Ho Yay / Star Trek

aka: Star Trek The Original Series

"Come on. Spock... Why didn't you jump in?"

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The Original Series

• Jim Kirk and Spock from Star Trek: The Original Series. They are now the first "couple" listed in Time Magazine's "Most Influential People Who've Never Lived". First Couple.
  • Kirk/Spock is in fact where the term "slash" comes from and one of the most famous examples of Slash Fic. They didn't really start the whole thing — Holmes and Watson have been slashed for decades, and Dr. Fredric Wertham confirmed he'd interviewed gay men who took it for granted that Bruce and Dick were intended as a gay couple. Robert Crumb's brother Charles used to create gay fantasy illustrations based on Treasure Island (1950). Such stories were likely written about Napoleon and Ilya and Artemus & James, among others. But they were clandestine — what's known as "drawerfic", at best mailed privately to a handful of friends. Kirk/Spock slash stories were the first to be circulated among fans in actual fanzines. They were taking a huge risk by doing so, since in The '60s, homosexuality in fiction was considered "pornographic" in most states even if nothing explicit happened, and using the U.S. Mail to distribute pornography is still, even in the 21st century, a federal crime.
  • Along with Star Trek Fan Fic overall, Slash Fic completely changed not only Star Trek fandom, but media fandom as a whole. Slash changed the way viewers (especially young female viewers) consume media. Numerous girls found it personally empowering in many ways including making them feel free to explore their own orientations. Today's fan writers who take it for granted that the two male leads of any series should (or must) be portrayed as having romance may be unaware that slash was once extremely controversial.^note See Henry Jenkins' book Textual Poachers for a look at just how influential Trek slash has been over the decades.
  • People have edited together various sound clips from the show for this trope. "lovetrek" if you wish.
  • People might consider the whole thing nothing but wishful thinking by some Yaoi Fangirls. In response to this, a fan created The Ship's Closet, a series that carefully analyzes the relationship between Kirk and Spock based purely on evidence found within the show. If you had any doubt, watching this will completely remove it. Or to say it in her words "they don't write romance like that anymore." ^note The show is currently on hiatus, but Word of God slates it for return in "two months, tops."
    • She's also going through the episodes here and pointing out the Ho Yay.
• There is also an extremely well known German comedy, which has all of the Enterprise crew being gay and got made into a movie eventually (the series was far better, though that was pretty much on purpose), though here it is not only Kork and Spuck that come really close at times, also Schrotti is in the mix...
• And of course there is the infamous backrub scene. And the episode "Amok Time". Pon farr anyone?
  • Both of these episode were written by Theodore Sturgeon ^note and about six other people, along with contributions from the actors themselves. Coincidence?
• "The Conscience of the King" has a couple of scenes that accommodate a Kirk/Spock reading very well.
  • The context arises during the second act; Kirk and Lenore negotiate the Karidian Players' passage on the Enterprise in a vaguely flirty fashion, on the bridge, with Spock present. Immediately after Lenore leaves the bridge, Spock voices a reasonable objection and Kirk slaps him down for it:
    Kirk: Mr Spock, prepare to leave orbit as soon as the Karidian Company is aboard the ship.
    Spock: May I inquire as to our course, Captain?
    Kirk: Benecia colony.
    Spock: Benecia colony is eight light-years off our course.
    Kirk: If my memory needs refreshing, Mr Spock, I'll ask you for it. In the meantime, follow my orders.
  • Two scenes later, Spock confides in McCoy about what he thinks Kirk is up to. Spock's explanation is logical, of course, but McCoy's response can be read as him gently suggesting, inaccurately but sensibly and understandably, that Spock's response is motivated by hurt feelings and jealousy over all the romantic attention Kirk seems to be giving Lenore.^note The script and Shatner's performance make it very plausible that Kirk's attention to Lenore is entirely him ruthlessly but morally justifiably manipulating a much younger and more naïve suspect for strategic purposes, but since Kirk is too personally compromised to let anyone else into the loop — which will turn out to be a recurring flaw of his — whether or not this is true, Spock doesn't yet know it.
    Spock: It was illogical for [Kirk] to bring those players aboard.
    McCoy: "Illogical"? Did you get a look at that Juliet? That's a pretty exciting creature. Of course your personal chemistry^note with Jim, perhaps? would prevent you from seeing that. Did it ever occur to you that he simply might like the girl?
    Spock: It occurred. I dismissed it.
    McCoy: You would.
  • At the end of the next scene, Lenore passionately kisses Kirk, and the camera cuts immediately and unsubtly to Spock sitting on the bridge brooding with a pissed-off look on his face and a snap in his voice.
  • A couple of scenes later, McCoy and Spock confront Kirk about what's going on. From literally any other character, Spock's query to Kirk in this scene — "Why do you invite death?" — would likely be delivered as a passionately emotional plea.
  • The aggression with which Kirk locks Spock in particular out of the loop can be read as a parallel to Kodos and Lenore; Kodos doesn't tell Lenore anything because he doesn't want her to be hurt or placed in danger, an effort which is ultimately futile because she figures it out on her own. During the episode, Spock and Kirk go through exactly the same process, much compressed.
• "Amok Time" is an incredibly subversive episode of television.
  • Spock is extremely agitated: throwing things around the room, destroying his computer, and threatening his fellow crew members. When asked what’s wrong, but he will only say that he needs to go back to Vulcan. After Bones says that whatever is wrong with Spock is killing him, Kirk confronts Spock. Spock explains:
    Spock: On your earth the salmon, they must return to that one stream where they were born to spawn, or die in trying...the ancient drives are too strong, eventually they catch up with us, we are driven by forces we cannot control to return home and take a wife, or die.
  • Every seven years, Vulcans must go home and have sex or they will die of a fever.
  • So of course, the Enterprise goes to Vulcan. When they get there, Spock asks Kirk and Bones to be his best men. They beam down to the planet, and the wedding seems to go as planned
    • Until T’Pring reveals that she doesn’t want to marry Spock and invokes her ancient right to choose a champion to fight Spock. The winner will claim T’Pring as his property. Everyone thinks she is going to choose this guy who is obviously her boyfriend, but instead she chooses Kirk.
  • Kirk agrees to fight Spock. But after they have already begun to fight, the Vulcan justice of the peace reveals that it is a fight to the death. They fight for a while, and then Bones calls time out. He asks if he can give Kirk some tri oxygen compound, since he isn’t used to Vulcan’s thin atmosphere. The justice of the peace agrees, and it is so.
  • Kirk and Spock resume fighting, and things get... well... suggestive. Then Spock gets a strap around Kirk’s throat and uses it to choke him. The moment Kirk stops moving, Spock seems to come out of a daze. He stands up—his eyes wide—and stumbles back in horror.
    • To re cap: Every seven years, Vulcans must have sex, or they die of fever. When Spock rolls around in the sand with Kirk and chokes him, he is cured of his fever.
    • Later, when Bones asks what happened:
    Spock It must have been the combat.
  • The party doesn't stop there though: When Spock gets back on the ship, he goes down to medical, thinking Kirk is dead. But then Kirk walks out of a door behind him. When Spock sees him, he grabs him by the arms and spins him around, grins and shouts "JIM!"
• “The Squire Of Gothos” has Trelaine and Spock act like jealous boyfriends over Kirk, Trelaine specifically mad because Spock took his new toy away, and Spock making a pointed comment that while Vulcans aren’t predatory, “there have been exceptions”.
• In “Arena”, Spock watches Kirk make a cannon with a mixture of pride and like it’s a Geeky Turn-On for him.
• David Gerrold may have had bad experiences with slash fans later on, but he was more than happy to indulge, like Kirk eyeing Spock when he mentions “love”◊ in “The Trouble With Tribbles”. (Of course, that may not have been Gerrold's idea. The actors used plenty of their own ideas, and Shatner camped it up all the way through the series. So that may just be Shat being Shat.)
  • He also made a manga much later, "Bandi", based on a script he'd submitted that wasn't used, compiled in the Star Trek manga anthology "Uchu", in which the crew get overwhelmed by strong emotions under the influence of a strange creature. Kirk confesses his love for Spock. Once freed from it, he asks Spock if he said anything during the incident. Spock answers: "Nothing that I will repeat, Captain".
• “Metamorphosis” takes on a new light after the movies, with Kirk giving a speech to the companion where he looks ridiculously sad, all “do you love him as though he were a part of you” and echoing that exactly in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. There’s also parallels with the companion and Spock, the former using “illogical” and the latter not understanding love (but knowing it exists), and finding out that the companion loves him disgusts Cochrane, only being okay with it when she possesses a woman.
• In "Journey to Babel", we meet Spock's parents. Amanda and Sarek touch the tips of their index and middle fingers together several times. As they do this in public, three times in front of Kirk and others, this gesture is more likely to be Vulcan hand-holding, but slash fans like to assume this is how Vulcans kiss, which may change the way you view certain scenes.
• Even the Klingons could see it. In "Errand of Mercy", Commander Kor seems to figure out PDQ that threatening Spock is one way lean on Kirk. Spock would always remain conscious of this even decades later.
  • In Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, after Kirk has been saved just in the nick of time using a Klingon Bird of Prey Spock has commandeered, an emotional Kirk moves to embrace him, leading to this classic line:
  Spock: Please Captain, not in front of the Klingons. (Had they been on the Enterprise, well...)
• There's this.
• Apparently, there are rumors about this circulating even in universe. And when Kirk is asked about it, he just ponders it and doesn't answer. When Spock is asked about it, he usually just raises his eyebrow or glares and doesn't answer.
• Not only does Kirk go apeshit on Miranda Jones in “Is There In Truth No Beauty” because he believes she’s not doing anything to save Spock, but Bones mentions romantic rivals, and when she asks if he thinks she can wake Spock with a kiss, he says it’s worth a try.
• In "Requiem for Methuselah", McCoy tells Spock:
  Dr. McCoy You see, I feel sorrier for you than I do for him because you'll never know the things that love can drive a man to. The ecstasies, the miseries, the broken rules, the desperate chances, the glorious failures, the glorious victories. All of these things you'll never know simply because the word love isn't written into your book.
  • He's talking about the romantic love, like Kirk had for Rayna. Immediately after that, Spock mind melds (a very intimate act for a Vulcan) with Kirk. To examine the mind of the Vulcan, let's take this to its logical conclusion...
• Kirk’s famous line “why Mr Spock, you almost make me believe in miracles” at the end of “A Taste Of Armageddon”, complete with batting his bambi eyes. It comes out of nowhere in-universe too, Spock having no clue how to respond.
  • If you don't believe how incredibly flirty this scene is watch the whole exchange here
• In "The City on the Edge of Forever", Kirk and the love interest, Edith Keeler, have a conversation:

