[Tuvok & Janeway: Control, Distance, Duty & Connection.] Sources: St Voyager Transcripts / Mitski 'First Love Late Spring' / Disco Elysium

ngl voyager gets a whole lot of very disproportional hate from the fandom and i'd hazard a guess that a lot of that is just garden-variety misogyny (and probably racism mixed in, considering how many of the most prominent characters are women, poc, or both). like, is voyager perfect? absolutely not. and no spoilers but there was a lot of executive meddling that wound up leading to the finale/conclusion being lacking and there's a lot of reasonable dissatisfaction with that--but again that was largely thanks to the execs fucking the show over and i recommend looking into that if you can once you've finished the show. but overall? voyager is trek right to its very core--it has heart, it's about family, and it never loses sight of that imo, even if some episodes are weaker or just duds (but, like, would it be a trek series without some episodes that just kinda suck but are still fun to watch???)

anyway, i absolutely love that you're getting into voyager, it is my all-time favorite trek series to this day for a lot of reasons, and i hope that ppl like that anon dont put you off bc i'd love to continue to see your thoughts as you watch the series!

Oh, it would take a whole lot more than some anons being salty that others enjoy things to turn me off :D 

Thus far (I lost internet last night so I’m still only on Episode 7 of Season 2), Voyager is the Trekiest Trek I’ve watched. Which is a weird sentence, but I mean it in the way you said it’s “trek right to its very core.” What is Star Trek, if we strip the intent of the story down to its basics? It’s about exploration, discovery, that “wagon train to the stars,” wrapped up in the argument that life is fundamentally good. We have problems, but we can work past them. We have differences, but they strengthen us. Diversity is the lifeblood of the universe and the future will continue to improve so long as we embrace that. 

Voyager is (again, from what I’ve seen so far!) basically a love song to that premise. I didn’t do too deep a dive because I’m trying to avoid spoilers, but I did look at a couple threads discussing why Voyager is so hated. Again and again I saw the same reason pop up: wasted potential. Now, a lot of fans left it at that (as if the answer to what potential Voyager apparently missed out on is self-evident. It’s not), but those who did expand on the idea consistently claimed that the show needed to be darker than it was, even if they rarely said it like that. Why aren’t the Federation and the Marquis at each other’s throats? Why isn’t the crew going crazy under these circumstances? Why aren’t characters getting killed off left and right in hostile space? “Anything could have happened out there and they played it safe!” but the “anything” here is always... awful. There’s this very pervasive idea that the world is inherently cruel, people are inherently divisive, that when pushed to the brink everything will fall apart... and that (while making for one kind of great story) is very much not Star Trek. 

See, Voyager created an unimaginable scenario--lost in space, 75 years from home, forced to live indefinitely with strangers--and their answer to the question of “What happens?” is “People make it work.” They learn to respect one another, they uphold their ideals, they maintain a love of life and discovery, and they create a family. And that’s fucking fantastic. That’s Star Trek! I’m not going to pretend there aren’t problems with the show, with plenty more to come, I’m sure, but I don’t think this is one of them. Why do so many viewers think that hatred, horror, death, and growing jaded is the only potential here? Why would they expect that in a Star Trek show whose premise is the very antithesis of those things? 

“But they don’t do enough with those things, even if they have happy outcomes.” They do plenty, they just do it in an episodic rather than serialized nature. I can point to multiple episodes where the replicator rations or Maquis differences are driving the characters’ actions. “But without that horror there’s no conflict.” There’s plenty of conflict. Hostile aliens aside, I just watched an episode where Tuvok and Chakotay are pissed as hell at one another because they fundamentally disagree over how to handle problems, but--because they’re adults with a well-tested respect for one another--they apologize and work through it. “But the characters don’t develop at all.” You mean they don’t grow harder. That’s not the same thing as no development. Tuvok is figuring out how to be more flexible, Chakotay is becoming more willing to accept cultures he doesn’t agree with, Harry is growing more confident now that he’s far from home, the Doctor is learning to see himself as a person, Paris is grabbing his second chance with both hands by making strong ties, and Janeway is learning to command and care for her crew simultaneously. I honestly believe that a lot of people think of “character development” as the character becoming a fundamentally different person, unrecognizable from where they started out. But  characters can also grow into the people they wanted to be in the first place. “We’re far from home, in hostile territory, tempted to do horrific things to survive... but no. Right now at least, we’re holding onto who we are. We’re scientists, so we’re going to explore and learn. We’re peaceful, so we’re going to make friends with as many species as we can. We’re members of a society that teaches acceptance, so we’re going to form a family on this spaceship.” That’s incredible!! Did fans miss why Seska was an antagonist in the episode she was unmasked? Because she was trying to convince them to give up everything they believe in in the name of survival, an ends justify the means argument. And the crew said no, we will not give up what we believe in just to make it through. I legit saw a ton of fans saying some version of, “I can’t believe they were that far from home and actually followed Starfleet’s rulebook.” It’s because those rules don’t exist for the hell of it. Overlooking their practical function, they’re a philosophy that the characters believe in, and they’re figuring out how important that part of their identity is to them under these circumstances. Am I willing to steal a specie’s technology if it gets us home? Am I willing to die to help another uphold their own philosophy? (Chakotay in “Imitations”). What regulations should we bend or change to accommodate our new situation? The first two things Janeway does are a) giving the guy who just came out of a penal colony a rank and b) deciding that she needs to be more familiar with her crew than is normally encouraged for a captain because she’s essentially their mom now. Developing doesn’t have to mean characters do a 180 on their initial personality, or characters getting killed off when stuff gets “boring” so that others can do edgy things in response. 

