#star trek story

[foldingfittedsheets]

One time I was ringing up this sweet older gentleman at the sex shop. I no longer remember what he was buying, just that he was in his fifties and radiated a bumbling gentleness that I had enjoyed.

He was chatting with me as he pulled out cash to pay, “You know, I always thought it would be so much easier to meet ladies. But then you meet a girl and you start chatting and they’re never as impressed that I know Captain Kirk’s middle name as I expected them to be.”

I took his payment with a grin and said, “I dunno, Tiberius is an amazing middle name, it was their loss.”

He looked at me with utter awe, radiating a disbelieving joy that I’d parried his quip so effortlessly with Trekkie lore. “If I were thirty years younger…” he’d said, absolutely delighted.

I didn’t have the heart to tell him I was gay to boot, so I just beamed and wished him a good day. He went out the door with a spring in his step and I still smile to think about it.

[homoquartz]

a show doesn't necessarily have to be ABOUT queerness to BE a queer show. it's a cultural dialect that cishets don't quite speak.

edit: i gotta clarify that the shows do indeed still have to have actual queer characters in them to count

[star-trekster]

ST@CEC 4: Deep Space Nine; In Charles’s Shadow

[lichqueenlibrarian]

That it’s clearly habit for them to divide up whatever food they’re given according to who can eat what is such a great little moment.

[deannatroibarnes]

"Jimmy and the Federation Gang" is how Star Trek TOS (with the original special effects) is titled on archive dot org

[vaguely-concerned]

can't believe garak went from 'hope you have fun following my little breadcrumb trail of maybe-truths doctor it builds character ;)' at the beginning of the show to '*sigh* fuck it here's the whole loaf. the entire fucked up bakery of my soul. if you somehow still wanna have sex with me after this you know where I am, yours in infinite longing etc.' in a stitch in time. has anyone ever been so pathetically horrifically enduringly down bad as garak is for julian (laudatory)

[andyoullhearitagain]

Literally they could have stopped making Deep Space Nine and made seven seasons of this show and I would have been happy.

[rubbertplant]

I'm the fan accounts

[ambassador-saru]

Doug Jones and Tara Rosling on the set of 'star trek discovery season 5'

[perlukafarinn]

this was published in 1976

(The Winged Dreamers by Jennifer Guttridge, published in Star Trek: The New Voyages)

[spirkbitch]

tos spirk fic writers you know i love you

and i do hate to break it to you, but i really don’t think that these chairs

would allow for very much straddling to occur

[tea-earl-grey]

i do think it's really interesting to compare the ways Star Trek and Doctor Who succeed and fail as pieces of progressive media because they almost have the opposite problem.

both of the shows are progressive, let's make that clear. while there are exceptions, both shows and worlds consistently critique capitalism, value compassion, solve problems without violence, and at least try to be diverse. there will always be individual episodes (and even eras/arcs) that contradict those values but in general, they are progressive compared to your average procedural or whatnot. but they, by the very nature of their premise, often fail to live up to fully realizing those progressive values. and yes, individual instances of racism or misogyny or any type of bigotry is a product of the bigotry of the writers/creators, but Star Trek and Doctor Who ultimately fail and will always fail to fully embody progressivism.

Star Trek is trapped in its own system of the Federation & Starfleet. for any of the shows to work, we the audience have to believe that the Federation is almost always a good & benevolent force and while criticisms of it are made, those criticisms are the exception and not the rule. the Federation/Starfleet can be criticized but at the end of the story, we must reaffirm that our characters are still good people and it's individual corruption that's the problem. the system can be portrayed as flawed but it must always be better than the alternative. if there is a Star Trek show that would truly dig far enough into how the Federation is a product of imperialism and how the nature of exploring & going where no one has gone before is inherently rooted in racism & orientalism then the franchise would collapse because nearly everything to this point relies on the belief in that a fundamentally good utopian system is possible.

now there's Doctor Who. Doctor Who has a quite different premise in that it is never rooted to one place or time the way Star Trek is attached to Starfleet/the Federation. (there could be an argument that Doctor Who is ultimately rooted in Britain but despite the 2005 series and the UNIT era in classic who, there are large swathes of classic who and the EU that never visit Britain. it's been made an important part of the show (as the show is an important part of British culture) but it's not inherent to the basic premise.) however, because Doctor Who is focused on traveling and seeing the wonders of the universe, its premise essentially becomes "some people turn up to fix a problem and then disappear". again, there are exceptions to this (especially in early classic who), but the formula of the show is almost trapped in the belief of individual action and power to solve systemic problems which... is not how most problems or solutions behave in reality. and just as Star Trek can criticize the Federation but must ultimately forgive it, Doctor Who can criticize the Doctor and portray them as flawed but must still reaffirm their status as a hero.

so we have Star Trek too caught up in its own systems to be able to critique them and Doctor Who too focused on running to portray how complex, long term solutions are needed to solve deeply entrenched problems.

and honestly... i don't think either of these are bad. they're simply the limitations of the shows as they exist and it would be far more worthwhile to develop new premises & find other media that incorporate those types of leftist political values from the start than to try to graft them onto 60 year old media franchises and pretend like they've always been there.

and they do serve a purpose! Star Trek might not be able to adequately portray the flaws of a system but it does give you hope for a better utopian future where people are taken care of and allowed to live however they choose, where there's infinite diversity in infinite combinations. Doctor Who might not be able to portray the complicated solutions to complicated problems that we face today but it tells you that every life matters, that kindness is the most important quality, and that everyone can make a difference in some way.

[spirk-trek]

Nightvisions Fanzine & Novel | Merle Decker, Signe Landon (1979)

Nightvisions, by Susan K. James and Carol A. Frisbie, is one of the first standalone k/s novels published in a zine. It can be read in full here!

[alyssaweewee]

i’ve risen from the dead to offer this spirk sketch ᐠ( ᐛ )ᐟ✨

[bamsara]

being an adult means we can buy or make as much self-indulgent shit (as we can afford) and unironically have trinkets of our fave things cause our teen years was bullied for liking things and hiding/denying we were ever neurodivergent to the point of suicide. sucks for anyone that thinks its weird cringe but I'm going to try and allow myself to love myself in little ways now

[mostly-natm]

Star Trek TNG/A.I. Artificial Intelligence crossover where the planet that A.I. takes place on is a replicate earth, and the Enterprise discovers David instead of the creatures at the end of the movie!

Data is phenomenal with kids, which really makes me want to see him interacting with and guiding an android child*, especially one of a different make and model to himself! David was created to be a forever child, so it would be interesting to see how Data would process meeting a being like himself who is in a childhood purgatory, when he never got a childhood himself.

*Lal counts, but I still think his experiences with David would be unique!