#this post is mostly about spock

[good-wine-and-cheese]

Tenma Star Trek related headcanons

He has a notebook somewhere which details his life as a starship captain and what role his friends would play

He wants to go to Iowa to see Captain Kirk's future birthplace

Has made his own phaser (does it work? I hope not)

Practiced moving his eyebrows independently of each other in the mirror so he can do the Spock Fascinating thing

Likes to talk about how he would handle an episode conflict differently and why he would be a better captain than Kirk (Hiroshi won't watch with him when he gets like this)

He hosts an annual Spock's Brain party where he and Hiroshi (and anyone else they wrangle) watch episodes of Star Trek and drink, and end the night with Spock's Brain while inebriated

Even though he mainly watches the original series he looooves the nextgen episodes about Data and the Borg

[lenievi]

this book

“If anything, [Kirk’s] problem finding his balance with you is that you’re too much like him. You don’t give him the counterbalance he’s used to.”

“Maybe [Kirk] just needs to find a new equilibrium. Once he gets used to you being the more regimented, unemotional one, maybe he’ll give himself the freedom to loosen up some. Maybe he’ll finally feel free to embrace the emotional instincts that are such an important part of his success as a commander—even if he doesn’t always realize it.”

(C. L. Bennett - The Captain’s Oath)

why is it that in my Trek fandom experience people always only talk about how Kirk and Spock are opposites??? 🙄 when this book gets it. Good first weeks of their acquaintance~ 

I’m also just gonna copy something I wrote a while ago, but never posted, since it’s related:

Kirk is very serious, no-nonsense, by the book, and in some ways cold, and holds everyone at an arm’s length.

Which is why at the beginning of the series, it’s actually Kirk who McCoy argues with directly. He’s trying to connect him to his humanity and melt some of his cold and logical demeanour. McCoy also approaches him "on the most intimate personal levels” (this is actually a quote from ST Writers’ Guide, not me lol), making sure that Kirk won’t get lost, that he won’t do something he would regret. As a human. As a person.

But obviously, McCoy knows nothing about command and command decisions. Spock does. And Spock’s thoughts and ideas are actually pretty similar to Kirk’s own. That’s why Kirk searches him out, that’s why he asks him for opinions even when he doesn’t have to because it gives him “emotional security” knowing that this logical Vulcan agrees with his chosen course of action. If Spock does, it means it’s right. Spock being his XO allows Kirk to take some things more lightly, to be more reckless, to open himself up more as a captain. (The idea that Spock calms Kirk down is so ??? to me.)

If Kirk goes too far he knows there will be two people who will stop him and catch him and bring him back to the correct path. Not just one. Both of them. That’s why every time he goes too far, it’s both Spock and McCoy who confront him. Not just one of them. (and when he dies neither is there, which is actually very poetic, and I love it worked that way, even though it wasn’t planned)

When McCoy sees that Spock’s logic has the ability to influence Kirk, and even allows him to become more open, he starts to argue with Spock and ceases to challenge Kirk, because next to the Vulcan XO, Kirk can be just a little bit more human (with a different XO, Kirk wouldn’t be able to do that. When Mitchell was still alive, Kirk had to keep his bravado and serious mask up, he wasn’t allowed to truly open up. Only the combination of McCoy and Spock at his side allowed him to do it, because McCoy, in contrast to Mitchell, also knows when to not rely on emotions because he is a surgeon and he needs to be able to turn them off in order to do his job well. And when he sees that Kirk gets too emotional, McCoy is able to bring him back. Mitchell would only encourage it.)

And today’s addition:

maybe this “I can be more human because of Spock” is also why Kirk focuses so much on “you seem quite human, we’ll make a human out of you yet, his soul was the most human” because he wants him to free himself, because he knows personally how hard it is to kill a part of himself... 

[rainpelt25]

Just an assortment of random doodles bc I love these nerds sm,, featuring Kirk being uhuras test subject when it comes to trying alien makeup, the bffs, and fem mirrorverse Kirk and spock

[favvn]

As always, this is probably the Spirk brainworms, but it's interesting to see the change in body language between Kirk and Spock in Amok Time. When Spock tells Kirk about the Pon Farr, not only is Spock nervously rubbing his hands together in the same way Kirk does when he's thinking, but he is moving around the room versus Kirk who stands mostly still. (My choice of clips aside, lol. Bear with me, I spent over an hour on the web weave post. I will be lazy about my gifmaking now).

Spock has come undone so badly that not only are his emotions breaking through, he can no longer physically remain still. Any stoicism and restraint is going out the window. Spock is as unsettled as a storm, and Kirk is the still, calm center of it. It feels like a reversal given how the two characters are set up to be opposites--Spock as calm/logical/Vulcan vs Kirk as impulsive/emotional/Human--but in reality it's more like Spock is off balance so Kirk's stability becomes even more highlighted in the contrast.

And Kirk, for once, moves his hands to his face and touches his mouth when he is lost in thought. It's an interesting acting choice to make when so much of this episode is centered around communication of need vs the shame of one's need/desire vs the use of secrecy and ritual to avoid confronting it all. To suddenly make the lips/mouth the object of worry, when one uses the mouth to communicate verbally or to kiss another.... It certainly brings attention to itself by deviating from Kirk's usual behavior and highlights Spock's nervous hands as a result.

[celestialvoyeur]

💛💙SPIRK FIC REC - MY FAVOURITES💙💛

As a follow up to my recent post about how few fics make it to my favourites list, and how special they are to achieve that distinction, I decided to share my current list.

I’ve shared some of these individually in the past but here you’ll have them all together. 

If you've read any of these already then I'd love to hear your thoughts on whether you loved them as much as I did! 🥰

(NB: these are not listed in any order of preference. Mostly it’s the reverse order in which I read them)

Leave No Soul Behind by whochick Words: 258,951

AOS, AU Canon-Divergence. Spock, Kirk and the other valiant members of the Emergency Personnel Ambulance Service fight to save lives and turn the tide of the ongoing war against Nero and his fleet before it’s too late. Such a beautiful slow burn for Spock and Kirk.

Atlas by distractedKat Words: 135,529

AOS. Follow on from 2009, Kirk, Spock and the rest deal with the aftermath of Nero’s attack and rebuilding after the decimation of the ‘Fleet and Academy. An exciting tale with twists and turns involving black ops, bad-mirals, action, love and fierce loyalty.

The Lotus Eaters by aldora89 Words: 93,594

AOS. Stranded on a planet together, with multiple dangers and very little hope of rescue, Jim and Spock have no choice but to rely on each other to survive. Spectacular plot, amazing world building, fabulous original character and an epic slow burn Spirk love story!

With Your Feet on the Air and Your Head on the Ground by flippyspoon Words: 39,188 @flippyspoon

SNW. A phenomenal Spirk fic in which Kirk is stuck in Spock's mind while the crew work to find a way to retrieve his body. A wonderful getting to know you/falling for you hard tale. Wonderfully written and highly entertaining.

Evolution by Rhaegal (RhaegalKS) Words: 149,293

AOS. Covering the first year of their 5 year mission, this is totally flawless. The character voices are perfection, the prose spectacular. The whole thing plays like an AOS movie. It’s phenomenal.

Emotions by LadyRa Words: 35,569

TOS. Spock gets drugged on a shore leave and is overwhelmed with its effects. Kirk tries to pick up the pieces. A beautiful, and wonderfully grounded, story of realising how much they mean to each other.

And When the Bond Breaks by LadyRa Words: 24,631

TOS. Spock takes out a shuttle to investigate an anomaly and returns to an Enterprise that’s not his own. Time travel shenanigans with such emotional depth that it will traumatise you in the best way. Stunningly good!

All Our Tomorrows Come Today by flippyspoon Words: 18,156 @flippyspoon

SNW. A newly introduced Jim and Spock accidentally get a glimpse into the future and see what they’re going to be to each other (a.k.a. Spirk’s Greatest Hits). A stunningly told story about finding the great love of your life. 

I Won't Make That Mistake Again by Moreta1848 Words: 69,402 @jennelikejennay

SNW/TOS. An epic story detailing Spock and Kirk’s love throughout their lives, beginning from their meeting on Pike’s Enterprise (SNW) and continuing on to an eventual  Generations fix-it happy ending. Wonderful!

No Going Back, No Before by spirkme Words: 78,486 @spirkme915

SNW/TOS. Timeline shenanigans, spies, twists & turns, pining, angst, sacrifice and so so much love!

The 1,000 Hour Sleep by spqr Words: 27,227

SNW. Jim’s been infected with a pathogen that means he can’t sleep, but it he doesn’t he’ll die. Cue Spock and his Vulcan telepathy helping Jim to achieve the sleep he needs, while they get to know each other within their shared mindscapes. A sweet and exciting story about falling in love and overcoming your own inner demons.

First Best Destiny by Ophelia_j Words: 387,733

TOS/TNG. Such a very special fic. Epic in its scope, it covers the entire timeline of Spirk from their very first meeting through to a  clever and satisfying Generations fix-it ending. It provides extra scenes, additional dialogue and internal monologues to expand on existing canon in a really compelling and effective way. Truly this is my new TOS canon.

The Steadfastness of Stars by itsnatalie Words: 61,566

AOS. After Beyond, The crew investigate sudden climate change on a frozen planet and find more than they bargained for. The perfect mix of great plot, fun original characters, action, mystery, world building and deep deep love.

Let Forever Be by gunstreet Words: 43,446 @gunstreet

TOS. A really compelling character study of James T. Kirk. An excellent companion piece to City on the Edge of Forever. Exploring what Jim and Spock got up to, and all they had to overcome, while trying to find Bones and their way back home.

Time After Time by spaceisgay (ChancellorGriffin) Words: 138,921

SNW. Kirk spends a 6 month rotation on the Enterprise as part of his command training. OK, if there’s a favourite of my favourites then this may be it. It’s such a stunning version of their love story, with a beautifully constructed plot. It runs the emotional gamut from moments that will have you laughing out loud to moments that will have you in floods of tears. 

milk and honey by spaceisgay (ChancellorGriffin) Words: 28,651

SNW. Kirk and Spock meet for the first time when they wake up in a prison cell together. A really fun, and extremely clever, version of the ‘aliens made them do it’ trope. It’s intriguing and funny with a real depth of feeling throughout.

