#@bumblingbabooshka made me think about this again

[myfaveisfuckable]

Tuvok:

Ok, first off: real world standards, he's not normal passing. Apart from the ears, he's just too autistic (sorry, "Vulcan" 🙄) to be considered "normal looking". He went to 1990s earth once and Did Not Pass as normal. But in universe, he would on the surface seem like a model Vulcan. And he is, kinda. But he's also so gd weird. (/aff)

Not even gonna get into how badly he wants to be Will Graham because obviously that's there too but we don't have all day. Anyway.

Obvs the emotions struggle is real as it is for any Vulcan worth paying attention to, if only because they were all only ever written by humans.

But also, tangential to him being Will Graham coded (but still separate enough) he is a total mind slut. You know how some characters will go "when I have a problem, I set it on fire" or shit like that? When Tuvok has a problem, he mind melds with it. Homoerotically if it's an option. Dude even got a mind std one time, despite the fact that's not even a thing.

And then whatever the fuck kinda thing he has going on with Janeway. Not even necessarily in a shippy way ("not romantic, not platonic, so devoted the lines blur") but like... not only is he unreasonably loyal to her but he does shit like not only letting her touch him whenever she wants but *deliberately offering her HIS HAND to hold* to comfort her when she needs it (reminder that hand touching is very intimate to Vulcans and can be likened to human kissing) and again, they're never even stated as romantic or anything, they're just friends and yet he is more loyal to her than he is to his own code of ethics.

Obviously part of all of it could be because Janeway (or possibly Kate Mulgrew) is simply Like That, she does do shit like tell her platonic subordinate "then be a good rat and find us the cheese" in a tone that makes me lose it, but it's not all her, Tuvok is also extremely not normal about it. I should submit Janeway too actually, I'll do her next.

Also, afaik Tuvok is the only crew member of Voyager (who makes it back) who had a romantic partner before the ship got lost in the Delta quadrant and remained loyal the entire seven years they were lost. I *think* Samantha Wildman also did but she's a minor character (so she could've been getting it off screen) and she started out pregnant so once born Naomi both kept her busy and was a living reminder of her husband's love. So in that regard, Tuvok is very much not normal but like in the most positive way. He literally didn't cheat on his wife even when his life was in danger (they *were* out there for seven years so of course he hit pon farr eventually) and I think that's really cool of him. But also very not normal.

I'm very tired rn but once the polls come out, simply check out the blog of Bea bumblingbabooshka (wanna clarify, I'm not him but he is THE Tuvok blogger in my opinion) who has written much on this already.

There's also the whole stuff that happened around his monestary era but I'm not even at that part yet but it must've been wild.

Anyway. Vote Tuvok

Jekyll:

he can't remember the last time he slept. he hates himself so much he literally used mad science to create an entire ass guy to blame his problems on but accidentally made it so he can never be truly happy because uh oh! the silly magic mountain dew turned that into a man! now he can't fuck! whoa!

[borgchip]

Hggbhgg... gender... techy characters & gender... Voyager and gender. We love to see it. I wish there was more of it . Thinking abt Seven & the doctor's experience with gender is always really interesting to me, because I think like...they're in a way very similar, but also very different (at least in my headcanon obviously). And like. It's really fascinating. Forgive me if I go on abt this for a minute (Under the cut, if you wanna read it (please do read it it's really good I promise-))

I think seven has absolutely no attachment to gender. Like. she accepts that she's a woman, and she isn't UNCOMFORTABLE with that, but 'being a woman' means nothing to her. Personality wise she has not acted in any kind of gendered way at all to me, if her character was male I don't think she herself would really be any different. Even when she's in that like cutesy dressed up look in Someone To Watch Over Me, she still walks and carries herself like a fuckin terminator fjdjfj. Plus, she calls her male date "beautiful", which kind of implies she isn't even aware of certain gendered terms (Which, why would she be, she was barely a child when she was assimilated). Seven is just going about her time completely in spite of her sex, it's Voyager and people around her pushing this box of hyper femininity onto her. I mean... It's been said before...the doctor made her outfit for gods sake.

