Summer Drop

I haven't seen most of Voyager, must less this particular episode. But based on the first picture I saw with a quick search, I'm going to say yes

Yes they did

do you think the 2 ferengi who landed in the delta quadrant and declared themselves deities on a random planet in 'false profits' explored each others bodies

My issue with writing Julian POV is that I don’t think Julian is actually self-aware enough to realise how mind-blowingly attracted to Garak he actually is, no.

I think he would be in denial about it conciously, because Garak is a dangerous Cardassian who may or may not be a spy. Julian would filter his attraction through whatever justifications he can for why he’s not ~really~ attracted to him. (While blushing and being flustered by Garak’s overt attraction and flirting back like his life depends on it for reasons he will conveniently brush over in his head.)

But you see, I cannot conceive that anyone could ever, ever look at Garak and not immediately be overcome with lust that makes them dizzy. I can’t imagine having someone who looks like that approach so blatantly flirty and not just immediately following them back to their store to do whatever the fuck they tell you for as long as they want.

So it’s very hard for me to write Julian not being immediately on his knees for Garak because it baffles me that he didn’t just throw himself at Garak over the table in that replimat to begin with.

Maybe it’s my bizarre taste in men talking but how did this scene not end with Julian following him back to his store and being like “Yes, sir, what do you want to do with me, sir”.

A recent commission of Worf’s son, Alexander Rozhenko, in a custom Starfleet uniform that reflects his Cossack heritage ✨

As someone with Tatar Cossack roots myself, this was such a blast to work on! I love when commissions let me get creative with all the details :)

Commissions are now open indefinitely, btw, so feel free to reach out if you’ve got an idea you’d like to bring to life!

This version is downscaled and watermarked at the client’s request. Please don’t copy to other sites.

One reason In the Pale Moonlight lands so well is that the show plants the seeds early on for Garak representing a sort of “out” for Sisko when he has to circumvent official procedures. There’s the bit in The Search where a holographic mental projection of Garak shows up to flirt with Sisko and enable his rebellion against Starfleet, and then The Way of the Warrior has the part where they’re wondering what to do about the Klingon invasion fleet headed to Cardassia and Sisko says “we need a third option” and it immediately cuts to Garak. In the Pale Moonlight picks those threads of Garak being someone Sisko leans on when he needs to take a more underhanded approach (and someone who, similarly to Quark, Sisko can put pressure on with no repercussions).

But Garak’s perspective on it is interesting, because of how much his dynamic with Sisko reflects the dynamic he used to have with Tain. There’s that part in The Wire where Tain tells Bashir “I never had to order Garak to do anything… that’s what made him special” and that’s pretty much exactly how Garak behaves with Sisko in this episode. He does what he does best - being maximally useful to someone more powerful and anticipating everything they want and need, taking an intention and shaping it into a workable plan with little direction. He comes up with the entire scheme pretty much on his own and puts it into play with minimal participation from Sisko save things he needs official sanction for, and anticipates all contingencies and variables beforehand. And then of course sees to it that the plan is carried out, in a way that Sisko would never sanction but that he knows that on some level Sisko wants - or rather, that Sisko wants the outcome while being spared having to order Garak to take the measures to see it through.

Garak molds himself into the role Sisko sees him as playing in a way that’s similar to how he made himself into the person Tain wanted him to be - in that case, as Garak puts it, he was a “reflection” of Tain himself. Except with Tain, that process involved Garak shaping himself to embody the values that Tain espoused, and expunging the parts of himself that Tain abhorred, namely weakness and sentiment. And with Sisko, Garak reflects the parts of Sisko that Sisko doesn’t want to face and wants to shunt off onto someone else. And that plays out not only re: Sisko’s willingness to make moral sacrifices for the greater good, but even just on a smaller scale - there’s the part where Sisko snaps and threatens Forgery Guy, and Garak steps up with that truly terrifying smile and promises to drop in on Forgery Guy to “say hello”. Just playing the role of Sisko’s Evil Henchman to perfection, and thus enabling Sisko’s loss of control and his cruel streak. He’s very subservient to Sisko throughout the episode! But it’s through that subservience that he actually gets the upper hand on Sisko, solely by reflecting his darker side at him and getting in that jab about Sisko’s self respect being sacrificed. It’s so utterly delicious.

A memory of hope

shoutout to @daftmooncretin for the inspo

(cw suicidal thoughts)

Headcanon that Julian's parents moved to San Francisco while he was at the Academy to keep an eye on him/ "support" him and he was invited round to theirs at least once a week and they would randomly show up at his dorm with some dinner ("we know you're working so hard, Jules") (half the time it's something he doesn't even like that much) and while he is enjoying his time at the Academy - and it's still better than living with his parents and he gets actual time away from them now - his post at DS9 is the first time he's ever been able to properly distance himself from them.

This is also partly why he became such a ladies' man - his mum turned up once when he was entertaining a girl and she quickly apologised for interrupting and then the next week when they were eating together all his parents' questions were about the girl and they were saying "if you don't have as much time for us, do let us know, we wouldn't want to get in the way of true love future grandchildren 😉😉" and Julian gets kind of used to having a girlfriend as a sort-of form of, like, self-defense? Which is an awful reason to have a girlfriend and is not a mindset that particularly serves him well, but at some points when his parents are being particularly intense, it becomes literally about survival.

(Also, a reason why he's so weird about turning 30 - he's kind of freaking out because there were lots of times when he never really thought he'd make it, but it's a lot easier to stick to the socially acceptable line of "I feel so old :/" rather than telling people "I only stopped being actively suicidal sometime after I left Earth and still can't quite believe I ever escaped")

ds9 episode concept: a high profile murder occurs while garak is busy taking some INCREDIBLY illegal drug he somehow procured. He is later questioned by odo and immediately becomes suspect number 1 because hes so incapacitated he cant come up with an alibi. He cannot say he was doing the incredibly illegal drug because he doesnt realise the federation would not publicly execute him over this. Bonus if he was doing suspicious shit the past few days to procure the orion syndicate disco dust that doomed his ass

this came to me in a vision