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spocks-husband · 7 months

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our continuum (enforced infinity). [spirk; Spock is a Q AU]

Words: 2,308

Rating: Teen and Up

Pairing: S'chn T'gai Spock/James T. Kirk

Genre/Tropes: Obsessive Spock, Mild Yandere Content, Mild Blood, Mild Gore, Canon-Typical Violence

AU Details: Spock is masquerading as the science officer of the USS Enterprise when, in actuality, he's a Q with a slight obsession with a certain Starship Captain.

Notes: After several long weeks of waiting, It's finally here! I've completed my Spock Is A Q AU fic-- possibly the first of several depending on how you guys like this one. You all seem like you've been really excited, though, so here it is! Enjoy mes amis <3

Spock, as he was known here, frequently asked himself why he did all of this. Why he continued doing all of this. What was the point? Was there a point? Pretending to be a Human-Vulcan Hybrid Science Officer aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise for its five-year mission? Altering the memories of his 'fellow crewmates' to ensure they never questioned his presence, that they remembered him being there all the while (not a difficult thing to do, of course, human minds were rather malleable, but it was a somewhat tedious process with a crew of over four-hundred of the insectoid specimens inhabiting the ship)? Spending his time as an immortal, omnipotent being playing pretend amongst creatures he could crush with a wave of his hand if he so wished? Why interest himself in such things? Observing these curious, mortal children parading about their minuscule galaxy, gaping in awe at other creatures of insignificance that they found marginally different from themselves-- it was entirely ridiculous. He could be off, creating new worlds, destroying old ones, exerting his power in whatever marvelous, benevolent way he chose-- yet, instead, here he was, hunched over a primitive console on the bridge of a useless, aluminum-can spacecraft examining readings of lifeforms and planets that he could have killed in his sleep.

Why?

"Keptin on the bridge!" Ensign Chekov's thick yet boyish Moscovian voice announced to the other members of their bridge crew with an audible grin. Spock found himself sitting up from his examination instinctually to see.

Hazel eyes, golden hair, and that farmboy build stepped off the turbolift with his classic, charming smile and a witty comment that didn't really register in Spock's mind.

Ah. Yes. That was why he was doing all this.

James Tiberius Kirk, Spock had found, was something out of a Terran romance novel. Of course, being a Q, romance and sex weren't exactly his highest concerns, but in the form he'd currently taken it was undoubtedly of some interest. An amusement, at least. A way to spend his eternity. Besides, he'd grown oddly... attached... to this little starship captain. Who was it, that other Q he'd once known, who said that even God's had favorites? It had been a while-- that particular figure had pranced off into some future timeline for his own mortal amusements-- but nonetheless, he thought of that quote often, and James was certainly one of Spock's.

"Status report, Mr. Sulu?"

"Approaching the Gas Giant Cythia IV. No signs of life, but some resources of interest," Hikaru answered the captain neutrally, sounding almost bored with that day's assignment. "The survey should be quick. From the looks of it, there isn't much to survey anyway. Atmosphere seems breathable for humans-- and Vulcans-- albeit a bit thin."

"Some microbial life," Spock corrected with a glance at Jim, choosing not to comment on Sulu's mention to him lest he say something incriminating. He'd been good about that thus far, no need to raise suspicion now. "But nothing of significance, and no signs of intelligent life or civilization, developed or not."

"No communications or signals coming in from the planet's surface, Captain," Uhura added. "I concur with Mr. Sulu and Mr. Spock. There isn't much here to look at."

Jim nodded, swinging his legs over the side of his command chair casually as he looked out the viewscreen. "Well, we have our orders to make a short geological and biological survey to report to the nearby inhabited planets-- and I don't think any of us are willing to face a dishonorable discharge because we don't feel like looking around a hunk of space rock for a bit, do we?" There was a short chuckle that sounded about the bridge. "Suggestions for our away team, Mr. Spock?"

The Q fought a smile, turning away from the captain momentarily. "Our usual procedure should suffice," he replied. "Myself, yourself, Doctor McCoy, and a few crewmen from Biology and Security."

