Fan art of Saavik, played by Kirstie Alley in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Plus a process gif!
(I liked her best with her hair up like this.)
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@startrek47916
Fan art of Saavik, played by Kirstie Alley in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Plus a process gif!
(I liked her best with her hair up like this.)

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Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan by Mark Spears
Mr Spock
It’s too late, Jim
the one with the whales
the way the voyage home has changed my life, not a day goes by that i don't think about it

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The Way Kirk Looks at Spock
Oh shit
Let's talk about the T-word
You know the one I mean.
T’hy’la.
Friend, brother, lover.
I want to talk about the origin of t’hy’la, as well as the ‘editor’s note’ we get explaining it away. The word has become so commonplace within the fandom that there’s probably not much I have to say that hasn’t been said already. Nonetheless, I noticed a few new things that I want to bring up.
We learn of this mysterious Vulcan word in Gene Roddenberry’s novelization of Star Trek: The Motion Picture. As Spock prepares himself to have all remaining emotion purged from his mind, he says a mental farewell to the most important person in his life:
“Jim! Good-bye my … my t’hy’la. This is the last time I will permit myself to think of you or even your name again.”
While the reader gets to experience his internal monologue in English, there is one unrecognizable word. Lucky for us, they included a footnote to define it:
“Editor’s note: The human concept of friend is most nearly duplicated in Vulcan thought by the term t’hy’la, which can also mean brother and lover.”
Well then.
Let’s start with the diction of Spock’s silent goodbye to Jim. He hesitates in the middle of his sentence, which sounds kind of strange, seeing as we are meant to be hearing his thoughts. He then randomly shifts into Vulcan. The pause implies that either
Spock takes a moment to find the proper word, unable to find an appropriate term to describe his feelings.
The idea is too difficult for Spock to articulate without stirring up emotion.
Keep in mind that in the movie, this entire scene is spoken in Vulcan. The novelization is written in English for the ease of the reader’s understanding. Especially when you consider that Spock is deliberately trying to cleanse his mind of his humanity, it is only logical to assume that he was thinking in Vulcan.
So why then, is the word “t’hy’la” not translated? If he only intended the meaning of “friend” or “brother”, why not just use one of those words?
The definition of “t’hy’la” states that it “most nearly duplicate[s]” the human concept of friend- it does not mean exactly the same thing. Rather, it defines a relationship encompassing all three definitions: friend, brother, and lover. Otherwise, it would be illogical for Vulcans to use a word with such a loose and variable definition.
The word t’hy’la is used here because it describes their relationship as it truly was, including all three human ideas.
The word comes up again later, brought to the front of Spock’s mind as he sees Kirk again for the first time:
“And on the bridge—Kirk! The mere name made Spock groan inwardly as he remembered what it had cost him to turn away from that welcome. T’hy’la!”
Here, it makes even less sense for the word to be in Vulcan. Spock is among humans, so it is logical to assume that he is thinking in a human language. It’s significant to note that it is not only the narrator that makes this distinction, it is Spock himself. He reverts to Vulcan, unable to find an appropriate human word to express the depth of his feelings for Jim.
So how exactly does this relationship work? It seems strange to think of a relationship being both brotherly and romantic. But consider this.
Spock and Kirk have displayed a deep bond since the very inception of their friendship in 1966. At this time, homosexual relationships were considered so radical that they were largely invisible in popular culture. It was also somewhat uncommon to see deep platonic male/female love in works of fiction. Such relationships existed, but they were largely overshadowed by romance.
Nowadays, we say things like “I love him like a brother” to differentiate between the different types of love that have become commonplace. At the time, the ideas may not have been so separate. Now, of course “brotherly love” did not mean the same thing as “romantic love”, I am merely suggesting that it did not have the connotation it has picked up in recent years as a term of differentiation. Instead, the term “brother” is used to imply a sense of loyalty, equality, and permanence in their relationship.
If the idea still seems strange, take a look at this. During Kirk’s separation from Spock, he became involved for some time with a woman named Lori. Here’s how he describes their relationship:
"She had been perfection—lover, friend, wife, mother, and in every other role and joy she supplied as he slowly recovered from the fatigue and emotional wounds of those five long years out there. They had lived the basic and simple one-year arrangement together—but those months had been memorable ones. He had not been aware, at least not consciously, that during that time she had been something of a surrogate Enterprise to him.”
