...oh, *fuck*. in a good way. sort of.

[ysobel]

Fic babble, spoilers for rebootverse stuff and also for the K/S thing I'm maybe writing.

So my brain has latched on to the idea of Reboot Kirk/Spock -- not as a pairing (TOSverse, yes, but Rebootverse is Spock/Uhura and Kirk/McCoy, with occasional diversions to Kirk/Sulu thanks to helens78) but as a kind of one-off smut thing. Except I couldn't figure out how, because I can't see Spock wanting sex with Kirk given that he's in a relationship with Uhura.

And then the whole pon farr thing came to mind. In the sense that Kirk could plausibly know about it thanks to his mind meld with Spock Prime, and so could go to Spock and be all "um, I know what the deal is, I know you guys don't talk about this, and so you're probably not even going to tell Uhura, but I kinda don't want you to die, so, uh, sex, k?"

But naturally I had to rewatch Amok Time. (I know pon farr has been addressed in other areas, with probably conflicting information, but AT is a good glimpse of Spock's understanding of the situation.)

And, um.

Spock describes pon farr as not just the need to mate, but the need to *return home* and do so.

Which kind of means that the surviving Vulcans are a little fucked.

(Okay, plausibly it's just betrothed-but-not-married couples that have to return home, and so reboot!Spock, who probably wasn't a suitable betrothal candidate given the Vulcan xenophobia especially towards humans, just has to, er, mate. But.)

Yeah. This ... is going to be interesting.

Comments

[niqaeli]

Well -- consider that the Romulans, who share Vulcan ancestry and therefore presumably the same biological drive of pon farr, obviously don't need to return home to Vulcan to mate.

I suspect it's going to fucking suck to be the surviving Vulcans in a lot, lot, lot of ways, but I also suspect they'll survive.

(It'd probably be a lot easier for them to survive if they were less fucking irrational about pon farr and keeping it secret and bothered to actually fucking study the biology of it and therefore, you know, could develop treatments and ways of dealing with it. OH VULCAN. *pets them all*)

[ysobel]

Hmm good point. And I suspect some of the "must return *home* zomg" is more about blind tradition (and about the fact that Spock was, y'know, almost-married), and also about Spock being obsessively over-Vulcan-ing.

(the Vulcans are so *cute* with their "oh hai we are logical, just ignore the illogical stuff *shuffles it under carpet*" thing.)

[niqaeli]

Heh. Yeah. I wonder if it's more -- must return home to my mate. And T'Pring was, well, on Vulcan, so Vulcan is where he was driven to.

They're totally adorable. And by that I mean frustrating as hell! But also, yes, cute.

I maintain that if you don't go with Duane's passions mastery for the proper translation of what generally gets called logic, I feel that rationality is a good runner-up. Because dammit, what they do is strive to not be ruled by their emotions and passions; logic is a tool they use in pursuit of said rationality.

But I got nothing for the utter irrationality that all of them exhibit about the topic of pon farr. It's like their one blind spot, where they are all pretty much ruled by the emotion of shame. *g*

*pets them*

[pauamma]

Hmm, Spock had to return to Vulcan because that's where T'Pring was. It may be that bonded Vulcans only need to go where their mate is, not necessarily to Vulcan. And unbonded Vulcans, if subject to pon farr at all, might be able to make do with any nearby Vulcan and thus not need to go anywhere.

[gchick]

On the other hand, wrt the returning thing, Spock Prime does say that he's found a suitable planet for resettlement. Who's to say that there isn't some kind of Pon-Farr-worthiness clause on the checklist right after the breatheable atmosphere? I mean, he's a man of the world(s). He knows how these things work. He's the one making up the checklist for his future self and the cute blonde who knows everything you can know from a mind meld. THEY NEED EACH OTHER IN WAYS HIS YOUNGER SELF DOES NOT YET REALIZE.

I mean, right?

signed,
HAS NO SHAME LEFT AT ALL

[ysobel]

He's the one making up the checklist for his future self and the cute blonde who knows everything you can know from a mind meld. THEY NEED EACH OTHER IN WAYS HIS YOUNGER SELF DOES NOT YET REALIZE.

Well, duh; this is why he did the mind meld, which, y'know, could have been easily done by vocal explanation except for the part where he was subliminally telling Kirk all he needs to know about his new bff. Including the pon farr thing, which I suspect is even more unspoken-of in the rebootverse, and so Spock Prime *knows* that Spock will need someone (non-Vulcan, or at least non-humanphobic) who knows about the pon farr thing and can deal with it without having to, y'know, *talk*, and who better than James T Kirk, after all?

(ps what is this shame you speak of?)

[azurelunatic]

I'm giggling giddily at this.

[sineala]

Yeah, I was thinking about that the other day. Pon farr is gonna be weird in reboot, huh?

(I mean, it's *all* gonna be weird in reboot, but still.)

Man, I want to write more K/S now...