Why I Don't Ship SpockxUhura

WARNING: THIS IS A RANT. A LONG, FULL-BLOWN RANT AGAINST A PAIRING IN THE STAR TREK: 2009 FANDOM. Look, you don't have to agree with me. In fact, feel free to think everything I say is a piece of crap. It's a free country internet. Here is what I would appreciate.
PLEASE read before you comment. Don't read the title and assume that I'm a terrible person because I'm against your ship.
PLEASE feel free to comment- however, if you are commenting to say you disagree with me, try to be polite about it. Calmly explain why you disagree with me, don't be rude. I don't hate Spock/Uhura fans- I can even understand why they like it. I just don't (I really, really don't) and I felt like sharing. If you have an opposing opinion, I'm happy to hear it. Nothing I love more than a good debate.
PLEASE no flaming. Any insults to me, my intelligence, my sense of humor, my taste in parings, my taste in movies, etc, can and will be ignored.
PLEASE try to keep an open mind.

I just wanted to make things clear before I began. This is a rant, I admit that, but we don't need to get nasty. Thanks and enjoy.
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This started out because I decided to sit down and make a list of why I dislike Spock/Uhura, just for funzies (shut up, I like that word), but it somehow evolved into a full-blown essay. I'm not sure why or how it happened, but it did. T_T I know, I know, I'm too invested in my fandoms. But hey, what's the fun of loving something if you can't express it all over the internet? XD The point is, sorry this is so long. Hopefully this will come across as a coherent, interesting essay/rant and not the schizophrenic ramblings of a deranged fangirl. -_- Either way, here we go. (WARNING: MOVIE SPOILERS AHEAD. I'll try to warn you before I say something really major, but still be on your guard.)

I hate Spock/Uhura. Not only that, I'm convinced it will end in the next movie- at least it should. To be clear, I'm not anti-Spock/Uhura because I have anything against Uhura OR Zoe Saldana, or because I'm racist/sexist (WTF, people? The only way I can't like Spock/Uhura is if I'm prejudiced? And for the record, it didn't even occur to me at first that Spock/Uhura is a technically interracial pairing- honestly, you'd think people would be more upset about it being an interspecies pairing XD), or even because I necessarily think the pairing 'came out of nowhere'-although  I do think it wasn't the best choice. I never felt any romantic undertones between them before the turbolift scene, and the kiss felt sudden and a little forced for me. I DO think that their relationship is doomed to fail. I think, at their cores, they are very different people. Uhura is smart and logical, sure, but in her heart she's a very emotional person. And I think she'll end up being unsatisfied with Spock- even if he loved her, which I don't believe he does, he communicates his emotions in quiet, subtle ways. Spock needs someone who will not only pick up of those emotions but understand them and be happy with them. Uhura, I think, will get tired of having to over-analyze every aspect of their relationship, of having to take so many things for granted. She needs someone who will love her passionately and openly, who isn't always suppressing their emotions. I believe that, at some point, she will realize that she does love Spock, but (and this is a big but) she CAN'T be happy with him forever, and she CAN get over him.  And then, just as with the original Star Trek, she will probably end up with Scotty- who is intelligent, funny, lovable, and much more open about what he thinks/feels. THEY are meant to be.  

Now, while I think she will probably be the one breaking up with Spock, I think he too will realize that he is not happy with her. We are shown in the movie (rather clearly in my opinion) that he does not have intense romantic feelings for her. In the turbolift scene, (IMO this was their first romantic interaction) they kissed, yes, but that only really happened mostly because Uhura had feelings for him and because he (a) was messed up and vulnerable over the loss of his planet (b) SPOILER ALERT was even MORE messed up and vulnerable over the loss of his mother SPOILER END   and (c) cared for Uhura as one of his few friends, and so was  able to confuse all those feelings for romantic interest and proceeded to 'just go with it' (Not to mention, in an interview, one of the writers said that this 'comforting scene' happened mostly because 'Spock really needed a hug, and Kirk didn't like him yet.' ...Wow. You know, I don't think that even needs my commentary).  However, while he does care for Uhura, HE DOES NOT LOVE HER. The transporter room scene was, again, him going with it. He sort-of-not-really kissed her back, said 'thanks' when she promised to monitor his frequency (what does that even mean?), and moved right along with no other reaction (except shutting Kirk up, but he does that a lot). He barely looks at her during the course of the movie, even when they've been established to be in a relationship. After their kiss in the turbolift scene, he walks away without a backward glance or a word beyond 'tell everyone to keep being good at their jobs' (Again, WTF?).  During the 'intimate moments' they share, Uhura's doing most of the work. He just kinda stands there and does the minimal amount of reaction expected of him- like he's tolerating her feelings, not returning them. It's always it was Uhura who kissed him, Uhura who put her arms around him, Uhura who initiated the contact and kept it going.

