doxebroauto

[myidic]

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

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

Yeah. It was published before then.

[electronickingdomfox]

You're doing it wrong, Kirk

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

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

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

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

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

[lichqueenlibrarian]

I am foaming at the mouth

[your-name-is-jim]

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

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

[fencesandfrogs]

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

[sapphicambitions]

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

[skenpiel]

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

[rebisrot]

i think it's so funny that with the way the footnote that introduced the word t'hy'la is written it was clearly attempting to politely address and refute the kirk/spock ship but instead proceeded to become a focal point for shippers. gene roddenberry sweating at night for people to understand it's a close male friendship but not come off as homophobic and he accidentally made it more gay. real shit idc.

[1shirt2shirtredshirtdeadshirt]

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

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

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

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

Here was my two cents contribution:

"No, what they said was factual.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

LLAP!🖖💚

[thunderandsage]

not me watching a k/s video on youtube and getting interrupted by an add for therapy 😭

(the video is fantastic btw and contains some of the best and most hilarious discussions of the roddenberry footnote and you should all go watch it)

[etherealspacejelly]

; 🌻

hello hello i am running out of topics aaaaaa

you know what Gets Me about spirk? i knew about it. right. i knew it was there. i was like ah yeah those fuckers from star trek who invented fanfiction yeah ok. cool. but i didnt Understand. not until i started watching

because, you mean to tell me, that these two. these two mother fuckers. they just. run around saying shit like. "I have been and ever shall be yours."

they just, casually sacrifice their entire careers, their lives, the fucking. ENTERPRISE ITSELF. for each other. over and over and over and thats normal. this is normal.

spock tries to purge all of his emotions and when he finds out that he cant hes like well what do i do about this and his Moment Of Enlightenment consists of mind melding with a sentient computer and realising that love and beauty are worth having and then he HOLDS HANDS WITH JIM. AND SAYS "this simple feeling is beyond [the computer]'s comprehension.' AND IM JUST SUPPOSED TO. BE NORMAL ABOUT THAT??

THESE FUCKERS. THESE MOTHER FUCKERS.

and dont even get me started on the B O O K S. the t'hy'la footnote??? hello??? mr gene roddenberry i just wanna talk. ill get the fucking ouija board if i have to.

if i was a star trek fan in the 60s i would have invented slash too are you Kidding Me.

why cant my special interests be anything Useful why do i have space yaoi autism. what the fuck is this. these gays are ruining my life

[your-name-is-jim]

“Spock’s recollection (from which this chapter has drawn) is that it was a most difficult moment for him since he did indeed consider Kirk to have become his brother. However, because t’hy’la can be used to mean lover, and since Kirk’s and Spock’s friendship was unusually close, this has led to some speculation over whether they had actually indeed become lovers.”

Lines that live rent free in my head.

(Also, I need 100 fics about these rumors, thank you.)

[sopheadraws]

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

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

[mephistopheles]

every day i think about the the roddenberry footnote

[radicalbears]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[veggiesforpresident]

sorry if this is answered somewhere in your blog already, but I was curious if you were writing your master's thesis on star trek in general or something more specific?

hi! i don't think i've talked about it specifically on here! i'm studying history and my thesis is actually on like, star trek fandom and how it was actually the (mostly female and largely slash shippers) fans who kept star trek alive and made it the phenomenon that it is today. usually when people talk about star trek they praise gene roddenberry and the progressive ideas of the show and relegate the fans to a footnote, but the fans were (and are!) so much more important than that!

anyway, the actual research/writing part of my thesis is on hiatus due to my health, but yeah thats the premise! (no pun intended.)