#suder / tuvok the world. to me

[twlvie]

SOMEONE PLEAAASE MATCH MY FREAK. GET MY VISION PLEASE

what they have going on isn't quite sexual and definitely not romantic but a secret third thing: whatever this is. cute date idea: we die together. i am your destined death. when they dig you up in a thousand years they will find me curled up inside your ribcage still breathing

[bumblingbabooshka]

No one else I know has watched voyager so sorry to come to you but I just happened to get to meld and whyyy aren't people more into lon suder and whatever the fuck he has going on with tuvok??

Brad dourif is a fave actor so I'm already biased but I'm screaming. Like how fixated tuvok was on execution since suder himself suggested it and how he went straight to him when he got out aaaa. How clearly suder was into the idea of tuvok dominating him??? And then when he held tuvok in the end and called for help???? ScreamING. Cannot believe I saw this much not gay sex gay sex in star trek to be honest. Anyway. I hope you are having a nice day and you are a great artist.

Tuvok/Suder Aesthetics, Themes: Charged silences. Long letters to prisoners. Large bodies of water that threaten something though they are seemingly still in the moment. Dark rooms you can sense someone is in. Pristine rooms where you can sense something horrible has happened. The opposite of love is indifference. Courthouse drama. A keen and intense interest. Self-harm though sex. Crushing loneliness. The feeling of being fundamentally misunderstood. The feeling of being so intimately understood it's frightening, euphoric. Desperately keeping something hidden. Hands that only held things with the intent to kill them cradling you close vs Hands that've only ever been sure and steady now shaking, grasping for your throat. Church confessional. Stabbing someone as reference to another penetration. Desire so strong it threatens to overwhelm but you must fight against it. Melting steel so you can bend it. You make me a better person but I know I'm making you worse. Observation vs Experience. Conjugal visit. Dual death. Nothing can simulate the sublime.

(shows up a million months late with nothing in my hands but an aesthetically pleasing vibe) Heeeey..............SORRY;; Tuvok/Suder is such an amazing ship with such a cool dynamic and the writers didn't HAVE to show Suder gently lifting Tuvok from where he'd collapsed on the floor to cradle him closer, a bit unsure, looking around as if he's never held someone tenderly in his life, but they DID show that and they did it for folks like you and I v_v I also really love how fixated Tuvok became about the execution. Even though he's being driven a bit mad by the violence Suder's mind tapped into he's still justifying it to himself as the moral thing to do, not just going off-the-wall and killing for the pure pleasure of it.

He brings up the family of the man Suder killed, says that an execution would be justice, insinuates that he finds it unfair that a person who killed someone else's punishment would be to live a relatively easy life and that the ship would spend its resources to facilitate it and tells Suder that he takes no comfort in the fact that he 'has' to kill him. Suder of course questions this as he correctly sees all of those things as excuses which allow Tuvok to kill someone while trying to disguise the choice as a moral one in line with his values rather than one that outright breaks them. I really liked the back-and-forths between them. It seems like Suder really does make Tuvok question his worldview just by existing and Suder himself is obviously a deep thinker though he's apathetic about the world due to feeling fundamentally disconnected from it unless he interacts with it in a violent manner. The fact that he's tried to curb or be rid of his violent impulses in the past (and is willing to try new ways to do it in the present) is also interesting to me! I also find it interesting how he seems genuinely thrilled that Tuvok is willing to kill him, he seems almost euphoric in the moments before his potential death - gazing up at the light with wide eyes and a smile. I find it interesting how he's the one who says "then we'll both die" though Tuvok didn't imply that and he doesn't move to attack Tuvok back - he's just entirely certain that upon killing him Tuvok will kill himself out of guilt. Oh, and the fact that Tuvok's fascination with Suder leads him to performing a mind meld despite the fact that there's literally no need for it beyond his own personal desire for an answer...what a detective, what a homosexual. Why are you so stuck on establishing a motive you understand? So you can become one with the mind of another man - a bond which mimics briefly the one of marriage which you've lost? Last but not least some funnier elements are the fact that Tuvok literally does the -kills you with my mind- thing, a power which he apparently has and also whenever you watch that scene where (holo)Neelix is being annoying and Tuvok chokes him to death for it please just remember that Tuvok wrote every word of that. Tuvok sat down, sweating, consumed by a desire for violence and he wrote 'itty-bitty little smile'. Also interesting that he wrote a narrative that again he could excuse himself in - a sort of 'he drove me to it' narrative instead of say, one where he could just kill anyone for no reason GTA style. I like that part of him that still needs a reason(excuse) for his violence! It's a good character trait and contrasts Suder who kills people because 'I didn't like the way they looked at me.' Everyone in the world who likes HEAVILY implied gay shit with a hannibal-style vibe please go watch 'Meld'.

