Star Trek comedy gag where Sarek is explaining to Spock why Vulcan parents cannot be as close to their children as humans are meanwhile Tuvok’s in the background buying his children two large fries (to share amongst them) on their way back from the park because they all got good grades this year - not perfect, but progress is always to be commended. 

Star Trek: Year Five Issue #22

mmm, yes, fuckin ouch.

hey dusty I'm here to push my Spock purring agenda on you. thoughts?

of course <33 he's the og catboy. now for a transporter malfunction so they all purr:

i like to think jim is DEEP in that cat brain (not because the transporter malfunctioned any differently for him as opposed to bones. but because he is just Like That honestly). bones is the sort of... almost humanly intelligent flavor of cat. except he retains his 24/7 anxiety and jumps three feet every time someone sneezes too suddenly. and jim knocks shit off spock's counter all the fucking time so bones just eats shit all the fucking time lmfao

STAR TREK + peace

You have a real war on your hands. You can either wage it with real weapons…or you might consider an alternative: put an end to it. Make peace! There can be no peace! We’ve admitted it to ourselves. We’re a killer species, it’s instinctive! It’s the same with you. All right. It’s instinctive. But the instinct can be fought.

really love characters who have varied panic responses. kirk stating himself that he does not panic outright, externally, not in high-stress dangerous situations, but instead becomes tense and level like a wound string, on-guard: mostly because his role as captain necessitates that he maintain level rationality even when facing potential death as his training as 'the guy who tells you what to do when shit hits the fan' requires, but also because his childhood experiences taught him early that drowning in the desperate haziness of panic won't help you survive. especially as kirk already follows his intuition so deeply. he learned to grasp and contort the feeling. spock is the main person who represses his emotions, of course, but kirk does it to those deep-set, personal ones (this includes how he doesn't reveal anything truly personal about himself willingly 90% of the time, only what others already know/shallow anecdotes) in a much more subtle way that's really interesting to me. certified expert at avoiding the subject as long as he isnt caught out on the lie. professional bluffer.

in terms of past or parents we dont know much!!! hes known as the heart-on-his-sleeve guy!!! like yes he yells, he gets irritated, excited, hes a whirlwind of quick-thinking and plans and intuition, he goes out of his way to connect with his crew and shows it, when he puts on a little act or bluff he puts his heart into it and clearly enjoys the dramatics so much, at times he wears his heart on his sleeve, he laughs openly and is honest to spock about what he means to him, he's very sun-coded to me in a burning, passionate way, always intertwined with the stars and seeking them out, but when it comes to genuine deep-set turmoil? we dont actually know all that much about him??? hes so full of emotion and character (i love fics where spock characterises jim's mind/bond as a whirl of colour and sensations, hes a quick thinker!!! intuitive!! lively!!!) and yet its still so outwardly surface level. tarsus iv gets mentioned like twice? so especially here where kirk gets briefly jumpscared by the creature, because like:

its subtle but his eyes. his eyesss!!!!! kirk commands with his emotions but there's always some sort of level of control to it, or he transforms them into something that spurs on others or uses them to ascertain a goal: seeing unguarded fear/distress in his eyes even if its faint and brief (in this instance) makes me go insane every single time. like!!! its such a small moment!!! he isnt even panicking!!! really, he just got jumpscared!!! its insignificant!!!!!!! but seeing a two-second flash of actual, naked apprehension is just...oughhh,,,,,,,,,

oh god, and dont even get me started on the galileo seven episode where he assumes a tense level-headedness throughout the whole thing, irritated and apprehensive but not panicking, making sure he maintains intelligent rationality, even when he has to leave them behind, but when spock and the crew are confirmed safe and the bridge is occupied the camera pans to him and his eyes look like they're fucking watering and he's so achingly relieved. don't even talk to me. im. fuck.

he shows so so much but at the same time reveals so little.

how people go about interpreting dr bashir I presume? really frustrates me sometimes ngl especially the “jules bashir died” scene.

like that whole scene is about julian revealing the depth of how deeply his augmentations fractured his sense of identity and who he is - which feeds into the themes of the whole episode surrounding how disability and then by extension disabled people are often viewed as a problem to be solved and because of that are often denied the ability to have fulfilling lives because the able bodied people around them don’t believe that they can.

but… idk, when the fandom talks about it there’s always seems to be a push to read a trans allegory into it that I don’t think is really there? I keep mulling over this post in my mind and when I initially reblogged it I didn’t really want to talk about this because the post is about how stories about racism can be hijacked by white people to be made about their own transness and it felt like as a white person, using that post to complain about ableism would be missing the point. but it really helped me articulate in my mind why the trans reading of this episode feels off to me because the same general principle seems to apply and that is taking a story trying to discuss a specific type of marginalisation and putting a trans reading above it because you can relate more to it personally.

