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ofhouseadama · 3 years ago

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What do you think Julian and Garak’s marriage is like after they finally get together? What do you think marriage means to them? They both seem the kind to only enter into marriage as a contract and not to be swept away into emotions

This is 100% going to be colored by my own views as a Marriage Is a Legal Contract and Financial Institution person, but I agree with you -- I think in pretty much any scenario where they decide to get married, it's for political or legal or financial reasons.

We don't get a ton about Cardassian enjoinment/marriage from DS9 itself, besides the fact that it's taken very seriously as one of the pillars of Cardassian society as it is one of the main legal mechanisms for building a family. We know that children who do not have the protection of living, married parents are essentially abandoned as the dregs of Cardassian society. We know that breaking your marriage vows and getting caught can result in someone being expelled from political and social society, just as we know that failing to protect your concieved-within-the-marriage-bed child (since bastards are socially acceptable to kill, should it become expedient) can also result in expulsion from political and social society. To Cardassians, the enjoinment contract seems to be one of the most revered and hallowed institutions in society.

Which like, wow what a tangled web for someone like Garak who is the bastard of a man who made his lover and confidant his "housekeeper" instead of marrying her, and made both Garak and Mile prioritize himself over themselves and each other. Tain took every Cardassian institution and warped it into something dark and twisted out of a fear of even perceived weakness.

Anyway, Garak is a man who knows about Pining and Yearning but also would look Julian straight in the face and offer to marry him so that Julian can get a Cardassian green card or so that Julian can maintain a medical license under Cardassian law as a Cardassian citizen because Starfleet finally washed him out and took his, or idk, even tax evasion. Because Garak is a lying liar who lies and will only let Julian know that he loves him by bringing him practical little gifts like political assassinations and putting a GPS tracker under his skin while he sleeps.

And while Julian is definitely someone eminently capable of obsession and fixation and getting swept away by his emotions he is also just... ruthlessly practical, when it comes down to it. He sees how to get from Point A to Point B and will cut down everything in his path to walk a straight line between them. Julian loves to brute force things until he's fit a round peg in a square hole, to continue mixing my metaphors. Marriage would be another means to an end. He doesn't need marriage to know that he's loved. If he's marrying Garak, he's doing it because it makes sense for his medical career or for Garak to advance in politics or to satisfy some kind of necessity, like making him eligible to adopt a Cardassian child or making sure his parents aren't his next-of-kin and can't make medical decisions for him.

Which, I would argue, has a certain romance to it -- Garak taking on the responsibility of medical proxy for someone like Julian which carries such an immense weight and is such a serious duty. Garak, who can kill with his bare hands and hasn't met a bridge he won't burn behind him, making a solemn vow to never violate Julian's express medical wishes. Peak romance, at least to me, someone who got married to her best friend for health insurance and also so my parents would not be the people making decisions for me if I got hit by a bus.

I think Garak would take marriage more seriously than Julian, by the dint of having grown up with the Cardassian programming about Good Cardassian Patriarchs with its strict definitions and rules about how a Good Cardassian Patriarch is to treat their spouse and children and their children's spouses and children and so forth -- very much like the Roman concept of a paterfamilias and honestly? Highkey love that for Garak, I love the idea of him being able to return to Cardassia and attain all the things Tain tried to make him afraid of and all the things Tain taught him were weaknesses and make it his strength. To have his Federation political trophy husband who is the top doctor at the best teaching hospital on Cardassia, to have a cadre of adopted children who are his beloved political powerhouses, proteges who would follow him into fire -- if for no other reason than the first fifty years of his life having been spent in service to a man who took the concept and made it evil and twisted.

But like, in a very, "We're Crofts Garaks. We have responsibilities. Jobs to do." Kind of way.

Julian just likes the idea of being the pretty trophy husband. They spend the rest of their years being petty for the greater good, scandalizing the remnants of Old Cardassia in society and amassing a large amount of descendants.

I also think Julian changes his name, but only because it's funny for him to watch the vein in Richard's forehead bulge and twitch and Garak just bites in the inside of his cheek trying not to smile but also dearest you couldn't have told me before you planned to deploy this particular method of annoying your father?

#otp: there's hope for you yet #emily watches ds9 #ask #anonymous #garashir

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dragonmuse · 2 years ago

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Oh yes, pretty please to the fic list thing!! I would love that!!

All right then! Here we go on a journey. I have listed these in the order they occurred to me and then by going through my bookmarks, then sorted by fandom. Some of these I’ve read upwards of a dozen times, some pre-date AO3, but all have been moved over. I’ve been in fandom a long time, so it’s a long list!

Letters from the Northern Continent by thehoyden. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Garak/Bashir. A poignant look at Julian going to Cardassia to help in war devastated areas. Probably my favorite fic of all time, if I was forced to choose just one.

Jeu-Parti by Macedon. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Jake/OMC. Jake meets an unusual Vulcan who changes the trajectory of his life. Over the course of the series, Jake grows up, becomes a father himself and learns how to love a person, who is both entirely different to him and yet so much the same.

Children Will Look To You (title shortened) by Staight_Outta_Hobbiton. Star Trek: Alternate Original Series. Bones-centric. Bones accidentally adopts the children orphaned from the destruction of Vulcan and takes them home to his huge family compound. All the found family feels. The series is WIP, likely permanently, but feels very satisfying as is.

Most Likely To by Kaneko. Breakfast Club. John Bender/Brian Johnson. Sometimes life doesn’t go like you planned, but you still wind up where you’re supposed to be.

Higher Education by Resonant. Breakfast Club. John Bender/Brian Johnson. Bender makes a life for himself in opposition to his father’s and it turns out pretty well. Bender’s struggle with his sexuality is realistic, heart-breaking and then healed.

Watchmen Zombie!Au by etherati. Watchmen. Dan Dreiberg/Rorschach. What if becoming a zombie was the best thing to ever happen to Rorshach? Dan navigates the changes in his friend and the world. There is a touch to this story that has never let me go. I think it’s the slow burn of it and the real consideration for how even the most difficult, hardened people can let themselves grow softer.

Ladders by emungere. Hannibal. Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter. I read a lot of Hannibal fic, but this one stuck to my ribs. A long journey with Will and Hannibal as they sort out their life post-cliff dive, in a house in France.

Responsible Science by lettered. Avengers. Bruce Banner-centric. This series is mind-meltingly good if you enjoy philosophical debates, troubled protagonists and serious takes on tropes. There’s de-aging, time loops, and more, but they are all taken deadly seriously. Bruce is a fascinating lens to journey with, his sharp edges never dulled down for narrative convenience.

PWP: Pie Without Plot by orange_crushed and MajorEnglishEsquire. Supernatural. Dean/Castiel, Sam/OFC. Dean gets to hang out in a bakery and run it and accidentally falls in love with doing it. Sam gets a kickass girlfriend. It’s just good, clean , floury fun.

And This Your Living Kiss by opal_bullets. Supernatural. Dean/Castiel. AU where Castiel is a poetry professor, who’s class Dean reluctantly audits as an adult, only to discover that the lone poetry book he published as a young man is Castiel’s personal favorite. This story is poetry in its own right, aching and lovely.

At Least There’s the Football by sheffiesharpe. Sherlock. Mycroft Holmes/Lestrade. This series is about falling in love in a very realistic and heartfelt way. It’s elegant and kind with its characters.

The Least of All Possible Mistakes by rageprufrock. Sherlock. Mycroft Holmes/Lestrade. Lestrade has always been a woman in this story. She is also a gorgeously fully realized character that makes me cheer for her and makes me cry for her, even though I’ve read it a dozen times and know how it all turns out.

Of Old Mystics by omphalos and Wolfing. Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Ethan Rayne/Rupert Giles. This fic is probably the longest on the list, spanning more than half a million words. It’s a novel about chaos and order, love and destruction.

Little Gods by Teland and Jane St. Claire. Buffy the Vampire Slayer and X-men. Nate Grey/Oz Osbourne. Take the chilliest werewolf of all time and let him go on an amazing journey with one of the most powerful mutants to ever live. It reads like a dreamscape.

Pike and Benny Stash by Viridian5. Buffy the Vampire Slayer (movie). Pike/Benny. Just teenage dirtbags falling in love. This was written in 1999 so I think it’s the oldest on the list. I definitely read it as the series was posting, so that’s fun.

Everything About It Is a Love Song by pocky_slash. X-Men. Charles Xavier/Erik Lensharr. Erik shows up when they’re in their seventies and is like ‘come retire with me’ Charles :). It’s just very sweet and tender.

Zweiundachtzig by Dow. X-Men. Charles Xavier/Erik Lensharr. A modern au where Erik makes jewelry and in sharing a studio with Raven, finds a family and the love of his life. Just makes me want to melt into a puddle really.

Frankenstein and the Newt by orphan. Pacific Rim. Newton Geizler/Hermann Gottlieb. A sprawling series that launched several aus of itself. It is touching, philosophical, funny and also deadly-serious. The Omelette-verse stories are my favorite, but they’re all great. Contains monster fucking.

Absolute Beginners by adreadfulidea. Archie Comics. Jughead Jones/Reggie Mantle. This was a Yuletide story and I can’t even say why it grabbed me by the throat so hard. It’s shorter than I usually hold this close to my heart, and really about a single day. I just love it.

Human Interest by MadLori. Brokeback Mountain. Ennis del Mar/Jack Twist. A reporter stumbles on a ranch owned by two men and decides to write about them. Instead she becomes close with them, learns about their past and becomes a part of their future. Sprawling look at what they could’ve been.

