#and not 0do (would 0do have preferred to ''break'' in front of a total stranger? we don't know! it's irrelevant! and that irrelevance is

[nebulouscoffee]

That scene between Tuvok and B'Elanna from 'Resistance' wrecks me actually... It's such a great moment for both characters (and actors, Tim Russ is SO underrated ugh) which highlights the differences between the two of them so well- yet, ultimately shows that under certain circumstances (in this case, torture) the distinctions between people... don't really matter. In an episode full of political violence, this moment is so significant, and I don't even really think I have the smarts to articulate why but I'll try lol.

TORRES: We told you already. We don't know anything about the Resistance.  AUGRIS: I've heard that many times, from many people. Take him.  (The forcefield is lowered, and Torres grabs the guard that steps through.)  TUVOK: Lieutenant, stop! That will not help either of us.  AUGRIS: He's right.

Everything about the way this scene (and the final shot where she's shoved back into her seat) is framed makes B'Elanna appear small, helpless- and embarrassed at her own helplessness- in that cell. We see her fidgeting, unable to sit down, constantly trying to break out or improvise her way out of the situation (she gets electrocuted earlier while trying to tamper with the circuitry)- it makes me wonder whether Tuvok was chosen to be tortured not because they believed he was more likely to have information, but because B'Elanna was more likely to be demoralised watching helplessly as he's dragged off. Augris's line implies that he's "broken" a great many people in the past; a tactic to instil fear and a helpless sense of inevitability in them both (torture doesn't work as a reliable way of extracting information; this is stated in dialogue in other Trek episodes such as 'Chain of Command' so the assertion here is at least not that- but what it does do is demoralise the public involved in resistances like this one.)

Later, B'Elanna is still trying to escape (do the guards know she's doing this? Are they just not intervening?) and she hears him screaming. Tuvok is someone who considers letting others witness him lose control over his exterior a huge (indecent, violating, humiliating) vulnerability, and the fact that he's the one being tortured is Not Insignificant in this context but like- it could've been the other way round. And B'Elanna knows that. It could've been her, and perhaps a small, scared part of her is relieved that it wasn't her, which is an awful way to feel (and if there's one thing B'Elanna hates, it's feeling like a coward). Also- the sheer violation of this, for B'Elanna to have witnessed him in this state, against her will- to later see him bloodied and weakened and flung in a cell, to have heard him screaming in pain- without his consent, knowing she can never un-witness it, knowing it wasn't her fault but still being put in such a situation where she has now played that role... Does this experience forcibly rewrite their respective conceptualisations of each other? Was Tuvok even thinking of her- somewhere outside, listening, worrying, blaming herself, fearing for herself, feeling ashamed, feeling so aware of him and her and the shared humiliation of this- when he was in there? Did seeing her upon coming back out change things? Could it ever change things? Did her presence, even as an outsider, whose memories of this event will always be (visually, at least) the constructs of her imagination- somehow make what happened in there real? Does her role as witness- and her memory thereby carrying some sort of legitimisation of what happened to him now, however warped and coloured by her own perspective and fears and embarrassment- make things better for Tuvok? Does it make things worse? Would he rather have endured this in secret? Would it have been better if she were a total stranger? Would it have been worse? And does any of this even matter when, for a moment, your life (your personhood, your goals, your presence) was completely reduced to what you "must endure"?

AUGRIS: We don't have to ask your friend any more questions, if you give us the answers.  TORRES: I told you I don't.  (Torres stops herself from hitting Augris, who leaves.)  TORRES: I'm sorry. I guess I always assumed that Vulcans didn't feel pain like the rest of us. That you were able to block it out somehow. Until I heard. Was that you I heard?

And the way B'Elanna's voice breaks when she asks this, as if she was still somehow hoping the answer would be no... There are complexities to this which again I don't feel like I'm smart enough to articulate, but like- yes, B'Elanna would like to hear that it wasn't him because that would mean her friend wasn't tortured "that badly", he wasn't put through "enough pain" to scream that way, and it's easier and more comfortable to think of violence (and violation) as something you can rank on a scale, and the lower on it Tuvok's experience ranks, the better! the more easy it will be for them to "move past" this! - but also, there's this element of "I want the answer to be no because that would mean I would not have been a participant in your humiliation, just some stranger's whose voice I don't have a face to put to, which is much better than having to know what you (my friend, my colleague, my respected senior officer, someone I will have to see every day on the bridge, someone I know prefers to keep vulnerabilities hidden even deeper than anyone else I know) sound like when you scream. But also... it doesn't really matter, does it...? Whatever he says, there always was still a moment- however brief- where B'Elanna heard a man screaming in agony, and thought it could've been Tuvok. And in that moment, that possibility was created. Now, it will always exist. That moment will always have happened. It will always have done something to her. It will always exist between them; an ugly, uncomfortable bond.

And this is getting into even more things I'm not smart enough to articulate, but like- it's pretty significant to me that B'Elanna is one of the few characters who never actually tries to poke Tuvok into Doing An Emotion, even normally. She doesn't consider trying to get him to crack an entertaining pastime, unlike others (and I'm sure her experiences of feeling like an outsider- always- feeling Very Visible As Klingon, play a role in this- "all they ever saw was my forehead" does not lend itself so kindly to "let's see if we can get Mr. Vulcan to smile", "why, Tuvok, it seems you've been corrupted by Human (read: default) rituals after all!"- it's a light-hearted joke for many, sure, but what if Tuvok genuinely considers the idea of smiling in the presence of others reflective of a humiliating loss of control and deeply debasing?) I think it's pretty clear from canon that he's just being himself; he's not trying to be a killjoy or trying to be mean, he's just Vulcan. And this is one of the few moments in Trek I can think of when a Vulcan's perceived "control" over their emotions is not connected with their reluctance to laugh or cry or say something sentimental, but... this. B'Elanna is shocked, she's horrified, she demands an explanation as to how he can possibly go through something like this and not feel the desire to "fight back" in a way she understands- and the way she cannot grant him the pretence of not having witnessed, here, the way she can't just shove this in a box, pretend she never heard, because she's just so fundamentally honest- and Tuvok (who is also so fundamentally honest), in a painful moment of openness, tells her exactly what his reasoning is. He lets her see. He lets her hear; on his own terms. He wants for her to understand (for her to witness?) his (very Vulcan) distinction between resistance and endurance; his understanding of endurance as its own form of resistance. Idk it's such a quietly powerful and like- devastating- moment for me... So many people try, over and over, thoughout the show, to get Tuvok to break his Vulcansona- try to make him smile, make him say tender things, make him get irritated- just to see if they can do it. Just to see if he'll ever crack. I bet B'Elanna wishes she never had.