Rajin & Similitude

[WarpGirl]

Ah well. She did seem to realize he needed help without being told, though the fact that Archer was probably holding the poor guy up might have been a clue. But I watched that just the other night myself and I actually ran that clip at the end twice hoping to see more than I saw. I honestly thought it could have just as easily been any other crewman. But I like your version better.

When she pulled him in sure, but while she was giving him water she was gentle while touching him, not clinical like she was with Archer in Vox Sola. I can tell only about 1000 people have touched me clinically, a lot of hospital stays tells you the difference on sight. Trust me...

[Linda]

This is a cool conversation! You are coming up with things I didn't notice before. Guess I will have to get a big screen TV, lol. We only have a small one.

[Aquarius]

I wanted her to act on it in a rational way, with her mind and heart, not hormones and illicit substances. I KNOW she is in love with him, but that's not the primary motive for her bedding him.

I hear ya, WarpGirl! But I don't know if T'Pol would EVER have the nerve to make a move on Trip WITHOUT the Trellium infuencing her. I think perhaps their little dance might have gone on forever waiting for Trip to be the first one to take steps toward a romantic thing. I DO find it a little odd that the first thing she does after she kisses him is to get naked. Talk about moving things a bit too fast! When she was researching human sexuality didn't she read the part about going to first base, etc? Methinks she had something in mind however, because she WAS nekked under her robe, instead of wearing her cute midriff jammies.

Also - did anyone else notice that when Crpl. Cole came to her for neuropressure she was weaing long sleeves and a high neck little ensemble instead of the satin pjs? She must have saved those for Trip!

Here's my take on it: Trip challenged T'Pol from the beginning, and vice-versa. So, whether they admit it or not, each have come to think of the other as something kind of special by Season Three.

Throw in the neuropressure, and the feelings kind of become hard for either party to ignore.

However, you've got a Vulcan who, under normal circumstances, won't act on it for a number of reasons, among which are he's human, acting on feelings goes against her philosophy of being governed by logic, and so many more. But regardless of all that Vulcan-ness, he does something to her, and it's scary and confusing, and being unfamiliar with Human love and relationships and flirting and all kinds of little cues that suggest someone is interested in you, she feels she has absolutely no confirmation that Trip could feel anything for her--from her perspective, why would he?--so it's a hell of a risk to take in terms of acting on it, and because of Vulcan social norms, she probably feels pretty ashamed of her feelings for him most of the time. Shame is a powerful motivator. More on that later.

On the other hand, you have a Human male who, under normal circumstances, won't act on it for a number of reasons, among which are she's Vulcan, which considering how he felt about Vulcans before is pretty counter-intuitive for him, plus she's the XO, among other things. But regardless of that, face it, she's hot, and being with her does something to him, too. His attempts at hints and flirtations (something about being "ready for a new challenge" as she's about straddling his face, anyone?) fall on deaf, pointed ears; she doesn't respond directly to it, he doesn't quite understand just how intimate neuropressure is or what it means to T'Pol that she's sharing these moments with him, so as far as he knows he doesn't have any kind of confirmation that she feels anything for him, either. He probably thinks that he's kind of crazy for feeling something for her any way, considering how vulnerable he is due to grief over his sister and the whole situation in the Expanse.

So, for a while, you've got two people from totally different species thinking "I guess I care about you more than you care about me."

Until Sim.

For T'Pol's part, she was on the verge of losing Trip so I'm sure she's mentally dealing with a lot of Things Never Said, and then this whole Sim thing comes up, so even though she knows it's completely different, it's almost like she stands to lose Trip twice.

Unlike Trip, Sim has the guts to put all his cards on the table in terms of his feelings for T'Pol, because he's got absolutely nothing to lose: he has only a matter of days to live and really doesn't have time for Things Never Said.

That Sim confesses that he's unsure if these feelings originated with Trip or himself is important, because for T'Pol, this is A) direct confirmation that Sim does have feelings for her, and B) confirmation that Trip could have feelings for her. And these are T'Pol's first baby steps toward acting on those feelings, shame and confusion notwithstanding. Recall how T'Pol got kind of misty when Sim was confessing his (and possibly Trip's) feelings to her: sure, some of that was probably her feeling bad for Sim, but I think it had a lot more to do with regret, because Trip could still die without ever knowing how she felt about him, and that regret started to eclipse any shame she felt over desiring an emotional, illogical, but oh-so-handsome Human.