Jim nodded. "Sounds good to me," he replied casually, sending a comm down to engineering to alert Scotty to prepare the transporter for a party of seven.

A cool sixty degrees, a greenish-yellow sky, and a rocky, mountainous horizon-- the planet was actually quite nice, although uninhabited from what they could see.

The Q could sense otherwise, but they didn't need to know that. Let the little creatures learn on their own.

Spock kept his eyes on his tricorder, but his mind remained close to James. The young ensign from biology and the two redshirt security men lingered behind, all of them clearly not used to joining away missions. The sensation of being watched was one that the human body was not as sensitive to as they often liked to claim, and in glancing about the younger members of their team he knew they had no clue what was coming for them. It was rather amusing, honestly.

Lurking just beneath the surface of this planet, Spock could feel the vibrations of massive, incredible movement. A consistent, violent shaking-- it was clear as day to him. Of course, he wouldn't be certain until he saw it himself, but he suspected the creature was some sort of massive bloodworm; some kind of gargantuan, insectoid predator with a basic level of primal intelligence but nothing further. Interesting, he supposed. Fascinating, even.

Still, he suspected their standard pattern of occurrence would produce itself; the security officers would most likely die quick, irrelevant deaths, perhaps the Biologist would join them, Jim might end up with some mild, mostly superficial wound that Doctor McCoy would begrudgingly heal once they'd returned to the ship. It was perhaps a cruel cycle that they followed, one that Spock could end with a flick of his wrist if he so chose... but he wouldn't.

Where was the fun in that?

It wasn't until far too late, though, that Spock's eyes widened just slightly in the dawning realization that he hadn't accounted for one particularly... irritating... additional factor: Jim's rather vexing altruistic tendencies.

Since the moment the ensign from Biology-- Winnie Peterson, he believed her name was-- had joined their party in the transporter room, Jim had gotten that... glimmer... in his eyes that was unfortunately common. James had found Winnie... pretty. The thought made the Q's stomach turn, though he wasn't certain as to exactly why that was. He tried not to think about it. In any case, though, Winnie and Jim had spent every moment of the mission thus far casually flirting, her big blue eyes flickering over his uniform every once in a while. Spock frowned. He would be glad to see the predator take its midday meal with her. He didn't even mind that he would have to comfort Jim's silly, human emotions afterward. No, he didn't mind that at all.

As if qued by that very thought, the colossal, sandy-colored beast tunneled its way to the surface with a brilliant screech, its gaping mouth lined with thousands of teeth.

Spock smirked slightly as the rest of their crew screamed in terror-- but as he ran to join Jim in finding cover, the captain was not where he had been moments before. His eyes widened as he whipped around just in time to watch James throw himself in front of Winnie as the beast attacked her.

The world seemed to go black.

Had it sped up?

Slowed down?

Was the concept of time even a true one?

He supposed it wasn't-- he was a Q after all-- nothing was real if he didn't want it to be.

Nothing...

Nothing was real...

Nothing... was real...

...

When he came to his senses, the universe had never felt so quiet, and despite the exhibit of massive power he'd just displayed, Spock had never felt weaker.

He looked around.

The bloodworm lay dead on the ground a surprising distance from where it seemed to have first arrived on the surface. Grayish, blue entrails poured from it's torn abdomen, and the vague forms of dead security men could be seen within. Winnie was, thankfully, quite dead as well. Had he done that? She was too bloodied to tell exactly what had done it without closer examination, and Spock found he really didn't care enough to investigate. Her once blue uniform was now dyed a sickly plum color with blood, and her hair sprawled out across the ground as she lay there, face down, unmoving. Not far from her lay Doctor McCoy, also bloodied and unmoving. Spock frowned slightly at this development, he knew that particular loss would be quite upsetting to Jim, but it was nothing he couldn't handle.

Yet, that begged the question...

Where was James Tiberius?

Spock glanced around, noting the blood and destruction scattered about the area, but it quickly dawned on him that he couldn't find Jim. Each moment that passed made him more restless to locate his human partner-- and suddenly he found himself in the air, speeding through the sky in a frantic search for wherever he could be. Typically, he would just snap his finger and find himself appearing beside whomever he wished, but something in his mind was... frantic. Animalistic. Primal. He couldn't think straight-- logically as his strange masquerade character would have put it. It simply wasn't an option anymore.

