HOPE IN THE IMPOSSIBLE.

silently, curelessly, i suffer.

[vulkaya]

some notes on vulcan touch telepathy + empathy, as well as mind melding + bonding.

on some level, vulcans have telepathic and empathic abilities, which includes spock (and t'pol, saaryn, + l'nel, for anyone viewing from my other muses' docs). though the empathic abilities are not as notable as a betazoid’s, it is still part of who they are and so i will note it here. these things impact how they interact with others. for the most part, these abilities manifest through touch. therefore spock (and other vulcans) will rarely ever touch another person unless they have a specific reason to, or they are close to the individual they are touching.

"The Vulcan midbrain is comparable with the Betazoid midbrain, which comprises nearly 65% of their entire brain mass, although the Vulcan midbrain only comprises 45% of the brain. It is believed that this portion of their brain gives the Vulcan species their remarkable psionic abilities, though further testing has proved to be inconclusive. Despite this being the case, their race is known to be considerably more adept telepathically when compared to most Humans." (from the tos novel, 'the starless world')

vulcans have the ability to perform something called a mind meld, which is the main source of their telepathic and empathic abilities. this is where a vulcan links their mind with that of another, and while it is an interesting and useful ability, it is very dangerous to do without supervision. typically this is not attempted by vulcans who have no experience with it without the presence of an elder. however, this ability is also linked to the vulcan marriage custom, something noted as bonding. while very secretive, it is essentially the permanent linking of one’s mind and emotions with another’s. both of these practices are a sacred part of vulcan culture and are not to be shared with outsiders.

"Melding can be dangerous, particularly so when conducted with a non-Vulcan, but it can also be a useful tool; some neurological conditions can be cured by a mind meld. A Vulcan dying from the severing of the marriage bond can be saved through a healing mind meld initiated by close friends or family." (from voyager episode 'meld' and the tos novel 'the vulcan academy murders')

author's note: yeah that means vulcans literally begin to die if they get divorced or their lover dies. lmao. when vulcans get married it's for life, period.

"No Vulcan marriage was complete without a Bonding which bound the two to a greater level than simple custom." (from tos novel 'sarek')

some vulcans, spock notably, are able to perform melds without physical contact with another person, which is primarily where the empathic portion of this comes from. this is mostly headcanon on my part, but if you think about the fact that melding involves the emotional aspect of another person as well, that would then lead one to assume empathy is part of the meld, meaning someone powerful like spock would be capable of sensing great emotion without requiring touch as well.

this fact makes being around others extremely difficult for him at times. t'pol and l'nel are far better at controlling it than him, as they are both more emotionally disciplined than spock. saaryn and spock are similar in this regard.

here's a link to the memory beta page on bonding, and here's one that leads to the page for mind melding, in case anyone wants to do some deeper reading than i go into here.

[vulkaya]

the nature of vulcans and the relationship between emotion and tragedy.

the cornerstone of vulcan ideology (for the surakians most of all) is that they practice logic and the suppression of their emotions not because they wish to have none (and not because they don't have any), but because once, emotions ruled vulcans, and the destruction of their society followed.

so now vulcans choose a different path, one where they control their emotions rather than their emotions controlling them, to ensure that fate never unfolds again - one with nuclear devastation, the genocide of their race by their own hands. not just that but think about it for a moment - if vulcan society was destroyed as we know it, the seat of their society, the planet vulcan - what do you think would happen?

exactly what happens in the aos storyline. when vulcan is destroyed the the vast, vast, vast majority of the vulcan population is wiped out, leaving 10,000 souls to trek to new vulcan and establish a new foothold in galactic society after their loss of everything. their archives, their technology, multiple key members of leadership not just on vulcan but members of starfleet and the federation, all gone.

and they have to put those pieces back together, with the wound following them of the knowledge of their home's destruction by someone who was never supposed to be here anyway. someone that could've been one of them (is one of them, actually. spock opened the wormhole, nero just came through after him).

that entire series of events, the overarching galactic consequences of it, still could have been worse. if vulcans succumbed to their intense and overwhelming emotions, there would be consequences at large for every living being in the galaxy, not just vulcans. and vulcan high command, its council, understand uniquely the perspective no one else can ever have on their history and their culture.

which is why it's better, in the long run, for them to enable stereotypes that are untrue about their society - being emotionless and uncaring, being selfish, etc - these are things they do for the betterment of their own species, as well as every other species in the galaxy, and they willingly accept the burden of being seen as the ally-that-no-one-likes in order to keep structure and peace in the universe.

