STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE - S2E3 The Siege

Guess who's getting graded on their DS9 fanart B)

Basically we're all making a board game and if designing game rules, cards, 3d figures, the board and the box doesn't burn the brain rot out of me, nothing might! I wanted to make a strategy board game about the Dominion conflict, however that game already exists, so mine will be simply focused on The Quickening episode, with more characters, more conflict and none of the important moral lessons about being able to save everyone. I'm already rambling about this too much, but those two are part of the role cards (You'll be able to pick between Bashir, O'brien, Dax, Kira and Ekoria, with each of them making some part of gameplay easier). I hope noone gets burnt out haha. Anyway, if anyone read it up to here, do you like the VHS effect or is it better without?

New favourite DS9 moment (S4 E3 "Hippocratic Oath")

drew in the hour before bedtime last night aswell

I’m trying to untangle The Problem of Garashir (not the least because, well, I’m writing the pairing) -

and I think honestly one of the biggest… roadblocks? bits of untapped potential in the pairing? is that we never really see their relationship put a strain on their ideological convictions.

Which is to say, “the societal institutions we’re subject to are corrupt, but our love is pure, so we’re going to abandon those institutions for each other” is, whether implicitly or explicitly, a common framing in fanfic featuring them (such as I’ve seen) - and to be fair, it’s a common romance trope in general. But I can’t say it works for me for these characters. And part of that is that imo the show doesn’t sufficiently set that up with its development of the relationship between these two characters, but another part of that is that I simply don’t see a world in which that kind of relationship dynamic/approach would fit with their characterizations.

To address the first point - there are never any situations involving these characters in which their fundamental values or institutional loyalties are challenged as a result of their relationship. At no point does Garak, for example, have to choose between Cardassia and his affection for Bashir. (I’ve seen people read The Wire that way, but I don’t think the reading works - The Wire is a fantastic showcase for Garak’s worldview and value system and the cracks and contradictions therein, but even though Bashir’s unwavering commitment to helping him despite what he’s done is certainly unprecedented and moving to him, his underlying value system hasn’t changed by the end of that episode.) And while Bashir’s faith in Starfleet and the Federation does get rocked quite a bit over the course of the show, it’s never because of his friendship with Garak.

Instead, I’d say that with some exceptions (like The Wire), their friendship in the early seasons is usually framed as a respite from their serious responsibilities or moral dilemmas. This especially true of Garak, who is likely not used to someone simply enjoying his company with no ulterior motives whatsoever, but the narrative maneuvering of the show also does a lot to shield Bashir from the reality of who Garak is. Yes, he gets a taste of that in The Wire, when Garak goes out of his way to impress upon him what the reality of his life as a spy truly was. But that’s still only verbal testimony, and only confined to what Garak has done in the past. Bashir is largely absent from all the shit that Garak pulls during the show!

And I’m not complaining that, say, the events of The Die Is Cast take place between Garak and Odo, because it makes thematic sense for it to be Odo for that arc. (And I love that friendship.) But Garak and Bashir do not get a plot like that, or like In the Pale Moonlight, where Bashir is directly exposed to or complicit in Garak’s immoral behaviour. The closest we get to an actual serious ethical clash between them is in Our Man Bashir, which is a goofy comedy episode. (And it’s worth noting that Bashir calls Garak’s bluff and shoots him in that confrontation! Yeah, he likely missed on purpose, given what we later learn about his magic hand-eye coordination, but he’s still unwilling to compromise on his heroism for Garak’s sake. It’s actually a pretty Cardassian gesture, which is probably part of why Garak loves it so much, but it does say a lot about where their priorities are re: their commitment to their values vs. each other.)

And I think the lack of more serious, plot-relevant ethical conflict between Garak and Bashir is a real loss for the show, because one thing I find really interesting about their relationship is that - in contrast to the examples of Odo and Sisko up there - Bashir is the person in the cast most able to hold Garak accountable. He’s repeatedly established as one of the most firmly moral members of the cast, and his righteous anger at seeing those morals trodden upon is one of his most defining character traits in the later seasons. His unconditional forgiveness of Garak in The Wire is lovely, and it is an important moment in the development of both their relationship and Bashir’s character. But in the long term, once we get into actual serious, consequential war and espionage plots? And if we’re imagining them in a long term committed relationship? It wouldn’t be sustainable, and it doesn’t feel in keeping with Bashir’s character that’d he have endless reservoirs of patience and understanding specifically for Garak. And it’s precisely because Bashir is uniquely able to grant Garak forgiveness that he’d also potentially be uniquely able to chastise him.

(This is why, by the way, my headcanon as to the in-universe reason why they don’t seem as close in the later seasons, paternity deathbed reveals and occasional flirty bantering notwithstanding, is that Bashir was seriously fucking pissed at the stunt Garak pulled in Broken Link, both in terms of the personal betrayal and the destructiveness towards sentient life, and that it created a significant rift between them.)

All of that is to say - my biggest regret with the show’s sidelining of their dynamic isn’t the fact that their relationship never becomes romantic (not a chance of that in the 90s, and also these writers were pretty terrible at writing romance) but that they never get to have an argument. An actual serious, non-flirtatious, two-sided, genuinely-angry-at-each-other-argument. I want to see conflict! (I honestly think that their exchange in What You Leave Behind comes the closest to the kind of conflict I’d like to pick up on in post-canon fic - where they are conciliatory in the moment but still have this really wrenching chasm between them, and unresolved frustration as a result of that chasm.)