Voyager upholds Trek’s premise and runs it to its logical conclusion: 

Voyager has the most literal trek--a trek back home. 

Voyager has the most diverse crew--a woman Captain, Native American First officer, black Vulcan, Asian-American communications officer, and a White Dude pilot that realizes he wants to be soft and kind towards those who took a chance on him because Toxic Masculinity who? 

Voyager has the most literal family--not just a 5+ year mission, but a crew who expects to raise the next generation. They have no choice but to work together, so they indeed come together rather than pulling apart

Except they do, of course, have a choice. In “The 37′s” the crew is allowed to stay on the Earth-like planet with a city of other humans and Janeway is convinced that a sizable number will choose that. After all, they may never get home and this is a safer, kinder future for them. In fact, the real question is whether so many will stay that they can no longer run the ship... but Janeway would never dictate her crew’s choices in that manner. So she swallows her worry down, opens the door... 

... and finds that not a single person decided to stay behind. And the show has ensured we understand that this is not just because they all have some unshakable belief that they’ll get home (many don’t), but because this is their family now. This is home. 

And fans want to toss that out for a generic, gritty, sci-fi adventure where hope is scarce, the universe is cruel, and people need to be pushed to the limit just to admit that they maybe, sort of, like each other?? Obviously like what you like, but that’s a hard pass for me. I’ll take the bridge crew comforting each other in “Twisted,” thanks. Besides, we already have shows like that. And we already have DS9 which grapples with many of those dark, pessimistic themes. Voyager feels like a breath of fresh air, even within the breath of fresh air that is Star Trek as a franchise. It’s a show that says, “Yes, when everything goes wrong people will come together. They will love each other. They will make it through.” 

What’s more Star Trek than that? 

Just saw "Gravity," and my thoughts:

Tuvok is so beautiful I'm going insane

I thought this plot was gonna go SO BADLY and I'm relieved I was wrong. I've mentioned before that I don't read many fics about Tuvok bc a lot of them are very shippy, and he's very dedicated to T'Pel to the point that it feels disingenuous to his character to ship him off with someone else. So you can imagine my distress when Noss developed feelings for him!! But yeah no Tuvok is so ridiculously married he is just Immune so cool

TUVOK BACKSTORY TUVOK BACKSTORY HUZZAH (also he was adorable as a kid ashdkdkanajeh look at him. What a sweety)

Overall a really good exploration of Tuvok specificaly and Vulcan emotions in general. I talked earlier about Vulcan emotion (and how I feel Neelix's obsession with making Tuvok smile is quite disrespectful), and this episode highlighted something I think is important to that: Vulcans have very, VERY strong emotions, strong to point of danger and pain. They feel things VERY intensely, and they generally don't want to do that, which is why they do all that emotional suppression. Everyone else seems to act like they just never feel emotion (as Tom put it, they think that under the cold Vulcan exterior is an even colder interior), but that's simply not the case. They feel emotions naturally at a level they don't want, and work very hard to bring that intensity down to a level that works for them. To deny that and expect a Vulcan to express their emotions the way everyone else does, or to develop the emotions you want them to develop, is (in my view) very disrespectful, and cruel. So I'm glad that the episode made space for Tuvok to point that out…that he DOES feel emotion, actually, and he has felt love quite acutely, and it almost destroyed him, and it made him literally feel insane, and he doesn't want that to happen again no thanks. And again, this man is So Married, and expecting him to reciprocate Noss's feelings for him is just...life doesn't work that way and you can't expect him to do that

I wonder what Tuvok showed Noss in the meld before she left. Personally I think he showed her his feelings of respect and admiration for her, and (if not wholly, in part) both those memories of his struggles with emotions of love and the strength of his bond with T'Pel. I think those things in combination would make everything make that sort of sense

HOW DOES A SIMPLE "LIVE LONG AND PROSPER" ALWAYS HIT ME SO HARD WITH A NEW FEELING IN EACH NEW CONTEXT DUDE I SWEAR YOU CAN PACK SO MUCH FUCKING FEELING INTO THAT SENTENCE

okay so now I’m answering the star trek asks instead! don’t panic, only the first one is that long.