  Edith: And you, um, don't want to talk about it? Why? Oh. Did you...did you do something wrong? Are you afraid of something? Whatever it is, let me help.

  Kirk: 'Let me help.' A hundred years or so from now, I believe, a famous novelist will write a classic using that theme. He'll recommend those three words even over 'I love you.'

  • In the very next episode, when the crew is in danger, Spock says to Kirk:
    Spock: I have my own will, Captain. ''Let me help.''
  • When Edith is asking Kirk and Spock who they are:
  Spock: Where would you estimate we belong, Miss Keeler?
  Edith: You? At his side. As if you've always been there and always will.
• In "Bread and Circuses", McCoy accuses Spock of being afraid of his own emotions, which leads to this exchange:
  McCoy: Why, you wouldn't know what to do with a genuine warm, decent feeling.
  Spock: Really, doctor?
  McCoy: (beat) I know. I'm worried about Jim, too.
• The end of "Wolf in the Fold" has Spock display no interest in whatever the women at the cafe do that Kirk talks about, and for his part, Kirk gets pouty at the possibility of going to see pretty ladies alone.
• In "The Empath", Kirk, Spock, and Bones are taken captive by aliens, along with Gem, a woman from a species with empathetic abilities. At one point, Kirk is lying down, and Spock sits next to him. Gem was walking away, but something about Spock's action makes her stop in her tracks. She looks at them curiously. Spock is too busy watching over Kirk as he sleeps to notice her at first. When he catches her watching him watch Kirk, he becomes flustered, looks away, and fiddles with his tricorder. Intrigued, Gem goes over to Spock and touches his shoulder to feel his feelings. At first she looks confused—but then she realizes something, and smiles--softly, knowingly. See for yourself. Note the music. What could this possibly mean?
• "The Devil in the Dark", Kirk and Spock argue about killing the Horta, Spock doesn't approve of the idea because he believes it is the only Horta left. But when Kirk tells Spock over communicator that the Horta is in the room with him Spock insists Kirk kill it immediately.
• Then there's the turbolift scene in "And the Children Shall Lead".
• In "Spock's Brain", Spock says, "Captain, there is a definite pleasurable experience connected with the hearing of your voice," and Kirk is so relieved to hear from him, and maybe a little flustered by that remark, he breaks out into a huge dopey grin and appears short of breath.
• And then there's the novelization of The Motion Picture (written by Gene Roddenberry himself), where Spock refers to Kirk as his "t'hy'la" - a Vulcan word that can mean "friend", or "brother", or "lover"...
  • Roddenberry attempted to mitigate the effect of this and gently dissuade K/S fans by adding an in-character footnote from Kirk which reads like a mix of evasion and Have I Mentioned I Am Heterosexual Today?. A line-by-line dissection (by a law school dean, no less!) can be found here.
    • The point has also been made that if "lover" wasn't an important and relevant part of the definition, Roddenberry wouldn't have put it in the definition. Vulcan is, after all, a constructed language. Plus ol'Gene wasn't about to completely deny anything that might attract more viewers; he was broke, and all his other projects had gone nowhere.
• Spock and Kirk have a tendency to make eye contact and hold it for a beat or two longer than seems appropriate in the situation. Like in Miri, or Corbomite Manuever Kirk in particular looks at Spock like he hung the moon and stars.
• And there is the time that Spock and Kirk held hands for twentysomething seconds. Because it's not slash if one of the guys is in a girl's body. Not. At. All.
  • Fans at the time saw telepathy in these examples of eye contact or touch. Numerous fanworks including Kraith explored this in detail, as Vulcans are telepathic in canon and Kirk was shown having incipient telepathy (with the cloud creature) in "Obsession". Go ahead, tell us geezers we were naive.
  • For all his shitty behavior and many faults on the set, Shatner seemed to know full well what he was doing, apparently having a habit of kissing his male co-stars on the mouth and jokingly telling Spock "it's always been you" instead of one of his "Turnabout Intruder" lines.
• Unsubtle in “Day Of The Dove”, as Kang introduces his science officer “and wife”, and it cuts to Kirk and Spock next to each other for about three seconds.
• The movies take all this up to eleven. The "Sickbay Scene" from The Motion Picture used to be pictured on The Other Wiki's Slash fiction page. (As well as the main Ho Yay page here.)
• At the beginning of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Spock has gone to Vulcan to undergo Kolinahr, a Vulcan ritual to purge all emotion.