The Promised Land by gunstreet Words: 58,260 @gunstreet

TOS. A story that explores the time Jim and Spock spent apart between the end of the 5 year mission and TMP. It’s a beautiful story of reunion and renewal of love. Sometimes achingly sad, but it’s worth it for the happy ending.

Again, if you've read any of these already then I'd love to hear your thoughts on whether you loved them as much as I did! 🥰

[forecast0ctopus]

hi!!! I am just curious how do you go about drawing spock!!

sppock..... <333 spock info below

okay so heres the for real answer to your question, i wrote down all my thoughts while drawing him from memory:

i did some tracing too + thoughts about his facial features and such below

all the stuff on the mccoy post remains true here as well, just not as significant since his expressions arent as exaggerated as mccoy's. he is pretty expressive (sorry mr spock ) but its mostly in his eyebrows and posture

as far as face shape goes, he's got pretty prominent cheekbones, a broad chin, and a more angled jaw. i pretty much always draw a line that loosely follows the cheekbones/facial muscles there because of that. his eyebrows are pretty much normal until the arch, then the tails just go up instead of down. the expression is in the position/angle of them and the furrow and forehead wrinkles that appear

he's got a bit of a slouch (not as bad as bones though lmao) and he tends to push his head forwards. hes lanky but not scrawny ( we have all seen hm in his black t shirt. we Know this)

idk theres More that i think about while drawing him but its hard t put to words

[strawbaby-jelly]

I got a rather exciting piece of Star Trek history in the mail that I wanted to share!

Note: I am far from a Star Trek historian. What I say here is going based off of mostly old blog posts and fan forums. Apologies in advance if I get information incorrect and feel free to correct me!

“Killing Time”

“Killing Time” by Della Van Hise is #24 of the Star Trek pocketbooks. Published in 1985 the first edition of this book was recalled after a bit of an outcry, apparently in part from Roddenberry himself, as it seemed to imply that Kirk and Spock had something more than a friendship between them. Editions after this remove and replace the “offending” passages.

Though the novel is rather infamous it is sought after by collectors and fans of the Kirk and Spock relationship (like myself.) And though it’s infamous, shunned by Roddenberry and IP holder there are accusations that the plot of the first alternate original series movie was at the least inspired by the novel.

Who is Della Van Hise?

Della Van Hise had an extensive history of writing fanfiction on an old typewriter from a young age. Along with that experience she was known amongst fans that traded their stories back and forth as a rather prolific K/S writer, often publishing fic under pseudonyms. It is apparently fans of these works that encouraged her to submit Killing Time to be officially published. Della went on to have original works published such as poems and novels like “Quantum Shaman.”

According to a Facebook from Della’s wife, Wendy, she passed in March of 2021 after repeated health issues.

At the beginning of “Killing Time” there is a series of acknowledgements. The first of which is to a Wendy.

Just How Rare is this Thing?

The true rarity of this novel is a bit hard to parse in my opinion. There are Star Trek books out there far more expensive, such as “Stitch in Time” by Andrew Robinson. Sources say around 250,000 of copies of the first edition were produced, with 100,000+ having already been shipped before the recall. Copies that were swept up into the recall were destroyed but according to some fan forums many copies did end up on store shelves and were sold. It’s unclear just how many copies of the first edition are left but there are plenty of stories of fans stumbling across the first edition on second-hand bookstore shelves, in thrift stores or even in EBay lots of Star Trek novels sold by people who apparently didn’t know what they had.

As of now this book isn’t worth $100+ and I don’t believe you should buy it for that much if you see a listing for that price. My copy I bought for $60 which $60-70 seems to be the standard accepted value going off past eBay listings. This of course isn’t inexpensive, especially for pocketbooks when you can usually find them for less than $10 in stores and even less online. Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be a way for fans to enjoy an uncensored copy online if they can’t afford a physical copy. The most I was able to find is this.

A journal entry which compares the uncensored to censored parts of the book.

How do You Know if it’s the First Edition?

So say you’ve run into a copy of this book out in the wild or you’re looking at listings online and are unsure if it’s the recalled edition or not. There are luckily a few quick and easy ways you can figure out if it’s legit.

1. An Embossed Title

Now this way is not always a guarantee if you have a 1st edition copy. Apparently there was some copies that were printed with flat lettering but all first editions I’ve seen of this book through listings and blog posts do always seem to have the raised lettering on the title.

2. Publishing Date

The first edition was published in 1985. If you have a copy or are looking at one that has a publish date past 1985 then it’s not first edition.

3. Page 41 Uncensored

Now this is a guaranteed way to find out if you have a first edition copy. There is a sentence that is only included in the uncensored version on page 41.

“I understand that you were probably playing with dolls and wearing lipstick until you were twenty!”

If you have or have found a copy of “Killing Time” with all these things included then congratulations you’ve got the recalled first edition!

My Thoughts

I am *very* excited to own a copy of this book. It’s been a dream, I know silly, to own it for many years. I’ve avoided spoilers or even having the second edition of this book with the hopes that I would one day own it. I am a K/S fan of course but also as a lesbian I am curious to see if the book is truly as bad in its uncensored state as some claim. Homophobes have a way of blowing up the smallest moments. Some blog posts from the early to mid 2000s claim the book is disgusting and should’ve never been published for its content, others say it’s exaggerated and it’s mostly blink and you miss it moments. I can’t wait to see for myself!

I may leave a review of this novel after reading it. 🖖💖

[cantsayidont]

Despite its protestations of progressive values, STAR TREK media has always explicitly presented (and, with only fleeting exceptions, consistently celebrated) the Federation as an expansionist imperial power, engaged in a large-scale project of colonialism.

The usual apologia/rationalization for this, both from the franchise itself and from its fans, is that the Federation is also a post-scarcity socialist utopia. However, that is expressly not the case in TOS, despite the attempts of the later series to insist otherwise.

Indeed, the plots of some of the most famous and acclaimed episodes of TOS are specifically about resource extraction and ensuring the Federation's access to crucial resources, including lithium (in "Mudd's Women"), pergium (in "The Devil in the Dark"), and dilithium (in "Mirror, Mirror," et al). We are told repeatedly that the Enterprise has a mandate to use force to secure these resources if gentler methods fail. Moreover, while the Federation has a strategic interest in these resources, it's clear at various points in TOS that their extraction and exploitation are, to a significant extent if not exclusively, overseen by private interests for profit. For instance, in "Mudd's Women," Harry Mudd remarks:

Well, girls, lithium miners. Don't you understand? Lonely, isolated, overworked, rich lithium miners! Girls, do you still want husbands, hmm? Evie, you won't be satisfied with a mere ship's captain. I'll get you a man who can buy you a whole planet. Maggie, you're going to be a countess. Ruth, I'll make you a duchess. And I, I'll be running this starship. Captain James Kirk, the next orders you're taking will be given by Harcourt Fenton Mudd!

In "The Devil in the Dark," Kirk ultimately takes a regulatory position — he will not permit the pergium miners to kill the Horta or continue to destroy her eggs — but at no point does he suggest that stopping the pergium production that threatens the Horta is a viable or even acceptable alternative. The accord he proposes is contingent on the Horta's agreement that she and her children will support the mining efforts on her planet, since Kirk emphasizes that "a dozen planets" are depending on the miners to supply needed pergium. (What would have happened to her if she hadn't agreed is not stated, but the episode strongly suggests that she would have been severely punished for noncompliance with Kirk's mediated solution: forcibly relocated to some kind of Horta reservation away from the main mining operations, perhaps.) When the Horta does agree to this proposal, Kirk assures Vanderberg, "you people are going to be embarrassingly rich," which once again suggests that while the miners may have contractual agreements to delivery pergium to Federation worlds, they are still a private, for-profit business, not a Federation department or nationalized entity.

Profit is also Ron Tracey's motivation for breaking the Prime Directive in "The Omega Glory": He believes that he's discovered a "fountain of youth" that he can own, monopolize, and exploit, and that the value of that resource will be enough to buy his way out of legal trouble for his regulatory violations.

We mostly don't see the Enterprise crew handle money except on away missions in other cultures or times, but there are a number of indications that the Federation in this era has not abandoned money: For instance, Harry Mudd's list of past offenses includes purchasing a space vessel "with counterfeit currency," while in "The Apple," Kirk rhetorically asks if Spock knows how much Starfleet has invested in him, which Spock begins to answer, "One hundred twenty-two thousand two hundred …" before Kirk cuts him off. More tellingly, in "I, Mudd," we have the following exchange:

KIRK: All right, Harry, explain. How did you get here? We left you in custody after that affair on the Rigel mining planet. MUDD: Yes, well, I organized a technical information service bringing modern industrial techniques to backward planets, making available certain valuable patents to struggling young civilizations throughout the galaxy. KIRK: Did you pay royalties to the owners of those patents? MUDD: Well, actually, Kirk, as a defender of the free enterprise system, I found myself in a rather ambiguous conflict as a matter of principle. SPOCK: He did not pay royalties. MUDD: Knowledge, sir, should be free to all. KIRK: Who caught you? MUDD: That, sir, is an outrageous assumption. KIRK: Yes. Who caught you? MUDD: I sold the Denebians all the rights to a Vulcan fuel synthesizer. KIRK: And the Denebians contacted the Vulcans.

Whether Deneb is a member of the Federation at this time is unclear, but Vulcan certainly is, and so we may assume that Vulcan and presumably the Federation itself are also part of "the free enterprise system."

The first indication that the Federation does not use money is in STAR TREK IV, and it's not obvious there if Kirk's remark that "They're still using money" is talking about money more broadly or just physical currency, which the Federation may have phased out even if it still uses credit or electronic transfers of monetary value. (Certainly, McCoy's attempt in STAR TREK III to charter a starship indicates that he had some means of paying for passage, since the captain of the ship specifically demands more money upon learning of the intended destination.)

