#roddenberry footnote

[myidic]

For all those Roddenberry footnoters out there, I’d like to remind you that the novel was published prior to The Wrath of Khan and The Search for Spock.

You know, when Spock dies in the Warp Core, Kirk loses his absolute shit, then finds out that he has to bring Spock’s immortal soul back to Vulcan? Then discovers he abandoned Spock’s reincarnated body, and confesses that if he doesn’t White Knight across the galaxy to the forbidden planet he’d risk losing his own soul? So he steals the Enterprise, defies Starfleet, blows up the Enterprise, fights Klingons barehanded after losing his son, all to reunite Spock’s soul with his body? After that, Spock (having lost his entire memory after the reunification) gazes at and remembers Jim and only Jim, while Jim grins like he just found out heaven was real and he had front row seats?

Yeah. It was published before then.

[your-name-is-jim]

Have you ever been engaged, Mr. Spock?

So, I know that in 50+ years everything has been said about Kirk/Spock, but I want to talk about this anyway. :D

In one of the first episodes, specifically "What are little girls made of?", we get a pretty interesting scene:

In context, Christine is hearing her fiancé's voice after 5 years, but because of his unusual request, Spock wonders if it's actually him talking. Christine is sure that it's him, and she probably thinks that anyone who's been in a close romantic relationship would get it. Which is why she teases the First Officer: "Have you ever been engaged, Mr. Spock?"

After her question, the camera switches to Kirk (okay, I could actually write another essay about why the hell do they show Kirk right after Christine asked Spock if he's ever been engaged???, but whether you believe it or not, this isn't what I want to focus on here :D), then we finally see Spock.

NOW, let's see what happens. First of all, Spock doesn't answer the question. Why? We might never know what Star Trek writers were thinking when they wrote that episode, because it was very early in the series. If I had to guess, I'd say nobody had planned Amok Time when the first part of season 1 was shot, but it's also possible that they were already considering giving Spock a Vulcan fiancée/wife. Either way, since we can't prove anything about the creators' intent, we can at least talk about what is actually canon in the series.

Spock's answer to Christine's question "Have you ever been engaged, Mr. Spock?" would be "Yes". Spock is currently engaged to T'Pring, he's been engaged since he was a child. Even if we don't know anything about it when we watch season 1 for the first time, "Yes" is the canon answer, the only 100% official one.

So, let's think about it again: Christine asks Spock a private question about his romantic life, and Spock doesn't answer. Well, to be precise, this is what he does:

Yeah, it's just a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment, sure, but you can see that he lifts his right eyebrow. That's his way to answer. Now, I'm sure a lot of you are starting to suspect what I'm getting at, but let me sum it up first:

Someone asks Spock a personal question about his romantic life. ("Have you ever been engaged, Mr. Spock?")

Spock raises his right eyebrow and doesn't answer.

The 100% canon answer to that question is that he is indeed involved in that kind of matters. ("Yes, I am currently engaged.")

Why doesn't Spock say anything? Well, we know that Vulcans don't like lying, but they can refuse to answer. So we can deduce that Spock doesn't want to reply to that kind of question, especially when the truth isn't "no, I've never had a mate", but something that would make others too curious. Spock is a private person, he doesn't like the way humans make everything about feelings and emotions. Maybe it wouldn't be a problem for him to deny everything about his potential romantic/sexual relationships, if it was the truth.

Anyway, speculations aside, the most important thing is that the episode "What are little girls made of?" sets a precedent:

- Someone asks Spock a personal question about his romantic life. - Spock raises his right eyebrow and doesn't answer. - The answer is YES. SO, YOU KNOW...

- Someone asks Spock a personal question about his romantic life. - Spock raises his right eyebrow and doesn't answer. - The answer is YES. YOU KNOW RIGHT?

- Someone asks Spock a personal question about his romantic life. - Spock raises his right eyebrow and doesn't answer. - The answer is YES.

From "Star Trek The Motion Picture" novelization, Roddenberry's footnote:

Someone asks Spock a personal question about his romantic life. ("Did you and Admiral Kirk become lovers, Mr. Spock?")

