#ya know this makes extra sense for a species that values being older because Less Baby The Better

[simptasia]

i got this headcanon about cardassian beauty standards

basically ya know how in disney animated features they do this thing where cute and pretty = circles and roundness. because humans like that. reminds us of babies. and Evil = Sharp Angles

well i imagine cardassians work the opposite way, where angles and points and long limbs are very appealing. and roundness and what we'd call cuteness ranges from meh to genuinely unappealing

reverse the eye thing too. small eyes = good, Big Eyes = unnerving. basically the pointier and haughtier looking the better

so a cardassian would Not get the appeal of a disney princess. also in cardassian propaganda cartoons, bajorans would look Very Cutesy (which still cuts deep cuz it comes across as infantilizing)

anyways. this means by cardassian standards:

dukat is very attractive, he is conventionally handsome (and it seems only fair to honour marc alaimo, The First Cardassian, in such a way! dudes' features were used as the base, after all)

garak would be considered unappealing, unsettling or plain. he truly is plain simple garak

damar is canonically handsome, so there's that. he's more rectangle-y so still not Round. by my logic he's less handsome than dukat. in-universe. by conventional cardassian standards