#like in wider trek fandom I've seen a lot of people talk about her attitude towards cardassians as if she's a bigot

[nebulouscoffee]

Kira for the ask game, because I've sewn you mentioned liking her but haven't seen you talk about it much yet and would like to enable you

Yayy thank you!! (and I'm sorry I took so long to respond, it's been a very hectic week😅)

one aspect about them i love

Kira really embodies a lot of what I miss most about Star Trek tbh, which was the real desire to make the audience uncomfortable. Don't get me wrong; there is a lot about TOS, TNG and DS9 that didn't age well- but I still think an important goal they all shared was to take certain ideas and ideologies that might've seemed far-fetched to the audience of the time, and say- "why not?" Also, "Does this character's existence- and presence- make you uncomfortable? Well, maybe that's a YOU problem." And that's a goal which (imo) really faded over the years, because they grew more and more afraid of turning off the conservative audience. But not with Kira! Within minutes of her introduction, she offers a scathing shutdown of the "frontier" that Star Trek was quite literally built upon. She is literally a sympathetic "terrorist" MAIN character (rare enough), and furthermore a woman- and that too a "difficult" woman, who refuses to let herself be ignored or compromise her people's needs for the Starfleet crew's comfort (!!!), who is ANGRY and deeply religious and nationalistic and PROACTIVE and stomps around and shouts and cries and disagrees and wears her passion on her sleeve and is not at all afraid to make a nuisance of herself- and yet, still has numerous flaws and so many moments of self-doubt and raw vulnerability. What a fantastic character! This was 1993; I can think of so few TV women from that era who actively challenged the constructs (and men) around them so much. I love everything she represents

one aspect i wish more people understood about them

That her arc is more about learning to land upon nuance; not toning down her Bajoran-isms. Her patriotism and faith do occasionally steer her the wrong way, yes- but Kira's growth doesn't at all involve her renouncing either of those things! If anything, it's Sisko who ends up having to adjust to her perspectives. In general I'm always craving more nuanced discussions re DS9's postcolonial dynamics, too- Kira has such a range of interactions with Cardassians on the show, and numerous episodes ('Destiny', 'Life Support', 'Ties of Blood and Water', etc) show that she's genuinely invested in peace between their peoples; something I think often goes ignored. Yes, she's justifiably furious about everything they did to her home- but at the end of the day, what she wants is justice and reparations for Bajor and Bajorans; and if a small (understandable) part of her does want to see Cardassia crash and burn, she really doesn't act upon it

Also, she's funny! Remember when she told Dukat the baby was O'Brien's with no further explanation? Lmaoo what a troll

one (or more) headcanon(s) i have about this character

That she only received a very basic education. She does mention finger painting and playing springball as a kid, but also- Kira grew up in a refugee camp and she joined the Shakaar cell at age 12; she probably missed out on the higher education even the average Bajoran of her generation received (which itself was likely Cardassian State-controlled). Idk, this is low key important to me because so many Star Trek characters are almost like- defined by their scientific and educational smarts, if that makes sense? It's refreshing to see a Trek character who doesn't quite make sense of herself or the world around her primarily through (Western) scientific constructs

Also, Kira absolutely has unexamined caste biases; she just never really learnt to recognise them because caste played such a minimal role in the Resistance- but most Bajorans are far more aware of caste dynamics than she typically is (I just do not buy that the D'jarra system completely went away in less than 60 years)

one character i love seeing them interact with

Ben Sisko! They have SUCH a fascinating dynamic, it's so complex and sweet and often quite trying and hurtful but still kept afloat on this deep, deep underlying mutual respect. Ben's position as the Emissary makes everything so wonderfully complicated, and watching Kira's frustrations at the fact that she actually believes in him morph into reassurance as he slowly transforms from being the Starfleet Outsider to truly being Of Bajor... ahhh it's so good. That scene where he invites her to a baseball game lives in my head rent free! (Also they high key make a fascinating ship imo, I am something of a post-canon Sisko/Kira/Kasidy truther)

one character i wish they would interact with/interact with more

I have multiple answers to this (Julian, Worf, Garak, Keiko, Ziyal, Cretak, Jake, Ezri, etc) but I'm gonna go with someone she actually interacts with quite a bit, because I just wanted mOArrr. Jadzia!

Yes, it was the 90s, so I'm glad they were at least allowed to be friends and not like, cattily pitted against each other. But I still craved more layers to their onscreen dynamic! I mean, Jadzia, the Starfleet "Science Officer" who openly dismisses Kira's religious beliefs on more than one occasion? Kira, the child soldier who finds most of Jadzia's pastimes and preoccupations frivolous and silly? It's so interesting that they keep spending time together despite such fundamental differences, and I would've loved a bigger exploration as to why! They deserved their own 'The Wire', basically. Much like the central two characters of that episode, the answer is that they actually have a LOT more in common than is apparent at first glance (fraught senses of identity, complicated relationships with their home worlds, a sense of loss regarding family) where they outwardly seem like polar opposites. And all of this is not even getting into the nonlinearity of Bajoran religion vs the lives of Dax... gosh, there was room for so much! They deserved a whole Big Sequence full of Monologues the actors could really sink their teeth into, they deserved for one of them to fly off on a dangerous quest to save the others' life- and you know what!! They deserved a little homoerotic hand-holding too!! But, I suppose that's what fanfiction is for😂

one (or more) headcanon(s) i have that involve them and one other character

She and Bashir definitely grow much closer after the show's end; whether he stays behind on DS9 or not :)