Interesting. While she explicitly fulfilled the role of a “lover” to Kirk, she also fulfilled the role of “friend”, “wife”, “mother”… even starship. Here, the word mother is used to imply her tendency to nurture and help him, although their relationship was clearly not that of a parent and a child. It’s no different with Spock, who fulfills the emotional role of a brother as well as a lover.
It’s a good thing Vulcans are so much more concise with their language than humans, right?
Now if this seems too good to be true, it is. There’s a little more to it than that. At the time of the novel’s release,The Star Trek franchise was extremely popular, and unfortunately, the American culture was still largely homophobic (although there was already a major improvement over the attitudes of the 60’s). Roddenberry wasn’t really in a position to explicitly acknowledge the homosexual subtext of their relationship, even in novel form. Several years earlier, a Star Trek novel, Killing Time, had been published that depicted Spock and Kirk acting, well, a little too close. Although the novel was essentially just fan fiction with an official logo on the cover, it received several complaints and was eventually recalled and edited (Reportedly, Roddenberry was unhappy with the forwardness and inappropriate characterizations within the novel, although he was generally supportive of fan fiction and even slash fiction).
So to diminish any backlash, this explanation was included in the footnote:
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. At our request, Admiral Kirk supplied the following comment on this subject:
“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. 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.”
I find it very interesting that Roddenberry chose to have the character of Kirk supply the explanation. He could have easily written something along the lines of “As it turns out, this speculation was false, they merely shared a close platonic bond.” Instead, we get this wordy non-answer from Kirk.
The third-person narrator has the power to make objective statements about the characters and their relationships. The narrator is not himself a character, and has no goals or motives thereof. Having a character step out of the story to answer a question is a tactic rarely seen in literature, and it raises some new questions: what is this character’s motivation, and can they be trusted?
And in this respect, even as well as we know Kirk, there’s a lot that we still don’t know. When was this “interview” conducted? Were they in a relationship at that point? What does Spock have to say about all this? An emotion as intimate as love must be a sensitive topic for Vulcans. Is Kirk protecting Spock’s privacy? Is he protecting his own privacy? His reputation? If there’s really nothing going on, why doesn’t he just say that?
Let’s take a closer look at what exactly he says, because he never actually denies it.
First, he notes that Spock employs a similar tactic of not actually denying it when confronted, opting instead to lift his eyebrow instead. It seems that Spock is annoyed at invasive questions about emotional topics. Does that surprise anyone? Moving on.
Next, we have Kirk basically saying that love is love regardless of gender or species. Aw.
Then there’s this: “I have always found my best gratification in that creature woman.”
Um… Kirk? The word “best” kinda implies that you have some other frame of reference to compare it to.
But it is true. Kirk has had numerous relationships with various women (for various reasons), and perhaps he does feel that a women are where he finds his “best” gratification. That’s perfectly valid. To me, that sentence tells us that Kirk is bisexual with a preference for women, or at least a sexual preference for women (his next sentence implies that he is referring specifically to sexual gratification). As to his romantic preferences? Well, that’s up for debate. But I’m gonna leave this quote here:
"It still felt painful to be reminded so powerfully and unexpectedly of his friendship and affection for Spock—theirs had been the touching of two minds which the old poets of Spock’s home planet had proclaimed as superior even to the wild physical love which affected Vulcans every seventh year during pon farr.”
Well then.
I never read the original version of “Killing Time”, but it’s hard to believe it was gayer than this book.
Finally, we have Kirk’s quip that “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.”
Except that isn’t true, and Kirk knows it. He deliberately takes advantage of this misconception to avoid answering the question.
And after all that, he still didn’t actually answer the question. As I listed above, there are a whole handful of possible, in-character reasons for him to do this. It’s an interesting concept, keeping your readers guessing by giving the characters reasons not to be forthcoming with information.
If Roddenberry wanted to definitively settle the issue and say they were not lovers, there was ample opportunity to say so. He instead used an in-character statement to talk around the issue.
If Roddenberry wanted to leave their relationship open for interpretation, he didn’t need to do anything other than what he was already doing. He could have had Spock call Jim his brother, or his friend, or defined t’hy’la to mean one of these. Instead, he created this word in an original language specifically for this instance. There was not reason to include “lover” in the definition of the word unless that was exactly what he meant.
And that, to me, says it all.