If we accept at face value the assertion of TNG and DS9 that the Federation has genuinely abandoned the use of money, rather than simply going cashless, the most reasonable Watsonian explanation is that this has been a relatively recent development during the 70–80 years between the TOS cast movies and TNG, most likely related to the development of replication technology (which the Federation did not yet have in Kirk's time).

Of course, from a Doylist standpoint, we could chalk up some of this incidental dialogue to the franchise's evolving construction of its own setting, in the same manner as anomalous references to Vulcans as "Vulcanians." Roddenberry and his apologists might also insist that he always meant to depict a socialist utopia, but was prevented by the nattering nabobs of negativity (i.e., the network's BS&P); I'm very skeptical of such claims, but the writers were acutely aware that depicting what Earth is like in Kirk's time would be opening a can of worms, which is why we didn't actually see 23rd century Earth (even briefly) until the movies.

However, the focus on resource extraction and its ramifications is such a load-bearing story element in TOS that the revisionist assertion that the Federation was already a post-scarcity socialist utopia in Kirk's time (as both DISCOVERY and STRANGE NEW WORLDS have attempted to claim) would require really substantial retcons of the original show, perhaps to the extent of insisting that some of those events never took place at all, or happened radically differently than what's in the TOS episodes most STAR TREK fans have seen. For me, anyway, that crosses a line from willing suspension of disbelief to "don't trust your lying eyes," and suggests a frustrating and somewhat disturbing determination to insist that TOS is something much purer and nobler than it is rather than grapple with its actual conceptual flaws and ideological shortcomings.

[ex--astris--scientia]

C'Thia, Surakian Philosophy, and Vulcan Polytheism

While most would consider Surak to merely be a philosopher and reformer, thereby removing any hint of religion from the discussion and forming instead an idea of both Surak and his philosophy as being, at best, atheistic or agnostic, and at worst, being anti-theistic, I have to strongly disagree with this assessment. Especially when it's used as proof to claim that modern, post-Awakening Vulcans are also at best atheistic or agnostic, and at worst anti-theistic. I believe this comes about due to a commonly held misconception that religion in and of itself is anathema to science, to progress, to intelligence, and therefore, to logic itself. This is, of course, a blatantly false binary and we are shown over and over again in canon that while Vulcans place a great importance on science, education, intellect, and logic, they are also a very spiritual people. Most of the important locations on Vulcan that we see in canon tend to be temples, sacred mountains, or holy ruins. Leaders tend to be high priestesses. Meditation is almost universal for Vulcans, and while it can be argued that it is very much a mental discipline as well, meditation was birthed, and continues to find its roots, in spirituality, and at its heart, is a spiritual discipline. Meditation, after all, was not invented by scientists, but by monks.

In the episode of the Animated Series, "Yesteryear", Spock tells Sarek that he is merely passing through ShiKahr on his way to the family shrine to "honor our gods". This one line proves to me that, at least for Spock, there is no incongruence between his modern Surakian belief and practice of C'thia (commonly this is translated as just "logic" but a more accurate Vulcan translation is "reality-truth") with that of traditional Vulcan polytheistic religious practice. One can assume that this is not, however, unique only to Spock, seeing as shrines require some semi-regular maintenance and he very rarely visits his father's homestead so it is unlikely that Spock alone is the one who maintains them. Sarek also is unsurprised by Spock's actions, which suggests a kind of normalcy to it. One does not get the impression that Spock is doing something rebellious by performing religious rites to Deities.

Likewise, in the Voyager episode, "Hunters", Tuvok receives a letter from his wife. In it, she tells him that she and their children have asked the priests at the Temple of Amonak to say prayers for Tuvok's safe return from the Delta Quadrant. Prayer requires something to which a person prays to and the assumption here is, again, the existence of Vulcan Deities as well as devotional practices targeted toward them existing even until the time of Voyager. While one of the purposes of prayer has to do with the person praying, as in, a benefit to prayer is that it gives the praying person something to do when they may not be able to do much else about a situation, and therefore T'Pel and her and Tuvok's children may be using it as a kind of meditative practice meant to give their grief and worry about Tuvok's safety somewhere to go that may then help them control it, I believe even this would still imply belief in the existence of Deities. One could meditate without the use of prayer involved but that was not the course of action that T'Pel took. She specifically made a trek to a sacred temple with the intention of saying prayers for Tuvok and told him about it, again, just as with Spock and Sarek, showing that there is something normalized about the action. Belief in the Gods and religious practice utilizing them is, therefore, not something performed only in the dark or in secret.

So, Vulcan polytheistic spiritual practice has continued past the Awakening and into the Vulcan Reformation. Is it the same as what it looked like to pre-Reform Vulcans? What's different? I wish we got more glimpses of Vulcan religion beyond mostly backdrop (while we are explicitly shown rituals and ritual locations in episodes like "Amok Time", "the Gambit" and many places in Enterprise, and in movies like "the Motion Picture" and "Search for Spock", very rarely do we see explanations for what the Vulcan lay people and priest(ess)es are doing and why) but that simply means that I instead get to make things up. Which is my favorite thing to do. So while the entirety of this post is built on a core of canon and information from Memory Alpha and Beta, as well as the Vulcan Language Database, most of what follows is my own musings and thoughts.

Firstly, in my research I've established that there seems to be two major pantheons within Vulcan spirituality, the Ka-ta-pak, or Inner Chorus, and the grouping I've named Ek-tam'a-ta, which is where I've placed every other named Deity not belonging to the Inner Chorus. The Inner Chorus, being made up of Deities that seem much more akin to emotional archetypes, become a much more thorny topic to consider when it comes to reconciling the worship, or, at the very least, acknowledgement of these Beings with the rigorous control of emotions that is to be expected within the Surakian cult of C'thia. As such, they are what I plan to focus on here.

The Inner Chorus is made up of the following Deities: Tel-Alep and Alep-Tel, Kir-Alep and Alep-Kir, Valdena and Dena-Vel, Kal-ap-Ton and Tyr-al-Tep, and Ket-Cheleb. Other than the last Deity, each is a part of a pairing where one represents the lighter, more acceptable form of a suite of emotions, whereas the other is the darker, shadow side. It's a concept similar to reading Tarot cards, where a card's reversal typically points to the darker reading of the themes the card communicates when right side up. For example, Valdena is famously the love Goddess and rules over emotions such as joy, beauty, fullness, pleasure, etc, whereas Dena-Vel, her shadow twin, rules over the darker side of love, namely concepts like possessiveness, covetousness, envy, domination, etc. What I would posit as probably one of the fairly radical reforms within Surakian thought, is the idea that C'thia is meant to subjugate and control both sides of what the Inner Chorus represents, not just the shadow side.

Isn't it illogical, however, to worship archetypal manifestations of emotions that one is trying to suppress? This was the big question that came out of my exploration of Vulcan Deities and led me to conclude that there is a difference between how Vulcans interact with Ek-tam'a-ta Deities vs the Ka-ta-pak, wherein the former is treated much more like how one stereotypically interacts with Gods, ie with reverence, worship, offerings, prayers, etc, as well as an understanding of the Deities being Beings outside of the mind in their own rights, while the latter is much more localized and symbolic. The Ka-ta-pak are not so much outward Beings, as they are emotional symbols and touchstones, metaphors to be focused on in meditation rather than as Gods to be worshipped.

Even the name, the Inner Chorus, suggests this kind of community of emotional beings, of aspects of the interior Vulcan mind, and furthermore, points to a need for a harmony amongst them. It is my thought that the Ka-ta-pak are less like sentient beings with personhood and more like the Platonic ideal of the emotion they represent. They are the emotion in its most perfected form and by experiencing this, experiencing the presence of this being, this outward-focused inner spirit, in the relative safety of meditation, the average Vulcan is able to meet that emotion and learn how it manifests within their own body and mind. In this meeting, they are able to name the emotion, learn it, experience it, and understand how to master it so that when they experience it outside of meditation, they need not be conquered by it and brought into chaos but instead are able to hold to order and logic in the face of it.

In the Enterprise episode, "Fusion", we are shown that Vulcans don't typically dream and that meditation has usurped the role that dreaming would usually take in the Vulcan psyche. It follows, therefore, that they process the emotional stimuli of the day through meditation and that symbolism, which is an important language for the sub-conscious and the language that dreams are written in, would probably play a role in that. Thus, the use of the Inner Chorus as a symbol of focus, as the emotional tangle that one seeks, through meditation, to sort out and bring order to, makes sense. I believe that this constitutes some of the work of t'san s'at, or the intellectual deconstruction of emotions that Surak preached. T'san s'at is the study of one's own emotions, and the effects these emotions have over one's actions. The peace and tranquility that lies at the end of t'san s'at is the goal of every Surakian Vulcan, and is a lifelong aspiration. It is through working with the Ka-ta-pak with this goal in mind that brings these ideas together.

Another idea I found interesting about the Ka-ta-pak is that the names of the Deities match the names of the other planets within the Vulcan solar system (according to the Memory Beta article that I believe is based on a Trek inspired ttrpg). A solar system, with its constant routine of stable orbits and cycles, would be an obvious metaphor for the idea of Order. The Inner Chorus strikes me, then, as the microcosm within the Vulcan mind/spirit as connected with the macrocosm of the living universe around them. It is the connection between the Vulcan mental and katric interior space and the exterior physical space. Just as the solar system is in constant harmony, subjugated to the laws of gravity, order, and simply the natural mechanisms of the living universe, one's own interior system should likewise be ordered. That it is called an inner chorus is very telling to me, since when choruses are working correctly, they are making music in harmony, just as the broader cosmos makes the music of the spheres, which is the sound of mathematics purified. It is the goal of every Surakian Vulcan to harmonize their inner chorus (part of which involves meditating on the form of the Inner Chorus) with the music of the macrocosm. In this, I believe the mind, or the reasoning capacity, represents a kind of conductor, who directs the inner chorus of emotions to properly allow for the production of music. The music produced by this harmony is C'thia, which is the same substance that keeps the planets in their orbits and the universe ticking onward.