Spock raises his right eyebrow and doesn't answer.

The answer to that question is...

YOU KNOW, RIGHT?

[electronickingdomfox]

You're doing it wrong, Kirk

As for myself, although I have no moral or other objections to physical love in any of its many Earthly, alien, and mixed forms, I have always found my best gratification in that creature woman. Also, I would dislike being thought of as so foolish that I would select a love partner who came into sexual heat only once every seven years. -Admiral Kirk, on the subject of Spock and he being lovers (TMP novelization)

Now, this is not how you do it, Kirk. See this:

As for myself, although I have no moral objections to physical love in any of its many Earthly, alien, and mixed forms, I have always found my only gratification in that creature woman. Also, I would not select a love partner who came into sexual heat only once every seven years.

That's how you deny a fake rumor. And it's actually shorter, why spend extra words?

Unless... Unless.........

[fencesandfrogs]

Sometimes u close ur eyes and when you open them you’re four pages into an exploration of alternative relationship dynamics

[sapphicambitions]

Can you imagine if in Supernatural, Castiel has been like Dean and I do share a more profound bond. Actually, we do share a specific angelic bond called t’hy’la, which means friend, brother, and lover—

[skenpiel]

oh wow they werent kidding when they talked about an embarrassingly long footnote about kirk not being gay in the tmp novel

[1shirt2shirtredshirtdeadshirt]

Today on popping the corn and feeding the children, what do you folks think of this discussion? :)

I'm always curious to hear what other Trek fans, especially queer Trek fans, think about our place in Trek history and how we fare as the queer participants within our fandom. What have your experiences been like?

Overwhelmingly I've found a great reception and a welcoming attitude, but I admit that has increased considerably since the 90s. However, there are still some Trek fans who seem to be vehemently in denial about queer history in Star Trek, or the fact that anyone who has worked on Trek has pro-LGBT attitudes. This always surprises me considering some of the blatant queer content we have already seen in Star Trek such as the Jadzia Dax and Lenara Kahn kiss.

Anyway, I enjoyed the discussion that followed and seeing the overwhelming outpouring of support coming from Star Trek fans in response to this thread.

Here was my two cents contribution:

"No, what they said was factual.

Have you forgotten Nichelle Nichols was indeed an African American woman in the core seven bridge crew back in 1966?

Or the fact that Gene Roddenberry went out of his way to write The Motion Picture Novel, creating the term "T'hy'la: friend, brother, lover" so that fans could choose which interpretations of Kirk and Spock they saw fit? He also embraced K/S fans and hired a number of them to write the earliest Star Trek novels, including the very first official one (The New Voyages Vol. 1 & 2) which included slash fiction as well as Gene's approval/forward in the books.

In case anyone has forgotten, here's a little bit of background on Gene Roddenberry and his perspectives on queerness in Star Trek.

He admitted that in his early life he was very affected by how society and culture treated the LGBT community, and that he too found himself subjugating and judging others for that lifestyle because it was what people did at that time. As he got older and had more life experience, he began working with a number of queer artists in Hollywood -- and through TOS, a number of queer individuals began asking questions about Kirk and Spock.

Instead of vehemently shutting down this perspective, Roddenberry was intrigued, and saw potential to tap into a large audience (LGBT) that most others didn't want to go near or acknowledge publicity-wise. He saw it as an opportunity to expand the fanbase while also pushing yet another envelope.

But with the heat already on the show for what they'd already pushed, he found he was often stuck between what he'd like to do and what production would let him get away with. There are a number of Kirk and Spock scenes in scripts that got cut out for leaning a little too obviously romantic. Tiny trickles of that content still made it in were infamous moments like the backrub scene in Shore Leave. Even the 2009 movie had a K/S moment while Spock Prime and Kelvin Spock talked that was written and filmed that was cut out of the final product.

Queer subtext and coding has always been relentlessly weeded away at with an excuse ready to go for why they always try to cut us out, but we all know it's because they are scared of the homophobic backlash and ratings hits. Look how violently homophobes went after the gay romance episode of The Last of Us **just this year**. This has always been our reality, so for someone like Roddenberry to make efforts in the 70s? That was massive.

