Ds9 - Blog Posts
the word you're looking for is 'unnatural' meaning not from nature
what is julian texting our favourite simple tailor?
I'm watching ds9 and I'm so sorry people who are obsessed with secondary/supporting characters. I get it now I understand your pain I am one of you. every episode I'm like man I hope I see my guy garak this time. I miss my guy garak. and almost every time there is no fucking garak. just watched the ep shadowplay and when bashir MENTIONED garak I leaped into the air and clapped my hands and cheered. crazy behavior. good show though. I am enjoying it
And another thing I find hilarious about Garak is that - he is such a snob.
Like, Quark's too vulgar and loud for him, close range fighting is "undignified", no one can set a foot on the station without having this middle aged Cardassian criticizing their fashion choice right in front of their Bolinian salads or whatever, he debates epic literature at lunch, he has had Shakespeare for like 5 minutes and he is already quoting it during life or death emergencies.
And it's absolutely hilarious because this man chopped up his countrymen for a living.
Hi everybody, I hope you’ve missed my doodles! Haven’t been posting anything for two weeks ‘cos I work now (like an Adult!!) and had no time lately. Hope I’ll have time and energy to draw at least a couple somethings a week from now on
Obsessed with his fruity little poses
mini julian that can infodump by overlaying him on my notes
inspired by the pot im making that is inspired by a vessel from 1000 b.c
ipad broken so you already know I'm drawing garak traditionally and taking a picture of it in the dark with an android camera 🔥🔥
brain’s been rattling nonstop about how my favorite album duology was waiting for me to discover garashir, because it IS about them.
röyksopp (acclaimed & iconic norwegian electropop synth artists, my beloveds) put out an album in 2009 called “Junior”. it’s a delight. it’s bright and optimistic, it’s uptempo even when it’s sad or conflicted, there’s a deep sense of drive and a pull towards the future. the duo brings in like half a dozen collaborating artists on lead vocals (robyn! karin dreijer!) and the result is so profoundly vibrant.
this is the julian album. this is the julian-as-he-projects-himself-outwardly album. julian surrounded by friends and moving too fast to think twice about what’s happening internally. julian while he’s still young and golden and nothing’s crashed down around him.
then in 2010, röyksopp releases “Senior” as a direct counterpart to Junior. it’s their only all-instrumental no-vocals album, and the tone has shifted. Senior is downtempo and sparse, it’s ambient and contemplative and dissonant even if the melody stays uncannily warm.
the sense of deep sadness and isolation in these instrumental tracks is so on the nose for garak it’s a little wild. tracks with names like “the drug” and “the alcoholic”. the empty stretching synth pads of “a long, long way” sounds like what the station must’ve felt like the first night after every other cardassian left.
It’s not a strict binary ofc, shades of both are in both albums, but the contrast between youth and experience, between unabashed optimism and tired reticence….. it’s sustaining me.
please listen to these albums and tell me what you think please
the noises that snakes make when they sneeze are 1000000% the noises cardassians make when they sneeze. imagine damar. imagine dukat. imagine garak.
I’ve been thinking about it all day.
Avery Brooks deliveries that make me smile every time single I think of them.
Turned myself into a cardassian! I kinda look like Dukat lol
hey– who are your favorite garashir/ds9 authors, or favorite fics currently updating? this is a fic rec solicitation post !!
I've got a few saved in my tumblr likes, but always looking to broaden my horizons. i'm still new here so feel free to rec me stuff that's established or niche or anything in between
Interests: cool worldbuilding, weird cardassian anatomy, slow burn, mutual pining. any rating welcome but primarily interested in E ngl, open to multishipping, open to darkfic / dead dove with tags, open to AUs. i'm still acquiring tastes for the ship/fandom, so any wordcount is welcome!
mainly i'm just trying to get a sense for who is regularly putting out cool/interesting work these days so I can jump into the present tense fandom
"it doesn't make any logical sense for julian to have hang-ups about being queer in the 2370s" is an objectively, factually correct take.
but I need julian bashir to have just bare minimum enough internalized homophobia for 'one of your girls' to be a garak pov garashir song
personally i can’t believe we don’t bully julian more for OBVIOUSLY going thru a magic phase in high school
caveat: all trek is beautiful, this is in no way a better/worse thing
i joke that one of the biggest problems I have with tng characterization is the 'we need to give a character the Bad Opinion' phenomena.
an episode wants to explore a moral quandry through plot, but for that to work, they usually need to Give A Character The Bad Opinion– it's often Geordi, or Riker, or Worf who take a stance that's less generous, more defensive, or just plain wrong-through-misunderstanding. now this does give the episode narrative structure, where the character with the Better Opinion and the Bad Opinion can have interpersonal conflict, and then this can resolve in a nuanced understanding. I get it. it's basic plot construction. but this also gives these Bad Opinion prone characters some wildly uneven characterization over the show's run.
I've been rewatching some ds9 episodes (I only just finished my first watchthrough last month) and I've realized that ds9 avoids this issue by simply having so many more characters who are not good people.
It's weird when they write Geordi being unnecessarily stubborn and easily-annoyed towards Scotty, or Riker being a shouty hard-ass to Barkley– because both of these characters are fundamentally good people who we need to root for. It's weird to see them being complete dickbags above and beyond what seems congruous to their characterization, when the whole point of the show is that the crew of the Enterprise is flawed but fundamentally equipped to carry out their mission.
By contrast, it makes perfect sense that Garak would be the one to try and exterminate the Founders instead of finding an ethical peace. It makes perfect sense for Quark to position himself on the side of whatever benefits his business most, even if it's horrific. None of this feels incongruous with who they are throughout the rest of the show– because their function as characters simply doesn't depend on you rooting for them the way you want to root for tng characters.
just thinking a lot of thoughts about this horrible satellite zoo of freaks and bad people who still deserve community. thinking a lot about how you don't have to be good to have a home.
i was getting ready for another day of spying and murdering, practicing my interrogator death stare with my piercing blue orbs. just then, enabran tain came in. “pack your things.” he said. “i’ve sold you to pay our debts. meet your new owners, the crew of deep space 9.”