A short but lovely one, and it makes me have Feelings.
One of the things I’ve always loved about Scotty is—he feels fear, and you know it. It shows up on his face and bleeds into his voice and despite his fear, he just gets on with it. Like he does here.
And then, the way you describe the first moment he sets eyes on the Enterprise. It knocks the breath clear out of him. (A moment not unlike standing in front of Lady Grey. Maybe not quite that, not yet, because she isn’t his, but still, a transformative moment.)
One of my favorite scenes in Trek is that much-maligned fly-around the Enterprise in TMP, mostly because of the look on Scotty’s face has he admires her.
One of the things I appreciate about your writing is that we all know how much he loves the Enterprise. His blood sweat and tears will be in her, someday. (His nephew will die aboard her.) He’ll fight commanding officers for her welfare; he’ll be willing to start bar fights with Klingons for her honor; he’ll put his life on the line for her. But you also keep far away from the fanon that she has his whole heart. She absolutely doesn’t. Someday, he’ll give the order to destroy her with no more hesitation than a slight lift of his chin.
But I really love this introduction to her here. Painting her hull, maybe minor in the scheme of this, but an absolute honor for him. The way she takes his breath away. And the way he doesn’t have to close his eyes to step off the platform—not with her filling his vision. This entire story is just entirely lovely, and the perfect introduction of the Enterprise into the AotW.
Oh gosh, okay, so I have spent a probably worrisome amount of hours talking with any poor sucker who gives me their ear -- mostly my wife, sainted woman -- about how Scotty processes fear or why. Because sometimes, the man's recklessly fearless. He crawls into an access crawlway rigged to jettison him into space and kill him dead and doesn't hesitate for a second. Flying pancakes that took Spock down? Not an ounce of fear on Scotty's face, he just phasers them. Threatening to blow up the Enterprise to end the Kelvans? Or, for that matter, several others? Actually doing so once? Icewater in his veins.
But he also gets tweaked after Ambassador Fox leaves the bridge. (He's not afraid of prison, but probably is not a little bit about his people on the surface.) He was absolutely afraid when he and Gillian were staring down a drowning, though I think that the primary reason was her and the whales and himself last. In my stuff, there are times he's afraid -- about to leap during the storm to save the Lady Grey -- and times he's not. Like dying under a bulkhead. Not until you've got some poor medic trying to help him, anyway.
What I mean is. I love that he's that damn complicated. What he fears. Or what he doesn't. What's actual fear, what's anxiety, what's trauma response. Or, for that matter-- what's courage, what's self-destructiveness, and how do you even detangle those?
But you also keep far away from the fanon that she has his whole heart. She absolutely doesn’t. Yes. I got-- idk. Tired of fanon going that route? He was a year older than I am now when TOS started, in-universe timeline wise. And I have lived a whole lot of life in the past forty-three years. Why wouldn't he have lived a hell of a lot in forty-four? Of course he had other loves and family and triumph and tragedy and all the things all living people do.
(What makes him healthier than Jim Kirk is that he maintains them; Chief is only part of his definition. Captain is almost all of Jim's. Like-- canonically, too.)
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daraoakwise Wed 13 Dec 2023 04:11PM UTC
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SLWalker Wed 13 Dec 2023 11:12PM UTC
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