This post is getting a bit long but there's one last thing I want to talk about and that would be Surak himself. As mentioned earlier, there is a common misconception I've seen that, again, makes Surak some kind of radical atheist philosopher who, in stomping out the violence and ignorance that marked the culture of his planet, must also have gotten rid of its religion, not just superstition or conservativism but religion more generally. Again, this comes more from the mistaken belief that spirituality and science are necessarily at odds. But what we see of Surak doesn't actually support this erroneous belief. Instead, one of the things that Surak is famous for is his pilgrimage. A pilgrimage is a religious journey undertaken for religious purposes. Surak set out to visit many religious orders and temples, before traipsing into the wilderness in places like Vulcan's Forge and Mount Seleya, to learn from and connect with the various priest(ess)es, as well as to connect in solitude with his own mind. C'thia is always shown as a revelation. Surak perceives it for the first time and discerns its meaning while on pilgrimage, while in meditation, while studying spiritual truths. He discovers it, not in a laboratory, but in deep contemplation on a mountain peak. Thus, Surak strikes me as much more akin to a Hindu yogi or an enlightened New Age seeker than he does a Richard Dawkins type. He doesn't dismiss the spiritual lessons he learns from visiting the other religious orders but instead incorporates them into his new cult. I think it's this incorporation of c'thia with traditional polytheism within Surak's own spirituality that allows for modern Vulcans to do the same.

In conclusion, anyone who claims that the post-Reform Vulcans shown in canon are atheists have not been paying attention to the actual canon, first of all, and secondly, are doing nothing more than showing their bias toward the science vs religion binary. I think the Vulcans are a little too smart to fall for this dichotomy, and they are certainly aware of the need for a philosophy to be an open one, if it's to be sustainable at all. I think having access to the neverending mystery of space, peopled as it is with many different kinds of beings, has allowed the Vulcans to be open-minded toward religion and the existence of Gods and other numinous beings. After all, they fully accept the existence of katra and thus, souls, spirits, and the idea of beings existing without bodies. It is not an illogical leap to suppose that since animating spirits (ie souls that are housed by and animate a body) exist, other kinds might also, including Deities. And since Vulcans possess a psionic system, capable of the extrasensory perceptions involved in their version(s) of telepathy, they may be able to perceive these spirits telepathically, even when psi-null folks may not be able to.

So, I don't think Vulcan polytheism is relegated to some point in the planet's distant past but instead continues, alive and well, into the post-Awakening world.

[exhuastedpigeon]

I'm going to probably sound old when I say this, but every so often I think about the people (mostly women) who pioneered the modern idea of media fandom.

The people who handwrote fic or typed it on typewriters. The people who took their love of their favorourite show/book/movie to the next level and found other people in real life who enjoyed it as much as they did. The people who started mailing groups. The people who were in fandom before the internet even existed.

People who went to the post office to send their friends the latest chapter of their Spirk fic. The people who lovingly made fan magazines.

The people who created true fandom community.

They probably didn't actually think Kirk and Spock were going to kiss because it was a time when a kiss between a white man and a black woman on TV was groundbreaking, but they saw the chemistry and built a beautiful subculture where freaks and weirdos and queer people living in the bodies of housewives and secretaries and nurses and teachers and everyday people you'd pass on the street could let themselves be freaks with each other.

It really feels like we've lost so many amazing parts of fandom in the last decade or so. It doesn't feel like a community like it was even ten years ago, let alone 50+ years ago when you had to put in work to find fandom spaces and then build community with your fellow fans.

Today you can send someone an anonymous death threat for shipping something. People get doxxed for having a different opinion on a character.

Instead of fandom being a space for weirdos lovingly creating art and writing fic about shows and ships it's become almost an exchange where readers/viewers expect content without understanding the work that went into it. Writing still takes time and energy and work, making fan edits still takes skill and time and energy, drawing fan art takes years of practice and love and patience. We've lost the art of being grateful for that effort. We've lost the community created between writers and readers, between artists and other fans.

Idk, I just miss the fandom community. Sometimes I miss the days of message boards. Other days I miss the tumblr before the porn ban where you could make friends with people by sharing porn and talking about what kind of freaky shit you thought your favourite characters got into.

Maybe I'm just old and not evolving with the times, but I feel like the community part of fandom is the best part of it and it's really missing from a lot of fandom spaces these days. It's no longer about sharing an interest with people, it's about consuming content.

[your-name-is-jim]

What a Kirk/Spock shipper sees in a Kirk/Female-Love-Interest story [PART 2/2]

Part 1 <- Please read Part 1 first. Part 2 won't make sense otherwise!

This panel is absolutely AMAZING and you all deserved to see it :D

So, what were we talking about? Oh, yeah, Laura just proposed.

As you can see, Jim is panicking not sure what to answer, so the first thing he does is calling his two best friends. There are so many things going on here; I'll try to mention everything I care about!

"Starfleet is getting a lot better at partners of equal rank working together."

This is an important part of this comic: apparently, in this story Starfleet isn't encouraging relationships between officers with a different rank. I know it's sort of implied in canon too, but it's not always clear if it's actually against regulations or if it's fine when the ranks are close.

As a K/S shipper, this detail just gives me an in-universe reason why Jim and Spock aren't considering dating each other in this story: a commander can't probably have a relationship with a captain. I mean, we already know from canon TOS that Jim avoids relationships with the members of his crew, so this just adds a layer to a potential forbidden love story between them. Yeah, I know this isn't what this comic is trying to do, but what can I say? Fans don't stop shipping something just because they learn it's not allowed in-universe… if anything, they can find it more exciting! :D

"We could teach at the Academy. Mind you, she laughed at that idea."

Oh, wait. Jim actually talked to Laura about their possible future together! It looks like he's thinking about them as teachers at Starfleet Academy. Hmm… this sounds familiar:

2277 — Accepts appointment to Academy faculty, moves into San Francisco apartment

This is from Kirk's biography in Star Trek official website. Between The Motion Picture and The Wrath of Khan, Jim accepts a job at the Academy. We see it at the start of the second movie, after Saavik takes the Kobayashi Maru test.

Wait, who's the other teacher here? :D

Okay, okay, in that era Jim is an admiral and Spock is a captain, so their ranks are still different, but except for that… They both teach at the Academy. And it's literally what Jim proposed to his love interest Laura in the comic! With my Kirk/Spock goggles on, what I read in that panel is "If Laura and I got married, we could both do this thing that I'm totally going to do with Spock in the future." LOL

Did the comic creators notice the parallel? Probably not. However, we K/S shippers have special skills for finding accidental implications about our ship everywhere, so here it is :)

"Your thoughts, please, Mr. Spock."

I said I had a lot to say about that single panel, so of course I can't skip the last line! A human woman has just proposed to Jim, and what does Jim do? He asks for Spock's opinion. This says a lot about Jim and Spock's friendship, and it's very sweet on Jim's part, but it also makes me think about Jim's love life. What about Jim and Laura's romantic feelings for each other? Does Jim want to spend the rest of his life with her? Perhaps the reason they don't talk about it (not even with Bones!) is that it's implied that Jim loves her and she loves him, even if they never say it. However, I still think it's interesting that Jim's discussion on the matter is mostly "logical".

Anyway, I swear I won't post every single panel of this comic, but Spock's reply is an absolute gem you all must see:

"I AM SOMETHING OF AN EXPERT ON THE SUBJECT OF JAMES T. KIRK."

(dkjflsdjlkdjglk brb losing my mind again)

Ahem. Okay, Spock. Noted. Also, wow, nice make up. Did I say that the art in this comic is great? Good.

"I believe someone of equal status would offer you the best possible chance of happiness."

Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I find interesting his use of "equal status" instead of the more specific "equal rank". Status makes me think less of their official position in Starfleet, and more of how two people actually see each other. It's not just about Laura and Jim being both captains; it's about them seeing each other as equals.

Anyway, Jim jokes about Bones and Spock finally agreeing about something, and the conversation continues.

Jim's best friends are both encouraging him to marry Laura. In this panel, I zoomed in on Bones because his words are especially interesting. Based on everything we've seen so far, it looks like having a romantic partner when you're in Starfleet is a pain in the ass in general in this comic; however, Bones is pointing out that for the first time, Jim has someone who really understands. Of course, that's because she's a Starfleet captain too.

About Spock, I won't share the entire conversation, but I just want to say that as a K/S shipper who likes to think Spock is secretly in love with Jim in this era, I find his dialogue where he's supporting Jim's relationship with Laura totally reasonable. It's important to remember that this comic takes place close to the end of the five-year mission. We know that Spock is going to run away after that, trying to erase all his emotions in Gol. So, in this specific part of his story, I find pretty in character that he'd tell Jim to find happiness with someone else. That's what he'd do, regardless of his own feelings.

So, Jim knows his two best friends think he should say "yes" to Laura. What happens next?

During a mission, Jim meets his ex Carol Marcus. She is surprised to find out that Jim is considering settling down. This is not completely related to this analysis, so I won't post it, but I found interesting that Carol knows about every single woman Jim dated before he became captain (the only one she doesn't name is Ruth), and she even says "And that woman in 1930, what was her name?" Just… how the hell does she know? LMAO

At least Jim hasn't told her about Miramanee and Rayna (well, technically he doesn't even remember the latter), but seriously, Carol does know a lot about Jim's private life, even if it's clear she doesn't want her or their son to be part of it. (Not really related to this plot, but in case you're confused about the timeline: David is a child in this era; however, he doesn't appear in this story.)

Anyway, this is what she eventually tells him:

So, I like to think that Carol is genuinely trying to help Jim here, because the spiteful ex girlfriend is another thing I don't really want to see in 2020. I want to think that the creators meant well; however, what happens in the story is that, despite Jim not seeing himself outside the captain's chair, and despite his best friends telling him to marry the captain that is just like him… Jim keeps thinking about Carol's words.

