1) The Death of Spock (WOK)
No single character anchored Star Trek; two did. Almost from the very beginning, the chemistry between Kirk and Spock defined the show in a way that made it impossible to have one without the other.
“I designed Kirk and Spock to complete each other— And, in fact, the Kirk/Spock/McCoy triad proved to be the dramatic embodiment of the parts of one person: logic, emotion, and the balance between them,” Roddenberry said.
It was this interdependency that made the death of Spock arguably the most unexpected, dramatic and emotional sequence in the entire franchise. The protective screen dividing them becomes a metaphor for not only the lines between life and death and human and Vulcan, but also for a heart broken in two. As Kirk slumps to the floor next to his fallen comrade, he too is dying.

During the hey day of K/S fan fiction Spock’s penis came in a huge array of sizes and shapes. Gayle F was the Queen of The Bells - she had Spock with a penis that came in the shape of five bells, and that will always haunt me. And yet… ribbed… for Kirk’s pleasure. Hmm…
The classic fannon that was thoroughly adopted and turned up everywhere was the ‘double ridged’ penis. That is, Spock’s glans had a, er, kind of double echo thing, another set of ridges just underneath. A subtle nod to the alien penis and the fans’ love affair with same.
I’m pretty sure there were a load of self-lubricating penises in the stories - because you could so totally get away with that in fandom. And why not? A self-lubricating penis is logical, dammit, Jim!
There was one story (sadly, I never found this one, only heard about it in horrified whispers from friends) where Kirk had been raped and had developed a fear of penises (other people’s, one assumes, not his own), but that was just hunky dory as Spock didn’t have one. He, instead, had a hundred tiny tentacles that all sort of came together to do the job. How perfect is that? I wish I could find that story, because it’s just like mini-hentai! Hundreds of tiny tentacles! Adorable! Although I think it would make giving Spock head an adventure in eating spaghetti. “Hey, Kirk, you want parmesan on that?”
Oh, and there was this really great novel, I forget what it was called, but it was huge, where Spock’s nuts were on the inside. In fact, he may have had a couple of sets… no, wait, I remember, his nuts where accessible from the back, like, um, near his kidneys or something, so he really, really enjoyed massages, and then his scrotum just filled up with juice prior to coming. Or something. Anyway, it was hot. Back nuts.
My absolute favourite, though, was the extreme alien penis presented by Leslie Fish (Ah, Leslie, your zines are still my sugar bunny comfort fic). Spock’s genitals could best be described as a kind of hairy orchid. When he became aroused, the petals unfolded, revealing a studded (with emeralds) green shaft (again, ribbed for Kirk’s pleasure!), and two little whippy tentacles that just joyfully joined in the fun. [11]

Camille Bacon-Smith speculates that K/S is a way for women to “openly discuss sexuality in a non-judgmental manner.”[14]:323 Kirk and Spock’s depiction in K/S zines has been described as “two equal individuals who complement each other”, and a key theme has been that they can continue working and still be a couple, their relationship enhancing their ability to perform competently in their jobs.[15] A fan has said of the pairing: “K/S has it all: friendship, relationship drama that gets resolved, enormous expressions of devotion through sacrifice, trust and commitment over a period of decades. It’s really hard to find another fictional couple that did all that, and did it as well.”[3]

I’m rather surprised that other people are surprised at the controversy surrounding ALT; it was, after all, the first zine to deal at length with a top that was bound to make a lot of people uncomfortable at the very least, for the theoretical (the idea of homosexuality) and specific (Kirk and Spock are doing THAT?) reasons. I suppose that with the great emphasis on the Kirk/Spock relationship, in the last year or so, the topic was inevitable, especially given the current climate [7]— if anyone has noticed, this is also been the Year of the Gay on television. [8]

I hoped Thrust would make some kind of mark, both as a forum for writing and as a forum for the analysis of the K/S theme…. But it was the K/S theme itself that electrified fandom. As it added a dimension to the relationship between the two men, it added a new and lively dimension to fandom, providing a complex and invigorating idea to ponder, an emotional reference that took fandom by storm. I believe that the K/S theme has played a large part in keeping active fandom alive. [14]