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.
God I love that moment of genuine shock and surprise on Garak’s face after telling the first of his three stories in The Wire. He’s astonished that Julian is not only still there, but still softly and calmly insisting that he will help. Garak truly thought he knew Bashir enough to get him to leave- but joke’s on you! He has now activated immovable object Julian Bashir mode. I think Garak didn’t even know Julian could be like this, he underestimated him. Anyway- a super tiny moment but well acted even under all of that makeup and prosthetics.
Episode concept: the DS9 crew have to request a copy of Garak’s medical records from Cardassia because of Alien Disease of The Week #47 or whatever and what they get sent is largely redacted but left in the “current diagnoses” section is “a disappointment to his father.”
God, another very funny thing about Garak is that for the first… five-ish seasons, he really is just a tailor. Like, he gets involved in random plots but he’s not actually affiliated in any way with the Cardassian government. He is not a member of the Obsidian Order. He’s just a tailor with a particularly varied skillset.
Idk, it just makes me laugh because he says so many times in those seasons “Oh! Me? A plain, simple tailor?” And he’s not actually lying. He’s being objectively truthful. He may be a former spy and assassin, but in the present day, that guy just sews and hems. It’s not a cover. That is his real-life day job. I know this is obvious and he says it all the time, but he gets caught up in all of these big plots and he gets to go with the crew on some exciting missions. When you get down to the brass tax of what is actually happening, Sisko is letting Just Some Guy do whatever he wants.
do you ever thinking about how literally everyone takes julian bashir’s infodumping as bragging or lecturing except Garak, who infodumps back
or how Julian never has to guess if Garak is being sarcastic or encoding a double meaning, because EVERYTHING has double meaning
and how if Garak finds that he doesn’t like Julian’s tone, he immediately tells him he doesn’t, rather than silently rolling his eyes or getting quietly irritable
and how Julian and Garak show their affection and respect for each other’s cultures and ideas by. debating them
and how when either of them DOES hurt or insult the other, they draw back and ask how they insulted so they don’t do it again? Garak does it about Julian’s age, Julian does it about Cardassia
and how Odo and Julian often work very well together even though they don’t really LIKE one another because they’re both very obstinate and linear in their thoughts - but Odo and Garak meet each other regularly for breakfast later on and are friends
i just. hhhhhhhh
i have a lot of feelings about how autistic humans respond so WELL to VULCAN communication and to CARDASSIAN communication
and its because allistic humans think cardassians and vulcans are obscure
but they’re NOT obscure. vulcans state things very bluntly, and cardassians state things very floridly, but they share in common a bluntness and directness in their communication that allistic humans often take as rude even when it’s stated it ISN’T
thinking about how Iloja of Prim, the poet, was exiled on Vulcan 👀 and feeling… Feelings
Anonymous:
i know the tag is lizard bdsm, and is sort of joke but sort of not, but what do you think their favorite activity would actually be when it comes to getting railed in a state honoring way
So like, if we’re talking about getting railed in a state honoring way, about hitting the good ‘ol factory reset button a few times, about the Lizard BDSM ™…
Julian likes his hands to be cuffed to the headboard and to be edged. Really lets Garak take his control issues and all the years of experience as a torturer on a walk. Makes sure all the headboards they own are steel reinforced, after that One Time. Garak thought it was hot but Julian was a little mortified and then just the practical consequences of cracking the slats in your bed in half. Garak is a man who knows about lubricants and nerve endings and vasoconstriction. Julian is a man who likes to beg and Garak likes to hear it, right before making him cum. He licks the beads of sweat off him while trying to bring him back down juuuuuust enough to keep going. Julian’s always left slack jawed and cum-dumb. Garak takes pride in his craft and he should.
Garak just has a deep innate need to be bent over something and have his hair pulled, Julian’s fist at the nape of his neck, forcing his back to arch. And like, who doesn’t? He’s definitely coy about it at first, doesn’t really know how to ask for it, but I know that boy has a propensity for submission, he’s just never felt Safe in subspace (ha) before. It’s always been self harm. Julian rewires those neurons and opens up a brave new world to him and makes him tell Julian what he needs and Julian makes him stop struggling and let him give it to him. No running. No getting out of it. Augmented strength pinning him down one way or another, using his mouth or his fingers or his dick to get the job done until they’re wet and messy.
Anyway.
Anonymous:
omg are you willing to talk more about Julian liking to be edged because holy shit the response to that ask was hot 🥵
Oh yeah for sure. So like, here’s my thing. Have you ever had the kind of orgasm that reverberates so hard in your nervous system, that just completely overwhelms all higher thought and cerebral function until all that’s left is what’s hard-coded in the hindbrain and all you can do is laugh?
Because I think Julian needs that a lot, to function optimally. He needs the hard reset. He needs the overstimulation that gives way to peace. He needs to have all his thoughts just be-borped right outta that brain. I think it’s in part due to the autism and in part due to the augmentations just how loud his brain gets and then can’t downshift. He needs something that will override the noise.
Enter, your friendly neighborhood torturer. Interrogation and torture are two different things with two different aims. One is about eliciting information, the other is about power and control. And Garak is someone who understands power and control. He would feel utterly remorseless hearing Julian whine and keen and fight the restraints as he takes him right to the precipice and just… lets it slowly receed. It would rewire the synapses in his brain to know that’s exactly what Julian wants, that he’s giving Julian pleasure, that he’s taking care of Julian.
There’s something I’ve spoken about before, usually in the context of professional wrestling, but when you are raised in the theater of domestic violence you understand the language of violence. You speak it fluently. And there’s nothing inherently wrong or bad about wanting to see the language of violence represented in a fictional context or in how you choose to work out your own body or to exert control over someone who consents to it. It’s not morally repugnant nor does it make you a bad person or degenerate person if your sex reflects a language of violence (power, control, sensory overwhelm, restraint, denial, humiliation, pain) in it so long as it’s safe, sane, and consensual. In any scene, the sub should hold all the power. Their consent predicates the existence of the play. It can be withdrawn at any time. It’s not shameful to explore those things during sex. Sex can be many things. It also doesn’t have to be one thing all the time to one person.
Which is how sometimes you end up getting tenderly edged to the point of tears and writhing as if you’re in agony, reduced to begging, completely helpless. Because you need to feel helpless and out of control and no longer in charge of you but safe. Because you have felt those things before and harm was done to you. Those things are happening to you now, and then you will orgasm and be held and petted and told you are loved. Told you are worthy of being kept warm and safe to fall asleep. Because you have been judged before, and found not worthy.
“My dear doctor,” Garak sits down to lunch that week smiling in the only way he seems to know how, a conspiratorial smirk, with bony brows arched high and electric blue eyes alight with mischief, “should I be offended that you did not see fit to introduce me to your parents last week?”
Julian sighs and grips his cup a little tighter. “Feel whatever way you like about it, Garak, but don’t take it personally. I tried very hard not to introduce them to anyone.”
“Worried that they might slip word of your childhood ‘procedures’?”
