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anghraineI think perhaps the most purely "wait, what" fanon to me (even surpassing Kirk Drift in strangeness, though much less annoying) is this rough scenario that I've probably seen dozens of times at this point:
1. Spock and Kirk are either already together but there's some uncertainty about where they stand with each other, or it's unrequited-but-not-really pining or whatever. Regardless, Spock does something that is pretty understandably upsetting or hurtful in the context of their relationship.
2. Kirk is privately upset and vents to McCoy about [thing].
3. McCoy upbraids him for being insufficiently understanding of where Spock is, or might be, coming from and for being immature enough to sit around being upset instead of handling the communication in his relationship with Spock.
Given that McCoy spends nearly 80 episodes of television being virulently racist to Spock almost entirely in the context of shaming Spock into being more honest with himself and Kirk about his actual depth of feeling for him, every time I encounter it I'm like "...?" Sure, the contemporary fandom pretty evidently finds McCoy and Spock's relationship (and Kirk and Spock's, in a very different way) a lot healthier than I do—they are never going to convince me that the racism is "haha just how they communicate" or "actually Spock loves the intense cultural insensitivity directed at him by the vast majority of the crew on a regular basis but especially by McCoy" or "oh Spock finds racial slurs validating and anyway he's a bitch to the humans too" etc.
And, in addition, I do think there is an unsurprising sense that, while TOS fans broadly like TOS Kirk, they definitely value him above all else as supportive, adoring love interest to Spock who is cheerful and outgoing and wears his heart on his sleeve in a charming way (the last is especially "......." to me), and either is exactly what Spock needs or (as in these cases) with a little prodding can become exactly what Spock needs/grovel to him. So I suspect part of the smoothing over of the McCoy-Spock relationship and the framing of McCoy as much more of an advocate for Spock's feelings than Kirk's despite *gestures at virtually everything in the show* is just a byproduct of Spock being the fan favorite, and McCoy a secondary favorite, with a lot of playing-down of not just his flaws but his pretty obvious concern that Spock gives so little in his relationship with Kirk (emotionally speaking, as McCoy sees it).
Personally, I think it's like ... McCoy harshly pushes Spock to be more emotionally generous in his relationship with Kirk in a way that Kirk himself is never going to do. And while McCoy doesn't always (or often) recognize the ways in which Spock is highly emotionally expressive towards Kirk by his own standards (a lot of what goes on between them is significantly nonverbal/same-wavelength understanding beyond anything they say, even when what they say is searingly romantic, and Kirk usually recognizes this and is visibly touched or comforted by it while McCoy doesn't get it or nopes out), I do think there's an additional element of Kirk being a bit of an enabler towards Spock. It tracks on a certain level that Kirk spends almost the whole series fully aware that Spock is ashamed of their relationship and buries his initial hurt anger over it, and generally tries to cover for/excuse Spock's emotional reticence rather than making emotional demands of him, while being almost defined as a character by his intense loneliness/existential dread of being left alone. So it even makes a certain sense that McCoy, who has clearly been Kirk's friend for significantly longer, and has some sense of his mostly unspoken isolation, would see their dynamic as imbalanced and a bit fucked-up. That doesn't excuse the racism at all, it just isn't hard to understand why someone like him would feel the need to push Spock to be more open towards Kirk, and his concerns aren't completely baseless. But certainly, TOS McCoy is very much more often pushing Spock to step up in his relationship with Kirk than the other way around, and I suspect the common inversion of this in fandom has more to do with cleaning up McCoy + Spock being the fan favorite woobie.
(Although Spock is a lot more Darcy-like in personality, the Kirk-as-preferred-love-interest thing definitely reminds me of how so much of the love for Darcy and Darcy/Elizabeth seems tied up in Darcy-as-dreamboat-love-interest to Elizabeth, and what he can offer her—materially and/or psychologically—far more than interest in him in his own right. Even the very distinct ways Darcy and Kirk are woobified for D/E and K/S shipping purposes in the context of their love interest status are a bit similar, though Kirk's past is obviously incomparably worse. I actually think it's incomparably worse than Spock's too, but, well, them's fighting words etc.)