But Gene as well as the queer/slash Trek community managed to accomplish some things in the 70s which I'm surprised more folks don't talk about or give much credit.

In the same TMP novel which features "T'hy'la" and the famous footnote, Gene cleverly wrote Kirk with a bisexual/pansexual lens: Kirk describes himself as *preferring* women but being open to "physical love in **any** of its many Earthly, alien, and mixed forms." (Direct quote from Genes book). Basically, Captain Kirk was DTF with whoever if there was a connection, which was a very progressive take for a character in a novel written in 1979, but made sense for the future which would have a lot less hang ups about sex and love compared to our current rather puritan/conservative society.

I also prefer women, but I married a man. Shout out to Gene Roddenberry for giving us a seat at the table back in the 70's when folks *still* try to insist there is no place for K/S or queer concepts in Trek, because he made efforts -- however small -- to employ queer people and show queer perspectives. According to David Gerrold, LGBT+ representation was a big thing that Gene personally pushed for in TNG and wanted various depictions of love/couples in the Risa scenes, to name one example.

In the 70s, fanzines led to meetings and swapped fanmade magazines, which got so big that they needed hotel centers, then convention centers, then one day the TOS cast came to one and what we know as modern fan conventions were born -- inspiring even George Lucas who attended Trek conventions in the 70s and saw how popular Trek was in syndication; it was a great climate to launch his Space Opera. Star Wars then became so huge that we got TMP.

But none of that would have happened without the level of organization, passion, and creativity that those fans poured into Star Trek and their characters after it got cancelled and went into syndication.

Without queer folks we wouldn't have George Takei, Theodore Sturgeon who gave us Tribbles, Bill Theiss and his amazing TOS costumes, Mike Minor's art direction, Merritt Butrick, David Gerrold (writer for TOS, TAS, TNG) to name a few of many queer contributors to Trek that Roddenberry respected and tried to go to bat for wherever he could in a climate that was absolutely impossible to gain an inch in.

At a time during the 70s and 80s when so many people resented and feared the queer community and wanted us to disappear, especially in the 80s during the AIDS epidemic which many homophobes claimed was "God's punishment to the gay community" or "Gods's answer" to our "hedonism", thinking we'd gotten our just desserts and should just disappear . . .

During that time, Gene Roddenberry gave us queer folks a place to say: "You know what? Sure. Write your stories. TV says you guys shouldn't exist, they pull books with queer people off the shelves and burn them. Laws exist specifically to forbid you guys from loving each other, and call you mentally ill. You can't even hold hands in public. But I'm going to validate you guys and invite you to write novels or work for me, try to see what we can get by production, and allow you to see yourselves in my characters if you want to. There's a place for you in our fandom."

He gave us bi/pan Kirk, he gave us K/S is open to interpretation. In Phase 2 Kirk's surviving nephew Peter, son of his brother Sam from Operation: Annihilate!, was going to be written as gay and living on the Enterprise with his partner -- that also got chopped and reworked into a script that wouldn't get used until decades later. That was huge at a time that being queer was officially listed as a mental illness, and villainized due to the AIDS crisis.

So before you try to dismiss or tell K/S + queer Trek fans whether or not they deserve a seat at the table, remember that Gene Roddenberry was among the **first** to pull that seat out for us in a climate that was ruthlessly against LGBT+ folks." -- 1Shirt2ShirtRedShirtDeadShirt

P.S: Have some cute bisexual/pansexual K/S pride gifs. :) Pride month is a hop, skip and a jump away.

