#spock/zarabeth

[kirk-spock-fics]

Meat Dreams by j_s_cavalcante

explicit tos, kirk/spock, minor spock/zarabeth first time, dreams/nightmares, episode: all our yesterdays, slash words: 17,784 'Spock’s physical desire for Kirk is forced to the surface by the dreams he’s having after partaking of meat—and sex—on Sarpeidon.'

(Note: Descriptions of eating raw meat/animal flesh)

[trek-tracks]

What song did Spock suddenly break into? Wrong answers only

[spirk-trek]

love you spirk but this was so iconic

[discoonthegrass]

All Our Yesterdays: When Kirk, Spock and McCoy investigate the disappearance of a doomed planet's population, they find themselves trapped in different periods of that world's past.

Who Mourns for Adonais?: A powerful being claiming to be the Greek god Apollo appears and demands that the crew of the Enterprise disembark onto his planet to worship him.

Feel free to reblog in order to help this poll reach the most people! Remember to vote on the other polls in this round, listed here!

[lichqueenlibrarian]

Ah yes I see the formless super powerful beings have decided to take the forms of familiar people for the ease of communicating. T’Pau and George Samuel Kirk Jr (figures of authority), then Zarabeth (Zar’s mother and Spock’s brief lover), Jocelyn (McCoy’s ex wife) and… Gary Mitchell (he’s Kirk’s one time best friend!)

Interesting that they took two romantic options from Spock and McCoy, and then added Gary Mitchell in there as Kirk’s best friend and not… Carol Marcus, or literally any woman Kirk’s been involved with… hell, he’s been thinking on and off about his son, David. Winona Kirk recently died, but they briefly took the shape of Kirk’s childhood home (burned down prior to the action of the novel), and then divided up into the aforementioned characters.

Even looking at it from “these people are all significant representations of difficult/complicated/upsetting relationships in the characters’ lives” it’s fascinating. T’Pau and Zarabeth showing up makes sense as they’d be top of mind for Spock and Zar, even Sam Kirk makes sense since the life forms briefly took the shape of Kirk’s childhood home. But Gary Mitchell and Jocelyn? At this point McCoy’s been divorced for about 20 years, and Gary Mitchell has been dead about that long as well?

Why these specific people?

[kimwexlers-brownhair]

But what if I said part of what subconsciously drew Spock to Droxine and Zarabeth were that they reminded him in different ways of Christine?

[nulfaga]

Bones is literally a walking cockblock lately. He wakes up every day like "how will I keep Spock from getting it in today" Hes not the love doctor he's the love coroner. Smh

[lenievi]

Ex Machina informed me that Rand had a daughter, Annie, and while Mr. Bennett is like

Note: Great controversy exists concerning the identity of Annie's father. The Captain's Daughter seems to imply James T. Kirk. However, Christopher L. Bennett has noted that this is, in his opinion, highly unlikely, on the grounds that Kirk would not have a relationship with a member of his crew. As such, his novel Ex Machina identifies the father as "a crewmember". Note that this does not necessarily contradict the possibility of Kirk being the father. (from Memory Beta)

I’m like 👀👀👀👀👀 because !!!! LMAO it just speaks to me, okay

and while I do agree with Bennett’s “Kirk would not have a relationship with a member of his crew” opinion (and it’s the reason why I have trouble writing mckirk because it’s like what would it take for Kirk to have a relationship with a member of his crew) - and would hate if anything like that ever happened on the show/film, current or future or whatever - the possibilities for fanfics 👀

Kirk and Rand sleep with each other after Miri, and then Kirk starts to ignore her and then seduces Lenore a few weeks later, and then she finds out she’s pregnant and leaves Starfleet (I’ve always hc that what happened in Miri changed something between them and that’s why she decided to leave) 

idk how it went in the novel where she was established (it isn’t Ex Machina. Bennett is just using a LOT of stuff from other novels)

unfortunately, the daughter also died from illness at the age of two. But fanfics do not need to go that road.

