#or ya know reply down below with alt suggestions

[n3oncyan]

#cc talks #cc replies #cc polls #polls #my art #digital art #text post #textpost #cc tag #or ya know reply down below with alt suggestions

[per-ineptia-ad-astra]

Star Trek Episode 1.21: The Return of the Archons

AKA: In Star Trek, Neural Network Trains You 

Our episode begins with two men running frantically down a deserted, old-fashioned-looking street. The men look a bit old-fashioned themselves, wearing tall boots, waistcoats and tricorne hats, but when one of them trips and falls we see that the other one, stopping to help him up, is Sulu. In and of itself I wouldn’t find this terribly surprising since I just assume 19th-century themed LARPing is the kind of thing Sulu does on his days off, but they both look pretty freaked, so there’s probably something else going on here.

“O’Neil, we’ve got to keep going,” Sulu says, but O’Neil’s feeling a bit less plucky about the situation. “It’s no use, they’re everywhere!” he bemoans as the two of them back up against what appears to be a store window, albeit one completely empty of any merchandise. The desperate urgency of this statement is somewhat undercut by the fact that the camera then shows us all of one person, an anonymous figure wearing a brown hooded robe and carrying a big metal rod, pursuing them down the otherwise empty street. I say ‘pursuing’ but really, it’s more of a mosey than anything.

“Captain gave us an order! We’ve got to find some clue!” Sulu admonishes O’Neil, but O’Neil only reiterates that “It’s no use!” Then he points out another hooded figure approaching from a different direction. Oh, there’s two of them? Oh, well, I stand corrected. You’re definitely screwed.

[ID: An empty street with a large, old stone building at one end, in front of which a single figure in a brown hooded robe is standing.]

ahhhhh the endless hordes ohhhh nooooo

While Sulu and O’Neil are standing around waiting patiently to be cornered by the slowly advancing figures, Sulu kills some time by calling the ship to get them beamed up. Specifically, he calls the bridge, gets Kirk, and tells Kirk they need to be beamed up so that Kirk can then call the transporter room and tell them that the landing party needs to be beamed up, because just calling the transporter room directly might actually have gotten them out of there in time. Naturally, as soon as the situation calls for them to stay where they are so they can get beamed out, O’Neil immediately changes his mind and decides that actually he’d quite like to run away. Sulu yells after him desperately, but it’s no use; O’Neil has scarpered, leaving Sulu to face the approaching figure alone. The very slowly approaching figure.

Despite Sulu’s heroic last stand (heavier on the ‘stand’ than the ‘heroic,’ it must be said), one of the hooded figures manages to reach him, threateningly raising the big length of metal pipe they’re carrying to...gently tap him on the shoulder with it. Evidently this has more serious effects than Sulu being declared It now, because there’s an ominous sound effect and Sulu goes rigid for a moment. Then his expression turns into a blank, empty grin just as he finally gets beamed up.

Upon arrival, our still-grinning navigator staggers somewhat drunkenly on the transporter pad as Kirk hurries in, wanting to know what’s going on, and where’s O’Neil? Yeah, Mr. Transporter Man, where is O’Neil? This need for people to remain perfectly still for the transporter to lock on to them has rather suddenly come out of nowhere, considering a few episodes ago they were able to pluck a man flying a jet fighter out of the sky with no trouble. O’Neil might have run off pretty quick but I rather doubt he was traveling faster than an F-104. Damn thing must be on the fritz again.

Neither Sulu nor the transporter operator answer Kirk’s questions. Sulu just looks at him dreamily and says, “What? Who?” I don’t know what the transporter operator’s excuse is. Then Sulu looks a little more focused (it’s a very low bar) and says, “You’re not of the Body.”

At this point Kirk quite sensibly decides to ctrl-alt-del this entire conversation and just calls for McCoy to get down here pronto. Meanwhile, Sulu has rounded on a nearby blueshirt who’s just hanging out in the transporter room for some unknown reason, and starts yelling, “You, you did it! They knew we were Archons. These are the clothes they wear, not these!” (So, are you saying those clothes were...anarchonistic?) Then he throws his tricorne at the blueshirt and starts taking off his coat for good measure, because taking off his clothes is just how Sulu reacts to being under alien influences. This time he doesn’t get quite as far as in The Naked Time, though, getting distracted partway through by some thought that makes him look up to the ceiling and start grinning again while saying, “Landru...Landru...”

Kirk manages to get Sulu to sit down on the transporter pad and attempts to pry some kind of useful information out of him, but all he gets is some rambling about how “They’re wonderful, the sweetest people in the universe...” and “It’s paradise, my friend.”

McCoy gets there in the middle of this and reacts about how you’d expect.

[ID: McCoy raising an eyebrow and glancing to the side in bewilderment while saying “da fuck.”]

“Sulu, where’s O’Neil?” Kirk asks once again.

“Paradise...” Sulu says happily.

We never get to find out what McCoy considers to be the appropriate medical response to this situation, because at that point the scene cuts to the titles. Afterward we get a captain’s log to shed a very small amount of light on the situation:

“While orbiting planet Beta 3 trying to find some trace of the starship Archon that disappeared here a hundred years ago, a search party consisting of two Enterprise officers were sent to the planet below. Mr. Sulu has returned, but in a highly agitated mental state. His condition requires I beam down with an additional search detail.”

I don’t know if I would call that agitated, per se. It’s sort of the opposite of agitated, really. But never mind that, let’s talk about the fact that the Enterprise has been sent to investigate the whereabouts of a ship that vanished a century ago. At that point we’re well past there being any chance of actually helping any survivors and into ‘historical mystery’ territory. Sure, it’d be good to find out what happened, but was there really not anything of higher priority for the Enterprise, of all ships, to be doing? This is like telling an active Navy cruiser to stop everything and go look for the USS Cyclops. (Look it up.)

Well, Archon or no Archon, there’s clearly something weird going on here and whatever it is ate our best navigator’s brain, so there’s only one thing to do: send even more critical personnel down right into the middle of it to check it out. So Kirk, Spock, McCoy and three other dudes we don’t know beam down all dolled up in what could be called period dress as long as you don’t ask too many questions about exactly what period it is. Special shout-out to Spock, who’s chosen to hide his ears in the most conspicuous manner possible:

[ID: A landing party of six men assembled in two rows on an old-fashioned city street. In the front stand McCoy, wearing a a gray suit with a black bolo tie and carrying a medical case; Kirk, wearing a dark blue coat over suit pants, a patterned gray waistcoat, and a black bolo tie; and Spock, wearing a black knee-length cloak with a square hood over gray suit pants and dress shoes. In the back row are three more crewmembers wearing similar clothing.]

SPOCK SMOCK SPOCK SMOCK SPOCK SMOCK

Incidentally, if any of these streets and buildings look familiar, it’s because the exterior of the town was filmed at RKO 40 Acres, the same multi-purpose backlot that provided the set for Miri, which you may recall also served as the town of Mayberry in The Andy Griffith Show. It kinda makes me wonder if the Andy Griffith crew ever got annoyed at the Star Trek crew for trashing their town multiple times.

As the party gets their bearings, a man holding one hand to his chest wanders past, apparently too busy staring dreamily into the distance to take any notice of the new arrivals. Spock and Kirk take immediate notice of how much this resembles the state Sulu was in. “If everyone on this planet is like him...” Kirk muses, but doesn’t bother giving us the end to that sentence. Probably it wasn’t supposed to be “...then where can I get some?” but that’s the first thing to come to mind.

They head off down the street, and soon encounter another local wearing the same vacant expression, and also a bowler hat. This one actually stops and addresses them, though, saying, “Joy to you, friends,” with the hand-on-chest gesture the first guy was doing. Well, when in Rome, etc, so Kirk also puts his hand on his chest and replies, “Joy to you,” while behind him Spock chimes in with a distinctly half-hearted attempt at the same gesture.

The local continues, “You be strangers. Come for the festival, are ya?” For some reason the actor here has chosen to go with the most goofily over-enunciated accent he could possibly manage. It sticks out like a sore thumb because no one else in the town sounds remotely like that; they tend to sound a bit spacey, but nothing more than that. Indeed, I’m quite sure that no real existing human being has ever naturally sounded like this dude. But hey, I guess that’s one way to make your five minutes of screen time memorable.

Kirk’s happy to go with this conveniently offered explanation for their presence. Sure! Festival! Definitely! That is definitely why we are here, absolutely.

The guy then asks if they have a place to “sleep it off” yet. When Kirk shakes his head, the guy suggests they go find the house of someone called Reger. “He’s got rooms...but you’ll have to hurry. It’s almost the Red Hour.” Oh, that sounds...fun.

Sure enough there’s a clock on the nearby building reading about two minutes to six, which is barely enough time to put directions to Reger’s house into Wayz, let alone to get there. Unfortunately the party is still trapped in the iron grip of small talk with a dude who clearly sees no reason whatsoever to draw any association between “you’ll have to hurry” and “now it’s time to stop casually chatting.” But that’s small towns for you. I have occasionally come pretty close to having to gnaw my own arm off to escape conversations at the library check-out desk, and were meteors to start falling outside I would not expect the lady scanning my books to speed up one little bit.

At that moment, a couple of women come drifting serenely down the sidewalk nearby, giving Bowler Hat the chance to rope even more people into the conversation. “Tula, these folks come for the festival,” he says to one of them. “Your daddy can put them up, can’t he?” Tula, who looks slightly less spacey than Bowler Hat (a low bar) asks if the party is from the valley. One of the three as-yet-anonymous crewmembers, eager to make a contribution, chimes in that they’ve just arrived. Sure is convenient that everyone around here only asks leading questions.

Tula says sure, her dad would be happy to put them up. But it’s too late: just as she says this, the clock begins tolling six. The effect on the town is immediate. Tula, Bowler Hat, and everyone else in sight break into a frenzy, screaming, throwing hats and gloves, hitting each other, breaking things, and generally rampaging like an Instant Angry Mob, Just Add Water. The stunned landing party run for cover while people go wild all around them. Unfortunately one of them does get beaned by a remarkably soft bit of debris in the process.

[ID: A gif showing the landing party, led by Kirk, running through a street while various debris gets thrown around. One piece hits one of the crewmen in the head, causing him to throw his hands up, but not stop running.]

They find a nearby building to run into, quickly close the door, and only then turn around to see three very confused older men standing there staring at them. Kirk apologizes for bursting in on them, explaining that they weren’t prepared for “this kind of a welcome.” One of the men asks if they’re strangers and Kirk says yes, they came from the valley and they’re here for the festival. This answer doesn’t seem to satisfy the men as well as it did Bowler Hat, though, because the speaker asks, “How come you here?” Before Kirk can try to answer this, one of the crewmembers (the same one who spoke before, of course; what, you think they could afford to have all three of them talk? Talking’s expensive!) asks if the guy is Reger. The guy says yes, and then confirms that Tula is his daughter. “Well you better do something!” the ‘shirt yells. “She’s outside!”

Reger, however, doesn’t look at all taken aback by this news, just sad. “I know,” he says. “It’s Festival. It’s the will of Landru.”

At that point, one of Reger’s companions interrupts, pointing out that these new strangers are “young men, not old enough to be excused.” Oh, that’s okay, we’ve got McCoy here, he can write everyone a quick doctor’s note. Reger points out that they’re visitors, but the other man isn’t about to be content with that. “Well, have they no lawgivers in the valley?” he demands. “Why be they not at the festival?”

Rather than attempt to navigate the weird backroads of this conversation any further, Kirk aims to distract by telling Reger that they heard he might have some rooms for them. Reger looks relieved at this. “You see, Hacom?” he tells the complaining man. “They’ve merely come looking for a place to rest afterwards.” Hacom is still not appeased: “The Red Hour has already struck!”

The third man steps in then and tries to help soothe Hacom, telling him that “the valley has different ways.” But Hacom’s got a good head of outrage built up by now and he’s not about to concede it for anyone. “Do you say that Landru is not everywhere?!” he demands, with much the same kind of self-righteous huffiness of a man bitching out a Starbucks barista for wishing him happy holidays instead of merry Christmas.

“No, of course not,” the third man says, still gamely trying to defuse things. “It’s simply that they have different ways.”

“They’ve come looking for shelter,” Reger says, with what he clearly hopes is a sense of finality. “Can I turn them away?”

He turns and makes as if to lead the landing party up the nearby stairs, but the concerned ‘shirt stops him and asks again about Tula. “She is in Festival, as you should be!” Hacom snaps. As Reger finally manages to get the landing party upstairs Hacom turns to the remaining man and says that “the Lawgivers should know.” He is distinctly not amused when the other man tries to point out that surely the Lawgivers already know since they’re infallible, which Hacom takes as mockery toward the Lawgivers. “The strangers are not of the Body!” he yells as he stalks outside in a huff. “You will see!”

Upstairs, Reger has taken the party to a room with several beds, where he putters around opening the windows (revealing that somehow, full dark has fallen in the five minutes or so that they’ve been inside) and saying that the group can come back there after Festival, when they’ll be in need of rest. Kirk tells him they have no intention of attending Festival. This leaves Reger stunned and confused, but not nearly as stunned and confused as he is a moment later when Kirk says that he’d like to know more about the Festival, and about this ‘Landru’ person. At that, Reger freaks out, slamming the window closed again and spluttering incoherently before finally managing to say “Well...you’re strange.” Then he tries to ask, “Are you...are you...” but can’t quite make it. Undaunted by this, Kirk asks about Landru once again, causing Reger to freak out even more.

Outside, meanwhile, it’s still total chaos. Things are on fire, people are screaming, the works. Special shout-out to the guy who just straight-up throws himself through an entire window.

[ID: A gif showing a man running past a glass window with a chair right before another man runs up and jumps through the window, shattering the glass.]

And now, the weather.  

By the time we cut back to the landing party, some time seems to have passed, as Reger is absent and Kirk is busy brooding at the window. Having evidently seen enough, he turns back to the group and says, “My guess is we have until morning. Let’s put the time to good use.” He tells McCoy to take some readings to see if there’s anything in the air that might account for all this and Lindstrom—the ‘shirt who was concerned about Tula—to “correlate everything that you’ve seen with any other sociological parallels, if any.” Oh man, Lindstrom got the hard homework. Kirk then turns to Spock and says, “You and I have some serious thinking to do. When we leave here tomorrow, I want to have a plan of action.”

