Kirk/Spock (AOS)

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Pairing
Pairing: Kirk/Spock
Alternative name(s): Spirk, Space Husbands,
K/S, Spork, Kock[note 1]
Gender category: slash
Fandom: Star Trek (2009)
Canonical?: No
Prevalence: Most common pairing in the fandom
Archives: The Kirk/Spock Fanfiction Archive
Other: Kirk/Spock Wikipedia Article
"Images of: Kirk and Spock facing each other; Spock looking worried; Kirk smiling up at Spock from the captain's chair; Spock and Kirk touching hands through glass; Kirk and Spock looking at each other on bridge. Text reads: "I want you to ruin my life, I want you to fuck up my nights, I want you to bring it all on, if you make it all wrong; then I'll make it all right" "
I Want You To Ruin My Life graphics by s-insomnia (2019)
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Kirk/Spock is one of the main pairings in the reboot Star Trek fandom. However, it is not as dominant a pairing as Kirk/Spock were in Star Trek (TOS) fandom; both the new Kirk and the new Spock are frequently paired with other characters.

While Kirk/Spock are best friends in the original series, they start out with a different dynamic in Star Trek (2009). One of TPTB jokingly describes it as a love story but he is not far off from how Kirk/Spock fans interpreted the relationship between the characters in the movie:

This first movie is just a love story between Spock and Kirk. It has all the beats of a romantic comedy where they meet, they don't get along, they totally hate each other, and then they get into a situation where they kind of need each other, and by the end Spock walks onto the bridge and he's like, 'Let's fuck!'[1]

Common Tropes and Storylines in Fanworks

Kirk/Spock fanworks range from serious to cracky, and are reusing and reinvigorating many of the tropes first commonly used in K/S (TOS) fanworks.

  • Mindmeld: their shared mind meld gave them them feelings
  • Spock Prime: TOS Spock meddling and trying to get the pair together
  • Alternate First Meeting: them meeting as kids/teenagers
  • AUs: including Movie Fusions, and other realities
  • TOS Episodes: rebooting TOS episodes with AOS Kirk and Spock, a particular favourtie is Amok Time
  • Pon Farr: Spock going into Pon Farr and Kirk helping him through it, this will sometimes also involve a feelings reveal, but sometimes is just PWP
  • Aliens Made Them Do It: another classic Trek trope where Aliens force them into sexual situations
  • Mpreg: usually with Kirk being the one impregnated

Fanworks

Fanfiction

Vids

Fanart

Fanzines

Audiofic

  • Spork! An Erotic Love Story by cirrocumulus & jiaren_shadow. The Star Trek audiobook edited together in such a way as to make it sound like Kirk and Spock are having sex. 3:16 minutes of Zachary Quinto (Spock in Star Trek XI) reading explicit K/S fiction. Sort of.

Example Art Gallery

Kirk/Spock Prime

Some fans ship reboot!Kirk with the (original, TOS) alternate timeline Spock from the future, commonly referred to as "Spock Prime". This name distinction between TOS!Spock and AOS!Spock generated a lot of fan discussion, with some really enthusiastic about the term Spock Prime and others strongly dissatisfied with its use, even feeling excluded when they read the name in the fanworks they find.

This disapproval is likely to be part of the remarkable reluctance of some more devoted TOS fans to the trilogy by Abrams, especially when it comes to Kirk and Spock fans -- gen or slash relationship. This reluctance has led to a small split in fandom between fans!TOS and fans!AOS in some media such as communities and conventions.

An example in disagreement the use of the term was found in the Dreamwidth's post of July 21, 2009.[2]

[ratcreature]
It drives me absolutely crazy when in ST:AOS fic the older, time-traveling Spock is called "Spock Prime" within the story text, assuming the story is told from a POV character withing the fictional universe rather than some jokey outside parody narrator or omniscient meta fiction narrator. It's fine for a pairing label, but please, please find some other way to distinguish the character from the younger Spock in the text. I am usually not that picky about narrative voice, but this just throws me out of the story in a way from which I can't recover. It's one of the few things that will just make me stop reading immediately in this fandom.[2]

The post was quickly commented by people who shared the same thoughts as ratcreature:

[jacquez]
Wow, I'm glad I haven't run across that one yet![3]
[ratcreature]
Unfortunately I have been thrown out of stories in this unpleasant way several times now. It's not so bad if it happens early in a story, then I take it as an indicator that I probably won't like the rest and move on. But I've had it happen in stories in which the older Spock only appeared later on, and I was already invested in a longer story. Granted, those weren't masterpieces, but still decent enough, and I was like several thousand words into the events and wanted to know what happened, and then the other Spock appeared and I ran into this brick wall.[4]
[ratcreature]
BTW, surpassing the awfulness of "Spock Prime" in narrative text is seeing it in actual character *dialog*, but iirc I've seen that only once so far, and that was pretty much badfic in other respects too.[5]
[sholio]
Oh god, people actually do that? HEAD, meet DESK.

I must admit that one of the hardest things about writing multiple versions of a character is clearly identifying who's talking, and I've read some pretty clunky examples in SGA fandom. But I don't think I've ever seen anything THAT clunky.[6]

[ratcreature]
Yes, they really do. I haven't seen it *that* often, but it wasn't just a single occurrence either.[7]

Fanworks for Kirk/Spock Prime

Fanfic

Fanart

Resources

Communities

Archives and Challenges

Rec Lists

Notes

  1. ^ Like its counterpart in TOS, the Kirk/Spock pairing is generally recognized by K/S. Most of the time however the most common use is Spirk or Space Husbands, following the trend of portmanteau names. In a lesser occurrence in a humorous way there are the variations Spork and Kock.

References

  1. ^ ontd_startrek. Interview w/ Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci and Damon Lindelof @ Hero Complex, citing Damon Lindelof in a Collider Interview (at ca. 28:30 min), from a talk at the LA Hero Complex Film Festival. (Accessed 18 June 2011)
  2. ^ a b ratcreature (2009-07-21). "my pet peeve of the day". Dreamwidth. Archived from the original on 2021-09-04. Retrieved 2010-07-26.)
  3. ^ jacquez (2009-07-21). "Wow, I'm glad I haven't run across that …". Dreamwidth. Archived from the original on 2023-05-17.
  4. ^ ratcreature (2009-07-21). "Unfortunately I have been thrown out …". Dreamwidth. Archived from the original on 2023-05-17.
  5. ^ ratcreature (2009-07-21). "BTW, surpassing the awfulness of "Spock Prime" …". Dreamwidth. Archived from the original on 2023-05-17.
  6. ^ sholio (2009-07-22). "Oh god, people actually do that? HEAD, …". Dreamwidth. Archived from the original on 2023-05-17.
  7. ^ ratcreature (2009-07-22). "Yes, they really do. I haven't seen it …". Dreamwidth. Archived from the original on 2023-05-17.