I love posts talking about Seven getting top surgery because I honestly think she would enjoy that, it's realistic to her character to me. Not because she has any kind of dysphoria, but boobs can be heavy and inconvenient, and maybe she's even kinda tired of people staring at her chest. The whole thing about Sevens character that frustrates me is how much she is incessantly forced into conforming to everything, not even being asked if it's what she wants or not. It's just kind of assumed that it's the best thing for her, as untruthful as that may be. I think the idea of her taking back autonomy of her own body and just doing whatever the hell she wants is really empowering, especially in conjunction with her entire backstory. Being "liberated" from the borg, all the same, no individuality. I feel sometimes like Seven's story (at least in Voyager) falls flat because it feels like she's going from one oppressive system to another, with one just being a lot more over the top.

As for the doctor... In his original state, I feel like he could've been anything?

He as a hologram doesn't even HAVE a sex, nor an assigned gender. Not really. His physical characteristics/presentation are just an addendum to his program, something to make him easier to talk to and interact with. His physical "self" can be changed with the flick of a switch, and his program, originally, had absolutely no use for gender roles. His entire designation of personhood was just to be a doctor. To heal the sick, help the injured. The fact that his creator was a man and used himself to model the doc's appearance was just chance. mentality wise, he was a blank slate.

From what I can remember….early seasons Doctor also did not show any inherently socially gendered traits. He was rude and kind of arrogant, but not much in a toxic masculine "i need to prove myself" type of way (and now I have learned he also gets much of that from his creators lol). It isn't until the doctor starts interacting with people more, until his world opens up past healing that he starts showing the like…weird sexism adjacent behavior. Which... I don't think that is a coincidence.

One of my biggest ideas about the doctor has always been that that sexism and hard/fast heterosexuality he always displays is learned behavior. The doctor is VERY impressionable, that's abundantly clear if you're paying attention to it. I swear to god, watch ANY scene where he and a character are arguing about something, he always caves within...5 seconds. TOPS. A lot of the doctor's growth comes from him wanting to be taken seriously, then to be appreciated, and finally in maybe season 3 when he really starts openly wanting to be human. He wants people to see him the exact same as anybody else, he wants to experience life like any person would, but he's always getting pushback for it.

I think, honestly, just based on his personality and interests, the doctor would be open to and really enjoy exploring other expressions of gender. The roles, the looks, the social aspect, the sense of self. Exploration in a "seeking the bounds of the entire human experience" sort of thing. If Voyager wasn't filmed in the 90s, and the fictional society was a lot more progressive, "the doctor spends a day exploring their womanhood, manhood, and everything else in between, and gets very carried away/learns a lesson about personhood during" does NOT sound like an out there plotline to me. I think the reason the doctor DISPLAYS so much conservativity is because he is going solely based on everything he sees around him. What he reads in books, what he observes of the crew, what he's researched himself. From everything on the ship, to him, heterosexuality seems like the "norm", and men act this way and women act that way, and obviously there's nothing WRONG if you don't, but that's just how it is!

Seven is the victim of gender roles + heteronormativity because she's Forced to conform, whereas the doctor Wants to conform. He craves to be acknowledged and validated as a True Human Person, and will do anything and act any way (within his morals) to be accepted as such. And in a lot of ways I don't know if he even knows he's doing it. It's all just...internalized crap. Which is where I think him not realizing he's attracted to guys from also but that's a different subject...

"We gave this emh a soul" "you've socialized a perfectly good hologram is what you did, look at it it's mildly homophobic" And that's why I find this so interesting, like. They have such similar experiences and yet end up taking that in totally different directions. That's something I think Voyager does do very very well, is parallels. and it has a lot of them. Seven and the Doctor both sort of have a "baseline" of gender nonconformity specifically because of their experiences. In Seven's case, she wasn't really given the time to conform or even learn about society's expectations of her, which is probably explanation for her "unique" behaviors, and why she still clings to Borg ideals and procedures despite not being a drone anymore. It's rlly the only kind of "society" she's ever known.

Obviously I don't wanna imply there's any connection between like "weird/alien" traits and gender nonconformity. But... the reason I find nonbinary robots/etc so compelling is because to me, they give a view into what could be if people were born completely without any social roles, gender assignment, pronouns etc etc. Tech characters to me exist in this sort of bubble outside of society, where unless something is specifically programmed into them, they get sort of an outside view of it in a very clinical way and are able to form their own feelings about it in a way completely pure and unique to them (If they're lucky they'll have no outside influence for it at all, just learning what is fully themselves). That's really interesting to me. I think seven and the doctor exemplify that kind of idea really well. But, also how it could go wrong yaknow. Both in-universe and writing wise :/

I can still dream of more complicated explorations of sexuality/gender in my star trek episodes if they won't give it to me themselves fgkrthrth