memes and pon farr

[schmerica]

So I put my name into the fanfiction love meme here. Now, you might be saying to yourself, "pearl, didn't you just post a link to one of those memes yesterday?" And the answer is yes. Yes, I did. But this is a different one, okay? And I'm feeling shameless and pathetic, and I figure just_katarin is already judging me, so a little bit more isn't going to hurt, right? Right.

More Star Trek news: along with "What Little Girls Are Made Of" I've also finished "All My Yesterdays" (which was very Bones/Spock, which I normally don't even see, since I'm not big on the pairings; "Charlie X" (which I HATED); and "The Cloud Minders". That last one I think I enjoyed more than it actually deserved, and I'm not totally sure why. It didn't hurt that Kirk's plan was not only incredibly stupid, but had a IN EPISODE REASON for being so stupid -- and then worked anyway, of course. I'm still feeling very WTF over Spock calmly discussing pon farr with a random chick he just met though, because ... seriously, WTF.

I was commenting in basingstoke's journal yesterday, I think, and we got onto the subject of pon farr, and I was trying to explain how confused the canon on it makes me. The impression I got from Amok Time is that the returning to Vulcan is an essential part of the mating drive, over and beyond the fact that that happened to be where Spock's betrothed was. But then in Search For Spock, Spock obviously survives his teenagery thing with Saavik while on Genesis. (Why does pon farr hit teenager-y Spock then, anyway? Amok Time is his first in his original body, and he's much older, even comments he thought it might pass him by completely, since he's half-human.) But if Vulcan is directly connected with pon farr, doesn't that mean every Vulcan in the reboot universe is kind of screwed?

ANYWAY. Did you guys know it's DECEMBER already? I know, right? fox1013 is turning 25 on Tuesday, and I'm turning 25 the Sunday after that. In less than four weeks I have a happy_coconut! Now if only I had a job visible in the distance, things would be good.

Comments

[jezrana.livejournal.com]

It's been a while since I watched Amok Time, but did Spock have to return to Vulcan to be on the planet itself, or did he have to return to Vulcan because that's where T'Pring was?

ETA: Or I could actually read your post more carefully and see that you addressed that. Um. It's early?

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

Hee, yeah, exactly! This is the part in Amok Time that made me think it was more than just T'Pring being there:

SPOCK: No. No. It is not. We shield it with ritual and customs shrouded in antiquity. You humans have no conception. It strips our minds from us. It brings a madness which rips away our veneer of civilisation. It is the pon farr. The time of mating. There are precedents in nature, Captain. The giant eelbirds of Regulus Five, once each eleven years they must return to the caverns where they hatched. On your Earth, the salmon. They must return to that one stream where they were born, to spawn or die in trying.
KIRK: But you're not a fish, Mister Spock. You're
SPOCK: No. Nor am I a man. I'm a Vulcan. I'd hoped I would be spared this, but the ancient drives are too strong. Eventually, they catch up with us, and we are driven by forces we cannot control to return home and take a wife. Or die.
KIRK: I haven't heard a word you've said, and I'll get you to Vulcan somehow.

So. I dunno!

[laughingacademy.livejournal.com]

Is "The Cloud Minders" the one with Bespin the floating city, where Kirk causes a cave-in for great justice? What was the stupid part? (Aside from the obvious ho-shit-we're-gonna-asphyxiate issue.)

Also, now I’m picturing the remnants of the Vulcan species as salmon, or maybe penguins, periodically returning to the place where their home planet used to be to spawn.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

Once the cave-in happens, Kirk's plan consists of transporting the cloud city leader guy down to the cave to, so he, Kirk and the rebel girl can all sit around there until the gas turns them all stupid, thus proving Kirk is right. That is the entire plan: sit around inhaling stupid gas.

[laughingacademy.livejournal.com]

That is the entire plan: sit around inhaling stupid gas.

Sounds like college. :)

I guess it's more dramatic than, say, collecting gas from the mines and running experiments in a lab?

Also, omigod, I forgot that Spock actually compares Vulcans in the throes of pon farr to salmon.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

Well, McCoy had already run experiments on the gas and everything proving it makes you stupid, but neither of the forces on the planet believed them.

The thing is, Kirk comes up with the plan after he's already been in the mines wiht the gas for a while, so it totally does make sense in context.

[just-katarin.livejournal.com]

At least you already know I'm judging you, so it won't be a surprise. And at least this doesn't have ginormous, special font and color coding done to it, so if I were just glancing through my flist, I wouldn't be able to immediately see that it was a meme (seriously, pearl. Yesterday a quick glance at my flist while at work meant I had to ?skip=20 until I was at an entry without that damn meme. My outrage is totally justified so long as you default assume I'm kind of a lunatic)

I feel like they made some shit up for pon farr and then kept "oh shit"ing over how very little sense that made AT ALL. Like, in Enterprise (which isn't really Trek, IMO so this is probs just some AU shit, rly) T'Pol went into pon farr, and she's a lady. And it was made rly hobvious that the ladies weren't in pon farr, it was a think that happened to dudes that ladies could accept or reject. (I blame how T'Pol was constantly oversexualized and also that sounds rly gross and rapey in way I'm weirdly okay with when it's happening to a dude. :/)

Fanon (and sort-of canon, like some of the encyclopedias) has us believe that the return to Vulcan is specifically because that is where their intended bondmate is. After that, they would only have to return to their bondmate. (This is sort-of made actual canon in Voyager when Tuvok manages to make his way through pon farr by using a hologram of his mate (how fucking creepy is that shit?))