[bumblingbabooshka]

Spock/Zarabeth + Tuvok/Noss....aching loneliness...and sorrow....

[stra-tek]

Random spoilerific reasons to read Star Trek novels, with little to no context:

Ro/Quark is a thing

A Jem'Hadar joins DS9, tries to fit in but eventually snaps and tries to kill everybody

You learn the origins and final fate of the Borg

A thinly-veiled Dr. House clone joins the Voyager crew

Geordi briefly has 2 girlfriends at once (due to different writers not co-ordinating enough, but still)

There's a TOS book that's a musical

There are YA stories about Jake and Nog making mischief on DS9

YA stories about Worf, Geordi, Picard, Beverly, Kirk, Spock and McCoy at SFA

YA series about the Kelvinverse gang (including Gaila!) as cadets, taking on a drug problem at SFA and a very unique Borg scout in San Francisco

We very briefly meet the people who are to Q what the Q are to humanity

Janeway/Chakotay is a thing

Kirk's first mission in command of the Enterprise! Erm, at least twice.

Kirk was married between TOS and TMP

Her name was Lori

In the future, you have yearly marriage contracts that you either update or you don't and I think that's amazing

Trip didn't die! He faked his death to join Section 31 and go undercover as a Romulan

It's not great, tbh

The ENT books get better after the Romulan wars though, it's proper founding of the Federation stuff

We meet Jack Crusher (erm, the OG) when 4 timelines start overlapping and he's a bit unhinged

Teenage Kirk stole a car and his choice was go to jail or join Starfleet

What happened when Voyager got home? Seven broke up with Chakotay like 30 pages in

Kirk gets cloned, and his clone becomes the sub of an evil invincible super genius and its all very gay

George Kirk was Robert April's first officer on the first ever mission of the unnamed starship with the Naval Construction Contract 1701

Robert is a hard-core pacifist and has to turn command over to George whenever it's time to fire weapons

Data becomes fully human for a couple of days and it's really sweet

They never say "wristwatch" or "phone", it's always "wrist chrono" or "personal comm"

There are gays but they don't say that word because it's the 1990's and Rick Berman runs the franchise

Spock has a son in the past with Zarabeth

Everyone in the post-Nemesis era does spy missions all the time non stop, as if Starfleet has abandoned exploring the cosmos for doing Space Mission: Impossible

Bashir does it better than anyone else, he takes on Section 31 from the inside

Remember Control? It's from the novels, except the novels do it SO MUCH BETTER.

Remember how we never found out who Future Guy was? We do.

It's very underwhelming, nobody we know

We find out how the Romulans and Vulcans split

Surak was a Vulcan internet blogger

A Borg Cube eats Pluto

Janeway dies

Janeway gets better

At least one TOS book features a wizard

There's a Star Trek TOS/Here Come the Brides crossover novel

It had cameos from The Doctor (as in, Who), Han Solo, Starbuck and others

Whole book series about Section 31

Whole book series about the Department of Temporal Investigations

One time they do the Bill and Ted thing to escape confinement and it works

Wanna know how Riker and Troi met?

Wanna know what Picard got up to on the Stargazer?

Andorians have 4 sexes and it's very complicated

Data comes back from the dead as Data 2.0, and it was fresh and exciting because it happened long before ST: Picard did it twice.

Lal comes back too and we get father/daughter android stuff! They have a home and everything but keep having to save the universe

One time Mirror Seven is led around on a leash naked on Terok Nor

Geordi becomes captain of the USS Challenger, decides it's not for him because plot, and goes back to engineering on the Enterprise

Kirk is shot on the bridge and dies

Kirk gets better

They watch 3D holos of old Doctor Who episodes in the Enterprise rec room

The Enterprise also has an AI named Moira, which was Zora long before Zora

The TOS crew get together for one last mission. About three times.