[vulkaya]

gender + sexuality.

spock transitioned socially and physically exceptionally early, as he knew extremely young that he did not feel a connection with his assigned sex. amanda advocated for her son, as she always had, and sarek did his own part in his own way, too.

he was put on puberty blockers young which kept him happy and later started to take testosterone throughout much of his developmental years (and still does, into his adulthood), yet in his late teens, before deciding to attend starfleet academy, he elected to receive top surgery to ensure a level of comfort that hormones could not quite achieve.

rest under cut here as it gets a little nsfw in the next paragraph.

down the line, probably around 21 or 22, he also got bottom surgery and since it's the star trek universe and it's like. so long into the future, i'm going to say that the surgical procedures surrounding gender affirming care are probably close to entirely perfected, meaning he never needed to worry about scars on his arm/thigh or loss of sensation in his lower regions, and that shit is fully operational (hallelujah). as a transmasc person i say he gets to be HAPPY and well-endowed.

in his present timeline, spock doesn't struggle super often with his dysphoria any longer, as he's been fully transitioned for like... a decade plus depending on where we're looking in the timeline regarding my main verse. it is something he does grapple with occasionally, but not nearly as often as when he was a teenager.

he's obviously very physically fit and he maintains his physical form pretty rigorously, because it makes him feel good mentally, physically, and emotionally.

in terms of dress he typically follows a more formal kind of casualwear, and his typical out-of-uniform attire is a button up with slacks or a solid black tight-fitting crewneck or turtleneck with slacks also or perhaps cargo pants. he likes dress shoes and boots.

sometimes he wears eyeshadow also, because he likes it, though he doesn't tend to wear other makeup simply because he doesn't care for the feeling of it on his face, and not because he has any sort of complex about it.

being super fucking tall even for a vulcan helps him, as he stands at a staggering 7 feet, which is massive for most humanoids, and also super gender affirming for him.

occasionally he grows some facial hair and tends to have a 5 o'clock shadow when he isn't diligent about shaving, though he isn't super into having a beard or anything, so he always shaves it before it reaches that point. he's pleased he can grow a pretty impressive one if he wanted to, though, as he has before (see dsc season 2).

spock is very secure in his identity and knows with certainty he is regarded clearly and entirely as a man not just by himself but by everyone else, and the fact of the matter is that there are like a handful of people in the universe that even know he's trans as it is, as it's only mentioned in parts of his medical file that are only visible to the captain and cmo. he doesn't usually disclose this information about himself either for personal peace of mind.

in regards to his sexuality it took him several years to realize that he's gay, and it was only something he began to give significant thought to when he was a teenager, though he avoided the subject for the most part for many years, thinking that it wouldn't matter as he was betrothed to t'pring in their youth, and he would be obligated to her in that regard.

we know what happens with t'pring so i won't get super into that (other than to say i love her so bad and if she's free on tuesday i'm also free on tuesday), but it's only really when spock meets someone that he has romantic feelings for that he can't ignore that he fully realizes and accepts that he's gay. he'd never given it much thought (he has always known he's gay he simply never acknowledged it beyond that) because he felt that romantic relationships were not something he'd experience for a multitude of reasons. those reasons being for the most part due to his emotional instability, his career, and struggling with feeling like he is undeserving of love in the first place.

that being said, he's fairly open about his sexuality if asked about it, as it isn't as private to him as his gender identity, though spock is in general notoriously private as it is. his sexuality is obvious if you just pay attention to him though lol. spock has never tried to hide these things about himself out of shame, but rather because he's simply very introverted, private, and professional. it's nobody's business what he's got going on, and he would say as much to anyone who asked in a pushy or disrespectful manner!

[orpheuslament]

Herakles, Euripides (tr. Tom Sleigh)

[whatelsecanwedonow]

It must be a great embarrassment to know that this entire ritual was performed by a human. Not a Vulcan.

STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS S02E05 | Charades

[oiticico]

I Worried, Mary Oliver

[thyla]

STAR TREK: DISCOVERY (2017-) 2.08 | If Memory Serves ↳ Spock, I didn’t mean any of those… I am aware you were trying to sever our emotional connection so that I would be less distraught by your absence. A primitive tactic, but logical. No, it was more than that. The Logic Extremists would have targeted our family as long as I was still in that house. I did not want you to get hurt or killed. But I should have tried something else. Anything else. Spock, I am so sorry. In point of fact, I am grateful.

[valtsv]

math people scare me. math people will be like "math works in mysterious ways TO YOU. i get it though." and they do and it's fucking terrifying.

[valtsv]

and if you ask them to elaborate they will but then you'll wish they didn't

[snwdaily]

#mood

[likefreedominspring]

[holyisthenameofmyruthlessaxe]

“I imagine myself in the glass windows, turning to daggers in the sun. I am the dim smear of a face, a mouth calling you. Or I am nothing.”

— “Window of the Saints (2)” by Sheila Black

[theglasschild]

“I fall asleep whispering “I am safer alone I am safer alone I am safer alone I am safer alone" […] Forgive me, memory is a rope around the neck.”

— Clementine von Radics, from James

[shisasan]

Albert Camus, The Misunderstanding (1943)

[heavensghost]

Cassandra Trojan

[virginiewoolf]

Fortesa Latifi, from The Truth About Grief.

[limondoritos-deactivated2021030]

i always look sleep deprived is that hot

[weltenwellen]

Hieu Minh Nguyen, from “White Boy Time Machine: Instruction Manual”, Not Here