Codenameregnar - Cardassian Sympathizer

I'm never going to be normal about Garak/Bashir.

Imagine being so convinced that you're a monster, respectively, because of unimaginable violence you were groomed into committing and because you're autistic and were given illegal medical treatment against your will so you could pass better. Imagine meeting someone who doesn't just see you but forgives you and refuses to leave you.

Imagine knowing all your life that you can never trust anyone because "sentiment is the worst weakness" or because doing so would destroy your life.

Imagine going your whole life hiding your skills and true self out of necessity, and finding the pleasure of someone who challenges you enough for you to pull down the mask just a little bit.

Garak seeing Bashir as the best of the federation despite being literally barred from service and can never truly be comfortable anywhere because of it, can never have a home. Yet here is this exile, welcoming you where everyone else has treated you like an annoyance.

Bashir engaging with Cardassian culture and, despite their differences, giving garak a place to share the things about Cardassia he loves. A taste of a home he thinks he can never reach. This is arguably the thing that gives Garak a cornerstone to help rebuild Cardassia once he loses Tain who, up until this point, is the cornerstone of his political compass. Garak calling Julian "the kindest voice in my head" and, tho he'd never admit it, he uses that voice to build a better Cardassia.

Imagine being loved in your entirety and finding yourself better because of it.

"Nothing would please me more. You're always welcome, Doctor." Nothing would please you more??? NOTHING??? You are living in the fallout of a planet-wide nuclear apocalypse and you can't think of a single thing that would make you happier than seeing the same little twink you already spent 7 years pining over?????? Garak babygirl there is something genuinely fucking wrong with you

“I forgive you. for whatever it is you did.” is such an insane line.

like imagine going your whole life believing that you’re only worth as much as you’re useful, doing things you know deep down are horrible just to serve the interests of a man who won’t even acknowledge you as his son and then after he exiles you 2 years later you find yourself on your deathbed, all your crimes finally caught up with you, the young doctor who at this point you believe could not have a more different experience of life than you decides against everything you’ve been taught about yourself that you’re worth saving.

and no matter how much you tell him you’re horrible, how wretched you make yourself look in front of him, he doesn’t care. he doesn’t care about your past. you’re forgiven. you’re worth saving, just by virtue of being alive. and he’s not saving you out of pity or even kindness, he’s doing it because he genuinely believes that. and for the first time since you were a small child, perhaps even ever, you feel like you have intrinsic worth.

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