  Vulcan Priestess [to Spock] Our ancestors cast out their animal passions here on these sands. Our race was saved by the attainment of Kolinahr. Kolinahr, through which all emotion is shed.

  • But Spock pushes her hand aside as she's about to give him the official medallion. The priestess mind melds with Spock to find the problem, and she sees something. We don't know what it is, but she pulls away and says:
    Vulcan Priestess This consciousness calling to you from space, it touches your human blood, Spock . . . [about Spock] His answer lies elsewhere.
  • Then towards the end of the movie, during the famous sick bay scene, Spock says to Captain Kirk:
    Spock V'Ger has knowledge that spans this universe, and yet, with all its pure logic, V'Ger is barren. Cold. No mystery. No beauty [laughing]. . . Jim [he takes Kirk's hand] this simple feeling is beyond V'Ger's comprehension. No meaning. No hope. And Jim, [smiling] no answers.
    • The implication being that, love--Jim's love--is the answer.
    • It would seem that the "consciousness" calling to Spock from across the void was Jim.
• The Wrath of Khan isn't exactly short on the Ho Yay either, considering that during Spock's death scene Kirk and Spock could be seen to be Vulcan kissing ^note Technically it isn't. Spock gives a Vulcan salute and Kirk, unable to part his fingers properly, just puts his hand up to the glass. A more intimate gesture would be the two-fingered "embrace" Spock's parents do. We never see Spock do this with Kirk. through the damn glass. Prior to this, it took Scotty, Bones, and a third crewman to keep Kirk from going in there to get Spock out...
• It is mentioned numerous times during the series that the Enterprise is more important to Kirk than any woman. In the episode "Elaan of Troyius", it was stated canonically that Kirk's love for the Enterprise was so great that he was able to overcome a biochemical love "spell" cast on him (one that was supposed to be irreversible!) because he still loved the Enterprise far more than the girl.
  • In The Search for Spock, Kirk willingly sacrifices the Enterprise - the one thing he cares about more than anything else in the universe - to save Spock.
• Also in The Search for Spock, there's Kirk saying that if Spock has an immortal soul, it's his responsibility. When the guy he's talking to looks at him weirdly and questions it, Kirk just replies firmly, "as surely as if were my very own." Oh, and he refers to Spock as 'the nobler part of myself.' ('My better half', anyone?)
• After the Vulcan Priestess gets Spock's Katra sorted out, he passes by his father, Scotty, Uhura, Chekov, Sulu, and Bones without a flicker of recognition. But when he gets to Kirk, he stops. The first thing he remembers is:

  Spock: My father says that you have been my friend. You came back for me. Why would you do this?

  Kirk. Because the needs of the one outweighed the needs of the many.

  Spock. (starting to remember) I have been, and always shall be, your friend.

  Kirk. Yes, Spock.

  Spock. Ship, out of danger?

  Kirk. You saved the ship, Spock, you saved us all. Don't you remember?

  Spock. (and that's when it clicks.) Jim. Your name... is Jim.