Under the Table and Dreaming by hollycomb. Toy Story. Sid Phillips/Andy Davis. Don’t let the pairing or fandom dissuade you. This is the story of two lost kids that find each other, hold on tight and don’t let go. It’s about adjusting your expectations, figuring out what love looks like at every age and stage of life.

Mod About You by Ellabesmirched. Star Wars. Kylo Ren/Armitage Hux. Modern AU where Hux is a businessman and Kylo is a tattooed, pierced and much kinder version of himself. Lots of drug use, discovery and sex.

#favorite fics #do recommend #I'm sure as soon I hit post I'll think of a dozen more #but these are the ones I've re-read the most #I like 'em long and dense

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catboyelimgarak · 3 years ago

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I was going to write a fix-it small fic because I finished the last episode of DS9, but I dont think I can finish it. So I’ll post what I had so far here and maybe when I feel better motivated, finish it with Julian asking about Garak and throwing himself into his arm lmao.

What do you do when what you thought was desired turned out to be so…anticlimactic.

How did one go on to attempt explaining the phenomenon?

Laying side by side there was nothing but silence and satisfied breathing. The heat between them still warm and mixed with the subtle musk of sex. Sweat slowly drying on both brown skin and shining spots. The flashes of just moments ago lingered in his head: arms wrapped tight around her petite body, and her own arms hooked under his pits to bring their chest flushed together. Ezri proved herself more than just a gentle soul. Whether it is from her symbiote which held some of the most experienced beings in the galaxy, or Ezri Tigan herself, either way her cries had driven him further than he had before. Reaching the highest point of being twined together had been just that: the highest point, and nothing more. So it really went to wondering:

Why the hell did he feel like any other night with a beautiful woman?

Ezri Dax was no other woman, she was someone who he could easily talk to without being the butt of a joke. She listened to him babble without looking bored — or at least not terribly so. And her smiles always set his heart pulsating against his ribcage as if to escape. She wasa Dax, with years of knowledge on him from the previous host. What made this so passive?

Her chest pressing against his backside. Fingers brushed over his bicep and warm breath washed over his ear. “We still need to get up, Julian.”

Work. War. Cardassia Prime.

“Hey…”

“Hm?”

“...It’s not there, huh?”

Slowly Julian turned around to better face her blue eyes; they were like the sky on Earth, which only made him ache for the planet. Tenderly she looked at him, tracing over his brow, then down his long cheeks, and finally back up to his own gaze.

“This wasn’t how either of us thought it would be like.”

Relieved that he was not alone in disappointment, there still was a zap of shock; she had thought this would be the end of their little teenage love scene. Ezri’s face melted into sympathy as a small smile pulled the corners of her lips. No longer were they filled with that passion the months had been filled with. Instead there laid only confusion and sadness.

“I thought this was it.” He murmured against her forehead.

“Me too.” She laid her arm over his waist, gently scratching her nails over his backside. “It did bring some clarity though.”

“Oh?”

“I’ve hung on to Jadzia’s memories and emotions this whole time, and that…that isn’t what I need or want.”

It would have been you, those words did nothing to him now. Perhaps before, laced with bittersweetness, but now he knew them to be a poorly aged emotion. ‘Would have’ and ‘now’ were two different times, so distinct and contrasting in so little time. Julian could not wrap his mind, with all its augmented capacity, around the idea. Ezri could, but explaining appeared difficult.

“We’re not the same anymore. Not just as Dax and Julian, but as Ezri weeks ago and Julian from weeks ago as well. We’re always changing, that’s how the universe does it. If we were to stay as we were for long, then we’d never grow wiser!”

Simple, yet still so hard to fully comprehend as he felt a chill wash over his bare body.

Ezri sat up without a care to pull the blanket over her chest — because, really, what did it matter after sex — then exhaled a deep breathe. “You know, I had a suspicious feeling this was how it’d be.”

“I’m starting to realize that's just a Dax thing.”

“Well, when you have hundreds of years under your symbiote, you tend to just recognize things without realizing it.” She shrugged, though not without flashing him a smile over her shoulder.

“Do tell: what exactly did this feeling entail?”

“I don’t think I will…but a very Jadzia thought begs me to give you a clue.”

Of course she would. Ezri or not, Jadzia was still fresh in the symbiote and loved to have her fun.

“I’m just a substitute, and you’re too dumb to realize why, how, and who.” And the blankets were thrown aside to hit him in the face.

Sitting up, Julian sputtered. “What the hell does that mean?!”

With a towel now in one hand and an extra set of clothes in the other, Ezri shook her head. “Figure it out.” And she left him to watch her spotted backside walk into the refresher.

And as much as her vagueness frustrated him to narrow his eyes and look dumb with his mouth agape, Julian could not deny he loved to see her walk away with the sway of her lovely hips.

#nsfw-ish #bizarre art #Julian Bashir

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ectogeo-art · 3 years ago

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omg i want to hear about romulan embassy siskarak

WIP ask meme

Omg, yes, thank you for asking, I’m so excited about this one!!!! :D The fic idea appeared to me fully formed as soon as I saw this post by @the-last-dillards about how in a scene cut from “The Wire”, Sisko mentions that he and Curzon were at an embassy on Romulus when Sisko was about Julian's age, and dillards speculated that it would be funny if Sisko and Curzon happened to be there at the same time as Garak was on Romulus posing as a gardener. Most everyone else who saw that post was like "lmao Curzon/Garak <3" and while that is extremely funny too, the Sisko/Garak implications are soooo much more interesting to me personally.

I think Sisko would be an interesting parallel-but-not-quite to Julian. I feel like young Sisko would be similarly bright and passionate and idealistic, which we KNOW is a type Garak is attracted to, but unlike Julian, Sisko would NOT put up with Garak’s bullshit mindgames, he would NOT find Garak inherently charming.

And then there’s Garak, still young, on top of his game, feeling confident and powerful and indestructible (but ultimately just Tain’s pawn... he’s been indoctrinated to love Cardassia unconditionally and hasn’t really had that challenged in any way yet).

They would both find each other extremely grating. Sisko embodies everything Garak hates about the Federation, so Garak would want to take him down a peg, make him sink to Garak’s level. Sisko would be infuriated by Garak’s duplicitous and condescending nature, but maybe Garak also keeps saying things that are juuuust provocative enough that Sisko can’t seem to help arguing back against his points (and Sisko really doesn’t get how that’s somehow turning both of them on...).

So that’s the gist why I’m obsessed with the potential for this pairing during pre-canon in general. Now onto the fic itself! Juuuust in case I never get around to actually writing this, here’s my detailed plan for the romulan embassy siskarak fic:

Sisko and Curzon are on assignment at the Federation embassy on Romulus. The Federation embassy is holding an open house next week. Sisko offers to help cook the food for the event, because he has an idea to incorporate ingredients from other cultures into his jambalaya recipe to Symbolize how cultural exchange can lead to amazing new technological advances and/or art and/or political alliances (or idk, whatever overwrought metaphor an excited young Sisko decides is galaxy brain levels of diplomacy). Curzon's just like “hell yeah, sounds great, kid! go for it!”

So Ensign Sisko (or whatever his rank is at that point idk) asks around at the other embassies nearby for ingredients native to their homeworlds. They give him some recommendations, but he’d have to replicate or import the ingredients. But then he gets to the Cardassian embassy and they have this beeeeautiful garden, overflowing with native Cardassian produce. Sisko asks the gardener there (Garak) if he can possibly use some of the vegetables for his jambalaya of interplanetary diplomacy.

Garak is instantly annoyed by how performative and insipid Sisko’s project is... but Garak knows he has to play nice and hand over the vegetables. He also knows how much he doesn't want sisko rendering these vegetables he's been diligently tending into tasteless inedible garbage that an unrefined Federation or Romulan palate couldn’t possibly even appreciate... So he smiles politely, and offers to show him the proper way to cook it. Tonight. In Sisko’s quarters.

Garak internally justifies this unnecessary dinner date by deciding that it will be a good opportunity to scope out the inside of the Federation embassy. And so what if he’s also getting a little riled up thinking about all the delicious arguments he might have with this headstrong and attractive Starfleet officer? So what if he kind of wants to figure out what he has to say in order break Sisko’s composure? What he can say that would make Sisko, despite his self-satisfied demeanor of peace and acceptance and understanding, angrily slam Garak into the wall hard enough to trigger the pleasurable rush of the implant...?

Meanwhile back in sisko POV... Sisko gladly accepts, actually quite eager to learn more about cooking, and a little curious about this strange Cardassian gardener who seems a little bit interested in him. (He’s not annoyed by Garak yet, because all he’s seen is his mask, his poker face.) Curzon’s taught Sisko everything about diplomacy and how to be a Starfleet officer and how to be a person, and sisko looks up to him in a bit of an unhealthy way. Sisko knows that the easiest way to impress Curzon is to score with an alien. Sisko’s maybe a little curious to see if that’s what Garak is interested in, so that Sisko will have something to brag about with Curzon.

[sidenote: idk where Jennifer is in this timeline (but also the canon timeline of when Curzon and Sisko were off on adventures that included banging twin alien chicks and getting falling-down-drunk together seems inconsistent with the canon timeline of when Sisko and Jennifer met lolll)... anyway, maybe bennifer are on a break bc of the long-distance while he’s on Romulus, and/or bc she maybe doesn’t particularly like the influence Curzon has had on him and they very recently got in a fight about it.]

