Misanthropic's new story - Reflecting To You

[pookha]

i went against my better judgement and read three.
it drove me even crazier.
while it paints tpol in more sympathic light it also seems not to understand a vulcan can shut out certain things from their bond mate but the epathic connection can still be very alive.
sarek blocked from amanda that he was ill but just look at the scene were they are alone together and there just seems to be this special connection between them.
why didnt tpol just try to learn to block the stronger emotions comin from trip and learn how to better control the connection.
surely a vulcan healer could have tried to help her with that.
i am curious to learn did she even try this.

and i also wonder if tpol cared for trip why not see about
if it would be better to see if the bond could be safely severed
instead of casting trip into this hellish limbo empty state he is trapped in.

i just dont understand her not even trying to explain things to him.

and once again the concept of i grieve with this seems to be alien to the story.

except for what ever odd thing is with their eating together even though tpol seems to be willingly blind to the harm she is causing trip.

i guess i keep on seing that final scene of terra prime their holding hands and the idic between them.

idic..

I am pleased to see that we have differences.
May we together become greater than the sum of both of us.
the recreation of surak from tos

mranda jones..I understand, Mr. Spock. The glory of creation is in the infinite diversity.
spock.. And in the way our differences combine to create meaning and beauty.

[cherryblossomjen]

We haven't really seen T'Pol's perspective yet. It may be that she feels her own extreme emotions are too severe for Trip. Her motives for blocking the bond may not be (entirely, or even at all) selfish. It's been said (or maybe inferred?) that Vulcans experience emotions even more powerfully than humans -- they just work to supress them. If T'Pol finds herself struggling to supress her grief, she may be trying to spare Trip the additional pain of compounding his suffering with hers by blocking their bond. Or maybe blocking the bond is a side effect of desperately trying to supress her own pain.

Whatever the case, I don't think she understands the extent that its hurting Trip. So often there is that miscommunication and misunderstanding between the two of them.

I'd really like to see an excerpt from her pov.

I'm also intrigued to see how things will fare when Mirror T'Pol enters the picture. Is it too much to hope for a happy ending? I like angst, but I prefer contentment, at least in the larger sense and at the end of everything.

[Rigil Kent]

I've got nothing to add since pookha did a fantastic job of outlining my issues.

[Zane Gray]

i went against my better judgement and read three.
it drove me even crazier.
while it paints tpol in more sympathic light it also seems not to understand a vulcan can shut out certain things from their bond mate but the epathic connection can still be very alive.
sarek blocked from amanda that he was ill but just look at the scene were they are alone together and there just seems to be this special connection between them.
why didnt tpol just try to learn to block the stronger emotions comin from trip and learn how to better control the connection.

Keep in mind though, that T'Pol's new to this bond thing. She only really discovered it was there three or four week before. Also, we don't know what kind of mental control T'Pol might have after the trellium damage. And T'Pol's pretty new to emotions as well, and all of a sudden she gets hit with the loss of a child. It's entirely believable to me that her first instinctive reaction would be to withdraw. We've seen her do it a couple of times, so it should come as no surprise now. But maybe this is where she learns that Trip can help her. Let's see what happens next in the story...

[Asso]

Keep in mind though, that T'Pol's new to this bond thing. She only really discovered it was there three or four week before. Also, we don't know what kind of mental control T'Pol might have after the trellium damage. And T'Pol's pretty new to emotions as well, and all of a sudden she gets hit with the loss of a child. It's entirely believable to me that her first instinctive reaction would be to withdraw. We've seen her do it a couple of times, so it should come as no surprise now. But maybe this is where she learns that Trip can help her. Let's see what happens next in the story...

It is possible to find logical explanations for every thing, logical or illogical.
The point, in my opinion, is not this.
Like Rigil Kent, I am simply thinking that perhaps T’Pol should have learned more.
How many times she still should reject Trip before she understand, like said by the old T’Pol, there is a remedy for her problems?
But, naturally, every FIC has its reason, and disagreeing with the proposition does not mean the story can be not pleasant.

