#this. Oh hey look everyone the autistic Vulcan guy is musing about emotions what a surprise' and I'll be tugging at my shirt collar

[bumblingbabooshka]

I love Vulcans we need to get more into the emotional lives of Vulcans without imposing Human standards onto them. "The way you feel is wrong/repressive because it's not the way it's "supposed" to be from my perspective as an alien called Human" is boring to me especially when it's treated as correct. I wanna know how the aliens feel about their alien way of life. Vulcans are so interesting to me when written AS aliens and not as analogous to repressed Humans. I think about Tuvok's description of attachment to his family and how that isn't the emotion 'love' but something else, something that he feels no shame about having and sees as normal, as naturally Vulcan and I love it and I love it because there aren't any Humans there to go "Um actually checkmate you Vulcan s.o.b - that's emotion!" and he isn't being influenced by anything. These are his authentic thoughts. He sees his children, his family, as part of him. They were at times illogical, incomprehensible, and it was extremely rewarding to be in their lives. He thinks about them every day. They were well behaved. As teens they were contemptuous of authority and convinced of their own superiority. His youngest son loved one 200 verse story so he sang it to him. He'd rather die than betray his wife even in spirit. He's incomplete without them. It's obvious through Tuvok that Vulcan life is not inherently devoid of pleasure, comfort, or love and thus Human life (I think) should not be portrayed as inherently having something greater, deeper, more meaningful. I'm not talking here of society but of...emotional life. Interiority. There's this sense that all Vulcans are the same and miserable for it. That they hold themselves back and are indistinguishable and antagonistic to the self, repressed and wrong. That to be Vulcan is to suffer endlessly and Humans are all about Freedom Man and I don't know, I like that Tuvok's existence sort of challenges this as much as I acknowledge that Vulcan society is in fact repressive and unwelcoming to those who don't fit neatly into it. I'm not saying Vulcan society is a utopia, I'm questioning the perception of Vulcan emotional control - that way of life - as being inherently bad, devoid, or lacking. That Vulcans walk around with 'empty cups' and are only deluding themselves that to be that way is good. If only, Humanity moans, they could taste how delicious life could be! Tuvok is an average Vulcan. He does not struggle with emotion, he is not mixed species, he was not raised atypically, and yet he has a family he cares about and a wife he's loyal to and friends he values and none of these things seem to be Un-Vulcan to him. If Vulcan life was truly devoid of love and care, Tuvok wouldn't think of his family. They're not here, so why bother? When his pon farr came, he'd be trying to find the most compatible mate rather than risking his life by trying to meditate through it out of loyalty to T'Pel. T'Pel would also have just given Tuvok up for dead instead of waiting and his children wouldn't have traveled all the way to the most holy temple on the planet to say prayers for his safe return. I think these things are interesting and I wish they'd been explored more. The fact that caring about your family, caring about your friends, is not Un-Vulcan. The fact that Tuvok at no point longs for Humanity, sees nothing better or of interest to him in it. (Even in his teenage rebellion he only says he's sorry he was born Vulcan which reads less as Vulcan v Human and more like 'I hate this goddamn family' ykwim?). I want to know more about how Vulcans interact with each other, how they care for one another, what it means and what it's like to be Vulcan in more of an everyday way rather than what it means to be Vulcan vs Human.