In time-- hours, days, he wasn't sure, nor did he particularly care-- Spock found Jim, bleeding and pale, hidden in the dark recesses of a rocky cave. The human man was weak, dying-- and as he stared up at the ceiling of the cavern Spock felt a strange pity rise in his chest. Something like caring. Something like love.

It was an easy enough job to heal Jim's mortal wounds, merely a flick of his wrist and it was as if he'd never been harmed at all. Slowly, James seemed to regain himself, sitting up slowly as the color returned to his face. Slowly, each movement sending subtle jolts of pain through his sore muscles, the human man turned to look at Spock. For a brief moment, there was something like relief in his eyes, something like love, familiarity-- almost the same way Spock had felt when he'd seen Jim for the first time only moments before-- but it faded quickly into... fear. Horrible, tremendous fear. Frantic, sloppy movements led Jim to crawl backward, backing away from the still-floating figure at the mouth of the cave as if he were a wild beast.

"S-stand back," Jim commanded, his voice loud, yet still quite shaky. "Don't come any closer...!"

"Jim," Spock frowned, slowly lowering himself to the ground and stepping toward the quivering man at his feet. "I mean you no harm. You know that."

"Oh? Do I?!" Jim sneered, suddenly rather angry. "You... I don't know what you are or what you've done with Spock-- but you are the farthest thing from harmless and we both know it."

There was a pause before, slowly, Spock began to laugh.

"What I've done with Spock?" He repeated incredulously, raising a brow curiously. "I am Spock. S'chn T'gai Spock-- your... T'hy'la? Surely you haven't forgotten me so quickly?"

"... No..." Jim refused quietly, slowly rising to his feet. He reached for his phaser-- only to find nothing in his belt, and swearing quietly. "Spock... My Spock... he wouldn't do this..."

"Wouldn't he? You just saw it, after all--"

"You killed them!!" Jim snapped. "You killed Bones, you killed Winnie-- You... You are not the man I've spent all this time with. You can't be."

"You're being ridiculous, James," Spock's face darkened, a subtle malicious glint rising in his eyes. "You and I have been together all these years... We've been quite... intimate... Why now do you decide I disgust you? Hm?"

"You killed my best friend!!" The human sobbed. "You... Killed him!! He was our friend, Spock!! I don't give a damn what you and I are-- you are a murderer!!"

There was a pause that hung heavy in the air. Spock was quiet. Jim's only sound was the soft gasps for breath as tears poured down his face. For a long moment, Jim wondered if anything would happen. Would he be killed? Would... Spock... turn around and leave?

Jim opened his mouth to speak, though he wasn't sure what he would say-- but before he could, he noticed that... something wasn't right. What was it? He glanced around. The floor of the cave was still arid and cold, its ceiling dripping with sharpened stalactites. The sky outside--

Oh.

There was no sky outside.

No landscape at all, in fact.

It was just... emptiness. The blackened chasm of space. Something Jim had known nearly all his adult life, yet something that now felt so unnervingly foreign it made his stomach churn.

"...What did you do...?" He spoke the question quietly, like a prayer. Spock smiled softly in response, stepping forward and gently taking Jim's face in his hands, holding him as if he were made from glass.

"Nothing to concern yourself with, Captain," He replied gently. "This is for the better. The others... distracted you. They do not-- pardon, did not-- understand you the way I do. I am an all-powerful being. The universe bends to my command, my every whim-- and at the moment, I command it to give me you. It is... fate. Destiny. Enforced, perhaps, but still destiny all the same."

There was a long, tense pause. Jim felt his chest swell with something between love and terror, something between the adoration and pining he'd felt for this man with whom he had a relationship he'd never put a proper name to and the overwhelming, eldrich terror of knowing that the creature in front of him, that was touching him, could crush him like an ant.

Jim took a deep breath.

"... What are you...?"

Spock laughed quietly.