[blacknblue]

I like part three, and I don't really feel that T'Pol is being mean to Trip. She is protecting herself. Remember that she is hurting as badly as he is, and when the bond is connected she gets her pain + his pain. Imagine experiencing someone else's nightmares on top of your own. Ouch. Or every time you touch someone, their pain is instantly added to the pain you are already feeling. I can't even picture it. But I could easily understand wanting to avoid it.

At least she isn't avoiding him. They are staying with each other. They just can't seem to figure out what to say that won't make things worse. I get the impression that each of them is afraid to start talking for fear of saying the wrong thing. Most of us have been in that position, haven't we?

She could have severed the bond and didn't. That is worth something. Nobody thinks straight when they are crazy with grief. They need time to heal.

[dialee]

I like part three, and I don't really feel that T'Pol is being mean to Trip. She is protecting herself. Remember that she is hurting as badly as he is, and when the bond is connected she gets her pain + his pain. Imagine experiencing someone else's nightmares on top of your own. Ouch. Or every time you touch someone, their pain is instantly added to the pain you are already feeling. I can't even picture it. But I could easily understand wanting to avoid it.

At least she isn't avoiding him. They are staying with each other. They just can't seem to figure out what to say that won't make things worse. I get the impression that each of them is afraid to start talking for fear of saying the wrong thing. Most of us have been in that position, haven't we? She could have severed the bond and didn't. That is worth something. Nobody thinks straight when they are crazy with grief. They need time to heal.

You said she is protecting herself, true and that she feels both her pain and his pain but itsn't that also true for Trip? Does Trip feel his own pain and T'Pol's? It seems from the episode, Bound, that the bond can go both ways.

I don't know but it seems that T'Pol is a bit of a emotional coward in this, harsh word, but maybe MU T'Pol can change that somewhat.

[boushh]

I feel it is important to remind everyone that we haven't seen T'Pol's point of view yet... Everything we're seeing is from Trip's POV or the POV of someone else. So we might get some more insight of what's going on in her head...

Oh and Zane brings up some good points too. Pretty much agree with those.

[framework4]

I'm tired of the "T'Pol Pushes Trip Away After Elizabeth Dies" angle

I don't think that is the case here at all. It has been made clear that the nightmares Trip is experiencing have the same tone and quality as his white space visits with T'Pol.

"I see her, Doc; in my mind, I see Elizabeth. It's not like normal dreams, these are different; in these she's so vivid. I feel her and hear her, hell, I even smell her."

"The way I see Elizabeth is like how I used to see T'Pol when we ended up in each other's heads. Somewhere between flesh and blood and just an image out of a dream."

Trip knows T'Pol is shutting him out and assumes it is his nightmares.

the first night after Elizabeth's death....He'd had a nightmare that Paxton still had Elizabeth, that he was still testing her. Paxton wanted to see what color she would bleed, red or green, and cut her with a scalpel, again and again, and the baby wailed and screamed and alternately bled crimson and emerald. Trip heard a second scream tear through his mind and knew on an unconscious level that it was T'Pol's cry at the imagery of Trip's nightmare.

Based on MissAnnThropic's past writings I expect it will turn out that T'Pol is shutting him out in a attempt to spare him HER nightmares!

[framework4]

In "Parting and Never Parted" Archer briefly feels T'Pol's pain at the loss of Trip.

Archer jolted and his mouth opened in a silent scream and his muscles locked as his mind was suddenly under an even greater attack than his body. At first it was only pain, every physical sensation of pain at once, burning and bleeding and freezing and aching in sequential nanoseconds of unbearable agony. Blackness flew at him, horrifying, empty pockets of nonexistence, and he felt them find him, seek him out, cling to him, and his soul was chilled to the core. Ice... it felt like ice, no warmth, no escape, no relief from the frostbite-sting in his mind. Black thicker than night imbedded claws in his mind, sliced into his consciousness, and Archer had never known such agony. Then he recognized something. An echo, a faint hint of harbor, a sense... of Trip. Trip was there, here, wherever Archer was... Trip was there! Archer's mind tried desperately to call out to his friend, to touch him again and plead for his help all at once. The moment of elation was dashed by the blackness. It hung on the free-roaming memory of Trip, it infected him and spread from him. Archer tried, in vain, to recoil in horror. Trip's essence was a hole in the blackness, a quantum singularity that sent out and took at once. Death. Death bled from the last vestige of Trip, and it was a contagion and it fed on the very life force of Archer. He could feel it pulling at him, and Archer tried to run, to escape, but to no avail. Archer was tethered like a snared animal, twisting and pulling frantically at the trap while screeching and crying, blood-curdling screams of primal terror echoing endlessly. There was nowhere to go. All was blackness, horror, and pain, and he could not fight that. He could not win against death, it was stronger than all that Archer had in him. There was no way to disentangle from the void of death that closed in around him in a claustrophic fist, slipping past Archer's feeble defenses by being Trip. Archer couldn't shake free and flee. But there was the blanketing nothing of the black inside him. When escape was impossible there was only surrender, yielding to Trip's presence in its new guise, and anything... anything, to end the terror of his now.

