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Latest Posts by constable-blorbo - Page 8
The thing that really gets me about Quark and Odo is that they’re not each other’s Most Important Person. Odo has Kira and Quark has Rom (though he’d never admit it). Only, Odo isn’t Kira’s Most Important, and Quark hardly ever actually shows Rom how much he cares— those relationships are uneven.
Quark and Odo’s dynamic is equal. They both spend at least half their time everyday trying to outsmart the other, and unlike their other relationships, this one is mutually balanced. They push and pull; ironically, they’re always on the same page, even if that page is (playing at) being rivals on different sides of the law. Quark understands Odo more than anyone else on the station, even Kira or Worf or anyone else who Odo would actually acknowledge as a friend. They may not be each other’s number one but they are each other’s second most important person in the world and it’s so entertaining to watch them pretend otherwise.
This plays like a really nice ending at first like "aw yeah Garak's a good guy in his own way after all :)" and then you rotate the events of the episode in your head a minute and realize that the only way any of this makes sense is if he was genuinely ready to turn them over to the military dictatorship and only changed course after Gul Dipshit was like "we can murder them and it will be epic and based" and Garak's mental calculus was "the terrorists are less of a threat to the military dictatorship alive than they would be as martyrs".
The quadrant's most charming and affable spook.
Did anyone else immediately realize Curzon/Odo’s (from “Facets”) incredible fashion sense would look amazing on Garak? Well, if you did or didn’t, I drew it anyway (with a modifications)!
underestimating the power of friendship is the single biggest mistake you can make as a villain in Star Trek. like “your friends will not come for you” bro you are cooked. wrap it up, babe.
kira nerys is such a funny character to me. imagine if your boss was also like a religious, holy figure that you personally believe in. but he doesn’t want to be a religious figure so you try to keep it low key. also he wants to play baseball with you.
happy pride :) Here's a commission I made for @janetfraiser of an older Kira and Jadzia <3 tysm!
prints available here!
My favorite thing about Body Parts (s4e24) is that Garak was obviously never going to kill Quark. He just decides to spend an afternoon in the holosuites demonstrating his terrifying skills for kicks. Then he solemnly promises Quark that he will definitely kill him very soon –
And you never see him again in that episode. He just goes to the Replimat and orders a spice pudding and eats it while reading poetry or something.
do you think after children of time, when the dust settled, odo kept going back to the other odo’s memories of what happened?
do you think he replayed the memory of nerys holding his hands, of her kissing him, over and over in his mind, thinking of this memory that feels like it should be his own but belonged to someone else?
Feel like Odo would spend his entire life telling people that he never collects keepsakes and never puts any decorations up, but one day one of the Bajoran children on DS9 would give him a slightly crumpled piece of paper with a scribbled drawing of them and Odo together. And he would act grateful but very nonchalant about it, being like “this is very nice of you, but I have no need for it”, until Kira or Quark or someone walks into his office and sees it on the corner of his desk, with a little frame around it
My favorite gif. I never get a chance to use it, so I’m just going to share it.
Obviously Dukat's continued predation on Bajorans is all flavours of deply fucked up but the moment when he ad-libs the "Ah.... It's a miracle!" when the cultist's child turns out to he half-Cardassian is so absurdly funny. You can see his face fall for one moment when he realizes he fucked up real good this time. When he realizes everyone will see what he did the best that he can come up with is "let's all kill ourselves real quick". A true master of improvisation. Always 10 steps ahead.
I’m trying to untangle The Problem of Garashir (not the least because, well, I’m writing the pairing) -
and I think honestly one of the biggest… roadblocks? bits of untapped potential in the pairing? is that we never really see their relationship put a strain on their ideological convictions.