Now, like I said, shame is a powerful motivator, and is still enough to keep T'Pol reeled in at this point. This is where the Trellium becomes important. Give a human enough alcohol (or any of several other substances), we can become pretty shameless, right? Booze doesn't put thoughts or desires into your head that aren't already there--it didn't make you sleep with that random stranger you met at the bar last night; sober it might've been a fleeting thought you'd never act on, but the booze just turned off that part of your brain that says "Uh, bad idea..." It was great in the moment, but in the morning you're like "Oh crap, what did I do???"

I believe that the Trellium did something similar for T'Pol, and under the circumstances, her using the equivalent of "liquid courage" kind of makes sense. Without it, she really doesn't think she can act on what she feels for Trip without dealing with all the shame. As she came down off her first (and accidental) exposure to Trellium, she realized that under its influence, she can feel all kinds of things without shame. This doesn't change the fact that she's Vulcan and also not quite sure how to go after what she wants, though, so maybe things progress a little slowly at first. She uses the Trellium...just a little...just when she needs it...(early addict rationale there).

Then the Amanda Cole threat surfaces. T'Pol panics; in her mind, she obviously hasn't done enough to capture Trip's attention and keep it. This is where the paranoia of the Trellium kicks in. She tries to deal with it rationally at first, by just having a talk with Trip and asking him to tone it down a bit...but she's still got that sick feeling in her stomach because she's losing him. Memories of Sim, and Trip almost dying, come to the surface, and all the regrets she had about Things Never Said. She resolves to not let it happen again--because it almost did. She's in all-or-nothing mode now. She's committed to a course of action, and tonight's the night, dammit! Screw the cute pj's with the belly shirt; she's full-throttle with nothing on under that robe, probably still a little scared and nervous but also really exhilarated and alive under that relatively calm veneer.

And through the course of that conversation, she gets exactly what she needed all along: confirmation. Trip's attracted to her, and as soon as he's confronted with the idea of another man having feelings for her--even if it's a copy of himself--suddenly her having a cow over his involvement with another woman isn't so funny any more.

Now here's another important thing I've always thought about this scene: since the Trellium is slowly reducing her to her more base nature, like a primitive Vulcan, I'm wondering if the whole "screw the seduction, take me now!" thing was more or less what a Vulcan without logic and emotional suppression would normally do any way, since the implication is that their emotions are bigger and more hardcore than ours any way. The Trellium's role here was more or less so she could experience this without all the shame that was drilled into her all her life, wanting her time with him to be as untainted as possible by this so she could experience him in the purest sense. It makes perfect sense at the time, but...

...like the rest of us who've tied one on the night before and done questionable things, she still has the shame to deal with in the morning. It didn't go away; introducing the substance just hit the "pause button" on it for a while. So we get that scene with the backpedaling, and the subsequent backpedaling on the backpedaling. ("We can still do the neuropressure, right?")

Point being, I don't believe the Trellium "fueled" their sexual encounter. There was already plenty of fuel inside. No, the Trellium was more or less the "permission slip" T'Pol needed to break out of her nature and act on what was going on deep inside. If she didn't care about Trip in the first place, the Trellium never would've become "necessary." Love and attraction and regret over previous mistakes fueled the Trellium, not the other way around.

[Linda]

I like your take on this and your summary of it, Aquarius.

[Aquarius]

Thanks!

[Aikiweezie]

Wow, Aquarius - that was a very indepth analysis of the topic - You said everything I'm thinking but didn't pull together. For what it's worth, I pretty much agree with everything you said.

I think you're a part-time psychologist on the side - you're very good at understanding peopls motives and thought processes. Far better than me.

Star Trek Marathon on Sci Fi Channel Today - I'm watching Stigman right now.

[WarpGirl]

Well Like I said I know the Trellium didn't cause the love, lust, passion cocktail surging in both of them. Their brains did that, but I'm confused as to when T'Pol actually started taking the stuff. Before Sim or after? If it was before, then I can "slightly" see this as "addict reasonable" after not a chance people! I guess my real problem is Trip should have known she was acting weird, because he cares so much for her. I mean the girl hasn't done this before, and I think it's just a really cruddy first time.

[Aquarius]

Wow, Aquarius - that was a very indepth analysis of the topic - You said everything I'm thinking but didn't pull together. For what it's worth, I pretty much agree with everything you said.