5. Episode plot you wish they had handled differently?

I’m going with “it had potential but they didn’t land it/ messed it up” rather than ”this whole episode was a mess” here. bc WOW are there a LOT of the latter in star trek...

The first episode to come to mind is the Voyager episode Tuvix. I think it should have been a two-parter; it definitely had enough material for it. and then... The way captain janeway handled this, and the reaction of most of the crew, was honestly so chilling. 

(short recap: Tuvok and Neelix get mashed up in a transporter accident and are now one person. they try to reverse this, but it takes weeks/ months. in this time, Tuvix develops his own personality and relationships to the crew. once the crew figures out a way to reverse it, he refuses to go through with it as it would kill him. Janeway argues that the lives of Tuvok and Neelix are more important and orders him to do it. Desperate to save his life, he appeals to the rest of the crew, but gets dragged away and gets seperated again against his will.)

So for one, the episode definitely needed some sort of reconciliation. It just ends with Tuvok and Neelix seperated, but they don’t discuss it at all. they don’t say whether or not they remember anything, or how they feel about janeways decision, or anything. it doesn’t impact their relationship to each other in the following episodes. I feel like the show in general handled their relationship badly, just for comic relief and refused to give it any depth. This could have changed that, but then they didn’t do anything with it. 

And the whole ethical dilemma.... on one hand, i think it’s good that they didn’t take an easy way out like “oh there are medical complications; tuvix couldn’t survive with his mixed vulcan/ talaxian physiology so he has to go through with it or die anyways” but on the other hand. It was really chilling tbh. It should have impacted janeway’s relationship to tuvok and neelix for episodes to come. wether they would have been grateful, conflicted, horrified to see that side of her... but it should have been there.

I have similar problems with Janeway ‘rescuing’ Seven from the Borg, but this at least does get a long enough arc and is basically at the core of their relationship throughout.

10. Which alien pet would you most want for your own?

Any of the cool gross medicinal bugs that Phlox has on the Enterprise! like that starfish-leech thing... or especially that bat thing!!! honestly I wanna re-watch enterprise just for that tbh

OR the unicorn space dog!! from tos

15. Top 3 favorite alien crewmembers?

Data probably doesn’t count as an alien, so I’m going with Tuvok, Jadzia Dax, annnnd it’s really hard to decide between Kes, Kira Nerys and B’elanna. I feel they could have handled Kes better, B’elanna is half human, so I’m going with Kira Nerys. Honorable mentions: Vorik

OH WAIT I FORGOT NOG I absolutely love Nog!! and he does join starfleet in later seasons so he counts as a crewmember!!

16. If you could steal the basic plot of an episode for one show and apply to another which would you choose?

Devil in the Dark for the Deep Space Nine crew! They barely had any cool alien creature episodes, and I love it when star trek does really inhuman aliens and they need to figure out how to communicate/ what that thing wants.

19. You can undo one plot point, which do you choose?

[spoilers for The Next Generation, first season, and Deep Space Nine, sixth season]

TASHA YAR. NOTHING BAD EVER HAPPENS TO HER. Sorry Jadzia but if I can only undo one horrible senseless death, then hers. She barely got one season :...( and then they gave her some really horrible shitty alternate timeline storyline on top of that.

Thinking about Vulcans prizing “calm” over “happiness”. 

