical creature can be converted to a fairy godparent. It’d be a great way to bring Norm back if you stop and think about it, or a way to get the Pixies back in there too. I’m just saying, the “fairy shortage” story is pretty weak…still think Jorgen just did this to them because they’re good for each other…

Ok back to the episode itself

Yay Chloe is still a Squirrely Scout, good for continuity! And you love food puns? i love you more Chloe, you so are a Catman related heroine aren’t you ^^;

Did he say “Mrs Lipshitz” or “Mrs Libwitz”? it was really hard to tell, so idk if that’s a Rugrats shout out or someone I have to add to my Lebowitz family tree (cause slurred sound…and the witch/mental thing does suit the family…)

Dad you had the rank of “flying squirrel” why is this confusing??

Ok there are “Pickles” living on the street, I’m going with Lipshitz. So many Rurgrats shout outs.

Whinny kid, Kid with issues (aren’t you Kevin?), and Stuart…so we are going with the latest (and suckier) Squirrel Scout troop line up. Kay.

Chloe as a jr. astronaut though and knowing how to fly space ships ^^

Heehee “Space Jam” how many more thinly veiled references can we have XD;;

(maybe Squirrely Kevin is Kyler’s father…that’s doable…)

Ah yes, Dad throwing the fairies out just when the kid/s need them. Yup, never seen that plot device used before nope. And how can rocket fuel destroy magical wands? They’re fairy magic, why are they so easy to ruin??

How did you find a planetoid when you were heading towards the sun??? I don’t…right, why put logic into things, my bad

The Glorg. Florgatron-5. Hm…*files that way for layer usage* Bakersfield???

I loved all the aliens at the restaurant though.

Over all, this episode was…meh. I didn’t dislike it, but it was a very pointless Dad episode. Seriously, you could’ve had them go to the Planet of the Dads and do pretty much the same thing, but at least keep that storyline going (since I think it’s the longest running one now). I’m unimpressed, but I’m not disappointed. So lets see if the B-story can save the episode as a whole.

Summer Bummer:

“The looks of psychotic anticipation” lol, well we’re starting off with some good

Also it’s summer vacation yet again. Mk…this makes it at least the 4th summer vacation Tim’s had, what with School’s Out, Shelf Life, and Microphony being the others I can easily site off the top of my head. So again, these children should be like 14-16 now

It’s the return of Dad in short-shorts. Oh man, run and hide now.

Chloe getting a summer internship/scientific program is very her. Must always be learn…wait did she say the corner of a basement?? O.o that’s concerning child…

Oh hey that pink clad teacher is from s1 I think. Wasn’t she in Timvisible at the water cooler?? That is a very nice and wow throwback guys. Major points to you.

Chloe is 10 and a half???? So she actually IS a year younger than Timmy, since he was already 10 when he had his birthday (and we ignore the previous like 5 birthdays he’s had >>) and they share a birthday…but wait, your birthday is in March…summer vacation starts in June/July, that isn’t 6 months later…ok so on the one hand, your math is all wrong, but on the other my headcanon that Chloe is a year younger seems to be proven fact. I don’t know what to do with this information!!

Oh this is the sleep wishing episode I heard about! Wow took a while for the plot to show up…but you know, even though this has been used before, I feel like this is being used in a different context and for a different character, so I’m allowing the reuse of the plot idea. Let’s see how twisted up Chloe’s subconscious is…

“Gender neutral Jesse” is sorta weird…I like the fact that Chloe did play with baby dolls though…

Timmy you can’t unwish Chloe’s wish! We’ve been over this-we had a whole episode dedicated to it!! URG!! Did they just throw that out because it’s easier for them to just fix each other’s mistakes that way? I mean, if this was the only time, I could buy that since she didn’t *consciously* make this wish, it could be undone by Tim, but the other times they’ve pulled this she’s been in her full faculties. So uhg! You can’t even keep your own continuity you establish in the same season >> (but…you guys have been doing better than expected, so…it’s not *as* negative points as I’d usually give…or maybe it is but you’ve just racked up enough positive ones to be at the standard by now I guess)

Hey Dr Rip Studwell, long time no see XD and…you made a manscaping joke…wow, I…wow

And a poop joke…but you have a pirate ship…but still…

“Took one to the crow’s nest” is that a crotch shot joke? Wow this episode is just…wow

Omr the mini shoulder Chloes are adorable! I love valley girl!Chloe and german science!Chloe. Didn’t like the second poop joke in a minute, especially since Dad really *shouldn’t* have heard science!Chloe say that…

She wished the doll big again…I think Chloe’s repressed feelings are about not wanting to grow up

And look Da Rules FINALLY decide to kick…oh no, Chloe wished it to be unwishable...yeah, because that’s the only way to stop Tim from fixing it >> and yet at the same time, he did wish the monster to stay until he stopped lying about who set Chompy free, so…formula…

“There’s free ice cream all over the street! It’s like delicious roadkill!” ok that is the best line ever

Wait, you’re wishing yourself into Chloe’s mind?? Because that worked so well when you went into your own…and why does it remind me of Mabel’s dreamworld/mind? I expected less pink, more purple honestly. Preschool!Chloe is so adorable!! Totally called the plot though, not that it’s hard.

