Archived fic rec - The Desert Between

[sakura_no_miko]

Title: The Desert Between

Author: beatrice-otter

Fandom: Star Trek (film, 2009)

Rating: PG-13

Pairing: Spock/Uhura

Warnings: arranged marriages, cross-cultural (mis)understandings, pon farr talk

Other notes: strong female characters, discussion of culture and assimilation

Length: 14k

Summary: “All Vulcans are constrained. By our biology, by our clans, by our whole society. But women more so than men, and offworlder women married to Vulcan men most of all.” Nyota loves Spock. But she can’t have him without taking Vulcan culture, too.

 

 

My, why did it take me so long to get back to this fic?

It’s drop-dead brilliant. There’s really no other way to describe it. It’s so incredibly dense and weighty, both in prose and subject matter, but at the same time it’s so accessible. You don’t need an academic background to understand the concepts, and it manages to put words to personal experiences that are terribly hard to explain. Issues of identity, of cultural assimilation and integration into a new culture–it’s so deftly handled.

Shortly put, I could not write this well if I tried. I don’t have words. Just read.

I have to admit, in my head, the idea of marriage is still pretty far off. But it is ultimately the act of trying to join two separate people into a new family. Everyone has that first awkward dinner where everything that’s so “normal,” so obvious, is suddenly something alien and strange to the person you’ve invited in. Moving to a new place, whether a new city or a new country, means you suddenly have to learn new ways to walk around outside, new signs to follow, new ways of finding the things you need. And how you adjust to that–whether you’re able to adjust to that–can be a defining moment.

I’d put this up there with Like a Tear Cast in Stone and Bitter Glass (which I will eventually get around to reviewing) as some of the best character-driven pieces I’ve read, Star Trek or otherwise.

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Originally posted on Tumblr on 01/11/13