There's a Perry Mason book except it's about Kirk's lawyer from that TOS episode

Data 2.0 owns and runs a massive gambling empire on Orion

Spock keeps randomly showing up everywhere in the TNG era

Scotty keeps randomly showing up everywhere in the TNG era

Bones keeps randomly showing up everywhere in the TNG era

You're on Tumblr so you already know about Killing Time

There's a guy named McKenzie Calhoun and he's a total badass and captains a ship of weirdos and misfits

Kirk comes back from the dead, saves the galaxy repeatedly, has an intersex child (who identifies as male) with a Romulan/Klingon hybrid

Kirk beats up Worf

Kirk's child has superpowers

Kirk's child saves the galaxy at age 6

The Kirk stuff is 100% ignored in the other novels

About 50% of the novels are ignored in the other 50%, and the ones that are meant to be in direct continuity with each other aren't always quite

Just like the TV shows and movies, then

Lwaxana Troi meets Q, and it goes as well as you'd expect

Someone tells Data, yes you idiot you had emotions all along and he's like, oh shit you're right

McCoy is left in command of the Enterprise as a joke by Kirk, who is then immediately kidnapped

Ro Laren is captain of Deep Space Nine

Picard/Beverly is a thing, they get married and have a child named Rene. No running away and raising your kid in secret here

Riker and Troi are married, serve on the Titan together with a bunch of adorable weirdos and have a daughter named Tasha

You get to watch all the 24th century characters die horribly in the end along with their entire universe. Holy fuck it's a bleak horror show. Personally, I love it. But if that's not your cup of tea I'd skip the Coda trilogy

[beyondspock]

Baby It's Cold Outside 12.23.68 Spock and McCoy in the past world of the planet Sarpeidon in Zarabeth's cave. Filmed two days before Christmas and one day before Apollo 8 would start its lunar orbit, the first time humans (officially) had left earth's domain. This was the next to last Star Trek TOS episode filmed and shown, All Our Yesterdays.

[c4t1l1n4]

What fanfic idea would you be most interested in reading? Poll below.

TOS!McCoy goes into AOS verse. TOS!McCoy takes over for a bit because AOS!McCoy is currently sick with xenopolycythemia and he’s exhausted/overworked and he hasn’t told anyone yet and TOS!McCoy cures him.

TOS, Spones-heavy McSpirk. All Our Yesterdays cave scene rewrite where Spock doesn’t get side tracked by Zarabeth and just frets over McCoy. After they get back to the ship, McCoy and Spock talk about their swapped insults/bickering and McCoy apologies. Spock explains that he knows he doesn’t mean it and only does it in front of him/is really knowledgeable and respectfully around other Vulcans/never embarrasses him.

TOS, McSpirk. Inspired by Plato’s Stepchildren. Team comes down to help and when they try to leave, aliens want to keep McCoy for his extensive medical knowledge. McCoy and team all refuse. Instead of embarrassing mind control, the aliens just kidnap/trap/knock out and tie up McCoy and tell team that he has decided to stay with them. When team asks to talk with him about it, aliens say he doesn’t want to see them and they gets suspicious. They find him locked up and eventually escape.

TOS McSpirk. Kirk is accused of not being able to take care of his partners by aliens who see size as a means of status/wealth/ability to provide because McCoy and Spock are both skinny. He is challenged to prove that he can take care of them/cares about them and Kirk ends up confessing his love for both of them in front of them. Later, Kirk goes to apologize and understands if they don’t feel the same but they’ve both already decided they want to all be together.

TOS, McCoy centric, probably background McSpirk tbh. 5+1 (ish) 1 time McCoy saves the life of an alien creature and 5 times they save his life in return.

TOS, bonded Spirk. The Enterprise has a meeting with new alien race and Jim has to go but Spock is injured from a previous mission and confined to sickbay. Aliens ask where Kirk’s “other half” is and don’t want to have the meeting without him being “fully there.” Kirk explains that Spock is injured but Starfleet wanted to prioritize this meeting. Aliens are offended on behalf of Kirk and insist that meeting is delayed until Spock has recovered.