Like how humans look back on their childhood and remember how happy it was - joyful days spent running around in the sun, getting into a bit of trouble, laughing with peers and family - that’s how they know it was a good one. Meanwhile Vulcans might look back on their childhood and remember how peaceful it was. Quiet days spent studying, the warm glow of candlelit lessons in caves, getting along smoothly with ones peers - that’s how they know it was a good one. Humans typically chose their friends and romantic partners based on if this person makes them feel happy above all. The question of “Do you like being with them?” is interpreted to mean “Does being with them make you feel happy?” But since Vulcans don’t experience (or strive for) happiness there would have to be some other parameter. So I was thinking about like, what is a good relationship to a Vulcan? There’s obviously a big emphasis on ‘togetherness’ in Vulcan unions. The Pon Farr ritual Tuvok does with his [hologram] wife involves them committing to becoming “Two bodies one mind” and it’s stated that they give and receive from each other all that they are. There’s also of course the iconic “Never and always touching and touched”. This is all (as was said during T’Pol & Koss’ wedding) “The Vulcan heart, the Vulcan soul, this is our way.” Vulcans are also (ENT) expected to live together for at least a year after being married - I imagine so that they can bond with and get to know one another. In SNW T’Pring wants for Spock to honor the commitments he makes to her so in that case T’Pring values Spock keeping his word to her and placing her above other things. I see a bit of Tuvok in that, where he prizes his commitment to T’Pel over anything else to the point where he’d nearly rather die than break it: (Even though he eventually agrees to having sex with a hologram it MUST be of his wife and he lets Tom/The Audience know that he will NOT be making a habit of it. There’s no ironclad logical reason for him to react this way as a hologram is not a person but his commitment to T’Pel seems to take precedence and I believe that’s his reasoning. His bond with T’Pel is logical, sustaining and important to him and he’s loath to break it over some bodily need. some desire that will pass even if it kills him.) <- By this way of thinking, betraying T’Pel would be the emotional choice while remaining loyal to her is remaining loyal to his logical self. A strong emphasis on loyalty to one’s mate seems to be a common Vulcan trait. In the beginning this seems to be rooted in tradition but later on its probably assumed that the couple will be loyal to one another out of some sort of actual connection between two people as opposed to pure obligation. In ENT T’Pol says that a certain degree of “affection” is eventually expected to happen within a marriage (though the way she says it makes me think this doesn’t always occur and isn’t necessarily The Goal) and her mother says that she and her husband developed a “deep connection” to one another. All this makes me think that a connection and a sense of ‘togetherness’ or ‘compatibility’ would also be prized over more emotional things like a passion for one another. It’s a partnership above all and that would be prized over a romantic union.  It makes me think of Vulcans’ roots in violence and war. Maybe this commitment to a steady togetherness, two people who don’t know each other being able to work together so seamlessly they nearly become one, is a way to show they’ve moved beyond that despite the pon farr remaining. Vulcans are a naturally very emotional species. Someone who incites that would probably not be seen as someone you should spend your time with. Someone who makes your heart pound, sets you ablaze, fills you with passion - that sounds like a bad Vulcan time v_v  Tuvok says as much when he talks about how he was struck with “shon-ha’lock”. Humans wouldn’t see anything wrong with having a crush on someone (and indeed in that episode Tom only comes to the conclusion that it’s a shame Tuvok couldn’t act on these emotions) but it’s obvious that even a teenaged crush when uncontrolled can become a very big problem to a Vulcan. In one of the Star Trek Novels Tuvok even stops being friends with and talking to a girl because she tearfully admits she has feelings for him and he sees that her feelings for him cause her pain.  Instead of thinking “Oh, she really likes me, good! We’re close friends so maybe we can make this work.” or even “I don’t like her romantically but since we’re close friends we can work through it.”  Tuvok thinks “Oh, she really likes me. That must be causing her to become very emotional and I can see she’s clearly upset. I’ll remove myself from her life so my presence doesn’t incite those emotions anymore.” And while him flat out just cutting himself out of her life might seem weird and kind of cruel and a frankly hilarious reaction to someone confessing their love to you - I also think it’s something he thought of as a kindness. If his presence harms her (stirs up emotions in her) then he will remove himself to keep from harming her. Along that vein, calmness or the absence of strong emotions would be a good relationship and one worth staying in. Not that there can’t be any emotions (Tuvok and T’Les obviously care[d] deeply for their respective spouses) but that they must be controllable and able to be cast aside in the face of logic.  I also think that “knowing” the other person would be considered very important (after marriage of course). If you’re to operate as a partnership, a team, and especially if you’re both telepaths you should be able to know your spouse pretty damn well. I see T’Pring attempt to do this in SNW where she is constantly fighting to get to know Spock which Spock self-consciously discourages since he’s been told/shown that his human side is unappealing to Vulcans.  But yeah man idk...just picturing a Vulcan and a human talking for hours...walking along the beach...sleeping side by side...getting to know one another...and at the end of it all one says “You make me feel happy” and the other says “Your presence calms me” and it means, essentially, the same thing.