• This is an attempt to clip every single relevant Kirk/Spock moment into one video. It is over 2 hours long.
  • There's just so much subtext between these two that the sheer amount of meta produced towards it (arguing either pro-Spirk or anti) is truly phenomenal. This is just a taste.
• Star Trek: The New Voyages, the first professionally published anthology of fan fiction, credits the fanfic community with helping to save the show after it was cancelled in season two. Slash is not mentioned, but editors Sondra Marshak and Myrna Culbreath were devoted slashers who simply kept their preoccupation, when writing for public consumption (they wrote four ST novels, published by Bantam) to coy little hints and "hurt-comfort" situations. Some of the stories verge on Kirk/Spock, including (in volume two) "Surprise!", a screwball comedy partly written by Nichelle Nichols where Spock wants to give Kirk a birthday spanking.
• Even airline commercials in the eighties got in on it, having Shatner and Nimoy act like an old married couple going on holiday and obviously echoing Kirk and Spock. (Nimoy calls this humor between Shatner and himself "reaching", perhaps as in "We reach" because they could think so much alike.)
• “Lower Decks”, episode “An Embarrassment Of Dopplers” tells of Kirk and Spock crashing a party, drinking a lot, and carving their names into the wood like stereotypical romantic teenagers.
• Spock’s official bio literally has him compare Kirk’s smile to the sun, keeps him an Elephant in the Living Room because Spock can’t deal with his death, and he doesn’t know how to write about someone “he deeply loved”.
• Shatner: Where No Man was a book of interviews with Shatner by two slash fans (Sondra Marshak and Myrna Culbreath^note who denied up and down that they were into slash, but worked with well-known slasher Carol Frisbie on this book and others, and wrote the first professionally published (by Bantam) original Star Trek novels loaded with what we now call "subtext", which previous generations would refer to as innuendo). Somewhere in this book, Shatner has read a Marshak-Culbreath manuscript in which Kirk is sexually dominated by a stronger female and said he thought it was in keeping with Kirk's character, even if he were angry about the situation, to be "paying something off, sacrificing himself for Spock, or the world, or something" — and called Kirk/Spock an undying love.^note "Undying love, loyalty, what they would give up for each other, their lives, careers, all of that." The ladies also maneuvered Roddenberry into using the words "deep love" in stating that Kirk and Spock complete each other. Nimoy, while stating that he did not see them as incomplete without each other, explained that Spock's greatest need is an environment where he can make himself as useful as possible (he reasoned early on that Spock's motivation was to be useful rather than popular◊) and he can work for an "initiator" — Kirk or whoever — who creates projects he can be useful in. With characteristic reserve, he concluded that he didn't know what caused Star Trek fans' sexual preoccupations, but "what you saw is what we did".
• Kirk and Khan have a little bit of tension happening.
  • Especially in Star Trek Into Darkness.
  • And Kirk/Ben Finney. When Kirk describes his relationship to Finney, he pauses as if he's got a secret. Ben Finney holds an eternal grudge against Kirk, yet still names his daughter after Kirk. In fact, Finney's daughter only realizes that he's gone insane by reading his letters detailing his close friendship with Kirk.^note "I never realized how close you and Dad had been until I read through some papers he wrote,Ietters to Mother and me." Exactly what the letters contained was left ambiguous, although they wouldn't have been too explicit since they were letters to herself and her mom. Same for the episode "Shore Leave", with Kirk and Finnegan.
• Kirk also ends the episode "Obsession" by speaking in a friendly, non-official way to a male ensign, inviting him to visit and commemorate his late father, Kirk's friend and former commander. Today, such behavior is apparently considered an unambiguous sexual invitation.
• Also, Kirk and Captain Christopher in "Tomorrow Is Yesterday." And Kirk/Gary Mitchell in the pilot.
  • The ho yay between Kirk and Captain Christopher is hilariously skewered here.
  • "Tomorrow Is Yesterday" also shows Kirk blatantly buttering up the 60s security guards in the same way he seduces female villains of the week.
• There's very few ways to take "Errand Of Mercy" Kor's threat to Kirk ("I'll teach you how to use your tongue") as anything other than sexual. And in "Whom Gods Destroy", Garth forces Kirk down on his knees with his head just a little too close to Garth's crotch.
• Marcus in “Bread And Circuses” is pretty No Sense of Personal Space with Kirk when he’s handcuffed and watching his friends fight, and is so into the “man to man” subject that even Kirk (who is pretty used to skeevy attention by now) looks uneasy, especially when he wakes up on the bed and Marcus is looming over him.
• Played for laughs when Mudd in “I, Mudd” compares Kirk to his nagging wife, wanting them both to shut up and to get the last word.
• Ruk in “What Are Little Girls Made Of” is twice the size of Kirk, and just keeps on groping him while throwing him around like a ragdoll, to the point that you can see Shatner is grinning and decides, for some reason, to spread his legs while he’s in the air.
• Probably worth pointing out that Parmen forces Kirk to recite Sonnet 57 while crawling, the context of his Happiness in Slavery lines being of an older man being trapped by his love for a younger man. He’s also the one that gets the skimpiest Go-Go Enslavement outfit later on.
• Spock and McCoy, too.
  • The one in "Mirror, Mirror" is a bit creepy. BDSM, anyone?
  • The episode "By Any Other Name" saw a lot of touching between McCoy and Spock.
  • A Hallmark Star Trek Christmas ornament uses this scene, complete with creepy dialogue. It's very giggle inducing.
  • Then there's gem from "Operation: Annihilate!":
    Spock: My first sight was the face of Doctor McCoy bending over me.
    Bones: Hmph. It's a pity your brief blindness did not increase your appreciation for beauty, Mister Spock.
  • In "The City on the Edge of Forever", after Kirk and Spock have finally reunited with Bones, Spock greets him with an enthusiastic, lingering handshake. Considering that Vulcan gestures of affection typically involve the hands, this could presumably be pretty intimate by Vulcan standards.
• Any combination of the TOS Power Trio is ripe and ready to be slashed (though, at the end of the day, the Kirk/Spock pairing is the most popular). Sometimes they slash all three at once.
• Sulu/Chekov. It may not involve the big three, but that's part of what makes it adorable.
  • In Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, they are seen on a camping trip together, complete with bickering Like an Old Married Couple when they get lost.
  • Not to mention that George Takei really IS gay, though it's worth noting that he doesn't believe Sulu was and always intentionally played him as straight.
  • The Janus Gate trilogy of novels basically establishes them as unshakeable life partners, so much so that even when youthful Lieutenant Sulu meets a decades-older Shell-Shocked Veteran version of Chekov from an alternate timeline, they instantly get along. Additionally, toward the end of the series, the older Chekov is forced to kill his timeline's Sulu, whom he's spent most of his life faithfully serving. Established as someone left cynical and emotionally deadened by years of wartime, it's notable that the older Chekov's ONLY display of emotion is at this point, when we see him cradling Sulu's body and weeping with guilt and anguish.
  • There's also the canon face-cuddling!
  • In The Voyage Home, when the injured Chekov is brought back to the Enterprise, astute viewers noticed the way Sulu immediately ran out, grabbed his hand, and helped him walk back to the ship. Awww.
  • In Star Trek: Generations, it's Chekov who proudly introduces Sulu's daughter, which led to a lot of shipping fics with Chekov and Sulu.
• One of the gangsters in “A Piece Of The Action” confuses Bones when he goes on about his pretty blue eyes.
  • Both gay and lampshading is how Bela feels up Kirk before guiding him into the other room to talk, and both Kirk and Spock have Here We Go Again! expressions.
• There's also a hint of Les Yay between Uhura and a couple of the alien girls. In Spock's Brain, for instance, when the Eymorg lands on the ship, and the whole crew (including Uhura) gape at how beautiful she is. In "Amok Time", when Uhura sees T'Pring's communication to Spock, she says in an almost lovestruck voice "Oh, she's beautiful! Who is she?"
  • She gets some Les Yay with Chapel, as well, as pointed out here.
• In "Turnabout Intruder", Dr Lester is evidently in some sort of relationship with Dr Coleman, or at least using his feelings for her to make him her accomplice. When she interacts with him while she's in Kirk's body, she clings to him and makes Puppy-Dog Eyes at him, and he speaks rather tenderly to her ("I have done everything else, for you... but I will not murder for you..."), even though she's William Shatner at the time.