Anyway, ranting/rambling as usual, but it's definitely a trope that isn't difficult to imagine reasons for, but which does feel very weird coming right off of TOS. I am pretty sure that if Spock genuinely fucked up emotionally and if Kirk actually mentioned it to McCoy (which I think is the most unlikely part of the scenario tbh, at least half of Kirk's emotional expressiveness is showmanship and there's a ton that he keeps to himself), McCoy would be much more likely to be "that cold-blooded bastard did what" than "why aren't you more understanding :("
1. Spock and Kirk are either already together but there's some uncertainty about where they stand with each other, or it's unrequited-but-not-really pining or whatever. Regardless, Spock does something that is pretty understandably upsetting or hurtful in the context of their relationship.
2. Kirk is privately upset and vents to McCoy about [thing].
3. McCoy upbraids him for being insufficiently understanding of where Spock is, or might be, coming from and for being immature enough to sit around being upset instead of handling the communication in his relationship with Spock.
Given that McCoy spends nearly 80 episodes of television being virulently racist to Spock almost entirely in the context of shaming Spock into being more honest with himself and Kirk about his actual depth of feeling for him, every time I encounter it I'm like "...?" Sure, the contemporary fandom pretty evidently finds McCoy and Spock's relationship (and Kirk and Spock's, in a very different way) a lot healthier than I do—they are never going to convince me that the racism is "haha just how they communicate" or "actually Spock loves the intense cultural insensitivity directed at him by the vast majority of the crew on a regular basis but especially by McCoy" or "oh Spock finds racial slurs validating and anyway he's a bitch to the humans too" etc.
And, in addition, I do think there is an unsurprising sense that, while TOS fans broadly like TOS Kirk, they definitely value him above all else as supportive, adoring love interest to Spock who is cheerful and outgoing and wears his heart on his sleeve in a charming way (the last is especially "......." to me), and either is exactly what Spock needs or (as in these cases) with a little prodding can become exactly what Spock needs/grovel to him. So I suspect part of the smoothing over of the McCoy-Spock relationship and the framing of McCoy as much more of an advocate for Spock's feelings than Kirk's despite *gestures at virtually everything in the show* is just a byproduct of Spock being the fan favorite, and McCoy a secondary favorite, with a lot of playing-down of not just his flaws but his pretty obvious concern that Spock gives so little in his relationship with Kirk (emotionally speaking, as McCoy sees it).
Personally, I think it's like ... McCoy harshly pushes Spock to be more emotionally generous in his relationship with Kirk in a way that Kirk himself is never going to do. And while McCoy doesn't always (or often) recognize the ways in which Spock is highly emotionally expressive towards Kirk by his own standards (a lot of what goes on between them is significantly nonverbal/same-wavelength understanding beyond anything they say, even when what they say is searingly romantic, and Kirk usually recognizes this and is visibly touched or comforted by it while McCoy doesn't get it or nopes out), I do think there's an additional element of Kirk being a bit of an enabler towards Spock. It tracks on a certain level that Kirk spends almost the whole series fully aware that Spock is ashamed of their relationship and buries his initial hurt anger over it, and generally tries to cover for/excuse Spock's emotional reticence rather than making emotional demands of him, while being almost defined as a character by his intense loneliness/existential dread of being left alone. So it even makes a certain sense that McCoy, who has clearly been Kirk's friend for significantly longer, and has some sense of his mostly unspoken isolation, would see their dynamic as imbalanced and a bit fucked-up. That doesn't excuse the racism at all, it just isn't hard to understand why someone like him would feel the need to push Spock to be more open towards Kirk, and his concerns aren't completely baseless. But certainly, TOS McCoy is very much more often pushing Spock to step up in his relationship with Kirk than the other way around, and I suspect the common inversion of this in fandom has more to do with cleaning up McCoy + Spock being the fan favorite woobie.