On the Vulcan term “Kaiidth”
Or, “If I see one more person translate ‘Kaiidth’ with ‘Que sera sera’ I’m going to start screaming”
Let me preface this by saying that I am emotionally invested in this. Kaiidth has pulled me out of some pretty dark places in my life, and whenever I see it equated to “Que sera sera” it makes me want to punch something. Because to me, the two sayings have nothing at all to do with each other. This is also going to be long, so you may want to buckle up tight.
My thesis: when you translate the term Kaiidth using “Que sera sera”, you may be encouraged to think that it’s a defeatist term and that it implies that you should accept whatever happens without having feelings about it. Some people also say it means “you shouldn’t work for your future because whatever is meant to happen will happen”. And while I agree that all this could be applied to our human saying, it is not at all what Kaiidth means, even though at first glance, it may appear so.
Let’s look at the original translation. Kaiidth: what is, is.
In the KirShara page on Kaiidth, the saying is compared to the words of Lao-tzu in the 76th verse of the Tao Te Ching: “An army that cannot yield will be defeated. A tree that cannot bend will crack in the wind.”
Kaiidth is a very complex word, you see, but at its basis, Kaiidth is acceptance. The beauty of it is that it can be applied to multiple situations, from the smallest to the biggest. The most used example to explain it is the mistake in artistic creation, as Surak’s discussion of Kaiidth shows:
Artists and composers easily grasp the concept of kaiidth. They use it in their creations without conscious thought. Even the best painters experience accidents. Paint is spilled. Water is splashed. Eager fingers leave stains. Some artists weep, believe their work is ruined. But the true artist fits the paint-drip, watermark, or stain into the picture.
This is kaiidth.
“Well,” you might say, “isn’t that the exact definition of ‘you should accept whatever happens without having feelings about it’?”. But really… you expect Vulcans to talk about emotional control in public? Please.
In this infinite rant, I am going to apply Kaiidth to emotional acceptance, which is something Vulcans are not comfortable talking about out loud but is definitely part of the Kaiidth philosophy. It is doubly important for Vulcans, I may add, because it is a tool of emotional control, which is something fundamental for a telepathic species with very strong feelings. This acceptance works at multiple levels and it only truly works if you let it meet you where you are.
Keep reading
"I miss you."
Kirk's deleted message to Spock in Star Trek 2009 - Older, Lizzy McAlpine
Crying sobbing throwing up thrashing around in the dirty gutter of all stages of grief

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I know they dropped it owing to adaptation difficulties if not a changed opinion (it is possibly too melodramatic, if not a callback to The Tholian Web), but the thing I appreciate about the initial plan for The Search for Spock was how the crew would be able to see Spock's ghost and talk to it, to be haunted by it. For Kirk, that would have been the ultimate manifestation of his guilt at losing Spock. It would've connected that much harder to Saavik's words and David's echo that he has never faced death in The Wrath of Khan.
Using a read more for the screencaps and a rambling 2k or so wordcount. (This took me 3 days to write and edit, good night.)
I ranked the gayest spirk moments in TOS
(if its too blurry to read you may have to click on it)
thank you to @little-goblin, @rainbow-collective, @dumb-alek, and @neil-perrys-glasses for your help!
Bro what sex position is this
Saw this post by @idontwanttoboldlygo about the S'chn T'gai family album looking akward so here are some of Saavik's photos I think Spock keeps in a little files
tsundere ass old man

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the more i watch star trek tos, the more it becomes abundantly clear that the reason why modern trek doesnt get kirk at all is because they dont utilise mccoy nearly as much anymore
in modern trek, they always present the idea of logic vs emotion, with spock being logic and kirk being emotion, but thats not how tos has it. in tos, the logic vs emption debate is spock vs mccoy. kirk is supposed to be the mediator between the two, sometimes siding with one side over the other, sometimes finding a middle ground between the two. thats why hes the captain, hes able to see all angles and pick the best course
when you make kirk the emotional one, it completely breaks the format, because 9 time out of 10, it means kirk has to be correct. theres no more balance
mccoy is just as important to tos as spock is, and while i do understand why spock is as popular as he is, without mccoy, the show doesnt work. you need them both. kirk spock and mccoy are the three leads of the show, and removing one requires you to change the others, which is whats happened to kirk
Alright you heard the man, it's time to keep on queerin'