my star trek tos hot take is that scotty and uhura ending up together in the movies was definitely not a situation of "pair the spare" and in fact a natural evolution of how they often had scenes together. in terms of screentime, kirk/spock/bones are a trio, sulu/chekov are a pair and... so are scotty/uhura! in metamorphosis, it's uhura acting as second in command to scotty (who adorably stands by the captain's chair despite having every right to sit down in it), in the city at the edge of forever, it's those two who are stranded in an altered future (and maybe they held hands off-screen) with the guardian... and most importantly, i like think uhura started to like scotty in a taste of armageddon when he valiantly stands up to the ambassador right in front of her and she's staring up at him, impressed. uhura uses her engineering skill in this side of paradise to break the comms, and spock relies on her for engineering despite her protests. imagine them talking about engineering, editing the universal translator, playing music together - they're both musicians! and they look damn good together in matching red! like seriously, it's the only het ship in tos that actually has a grounded basis for being a requited and real relationship. and yet the valid canon scotty/uhura is ignored by nutrek and fandom..... it's genuinely wild how much of tos is completely different to its reputation