LLAP!🖖💚

[sopheadraws]

You don't see them very often - they're native to YouTube comment sections - but some of my favorite Tumblr users are the people who're *really nerdy* about some media, but don't have much experience engaging with other people in fandom, so they'll mosey into the replies/reblogs of Spirk fanart or whatever to earnestly explain that

"Actually, Kirk and Spock aren't in a romantic or sexual relationship in Star Trek. In TOS S3e14, Kirk describes Spock as his 'brother', and Spock describes Kirk as his 'friend' in TWOK. In fact, in the novelization of TMP, Gene Roddenberry explicitly states, through Kirk, that Kirk and Spock aren't romantically or sexually involved even though they're t'hy'la, which is Vulcan for 'friend, brother, or lover', in a footnote. Even though Kirk dies single in Generations, Spock eventually marries Saavik according to beta canon, and this is confirmed in TNG S3e23 when Picard says he 'went to [Sarek's] son's wedding'. He couldn't be describing Sybok's wedding because Sybok died in 2287, and Picard was born in 2305. Furthermore, Spock couldn't have married Kirk because Kirk died at 65 and was born in 2233. You are a very talented artist."

[radicalbears]

Fun fact: I've started reading Star Trek TOS books this year, and they are a TRIP.

I've read six of them so far: The Vulcan Science Academy Murders by Jean Lorrah, Doctor's Orders by Diane Duane, Strangers from the Sky by Margaret Wander Bonanno, Spock's World by Diane Duane, Sarek by A.C. Crispin, and The Motion Picture novelization by Gene Roddenberry (and also Harold Livingston and Alan Dean Foster since they wrote the screenplay)

I have some Thoughts but this may be long so opinions below the cut!

I can't pick an absolute favorite, they're all so much fun for their own reasons. Objectively, Spock's World and Sarek are the two best, with Spock's World being my favorite of the two. I love any story that takes a long look at the Vulcans- either individual characters or them as a group- and these two do a fantastic job.

The Vulcan Science Academy Murders is not objectively good- the mystery is so easily figured out, some of the book is just a little bit insane, and there's way too many exclamation points- but it is a LOT of fun. Also has a very sweet perspective of Vulcans and the way they care for eachother.

Doctor's Orders is literally just this: Kirk, thinking he'd only be gone an hour, makes McCoy acting captain. Kirk proceeds to go missing. Due to Starfleet regulations, McCoy is stuck as acting captain until Kirk or Starfleet relieves him. (It's very funny watching both McCoy and literally every bridge officer be stressed about this)

My least favorite is probably Strangers from the Sky. It's extremely convoluted- there's a plot where Kirk is having nightmares about a suppressed past memory (a memory that, is being remembered because the events of this memory were recently published as a book), and half of this book is us just. Real-time reading this past memory? Either way, the memory is of the Actual first human-Vulcan meeting- when a Vulcan ship crash landed on Earth before the official first contact. The surviving Vulcans were rescued by a couple kelp farmers, and the story surrounding them is actually really sweet. The Enterprise crew has almost nothing to do with this story, they're only there because of a time travel incident. It really just feels more like the author wanted to tell this story, but because it didn't have any known characters in it, they were forced to involve the TOS cast. Still a decent read, just Very convoluted.

Finally, the Motion Picture novelization. Boy, this really reminded me that there really is not much that happens in this movie, though somehow it's more interesting than the movie. This is not to completely dump on said movie- I don't hate it, but it certainly is my least favorite. The novelization is really cool though because it adds a LOT of context for what Spock is dealing with. We get more of his inner monologue- something I actually wish we could witness better in the movie. V'ger is a really good character foil for Spock- the way V'ger is was Spock's end goal, yet Spock realizes that V'ger nothing like how he actually wants to be.

The word T'hyla is also just. Casually invented in this novelization, with the explicit purpose of describing the relationship between Kirk and Spock. This book ALSO acknowledges rumors of Kirk and Spock dating in a footnote, and has Kirk "address" these rumors (aka make some weird statement that doesn't actually clarify anything). Beginning of this book is a Wild time for Spirk fans.

Anyway I'm waiting on my library to get in the novelization for Wrath of Khan and Search for Spock. I also just picked up the first two volumes of the Year Five comics. Idk how deep I'm gonna get into Star Trek novels, but I'm at the very least still going strong.

Oh yeah I also tend to take photos of passages/lines I enjoyed from these books, lmk if any of y'all want a deeper look into any of these books- I can post the photos of my favorite bits!

