spock really hit the came back wrong trifecta. came back wrong (necromancy). came back wrong (trauma). came back wrong (rebooted). truly the most character of all time.
peace and love on planet earth<3
or else.
Steve's choices / Bucky's lack thereof
My cartoon for the latest issue of New Scientist.
Our world.
Guys, if you read on AO3 please try to create an account. So many of us writers are going to be forced to lock down our fics to registered users out of necessity to help keep AI away, and it kills us because we don’t want to stop any of you from reading.
AO3 is invite only. So if you know an AO3 user, ask if they have an invitation to give you (we’re given invite codes to share with others who want to join) because that’s an easy way to get in. If you don’t know someone you can ask, this is AO3’s instructions for requesting one from them…
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Hey y'all! I decided to lock down my ao3 fics to prevent future AI scraping. Feel free to DM me to get an invite if you want to skip the queue.
McCOY: “Your weight was up a couple of pounds, remember?” KIRK: “Will you stop hovering over me, Yeoman?”
— The Corbomite Maneuver
KIRK: “My chicken sandwich and coffee. This is my chicken sandwich and coffee. … I want these off the ship. I don’t care if it takes every man we’ve got, I want them off the ship.”
— The Trouble With Tribbles
KIRK: “Well, there’s one difference between us. I’m hungry.” KIRK2: “The difference is your weakness, Captain, not mine.” KORBY: “One at a time, gentlemen. Captain?” KIRK: “Eating is a pleasure, sir. Unfortunately, one you will never know.” KIRK2: “Perhaps, but I will never starve, sir.”
— What Are Little Girls Made Of?
KIRK: “And the little ones. What’s going to happen to them after you’ve gone, after you’ve turned into creatures like Louise? Oh, they’ll still be here, but not for long, because the food’s all gone. You’ve eaten it. Maybe six months left, that’s all, and then nothing left to eat, nobody left to take care of them. They’ll die, too.”
— Miri
KIRK: “Is there anything to eat? I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m starved.” McCOY: “How can you think of food at a time like this?” KIRK: “First order of business, survival.”
— Wrath of Kahn
SPOCK: “ According to our library banks, it started on the Earth colony of Tarsus Four, when the food supply was attacked by an exotic fungus and largely destroyed. There were over eight thousand colonists and virtually no food. And that was when Governor Kodos seized full power and declared emergency martial law. … There were nine eye witnesses who survived the massacre, who’d actually seen Kodos with their own eyes. Jim Kirk was one of them.“
— The Conscience of the King
KIRK: Your report covers all vegetation?
SULU: All vegetation is inedible, poison to us.
McCOY: If the Enterprise has been destroyed, do you know how long we can survive?
KIRK: Yes.
-That Which Survives
[Image description: A screencap from Star Trek: The Original Series. Leonard McCoy and James T. Kirk are sitting at a desk. A plate of salad is in front of Kirk. Both men are looking at Janice Rand, who is standing next to the desk. End description.]
[Italicized text: McCoy: “Your weight was up a couple of pounds, remember?”
Kirk: “Will you stop hovering over me, Yeoman?”
— The Corbomite Maneuver. End italicized text].
[Image description: Kirk talking to Spock. Kirk is holding a tray full of tribbles and a cup full of tribbles. There are tribbles on the wall behind him. End description.].
[Italicized text: Kirk: “My chicken sandwich and coffee. This is my chicken sandwich and coffee. … I want these off the ship. I don’t care if it takes every man we’ve got, I want them off the ship.”
— The Trouble With Tribbles. End italicized text.]
[Image Description: Kirk and a duplicate of him wearing a green and blue shirt are sitting at a table. Both of them have plates of colorful food cubes in from of them. The original Kirk has shoved his plate away from him,has clases his palms, and has a calm expression. The duplicate Kirk has one of the cubes on a fork and is looking at the original Kirk with a puzzled expression. End description.]
[Italicized text: Kirk: “Well, there’s one difference between us. I’m hungry.”
Kirk 2: “The difference is your weakness, Captain, not mine.”
Korby: “One at a time, gentlemen. Captain?”
Kirk: “Eating is a pleasure, sir. Unfortunately, one you will never know.”
Kirk 2: “Perhaps, but I will never starve, sir.”
— What Are Little Girls Made Of? End italicized text.]