[youngpettyqueen]

it actually means the entire world to me that Suder is being rehabilitated and treated kindly and fairly. im going to cry over him naming the species of orchid he bred after Tuvok

[phantom-le6]

Episode Reviews - Star Trek: Voyager Season 3 (1 of 7)

Carrying on with our look into the world of Voyager, here’s the opening few episodes from the show’s thirds season.

Episode 1: Basics (Part 2)

Plot (as given by me):

While the bulk of the Voyager crew tries to adapt to being stranded on a primeval world, Lt. Paris still lives and manages to destroy a Kazon patrol ship while attempting repairs on board his shuttle. Back on the planet, Hogan is killed by some kind of cave-dwelling animal, and Janeway vows not to let the planet kill anymore of her crew. On Voyager, the Doctor gives Seska’s baby a check-up and informs her that despite appearances, the boy is not Chakotay’s; Cullah is the biological father. After Seska leaves, the Doctor discovers Suder has survived and convinces him to aid him in resisting the Kazon, despite Suder not wanting to abandon the peace he’s struggled to attain.

 On the planet, Kes and Neelix are kidnapped, so Chakotay leads a team to rescue them. When pursued by the native primitive humanoids responsible for the abduction, Chakotay, Kes, Neelix and the others take refuge in the caves. Another team, led by Janeway, manages to divert the natives and free the other team from the caves just as they’re attacked by the cave-worm that ate Hogan. Tuvok and several others bury the worm, but back at camp, Ensign Wildman’s baby is poorly and Kes struggles to provide proper care without medical technology.

 The Doctor receives a secret message from Paris as he sends a fake cover message to the Kazon claiming they’ve destroyed him. Paris is bringing the Talaxians to retake Voyager, but he needs the back-up phaser couplings to be taken out for the attack plan to work.  Seska, tumbling to the sabotage being inflicted by Suder, confronts the Doctor and deactivates him, but he leaves a message for Suder encouraging him to make one final move for ship and crew.

 Suder ultimately succeeds in enacting the sabotage Paris needs, but at the cost of his own life, and Seska is also killed as a result of the battle.  Cullah flees with his son and followers, while back on the planet, Chakotay saves a primitive woman from a lava flow, and the primitive shaman provides medical care for the Wildman baby. Shortly after, Voyager returns and the crew resume their course back to the Alpha Quadrant.

Review:

Here we get Voyager staff trying to write themselves out of the corner Michael Piller write them into with the script for ‘Basics (Part 1)’.  By and large, it works out quite nicely to restore the status quo while also removing Suder in about the only way he could be.  His circumstances were such that he’d never be readily accepted by viewers as ever truly reformed, so going down in a final act of redemption was the only thing I could see making sense for him.  As for the whole Seska thing, that also made sense and certainly seems better than the idea of having her baby die; that’s just a bit too dark for Trek. The only reason ‘Deadlock’ got away with it is that there were two copies of a single baby and one copy got to live.

 Beyond this and a lot of action, the episode falls flat.  Not so much for making Seska’s son Cullah’s instead of Chakotay’s (though that does undercut Part 1 slightly), but because it’s a lot of plot-driven action with little to no character development and zero issue exploration.  I honestly think that while Voyager was the best 24th-century-set Trek show for its high level of autism-like characters, the obsession with action was to its detriment.  Trek stories are meant to be about characters, issues or both, and that doesn’t require action.  Mindless action without meaning is the antithesis of Trek, so action-heavy meaningless episodes like this are just poor.  As well-performed and well-plotted as the episode is, it’s a far cry from being good Trek.  As such, I only give it 7 out of 10, and that’s only because the performances were mostly good (the primitive humans, especially the shrieking female, were really irksome).