And in that second Archer understood everything. He had been in a Vulcan mind-meld before, and only belatedly did the way T'Pol's fingers had splayed on his face make sense. He knew he had been in her mind, he knew that the fear and pain and resignation had been hers... and he truly understood because while he stood before her, spared, she continued to languish and flounder in that space within herself. For her she was truly trapped in her grief, punished for her love for Trip beyond any human ability to comprehend. She had been right, he'd had no idea.

[pookha]

tpol could have spent her ten days on vulcan with the healers and learning how to help herself and trip.
she could have taken trip with her to mount seleya so he could possibly be helped by the healers but she instead just took off and left him on his own.

that is why i am having a hard time buying she is trying to protect trip.
her actions of just abandoning him to himself on a strange world right after the burial of their daughter to me says something different.

if she was concerned for him why not try and get him help.
we know she hasnt visited phlox out of concern for trip.

look at sarek and amanda here..


even though in his eyes sarek is protecting amanda from the knowledge of his heart disease they still share something special.

[framework4]

tpol could have spent her ten days on vulcan with the healers and learning how to help herself and trip.

Hmm, all the fanfic aside, in canon at this time in history Vulcan has not approved of mind melders for a very long time, they have ignored their diseases and turned their back on T'Pol because of her association with humans.

So maybe things are changing but help? Only by teaching her to purge all emotion.

[pookha]

evidently secretly some of the priest hood ignored the stuff against melds ect since we see an elder priest removing the katra of surak from archer.
for all we know the amount of vulcans secretly being taught how to correctly meld could have been pretty great.
yuri, soval , the priest..
all pretty high ranking people too.

and the healers may have other means that dont involve a meld.

the point is tpol just took off without thinking of the consequences to trip of letting him alone at this time.
as far as we know she didnt attempt to contact his friends ect to check in on him. she didnt get him help by phlox or a healer.

[Asso]

I already said it on several occasions and I repeat it now.
Angst, angst, angst...
All right.
The love is also this, but there are many types of angst, in love.
It is possible the unique type imaginable for T'Pol is only the doleful refusal?
OK, we can take lots of explanations, logicals and/or emotional, stupid, intelligent etc etc...; but, in the end, I am asking:
it is so difficult, it is so terrible to admit to be in love?
T'Pol is smart, capable, efficient.
However, honestly, perhaps she is also somewhat stupid, more than stubborn.
I agree with Pookha.
Sarek is Vulcan and he haven't this sort of problems.
Even if T'Pol is the first one, well, what long a time, in order she to behave well towards PPP or, at last, to behave just slightly well?

[cherryblossomjen]

However, honestly, perhaps she is also somewhat stupid, more than stubborn.
I agree with Pookha.
Sarek is Vulcan and he haven't this sort of problems.

Ah, Sarek. I can't help but love him.

Still, he might not have had quite the same problems as T'Pol but he did have trouble maintaing relationships with those he loved, namely his sons.

I think we could even say he was sometimes "more than stubborn" too. When he and Spock disgreed, Sarek broke off their relationship. The two didn't speak for years. They were on good terms for a while after Sarek's surgery but later, they again stopped speaking when they disagreed about the Cardsassian issue.

It's frustrating to see (in both reality and fiction) how fragile relationships can be. Sometimes it takes a lot of determination and effort to keep things working and from my own experience, that can be hard if you're hurt. But it's not impossible. And if you do it successfully your relationship can be that much stronger. But as always, it's easier said than done.