Apparently all that thinking really takes it out of you, because the next thing we see is the gas lamp by the door having burned out, while in the interim almost everyone has passed out on some piece of furniture or another. Kirk remains somewhat awake, leaning half-asleep against the post of the bunk bed with a blanket wrapped around him, while Spock is laying flat on his back on a top bunk with his hands on his chest and his eyes wide open like Dracula. I don’t know he’s awake or if that’s just how Spock sleeps. Could go either way.

Kirk meanders sleepily over to the window and looks out. The rioting is still going strong, even though the sun has risen and the town clock is reading a few minutes to six. As the clock strikes six a moment later, the people below all suddenly freeze where they are. Then they all begin to calmly meander off in different directions, the rioting over just as abruptly as it began.

Kirk goes to wake up/get the attention of Spock, then rouses Lindstrom and then McCoy, who’s fallen asleep in some kind of chair-bed thing. The silence is suddenly broken by the sound of a woman crying loudly downstairs, which accelerates the waking-up process considerably. Everyone hastens downstairs to see Reger holding Tula, who’s sobbing hysterically, while Reger’s friend from last night hovers awkwardly patting her on the shoulder and such. McCoy gently pulls Tula away into another room, and when Reger tries to follow Kirk stops him, saying, “He’ll give her a shot, it’ll calm her down. Trust us.” Yeah, Reger! Trust the total strangers to medicate your daughter! What could go wrong?

Lindstrom breaks in angrily, demanding to know what kind of father Reger is that he didn’t even attempt to rescue Tula last night. Reger helplessly says that it was Landru’s will. Lindstrom, I know you’re righteously angry right now, but there’s a thing called “making half an effort to blend in with the locals so they don’t cut your head off.” Here, let Kirk show you how it’s done.

[ID: Kirk standing slightly behind Reger, a concerned looking middle-aged white man with brown hair in a dark gray suit, and another, older white man with gray hair and a similar suit. Kirk is saying, “What about Landru? Who is he?”]

oh for fuck’s sake

“So it’s true then,” Reger’s friend says. “You didn’t attend the festival last night?” No, Kirk says. “Then you’re not of the Body,” Reger muses. “You couldn’t be...”

The two of them hurry off in consternation, and the rest of the party follows, into the side room where McCoy and Spock have taken Tula. Speaking of Tula, she’s now thoroughly passed out. Evidently McCoy wasn’t kidding around with that shot.

“Are you...are you Archons?” Reger asks Kirk.

“What if we are?” Kirk replies, smoothly sidestepping out of that minefield of a question.

“It was said more would follow,” Reger says uncertainly. “If you are indeed--”

“We must hide them, quickly,” his friend interrupts. “The Lawgivers--” Kirk tries to assure him that they can take care of themselves, but assured he is not. “Landru will know,” he says. “He will come.”

Turns out that wasn’t hyperbole, because all of about two seconds later, a couple of the same brown-hooded figures that were harassing Sulu and O’Neil come bursting into the room, metal rods at the ready.

[ID: The landing party along with Reger and his friend all assembled in an old-fashioned sitting room and looking towards the doors, which are flanked by two men wearing brown hooded robes and carrying tall metal rods.]

NOBODY EXPECTS THE LAWGIVER INQUISITION

Accompanying them is Hacom, the damn narc, who smugly proclaims that Reger’s friend has been mocking the Lawgivers, and also those punks over there didn’t attend Festival like good citizens. “Tamar. Stand Clear,” one of the Lawgivers intones at Reger’s friend, in a robotic and slightly reverb-y voice. Both Reger and Tamar look stricken, but after a moment Tamar slowly says, “I hear and obey the voice of Landru,” and steps out in front of Reger. The Lawgiver raises their Rod of Lordly Might and the end of it fizzles and pops like a handful of cheap sparklers, which is probably exactly what it was. Tamar collapses on the spot, dead.

As Reger and Kirk grab Tamar and gently lower him to the ground, the Lawgiver speaks again. “You. Attacked. The Body. You Have Heard The Word. And Disobeyed. You Will Be Exterminated Absorbed.”

“What do you mean, absorbed?” Kirk asks. I’m going to give you a tip for free here: if someone tells you “you will be absorbed” that is not the time to stand around asking questions. Get out of there and you can figure out the details later, cause one thing you can be sure of is that there is no scenario where that could possibly end up being a good thing.

Hacom immediately crows that this is proof the strangers are “not of the Body” but the Lawgivers don’t seem to pay him any attention. “You Will Be Absorbed,” Kirk is told. “The Good Is All. Landru Is Gentle. You Will Come.”

After the break, Kirk, still looking unimpressed by all this, tells the Lawgivers, “We’re not going anywhere.”

“It Is The Law,” the Lawgiver tells him. “You Must Come.”

“I said we’re not going anywhere,” Kirk repeats calmly, while Reger clings onto his arm with a look of absolute terror.

But instead of resorting to force, the Lawgivers turn to face each other and just stand there for a moment. “Evidently they’re not prepared to deal with outright disobedience,” Spock notes curiously. “How did you know?” Kirk replies that everything they’ve seen so far indicates that the people in this place have a compulsive stimulus of some kind towards actions beyond their control, so he banked on the Lawgivers not being able to deal with people who couldn’t just be ordered around. Absolutely nobody feels inclined to take advantage of this brief respite by, say, climbing out the convenient nearby window or anything.

Eventually the Lawgivers turn back to the party. “It Is Clear That You Simply Did Not Understand,” the speaking one says. “I Will Rephrase. You Are Ordered To Accompany Us To The Absorption Chambers.”

“Why did you kill that man?” Kirk demands.

“Out Of Order,” the Lawgiver says. “You Will Obey. It Is The Word Of Landru.”

“You tell Landru,” Kirk says, “that we’ll come in our own time and we’ll speak to him.” Then he grabs the Lawgiver’s staff and hands it to Spock, who starts poking around with it.

“You Cannot,” the Lawgiver says. “It Is Landru.”

At this point Hacom evidently loses his nerve and rushes out of the room, whimpering, “Landru!” Meanwhile, Spock observes that the Lawgiver’s staff is just an empty tube without any kind of mechanism inside it.

The Lawgivers have to stop and buffer once again, only this time they’re making a strange noise. “They’re communing,” Reger says. “We have time, come with me.” He can take them to a place where they’ll be safe, he says, but they have to hurry before Landru comes.

So he leads them outside, where he starts walking casually down the street, smiling and nodding and doing the ‘peace’ gesture at people as they pass. Kirk puts rather less effort into being surreptitious and keeps loudly talking to Spock while they make their way across town, asking him what he makes of all this weirdness. Unsurprisingly, Spock finds it all “totally illogical.” Yesterday, for no apparent reason, the entire town broke out into total havoc. “Yet today, now--” “--Now, they’re back to normal,” Kirk finishes. I mean, if you want to call that normal. Arguably the way they’re acting now is less normal than the rioting and screaming.

As they walk, Bowler Hat Man approaches them with a cheerful “Morning, friends.” Reger greets him back casually, but Lindstrom recognizes him and rushes up to Reger, saying, “Your daughter—that’s the man!” The man who...well, we didn’t see what happened, exactly, but we did see Bilar grab Tula while the whole town was breaking out in a wild frenzy, and the next time we saw Tula she was sobbing frantically, so...draw your own conclusions.

But Reger seems neither surprised nor upset by the accusation. “No, it wasn’t Bilar, it was Landru,” he says impatiently, before telling them all they need to hurry. Which is easier said than done—moseying and hurrying at the same time is a difficult proposition.

Despite their best efforts, the group hasn’t gotten much farther before Reger stops and says, “It’s too late—look!” For a moment it doesn’t look as if anything much has happened, but then the party realizes that everyone on the street has stopped dead in their tracks. It’s Landru, Reger says—he’s summoning the Body. Or, as Spock helpfully chimes in, “Telepathy, Captain.”

A moment later, the townspeople all start reaching down and picking up bits of the debris that’s littering the area. Specifically, the bits that are rather heavy and blunt, like bricks and bits of masonry and big sticks. Oh dear. “Phasers on stun,” Kirk says. Yeah, no kidding.

Abandoning the pretense of normality, Reger leads the group off at a jog down the street as the dead-eyed townspeople advance on them. It’s admittedly a bit creepy. There might not have been enough extras to sell the idea of an entire town in full riot, but there are enough to make a decent-sized mob. It’s just a shame they advance so very slowly. And that, when the party turns into an alley and sees more people coming up it from the other end, they just kind of stop and hang out there for a moment to let themselves get cornered, even though the rest of the mob isn’t nearly close enough behind them that they couldn’t just turn around and keep going in another direction.

[ID: The landing party and Reger huddled in a group at the mouth of an alley while a mob slowly approaches from several yards away.]

had a D&D game once that ended up remarkably like this

Kirk says he doesn’t want to hurt them, and tells Reger to warn them back, but Reger says “They’re in the Body, it’s Landru!” In other words, they’re possessed, and not about to listen to Reger or anyone. So the group has to fire on the townspeople approaching up the alleyway. Evidently Landru’s powers over people don’t extend to making them phaser-proof, because everyone hit by the beams drops where they stand, only for them to be immediately replaced by more townspeople in their wake. The whole ‘unstoppable zombie horde’ vibe is, again, unfortunately a bit diminished by a sheer lack of numbers—given the population of this town as we’ve seen it so far, and how slowly they move, the party could probably just easily stand there and keep firing until the whole town is unconscious. It’d probably take about five minutes, tops.

Also, one of the supposedly stunned townspeople rather noticeably catches himself on the way down.

[ID: A gif showing several townspeople at the end of an alley, all holding aloft various sticks and bits of debris, as a stun beam hits them, causing them to fall to the ground. A man in front catches himself with one hand and lowers himself the rest of the way.]

Despite my tactical advice, the crew decides to make a run for it down the alley after clearing away some of the mob, but as they’re on the move McCoy stops suddenly and kneels by one of the fallen men. It’s O’Neil. Evidently running didn’t turn out any better for him than standing still did for Sulu. Kirk tells Reger that this is one of their men, but Reger says that he isn’t, not anymore. “He’s one of them!” he cries. “Landru will find us through him! Leave him there, he’s our enemy, he’s been absorbed!”

Yeah, three guesses as to whether Kirk is about to leave one of his crewmembers laying unconscious and brainwashed in the path of a relentless mob, and the first two don’t count. One of the ‘shirts does point out, though, that now that they’ve found O’Neil they could go ahead and beam the heck outta this whole mess. Kirk says no, because they still haven’t found their answers about what happened to the Archons. I mean, sure, but...is that really more of a priority right now than escaping the mob that’s out for your blood, and getting to a safe space where you could regroup, tend to your unconscious party member, and question Reger without having to worry about some hooded jerks with big sticks bursting in on you at any time?  Apparently it is, because a couple of people haul O’Neil off the ground and they all hurry off.

Exactly where Reger’s hiding place is we don’t get to find out, but evidently they get there alright, because the next thing we see is him pushing open a heavy stone door that leads into a distinctly dungeon-ish looking room. Everyone hurries inside, and Reger pushes aside an old bedframe to get to an alcove where someone’s left a big plastic square wrapped in heavy cloth. At least, it looks like a big plastic square, but Kirk identifies it as a lighting panel and it does, indeed, light up. “Amazing in this culture,” Spock comments. Yeah, it is a bit anachronistic next to the brazier over there.

Reger hangs it up on the wall to illuminate the room and says that it “comes from a time before Landru.” Asked just how long ago that was, he says that no one knows for sure, but some say it was as long as six thousand years ago. Six thousand years and it still works? Man, and I thought the Centennial Light was impressive.

Kirk has the two still-nameless ‘shirts go stand guard at the door while he and Spock muse over how weird it is that the lighting panel clearly came from a much more technologically advanced culture than the one currently occupying the place. Meanwhile, McCoy has had O’Neil brought over to what remains of the bed and is busy examining him. He gives Kirk an ‘in a minute’ gesture, so Kirk goes back to pacing and speculating, wondering if the Lawgiver’s rods might be some kind of antennae or broadcasting devices for transmitting the power of Landru in all its sparkly glory. Meanwhile, Spock is looking at his tricorder, which is apparently picking up “strong power generations...near here, but radiating in all directions.”

McCoy interjects to say that O’Neil will be coming around soon. “He must not!” Reger protests frantically. “He’s been absorbed!” This is followed by a dramatic chord and Kirk turning to Reger and going “Absorbed??” as if Reger didn’t already say the exact same thing twice back in the alley. I suppose he was a bit distracted at the time, but still.

“The Body absorbs its enemies,” Reger explains. “It only kills when it has to. When the first Archons came they were free, out of control, opposing the will of Landru. Many were killed, many more were absorbed. When he regains consciousness, Landru will find us through him. And if the others come--”

What others? Kirk asks. Reger explains that he means other people like him, who oppose Landru. They’re organized in threes—Reger was part of a cell consisting of him, Tamar, and one other person whom he doesn’t actually know, because Tamar was his contact. Evidently they’re doing the standard Resistance thing of limiting what individual members know in case they get captured, which is even more important when your adversary can control minds.

McCoy interrupts to say yeah that’s all great, but he needs a decision here, because O’Neil is coming out of it. Reger protests once again that O’Neil can’t be allowed to wake up, and Kirk mulls it over for a moment before telling McCoy, “Give him a shot. Keep him asleep.” Man, McCoy’s handing out sleepy shots left and right this episode. He must have a stash hidden in that waistcoat somewhere.

While McCoy does that, Kirk draws Reger over to a nearby table and says that he wants some answers. For one thing, if Landru’s so powerful, how is there a resistance movement at all?  Reger doesn’t know how it happened, only that some people have escaped “the directives.” “It was that way when the first Archons came,” he adds.

Reger’s obviously not entirely clear on what was up with the Archons, understandably given that it was a hundred years ago and detailed history is probably hard to keep track of around here if you’re not part of the hivemind, but he says that “Landru pulled them down from the skies” and that they invaded the Body but at least in part resisted Landru’s will. Kirk gets interested in that first bit, interpreting it as Landru bringing down a starship. Spock confirms that the power readings he’s getting are over nine thousand powerful enough to destroy a starship. Kirk sure doesn’t like the sound of that, so he calls up the Enterprise to check up on how un-destroyed it is. The answer’s not real great: Scotty picks up and reports that the ship is under attack by “heat beams of some kind coming up from the planet’s surface.”

