#uhura knows about the misunderstanding but doesn't do anything because it's funny

[bj-cuntycunt]

New Star Trek headcanon: Chekov thinks McCoy is from Georgia (country) and not Georgia (USA) and keeps calling him "neighbor" because Russia's next to Georgia. McCoy is very confused.

[eco-lite]

Time to share both sillies and beautiful words from @dianeduane 's The Wounded Sky!

[Text ID: “’And greetings to you also, Mr. Sc’tt; well met indeed! A long time now I’ve wanted to meet the man who has so many times has pulled the estimable Captain’s nuts out of the fire.’ Jim put up an eyebrow. Scotty reddened, and held his grin back from becoming a laugh. ‘I thank ye, lady,’ he said, ‘though it’s not often been so dramatic.’ ‘The idiom, though, would be “chestnuts,”’ Spock said, utterly deadpan. ‘Oh? Thank you.’” End ID]

Okay, starting out absolutely bonkers, got it. For real, I wish ST media played more with language mistranslations/misunderstandings.

[Text ID: “For once Jim had no eyes for the window in the officer’s lounge, despite the radiant view outside. He managed to get a good part of his steak down before the ship’s computer spoke softly to him, telling him that Spock has logged off the Bridge and had instructed the lift to drop him at deck six. Jim bolted the rest of the steak, had the table dispose of it, and was working on a salad when Spock came quietly in. ‘May I join you, sir?’ Jim waved a forkful of greenery in invitation.” End ID]

This is so freaking funny. This could either be taken as Jim not wanting to offend the vegetarian Spock by eating meat in his presence, or that Jim knows he's supposed to be on a diet and doesn't want Spock to see him cheating. And the way he's instantly acting casual with his salad as Spock walks in. Perfection.

[Text ID: “’This would normally be morning for me. Bit I wanted to be here at “night.” So do a lot of my people, evidently…’ Jim nodded, smiling slightly; the computer, somewhat bemused, had told him that such shift-trading and shuffling was going on all over the ship. ‘Some “dawn” for you,’ he said. ‘Well…it is. It is.’ Uhura didn’t take her eyes away from the great silent pool of light. ‘First time any of us have seen this light after all…’ ‘I would hardly say that, Lieutenant,’ said the quiet voice on Jim’s left hand. Jim didn’t even have to move; he just let out a small breath of amusement and gazed out into the dark, listening to the old familiar game among his officers begin. ‘This light has rarely left Enterprise’s hull since her keel was flown. For an expert in communications, you exhibit a shocking imprecision of expression. Were you instead to say that you have never seen the Galaxy in this particular fashion—’ ‘Mr. Spock,’ Uhura said with great affection, ‘you are incorrigible.’ ‘Only impermeable, Lieutenant,’ Spock said. His voice was calm as usual, and revealed nothing; but Jim stole a sideways glance and saw that shadow of a smile that Spock occasionally wore. The Vulcan did not lean on the railing. He stood straight, but his stance had comfort about it, and his eyes were lifted up to the great darkness as if inviting it to appreciate his humor—though not to do anything so gauche as laugh out loud. It cooperated.” End ID]

I love banter.

[Text ID: “Jim bent his head a bit, speaking only for Spock to hear. ‘I was going to congratulate you on your timing, by the way.’ ‘Sir?’ ‘Getting us out of there. –We were there?’ ‘Surely I was. And I perceived you to be.’ ‘Mindlink?’ ‘Again, I think not, sir. Though stress on either member of a …team… that has mindmelded in the past, will sometimes reactivate the linkage, this experience did not have the same “flavor.” Also, I was unable to break it, as I would have been able to do were it a true link—so I must decline the congratulations with regrets. We must look for another solution—and, I suspect, a more complex one.’” End ID]

...team... .........TEAM........

[Text ID: “’This the popular name, “creative physics.”’ There was an amiable snort from a ways down the railing, to Spock’s left. Jim glanced in that direction and noticed that McCoy had joined them, and Harb Tanzer was leaning on the railing on Bone’s far side. ‘How do you “discover” a statue you have yet to sculpt?’ McCoy said in good-natured derision. ‘Because you have sculpted it, even before you pick up your first chisel. This time scheme discards both succession—“cause and effect”—and simultaneity, as fragmented and incomplete glimpses of the larger continuum in which both coexist. In such a scheme, the rude comment you make in a moment has existed complete since the beginning of time—it “was, and is, and shall be,” to borrow a phrase, “forever and ever.”’ McCoy glared at him and said nothing. Harb laughed. ‘But Mr. Spock, he didn’t say it!’ ‘That is entirely like the Doctor,’ Spock said with an expression of mild annoyance. ‘He cheerfully flouts that natural course of a whole Universe to prove me wrong.’” End ID]

Bones is so belligerent. I love him.