Episode 2: Flashback

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

As Voyager monitors a nebula with large quantities of the power source sirillium, Tuvok finds his hands shaking, and requests permission to go to Sickbay. En route, he experiences a flashback that involves him trying to pull a young girl off a cliff to safety. The girl ends up falling, horrifying young Tuvok. Eventually, he arrives in Sickbay, and collapses, convulsing on the floor.

 In Sickbay, Tuvok describes the memory, but insists the events he "remembered" never occurred. With no clear cause of his symptoms, he is dismissed with a device to monitor his readings in case such an event occurs again. That night, he attempts to build a "structure of harmony" in an effort to aid his meditation, but cannot stop the structure from collapsing. After a visit from Kes, he attempts again.

 The next morning, he notes he had spent fourteen hours meditating, and still had no idea what the cause of the problem was. Ensign Kim could not find anything unusual with the nebula they were near, but Tuvok suggests they scan it for Klingon activity. B'Elanna Torres reminds him that the Klingon Empire is on the other side of the galaxy. Moments later, Tuvok sees the mental image again, and collapses once more.

 In Sickbay, the Doctor suggests the problem is a repressed memory, which in Vulcans can cause brain damage due to the conflict between the conscious and unconscious minds. The only possible course of action is to initiate a mind meld, normally undertaken with a family member in this instance because this meld is more intimate than most. In light of this, Tuvok explains he feels Janeway is the best choice to assist him in locating and reintegrating the memory. During the meld she would be an outside observer of the memories, unnoticed by anyone but Tuvok.

 When Tuvok initiates the mind meld, he attempts to take them to the cliff in his memory, but instead they appear on the USS Excelsior, under attack by the Klingons. Explaining the attack, the memory moves once more, to three days before, when Praxis exploded. After learning about how Captain Kirk and Dr McCoy were placed on trial for the assassination of the Klingon Chancellor, Captain Sulu attempted a rescue mission, which Tuvok was the only Excelsior crew member to protest against.

 In an effort to avoid confrontation with the Klingons, Sulu ordered an approach path through a nebula remarkably similar to the one Voyager was observing in the Delta Quadrant – the appearance causing Tuvok to recall the repressed memory once more, breaking the mind meld.

 After a period of recovery for Tuvok, during which Janeway and Kim comment on the differences between Starfleet of the 23rd century and the 24th, they try the mind meld again, appearing once more on the Excelsior. After a discussion about Tuvok's motivations for joining Starfleet for each of his Starfleet careers, a small Klingon attack began. After Sulu claimed their navigational equipment had malfunctioned, Kang insisted upon escorting the Excelsior back to Federation space, to help them from getting lost again. Sulu agreed, but on the way out of the nebula they were in, came up with a plan to disable the Klingon ship by igniting the sirillium that was also present in that nebula. After this succeeded, they set course once more for Qo'noS, before being attacked again by three Klingon battlecruisers, an attack that killed Lieutenant Dimitri Valtane. As Tuvok watches Valtane die, the memory appeared once more, and in Sickbay, the neural engrams destabilize, preventing the meld from being broken. On the Excelsior, Sulu could suddenly see Janeway, who was supposed to merely be an observer. In an effort to blend into the memories, Tuvok takes Janeway to a time where she can steal Commander Janice Rand's uniform. In Sickbay, the Doctor and Kes notice an irregularity in the memories, and deduced they were not in fact memories, but instead a virus. Using thoron radiation, they begin to kill the virus.

 On the Excelsior, the attack occurs once more, and Valtane dies when a plasma conduit behind his console explodes. The image of the girl on the cliff appears, but this time, it is Janeway who is letting the girl fall. As the Doctor continues the efforts to kill the virus, it tracks back, changing to Valtane, and then an endless stream of other children. Eventually, it dies, and Tuvok breaks the meld.

 In Sickbay, the Doctor and Kes explain what must have happened: the virus thrived on neural peptides, and hid itself by creating the false memory that the person bearing it would repress, so the virus could live in secret, and migrate from person to person as its hosts died.