The shields are holding so far, but keeping them up is taking all of the ship’s power, so much so that if they can’t even move without being burned up. Oh, and the orbit is failing, because of course it is, you can’t keep an orbit going round here for anything. Although presumably they are still in an orbit right now, which begs the question of where these heat beams are coming from that they can stay locked onto the ship no matter which side of the planet it’s facing. I guess Landru really is everywhere. Anyway, if they can’t shake the heat beams long enough to use the engines, Scotty reports grimly, they’ve only got about twelve hours left before the orbit decays and they hit the atmosphere. Cool. Were you gonna like, call up and let the landing party know about this at some point, or…?

Kirk basically tells him to hang in there, since there’s not exactly much more that they can do, while the landing party works on taking out those heat beams at the source. Scotty starts to talk about how he tried the emergency bypass circuits, but they weren’t effective—they never are, I don’t know why he even bothers—but then he starts breaking up. Spock reports that he’s picking up some very strong sensor beams—something’s probing them, and it’s too strong for him to block it.

Just then, there’s a strange whirring noise, preceding the arrival of a holographic image (or, possibly, ghost) appearing against the wall. Specifically, it’s an image of a dude wearing a purple and pink-cape-toga-thing and looking incredibly smug for someone with no apparent arms.

[ID: A semi-transparent image being projected onto a stone wall, which shows a middle-aged white man with thick light brown hair, wearing a long purple robe over a black high-necked shirt, with a shiny pinkish-orange cape on top.]

“I am Landru,” the image announces.

Spock is unimpressed. “Projection, captain,” he announces. “Unreal.”

“But beautiful, Mr. Spock, with no apparatus at this end,” Kirk muses. I dunno, man, the pink cape thing is certainly a bold choice but I think ‘beautiful’ is a bit of a stretch.

“You have come as destroyers,” the projection of Landru continues, heedless of the commentary from the audience. “You bring an infection.” Kirk insists that Landru release the Enterprise, but Landru carries blithely on. “You have come to a world without hate, without fear, without conflict. No war, no disease, no crime. None of the ancient evils. Landru seeks tranquility. Peace for all. The universal good.” Yeah, it looked real peaceful and conflict-free last night.

Kirk tries to tell Landru that they mean no harm, and that theirs “is a mission of peace and goodwill.” (That’s why we brought phasers!) Landru just keeps talking about good transcending evil, etc, etc, until Spock points out that “He doesn’t hear you, Captain.” Honestly not sure if he means that Landru literally has no way to hear them or if he can hear them but just keeps right on monologuing anyway cause, y’know, we’ve all met That Dude.

“Maybe he’ll hear this!” Lindstrom says, charging forward with his phaser out. Oh yeah, great job there Lindy, let’s SHOOT the HOLOGRAM. Kirk tells Lindstrom to cut that shit out so he can get back to talking to Landru which, admittedly, is really doing just about as much good as shooting the wall would.

“You will be absorbed,” Landru says. “Your individuality will merge into the unity of good, and in your submergence into the common being of the Body, you will find contentment and fulfillment. You will experience...the absolute good.” See, I told you it wouldn’t mean anything good.

At this point, a high-pitched whirring noise that’s been steadily but mostly unnoticeably rising through the background music suddenly peaks, causing everyone to start clutching at their heads in pain. The two ‘shirts guarding the door are the first to drop to their knees, with the rest of the party succumbing quickly afterward.

What follows is a wonderful opportunity to observe several different styles of Slowly Passing Out. Nimoy looks like he’s going to go one way but then changes his mind and falls backward onto the table instead until he’s laying on his back looking up. Christopher Held (Lindstrom) takes the bold move of just falling straight to the ground in a dead drop, while Kelley, no fool he, is back there doing a complex maneuver involving hanging onto the bedpost to slow his own descent. Shatner, of course, goes for the most extra route possible, pitching forward onto the table while clutching his head and then slowly falling down into the chair. I give full marks to everyone except Harry Townes (Reger) who was already sitting down and didn’t have very far to go in the first place.

[ID: A gif showing Kirk, Lindstrom, Spock, McCoy, and Reger clutching their heads and slowly collapsing on and around a nearby table.]

After the break, Kirk gives a captain’s log, which is quite impressive considering he’s currently unconscious.

“The Enterprise, still under attack by some sort of heat rays from the surface of Beta 3, is now being commanded by engineering officer Scott. The shore party has been taken by the creature called Landru.”

We briefly see the Enterprise in orbit around the planet (heat rays not pictured), before cutting to the landing party, now relocated to an even more dungeon-like room than the one they were in before. Kirk wakes up, staggers out of the alcove he was laying in, and goes to investigate the other end of the room, where Lindstrom and one of the unnamed ‘shirts are passed out in another alcove. Some further investigation reveals that Kirk is no longer carrying either phaser or communicator, and that the only apparent exit to the place is less of a door and more just a giant slab of stone in a doorway, which Kirk predictably has absolutely no luck moving. Eventually he gives up and goes back to wake up Spock, Lindstrom, and the other ‘shirt, who he addresses as Leslie.

We’ve seen Leslie quite a few times already—actor Eddie Paskey was a recurring extra who frequently filled the role of oddjob Enterprise crewmembers whenever one was needed. Like in the case of Kyle and the other TOS background regulars, it’s difficult to tell how many of Paskey’s appearances should actually be taken to be the same person, since not only does he go through a couple different names before ‘Leslie’ finally gets used, but for all of his characters to be Leslie would require him to go through jobs at a rate unlikely even for Enterprise crewmembers. Still, he gets referred to as Leslie more often than he gets called anything else, so he’s probably Leslie at least most of the time.

Spock, noticing that they’re a couple of heads short all of a sudden, asks where McCoy is. Kirk tells him he doesn’t know, since McCoy was gone before Kirk even woke up, along with O’Neil and “the other guard.” Oh yeah, “the other guard.” Great job remembering your crew’s names there, captain. Actually, said guard is probably named Galloway or possibly Galoway, yet another one of those amorphous extras; Galloway, however, is pretty consistently a security officer (aside from a brief stint as transporter operator) and while he won’t be referred to by name until his next appearance, he’s not called any other names until then, so in this case it’s fairly reasonable to assume that all or least most appearances of actor David L. Ross can be taken to be the same character. Not that it makes any real difference, since he has no personality whatsoever.

Anyway, Spock thinks McCoy and Galloway must have been here but were removed at some point. Kirk wonders where “here” is. “Evidently a maximum security establishment,” Spock replies. That may or may not have been sarcasm. Honestly it’s hard to tell with Spock sometimes.

Kirk also informs Spock that “all our phasers are gone, I checked” even though we’ve been watching him this whole time and he definitely didn’t check anyone but himself, but never mind that. Lindstrom and Leslie finally make it up, looking rather the worse for wear, with Lindstrom mentioning having a killer headache (Leslie probably has one too, but we’d have to pay him more if he said anything). Spock says that this is because they were all subjected to a hypersonic attack, which probably would have killed them had it been any stronger. Instead it just knocked them out, and possibly gave them tinnitus.

Enough about sound waves, Kirk wants to focus on coming up with a way out of this dungeon. He hopefully mentions the way the Lawgivers seemed unable to react to anything unexpected, but Spock shoots that one down, saying they shouldn’t count on it happening again because “in a society as well-organized as this one appears to be, I cannot conceive of such an oversight going uncorrected.” That said, he still finds that behavior to be very interesting, because the way the Lawgivers reacted was a lot like the way a computer would react to being given insufficient or contradictory data. He doesn’t think this means the Lawgivers themselves are computers—but it’s definitely an interesting data point.

At that moment, the door opens and a Lawgiver escorts McCoy and Galloway inside. Kirk rushes over to them, only to see McCoy smile blandly at him and say, “Hello, friend. We were told to wait here.” Oh dear.

Now real concerned, Kirk starts to say “Doc--” but McCoy just turns to him and says, “Can I help you, friend?”

“Don’t you know me?” Kirk asks desperately.

“We all know one another through Landru,” McCoy replies.

Just like Sulu, Spock observes grimly. But Kirk’s having a hard time holding onto his objectivity. It’s one thing to hear Reger talk about Landru doing this to people, even to see it happen to members of his own crew—but this is McCoy. His friend. Kirk grabs him by the shoulders and yells at him to remember—but McCoy just looks confused and asks if Kirk is from “away” because he speaks very strangely. Then even that brief moment of emotion fades away and he returns to smiling. “Ask Landru,” he says. “He remembers. He knows, and he watches.”

Kirk eventually has to give up and leave McCoy sitting in the alcove with the guard. He turns to Spock, but before they can even begin to confer on this problem, the door opens again to admit a couple of Lawgivers. One of them points their rod threateningly at Kirk and orders him to come with them. Kirk tries his previous trick of just refusing, but as Spock predicted, that bug has evidently been patched, because this time the Lawgiver calmly replies, “Then You Will Die.”

It seems there’s not much choice but for Kirk to get going, so with one final order for Spock to see if he can do anything about McCoy’s whole situation, he follows the Lawgiver out the door. Spock watches him go before turning to McCoy and asking what’s going to happen to Kirk. “He goes to joy, peace and tranquility,” McCoy says happily. “He goes to meet Landru. Happiness is to all of us blessed by Landru.” Spock gives this statement the side-eye it deserves.

We then see Kirk in another room, standing up against a wall with some heavy-duty wrist restraints in place.

[ID: Kirk standing up against a wall, being restrained by two large bars holding his wrists in place, while two Lawgivers stand in front of him, pointing their rods at him.]

This is only happiness to a very specific subset of people.

But before Kirk can meet his grim fate, the Lawgivers are interrupted by someone else coming in. This is not another Lawgiver, however, but a bald man in bright orange robes, who speaks—well, I can’t exactly say he speaks normally because no one around here does, but he at least doesn’t sound like he’s speaking through a knock-off toy Darth Vader helmet. “I am Marplon,” he tells the Lawgivers. “It is your hour. Happy communing.”

“With Thanks. Hap-py Comm-uning,” one Lawgiver replies, and they both head off to take a smoke break or whatever the Lawgiver equivalent is. Marplon steps into the nearby control booth and flicks some switches, causing the booth to slowly rotate around to face Kirk (presumably with the aid of an extra and a pulley somewhere behind the camera) while a dramatic sting plays.

Meanwhile, back in the dungeon, Spock is poking around at McCoy. Evidently someone leaning over you and almost poking you in the eye as they put their hands all over your face isn’t considered bothersome behavior under the directives of Landru, since McCoy seems perfectly fine with it and just sits there calmly while Spock does whatever it is he’s doing. Eventually, Spock grimly pulls his hands away and says, “Impossible. He’s under extremely powerful control.”

You kind of have to wonder what Spock saw in there. The nature of Landru’s control is a bit vague on the details—do members of the Body possess any degree of personality and individuality, smothered though it may be under a stupor of happy-happy-peace-and-tranquility thoughts? Or are they all being outright puppeteered by Landru? They at least seem to have enough personality to have names, and the fact that they stop and have discussions with each other seems to indicate that they aren’t a total hivemind—Tula has to be informed out loud by Bilar that the landing party are strangers in town, rather than her just knowing it automatically as soon as he knew it. But McCoy doesn’t show any sign of retaining any amount of McCoy-ness after he gets taken. He doesn’t remember Kirk and Spock at all, he doesn’t use any of his usual mannerisms, he doesn’t—as we’ll see in a bit—respond to perceived threats the way McCoy usually does, and in general he doesn’t act like McCoy-but-unnaturally-happy-and-calm so much as he acts like a completely different person. So when Spock says he’s under “powerful control” it’s hard to say whether he means that he saw McCoy being forced to feel peaceful and loyal to Landru, or if he saw McCoy in there, somewhere, possibly even aware, but no longer able to control his own actions. Either way, it’s a pretty damn creepy thought.

Unsatisfied with Spock’s analysis, Lindstrom asks if they’re, what, just going to stand around here and do nothing? Spock replies that there’s not a lot they can do, unless Lindstrom has any bright ideas about how to get through a solid stone door. Lindstrom clearly does not, because instead he just splutters about how “This is simply ridiculous, a bunch of stone age characters running around in robes--!” as if he’s got half a mind to just march out there and tell everyone to stop all this nonsense and behave, at which point presumably the Lawgivers will drop their rods and shuffle away in embarrassment. I can only conclude that Mr. Lindstrom has not been serving aboard the Enterprise very long, otherwise he would know that this is hardly any more ridiculous than the usual kind of thing they get up to. You notice Leslie over there isn’t saying anything. Leslie’s seen some shit.

Spock coolly points out that these “stone age characters” are in command of some powers that the Enterprise crew have so far been helpless to understand or resist. “Not simple. Not ridiculous,” he says. “Very, very dangerous.”

On the one hand, this could easily just be your standard sarcastic Spock response of the sort commonly seen whenever someone decides to start running their mouth off in his vicinity, but you have to wonder if he’s not also feeling particularly ticked off at Lindstrom scorning this whole situation, considering that Spock just got done with a close examination of exactly how powerful a grip Landru currently has on the mind of one of Spock’s two close friends. And his other close friend has just been taken off to have the same thing done to him, with Spock powerless to stop it. I mean, let’s put that in non-science fiction terms: imagine you woke up to find you’d been taken captive, and some of the people you were with, including a friend of yours, aren’t there. And then your captors show up and throw them back in your cell, and when you examine your friend you realize that, while you have no idea what happened to him while he was gone, he came back so badly concussed he doesn’t know who you are or where he is, and can’t even answer a simple question. And there’s nothing you can do about it. Your other friend has just been dragged off for the same treatment, and there was nothing you could do about that, either. And as you stand there, desperately wracking your brain for any way out of this, trying not to think about the state your other friend will be in when he comes back, this punk starts whining about how ridiculous the situation is, as if he’s more upset about being bested by what he views as an inferior opponent than by the damage those opponents have already caused, and the very real threat those of you remaining are still facing. Granted, I don’t think that’s what Lindstrom actually meant; he was probably just expressing understandable if poorly-worded frustration at being helpless to do anything in a situation where it feels like you really should be able to do something. But it’s not real surprising that Spock would feel rather cheesed at him about it. Y’know, if Vulcans felt cheesed, which of course they don’t.

At that point, the door opens and two more Lawgivers come in. One of them points their rod at Spock and orders him to come with them. Spock more or less shrugs and follows them out the door, leaving Lindstrom and Leslie alone to ruminate about how screwed they are.

The Lawgivers take Spock to the brainwashing room, where Marplon is releasing Kirk from the restraints. Kirk walks over to Spock with a vacant smile and tells him, “Joy to you, friend. Peace and contentment will fill you. You will know the peace of Landru.” Spock doesn’t say anything, but his expression indicates that he’s gearing up to end somebody over this.

