Star Trek Is Great Because The Episode I Watched Last Night Was Like: Have We As Humans Progressed To

Spock realizing "You'd make a splendid computer, Mr. Spock" is one of the bestest things anybody told him. I'M FEELING UNWELL. JAMES T. KIRK I'M TIRED OF YOUR EQUAL PARTS FLIRTING AND TEASING. JUST TELL THE MAN YOU LOVE HIM.

You know what else drives me crazy about The Naked Time? This exchange:

It isn't just because of Spock saying, "Jim, when I feel friendship for you, I am ashamed" or "Understand, Jim. I've spent a whole lifetime learning to hide my feelings." Although, that absolutely is part of it, the fact that Spock is locked into his regret over not telling his mother he loved her and his shame at realizing that, despite all his work to adhere to Vulcan principles, he still feels love. It's that gap between duty versus desire, between expectations versus wants, and what remains in spite of the pressure. (I realize his words parallel a love confession in any other context, between any heterosexual couple, and that fandom looks to his shame as a confirmation of internalized homophobia, but the biggest issue for Spock is that love, sorrow, shame--all powerful emotions--still exist for him. He is not a Vulcan if he feels these emotions and gives into them. He is only a half-Vulcan and half-Human, caught between worlds and the judgments and expectations of two very different societies.)

It's because Kirk changes his phrasing of "We've got to risk a full-power start!" to, "We've got to risk implosion!" Implosion, like many words, holds multiple meanings. The intended meaning is "a violent collapsing inwards," the opposite of explosion. But implosion can mean integration, a coming together towards a single center point. We've got to risk coming together. We've got to risk integration. And Spock responds, "It's never been done." They repeat these lines twice. Repetition is a device to call attention in writing. Why have Kirk say they have to risk a full-power start twice before only to change it to implosion and repeat it twice? The two phrases mean something different, but it's important enough to bear repeating. (One could argue it is sloppy writing, or perhaps a case of actors failing to remember their lines, but what are the odds it was either of those, especially with someone as thoughtful as Leonard Nimoy. Either a writer is a professional who understands the power of words, or everything is somehow coincidental, holds no actual meaning, and writers don't think carefully about word choice and meaning, especially in an era where nuance can make or break a story on the screen.)

In the 1960s, during the time of the Hays Code, of course, two men couldn't be together as a couple on TV or in film, not even in space, in a time set centuries beyond our present. But damn if the dialogue can not hint at it, dance around it in plain sight. Again, Kirk and Spock's relationship must exist in the margins, between the lines, encased in nuance and multiple meanings, because to use explicitly clear phrasing would mean it all gets cut.

Hence, this bit of dialogue. The slaps become Spock catching Kirk's hand and holding it steady--direct sustained contact, a coming together, implosion. Spock is torn between regret and shame and love, while Kirk shouts about the ship being destroyed and ending the lives of the crew, their shared duty to the ship. The dialogue is Spock's turmoil writ large--do what must be done, accept two separate halves becoming a whole (is it Spock's two halves or Kirk and Spock? I'll leave that up to you), or remain apart and give into despair. But Kirk tells him their only chance is to risk implosion, to come together, and they have to take that chance.

I want someone to write what would’ve happened if Logan hadn’t managed to break the door down when he did and Wade did manage to grab the other thingy (my brains blanking pls forgive me) and like Logan having to deal with being the anchor person in a whole new world without anyone again

just finished city on the edge of forever and i know we all talk about "by his side, as you always have been and always will be" yeah yeah yeah i too choked on raw yearning when she said that but

EVEN WHEN HE DOESN'T SAY IT, HE DOES?

insane. it's about captain but also about love. this line is the original version of "officer when he's angry with you and detective when he's not" -- love, as loyalty or devotion or service or care or effort or any of the numerous behaviors we come to associate with spock, underlies every instance he ever calls him captain, and here, we see with edith that he even means it when he doesn't. "if I let go of a hammer on a planet that has a positive gravity, I need not see it fall to know that it has in fact fallen" he need not even call him by name to know that everything he DOES is a revelation of care!!!!!!! calling him captain as a love confession, my god. who needs romance when we have duty.

its the way spock closes his eyes when kirk says "you've been called the best first officer in the fleet" like he knows he's trying to tell him he needs him without saying that and the mask of professionalism is unbearable. and the way he follows it up with "that's an enormous asset to me" with way too much emphasis and way too much restraint just for the love of god. the secrecy of it all and the mutual understanding and the pleading pleading pleading and neither of them can say it out loud