Okay, so now it’s that night in Sisko’s quarters. For now let’s just gloss right over the (presumably horny as hell) scene about the chopping and stewing and seasoning of the vegetables—during which the arguments (and resulting tensions) between them build and build, from little things like vegetable chopping techniques to the fundamental paradigms of their worldviews and senses of morality—and let’s fast forward directly into the middle of their fight about whether the federation sucks more than the cardassian empire: Garak out of nowhere just starts undoing his shirt while saying something inflammatory questioning the federation’s true commitment to cultural exchange... Garak basically implies that Sisko is a hypocrite who has been arguing for ideals he doesn’t believe in if he doesn’t want to bang Garak RIGHT NOW...

And then they bang, And it’s a mess, and they HATE each other, and it’s really hot. Or at least, that’s the idea. ( @delicatetrashstranger volunteered to help write the E-rated part, for which I am very grateful, lol.) In the end, the weird space jambalaya burns while they are going at it, and everything is ruined and smells terrible, and Sisko doesn’t even WANT to brag about this one to Curzon, because he is not proud of how he let Garak get under his skin. Garak maybe experiences A Consequence of some kind that makes him realize he can’t recklessly throw himself at Federation hotties (like... maybe something Sisko says makes him question a Truth he was certain of, or maybe this fling has jeopardized his assassination plans somehow, or maybe there is a close call where he almost reveals something personal about himself, or almost accidentally leaves behind his underwear, which is where he keeps some of his sci fi Spy Gadgets, lol idk).

The end!

Hope you’ve enjoyed this summary of my fic... I hope I actually write it one day XD (If anyone feels inspired by any aspect of this and wants to run with it, PLEASE DO! Also, if, like me, you desperately Need this fic to exist, feel free to let me know that you’re excited about it! My brain is all garashir all the time, so any WIP that’s not garashir sometimes needs to be helped along by external motivation lol.)

#siskarak #my fic #wip ask meme #ask game

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monoxidecahedron · 3 years ago

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drunk on you (julian bashir x elim garak)

wrote a thing for deep space nine (because garashir my beloved), it's long, so i broke it up into two parts. here's the first one, it's 2k words and tw for blood mention, other than that it should be fine! enjoy!

“Mister Garak,” Julian Bashir slurs, leaning against said man’s couch, “has anyone ever told you how very precious you are?”

Garak tilts his head in that Cardassian way of his and gently pulls the bottle of kanar out of his drinking partner’s grip. “I do believe you’ve had enough, Doctor. You of all people should know how potent this sort of drink is in Humans.”

Julian offers him a loopy grin. “Aw, come on, Garak, it’s only two glasses, I’m fine,” he protests. His point is undermined by the fact that he keeps swaying unsteadily as he sits cross-legged on the couch cushion, not bothering to try and stabilize himself. Garak presses his lips together and tries to put on an exasperated expression. He thinks he does fairly well- in any other case it would’ve been impeccable acting, but the glass of kanar he’s already had makes the amusement he’s feeling shine through a little more than he’d like.

His friend doesn’t notice, lost in the alcohol and too busy further destabilizing himself, giggling as he tilts closer and closer to Garak next to him. “Whoa,” he mutters as he tips out of balance, twisting at the last moment and landing with his head in Garak’s lap. Garak freezes, and he has the odd urge to slowly raise his hands in a placating gesture, as if to demonstrate he doesn’t mean this beautiful creature in his lap any harm.

He doesn’t. There isn’t much reason to, anyways. They’re alone in his quarters- no one to be suspicious of him except, of course, himself- and it’s not like he’d hurt Julian anyways. Or want to. The man himself doesn’t seem very worried; in fact, there’s a fond look in his eyes, an adoring, trusting, almost-loving sort of look that he hasn’t seen directed at himself in a while. People look at him, yes, but always with fear or distrust or hatred tainting their expressions. Take your pick of reasons- Tain’s man, Obsidian agent, Cardassian, rumoured spy- but it’s always there, lurking beneath a thin veneer of politeness (or, more likely, outright glaring, veneer nonexistent).

Julian, though. Julian Bashir has always trusted him, from the moment he sat across from him in the Replimat to the time Garak raged and flipped tables at him to now, alone with him and drunk and vulnerable and feeling totally, utterly safe. It almost makes him uncomfortable, seeing the extent to which Julian trusts him. He knows he doesn’t deserve it, knows the doctor’s illusions of his mysterious but altogether clean past would shatter upon hearing of even the most irrelevant of errands he ran for the Order. Still, even with no small amount of guilt, he savors the kind curve of Julian’s mouth when he catches sight of his Cardassian friend.

Julian, not bothering to get off Garak’s lap, giggles and reaches up. He almost flinches away instinctively, but all Julian does is tap his nose once. “Boop,” he says with yet another giggle. Garak raises an eyeridge.

“And what, exactly, does that mean, Doctor?”

“Nothing.”

“I see,” Garak says, leaning back against the couch and looking around the rest of the room, content to sit in silence for a while.

“No- wait, it’s an Earth thing,” Julian says hurriedly, as if Garak had threatened him.

“Ah, I believe I’ve heard of it,” he responds absentmindedly, reaching down to thread his fingers through Julian’s hair.

“You’re lying,” Julian pouts. His mood suddenly turns serious, and he peers intently at him. “Why do you always lie to me, Garak?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t take it personally, my dear,” he says. He’s vaguely aware that he keeps forgetting to add “Doctor”, but at the moment Julian is warm in his lap and his mind is foggy and he can’t bring himself to deny this simple affection. “It’s simply a habit of mine.”

Julian hums in acknowledgement, but doesn’t seem to have anything to say to that. He makes a grab for the kanar bottle, still in Garak’s other hand, and sits up, taking another drink before the bottle’s taken away again.

Garak, kanar in hand again, chides, “ Julian. You really should stop,” but for once he feels relatively safe and isn’t cycling through all the reasons he should stay far, far away from the Doctor and the tangled mess of feelings that come with him and so he tips the bottle up.

He sighs afterward, setting the bottle on the coffee table in front of him with a satisfying clunk , other hand still in Julian’s hair. Julian’s got a face full of anguish when he looks down at him, and Garak tilts his head, inviting him to explain. He shakes his head, but a moment later he lets out a long breath and says, “He annoys me so much.”

Garak laughs. “There’s a lot of men who annoy you, Doctor. You’ll have to be more specific.”

Julian goes on as if he never heard him. “Really, though, I wouldn’t have it any other way. He’s splendid, you know?” He gestures wildly on splendid, somehow managing to smack Garak in the face and nearly overturn the kanar bottle sitting on his coffee table. “So mysterious.”

Garak, clenching his jaw against the bitter taste of jealousy, manages to get out an “I see”, but it doesn’t really matter; Julian’s far gone at this point and continues to ignore him, lost in thoughts of this mystery man.

“He doesn’t love me,” he says, giving Garak heartbroken puppy eyes. “He doesn’t love me… he said he hated me, once. He was lying. I think. He always lies but he doesn’t lie sometimes and it’s so confusing- Garak, it’s so confusing. ”

“He doesn’t sound all that nice.”

“He isn’t, really- he’s nice to me, though. Makes me feel nice.”

“That’s nice, then.” Even with years of Obsidian training, it’s still a concerted effort to keep his voice steady. Damn Federaji , damn Humans, damn this particular Federaji Human with his honeyed smile and his charming naivete and his slender body and his brilliant fucking arguments and-

“He’s brilliant, did you know?”

“You seem to have forgotten you still haven’t told me who he is, dear,” Garak says. It’s an indulgement he can’t help but allow himself. He’s lost his Doctor; what’s one little word?

“I don’t know who he is, either.” Garak makes a questioning face. “I don’t know if he knows who he is either. He’s kind of lost. Stuck.”

“Ah.”

“It’s a sad thought.”

“That your-” he pauses for a second- “that he’s stuck?” He feels silly, trying to talk to an obviously drunk, in-his-head Julian who keeps ignoring him. He might as well have put on a movie and tried to talk to the characters.

“Most people have never heard their friends’ actual voice,” Julian says. Garak pauses, considering. It’s an interesting sort of thing to think about, if (as Julian said) a bit sad.

“I learned Kardasi for him,” he continues. And that’s even more interesting- this man speaks Kardasi? He dismisses a thought before it can form. Some aren’t worth entertaining, even for a moment; hope is a dangerous thing, flighty and tempting and ultimately disappointing, and he isn’t such a fool as to invite that sort of creature into his head.

“I learned it for him,” Julian repeats. “It’s a very nice language, you know. Very interesting. I speak it to my friends and no one notices. He didn’t notice either.” So he talks to the mystery man. Hm. He starts to analyse the information, mind almost subconsciously going through the steps and piecing together what he knows. So far, very little.

“Tell me about this man,” he says.

Julian gives him a little head-tilt. “Whatever do you mean? I’ve been telling you about him,” he says. Garak can’t tell if he’s genuinely confused or if alcohol makes him more of a little shit than usual. It’s certainly making himself more impatient.

“I mean that I don’t know who this man is, and if you’ll excuse my bluntness, I would like to know,” he says shortly.

Understanding seems to dawn in Julian’s eyes. “Oops.” Scale-less arms wrap around his neck and he pulls himself up and before he’s got a chance to think bad idea bad idea bad idea soft lips are on his and suddenly all he can think is OH! and Julian’s kissing him harder and maybe the Humans were on to something with their kissing because dear god it’s so good and he leans closer and Julian hums against him and

crash

He’s on the floor, rubbing at his shoulder, at the place where Garak shoved him away. “Garak-”

“Out.”

His eyes widen. “Garak, I’m so sorry,” he says, but his words are slurred and bad idea bad idea bad idea is rushing through and he gets up off the couch ( my dear Cardassia what have I done ) and picks Julian up and goes for the door ( damage control damage control ).

