#i'm never not thinking about 'i know how you feel about lenara'

[trillscienceofficer]

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Rejoined Through The Looking Glass

I know how you feel about Lenara.

[walkingstackofbooks]

DS9 4x05 Rejoined thoughts (I’m re-watching, so beware spoilers for future episodes!)

[28 June '23]

"It's a trick!" "Of course it's a trick!" Oh, Quark 😆

"Painfully shy, introverted, a slight lack of confidence, just the kind of person who might want to dazzle the world with his magical abilities." - Okay, new headcanon that Julian is speaking from experience from when he was younger - he decided magic tricks would be how he'd make friends at new schools.

Interesting camera angle from Sisko's window

"Am I that dispensable around here?" "We'll never notice you're gone." I love their easy friendship and joking <3

"I'll be fine." That waver in her voice though ~

I love that Kira is the one who extensively knows Jadzia's lives. And I love how it really feels like they are all - even Quark - really, actually friends now.

The way Kira breaks into laughter at Julian's trick, I love her smile!

Kira's little touch of his arm, I live for platonic displays of affection.

"The Trill feel very strongly that it's unnatural." "Unnatural?" I LOVE Kira! Her outrage is just SO cathartic

"I don't understand how two people who've fallen in love, and made a life together, can be forced to walk away from each other because of a taboo." I know DS9 could generally have hit harder on LGBT topics, but this is Actually Very Good

"Curzon was even late for his hundredth birthday party." "You're never gonna let me forget that, are you?" Interesting that she switched from Ben's use of Curzon to "me" - highlighting how much she is the other hosts as well as herself.

"I'll be fine," she says, while pinning her badge on upside-down. 😅

"What do Klingons dream about?" I love Kira's gaiety and curiosity here

Hah! Had forgotten Worf's "Things that would send cold chills down your spine and wake you in the middle of the night. It is better you do not know. Excuse me." Okay I do like his deadpan humour.

"Quite an audience." "Seems a shame to disappoint them. Maybe we should do something." Their entire conversation at the party is electric

That purposeful look away they both do when the guy leaves them alone on the bridge.

"That's because you were a pilot and it made me nervous. Made her nervous. Torias being a pilot made Nilani nervous." The mixing up of pronouns - I love how complex the whole situation is allowed to be

"And whatever part of me is still Torias is very sorry and wishes he'd listened to you." - Lenara's nod of acknowledgment.. ohhh, I knew this episode was amazing but I'd forgotten just how compelling and emotional the threads all the way through were

"Would you be interested in dinner? I mean, I'm having dinner with some friends and I thought you might like to go along." I've never seen Jadzia this uncertain of herself!

Pffff Jadzia you made all that up about having dinner with friends?! You've got it baaad

"Something tells me I should say no, but you know I won't." Oh, Julian. And that kiss on the cheek!

Julian's so sulky, my goodness, what a child (affectionate)

Their chemistry is SO - JUST - Y'KNOW

No, I can't even, his little face is so scrunchy! I'm sorry ladies, let's go back and rewatch you rather than Julian being too ridiculous.

"Curzon would be horrified I'm a scientist." I thought Jadzia was a scientist before getting joined so didn't he know?

"The irony is, you and I have more in common than Torias and Nilani ever did." And that is what makes a tragedy 💔

Julian's complete startlement when he's hailed on comms 😂

"I think he enjoyed himself... Maybe not." You think? Especially if you were going through the highlights of your life he's already heard :p

Lenara just giving her the earrings!!! Like it's nothing!!! Like it's not deeply romantic!! I cannot be normal about these two!!!

"There is nothing going on, alright?" But you wish it were, don't you, Lenara?

Jadzia's so pretty in her gown and hair down (she's always pretty shhhh)

"I don't want to do anything to hurt you." Guyssss

Jadzia's brief touch to Lenara's face and forcing herself to take her hand away I cannn't

"I missed you." Oh boy the first time watching this thinking they were going to kiss? But no, and being disappointed but not wholly surprised, it's the 90s BUT NO WHAT'S THIS, they actually DO KISS and it's just so tender. This episode has my entire heart o swear.

I hate that this reasoning why Jadzia should stay away - that the consequence of exile would impact Dax the symbiont - makes sense (even if the taboo doesn't). And that Benjamin can sound so reasonable in trying to dissuade her.

"But I also know I love her, Benjamin." MY HEART

"If you're sure, if this is what you really want, I will back you all the way." After all the other arguments, thank you Ben, that means a lot. <3

Actually, no - it's weird that Dax is seen as a passive part of this decision - the poor symbiont who'll die if Jadzia gets herself exiled - but it's Dax who also, as far as I understand, very much has feelings for Kahn and Nilani, just as much as Jadzia does for Lenara et al. So Dax should also have a say through their link woth their host if they want to choose love over exile.