[Image description: Kirk is holding a girl white pale skin and short blonde hair. She’s wearing a fancy, yellow and black dress. Kirk has a desperate expression on his face. The sleeves of his uniform are ripped and here is a bit of blood on his face. End description].
[Italicized text: Kirk: “And the little ones. What’s going to happen to them after you’ve gone, after you’ve turned into creatures like Louise? Oh, they’ll still be here, but not for long, because the food’s all gone. You’ve eaten it. Maybe six months left, that’s all, and then nothing left to eat, nobody left to take care of them. They’ll die, too.”
— Miri. End italicized text.]
[Image description: Kirk, McCoy, Saavik, David Marcus, and Carol Marcus are in an underground tunnel. Kirk, Saavik, and Carol are sitting, while McCoy and David are standing. There are a few crates, metal sheets, and conical metal items in the tunnel. End description]
[Italicized text: Kirk: “Is there anything to eat? I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m starved.”
McCoy: “How can you think of food at a time like this?”
Kirk: “First order of business, survival.”
— Wrath of Kahn. End italicized text.]
[Image description: Kirk is scowling and standing behind Kodos, a man with light skin, and short gray hair and mustache. Kodos is wearing a green velvet shirt. End description]
[Italicized text: Spock: “According to our library banks, it started on the Earth colony of Tarsus Four, when the food supply was attacked by an exotic fungus and largely destroyed. There were over eight thousand colonists and virtually no food. And that was when Governor Kodos seized full power and declared emergency martial law. … There were nine eye witnesses who survived the massacre, who’d actually seen Kodos with their own eyes. Jim Kirk was one of them.“
— The Conscience of the King. End italicized text.]
[Image description: McCoy, Kirk, and Hikaru Sulu are crouching behind a builder. Captions read, “Yes.” End description.]
[Italicized text: Kirk: Your report covers all vegetation?
Sulu: All vegetation is inedible, poison to us.
McCoy: If the Enterprise has been destroyed, do you know how long we can survive?
Kirk: Yes.
-That Which Survives. End italicized text.]
Ofc Spock is alienated, and it’s a beautiful and heart wrenching conflict, but I think Kirk’s alienation in TOS is just as fascinating.
Kirk can’t have long term romantic relationships because he is Captain. He refuses to get with people on his crew who he has direct control over (in the context of Spirk I believe that this would also cause him to hesitate in forming a relationship with Spock) and of course all other relationships would be long-long-long distance.
Jim’s romances are also often ruses; it’s not often that he seems to truly fall in love with a woman as opposed to simply seducing her in order to gain an advantage.
Jim has to be forced by Spock and McCoy to relax; he also seems to have told no one about either his traumatic experience on Tarsus IV, or his traumatic experience with the spooky evil fog. This seems to me to show a reluctance to show weakness.
Jim loves his position as captain and would do (almost) anything to maintain it.
I also see Kirk as fairly calculating; he is able to put emotion aside to make difficult choices (as in The City on the Edge of Forever). Kirk, while personable, is a fairly Vulcan human.
All of these things, I believe, show that Kirk probably feels lonely and alienated. I think this is why he understands Spock so well — they are able to find in each other the solace they lack everywhere else. Kirk can trust that Spock won’t be manipulated by him because of Spock’s Vulcan strength and logic; Kirk doesn’t have to worry about Spock attempting to gain power because Spock does not want command.
Jim struggles with loneliness and alienation. Boom.
I agree with a lot of this. Great blog.
I’d only add that as far as we know, the difference between Kirk and Spock is we know why Spock is this lonely and faces alienation. It 100% has everything to do with his upbringing and existing as a half Vulcan half human.
Jim Kirk however, is more muddled. He chose to be a captain. He walked into this alienation in that sense given he knew he would the the highest person on the chain of command. And a lot of his loneliness is self imposed because you see Bones and Spock confront Kirk on his past and he still refuses to speak of it unless it threatens the ship. And even then what Jim says is often just parroting what other characters have described about the events. Not his own feelings.
He refuses to open up and we don’t even know for sure why. Is it because he thinks a captain can’t show weakness or does he genuinely not want to talk about this stuff? Or some other third thing? The audience doesn’t know.
I love Kirk so much.
