Garak In The Doorway Of The Shed Waiting For The Doctor

Garak in the doorway of the shed waiting for the Doctor

Do y’all remember in A Stitch In Time when Garaks getting the everliving shit beat outta him and he’s just having the most amazing beautiful psychedelic and spiritual experience lol. Thats me every single day except Barkan is just my life and the wire is my inherent joy and whimsy

i think what bothers me about "garak would never allow himself to be happy" takes is they presume he has the strength of character to resist it. he absolutely cannot. he's nibbling on illegally imported chocolates all day even though he's gonna blow up his own shop later. julian looks into his eyes for three seconds and he crumbles. he does not have the ability to really push julian away and keep him there. it's like, one of the core things about his character and the way they interact. i don't even think he would wait for julian that long post canon before just going after him like he did in OMB. he's a fucking. puppy dog. he's been told he must deny himself and be a finely honed tool of the state and there is literally NOTHING he is worse at.

A STITCH IN TIME written by Andrew Robinson DEEP SPACE NINE 2x22 "THE WIRE" written by Robert Hewitt Wolfe

so I’m about a third of the way into A Stitch In Time and I just have so many thoughts.

this is unexpectedly one of the most fascinating books I have ever read, because the circumstances of its existence (tie-in novel for established tv show, written by the actor, largely taken from his character-dev writing) create a novel that would’ve never existed otherwise.

in any other normal novel, the protagonist with a sad childhood who gets shipped off to train to be a weapon of the state, in a violent, loveless institution, would be… taking a stand against the status quo! that’s what protagonists do, they make unlikely friends and they stand up for what’s right and they change their world etc etc. yahoo. yay !

but as we good and goddamn know: garak’s not a protagonist

these flashback portions follow so many classic sf/f coming of age tropes of a young lad finding himself in a harsh new world, but instead of the main character being guided by a convenient moral compass and growing in defiance of the competitive, cruel environment– garak adapts, learns to outcompete his peers, learns to be crueler.

it’s not so much that you’re reading garak becoming worse (though he is, for sure)

it’s more that garak is drifting from being a mere product of his environment, to a perpetuator of it

which is ur fave voyager, ds9, or tng

DS9, no contest. Every best quality I love from Star Trek is present in DS9, and it was the only show to ever succeed at portraying a dark side to Starfleet.

if you want to know what I think in greater detail, here's what I wrote for my website

raykarr.neocities.org/cools#DS9 btw >:3