#SPIRK HOW COULD I FORGET SPIRK

[letmetellyouaboutmyfeels]

Ship Tag Game!

Rules: Without naming them, post a gif of ten of your favorite ships (any media), then tag ten people to do the same.

Tagged By: @mistchievous and I am bringing it BACK down to TEN because I am not going to be able to come up with fifteen ships or fifteen people to tag.

God bless you, the one (1) person who made a gif that has both Winter and Jones in it. I owe you my life.

Tagging: @captainofthefallen @qqueenofhades @peridotglimmer @holdmygum @princessfbi @givemeunicorns @constance-dartagnan @leothil @nymika-arts @tripleaxeldiaz

Literally everyone I know flies out of my head the second I have to come up with names. Yes yes I know some of you were also tagged by Jess GIVE ME A BREAK HERE.

[self-made-purgatories]

Bare Feet on Holy Ground: A Story Of Doubt and Acceptance. (Part 5 of a series of long posts about my thoughts on Star Trek TMP and the Spirk fight arc that begins in Season 3.)

(Another long post, etc. etc., but this one is a good one! Here, finally, comes their happy ending.)

Leonard McCoy is a doctor, not a fortune-teller. And yet, he can foresee the future. In a certain sense, anyway. He is a realist. He isn't afraid to see the negative side of things and follow it to a logical conclusion. Unlike idealist Kirk, he can often guess where things are going to go wrong. It is a type of foresight.

His perspective is very valuable to Kirk. The two of them make a good team. And Kirk knows this. He trusts Bones' judgment. In spite of Bones' often blunt delivery, Kirk can trust him to tell the truth. And he often allows Bones to be the voice of reason, the voice of doubt in his life.

McCoy has had a front row seat to Spock and Kirk's painful breakup. Remember that look he gave them when Spock shouted in Kirk's face in The Cloud Minders?

He knows both of them better than anyone. He knows the whole story. He remembers. When Spock walks back in the door of the bridge, Kirk forgets everything. Not Bones. Bones has a long memory. He has not forgotten how Kirk hurt Spock. And he has not forgotten what Spock's leaving did to Kirk. And throughout the movie, McCoy is the voice of reason and doubt as Kirk grapples with his feelings for Spock.

I wrote last time about how, after Spock's return, Kirk goes through the five stages of grief about what his love's return to his life means for their relationship. It is difficult. Spock is here, but he is still gone. It's a long process we can see unfolding over several scenes.

For McCoy, however, this process happens almost instantaneously. When Spock answers McCoy's warm welcome on the bridge with a stony silence, McCoy's face falls from a warm smile to confusion to deep resolve in a matter of seconds.

By the time Spock exits the bridge, Kirk is still hopeful, but reeling with confusion. McCoy, on the other hand, already has his guard completely up. He can see that this isn't going to end well.

One Important Question

At the end of my last post, I left you all hanging (sorry, @mama-mia-its-mia) before Kirk reached the final Acceptance stage of grief. Spock returned, and then Kirk felt the deep pain of losing him all over again as he realized that Spock had come back, but he wasn't truly back. In fact, Spock inflicted seven emotional injuries on Kirk to show him exactly how not back he is.

At the end of the scene with the three of them in the officer's lounge, Spock gets up and leaves, even though so much is still left unsaid. Kirk jumps up to follow him, but McCoy stops him. After Spock leaves, the two of them conclude the scene with this conversation:

McCOY: Jim. If this super-intelligence is as important to him as he says, how do we know...? KIRK: ...That he wouldn't put his interests ahead of the ship's? I could never believe that. McCOY: How do we know about any of us?

Even with everything Kirk and Spock have been through, Kirk already trusts Spock again completely, as though nothing has happened. McCoy is more cautious.

It is also important that, earlier in the scene, when Kirk is trying to tell Spock that he loves him (remember, when Kirk says "I need you," it means, "I love you"), he technically says it to McCoy. He is looking right at Spock, he is talking about Spock in the third person, but he is talking to McCoy: "Bones. We need him. I need him." Kirk is still hoping that Spock will come back to him. But he doesn't just have to grapple with his own feelings. He has to grapple with the voice of reason and doubt.

The scene ends with Kirk compartmentalizing his grief so that he can get back to work. But the grief process continues. Throughout the movie, McCoy is the embodiment of Kirk's doubts about Spock and their relationship.

The (Silently) Continued Conversation

I also wrote recently about a particular moment on the bridge, when Spock again holds his own hand, but steeples just one finger on each hand. It's an important clue about what is going on in Spock's mind. But what is going on in Kirk's mind? There is actually a very important clue in the same scene.

When Spock's fingers are steepled, this conversation happens between Decker and Spock:

DECKER: Captain, a maximum phaser strike directly at the beam might weaken it just enough for us to break free. SPOCK: Break free to where, Commander? Any show of resistance would be futile, Captain. DECKER: We don't know that, Mister Spock. Why are you opposed to trying?

And this exchange is immediately followed by a very significant look between Kirk and McCoy.

Honestly, in general, I spend a lot of time watching Star Trek going, "Okay gentlemen, what the hell was THAT about?" so this shared look didn't actually register to me as important at first. But it's very important. It is a wordless continuation of that conversation in the officer's lounge.

Spock, who has already explained that he feels he must find his personal answers within V'Ger, is asserting that they should not try to escape. And both Kirk and McCoy are reacting to that assertion with an appropriate question of whether Spock is thinking of his own good at the expense of that of the ship and mission. Kirk throws a sharp look at Bones, whose face reads as both concern and an "I told you so." It is hard to interpret Kirk's sharp look. It could either be a "Yes, I know what you're going to say and don't you dare say it," or it could be a, "Yes. I heard that. And you might be right." In fact, it might be both.

When Love is Not Enough

In the meantime, the other plot of the movie advances. In a story that weirdly echoes and intertwines with Kirk and Spock's love story: Lieutenant Ilia is abducted and copied as a mechanical device that becomes a probe for V'Ger to interact with the humans on board the Enterprise.

Because of the uncharacteristically warm way the probe version of Ilia interacts with Decker specifically, Spock, of all people, suggests that there may be some echo of Ilia's emotions within the probe. Kirk and Spock suggest that Decker attempt to reconnect with the probe based on his shared history with Ilia. This dialogue is telling:

SPOCK: Captain, this probe may be a key a key to the aliens. DECKER: Probe? Ilia? SPOCK: Exactly. It's a programmed mechanism, Commander. Its body duplicates our navigator in precise detail. Suppose that beneath its programming, the real Ilia's memory patterns are duplicated with equal precision. KIRK: They had a pattern to follow. SPOCK: Indeed. They may have followed it too precisely. KIRK: Ilia's memory, her feelings of loyalty, obedience, friendship... might all be there. SPOCK: You did have a relationship with Lieutenant Ilia, Commander.

So Spock defines a relationship in terms of memory, loyalty, obedience, and friendship. Which, you may recall, are the exact things he has been purposely suppressing since he returned to the Enterprise. He refused to greet Kirk or any of his friends after his long absence (a betrayal of memory). Remember also the way Spock refused to sit down until Kirk had asked him three times. First, when Kirk asked him directly (a betrayal of obedience), when Kirk sat down himself as a way of invitation (a betrayal of loyalty), and finally, when Kirk lost his cool (a betrayal of friendship).

It is also worth noting that the relationship between Decker and Ilia, a canonically romantic relationship which concludes with the two of them literally becoming one whole (both a sex metaphor and a soulmate metaphor), is never actually described in terms of "love" or "romance." It is instead described in these terms, which are remarkably similar to the terms through which Kirk and Spock's relationship is also described in canon.

Decker departs with Ilia in an attempt to woo her, to reconnect with her, and to get through to V'Ger in the process. But Spock has other ideas. He says to Kirk, "I am concerned with that being our only source of information."

Spock does not trust love to be the answer to the problem. He feels he must resort to further exploration and experimentation.

Into the Dark

And so he steals a spacesuit and exits the Enterprise, in an attempt to travel as close as he can to V'Ger's center in search of the answers he seeks.

He begins recording a voice log of his progress. And he addresses the log directly to "Captain Kirk." His journey into the belly of the beast is not just a journey in the name of science or curiosity or even bravery and duty in the face of a danger to humanity. It is a journey in the name of love.

A short while later, back on the bridge, Chekov announces that a thruster suit has been taken. Kirk realizes right away that it is Spock. Observe (sound up):

CHEKOV: Sir! Airlock four has been opened. A thruster suit is reported missing! KIRK: A thruster suit? That's Spock! Damn him! Bring him back here... No, wait!... Get a fix on his position.

Welcome. to. Acceptance.

The whole movie, Spock has been running away figuratively. Now, he has finally run away literally.

The whole movie, Kirk has been grappling with two realities, love and doubt. Doubt says that Spock has hurt him and can't be trusted. Doubt says that exploring V'Ger is dangerous and that Spock must be brought back right away. Doubt says that Spock must be saved from himself.

But love. Love says that he still trusts Spock, completely, even after everything they have been through.

He trusts Spock. Completely.

Even if it means allowing him to leave.

In this exact moment, Kirk reaches Acceptance. He gives up reason and doubt and surrenders to love. He allows Spock to go. For the first time, he allows Spock to pursue the exploration he needs to find peace.

And, because he has reached Acceptance, because he trusts Spock with all that he is and has, he takes it even a step further. Without knowing or understanding what Spock is doing, he follows him into the dark.

And Spock returns to him. Broken. Nonresponsive. In many ways, his return is a powerful echo of the figuratively broken and nonresponsive Spock that returned to Kirk earlier in the movie. And he catches him. He holds him. He says his name over and over, just as he did when he first arrived on the bridge. And he carries him to safety.

A Miracle on Holy Ground

It strikes me as significant that Spock appears barefoot in this sickbay scene. First, it is a symbol of vulnerability. Spock is about to show a sacred inner part of himself that he never allows to show.

But also, it is another religious symbol: remove your shoes; you tread on holy ground. There are numerous religious traditions that call for bare feet on holy ground. It is not shown in the movie; the floor-scraping robes and strategic framing hide all views of the Vulcans' feet in the kolinahr scene. But consider this behind-the-scenes photograph of Leonard Nimoy as kolinahr Spock. I believe that Vulcans also hold this sacred tradition of bare feet on holy ground.

And Spock's feet are now bare in the sickbay. He has gone forth and faced his demons head-on and returned. And he is now on holy ground. A miracle is about to happen here.

At first he is dazed, still nonresponsive. But then, he returns to himself, and strangely enough, he laughs. Kirk and McCoy rush to his side.

KIRK: Spock! SPOCK: Jim... (Slight chuckle.) I should have known. KIRK: Were you right? About V'Ger? SPOCK: A lifeform of its own. A conscious, living entity. CHAPEL: A living machine? KIRK: It considers the Enterprise a living machine. That's why the probe refers it as an entity. SPOCK: I saw V'Ger's planet. A planet populated by living machines. Unbelievable technology. V'Ger has knowledge that spans this universe. And, yet with all this pure logic... V'Ger is barren. Cold. No mystery. No beauty. (His eyes fill with tears.) I should have... known. (Drifts out of consciousness.) KIRK: Known. Known what? Spock. MCCOY: (Grabs Kirk's arm.) Captain. KIRK: (Turns quickly, breaking free.) Bones.

I have seen three different versions of this movie: the Original Release, the Director's Cut, and the Remastered Director's Cut. These three versions are all slightly different, and each version casts a slightly different light over the story. For example, in the Original Release and the Remastered Director's Cut, Spock awakens from his trance with a laugh. This laugh is missing in the Director's Cut.

Perhaps more importantly, in this scene, there is a moment when Spock drifts back out of consciousness and Kirk calls him back to reality. In the Original Release, while Kirk is calling him back, Bones tries briefly to stop him. You can see this version in this YouTube clip.

To me, this is an extremely important detail. This is doubt again, rearing its head one last time, and Kirk swats it aside immediately. He knows that what is happening here is important. Call it persistence, call it blind faith; but he has chosen love, he has chosen trust, and it is about to pay off in the most miraculous way imaginable.

