#star trek ds9

[femur-bandit]

Garak should be fatter. Who's with me

[a-most-beloved-fool]

Bashir falls asleep in front of Garak, and Garak, still strikingly unused to intimacy in any form, has... rather a lot of feelings about it. Sentiment. He knew already that he was far past the point of no return, as far as sentiment went, but it still surprises him, sometimes, to see just how much the contagion affects him.

In this case, it takes the form of paralysis. He sits there, heart in his throat, just watching Bashir, hardly able to move for fear of disturbing him, of waking him and breaking the illusion - or worse, waking himself, and discovering that it was all some wretched hallucination, yet another sign of his weakness, because surely it can't be real.

How could it? what do you mean this soft Starfleet doctor trusts him that much? Doesn't Bashir know he's a spy? He's killed people! More of them than he can count! And Bashir is snoozing away, seemingly unaware that he could be murdered. His head is tilted back against the couch, and that long, oh-so-fragile human throat is exposed, utterly defenseless - Garak wouldn't even have to try to slice through his neck. The skin would split as easy as a flower petal. He wouldn't even need a knife, though he certainly has one on him, with how thin human skin is! His claws or teeth would do the job just fine.

And Bashir doesn't even care! He's just... sitting there, sleeping. As though Garak is safe. Which surely he can't actually believe. It's simply beyond the realm of possibility.

Which means, certainly, that it isn't real. It can't be.

Still, Garak can't bring himself to stand. If it is only a dream, then it hardly hurts to indulge in it, just a little. To entertain the illusion that Doctor Bashir could feel secure with him, someday. So, he sits and he watches, tracing each motion of the Doctor's chest with his eyes, and he expects that at any moment he will wake up.

He doesn't, though. He stays seated, watching Bashir, and with every moment that passes it feels a little more real, and simultaneously a little more impossible.

Just under an hour later, when Bashir finally jolts awake, hair ruffled and gaze soft, Garak is still there, hardly moved an inch. Maybe Bashir notices that his position didn't change, maybe he doesn't, but either way, he smiles sheepishly at Garak, and apologizes for falling asleep on him.

Garak stands, feeling more in a dream then ever before, and assures Bashir that of course he needn't worry. It was no inconvenience. Then Bashir looks at the time, and apologizes again, this time for needing to leave so soon after waking up. He darts for the door, but not before reaching out and placing a hand on Garak's shoulder, beaming.

And Garak, now alone, can't help but stare after him, almost dizzy with emotions that he can't parse as his shoulder burns with the lingering imprint of Bashir's touch.

[helluvatrek]

Bakka meme redraw🐺🐺🐺

[unswerving-dysfunctional-loyalty]

[real-lieutenantuhura]

My personal favorite of DS9.

Holy shit I found THE gif

[trektown]

Star Wars fans are so homophobic meanwhile Star Trek fans are finding new and interesting ways for these characters to fuck nasty

[mister-leonn]

That's where people should have figured he came from the evil mirror universe

[thespianwordnerd]

Drunkenly telling your English friend "I really do...not hate you anymore" is as good as any declaration of love for an Irish person btw. Just saying.

[hittuspitchusbear]

The barrel that is life is cracking my spine today.

fuck you get worf'd

[sickotheclown]

It's so weird that most of the time, when Keiko's on screen she's like "sure babe go have fun with that twink you like" but when she's not in a scene Miles is always telling Julian that his wife doesn't like that they're spending so much time together in their brokeback mountain simulation

[dreamerdrop]

Julian does kind of strike me as someone who just sort of. Endures suffering and then pushes it way, way down and pretends it doesn’t hurt.

Bad things happen and he just sits quietly and then pushes it down and pretends he’s okay so he can get on with whatever he needs to get on with.

Doesn’t know how to process trauma or misery inside himself, but he can help other people with theirs, so he just. Keeps going. Keeps working. Keeps trying.

It makes sense, I mean, the pivotal traumatic incident in his life was one he has never been allowed to even allude to out of fear. His parents don’t seem very emotionally available for him either, so he’s definitely never talked out those issues with them. So he’s probably just grown up pushing any off feelings back down and focusing on something else.

And even when his big ol secret is finally out, he still doesn’t really talk about it or acknlowedge it unless someone basically drags him kicking and screaming into having to focus on it. He never really talks about or addresses like. Anything.

Like his attempts at curing the blight and how fucked up he was over that. Or the time he thought he could save the Jem’Hadar from their ketracel white addiction. (And boy howdy does that episode take on new layers of pain when you think about him being so sympathetic to entities that were genetically engineered to suffer and his own backstory.) Surviving a psychic attack that basically involved his own subconscious mind trying to talk him into embracing death. A month in a prison camp where he probably definitely thought he was going to just die there, and then realizing no one knew he was gone, and his friends are not anywhere near disturbed enough by any of what just happened.

(To be clear, I think it’s fine that they didn’t realise it was a changeling. I think the reaction they have when they find out retroactively, however, is like. Guys. A minute ago you thought Julian Bashir, your close friend of several years, beloved station doctor, had betrayed the federation and had to be killed. Guys. Forget Julian for a second. How was this not traumatic for the rest of you?)

Then there’s all of that Sloan fuckery which is basically just three episodes of one man trying to gaslight Julian into a dissociative break for reasons.

And he just. Bounces back. Next episode, time to move on, insists he’s totally fine. Except he’s not. He gets gradually more and more tired and miserable and closed off but he just. Never fucking talks about it to anyone. Never deals with how messed up he’s slowly becoming. Never recovers. Never heals. Never gets closure for any of it.

He has so many wonderful moments where he comforts someone else when they break, when they’re scared, when they let all the bad stuff finally make them collapse.

But Julian just never really collapses like that, and it’s like he actively ensures he will never have the chance to collapse because he doesn't want to (and probably doesn’t know how to) deal with any of his issues.

Can you imagine what it would look like when he finally breaks.

[jaegermonstrous]

HC: Cardassians don't dance in the same way as Humans. They definitely dance, but dance is always a communal activity carried out by - at the smallest - a familial group. Large state and social functions have specific dances, like crowd dances in our world. There are sets of steps which are part of a larger dance, and which would be nonsensical done by a single person. Everyone has a role in these dances, correspondent to their social status. Orphans and other people with no social status? Well, they don't get to dance. It's one of the ways in which they're marked as apart from the great body of the Cardassian state. They might know the steps, but they wouldn't be allowed to participate. This isn't to say orphans and other no-status people in Cardassia don't dance, but they certainly don't do it publicly. Underground dance clubs are for sure a thing.

It's one of the things many Cardassians find utterly perplexing, even threatening, about Humans and other cultures. A singular person can dance! All by themselves! Not only that, but some of them make a career out of it. Dancing entirely alone, demonstrating their singularity, their disconnection from their people and their state! Can you imagine?

[iambic-stan]

How every day feels after November 5th.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine "Past Tense, Pt. 1"

[defconprime]

[metamorphic-stranger]

I'm FINALLY getting to watch Star Trek again after over a month away, and I'd really forgotten just how comfortable this show(s) is. The plots are the good kind of predictable (except for when they're absolutely insane), the color coded uniforms make it so you have a whole set of background information about most characters you meet, there's a small set of repeated rooms for each show that really start to feel like home, every new character you meet immedietly makes it clear what their entire deal is, there's such a focus on down time and daily life, everyone seems to get along, everyone wants the best for each other, I could go on and on

Man, I've really missed this show.