[ID: Spock, being escorted by two Lawmakers, watching as Kirk tells him, “You will know the peace of Landru.” Spock has a particularly murderous expression on his face.]

Spock is gonna KILL GOD.

After the break, things look grim, with Spock—looking highly unimpressed--restrained against the wall while Marplon makes the lights flash and the Lawgivers point their rods at Spock for good measure. But when the Lawgivers have left, Marplon looks up and says, “Have no fear, friend. The effect is harmless.” He introduces himself and explains that he was unfortunately too late to save McCoy and the other guard, so watch out for them. But, as it turns out, he wasn’t too late to save Kirk, who was just faking for the Lawgivers.

Marplon goes on to explain that he is actually the third man in Reger’s triad (wow, small world), and that they’ve been “awaiting your return.” Spock tells him that they are not the Archons, although, really, who or what exactly these people think the Archons are is still pretty hazy. And indeed, Marplon himself doesn’t seem real fussed about the distinction, saying that, “Whatever you may call yourselves, you are in fulfillment of prophecy. We ask your help.” The poor guy is practically trembling with a mixture of enthusiasm and desperation.

Spock asks where Reger is and Marplon says that he’ll join them, adding that Reger is immune to absorption. Exactly why this should be is never explained, and neither is the question of what exactly happened to Reger after the group got captured. One would assume that being in the presence of said group would rather give the game away, but maybe Marplon was able to cover for him somehow.

But never mind Reger—what Spock really wants to know more about is Landru. But upon being asked about him, Marplon gets even more panicky and says they can’t discuss that just now because Landru will hear. Although if Landru could hear them in here, they’d already be screwed, given everything Marplon has just admitted out-loud. My best guess would be that Landru isn’t quite as omniscient as all that and the resistance members are just (understandably) a bit paranoid and superstitious, although I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that, true to form for vengeful deity-types, saying Landru’s name attracts his attention.

Marplon hands Spock a couple of the confiscated phasers, which Spock stows away just before the Lawgivers come back in. Marplon just has time to warn Spock to behave just as he saw Kirk doing before slipping back into his own charade to tell the Lawgivers that “It is done!” Spock obligingly spouts the standard peace and contentment and so on, although I can’t say he puts a great deal of effort into it. The Lawgivers seem to be satisfied, though, because they take him back to the cell without fuss.

Back in the cell, Spock meets up with Kirk. They exchange a bit of “peace and tranquility” talk very loudly to satisfy McCoy and the other guard, before Kirk drops it and mutters, “Are you alright?” “Quite alright,” Spock replies. “But be careful of Dr. McCoy.” Indeed, as soon as he says this, McCoy rises up in the background ominously.

[ID: A gif of Kirk, Spock and Lindstrom standing in a half-circle near an archway. Spock says, “Be careful of Doctor McCoy.” As Kirk replies, “I understand,” McCoy stands up in the background.]

“I FUCKIN HEARD THAT”

Kirk tries to question Spock, who says he has a theory about Landru, but he’s cautious about sharing it with McCoy hovering in the background glaring at them like that. “You speak in strange whispers,” McCoy says as they turn to look at him. “This is not the way of Landru.”

Of everyone we’ve seen being or pretending to be Landru-possessed in the episode so far, the acting choices have mostly fallen on a spectrum ranging from Takei’s “incredibly high” to Nimoy’s “barely even bothering.” (Shatner falls somewhere in the middle, around “comfortably buzzed.”) Kelley, on the other hand, opted for a direction I can only describe as “intensely Southern passive-aggressiveness.” Perhaps it’s the increased Georgia drawl, but Possessed!McCoy feels eerily familiar, like someone I’ve definitely encountered at the Dollar General before. It’s the exact kind of sinister watchfulness not quite masked by a cheerful, friendly exterior that you would expect to find in that lady at church who would never say the world ‘hell’ but gets a little too excited during the bits of sermon about damnation and is currently engaged in complex political machinations to backstab Becky from next door because she lets her kids play too loudly and sold more brownies at the last bake sale (or just in the average head of a homeowner’s association.) I half expect him to start handing out Chick Tracts at any moment.

Before that can happen, Kirk is able to pacify him with more peace and tranquility, then dramatically claps his hands on Spock and Lindstrom’s shoulders and declares “MY FRIENDS” as he ushers them away to a slightly more private corner of the cell. There Spock is able to go into his theory, such as it is. “This is a soulless society, Captain,” he explains, and given that Vulcans have quantified the existence of the soul he probably knows what he’s talking about. “It has no spirit, no spark. All is indeed peace and tranquility—the peace of the factory, the tranquility of the machine. All parts working in unison.”

“And when something unexplained happens...their routine is disrupted?” Kirk muses. Spock agrees, and says that someone must be giving the orders—but who? Landru, presumably, but Spock says there is no Landru...not in the human sense.

“You’re thinking the same thing I am, Mr. Spock,” Kirk says. “The plug must be pulled.” But if Spock is thinking that, it’s not without some reservations. Because, you know, that whole prime directive thing. They’re really not supposed to go around deposing/assassinating political leaders, even really obnoxious ones. But, Kirk says, after all about two seconds of reflection, that directive is meant for living, growing cultures, which this one ain’t. This would be a fascinating ethical point if it wasn’t so obviously a quick justification to let them get on with saving the day without all that pesky worldbuilding getting in the way.

Conveniently, before Spock can say anything in response to this, the door opens again, but this time instead of more Lawgivers it’s Marplon and Reger. McCoy immediately stands up and says, “JOY TO YOU FRIENDS!” like that guy at Wal-Mart that you were really hoping to avoid having a conversation with but you didn’t sneak out of the cereal aisle quickly enough and now he’s seen you. Marplon and Reger keep up the smiling act until they make it over to the Non-Brainwashed Club at the back of the room. Marplon’s brought them their communicators, which is helpful, but Kirk has something more in mind. What they really need, he tells them, is more information about Landru. Marplon and Reger shake their heads frantically, mumbling about “the prophecy” but Kirk isn’t interested in prophecies. “If you want to be liberated from Landru,” he tells the two men, “we’ll need your help.”

It seems he said that just a bit too loudly, though, because McCoy springs up from his seat, points dramatically, and yells, “You’re not of the Body!” Kirk tries to calm him down, but McCoy isn’t having any more peace and tranquility. He screams for the Lawgivers before rushing Kirk and trying to throttle him, screaming “TRAITORS! TRAITORS!” all the while. (See what I meant about him not responding to threats normally? McCoy wouldn’t bother to try to strangle someone if he could whack ‘em with a hypospray instead.)

The other guard joins in, taking a swing at Kirk, but Spock intercepts and tosses him to the floor. He’s a lot less helpful with McCoy, mostly just kind of standing there watching as McCoy manages to back Kirk up against a wall, still screaming. “Doc, I don’t wanna hurt you,” Kirk begs, but of course, this does nothing. In the end, Kirk has to punch McCoy and then put him in a chokehold until he drops. Kirk slowly lowers him to the floor, sadly muttering, “Aw, doc...”

Just then there’s a noise of someone approaching, and Kirk and Spock quickly duck into cover in the corners. A pair of Lawgivers enter and walk right past them, demonstrating why it’s not a super great idea to dress your law enforcement in big peripheral-vision-obscuring hoods, not to mention why most jail cells aren’t designed to have lots of great hiding spots. The Lawgivers promptly get ambushed; Kirk deploys the good old fashioned Neck Chop, while Spock, surprisingly, forgoes the usual nerve pinch in favor of just straight up decking the guy. One suspects Spock is feeling a bit crabby at the moment.

[ID: Kirk and Spock fighting Lawmakers between two arches in their dungeon cell. Kirk is standing over an unconscious Lawmaker, who is laying next to an unconscious McCoy, while Spock is leaning back to punch the Lawmaker he is squaring off against.]

DIRECT ACTION

With phase one of the classic “mug the guards and steal their uniforms” maneuver successfully completed, Kirk moves right on to phase two, stripping the robe off one of the fallen Lawgivers and putting it on over his waistcoat. While he’s doing that, he asks Marplon and Reger where Landru is. The two of them stutter fearfully a bit, but Marplon manages to explain that they never see Landru, only hear him, in a place called the Hall of Audiences--conveniently located in this very building! “You’re gonna take us there,” Kirk says, leaving the poor bastards looking like they’re about to cry. When one of them makes a noise Kirk grabs them by the shoulders and yells at them to snap out of it and start acting like men. The empathy on display here is staggering.

Spock, meanwhile, has gotten in touch with the Enterprise and asks them for a status report. Scotty’s apparently been trying to get in contact with them for quite a while now, not that he has anything particularly new to tell them: their orbit is still decaying, the heat beams are still locked onto the ship, and they’ve now got about six hours left. “You’ve got to cut them off or we’ll cook, one way or another,” he says grimly.

Kirk tells him once again to stand by and then asks after Sulu. “He’s peaceful enough, but he worries me,” Scotty replies. Kirk orders him to put a guard on Sulu, which stuns Scotty, but Kirk doesn’t offer any useful information about the situation. All he says is, “Watch him. That’s an order,” and then he hangs up.

Kirk then turns back to Marplon and Reger and says, for the umpteenth time this episode, asks them to tell him about Landru. Which at this point is starting to sound like a repeating dialogue option.

[ID: 1. A shot of Kirk with a video game-style dialogue selection in the bottom left corner, with the option ‘Ask about Landru’ highlighted and the options ‘Ask about Archons’ ‘Ask about Lawgivers’ and ‘Remain Silent’ listed below it. 2. The same shot of Kirk, now saying, “About Landru.”]

“Well...there was war...convulsions...the world was destroying itself,” Reger says. “Landru was our leader. He saw the truth. He changed the world. He took us back, back to a simpler time. A time of peace and tranquility.” Oh fuck, he was one of those dudes. Of course he was. “Everything will be alright if we go back to the old ways, when things were good and simple and peaceful because everyone was busy dying of polio.”

Asked what happened to Landru, Marplon says that he’s still alive. “He is here now. He sees, he hears.” Then he begins to break down, crying, “We have destroyed ourselves! Please, no more.”

“You said you wanted freedom,” Kirk tells him sternly. “It’s time you learned that freedom is never a gift. It has to be earned.”

Yes, yes, very pithy, but I can’t really say I’m here for listening to Kirk tell people who have lived their whole lives under a horrifying totalitarian regime that they need to Man Up. I mean, regular human totalitarian regimes fuck people up enough, let alone one where everyone is literally being mind-controlled. Can you imagine what life is like for these guys? We know that Landru will try to kill anyone that can’t be controlled, so for Marplon and Reger to still be alive means pretending, every day that they were free of Landru’s control—which, depending on whether they somehow broke free or were born immune, could be their entire lives—pretending to be controlled, pretending to be just as happy and tranquil as everyone else, never able to let slip the slightest trace of fear or anger or grief at everything you saw happening around you, lest any of the constantly watching eyes all around you catch on and you either get executed by the Lawmakers or, if you’re not so lucky, slaughtered by the angry mob that just detected a traitor, traitor in its midst. And they were still trying to resist, still working against Landru despite him being, near as they could tell, all but omnipotent. And Kirk’s gonna stand here and lecture them about courage? Sure, they’re afraid—who could blame them? Sometimes people are afraid. Sometimes people need help.

And, well, Kirk’s not helping. Oh, in a broad sense, sure, he’ll save the day and defeat the bad guy for them (spoilers). But as far as Marplon and Reger specifically are concerned, Kirk has really not bothered to help them. He hasn’t made even a pretense of answering any of their questions. He hasn’t explained anything about who the Enterprise crew are, why they’re there, what their theories are about Landru or what they’re planning to do to defeat him. He hasn’t reassured them or made any effort to quell their fears, even though from the perspective of Reger at least, the landing party arriving has directly led to a lot of those fears coming true—since they got here, they’ve drawn suspicion to him that led to his friend being killed and him being pursued and captured, probably to be executed if Marplon hadn’t happened to be around. Kirk hasn’t shown hardly any sympathy for their situation, not directly—oh, he’s muttered to Spock about what a shitshow this whole society is, but he’s not once given Marplon and Reger themselves so much as a “wow, that sucks.” Mostly his interactions with them have ranged from “a bit condescending” to “barely even trying to pretend to be patient.”

And I know I’ve just spent the last two paragraphs ranting at Kirk, but Kirk isn’t really the focus of the problem here. This kind of writing doesn’t feel right for him. Does Kirk sometimes dismiss smaller, individual problems because he’s more focused on the bigger picture? Does he sometimes push people around him a little harder than they can handle because he’s busy pushing himself too hard at the same time? Sure. Those are understandable, human character flaws that are natural extensions of the character strengths that make him a good captain in the first place. But the attitude of this whole episode feels like it has very little to do with Kirk as a character, flawed or otherwise, and much more to do with an obnoxious combination of the lofty moralizing that Star Trek sometimes dips into mixed with an especially 60s-flavored American outlook on Freedom, subsection: The Costs Of. Yeah, we know all about fighting for freedom! We know all about what it costs! We’re the big strong heroes who are gonna save you from Nazis and Communism cause someone’s gotta do it and that someone is us! TROOPS!

As for the lofty moralizing, well, the behavior of our protagonists in this episode feels rather like the other end of the Metron problem in Arena. Our heroes sweep into a Less Advanced society, decide they’re gonna fix everything for them, and proceed to do so without putting much effort into actually including the members of that society in their plans. Heck, how much time have Kirk and Spock spent in this episode chatting about the flaws and foibles of this culture right in front of Reger, Tamar and Marplon, because it’s not like they’re gonna understand us anyway, right? Of course, I’m not saying that they’re acting as bad as the Metrons—they still haven’t been that obnoxious. And of course there are extenuating circumstances; Kirk’s got crewmen down here and a ship up there in immediate danger, he’s short on time and him being frustrated with not getting the help he wants out of the locals is understandable enough. I mean, at the end of the day, whatever they do to Landru is unlikely to be worse for this culture than having the Enterprise crash into it, which is what will happen if they don’t do anything. But again, the writing of the whole thing doesn’t make it feel like our protagonists are actually being driven by desperation, danger and their own flaws; it feels like an attitude that exists on the same kind of spectrum as we saw with the Metrons: there are cultures that do things Right and cultures that do things Wrong. Some of them are more Right than humans so we should aspire to be like them someday, and some of them are more Wrong so we should help get them on the right track. The extraordinary speed with which Kirk brushes aside the question of whether they’re breaking the Prime Directive speaks to the fact that the episode isn’t interested in exploring that question in the first place. It just wants to get on with dropping cool one-liners and defeating the villain.

