cimorene

this episode contains canon essential to any spock slash as well as the idea that launched a thousand lame spin-offs in other fandoms: the pon farr, the vulcan time of mating, in which male vulcans go into heat and become literally insane. what's it all about? instead of doing my usual word-for-word transcriptions of favourite scenes, this time i've made a recap of the entire episode. the dialogue's a mixture of real dialogue, paraphrases, and jokes. and i had waaaay too much fun making it.

there are a looooooot of smallish caps behind this cut (over 50), and any one of them will link you to the amok time gallery, which has 122 images in all.

kirk didn't believe mccoy at first that something was wrong with spock, but then they saw him yell at chapel and fling a bowl of soup into the wall, so he decides to have a talk.

he goes to see him and spock asks if they can divert to vulcan but refuses to answer any questions. kirk's very "umm... ohhhhhkay" throughout the scene, but he can tell something's wrong and spock needs the delicate touch. he tries to be soothing.

then on the bridge he strikes a trademarked manly and heterosexual pose.

starfleet command calls and orders them not to go to vulcan. it wants them on hand for an official ceremony on some random planet instead.

KIRK: that starfleet command. what assholes, but what are you gonna do? good thing you and i have lots of practise doing whatever they order and we aren't going to randomly flip out over missing one eensy little mysteriously urgent vacation.
SPOCK: [stoic silence]

but when he's alone in his room, kirk can't bear the thought of postponing spock's vacation. granted, other than how he's acting a little weird they have no reason to suppose he hasn't just developed a craving for a good home-cooked meal, but he's never asked kirk for anything before and kirk wants to prove he would be a good boyfriend. "if i ever DO get around to asking spock to date me," kirk thinks, "what if he remembers this and throws it in my face? what if he's like, 'you wouldn't even let me go to vulcan the one time i experienced a killer craving for plomeek icecream'?" just thinking about it gives kirk a headache.

but when he goes to disobey his orders and take spock there anyway he finds out spock has already turned the ship around himself.

when they next find themselves alone together in the turbolift, kirk broaches the subject.

spock is acting like he's hypnotised, but he seems to have just enough grip on reality to say that he believes he turned the ship around but he doesn't have any recollection of doing it. surprisingly enough, at this point kirk doesn't start worrying about mind control or hypnosis. i'm just going to go with the explanation that he's subconsciously using his psychic powers.

but hypnotised or not, something is definitely wrong with spock. so they go to his quarters and kirk asks him what's wrong again. spock's fidgeting and his hand is shaking, which is REALLY unusual.

kirk reaches out and grabs it.

and stares down at it, trying hard not to look as weirded out as he feels.

so he finally manages to get spock to admit that something's up.

SPOCK: it has to do with biology.

KIRK: what kind of biology--?

SPOCK: [interrupting] VULCAN biology.
KIRK: uh... huh.

KIRK: well, spock, it's okay, it happens to the birds and the bees!
SPOCK: the birds and the bees, captain, are not vulcans.

SPOCK: do you know how vulcans choose their mates?

KIRK: (what, was all this seriously just to ask me out?) uh, well, i suppose the rest of us always just assumed it was done with a big helping of logic?

SPOCK: nope. we seem quiet, but we're animals in the sack.
KIRK: i can see why you'd be upset.
SPOCK: it's terrible! hormones take over! it's like we can't even think! we get random hard-ons, and pubic hair, and we have wet dreams, and develop an insatiable sexual appetite! we get an incredible refractory period and if we don't have sex, we have to jerk off like ten times a day!
KIRK: wow... tell me more.
SPOCK: yes! more terrible than you can even imagine!