KIRK: Spock. What should you have known? What should you have known? SPOCK: (Grabs Kirk's arm.) Jim... (Kirk and Spock grasp hands.) This. Simple. Feeling. Is beyond V'Ger's comprehension. (Kirk grasps their joined hands with his other hands. The two exchange a meaningful look. Kirk nods. Spock nods.) ... No meaning. No hope. Jim. No answers. It's asking questions. Is this all I am? Is there nothing more?

This is the miracle.

Spock is finally at peace with his human side.

Spock is finally at peace with his love for Kirk.

Spock has found his answers: the mystery and beauty that only love, not logic, can bring.

And he is. finally. at. peace.

The long look. The nods. This too is the miracle: they are communicating telepathically again.

Kirk says to him, Does this mean you are back? For good? Does this mean you are mine?

And Spock nods back. Yes, Jim. I am back for good. I have been, and always shall be yours.

Duty calls, as always. The commlink tweets and Kirk answers. It's an update from Uhura. Kirk must return to the bridge. Kirk turns around and says, "I need Spock on the bridge."

I need you.

Remember. It means, "I love you."

Resolution

There is another very important scene that is only in some versions of the movie; namely, the Director's Cut and the Remastered Director's Cut. I am not able to link more than one video in a post, but you can see it here.

KIRK: Spock… Spock? (Spock turns, and Kirk and McCoy see that he is crying.) KIRK: Not for us? SPOCK: No, Captain, not for us. For V'Ger. I weep for V'Ger as I would for a brother. As I was when I came aboard, so is V'Ger now. Empty. Incomplete. Searching. Logic and knowledge are not enough. McCOY: Spock, are you saying that you've found what you needed, but V'Ger hasn't? DECKER: What would V'Ger need to fulfill itself? SPOCK: Each of us, at some time in our life, turns to someone, a father, a brother, a god, and asks, "Why am I here? What was I meant to be?" V'Ger hopes to touch its Creator to find its answers. KIRK: "Is this all that I am? Is there nothing more?"

This scene speaks volumes.

First, this shows that Spock has finished searching. He sees his prior self, the self "when he came aboard" the ship, in V'Ger's emptiness. And he weeps for himself, for lost time, as much as he does for V'Ger.

Second, Spock again folds his fingers together as he speaks. But there are no steepled fingers. They are interlaced loosely, both hands open. Although the ship is in grave danger, and he is weeping, the trapped feeling is gone. The feeling of identity crisis is gone. He is at peace.

Third, very importantly, McCoy is a part of this exchange. He is incredulous to see Spock crying, and he, ever the blunt truth-teller, asks him if he has found what he needed. It is now Kirk's turn to turn to McCoy and give him his own very brief, "I told you so" look. McCoy is convinced. Doubt is, finally and forever, laid to rest.

And finally, it is significant that Spock specifically mentions "a brother" as one of the people we might turn to for answers. Throughout the whole series, Spock canonically refers to Kirk as his "brother." Brother is also a part of the meaning of t'hy'la. Spock is referring to finding his own answers with Kirk. He also mentions that V'Ger hopes to touch its "Creator", which is how V'Ger has referred to the source of its own answers throughout the movie. In fact, before the movie is over, V'Ger will express a wish to be completely united with its Creator as one, and will complete that wish through the uniting of Ilia and Decker.

Spock is expressing the same wish: touching and touched, united forever as a new, complete whole.

"Why am I here?" he is asking. "What was I meant to be?" But he knows the answer now.

This. Exactly this. Together. Touching and touched. United forever as a new, complete whole.

[wow-bleh]

How did you watch TOS and not come out of it a spirk shipper? Genuinely, show me your ways

Great question, get ready for a long answer! Keep in mind while reading this that I only took into account TOS while writing. I haven’t seen anything other than TOS and I don’t plan to (although, I have seen a bit of the original films, but I don’t like what I saw and I see it as separate from the series). Now! On to what is practically an essay at this point!

I’m a huge shipper normally and started watching Star Trek with the expectation that I’d ship them, so this truly is an impressive feat on my part! I also think it’s one of the best ships ever… so the fact that I don’t ship them is odd to say the least.

So I suppose I’d say, I love Star Trek too much to ship them. I love every aspect of the canon of TOS, to ship them would be me saying that I prefer them in a romantic relationship over their canon one, and I respect the canon too much to do that.

Kirk loves Spock his dear friend, he loves his ship and the people on it, he would choose those things over anything… and yet… he longs for a woman, for a romance. He would choose Spock and his ship over a woman 100 times out of 100, but still he feels lonely at times. To ship him and Spock means I prefer a romance between them to the canon of TOS and to do that is to disregard this part of Kirk’s character. I don’t want to do that. Now I do believe that he is closer to Spock than he could ever be with anyone else, but I think only mentally. Mentally he is as close to Spock as is possible, closer than he’s ever been with anyone, but physically he needs more than that.

Now as for what part of Spock’s character I would be disregarding… there isn’t one I can think of… more on this later. It’s quite interesting.

Another aspect of it is that I genuinely believe that they are better as friends than they would be as partners, and them being friends is more interesting than them as lovers. They are as close as two people could possibly be and yet they are not together… how interesting!!

For example they canonically love each other deeply, but Kirk is straight and Spock is alien who has different sexual desires than humans. And that’s it. That’s the reason they aren’t together. They love each other enough to be, but aren’t able to be attracted to each other romantically. In fandom we disregard sexuality constantly because in the face of a good ship it doesn’t matter, but in this case I think it does, because it is quite literally the only thing keeping them apart. That’s so interesting, they love each other so so strongly and yet there is no attraction involved.

In a shippy point of view let’s have their first meeting shall we, Kirk finds Spock attractive and Spock thinks the same. Love at first sight! I’ve read that a few times in fanfiction. It’s all in good fun and I quite like it, but I feel as if it devalues their bond somewhat. For in canon while we don’t know how they met we do know that they grew to love each other for their minds, a deep deep love and affection that went beyond physicality.

Another thing that interests me is McCoy. He is an integral part of the main trio of Star Trek. Putting Kirk and Spock together puts him in a separate category from them. We’d have Kirk and Spock who are in a relationship and McCoy who is their friend. Canon is far more interesting than that. For canon is this: we have Kirk, Spock and McCoy who are friends.

“Why is that more interesting? It’s just a category. It means nothing.”

Ah, but it does. For Kirk and Spock do love each other in a very special way. Because of that the fandom often forgets that McCoy is quite important as well. Amok Time. Spock called his friends down to the planet to be by his side. Not just Kirk, McCoy as well. However the only one he spoke to about his affliction was Kirk. This is so interesting, the only person he is close enough to for him to share this information is Kirk, and yet when McCoy figured it out Spock also wished for him to be by his side. If Kirk and Spock were together then this is so different. Rather than a complex web of love and friendship that is so different and yet so similar between all of them, they are pushed into these separate categories. Spock tells Kirk the truth- because he is his lover. Spock has McCoy come with- cause he might as well have a friend be with them for his and Kirk’s wedding am I right?

I understand that while it is a trio Kirk and Spock are the main duo of the show. However, this is a nitpick of mine. To be frank if I absolutely had to ship something it’d likely be McSpirk simply because it is closest to the canon.

Now let’s get back to what I brought up earlier… I stated why it is wrong to Kirk’s character to put him and Spock together despite them loving each other. But what about Spock? Is it damaging to his character? Well frankly it depends on your interpretation… If we’re talking about a fanfic of Spock being aroused by Kirk and kissing him on the captains chair then yeah, as fun a concept as that is- he would never do that. But that’s not because he doesn’t love Kirk, that’s not because of a conflict in his character where he yearns for something else, it’s simply because he doesn’t experience attraction like that. Ok let’s go, fun time, an analysis of Spock his relationship with romance and why his closeness to Kirk might very well be as close as he could ever be with someone not only mentally but also physically.

*ahem* So we all know that whenever there’s an episode where an attractive women is about all the men are frothing at the mouth over her except for Spock, for he is a Vulcan and far too dignified for something like that. It’s said and shown in many episodes that he is proud of his ability to be unaffected by such things, that he does not fully understand such things, and that he is incapable of such things, they are truly foreign to him.

“Wait a minute?? What about This Side of Paradise? Obviously there it’s revealed that he is capable of it!!”

No. You are mistaken.

This Side of Paradise is a wonderful episode. But it is not quite like that. When Spock is influenced by the spores it is quite against his will. He struggles and it hurts him, she says that it shouldn’t hurt for it didn’t for them, he says that he is not like them. That matters a lot. Against his will this was forced upon him. Under the influence he is able to experience human joy and human love, he loves her, he is capable of it now. It is then taken away as he loses the spores. At this moment he is obviously devastated.

“He is devastated, doesn’t that prove he wanted to be with her”

He did not want to have the spores, but because of them he experienced human joy and human love. Now it has been taken away. His devastation is more than reasonable. He can’t be with her now, but just moments ago he wanted to be.

This episode ends with Spock saying that for the first time in his life he was happy. That line stuck with me for much of the show. It is meaningful and filled with sorrow (I thought),and yet something about it didn’t make sense. He prefers the ship I know that. He chose to leave her. He has been happy before although in his own way… Despite my misgivings I took it at face value, Spock was happy for the first time on that planet and he wishes he could be again. Until I read an autobiography.

Within it an interview with Leonard Nimoy. The interviewer said just as I was thinking, poor Spock. Mr. Nimoy said he was wrong. Mr. Nimoy said that Spock is merely stating a fact, he experienced human happiness for the first time. Like if he had gone to a specific planet for the first time or eaten a specific dish for the first time. Now isn’t that interesting? That makes so much more sense. Of course he was sad at the end of that episode, but he still chose the ship he chose himself as he is.

Look I know this is long, and if you’re this far you’ll probably read any length, but as much as I want to go into each and every episode where Spock has a romance… I believe that what I’ve done will suffice for now.

Let’s get back to the main topic: I think that Spock’s closeness to Kirk is as close as he could be to anyone. I’ve already proven that romance does not come naturally to Spock. Now let’s get into the rest.

He touches Kirk more than he touches anyone else, he gazes at Kirk, he expresses himself only for Kirk, he looks to Kirk to see his reaction to anything and everything. He loves him. In Requiem for Methuselah that scene at the end is quite literally him saying to Kirk I love you. And if that seems like a reach to you.. it is not only my interpretation, I read it in the novel on Star Trek: Star Trek Lives! from 1975. So quite an official source wouldn’t you say? Yes that lovely scene did mean to convey such love.

When Kirk gets with a woman in front of Spock the camera always cuts to Spock looking dejected. He always has a valid reason. The captain has kept something from him, or something is wrong with Kirk, or this isn’t the time or place for such behavior, etc. Still, it is frequent. Fans like to say Spock’s jealous and he wishes to be kissed. I don’t think so. I do however think that Spock while tolerating and understanding of such behavior on Kirk’s part doesn’t quite like it. Because of love.

In Elaan of Troyius (one of the few episodes I can say was rather subpar), Kirk is forced to fall in love with a woman he does not love. When McCoy and Spock find out about this they have very different reactions. McCoy’s I find quite reasonable. He sounds upset, he’s exasperated, Kirk got into this mess he doesn’t know if he can cure, he’s got to find an antidote now and he’s annoyed and worried and Kirk’s always getting into these messes and- Spock is different. In perhaps the most devastated voice he’s ever used he says “It is true than Captain?” So… he loves his captain. I don’t have an explanation. I don’t think he wants the captain to kiss him instead, I don’t think he should be as worried as he sounds, no… actually, I believe I do know. I think that it truly pains him to see Kirk’s failed loves pan out in front of him, in Requiem for Methuselah it is the same, he doesn’t want to watch Kirk suffer so. In Elaan of Troyius he is pained to see Kirk be forced to love, to yearn for her. It is a unique thing though, he obviously does not enjoy the captains suffering in any sense, but in love it is particularly bad, he also doesn’t much like to see that captain with women even if he is understanding.

After this long long talk on Spock’s canon feelings regarding romance tell me… can you picture Spock falling in love and kissing and having a romantic affair? I can’t. Can you imagine him being as close as he is to the captain with anyone else? I can’t.

I think that Kirk is as close to Spock mentally as he could be with anyone, but I think he yearns for a women to be with to share mind and body with.

I think that Spock is as close to Kirk as he could be with anyone mentally and physically, and I don’t think he yearns for romance like Kirk does.