Rewatched the Naked Time for Spock in that inner black t-shirt looking hot as fuck Sulu going absolute bonkers fencing and looking pretty Riley being an Irish comedian & performer Spock getting frustrated and angry and raising his voice and continuing being hot LOVE MANKIND Uhura's "Sorry, neither" to Sulu's "I'll protect you fair maiden" Chapel's beautiful bittersweet confession to Spock Spock finally releasing his repressed gay emo self and crying prettily Kirk slapping Spock to get him out of it yet him basically confessing to Kirk and Kirk's whole sad as fuck and iconic monologue and Shatner's funny and amazing acting "loVE" Spock in fact getting out of it thanks to Kirk's slaps and maybe also heartbreak and them successfuly fucking around and finding out going back in time. Absolutely amazing tos experience

it’s the fact that ed doesn’t know. he doesn’t know that badminton kidnapped stede with the intent to kill him. he doesn’t know that stede was so filled with self-hatred that he ran back home because he believed what badminton said: that he defiled beautiful things. and ed is the most beautiful thing he knows of. ed doesn’t know that stede is completely in love with him and knows it now. ed doesn’t know stede concocted the most elaborate and ridiculous fuckery (with the help of his awesome wife) to fake his death just so he could sail off and find ed and be with him forever. because faking your death means you have no intention of ever coming back; stede faking his death was a commitment to ed. and ed doesn’t know that stede is waxing poetic about him and staring at the moon thinking about him and being oh so in love with him.

instead, ed thinks stede lied to him about ed making him happy. he thinks stede lied to him about how much he cared for him. he thinks stede just up and left, because he’s ed and no one good stays for him.

I'm convinced that Snow was the one who came up with the "rule change" in THG (idc what the movie did with it--they didn't know TBOSAS and it was less than convincing they way they did it).

Just think about it. We start off the Games with Katniss's courageous action volunteering for her younger sister. Then Peeta did something radical. He decided to follow through on his declaration of love to Katniss and did everything he could in the arena to save her. Getting sponsors, teaming up with the Careers, getting Katniss to leave and fighting Cato for her. Can you imagine what that was doing in the Capitol? In the Districts? How could you watch someone do that and not hope for a happy ending, even as Peeta lay dying in the mud, whispering Katniss's name?

And then Katniss teams up with Rue and is devastated by her death. She stays with her, sings to her, until she dies. Bolstered by Peeta's words about not being a piece in their games and finally getting what he means, she decorates Rue with flowers. She honors her life and her unnecessary death. District 11 recognizes this and even though they have another tribute alive in the Games, send Katniss the bread.

In Snow's mind, everything about the games is starting to crack. Young love being selfless, sisterly affection defying the Capitol, comradery fostering between districts. He simply can't let it go on. He has to remind people in the Capitol and the Districts that this is not human nature. He is going to prove that. So he tells Seneca Crane to announce the rule change.

He expects Cato and Clove to make it to the final two. In their new advantage, they will become a deadly, mostly healthy team. Meanwhile, Snow can see that Katniss doesn't hold the same care for Peeta that he does for her (she had tried to kill him with tracker jackers, after all). Even if she goes to find him, she'll abandon him once it gets too hard, too dangerous. The hope of love triumphing will be met with annoyance at his injuries and agreeing to stay behind and not get his medicine. And even if she does, he'll still be too injured to truly be useful.

But things go awry. Thresh saves Katniss because of her kindness to a little girl he, too, saw as a younger sister. He kills Clove, bringing about Cato's wrath. And Katniss Everdeen turns out to be a better actress than expected.

No matter, though--once the rule change is revoked, the truth of the stripped-down human nature will come out. Oh, Peeta will throw out the ravings of a teenage boy high on hormones, but people will remember how awful they truly are when Katniss puts an arrow through his heart. After all, Snow's made that decision before. His lover or himself. Death in the woods or life with riches in the Capitol. It's easy, really, to make that decision. And people will remember even the best among them, even she who willingly risked her life to get medicine or volunteer for her sister, won't avoid killing in order to survive herself.

But Katniss calls their bluff, and Peeta goes along with it. They've chosen to protest the Hunger Games with their deaths. Seneca makes the call to announce two winners. Really, Snow was going to kill him either way. Someone has to be publicly accountable for the place he's in now, and Snow certainly isn't going to take credit for his idea. After this, he tries and tries to get Peeta and Katniss to have to kill each other. The Quarter Quell. The hijacking. But it never works. And not just because of them, but because a whole nation finally stands up and says Enough. We won't let this go on anymore. In the end, Snow was entirely wrong because he never truly understood love.

oh mirror spock i think of you constantly....... how jealous do you think he was of og spock for having an actual useful, reliable and cute jim kirk. that one talk og jim and mirror spock had before jim went back to og universe..... oh i know mirror spock thinks about it every night. maybe sometimes he gets slightly satisfied that at least, in another universe, he got to have a jim he could love (and one that could love him back)

when people said they were married, it was an understatement