Which is to say, “the societal institutions we’re subject to are corrupt, but our love is pure, so we’re going to abandon those institutions for each other” is, whether implicitly or explicitly, a common framing in fanfic featuring them (such as I’ve seen) - and to be fair, it’s a common romance trope in general. But I can’t say it works for me for these characters. And part of that is that imo the show doesn’t sufficiently set that up with its development of the relationship between these two characters, but another part of that is that I simply don’t see a world in which that kind of relationship dynamic/approach would fit with their characterizations.
To address the first point - there are never any situations involving these characters in which their fundamental values or institutional loyalties are challenged as a result of their relationship. At no point does Garak, for example, have to choose between Cardassia and his affection for Bashir. (I’ve seen people read The Wire that way, but I don’t think the reading works - The Wire is a fantastic showcase for Garak’s worldview and value system and the cracks and contradictions therein, but even though Bashir’s unwavering commitment to helping him despite what he’s done is certainly unprecedented and moving to him, his underlying value system hasn’t changed by the end of that episode.) And while Bashir’s faith in Starfleet and the Federation does get rocked quite a bit over the course of the show, it’s never because of his friendship with Garak.
Instead, I’d say that with some exceptions (like The Wire), their friendship in the early seasons is usually framed as a respite from their serious responsibilities or moral dilemmas. This especially true of Garak, who is likely not used to someone simply enjoying his company with no ulterior motives whatsoever, but the narrative maneuvering of the show also does a lot to shield Bashir from the reality of who Garak is. Yes, he gets a taste of that in The Wire, when Garak goes out of his way to impress upon him what the reality of his life as a spy truly was. But that’s still only verbal testimony, and only confined to what Garak has done in the past. Bashir is largely absent from all the shit that Garak pulls during the show!
And I’m not complaining that, say, the events of The Die Is Cast take place between Garak and Odo, because it makes thematic sense for it to be Odo for that arc. (And I love that friendship.) But Garak and Bashir do not get a plot like that, or like In the Pale Moonlight, where Bashir is directly exposed to or complicit in Garak’s immoral behaviour. The closest we get to an actual serious ethical clash between them is in Our Man Bashir, which is a goofy comedy episode. (And it’s worth noting that Bashir calls Garak’s bluff and shoots him in that confrontation! Yeah, he likely missed on purpose, given what we later learn about his magic hand-eye coordination, but he’s still unwilling to compromise on his heroism for Garak’s sake. It’s actually a pretty Cardassian gesture, which is probably part of why Garak loves it so much, but it does say a lot about where their priorities are re: their commitment to their values vs. each other.)
And I think the lack of more serious, plot-relevant ethical conflict between Garak and Bashir is a real loss for the show, because one thing I find really interesting about their relationship is that - in contrast to the examples of Odo and Sisko up there - Bashir is the person in the cast most able to hold Garak accountable. He’s repeatedly established as one of the most firmly moral members of the cast, and his righteous anger at seeing those morals trodden upon is one of his most defining character traits in the later seasons. His unconditional forgiveness of Garak in The Wire is lovely, and it is an important moment in the development of both their relationship and Bashir’s character. But in the long term, once we get into actual serious, consequential war and espionage plots? And if we’re imagining them in a long term committed relationship? It wouldn’t be sustainable, and it doesn’t feel in keeping with Bashir’s character that’d he have endless reservoirs of patience and understanding specifically for Garak. And it’s precisely because Bashir is uniquely able to grant Garak forgiveness that he’d also potentially be uniquely able to chastise him.
(This is why, by the way, my headcanon as to the in-universe reason why they don’t seem as close in the later seasons, paternity deathbed reveals and occasional flirty bantering notwithstanding, is that Bashir was seriously fucking pissed at the stunt Garak pulled in Broken Link, both in terms of the personal betrayal and the destructiveness towards sentient life, and that it created a significant rift between them.)
