Limits Exist Only in the Mind

Fanfiction
Title:	Limits Exist Only in the Mind
Author(s):	Marcella Belton
Date(s):	1987
Length:
Genre(s):	slash
Fandom(s):	Star Trek: TOS
Relationship(s):	Kirk/Spock
External Links:
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

Limits Exist Only in the Mind is a Kirk/Spock/McCoy story by Marcella Belton.

It was published in Alien Brothers.

Reactions and Reviews

1988

As for the stories, I found them a little disappointing, mainly because two of the three novellas in the zine were not to my liking. The first of these is Marcella Belton's "Limits Exist Only in the Mind." It is an alternate post-ST:TSFS tale where Sarek gives Kirk and crew the means to leave Vulcan and go to a mysterious area of space on the other side of Vulcan's sun so that they can buy time until they decide what to do. Their biggest problem is Spock, as the Vulcan is still recovering from the fal tor pan and goes into pon farr, to boot. They land on a planet of exiled people of various races, who take them in and with whom they develop a cautious friendship. That all may sound innocent enough, but what troubled me was that Spock seemed vulnerable and weak one moment, then lustful and aggressive the next. Even with pon farr and his recent resurrection, the believability of his actions are questionable. Kirk also seemed 'off to me, as he seems weak at some points and overly-casual at others. I also wasn't too happy with Sarek's characterization, as he was borderline cruel at times, though he was also helpful. Finally, after Kirk and crew return to Vulcan to face the Federation ship that is there to get them a pregnant Saavik comes into the picture, and she, too, seemed unbelievably distrustful and self-righteous. To top it all off, the ending is overly pat and simplistic, and we never know what the Federation decides to do with Kirk and his crew. The exiles introduced in the story are well-presented and interesting, but as a whole the novella depicts an unlikely situation and has poor characterizations.

And I must agree with [Regina M's] assessment of Dale Campion's "Loveslaves." The level of violence passing for sexual scenes is most disturbing—the plot served only to link together many such scenes. But this is characteristic of many of the stories, which to me flaws the entire collection, another example being Marcella Belton's "Limits Exist Only In the Mind." If a reader wants to get really depressed, then those are ideal stories to accomplish the purpose. Even writing about the zine has depressed me, but I felt the need to warn unsuspecting readers—occasionally there must be a few brickbats among the evaluations of zines.

The most memorable long story is LIMITS EXIST ONLY IN THE MIND by Marcella Belton; she deals with an unusual and touchy K/S subject quite believably.

2021

Limits Exist Only In The Mind. 2/5: This has definitely aged. It's not absolutely horrible, and there are definitely some good parts, but all in all it's just not fun to read. Sarek is an asshole in a way he never was in the show and Amanda never shows up. As someone who has been in a polyamorus relationship as has polyamorus friends, this just wasn't fun at all. By the end it was really starting to drag. Not recommended.

Boy oh boy, we’re getting to it now. This one. Where do I even start. This one I finished a few days ago so it’s still very fresh in my mind and man. I wish it wasn’t. Oh how I wish to forget this fic exists. Okay, so it’s not the first Kirk/Spock/McCoy fic, that one’s The Third Wheel by crfaddis, published in 1976, which I do not plan on reading unless someone pays me to. Still, this is an old one, and oh boy does it show. This is gonna be a long one.

So, like usual, let’s start with a quick summary: Spock has just been revived (maybe a few weeks before? Unclear) after the events of SFS. He and McCoy are still mentally connected and it’s causing problems. Sarek tells Kirk and take them both and run, but then a Federation ship shows up to take them into custody, so they take the bird of prey and fly straight into an anomaly near the Vulcan sun which has apparently been there for a very long time and lots of criminals have used it as an escape route. Now inside the anomaly, the ship is ambushed by some of the aforementioned criminals, headed by a big guy who’s name I don’t remember and his Romulan first officer/lover, who’s name I also don’t remember but it was cool and better than Big Guy’s name. They manage to make peace and Big Guy takes them to their planet. Spock goes into pon farr and rapes Kirk. Truly 0-100 up in this bitch. Kirk is all like “I wanted to help but he was too rough” and Bones is all like “you shouldn’t go in there again” but Kirk does anyway and they fuck while Bones is watching to make sure they don’t go too hard. Spock is still in pon farr but now Jim has to make sure they can get back home so he tells Bones to jerk Spock off until he can come back and finish the job. Then he comes back and they have a threesome. Genuinely the best part of this fic if only because of the sheer ridiculousness of it (it’s just so funny to me. Just. Absolutely wild). Then they build a ship so that some of the planet’s inhabitants can come through the anomaly with them, still having sex between scenes. They leave the planet and go through the anomaly, the ship they built almost gets destroyed and some people die but they’re back home safe. The newly made thrupple tells Sarek they’re together and then go talk to Saavik who is carrying Spock’s child from his pon farr that he had in that cave with her in SFS that we’re all trying to forget about. Anyway, after some fighting she agrees to let them all be the kid’s father. The end.

Okay so. Now for the actual review.

Starting off strong with Sulu being described as “Oriental”. I myself am not Asian and I have seen some conflicting opinions about whether or not this is problematic, but I thought I’d mention it anyway.

There are only three female characters in this fic: Uhura, Saavik, and some Romulan healer. Amanda seems to be dead, having been fridged off-screen. They talk about her in past tense. No idea what happened there. The Romulan healer was actually pretty fun, I liked her, but she also literally only said one line. Uhura was seen as a sex object. Saavik was the only one with agency, and even she was boiled down to “mother of unborn child”. Hard to believe this was written by a woman. Was it really so hard to make the Big Guy Captain/ Romulan first officer couple that are clearly meant to mirror Kirk/Spock lesbians? It would have been sooo much fun, and then we’d actually have some women, too!

Sarek fucking sucks in this fic. Like, genuinely, so much more than he does in the show. He’s a terrible person. Absolutely awful.

Now, to the real juicy stuff: polyamory. I have been in polyam relationships in the past, I have polyam friends, so I know what I’m talking about when I say: Bitch, wtf? It was implied that the Federation allows for multiple people to be married to each other, as in, more than two, but it also seems to be frowned upon, which is really weird to me. Then again, it seems that being in a homosexual relationship is frowned upon there too, but that’s pretty common in this era of fics (and continues way into the 2000’s, which, really? Why?). Anyway. Other than that, the relationship is actually pretty good (other than the fact it literally started with Spock raping Jim, but again, very common in this era).

One last grievance to air out before we move on: WHY DID SAAVIK ENTER INTO A RELATIONSHIP WITH THREE MEN WHO ARE TWICE HER AGE AND SHE VIEWS AS MENTORS/FATHER FIGURES???? WHY??????

Okay I’m done. Good writing, good worldbuilding, a little slow especially towards the end, 2/5. Moving on.