 Walking down a corridor, Janeway suggests that Tuvok missed those days, a suggestion Tuvok rejects. However, he admits that he is pleased to have been a part of them, and having experienced the memories, Janeway says she feels she was a part of them as well. As a result, Tuvok suggests that she could feel nostalgic for the both of them.

Review:

This episode was Voyager’s contribution to Trek’s 30th Anniversary alongside Deep Space Nine’s episode ‘Trials and Tribble-ations’.  Back when I reviewed that series on Facebook, I didn’t give the DS9 episode a high rating. This is because my interest in Trek is very much centred on this Picard-Sisko-Janeway era, and to a lesser extent the films of the reboot timeline.  Neither the original show, nor its follow-ons in films and animation, nor any of the subsequent Trek productions have ever really appealed to me. As such, episodes like this really have to land great concepts, etc. outside of the original series fan service that they’re primarily designed to be.

 With this episode, it’s almost a disaster because it ends up being this idea that a virus can disguise itself as a memory. Event for Trek, that’s a conceit too far.  Viruses are physical (albeit microscopic) beings that are of physical form and substance, while memory engrams are a form energy within the brain.  Now last I checked, living beings in Trek could not shift from matter to energy and back unless they’re being transported; no one can chop-and-change between the two states at will, and do that requires being an organism capable of will anyway.  In that sense, viruses don’t count, so the idea of a physical virus masquerading as the mental energy of a memory is total rubbish.

 Luckily, there is some great compensation in that the episode gives us insight into Tuvok’s backstory, thereby providing some decent exploration of his character.  In particular, I really identified with his early struggles to get on with humans and their ego-centric tendencies.  As an autistic person, I often feel the same about non-autistic society, and how neurotypical society designs everything to fit only itself, only ever helping autistics as an afterthought when we should be considered as part of the mainstream.  We should no more have to try and be like neurotypicals than Vulcans should ever try to be like humans.  Autistics are Autistics just as Vulcans are Vulcans; everything is what it is and everyone is who they are.  That is reality, period.

 I also note that Tuvok goes into Starfleet twice, but the first time it was against his wishes and the second time it was on his own terms.  This is similar to some of my own choices in life; there are forms of entertainment, for example, that I won’t try when others suggest them to me, but that I end up trying on my own if and when circumstances make them appeal to me.  Likewise, I’m not averse to change per se, but I’m only ok with change if I devise, drive and control it.  Any change effectively inflicted on me or that doesn’t involve my input, I simply cannot stand, purely because I need predictability.  As such, I fully respect and commend Tuvok for leaving Starfleet and coming back to it later on.  Things are always better when you choose them rather than having others choose for you.

 So, overall, this episode is great fan-service for those who like original Trek, marred by a poorly conceived plot device that really begs too much suspension of disbelief, but compensates with character exploration and a few interesting parallels between human-Vulcan and neurotypical-autistic relations.  On balance, I give this one 8 out of 10.

Episode 3: The Chute

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

On the Akritirian homeworld Tom Paris and Harry Kim are falsely accused of a terrorist bombing using Trilithium. They are sent to a brutal prison where inmates must fend for themselves to survive, insufficient food is delivered daily through a chute, and each prisoner is implanted with a device called "the clamp" that induces aggression and gradually drives them insane. When Captain Janeway tries to intercede, she is told by Ambassador Liri of Akritiri that Kim and Paris have been tried and convicted for the crime.

 Whilst trying to defend Kim, Paris is stabbed in the stomach. Kim manages to work with one of the aliens in order to get bandages for Paris. He also tries to unite the prisoners, to no avail. Kim and the alien work together to disable the force field blocking the chute, climb it, and find that the prison is actually a giant space station. Paris goes completely mad and wrecks the device that disabled the force field. Harry, afflicted as well, attacks Paris in return but manages to hold on to his sanity.

 Meanwhile, the Voyager crew manages to capture the real bombers, Piri and Vel. When Janeway returns to the Akritiri and offers to exchange them for her crewmen, the Akritiri ambassador refuses, stressing that their convictions cannot be overturned. Janeway then approaches the bombers, who inform the Voyager staff that they know the location of the prison where Kim and Paris are kept. Janeway decides to free them in exchange for information on the prison's location and on how to penetrate it.