[Text ID: “Deliberately, then, as if turning away from even her slight safety, Jim brought himself about to look at what cast the starlight on her hull. And the view was very different from the vista available on the observation deck, where one was snug inside a ship. There it hung above him. A galaxy, the Galaxy, not shut safely outside a clearsteel window, not even nearby any longer, but more distant than the Magellanic; a bright-shored island hanging grand and silent in the airless wastes displaying all of its starry majesty at once. Jim just drifted there, letting himself see. Sol was lost in the sweep of stars in the leftward arm, an utterly insignificant 24th-magnitude spark that not even the great ten-meter Artemis/Luna reflector could have made out at this range. The whole Federation, from the Orionis worlds to the Vela Congeries, was a patch of sparkle that an upraised finger could cover The Klingon and Romulan empires were almost entirely— Awe grew in him again, and a muted joy; but also an increasingly powerful disquiet, so strong that inside the suit Jim simply shook for a moment. The world that all his life had been around him, was suddenly outside him—and he was outside it, way out in the coldest deeps where no star shone. Jim gazed in uneasy wonder at the little spiral-shaped home of life, with all its lights left burning in the dark. It finally sank in, as it hadn’t even after the first jump, what he’d done to himself and the people he commanded. He’d gone too far, this time. He and four hundred thirty-eight souls were truly where no man had gone before, alone as no one in history had ever been. It delighted him. It terrified him. His voice sounded loud in the helm as, meaning it, he whispered that old phrase he’d read first in Anglish: ‘O Lord, Thy sea is so great, and my vessel so small…’” End ID]

And now we get to the beautiful language parts. For context, the Enterprise has transported outside the Milkyway galaxy in a very dangerous way, and Jim is taking in the vast beauty of his home from this far vantage point. But it's also finally sinking in how deeply in trouble they are.

[Text ID: “The doctor saw Jim’s stunned look, spoke a word or two to a couple of the people who were keeping him company, and left them behind to see to Kirk. Kim literally had to squeeze his eyes shut as Bones approached. McCoy blazed, not with light, but with an intense compassion that could be felt on the skin, even from a distance, like the sun in a desert. Jim had always known Bones cared deeply about people, but he was unprepared for the full truth of the matter—” End ID]

Bones literally glows with compassion in this strange liminal space realm. Yeah, that makes sense. I love how Diane writes Bones' character. I feel like she really understands him.

[Text ID: Two pages. The first page says: “’Captain,’ the other familiar voice said on his other side, ‘are you well?’ And Jim turned to look at Spock, and was dazzled again, but this time he couldn’t look away. Spock hadn’t changed; but here his spirit showed as it never had before, even in the harrowing intimacy of mindmeld. From the meld, Jim was already familiar with the incessant activity of that cool, curious mind as it tirelessly hunted answers. But now he saw where the activity came from—Spock’s utter certainty that there was no higher purpose for his life than to burn it away in search of the truth, and to give that truth away when he found it. More, Jim saw what fueled and underlay the certainty: a profound vulnerability paired  with a great, unreasonable joy—the deepest-hidden parts of Spock’s Earth-human heritage, both of them sheer terror to a Vulcan mind. Even when Spock had been trying to suppress or deny those hidden legacies, they had managed again and again to escape and express themselves as valor, and wry humor, and the endless good-natured fencing with McCoy. But Spock wasn’t denying the inheritance so vehemently any more, and the power of the older, wiser man was a joy to behold, and a terror. This great mind has been standing behind me and quietly obeying my orders for all these years? Why?? He could be so much more—But in this place, the answer was plain to read. Loyalty was frequently unreasonable and illogical—and Spock had long since decided that this one aspect of his life could do without logic. ‘Spock,’ Jim said—and ran out of words. He was deeply moved, and didn’t know how to adequately express it—until he abruptly felt Spock feeling the emotion with him, and knew there was nothing more that needed saying on the subject. ‘I’m fine, Spock,’ he said then, and glanced over at McCoy. Bones was gazing at Spock in a curious, almost grudging calm.” The second page says: ‘Leonard,’ Spock said, ‘you are not seeing anything now that you have not long suspected was already there. Nor am I.’ The shadow-smile, the flash of humor, pierced Spock’s outer and inner sobrieties once more. ‘And you need not be concerned about your “dark” placed revolting me. I have seen them before, in meld, and may yet see them there again. More apparent here is that neither of us is quite the hopeless case the other has sometimes considered him to be.’” End ID]

This is so powerful--this understanding of each other they've all come to. Being able to see each other fully, and not shy away. This is the emotional connection stuff that should be explored more in sci-fi. The genre is a perfect medium for it.

[Text ID: “Moved far past words, Jim gave his gift, the thing sweetest to him. To sit at the heart of four hundred thirty-eight souls, and be truly their heart, and their head; the one they gave their power to—not unquestioningly either, but after consideration, by choice, and sometimes )though he would never understand it when it happened) by love. To command them, to be (by that command) in service to them. To suffer their pains and joys as they did his. To be companion to them, to delight in what the all did together—explore, dare, adventure, work, play. In all the Universe he could think of nothing better to give, nothing more worth being remembered when he and all the humanities and the Galaxy itself were merely old stories. He gave the memory, the feeling of what he loved, to the Others; and tears fell again as he realized who he was, and how lucky he was to be him.” End ID]

It's complicated, but essentially the Enterprise crew has awakened this entity with their zero-space jumping, and now the entity doesn't want to give up their sentience. The solution was to erase the memory of their encounter with the Enterprise crew, but let them keep their sentience and create a whole new universe in this other dimension they live in; one made up of all the qualities the Enterprise crew wants to share. This is what Jim shared. I love seeing this side of him. As always, Diane is a legend at believably expanding upon the TOS characters, and further exploring their emotions and relationships. It's really beautiful to see.