the thing about b’elanna is that she is not really very volatile and not at all rebellious. she is in fact extremely oriented toward belonging to a structure and obeying its rules, very reluctant to act against structure and rules, very eager to follow and slow to resist authority. and we only seldom see her lose her temper unprovoked. but she is constantly, constantly told—mostly, though not exclusively, by men—that she is temperamental and difficult, and she has so internalized this that she will volunteer apology for her temper or for being difficult even as she is being deliberately provoked to anger by tom, or chakotay, or janeway, or whoever. voyager shows this process incredibly effectively, over and over, and even makes it part of her backstory with her shithead father, without ever appearing to notice what is actually taking place in these dynamics, much less turning a critical lens on them. a truly remarkable feat of oblivious storytelling.