FIC: better days then this

[hellokatzchen]

Title: better days then this
Fandom: Star Trek (AOS)
Prompt: Uhura is leading the landing party, and things turn nasty.
Rating: PG-13 (at most)
Word Count: 3270
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Nyota Uhura, Jim Kirk, Christine Chapel, Janice Rand, other minor TOS canon peeps, Spock, alien OCs; background established Spock/Uhura, implied Kirk/Rand (maybe if

Comments

[hellokatzchen]

Thank you! I'm so pleased you liked it and everything was IC and just... yes. :D (I was pretty nervous writing Uhura, tbh.)

Hee, I do try to be subtle! (Although sometimes more effectively than others.) That was definitely one of the more fun bits to write, tho. Glad it was enjoyable!

Thanks for commenting! ♥

[twistingto]

Kirk was pretty awesome in this. Chapel, although mostly off-camera, so to speak, was pretty awesome, as well.

The storY was awesome.

Uhura was not awesome.

She wasn't horrible. Not even close to being bad. But she was by no stretch of the imagination anything more than average.

[hellokatzchen]

Hm. Well, I'm really happy you liked the story. Kirk and Chapel are pretty easy to make awesome, since they're total BAMFs. Uhura is a little different, since she tends toward the more subtle and poised (with a perchance for sarcasm) and this was my first time writing her.

That said, I would (respectfully, I hope) argue she was awesome. She maintained her calm, kept a bad situation from escalating and was, I thought, pretty effective as a leader (especially for someone without command track experience). Since this was from her perspective, perhaps her own feelings overshadowed things, though, because she definitely thought she effed up royally. Although, really, sometimes events are just completely out of anyone's control. And, really, she handled herself, took tough advice from Kirk and learned a hard lesson about being the one at the top.

Plus, she exhibited an uncanny ability to see through Kirk's BS at least three times throughout the story, which I think is awesome in and of itself.

All of that said-- I completely respect your

[twistingto]

Hmmm. Since you put it that way... I suppose that's pretty awesome in its own way.

I guess I just thought she did what was expected, but only because there were others to remind her to do it.

Funny that you said "Chapel... pretty easy to make awesome." If I'd entered a Chapel Is Awesome challenge, I'd have the same problem trying to write her well, too.

Right now, I'm writing her as a co-star of a fic and it's been a struggle.

[hellokatzchen]

Ooh, interesting. I guess part of the ease I have with Chapel is she's a pretty blank slate, so I can do almost anything with her character and that's cool. Uhura, on the other hand, has a very distinct personality-- one that isn't my usual "type" to write (as more than a side character, anyway). But I understand; to each their own!

So, anyway, I just want you to know I'm really glad you shared your interpretation with me because I definitely didn't mean to imply she needed reminding how to act! I meant it to read as an instant of frozen shock, Chapel's voice pulling her out of her head and then Uhura getting into gear of her own volition. You know-- calling the Enterprise, signaling security, asking that the boy not be hurt, closing things down, etc. But I will definitely be keeping this in mind for my next attempt at plot-driven nonsense cuz I know I sometimes push subtlety when things need to be more explicit and... yes. Your feedback is really, really helpful. I am quite well pleased.

Also, I don't know if you're familiar with mccoy_chapel

[igrockspock]

I think the way you drew inspiration from TNG was very clever, and I like the way you characterized Uhura here. I do think she was awesome :)

[hellokatzchen]

Haha, clever, eh? I like the sound of that! :D (Although, really, we could probably call it lazy, too. ;) Especially since I borrowed the plot from another one of my fics.)

I'm really, really happy you liked my Uhura, though. That was one of my big worries. :D 'Cuz she is awesome and deserves to be portrayed as so.

P.S. Can I ask-- how do you mean for your LJ name to be read? (I always think of it as "I grock Spock" but this doesn't make sense to me, so I figured I'd ask.)

[igrockspock]

It is I grock Spock. It's a reference to the sixties, when fans launched a campaign to keep TOS on the air for another season. One of their slogans was "I grock Spock," which showed up on bumper stickers and drifted into pop culture and even other literary works like Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land.

[hellokatzchen]

Oooh, pop culture tidbit! Fun. :D Thanks for explaining! (It'd really been bugging me for some reason. >.> I'm nutty.)

[linstock]

I enjoyed this. I liked the way we see Uhura out of her confort zone and stuggling but finding her way. I also liked your Jim Kirk. Well done.

[hellokatzchen]

Oh, I'm glad to hear it! :D Thank you so much. ^^ I was definitely out of my comfort zone writing Uhura for the first time, so it makes me really, really happy that you enjoyed the story and characterizations.

[stay_cee]

Ok, so Uhura was so good. OMG. She had her minutes of nervous self-doubt, stowed it away, and was badass. It was great.

[hellokatzchen]

:D :D :D That's totes what I was going for! I'm stoked it worked. ^^ Thanks, hon! ♥