Besides their 'romantic 'scenes, there are two others that serve to disprove his supposed love for her. The first is the scene on the Jellyfish. Spock and Kirk have formulated a plan to take down Nero, and they are about to split up so they can do it, but just as Kirk is about to leave, Spock stops him, and he says,  "Jim, please tell Lieutenant Uhura that-" Jim cuts him off, tells him that their plan will work, and leaves.  Most Spock/Uhura fans read this as 'Spock thought he was about to die, and he wanted Uhura to know he loves her'. Now, since Kirk cut him off, we'll never know exactly what he was going to say. But if that was the point of the exercise, he did a pretty crappy job of it. Despite the fact that a love confessions is kind of important when you're about to (maybe) die, once Kirk cuts him off he makes no attempt to finish the statement, despite the fact that he could have made Kirk damn well listen if he wanted him to. And, like I said, this is all assuming that he was going to finish with 'I love her', which, personally I doubt. They'd been dating for, what, two days at this point? Spock isn't emotional generally, and even if he thought he might die, it seems like that would have been rather sudden. Besides, if he was going to tell her that he loved her, couldn't he have told her, I don't know, ten minutes before that scene when he was in the same freaking room with her? It wasn't like he just found out that what they are doing is dangerous; he always knew he might not come back. What, did he forget to mention it earlier? *snort*Seems a little unlikely. Another thing about this scene- despite the fact that he is (possibly) about to make some grand emotional Uhura-related statement, he refers to her as 'Lieutenant Uhura' and calls Kirk 'Jim'. This may just be me with my K/S shipper googles turned on high, but isn't it a little odd that he would call his girlfriend, who he has previously referred to by her first name and who there would be no point in censoring it because he knows that Kirk knows what her name is, 'Lieutenant Uhura'? And even odder that he would call a man who he tried to strangle a few hours ago and who he is only just beginning to trust/like 'Jim'? Some claim that he was just trying to 'make him listen', but why would Jim suddenly not listen to him if he called him 'Kirk' or 'Captain'? Considering Kirk's ego, he might prefer to be called 'Captain' (no offense Kirk, you know I love you). Not to mention that if 'making him listen' was really his intention, there was really no point to it because he DIDN'T make him listen. He just let it go. Again, why? It seems to me that whatever he was going to say must not have been as important as the Spock/Uhura fangirls would have you believe.

Then there's the scene at the end of the movie, when Spock converses S!Prime (I'm not saying his name to avoid spoilers, if you've seen the movie you'll know who I'm talking about). Spock was prepared to leave the Enterprise, Starfleet, and Uhura behind to go help rebuild on New Vulcan. While I obviously don't think Spock should leave (the whole story would kinda go down the toilet if that happened. It's Spock and Kirk on the Enterprise, not some-other-random-guy-as-first-officer and Kirk on the Enterprise), I can understand why he thought that was what he should do was the smart decision. He chose to help his people, rather than try to continue/deepen his relationship with Uhura (even if they try to stay together long-distance, she's in the future's version of the army/police and he's on another freaking planet, let's see how long they can hold that together).However, he has a conversation S!Prime, where he is told, "you know, you can be in two places at once" (you'll understand if you see the movie). This would be the perfect opportunity for him to say, "Oh yeah, thanks!" and run off to tell Uhura the good news, but he is still unsure that he should stay. But then S!Prime mentions "hey, if you stay, you are going to have an amazing life-changing friendship with Kirk" and boom, he's convinced. It wasn't his girlfriend, his career, or even the fact that the universe is awesome and SPOILER ALERT has two of him, SPOILER END that convinced him to stay. It was Kirk.  It was the idea of what they would accomplish together that convinced him to stick around. I'm not saying that it was the sole reason- his love for the Enterprise, his career as a Starfleet officer, and even his relationship with Uhura matter to him as well. But the point I'm trying to make is that he was willing to give all that up until he heard about his future relationship with Kirk. It was almost like after that piece of info convinced him to stay, the fact he didn't have to give anything else up was just lucky. Look, you can try to twist this scene and the motivations behind it any way you want, but one thing cannot be misinterpreted: not only did Spock chose New Vulcan over Uhura (the fact that it doesn't seem to be a hard decision for him says enough), he then immediately chose Kirk over New Vulcan. Now, line all that up in your head and see what you get. Go ahead, do it. I'll wait.