 Using Neelix's ship as a disguise, the crew manage to hook into the chute—which is the only means to enter the prison. A small away team consisting of Janeway, Tuvok and a few security guards infiltrate the prison, pacify the prisoners and rescue Kim and Paris. They then quickly exit the scene just as an Akritiri patrol vessel states its intention to board Neelix's ship.

 Back aboard Voyager, Kim is horrified at what he had almost done while afflicted. Paris convinces him to use a week's worth of replicator rations to recreate some of the meals they had discussed while in prison.

Review:

Apparently, this episode was supposed to be a Harry Kim equivalent to DS9’s ‘Make-O’Brien-Suffer’ episodes, something that would test Kim’s humanity and his youthful naiveté through a prison story. However, since such stories involve large passages of time and Trek shows don’t allow for that, a cheat was needed. As a time cheat had already been used in DS9’s episode ‘Hard Time’, this episode went another way and developed a tech cheat; a neurological device designed to stimulate aggression.  This makes the episode less about the impact of prison on Trek humanity, and more about pitting the enlightened attitude of Trek and Starfleet against basic humanoid neurochemistry.  Can the vaunted ideals of 24th century humanity hold if the brain is hard-wired to try and make you a violent berserker?

 It’s worth noting that a similar device to the clamp exists in Warhammer 40,000 lore; that device being the Butcher’s Nails, which are used in that franchise to account for the Space Marine legion known as the World Eaters being berserkers prior to their fall to Chaos and the blood god Khorne.  However, unlike some other things I’ve seen in Trek and other sci-fi, this one appears to come after Trek’s used the concept, so for once we might be able to claim some originality for Trek here.  Sadly, the show’s need for action and showing Voyager trying to save Harry and Tom cuts into any real exploration of the issue supposedly at hand, nor is it readily apparent we’re meant to be exploring a mental battle in Harry’s head. As a result, the episode’s flawed execution spoils an otherwise interesting premise.  End score, 7 out of 10.

Episode 4: The Swarm

Plot (as given by me):

While Voyager tries to traverse a region of space controlled by a mysterious xenophobic species whose language is indecipherable to the universal translator, the Doctor begins to experience memory lapses.  At first these are minor, but grow in severity to the point where he can’t remember a medical procedure in the midst of performing it.  It turns memory buffers installed in the Doctor’s program to compensate for an extended run-time are breaking down, and if it continues the Doctor will eventually degrade into nothingness.  The only initial solution is to reset the Doctor’s program, but that would wipe out his memories of the past two years and not solve the underlying problem.

 In order to try and avoid the reset scenario, B’Elanna consults a diagnostic program on the holodeck, which comes complete with its own holographic version of the Doctor’s creator, Dr Lewis Zimmerman, to act as a diagnostic tool for fixing issues with the EMH system. According to the Diagnostic Hologram, the Doctor’s extended run-time and addition of superfluous knowledge are the causes of the degradation.  Kes, who takes over from B’Elanna when she has to deal with the alien problem from Engineering, argues for the Doctor’s right to self-improvement, but the DH can’t understand it; he feels the EMH should be content to just be a good medical hologram, just as the DH is content being a diagnostic tool.

 A swarm of alien ships begin to close in on Voyager, and Captain Janeway is forced to keep B’Elanna in Engineering, meaning it falls to Kes to handle the Doctor’s escalating situation. Returning to the holodeck, Kes and the Diagnostic Hologram come up with the idea of a matrix graft; the DH’s matrix grafted on the Doctor’s should resolve the issue for good.  Doing so would deprive Voyager of the diagnostic program, but Kes points out the program will be useless without an EMH to diagnose.  Voyager manages to fight off the swarm, and the Doctor is ultimately healed. Initially, he appears to have re-set to his initial mind-state with no memories, but then begins humming an opera he was singing earlier in the episode.  This indicates his memories have survived intact and are taking time to integrate with his repaired holo-matrix.