He knows from Starfleet that he's going to be promoted to admiral the moment he reaches Earth. What is interesting here is that Jim could refuse the promotion and be a captain with Laura. This is definitely a different situation from everything else I've seen before. It's obvious to anyone who has watched TOS movies that Jim is not happy as an admiral. He didn't really want to be one. He doesn't want to be one in this comic series either (you can see it explored in Star Trek: Year Five main story). However, thanks to The Motion Picture, we also know that he will accept promotion at the end of his five-year mission. This isn't a canon divergence story: the writers can't really change any major event, so they have to work with what canon offers.

What I find interesting is that in this 2020 comic, Jim finds himself in the opposite situation he is in Gene Roddenberry's The Motion Picture novelization from 1979. In Roddenberry's novel, it's mentioned briefly that Jim starts a relationship on Earth with a vice-admiral, a woman that was basically asked to use her charm to keep Jim grounded. Jim could refuse promotion, but he finds himself lost, without his ship, without Spock, and eventually without Bones. So he tries to convince himself that a life as an admiral with a perfect woman by his side will be good for him (it will not; Jim himself will realize a year later that his lover was an "Enterprise-surrogate").

Now, I understand trying to write something fresher and more modern in this Valentine's Day special, but I confess that I find a little hard to believe that Jim would accept a promotion as admiral if the alternative was keeping both a starship AND a wife. Also, let's not forget that Spock and Bones are both telling him to choose the married captain life. So, while I totally get from a writer's point of view that if you can't change canon, you have to work with what you have, I'm also not sure that Carol reminding Jim that he's always wanted to challenge himself is enough to make him doubt everything.

I guess I can sort of see that as part of a bigger problem: Jim knows he can't be a captain for life; during his first date with Laura, as we saw in Part 1 of my analysis, he talks about it.

"I've been thinking lately about whether I could ever stop being a Starfleet captain. Whether I could ever want to. A friend of mine talks about 'infinite diversity'. That applies to the Federation, too. But here I am, only built for one thing."

So, Jim knows he has probably avoided the subject for too long. Carol is forcing him to think about it. And, more implicitly, we could say Spock and his IDIC philosophy are also making him think, even if it's not what Spock would have expected. After all, Spock told Jim to marry Laura (in the comic), and he'll tell him that being a starship captain is his "first, best destiny" (in The Wrath of Khan).

Anyway, Jim eventually decides to meet Laura and talk to her about his personal concerns. First of all, we find out that the two of them haven't called each other for six weeks. Laura is still waiting for Jim's answer, and she didn't want to call him. If you ask me, their lack of communication is yet another a big clue that perhaps getting married is not a great idea.

Well, now Jim is at least trying to talk to her.

Aaand that's how she breaks up with him.

I'm not sure how to feel about this. I mean, in a sense, Jim doesn't say "I decided to be an admiral instead of marrying you", but Laura definitely sees it that way. I think he was genuinely looking for help, but that just proves that Laura isn't the right person for him. Why marrying someone you can't communicate with? They are such a great team as captains, but it looks like that doesn't apply to their relationship. I pointed out other clues in the previous parts, and now we got this. It's interesting to see that Jim in this comic can have a normal conversation about his future with Spock, Bones, and even Carol Marcus, but not with the person he's supposed to build a future with. Unless something changes between them, it can't work out.

Anyway, this isn't the end.

A year later, when Jim is an admiral on Earth, there's a sudden emergency. A miniature black hole appears out of the deep structure of the universe (don't blame me for the science, I'm literally quoting the comic LOL) and it's attracted to Earth gravity. Short story: they're all going to die, but fortunately the Drake (Laura's ship) can cause an anti-matter implosion that will shunt the black hole outside their reality. Unfortunately, that also means the Drake will have to go inside the black hole. Laura evacuates her crew and asks Admiral Kirk to give her the order to proceed. Reluctantly, Jim tells her that he knows she'll do it, and he gives the order.

Now, please appreciate The Motion Picture aesthetic:

Okay, I know I could have chosen a panel with Jim and Laura, since this is literally their love story, but I did say this analysis was going to be biased, so here is Laura with her two closest friends instead; they would never let her risk her life alone! <3 They are very obviously meant to be a parallel to what Spock and Bones are to Jim, which is very cute to see. Now, Laura, listen to me: I know the three of you have different ranks, but you may die in a few seconds… And I just think that the few times your friends appear in this comic, you have a lot of chemistry with them, sooo maybe you should forget about Jim and just smooch one of them, or both… just saying :)

Ahem. Anyway, after Laura and her girlfriends disappear into the void, there's another timeskip. This time it's 15 years.

Oh, damn.

I said in the premise of this analysis that one of the reasons I decided to read this comic despite shipping Kirk/Spock is that, in my headcanon, Kirk and Spock get together after The Motion Picture. Until this point, this comic hasn't really gone against my headcanon. I can genuinely believe that Jim had another girlfriend during his five-year mission; it's not a big deal. Unfortunately for me, this comic has its last part taking place around The Final Frontier era. Dammit.

Well, it's just one comic. I read until this point; it'd be illogical not to read until the end, right? Nah, it's not logic. It's human curiosity. I know I won't like it, but I still want to see it.

Also, if there's something that I really don't want to see in modern media anymore, is female characters dying just to make male characters suffer. I can accept that in TOS show because it was made in the 1960s, but even TOS movies got better about it! Characters like Saavik and Gillian can have their own lives without having to die for a man's pain. It's not a coincidence that the writers had to kill Spock to make Jim suffer. Without digressing too much, I just wanted to say that K/S bias aside, I went into this comic hoping to read something different from another dead woman for Jim. I'm very glad that, at least about this, the comic creators didn't disappoint me!

So, in this story, it's been 15 years since Laura's disappearance (actually, it should be more, but I'll try not to nitpick, despite being the trekkies' favorite hobby :D). Anyway, the one with the whales The Voyage Home happened, and Jim is not an admiral anymore. He's happy to have a starship again, but he hasn't stopped questioning his life decisions.

We can also see that, 15 years later, he's reading the book Laura liked.

HOLD IT! WAIT WAIT WAIT! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME??? WHAT THE--

*inhales deeply*

(Friendly reminder to myself that what is obvious to me may not be obvious to everyone else, so I need to explain. Fine. I'll try.)

The screenshots I posted are from The Wrath of Khan, right after Spock's funeral. What Jim is doing there is reading the end of the book that Spock gave him for his birthday. He's mourning Spock.

In the comic panel, Jim has a new pair of glasses, because it takes place a little later in the timeline. But, except for that…

It's the same scene.

The same fucking scene.

I mean, come on! I can't even post the "they're the same picture" meme, because it's not funny if they're literally the same picture! Even the bookmark is the same!

The comic creators literally took a canon scene about Jim reading Spock's book after Spock is gone, and they redrew it with Jim reading Laura's book after Laura is gone. In a Valentine's Day special. Where Laura is Jim's love interest. They made a romantic scene with Jim and a woman that was originally about Jim and Spock.

(Brb, I'm going to chew a pillow until I calm down.)

So. Well. If you wondered why I thought there was something about Kirk/Spock in this comic… you have your answer. Perhaps the artist didn't think anything about it. I certainly do.

And I guess someone could say, "But Jim is still reading Laura's book 15 years later! That's true love!" Why yes, he's not reading Spock's book 15 years later, because he didn't stay without Spock for 15 years; he risked everything and lost all the most important things in his life to save Spock's soul.

Anyway, back to the comic. Starfleet receives a signal from the edge of Federation space. It's the Drake. Laura and her friends are alive.

Jim and Laura have a reunion after a long separation. Since they're both captains now, Jim thinks they are given a second chance.

Oh, whoops.

It's her turn now. It looks like being away for 15 years has changed her (as you can expect, honestly), and she's now glad to become an admiral. In this comic, that means Jim can't marry her. So, this is how the story ends:

So. Um.

This isn't a bad ending, but I also wouldn't exactly call it a happy ending. It's certainly not a happily ever after story. I'd call it open, maybe hopeful? Honestly, pretty much what I'd expect from a love story between an original character and Jim, so I can't say the writing is disappointing about that.

On the other hand, I can't personally imagine middle-aged Jim being so eager to start a romance again with someone he hasn't seen in 15 years who broke up with him 16 years ago. Perhaps he felt guilty about Laura's disappearance because if he had married her, they would have been part of a colonization fleet somewhere else and the incident wouldn't have happened the same way? Maybe. Personally, I would have found more believable an ending where Jim asks her to have dinner together or go for a walk, and then something romantic happening as they get to know each other again. But I can see why the creators wanted to bring up the marriage proposal again, just to close the circle. The comic is just 32 pages, so they did what they could.

"Unless there's someone else." "Not so much. I've been really busy."

Busy with what? Oh, right: Spock's death, Spock's body on Genesis, Spock's rebirth on Vulcan, the time travel (okay, that one wasn't 100% Spock-related), Spock's brother… Honestly, just say there's been a lot of Spock in your life, Jim, because that's the truth :)

On a more serious note, I guess that dialogue could mean that Jim has someone, but "he's been too busy" to do anything serious with them. However, as a K/S monoshipper I don't really like the idea of Jim being in an open relationship with Spock, so Jim's character in the entire scene in the end is just a big NOPE for me. Sorry.

That said, I found very interesting that in a few panels they show very clearly the "captain" rank on Jim and Laura's shoulders, to point out that it's the same. They can't be together forever, but they can have fun for a few days as captains. Because of that, I went back to the start of the last timeskip, just to check out something:

Fascinating.

This is a pretty detailed panel, where you can see the ranks on the shoulders of Jim's friends; the colors of their pins are also pretty good, close to the ones in the movies… except for Spock's.

Oh, please. Did you really expect me not to pay attention to this? :)

Captain Kirk and Captain Spock.

And unlike Laura, this is what they are until the end! The end of a very long life! Generations? What's Generations? Spock will eventually become an ambassador, but that's just a different job. How did Spock himself put it earlier in this comic?

"I am something of an expert on the subject of James T. Kirk. And I believe someone of equal status would offer you the best possible chance of happiness."

Did the comic creators just play themselves? I don't know, I'm quoting their own story here! LOL

And what about Jim's words from the same scene? :D

"Starfleet is getting a lot better at partners of equal rank working together."

