Garak: Of Course, There’s Always Major Kira. I’m Being Serious. I Don’t Think She Likes Me. Odo:

Sooooo guess who started watching Deep Space Nine…

I’m so mentally sane about them, guys.

just found some new Nog lore...

Edit: it appears this is an excerpt from Strange New Worlds, Volume 3, an anthology of fan written Trek short stories, which was titled “The Bottom Line”

no six sentence sunday from me today

had a bad stomach-flu like reaction to some new medication I was taking and am currently watching DS9 while in a brain fog and having feelings about how Lwaxana Troi uses romantic overtures to avoid true intimacy or vulnerability with others and how Kira is such an amazing character whose growth over even just season one is impressive to watch. And remembering how much I enjoy hating Dukat. Honestly he's such a delightful villain because he does have layers and most of them are more arrogance and genocidal condescension.

Seriously, though. Lwaxana clearly uses romantic overtures to build walls around her. We see her do it with Picard, whom she genuinely likes but cannot connect with because she probably doesn't even realize that she's subconsciously protecting herself from suffering more losses by shoving people away. But when she, quite literally, lets her hair down with Odo - whom she initially behaves towards similarly to how she does with Picard - her choice to allow herself to be vulnerable with him in order to help him be more comfortable being vulnerable around her, something he isn't getting a choice in due to their unforeseen circumstances, is actually quite lovely. I know a lot of people don't like Lwaxana or her friendship with Odo but... I actually really adore it.

ds9 crew: “guys we gotta stop the evil bad guys from the wormhole”

quark subplot:

Everything I know about Deep Space Nine as someone who has only ever seen the memes

O’Brien suffers

The captain would condone murder, as a treat

The cop is made out of liquid?? (sometimes)

There’s a tailor who’s a spy and also gay

There’s a bisexual-coded doctor

They play baseball at some point

Kira is a major (I’m not sure who Kira is but they are definitely a major)

There’s a ferengi capitalist who runs a bar

Worf is also there

Garak: I have killed again

The various war criminals of DS9: *shock, horror, despair*

……

Garak: I have killed again

Dr Julian Bashir, one of the world’s foremost and most dedicated healers: Lol. Lmao even

y’all so i knew about garak and bashir like peripherally right? BUT NOBODY PREPARED ME FOR HOW OUTRAGEOUSLY QUEERCODED THEY BOTH ARE????

like?? garak literally just checked sisko out?? i know he’s supposed to be vaguely threatening in this scene! but! i completely understand why the actors literally performed fanfiction 20 years later. i would be sick of producers’ bs too if THIS WAS MY FUCKING CHARACTER.

also i saw a post that said siddig just “played along” like NO WHAT there were several scenes where bashir VERY OBVIOUSLY checked out men too. this feels like a very deliberate writing AND acting choice.

and, despite what y’all may believe about me (see: fandom participant), it actually takes quite a lot for me to truly believe that characters are queercoded, especially in more recent history. sure, i like a good romance-y fanfic as much as the next person (sometimes i just think characters would make an interesting couple without respect to canon, sue me!), but in terms of ACTUAL characters that i think were written with intentional subtext? there’s very few.

all of this is to say: holy shit. i knew they had some subtext, but i wasn’t prepared for it to be like THAT.

edit: this is S2E18 by the way!

i honestly barely ever think about the mirror universe EXCEPT to mull over my disappointment that we only got to see a little bit of mirror odo. 

i also feel like had there been fewer budget constraints he could have been a little more monstrous, much more inhuman in appearance? but maybe that’s me and my unquenchable thirst for BODY HORROR.

I SURVIVED THE BELL RIOTS

1995 crew gift from the DS9 writers (my friends broke out theirs for our DnD game last weekend). Please consider a gift to a local charity that supports the unhoused and hungry “In Memory of Gabriel Bell” this weekend.