“No- Garak- wait- no don’t leave me I’m sorry we can talk about it-” the door slides open with that same mechanical beep-whoosh as he approaches- “Garak, please- you can’t just leave me out here-”

“I can and I will, Doctor,” he grits out. “You’re drunk. Go home.” Bashir is set down just outside his door.

“Garak- Garak wait- no-” the door starts to slide shut again- “Elim!”

whoosh-click.

He sighs heavily, leaning against it, head in his hands.

bad idea bad idea bad idea bad idea

The pieces of the kanar bottle are sharp as he picks them up off the floor. Julian’s momentum had knocked it against the opposite wall, shattering it, breaking it beyond repair just as surely as he’d broken any semblance of camaraderie between them, and now they lie glimmering in the window's meagre light. He can’t simply leave the pieces on the floor, jagged and dangerous- can’t keep seeing Bashir, all of our usual engagements will have to go, and then some- and so he picks them up, slowly, even though they slide against his palm when he closes it around them, edges breaking skin when he shifts the wrong way ( it’ll hurt, yes, but I can deal with it, I can deal with it, I’ll have to deal with it ). He can’t feel it, can’t feel much over the roaring in his head- Tain’s voice, of course it’s Tain’s voice, it’s always Tain’s voice- you knew this would happen, it’s your fault, you knew you shouldn’t have gotten closer to him don’t be so selfish now look what you’ve done. He’s gone and deluded himself into wanting someone like you and he’ll never have happiness and it’s your fault your fault your

There’s a sharp pain and the feeling of cold blood trickling down his hand. The glass piece slides out of his grip and lands on the carpet, dripping in the stuff and staining the carpet.

He huffs. Control, Elim. Control is the key. The memories seem to dissipate as he shakes his head, along with Tain’s admonishments.

There’s a knock at his door. Doctor Bashir. He’s the only person who actually knocks, like the Humans used to in the old days before automated doors. He’s also the only person who’d want to come see him in his quarters. “I’m not here!” Garak calls.

There’s a thump that sounds suspiciously like a human fist hitting the door in frustration, a groan, and then Bashir calls, “Let me in, Garak! I just want to talk!”

Unfortunately for the doctor, talking is the last thing he wants to do. Bashir keeps yelling, desperation seeping into his voice, but he simply turns and continues picking up more pieces of the glass bottle. There’s a flash of pain and then cold blood dripping from a fresh cut ( go talk to him, what the fuck are you doing, he wants you, go out there and just take him ) and he shakes his head, sighing, but he tips the piece into the bag he’s using to hold them all because he can’t just leave them on the floor ( the fuck do you mean just go out there and take him you can’t do that you’d destroy him, you know it, you and all your secrets and your cruelty would crush his bright-eyed smile ) and it’s always the harsher voices that are loudest but this one’s right. He can’t give in to the man outside his door, has to not be selfish for once in his entire bloodstained life and so he just keeps going, collecting cuts as he handles the edges of what used to be a beautiful, whole bottle and grits his teeth against the sting.

Eventually, footsteps sound, padding away from his door, and he sighs and slumps against the edge of the coffee table. It digs into his back scales uncomfortably, but he can't bring himself to move.

...

hooray! tumblr didn't kill my formatting (i think)! part two will be up soon, i pinky promise i'll deliver this time i swear it. comments fuel my soul and my writing if you reblog i am legally required to love you forever same goes for comments x

#star trek #ds9 #deep space nine #st:ds9 #garashir #fanfic #my writing

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littlewalken · 4 years ago

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TZN Exclusive Interview: Andy Robinson

On Garak, "Star Trek", "Dirty Harry" & Sci-Fi Idealism

TrekZone Network sat down with Andrew Robinson, who played the Cardassian Garak in "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine", in Hamburg prior to the "Evening with Andrew Robinson", organized by FKM Events. We talked about Garak's past and future, Robinson's current projects and the idealism of science fiction fans.

TrekZone Network: Is this the first time you are in Hamburg?

Andrew Robinson: No, I was here 12 years ago for a convention with another organizer. So this is my first time back in 12 years, I believe.

Andy Robinson at the FKM Evening in Hamburg

TZN: Long time.

Robinson: It has been a long time. And as they say, a lot of water under the bridge...

TZN: You have been to Germany in the meantime?

Robinson: Yeah, I've been here several times. For one reason or another and in several different places. I have come here for a whole bunch of reasons. Even just as a tourist. But I have never made a film here or anything.

TZN: Your first stint as Garak was in the third episode of "Deep Space Nine". When you first got that role, did you anticipate or did you know that it was going to be a recurring role?

Robinson: No, not at all. Originally, the role of Odo, that Rene Auberjonois played, came down to three of us. Myself, another actor and obviously Rene. Then Rene got the role. Then they asked me to come in a few weeks later to read for this other role, which I thought was just going to be one episode. But it turned out that they were looking for a way to get the character of Doctor Bashir more involved with the show and so they, they were testing a storyline for Doctor Bashir and obviously the storyline was: he meets this older Cardassian, presumably tailor. Is he a spy? Who is he? This very mysterious person, the last Cardassian left on the station.

They wanted to see if there was any chemistry between Siddig and myself as actors. And of course we hit it off immediately. We had a great time with each other. And so it was based on that when they saw that episode, I think it was "Past Prologue", and they saw that we were working well together then they decided to add more episodes of Garak. Which I am eternally grateful for.

TZN: Do you regret that you were not cast as Odo?

Robinson: No, no, no, no. Not at all. As an actor, and an actor of a certain age, after a while you become very philosophical about these things. And genuinely so. Whoever gets the role, that was their role, you cannot feel remorse or try to second-guess or be bitter. And it always is the right actor as far as I am concerned and certainly with Rene it was the right actor. He was wonderful as Odo.

TZN: The part as Garak turned out to be rather substantial as well, of course.

Robinson: O, Garak was one of the best characters, I mean this, he was one of the most enjoyable, fully satisfying characters I have ever played in my life. And the fact that it is the only time in my life, too, as an actor, that I was able to develop a character over a seven-year period, and not be overused. By that I mean often if you are a regular on a series, they run out of things for a character to say and to do, and so the character just ends up repeating himself/herself, and the actions and the plotlines and after a while it becomes what they call the law of diminishing returns. The character becomes reduced. With Garak, because I was not a regular character, I appeared occasionally, I think I was in 39 episodes, and when I appeared, it was for a reason. Almost always it was for a reason, There are a few episodes when I wondered what I was doing there... But that always happens and at least they paid me, so that was fine.

TZN: Is there anything you would have liked to do as Garak on screen? Or any aspect of his character, his personality, that you would have liked to develop?

Robinson as Cardassian Elim Garak

Robinson: They did start this love story. But then they could not find the right actress. And so they had this one actress playing Ziyal and they did not like her, so they had another actress playing Ziyal who looked like my granddaughter, so that made me feel a little perverse. Then they just decided to forget about it. But it would have been wonderful to have had a bittersweet love story, someone who breaks Garak's heart, who tries to unlock the mystery romantically and cannot do it.

It is one of the reasons I wrote the book, to explore that part of Garak, Garak's heart. Because as an actor, you fall in love, well you do not always fall in love with your characters but the ones that you do fall in love with, it is a very deep relationship that you have with the character, and the character does take on a life on its own. Because as an actor, that is what you try to do. You try to transform yourself into this character's life. Obviously, I am not Garak, I am not Hamlet, but you find those places within yourself that can make that transformation.

I was not a "Star Trek" fan when they hired me. I had no idea what the "Star Trek" universe was, who Cardassians were, who Klingons, Romulans, I had no idea about any of that.

TZN: You had never seen anything, never heard about it?

Robinson: I had heard about it but never saw a thing. And a Cardassian? I had no idea what that was.

TZN: Then the makeup was applied...

Robinson: Yeah, right. But they did show me the episode, in "Next Generation", I think David Warner was the first Cardassian or was Marc Alaimo the first?

TZN: Marc Alaimo.

Robinson: Yeah, but it was that two-parter where David Warner's Cardassian character is torturing Picard and I thought, well, that is a really interesting-looking guy. That was the first episodes that peaked my interest. I thought, they deal with substantial things. And the acting was wonderful. Of course, David Warner has always been one of my favorite actors.

So I started writing a diary. As if Garak had a diary and I would write things, and I would make up things about him. And it is what you do, it is what an actor does sometimes for any character. You try to create a story, a life for this character. And when the series was over, I realized there were still things I would have loved to say about Garak and that is why I wrote the book "A Stitch in Time".

TZN: Did you start with the diary when you recognized that Garak would not be a one- or two-episode thing but a recurring role?

Robinson: Yeah, exactly, I think I started in the second year. I also started it when I started being invited to conventions and I realized, after two or three conventions, there were four or five questions people who would always ask me. How long does it take, your makeup... But I thought, would it not be interesting if I if at the conventions did something different. And so what I would do is that I would get up and I would read excerpts from these diaries. It became enormously popular, and that in a sense spawned a lot of things, then as actors we all started saying, well, maybe there is something that we can do rather than just get up and talk about our makeup and so forth. And that unleashed a whole bunch of stuff. Even Siddig and I wrote a play together that we did at several conventions and it was really a rather challenging play, dealing with string theory...

TZN: What was it about? I read just before this interview that you had this play...

Andy Robinson in Hamburg in June 2008 (Photo credit: Klaus Wittmack)

Robinson: Well, basically Garak and Bashir meet up in this place and it is like, nobody knows, but it looks like a convention with "Star Trek" fans there. And so they had to conduct this very tricky business in front of these people sitting at tables and sitting in chairs watching them. It was very, very, very postmodern. (laughs)

And there was a time when we were working on the play in front of an audience, too. Towards the end, when we finally got it written and got it right, that was when it was at its best but while we were experimenting with it, I think a lot of people fell asleep. (laughs)

Getting back to those diaries, [Michael Scott] co-wrote a book with Armin Shimerman ["The Merchant Prince"] and he said to me, "You should turn this into a book!" and that was when I did. And it was actually the first "Star Trek" book that was written without what they call a ghostwriter.