Partners. Of equal rank. Working together.

That's literally what Kirk and Spock are since the end of The Voyage Home! Without an expiration date!

The comic creators made a big deal in their universe about relationships being better between two captains, and how good Jim and Laura may have been for each other if they had married as captains; and now they can't have their happily ever after because Laura is going to be an admiral… But even if the comic tries to hide it, we know there is a captain in Jim's life. And to make things better, Jim lost his admiral rank to bring him back. Listen, I'm a huge Old Married Kirk/Spock fan, so there's no way anything can make me forget that in the last TOS movies they're both captains. And there's no way I can forget that Jim risked his entire career (and everything else!) for Spock, and that's literally why he's not an admiral anymore.

This is almost ironic in this Valentine's Day comic. If it hadn't been for Spock, Jim would have still been an admiral, and he could have married Laura. Whoops. Too bad.

Speaking of admirals, I didn't notice it at first, but there's also something about this line Laura says in the last panel I posted…

"And don't you dare 'Admiral' me."

Ah, yes, a typical thing you tell someone you're planning to have sex with. Right, Laura? Agreed :)

Honestly, at this point I should just stop checking this comic, because I wonder if I'd just end up finding a Kirk/Spock version of every Kirk/Laura Rhone line LOL

By the way, I have other thoughts to share now that the story is over, but there's one more thing first. Do you remember the last panels of the comic? Middle-aged Jim and Laura kiss; END.

Okay. After that, the comic has a picture of the cover, with Jim and Laura kissing when they're younger.

And then it has this:

dklsfjlskjflskjlksjlkdlkgjdlfgsnfjekniuwanf LISTEN, HOW--

Just how am I even supposed to say anything that makes sense about this…??? I'm just… I can't…

Okay. So. We're talking about a Valentine's Day comic. It makes sense for it to include a cute Valentine card. I also get that Spock's iconic line has become so mainstream that it can be quoted out of context. And you can make parodies.

But… But… A Star Trek TOS fan can't really forget the original context of "I have been and always shall be your friend"? Someone could just not think about it, I guess… But, well, I know that at least I can't forget that this is literally Spock's line to Jim rewritten in a romantic Valentine's Day version. I can't possibly NOT think about it!

And I know it's very possible that the people who worked on the comic story weren't even aware of this extra, but the fact that I'm seeing this after reading about Jim Kirk's romance without happily ever after… Jim kisses a woman he can't stay with forever, and then there's Spock's "I have been and always shall be your Valentine". It's just so fucking funny. I can't. If I was feeling a little down after seeing middle-aged Jim wanting to marry Laura, now I'm laughing again. Thanks, Spock's silly Valentine card. I needed it! :D

Anyway, what did I say about this comic taking things originally created for Kirk and Spock's relationship and making them romantic when they're not about them? I can believe that sometimes it's a coincidence, but this card? Please… In a sense, this is the perfect ending.

---

Conclusions.

I started this comic with a question: in 2020, how do you write a story about TOS Kirk falling in love? I wanted to see this attempt. Overall, I think the creators did what they could. Laura is different from every other woman in Jim's life; they didn't kill her off, and they also didn't force a happy ending. I think they did a good job with the canon limitations they had, especially in 32 pages.

Do I believe that Laura could have been a good match for Jim in different circumstances?

As a temporary girlfriend? Yes.

As a lifelong partner? No.

Of course, I'm aware my answer is biased, but I can try to be a little more "logical" about it.

First of all, I think that the comic itself supports my interpretation: of course, like in every story, different people are going to see different things; however, as I already pointed out, Jim and Laura never say that they love each other, and before the marriage proposal their relationship is pretty casual.

In The Original Series, Jim isn't lucky when it comes to romance because the women he falls in love with can't really understand his nature as a space explorer. Sometimes they can, like in Carol's case, and that's why they break up with him. Laura is the opposite, because she's just like Jim. But here is the thing: I think Laura is too much like him.

What would have happened if Jim had accepted to marry her at the end of the five-year mission? They would have been both captains. On different ships, though. Sure, they could have been part of the same colonization fleet, as Jim says in the comic, and maybe it would have worked for a while. However, would they really have seen each other as much as Jim needs?

I don't know about Laura, but we see multiple times in canon that behind his mask as a starship captain, Jim is definitely more lonely than what someone may think.

First of all, don't get me wrong: in these screenshots from The Naked Time, Jim is single, so of course his attraction to Janice Rand is related to that. It's not the same situation he'd be in if he were married to Laura. Early in the series, he has thoughts about his yeoman exactly because he doesn't have anyone else. Contrary to his fame as a womanizer, TOS Jim in canon always has one woman at a time in his mind, never more.

So, why am I sharing those lines? To show that when Jim is always inside the Enterprise, he does feel lonely. He needs a romantic partner's physical touch. However, we also know that Jim does not want a relationship with one of his subordinates, so Janice Rand and the rest of his crew are off limits.

Laura is good for him because she's part of Starfleet, and not a subordinate. But is that really enough? From what I've seen in the comic, no. At the end of the day, it looks to me that Jim and Laura don't really know how to plan a future together. Perhaps it's because they're so similar, but they don't really think of themselves as a couple, especially Laura. There's Captain James T. Kirk and Captain Laura Rhone; they both love their ships, so they should get married? That's not how it works.

Their relationship is casual. Jim doesn't want to define it. Are they friends with benefits? Are they in an open relationship? Either way, when Laura decides to marry him, she asks around if Jim has someone else, and only after that she asks him. Jim, on the other hand, doesn't talk to her for six weeks after her proposal. He talks to Spock and Bones immediately, but not to her. He even talks to Carol first.

Then, when Jim finally tries to talk to her about his problems, she doesn't listen. Their lack of communication is the cause of their break up.

16 years later, what we see is even worse. It's obvious that Laura has just different priorities. Maybe it's because of what happened to her lost in space, but I'm not sure. If they had married at the end of the five-year mission, would have Laura always refused a promotion to admiral? Would she have tried to get a promotion with Jim? Based on what we see in this comic, it doesn't look likely to me.

Now, as I said, different people are going to see different things, so I'm sure that someone really invested in this romance can imagine that Jim and Laura are really meant to be, and they can get their happy ending after their retirement, or in other ways. However, I admit that Jim and Laura's huge communication issues make hard to me to picture a long happy relationship between them. They should both try to get better, but in those 32 pages there was no hint towards that direction.

There's another thing that makes really hard to find any love interest for Jim as a plausible "happily ever after" option: the stakes. I know that it's just a single comic, so the creators had to focus on a few things; however, I couldn't help but notice that Jim and Laura never really save each other from dangerous situations. They work together as a team, and Jim watches Laura disappearing into the void, but does he do anything about it? Does he try to reach her inside her ship before she disappears into the black hole? Does he try to bring her back from the void? No, he doesn't.

In TOS show and movies, Jim Kirk risks so much for his crew and his ship that a Star Trek fan can't believe that a new woman is the love of his life, unless Jim is willing to do for her everything he does for his friends. And honestly, after The Search for Spock… how can he even come close to do that?

And it's not just about Jim's actions. There's his language too. At the start of the third movie, Jim refers to Spock as "the noblest part of myself". What could he say about a love interest that is as deep as this?

Let's be honest here: the reason it's so hard to write a story about Jim Kirk's true love is that the real love story for him has already been written. You may not see it romantically, but Kirk and Spock's story is absolutely a love story. And when a character has someone he loves so deeply, it's not easy to convince the audience that he could have someone new to love as deeply. In Jim's case, the combination of his personality and his canon life makes it almost impossible.

Anyway, before I end up not so accidentally turning this analysis into a complete Kirk/Spock ship manifesto, I'm just going to mention one silly thing about the Valentine's Day comic. Please, don't take it too seriously, I'm half-joking :)

So, there are two kiss scenes in the story: one when Jim and Laura start to spend a lot of free time together, and one in the last panel. Well, I can't believe Jim isn't holding Laura's shoulders when he kisses her! That's just the basis of the way Jim kisses women! D:

Different Star Trek characters kiss in different ways; it fits their personalities. And because the rest of my TOS posts are probably too gay for these gifs, I'm dropping them as references here:

Sorry, but if Jim Kirk doesn't grab someone's shoulders before a kiss, it just kills my immersion! :P

Okay, a little more seriously: Jim doesn't always kiss women the same way; however, his "shoulder grab" is common enough that you definitely notice it if you pay attention. Because of that, I think it would have been nice to include it in the Valentine's Day comic.

After reading this comic, what kind of person would I consider perfect for Jim?

Well, my answer is obvious. However, I'll try to elaborate.

First of all, this story definitely convinced me even more that Jim can only be really happy with another Starfleet officer (or at least someone who's been deeply involved with Starfleet). He also needs someone who understands him as a space explorer, without trying to keep him grounded. And someone very smart, of course. These are all traits Laura has. But they're just the basis.

I don't think Jim needs someone in command of their own ship as a lifelong partner. As I said before, I can't really imagine it working out. Another starship captain would have their own goals and their own ambitions; that doesn't mean Jim shouldn't marry someone with specific plans for their own career, but I think these plans should keep the two of them close, not on different ships. Jim needs his partner physically at his side; if he could be happy in a long-distance relationship, I believe we would have seen at least one working out in canon. But it's never the case. Working on different starships from the same fleet would be a little better, but in my opinion not enough, unless it's for a short period of time.

And there's also the matter of his partner's personality. Jim is a natural leader; that's why he's so good at his job. I don't think he needs a similar kind of leader as romantic partner. This is just my personal opinion, but I believe they would just fight about everything they disagree about. I think he needs someone calmer in his life, not someone who'd encourage emotional outbursts.

More importantly, he absolutely needs someone he can communicate with. If he can't talk to his partner about everything important, they're not the right person for him. That doesn't mean they can't have disagreements or miscommunication issues, of course, but they shouldn't happen all the time, and Jim and his partner should be able to talk about them and make up.