[raisinchallah]

since you are a queerbaiting scholar, I have a question that I don't remember if you've ever covered. Do you think the t'hy'la footnote in the Star Trek TMP novelization could be considered an example of queerbaiting or is it just too iconic to fall under that category?

oh unequivocally like for clarification for people i guess who have a more narrow and specific definition of queerbait i do think it like kind of dodges around the entire central conceit of hoped for "gay representation" or something that is not really the lens i think its viewed thru in 70s fandom the way it was in 2010s as in like the way people frame queerbaiting they want characters to join this pantheon of confirmed gay characters fitting a mold of existing gay characters on tv to some degree and nobody was assuming like from that tease that kirk and spock would be portrayed as a couple in future movies or anything the way the queerbait dance between creator and fandom was portrayed in 2010s queerbait discourse but i think it was probably the first and most high profile attempt to date for a creator to try and mediate the relationship between the media property shippers and ship haters through like a direct communication of like canon material i guess like i would have to go on a pretty big deep dive back into some of the random star trek zines ive looked at to find sources again im struggling to find it right now but i know i read some various responses from fans at the time and kirk/spock shippers did react negatively to the footnote in much the same way people reacted to like ship tease jokes in classic queerbait tv shows on tumblr which i found really interesting people did think it was trying to shut kirk/spock shippers down just as much as people thought it was energizing them and speaking to them it really threads the needle so perfectly by like opening the door to a whole new type of possibility and whatever to the types of people who want that while also in text saying theyre not lovers hah hah isnt that weird which i think some fans also felt uncomfortable about because it was like shining a light on their niche corner of the fandom letting people know there were people who thought the relationship between kirk and spock might be romantic but again ive only read like two accounts of this so i honestly have no clue how widespread each type of reaction was i wonder if it also like re inflamed fights about if they do or dont have sex lol because that was a whole thing which is slash was for people who believed it was sexual vs kirk&spock was like homoerotic friendship to nonsexual romance fanfic and these were bitter fandom divides as well but of course and like this isnt to paint it all in a negative light but i do think the dissenting voices get a bit lost in the history and i thought it was kind of fascinating how similar a lot of the weird mediations felt to like some actor at comiccon 2012 saying well i dont know but it could be romantic you know it creates the perfect vessel for everyone to see what they want thru it so i think in many ways it was groundbreaking queerbait but also tbh did it better than anything else like truly stoking the fires of fan speculation and probably introduced a lot of people to the idea of "the premise" and planted the seeds in their minds to begin with and again few other queerbait texts are out here inventing special words that mean lover for the characters to call each other few people that bold like again somewhat different context but it does kind of feel like a first of its kind broaching into that messy dynamic between fans and the powers that be as they sometimes called them and truly a fascinating iconic piece of queerbait history

ok upon further looking i believe i must have read a scan of "a careful analysis: the roddenberry footnote" by christopher randolph (a pseudonym for della van hise the author of killing time) that was printed in the star trek zine naked times issue #3 but i have been unable to locate an actual link to the full text beyond the excerpts from fanlore here [x]

[your-name-is-jim]

“I was never aware of this lovers rumor, although I have been told that Spock encountered it several times. Apparently he had always dismissed it with his characteristic lifting of his right eyebrow which usually connoted some combination of surprise, disbelief, and/or annoyance.”

Okay Jim, I got it. You and Spock aren't lovers. Now keep telling us everything about Spock's eyebrow :)

[worstqueerbaittournament]

Ok so here's why I think spirk from the original series shouldn't be on the list.(aos definitely should be on the list they had the chance to make it gay and didn't also I don't like jj abrams)

Even though they didn't have a human kiss on screen they are definitely bonded the Vulcan way and did make out the Vulcan way in the first star trek movie keep in mind this is also the 60s and 70s so they had to work with what they could

Gene Roddenberry put inside one of the star trek novelization footnotes that th'y'la means friend, brother, lover because he knew that fans would take that and run with it.