TZN: Are you thinking of writing another novel about Garak?

Robinson: No. I actually have said everything I could possibly say about Garak. I really have. Plus, if I did, I would then because of the corporate nature of Pocket Books, the Simon and Schuster division that does the "Star Trek" books, I would then have to follow all these other books that have been written about Garak and that does not interest me at all. Because the story I came up with was actually, oddly enough close my story, especially when Garak was a young man.

TZN: You did write another short story though, right? Set after the book.

Robinson: Right.

TZN: That was the last thing we have heard from Garak. In that story, he is not in a very positive state of mind and not in a good place.

Robinson: No.

TZN: So if we could jump forward in time, to a time and place after that, where would we find Garak?

Robinson: Dead. Honestly, because when I wrote that novella, first I was interested in putting - because I live part of the year in Paris -

I was interested in having Garak in Paris and see what that was like. Paris is like a museum now, and I thought that they would have really preserved it in 400 years and it would have become the museum of the world. But when I got Garak to Paris, it became very depressing. That is why I think he was not in a great state. I realized that if I had have written much more about Garak, he probably would have had to die. I do not want to go into why because it is all political and you are not here about politics. (laughs)

TZN: When did the producers tell you about who Garak's parents were?

Robinson: The big reveal was of course with Enabran Tain, who was the head of the Obsidian Order. I know that the mother appeared at one point when they were on Cardassia in that last series of episodes that I was in and that they ended up at Garak's mother's house, hiding. But the story of Garak and his parents really is what I myself put together, in terms of the relationships.

TZN: Did you have a hunch though that the storyline could develop into the direction of Enabran Tain being revealed as Garak's father?

Robinson: O, no! It was a big surprise to me. It was great!

TZN: Just like for the viewers.

Robinson: O, yeah, absolutely! But that is how I felt every time I would get a new script from the writers because the writers loved writing for Garak, that was the pleasure. It was evident that they liked writing for Garak because of the language, the dialogue that they would give him which was so delicious and so much fun and very ironic. One of the things you certainly know is that in America irony is not at the top of our list. As a people we do not really appreciate ironic humor. I think that one of the things that made Garak popular is the fact that he did have a sense of irony. That to everything he said there was a twist and there was always a subtext. And indeed probably he was lying but enjoying it and enjoying the fact that he was lying and seeing how far he could get away with it and who was gullible and who was smart.

Andy Robinson in Hamburg in June 2008 (Photo credit: Klaus Wittmack)

TZN: There was this one episode with the implant, "The Wire". That embodies everything you just said.

Robinson: Yeah, and that is by far my favorite episode.

TZN: We asked our readers to hand in some questions for you beforehand. One of them is: how long did it take to apply the makeup?

Robinson: At the beginning, it took about four hours, I would say. And then they got it down to about two hours. Towards the end they got more dexterous, thank God, because sitting in the chair for four hours meant that I would have to come in long before dawn and it was just excruciating, it was horrible. Even two hours was bad enough. It is the only thing about Garak that I do not miss at all.

TZN: Did the makeup inhibit you in the way you could express yourself?

Robinson: Well, that is the great, mysterious thing about working with a mask like that. For one thing the technology is very good, there were I think seven prosthetic pieces and they were all very flexible, very pliable and so you put it on and you think, my God, it is like this corpus, you're encased in it. But then you were fine, you could move. You were not, you were not limited the way Rene was limited with Odo because he could not eat, he lost a lot of weight. That is something I should have done!

But he had to take his lunch through a straw and so he could not move much at all because it was a mess. If he marled just a little bit, then he would have to sit in a chair and have to go through a whole process to get it back to that smoothness. That obviously was not my problem. My problem was the claustrophobia that I have, which I experienced actually last night. I went to a bar in Paris with some friends to watch the French lose to the Dutch. (laughter) Really lose. And deservedly so, I mean it. The French should get rid of that coach of theirs because he is awful.

I was at the bar and everybody was crowding in around me, I had to leave at the interval, go home and watch it on my own television. That was the thing about the Garak makeup. That was one thing but then this heavy wig that they put on top of me and then, because they wanted Cardassians to look big, they made the costumes out of the material that you make furniture pads, furniture textiles, and so all the costumes were very heavy and once you zipped them up it was like you were in a sauna, literally.

Actually that is where I lost a little weight, a lot of water weight anyway. When you get under the lights, underneath the makeup and the wig and the costume, there were rivers of sweat, I was soaked underneath. Not very glamorous (laughter) and I certainly did not smell like a flower.

TZN: I have got another reader question here, that touches a different subject. Did you know that there is speculation about Garak's sexuality?

Robinson: Oh, yeah. I started it.

TZN: Really? Then this might be interesting to this reader. He calls himself your gay fan Dominion and he asks a lot of questions like: Why haven't we seen a gay character in "Star Trek"? Have gays become extinct in the 24th century? Do you think there will ever be a gay character in "Star Trek"? Do gays not belong in "Star Trek's" future?

Robinson: O, yeah. There will be gay characters. Certainly now there will be, for one thing, America is still very puritan, we are very squeamish when it comes to sexuality. I remember when I very first played Garak, I played him gay! I thought this would be great! He sees this young man, this young, very attractive doctor on the station, he is lonely, he is the only Cardassian there, this doctor is curious about him, and if you remember, this was a great moment because Sid totally went with it! When he comes up and he puts his hand on his shoulder, Sid did this great thing, it was this sort of an electrical charge that went through him and so I played him totally gay in that episode.

Garak's First Scene

Of course the producers did not actually tell me not to play him gay but then they started writing him a little more macho and more like a Cardassian. But I said, "Listen, one of the great things about Garak is that he is not Gul Dukat, he is not one of those macho, militaristic guys, he is your finesse Cardassian." So we struck a compromise but I was always very clear. I did not get into it in the book. Quite frankly, I was going to go in that direction. I had written a whole thing about Garak's sexuality because I felt that Garak was sort of - talk about bisexual, I think that he was multisexual, essentially that anything that moves is fair game for Garak. He has a voracious sexual appetite.

But as I say, especially on American television you have the odd gay character now but it is all going to be just cosmetic. In terms of commercial television ever getting into real sexuality, that is not going to happen. "Star Trek" is very conservative, there is a conservatism about "Star Trek" that I think "Deep Space Nine" in a sense went against. It defied that conservatism. "Deep Space Nine" was not as black and white as the other "Star Trek" shows. It was different. It was not people in a rocket ship doing one-night stands on a planet to planet to planet, coming in and battling the evil aliens or some kind of monster or whatever. It was a community unto itself on the edge and this is what I loved about the show, every one of the characters on "Deep Space Nine" had a moral dimension about them. Each one of them was in touch with their dark side.

That episode "In the Pale Moonlight", when Garak introduces Captain Sisko to the concept of realpolitik, that okay, if you want to get rid of the Romulan threat, what you do is, you kill them. And you kill them in a not very nice way. So you just eliminate your enemy. Of course that is not fair play, that is not the American way. I was surprised, I loved that episode because it was very mature in that sense. It said you have to grow up, this is the world you live in now. And of course the world we live in now is very morally ambiguous to say the least.

I rambled, I am sorry. We went away from sexuality but I think there has to be more gay characters. I do not know what this movie is going to be like but this movie I believe is about Starfleet academy?

A gay Sulu? According to Robinson an interesting idea

TZN:It is a prequel. It is not entirely set on Starfleet academy but shows the young crew in their early years getting together.

Robinson: Right. For instance, I wonder, George Takei, who has come out, who is an openly gay man, and actually now I think he and his partner are going to get married since the California Supreme Court has now finally legalized gay marriage. But I wonder where they are going to go with his character in this prequel. It would be very interesting.

TZN: You did some work behind the camera as well. You directed I believe an episode of DS9. How was that for you, the experience to suddenly tell your colleagues what to do?

Robinson: Yes, right. It is funny, it was very different getting on the other side of the camera and not just working with the other actors, I mean they were fine. But it was the first episode I really had a lot of trouble with because it was my first episode ever directing something. And of course when you are directing "Star Trek" you have the added dimension, the added complication of the special effects. Although they have great special-effects people and you just get out of the way and let them do their work but still you are always trying to visualize what the picture looks like as a director.

But I must say that directing the "Star Trek" episodes really in a sense changed my life because it was the first time I started directing. From there I went on to a lot more directing, mainly theater because I have always been more of a theater person than a film person. And that really gave me the courage to continue in that direction as a director which I have and which has actually led to my current position. I am a fulltime teacher now. I run an acting program at the University of Southern California. And that all came out of directing.

TZN: You have been an actor, you have been a director, you have written a book, actually is there anything artistic you would still like to do? Singing maybe?

Robinson: No, I do not think so. Actually, it is true, it is interesting you should say that. I would actually love to do a musical. I really would love to do a musical, you are absolutely right. I would love to do one of these great musicals. But I still go back and forth. I am going to do a play this summer in San Francisco as an actor. I will continue to direct. I do not know how much longer I will run this program because I created this actor-training program and that was exciting.

I am going to be actually talking about that today. I work with young actors in terms of how does one train to be an actor, what is it that one does? I am being able to put some of my own ideas and thoughts about what actor training is into a coherent program that goes over three years, that trains professional actors. That has been very exciting. That is part of who I am but I think the territory of being an actor is that you do reinvent yourself from time to time. You have to reinvent yourself from time to time. Not to change, you really have to transform because that is the business.