I think that these canon facts and their canon relationship is superior to simply disregarding all this complexity and placing them in a romance. That is why despite thinking it is perhaps the greatest ship to ever exist I do not ship them.

I wrote this for over 2 hours. I had a great time, if you can’t tell I’ve been thinking of this for a while! Despite how long this is, frankly, I think I only scratched the surface of what I have to say on their relationship, but damn despite the fun, this has gone on long enough! If you read all of this, please let me know your thoughts my dear anonymous asker, and of course anyone else who happens upon this. I finished rather late at night so I’m sure there are some errors, but damn I’m pretty proud, this is good shit for shippers and non shippers alike, enjoy folks

Edit: omfg guys I just checked and this is 2261 words?!? Man… and I could add more too

Edit2: so when I was writing it this is fr as short as I could get it, but now that I’ve got all these thoughts out of my head I was finally able to think of a way to say it simply:

I like canon. In canon they are friends. That’s that.

But y’know my fancy analysis still stands and frankly needs to be expanded upon, just thought I’d give y’all the simple version of it. (Purposely didn’t say tldr cause u guys gotta read the long stuff to earn the simple version)

[tprings-hair]

nobody asked, but I'm thinking about it, so here are some songs that remind me of kirk, spock, mccoy, and spirk!

songs that remind me of kirk:

the old revolution - leonard cohen

I fought in the old revolution on the side of the ghost and the king Of course I was very young then and I thought that we were winning I can't pretend I still feel very much like singing as they carry the bodies away Into this furnace I ask you now to venture You, who I cannot betray

you don't mess around with jim - jim croce

I have many, many feelings and thoughts about kirk went through on tarsus iv and how it influences some of the decisions he makes during the series. I know kirk didn't fight for kodos, but I'm thinking "the ghost and the king" here deepens the hamlet parallel in the conscience of the king - hamlet's father, the king who came back as a ghost - and here stands for all his heroes who he was trying to emulate in staying strong there. standing strong against kodos's people and not realising until later that nobody who wanted to win was going to stand with him.

You don't tug on Superman's cape You don't spit into the wind You don't pull the mask off that old lone ranger And you don't mess around with Jim

wild horses - grace power

this is just a fun song I grew up listening to. it mentions a boy by the name of mccoy, too, although he definitely isn't our doctor.

"It's a miracle," the crowd all screams Everyone's so proud of me But I'm a graveyard, oh I'm in deep Miss the person I never got to be

it's all over now, baby blue - joan baez

more feelings about tarsus iv and what he probably went through when he came back.

Leave your stepping stones behind you, something calls for you Forget the dead you've left, they will not follow you A vagabond who's rapping at your door Is standing in the clothes that you once wore Strike another match, let's start anew And it's all over now, baby blue

steady as she goes - the ractoneurs

forget the add-ons and just think about what was in the series and movies. this feels very jim kirk to me, having to move on over and over and keeping these people who mattered to him very close to his chest. I'm thinking about carol marcus and ruth, but I'm also thinking about mccoy and spock. when he comes to an unfamiliar place, he doesn't talk about anyone he knew before. it's a trait I find really interesting about him.

Settle for a world neither up or down Sell it to the crowd that's gathered round Settle for a girl neither up or down Sell it to the crowd that's gathered round So steady as she goes (steady as she goes)

everything I've above, before plus the inherent uncertainty of whether he's going to get everybody through and how everybody has to believe in him in a crisis. also, he literally says it.

geyser - mitski

songs that remind me of spock:

I'm a geyser, feel it bubbling from below Hear it call, hear it call, hear it call to me constantly And hear the harmony only when it's harming me It's not real, it's not real, it's not real enough But I will be the one you need The way I can't be without you

I wanna hold counsel with the ghost of my father Tell him I'll be everything he could never be And if I face the obstacles that he failed to conquer I'll make it to the other side I don't wanna go lonely I don't wanna reach out in the dead of night And find no one to hold me But I'm burning my bridges at the speed of light

he's the geyser! a lot of feeling deep down that he won't admit to or acknowledge.

prodigal son - rationale

I hate your mom I hate it when she opens her mouth It's amazing to me How much you can say When you don't know what you're talking about

spock's constant push and pull of vulcan vs human - will he allow himself genuine connection with other people, or will he push it away in the name of being vulcan? - and how uncomfortable he is with his father, despite making the same choice to withdraw from friendships and so on. he's trying, but he kind of burned all his bridges post tos.

icu - phoebe bridgers

Oh God, save me I want an impossible thing I want to be free of this ache, of this need I want not to want anything

amanda. that's all.

end of desire - muna

I know who I am when I'm alone I'm something else when I see you You don't understand, you should never know How easy you are to need Don't let me in with no intention to keep me Jesus Christ, don't be kind to me Honey, don't feed me, I will come back

also pretty clear.

it will come back - hozier

songs that remind me of mccoy:

I feel like spock is flattered every time someone shows interest in him, even if he's not into it. he's able to play into it as a joke, but at a certain point it got too real with kirk, and this is sort of how he is with him.

I walk the line - johnny cash

I find it very, very easy to be true I find myself alone when each day is through Yes, I'll admit that I'm a fool for you Because you're mine, I walk the line, mmm

No use ramblin', walkin' in the shadows, Trailin' a wanderin' star. No one beside you, no one to hide you, And nobody knows what you are. But if somehow you could pack up your sorrows, And give them all to me, You would lose them, I know how to use them, Give them all to me.

I'm imagining younger, married mccoy. he's too much of a gentleman to cheat, no matter what some fanfics seem to think. I think part of his bitterness is that he genuinely was a fool for his ex, and she wasn't as emotionally invested.

pack up your sorrows - mimi and richard fariña

Sometimes I'd head for the highway I'm old and the mirrors don't lie But crazy has places to hide in That are deeper than any goodbye

mccoy serving as everybody's counselor kind of vibe.

crazy to love you - leonard cohen

And I am lower now and lower still, And you did always say that one day I would suffer, Did always say that people get their pay. You did always say that I was going places, And that you wouldn't have it any other way. But I couldn't turn my back on the world for what I like, wouldn't let me. But I couldn't turn my back on the world for what I like, I needed.

mccoy thinking about home. I feel like that romantic in him really, really wants to trust in everything and everyone, and it's partly to defend that part of himself that he's so guarded. that crazy (the love and trust in humanity) is deeper in him than just saying goodbye to his ex.

blackberry stone - laura marling

I've been around Someone like me should know better Falling in love Would be the worst thing I could do Didn't I say I needed time to forget her? Aren't you running From someone who's not over you?

I'd imagine mccoy went through a phase of trying to totally turn his back on everything from who he was before his marriage collapsed, but he just couldn't, because he genuinely cares and it tears him to pieces not to be able to do anything. what he likes - the good in people! the joy he gets from his daughter! - he needs.

this night - billy joel

songs that remind me of spirk:

mccoy starting a new relationship. possibly in a situation like for the world is hollow and I have touched the sky, or possibly just meeting up with an old friend and finding something there that couldn't have happened earlier. I feel like every time he flirts in the series, he is still guarding himself like this.

me and my husband - mitski

So I bet all I have on that Furrowed brow And at least in this lifetime We're sticking together Me and my husband We're sticking together

He was starving in some deep mystery Like a man who is sure what is true And I sent you to him with my guarantee I could teach him something new

spock looking at kirk!

master song - leonard cohen

And I know you're strong I know you're a man-made fortress But we're alone And I'm so willing to be proven wrong

I can't explain it, but this song has such incredible star trek tos vibes to me. at some point I want to do an edit to this song with clips from plato's stepchildren and some of the other manipulative antagonists who get into their heads. it is The star trek tos song to me.

timefighter - lucy dacus

Do you always trust your first initial feeling? Special knowledge holds true, bears believing

spock, taking what affection he's given, listening and soaking it up and hoping for more. he knows kirk keeps his walls high, but maybe that's not always the case. maybe they can let them down together. spock feeling like he's intruding on kirk's privacy because vulcan privacy standards are different, and finding he doesn't mind.

crystal - fleetwood mac

that moment where this song goes "then I knew"? I'm picturing that moment where spock is doing that space walk in the motion picture. "to the sea" is them jumping into the water at the end of the movie with the whales. it's so perfect.

talk - hozier

I'd be the voice that urged Orpheus When her body was found (hey ya) I'd be the choiceless hope in grief That drove him underground (hey ya) I'd be the dreadful need in the devotee That made him turn around (hey ya) And I'd be the immediate forgiveness in Eurydice

kirk during spock's resurrection arc in the movies. I need this edit so badly

[burntheedges]

get to know your moots

thank you for tagging me @ace-turned-confused @kedsandtubesocks @sawymredfox @iknowisoundcrazy @jeewrites @katareyoudrilling @ghotifishreads 🧡 I freaking love these lol I know it's been a minute but hi, here I am.

what's the origin of your blog title?: username and title are both from a Hozier song, Eat Your Young (because "I'm starving, darling" is how I feel about Joel Miller)

OTP(s) + shipname: alright I've been reading fic since I was 12, here are some of the highlights in vaguely chronological order - Dramione (but like, in the 2000s, lmao), Drarry, Sterek, Johnlock, Arthur/Eames, Stucky, Stony, Sirmione, Wolfstar, Damen/Laurent, 00Q, Spirk, PPCU/reader, Rookanis, DinLuke

favorite color: orange

favorite game: Dragon Age Veilguard, Dragon Age Inquisition, the Mass Effect trilogy, Stardew Valley, BOTW, TOTK

song stuck in your head: Not Like Us, Kendrick Lamar

weirdest habit/trait?: hmmm my husband would say it's no outside clothes allowed on the bed, but I don't think that's weird. probably biting my cuticles. 😬

hobbies: knitting, sewing, writing, gaming

if you work, what's your profession?: let's not talk about work lmao

if you could have any job you wish what would it be?: I don't wish for work lol but maybe owning a book store or yarn shop.

something you're good at: languages, parallel parking, overextending myself

something you're bad at: not overextending myself. feeling my feelings.

something you love: talking to people who love the same things I love 🧡, going to concerts

something you could talk about for hours off the cuff: knitting, linguistics, languages, video games, hockey

something you hate: everything going on right now in the US

something you collect: hmm I used to collect a lot of things and then I moved across the country multiple times and got tired of having stuff. books, probably lol

something you forget: anything that's not in my calendar

what's your love language?: fyi the love languages book is fundamentalist nonsense BUT I do feel very loved when my husband does what they call acts of service (which he knows). that's what I tend to do by default, too, but he likes when I use my words.

favorite movie/show: LOTR, Ever After, Deep Space 9, The Matrix, Clueless, Inception, TLOU, The Mandalorian, Skyfall, Pacific Rim, CA:TWS, Andor, so many others lol

favorite food: pasta, a perfect caeser salad, sopes, sushi

favorite animal: cats. also hippos, those big dorks

are you musical?: I was kicked out of band lol but I was in a singing group in high school and another later. I can read music ok

what were you like as a child?: looking back, obviously unmedicated for ADHD, lmao. but extroverted and hyperaware, really

favorite subject at school?: languages, and then history

least favorite subject?: science, but mostly because some of my teachers sucked and I was socialized to think I was supposed to be bad at it

what's your best character trait?: probably my empathy?

what's your worst character trait?: not taking the time to think (I'm working on it)

if you could change any detail of your day right now what would it be?: I want my cold to be gone lol

if you could travel in time who would you like to meet?: ETA just realized I never answered this one. I spent a lot of time thinking about it and I'm still not sure!

recommend one of your favorite fanfics (spread the love!):

I have yet again begun to reread Be-All and Endor by @djarins-cyare because it brings me comfort (which I've needed lately) 🧡

A new favorite is The Morning Commute by @iknowisoundcrazy -- speed!AU Javi! god I love it

I think a lot of people have already done this, but in case you haven't, np tagging: @maggiemayhemnj @secretelephanttattoo @schnarfer @the-mandawhor1an @sixhours

@@davnittbraes @wannab-urs @justagalwhowrites @beardedjoel @futuraa-free

[risingchaos]

In episode nineteen of season three of Star Trek: The Original Series, Requiem for Methuselah, our main three go down to a planet to find a cure for an epidemic on the Enterprise. They run into a man named Flint, who takes them back to his home and offers help. While there, Kirk falls in love with a woman, Rayna, who turns out to be an android. She was designed to be a lover for her creator, Flint, and when she finds out she’s an android while Flint is threatening the triumvirate, she’s so torn between her love for creator and her love for Kirk that she actually dies. Obviously there’s a lot more to the episode but that’s the basics. There’s a few bits in here I think about a lot.