Cosmo confirmed as queer, because even when he thought Wanda was “Weird Dude” he still had a crush on him. Wow, I am floored they did that, good for you

And we end it by promoting cannibalism? Oh wait no; we scratch the 4th wall instead. Ahha. Yeah. You totally missed the opportunity to have “Kids just being Kids” playing somewhere-possibly remixed-because I feel the message suited Chloe’s mentality too right now.

Over all, I’m glad it was Chloe centric but…I feel like this could’be been done in half the time maybe? They ignore their own continuity, but they do tackle real stuff in a minimal magical way. I guess like the A-story, I’m unimpressed but not disappointed. I feel like both of these should not have been paired together because as a whole the entire episode is lacking; they both needed a stronger story to counter balance them. It’s a good watch once through, but I doubt it’s an episode you’ll want to rewatch.

Dimmsdale’s Got Tallent:

Ok…I feel like this plot has been used before…and not necessarily thinking Fairy Idol either, but I just can’t place which episode I’m thin king of…

TOOTIE!!!! THEY DIDN’T SHIP YOU OFF TO BOARDING SCHOOL OR WHATEVER!! OMR!!! Sadly you were just a backgrounder cameo, but still…now I just need to find Francis then my main favs will have all appeared to be not dead (*spoiler: Francis does not appear anywhere*)

More Bickles…huh…

Mom’s stage name is “Madame Sasha”…is that a hint that her first name is Sasha?? Most times when you make up “magic names” they’re either your real name in between “the” and “magnificent” or they’re some super exotic/fake/fantastical sounding thing like how Dad was “Dadracadabra”

And more about Chloe’s one-woman show. That’s so neat that this is something that they’re developing for her, instead of using as a toss away one shot gag.

Kevin!! Dressed as a dummy for a comedy act lol. It’s an old and over used plot idea, but I’ll run with it. I like it. Cause Crocker now has 24 hour access to a child, he of course has to think of other ways to use it. “I’m telling my mom you made me do this” because that is Denzel’s sister so it is a legitimate threat…though you’d think Dolores would object to this too…why have we not had any interaction of Kevin with his grandmother yet??? I’d love to see Denzel get jealous over the attention his mother is giving Kevin that he never received

Haha Dad stealing Chloe’s idea, and still breaking the gender norms, nice. Where did Bickles get the coconut bikini top and grass skirt though?

Oh baaaaaad lesson to be teaching kids there guys. If the authority figure won’t give you want you want, you shouldn’t do them favors to try to bribe them into giving it to. Especially in the entertainment industry. That’s how bad situations happen….

Um those remote control tap shoes shouldn’t work because they would be helping Tim to win a competition, which is against Da Rules…not that Da Rules seem to matter anymore…

Ok Mom, you claimed to be a “Pet Psycho” yet you’re using only wild/non-pet animals. I think that’s probably the easiest way to point out that you’re doing this wrong

“I love me some snake and mongoose” ok…lets go see if that’s a euphemism on google…hm, nope, just a drag racing movie. That’s nice…wasn’t Bickles a race car driver at some point??

Doug Dimmadome returns! And “curious life partner”??? the Mayor and Chompy are a thing??? O.o???

Good boy Kevin, stand up to Crocker ^^

“That was a Dimma-dud” so simple and stupid, but probably the most fulfilling line thus far ^^;

love Chloe’s gold gown

ok I lied, “Dimma-dope” is now the most fulfilling line in this

heehee Dudley Puppy and Crimson Chin balloons in the parade. So headcanoning that TUFF Puppy was a show on tv in FOPverse

so this episode was….well just really pointless filler too. We got like minimal focus on any of our main characters. Have they forgotten how to write Timmy and Chloe?

Together these two (this was paired with Knitt-witts) were not a good match. Both were pointless filler with not a strong plot in either of them. Too many guest cameos, no character development. It was just barely enjoyable enough to not hate it, but just barely honestly. Weak episode all around.