"I'm yours, of course, what else would I be?"

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mejomonster · 3 months

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(The tldr is this is about gender and then versus now) I was listening to the podcast Enterprise Incidents on youtube. The Mudd's Women episode. The podcasters are 2 fans since the original airing, and I like them generally because they're really well informed in screenwriting and directing choices and so to some degree their analysis touches points I find a chunk of star trek type commentaries tend to miss: that optimisitc vision of the future, that star trek's goal was to be progressive but it also at times had flaws of its time (something Im painfully familiar with regarding Rick Berman and DS9 and TNG, so its nice hearing older watchers aware of those flaws from ToS). Now. Its not perfect. In my ideal podcast Id like to find some day (lol) a guy podcaster is capable of acknowledging the influence the spirk premise/fan perception had in some ways (from The Motion Picture thyla, that "i imagine love of men in that time" quote from Rodenberry, the Asimov suggestion to make them a team to help Kirk be accepted more by audience and Spocks individual popularity tying to Kirk was partly a bid to link their popularity). And I dont know that for all the great ideas they have, that they have any idea of the spirk fandom perception (like that quote in academia about slash fiction being the end of the Wrath of Khan if the glass were removed) or how the canon goal of making a duo unit at least created the dynamic that led to that fandom interpretation. But they do touch on many a good thing some less layer-looking people miss. They notice Kirk's actual personality (should be easy but often failed due to cultural perception versus The Show itself), Nimoys acting choices and spocks development into the character he became, the show itself deciding its identity over time and its ventures in various angles until then, what worked and what didnt regarding the progressive future versus the biases of the time it was made. They miss some nuance but theyre doing really in depth so its a treasure trove overall.

Now in Mudds Women, they miss some nuance of a story about beauty and worth that I think... i dont know. I think yeah the writers failed to hit the goal story meant to be told, but i also think outside a women perspective it can often be a miss in such storytelling (yoko taro doing the Singer in Nier Automata is the first time a guy telling a raw story about beauty and its impossible standards, invasive toxic expectations, and self destructive pressures, managed to feel totally on point and realistically managed). So i sort of yeah expect mudds women to need to be viewed Generously to grasp the message, and i sort of yeah expected guy podcasters to at best recognize where the story failed (which they did) but unfortunately not realize all the story was aiming to do (because it does Approach many topics i feel women and beauty standards and ppl who grew up in certain enviornments would recognize as Trying to be a reference to a real problem - the episode does say a fair bit if ur used to looking for those points, but not Super well done so i can see why an audience less used to relating to such points would notice them much less).

But the podcast said something this episode i found so refreshing. They mention how mudd explains how the venus drug works: it makes you "more of what you are" makes men more strong and aggressive, women more soft and feminine. Basically its a line about idealized traditional gender roles when ToS was made. And the podcaster mentions yes as a teen first watching (when we probably most feel a pressure to fit in, still most likely to believe society expects us to meet it and rewards that standard) it sounded like the drug made u better. But that in the life he lived, with the family he had, he had never been raised to think he had to be strong or women had to cook or any of that strict expectations. Then they talk about how the discussion of gender has grown so much in these years, and trans people of course can live more openly, and they say the question in society is like what does it mean to be a certain gender anyway.

And the guy says. Well i always thought and strongly think, when i say im a man, it means nothing. Because a man can be anything. Anyone can be any way, like any things, do any things, look any way. Being a certain gender means nothing beyond "im that gender."

And god how refreshing that was.