Kirk says they’re going to find Landru now, but Reger finally reaches his breaking point and starts yelling that he was wrong, he’ll submit to Landru, and tries to run screaming for the Lawgivers. He doesn’t get very far before Spock nerve-pinches him, while Kirk sternly says, “It’s too late for that.” Hmm, I wonder if this could possibly have been averted at all if we’d done anything to help calm him down instead of telling him to tough it out like a real man? Nah, I’m sure it was unavoidable. Kirk then turns to Marplon and says it’s up to him now to take them to Landru. Marplon looks like he’s regretting every single one of his life choices.

But evidently either persuasion or intimidation was effective, because the next thing we see is Marplon leading Kirk and Spock, both now all robed up, down a very orange corridor. He stops at the door at one end of the hall and tells them that this is the Hall of Audiences (fastpass available). Kirk, naturally, tells him to open it. “But this is Landru!” Marplon pleads. Unimpressed, Kirk tells him to get on with it and open the thing already because seriously, there’s only like ten minutes of episode left, we don’t have time for this.

So Marplon performs the Sacred Gesture of Door-Opening, which is to say he folds his fingers and bows, and the door opens. Kirk and Spock hustle in behind him and immediately discard their entire disguises, which may not have been the best idea, practically speaking, but it’s understandable enough; the Hall of Audiences doesn’t look real well-ventilated.

On a side-note, Kirk was definitely not wearing his coat when he put the robe on, but evidently it respawned in his inventory at some point because he is wearing it when he takes the robe off again.

[ID: A comparison between two images. On the left, Kirk putting a Lawgiver’s robe on over his shirt and waistcoat. On the right, Kirk dropping his robe to the floor in the Hall of Audiences, showing his coat on over his shirt and waistcoat.]

One small problem: the room is completely empty, with no sign of any Landrus anywhere. Kirk starts yelling for him, saying that they are the Archons (sure, why not) and they’ve come to have a chat. A moment later, Landru’s projection appears against the back wall. I’m not sure if they intended for his shirt to blend in with the wall so well that it looks like his head is floating, but that’s what they achieved.

[ID: Another projection of Landru, this one a headshot in which the color of his shirt matches the wall behind him so well it’s barely visible.]

a true figurehead

For a moment everyone just stands around staring at Landru, although Marplon is multitasking and also having a massive panic attack. Then Landru finally speaks up. “Despite my efforts to save you, you have invaded the Body, and are causing great harm,” he says. Kirk says they have no intention of causing harm, but Landru keeps right on going. “Obliteration is necessary,” he says. “The infection is strong. For the good of the Body...you must die. It is...a great sorrow.” Oh, well, if you feel bad about it, that’s okay then. Carry on.

Kirk says they don’t intend to die, either, but as you might have worked out by now, Landru’s not listening. “All who saw you, all who know of your presence here, must be excised,” he says. “The memory of the Body will be cleansed.”

Before Kirk can keep this one-sided conversation going any longer, Spock tells him it’s useless—this is only a projection. “Yes, Mr. Spock,” Kirk muses. “Let’s have a look at the projector.”

The two of them take their phasers out and shoot the wall Landru’s projecting onto, blasting a big hole in the masonry. For once, shooting the hologram actually turns out to be useful, as it reveals the real Landru: a giant computer. Kirk and Spock exchange some pretty smug looks. “Of course. It had to be,” Kirk says. For, as Spock points out, this whole society has all along been run to a computer’s concept of perfection—peace, harmony, all parts working in perfect unison, and absolutely no soul.

“I am Landru,” the computer trills at them. “You have intruded.”

“Pull out its plug, Mr. Spock,” Kirk says, soaring clear over not only any ethical dilemmas here but also over the question of whether “pull out its plug” is even a metaphor that would make sense in the 23rd century. But when they raise their phasers again, there’s a flash of light, and not like the kind there’s supposed to be when you fire a phaser. “Your devices have been neutralized,” the computer informs them. “So it shall be with you. I am Landru.”

Kirk, barely missing a beat over the devastating failure of his cool one-liner, says, “Landru died over six thousand years ago.” The computer insists that it is Landru. “All that he was, I am. His experience, his knowledge.”

“But not his wisdom,” Kirk says. “He may have programmed you, but he could not have given you a soul. You are a machine.”

Landru 2.0 says that this is irrelevant, they will be obliterated, and that the good of the Body is the prime directive. Okay, first of all, that’s copyright infringement. Second of all—what, exactly, is the good? The computer stutters over this, repeating, “I am Landru,” before finally managing to spit out, “The good...is the harmonious continuation...of the Body. The good is peace, tranquility. The good of the Body is the directive.”

“Then I put it to you that you have disobeyed the prime directive,” Kirk says. “You are harmful to the Body.”

“The Body is! It exists. It is healthy.”

“The Body is dying. YOU are destroying it.”

“Do you ask a question?!” Oh, bad move, that’s a sure sign you’re losing the argument. Kirk, sensing weakness, takes a moment to get into a proper computer-dissing stance before asking his next question: “What have you done to do justice to the full potential of every individual in the Body?”

[ID: A gif of Kirk standing in front of a large hole in the stone wall before him, one leg propped up on the bottom of said hole. When Landru 2.0 asks, “Do you ask a question?” Kirk puts one hand on his leg and the other on his hip, and pauses deliberately for a moment before responding.]

Landru 2.0 doesn’t know what to do with that, so Kirk just continues anyway. “Without freedom of choice, there is no creativity! Without creativity, there is no life. The Body dies. The fault...is YOURS.”

Spock chimes in at this point to ask, “Are you aiding the Body or are you destroying it?” Landru 2.0 says it’s not programmed to answer that question. At that point a couple of Lawmakers come running in, but they’re not looking nearly so intimidating anymore, yelling, “Landru, guide us!” in a panic. Kirk turns toward them and pulls out his phaser (presumably out of force of habit, since it doesn’t work anymore) but Spock says they needn’t bother anyway—the Lawmakers have no guidance, probably for the first time ever in their lives, and thus are not much of a threat at the moment. Also, they don’t even have their giant sticks, so what are they gonna do? Headbutt the intruders to death? So Kirk dismissed them and turns back to Landru 2.0, ordering it to answer the question.

“Peace, order, and tranquility are maintained,” Landru 2.0 says, having had a bit of time of think about it. “The Body lives, but I reserve creativity to me.”

“Then the Body dies,” Spock says. “Creativity is necessary for the health of the Body.”

“That...is...impossible!” Landru 2.0 cries desperately.

Marplon, who’s been standing in the back looking real worldview-shattered this whole time, finally speaks up to ask if this is truly Landru, like someone who just met their favorite celebrity and got real let down. “What’s left of him,” Spock says. “After he built and programmed this machine six thousand years ago.”

“You must create the good,” Kirk tells Landru 2.0. “That is the will of Landru, nothing else.”

“But there is evil!”

“Then the evil must be destroyed. That is the prime directive, and YOU are the evil!”

“I think! I live!”

“You are the evil! The evil must be destroyed! Fulfill the prime directive!”

At this point Landru 2.0 starts smoking, as computers are well-known to do when they think too hard. Kirk keeps yelling at it to “Fulfill the prime directive!” and Landru 2.0 eventually just starts yelling, “Help me! Help me! Help me! Help me!” until it explodes in a giant shower of sparks.

[ID: A gif showing Landru 2.0, a large boxy computer sitting behind a hole in a stone wall, sparking wildly and catching fire. The gif cuts briefly to Kirk watching, before cutting back to show Landru 2.0 smoking as the sparks die slowly.]

Yeah IT’s probably not gonna be able to help with that one.

Kirk and Spock step inside to take a look at the remains (probably not a good idea, the air quality in there cannot be good). Evidently satisfied that Landru 2.0 is well and truly busted, Kirk turns to Marplon and says, “Well, you’re on your own now. I hope you’re up to it. You can get rid of those robes, and if I were you I’d start looking for a new job.” Gee, thanks.

He then calls the Enterprise to see how they’re doing. Scotty reports that the heat rays are gone, and Sulu’s all back to normal. To demonstrate this, Sulu shrugs at the camera so exaggeratedly I half expected a laugh track to follow it, before clapping the current helmsman on the shoulder and hustling him out of his chair so Sulu can get back to work. SERIOUSLY? I’m well used to Trek blowing off the effects of things that really ought to be pretty traumatic, but even for TOS this is pretty extreme. I mean, even putting aside the whole matter of recovering so quickly and easily from incredibly powerful mind control stripping away your entire sense of self in subjugation to a mindless collective, how did he get up there so quickly? The Enterprise is a big ship! You can only get from Sickbay to the bridge so fast! Landru’s been out of commission for what, two minutes? Five minutes, generously? Hell, he didn’t even get to take the rest of his shift off? Man, they really keep your nose to the grindstone on this ship.

Kirk, evidently more satisfied with this than I am, tells Scotty to stand by to beam them up, then hangs up and says, “Let’s go see how the others are doing. Marplon can finish up here.” We don’t get to find out how the others are doing, or indeed what the heck “finish up” is supposed to mean in this context, because the scene cuts immediately back to the bridge sometime later, where Kirk is giving a captain’s log.

“The Enterprise is preparing to leave Beta 3 in starsystem C-111. Sociologist Lindstrom is remaining behind with a party of experts who will help restore the planet’s culture to a human form.”

“Marvelous,” Spock comments as Kirk finishes. “The late Landru—a marvelous feat of engineering. A computer capable of directing the lives of millions of human beings.” Pretty impressive indeed—heck, just building a computer that’s still running after six thousand years is quite incredible. Would have been nice to study it. Pity someone blew it up.

Kirk’s not feeling real sentimental about it, though. It was still only a machine, he says. “The original Landru programmed it with all his knowledge, but he couldn’t give it his wisdom, his compassion, his understanding...his soul, Mr. Spock.”

Yes, yes, so you’ve said a bazillion times already, although it’s quite a large assumption given they have no idea what the original Landru was actually like. I mean, we do know this was a guy whose response to a world in crisis was to take everybody back to “a simpler time” aka the imaginary dreamland of bitter conservatives everywhere, and that he was so convinced his method of running that society was the only correct answer that he built a computer to go on micro-managing that society in his name forever. Not to mention, y’know, the mind-controlling powers that he apparently built into it. It’s entirely possible that Landru 2.0 was not an error of programming but in fact was running exactly as intended.

“Predictably metaphysical,” Spock says, apparently forgetting that he made the exact some observation himself earlier. “I prefer the concrete, the graspable, the provable.”

“You would make a splendid computer, Mr. Spock,” Kirk says fondly. Spock, of course, looks immensely pleased and replies, “That is very kind of you, captain.”

Before these two dorks can get any further with their sweet-talk, Lindstrom calls up to say good-bye. Asked how it’s going down there, he says, “Couldn’t be better, captain. Already this morning, we’ve had half a dozen domestic quarrels and two genuine knock-down drag-outs. It may not be paradise, but it’s certainly human.” Huh. I guess that’s better than laying in the fetal position crying, which is what I would be doing in that situation. Still, good to see that this society is acting properly human now. This...non-human society.

Kirk wishes him good luck and leaves him to it. As they prepare to head out, Spock muses about, ““How often mankind has wished for a world as peaceful and secure as the one Landru provided.” “Yes, and we never got it,” Kirk says. “Just lucky, I guess.” Yes, yes, no such thing as a utopia, and all that. Personally I just fantasize about a world where I earn a living wage, but I suppose that would make for a rather more boring episode.

They exchange wry looks, and the episode ends. There’s no sign or word of any of the crewmembers who got Landru’d throughout this scene, so who knows how they’re dealing with all this. I’m assuming McCoy is off somewhere getting super drunk right about now.

The Return of the Archons is an episode that always feels to me as if someone started writing it with no idea of where it was going and just made it up as they went along, but without the bit where you go back at the end and edit everything to match. There are a lot of things that either seem odd in the context of what we learn later, or just get brought up and then never explained. The biggest offender is the Festival, which dominates the first act of the episode so much you figure it has to be important, but then it just gets dropped with no answer as to what purpose it serves, how often it happens, why older people are exempt, etc. (The James Blish novelization takes a crack at it by having Lindstrom postulate that having everyone wildly run amok for one night a year was a form of population control. Which...seems suspect to me, but hey, he tried.) But there are plenty of other questions as well, like, where’s the ‘valley’ that everyone talks about, and who, if anyone, lives there? Why are some people immune to being Landru’d? Why is there a whole special chamber that our heroes get dragged off to one by one to get absorbed, when the Lawmakers are capable of doing it just by tapping people with their rods? Why is Hacom so grumpy and un-tranquil despite apparently being a member of the Body, none of the rest of whom show that amount of individualism? Considering Landru 2.0’s range apparently extends far enough for Sulu to still be controlled while up in orbit, why didn’t it ever try to use Sulu against the Enterprise? Why does Sulu, even after being absorbed, yell at that guy in the transporter room about having the wrong clothes? How do the Lawgivers do that robo-voice thing? I’m used to having to fill in some gaps on my own to make TOS episodes make total sense, but even for TOS this one has an abnormal amount of unanswered questions, which makes it difficult for me to take it seriously as a story, even aside from my problems with the whole “FIGHT FOR YOUR FREEDOM LIKE REAL MEN” thing. On the plus side: waistcoats!

Landru’s circuit-popping demise has brought our Bluescreen Monologues tally up by one. No crew deaths this time, everyone escaped the clutches of Landru more or less intact. Next time we’ll be seeing the origins of a particularly iconic foe in Space Seed.

#star trek #star trek TOS #star trek season one #star trek TOS recaps #1.21 The Return of the Archons #1.21 The Return of the Archons recap

[fyrapartnersearch]

a bit about me: 22F; CST timezone; email mostly, gdoc friendly; multi-para, 3rd person writing style; and loves OOC! I love to talk about characters and plots and everything else (memes are great). I’ve made a lot of great friends though roleplaying and would love to make more!