Review:

Much like last season’s ‘Innocence’, this episode is an Alzheimer’s analogy, albeit a better one in that it’s looking purely at the memory loss side of dementia and not referencing the potentially offensive notion of a ‘second child-hood’.  However, the episode is spoiled by the lack of proper consideration for the Doctor’s situation later on.  Initially, everyone treats him well and is going all out, but next thing you know, Kes is the only one who has time for him, and while the action-of-the-week may be blamed for this, the reality is it’s just bad writing.

 Why is this bad writing?  Well, the answer is simple; the Doctor is the only one on the ship qualified to act as the ship’s Doctor.  If you lose him for any reason, that’s it; next dangerous anomaly or away-mission-turned-ambush that results in a severely injured crew member, that crew member is dead or disabled for life because you didn’t save your one qualified doctor.  It’s sheer tactical lunacy to risk the electronic health of the Doctor, especially while getting into a situation where combat is likely, then becomes certain.  Janeway and the crew luck out both in terms of crew injuries and getting the Doctor back; if the alien attack had been worse and the Doctor irretrievable, that would have been Voyager’s death knell sounded.

 Frankly, I think this was a very poor episode, easily on a par with the likes of ‘Elogium’ and ‘Threshold’ for its terribleness. 4 out of 10 here, just because at least some of the performances were pretty good despite the abominable script.

[itylien]

It’s... creepy how sometimes a ship just... doesn’t go away. Like it was fun for the first TWO GODDAMN FUCKING YEARS but it’s getting to be uncomfortable.

Especially if it’s a good ship in a BAD fandom. Where the world doesn’t work, fellow fan people are idiots who like it and there’s nothing to read.

I’m jonesing for something only I can write for myself. It’s not a good feeling.

What’s more the way I ship it requires me to first fix the world and then still go into interpecies sex and it’s a kink I don’t really have?? I mean it’s FINE but if that’s what gets your dick hard I don’t get it.

I even tried to transfer! Project on another ship. But that only got me deeper into Tuvok/Suder which in not a good place to be - let me tell you what.

[bumblingbabooshka]

Thank you to @trillscienceofficer for tagging me, this was fun! 1. The provisions shop was small, dark and clearly constructed centuries ago. (From: Can you Hear the Bumblebees Swarm?) Fic about Stonn loving T’Pring and T’Pring loving Spock and Spock thinking he might love Christine and Christine mostly just wanting to have sex. There’s also stuff about what happens to Vulcans who lose their logic because I love worldbuilding apparently! 2. “I’m going.” Noss said after dropping off the bag of spoils for Tom and the not-there doctor to shell and cook. (From: A Good Meal Away from Home) A fic from Noss' POV for this fic! I liked giving her some semblance of a backstory and might write more for her - I love yearning and requited unrequited love. 3. The home Stonn had bought for them was two stories with a small garden by the water, a gate blocking it from the road. (From: The Wanting comes in Waves) This is a T'Pring/Stonn fic in the TOS universe. I had a great time describing their house (as usual) and it was fun getting into Stonn's POV since he's such a literal side character - pretty much makes him a blank slate beyond his devotion to T’Pring! 4.Tuvok had never understood the phenomena of Vulcans becoming attracted to humans. (From: When you Speak you Speak to my Soul) Chakotay punches a guy for Tuvok and Tuvok forgets how to act. Here I was thinking about 'Learning Curve' and Vulcan challenges/ritual violence as a display of romantic interest. 5. “Tuvok, are you able to come home?” T’Pel asked. (From: To Eat Until Full) I really liked this one even though it's so niche! It's Tuvok taking care of making dinner for his family on a starbase pre-Voyager and trying to deal with being away from home. Should he speak his native language more at home? Why do his kids keep asking for pizza? Is he doing the right thing, raising them off-world? Will his father-in-law give him a break and let him cook Aikum-Shur with store-brought ingredients instead of hand-picked produce? What does it mean to be Vulcan? 6. The nape of T’Vok’s neck was a new sight and the only bit of skin on her that was unblemished by bruises from a fight Suder had heard but hadn’t seen, tucked safely away in her quarters, writing poetry poorly and growing flowers. (From: Like Scissors to the Neck) What if we went to an alien bathhouse and I noticed you cut your hair and I wrote you poetry I'll never let you read and I kind of want to kill you and I kind of want to stay with you forever and we were both women? 7. Tuvok was aware that his fellow crewmen speculated about how he would reunite with his wife. (From: Burned into Memory - Glowing Beneath the Surface) Tuvok worries about the fact that he has issues and baggage related to the delta quadrant and he isn't the same person he was before - will T'Pel still want to be with him? 8. They were in a small room sectioned off from the rest of the temple with a heavy weaving rug. (From: The Gardener Moves Forward Through Weeds) A T'Pel-centric fic set while everyone still assumes Voyager is lost forever and its crew are dead. Thinking about Vulcan love and its dangers. Thinking about Vulcan care, how alien methods of care and emotional maintenance may differ from humans. It was fun to write love as a foreign invader. 9. Amanda’s bathroom was small to give space to the other rooms in her apartment and Sarek’s things stood starkly apart from her own, even when they were mixed together. (From: Strange Thoughts) Literally just Sarek and Amanda, young, pre-kids, fucking around. 10. “Doctor?” Kes asked, stepping into sickbay. (From: Away - to or at a Distance) Wanted to write a Kes-centric fic and for some reason decided to ALSO try out a more action focused fic? I don't know how this turned out, I'm more of a 'slice of life' or 'angst' writer but hey, it's fun to try new things! I tag anyone who wants to do it, honestly. I don't know who follows this blog and also writes so it'd be fun to see!