The Next Generation

• Recurring guest star Q develops a fascination with humanity—Picard in particular—and continuously pops up to test him and enjoy Picard's snarky/witty banter. Unless he's popping up to save Picard's life, or guide him to save the universe. He has no regard for Picard's personal space, and pops into bed with him twice; the second time, Picard has a quite civil chat while lying half-nude in bed next to Q. In one instance, when trying to get Vash (Picard's old girlfriend) to come back to him, Q spends far more time talking about Picard, in affectionate and nostalgic tones no less, than he does about the woman he presumably came back for. Not to mention at least one writer and John de Lancie (Q) himself felt strongly that Q was in love with Picard. At one point, Q muses that he might have done better to appear to Picard as a female (presumably as an excuse of using it to manipulate Picard — but the flirty nature of the statement makes that justification come off as suspect).
  • When Q zaps the Enterprise across the galaxy to encounter the Borg, Picard is reduced to virtually begging Q to send them back home. What does Picard say that finally gets Q to help them? "I need you!"
  • An example that demonstrates their relationship, from an Expanded Universe novel. Q has whisked Picard off to see beautiful and impossible things, and they have the following exchange shortly before Picard resorts to reciting Shakespeare to comprehend what he is seeing.
  Picard: Explain all this, or do you simply enjoy seeing me confused and uncertain?
  Q: There is nothing simple about that joy at all, Jean-Luc.
  • In the Expanded Universe novel "Q-in-Law" Q demonstrates to an audience of people that gender is a transitory concept to him since he can easily assume a female form, stating confidently "I transcend your paltry notions of gender." Q assumes the form of a beautiful woman, and boasts offhand that she was able to seduce Picard using this form, though the validity of such a claim is never verified by Picard since the subject is never brought up around him....Not to mention, how would Picard ever know, if Q didn't tell him?
  • The comic book miniseries "The Q Gambit" starts and ends with Q popping into Picard's private quarters while he's trying to relax. Picard doesn't seem flustered by this at all. Plus there's the fact that Q says he came seeking counsel and implies he was going to ask him for help, which speaks volumes about how highly he regards the captain.
  • "Morning, darling."
• Best friends Geordi and Data are another example. The closeness of their friendship has been touted since the beginning, as well as their being "bound together" by the nature of the way in which they were forced to see the world: without artifice of coloration.
  • They also regularly roleplay as Sherlock and Watson
• "The Naked Now" is most famous for Tasha and Data getting it on, but what about Tasha and Troi? Tasha's acting all weird, so Troi takes her hand and says, "Tasha, I feel you're very uncertain, that you're... fighting something." And at the end of the episode, they both get off the turbolift at the same time, after not having been seen for quite a while. Hey, Tasha had to be doing someone something after Data left...
  • In "Skin of Evil", Yar dies trying to rescue Troi from a hostile alien...
• Data with Kivas Fajo in "The Most Toys". At one point, Fajo throws acid on Data so that he'll change into the clothes he's laid out for him, and then goes on to say that he wouldn't mind if Data just went around naked.
• Some of Lore's interactions with Data came off as rather... suggestive to me. In the "Descent" two-parter especially, where Lore gets Data addicted to his emotions and uses that to manipulate him to his side, taking a rather perverse pleasure in it all the while. Lore actually seems to have a bit of a preoccupation with getting Data to work with him, despite the fact that he could have been rid of the other android a long time ago with as many times as he's incapacitated him.
• There is a curious example of this trope in the second season episode "The Outrageous Okona" when Worf catches Okona fraternizing with a female member of the crew. Worf orders Okona out of the lady's quarters, but Okona instead takes a step towards the Klingon, at which point Worf growls and says, "I'd love that, but I have my orders!" The intent, I'm sure, was that Okona was acting aggressively, and Worf, as usual, was itching for a fight, but the direction and editing left the scene strangely ambiguous.
  • And of course, for Klingons, fighting sometimes leads to other things...
  • If that's not enough, a few episodes prior, in "Where Silence Has Lease," the episode opens with Worf and Riker sharing a training simulation on the holodeck. Considering that the next time that we see Worf share a training simulation, it leads to him having sex with his partner...
• "The Price" has the infamous workout session where Dr. Crusher and Counsellor Troi get very close to each other. "You're unusually limber this morning".
• Worf and Riker get a bit. "Liasion" has the two bickering like an old married couple over Worf procrastinating getting ready. Ending with Riker complimenting Worf in a dress.

Deep Space Nine

• Bashir and Garak's Ho Yay was so blatant (and deliberately played up by both actors) that the writers were actually ordered to stop giving them scenes together because so many fan letters were coming in that begged for a Relationship Upgrade between the two characters.
  • Special mention must go to the episode in which Garak leaves for an incredibly dangerous mission to find his former mentor, and Bashir sees him off. He asks if he can handle any business while Garak is gone, and Garak proceeds to tell him of a very special Cardassian data rod that Bashir should eat if Garak doesn't return. Bashir responds by giving Garak a going-away gift of exotic space chocolates, with a dopey grin on his face while looking at Garak. As one of the YouTube comments puts it:
    "So, one guy tells another to eat his rod. The other guy responds by giving the first guy chocolate. The heterosexuality of this situation, it BURNS."
  • Of course the whole eat a data rod thing is actually a joke. Maybe.
  • Oh here, an entire playlist dedicated to every moment these two have ever made eyes at each other.
  "My dear Doctor..."
  • Or when Garak broke into Bashir's quarters in the middle of the night and stared at him until Bashir finally woke up [1].
    • And Garak's first words when Bashir wakes up? "Come, Doctor", in his unmistakable creepy voice.
  • Special mention must go to Bashir and Garak's first scene together. Between Bashir fiddling with the flower like a nervous schoolboy, and Garak going in for the shoulder rub at the end - reportedly Alexander Siddig (Bashir) read the script and thought "So we're Star Trek's first gay couple? OK, great."
    • At a convention the two of them outright stated that their characters were having an offscreen "huge homosexual relationship."
    • Regarding the shoulder rub, a Cardassian's neck ridges extend down right next to the shoulders and are erogenous zones. It's the first time they meet and Garak's doing the Cardassian equivalent of grabbing Bashir's ass.
  • "Destiny" establishes that Cardassians regard constant bickering as a signal of sexual interest. What have Garak and Bashir been doing every week for three years? Meeting for lunch to bicker about literature. Slashers drew the only logical conclusion.
    • This line of reasoning has ... interesting implications for Weyoun and Dukat's interactions, considering that the Female Changeling even remarked on their constant arguing.
    • And speaking of Weyoun and bickering with Cardassians, his interactions with Damar are up there, too. Casey Biggs, who played Damar, even referred to them as 'the Bickersons of outer space'.
  • "The Wire", in which Bashir helps Garak through a near-suicidal drug addiction, is pretty much a forty-five minute canon Hurt/Comfort Fic, with lots of touching and tearful confessions. It culminates with Bashir going alone into Cardassian space to meet the former head of the Cardassian secret police in order to save Garak's life.
  • In "The Search Part II" Garak's last words before he dies and the others leave him behind are 'I suppose I won't be having lunch with you again doctor'.. It wasn't real, but still!
    • That incident also involves one Tear Jerker of a Call-Back: Bashir has to be dragged away from Garak's body just like Sisko had to be dragged away from Jennifer's. Sisko actually points out the similarity of the incidents in the novelization.
  • Regardless of the Subtext, Robinson and Siddig's chemistry led to Garak becoming an Ascended Extra, instead of getting killed off early in the series, as was the original plan.
  • It should also be noted that Andrew Robinson, the actor who portrayed Garak, has explicitly stated that he chose to portray Garak as a sexually ambiguous character, yet, to his chagrin, the series' writers chose to push Garak into a poorly-developed heterosexual relationship with a much younger woman once he became an "important" character.
  • The actors have also LITERALLY acted out out fanfic together, not once, but twice! In the first link, the characters are actually married and living on Cardassia together 20 years after the end of the series.
• Bashir and O'Brien are a very popular ship with many moments in canon that shippers are quick to bring up.
  • O'Brien told Bashir he wishes Keiko was "more like a man", his Last-Second Word Swap for "more like you."
    O'Brien: See, you understand! Now why can't she see that? Why can't she be more like y- uh...
    Bashir: More like...?
    O'Brien: Err, um, a man, more like a man.
    • "People either love you or hate you...I mean, I hated you when we first met, and now I ... don't. And that's from the heart! I really do... not hate you anymore."
    • In "Extreme Measures", we have a line where Bashir tries to convince O'Brien that he likes him more than his wife, states that he likes him better than his girlfriend Ezri, and starts pouting when O'Brien won't admit that he loves him. It should also be noted that in the final episode there are a bunch of montages showing some character's fondest memories on the station. Every. Single. One of O'Brien's memories feature Julian. Not one contains his wife. Also the episode where O'Brien nearly committed suicide, it was Julian talking him out of it and his wife...wasn’t.
    • Everyone Can See It - even Molly, who's convinced that moving to Earth is a lie because Julian's not coming with.
• There's also a lot of tension between Odo and Quark. Particularly in "The Ascent" and in "What You Leave Behind".
  QUARK: So, now that I'm here, is there something you want to say to me?
  ODO: Such as?
  QUARK: Such as, 'Goodbye, you certainly were a worthy adversary.' Or maybe something with the words "mutual respect" in it.
  ODO: No.
  QUARK: No? What do you mean no?
  ODO: I mean no. I have nothing I want to say to you.
  QUARK: You're telling me that after all these years, after all we've been through, you're not even going to say goodbye to me?
  ODO: That's right. Nerys, I'll be on the runabout. Huh.
  (Odo leaves)
  KIRA: Don't take it hard, Quark.
  QUARK: Hard? What are you talking about? That man loves me. Couldn't you see? It was written all over his back.
  • Rene Auberjonois, who played Odo, was once asked what the nature of Quark and Odo's relationship was. His response: "Sexual." Then there's the outtake where the two of them kiss.
  • There was always a sexual subtext when Odo would link with another shape-shifter, so when male shape-shifter Laas showed up in "Chimera," some Ho Yay was unavoidable. Odo and Laas link in private, and later, Odo declines when Laas invited him to link in public. And then you've got Quark saying, "This is no time for a 'Changeling Pride' demonstration on the promenade..."
    • The linking scene between Odo and Laas in "Chimera" shows the two men staring into each others eyes and merging amidst soft background music. It's hard not to interpret it as a quasi-love scene.
• Kira trying to get Dax on her side in "Dramatis Personae" come off almost like a seduction. Even executive producer Ira Stephen Behr refers to it as "Kira com[ing] on to Dax."
• In "Prophet Motive", Zek (who has been turned nice by the Prophets) says to Quark "I like you!" while massaging Quark's ear...which, as he would know, is a Ferengi erogenous zone. So how much do you like him, Zek?
  • He got fingered by the pope.