Okay, now the point that I'm trying to make with all this (there is one, I swear, I know I'm long-winded) is that Spock is keeping too much distance between himself and Uhura. He's doing this for two reasons- one, subconsciously he knows that he's not really into her and he sees no reason to try to deepen their relationship; and two he's LOGICALLY trying to keep their relationship from affecting their work and their lives too much (I mean, she works under him, that could become a huge problem. On the original show they already had that problem with Kirk and Spock having small heart attacks every time the other was in danger). Now this is very responsible of him; he is trying to prevent them from becoming emotionally compromised. But here's the thing; love isn't logical . It is a powerful, insane, uncontrollable emotion that even a Vulcan cannot simply suppress. If he truly loved her, he'd show it. Yeah, he wouldn't go around professing his love in public or giving her flowers or stuff like that, as that would be out of character, and he's still Spock. But he would make clear what he felts for her in more quiet, Vulcan-y ways. He'd make an effort to be around her more- believe it or not, it's possible to do this without affecting your work. He'd look at her more- god, he'd THINK about her more. The only time he seems to remember "oh yes, I have a girlfriend!" when she wasn't STANDING RIGHT NEXT TO HIM was when he tried to pass on the message that may or may not be a profession of love- then promptly FORGETS AGAIN when Kirk is all "IT'S GONNA WORK NOW SHUT UP AND DO WHAT I TOLD YOU". Oh, the power of love. -_- Like I said, when Spock falls in love, he's still gonna be the same serious, logical, brilliant, slightly condescending BAMF we know. But love is a huge thing, especially for a Vulcan, and it will be a big deal for him. He will treat that person differently than he treats everyone and anyone else- beyond just randomly making out once in a while. We will see it, in his expressions, in the things he says, in his actions. So if he's in love with Uhura, why aren't we seeing it? We know that she loves him, she shows us that. But all Spock's attempts-that-aren't-really-attempts to show his feelings for her, if anything, prove that he doesn't love her. There are exactly two people Spock shows genuine emotion around during the movie, and neither of them are Uhura. They're his mother and Kirk (and also he shows some emotion during conversations with his father and McCoy, but since those conversations were ABOUT his mother and Kirk, respectively, I'm not counting them.) Not the girl he supposedly loves, but the human mother who loved him and the guy he thinks is a jackass (yeah, Kirk's his future best friend, but he doesn't know that yet). Now the mom thing I get, but does anyone else think that maybe, just maybe, there's something wrong when you have a greater emotional connection to the guy you almost strangled than to the girl you're supposed to like?

And that, ladies and gentlemen, that takes me back to the one important point mentioned by every anti-Spock/Uhura fan on the interwebs: in the original Star Trek, Spock and Kirk loved each other. They did. It doesn't matter whether it was platonic or romantic. It doesn't matter whether it was ever physical or just emotional. It doesn't matter whether it was a romance or a friendship. What they had was LOVE. This may be an alternate universe, but the fundamental things have not changed, and when you get down to it, the relationship between Kirk and Spock was the central point around which the original Star Trek rotated. Look, Abrams, I loved this movie. MAJOR SPOILER ALERTS And you can kill off Kirk's dad and Spock's mom and you can destroy Vulcan and you can put Pike in a wheelchair and you can make Spock almost kill Kirk and you can invent red matter and you can  give Scotty a sidekick for no apparent reason SPOILERS END and you can make all these other changes, because in the great scheme of things the plot has not changed. It's still Star Trek. But what you CANNOT do is take Spock and Kirk's relationship and do ANYTHING to make it not as powerful or moving or life-changing as it once was. You do that, and this isn't a reboot anymore. It's your shitty fanfiction. Spock/Kirk, whether you think of it as pairing or a friendship, IS Star Trek.  And no matter what other relationships Kirk and Spock may have, one thing will never change- they are the most important people in each other's lives. And that's it, ladies and gentlemen- my closing arguments. Their relationship might not be quite there yet, but it will be by the next movie (This one was still mostly setup, after all). And once it is, this will become clear- even if Spock did love Uhura, he will always love Kirk more.  And that's not fair. Not to any of them, especially not Uhura. You really want to put Uhura into a relationship with someone who isn't going to love her more than anyone else, as she'd love them?  That's not okay, and Uhura will not put up with it, I promise you. Her character, the type of person that she is, will not stand for that.

So here's my prediction for the next movie. Spock/Uhura will not last. It won't just be dropped- sorry Abrams, you put it in, you can't just expect us to forget it. But there will be DEVELOPMENT. We will see these two characters interacting with each other, and we will learn more about their relationship. And as we do so, it will quickly become clear that their relationship is not working- Uhura will be frustrated by Spock's general lack of response, Spock will be confused by her frustration and will try to force himself to love her. This will, of course, fail miserably. At the same time, Spock and Kirk will be slowly coming to trust one another and forming their epic friendship. Seeing them get along will frustrate Uhura, not necessarily because she thinks that they're gay (because despite the fact that I am personally a giant K/S shipper, I know that they would never do that in the movie.  This may be 2012, but I don't think America is quite ready for that. ) but because they understand and communicate with each other so well, revealing the flaws in the Spock/Uhura relationship. Then, Uhura will eventually realize that things are NOT going to get better, and so she will end it, in a very well-written and well-executed emotional scene.  Spock will know that he is supposed to be upset by this, but will find himself rather unaffected and will realize that he never loved her. He will move on, and rather than trying to give him another girlfriend, we will focus on his relationships with Kirk, McCoy (I may not have seen much of TOS but even I know about Star Trek's Holy Trinity) and possibly his father if that becomes relevant ('cause I'm still curious on that front, personally). It will take Uhura a little longer to get over him, but she will, because she NOT a whiny little bitchy crybaby. She is tough. Slowly, she and Spock will become friends again. And then she'll start to notice Scotty, and I'm pretty sure you can fill in the blanks from there.

So, there it is, in a nutshell. Why I hate Spock/Uhura and how I think they can fix it. If you actually read that whole long rant, kudos to you. Thanks for pretending to give a damn what I think.