today at goodwill i found a kirk/spock au where kirk is a lowly redshirt
Okay no but this book.
Do you know how fucking long I hunted for a copy of the first edition of this book? I can’t remember the specifics, it’s been ages since I read it, but in the first edition it had some line that was basically confirming Kirk/Spock that was removed after the first printing.
oh my god are you telling me i found a piece of fandom history and i had no idea
I AM BACK AT GOODWILL AND IT’S STILL HERE AND IT’S A FIRST EDITION WITH GAY STUFF???? IT’S A DOLLAR?????? I’M
it starts out with wholesome hand-holding and boyfriends worrying about each other
they’re in an au now and kirk is an angry ensign with a drug problem
“being the top felt weird and wrong”
SOMETHING STIRRED INSIDE HIM
no matter the universe kirk can’t keep his shirt intact
THIS IS WHERE SHIT GETS REAL Y’ALL I CAN’T
THE MIND MELD IS BARELY EVEN A METAPHOR
KIRK WAS ASKING FOR IT
aaaaaaaaaaah
this is the best dollar i have ever spent and yes that includes bearllionaire
I’d heard about this as some sort of fandom urban legend – everyone heard about it, no one seemed to have hard copy. Nobody was sure if it was some unpublished fanfic, a first draft, vanity press, whatever.
And it’s real.
No one had a copy because Gene Roddenberry found out about the romantic undertones and forced Pocket Books to recall the first edition so that it could be drastically revised.
Stands up on soapbox, holds up this article like it’s the opening of the Lion King.
Y’all should read this because it is FIRE, but also because a post from the Time Lady Project was linked in this!
Historically, whenever young women are interested in a form of media,
we like to tell them it is bad for them and that they are bad for
liking it — unless the media goes mainstream, in which case it becomes
no longer feminine and hence okay. Novels are dangerous and cause
insanity, until they become classics worthy of being studied in college. Beatlemania is the province of “the dull, the idle, the failures,“ until the Beatles become a band that everyone loves.
Young women are so attacked for loving the media they love that it is
a radical act for a young woman to love something unashamedly. And
transformative fandom is the most radical act of all, because it
reverses that “lady thing to respectable thing” process.
Emphasis added. It’s so good- go read the whole thing.
A Pretty Taste for Paradox 