katikat | Podfic rec: Star Trek Reboot

"Graduate Vulcan for Fun and Profit" by lazulisong, read by templemarker | Gen | It really does take a village to raise a Jim. | 1hr. 27mins.

Pre-Reformation Vulcan has words for familial relationships that Jim isn't really sure exist outside it, and they all boil down to 'us' and 'them'. There were shades of meaning, of course -- 'one of us married to one of them as a hostage, so technically they are one of them but we can't actually bomb the shit out of them because they have someone who's one of us with them -- at least until the one of us with them succeeds in poisoning their food supply, because we don't poison water supplies and regard it like most humans regard having a nice barbeque with Mom .... as the main dish', or 'one of them who is one of us because the enemy of my enemy etc etc etc' -- but it all described a society deeply suspicious of each other. Jim's never actually come across a word to succinctly describe 'your step-aunt's mother's other husband but one's stepsister's cousin's half-siblings' in any language but pre-Reformation Vulcan and Bones' peculiar old-South Anglish dialect. Even then, Bones just called them 'shirt-tail relatives -- I dunno, ask Mama how we know 'em, she knows' -- which is very Vulcan of Bones, come to think of it.

This is seriously one of my most favorite ST:Reboot fics. Like EVER! I laughed and I was in tears because it's so awesome and so hilariously funny and so touching and so sad at the same time and overall it's OMG AMAZING! Especially in podfic form!