Growing up, in the 90s, yeah i felt to some degree those gender roles and expectations somewhat pushed as a teen: when girls start being pressured to wear makeup (by ads, movies, peers, trying to please crushes, avoid insults etc) and boys start being pressured to be strong (bullied for not being, attacked for being perceived as less strong by any number of reasons they get singled out by peers, movies and ads telling them their lack of strength is their reason for any failures etc). But like. There was ALSO a big push growing up, that i saw, of girls can do anything. Girls can cook or do construction, can wear dresses or play sports, can wear makeup or none at all, can have long hair or chop it off, can go into STEM or childcare, can marry or never marry, can be the career head of home or a stay at home parent, basically: anything, all of that or none of it or anyrhing in between. That was the direction of progress anyway. Guys were a bit behind (and oh of course bullying with their own peers limited their options of what wasnt ostracized) but we were seeing more acceptance of intelligence as equally desireable and acceptable to strength (at least for adult men), more media glorifying the nerds, more examples of a bigger variety of men with more niches that could still be considered ideals. And the result of that in some ways was good, i saw more guys my generation more accepting of their love of painting, cooking, wearing makeup, more guys who didnt body shame themselves as much, who didnt feel belittle themselves if they were stay at home dads or made less income, more who talked about their emotions than my parents generation ever did, more genuine friendships than we ever saw during toxic-teenage-pit when the strict standards weighed heaviest. The ideas were moving toward what is a man? Anything he wants. What is a woman? Anything she wants. What is a person? Anything they want to be. What is your gender? Whatever you feel it is. And it doesnt need to match up to Any preconcieved notions or box to be "justified" because no gender has specific strict traits it must include. Yes we still knew society had "ideals" for genders that it pushed, and that traditional and conservative thinking people held themselves to. But for people in general? What is your gender? What I feel I am. What must you do to Be that gender? Nothing. Anyone can be anything as any gender.

And god it was so refreshing hearing someone say that again. What does being a man mean? Nothing. Because a man can be anything. Anyone can be anything. Theres no box a person fits into, no box of traits any gender must conform to in order to be valid. A person can be anything and do anything and have any traits interests looks, and be whatever gender they are.

I dont know if its the way the worlds medias been shifting (so opinions we get stuck hearing more of), or cause i see trans people so often expected by society to conform to those stricter gender ideals with this weight of threat and isolation if someone in the majority finds reasons to attack (but in the end they always might, the whole thing is theyre fucked for attacking to begin with). But its like. God i miss when gender meant in my head only: what am i? What do i feel good calling myself? What feels like home. Cause im me, and me is not changing to appease some strangers. (Though i am to some degree, we all do even cis people do, because those stupid old ideals are widespread enough all ppl face some punishment or threat if they deviate from the strict boxes, despite no one fully fitting them). But like. If im me and i can do anything, what feels like home? Thats all it is to me. I miss seeing it that way. I miss when i didnt see quite so much of the looming strict standard pushing so hard on everyone to conform more. To try and force all people to cut themselves down and confine themselves to roles that serve what anyway besides littling all of us, oppressing all of us in limitation. (I mean. I know why it spreads. Maybe conservative voices are louder now about their ideal gender roles then when i grew up, or maybe its louder cause im an adult now. It doesnt mean they have any point.)

You are a person. You can be anything. Your gender is whatever you feel it is. Your gender does not inherently define your life and what you can do and be. Whatever forces we feel, remember whatever brings you joy is okay to be. Its okay to be you.

Like. Yes a person of a specific gender can define it very specifically in what that gender means TO them. How They define it for themselves. But that definition isnt universal and there is no limit to the definition of what a specific gender's people can be. A woman can look any way have any life any interest any traits any values. You can't define a woman as specific things and not others, a woman is as broadly defined as there are so many unique women in this world with so many varied unique experiences selves lives. Any gender is not universally always a confined list of traits, because theres all kinds of people with all kinds of traits of specific genders. What is a man, anything. What is a woman, anything. What is a nonbinary person, anything. A genderqueer person, anything. Any specific (or unspecific or undefined) gender person, anything. People are so varied they have too many unique traits to be always these X Y Z things and never these A B C things. Youre the gender you are cause its what feels right to you. But your definition of your own gender For u isnt universal to all people of your gender, cause people define their gender all kinds of different ways and people of your gender can have any traits in this whole spectrum of being alive.

This is the podcast btw:

youtube

And if you do know of a podcast that is aware of spirks influence on/from tos please send it my way.