At the end, after Rayna dies, Spock says this after some dialogue.

Spock: The joys of love made her human, and the agonies of love destroyed her.

Fucking insane quote to have, especially from Spock. Near the start of this episode, Bones had offered Kirk brandy and half offered it to Spock with his normal “Spock hates fun” jabs, but Spock took him up on it and even opened up about how he was experiencing a new emotion. Envy. Envy of the man’s house they were in, which contained a lot of originals never seen before from a variety of famous artists.

Now, Spock saying that alone in the same episode where it was clear we had a teeny focus on Spock’s emotive capabilities was so great. We love a glimpse into the odd mind of our resident Vulcan, but it gets better. Spirk shippers, listen up.

Just before they find out Rayna is an android, they were about to travel into an unknown part of the complex they were in to retrieve said cure that had been hidden in there. Before entering, Spock steps in front of Kirk, saying he should go in alone as it might be dangerous. Obviously Kirk puts up a bit of a fight, and McCoy jumps in, pressuring Spock into letting all three of them go. He relents, and they go in.

Again, maybe not the most impactful on its own, but it’s a very important thing. Spock wanted to protect specifically Kirk from whatever danger might lie within. We later know this is because Spock wanted to hide Kirk from finding out Rayna is an android, but still. It’s insane.

At the very end, right before credits, Spock goes to Kirk’s room where the man in question is mourning the loss of Rayna. He compares himself to Flint very despondently.

Kirk: Very old, and lonely man. And a young, and lonely man. We put on a pretty poor show there, didn’t we? If only I could forget..

He puts his head down on the desk just before McCoy walks in. McCoy makes a comment about Kirk finally sleeping, tells Spock that everything is alright on the ship, then drops this absolutely insane paragraph.

McCoy: You wouldn’t understand [love], would you, Spock? You see, I feel sorrier for you than I do [Kirk], because you’ll never know the things that love can drive a man to. The ecstasies, the miseries, the broken rules, the desperate chances, the glorious failures, and the glorious victories. All of these things you’ll never know, simply because the word love isn’t written into your book. Goodnight, Spock.

Spock: Goodnight, Doctor.

McCoy: I do wish [Kirk] could forget her.

McCoy then exits, leaving Spock staring at the asleep form of his captain. Spock approaches, quiet, and leans down. He gently placed his fingers on Kirk’s face, and whispers something right before credits roll.

Spock: Forget.

Spock, out of love for His Captain, grants his wish and uses his abilities to help him forget what had happened.

Spock loves Kirk. I don’t know how anyone denies this.

[anghraine]

So, I'd been going to write another chunk of the femslash Spirk AU for Valentine's Day, something actually centered on their romance, maybe something fluffy. What I actually wrote was several thousand words of S'paak as high-octane gay yearning given human (well, human/Vulcan) form, ft. barely metaphorical internalized homophobia. That's how I see TOS Spock anyway, but it didn't feel quite in the spirit of the day, so I'm posting it today instead! It's set around "Turnabout Intruder" (of all things).

When S’paak looked at Jessica Kirk, she felt more than any Vulcan should. And as time passed, and S’paak came to understand her more accurately and in more detail, the wilder her impossible, irrepressible emotions became. She admired the captain’s personal qualities, of course: her knowledge, her ability to command trust and obedience, her cleverness, her presence of mind in a crisis, even her propensity towards tackling foes half again her size and targeting the nerves that sent them crumpling to the ground. Her attacks might be less precise than S’paak’s in defending her, but they were effective, and S’paak respected effectiveness. Jess was her friend, as well, and as a human, saw no need to conceal her personal attachment to S’paak, or high opinion of her intelligence and skills. She almost always addressed S’paak with an open camaraderie that seemed to expect nothing in return except competence at her work, and was certainly absent the others’ obvious desire to nudge S’paak towards forgetting her family and culture for the sake of their own comfort. If anything, S’paak’s restraint only increased Jess’s evident regard for her—and S’paak found that her distaste for the cascade of affronts she so often received faded every time the captain’s lashes flicked her way and lifted to reveal a look of undisguised affection, Jess’s mouth shifting into a smile. Not her usual smile, either, but one with less calculated charm and more effortless delight. S’paak considered these expressions a special honor, though she could not have explained why to anyone else, least of all another Vulcan. But even this much, while true, did not explain the immeasurable value S’paak found in Jessica’s friendship and her being. Each wry aside, each fond glance, each laugh at S’paak’s more acrid remarks, provoked a degree of silent but deep sentimentality that S’paak could not shake and did not entirely wish to shake. She knew it was shameful to feel such emotions, and still more shameful to nourish them within herself rather than subduing them to her will. And she was ashamed, but not enough to withdraw from Jess or their friendship. Sometimes S’paak thought she would do anything for her. Anything at all.

She took a deep breath, laying her hands on her folded legs. At the end of every day, S’paak meditated before sleeping. The practices of her ancestors helped her assemble facts and observations in patterns not always clear to her regular deliberations, yet still rigorous and logical in form. It was soothing after hours among humans, but more importantly, it was a discipline that led to truth. She counted her inhalations.

She could recall, perhaps more vividly than a full human might have, the sensation of inferior wires and various metal components against her cold skin as she built a computer in early twentieth-century Earth. It had been difficult, and sometimes painful as the crude materials conducted energy across her fingers; the endeavor was initially beyond even S’paak’s estimation of her own abilities. But when Jessica said I sometimes expect too much of you, S’paak had immediately been determined to succeed.

The circumstances were urgent, critical, yet the captain’s disappointment had registered as still more critical. And afterwards, Jess’s fascination with Edith Keeler, and Edith’s with her, only deepened S’paak’s sense of urgency. In that time and place, such an attachment between two women—even when both were human—could only be a great danger. Her concern was not entirely illogical. But she had not lied to herself then and did not now. S’paak respected Edith, but at the same time, had almost loathed her, for no reason except the obvious depth of feeling growing between Edith and Jessica. It was more excruciating to observe them together than to burn her fingers on the wires, a visceral pain that no logic could explain or justify.

Her shame also struck her as, in some way, a failure. The captain unquestionably merited S’paak’s devotion. It was not irrational in that sense. Jess deserved a friend who would not regret her.

She already had friends of that kind, of course: McCoy most of all, but many others scattered across the galaxy. And she seemed to value them, to welcome the human expressiveness she shared with them—and yet S’paak’s calculations resulted in the unambiguous conclusion that the captain spent considerably more time with her than all others, even accounting for their professional proximity. Jessica did not have to set aside significant portions of her time off-duty for games of strategy or conversation of no particular moment, nor show up at S’paak’s door with food and tea when S’paak was weary enough to avoid the lines at the replicators. All information suggested that she had no other motive than liking S’paak’s company and caring for her welfare.

S’paak, too, enjoyed the disproportionate quantity of time they spent together, and wished the captain well beyond her ability to articulate. At the same time, she could offer little to her in personal terms, except unbending loyalty. It was more than she should feel, and less than Jessica deserved. S’paak didn’t know if she felt guiltier over the depth of friendship between them or over her own ambivalence about it, but neither could be denied.

And even that was a lesser truth. S’paak’s eyelids twitched and she opened them, staring at the familiar Vulcan weapons decorating her quarters, the gleam of the metals against the deep red of her walls. She knew her shame was not confined to feelings of friendship.

She had always recognized that Captain Kirk was an attractive woman, had increasingly found that her dislike of the standard Starfleet uniform for women came to a very sudden end whenever she looked at Jessica. There was no acceptable rationale for this, no significant variations between the cut of the captain’s clothes and the inconveniences of the uniform for other women, except accommodations to differing proportions. But Jessica had a habit of settling into the captain’s chair with easy assurance, stretching out her booted legs, then hooking one ankle over the other as she delivered crisp, entirely professional orders to the crew, and it just—looked different.

Sometimes, watching her, S’paak felt as if the hazy fever of pon farr might return at any moment, her blood aflame, consuming her entirely should her eyes linger on the line of Jessica’s throat and breast, or smoothly muscled legs, or even the waves of dark blonde hair pinned behind her head and neatly parted above her brow.

Out of respect, S’paak made a point of fixing her eyes on the captain’s face when interacting with her on the bridge, trying not to become equally distracted by the soft curve of her mouth or the gleam in her eyes as they glanced at each other, needing few words. S’paak had to remind herself that they were surrounded by other people; at such moments, it was remarkably easy to forget anyone else existed at all. She adopted a habit of counting to an appropriate number of seconds before decorum required her to turn away, examining sensor results or the stellar field in their viewscreen while her pulse thrummed in her throat.

And when Jessica ordered S’paak to accompany her on an away team, as she often did, there was always some observation of the environment to be made, or tricorder reading to consider, or an expression or conversation to evaluate rationally. She took comfort in the fact that the burden of all this could be managed in a way that pon farr could not—repressed, contained, modulated to the appropriate conduct of a first officer and friend, giving nothing away even when her stomach lurched at the sight of her captain.

But after three years, S’paak had come to understand that this emotion, this feeling of starved longing for what could never be hers, was not going to disappear. Perhaps it never would. Then again, it didn’t need to; her silent hunger for her friend and superior officer inconvenienced no one but herself. This particular shame didn’t diminish her loyalty, but amplified it. Beyond any desire for touch, of the body or the mind, she longed to be useful to Jessica, significant, valuable, more irreplaceable than anyone else could ever be.

Sometimes, that desire struck her as every bit as impossible and unreasonable as the other; sometimes, she thought the empirical evidence suggested she could attain this much, at least. But it fed her discipline and her work like nothing else. S’paak knew she would make for a highly competent science officer on any vessel, but she also knew she’d never be so effective again as on this mission, unless—she hardly dared hope for it—they were sent out together again.

S’paak unfolded her legs and rose to her feet, oddly at peace once more. Her emotions, if forbidden, were at least comprehensible, neat and compressed within her mind. Nothing short of a mind-meld could disturb them.

-----

S’paak slept as dreamlessly as usual, with no reason to expect disaster on the next day’s shift. But that was what came of expectations without evidence one way or another. She, Jessica, and McCoy had returned from Camus II in discomfort, unable to do much for the dying scientist who had once loved Jessica—not like S’paak, but in her own way, no doubt. None of them suspected anything odd about the captain’s behavior. Not then. But her chilly stubbornness on the bridge caught S’paak’s attention with no need for contact with her mind.

“Continue present course,” the captain insisted, sitting rigidly upright rather than leaning back with her usual air of careless authority.

“At maximum speed, Starbase Two would still meet the emergency,” said S’paak, more puzzled than alarmed. Jess was generally reasonable and measured in judgment, for all of her emotional displays.

Lieutenant Lysa glanced over at both of them, her brow furrowed.

“Captain, shall I advise Starfleet Command of the change of plan?” Lysa asked.

“No change of plan has been ordered, lieutenant!” snapped the captain. “Our arrival at Beta Aurigae will merely be delayed. Our gravitational studies of that binary system will not suffer, and a life may be saved!” She paused. “This is not unusual procedure for the Enterprise.”

A peculiar way of putting it.

“Ma’am,” said S’paak, “I believe Starfleet will have to be notified that our rendezvous with the starship Potemkin will not take place as scheduled.”

Captain Kirk jerked towards her, her body stiff with obvious anger and her features drawn into a scowl.

“Commander S’paak, if you’d concentrate on the areas for which you are responsible, Starfleet Command would’ve been informed already!”

S’paak lifted an eyebrow, not about to stare, but now certain that something was deeply wrong. The human crewmembers looked far more taken aback; whatever the effects of their easy, quick-passing emotions on their minds, they were not unintelligent.

Within an hour, S’paak estimated that a good half of the entire crew of the Enterprise had noticed the strangeness of the captain’s behavior. Kirk continually tried to enact a furious tyranny that made it impossible to protect or help her, least of all after she struck a visibly upset Janice Lester so hard that Dr. Lester crumpled to the ground. 