TZN: In your career, you played many roles, and you guest starred in "Bonanza".

Robinson: No, you could not possibly remember! That is incredible. No, o my God, how could you... That is amazing. Yeah, that was the very last season of "Bonanza", too. And I think it was my first work in television.

TZN: How was it to play with such very famous actors like Lorne Greene?

Robinson: Well, see, it was very nice. They are household names but I had just come off from doing my first film with Clint Eastwood. So playing with Clint Eastwood was like playing with God. And then everyone else, they are wonderful actors, but still, my first film experience was the "Dirty Harry" film and that was extraordinary. I must say I enjoyed doing "Bonanza" because it was a show that had gone on forever. I helped kill it because that was the last season... Having the experience of doing "Dirty Harry" which was a feature film, that interested me a lot more than doing television.

Andy Robinson in "Dirty Harry"

TZN: You did very many TV series. The list of your guest appearances just goes on and on and on.

Robinson: Yeah, I did and most of the time I was the villain. That was courtesy of "Dirty Harry". After I did "Dirty Harry" nobody could see me as playing anything but the villain.

TZN: Is there any of these series that you would have liked to be on as one of the lead actors or main cast?

Robinson: In America, there is a series that just ended. I do not know if it is here, I do not know if it has come here. They did five years of it. HBO has these. I do not know if you know Home Box Office? It is a cable network in America. They had these series, "The Sopranos" was their flagship, their famous series. But they had another series called "The Wire". Have you ever heard of "The Wire"?

TZN: The title sounds familiar but that is all.

Robinson: It is interesting because you had me talking about that episode of "Deep Space Nine" that is called "The Wire", that was my favorite episode. Well, this series, "The Wire", is probably the best television series I have ever seen in my life. It was a brilliant series that took the city of Baltimore and it investigated the city of Baltimore in a dramatic series format on every level from drug dealers to police to schools to unions and it was an amazing series. I do not know how it got done because in America we are not big on socially-relevant thematic. We want our entertainment to be pure and uncluttered with things we have to think about. But this was a brilliant series and I, every time I watched the series, thought, o my God, I would love to be on that series! That was one of the few things I ever watched where I felt that way. I hope it comes here, I am sure it will come here. It has to. If it does, you must watch it because it is extraordinary.

TZN: I am afraid we have to wrap up already. One last question: Is there any question that you would really particularly badly like to answer but have never been asked?

Robinson: Wow. I have to say I think I have been asked every question that I can possibly imagine. Short of questions that I would prefer not to get into. No, I do not think that there is. I do not think that there is at all. I find that "Star Trek" fans for the most part, especially in Europe, are relatively sophisticated. I think that there is an idealism about following a series like "Star Trek", especially in this world.

Can we imagine ourselves projected into 24th or 25th century or wherever and still functioning. Obviously, it is weird. As you said earlier, here we are, four- five hundred years later and where have all the gay people gone? Where have all the people of color gone in a sense. That has always been something. What has indeed happened to poverty and what has happened to racism and fundamentalism and terrorism and all the things that bedevil us. I really do hope that science fiction continues to evolve and the way certain writers have challenged themselves to think about what happens to all of these social issues in the future and how we project solutions for them or perhaps not solutions but perhaps just accommodations, how do we learn to live with each other because in the end I think that that is what the "Star Trek" series perhaps offers its best insights about. Then I think that it is also great dramatic material which is the great question how do we learn how to live with each other without violence and without predatory behavior.

TZN: That ends this interview on a very thoughtful note, I think. Thank you very much.

Robinson: It was a pleasure, thank you, it has been great.

#garak #star trek deep space 9 #andrew j robinson

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shiftingslightly · 3 years ago

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tw for blood at the end, nothing major just cuts. also sorry about the abrupt fandom change

Mister Garak,” Julian Bashir slurs, leaning against said man’s couch, “has anyone ever told you how very precious you are?”

“Nothing.”

“I see,” Garak says, leaning back against the couch and looking around the rest of the room, content to sit in silence for a while.

“No- wait, it’s an Earth thing,” Julian says hurriedly, as if Garak had threatened him.

“Ah, I believe I’ve heard of it,” he responds absentmindedly, reaching down to thread his fingers through Julian’s hair.

“You’re lying,” Julian pouts. His mood suddenly turns serious, and he peers intently at him. “Why do you always lie to me, Garak?”

Garak laughs. “There’s a lot of men who annoy you, Doctor. You’ll have to be more specific.”

“He doesn’t sound all that nice.”

“He isn’t, really- he’s nice to me, though. Makes me feel nice.”

“He’s brilliant, did you know?”

“You seem to have forgotten you still haven’t told me who he is, dear,” Garak says. It’s an indulgement he can’t help but allow himself. He’s lost his Doctor; what’s one little word?

“I don’t know who he is, either.” Garak makes a questioning face. “I don’t know if he knows who he is either. He’s kind of lost. Stuck.”

“Ah.”

“It’s a sad thought.”

“Most people have never heard their friends’ actual voice,” Julian says. Garak pauses, considering. It’s an interesting sort of thing to think about, if (as Julian said) a bit sad.

“Tell me about this man,” he says.

“I mean that I don’t know who this man is, and if you’ll excuse my bluntness, I would like to know,” he says shortly.

crash

He’s on the floor, rubbing at his shoulder, at the place where Garak shoved him away. “Garak-”

“ Out .”

“I can and I will, Doctor,” he grits out. “You’re drunk. Go home.” Bashir is set down just outside his door.

“Garak- Garak wait- no-” the door starts to slide shut again- “Elim!”

whoosh-click.

He sighs heavily, leaning against it, head in his hands.

bad idea bad idea bad idea bad idea

There’s a sharp pain and the feeling of cold blood trickling down his hand. The glass piece slides out of his grip and lands on the carpet, dripping in the stuff and staining the carpet.

He huffs. Control, Elim. Control is the key. The memories seem to dissipate as he shakes his head, along with Tain’s admonishments.

There’s a thump that sounds suspiciously like a human fist hitting the door in frustration, a groan, and then Bashir calls, “Let me in, Garak! I just want to talk!”

Eventually, footsteps sound, padding away from his door, and he sighs and slumps against the edge of the coffee table. It digs into his back scales uncomfortably, but he can't bring himself to move.

subscribe to the fic here to be emailed when it updates! part two is coming soon, projections indicate about three days

#star trek #ds9 #garashir #fanfic #fanfiction #school is hectic but a. what else is new and b. it's ending really really soon #like a day soon #so i should have more time for this!

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stephantom · 4 years ago

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Aghdhakakdjdj it’s over

I knew a lot about the ending already but I’m still kind of overwhelmed by how bittersweet it was.

Like, compared to the TNG final episode, where things felt like... yes, we are taking stock of where we are now and how far we’ve come but things are going to just keep on going and the future will just look like more episodes of the same show which you just don’t get to see...

This really felt like an ending. Sisko and Odo may never come back, at least as we know them. I’ve read some really good, really satisfying fanfic about Odo coming back, but knowing that canon doesn’t really intend that?? Knowing that the canonical goodbye between Quark and Odo is just a harrumph and an “even Quark” to Kira...

(Sometimes I am taken in by “nobody matters but us” romances in fiction. But for Kira and Odo, narratively, idk if it works for me?? (MAYBE I am just biased as a Quark/Odo shipper!) It seems to me that both their arcs, early on, seemed to be about opening themselves up to others, widening their circles. This “All I care about is you” style romance...? Maybe that’s why they ended it the way they did. With Odo walking away for good, for a greater good, a deeper calling. But something about it... (He’s going to persuade the others in the Link that solids are good, but with what? His exclusive love for Kira? Doesn’t he love everyone else who loves him? I know he says to her to tell them he’ll miss them, but. He also tells her so many times that she’s all he cares about.) Idk, I just don’t know if I can find it satisfying. And I usually like tragic self-sacrifice! Maybe with time.)

Ezri/Julian was pretty dumb but not as bad as I’d assumed it would be based on the fandom’s general hatred for the pairing. It was just... whatever? (Maybe if I was more of a Bashir/Garak shipper I would hate it more.)

I’m surprised that Bashir/O’Brien got a whole little montage from the show! God, that really was the intended otp wasn’t it. Huh.

The Worf montage felt pretty random. Like, he was sort of a random character to include there at all, but if they were going to do it, why those scenes? Why not his wedding to Jadzia? Why no Alexander? And his brother? And Martok accepting him into his house? Just random scenes from the last 5 episodes with Ezri? Weird.

The Jake montage though. Fucking got me. Got tears in my eyes. He was a little kid!! He grew up on this show!! Wth.

My husband commented after that it should have been Nog looking out the window with him at the end, instead of Kira, because we never got any real resolution to the strain in their friendship introduced in season 4 when Nog entered the academy. We never got to know that Nog has relaxed and found a balance between his old prankster self and the neurotic Starfleet-obsessed soldier self he took on mid-show. Even during/after Paper Moon. No scenes with Jake and Nog just getting along (and not enough Jake enough this season in general).

Kira makes sense, since she’s kind of taken Sisko’s place, presiding over the station. And she’s been maybe kind of a mother figure to Jake? Not as much as Kassidy, but Kira’s been there from the beginning. But so has Nog. And Kira already got a big goodbye scene. Look, I adore Kira, but it really would have been more satisfying with Nog there. It also would have been adorable. And meaningful! The new generation, all grown up!