YESSS he’s so fucked <3
Absolutely love this post. This is exactly how I understand TOS Kirk. Sorry, got a character ramble incoming.
Kirk is well-liked and has a million friendly acquaintances, but in the pilot his only close relationship is with his first officer Gary Mitchel. (Gary has entered fanon lore as Kirk's ex-boyfriend. This has no explicit canon backing other than Shatner doing his classic bedroom eyes at Lockwood, but I like the interpretation personally.)
But Gary doesn't appear to actually like Kirk all that much. He clearly has a deep inferiority complex centered around Kirk and their years at the academy, and my take is that this is what dictates a lot of Kirk's early relationships. People (esp other Starfleet officers) get jealous and weird around him because he's so over-the-top accomplished, so he turns on the charm to get people to like him, but that perversely works to distance him from others even further. After all, it's hard to really get to know a guy who's just sort of flirtatious and charming and perfect all the time, and it's easy to hate him. Court Martial strongly implies that Kirk's entire graduating class from the Academy fucking hates him, other than Areel Shaw, who almost treats him with a kind of pity. But Kirk seems to prefer this emotional distance, perhaps because of Tarsus trauma, or maybe that's just the way he is. We don't really know.
Later we get Kirk's only real friend, McCoy, who unsurprisingly seems to have very little professional ambition and an abrasive personality. I think this is why they work as friends---McCoy is older, he doesn't hold a grudge about Kirk ruining the curve in Quantum Temporal Mechanics II or whatever, and he finds Kirk's charm mostly ridiculous. So they can have a real friendship, although because of Kirk's penchant for emotional distance McCoy still ends up prying stuff out of him, or just guessing wildly at Kirk's motivations (Conscience of the King/Requiem for Methuselah being two examples).
I won't get into Kirk's relationship with Spock here, but I think they're basically of a kind. They both struggle with a high degree of consciousness over their image, and to reconcile what they feel like they're supposed to be (emotionless Vulcan scientist/ideal Starfleet captain) with the reality of what they are (human who makes mistakes). Kirk doesn't walk around calling emotions a weakness the way Spock does---to the contrary, he'll argue with Spock on this point---but he acts as though he believes they are. Or more to the point, he seems to struggle with any emotions that are off-script (the script being dashing Starfleet captain x pretty girl, but that never lasts for long).
Last note, we do see Kirk change a bit as he gets older. In the movies---especially after TMP---he's more emotionally open and willing to engage with McCoy and Spock.
#Oh I love this#there’s so much written about Spock but shockingly little about Kirk#and the rampant misunderstandings of Kirk kind of reinforce this point#his character was written as this charmingly perfect Man in Command viewers could project onto#but what you end up with is someone as complex and even more mysterious as Spock#also thinking of this in relation to operation annihilate and his relationship to his brother#they didn’t seem to be emotionally close and he never engages with nephew#to the point where later in the movies he considers spock and mccoy his only family#kirk: I lost a brother once. Me: yeah! Your brother Sa- Kirk: I got him back. Me: oh yeah you’re a bit fucked up aren’t you?
if kirk and spock hadn’t fucked in the sands of vulcan we would have to manually open the doors every time we go to the store
me watching star trek: oh thank god I’m finally safe
Star Trek Generations
+ IDW's Spock: Reflections
+ Picard Season 3
+ Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
+ OTOY + The Gene Roddenberry Archive's "765874 - Regeneration"
+ William Shatner's "The Return"
+ Star Trek TOS: The Cage
We are talking PIC S3 Spoilers, William Shatner's The Return Spoilers, Star Trek Generations Spoilers, IDW's Spock Reflections Spoilers, I mean you name it there are a lot of intercollected lore threads to tease apart here.
So we have a YouTube clip, a comic series, Picard 3 Easter Eggs, a novel, and a movie from 29 years ago. Are they planning something for the 30th anniversary of Generations? Maybe, maybe not.
But all of these little interconnected storylines are very interesting to say the least. I'm not sure what to make of it all honestly, or what's going on. But here's what we know so far.
Don't read on if you don't want spoilers for the above entertainment BC this story thread weaves into a lot of different Star Trek media, both canon and noncanon.
This video sums it up nicely and connects all the dots I've also been wending on since that clip (OTOY + The Gene Roddenberry Project) dropped:
Was chatting with some fans about this recently and you know, maybe it's delulu, but all we really have at this juncture are fan theories to fill in the gaps as they've just given us a few little breadcrumbs.