(Although Spock is a lot more Darcy-like in personality, the Kirk-as-preferred-love-interest thing definitely reminds me of how so much of the love for Darcy and Darcy/Elizabeth seems tied up in Darcy-as-dreamboat-love-interest to Elizabeth, and what he can offer her—materially and/or psychologically—far more than interest in him in his own right. Even the very distinct ways Darcy and Kirk are woobified for D/E and K/S shipping purposes in the context of their love interest status are a bit similar, though Kirk's past is obviously incomparably worse. I actually think it's incomparably worse than Spock's too, but, well, them's fighting words etc.)
Anyway, ranting/rambling as usual, but it's definitely a trope that isn't difficult to imagine reasons for, but which does feel very weird coming right off of TOS. I am pretty sure that if Spock genuinely fucked up emotionally and if Kirk actually mentioned it to McCoy (which I think is the most unlikely part of the scenario tbh, at least half of Kirk's emotional expressiveness is showmanship and there's a ton that he keeps to himself), McCoy would be much more likely to be "that cold-blooded bastard did what" than "why aren't you more understanding :("
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on 2025-10-29 10:15 pm (UTC)McCoy upbraids him for being insufficiently understanding of where Spock is, or might be, coming from and for being immature enough to sit around being upset instead of handling the communication in his relationship with Spock.
And I was like: Wait, I *have* seen that and this *is* insane that they keep whitewashing McCoy into the emotionally mature one who cares about Spock instead of the guy who insults his physical characteristics with every other breath. And it's wild that it's become so commonplace fanon that even I, in my limited touching of the waters so far, have come across this framework.
is just a byproduct of Spock being the fan favorite, and McCoy a secondary favorite
See, this - this? This has been so surprising to me, coming into the ST: TOS fandom six decades in, because why the hell is McCoy more favored than Kirk? I get why Spock is the fan fave, but Kirk is also the archetype of so many later fan faves, and to be honest, McCoy as an older man doesn't have the looks of Spock or Kirk (I get that I'm not the right audience to filter this but I think I'm right here), and, you know, is a racist jerk to the peak fan fave 90% of the time they interact. Is it that Kirk has Main Character Syndrome and people criticize him more as the main character? Is it because Kirk can't be fitted into a little neat box of emotionless/emotional and is harder to be the self-insert? Is it a Shatner Complex byproduct? Is it that McCoy is actually a fave or that Kirk is less of a fave? Perhaps it is all of these things, but it is, frankly, bizarre to me when I'm going through ST: TOS posts and finding that the fandom has elevated McCoy so high above what I see in the show while burying his actual traits.
So it even makes a certain sense that McCoy, who has clearly been Kirk's friend for significantly longer, and has some sense of his mostly unspoken isolation, would see their dynamic as imbalanced and a bit fucked-up.
This does track, but McCoy also doesn't seem to get how intensely lonely Kirk can feel a lot of the time (I'm thinking right now about the end of 'Dagger of the Mind', but when Kirk expresses his loneliness or is alone, McCoy is often off doing his own thing, including his own romantic subplots). Kirk feeling so alone even when he's surrounded by an entire crew on the Enterprise, and even by long-time friends, is a striking character detail.
I am pretty sure that if Spock genuinely fucked up emotionally and if Kirk actually mentioned it to McCoy (which I think is the most unlikely part of the scenario tbh, at least half of Kirk's emotional expressiveness is showmanship and there's a ton that he keeps to himself), McCoy would be much more likely to be "that cold-blooded bastard did what" than "why aren't you more understanding :("
Very D: but also very likely. The one time I can think of McCoy and Spock (accidentally) banding together is in the episode I haven't seen yet where McCoy says he wishes Kirk could forget, Spock makes Kirk forget. [Edited because I went back and checked the details]