PSA: I can’t write m/m – I fail at it, but as a bi gal m/f and f/f I can do. 99% of my fandom pairings will be m/f. Also not skilled at omegaverse roleplays so that’s not an option atm, sorry!

my thoughts on:  Replies: Currently averaging 1-3 replies a week, 300-500+ words. Sometimes over 1000 when the scene calls for it  Effort: Equal effort please! I love knowing what you have in mind for your side at least, but winging it is fine too. I’m 100% happy to contribute to your plot to so let me know if you want to brainstorm or get stuck! I will do the same.  Character Division: I’m usually pretty gung-ho about juggling characters but I don’t have the skills to play them all, so let’s try to divvy them up a bit!  Age: looking for someone 18+!! I enjoy mature themes. Similarly, I’d like all characters engaged in romantic plots to be of age as well, so even in canon-verse aged up characters are my jam.  Universes: I am mostly looking for fandom OC X CANON roleplays at this time, which will be mentioned below. Usually willing to split roleplays between fandoms for your cravings too!  Genres: I like romance, angst, action, adventure, drama, and slice of life (so long as those other elements are included, straight sol gets boring real fast). Open to others of course! Dark themes are a guilty pleasure, but when done tastefully.  Characterization: In-character characters unless asked otherwise! Love interests are love interests for a reason haha  Misc: DOUBLING IS A MUST FOR FANDOM ROLEPLAYS. I am okay with stacked single-emails, or two separate threads, or whatever! Just must double!!

absolute nos:  Dropping my side completely??? Pls don’t do that unless we talk about it first yall omg///  Bestiality, water sports, bathroom play, incest, P (without) P, pedophilia, vore, torture porn, snuff  Cheat-free zone. Sorry, I can’t do infidelity stuff  Ditch-friendly but would prefer ya didn’t, ya know? Hiatus -friendly tho! Life happens, I get it  Terrible sues. Flaws. Balance. Strength is awesome, but OP is not.

absolute yes!!  Feel free to hit me up to chat! About the roleplay, your life, whatever. IM and emails are totes cool. 6:  I’m always down to write triangles or more! I don’t always ask for them myself depending on the universe/fandom, but I do enjoy writing them!  Let me know if you have specific desires for your love interest/side! I am here to indulge you, if you grant me the same!  I have never done crossovers, but might be interested in trying my hand if that’s something you want. Just talk to me about it!  Please!! Let me!! Know!! Your!! Smut!! Pref!! My smut key is below: Green: fluffy, flowery language; no explicit mention of parts Yellow: euphemisms for parts and actions, moderate description Red: explicit words and description

just fyi: I’m fine with green or above but tend to default yellow if you don’t tell me otherwise. I’m also super okay with red, just want to be considerate of your level of comfort. :)

Cool beans, onto the really good stuff

cravings:  Death Note (Matt Jeevas);  note: I am admittedly getting a little burned out on the canon timeline plot-for-plot, esp if L or Light are the main love interest. I would greatly appreciate an alternate timeline or something to spice it up if that’s what you want to do! / A Beyond Birthday-esque AU plot would be amazing!! Dark, creepy, kidnapping, murder goodness  Wammy Academy  Wammy’s House  Arranged Marriage

 Bleach (Jushiro Ukitake, several other secondary)  Canon verse, canon timeline – alt plot  Canon verse, alt timeline***  arranged marriage plot involved for moi!  Modern AU**

 Naruto: Shippuden (Kiba, several secondary)  Canon verse, alt timeline**  Modern AU  Konoha Academy*****  Marriage (arranged or not)*  Summercamp AU!!****

 Boku no/My Hero Academia (Shouto)  Canon verse, alt timeline**  Alternate Universe

other fandoms I can play for you (for split roleplays)*:  Attack on Titan  Inuyasha  GANGSTA!  Hunter x Hunter  Tokyo Ghoul  Ouran High School Host Club  Full Metal Alchemist  Sailor Moon  Seven Deadly Sins  Black Butler  Superhero/MCU  etc, feel free to ask!

*note: these fandoms I haven’t played before/in a while but am familiar with- So AUs would probably be best in these cases, but totally not required! I am always okay with taking suggestions to brush up/watch other things you might be interested in doing, just let me know. Also feel free to ask about things not on this list!! I will split for these – I write a fandom of choice for you if you write one for me!

contact me: Thanks for reading so far! If you think you might be interested in roleplaying with me, please drop me a line at: [email protected] . I would love to hear from you! Please include the following items in your email!:  Your name/nickname/penname (whatever you want me to call you)  Your age/age range (18+, 21+ is fine)  What you’re interested in playing & love interest  Your deal breakers! Things you are absolutely inflexible on so we know if we’ll be compatible.  *cough* your smut color *cough*  If your feeling generous, your fav song or show or movie! I love finding some new tunes. 😊  Whatever else you’d like to include, it’s your world man I hope to hear from you lovely bugs soon!

#multiple paragraph #para #short term #long term #email #submission

[anon-e-miss]

Desert Crystal 2 - Nomad AU

So we have some attempted non con below so mind the gap.

Prowl woke to screaming. He turned over on the berth as the fog of recharge was purged from his helm. His tent was dark, and this observation confused him. What had happened to the fires?  Pushing himself from his berth, the prince loaded his rocket launchers, and his acid pellet rifle without the benefit of additional lighting. Protocol would have suggest Prowl wait in the tent, to hide, until the trouble had passed, but he was no simpering dilettante. Prior to being appointed as Lord of Law, the imperial prince had served with the Enforcers, and while he had never been intended for the street patrols or riot response, Prowl had been trained, had in fact insisted on being trained in combat. To the consternation of his originator, Prowl had even excelled at it. A few vorns in Simfur had not erased that training, though this would be the first time the Praxian had had call to use it. Though he had long argued that his efficacy in servo to servo combat and combat simulation should have been prove enough that he could defend himself during crises, Prowl had never been permitted to be on scene for anything. Before he crossed his tent, the door flaps flew open.

“Imperial Highness, the camp is under attack!” Flash yelled.

“What happened to the fires?” Prowl demanded. “And the guards?”

“Lord Crosscut handed out energon, we all fell into recharge!” The sentry replied. This was not a coincidence.

“Have you seen him?” The Lord of Law demanded as he bolted from the tent. “He is responsible for this. This was why he was out surveying for so long. He has engineered this assault.”

“No! Why?” Flash asked, running alongside Prowl, running for the edges of the camp where the battle was happening.

“I do not know,” Prowl said. “But we must hold them off.”

As they reached the edge of the camp, Prowl saw shadows through a wall of spinning sand. Mechanisms in alt modes drove in rapid circles around the camp, stirring up sand, reducing visibility. In the nanokliks after the Lord of Law arrived at the scene of the fight, the storm of sand obscured everything, and battered his plating. He raised an arm to protect his optics from the sharp stand, and he drew his doorwings back. Clever, these mechanisms had rendered the Praxian guard all but useless. Those guards who were not turning and running, running frantically passed Prowl, not even acknowledging the prince’s presence. Caution, commonsense would have called for the Lord of Law to follow, except Prowl was certain the attackers surrounded the camp. The young sentry with him did not flee, Flash ran forward as Prowl did, blaster drawn.

“Aim for those in alt-modes,” the prince ordered. “If we can disrupt them, we will improve our odds.”

“Just improve them?” The guard asked.

“I calculate our odds of victory as less than 20%” Prowl replied.

“You know, My Lord, sometimes honesty is the wrong answer,” Flash said. Hearing the fear in the young mech’s voice, the Lord of Law expected Flash to flee, but instead he joined the guards still facing down their attackers, and his blaster fire soon joint theirs.

Prowl crouched and took aim behind the sparse line of guards holding off the invaders. Bracing himself, he fired both rockets. They flew over the Praxian guard and into the flurry of sand. There was a flash and an ugly shriek of pain as at least one struck home. Remaining crouched,the Lord of Law loaded another pair of rockets and fired again. After these rockets, he rose quickly, and called for the guards to duck. Just as he had theorized, from somewhere beyond the cloud of sand, a rocket answered Prowl’s and it struck the ground, far too close to wear he had been standing. Sand and metal subterrain flew through the air, spraying the assembled defenders with shrapnel. Smart, but then the Praxian was not surprised, it was clearly an organized assault. Whether these were slavers, nomads or a mix of both did not matter. The camp had to hold them off. He forced himself to believe it was not impossible, even as his projections grew more dire.

“Aim for those in alt-modes,” Prowl yelled over the sounds of battles. “Aim! Don’t waste ammunition!”

The guards remaining rallied, and obeyed. Those racing attackers, were not losing ground however, there were too many, the Praxians too hampered by the sand, and Prowl was forced to call the guards to fall back behind the first row of tents. Behind the tents, they had some shelter against the attackers and the sand, but it would not be enough. Prowl fired more rockets, and those guards with similar arms fired theirs in turn. Surrendering was not an option, and yet victory was becoming a slimmer and slimmer possibility. When they fell back again, to the second line of tents, the Lord of Law saw that there were fewer defenders left. Dead or captured, Prowl was not sure which, neither bode well. He was not the only one to notice. His control over the guards was wavering as fear overcame them, many more fled. Though the Lord of Law called to them, told them they were running into the arms of their attackers, they were too senseless to obey. He cursed softly of the last of them ran passed him. Only Flash remained with him.

He could hear cars driving between the tents, circling closer. Crouched beside what he realized was his own tent, Prowl fired his last rockets. Just as he was reaching to take up his laser rifle, Flash knocked him to the side, and screamed in pain as laser fire shot from across the caravan’s courtyard and struck the young Praxian in the midsection. Prone, with the wait of the injured younger mech trapping his legs, the Lord of Law picked up his fallen rifle and strafed fire across in the general direction of their attackers. Two screams, followed by sharper screeches answered his acid rounds. Mouth pursed in a determined line, Prowl fired again, and again. He wriggled out from under Flash and climbed to his knees. A great beast of an alt mode whipped into the clearing driving for him, and he did not think, he just fired, shot after shot until the big car flipped on its side, his acid rounds doing their work. His attacker transformed, cursing as the acid lashed round ate at his circuitry. Focused on this attacker, Prowl did not see the one coming from his left until the mech bulled him over, and pinned him to the sand.

“No!” Flash’s pained cry had Prowl turn his helm.  The sentry fought another attacker, looming over him, found to keep hold of his blaster. It fired, and the massive mech he had been fighting collapsed on top of Flash.

“Dead!” The mech pinning Prowl screeched at the sight of his dead friend. He snarled in a flurry of a language the Praxian’s did not speak, but Prowl had no doubt what he intended as he started loosened his hold on him.

Prowl dug his digits into his attackers shoulders, gritted his denta and slammed his forehelm into the big mech’s red visor.  Cursing unintelligibly, the mech fell back, and Prowl leapt up. His far larger attacker dropped his servo from his faceplates and the Praxian saw mechfluid falling from beneath the mech’s visor, and his compressed olfactory ridge. Through the mechfluid, Prowl saw a red optic glare. The mech’s lipplates drew back in a snarl and he lunged. Ready for the attack, the Praxian was already moving to the side. Diving, he grabbed his rifle from where it had fallen and fired.  Before he greyed, the mech’s face took on a stunned look, and he was dead before he hit the ground. Flash let out another cry of warning, but it was too late.

Pain racked over Prowl’s sensory net as he was knocked to the ground. As he pulled himself up, what felt like a massive servo grabbed his helm and struck his face against the ground, pulled him up, and threw him down again. His chevron broke, and the pain burned through his rattled processor. The lip of his helm, had protected his optics from damage, for now. He tried to resist, and managed to get up on his knees before his assailant forced his chassis down, and turned Prowl’s face to the side. Prowl snarled as the mech pressed him harder to the ground, with his greater mass. When the mech’s interface panel struck Prowl’s aft, the prince’s optics brightened. Pressing himself down, he managed to pull one arm free and he struck back at his attacker’s helm. This was an indignity he would not suffer without a considerable fight.

“Ya don’t know when to stop, heh?” The mech mocked him in accented Neocybex. He sat back, leaving Prowl on the ground. Knowing what was coming, the Praxian tried to escape, but his lower body was pinned. As the thrashed, the brute snarled, reared back his arm and bunched Prowl in the face. His vision dimmed, and then swam. Through the pain and disorientation, he tried to rally, but could not get his frame to respond as the pressure on his back returned, as the mech rubbed his panel against Prowl’s aft. The prince felt the mech’s ventilations against his cracked cheekplate, “Do ya think he’ll mind if I have a go? Do ya I care?”

He? Crosscut? There was no other he, but why? The blow to Prowl’s helm had done too much damage, and it was difficult to rally his tactical systems to process this new information. Why? Prowl asked himself numbly. What had inspired Crosscut to betray the caravan, the mech had put so many credits into. Apart from Veneer he stood to loose the most. Frame, unresponsive, and processor addled, the Praxian could not make himself move properly, could do nothing to save himself from what was coming. Behind him, his assailant laughed darkly, and grabbed his Prowl’s hips, pulling his aft up. There was nothing he could do to save himself, and a sound of horror escaped his vocalzer.

Suddenly, Prowl was free of the weight as someone knocked the behemoth off of him. He lifted himself up, and crawled away. His helm spun, a remote in his self-diagnostics warned of a litany of damage to his face and helm. An energon line in his helm had punctured and his self-repairs worked quickly to stop the dangerous leak. Despite his injuries, the Lord of Law would not allow himself to fall to the ground. Through the damage reports and disorientation, Prowl forced his fragment thought processes back into order, and he slowly turned to see who had come to his rescue. It was a smaller mech, someone his size, that grappled with the bigger mech. There were no doorwings on his rescuer’s back, this could not be a Praxian.

Certain the mech was doomed, Prowl slowly tried to crawl back, to retreat, and leave this new mech to the fight. Slowly, because any rapid movement sent his processor spinning, the prince turned to crawl to Flash’s side, intent on freeing him from the dead mech that pinned him. Except now Flash was not alone, and he had already been freed. A big mech, big as their attackers, but different knelt over the young sentry and he was… Performing first aid? It was impossible for Prowl to processes this sight, and he turned back to his own rescuer. To his absolutely surprise, the smaller mech had the behemoth pinned. Unable to compute what he was seeing, Prowl sagged, and slid to the ground. In the best of repair so many improbably sights might have had his logic computer fritzing, injured as he was Prowl could not resist his systems defect, and he felt his frame stiffen as he started to glitch. Darkness descended, and as it did he heard a strange voice speak a few metres away.

“This ain’t yer desert.”