Goldie Crocks and the three Fair Bears:

Ok I’ve been looking forward to the return of the Fair Bears since the episode titles were released.

Interesting to see the Squirrely Scout troop back again, still the same B-team line up including Chloe. Thought you already had that patch…but then again that could’ve been with the A-team troop lineup, so…the records were all destroyed when it was disbanded maybe?

Thanks Tim, we all were asking that. But how does using Mom’s shampoo make your hair blonde? Luscious and even longer I could buy without complaint, but blonde??

More over achieving Chloe lol (poor girl is gonna crash when she burns out). But wow, she fought King Neptuna…so why didn’t he remember her? Is Supergal now enemy to the merfolk??? Though that plays into the Merfolk vs Glamazons wouldn’t it…

And now we turn into the clichéd camping storyline where Character A decides to go use non-wilderness to camp in luxury. But Tim, you used to like camping??? Also, still not seeing how the episode title plays into this plot yet…

Cosmo has been right/made sense on more than one occasion though, why is it that surprising?

Ok now we get the title…Crocker’s mother has a cabin in the woods? Buyable, sure. Crocker somehow brought the Fair Bears back into reality??? Uh…what now? Wait, they weren’t sent back to TVLand?? And Crocker knows all about their origin?? HOW does that not break Da Rules huh? Is it because he doesn’t know who wished them up, so it’s not against Da Rules?? Why wouldn’t they tell him that; wouldn’t that be a fair thing to do?? He’s in a blonde wig because they’re going to be Goldielocks at a theme park, yeah sure, ok I can buy that. But HOW did he get the bears in the first place???

And Dad is blonde to be Goldielocks…wow…

Chloe breaking the 4th wall a little there

Gah even more middle names! Chloe how many do you even have????

NO! YOU CAN’T UNDO THE OTHER’S WISHES! URGH!!! You established this rule right off the bat, yet you keep breaking it and they let you keep breaking it. Timmy wished for the camping stuff-Chloe should not be able to wish it away. Yes the plot is stalled, but really, what is the plot at this point??? If you’re only going to enforce the rules when it suits you, well, anarchy for all then please

And you wished away the magic…yeah, that’s going to go super well

“Mr Crocker’s unsightly twin sister” ok on the one hand, that works because of Kevin granted (even though she’s not a twin persay, but he has suddenly got a sister), but on the other…this is all saying that guys can’t have long hair and I don’t like that. I love guys with long hair. Between that comment on Crocker, and the comments earlier about Dad, why is long hair automatically girl now?

Dolores dated Shaggy??? O.o i…I am very unnerved by that…wasn’t she already a full blown adult with a 10 year old child when Shaggy was a teenager roaming in the van with the Mystery Inc crew?? O.o

Omr yes. Referencing the “original German version” as a darker one. Talking about basting and eating people. This turned dark super fast and I love that. why TrollLOL’s face is on the oven idk, but I’m rolling with it because I love this part.

“I’ve already got 2 strikes from the school board” uh…yeah that’s the wrong side of dark I think…but it’s Crocker, it was probably the fork in Waxelplax’s fanny, and the flour incident or something fairly similar.

Yes Tim, yell at Chloe that this is all her fault. We know it is, but pointing it out won’t help. But it totally is; you wished for no magic and you got into trouble-not surprising.

HOW is it nearly midnight??? It was like, what, noon at the latest when this started?? You have not been out in the woods-in the daylight-for 12 hours-of daylight. Chloe hunny, you’re the smart one, why are you failing telling time??? I know its dark outside the house now, but it wasn’t in the scene before. Cosmo I think your clock is right. And how is “poof us out of here” bring you to a spot where it is, once again daylight; that seemed to suggest instant teleporting so you’re at the same time. Unless this next scene is a cut away to hours later BUT STILL! It should not be midnight.

Oh Dad, yes, I’m sure no one cares about your troop anymore.

“let’s send the Fair Bears back” uh you should have done that the first time and this whole mess would have been avoided. It’s like leaving the door to the comic book world open all over again.

And yes, cause unnecessary harm to Crocker, why not. Not to mention all the innocent patrons at the theme park…

Also why has no one mentioned Dimmsdale had a theme park before now?

All in all, not a good episode. I was looking forward to the return of the Fair Bears, and it felt like they weren’t even in half of the episode. The rest was another boring camping storyline, which these two seem to do a lot of huh?

Paired with Fancy Schmancy, as the production order says, I think the whole 30 min episode is completely weak and not great. This one was bad, the other was filler, so together they are just not meshing well at all.

#Fairly Odd Parents #Fairly Oddparents #fop #kp talks fop #review #mega dump

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