Voyager

• Seven and Janeway. There was a deleted Season 5 scene where Janeway drops a rank pip, which is followed by Seven taking the pip from Janeway and sticking it back on her. Whilst Janeway is saying: "Have you ever considered trying it yourself? Romance I mean."
  • In "One," Chakotay (speaking to Janeway): I know your bond with Seven is unique, different from everyone else's.
  • The ending of "The Voyager Conspiracy" has got to be the femslashiest thing in the history of the franchise. In the episode, Seven downloads too much data, gets confused, and starts seeing connections and conspiracies where there are none. She steals the Delta Flyer, but Janeway beams aboard to convince her to return. Seven erects a force field to keep Janeway away.
    Janeway: There is no conspiracy. There is no Maquis rebellion. The Federation isn't planning to invade the Delta Quadrant.
    Seven: I realize that. Because I finally uncovered your true objective.
    Janeway: And what's that?
    Seven: Me.
  • Seven runs through a bunch of dates and events that she, in her confused state, thinks prove that Janeway brought Voyager to the Delta Quadrant for her. Janeway counters with her own list of events, this time all the moments when she and Seven's relationship grew and evolved.
    Janeway: Stardate today. Janeway beams aboard the Delta Flyer. She reminds Seven of the bond that's grown between them. Seven lowers the force field, and she decides to come home. All I'm asking... is that you trust me again.
  • Seven finally does lower the force field. Janeway steps close and sits beside her, and the two stare at each other as soft, frankly romantic music plays. Even when you've already seen the episode it's hard not to think they're about to kiss.
  • "Hope and Fear" is chock-full of Janeway/Seven Les Yay, from their sweaty velocity sessions, to Janeway considering leaving Seven behind unthinkable, to the intimacy of Janeway adjusting Seven's ocular implant as part of their escape plan.
• Also, there's the Borg Queen's tension with Seven. "You were always my favorite, Seven" (while caressing her cheek).
• Some fans also saw Ho Yay in the friendship of Harry Kim and Tom Paris, so much so that it's a running gag in SF Debris' reviews to poke fun at all the accidental Tom/Harry Ho Yay.
  • It helps that Garrett Wang, Harry Kim's actor, reportedly wanted his character to be gay, though the producers refused.
  • "The Chute" is practically a romance between Tom and Harry. It includes:
    Harry (facing down a mob that wants to beat up Tom}: This man is my friend. Nobody touches him!
    • From the same episode, Tom and Harry discuss like a married couple where the best place is for a picnic. They're in a prison, but that just makes it more slashy.
    • Tom and Harry cuddling in bed together as Harry comforts Tom as the clamp is driving Tom mad.
    • Aaaaand after their super traumatic prison experience is over and Harry's plunged into a major My God, What Have I Done? moment over his actions, Tom says the only thing he remembers is Harry swearing to protect him. Then he badgers Harry into holding to their dinner date.
  • Then there are all the times Harry glances meaningfully at Tom while there's a long cylindrical object in his mouth (his clarinet).
  • In "Coda", Harry gets so distraught delivering a eulogy that he can't finish. Cue Tom stepping in and dragging him off to a corner to comfort him. The fact that this is actually all taking place inside Janeway's mind could qualify this as an unintentional bit of Everyone Can See It.
  • "Riddles", the below-mentioned episode where Tuvok becomes a pastry chef, also gives us Tom and Harry sharing dessert off the same plate like it's NBD.
  • In "Twisted", at the point that Chakotay and B'Elanna (at this point in time, the writer's bible had said that B'Elanna harbored an unrequited attraction to Chakotay) hold hands and wait for the inevitable, Tom wordlessly places his hand on Harry's shoulder. Friendship Moment like the subsequent moment of Tuvok with Janeway or Relationship Tease mirroring that of Chakotay and B'Elanna? You make the call!
  • In "Timeless", Harry dedicates fifteen years to saving Tom and Voyager.
  • In "Demon", Tom and Harry serve as the accidental progenitors to the biomimetic Voyager crew who would feature in "Course: Oblivion".
• Tom and Chakotay has a big following among fans of Rivalry Ships. It's practically slash canon that they have the tensions they do because they were lovers in the Maquis days and still have some feelings for each other.
  • The way they touch each other in the opening scene of "The Fight" makes it almost impossible to watch the rest of the episode with your slash goggles off.
  • In the fourth season Two-Part Episode "Year of Hell", Chakotay and Paris are taken captive aboard the Krenim time ship for months. In discussing their situation, Paris somewhat sheepishly admits that he has been spending time with handsome Krenim crewmember Obrist. The look on his face as he says it is peculiar, especially since Chakotay has also been hanging around with the ship's tyrannical commander Annorax, so it is not as if there is anything off about associating with their captors. Why be embarrassed? Obrist, for his part, seems very taken with Paris and ultimately does everything he can to help him. It becomes apparent in the end that Obrist did not need Paris or Chakotay to help him mutiny and disable the time ship, he is able to do it entirely on his own. But his actions seem as much motivated by a desire to help Paris as to finally stop Annorax, and he makes a point to beam Chakotay and Paris to safety before lowering the time ship's defenses exposing it to attack.
• Some of Barclay's interactions with the holo-Voyager in "Pathfinder" verge on this, from Harry Kim fetching him drinks and asking Barclay to "go easy on me tonight" (at velocity) to Admiral Paris' observation that "I understand you've been spending time with a holographic re-creation of my son."
• In the season seven episode "Q2", Q junior and Icheb seem to have this. Admittedly, Q expresses an explicit sexual interest in a number of female characters (including to Icheb), but then, when he runs away from his old life, he brings Icheb along, and later demonstrates that he's willing to die for him. Given that they've only known each other for a few days, I'd say this definitely qualifies.
• Then there's the episode where Tuvok loses his memory and latches on to Neelix like a barnacle. And becomes a pastry chef.