Fanwank of the Search for Spock business with Savik says that it's the fuckery of the Genesis planet that causes his maturity to go apeshit, but the obvious answer is that they wanted to sex it up a bit and weren't able to go back in time and get young!Leonard Nimoy to play 30 year old Spock.

New Trek fanwank on the how the destruction of Vulcan is gonna fuck with pon farr is mostly focused on how since roughly a bajillion Vulcans died, shit-tons of Vulcans are now without bondmates and that's gonna make things really fucked when males start going into pon farr. Because the entire intent behind the bondmate thing happened when Vulcan switched to following the teachings of Surak and decided that instead of killing in order to mate, they'd make it so they already had someone they were "meant" to bond with.

... wow, I've never felt like more of a ginormous geek than I do right now.


AND IN JANUARY YOU GET ME TOO!!!!

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

This comment just makes me MORE EXCITED to get you!!! And I do default assume you're kind of a lunatic, but ILU for it!

And your comment makes sense -- as much sense as any of it -- but I am kind of sad anyway, because I kinda liked the returning-to-home aspect of the pon farr. Oh well!

I also want much more new Trek stuff about how all the remaining Vulcans have psychic migraines for, like, years from feeling the deaths of so many of their people, considering how TOS Spock reacting to feel 400 of them die in that one episode. (Quinto!Spock's actions in the movie makes so much more sense with that in mind, too.)

[just-katarin.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I step back from my geekery and shake my head at myself because DAMN am I a ginormous geek! Also I'm glad you assume that because srsly, it's kinda true.

Oh for sure, if you take into account the fact that Spock was never the best Vulcan to begin with, was totally an AWFUL Vulcan when it came to his momma and then toss in the fact that his entire fucking planet died and he felt all of that, his insane-o actions in the movie make ALL THE SENSE. And then it almost seems like Kirk provoking him to choke him made a bit of sense too (but mostly only if you assume Kirk's sort of into that sort of thing or something). The one thing it DOESN'T explain, is why everyone on the bridge just sort of WATCHED while Spock tried to kill Kirk. So I assume Kirk was sort of a jerk in the Academy, not in a bully sort of way, but in that awful, gets-rly-good-grades-without-ever-cracking-a-book-or-caring-at-all sort of way so everyone was like "YES!" just a bit inside. LOL my thoughts on New Trek, let me show you them!

(ugh! I totes got these icons for the express purpose of talking Trek and then FORGOT TO USE ONE!)

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

When I watched the movie I felt kind of "...really?" about some of the Spock stuff, even with his mommy issues, but keeping in mind the HUGE PSYCHIC REVERBERATION of feeling 5 billion individual deaths makes me feel a lot better about it, I have to admit.

KATARIN WHEN YOU COME WE SHOULD WATCH NEW TREK AND TALK ABOUT WHAT HOTASSES-SLASH-DICKS EVERYBODY IS.

[just-katarin.livejournal.com]

WE NEED CHOCOLATE ICE CREAM AND COCONUT RUM TO MAKE IT COMPLETE! BUT MY ANSWER IS YYY!

[athousanderrors.livejournal.com]

in that awful, gets-rly-good-grades-without-ever-cracking-a-book-or-caring-at-all sort of way so everyone was like "YES!" just a bit inside.

THIS. Yes. I can't remember the exact quote, but I'm sure Bones says something along the lines of trying really hard to remember why he liked Kirk. Or something. >.> I AM LAME AND CAN'T REMEMBER THINGS. WORK SMOOSHED MY BRAIN.

ANYway, *disappears again*

[starfishchick]

his insane-o actions in the movie make ALL THE SENSE. And then it almost seems like Kirk provoking him to choke him made a bit of sense too (but mostly only if you assume Kirk's sort of into that sort of thing or something).

Which he CLEARLY is. I mean. Hi.

I assume Kirk was sort of a jerk in the Academy, not in a bully sort of way, but in that awful, gets-rly-good-grades-without-ever-cracking-a-book-or-caring-at-all sort of way so everyone was like "YES!" just a bit inside.

YOUR THOUGHTS ON NEW TREK KIRK, I APPROVE OF THEM!!!

[fox1013.livejournal.com]

ERICA WE HAS A BIRTHDAY!~

Well, we has two birthdays. But practically one! :D? :D?

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

:DDDD

[pearldrop.livejournal.com]

Do you have birthday plans yet? I would like to treat you to dinner! If you do have plans that night, is there another night that would work?

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

That sounds awesome!!!

[neery.livejournal.com]

I think maybe the mating drive is just forcing you to go wherever your partner is, but the ritual and customs surrounding pon farr require you to be on Vulcan? So maybe the whole "the salmon must return to that one stream where they were born" thing is more about the fact that it's unthinkable to have pon farr on another planet, surrounded by aliens, without all the rituals that are supposed to surround it? Complicated in Spock's case by the fact that T'Pring is on Vulcan, so the instinctual mating drive and his, i don't know, sense of propriety and rituals are both forcing him to go home.

So in the New!Trek verse, I guess the Vulcans could just set up their ritual pon farr fighting arenas and God knows what else is required, and that would work, too, just as long as it's a Vulcan place where outsiders aren't welcome.

Or they really do need to go wherever they were born, and the entire rest of the Vulcan race is going to get wiped out during the next seven years.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I like the needing to go back to Vulcan thing so much, with the geopgraphy being key, but I think Spock was just speaking metaphorically there.

But if it WAS, I'm sure Spock Prime could fix it in reboot universe with his fancy future science!

[fleurdeliser.livejournal.com]

This post fills me with joy. I have nothing to add. :)

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

:DDD