[electronickingdomfox]

"Yesterday's Son" review

Novel from 1983 by Ann C. Crispin. The author would continue the story in a sequel, a few years later. This one is somewhat different than the average Star Trek novel. For starters, it presents an interesting premise: what if Zarabeth had a son after her encounter with Spock (in the episode "All Our Yesterdays")? And what kind of dad would be Spock? (spoiler: a pretty bad one, at least at first). Thus, the main plot is not about battles in space or encounters with new civilizations, but about the relationship between Spock and his son, and how they overcome their emotional barriers. Of course, there's also a subplot involving Romulans to spice things up, but that's not the meat of the story. And the Romulan threat is there, above all, to strengthen the father-son relationship.

I liked this novel overall. Poignant at times, and with a rather bittersweet (yet satisfying) ending, it offers good character drama. Zar, the son of Spock with Zarabeth, is well developed and sympathetic, and his failed attempts at reaching out to Spock are pretty moving. It's also funny to meet another secret, emotional relative of Spock, years before Sybok appeared in canon.

Spoilers under the cut:

During a casual conversation about Sarpeidon (the now destroyed planet that Zarabeth lived in 5000 years ago), Spock comes across some disturbing photographs of paintings, taken from a cave in the planet before its destruction. The paintings depict a Vulcan face very similar to his own, but with basic differences. So Spock puts two and two together, and realizes how badly he screwed up; some fathers may forget their son in a car, but he forgot his own in an ice cave, five milleniums in the past! Spock decides that it's not fair to abandon his child like this, and convinces Kirk to bring him to the Guardian of Forever, so he can rescue the kid (and Zarabeth if possible).

Since Spock can't get rid of Kirk and McCoy to attend to his family business, the three of them are sent to Sarpeidon's past, around the time when his son was still a kid. The weather is frigid, and after a few days of pointless search and avoiding dangerous beasts, they finally find a trail. Just then, a hooded figure attacks them, but they subdue him, discovering it's actually Zar. They miscalculated while travelling through the Guardian, so instead of a kid, they find a grown-up man in his late twenties (thus too old to pass as Spock's son). Back in the cave, Zar explains that his mother died seven years ago. So completely alone now, and thrilled at the prospect of meeting his father and exploring new worlds, Zar agrees to go to the present with them (it's not like he needs a lot of convincing, anyway).

In the Enterprise, Zar makes some new friends and starts adapting to the modern way of life. However, once the rescue's done, Spock retracts behind his Vulcan wall, and starts being really cold toward his son. He barely shows interest in him, other than giving him lessons in science and teaching him how to control his telepathy (and you thought that Sarek was bad...). Things get even worse when Zar discovers that the warm, passionate Vulcan that his mother talked about, was just the result of Spock suffering a regression in his trip to the past, and that he probably never loved her. Unlike his father, Zar is a much more emotional Vulcan, due in part to his greater human heritage, and he shows a different empathetic ability. He can sense other people's feelings, and he can also project his own feelings on others. Under these conditions, Zar becomes much closer to his other dad McCoy, instead of his own father.

Meanwhile, some Romulan ships have been sighted around the Guardian of Forever's planet. The secret of time-travelling through the Guardian is only known by a few in the Federation, but the Romulans suspect something, and if they learn how to tamper with time, it could be disastrous. Zar starts feeling sick, and finally faints, a feeling he later recognizes as an omen of impending death. He also realizes something while looking at pictures of Sarpeidon's paintings (though we don't know what at this point). Effectively, upon reaching the Guardian's planet, the Enterprise finds the archeological personnel and the first landing party massacred by the Romulans. The intruders have also set a cloaking device around the Guardian, so they can't see how many Romulan soldiers are deployed.

Given his ability to sense the enemies' feelings at a distance, and his survival skills, Zar volunteers to infiltrate the Romulan camp. Spock goes with him, to install a force-field around the Guardian, so the Romulans can't use the portal. However, more Romulan ships are approaching, and Kirk gives them a deadline. If they fail to keep the situation under control, the Enterprise will have to destroy the whole planet, whether Spock and Zar are still there or not (WTF Kirk!!?). During the mission, Spock grows closer to his son, and Zar comes to understand his father's true feelings for him, and why he has such difficulty expressing them.