Neither S’paak nor McCoy had any idea what might have caused the disruption to Kirk’s mind, but there was no denying it. After McCoy led the captain away for medical testing, S’paak thought about the only words Dr. Lester had managed to get out before Captain Kirk knocked her unconscious.

Spock, Bones. Help me. Don’t let them lock me away from you. I’ve got to talk to you!

It did not seem probable for Dr. Lester, a stranger, to speak to either McCoy or S’paak in such a fashion, unless for some reason she had adopted the informality from Captain Kirk in the few minutes they had been alone together. Not impossible, but not likely. Even if Dr. Lester was psychologically unstable—well, she could hardly be more unstable than Kirk herself had become since their return. And S’paak thought it obvious that Kirk had been trying to prevent Dr. Lester from communicating whatever she was trying to say.

S’paak trusted Dr. McCoy’s medical expertise enough that she saw no need to interfere with his physiological and psychological tests of the captain. Instead, she retraced her steps back to Dr. Lester’s guarded quarters. Lieutenant Galloway, a security officer, frowned at her.

“How is the doctor?” S’paak asked him.

“She regained consciousness very quickly,” he said.

S’paak gave a sharp nod. “Good. I have questions to ask her.”

With customary human transparency, uncertainty settled over his features. “Did the captain order it, ma’am?”

S’paak was not about to be stopped by Galloway, of all people, during this brief opportunity she had to discover the truth. McCoy’s tests could only distract Kirk for so long. She looked down her nose at him.

“Why should she?” she said. “They are my questions; therefore, I am ordering it, lieutenant.”

“The captain said no one is allowed to speak to Dr. Lester,” he said weakly.

“Has such an order ever included her senior officers?” she said.

“No, ma’am,” he admitted, and glanced around the hall. “Commander S’paak, I think the captain meant that a guard should be present.”

Good enough.

“By all means, lieutenant,” she told him.

Together, they strode into the quarters where Janice Lester stood somberly by her bed, arms about her waist. Dr. Lester turned as they entered, Galloway’s hand drifting near his phaser. If Lester noticed, she didn’t care; the frustration in her face immediately transmuted into wild relief at the sight of them.

“S’paak!” she cried, taking an unsteady step forward. “I should have known you’d come back!”

S’paak gestured for Galloway to stand near the door. Thankfully, he didn’t resist that order, and S'paak stalked over to the doctor, near enough that she could drop her voice out of Galloway’s range of hearing.

“Dr. Lester, I—”

“I’m not Janice Lester,” she whispered. “You’ve got to believe me. She is.”

S’paak blinked. No rational response immediately came to mind.

“Explain,” she said at last.

“Janice and Coleman planned this,” said the woman who looked and sounded like Dr. Lester, and presumably was Lester, and only very ill. “I’m Jess, S’paak. At least, what makes Jessica Kirk me is trapped in this body.” She gestured at her slim, sickly form with every appearance of distaste. “Janice wasn’t actually weak—she took me by surprised, overpowered me, connected me to some sort of device. I don’t know what it is, exactly, but I came to in this body, and to her in mine. She’s out of her mind, S’paak.”

It was a baffling, unlikely explanation for the peculiarities S’paak had observed. Not impossible, of course, and it conveniently explained just about every anomaly surrounding both women throughout the last few hours. But it explained them in defiance of all probability. Yet if this were true, S’paak could hardly abandon Captain Kirk—Jessica—to this fate.

“Complete life-entity transfer with the aid of a mechanical device?” S’paak asked.

Maybe-Lester nodded eagerly. “Yes, that’s what it must’ve been.”

“To my knowledge,” said S’paak, selecting each word with even greater care than she always did, “such total transfer has never been accomplished with complete success anywhere in the galaxy.”

“It was accomplished and forgotten long ago on Camus II,” maybe-Lester insisted. “I am a living example.”

“That is your claim,” S’paak said. “As yet, it is unsubstantiated by any external evidence, or objective tests.”

The other woman’s brows drew together. “Nevertheless, S’paak, it is the truth I’m speaking.”

S’paak studied her, unable to see any signs of deception, yet unsure that she would see them in such a case. If this woman who looked and sounded like Janice Lester was not lying or insane, her explanation would make for a much more palatable truth than the one S’paak had feared, the inescapable conclusion that Kirk had gone completely out of her mind. But the very appeal of an alternate explanation, as well as its unlikelihood, made her wary.

“At this moment, Dr. McCoy is examining the captain for psychological changes,” S’paak said, meeting her eyes. “If any facts are uncovered, that would be acceptable evidence. The only kind which is acceptable to Starfleet Command or to the crew of the Enterprise.”

“S’paak,” maybe-Lester said impatiently, “when I was caught in the interspace of the Tholian Sector, you risked your life and the Enterprise to get me back! Help me get back now. When the Vians of Minara demanded that we let Bones die, we didn’t permit it!”

“That is true,” said S’paak slowly, but she knew it wasn’t proof. “The captain did not. However, those events have been recorded. They could have become known to you.”

The other woman took a quick breath, her gaze unwavering and intense, fixed on S’paak’s face in what S’paak acknowledged to herself was very much Jessica’s way. But the eyes were the wrong color, the wrong shape, the wrong—everything was wrong, and this explanation so strange, yet so very much preferable to what S’paak feared.

Then again, was it more logical to presume that two women spontaneously going mad was more likely than one? She could acknowledge an elegant simplicity to this explanation, beyond its convenience.

“You are closer to the captain than anyone in the universe. You know her thoughts,” maybe-Lester said, her tone urgent and matter-of-fact, not sentimental. An easy misunderstanding if she only knew of them by report. But if she was Jessica, then—for a brief, fractional moment, S’paak felt like she had the first time she set foot on Earth, breathing in the richness of its air, so overwhelmed by sensation that her control over herself nearly crumbled on the spot. 

“What does your telepathic mind tell you now?” maybe-Lester was saying.

S’paak knew her expression had not changed, not given anything away. But it was an obvious solution, a logical one. She dared not risk even a cautious look at Galloway, but shifted her position to stand in his line of sight, hoping that her taller form would obscure her actions. It was terrifyingly simple to brush her fingers over the familiar psi-points on the unfamiliar face, and just as simple to link their minds as if it were nothing.

This time, S’paak found that she didn’t need to whisper the ritual phrases that guided most mind-melds, nor even rely on the controlled mental effort she usually had to exert to navigate the chaos of a human mind. Her own spare, careful thoughts easily joined those of the woman before her, charged with fear, misery, desperation, but implacable resolve. She had to try. She had to keep trying, couldn’t give up, couldn’t end this way—

Already, it required more discipline for S’paak to maintain a barrier between them than to join their thoughts together. This woman’s mind was breathtakingly vibrant and dynamic, blending a cool flow of sharp reasoning and calculation with an overwhelming force of emotion. Both currents felt equally intense, equally familiar. Her mind might well consume everything S’paak was if she let it, or become subsumed into S’paak’s own—she couldn’t tell. She’d never been able to tell.

Jess. Jessica.

S’paak withdrew from the meld as quickly as good practice allowed, pulling her hand away from Lester’s—Jessica’s—face. She knew the captain had not invaded her own thoughts. It was not her way, nor her ability, and S’paak had the distinct impression that Jess was too caught up in the very understandable anxieties of her situation to try. Her own mind was secure, and in any case, they had far greater priorities.

“I believe you,” S’paak said, and Jessica’s shoulders slumped in relief, even as S’paak’s mind raced ahead.

There would be difficulties. Galloway, for one, and possibly, every other person on the ship, depending on the results of McCoy’s tests. It might well be only the two of them against everyone on the ship, against perhaps an entire universe that would see only the outer shells of Janice Lester and Jessica Kirk.

You are closer to the captain than anyone in the universe.

Well, the attempt must be made, S’paak decided. Jessica’s control over her own mind and body had been stripped from her, yet again, in an utterly bizarre way that no one could possibly deserve or desire. Their path out might be difficult, but it was not complex, and doing nothing was not an option.

“Come with me,” S’paak murmured.

Three hours later, Jessica had been restored to her own body, to the very evident relief of all concerned except Janice Lester herself. S’paak’s own relief somewhat passed reason. To know that Jessica stood beside her, trapped and endangered—to know she could reach into the mind behind a strange face with only the slightest effort, and find herself swept up in the familiar flood of Jessica’s thoughts—and yet to see a stranger? It was the least important element of the ordeal, but S’paak didn’t like it.

Once she returned to the captain’s chair, Jessica thanked the many mutineers for their loyalty to the principles of the Federation above unthinking obedience, and several of the security officers who had obeyed Lester winced. As they well should, S’paak thought. They should have known something was wrong, as so many others had. Chekov and Sulu had refused to fly the ship. Scott had planned to overthrow the captain with a half-reluctant McCoy. Jessica could have died alone while an intruder governed the Enterprise like some ancient warlord and led them into disaster. But some of the crew had done nothing.

For all of S’paak’s years of burning shame, what she felt in the privacy of her mind had never led her to anything so contemptible.

She tucked the thought away for another time and focused on her post as the Enterprise rushed into warp 6, Jessica’s voice ringing out with her usual steady, controlled calm. Not the control of a Vulcan, but not entirely unlike, and S’paak could see the effect on the nervous bridge crew, the tension in various human voices and postures fading as the hours of their shift went on. Jessica had refused to cut her own short, as ever.

Logical, thought S’paak. The most effective thing Jess could do at this point was behave as much like her usual self as possible, and undoubtedly she knew it. But she must be tired.

-----

At the end of their shift, Jessica and S’paak walked quietly towards the turbolift. Once the doors closed, Jessica exhaled and leaned against the wall with a low groan, pressing her fingers to her forehead.

“You should rest, captain,” S’paak told her.

“I can’t say I’m looking forward to sleep tonight,” Jessica said ruefully, forcing herself back upright. Her right hand was still pressed to her temple.

A headache was to be expected, S’paak knew. Jess was prone to them under stress, and anyone might experience an unusually painful migraine after the day she’d had. It would be easy to soothe, of course, just as S’paak had melded with her while she slept and soothed her pain over Rayna. But that had been different.

Forbidden. Very forbidden. She hadn’t even hesitated.

S’paak removed temptation through her customary means of locking her hands behind her back. But she could see how strained and exhausted Jess looked, now that she wasn’t in full sight of the crew and projecting strength.

“You should still rest,” S’paak said.

“Very logical of you,” said Jessica, lowering her hand and breaking into the sunny smile she so often directed at S’paak, if an unusually weary iteration of it. “How about you come by my quarters for chess instead, after your dinner? I’m going to check in with Bones before I settle in, make sure Janice didn’t leave anything behind. But I’ve got to get my thoughts to slow down before I consider sleeping—you know how it is.”

S’paak did, indeed, know. She also knew Dr. McCoy would do better at bullying Jess into sleep, so she nodded.

“I’ll join you in two hours,” she said while the turbolift opened.

“No doubt to the minute,” said Jessica, her voice brightening, and she carelessly waved a hand as they parted.

For 2.7 seconds, the gesture brought her hand within range of S’paak’s own, had she chosen to reach out. S’paak could have touched her fingers to Jessica’s, perhaps even drawn them over her skin—but that would mean a far greater loss than gain. Jess, after all, knew what that meant to Vulcans. Instead, S’paak very reasonably kept her hands wrapped around each other and held behind her, where they could cause no trouble.

As she walked towards the mess hall, she recalled Jessica’s fond, laughing voice of two years ago: Please stay out of trouble, Commander S’paak.

S’paak, not at all injured by the unconvincing reproach, had returned her gaze and said with equally unconvincing innocence,

That is always my intention, captain.

It was rarely the point to convince her, of course. Jessica saw the finer nuances and edges of S’paak’s personality, and very evidently delighted in seeing them. The obvious joy she took in understanding and observing her—the joy she took in S’paak—had always been too unfamiliar and heady to repulse.

S’paak ate her dinner in outwards silence, thoughts still darting around her mind, and did reach the captain’s quarters at precisely the scheduled time. She found the layers of the chess set already pulled out and the pieces properly set up. She and Jessica hardly spoke for an hour, hearing little except the slight clack of the pieces through three rapid games, and the steady rumble of the ship.

Finally, after S’paak managed to eke out a win in the final round, Jessica sighed.