Spock visiting Viridian III, the parallels to William Shatner's The Return, Spock: Reflections:
My full series of Spock: Reflections segments tying into this clip can be found here.
And the Easter Egg from Picard Season 3 tying this into The Return and Jim's body being recovered. We see in The Return and PICS3 Kirk's remains are collected for "Project Phoenix".
More info taken from the screens in PIC S3:
A number of times within and outside recent canon, Jim's death has been referred to as alleged, or that he was critically injured/wounded.
As seen above on the screen shown next to Kirk's body in PIC S3, he is referred to as "critically injured".
If you listen during this scene, there is also a classic TOS throwback sound effect of a pulse -- a heartbeat life sign being measured (3:57):
Before you see Kirk's body you also see there is a "Genesis II" Project; Genesis I was used to revive Spock from the dead in Star Trek III: The Search For Spock. (Around 3:42)
Just a lot of plates spinning, wheels turning, dots connecting.
It's interesting that there are so many threads linking here, woven from Star Trek books to canon shows to YouTube clips to Star Trek comic books . . .
Plus this Shatner interview released by OTOY, which made it very clear that he had always intended to keep playing Kirk. Apparently Rick Berman had totally shut him down when he proposed ideas for bringing back the character.
Also that he would wholly be open to returning to the role depending on in what capacity:
Furthermore, a ton of the clips and tester shots that OTOY has filmed with The Roddenberry Archive have the number "765874" in the title, which is the badge number of Yeoman J.M. Colt.
She was also only one of four crewmembers serving about Pike's Enterprise who interacted with the Talosians, had gone to their planet, or who could even talk about them.
It's forbidden from anyone in Starfleet to read about that mission report without permission, and visiting their planet was one of the very rare instances where visiting would have serious penalties, including a death sentence (similar to how the Genesis planet was forbidden in Star Trek III: The Search For Spock).
Anyway, how does she tie into this? Why is her serial badge number the title to so many of the clips, including the Veridian III clip?
Curious developments.
So anyway, now that I feel like this;
What are they up to?
This is wild.
I’ve been a Star Trek TOS fan my whole life and I’ve never seen this before.
u know that factoid that’s like human beings need 3 hugs a day for maintenance and 9 for growth? for me i have to watch this 12 times a day minimum just to survive (by MINDMELD on twitter)
aos spock makes me so uncomfortable like why does he have like.... rage issues. I feel like the great thing abt tos spock is that when his unemotional facade slips it’s bc he‘s feeling some tender emotion, ex: smiling at jim, getting drunk and crying about how much he loves his mom, petting a tribble, making friends with hippies bc he relates to their feelings of disenfranchisement, playing music for uhura, I could go on but my point is that spock is gentle!!! He loves life and science and animals and his friends!!!!!! this kind of just turned into an i love spock post but basically what I’m trying to say is @jj abrams stop making me watch spock beat people up and give me more scenes with him holding cats please
@starboykeiith exactly! and my biggest problem with it is that spocks character is supposed to be Specifically nonviolent. Nimoy came up with the shoulder pinch to avoid participating in all the punching and phaser fights. When he directed the voyage home, he intentionally made it so there wasn’t a single phaser blast or punch thrown in the whole movie!! Making spocks repression center around rage is such a spit in the face to everything his character is supposed to represent!!! Stop making men angry just because they’re men!!!!!!!!!
#this is it!#this is one of the many reasons aos is so underwhelming#st09 and stid are literally less progressive than TOS#a tv show that came out more than 40 years before#stb is getting there#but none of the kelvin verse is any kind of GROUNDBREAKING in the way TOS and TOS movies were#star trek#spock#sorry y'all but i think i'm back on my star trek bullshit for a bit
no but this has got to be one of the best outfits I've ever seen
I say this wholeheartedly and without ironic intent. I hope supernatural continues to have drama for the next 10 years at least. I hope that in 2033 i can once again text my best friend saying "something is happening in supernatural" for the 5 millionth time.
Happy First Contact Day!
Star Trek is commemorating a milestone anniversary in Trekkie lore: stardate 73726.8 (April 5 2063), the date when humans and Vulcans made that fateful first contact.