[ SECRET POST #3896 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3896 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.



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02.
[Me Before You (film/novel)]


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03.
[Star Trek TOS]


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04.
[Persona 5]


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05.
[Andy Brennan and Lucy Moran from Twin Peaks]


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06.
[David Bowie, "The Man Who Fell to Earth"]


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07.
[Broadchurch]













Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 35 secrets from Secret Submission Post #557.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

03. http://i.imgur.com/FhvwZUD.png
[Star Trek TOS]

[(Anonymous)]

Excuse for a fetish? In fandom? Well, I'm shocked.

[(Anonymous)]

It's how pon farr makeouts start though.

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/gdeM-xayUvY/hqdefault.jpg

[ninety6tears]

Well, she is wearing a glove :)

In all seriousness, I think it makes sense as a more formal show of intimacy, but not something that gets publicly indecent until contact is prolonged. The idea that it's this super erogenous zone is definitely kinked up in fic, but I think it is regarded as a personal touch due to touch telepathy, or something.

[(Anonymous)]

Star Trek wank here, today? I'm getting all nostalgic now.

[kamino_neko]

It doesn't really count as 'headcanon' if the creators believe it.

It wasn't in Fontana's mind when she wrote Journey to Babel, to be sure, but when she wrote The Enterprise Incident, she agreed with Nimoy and Joanne Linville's concerns that kissing was too human for Spock and the Romulan Commander. So the kisses that existed in the original drafts were replaced with touching of the hand and face.

So, there you go - straight from the episode's writer (and final writer of This Side Paradise, even). It's a retcon, but it's true.

How the kissing in This Side of Paradise (the earliest of the three episodes) fits in? Remember that Spock is half human, and it was a human he was with. Of course human gestures would be the ones used. (Also, frankly, his emotional responses under the influence of the spores weren't those of a Vulcan whose emotions aren't suppressed - it was a simple, human, elation, not the raging passion that Vulcans are shown and stated to have, in their natural state. The anger Kirk used to snap him out of the spore's spell, though...that's plenty Vulcan.)

[(Anonymous)]

agreed, to every point you make.

[(Anonymous)]

Apparently, it was Mark Lenard & Jane Wyatt who came up with the finger thing. They wanted something like hand holding but didn't think that Vulcans would hold hands. It was only much later that it had a much more significant meaning...but considering they also finger touched in private I think it does have a greater significance.

[aniketosbriseis]

They never said it's the equivalent of a kiss, though, only that they replaced actual kissing with something less explicit and more subtle.
Nimoy did say that it's not kissing but just holding hands for the vulcans, so if you want to draw any equivalence here it's not with human kissing, but with hand holding
(source: http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Vulcan_finger-touching)

One can rationalize Spock kissing like a human with him being half human sure, but trek's canon does have vulcans (not just Spock) kissing with their mouth.
It just makes sense they enjoy kissing using the mouth, tbh, since they are humanoid and their mating and reproduction habits seem to be quite similar to that of the humans when it comes to the basics, so one can only suppose they have similar erogenous zones.

This fandom's idea that the finger brushing is kissing is still nothing more than a headcanon.

[kamino_neko]

Except, of course, for the fact that DC Fontana (once again, the writer of both Journey to Babel and The Enterprise Incident) specifically called it 'alien sexuality', not 'more subtle', when describing the scene in The Enterprise Incident, and a similar scene with being handholding would be laughed out of the writer's room in anything other than a pre-schooler's show or a comedy.

[aniketosbriseis]

I see no retcon. DC Fontana's comment simply suggests that, depending on the context, the finger thing can be assumed as being used as 'foreplay' too for the vulcans - but she never said it was a kiss and that thus vulcans kiss that way (or mate with their fingers ^). So your suggestion that people's headcanon is, in fact, canon is not correct because the writers never said it was the same thing as a kiss, even less that vulcans don't kiss with their mouth (and there is enough evidence that they do).

OP's argument is that fandom takes the finger thing as kissing but it isn't kissing for TPTB and the people who literally created that gesture as just hand holding AND showed vulcans kissing using their mouth.

[(Anonymous)]

Maybe Vulcans think a fraught diplomatic situation is an appropriate time to make out. It's a different culture, man, you don't know.

[(Anonymous)]

Ever since these episodes were first broadcast I have had the same perception as you detail in this secret, OP.

I always thought of it as akin to hand-holding.

[(Anonymous)]

I'd agree with you if it weren't for the frankly quite uncomfortable scene in Search for Spock between PonFarrTeenage!Spock and Saavik. Compare the simple touch of fingers between Spock's parents and the caressing in Search for Spock.

Like, yeah, people peck each other on the lips all the time in public, especially married couples. It's the second that isn't acceptable. It's basically the making-out of hand touching.

[(Anonymous)]

This. Married couples showing affection with a quick kiss is normal. And for Sarek it could be very logical. Most people don't expect him to have a human wife, so he regularly demonstrates Vulcan affection as a way to announce that yes she's his wife. It probably avoids a lot of misunderstandings, and possibly protects her from people who might be rude to her thinking that it's just a marriage of convenience or something. The Vulcan equivalent of walking up beside your spouse and putting an arm around their waist and kissing their cheek "Ah, I see you've met my husband/wife." Which is hardly sloppy backseat makeouts.

[(Anonymous)]

I always figured it was like humans holding hands but with slightly more significance, like when Sarek & Amanda finger touched in their quarters - that seemed to be more than just holding hands.

[aniketosbriseis]

I'm always late to the party but oh well. You are right, that's not kissing; at least it never was for the writers so there really is no canon basis for this idea. Spock, and not just Spock but the entirely of all the vulcans trek haa, kiss with their mouth.
I have no idea why fandom created this headcanon about finger kissing, other than maybe find an excuse to say Spock kisses people by just touching their hands.