“You should probably get some sleep, too,” she said, her fingers curling against her palms.

S’paak shook her head. “I do not require anything like the amount of rest you do, and I slept well last night. If you want to see if you can claim victory after five games instead of three, it’s no trouble to me.”

In answer, Jessica’s hands relaxed and she began quickly setting up the pieces again.

“May the best woman win,” she said.

She already has, S’paak thought, remembering Janice Lester’s screams of rage.

“As ever,” said S’paak.

She was still highly alert by the time that Jessica’s eyes started blinking more slowly. Jess even yawned before almost absently seizing S’paak’s king and declaring her third checkmate of the night. S’paak had not let her win, of course—she never did—but her attention on the game had been rather less focused than usual. Throughout the evening, Jessica had said little of her thoughts, but her face was still drawn, and a few times, her hand shook as she moved one of the pieces. Nothing remarkable for most people, but unusual for her.

S’paak didn’t like leaving her alone, despite knowing that Jessica could take care of herself, and likely needed rest more than anything. Staying was certainly not an option, at any rate. They wished each other quiet farewells, and S’paak dutifully returned to her own quarters, very slightly soothed by the warmer air and the colors of Vulcan. It had been a long day for her, as well, however little her strain compared to Jessica’s. Alone, she allowed herself a long, steadying inhalation, then rolled out her meditation mat and sat down.

It took longer than usual for her thoughts to settle into a proper order—calm, disciplined, free of self-deception. She felt guilty, she realized, and not for her typical reasons. Amidst all the chaos and near-disasters of the day, the very real harm to Jessica and potentially to herself and the crew of the Enterprise, something had given rise to an entirely different emotion. More than gratification, less than joy.

You are closer to the captain than anyone in the universe, Jessica had said. She’d been trapped, desperate, saying the words in a voice other than her own, staring into S’paak’s eyes with a body other than her own. But she had not lied. S’paak had slipped into her mind seconds later, felt Jessica’s conviction in that fact, so simple and absolute that it required no qualification or reflection.

It was wrong and illogical, S’paak concluded, to take any enjoyment from such a terrible circumstance. She shouldn’t, for Jessica’s sake if not her own. But even long meditation did nothing to budge the selfish pleasure that still lingered. She finally changed clothes and stretched out on her bed, hands clasped over her stomach as she stared at the ceiling.

Closer than anyone in the universe.

She could live on this day for years.

[ghostlykiss]

getting to know mutuals!

tagged by the amazing @mxrcusflint and @intrepidjourneys 🩷🩷

what's the origin of your blog title? Used to work in theatre and love the idea of ghost lights -- there is always a light that stays on, even during "dark days" (days off). Ghostly kiss meaning there is always love present, even if it doesn't outright seem like it.

otp(s) + shipname(s): The main ones are probably Jake and Bradley - Hangster, Steve and Bucky - Stucky, and Jim and Spock - Spirk.

favourite colour: Lilac, or any pastel purple 💜 but I also love pink 🩷.

song stuck in your head: Who We Are by Hozier ("Hold me like water/ or christ, hold me like a knife" ?????? Ask me about my love for characters yearning to be loved as a weapon, to be seen as useful).

weirdest habit/trait: I affectionately and very gently bite the people I hold dearest, especially when drunk.

hobbies: Hiking, film photography, motorsports photography, drawing, travelling, making things (sewing, carpentry, crafting, etc).

if you work, what's your profession? Project manager at a bank (it pays the bills, no I do not like it).

if you could have any job you wish, what would it be? Aerospace engineering.

something you're good at: Anything involving making/building something, I'm good with my hands.

something you hate: Speaking as a dog owner, people letting their dogs run off leash in public (not off leash) areas. I don't care how friendly they are.

something you collect: Old coins/money from around the world but also specifically places I visit.

something you forget: That life outside of my current project(s) exists 😭.

what's your love language: All of them but the main ones are acts of service and quality time.

favourite movie/show: Other than the obvious ones - The Mummy, Some Like It Hot, Pride and Prejudice, and too many others to count, I love movies.

favourite food: Cuisine - Korean, specific - sushi.

favourite animal: I don't know how not to overthink this answer, I love all animals and I don’t know how to pick a favourite 🫣.

what were you like as a child: Independent, big into climbing trees, a bit wild (so nothing changed lol).

favourite subject at school: Art!

least favourite subject: Biology and English (English isn’t my native language).

what's your best character trait? I'm comfortable admitting when I'm wrong, and learning from my mistakes. And while I do bitch a lot, I also have a pretty positive outlook on life and I'm pretty resilient about it.

what's your worst character trait? Not finishing projects, not on purpose I just get distracted by a new shiny project easily.

if you could change any detail of your life right now, what would it be? Get rid of the conditions that are causing chronic pain.

if you could travel in time, who would you like to meet? Could I choose to go forwards in time instead, and see/live in the future? If not, then a relative who was a famous ballet dancer/choreographer. I would want to tell him how much he shaped male ballet in the 20th century

Tagging (I'm sorry if you've already been tagged!) @hangmanbradshaw @rcgersromanoff @nixie-deangel @tgmsunmontue and whoever else I missed that wants to participate (Especially if it's your side blog and I don't know what your main is 😭😭)

[the-insanity-clause-interests]

Interests

IF YOU LIKE THE LITTLE CLUB, or more specifically Tiny Turtle/Little Lizard/Scuba Steve/'s Minecraft Dragons series, then i Will literally love you forever and PLEASE talk to me, I'm begging you

ok so anyway. List of interests here we go

warning. This is really fucking long

in no particular order

franchise

Pokémon - everything until the goh series and onward. Including movies, games, etc. My number 1 special interest now and forever - my fav pokemon are Hatterene and Delphox tied for first, then.... actually, it's a long list

Beyblade - burst and metal fusion, but i haven't watched any series past the one right after Dante. Idk if there were any after that or if I’m forgetting something

How to train your dragon - everything including games (minus the modern age show, and while i have my misgivings with the third movie, i can still be normal about it. The live action however, i will not discuss.)

The Avatar - Korra and Aang are both great. Never played any games but they're probably cool

Ghibli - do i even have to explain?? I've watched a bunch of their movies

Star Wars - uhgggshahsgjsdujdhsj so good. I’m obsessed with it. I own multiple vintage lightsabers and an old cosplay a family member made back in the day. Once i save up enough I’m gonna buy a doubles blades yellow saber and maybe a sentinel cosplay to go with it. Qui Gon is my favorite character

Star Trek - huge trekkie. Fav will always be the og series' with Kirk and Spock, but I've seen most (except the newer) shows. Spirk is the ship of all time. Hell, they're ship is so good it's for for the stars (get it (sorry))

Tolkienverse - not sure where to list this honestly. So so good, deathly ill over bagginshield and gigolas

books (standalone)

To Sleep In A Sea Of Stars - i could go on and on. Havent read the second book yet (which is why i gave it in standalone)

The blue roan child - i love horses, and This was such a good dive into that for me. I love this book to bits and pieces

Pegasus, the Flame of Olympus

The Life And Death Parade - i have nothing to say, this book makes me speechless. Not even thee best written but oh man. Oh man.

books (series)

Wings of Fire - childhood favorite. I still reread these and look forward to all the new installments - i related to these book's and characters so, so much, esp when i was younger

Wolves of the Beyond - i have personal connections to these books. Jeez. I think it helped form my love and respects for Nature

FoxCraft - just good af. I think it's at fault for my alterhuman tendencies tho

The Inheritance Cycle - typical and mainstream of me i know. But doesn't change that it's good

The Poppy Wars - FOAMING AT THE FCKING MOUTH

Septimus Heap - haven't finished (yet)

Crier's War - pretty good, i ended up naming a weapon i custom built in dai (video game) "Crier's Assassin" because i wanted the name to be something that meant something to me, but was also, idk, kinda edgy sounding? Most people dont get the reference but those that do would probably say something like "but criers assassin didnt actually kill her (yknow when that happened in the first book) why would h name a weapon that" and the answer is because i can. :3

Tv series

Httyd rtte (+ riders and defenders of berk)

pokemon xyz - literally the most life changing interest of mine. I love this show with all my heart and more

Loki - i really like the soundtrack - OK and maybe hes hot. Go lokius my beloved

Arcane - a friend of mine introduced it to me. Funny story, season two is how i got laid last year. Pretty good. Jynx is really relatable to me, like due to her mental stuff, that's probably not normal loll. But any way jayvik is pretty cool. Sevika deserved better. Zaundads are cool and silco is hot. Fav character is probably echo. Fav moment in the series was maybe Heimerdingers solo, i love that song now

The Dragon Prince - Yeah pretty good. Fallen Star / Aaravos is pretty hot, love the voice. The tropes going on between Runaan and Ethari are unparalleled, i absolutely adore them. Corvus and Soren's dynamic is the absolute best and i love them together, top ship and my two fav characters. Even just the plot of the show is just incredible, and the world building, and the literal poetry??? Divine

Voltron

beyblade Burst - Valt's version - i have so many thoughts. Lui and Free are just. Wow. I aspire to be them, simultaneously. Shu and Alexander are pretty cool. Valt is an awesome main character, and his friends are peak, particularly Diago, Ken, Silas, and Wakiya just have SUCH fucking good character designs and arcs i cant get OVER it

SheRa

Lost Song

lolirock - vaguely remember it but i know i loved it At the time. Music

horseland - love love love love

Sword Art Online - emotionally devastating

my hero academia

seven deadly sins - i think i only watched like two seasons but it's really good regardless. Amazing storyline

Whichever version of Digimon i watched

Avatar The Last Airbender - home of my all time favorite episode in the entire franchise, The Cave Of Two Lovers, ep 2 s2 (i like the music) (and also the vibes of the nomads) seCRET TUNEL

heartstopper - gay gay homosexual gay (how i figured out my sexuality (not because i like either of them, but because it was the first time I'd seen two Real People tm that we're both guys just.... happy. In a relationship.

Demon slayer

the Mandalorian - AWESOME fucking soundtrack. Put me on that shit any day

Another Life - i am extremely obsessed with this one. Changed my entire personality for like a month after watching. Peak soundtrack

Star Trek TOS - amazing

Heaven Official's Blessing - also good as the comic

Carole and Tuesday - did i mention how much i like music

Blue Period - more educational than any actual art class I've taken in my entire life. Thank you art gods for blessing us with this masterpiece

Movies / Movie Series

How To Train Your Dragon (excluding the third and the remake)

Dead Poets Society - emotionally devastating possibly intentional queer allegory. Watching it was a fever dream experience, staying up all night on a school night once in 8th grade to watch it free with ads on YouTube. Oh captain my captain, anyone?

V for Vendetta - i don't know why my mother let me watch this as a 11 year old. But. Oh well. It was pretty good, i heavily enjoy it and found the themes to be relevant. Plus i relate a lil bit to the main characters so there's that

Howl's Moving Castle - masterpiece, particularly memorable soundtrack with the most beautiful animation out there.