I think you're a part-time psychologist on the side - you're very good at understanding peopls motives and thought processes. Far better than me.

LOL, thanks. I did end up with way more science credits than I needed in college, since I got hooked on taking psych classes because it was a goldmine of things to apply to character development. I just wish I could apply it all to getting my own life together!

Any way, sometimes I do feel like I missed my calling, but much like bartenders, we hairdressers are also often sought out for "cheap therapy," so maybe a lot of this also comes from work experience.

[Aikiweezie]

I mean the girl hasn't done this before, and I think it's just a really cruddy first time.

I agree with you there. I just hope after the scene faded out that Trip slowed things down a bit. You know, introducing T'Pol to the idea of foreplay......

Anyway another really weird thing I noticed on the HD TV is that Trip, really Connor Trineer's, eyes are slightly crossed when he looks at the nekked T'Pol. It's almost like he's saying to himself, Oh, My God - where do I look? Can't focus.....

[Aquarius]

Well Like I said I know the Trellium didn't cause the love, lust, passion cocktail surging in both of them. Their brains did that, but I'm confused as to when T'Pol actually started taking the stuff. Before Sim or after? If it was before, then I can "slightly" see this as "addict reasonable" after not a chance people! I guess my real problem is Trip should have known she was acting weird, because he cares so much for her. I mean the girl hasn't done this before, and I think it's just a really cruddy first time.

In all fairness, though, because T'Pol's A) a Vulcan and--more importantly--B) a woman, much of the time Trip's going to think T'Pol's "weird" any way. Ask ANY man about his experiences with trying to decode our behavior and he'll most likely tell you this.

I don't remember if there's a specific time table for when she starts; I recall her confession to Phlox was that she'd been taking it for "several months." With this kind of ambiguous information, I'm likely to conclude that maybe the experience with Sim was the trigger for the "need" for it.

[Alelou]

I think these two were curious and dancing around this stuff since the first season, from the time T'Pol didn't leave to get married. Trip certainly had a continuing interest in her sex life or lack thereof, and so did she about his (including an awful lot of what looked like jealousy), even if they both kept it more or less back-burner for many good reasons. Trellium-D cut loose T'Pol's inhibitions, but honestly, I'm not absolutely certain she wouldn't have done something anyway, with Amanda Cole providing such a threat. (Although I know I did find it somewhat startling to realize that the very first time they do NP he may have had Trellium on him from the mine ... so one could also argue the other way.)

[WarpGirl]

Of course men think we're weird! They can't think any differently. But T'Pol was acting in a way contrary to her normal behavior. Trip should have seen that. But come on Aquarius you know this is just me being my contrary self. I mean no harm.

[Aikiweezie]

Yeah, I wonder, too about Trip's comment about needing "two more showers to get all that Trellium" off of him at their first (I think it was their first) NP session. It seems like that was planned to me. Meaning the writers made a point of him saying that - not just a throw-away line. If that is the case then the minute he came in her room T'Pol would have felt some kind of emotions stirring.

[Aquarius]

I mean the girl hasn't done this before, and I think it's just a really cruddy first time.

I agree with you there. I just hope after the scene faded out that Trip slowed things down a bit. You know, introducing T'Pol to the idea of foreplay......

Anyway another really weird thing I noticed on the HD TV is that Trip, really Connor Trineer's, eyes are slightly crossed when he looks at the nekked T'Pol. It's almost like he's saying to himself, Oh, My God - where do I look? Can't focus.....

By Human standards, yes, it might have made a crummy first time.

But T'Pol is a Vulcan, without the same hopes and expectations about what a first time is "supposed" to be that a Human woman would have. As I postulated in my earlier post, I think T'Pol's behavior is reflective of the desires percolating under the surface, and the more base instincts of a primitive Vulcan.

And just because she shocked him by showing him the goods, it doesn't mean it was over in minutes. When T'Pol said it was an "exploration," I whole-heartedly believe that there was a LOT of exploring happening for both parties. Though Trip's not a virgin, he's still experiencing a lot of firsts here--first time with a Vulcan, first time with T'Pol in particular. I believe it was very intense, but not the kind of intensity that burns out quickly. More like the kind of intensity that comes from trying to learn and memorize every millimeter of your partner.

[Aquarius]

But come on Aquarius you know this is just me being my contrary self. I mean no harm.

I know that! But this is how "discussion" works: you say stuff, I say stuff back.