“jules bashir died in that hospital because you couldn't live with the shame of having a son who didn't measure up!” this scene is the culmination of julian expressing his pain about what was done to him as a disabled child by his parents due to how they viewed his disability. but often when I see it being discussed, people aren’t really interested in talking about that. instead supplanting it with a trans reading instead which, in my opinion is an allegory that doesn’t even really work when you think about what’s going on in the broader context of the scene.

julian didn’t stop going by jules because he came to the conclusion on his own that the identity didn’t suit him similar to the way a trans person questions or rejects the gender they were assigned at birth, he stopped going by jules because he felt like the identity attached to that name was taken from him because of what his parents did. it’s not julian affirming who he wants to be it’s grieving over who he can’t be and to me at least, it’s honestly kind of harrowing.

and as an aside: when people read transness into a story about parents who change their child’s body and mind at a very young age without consent, which is literally a narrative projected onto trans people by transphobes to justify the curtailing of trans rights, that also doesn’t sit well with me. I think people latch onto this reading because of the idea of “killing a name” but again in the context of the whole episode the trans reading really doesn’t feel appropriate.

I think it’s okay for people to have trans headcanons about julian of course or literally any character they want to really, but I think saying that specific episode codes him as trans isn’t all that great honestly.

this is me btw :)

obsessed with how tos bones is canonically almost always a really sweet and affectionate guy to anyone who isn’t jim or spock

I like Strange New Worlds but boy is their Spock behavior strange.

"taking out" the Vulcan in Spock should make his body feel off but ffs he's still Spock. I don't think they intended it this way but the way they wrote this whole scenario is like having an AfroLatina character "lose" their Latina side and suddenly not be able to make a tortilla or speak their native spanish. I mean. What?

Their whole narrative on him being human and Vulcan and showing "human" as like the fun/passionate side he's denying himself is starting to feel very anti-Vulcan, which in its own way feels super white centrist. We can go all in on the bacon scene but I'm not Jewish so more knowledgable Jewish people about the cultural *disaster* that choice was can cover the mess that is but... Yikes.

They've even done mixed race struggles better with other characters. B'Elanna in Voyager has a great arc reconciling her Klingon and human sides throughout multiple episodes and none of them imply weird shit like this. They all encourage her to accept herself where's she's at, no matter how much Klingon or human "percentage" that means. It just means both.

And in all fairness, B'Elanna's portrayal is in no way perfect but its better than *this*.

Someone on Twitter said this would've been a much more impactful episode if Spock spent all of it fearing he'd lose all connection to his Vulcan side, only to realize that (like his human adopted sister!!) He is still a child of Vulcan regardless of his geneology/biological makeup. But nah. This. *Bacon*.

After such a strong story about hope, augments, refugees, and prejudice a few episodes ago we get this? Shenanigans.

Spirk is so adorable until you realize that the time that Kirk and Spock spent together is so disproportional from each other.

And I did the math to show y'all:

Assuming the Memory Alpha Wiki is correct; James T. Kirk was born in 2233 [in March apparently!] and S'chn T'gai Spock was born 3 years before in 2230 [in January, which is kinda cool].

Still assuming all wiki data is correct than they first meet in 2259, when Kirk is 26 and Spock is 29. Let's assume they assumed a friendly association with each other until Kirk took control of the Enterprise in 2265.

That means [and assuming the pair remained together until Kirk's death] the two of them shared a total of 34 years together. Kirk died at the age of 60, Spock died at the age of 161.

BUT! What's important is also the percentage of their life that had the other in it.

For Kirk it would be [if everything is correct and hypothetically K/S did start forming a friendship/relationship in 2259] approx. 57% of his life. THAT'S OVER HALF. No wonder he was so sad when Spock had died. By that point in his life he'd lived half his life with the Vulcan.

Spock, by scary contrast, spent a whopping 21% of his life with Kirk. Now, using the average human lifespan [69 years for men] that roughly equates to knowing someone for 14 years.

So basically: Kirk spent half his life with his T'hy'la whilst Spock didn't even spend the human equivalent of a decade and a half with his T'hy'la.

THAT IS SHAKESPEARIAN LEVELS OF TRAGIC.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds + T'Pril's roasting vs Pike's praising of Spock

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: s02e05 - Charades Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: s01e05 - Spock Amok

SCREAMS CRIES SOBS AT KIRK IMMEDIATELY KNOWING SMTH IS WRONG W HIS BF AND ALL PANICKED GOING “Doc! Don’t you know me?”

LIKE THE WAY KIRK AND SPOCK LOOK SO DEJECTED AND SAD AND PISSED AT RHE SAME TIME SHUT THE HELL UP NOBODY TOUCH ME DONT TOUCH ME DONT TOYCH ME !!

Wow. surprisingly peaceful domestic moment. When will it be ruined? /ref Bones + Spock @ Jim (mcspirk)

here ya go anon !! thank you so much for the req<33

the reason bones and spock are always arguing is because every time they agree on something the universe will make jim do something completely reckless and stupid just to fill the old married couple bitchiness deficit in the space-time continuum. (also psst if jim hadn't interrupted his husbands in panel two spock would totally have worked his way up to resting his hand on bones' shoulder lmao)

The sad part is that this could have been written by anyone on senior crew

I miss Star Trek so so much