  Tuvok: Then how will you know how much I enjoy being with you?

  Neelix: You've just told me.

• In Sacred Ground, the female Spirit Guide seems to be enjoying seeing Janeway naked a bit too much.
• In "Revulsion", some of the clean-up hologram's dialogue makes it sound like he's outright in love with the Doctor. He even suggests they run away together!
• And then there's this bizarre line of dialogue from the season four episode "Nemesis":

  Rafin: I was told to drill you, Chakotay, but it's you who've drilled me.

Enterprise

• Pick a male character from Star Trek: Enterprise. Newsflash: he has been slashed with Malcolm Reed. Tucker/Reed is the most popular—actors Dominic Keating and Connor Trineer, who've become besties during and since the show, joke about it in an early episode of their podcast "Shuttlepod Show"—with Archer/Reed a distant second and Reed/Hayes in third. Something about our dear British armoury officer makes him eminently slashable. Maybe it's all the time he spends playing with phase cannons.
  • Or the fact that the actor has stated that he played Reed gay or that scene on the drone ship that read like an aborted coming-out...
  • For someone who verbally expresses his hatred for Hayes multiple times, he looked quite delighted to have his hands all over the Major's body.
  • At one point, Hoshi accidentally hits on Reed, seemingly inviting him to have dinner in her quarters. His response is one of massive discomfort.
• Hoshi and T'Pol in "Sleeping Dogs" Hoshi says she wishes she could ignore her emotions. T'Pol walks over, kneels and takes Hoshi's hands in hers; Hoshi seemed to enjoy it as well (Friendly reminder that the Vulcan kiss (or at least the Vulcan hand-holding or embrace) is two fingers touching two fingers, stroking fingers and hands seems analogous to a significantly deeper kiss, and that Vulcans as a rule tend not to engage in physical contact because of their Touch Telepathy, feeding back into the "touching hands is a gesture of intimacy" thing). The implication of the scene is that she touches Hoshi's mind briefly and teaches her to meditate on and control her fear. Which, you know... isn't intimate at all.
• Before the writers started setting up a "thing" between her and Doctor Phlox (tragically cut short by the death of the actress), Cutler sure does seem to want T'Pol to pay attention to her in "Strange New World"
• Hoshi and "Rajiin". It is basically impossible to see this scene between them as anything other than lesbian flirtation.
• Shran and Archer's vitriolic relationship hit this note for some who noticed that Shran inevitably keeps volunteering to run into Archer in spite of all danger.
  • And then there's the inevitable parallels present between Amok Time and United, where the two are forced to fight to the death in rather kinky looking ways by ancient custom and only avoid killing each other on a technicality.
  • In what must be his second or third appearance, Shran admits that he has been unable to sleep through the night thinking about how much he... "owes" Archer. He crosses into an incredibly dangerous part of space specifically to aid him, and while probably under orders to do so, he doesn't complain about it the way he complains about nearly everything else. His description of a recent romantic conquest (to Archer, no less) seems very "Have I Mentioned I Am Heterosexual Today??"
  • Later he's forced to improvise a scene where he's the captain of a mining ship to throw some local authorities off the scent of the Kumari and the Enterprise searching for the Xindi weapon, and when asked what he's mining for, the first thing he can think of to say is... "Archerite." It's apparently very valuable.

Discovery

• Michael and Tilly:
  • Michael Burnham grew up fostered by Sarek on Vulcan, and predictably, is shown to be scandalized when Lieutenant Stamets hugs her in a slightly tipsy state. Now keep that in mind re-watching Michael being treated in Sickbay in episode 6, during which she holds Tilly's hand for comfort...
  • In the season two premiere, when Michael is injured by a piece of shrapnel, Tilly runs down to sickbay, and immediately walks back her earlier request for a piece of the asteroid they were studying, as "the only thing I care about coming back is you"
  • Despite Michael technically being entitled to quarters of her own once she regains the rank of Commander, she chooses to remain roommates with Tilly throughout the second season.
  • When Tilly is lost in the mycelial network, Michael is called down to Engineering, and is sprinting in an outright panic to get there. When arriving, she shares a meaningful look with Stamets, as the voiceover describes him as a widower...in other words, equating her possibly losing Tilly with him having lost Culber.
  • When they reunite in season three, they have hugging, heartfelt reunions twice, and the second one especially feels like they're really about to start making out in the corridors of Discovery. Later in Season Three, Tilly outright calls Michael "the person I love most."
  • When Tilly leaves Discovery for a teaching post at the Academy, Tilly jokingly notes that if Michael misses her, Tilly can make a recording of her asleep, since she knows Michael loves the sound of her snoring. Michael argues that she only said she "kind of liked it", which still carries the implication Michael has watched Tilly sleep...
• Detmer and Owosekun
  • Come Season Three, the interactions of these two Bridge Bunnies tread awfully close to the line between "best friends" and "lovers." Owo is frequently giving support and encouragement to a rattled Detmer, and they get very physically close to each other several times in the early episodes of the season.
  • Season 4's "The Galactic Barrier" continues to blur that line. During a crisis, Detmer, as the crew is trying to stay positive as they travel through the Galactice Barrier, imagines a vacation on a Hawaiian beach. Owosekun immediately invites herself along, to no protest.