#desert crystal #transformers #nomad au #ficlet #fanfiction #jazz/prowl #attempted non/con #violence #crosscut is an asshole here too

[fyrapartnersearch]

seeking fandom, oc x canon roleplays

a bit about me:

    22F; CST timezone; email mostly, gdoc friendly; multi-para, 3rd person writing style; and loves OOC! I love to talk about characters and plots and everything else (memes are great). I’ve made a lot of great friends though roleplaying and would love to make more!  

  PSA: I can’t write m/m – I fail at it, but as a bi gal m/f and f/f I can do. 99% of my fandom pairings will be m/f. Also not skilled at omegaverse roleplays so that’s not an option atm, sorry!

   my thoughts on:

©        Replies: Currently averaging 1-3 replies a week, 300-500+ words. Sometimes over 1000 when the scene calls for it

©        Effort: Equal effort please! I love knowing what you have in mind for your side at least, but winging it is fine too. I’m 100% happy to contribute to your plot to so let me know if you want to brainstorm or get stuck! I will do the same.

©        Character Division: I’m usually pretty gung-ho about juggling characters but I don’t have the skills to play them all, so let’s try to divvy them up a bit!

©        Age: looking for someone 18+!! I enjoy mature themes. Similarly, I’d like all characters engaged in romantic plots to be of age as well, so even in canon-verse aged up characters are my jam.

©        Universes: I am mostly looking for fandom OC X CANON roleplays at this time, which will be mentioned below. Usually willing to split roleplays between fandoms for your cravings too!

©        Genres: I like romance, angst, action, adventure, drama, and slice of life (so long as those other elements are included, straight sol gets boring real fast). Open to others of course! Dark themes are a guilty pleasure, but when done tastefully.

©        Characterization: In-character characters unless asked otherwise! Love interests are love interests for a reason haha

©        Misc: DOUBLING IS A MUST FOR FANDOM ROLEPLAYS. I am okay with stacked single-emails, or two separate threads, or whatever! Just must double!!

   absolute nos:

©        Dropping my side completely???  Pls don’t do that unless we talk about it first yall omg///

©        Bestiality, water sports, bathroom play, incest, P (without) P, pedophilia, vore, torture porn, snuff

©        Cheat-free zone. Sorry, I can’t do infidelity stuff

©        Ditch-friendly but would prefer ya didn’t, ya know? Hiatus -friendly tho! Life happens, I get it

©        Terrible sues. Flaws. Balance. Strength is awesome, but OP is not.

   absolute yes!!

©        Feel free to hit me up to chat! About the roleplay, your life, whatever. IM and emails are totes cool. 6:

©        I’m always down to write triangles or more! I don’t always ask for them myself depending on the universe/fandom, but I do enjoy writing them!

©        Let me know if you have specific desires for your love interest/side! I am here to indulge you, if you grant me the same!

©        I have never done crossovers, but might be interested in trying my hand if that’s something you want. Just talk to me about it!

©        Please!! Let me!! Know!! Your!! Smut!! Pref!! My smut key is below:

Green: fluffy, flowery language; no explicit mention of parts

Yellow: euphemisms for parts and actions, moderate description

Red: explicit words and description

  just fyi: I’m fine with green or above but tend to default yellow if you don’t tell me otherwise. I’m also super okay with red, just want to be considerate of your level of comfort. :)

    Cool beans, onto the really good stuff:

 cravings:

©        Death Note (Matt, some secondary)

Canon verse, alt timeline**

mafia plot involved for my side

I am admittedly getting a little burned out on the canon timeline plot-for-plot, esp if L or Light are the main love interest. I would greatly appreciate an alternate timeline or something to spice it up if that’s what you want to do!

A Beyond Birthday plot would be amazing!! Dark, creepy, kidnapping, murder goodness

Wammy Academy

Wammy’s House

Arranged Marriage

  ©        Bleach (Jushiro Ukitake, several other secondary)

Canon verse, canon timeline – alt plot

Canon verse, alt timeline***

arranged marriage plot involved for moi!

Modern AU***

Mafia/gang

Business/corporate

  ©        Naruto: Shippuden (Kiba, several secondary)

Canon verse, alt timeline**

Modern AU

Mafia/gang

Business/Corporate

Konoha Academy*****

University

Ninja Academy (?)

Marriage (arranged or not)*

Summercamp AU!!****

  ©        Boku no/My Hero Academia (Shouto)

Canon verse, alt timeline**

Alternate Universe

    other fandoms I can play for you (for split roleplays)*:

Attack on Titan

Inuyasha

GANGSTA!

Hunter x Hunter

Tokyo Ghoul

Ouran High School Host Club

Full Metal Alchemist

Sailor Moon

Seven Deadly Sins

Black Butler

Superhero/MCU

etc, feel free to ask!

*note: these fandoms I haven’t played before/in a while but am familiar with- So AUs would probably be best in these cases. I am always okay with taking suggestions to brush up/watch other things you might be interested in doing, Just let me know. Also feel free to ask about things not on this list!! I will split for these – I write a fandom of choice for you if you write one for me!

   a note on originals:

I would love some psych terror/horror, but open to hearing any and all suggestions. I am admittedly particular about originals just because they are very time consuming to create, but come at me with your ideas! I’m into all kinds of things, but I’m a bit cold on originals atm and not accepting many. Zombies are usually intriguing. Similarly dark things are a guilty pleasure, but again, supes picky - sorryyyyyyyyy

  contact me:  

Thanks for reading so far! If you think you might be interested in roleplaying with me, please drop me a line at: [email protected] . I would love to hear from you! Please include the following items in your email!:

Your name/nickname/penname (whatever you want me to call you)

Your age/age range (18+, 21+ is fine)

What you’re interested in playing & love interest

Your deal breakers! Things you are absolutely inflexible on so we know if we’ll be compatible.

*cough* your smut color *cough*

If your feeling generous, your fav song or show or movie! I love finding some new tunes. 😊

Whatever else you’d like to include, it’s your world man

I hope to hear from you lovely bugs soon!

#oc rp #multiple paragraph #para #semipara #short term #long term #email #smut rp #submission

[fyrapartnersearch]

Seeking Experienced Fandom Roleplay Partners!

a bit about me:

©        22, female

©        CST timezone

©        ~10 yrs experience

©        email mostly, gdoc friendly

©        multi-para, 3rd person writing style

©        loves OOC! Be my friend pls <3

 my thoughts on:

©        Replies: I’m very excited for some fun and engaging summer roleplays! A few partners are busy, and I myself am between an online class and certification testing, but I’m looking for a patient individual or two who would be cool with 1-3 replies/weekly-ish! I do have plans to travel coming up and an exam that I’m studying for, but I really would like to get back into the swing of writing for pleasure! <3  

©        Effort: Let’s shoot for equal effort please. I am not at all interested in partners looking only to play out their own halves without effort going into mine. No Bueno, friendos. I will contribute to plot and would like you too, esp if our halves are not working on the same plot/timeline! I have no problem contributing to your half in the case of course, but I would like to be informed about where you would like your half to go if you know. Winging it is fine too, of course, just let me know!

©        Character Division: I’m usually pretty gung-ho about juggling characters but I don’t have the skills to play them all, so lets try to divvy them up a bit!

©        Age: looking for someone 18+!! I enjoy mature themes, but generally okay with fading to black if you prefer. There will most likely be mentions/implied sex though either way, so if you aren’t cool with that I am not the partner for you. Similarly, I’d like all characters engaged in romantic plots to be at least 16 for similarly aged charas, 17+ for any (student/intern/whatever x teach/boss/whatev) plots, thanks.

©        Universes: I am mostly looking for fandom OC X CANON roleplays at this time, which will be mentioned below. Some originals can be workable though. Usually willing to split roleplays between fandoms for your cravings too!

©        Genres: I like romance, angst, action, adventure, drama, and slice of life (so long as those other elements are included, straight sol gets boring real fast). Open to others of course!

©        Characterization: In-character characters unless asked otherwise! Love interests are love interests for a reason haha (which is totally just bc they’re hot sometimes ofc but I digress)

©        Misc: DOUBLING IS A MUST FOR FANDOM ROLEPLAYS. I am okay with stacked single-emails, or two separate threads, or whatever! Just must double!! Also, I can’t write m/m but m/f and f/f is fine. All of my fandom pairings will be m/f.

 absolute nos:

©        Dropping my side completely???  I’m simply not replying to these emails lmao

©        Bestiality, water sports, bathroom play, incest, PWP, pedophilia, vore, torture porn, snuff

©        Cheat-free zone. Sorry. I can’t do infidelity stuff

©        Ditch-friendly but would prefer ya didn’t, ya know? Hiatus -friendly!

©        Terrible sues. Flaws. Balance. Strength is awesome, but OP is not.

 absolute yes!!

©        Feel free to hit me up to chat! About the roleplay, your life, whatever. IM and emails are totes cool. 6:

©        I’m always down to write triangles or more! I don’t always ask for them myself depending on the universe/fandom, but I do enjoy writing them!

©        Let me know if you have specific desires for your love interest/side! I am here to indulge you, if you grant me the same!

©        I have never done crossovers, but might be interested in trying my hand if that’s something you want. Just talk to me about it!

©        Please!! Let me!! Know!! Your!! Smut!! Pref!! My smut key is below:

Green: fluffy, flowery language; no explicit mention of parts

Yellow: euphemisms for parts and actions, moderate description

Red: explicit words and description

just fyi: I’m fine with green or above but tend to default yellow if you don’t tell me otherwise. I’m also super okay with red, just want to be considerate of your level of comfort. :)

  Cool beans, onto the really good stuff:

 cravings:

©        Death Note (Matt)

Canon verse, alt timeline**

mafia plot involved

Wammy Academy

Wammy’s House

Arranged Marriage

©        Bleach (Ukitake)

Canon verse, canon timeline

Canon verse, alt timeline***

arranged marriage plot involved!

Modern AU

Mafia/gang

Business/corporate

University

Academy Setting

©        Naruto: Shippuden (Kiba)

Canon verse, alt timeline**

Modern AU

Mafia/gang

Business/Corporate

Konoha Academy***

University

Ninja Academy (?)

Marriage (arranged or not)*

Summer AU!!***

©        Boku no/My Hero Academia (Shouto)

Canon verse, alt timeline**

Alternate Universe

©        Samurai Champloo (Jin)

Canon

Modern AU

other fandoms I can play for you (for split roleplays)*:

Attack on Titan

Inuyasha

GANGSTA!

Hunter x Hunter

Tokyo Ghoul

Ouran High School Host Club

Full Metal Alchemist

Resident Evil [games]

Sailor Moon

Seven Deadly Sins

Superhero/MCU

*note: these fandoms I haven’t played before/in a while but am familiar with- So AUs would probably be best in these cases. I am always okay with taking suggestions to brush up/watch other things you might be interested in doing! Just let me know! Also feel free to ask about things not on this list!! I will split for these – I write a fandom of choice for you if you write one for me!!

 a note on originals:

I would love some psych terror/horror, but open to hearing any and all suggestions. I am admittedly particular about originals just because they are very time consuming to create, but come at me! I’m into all kinds of things, but I’m a bit cold on originals atm.

contact me:  

Thanks for reading so far! If you think you might be interested in roleplaying with me, please drop me a line at: [email protected] . I would love to hear from you! Please include the following items in your email!:

Your name/nickname/penname (whatever you want me to call you)

Your age/age range (18+, 21+ is fine)

Your timezone/rough availability just so I have an idea

What you’re interested in playing & love interest

Your deal breakers! Things you are absolutely inflexible on so we know if we’ll be compatible.

*cough* your smut color *cough*

If your feeling generous, your fav song or show or movie! I love finding some new tunes. 😊

Whatever else you’d like to include, it’s your world man

I hope to hear from you lovely bugs soon!

#oc rp #para #semipara #long term #email #marvel rp #avengers rp #mcu rp #submission

[fyrapartnersearch]

Seeking Summer Shenanigan Sidekick

a bit about me:

©        22, female

©        CST timezone

©        ~9 yrs experience

©        email mostly, gdoc friendly

©        para/multi-para, 3rd person writing style

©        loves OOC! Be my friend pls <3

   my thoughts on:

©        Replies: I’m very excited for some fun and engaging summer roleplays! A few partners are busy, and I myself am a recent grad and moving into full-time work and vacations this summer, but I’m looking for a patient individual or two who would be cool with 2-4 replies/weekly-ish! I do have plans to travel coming up, but I really would like to get back into the swing of writing for pleasure! <3  

©        Effort: Let’s shoot for equal effort please. I am not at all interested in partners looking only to play out their own halves without effort going into mine. No Bueno, friendos. Quickest way to get me to drop a roleplay. I will contribute to plot and would like you too, esp if our halves are not working on the same plot/timeline! I have no problem contributing to your half in the case of course, but I would like to be informed about where you would like your half to go if you know. Winging it is fine too, of course!

©        Character Division: I’m usually pretty gung-ho about juggling characters but I don’t have the skills to play them all, so lets try to divvy them up a bit!

©        Age: looking for someone 18+!! I enjoy mature themes, but generally okay with fading to black if you prefer. There will most likely be mentions/implied sex though either way, so if you aren’t cool with that I am not the partner for you. Similarly, I’d like all characters engaged in romantic plots to be at least 16 for similarly aged charas, 17+ for any (student/intern/whatever x teach/boss/whatev) plots, thanks.

©        Universes: I am mostly looking for fandom OC X CANON roleplays at this time, which will be mentioned below. Some originals can be workable though. Usually willing to split roleplays between fandoms for your cravings too!

©        Genres: I like romance, angst, action, adventure, drama, and slice of life (so long as those other elements are included, straight sol gets boring real fast). Open to others of course!

©        Characterization: In-character characters unless asked otherwise! Love interests are love interests for a reason haha (which is totally just bc they’re hot sometimes ofc but I digress)

©        Misc: DOUBLING IS A MUST FOR FANDOM ROLEPLAYS. I am okay with stacked single-emails, or two separate threads, or whatever! Just must double!! Also, I can’t write m/m but m/f and f/f is fine. All of my fandom pairings will be m/f.

   absolute nos:

©        Dropping my side completely???  I’m simply not replying to these emails lmao

©        Bestiality, water sports, bathroom play, incest, PWP, pedophilia, vore, torture porn, snuff

©        Cheat-free zone. Soz, not that into drama haha. No infidelity for me – I could possibly write it for you though!

©        Ditch-friendly but would prefer ya didn’t, ya know? 

©        Terrible sues. Flaws. Balance. Strength is awesome, but OP is not.

   absolute yes!!