Bubble - it's just so pretty. Plus a memorable tune

Nimona - queer alllegory plus everything else allegory plus themes of everything u forgot to think of. Perfect. Gay. Shapeshifting genderfluid "i am today" boy that is pink. Wonderful

Drifting Home - great animation, idk, i just like this one

Wakanda Forever - mainly for the soundtrack

Pride and Prejudice - 2009 SPECIFICALLY

Avatar - the Navi, not the horrid live action movies for atla

The Hobbit - freaking love the hobbit. First movie has to be my favorite. Did i mention bagginshield? The misty mountains song + soundtrack is impeccable and without flaw. The credit songs are bangers

Pirates of the Caribbean - minus that one actors supposed stuff that went on there with court, don't know much about that and I’m staying out of it 😭 i just like boats and sailing and Pirates man.

games

DRAGON AGE: INQUISITION - i did a fem qunari rogue (daggers) that specialized in assassination (her name was Hera) and i had been making towards a romance with josephine (before my save files corrupted permanently........) - next was a (dagger wielding) dalish elf rogue who romanced Dorian (MY LOVE) and i haven't had time to start a specialization yet. Both times i sided w the mages, and left the queen in power. Though the second time at least on good terms w her lover. And uhhh the first one i think i sacrificed Hawk cuz i couldbt fuckkng remember which one was which and i will forever regretttt - the battle tactic's and strats are really in depth honestly with how u can customize not only your own but also your companions' movepool, stats, armor, weapons, etc. plus there's actual incentive to stay interactive with them bc of the relationship/friendship/ mechanic, its actually really cool. Plus there are so many companions to choose from. And the sheer scope of character customization at the beginning is insane. Ive spent hours total just on that, holy hell, its so cool. And did i mention the SOUNDTRACK. And the bARD SONGS. anyway this is also a special interest of mine

robot unicorn attack

minecraft - need i say more? Ive been there since before the ocean update. Love c418

Pokemon X - first every pokemon game, picked fenniken for starter. Got that Delphox (nicknamed Fire (original, right)) to level 100. I miss pokemon amie. I loved being able to skate around and do little tricks. I lovr that game so much i cry thinking about it sometimes

pokemon omega ruby - idk i just loved this one a shit ton too. (Dont get me wrong i love ALL of them. These in particular just stand out). Latios is my favorite guy ever. I caught Heatron in that game. As well as Cobalion (and a number of other legendaries, those three just happen to b favorites). I liked being able to fly w latios and i liked the tune of the flute. Whole game is engaging and has so many fun things to do

pokemon games in general - X (&Y) through Lets Go, ive played it, and except for Eevee or Sword, Ive played every version. I've also played pokemon rumble blast and pkmn silver. I own scarlet and Violet but haven't gotten around to playing them yet. I am like unsustainably obsessed with pokemon man. I've got binders full of cards too. And So many plushies. So many (but not enough)

Splatoon - played on wiiU and switch, i like it, its cute. I like the ink/squid cencept. And the "hair" (tentacle) styles are so so cute. Jealous

httyd -have a game on ds and also on ps4 (dawn of the new riders), theyre not bad. Might notve liked them so much if i wasnt super into httyd, but i like them

Life Is Strange - ughagsjjsdj so good, main character is cute too

My singers monsters - from my childhood

School of Dragons - WHAT DO YOU FUCKING MEAN THEY SHUT IT DOWN???????? I FUCKING LOVE MY SHOCKJAW and my monstrous nightmare and boneknapper and groncicle and all my other little buddies :( i miss them and being able to fly - i had been saving up gems for the expansion packs... i miss it so much

Cut the Rope - fav early childhood game. I love that little green guy. Omnomnom that candy all you want buddy

Cells - educational. Semi regular updates. Thanks pewdiepie

Rolling Sky

Pokemon Go - obvious

Horizon: Forbidden West - actually really fucking good. Sci fi but simultaneously post apocalyptic. Graphics are beautiful to no end, i cant get over it. There is so much detail. I can see more on my tv screen than i can in real life man. It has a really good plot too while still being somewhat open world with lots of side quests. The fact that the character looks the way she does is important to the story so i dont care that much that there isnt character customization beyond the armor even tho it would rlly be nice (i say as a man). The battle tactics are cool as well

pikmin - i just love pikmin. Been playing it on the wii and wiiU since i was rlly young

Kirby's Epic Yarn- I fucking love Kirby. Another special interest. I could go On and on about Kirby. So cute. Pink. 2nd play is Prince Fluff. Cute ass decorations. Cute music that i want to simultaneously bounce around as a ball of Joy and fall asleep too. Lovely plot. Literally the part of my childhood that wasn't shit. I love him for eternity in this game specifically 🫶🩷

[arbitrarymelodist]

getting to know your mutuals!

tagged by the wonderful @andrandiriel

what’s the origin of your blog title?

Well, um. In 2012 I was introduced to Keroro Gunsou, also known as Sgt. Frog, at a sleepover with a couple of friends. (Mostly because of Chuck Huber as Kululu.) I went home and continued watching the rest of the English dub throughout the summer and that was that.

Until the summer of 2014, when I realized that the English dub only did like 70 of the 360ish episodes, and decided to rewatch the series in English sub this time. But something about it STUCK - I mean, REALLY HARD. 2014 was the year of Gay Space Frogs. And I uh, um..... ... ....... well, no one needs to know how deep that can of worms really goes, right? hahaha....

At the time I made this tumblr in 2013, I was going by cluelessred instead. But for whatever reason I decided to rebrand completely in December 2014, and took the inspiration from Sgt. Frog's fourth ending theme.

Katte ni Shinryakusha/"Arbitrarily Invaders". This song was my JAM for literally three entire summers. Can't tell you how many times I said "Swivel your hips in deceptive dancing!" So there's the first part.

I have also been composing music probably since I was a kid. (Except I didn't start writing it down until about 2008.) So there's the "melodist" part.

ArbitraryMelodist.

otp(s) + shipname(s):

hawkahy. spirk/mcspirk. dakavendish.

Favorite color:

this one

but i also like green and purp

Song stuck in your head:

Move Toward the Darkness from the Addams Family Musical. What a bizarre theater adaptation that was. Fun to play tho.

Weirdest habit/trait:

Self-shipping. Easily. But it's how I get things done.

Hobbies:

Cross-stitching, composing, drawing, writing, singing.

If you could have any job you wish, what would it be?

I've said it before and I'll say it again. I want to sit on a porch swing on a sunny spring morning with a drink and just take it all in. In either complete silence or with somebody who means something to me, in quiet companionship. And once I've had my fill of the sunshine and birds chirping, I'll come inside and do whatever the hell I want.

But that doesn't pay the bills, does it.

Something you’re good at:

Other than my hobbies? Driving, I guess. I've never been in an accident or even pulled over.

Something you hate:

AI.

Something you collect:

Coins and paper money. Dust bunnies

Something you forget:

To take the trash to the curb on Monday nights.

What’s your love language?

Making people laugh. Doing stuff with people in general.

Favorite movie/show:

Aristocats. Hunchback of Notre Dame. MASH. Star Trek (TOS and TNG). Animaniacs

Favorite food:

Pizza pasta put it in a box

Favorite animal:

BNNUY

What were you like as a child:

LOUD and HYPERACTIVE. What happened to all my energy :(

Favorite subject at school:

orchestra

Least favorite subject:

math. fuck you mr. boyce (and i guess fuck you mr. bowling)

What’s your best character trait?

creative

What’s your worst character trait?

sluggish

If you could change any detail of your life right now, what would it be?

i would love to not be chronically exhausted anymore

If you could travel in time, who would you like to meet?

Oh dear. Ummmmm... ᵘᵐᵐ

im tagging @autremirai @godofthepans and @chickenender but yall don't have to if you don't want to i guess

[newtedison]

WIP Game

Rules: make a new post with the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Tag as many people as you have WIPs. People send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, then post a little snippet or tell them something about it!

thank you for the tag @crestfallercanyon !

so i don't actually have many full WIPs as i rarely start a project i don't intend on finishing. however i do have many drabbles and bits of writing practice that i've kept over the years so i'll list all of those for fun.

Grease AU Drabble (the maze runner, newtmas, from like 2015-6 i wanna say?)

Madge/Katniss (the hunger games, could never finish this as the knowledge of the books from last year has left my brain but it was a fun moment while it lasted)

NYC Drabble (the maze runner, newtmas, also from like 2015-6 i think)

Psychic Sonya/THAH-Verse (the maze runner, sonya/harriet primarily. this was going to be a companion fic for "to have a heartbeat" but i couldn't quite get it to work.)

Spirk Drabble 1 (star trek: the original series)

Spirk Drabble 2 (star trek: the original series. both of these ended up being practice for what became my actual spirk fic(s).)

SWATH (snow white and the huntsman. yeagh)

Thomally Safe Haven (the maze runner. this was a quick moment that sadly faded)

and then my actual WIPs:

9. Brenderesa Draft (the maze runner. this thang is like 30k ish and has changed shape so many times over the course of several years. never had a project i've had this much trouble with. other projects keep preventing me from finishing this but i'd love to let it see the light of day. there's some good stuff in there.)

10. Caspeter Timeloop (the chronicles of narnia. yes i'm back on my caspeter bullshit. this thang just hit like 21k and i fear how long it's going to get.)

since i ended up having 10 things i'm not going to tag 10 people. i'm also really bad at tagging for these things in general i forget everyone who's ever existed and what their URLs are i'm so sorry. if you want to do this just say i tagged you and it will be true.

also as per the rules if you want me to post a snippet or anything more about these send me an ask and i gladly will

[jaybejaybenot]

tagged by @patheticjayce - thanks for the tag :)

whats the origin of your blog title?

i heard viktors va saying it and its been on loop in my mind ever since. i say it to myself when im trying to decide on things. when i made this sideblog i needed a name and was like "well that works" and then it wasn't taken so it was perfect

otp(s)/shipnames:

in arcane, jayvik of course but also zaundads and caitvi. outside of arcane, gotta be spirk and garashir man i love those aliens

favorite color:

red

favorite game:

rdr2, hands down. im a horse girl at heart

song stuck in my head:

a horrible mix between abracadabra and sharks with legs

weirdest habit/trait:

uhh man idk, i drink hot coco in the summer to cool off and i have a truly absurd amount of freckles on my body (i got bored once during SAT testing and counted 583 on my just forearms)

hobbies:

so so many; i'm an equestrian, photography, drawing, writing, book binding, chainmail making, and atm im reading two copies of the odyssey to see where the differences are. those are my main ones at the moment but i've dabbled in so many things lol

if you work, what's your profession?

i work in an entomology museum imaging bees and moths for an international database - i am not an entomologist tho, this just pays the bills and is really cool so i've gotten interested in it as a bonus

if you could have any job, what would you do?

im studying for my bachelors in archaeology so ideally somewhere in a museum doing experimental archaeology work but honestly, dream job would be cattle herding or helping on a horse ranch. i managed a horse farm for a year and god it was the best, my mind is made for manual labor. unfortunately my body would break into shards if i tried it professionally but dream job if i could

something you're good at:

i'm weirdly good at cooking, i can just wing it and come up with something that tastes really good. i made a really good cornbread once but didn't use corn and was actually trying to make a brownie brick so 💅🏼 call me chef boy arby

something you're bad at:

i'm atrocious at focusing. the senioritis is hitting so hard, i can't focus on anything at the moment, even stuff i like. outside of that, im so bad at knowing when to quit. i'm a perfectionist and completionist at heart

something you love:

kindness, the smell of rain and snow before it does, music, horses, people honking in tunnels, my roommates - really hit the jackpot with them they're amazing. i also love committing to the bit, i will do anything for that payoff

something you could talk about for hours off the cuff:

star trek, and spirk. i could literally write a thesis length paper about spirk and how misinterpreted they are in the modern trek era (mostly kelvin timeline, disco/snw is still too new to say for sure) its infuriating. i also have a spreadsheet on them cuz i got really in the weeds a few years back. and honestly i could tie them in with arcane/jayvik now that i think about it, there are definitely some parallels i could draw. oh and also greek mythology i love it so much

something you hate:

people who can't admit they're wrong/don't know/don't like not being the expert on things and who can't apologize. grew up with a dad that was like this so now i try to keep people like that at arms length cuz it fucked me up so bad as a kid

something you collect:

books, coins, bugs, postcards, keychains

something you forget:

so much, i have pretty bad memory problems so i forget a lot of things. i have to ask people about things multiple times so often, its such a pain (and also lowkey scary cuz its a fairly recent development)

whats your love language?

gift giving/acts of service, i love doing things for people or getting them things they want/need especially when they aren't expecting it, or mentioned it offhand or in passing

favorite movies/shows:

star trek - except for that fucking section 31 movie fuck that thing, arcane, rosencrantz and guildenstern are dead, stardust, starcrash, the little prince, silverado and clearcut

favorite food:

mangoes, mini bagels, and this kimchi dip i get at my local farmers market

favorite animal:

horses, cats and whales; got multiple tattoos of all of them

what were you like as a child:

outgoing, friendly, kind of an outsider, definitely the weird kid tho - closet queer meets so much undiagnosed stuff + warrior cats obsession + small christian town lmaooo i was cringe but i was free

favorite subject at school:

history and art are tied, which isn't too surprising given where i am now lmao

least favorite subject:

in my heart i want to love math but math does not love me </3

best character trait:

ive been told i'm really friendly and warm, and would give my shirt to a friend who needed it, and i'm a good listener

worst character trait:

awkward as fuck, i don't know how to talk with people i don't know so i come off as standoffish/shy, i have a hard time being honest with people and trusting people due to childhood trauma (also daddy issues out the wazoo)

if you could change any detail about your life right now, what would it be?

probably just making a bit more money, i can afford rent and such but it doesn't leave much extra for things like tuition and books and things i want to do for myself and it means money is very tight so when things go wrong i'm set back for months. i can't plan for a lot of future things like top surgery or moving abroad to get my masters because of it

if you could travel in time, who would you meet?

funny answer: ea-nasir

serious answer: i'd want to meet a neanderthal or denisovan. i just... i think about them so much, and i love them and i want to know what they were like, did they speak like us? how did their world work? could we communicate?

ok i would tag mutuals but i made this blog like 3 months ago so i don't have any others atm, and all my other mutuals are on my main blog and have been my mutuals/friends for years so if you want to join just hop on!