All of that is to say - my biggest regret with the show’s sidelining of their dynamic isn’t the fact that their relationship never becomes romantic (not a chance of that in the 90s, and also these writers were pretty terrible at writing romance) but that they never get to have an argument. An actual serious, non-flirtatious, two-sided, genuinely-angry-at-each-other-argument. I want to see conflict! (I honestly think that their exchange in What You Leave Behind comes the closest to the kind of conflict I’d like to pick up on in post-canon fic - where they are conciliatory in the moment but still have this really wrenching chasm between them, and unresolved frustration as a result of that chasm.)
So as an extension of these thoughts, I actually really like that we’re not given the basis for a traditional “us against the world” style romance plot. I like that these characters are clearly deeply fond of each other and significant to each others’ development, but have other important connections (Garak especially, since despite being only a recurring character introduced through Bashir, he integrates into the broader cast) and other priorities besides each other.
Furthermore, despite the significant differences in their value systems, one very fundamental thing they have in common is how passionately devoted they are to their respective causes. For Garak, it’s Cardassia. And while his idea of what it means to serve Cardassia, and what Cardassia needs, undergoes a lot of change over the course of the show, I don’t see any version of Garak in which Cardassia is not his first love. For Bashir, it’s altruism and helping people, as well as his intellectual curiosity - aims which are reflected in Starfleet and the Federation for him but ultimately higher ideals.
And I don’t think either Garak or Bashir would admire the other nearly as much if they were willing to let go of everything they hold dear for the sake of romance. They’re both far too committed to being a part of the world. Garak may have some fun with trying to shake Bashir of his optimism, but ultimately Bashir’s goodness, his fierce conviction that no one deserves to suffer, are among the most compelling aspects of his personality. And if Bashir is ever going to actually enter a serious relationship with Garak, he’s got to move beyond flirty intrigue and literary banter and see Garak as someone who’s proactively committed to goals that Bashir can respect. If they’re coming together as a couple, it’s because their aims and beliefs have come into alignment in some way.
And to be fair, a lot of post-canon Cardassia stuff is doing the latter. But I also want more… conflict within that framework, I guess? I don’t want a romantic relationship and the act of getting together to be the endpoint of whatever reconciliation of values they need to work through. And that’s part of what I’m trying to untangle in planning this fic of mine - especially regarding how fraught romantic commitment feels for them. For Bashir, there’s the problem of not only reconciling himself with what Garak has done, but also of choosing to be with someone whose impulses and entire cultural belief system places duty and institutional loyalty above personal feelings. And for Garak, there’s the fact that the most devoted and emotionally intense relationship he’s had in his life thus far has been with Tain, who embodied Cardassia for him - and as a result, I doubt he quite knows what to do with the possibility of a serious relationship with Bashir, who is very emphatically not Cardassia. He’s not used to being divided in his passions!
It’s not that I’m never capable of being moved by post-canon stuff that involves Bashir being charmed by how slippery Garak is, or them generally being quippy and fond of each other (I’m not made of stone here). But I’m never satisfied with just that, because that escapist element never feels like it translates well from the early seasons of the show to post-canon, and because it never engages with what I find the most fascinating about what’s set up with their whole dynamic. (And I especially dislike it when it feels like Bashir’s character is getting shortchanged in terms of his complexity and moral convictions being excised in order for Garak to get everything he wants.)
quark in the hooouuse
some more linework-focused stuff for u. love graphic style lines. perfect for comics.
coloring is so stupid hard bros. balancing a color palette with balancing the values with managing the overall composition including light and shadow and themes and aesthetics and stylistic choices and brush techniques and
why do all that when gradient map is right there #digital art
I SURVIVED THE BELL RIOTS
1995 crew gift from the DS9 writers (my friends broke out theirs for our DnD game last weekend). Please consider a gift to a local charity that supports the unhoused and hungry “In Memory of Gabriel Bell” this weekend.
i had this mental image of Odo mimicking the plant that Kira brought him
It's a good thing Sisko shaved his head. In the Pale Moonlight is a bald man's soliloquy. A man with hair couldn't do that.
"Close yet far, my everything."
Crossfire has done irreparable damage to me and I needed an outlet for it