Hi :)
I've only recently realised how much comments make authors happy, since my friend was explaining it to me and that made me immediately think of this fic.
Spirk was one of my first ships and has always been one I cared about but couldn't explain quite right, you managed to encapsulate everything I wanted to say:)
I started to read this in the beginning of lockdown and I'm going to admit I kept reading it when ever I was bored ( always since nothing was funnier) and I was irritating my entire family with how much I laughed. Sometimes I'd challenge myself to try and keep a straight face while reading and it never worked. Infact within 3 sentences I'd start giggling.
I absolutely adore the sarcastic commentary and the light hearted poking fun. My favourite episode you commented on was amok time and I can never watch it the same.
Whenever I see something that reminds me of it I keep trying to reference your plava rug ( don't remember if I spelt that right) but then I remember not everyone has read this ( which is a shame) and it is always rotating around my brain.
I even took up book binding because I wanted to be good enough to make myself a physical copy.
I don't think I can get across how much joy this text has brought me over the years and has cheered me up so much when struggling with my mental health
Thank you so much for writing it
I hope you are well and a wonderful life:) :) :)
I just has to tell you how wonderful you are

I hope you are safe and well, dear Brittany. This fanfic has brought so much joy and entertainment into my life, as well as I'm sure many others. I do hope you will one day finish this masterpiece. As well as the movies, both old and new.

I hope you're alive and well my dear. Faithfully waiting for you to finish. Your insight and humor and gotten me thru some very dark days. I am thankful for your work 3

"Violentness"

I think you mean violence?

Ok also I love this episode and everything but the SCENE WHERE KIRK IS LIKE “IS IT ONLY ON VULCAN THEY CAN HELP YOU” THE FUCKING 3D CHESS SET IS IN THE BACK WHICH WE ALREADY KNOW HAS BEEN ESTABLISHED AS A SYMBOL OF THEIR COURTSHIP IN THE FIRST EPISODE THEY DID NOT NEED TO PUT IT THERE THAT WAS VERY DELIBERATED okay whew

No wonder this episode was written by Roddenberry. It has all the good stuff: Kirk worrying about Spock's health as a wife would for her husband, masochistic Spock, Kirk kissing a woman only under extreme mind-controlling, a Rhynoyeti... And heavy implications of Kirk and Tyree being past lovers. In addition to the "friend" euphemism that seems to point to something else, there's the bit about Kirk being "made his brother", to which Nona replies "And I'm your wife. Your sister", drawing a direct parallel between both. This may be one of the most blatant examples.

I'm not quite sure that D.C. Fontana is a K/S friend... After all, she (along with Gerrold) was VERY adamant about Kirk and Spock being just friends, going so far as denying any subtext in Amok Time (which wasn't hers to decide, anyway). So it's possible that the homoerotic subtext in her episodes is there in despite of her, and not thanks to her. Maybe it came from the actors' performance, or the director, or someone else's suggestion, I don't know. She seems so obsessed with pairing Spock with women, in a "see, he's not gay!" way... But of course, Roddenberry wouldn't allow that, so by the end of the episodes is all "you're not getting away with this, lady, so return Spock to his captain; he's not getting any girlfriend".
It would be fun if the actors knew that Fontana was all "no-homo", and then made an extra effort to be gay in her episodes. As when Kirk flirts shamelessly with that guy from the past in "Tomorrow is Yesterday". There's no way that was on the script!

This episode has a lot of Kirk doing stuff in an unnecessarily sexy way (not that I'm complaining) XDD. There's the suggestive way he holds the Klingon on the tent floor, the focus on his ass when filmed from atop the mountain, when he lays on his back with open legs, and then some random Muppetubby opens his legs further... And then of course there's Scotty standing hilariously close to Chekov's backside (notice how this was never done with Kirk and Spock, as if they knew that it would be far too pornographic for those two, while Scotty and Chekov are fine bc they have no sexual tension)

I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed the specially sexy way Spock sits on the chair on that scene... And the boots, the glorious boots!

By the way, you forgot to comment on the gayest moment in Arena: at the end, when Spock says "Good! Good! Yes! Yes!" in a kinda aroused way, while watching Kirk build... a cannon.

I had never seen anything Star Trek related until recently, when I watched the original movies, and now I'm following TOS while reading these chapters. And man, this IS sooo much fun! This couple has such a great and cute chemistry... I've always liked the whole boss-subordinate loyalty and love to death themes. Now I know why K/S are the daddies of slash fanfiction.

As for this episode, I got the impression that Kirk truly liked the girl to some extent. And this is making Spock TERRIBLY jealous the whole time! Really, his behavior here was very irrational and angry for Spock's standards. Usually, he doesn't question his captain's plans, even when such plans are often much more dangerous than this. But here? He's questioning everything: why did he bring that girl on board? why is he acting like that?, etc... This coupled with a shot of irritated, nervous Spock RIGHT AFTER Kirk kissing the girl. Jealous lover very much. And his angriness at McCoy for just suggesting that Kirk could like the woman... I mean, Spock rarely behaves so emotionally. Even to the point of getting into a fight with Kirk!

Anyway, even if I come pretty late to the party, thank you very much for writing this. It's making my own long sailing (in normal ship, not cool spaceship sadly) much more entertaining.

i wish you had continued this. i love reading your thoughts throughout the series, and i love that you wrote them in order of the production order, chrono, how it SHOULD be viewed. so i wish you continued more but thank you nonetheless

I just wanted to say I’ve been reading these since the beginning. I have many good memories of being snuggled on the couch with an episode up and reading your commentary inbetween the next one.

So I don’t know if you get these notifications, but I implore you to please return to this project! I can’t stand the thought of you not coming back and bringing your amazing, hilarious, incredibly entertaining insight to the rest of the series. It’s my birthday, Christmas, and New Years wish all in one lol. Pretty pleaseeee

(((This isn't a romantic gesture, he just has a SOUL.)))

Iconic.

Oh my God Brittany! YOU MADE MY DAY with this. Where are more episodes plus the movies being commented by you? You promised but I searched the whole net and still cannot find them...
Love you! Greetings from Belgium, Petra

Actually, there are TWO beds in that room. They don't show us the whole room, so it IS hard to see the second bed, but in one shot, you can see both sides of the foot of one bed and the footboard post of a second. (Not that it seems as if poor Spock is sleeping much, what with working for money all day and working on his device at night.)

If they let us post screenshots here, I could show you. Go to the Trek Core website, and under the Images tab, chose "The Original Series (HD)." Find the entry for "The City on the Edge of Forever." On page 17 of the CotEoF screenshots, there are three columns of pictures. In the third column, the third picture down shows Spock sitting at a table working on his equipment while Kirk is just entering the door with his bags of groceries. In the foreground, you can see the footboards of TWO beds.

I noticed something interesting about the discussion of love in this episode... Chekov's girlfriend says “when a man and a woman fall in love” when discussing children, but when asked to define love, she just says "two people" with no genders specified. Um, HUH? Idk about anyone else, but to me that gives off the distinct impression that manwoman is only a type of love, not the whole thing.
Fascinating. How very sneaky of you, Star Trek.

(obviously platonic and familial love exist too, but this conversation is specifically about romantic/sexual love, so I don't think the "well she might have been talking about something other than romance" excuse applies)