One of the best Voyager scenes to indicate Tuvok & Neelix's dynamic and how I think Tuvok is just as if not more 'annoying'(positive) than Neelix is when Neelix pours Tuvok a fresh squeezed glass of a fruit juice blend and Tuvok's like (paraphrased) "I don't want to drink this." and Neelix is like "Can you please try it?" and Tuvok's like "I don't want to, you're really bad at this sort of thing. It's going to taste bad." and Neelix says that Ensign XYZ said she LOVED it, she even had a second glass! And Tuvok says Ensign XYZ could drink poison without a second thought and Neelix is like "Tuvok could you please just TRY it? Just try a little SIP of it PLEASE??" and Tuvok sighs and rolls his eyes and sniffs it before taking a sip and it turns out he loves it. Turns out it tasted good actually. And then after all that Neelix tries to talk to him over eggs (which he's again cooking fresh for him) and Tuvok tells him he doesn't wanna hear "the life history of his breakfast." Absolutely insufferable this man I would have burned his eggs on PURPOSE!!!!

T’Pel and Tuvok as kiddos...T’Pel dressed herself but Tuvok’s clothes were picked out by his parents and it shows.

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!!!

What if right after Tuvok woke up from his lil coma in “Riddles” he saw all the flowers and what to him must seem like gifts? adornments? around him and heard from the doctor how Neelix had been by his side every day he was unconscious and immediately assumed Neelix was his husband? What then?

Picturing that Tuvok’s wife guy instincts never go away so he remembers vaguely that he loves someone very much and this man is kind and cares for him and has given him all these beautiful things which Tuvok likes .... this must be the person he loves! Good v_v Also if you wanna really get into it - what if Tuvix factors into this in that Tuvok can remember (after touching Neelix in some way which he seems eager to do in ‘Riddles’, touching things in general I mean) Neelix’s crush on him which he definitely has and just assumes he must feel the same way since he does love someone quite fiercely and it doesn’t seem like anyone else is paying quite so much attention to him. I imagine that after ‘Tuvix’ Tuvok knows Neelix had/has a crush on him (it’s on and off but also constant) but they never talk about it because Tuvok would never want to talk about it and if Neelix coyly asked if he knew he’d avoid the question and if Neelix asked outright he’d straight up lie. So I’m picturing in ‘Riddles’ Tuvok talks about Neelix a lot while being treated and the doctor is amused, saying he never used to speak so highly of him and Tuvok’s horrified...he’s like !? What kind of husband was I??? And the doctor would spit out a drink if he had one.  Then he helps Tuvok access his personnel file bc he won’t believe he and Neelix aren’t married. He has a /wife/?? Where is she?? Why isn’t she on the ship?? Huh?? (the horrors, the unending horrors. He has to be sedated because of the horrors, sorrow, etc.) Neelix chuckles when Tuvok tells him the anecdote (minus the horrors) and is like why did you think we were married?? And Tuvok points out the flowers, how kind he is, how he was his only visitor, how he played his favorite music and gave him gifts and stayed/stays by his side always and knows so much about him and - ( “O K ay that’s enough~!” ) - and the fact that Neelix harbors romantic feelings towards him. Neelix stares in absolute shock. “I’m sorry. Was that secret?” “H ow....why do you think that?” Tuvok explains that he can sometimes...feel things when he touches people. And sometimes even...see, things? And when he touched Neelix he remembered seeing...himself! For the first time and thinking he was the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen. (Which is my personal Neelix-has-a-Tuvok-crush headcanon. He saw him and IMMEDIATELY got a crush on him. Handsome alien who gives him water!) Neelix kind of wants to throw himself into a hole but he’s like “o ohh...haha. yes w ell. Me and you aren’t even...friends...so.” Tuvok frowns and gently pats Neelix’s hands and says it...hurts, when you cannot be with the one you love. He says he cannot even remember who T’Pel was, and yet he yearns for her. He doesn’t know which is worse - a love agonizingly close or a love unfathomably far away - both, for all intents and purposes, unrequited. Neelix says that T’Pel still loves him! And Neelix’s little crush isn’t even half as important as the love between Tuvok and T’pel. Tuvok blinks at him sadly and says there are many different types of love. Then he kisses Neelix’s forehead (not the Vulcan way) and thanks him for being so attentive and kind despite how it isn’t returned by the other Tuvok. The favor or his feelings. Also to be so real with you someone left a comment to the effect of ‘What if Tuvok thought Neelix was his husband in riddles’ but what REALLY spurned this on???? If we can be SO painfully real for a second??? Was hearing the song “Once Upon a Dream” which I’d NEVER heard before and my dumb ass’s first thought was wooow just like Tuvok @ Neelix in that riddles episode. SO THERE. “But if I know you, I know what you’ll do...you’ll love me at once! The way you did once upon a dream...” <- Tuvok remembering Neelix’s big stupid crush on him that he found out about when they were Tuvix and subsequently buried