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100 days of enemy recs: 90, Spock/McCoy
Normally I would not have let two closely related fandom end up next to each other (randomizer or not) but we're coming into the final stretch, and I decided I couldn't leave this one out, even if I already did a cheat version of TOS.
If you want to know why, there's a five part ship manifesto from 2005 that I cannot possibly outdo! (It's a fascinating study in Star Trek fandom of the much earlier web, too.)
I am immensely picky when it comes to Spock/McCoy though, so I didn't really have any recs at the ready. I patched some together at the last minute though I am sure I missed a lot. The Galactic Journey rewatch - where we LARP watching Star Trek as if it's 1966 and none of us have heard of it before - has helped me figure out part of why, though. A lot of people play Spock and McCoy as opposites, where Spock is the emotionless Vulcan and McCoy the emotional Human. Of course we all know that Spock is in fact deeply emotional with great passions, but knowing that being overemotional could be a danger, and growing up in a culture that deeply valued dispassion and logic, he learned to master and suppress his feelings.
What a lot of people seem to miss is that, at least in these early episode, McCoy is his opposite there too! McCoy is always messily emotional and a loud advocate of the value of feelings. But if you look at what he does rather than says - he's the consummate scientist; his first thought to solve any problem is laboratory data; he's at least as often the voice of reason as Spock and he reverts to cold logic in a crisis. He's the first person to pull off a "needs of the many" pointless self-sacrifice move (in Miri). One gets the distinct impression that in McCoy you have someone who is naturally intellectual, whose first instinct when presented with a feeling is to repress it - but he has learned the hard way that logic run amok leads to poor decisions, and growing up in a culture that valued the expression of emotion, he has learned to master the art of emotion and how to use it to temper and control logic. *Extremely* notable here is his role in the "The Naked Time", where an alien pathogen strips everyone down to their core self. McCoy is definitely one of the first infected, via caring for patients (THEY HAVE NO QUARANTINE PROCEDURES) - but while everybody including Spock is having emotional breakdowns and unable to concentrate on their jobs, he locks himself in the lab and calmly sciences it better. His constant spats with Spock aren't because he doesn't have an understanding of logic - it's because he knows on a personal level that logic without emotion is as dangerous as the reverse.
So anyway that's my Spock/McCoy manifesto. (We all know the endgame ship here is Kirk/Spock/McCoy, but S1 really pushes "Kirk is married to his ship", the real TOS OTP, so Spock and McCoy can make do while he works that out with her.)
(Also omg, this is really my first TOS watch with actual good visuals, all of the characters spend so much time giving each other unexplained Significant Looks that beg for explanation, and also making remarks that don't make sense as double entendres but make even less sense if they aren't. It's a show that makes Choices.)
If you want to know why, there's a five part ship manifesto from 2005 that I cannot possibly outdo! (It's a fascinating study in Star Trek fandom of the much earlier web, too.)
I am immensely picky when it comes to Spock/McCoy though, so I didn't really have any recs at the ready. I patched some together at the last minute though I am sure I missed a lot. The Galactic Journey rewatch - where we LARP watching Star Trek as if it's 1966 and none of us have heard of it before - has helped me figure out part of why, though. A lot of people play Spock and McCoy as opposites, where Spock is the emotionless Vulcan and McCoy the emotional Human. Of course we all know that Spock is in fact deeply emotional with great passions, but knowing that being overemotional could be a danger, and growing up in a culture that deeply valued dispassion and logic, he learned to master and suppress his feelings.
What a lot of people seem to miss is that, at least in these early episode, McCoy is his opposite there too! McCoy is always messily emotional and a loud advocate of the value of feelings. But if you look at what he does rather than says - he's the consummate scientist; his first thought to solve any problem is laboratory data; he's at least as often the voice of reason as Spock and he reverts to cold logic in a crisis. He's the first person to pull off a "needs of the many" pointless self-sacrifice move (in Miri). One gets the distinct impression that in McCoy you have someone who is naturally intellectual, whose first instinct when presented with a feeling is to repress it - but he has learned the hard way that logic run amok leads to poor decisions, and growing up in a culture that valued the expression of emotion, he has learned to master the art of emotion and how to use it to temper and control logic. *Extremely* notable here is his role in the "The Naked Time", where an alien pathogen strips everyone down to their core self. McCoy is definitely one of the first infected, via caring for patients (THEY HAVE NO QUARANTINE PROCEDURES) - but while everybody including Spock is having emotional breakdowns and unable to concentrate on their jobs, he locks himself in the lab and calmly sciences it better. His constant spats with Spock aren't because he doesn't have an understanding of logic - it's because he knows on a personal level that logic without emotion is as dangerous as the reverse.
So anyway that's my Spock/McCoy manifesto. (We all know the endgame ship here is Kirk/Spock/McCoy, but S1 really pushes "Kirk is married to his ship", the real TOS OTP, so Spock and McCoy can make do while he works that out with her.)
(Also omg, this is really my first TOS watch with actual good visuals, all of the characters spend so much time giving each other unexplained Significant Looks that beg for explanation, and also making remarks that don't make sense as double entendres but make even less sense if they aren't. It's a show that makes Choices.)
- A Study of Recurring Interpersonal Phenomena Between S'chn T'gai Spock and Leonard Horatio McCoy (2437 words) by therev
Fandom: Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Leonard "Bones" McCoy/Spock
Summary:Question: Could the unique phenomena which occurs between himself and Doctor McCoy actually be the result of mutual attraction? Spock tries to find out the way he knows best: science!
- Surgeon's Mate (4590 words) by belmanoir
Fandom: Star Trek: The Original Series
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Leonard McCoy/Spock, James T. Kirk & Spock
Characters: Leonard McCoy, Spock, James T. Kirk
Additional Tags: Bread and Circuses, Episode Tag
Summary:Spock likes McCoy. McCoy won't take a hint.
- Breaking Point (longish?) by Marcy
This is hosted on the Spock/McCoyote's Den Archive on Tripod. It has explicit sex in it. It's set post-movies and explores the aftermath of the Katra transfer, among other things. You may have to copy-paste or zoom in to read it because the formatting is not, legible. It doesn't have a date but it's pre-2005.
Summary: The first installment in the Kalevala Series. Prequel to A Scream in Vacuum, Ben Tor Katra, and Kalevala. McCoy's life is in shambles. He needs help, and it is up to Spock to help him.
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I've always wondered if part of this is the much slower pacing of 1960s media in general, as well as the fact that TV episodes were literally longer because of fewer commercials (TOS eps are what, 55 minutes long?) so they had all this time and often spent it lingering lovingly over reaction shots in ways that look Extremely Meaningful to a modern eye but might not have been intended that way. Whatever the reason, it certainly does create a Mood when you have shots that seem like they would have been no more than a half-second glance on a modern show, but on TOS you get like 5+ full seconds of McCoy looking at Spock very deeply while doing a wide variety of things with his facial expressions.
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I'd say the Galactic Journey rewatch is a bit anachronistic because we're watching pristine DVD rips on flatscreens, but I suppose we're really mimicking the experience of early Star Trek watch parties, which presumably would have been at the house of whoever had the big color console TV and the really good aerial. Which might explain why early fandom picked up on this stuff too!
The weird one-liner double entendres can't really be explained that way though...
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As an aside, my parents actually met via those Star Trek watch parties. My dad was the one with the fancy color TV. :)
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I definitely think a lot of McCoy's character comes from his having lived through a lot of loss, especially compared to Spock. Spock's had a lot of family drama so they have that in common, but nothing like what McCoy (and Kirk, in a different way) have dealt with. That's definitely one of the things that was very different in AOS!