Felt bad for Kai Winn. Kind of. (Also kind of enjoyed her moment of just being like, “I’m a witch now, I’ve never felt so free!! Wee!” tbh.) Got a kick out of Sisko and Dukat’s Frodo and Gollum moment. (I know this predated the LOTR movies, but. The imagery.) Also Kira’s Princess Leia moment with the Breen armor.

I’m never going to get over Quark and Odo’s goodbye. Demanding a declaration of mutual respect, being denied, raising a glass to his retreating back and announcing, “That man loves me” is like. The most fucking unreal half-canon ship tragedy. Ughhhh. (I had to immediately show That One Blooper to my husband. Tomorrow I think we’ll watch the documentary.)

I’m also surprised about Damar. I thought they would give more concrete indications of the future for Cardassia and Bajor. Again, it would have been really cool to bring back Natima Lang. And even Shakaar. Just to show that like... there are good people working hard for a better future there. Just a brief little scene, idk?

But whatever, on the whole, I’m really satisfied. And sad. It’s over! I’m heartbroken. Lol.

What do I do now with my life.

#ds9 reacting #I haven’t been consistent about this tag sorry #i think I also used #ds9 thoughts #ds9 blogging #ds9 reaction thoughts #I’ll consolidate these tags at some point…

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vendingmachinesoundeffects · 4 years ago

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okay The Die Is Cast is so funny cause it’s literally just Garak going “Okay I wanna be a spy again. gonna go be a spy again.” and then immediately freaking out ‘cause shit, he accidentally learnt how to experience emotions on DS9 and now he doesn’t know how to unlearn it and it’s literally gonna get him killed. Like Tain starts playing one of his vindictive little loyalty games by talking about having Mila disappeared and you can just SEE Garak panicking a bit as he like, clumsily navigates around not letting Mila die but not letting on that he’d care at all if she did. because the CORRECT answer (the answer that would satisfy Tain’s horrible little “everyone working for me needs to be willing to destroy anything at all at the whim of the state” powerplay) is to just let her be killed and then never ever think about it, but he can’t DO that anymore cause he’s forgotten how to! he has emotions now! and then it happens AGAIN with Odo. He’s like oh shit i actually really don’t want to see this guy in pain. what do i do now

#found out i don't have to tag things i post and now i'm allergic to shutting up #like ur telling me i can just SAY SHIT without having to put it in the main tag?? that's brilliant #also the bit we're they're talking and they keep drinking their fruity little cocktails in tandem is literally so funny #also every scene with bashir in it in those episodes is great too

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nebulouscoffee · 1 year ago

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Sending the rare pair I rotate when I wanna think about Mess: Keiko/Garak

LOL okay, this one is complicated- I both ship it, and don't ship it? So what I shall do is answer all six questions😂

What made you ship it?

Let's be honest. Keiko gets a really bad deal on DS9. Like, she was THE senior civilian botanist on the flagship of the Federation and now she's stuck in the middle of nowhere, separated from all her old friends and colleagues- and growing a few plants. Not to mention, experiencing weekly traumas via proximity to the unluckiest man in the quadrant (aka, her husband). I think it's pretty explicit in canon that Keiko never wanted to move to DS9 in the first place, so in a sense- it's almost like she's... in exile. (wink, wink.)

Now, with all the complaining Garak does about his professional fall from grace, his once-respected skillset being wasted on menial, mundane work- "I used to be at the top of my field, now look at me, I'm sewing dresses!"- it's not hard to imagine him seeing a kindred spirit in Keiko. He's a very good tailor. She's a very good teacher. So good, it makes them both want to barf... or, meet up for dinner once a week in the arboretum to commiserate (and maybe have some shameful yet unexpectedly satisfying sex about it lol)

What are your favorite things about the ship?

Like you said, the Mess! It's a lot of fun to think about- I don't necessarily want it to happen, but if it did happen it would be fascinating and kind of funny, you know? It's interesting from a character study perspective- you get to explore some of the uglier sides (especially if you're gonna think about this happening in the context of getting back at Miles, maybe even Julian).

[Gonna preface this next section with the disclaimer that I adore Keiko, Miles and Garak, and none of this is character hate!!!]

So, here's the thing- I struggle to see Keiko going for Garak unless there's some element of petty revenge involved. Maybe it's the early seasons, and she's pissed off at Miles for bringing her here, pissed off at the station's Bajoran population for siding against her when Winn bombed the school, just generally feeling very frustrated and undervalued and unwanted and invisible, and it's like- yeah, what if I just stopped being the Wholesome Starfleet Wife for a second, you know? What if I went and slept with the Cardassian spy?? (Even if you want to interpret the O'Briens as having an open marriage and this not counting as cheating, Garak is still certainly... A Choice lol). Or, maybe it's the later seasons, and now it's more- what, Miles can keep putting his Starfleet career ahead of the family, risking his life, and I can't even go to the Cliffs of Undalar for work? And he's just gonna spend all his free time in the holosuites with Julian and leave me with the kids 26/7? (Whether or not Garak/Bashir are together here is flexible, though it's funny to imagine a Garak who has now decided to hold back so as to not risk their too-important friendship, and he's sooo irritated with himself for having A Sentiment and also insanely jealous of how much time Miles gets with Julian). For maximum toxic fun you can imagine Miles & Julian accidentally get drunk and hook up (and it IS cheating) so now Keiko gets with Garak as revenge!

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

Hmm... I guess, any Garak/woman ship would inherently be an unpopular opinion to those who view him as exclusively into men? But imo even if we are reading him as such (and that's definitely a valid read haha), there's still the fact that he would absolutely date a woman just to be petty. Like, let's not forget the one and only time he ever looked at Ziyal with anything resembling romantic interest was when they linked hands in front of Dukat- his whole vibe changed there, like he really did that just to piss Dukat off! Garak is all about theatre and unpredictability and poking people just to get reactions out of them lol, I can definitely see him pulling out all the stops to make himself and Keiko the most fabulous femme 4 femme couple on the station. Like not only would he date her, he would date her very publicly- he would aggressively channel ALL that courtly old-fashioned charm and lay it on really thick. He would offer her his handkerchief. He would pull out her chair. He would make her the most gorgeous dresses. He would treat her to fancy dinners on all the promenade restaurants and grow her extremely rare flowers in the arboretum. He would learn her preferences in bed. He would literally go out of his way to make Miles O'Brien look So Bad😂😂

Why don't you ship it?

Honestly, the problem is just me- I am but a soft-hearted loser who just wants for Keiko O'Brien to be happy lmaooo

Like obviously I do enjoy reading/writing stories where my blorbos are awful, but fundamentally I love seeing them healing and growing and making each other better, sadly. And while Garak is inarguably changed for the better after getting exiled to DS9, Keiko is unfortunately someone I can see becoming worse as a result of the show's events- and I just don't like thinking about it becauseee ahhh it makes me saddddd!!!

What would have made you like it?

Tough to answer since I do like it- thankfully it's not canon, so I can just have fun thinking about the toxic mess of it all without having to write it or keep guiltily glancing at poor lil Molly O'Brien like "baby girl I am so sorry I did this to your parents' marriage😭😭"

Despite not shipping it, do you have anything positive to say about it?

It's intriguing, it's fun, it centres Keiko in a way that the show (and indeed fan content) rarely ever does- and I guess it doesn't have to be ALL dark! Like I can imagine it originally starting that way, with Garak and Keiko treating each other so well just to spite Miles/Julian- but then it unexpectedly turns into a genuine friendship where they prioritise each other in ways they've never been prioritised (or allowed themselves to be prioritised) before, and they actually end up making more sense of their own desires as a result? There's that one episode where Keiko goes to the trouble of making zabu stew for Rugal... I can just imagine her making some Cardassian food or the other for Garak and him being kinda 🥺 about it. Who knows, maybe they'll all have a laugh about this around the O'Briens' (or the Garak/Bashir) dinner table someday! God I'm boring

#thanks for this one lmaooo it was a lot of fun #ask game

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spiders-hth-is-an-outlier · 4 years ago

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Fandom meme: Star Trek DS9 (or another Trek if you'd prefer!)

@portraitofemmy please also accept this as my general Star Trek Opinion offering, because I like many Treks, but this is the one I love.

the first character i ever fell in love with: Okay, bearing in mind that I started watching this show in 1993 and memory is a Strange Beast, I'm going to guess it was probably Sisko. I tend to gauge Treks by the quality of the captain first and foremost, so I was probably more focused on him than on the other characters when I was getting a feel for the show, and I'm definitely sure there was no point at which I wasn't All In On Ben.

a character that i used to love/like, but now do not: I'm in general more likely to soften up toward characters than get over them. I would say possibly Kira Nerys? Not that I dislike her now, especially, but I think at the time I was more excited just by the existence of a female Trek character who wasn't defined by her femininity, and looking back I find her...fine, but less interesting than most of the other characters.

a ship that i used to love/like, but now do not: Yeah, usually ride-or-die on ships, too, but I will say that if you'd told me early on that they'd be doing kind of shippy O'Brien/Bashir by the end of the series, I would have found that pretty exicting, except that when it actually happened, they'd already done a very embarrassing-to-watch Gay Panic, and they managed to use the idea of O'Brien/Bashir in the dumbest, most misogynistic way possible, so the reality of it was a Super Nope With a Side of Yikes.

my ultimate favorite character™: Oh, Garak, for sure. Garak – unless it's Jadzia, but it's probably Garak. But also maybe Jadzia. ...No, Garak. (Jadzia.)

prettiest character: Jadzia Dax. Like, Bashir tries, he really does, and he is a pretty dude. But this one is Jadzia for sure.