So as an extension of these thoughts, I actually really like that we’re not given the basis for a traditional “us against the world” style romance plot. I like that these characters are clearly deeply fond of each other and significant to each others’ development, but have other important connections (Garak especially, since despite being only a recurring character introduced through Bashir, he integrates into the broader cast) and other priorities besides each other.

Furthermore, despite the significant differences in their value systems, one very fundamental thing they have in common is how passionately devoted they are to their respective causes. For Garak, it’s Cardassia. And while his idea of what it means to serve Cardassia, and what Cardassia needs, undergoes a lot of change over the course of the show, I don’t see any version of Garak in which Cardassia is not his first love. For Bashir, it’s altruism and helping people, as well as his intellectual curiosity - aims which are reflected in Starfleet and the Federation for him but ultimately higher ideals.

And I don’t think either Garak or Bashir would admire the other nearly as much if they were willing to let go of everything they hold dear for the sake of romance. They’re both far too committed to being a part of the world. Garak may have some fun with trying to shake Bashir of his optimism, but ultimately Bashir’s goodness, his fierce conviction that no one deserves to suffer, are among the most compelling aspects of his personality. And if Bashir is ever going to actually enter a serious relationship with Garak, he’s got to move beyond flirty intrigue and literary banter and see Garak as someone who’s proactively committed to goals that Bashir can respect. If they’re coming together as a couple, it’s because their aims and beliefs have come into alignment in some way.

And to be fair, a lot of post-canon Cardassia stuff is doing the latter. But I also want more… conflict within that framework, I guess? I don’t want a romantic relationship and the act of getting together to be the endpoint of whatever reconciliation of values they need to work through. And that’s part of what I’m trying to untangle in planning this fic of mine - especially regarding how fraught romantic commitment feels for them. For Bashir, there’s the problem of not only reconciling himself with what Garak has done, but also of choosing to be with someone whose impulses and entire cultural belief system places duty and institutional loyalty above personal feelings. And for Garak, there’s the fact that the most devoted and emotionally intense relationship he’s had in his life thus far has been with Tain, who embodied Cardassia for him - and as a result, I doubt he quite knows what to do with the possibility of a serious relationship with Bashir, who is very emphatically not Cardassia. He’s not used to being divided in his passions!

It’s not that I’m never capable of being moved by post-canon stuff that involves Bashir being charmed by how slippery Garak is, or them generally being quippy and fond of each other (I’m not made of stone here). But I’m never satisfied with just that, because that escapist element never feels like it translates well from the early seasons of the show to post-canon, and because it never engages with what I find the most fascinating about what’s set up with their whole dynamic. (And I especially dislike it when it feels like Bashir’s character is getting shortchanged in terms of his complexity and moral convictions being excised in order for Garak to get everything he wants.)

Did anyone else immediately realize Curzon/Odo’s (from “Facets”) incredible fashion sense would look amazing on Garak? Well, if you did or didn’t, I drew it anyway (with a modifications)!

have I mentioned in any sort of detail yet how creeped the fuck out I am by the way the Founder(’)s(’) treatment of Odo is just like…. textbook abusive? because it is MASSIVELY DISTURBING to watch, okay.

like. punishing him (for what is almost certainly a hypocritical crime), and then doing the “we forgive you. do you forgive us?” routine. CONSTANT constant “we love you and you’re a part of us and we want you back” talk. isolating him from anybody else because they’re not good enough and can’t give him what he needs and don’t understand him the way the other Founders do? fucking with his sense of time such that he neglects any other responsibilities. simultaneously belittling his reasons for not going back with them, and then acting like they absolutely deeply understand that single reason that they’ve half-made up. questioning and wearing down his stated boundaries about linking.

honestly the most freaky part was when Odo was defending his choice to link with the other Founder to Kira by talking about how he wouldn’t be letting any information slip about the new resistance, because linking isn’t a sharing of information, just like, existence or something. when the Founders had literally used the Link to engage in espionage a season ago by manipulating and planting information while Odo was joined to them. like. YIKES on bikes, massive gaslighting ahoy.

and you know what, in light of all this it kind of makes me… suspect that the purpose of launching marmalade children off into space all on their own isn’t just to gather knowledge to enrich the Link and the changelings’ understanding of the world, but also to create “sleeper agents”, enmeshed in non-Dominion cultures, who will be easily ripe for manipulation by the core population of Founders into betraying their adopted societies and advancing Dominion takeovers of new worlds. because the Founders know that changelings are feared and mistreated by solids. Odo himself certainly hasn’t been run out of town or anything; he has a pretty good position for himself - and even so, his primary caretaker as a child was Dr. Mora, who also was and continues to be abusive and manipulative to him. so his that case is at all typical in terms of who picks up and “raises” these baby changelings, what the Founders have done is basically created a population that comes to them already fucked up by their personal history, and easily vulnerable to re-victimization.

Deep Space Shipping

I've seen many of these, but here's my attempt at mapping the DS9 polycule! ;)

All of these ships have 25+ fics on AO3 (aside from Kira/Miles, but the Keiko/Kira/Miles tag makes up for that :P) I love this fandom and this silly queer space station so damn much ❤❤

And man, some of the triads/quads/and more that come out of this are 👌👌

Controversial, perhaps.

Fun fact!

According to ‘Terok Nor: Night of Wolves’, while Odo’s first words were repeating Dr. Mora’s sentences (“My name is Mora”), the first sentence he came up with on his own (like, independently constructed) was “Men don’t make good scientists”, which he picked up from Dr. Mora’s Cardassian supervisor, Dr. Yopal.