In conclusion: someone at his side on his ship, smart, calm, trustworthy :)

Now, I know what some of you are thinking about: what about the "no relationships with subordinates" personal rule Jim has? How can Jim be in a relationship with Spock (or anyone else on the Enterprise) if he's everyone's superior officer? Well, first of all, I already said that after The Voyage Home, Jim and Spock are both captains. And before that… I think that Spock in the comic phrased it the right way. Jim can find his happiness with someone of "equal status". I think it's pretty clear, in my opinion, that Janice Rand and Spock aren't the same kind of subordinates to Jim. Just think about it: which members of the Enterprise call their captain "Jim"? Bones, Spock and (occasionally) Scotty. These are the three people I believe are "equals" in private to Jim, no matter their ranks when they're on duty. Because of that, a relationship between Jim and Spock could work pretty well.

By the way, another thing the Valentine's Day comic made me think about is that in TOS movies, Jim sort of does with Spock pretty much everything he does with Laura in this story. Not the same way, of course, but does it matter? Spock is his own person, he's not Jim's copy. That doesn't mean he can't indulge Jim, have fun himself… and try to stop Jim from doing dangerous things "for fun", as an old spouse would :)

Okay, perhaps throwing each other into the water doesn't count as dancing, but it's so much better :D

In conclusion, this is the way I can read the Valentine's Day comic as a Kirk/Spock shipper:

Jim mentions Spock on his first date with a woman.

Jim questions his life choices as he thinks about Spock and IDIC philosophy.

Jim does with Laura everything we see him doing in TOS show, except for playing chess (just the thing he does with Spock).

Jim says Laura and him are a good team in Starfleet because they had a lot of sex (is that true about other people he works well with??)

There haven't been many ladies or gentlemen in Jim's life because he's busy (not because he's not into men, apparently).

"Starfleet is getting a lot better at partners of equal rank working together." Good for your future with Spock, Jim!

If Jim and Laura got married, they could both teach at Starfleet Academy, something Jim is totally going to do with Spock someday.

Mister "I am something of an expert on the subject of James T. Kirk" Spock.

Also, Mister "I believe someone of equal status would offer you the best possible chance of happiness" Spock, which is actual foreshadowing of his own future status with Jim.

Hey, look at Jim reading a book that reminds him of his lost love! I wonder where I've seen LITERALLY THE SAME PICTURE???

"Don't 'Admiral' me". This is totally not similar to what Jim tells Spock in The Voyage Home, of course.

Hey, we're both captains now! Just for a few days, but isn't that great? I wonder if anyone else is a captain now, and forever? :D

"I have been and always shall be your Valentine". Totally not a Kirk/Spock line, I don't know what you're talking about! :)

Okay, okay, that's all.

As a Kirk/Spock shipper, I won't deny that I'm a little jealous of this Valentine's Day special comic, because I wish we could get something with amazing art like this where Jim is in love with Spock. On the other hand, Star Trek: Year Five comic series has a few scenes about Jim & Spock's friendship that I really liked. Platonic, sure, but good enough for my K/S goggles!

Thank you so much for reading this post until the end! I hope you enjoyed my analysis! Live long and prosper!

[theshadowrealmitself]

Hey, have you got any Spock/Kirk fic recommendations? I've already read a bunch, but your Vulcan posts are always interesting, I'm sure You've got some good fic recs.

One of my favorite Spirk fics of all time is Observations Part 1/2 by anon-j-anon. It's SO GOOD and well written. It's perfect if you like long fics.

It's basically a running commentary on everything that's happening on the Enterprise, from Spock's POV. It's both hilarious and sad.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/43993807/chapters/110614654

I’ve been wanting to make a post like this but I’m so bad at keeping track of fics (seriously, I have no bookmarks, nothing saved, everytime I wanna reread one I just go on the long hunt for it)

So, I went back and found some that I liked (unfortunately couldn’t find all that I really wanted to share, but today’s been a busy day, and if I put this off then this ask will be left to rot in my inbox)

These are all completed fics with developing relationship, these are also not the actual descriptions just my descriptions for them

https://archiveofourown.org/works/4241025/chapters/9595551

I’ve already recommended this one on my blog but y’all are gonna hear about it again!! One of my absolute favorite aos fics!! Essentially, Jim is bad at making wishes (but it’s not like the one who’s granting his wishes is making it easy on him), there’s very very mild angst (my heart goes out to him on wish #2), and everything gets wrapped up nicely on the last chapter! Everyone should check out this fic at least once in my opinion

https://archiveofourown.org/works/45298468

Kirk finds Spock a man, tos version (there’s an aos fic somewhere with the same concept but it goes very differently, couldn’t find it rn tho)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/44864332/chapters/112882420

Love in the form of homemade beverages

https://archiveofourown.org/works/44873377

Kirk fucks Spock Prime, aos Spock takes issue with that (mostly smut with jealousy)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/42680841

Spock thinks Kirk’s trying to commit suicide but that’s not what’s actually happening, it’s short but I still love how aos Spock is characterized in this

https://archiveofourown.org/works/41198433

Spock hits his head and thinks he’s a Romulan pirate, it’s an absolute travesty that this is a quick oneshot only

https://archiveofourown.org/works/27563158

Had to end this list with another major favorite of mine, this one’s a tos fic with “foot in mouth” disease in a few failed interviews (finally) leading to a natural conclusion

[linxuelian]

Anime Fest Plus 2024 Convention Experience Log - With Photos!

Hi, hello! As I've recently (as of this post, yesterday morning) attended Anime Fest+ 2024 at Tropicana Gardens Mall, Petaling Jaya, Malaysia, I've decided to write an experience log about my day there! While I will be posting a few different cosplays here, since my blog is currently primarily about MDZS, TGCF and SVSSS at the moment, most of the cosplays I'll be sharing will be from these three titles. To add to the fun, I'll also have commentaries on them!

To preface, the largest anime convention in Malaysia is Comic Fiesta, an annual mecca with 70,000 attendees as of the year 2023. Anime, games and comics are popular in this country, so there are smaller cons dotted throughout the months.

Anyway, the crowd wasn't as large as Comic Fiesta. As the structure of Tropicana Gardens Mall is rather narrow, you'd technically have to file through in two to three lines to be able to walk in and out of the place.

The exhibition hall at the fourth floor hosted all performances as well as cosplay booths. You'd have to ride one of the two escalators up to the hall - plebs without a ticket are doomed to be stranded at the bottom of said escalators, unable to sop up the merriment held exclusively above.

Here are some pics though, just in case you were a pleb that day, or just didn't attend the event:

Main hall programs and booths featured mostly Hololive and sexy pretty girl cosplayers and figurines, given the regular, expected fare when it comes to the anime consuming demographic (yes, I'm calling you out, my anime-watching brothers). I didn't take pictures of the doujinshi market out of respect for the art sellers there, but I did buy a beautiful print and got some lovely free stickers from that ONE vendor who sold BL stuff among the throngs of moe girls/Genshin Impact.

Yes, there was only one stall. But that one vendor made my day! Bless your heart, sister!

Now, I'll move on to the highlight - the cosplays. Nothing fills my heart with more joy than seeing happy people wearing colorful costumes and having a blast just being part of the convention scene. To be honest, it's so common to be wearing cosplay outfits nowadays that folk don't even notice you when you're dressed up - and I say this from experience; nobody noticed at all that I was in costume (or they were far too polite to laugh at how shitty I looked LOL, I didn't even dare take pics of myself). These events usually become scavenger hunts for me, to identify the ones from series I know or my tribe (fellow MXTX fans aha!).

First up is an oldie that's a goldie - Mr. Spock from Star Trek (credit: FaceBook user Yasuhiro Orihusay):

Honestly, I did NOT expect to find any Star Trek cosplays there. My dad's a Trekkie, so this was one of the first pics I sent him at the con itself. Live long and prosper, Mr. Spock!

Next, a furry OC:

I wasn't able to get their social media account as they were waiting in line for an autograph by a cosplayer, so unfortunately I'm unable to credit here.

Furries are currently still a new thing in Malaysia - but I'm glad to see them appearing more frequently at our cons, since they do diversify our pop culture scene quite a bit. Furs Upon Malaysia (FURUM) is held annually in Kuala Lumpur. The tickets are always sold out within an hour, so it's definitely growing and also contributing to tourism (Indonesian and Singaporean furries gather there too).

Also, they're fluffy. I love fluffy things. Much thanks, furry fandom, for being fluffy!

Moving on, here's a group cosplay of Jojo's Bizzare Adventure's Six Pistols (Mista from Golden Wind's Stands, if you're wondering which season it's from):

Vibrant and very spot on! I was unable to get their social media account due to the crowd and disorientation on my part. Do try to look them up, though! They were pretty popular, so I'm sure someone would have shared some info if you're interested.

Anyway, here's a White Mage from Final Fantasy (credit: https://www.instagram.com/yari_hayashi/):

Final Fantasy's one of the older franchises, but it's definitely rising again due to the new FFVII remake. I thought he was Garnet until I saw the blond wig. Bless the mages, healing power plus!!

Next in line is one of my all-time favorites, Sailor Moon (credit: https://www.instagram.com/jiahuab0719_cos/):

I'm a Moonie so seeing a Sailor Moon made me pretty excited! I don't see too many Sailor Moon cosplays even in Comic Fiesta - cosplays at our conventions are pretty seasonal and tend to follow trends, from what I've seen. She definitely caught quite a bit of attention with her wings, too. I saw her getting stopped quite a bit, so I'm glad I got a pic before a line formed!

Aaaand! I've saved the best for last! I'll be showcasing the MXTX stuff now. To start off (with a bang), here are two cosplayers of the number one seasonal love interest of the BL world, Hua Cheng a.k.a. San Lang Didi (Grown Up Version):

Credit: https://www.instagram.com/karry.1213/ (donghua version) and https://www.instagram.com/kopiii_cos/ (manhua version)

Remember how I said cosplays at Malaysian conventions tend to be pretty seasonal? Well, the current flavor of the month for the BL world is definitely TGCF - and the hottest flavor is now San Lang didi. You're going to get stopped for photos pretty often for dressing up as this flashy guy, and for good reason too. Donned in striking red, Hua Cheng is the Ferrari of the danmei world.