©        Feel free to hit me up to chat! About the roleplay, your life, whatever. IM and emails are totes cool. 6:

©        I’m always down to write triangles or more! I don’t always ask for them myself depending on the universe/fandom, but I do enjoy writing them!

©        Let me know if you have specific desires for your love interest/side! I am here to indulge you, if you grant me the same!

©        I have never done crossovers, but might be interested in trying my hand if that’s something you want. Just talk to me about it!

©        Please!! Let me!! Know!! Your!! Smut!! Pref!! My smut key is below:

Green: fluffy, flowery language; no explicit mention of parts

Yellow: euphemisms for parts and actions, moderate description

Red: explicit words and description

  just fyi: I’m fine with green or above but tend to default yellow if you don’t tell me otherwise. I’m also super okay with red, just want to be considerate of your level of comfort. :)

    Cool beans, onto the really good stuff:

 cravings:

©        Death Note (Matt)

Canon verse, alt timeline**

mafia plot involved

Wammy Academy

Wammy’s House

Arranged Marriage

  ©        Bleach (Ukitake)

Canon verse, canon timeline

Canon verse, alt timeline***

arranged marriage plot involved!

Modern AU

Mafia/gang

Business/corporate

University

Academy Setting

  ©        Naruto: Shippuden (Kiba)

Canon verse, alt timeline**

Modern AU

Mafia/gang

Business/Corporate

Konoha Academy***

University

Ninja Academy (?)

Marriage (arranged or not)*

Summer AU!!***

  ©        Boku no/My Hero Academia (Shouto)

Canon verse, alt timeline**

Alternate Universe

  ©        Samurai Champloo (Jin)

Canon

Modern AU

  other fandoms I can play for you*:

Attack on Titan

Inuyasha

GANGSTA!

Hunter x Hunter

Tokyo Ghoul

Ouran High School Host Club

Full Metal Alchemist

Resident Evil [games]

Dynasty/Samurai Warriors (Orochi)

Sailor Moon

Cowboy Bebop

Yu-Gi-Oh!

Basilisk

Kingdom Hearts/Disney

Superhero/MCU

*note: these fandoms I haven’t played before/in a while but am familiar with. I am always okay with taking suggestions to brush up/watch other things you might be interested in doing! Just let me know! Also feel free to ask about things not on this list!! I will split for these – I write a fandom of choice for you if you write one for me!!

   a note on originals:

I would love some psych terror/horror, but open to hearing any and all suggestions. I am admittedly particular about originals just because they are very time consuming to create, but come at me! I’m into all kinds of things, but I’m a bit cold on originals atm.

  contact me:  

Thanks for reading so far! If you think you might be interested in roleplaying with me, please drop me a line at: [email protected] . I would love to hear from you! Please include the following items in your email!:

Your name/nickname/penname (whatever you want me to call you)

Your age/age range (18+, 21+ w/e)

Your timezone/rough availability just so I have an idea

What you’re interested in playing & love interest

Your deal breakers! Things you are absolutely inflexible on so we know if we’ll be compatible.

*cough* your smut color *cough*

If your feeling generous, your fav song or show or movie! I love finding some new tunes. 😊

Whatever else you’d like to include, it’s your world man

I hope to hear from you lovely bugs soon!

[fyrapartnersearch]

notthatcool for the summer

a bit about me: ©        21, female ©        CST timezone ©        8 yrs experience ©        email mostly, gdoc friendly ©        multi-para, 3rd person writing style ©        loves OOC! Be my friend pls <3 my thoughts on: ©        Replies: I’m very excited for some fun and engaging summer roleplays! A few partners are busy, and I myself am between an online class and certification testing, but I’m looking for a patient individual or two who would be cool with 1-3 replies/weekly-ish! I do have plans to travel coming up and an exam that I’m studying for, but I really would like to get back into the swing of writing for pleasure! <3 ©        Effort: Let’s shoot for equal effort please. I am not at all interested in partners looking only to play out their own halves without effort going into mine. No Bueno, friendos. Also about plot; please communicate with me on this, even if you're not into OOC! ESPECIALLY if our respetie sides aren't following the same plot. I'm more than happy to help with your plotting needs, but I would not like to be solely responsible for keeping the plots on both sides alive.  ©        Character Division: I’m usually pretty gung-ho about juggling characters but I don’t have the skills to play them all, so lets try to divvy them up a bit! ©        Age: looking for someone 18+!! I enjoy mature themes, but generally okay with fading to black if you prefer. There will most likely be mentions/implied sex though either way, so if you aren’t cool with that I am not the partner for you. Similarly, I’d like all characters engaged in romantic plots to be at least 16 for similarly aged charas, 17+ for any (student/intern/whatever x teach/boss/whatev) plots, thanks. ©        Universes: I am mostly looking for fandom OC X CANON roleplays at this time, which will be mentioned below. Some originals can be workable though. Usually willing to split roleplays between fandoms for your cravings too! ©        Genres: I like romance, angst, action, adventure, drama, and slice of life (so long as those other elements are included, straight sol gets boring real fast). Open to others of course! ©        Characterization: In-character characters unless asked otherwise! Love interests are love interests for a reason haha (which is totally just bc they’re hot sometimes ofc but I digress) ©        Misc: DOUBLING IS A MUST FOR FANDOM ROLEPLAYS. I am okay with stacked single-emails, or two separate threads, or whatever! Just must double!! Also, I can’t write m/m but m/f and f/f is fine. All of my fandom pairings will be m/f. absolute nos: ©        Dropping my side completely???  I’m simply not going to be replying to these emails lmao ©        Bestiality, water sports, bathroom play, incest, PWP, pedophilia, vore, torture porn, snuff ©        Cheat-free zone. Soz, not that into drama haha. No infidelity for me – I could write it for you though! ©        Ditch-friendly but would prefer ya didn’t, ya know? ©        Terrible sues. Long lost sister twin to Sasuke/Naruto with the rinnegan in one eye and the byakugan in another and summons dragons and brings back the dead are not allowed in my inbox. Flaws. Balance. Strength is awesome, but OP is not. absolute yes!! ©        Feel free to hit me up to chat! About the roleplay, your life, whatever. IM and emails are totes cool. 6: ©        I’m always down to write triangles or more! I don’t always ask for them myself depending on the universe/fandom, but I do enjoy writing them! ©        Let me know if you have specific desires for your love interest/side! I am here to indulge you, if you grant me the same! ©        I have never done crossovers, but might be interested in trying my hand if that’s something you want. Just talk to me about it! ©        Please!! Let me!! Know!! Your!! Smut!! Pref!! My smut key is below:

Green: fluffy, flowery language; no explicit mention of parts

Yellow: euphemisms for parts and actions, moderate description

Red: explicit words and description

just fyi: I’m fine with green or above but tend to default yellow if you don’t tell me otherwise. I’m also super okay with red, just want to be considerate of your level of comfort. :) Cool beans, onto the really good stuff: cravings: ©        Death Note (Matt) Ø  Canon verse, alt timeline*** §   mafia plot involved Ø  Wammy Academy** Ø  Wammy’s House Ø  Arranged Marriage ©        Bleach (Ukitake) Ø  Canon verse, canon timeline Ø  Canon verse, alt timeline*** §   arranged marriage plot involved! Ø  Modern AU §   Mafia/gang §   Business/corporate §   University §   Academy Setting ©        Naruto: Shippuden (Kiba) Ø  Canon verse, alt timeline** Ø  Modern AU §   Mafia/gang §   Business/Corporate §   Konoha Academy*** §   University §   Ninja Academy (?) §   Marriage (arranged or not)* §   Summer AU!!*** ©        Boku no/My Hero Academia (Shoto) Ø  Canon verse, alt timeline** Ø  Alternate Universe other fandoms I can play for you: Ø  Attack on Titan Ø  Inuyasha Ø  GANGSTA! Ø  Hunter x Hunter Ø  Tokyo Ghoul Ø  Ouran High School Host Club Ø  Full Metal Alchemist Ø  Resident Evil [games] Ø  Dynasty/Samurai Warriors (+Orochi) Ø  Sailor Moon Ø  Cowboy Bebop Ø  Yu-Gi-Oh! Ø  Basilisk note: these fandoms I haven’t played before/in a while but am familiar with. I am always okay with taking suggestions to brush up/watch other things you might be interested in doing! Just let me know! Also feel free to ask about things not on this list!! a note on originals: I would love some psych terror, but open to hearing any and all suggestions. I am admittedly particular about originals just because they are very time consuming to create, but come at me! I’m into all kinds of things. contact me: Thanks for reading so far! If you think you might be interested in roleplaying with me, please drop me a line at: [email protected] . I would love to hear from you! Please include the following items in your email!: Ø  Your name/nickname/penname (whatever you want me to call you) Ø  Your age/age range (18+, 20+, 21+ w/e) Ø  Your timezone/rough availability just so I have an idea Ø  What you’re interested in playing & love interest Ø  Your deal breakers! Things you are absolutely inflexible on so we know if we’ll be compatible. Ø  *cough* your smut color *cough* Ø  If your feeling generous, your fav song or show or movie! I love finding some new tunes and getting to know you. 😊 Ø  Whatever else you’d like to include, it’s your world man I hope to hear from you lovely bugs soon!

#multiple paragraph #para #semipara #long term #email #submission

[fyrapartnersearch]

seeking long-term partner for anime/manga 1x1

You can call be Quaz! Read on for the good stuff;

a bit about me:

©        21, female

©        CST timezone

©        7 yrs experience

©        email mostly, gdoc friendly

©        multi-para, 3rd person writing style

©        loves OOC! Be my friend pls <3

 my thoughts on:

©        Replies: I’m very excited for some fun and engaging roleplays! A lot of partners are swamped for the season and I’m really looking for some one who can get out at least 1 reply a week or so.

©        Effort: Let’s shoot for equal effort please. I am not at all interested in partners looking only to play out their own halves without effort going into mine. No Bueno, friendos. Quickest way to get me to drop a roleplay.

©        Character Division: I’m usually pretty gung-ho about juggling characters but I don’t have the skills to play them all, so lets try to divvy them up pretty equally!

©        Age: looking for someone 18+!! I enjoy mature themes, but generally okay with fading to black if you prefer. There will most likely be mentions/implied sex though either way, so if you aren’t cool with that I am not the partner for you. Similarly, I’d like all characters engaged in romantic plots to be at least 16 for similarly aged charas, 17+ for any (student/intern/whatever x teach/boss/whatev) plots, thanks.

©        Universes: I am mostly looking for fandom OC X CANON roleplays at this time, which will be mentioned below. Some originals can be workable though. Usually willing to split roleplays between fandoms for your cravings too!

©        Genres: I like romance, angst, action, adventure, drama, and slice of life (so long as those other elements are included, straight sol gets boring real fast). Open to others of course!

©        Characterization: In-character characters unless asked otherwise! Love interests are love interests for a reason haha (which is totally just bc they’re hot sometimes ofc but I digress)

©        Misc: DOUBLING IS A MUST FOR FANDOM ROLEPLAYS. I am okay with stacked single-emails, or two separate threads, or whatever! Just must double!! Also, I can’t write m/m but m/f and f/f is fine. All of my fandom pairings will be m/f.

 absolute nos:

©        Dropping my side completely???  I’m simply not replying to these emails lmao

©        Bestiality, water sports, bathroom play, incest, PWP, pedophilia, vore, torture porn, snuff

©        Ditch-friendly but would prefer ya didn’t, ya know? Just let me know you don’t want to play anymore, promise I’m chill!

©        Terrible sues. Long lost sister twin to Sasuke/Naruto with the rinnegan in one eye, the byakugan in yje other, and summons dragons  are not allowed in my sandbox. SELF INSERT OCS ARE FINE! Just not sues please!

 absolute yes!!

©        Feel free to hit me up to chat! About the roleplay, your life, whatever. IM and emails are totes cool. 6:

©        I’m always down to write triangles or more! I don’t always ask for them myself depending on the universe/fandom, but I do enjoy writing them!

©        Let me know if you have specific desires for your love interest/side! I am here to indulge you, if you grant me the same!

©        I have never done crossovers, but might be interested in trying my hand if that’s something you want. Just talk to me about it!

©        Please!! Let me!! Know!! Your!! Smut!! Pref!! My smut key is below:

Green: fluffy, flowery language; no explicit mention of parts

Yellow: euphemisms for parts and actions, moderate description

Red: explicit words and description

just fyi: I’m fine with green or above but tend to default yellow if you don’t tell me otherwise. I’m also super okay with red, just want to be considerate of your level of comfort. :)

  Cool beans, onto the really good stuff:

 cravings:

©        Death Note (Matt)

Canon verse, alt timeline**

mafia plot involved

Wammy Academy*** 

Wammy’s House 

Arranged Marriage**

©        Bleach (Ukitake)

Canon verse, canon timeline

Canon verse, alt timeline**

arranged marriage plot involved

Modern AU? 

Mafia/gang

Business/corporate

University

Academy Setting

©        Naruto: Shippuden (Kiba)

Canon verse, alt timeline**

Modern AU

Mafia/gang

Business/Corporate

High School***

University

Ninja Academy (?)

Marriage (arranged or not)*

Summer camp AU!!***

©        Boku no/My Hero Academia (Shoto)

Canon verse, alt timeline**

Alternate Universe

other fandoms I can play for you:

Attack on Titan

Inuyasha

GANGSTA!

Hunter x Hunter

Tokyo Ghoul

Ouran High School Host Club

Full Metal Alchemist

Resident Evil [games]

Dynasty/Samurai Warriors (Orochi)

Sailor Moon

Cowboy Bebop

Yu-Gi-Oh!

Basilisk

Kingdom Hearts/Disney

note: these fandoms I haven’t played before/in a while but am familiar with. I am always okay with taking suggestions to brush up/watch other things you might be interested in doing! Just let me know! Also feel free to ask about things not on this list!!

contact me:  

Thanks for reading so far! If you think you might be interested in roleplaying with me, please drop me a line at: [email protected] . I would love to hear from you! Please include the following items in your email!:

Your name/nickname/penname (whatever you want me to call you)

Your age/age range (18+, 20+, 21+ w/e)

Your timezone/rough availability just so I have an idea

What you’re interested in playing & love interest

Your deal breakers! Things you are absolutely inflexible on so we know if we’ll be compatible.

*cough* your smut color *cough*

If your feeling generous, your fav song or show or movie! I love finding some new tunes. 😊

Whatever else you’d like to include, it’s your world man

I hope to hear from you soon! <3 

#multiple paragraph #para #semipara #long term #email #submission