KIRK: well, there's obviously something you aren't telling me, because otherwise why would you mention mates and sex like that and then NOT ask me out? so, vulcan, here we come.

later, someone pages him and spock smashes in his terminal screen, demonstrating two things:

1) his hormones really are haywire and
2) vulcans have 7x human strength.

then he asks mccoy and kirk to come down to the planet with him for a ceremony where you're supposed to bring your closest friends. they're both pleased to be asked. mccoy is almost speechless.

then they get to the bridge and this transmission from vulcan comes on the viewscreen: a vulcan girl with a bizarre hairdo reciting what sounds like the beginning of one of those mensa riddles.

UHURA: spock, she's gorgeous, and she's wearing even more eyeshadow than you and i put together. who is that?
SPOCK: she is t'pring, my wife.

KIRK: hah, spock totally prefers classy poetry, and silver turtleneck? puh-lease. bitch is as good as divorced.

so the big three beam down into a kinda stonehenge thing in the desert. all the sand and rocks are red. then in comes a procession with an old woman on a litter, and kirk reveals himself to be a fanboy.

KIRK: do you know who that is? it's t'pau! the only person to ever turn down a seat on the federation council and one seriously fabulous diva! all of vulcan, in one package!

t'pau throws up some signs to her homie. in fanon they say she's spock's grandmother, but i bet he's her favourite godson or something.

so it's time for the wedding to start but t'pring has an objection and she stops spock from ringing the Gong of Het.

which makes him go googly-eyed with crazy.

kirk practises his manly heterosexual poses.

spock's still crazy.

t'pring chooses kirk as her champion to fight spock for her. bones is skeptical as usual (and spock tries to protest through the crazy by appealing to t'pau, but he isn't very coherent), but kirk thinks it's a great idea.

aaaaand spock is still crazy.

but like, he still hopes to date spock some day, so he'd better beat him and make sure he doesn't get the girl.<

but then they hand them giant round axey things and t'pau says that of course it's a fight to the death.

of course.

see what puberty's like, kids?

...which is to say, you can defeat your sexual desire for girls by wrestling with your best friends. (you see a lot of this from teenaged boys. now you know why.)

oops. kirk is dead.

and the "blood fever" (plak tow) is miraculously broken. spock snaps back to himself the instant his hormones sense the wrestling is over... and he's obviously a bit upset.

SPOCK: t'pring, explain.
T'PRING: specify.

SPOCK: uh, i don't know, why you got the captain killed?
T'PRING: oh. i've been having an affair with this cross-eyed joker. i figured, if i challenged and your boyfriend won he wouldn't want me cause he's gay for you and if you won you wouldn't want me because you'd be pissed. but if by some misfortune you did i could resign myself to having your title and fortune and my sugar pie while you were off running around the galaxy with your boyfriend.
SPOCK: and you prefer the cross-eyed hick to me because?
T'PRING: one, he's here. two, he may be cross-eyed but at least he's not gay for the captain of his intergalactic spacecraft, you know what i'm sayin'?
SPOCK: logical. flawlessly logical.

T'PRING: snap.

so spock beams back up and tells mccoy to arrest him, and keeps right on telling him to turn command over to so and so even when mccoy's like "uhhhh, spock..."

and then kirk sneaks in behind him and is all, "don't you think you'd better ask me about that first?"

spock is speechless with disbelief; kirk swaggers around him, grinning like a lunatic.

SPOCK: JIM!

spock whips around, grabs him,

spins him, grabs the other arm,

and completely twirls him around in what looks like a pretty nifty dance move. his grin is blinding.

MCCOY: i love my best friends.
CHAPEL: goddammit, you were right, he really IS gay.
MCCOY: twenty bucks, baby.

then spock realises there's an audience.

SPOCK: um.

KIRK: i'm free saturda--
SPOCK: wow, captain, how nice to see you're not dead. logically nice i mean. fortunate. good. for the. ship. and stuff.

KIRK: ...?

KIRK: so that emotional outburst...?

SPOCK: merely my overwhelming relief that starfleet didn't lose its finest captain.

(and i do mean finest.)

MCCOY: so you're going to tell me you weren't just so excited you practically made out with him here in the infirmary in front of god, nurse chapel and everybody?