I overhead Kopiii_cos' friend saying so many people have been asking for photos! Viva Fafa!

Next, we have the ever beautiful WangXian couple cosplays:

Credit: Wei Wuxian (https://www.instagram.com/purple_384/) and Lan Wangji (https://www.instagram.com/anson1510/)

WangXian's a staple when it comes to the MXTX fandom. There's nary a person who doesn't love these two soulmates, and with these elaborate costumes, they've certainly stolen the show! They were the first couple I saw at the entrance of the exhibition hall, which makes sense since there was an OTP contest going on that afternoon.

Moving along, we have the main character of his story, the Crown Prince of Xian Le, Xie Lian (credit: https://www.instagram.com/arkutagwa/):

I gotta admit that this Lian's the sweetest of the Xies so far. Had a field day calling each other cute (what can I say, we both had cute personalities)! Gotta love that charming dimpled cheek, bless!

Speaking of cute, there's also this whole cute pose thing going on with certain attendees (credit: https://www.instagram.com/chzesin/):

I won't lie - I didn't recognize the character at first. But with the dark-gray-to-white ombre, black and red colors to tell you that's a Wei Wuxian, I'm just going to take a gamble here and deduce that yes, that is indeed a Wei Wuxian and include it. Let me know if you don't think it is.

Last but not least, we have our MXTX OTP group:

Credits: https://www.instagram.com/ayafvrvv/ (Luo Binghe) and https://www.instagram.com/close0402/ (Lan Wangji) - the rest didn't share their social media accounts but they did say you can find them through each other's accounts.

Turns out they're a group who'd entered the OTP contest that afternoon. If you're wondering, no, Binghe isn't paired with air (this is Bing-mei, not Bing-ge). There was a large number of attendees that day as it was Sunday, so their Shizun was still looking for parking. I'd gotten lucky since I'd arrived there just as they'd opened up Basement 3 so ZOOM I parked near the escalators with plenty of space to spare. Until today I chalk it up to being last-minute dressed as Xie Lian, the god of good luck for hobos like myself (or, according to popular belief, Hua Cheng's blessed every Xie Lian cosplayer out there no matter how much we look like we've just stepped out of a jungle). I also had plenty of space to sit for a lovely lunch of salad and green tea!

Granted, there were actually a few other Xie Lians there as well (he's the current flavor as well), but I didn't want to chase after them from afar since the flow of human traffic in this particular mall wasn't too conducive for trying to get pictures, unlike KLCC's garden. Usually, more fans are dressed as the two main characters, Wei Wuxian and Xie Lian - or the shous/bottoms in popular danmei. Surprisingly, I actually saw quite a number of gongs/tops this trip round.

So as a bonus, here's a pic with all our dandy gongs/tops together:

A dashing lot, aren't they?

Anyway, this wraps up my experience log as an MXTX cosplay hunter! Hope you enjoyed it! Bless!

[sophiaforevs]

Anyone else getting really disillusioned with Trek lately? Disco cancelled without notice, Paramount's greedy business decisions and not just canning Prodigy but removing it entirely, Picard's queer erasure... I'm just... like it hurts not only because these are shows I care about but it hurts extra because trek is specifically about being better than bigotry and greed. But we're on the precipice of something and I don't feel like it's something good.

Like, I really wonder if we're about to enter a "no gays in trek" period again. Matalas apparently worked very closely with Rick Berman back in the '90s and if you're not aware of all the bullshit he instituted you can check out this post. Discovery is great for queer rep, but of course it's ending after the fourth season. Picard completely erased the Seven/Rafi relationship. Like, they didn't just needlessly break them up, they went out of their way to keep them from being on camera together too much. Strange New Worlds has potentially two queer characters, Ortega and Chapel, but so far I don't think it's been confirmed on screen that either of them are queer (IIRC, the only mention was in "Spock Amok" where they mentioned something about having a great night with some girls but only in a way that could easily be dismissed by someone who didn't want to acknowledge their queerness).

And I just feel like Paramount looked at it's audience and thought to themselves It doesn't look like we'll be able to keep both the old cishet white men and everyone else so we'll have to pick one and they chose the men. So right now, I'm afraid for Ortega's life. I fully expect them to either not let her be canonically gay or if they do she'll be dead within the episode. I'm afraid that when we finally get a Captain Seven show, they won't let their show lead be a queer woman, and it'll mostly be about Jack saving the day.

And I'm just... what do you do when the show that is explicitly supposed to be about taking a "special delight in differences in ideas and differences in life forms" basically says they don't want you anymore?

[thegeminisage]

hi liz please can you give me a spirk fic rec (besides yours, obviously i’ve already read that) (something with good spock characterization would be great!!)

HELLO sorry for taking so long to get back to you. this is haaard bc so many of my favs also involve the ot3 (bones i love you) and also i wanna make a longer rec list someday but i am going to give you just a few that come to mind first so that this doesn't languish forever in my ask box. i'm not copypasting summaries notes etc like i would for a Proper Rec List so please READ THEM read the warnings everybody always read warnings. mix of aos/tos since u didn't specify and since you read mine i'm assuming you don't mind either <3 and in no particular order. ok here we go <3

Bare Your Faces of the Veil by flippyspoon - TOS - spock gets split into human and vulcan halves and he is really dead forever (until he isnt). this one actually got me misting up, it was awful, and it's more kirk-centric, but it's really good

anchor by Sir_Bedevere - TOS - post plato's stepchildren coda. it's again mostly kirk but also very quiet and a really good comedown from All Of That

The Black Knight and the Moon by Waid - AOS - pon farr fic will absolutely fuck you up. double read the warnings on this one bc it's not just sad it's EXTREMELY upsetting, intentionally extremely upsetting, but it's probably the best characterized AOS spirk fic and most realistic thought experiment i've ever read

Grief as a four-dimensional figure by Moreta1848 - mostly AOS with some TVH elements - everyone goes back in time to try and save vulcan. GREAT spock stuff in this one. i bonus rec most of this author's stuff actually (they have an au of earth being hit instead of vulcan in aos and tos intersex spock) - a lot of it is verrry long but i read as they update so the little pieces are fine.

Cosmic Fuck series by Gayle F - 1 2 3 4 - TOS - this is just straight smut, but it's VINTAGE smut, and also first fic to feature the famous vulcan double ridges. the last one is the first ever kirk/spock/bones (sorry i know you said spirk) so it's just full of historical relevance. sometimes the smut gets a little weird (the first fic is technically a dubcon situation because of pon farr and in the last fic they get off on a tangent about toe-sucking) and since it's not tagged you do have to go in a little blind. i've only read the middle two once and don't remember them well (so i can't help you out with warnings) but i reread the last one alllll the time. it's a really refreshing writing voice and feels so different from fanfic today wrt to how it talks about sexuality. the final fic (SORRY AGAIN) stands well on its own and is actually my fav TOS fic of all time <3

[chaosfairy18]

A little Javid thing I wrote at 1am mostly for @thatoneandlonelyemo2005

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jack saw David sitting at his desk by the half-closed blinds, over some book, probably for his English Lit exam and said goodbye as he'd have to go to work, Dave just barely saying goodbye. Jack knew how he was when he got into his study zone, he didn't feel bad about it, he knew they could cuddle later, when he got back home.

Five hours later, about 9 p.m., Jack turned the keys in their door again, breathing in the comforting smells after his work. It wasn't too long but it was exhausting nontheless, every time. He couldn't find David on the couch or in their bed, so he - more to to sure - checked if he was still at his desk. And there he was, still hunched over in the exact same position as five hours ago, sitting so still he could believe he was dead. Jack would be surprised if he had stopped learning at all, at least not for anything longer than a bathroom break or to get more coffee. Though he wasn't even sure if that would have gotten David up.

Not disturbing him yet, he went to the kitchen to prepare some things, first setting some water to boil, then cutting up an apple into little slices, debating if he should try to make them look cute like he'd seen on some instagram post but deciding against it.

He put the hot water in a teapot with Dave's favourite flavour and sat both down onto their side table in front of the couch, getting the last important thing he needed.

"Dave. You're done with learnin' tonight.", he whispered, hugging David from behind, who startled, as if woken up from a trance.

"Jack... I didn't hear you come home. What time is it?"

"After nine. That's long enough for you."

"No, I have to-" Jack turned the chair and pulled David up by his arms.

"No, it's enough. You don't gotta do it all today, I also need ya Dave." He kissed the other's curly hair and tried to bribe him into leaving his books with his renowned charm. "Come on." He could see David break and he followed him out of his study area and to the couch without more complaint.

Sitting David down on their couch, Jack quickly got a blanket and draped it over both of their shoulders so David was trapped, forced to take a break and get his mind out of wherever it was currently. He held an apple slice to his boyfriend's lips and didn't stop until he ate it, rolling his eyes.

"I really have to read that, Jackie."

"I know. But it can wait till tomorrow. I really gotta cuddle and watch a movie with you." Now offering David the tea, he ran up their TV and searched for Star Trek: Into Darkness, one of David's favourite movies, so he knew he couldn't refuse to watch it, no matter how determined he was to study.

David frowned, sipping on his tea, but he did sink deeper into the couch. "You're foul, Kelly."

"Just doin' what's best for my partner."

Setting down the tea, David laid his head in Jack's lap, still pouting but having his eyes glued to the screen as Spock was lowered into a volcano. "At least pet my hair then."

"Anythin' for you.", he chuckled, running his fingers slowly through David's hair and over his temples, trying to relieve the pressure he knew had to have built up under them. He'd really do anything for David, no matter when or where, but especially when he could help him get out of his head for a bit, just be here, watch a movie and relax, melting under his touches and slowly getting sleepier.

Jack kissed his forehead and got comfortable on the couch too. The movie was another hour and a half at least, they had time to fall asleep.

And as he'd said, David really needed the break, and what could be better than munching slowly on apple slices while drifting away, watching your favourite movie and having your boyfriend run his fingers through your hair softly.