Also another reason they didn't Koss on screen is because they're bond was beyond physical and it's the 23rd century so people show their relationships differently (also reference made in 60s and 70s so homophobia)

Leonard Nimoy shipped it (probably)

But yea that's all I have to say have a great day yall

I haven't seen it, but that sounds like pro arguments and not con arguments? I'm a bit confused by the reasoning tbh 😅

not trying to be mean to whoever submitted them but how is original series spirk queerbaiting if everything about them was made before queerbaiting was even a thing. like that practice just flat out didn't exist in 1966

Ah yes, makes sense, thank you anon!

[frogayyyy]

it always makes me laugh when people bring up the roddenberry footnote as a way to ‘disprove’ k/s (looking at you bill)

because first of all… this is supposed to be a quote from an interview jim gave when asked about the rumours regarding their relationship. let’s assume for a second that jim would even be slightly serious when talking to journalists.

“i was never aware of this lovers rumour” but you knew that spock was asked about it? makes total sense. okay let’s pretend that he meant no one had ever asked him about it personally…

spock never straight up denied the rumours (which would be logical for a vulcan, right?) just raised an eyebrow which “connoted some combination of surprise, disbelief, and/or annoyance”. i can’t believe a vulcan would be annoyed at a personal question about his relationships from a stranger?!?! (<- sarcasm).

“i have always found my best gratification in that creature called woman” so you agree? you agree that you find some gratification from other genders? not the point but i always liked this line

“a love partner who came into sexual heat only once ever seven years” this suggests to me that:

a) jim doesn’t know that vulcans can choose to have sex outside of ponn far

b) jim is lying his ass off

c) he’s a total idiot for revealing a very private secret of vulcan culture

it’s probably all three.

in conclusion: jim’s genuinely just an idiot (spock pls save him). let’s remember that this was most likely after the five year mission but before “this simple feeling” so spock just went to gol and jim is having a midlife crisis when he was asked this. (it does sound like the answer of a man desperately trying to convince himself he doesn’t love spock)

or maybe jim and spock want to keep their relationship secret so he’s lying.

he could’ve just said “no we’re friends”

idk just a small idea perhaps gene roddenberry (the man who also described their relationship as friend/brother/lover) added this non-denial in to keep the vastly homophobic audience from cancelling his show while still not out right saying they’re not in a romantic relationship? (if anyone calls this queerbaiting i stg)

[ao3feed-spirk]

Let Us Give Them Something About Which to Talk

read it on the AO3 at https://archiveofourown.org/works/43393125

by stoatwrote

Jupiter’s Rings “If you like it, you better put a ring on it. The premiere service for celebrity relationship news.”

Take a look at these pictures of Commander Spock and Admiral Kirk at the debrief, the aforementioned funeral service, and outside Starfleet HQ. Once is an incident, twice is coincidence, and three times is a pattern. Commander Spock is standing awfully close to his Admiral, and in picture three, it almost looks like they’re about to hold hands just like at the funeral! Their index and middle fingers are just touching on the table. Could these two have had their own hot and steamy reunion on the Enterprise in the midst of danger? Adrenaline does get the heart pumping! Stay tuned for more news on celebrity love, loss, and longing, and especially these two. We’ll let you know of any future developments.

Words: 12103, Chapters: 6/11, Language: English

Fandoms: Star Trek, Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: The Original Series (Movies)

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: M/M

Characters: James T. Kirk, Spock (Star Trek), Sarek (Star Trek), Amanda Grayson, Nyota Uhura, Hikaru Sulu, Pavel Chekov, Montgomery "Scotty" Scott

Relationships: James T. Kirk/Spock

Additional Tags: Minor Montgomery "Scotty" Scott/Nyota Uhura, Post-Star Trek I: The Motion Picture, Star Trek I: The Motion Picture, re-established relationship, Making Up, Vulcan Bond, The Roddenberry Footnote, T'hy'la, But Not As Soulmates, Spock and Jim Fucking With The Media, Humor, Social Media, News Media, Epistolary, Fluff, Heartbreak, Minor Pavel Chekov/Hikaru Sulu

read it on the AO3 at https://archiveofourown.org/works/43393125

[agnesandhilda]

had such a bad day I had to reread the roddenberry footnote just to feel something