#rant #star trek tos #this is about gender btw. the podcast said #what does it mean for me to be a man? nothing #and like that resonated so hard for me.#it wasnt meant in the sense of u not having a clearly defined internal definition of Yourself as a gender #but rather: every man is different. the way he personally defines his gender is unique to each.#the traits hobbies looks interests values skills each man has is all unique. and so what is a man? anything. so many things #the entire range of things. a gender cannot be defined in any strict terms #becayse there is no limit to what a person of a specific gender can be like can do can look like and so on #and god it felt good to hear that reminder #Youtube

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spittingoutthebloodandscreaming · 5 months

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No way an interviewer brought of fan fic to his face !?!?!?!

a few times, but the really gross example i mentioned was in an interview for disorder magazine in 2006. someone transcribed the interview on livejournal, idk if more reliable sources exist online unfortunately. Here's the transcription eta: someone scanned the full thing here!

and here's the direct quote:

From the films on YouTube that trace the forbidden (and fabricated) love between Frank and Gerard to the hardcore written stories that put the Way boys into some compromising positions, it’s mind-boggling. And so what better than to drop Gerard, the poor bastard, right in it.

Gerard, have you heard of Waycest and Ferard? He gives the barest of sighs, he smells trouble. “No.”

Hee hee. Well, it’s all about you and Frank or you and Mikey being lovers.

His eyebrows shoot up to his hairline. “Wow,” he says, shocked. “Oh wow, uh yeah. Like the Ferard thing, there was that thing about Mr Spock and Captain Kirk fiction, so I guess it’s just representative of having a huge cult fanbase.”

Yes, but they weren’t related. He squirms. “Mmmmn.”

Just says it’s a bit gross. He laughs, “Oh okay, it’s definitely gross, but it’s kinda funny though. I find it more funny than gross.”

That may be, love, but you ain’t read it. “I probably won’t,” he grins.

But then you’d be missing out on the shower scene – you, Mikey, lots of soap and, er… are you okay?

Gerard, slumped on the couch, possibly with near heart failure, sits up. “Yeah, sorry. If I’m comfortable, you can get away with it. The only thing I don’t talk about is my personal life and everything else is game on.”

#like its. pretty bad #i think he handles it amazingly #op #answer #see what i mean by obviously trying to get a reaction?#if someone has a better source lmk it is too late at night for me to go digging #idk if the typos are the transcribers or are in the article #eta the article is from december 2006 the lj post is from 2007

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lenievi · 2 years

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sometimes it’s sad that the default fanon for McCoy is grumpy, annoyed, no fun allowed, old, and done with the world

when this guy also enjoys the life so much and to the fullest - he loves food, drinks, he loves good times (he’d go bar hopping with you if you asked), he likes sex, he loves research, he’s curious, he likes jokes, he likes to tease and “prank” others

#mccoy doesn't consider himself old - the only time he used 'old country doctor' that the fandom likes to quote so much was when he was #literally 100 years old in deadly years (probably not 100 but you know what i mean)#i know i said this while watching twok but the gif reminded me again lol #also people will be like aos and tos mccoys are the same and then they'll proceed to write aos mccoy annoyed at jim's bar visits #when tos mccoy would be the first one to go with jim #i'm not criticizing i'm just musing lol #i know where the aos outgoing jim versus grumpy mccoy comes from #but it's not true for tos #in tos at some times it's more like no fun allowed jim versus i wanna have fun mccoy tbh #but i also understand why people tweak kirk in order to be 'better suited' to work with spock #but kirk isn't the energetic one vs spock's stoic one #i think that was nicely seen in snw actually #and a reason I guess why i saw people being like why is kirk so serious lol #since they probably didn't watch early tos in a long time #don't pay me any mind #tos nonsense #also yes i'm also leaning more toward serious-ish mccoy in my fics but i'm trying to change that

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beyondspock · 1 year

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In memoir, William Shatner admits he found Leonard Nimoy fascinating

Both spent years as hardworking actors stringing a living together by taking any parts they could land. Shatner quotes Nimoy's advice to his son Adam, then a budding director: "Don't turn down work if you don't have work to replace it." As proof of the wisdom of that statement, Shatner notes that Nimoy's unpaid performance in a children's theater production of "The Three Musketeers" started a chain of work for him that continued for years.

