astrangergivingthestrangewelcome:
If you think about it Bashir’s James Bond fantasies are really interesting bc Bashir couldn’t BE more dissimiliar to James Bond. Bond is this amoral sexist jaded suave secret agent who always knows what to say to get the girl and get out alive. Bashir is also hyper competent at his job but that’s where the similarites end. He’s kind and awkward and sticks his own foot into his mouth 50 times a day. He doesn’t keep his cards close to his chest he overshares and overthinks and rather than being amoral he works hard to live in a way that honors his principles, although that’s sometimes impossible . Even his colorful floral gay kinda slutty fashion sense is nothing like the sharp and dashing suits of James Bond. Julian Bashir is not very masculine, in either a toxic or healthy way. He’s… well… flouncy. Even though he is a bad-ass, to an incredible degree actually, he cares not at all about appearing to be a bad-ass in his daily life. He’s not shy about mentioning Kukalaka. He’ll point blank ask someone if they like him or not. He’s nothing like James Bond. I don’t think he really aspires to be anything like James Bond either which is why it’s so interesting that this is the fantasy he latches onto.
#I guess it’s not that deep#we all like to inhabit headspaces from time to time that are not our own and who we wouldn’t want to be our own#but still#it’s fun to think about
I know I am showing up to this fandom over twenty years late with a latte, but this makes Julian such a relatable autistic character to me.
I love Barbie. If there were a holosuite, I would totally be in the Dreamhouse all the time. I’m also very happy with who I am, which is a overly enthusiastic scientist who once got the commendation of “good job not crying at the last peer reviews.” But Barbie exhibits a femininity that is so simple and easy and, while there are a lot of things to be said about Barbie, she’s easy for me to understand. James Bond is another one of those archetypal characters, the ultrasuave, hypermasculine spy. You don’t have to give up any part of yourself to want to play with those archetypes, especially when you are autistic. Things become refreshingly simple when you can just play a game with very established rules and roles.
This is also why he’s very endeared and fascinated with the idea that Garak might be a spy, but why he’s completely and utterly not really tempted at ALL by Sloan and Section 31, even though Sloan tries to appeal to Bashir’s obvious fantasies about spies and that sort of thing.