[onekisstotakewithme]

20 questions for fic writers 💜

tagged by the lovely @mihrsuri (I think more than once, although the other time was some time ago... thank you for the tag! 🥰💜)

1. how many works do you have on ao3? 221, not counting unrevealed ones from exchanges

2. what's your total ao3 word count? 1,417,178 words

3. what fandoms do you write for? Right now, mostly M*A*S*H and The West Wing, though I do occasionally dabble in other fandoms (Star Trek TOS, For All Mankind, etc.)

4. top five fics by kudos? 1) Ties That Bind - Star Trek (Spirk) 2) a wild call and a clear call (that may not be denied) - Star Trek (Spirk) 3) Uncharted Territory - M*A*S*H (Beejhawk) 4) ye who are weary, come home - M*A*S*H (Punnihawk, Charles/Donna, canon pairings, etc.) 5) you were meant for me - M*A*S*H (Punnihawk)

5. do you respond to comments? Not usually. I feel pretty guilty about it and I do try and go for a thank you note in the A/N at the end of each story/chapter, but my spoons are pretty limited. I do however cherish each and every comment, and if I have regular commenters, your username is probably carved into my heart. 🥺

6. what is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Uhhh. That is a good question, because even if I write in angsty/bittersweet scenes, the endings are usually more hopeful or happy.

I guess my best answer to that is "let's do some living (after we die)" only because it's immediately followed by canonical character death. lmao.

7. what's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? There are any number of stories you could pick for this one, haha. But I guess if I had to pick (twist my arm, why don't you!), then it's probably either "ye who are weary, come home" (OT3 Endgame!!!), OR "Make the Leap" (this one takes place on January 21st, 2007, so that and the title should make it self explanatory 😉)

8. do you get hate on fic? Not... really? Sometimes I'd get comments complaining that I should be writing a different pairing 🤷🏻‍♀️ (which..???) but I don't get much "engagement" to begin with usually, so I'm grateful that what I do get is for the most part positive. 🥰

9. do you write smut? Yep. Nothing super hardcore and not very often (because I am a self-conscious girlie haha) but I will write it. Posting it is another story. I want to do more, it's just getting over myself to do it. (if anyone has advice on how to proceed with getting over my self-consciousness, I'm ALL ears).

10. craziest cross over? I once, in my misspent youth, wrote a crossover between Downton Abbey and Titanic (it's still buried in the depths of my FFN page, alas it is unfinished.)

11. have you ever had a fic stolen? Not as far as I know, no.

12. have you ever had a fic translated? Yes! My one M*A*S*H Fic, "Here's Hoping We Meet Now and Then" (aka BJ puts the "GOODBYE" stones together with the help of the rest of the 4077) was translated into German by a dear friend of mine, Pat. And you can read that here.

13. have you ever co-written a fic before? A few times in the distant past. Once recently (I'm sure you'll all see it soon enough!!) 😈... in general, I love the idea of getting to write with my fellow ficcers whom I cherish and admire, so I'd love to do more co-written fics.

14. all time favorite ship? I'm not picking one lmao. But if I had to? Probably CJ/Danny. They had everything. the chemistry. the will they/won't they. the yearnnnning. (Close runners-up are BJ/Peg/Hawkeye, Anna/Bates, Spirk... and Kate/Gibbs because I don't forget my roots).

15. what's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? Triad Wedding. 😬 I got kinda burnt out and (at the time I finished it) went "eh no one will want to read this anyway" so now I have a 125k MASH draft on my desktop. It has... well, everything. Bisexual OT3 wedding. Mucho smut (more than I've ever published in one story before in my LIFE). Communication ✨. etc. It's been two years now, so even though there's a full draft, I don't want to promise that it'll ever be done. It needs a lot of work.

16. what are your writing strengths? Dialogue. I used to be terrified of writing dialogue, and now I think I'm decent at it. Staying in character, maybe?

17. what are your writing weaknesses? Pacing! Ask me why the 125k draft mentioned above is only seven days of in-universe time.

Also I could be better at worldbuilding. I know many authors who flesh out the whole universe and make it feel so breathable and lived in (Mia for example, she's a champ at that!) but that's still a work in progress for me. AND smut. I need to get better/more confident at that, but I've yet to learn how after six-odd years of writing it. 😐

18. thoughts on dialogue in another language? I don't speak enough languages for that. Other authors can do it and do it convincingly. Not me tho.

19. first fandom you wrote in? Lost (baby's first fanfic, still buried in the depths of my FFN page); but I really got into it with Downton Abbey.

20. favorite fic you've written? I could give one of my usual answers about "ye who are weary" (because of the technical achievement of covering so many characters in one story), or "Don't Bet Your Future" (probably my MOST self-indulgent) but instead...

I really enjoyed writing "None of Us Are More Than Caretakers", guys. The season 7 secret relationship is one of my favourite time periods to cover for CJ and Danny, and getting to write this little "missing episode" between Last Hurrah and Institutional Memory was so much fun, and a great technical challenge. Plus it WAS self-indulgent because I got to write all the post-coital scenes we were robbed of in canon AND build up to the events of IM.

thank you again!!! and I'll tag whoever is interested and has a few free hours to kill! 💜✨

[thegeekyartist]

hellooo, this is from the questions for writers game: 4 (dealer's choice), 10, 17, 30, 40 💌

Hellooooo! Thank you for also always playing these ask games with me 💖💖

4. What detail in [insert fic] are you really proud of?

I'm really proud of all the baking elements in The Big Bloody Bake Off. I've worked in bakeries and candy stores for most of my life so I had some knowledge, but doing a LOT of additional research and incorporating all of it into a fic without it feeling boring or textbook was a bit of a challenge. But I feel like I conquered it fairly well while still allowing the love of the act to bleed through.

10. How do you decide what to write?

I've always loved daydreaming about my favorite shows/characters. Even as a kid I remember going to bed imagining different endings to whatever new Psych or Bones episode aired that week. It never occurred to me until a few years ago that I could actually be writing them down. Now I get these struck-by-lightning moments when I'm thinking about an idea and realize "Oh. There's something here." Then I can't help but feed the muse -- like with the 9k Star Trek oneshot I wrote all because of a trucker hat I saw at the thrift store.

17. What highly specific AU do you want to read or write even though you might be the only person to appreciate it?

Oh god I have several that have been floating in my brain. I've been really getting into Star Trek, and I've had this idea of a pre-Federation Earth vs. Vulcan Romeo and Juliet with Spirk that I think has some teeth if I could just make myself write it.

I typed out a few hunks of a WWDITS/Cyrano de Bergerac fic maybe two years ago that could be fun to someday return to. It would be set around s3, Nandor wanting Guillermo's help to woo Gail, but of course he starts falling for Guillermo instead. (a little bit of a twist on the OG plot but I think I could make it work).

I love writing romcoms. I feel like if any AU makes enough sense and it fits somewhere within that genre then I'm all for it.

For one I've already written, my She Loves Me/WWDITS was *definitely* a niche interest that was written just for me lmaoooo I was like "If no one is going to write this super specific AU based on a 1960s musical that only me and two other people in my life have seen, then it's just going to have to be me."

30. Have you ever written something that was out of your comfort zone? If so, what was it, and how did it affect your approach to writing fic thereafter?

I'm gonna be honest and say that most writing feels out of my comfort zone lol. With my painting students I talk a lot about the artist plateau -- the stage when you feel like you're not improving because your taste is greater than your skill. You know WHAT you like to make and what you want it to look like, but you're still trying to figure out HOW. I talk about how it's a frustrating but important step of the artistic process in order to develop your own style and body of work.

And then I sit in front of my computer and forget everything about that lesson and sob in frustration all over the keyboard.

Every fic I've written has challenged me in some way, whether it be stylistically (I wrote a poem and published it anon once that had a unique structure), or creating a specific voice (like younger Guillermo), or more recently outlining basically novel-length stories (like my wwdits Cinderella AU or a Good Omens one I've been working on for over a year 🫠). I feel like all of them have made me a better writer, even if it still feels like I'm not where I *want* to be yet. Each one informs the next.

40. Do you tend to reread fics or are you a one-and-done kind of person?

Yessssss. I love rereading fics. My favorite fics to read are really immersive longfics, and I save all my favorites on my kindle (which has basically become my fanfic device) to return to often. I love digging back into a cozy AU, especially this time of year. (Like HOL for a completely random example..😉)

[spindash]

i was like why is star trek trending but how could i fucking forget its spirk day. happy birthday yaoi

[hummiscellanea]

My Unpopular Opinion(s)

putting my life into my hands and talking about my opinion on the Shipping Discourse in star trek. (specifically SNW) man i wish that means "which ship is the coolest" and not what it actually is about

I don't ship Kirk and Spock. (K/S, spirk, whatever you want to call it)

Hey, I love TOS more than the next guy! And yes I know and respect the ship's history. It was groundbreaking. It invented slash. I completely understand why people ship it, and why it's so important to so many people. I get the appeal; I'm definitely not saying that it's wrong to ship it. But I am a bit annoyed with the lack of other readings on here.

Like guys, Kirk has relationships with women. That doesn't preclude being attracted to men, mind you! But let's not forget that. Here's some examples: Edith Keeler, Miramanee, Carol Marcus. He had a child with two of those! (This isn't an argument against the K/S ship. It's just that I see people say that it's wrong for SNW Kirk to be attracted to women, which bothers me.) Also I happen to like La'an and Kirk in SNW; it's a rare romantic relationship that I found myself invested in. (La'an my beloved <3) I don't think it should be a long-term endgame thing, I just think it's cute.

Anyway. Spock. Spock, Spock, Spock. It seems that everyone (or at least every TOS girlie) has very charged, very personal feelings about Spock. Including me. (the blorbo of all time <3 <3 <3) He's a rare ace icon (with an asterisk of course). And that's canon (see TMP novelization, the famous Roddenberry Footnote). I also see him as an aro icon, though that one is definitely up for debate. My aro headcanon is the main reason I don't ship K/S, and it's not an uncommon take! I'll leave it at that for my Spock Opinions for now.

Kirk and Spock's dynamic is so so important to me. They are so (imagine a page full of heart emojis)!! It can be hard to put it into words. They're soulmates, besties for the ages. A bond that transcends space and time. Then your first best destiny is to be by my side! Let me help!! The Motion Picture, which is literally about the power of love!!! How could I ever be normal about them? And if you say that a romantic relationship is the only explanation for their closeness then I will vaporize you with my laser eyes.

Some of the SNW K/S discourse is just odd to me. Why do you want them to be together anyway (besides as a nod to the pairing's historical importance both in and out of Star Trek)? It's famously a slow burn! It takes many years and movies to develop it, which is part of what makes it so great in my opinion. Why would you want to undermine that to do a love-at-first-sight type story? That would only cheapen the characters. Do we really want a The Motion Picture type plot, but years earlier and not as good? (TMP my beloved <3)

As for the Spapel and T'pring discourse? yeeeeeeeah, still not touching that. I do have opinions, though.

One thing the K/S shippers are saying a lot about SNW is that not acknowledging K/S is queerbaiting, or at least being painfully straight. I'm not sure I'm qualified to decide if it is or not. I guess I can see that criticism, especially when compared to Discovery. Eh, but it could also be worse?

Man I hate shipping discourse. And shipping culture. To quote Sonic:

...besides, we all know who's the real love of James T. Kirk's life. She's a tall lady named Enterprise.