[bumblingbabooshka]

Have you written much on your “mind meld as a coping mechanism” idea. I’ve read a lot of your thoughts on Tuvok but haven’t run into that one

I'm warning you right now this got so out of hand. If you want a shorter answer you can uhh scroll down until you get to the part where I talk about Suder bc for some reason I spent a while (some might say, too long) talking about Vulcan bonds as I see them in general.

SO!

Humans, right? Humans are creatures who love fiercely and have a lot of strong emotions within that love. However, they always retain their separate identities. No matter how much Anne loves Lucy she can only know Lucy through what bits and pieces Lucy tells her. Even if theoretically Lucy told Anne every thought of hers as she said it, Anne wouldn’t know how she’d arrived at that thought (unless explained) and even in that explanation, Lucy as a person would not have arrived at that thought in a vacuum. 

A simplified example: Lucy says “I don’t like apples.” and when Anne asks why Lucy says she doesn’t like them because she ate one that had a worm in it. However, this still is not a full understanding of Lucy - it is an understanding of Lucy as Lucy sees herself/her history.

Using Tuvok and T’Pel as an example - Tuvok, pre-canon, is half of T’Pel. His thoughts make up her thoughts and vice versa. He did not originally come into the world as part of her but he has lived and grown the last six or so decades as part of her. 

If Tuvok says “I don’t like apples” T’Pel might ask why to see why he believes he doesn’t like apples but she also has access to something deeper than his words. She has access to his thoughts and feelings and ostensibly his entire life.

When Tuvok melds with Janeway, she is able to observe the events of his life. He can will her there to experience them if he only thinks about a specific moment. This implies to me that Vulcans who are bonded could do the same with one another. So they have access to far more information than a human would.

1 “I don’t like apples” information

2 “I don’t like apples because I ate one that had a worm in it” information

3 T’Pel can feel the emotions and is aware of the thoughts that the topic brings up

4 T’Pel could, if they both chose, go back and observe the moment he is describing to her

T’Pel can comment on/interact with Tuvok’s statement on many different levels, if she chooses. It’s a very deep connection and can lead to an intensely rich understanding of someone else which it obviously has in the case of Tuvok and T’Pel since he’s clearly deeply in love with her and wishes to be with her. (It’s shown as his greatest desire point blank on the show).

I say this to uhh justify my thought process which is that Tuvok is 

1 Missing his other half (literally)

2 Ostensibly on a ship for seventy years with people who could never understand him the same way he’s used to being understood

It’s as if a part of his brain was cut out. I wonder if he can feel the blank spaces where T’Pel would normally be when he thinks.