my most hated character: I'm a soft touch and I don't usually hate characters (except, like, in the way you're supposed to hate people like Gul Dukat, who are marvelously hateable), but I will say I prooooobably never gave Ezri Dax a fair chance, and I'm kind of not sorry about it and do not plan to revisit that decision.

my OTP: Garak/Bashir. Honestly, Trek is traditionally pretty shitty at romantic arcs, and it's not surprising that the most compelling one they ever wrote was entirely accidental. Bless their hearts.

my NOTP: Ezri/Bashir. A lot is wrong with this pairing, starting with the fact that I Just Don't Like Her, but primarily the fact that while I know she's not Jadzia, she also absolutely is Jadzia, and Bashir's thing for Jadzia was always uncomfortable as hell, and it's weird to reward it in any way. Also I don't like her, and also Julian should've been gay.

favorite episode: God, well, it's probably The Wire, but also it's hard not to pick Trials and Tribbilations or The Visitor, both of which just knock my socks off every time, obviously for completely different reasons. I don't know, I keep thinking of other episodes that completely deserve it, but – The Wire is my heart-of-hearts favorite.

saddest death: Jadzia, right? Who would pick anyone else, I will fight them!

favorite season: Honestly, probaby 6, which is wild because very few shows are not starting to run out of creative steam by season 6. But I love the whole Time to Stand arc, and I love You Are Cordially Invited, and there's so much good Julian stuff, Far Beyond the Stars, In the Pale Moonlight – like, just pound-for-pound, season 6 was so damn good.

least favorite season: I don't think 7 really holds up, but I'm not sure if that's because it's really weak, or just because I never rebounded from Jadzia's death, or because it looks weaker than it is because of its proximity to 6. I just feel like it never came together. Maybe the writing was on the wall about the ending, and the writers had kind of checked out by then? I don't know, there are definitely good episodes, but it feels sloppy.

character that everyone else in the fandom loves, but i hate: Again, I wouldn't say hate by any means, but I think I'm not as into Kira as most fans are. I don't love Visitor as an actor, and I think Kira's stories always felt very – external to me, like she's the lens through which we view Bajor and Cardassia and the occupation and all the political issues, but her reactions to that always feel like she's there to give The Bajoran Opinion, you know what I mean? Like, I don't feel like she's so much an individual person with individual story drives, so much as she's emblematic of Bajor, which is fine as a story device, but I think I don't connect with her as a person in quite the way I would've liked to. She's fine.

my ‘you’re piece of trash, but you’re still a fave’ fave: I mean – Garak, I guess? He's a piece of trash but he's also a fucking hero, and that's my catnip, that's what I look for. It's not like “*but* he's still a fave,” that's why he's my fave.

my ‘beautiful cinnamon roll who deserves better than this’ fave: Nog. Like, objectively, the answer is Nog, right? What a dearheart. But also I think Julian counts; he's not uniquely picked on by the narrative or anything, but he is a true Cinnamon Roll, and he deserves better in, you know, the way that living in a tv show is always low-key a karmic punishment.

my ‘this ship is wrong, nasty, and makes me want to cleanse my soul, but i still love it’ ship: I don't believe in guilt, but can I use this moment to plug a fic called A Light In the Mirror by Seraphtrevs, which is on the short list of fanfic I've read that is so compelling it transcends canon and genre and everything else and just becomes like a life-altering reading experience. It's relevant here because I probably should feel incredible guilt about how deeply I wanted MirrorUniverse!Garak and Enslaved!Julian to just, like, work things out, man.... That's bad, that's a wrong impulse, and the story is way too good to indulge my bad impulses, so it's definitely not a romance, but. I don't know, dude. I was into them, and the whole thing is brutal and gorgeous, as are the sequels. I think people should read it even if they aren't Star Trek people, because I think it holds up on its own! Read it, it's so, so bleak but also profound and good and compelling!

my ‘they’re kind of cute, and i lowkey ship them, but i’m not too invested’ ship: I don't know if it counts because it's canon, but I do dig Jadzia/Worf. I'm happy they made it! I would've been, like, fine if they hadn't, but it felt really satisfying that they made this sweet odd-couple Klingon-adjacent romance work.

#ds9

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ofhouseadama · 3 years ago

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Obsessed with the “Kira knows what a Cardassian man who is interested acts like” and the hospital staff watching the situation unfold like “yes okay he’s saying all his lines when will the hero swoop in” 😂😂

we get so many strong examples of Hallmark Cardassian Possessiveness in DS9, both good and bad. we see Natima Lang and her fierce loyalty and devotion to her students, we see the way that Tekeny Ghemor is so full of love for his daughter even after so many years separated from her, that he can't stop from it brimming and spilling over into paternal love for Kira. we get Dukat and his possessiveness and deep creepy emotions for... well, almost every woman he comes into contact with, and his children. we see it manifest in Tain in the way he treats Garak and Mila, and the rest of the Obsidian Order to a lesser degree, as things that he quite literally owns and possesses.

as for Garak himself... I've always associated the Frankenstein quote -- "I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. if I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other" -- with him very strongly. Garak has never been allowed to satisfy the amount of love within him, or even truly explore his capacity for love. his entire existence has been shaped by Tain, and the necessity to be loyal and subservient and unquestioningly obedient to Tain. he's only ever gotten to indulge the rage. sentiment is a weakness. there's something that happens within you when your father looks you in the eye and tells you that he could never love you, that love is the greatest weakness a man can have. Garak's spent his entire life denying his nature and stunting himself in order to survive Tain.

this is a very long way of saying that Garak has an immense capacity for love and loyalty and devotion and protection and after Tain and Mila die, has nowhere to put it. and yes, yes he will point it at rebuilding Cardassia and joining whatever efforts are put forth in the creation of a progressive party and creating a new form of government, but the State can't love you back. Garak, at the end of DS9, is a Cardassian without a family. he is a Cardassian alone. more so than he ever has been -- his association with the Obsidian Order and with Tain has isolated him his entire life, and the stain follows him in this Brand New Cardassia. he has to decide who and what he is going to be. Garak has never before been afforded this luxury. I don't think he knows how

enter: Julian Bashir, Federation Disaster Relief Aid Worker

the only person who has ever truly chosen Garak. I think once Garak gets over the fear and the anxiety and lifelong training to avoid emotional entanglements and sentiment in a real way (not just by occasionally acting through impulse like letting Julian stay in the room for Tain's shri-tal and death among other things

like there's no going back, right? this is it. either he figures this out, figures out how to be in this relationship in a real, figures out that it's not fair for either of them for Julian to love him but never really know him, that this won't bury him, won't drown him, won't suffocate him in his sleep or slip poison in his tea, leave him open for attack -- Garak would be really, really good at the Husband Shit (TM)

like, Garak is the guy who's always going to come for you. those that would harm you will die screaming. he will follow you into hell and unlike Orpheus, he's never gonna look back.

and I think there's a moment when he gets the call from the hospital's chief of medicine that he hears Tain's voice in his head -- that this is it, this is Garak's one true weakness. his desire to be the hero for someone, to lovingly and willingly put his head on the chopping block for all to see. to declare openly that the way to get him to act, is to threaten this human. as if Tain hadn't made it abundantly clear that before Julian, the way to get to Garak and to get him to willingly put himself in mortal danger was to threaten Tain. as if it wasn't Tain himself, willingly dragging his son into that very mortal danger

but here's the thing, and when you get it, you finally get it

when someone loves you back, when someone really loves you in a way that is good and whole and true and the way that you love them

it makes you stronger

and so you have Garak, the fourth ranking member of the Cardassian Unionist Party and Minister of State and Senior Counselor to the Castellan, a man who is feared and whispered about and rumored to be soulless and cold and maybe guilty, but not remorseful for his actions in the old regime, the Son of Tain

walking into the Corat Damar Memorial Hospital with a dozen members of his military guard, armed to the teeth, and if he cannot satisfy the love inside him he will indulge the rage and he doesn't care who knows it. he will make sure that the Federation and Starfleet and Section 31 and whoever in the Admiralty thinks Julian is an asset and a weapon to be deployed or hurt lockered knows that

because he's been the thing that goes bump in the night. he's been the thing that has disappeared men and women and boyfriends and girlfriends and handed them over to the deep dark hole that they never crawled out of. this is not a ghost story or tale told to frighten children for him. he knows what happens after men like him get their hands on someone. he knows what comes next

it's bluster and it's not and it's a gambit and it's not when he tells the agent in charge that they have no jurisdiction here, arresting a Federation citizen on Cardassian soil without permission from the provisional Cardassian government -- and that very soon, in minutes actually, they will be committing an act of war if they try to remove Julian Bashir from these premises. it feels a bit like he's looking into a mirror when he says it, or through some kind of distortion. he's been on the other side. he knows the agent sees himself as a hero. he knows these agents see Julian as a threat to be contained for the safety of the Federation and its citizens, that it's only a matter of time before he commits a crime. that perhaps his association with Cardassia and Garak himself is evidence enough

Garak knows how this story goes, from the other point of view

and the Federation agent probably makes the mistake of thinking that this is a negotiation. to which Garak responds, "The only reason you're alive now is Dr. Bashir was untouched when we arrived. But if I am correct, that is more due the competency of the administration of this hospital than it does the way you wished to conduct this mission. Here's how this is going to go."

and anyway, yes, every member of the hospital staff within earshot and some outside of it are being very very quiet trying to make sure they don't miss anything. because they know that the moment that the people doing the disappearing get their hands on the person they're disappearing, that's it. game over. everyone go home. you're never seeing that person again.

but this shit? right out of a romance novel.

Garak's gonna have the (second, maybe third) worst adrenaline crash in his life afterwards, though

#ask #anonymous #otp: there's hope for you yet #emily watches ds9

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