While they had a similar work ethic, their approaches to acting differed. Nimoy practiced and taught Method acting, working to become the character from deep inside. Shatner describes his own approach as "the classic nontechnical technique: I memorized the script and played the character." Yes, it's more complicated than that, but this introversion-meets-extroversion dynamic helps explain why Kirk and Spock made such a fine pair on TV.

Shatner suggests many possible sources that fed Nimoy's creation of Spock, such as Michael Rennie's character in "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (a cool, rational, peaceful alien), Charles Laughton's performance as Quasimodo in "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" (a sense of alienation), Harry Belafonte's stage performance (the power of minimalism and small gestures). He also retells familiar anecdotes about Nimoy's creation of the Vulcan salute and neck pinch.

This book reflects Shatner's point of view and opinions. Some future Memory Alpha historian will have to compare his recollections against those of many other Trek people for something approaching a definitive history. But Shatner takes no shots at Nimoy; in nearly every implied or direct comparison, Nimoy comes out different but equal, or better.

#Leonard Nimoy #William Shatner

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tinylilvalery · 11 months

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people are taking matthews quote from a recent interview out of context abt tomgreg (he said he didnt play it as romantic but thinks it's fun that the fans see it that way) and claiming it means tomgreg is dead and he hates it... i'm so frustrated with this goddamn fandom smh...

It's interesting that he said that (I haven't seen the interview) considering how he acted Tom, but also people gotta realise

1. It's shipping... You can ship things whether actors ship it themselves or not. Hell, William Shatner has said time and time again that Jim Kirk is heterosexual, and yet you can watch TOS and see how Jim interacts with Spock and like... I really don't need to explain, I'm sorry sksnsk. So I look at Tomgreg the same way if it's really true MattMac doesn't ship it (again, idk what he said, but if he did say that these are my thoughts on shipping even when an actor doesn't). I have very close friendships and I don't behave in the way Tom does with Greg, but that's just me 🤷‍♀️. To summarise I'd say, it's like death of the author actor, because the performance itself transcends the actor's comments on it after the fact.

2. Actors aren't solely responsible for the character and the characters relationships W others, therefore they can't really take full credit of the character. Yes they embody and bring them to life, but there's also the script (multiple writers), the showrunner, as well as editing and direction as all the other massive contenders as to who creates the characters and the relationships on screen. As a writer myself, I do find it really um,, like very irritating¿ that people keep anointing actors as the sole creator of a character. They interpret script and bring it to life with direction but they didn't write the character and so they didn't create it. Kieran Culkin's acting practice is that he doesn't like to know where his character is heading, so he lives in the present and episode to episode when acting Roman. What I mean by this, is regardless of Kieran, there was ALWAYS a set path for Roman as to where he was headed in each season, and it didn't matter what Kieran was up to, his plotline still existed despite not knowing it. Does that make sense? My point is, whether an actor knows it or not, things are written in by writers, and I consider Tomgreg VERY MUCH a part of the text and subtext of the show.

So to summarise, if MattMac really said he didn't play Tomgreg as romantic and doesn't see them that way he basically achieves Death of The Actor because his performance speaks louder to me than his comments about his approach to acting Tom. Tom looks at Greg with such adoration that I've never seen him look at another character, he speaks to him in tones that he doesn't speak to other characters in, so again, his acting transcends his post comments. And SECONDLY, MattMac's comments still aren't a ship killer to me because he didn't actually create Tom alone. He interpreted the character, brought him to life, and definitely would have had say + freedom in his performance considering what we know of Succ's production, but he didn't CREATE Tom. That credit is owed to the writers who literally wrote Tom, and wrote Tomgreg's scenes how they did. The credit is also owed massively to editors in how they edited all the many hours of footage to portray Tom and Greg's relationship as we saw it.

We all know Succession is an incredible show. There's so many undercurrents happening all at once that surface at various times in forms of parallels and callbacks. I think it's funny to think that despite the pedigree of Succession, something as massive as Tomgreg was some sort of shared hallucination. It wasn't. Tomgreg is part of the sauce, and they're an intentional ingredient.

#Tomgreg #succession hbo

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