Kirk/McCoy (AOS)

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Are you looking for the pairing of Kirk/McCoy from the original television series? See Kirk/McCoy (TOS)
Pairing
Pairing: Kirk/McCoy
Alternative name(s): Kirk/Bones, Jim/Bones, McKirk, Jones
Gender category: M/M Slash
Fandom: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series
Canonical?: No
Prevalence: Popular
Archives:
Other:
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Kirk/McCoy is the slash pairing of Star Trek characters James T. Kirk and Leonard McCoy in the Star Trek: Alternate Original Series fandom.

Kirk/McCoy and Star Trek (2009)

"illustration of McCoy holding Kirk under the arm and with one hand on Kirk's face. Kirk has his hand pressed to McCoy's chest. Their foreheads are touching and they are looking into each other's eyes. Gloms of white and blue fluid are starting to envelop Kirk."
I'll Follow You Into The Dark by Emorenji (2013)

kirk_mccoy was created on May 11, 2009, three days after the Star Trek (2009) film's wide release. jim_and_bones was created as Team Jones headquarters in the Star Trek Ship Wars (later Ship Olympics) competition on January 5, 2010, and reopened following the conclusion of the Wars as the new Jim and Bones community on June 1, 2010. buckleup_meme was created on January 7, 2010.

Unlike TOS Kirk and McCoy, who became friends a decade later when both were already established Starfleet officers, AOS Kirk and McCoy met in their twenties when both were at low points in their lives -- Kirk an aimless genius-level brawler doing nothing to live up to his dead father's heroism, and McCoy embittered enough by his recent divorce to consider a career in space, despite his 'fear of dying in something that flies'. A rant about disease and danger and a shared flask of alcohol cemented the beginning of what would become a close and lasting friendship.

The kinship between these two characters, an odd couple in many ways yet still somehow complimentary (one southern, one midwestern, one a leader, one a healer, one proactive, one emotional, and so forth), proved to be a goldmine for fanfiction authors. To span the three years glossed over in the film, a plethora of Academy fic (often very similar to the College AU genre) came into being, in which Kirk and McCoy are more often than not envisioned as roommates and best friends verging on codependency.

Kirk/McCoy and Star Trek Into Darkness

The second alternate universe Star Trek film was released in May 2013, to moderate critical acclaim but mixed fandom reception. The film was mostly concerned with the testing of Kirk's leadership abilities as well as his developing friendship with Spock; the artistic response from the Kirk/McCoy community was relatively muted in comparison with the 2009 movie. Much post-Into Darkness Kirk/McCoy fanfiction is centered around Kirk's resurrection from death - and the emotional and physical consequences thereof - thanks to a serum developed by McCoy from the 'magic blood' of Khan Noonien Singh.

In Fanworks

Recurring themes, backstories and characterizations in canon-based AOS Kirk/McCoy fic include:

  • the evolution of their relationship from platonic to romantic
  • Kirk's propensity to sleep around (derived partly from AOS Kirk's flirtations with every woman in the vicinity as well as his liaison with Gaila)
  • Kirk's more upbeat personality contrasted with McCoy's bad temper
  • their interactions with McCoy's semi-canonical daughter Joanna, as well as other family members, such as Kirk's mother Winona and brother George Samuel ('Sam')
  • balancing their personal relationship with their duties as captain and doctor of the U.S.S. Enterprise (for example, Kirk's technical authority over McCoy, and McCoy's angst over having to treat Kirk's injuries after missions gone wrong).
  • McCoy's functional alcoholism (a non-canonical trope derived from his drinking from a flask on the shuttle)

AU fanfiction is common. Alternate universe depictions of Kirk/McCoy include:

Tropes found in Kirk/McCoy fiction, often in combination with the above, include:

  • Genderswap/sexswap -- of the always-a-girl variety, where one or both of them was born female, or where one or both become female through an alien technological or biological plot device or (in)convenient transporter malfunction.
  • Sex pollen/Aliens Make Them Do It
  • De-aging
  • Kidfic
  • Mpreg
  • Same-Actor Crossovers/Split OTPs hinging on the resemblance between McCoy and Karl Urban's many other genre characters, including Éomer of The Lord of the Rings, Cupid of Xena: Warrior Princess, and Vaako of The Chronicles of Riddick. The most popular of these is arguably Reaper!Bones, wherein John 'Reaper' Grimm of Doom, a quasi-immortal character, sheds his original identity and becomes the canonical Leonard McCoy two centuries later.

A frequent permutation of the K/M relationship is its expansion to include Spock. Other arrangements include Kirk/McCoy/Spock/Nyota Uhura (thereby respecting Spock/Uhura's canon status and reflecting Uhura's increased presence in the reboot), as well as Kirk/McCoy/Christopher Pike (Kirk/Pike and McCoy/Pike, though relatively uncommon pairings, have some fandom presence).

The popularity of AOS Kirk/McCoy has also given rise to the RPF pairing of actors Chris Pine and Karl Urban. Sometimes referred to as Urbine, the ship has its own community, pinecity (289 members as of July 3, 2014), though Urban/Pine fanworks and discussions are also posted at kirk_mccoy and jim_and_bones.

Notable Kirk/McCoy Fanworks

Fanart

Example Art Gallery

Websites, Recs, Thematic Lists

Kirk/McCoy Communities

  • kirk_mccoy, the main (and likely first) LiveJournal community for the pairing, hosting fanworks, news, discussion, and fic searches. (2763 members as of July 3, 2014)
  • Fuck Yeah Kirk-McCoy, the official tumblr of kirk_mccoy. (1,277 followers as of January 28, 2015)
  • jim_and_bones, created for the first round of the fandom-wide Ship Wars (later Ship Olympics) competition in 2010, it is now an active members-only community for authors, artists and readers of both Kirk/McCoy and Chris Pine/Karl Urban, with daily picture posts as well as discussion, challenges, and fic fests. (2091 members as of July 3, 2014)
  • Fuck Yeah Jim and Bones, the Tumblr of jim_and_bones.
  • buckleup-meme, the Kirk/McCoy-specific kink meme. (On Part Two as of July 3, 2014)
  • space_wrapped, an annual holiday 'advent calendar' fic community. (Active as of the 2014 holiday season.)
  • mccoy-and-kirk, a newer LJ community, with regular meta posts in addition to fanworks. (258 members as of July 3, 2014)
  • kirk_mccoy, Dreamwidth community for the pairing. (156 members as of July 3, 2014)

References

  1. ^ WebCite for "Sickbay Follies"
  2. ^ webCite for "Get Your Paws off me kid".
  3. ^ WebCite for "In Perfect Trust" (art only).
  4. ^ WebCite for "Personal Physician".
  5. ^ WebCite for Drawing 1, Drawing 2, and Drawing 3 (art only).
  6. ^ WebCite for Kirk/McCoy.
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