Picard

• Star Trek: Picard has Elnor and Hugh, a pairing created by Jonathan Del Arco.
  • Considering that Elnor (a young, wide-eyed, beautiful, effeminate Romulan man — traits that are associated with The Twink) and Hugh (played by a gay actor and whose character is queer-coded, specifically in this series as the righteous, saintly gay man who dies a tragic death) are complete strangers, they do have an unusually strong connection in "Nepenthe", with Elnor being extremely protective of Hugh, touching the back of Hugh's neck as a gesture of comfort, risking his life to help Hugh avenge the murdered xBs instead of returning to La Sirena, and when Hugh is dying, the way he holds Elnor's face is quite tender, and Elnor covers Hugh's hand with his own. According to Jonathan Del Arco in this interview, he borrowed from his experience as a gay man and decided to portray Hugh as being in love with Elnor, hoping that Elnor loved him. (So in other words, Del Arco interpreted the instant affinity shared between Hugh and Elnor as a doomed gay romance which barely had the chance to blossom before it was cut down.)
    "I was like, 'This is Hugh's last moment and I'm going to make some personal choices, and so I'll make them personal choices about how I want them to be,'" says Del Arco. "And I think there were a lot of things about Elnor that for me resonated as a gay man." There certainly is a spark between the two characters in that moment. And while reps for CBS say that Hugh has not been identified as gay, Del Arco took his own experience as a gay man into consideration when playing that scene. "You know, I think he loved him," he says. "I think in essence he might've been in love with him in the time that he was there. I think that the hope was really someone loves him. Someone who was idealistic. I think he saw a lot of himself in Elnor. Hugh used to have that sense of innocence, of righteousness. And all those things were hopeful to him, because he hadn't been in a space of hope for all this time. And I think for a minute he thought, 'You know, I think me and the kid can go all the way with this. We could take the cube. We could save it.' And there you go. It didn't work out."
  • In this video interview, Del Arco muses that Elnor is Hugh's First Love.
    Del Arco: And then the love for Elnor, and the fact that this young person is here to help him, and their bond that they quickly build, even though we don't really see it on camera. We only had a couple of scenes together, but we had to get to a really quick bond because I was about to die in his arms. [...] I toyed in my mind with the idea that it would be very interesting if this was the first time Hugh felt love for someone. And so it was kind of a love scene, in a way, because [Elnor is] cradling him, and Hugh is thanking him for giving him hope again. So you can take that in any variety of ways that you can. The way I took it was that for the first time, Hugh felt love for someone, and was leaving them in danger and behind, so it ups the stakes for me that way in my desire for him to be okay after I leave. If I didn't love him, I wouldn't really care. [...] Hugh has been kind of a monk as far as we know, he has lived his life in the service of the xBs, there's zero reference to his sexuality or any of that, so I felt it was kind of an open field for me to use myself again, and that's the direction I went.
  • In this Twitter post, Del Arco refers to Evan Evagora as "my Elnor" with three rainbow emojis. Del Arco reiterates that "we shot the death scene last (same day) at that point it was about [Hugh's] love for Elnor and letting go."
  • If Hugh fits the doomed, saintly gay man archetype, Bjayzl fits another queer-coded archetype, that of the lesbian femme fatale who may or may not have corrupted the heroine, Seven. There is certainly an intense vibe and history between the two characters, and Bjayzl is, like Hugh, killed violently.
  • There is also a few intense scenes between Seven and Raffi, including intertwined fingers, that could be interpreted as flirtatious or romantic. (As of Season 2, it's canon.)
• Picard has dreams every night about Data, calls him beautiful, dedicates his final quest to Data's memory, and explicitly says multiple times that he loves him. The only reason this is not the biggest fountain of Ho Yay in the show is that fans are genuinely unsure whether it actually is just subtext of a platonic relationship, or if the intention of the show itself actually was that Picard was in love with Data.
• Q is at it again in the second series, when taking Picard to yet another potential horrifying future alternate universe where his alternate self was a horrifically violent general, earth is a Crapsack World barely holding it's own atmosphere together, and Picard himself is responsible for the murder of countless well known figures including Gul Dukat and Sarek. Apart from acting a bit like an angry, regretful, aging former lover and playing romantic music in a vineyard, there's also this line which you can argue says a LOT.

  Q: But don't worry... I won't let you do this alone.

Strange New Worlds

• On a production level, Paul Wesley (Jim Kirk) and Ethan Peck (Spock) have joked about imbuing their performance with Spirk vibes.
• In "Lost in Translation", Jim and Uhura (who became friends during the episode) are chatting in the ship's lounge when Spock arrives, and Uhura takes the opportunity to introduce Jim and Spock for the first time.
  • Spock, who is notably quite conscious of his personal space at this point, has no issues getting quite close to Jim in the process of taking an empty glass from the table and returning it to the bar. Upon seeing Spock, Jim immediately gives him an unbroken, lingering look, clearly intrigued. Upon turning back and seeing that Jim is doing this, Spock gives him the same kind of look, studying him deeply, and only seems to remember that Uhura — Spock's longstanding friend by this point — is there when she starts talking.
  • Jim offers Spock a handshake. Spock visibly decides whether to accept the handshake, then does so firmly. The moment evokes the similarly unprompted handshake from the end of First Contact between Cochrane and the Vulcan captain identified in licensed work as Spock's great-grandfather Solkar. The handshake lingers and they each take about five seconds to let go, making steady eye contact the whole time, while Jim invites Spock to join them, which he promptly does (it's implied they go on bonding about how annoying Sam is).
  • This is immediately followed up by a close-up of the handshake and, in the background, Uhura looking at their clasped hands with a Mona Lisa smile on her face.
• In "Subspace Rhapsody", during the briefing directly after the title sequence, Spock explains the central problem of the episode, with Jim (conveniently on secondment from the Farragut, where he is XO) in attendance.
  • Jim breaks in after Pike dismisses the crew to say, "Mr. Spock, you explained that very well. I almost understood it." Keep in mind that it's a relatively simple explanation and Jim is currently a lieutenant, meaning he's at the rank at which Gary Mitchell described him as "a stack of books on legs". While no interpretation of James T. Kirk is a complete stranger to himbo moments, some audience members have interpreted this as the classic flirting tactic of pretending to know nothing so the hot guy will explain things to you.
  • Spock gives him another "Lost in Translation" held gaze.
  • Pike doesn't react much, but visibly glances between them in a mildly confused "get a room, you two" sort of way.

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