Review – Confidence

Confidence is not a trait I normally link to Daranaean females.

Background

As a means of bringing some positivity to the Emergence series, I added this Star Trek: Enterprise fanfiction about a Daranaean, the younger Inta, as she realizes her dreams of studying art at the collegiate level.

Plot

For Inta, prior to the events in Take Back the Night, her future isn’t looking too terribly rosy. And this is obvious even though baby Inta is just a pouchling.

Baby Inta, one of the Daranaeans (secondary female)

Her mother, Mistra, is one of the Alpha of Daranaea’s (Arnis) three wives. However, Arnis is cruel, and is abusing the secondary wife (Mistra) and the third caste wife, who is also has the name Inta.

When the elder Inta is killed, the younger Inta – who was originally going to be named Bayla – experiences a profound life change. And so does everyone else in the family. Unfortunately, this comes at the expense of the elder Inta’s life and that of her (the elder Inta’s) unborn male child. But for the rest of the family, with one glaring exception, life improves.

As the younger Inta grows up, it becomes clear that she is (a) headstrong and against the idea of marriage and (b) artistically talented. I haven’t decided whether she is a lesbian. She might be. Gay Daranaeans would be in the closet by definition, as that society is utterly committed to marriage and reproduction.

But it doesn’t really matter for the purposes of our story.

In Confidence, Inta realizes her dreams and begins school at Oxford. And on her first day, she surreptitiously sketches her classmate, Declan Reed. She sends the sketch to Malcolm, as it is his birthday, and the families have remained close for years.

Some reviewers have said that Inta is showing, with the drawing, that she has a  crush on Declan. I’m not so sure.

Story Postings

• Confidence on Fanfiction.net
• Confidence on Fictionpad
• In addition, Confidence on the G & T Show forums
• Confidence on Wattpad
• Confidence in In Between Days context

Rating

The story is Rated K.

Upshot

I like this relatively simple story. The younger Inta is a favorite character, but she’s only a small child in Temptation. In Hearts in Time, the ending is a bit bittersweet. Here, she gets a far happier ending, although the possibility exists that she will never find love.

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