It’s a very different type of communication and though Tuvok is used to working with humans (and other aliens) he’s also used to at some point going home and being with his family. You’re not supposed to be understood intimately by your colleagues, it’s fine to just ‘chat’ with them - you have friends and family at home. What I’m saying is that while everyone else on Voyager might be able to make the switch to “Okay, these people are all I’m ever going to have so I’ll get to know them on a more intimate level” and like, talk about deeper things and thus forge stronger bonds - making them legitimate friends and family, Tuvok would not be able to. Both on a personal level (he seems to naturally be a more introverted person) and on an ‘Alien Communication’ level.

Tuvok can explain why he doesn’t like apples all damn day but it still won’t even come close to the intimacy that his bonds with T’Pel and the rest of his family provided him because it’s a fundamentally different and alien form of a communication which cannot be replicated through human speech/relationships.

However, a mind meld…

Mind Melding has been likened to sex by plenty of people and I can see why (‘becoming one’ in the human sense is closest to sex - bodies joined, and trust me I will liken it to sex before I’m done here today) but in this case for my argument I’m likening it to a general intimacy/bond. 

Again, Tuvok is

1 Missing his other half (literally)

2 On a ship for seventy years with people who could never understand him the same way he’s used to being understood

Mind Melding rectifies both of these. He becomes one mind, briefly, with another person and because he is of one mind with that other person he is also understood by them (again briefly). For the time he’s melded he’s made whole.

Mind Melding, interestingly, also seems to mimic a Vulcan bond in that it taps into emotions. In the show the highly gendered nature of Pon Farr is worrying to me so I’m going to tweak it a BIT in MY canon and say that every Vulcan can go through Pon Farr and it just depends on who goes through it first in a bonded pair.

So, say T’Pel is going through Pon Farr - Tuvok is not. Tuvok, while affected by T’Pel’s pon farr, is able to stabilize her emotions a bit through his retained control. This is why Vulcans seem to get married chiefly when their Pon Farrs dictate it. Before then there’s no need as they can regulate their emotions by themselves. Pon Farr introduces a need for a partner - not just to have sex with but to help balance them.

Vulcan Bonds:

Allow for a person to be intimately understood by those they are bonded to

Allow for other intimacies such as romantic affection (the Vulcan ‘kiss’ comes to mind) or comfort (When Tuvok is suffering from PTSD he says that the typical treatment for such a thing is a mind meld with a family member so they can help the person suffering to process their traumatic experience)

Allow for the regulation of emotions by the ‘balancing’ force of one’s partner

Tuvok is the only Vulcan to be ripped away from all his bonds and be unable to access any of this. This must leave him not only extremely lonely but also unbalanced. I wonder if he has the sensation of not being able to “think right” or as smoothly as he once could - or perhaps too smoothly even, since it’s just him. 

He is also a person who, notably, mind melds with others a lot. It’s a thing that a lot of people have picked up on! And yes on a base level this could be laziness on the writers’ part but I’M ALL ABOUT LOOKING TOO DEEP INTO THINGS. SO.

What I’M saying is that the reason he mind melds with others so much more than other Vulcans is BECAUSE he’s in the delta quadrant, stranded from others.

Mind Melds in this case are (and here we go!) akin to having a one night stand just because you can’t stand your bed being empty. It doesn’t matter who it is, you just need someone there.

(Yes this is OBLIGATORY)

Tuvok has an incredibly weak excuse for why he should mind meld with Suder. He says it's simply because he can’t accept that there’s no reason Suder killed someone.

It is, in fact, not at ALL important that he understand why Suder killed Darwin. Suder has been apprehended, he had no accomplices, the case is done. Logically there’s absolutely no reason for Tuvok to mind meld with Suder. He even acknowledges that it’s risky to do and yet he does it anyway. 

Perhaps this is because Tuvok has no ‘balancing’ influence to deter him from the idea or because his loneliness has turned into a desperation - where there is an opportunity to mind meld with another, his loneliness pushes him towards doing so even when it’s not logical to.

TLDR; Tuvok is lonely, craves intimacy and feels ‘off’ or like a part of him is missing. He is also intensely loyal to T’Pel and thus will not take another mate so instead he mind melds with random people at the drop of a hat. Even when it’s dangerous or illogical to do so. Microdosing on intimacy and feeling whole. So…um…I hope this was sort of interesting and not too incoherent. THANK YOU BYE!!!