In the end, the usual status quo has to be restored, so Zar needs to return to his own time. It turns out the painting from Sarpeidon's past that alarmed him so much, was his own drawing of the Enterprise. He's thus the one who brought many technical and scientific developments to his planet, after his experience in the starship. And time-travelling shenanigans are confusing, but I think that an apparent plot hole was properly explained: why did Zar speak English? Of course, it was him who teached the language to the other inhabitants upon returning. So many generations later, Zarabeth would speak it (remember she came from the future in the episode), and would in turn teach it to her son in the past. It's... complicated, but the circle is closed. On the downside, I feel that Zar's departure was a bit rushed. I would have expected a greater resistance from Spock, and definitely from McCoy.

Spirk Meter: 7/10*. They're brief moments, but pretty powerful. First, and despite the statement that Spock can block other people from intruding into his mind, it seems that Kirk has developed the ability to read his thoughts, even at a distance. Kirk also insists on going with Spock through the Guardian, to the point of blackmailing him if he refuses. Later, Zar complains to McCoy that "there's only one person that Commander Spock cares deeply for, and that's... [...]Not me." In the end, and before departing, Zar asks Kirk to "take care of him" (meaning his father). And when Spock hesitates and attempts to follow his son through the portal, Kirk grabs him, and this happens:

"Spock. He doesn't need you." And he wondered if the Vulcan caught the unvoiced addition, "And I... we... do."

At least, poor Zar seems to take well the fact that his dad didn't love his mom, because he has this weird thing going on with his Captain...

More subtle, yet perhaps more interesting, are the Spones elements, even if they seem one-sided on McCoy's part. McCoy joins Spock in his trip to the Guardian in an even more forceful way than Kirk. Basically, he bursts into the turbolift uninvited and with all gear ready, and blackmails both Spock AND the Captain so they bring him along. Then he's pretty worried about Spock's feelings upon meeting his son for the first time. Once back in the ship, McCoy develops a close relationship with Zar, calling him "son" all the time. Which makes Kirk wonder why he acts as if he was his father, instead of Spock. And the doctor argues with Spock about Zar's education, and also reprimands Zar for rebelling against Spock. So it's easy to see a parallel here between Sarek and Amanda, and Spock and McCoy, as a "distant father/loving mother" pair. And it's noteworthy that the author of this novel was in contact with Howard Weinstein (who writes the intro here), since the latter's novel "The Covenant of the Crown" has also Spock and McCoy acting a bit like parents to a young girl. Besides this, Spock wonders about all the people that have tried to be physically close to him. Those include his mother and now his son, of course, but also Leila and... McCoy.

*A 10 in this scale is the most obvious spirk moments in TOS. Think of the back massage, "You make me believe in miracles", or "Amok Time" for example.

[discoonthegrass]

As much as I want to include Jim in here, the creators/actors/writers constantly insist that it’s non-canon :( but if I did he would most definitely win

[lichqueenlibrarian]

I think the scariest leg of this experience for Spock is having to go secretly to Vulcan to tell T’Pau about Zarabeth.

[dig-jules]

snw having chapel play chess with spock like that is such a glaringly obvious example of the writers cutting and pasting all the moments of intimate friendship between jim and spock and putting her there instead.

it is so infuriatingly clear their exact intentions in scraping all subtext from the genuine connections between jim and spock established in TOS and using chapel as their platter to display them in a palatable, heteronormative way.

like... chapel suddenly being the "i love you as you are" character when literally THE FUNCTION of chapel's relationship to spock in TOS was that she could only love her idea of who he should be. There's only one character in the entire series who never asks Spock to be anything more than himself. No, not his parents. Not T'Pring. Not Leila. Not Zarabeth. Certainly not Chapel.

It's just Jim. That is why their relationship is unique.