Jadzia's striding down the corridor to rescue Lenara (and others, ofc)

"I don't want to lose you, not again." "Not again. Never again. Never again. Never." MY HEART, DAMN YOU 90S, WORF WAS NO REPLACEMENT FOR THIS

Jadzia getting down eagerly onto her knees as she asks Lenara to stay. She's so sure she'll accept! And why shouldn't she be!

"Everyone is trying to look out for us. Protect us from ourselves." THIS IS STILL SO RELEVANT

"I can always come back later." I can't help thinking, what if she did change her mind a few years later... Maybe in that 3 month window between season 6 and 7? ... Why am I making myself sad like this? 😭😭😭

The way their eyes meet. Fuck this episode. (affectionate)

God, Jadzia was a wreck over that phasing-planet guy - what she's going to be like over Lenara who she's known for centuries? I just wanna hug her

This is just such a good story though, like even without the gay metaphor and actual gayness, aliens having dilemmas over their society's morality is fascinating, and the Trill very much so!

[trillscienceofficer]

do you have a favourite species design/lore headcanon, something you wish you could see on screen/had been explored more? (worflesbian asking from main 💖)

another very interesting question! I admit I don't have quite the same penchant for worldbuilding that I admire in so many other Trekkies; I'm always thinking 'well I wouldn't want this species to be a monoculture, canon basically never question that assumption and it's boring', but then my pea-sized brain completely seizes up at the prospect of having to come up with an entire world history in order to explain why Trill fashion on DS9 seems to favor square necklines and long tunics heavily, especially for men. But again I digress! (And also, apologies, this got long.)

Of course my first answer is always going to be that I wanted anything about Trill and the joining to be less hand-waved as space magic on an episode by episode basis and more planned out, but even more than that I just would've loved to learn more about Trill as a planet (we don't even know for sure that it is in the Federation at all on TNG/DS9, though it's likely at least Federation-aligned). And I especially would've loved to hear both Jadzia's and Ezri's opinions about anything concerning the Trill homeworld and/or the Symbiosis Commission because I actually think their perspectives would've been pretty unique (and uniquely informed) on the subject.

As I mentioned in the previous ask, Jadzia's reticence in speaking about her family or Trill in general speak volumes to me, and imho indicates that she has a lot mixed feelings about the planet she's from. This also fits well with my idea that, no matter how 'revered' the symbionts are, joined Trills don't really have that much power on Trill and they kind of live at the margins of Trill society, comfortably but still under So Many rules designed to keep them apart from everyone else and especially other joined Trills. I think Jadzia may have realized that that was the case pretty early on, and perhaps found it difficult to articulate that realization to her family or any other Trill that doesn't share her perspective (you can see this a little in the way she and Lenara interact on “Rejoined”, too). And this is not even considering the way the Symbiosis Commission was ready to let her die in order to cover up past mistakes. I really would have loved to see Jadzia being somewhat forced to admit just how horrible that was and how little faith she must have left in the institution that should have cared about her joined existence first.

I think Ezri also would have interesting things to say, as someone who was an 'outsider' to Trill tradition even before becoming Ezri Dax. That plus her penchant for cutting precisely at the heart of the matter (again, that scene with Worf about the Klingon Empire!) I think she would have insightful things to say about Symbiosis Commission politics in general, not having the same stake in maintaining a facade of respect that someone like Jadzia, even as irreverent as she was, still might have had. I'm really very sorry that DS9 didn't bring this side of Ezri more to the fore wrt Trill.

As a last note, given discussions I've been having recently (plus your fic made me think about this even more!), I really wish Voyager had made it clearer that long-term Borg assimilation can't be so easily reversed, and that Seven's implants are prosthetics and treated them as such, rather than little more than aesthetic hints. Of course making them look like actual prosthetics rather than decoration would've been a start, and many artists and writers have done so luckily! But even more than that I would've loved if they'd been more consistently depicted as something that Seven uses because the process of Borg assimilation made her physically disabled. You could argue she already is in canon (the way she has to spend hours in an alcove to 'regenerate' means she is dependent on a machine in order to live), but of course Voyager falls into the trap of making her implants a superpower, which... eh. Of course her implants give Seven a lot of trouble too (her cortical node stopped working and almost killed her, not to mention the time that an interference from a Borg vinculum gave her the Borg equivalent of psychosis) but I really would have loved to see her less as a metaphor for and more as actual disability representation. Imho xB characters in general really skirt the line between metaphor and actual disability, and I wish that had been explored better and with more nuance, especially where Seven is concerned.