Icon by @ThatSpookyAgent. Call me Tir or Julian. 37. He/They. Queer. Twitter: @tirlaeyn. ao3: tirlaeyn. 18+ Only. Star Trek. The X-Files. Sandman. IwtV. OMFD. Definitionless in this Strict Atmosphere.
“Some may say we’ve gotten just what we deserved. After all, we’re not entirely innocent, are we?”
I initially looked up the parshah for the week of Julian’s birth out of idle curiosity. Maybe it would come up in conversation, I reasoned. I know there’s no guarantee that it would be the same Torah portion he’d read for his bar mitzvah, but it’s as convenient an assumption as any. So maybe, in some fic at some point in time, he and Garak could have a debate over it, just like any other literary work.
Examining the contents of the text, however, I realized it would be a much messier topic than I had been expecting.
He goes along for a ride on the Defiant worried about his father (doesn’t tell anyone this), has this interaction with a changeling:
Garak: “Got any prisoners of war?”
Changling: “Go fish. Got any Cardassians left alive in the alpha quadrant?”
Garak: “Yes?”
Changeling: “Lol, not for long.”
And his immediate response is to break into weapons control like “
( •̀ ω •́ )✧ not if I genocide you first. Hehe, me and everyone I know is going to die after the first volley of torpedoes is launched.” and I think that’s an understandable reaction.
Now, he gets caught, but I guess Sisko wasn’t that mad because his only consequences were being sent to his room (confined to quarters).
Wasn’t sure I got the details right so I went back and watched it again. Garak has to spend six months in a holding cell on account of the charges of sabotage, assaulting a starfleet officer, and attempting to incite a war. I just assumed the ride back from the Gamma Quadrant was confined to quarters (since they all have force fields so having a brig is kinda redundant)
Anyways, other highlights of Broken Link include:
-the camera going in tight on Garak after he talks to the changeling and he has a whole ass face journey. His face leaves the shire and makes it all the way to Rivendell.
-”Yes, but my heart was in the right place” -responding to Odo listing all the things he was charged with
-He’s going in a holding cell, yes, but first he has to sew Odo a new suit because he’s the only tailor and I guess the replicators can’t make Bajoran uniforms?
Additional thoughts: Federation probably won’t let you keep someone in a holding cell 26 hours a day so IMO he’s probably working as a tailor and having lunch with Julian for that six months. He needs enrichment damn it.
Can’t they send him to the penal colony Cassidy Yates was sent to? That would have been fun.
Garak should have chronic pain post-wire btw. Old injuries he just never noticed before because he Couldn’t Feel Pain for the past like 20 years or whatever the fuck. He’s aware of them now
I love the 2 parter episode where Garak tortures Odo because he’s convinced Odo knows some secret weakness of the founders.
But then Odo admits that the big secret he’s keeping is that he just wants to be with them more than anything.
It’s a great moment because Odo and Garak have a great combative relationship and it’s the first time we really see them interacting substantially.
They seem so different, at first, with Odo being so gruff and to the point, when Garak is so…full of shit and loquacious.
But then it’s great because in that moment, Garak understands Odo.
Of COURSE he understands wanting nothing more than to be with your own people.
Of course he understands feeling like an alien living in a society that doesn’t understand him.
Of course he understands pretending that you don’t desperately want to go home, putting up a cool and collected front, and pretending that everything is alright, when inside it’s all you ever dream of.
They’re both so alike.
Their surface personalities are opposites but they’re both liars deep down.
They both need their people to love them.
They both need to return home, more than anything.
It’s really such a great dynamic to explore.
I love those little side plots in ds9. Those deep character parallels, interspersed with the gritty war drama.
