My little guy Nox!!! Drawn by @whizzer-wins, thank you so much! He can't see colors, but Sisko has given him this cube, so it must carry some importance....
Let's talk about emotional repression in the Vorta!
The Vorta smile and laugh a lot. Weyoun, the Vorta we spend the most time with, is almost constantly smiling. But his smiles almost never correlate with his actual emotions; these are customer service smiles. Politician smiles. They are practiced, calculated expressions.
Tekeny Ghemor looks Weyoun right in the eyes as he tells Dukat he betrayed their people to the Dominion, a word he nearly spits with disgust. Weyoun would have felt that. He loves the Dominon more than his own life, and yet his expression doesn't show a hint of displeasure.
It seems that the worse he is insulted, the bigger his smile gets.
But there are real feelings underneath. It's clear that emotion hasn't been completely removed from the Vorta's genetic code, because occasionally real emotion does bleed through. And those are the moments I love, because it's like peeking behind a curtain.
Besides Weyoun, we rarely get to see other Vorta operate. When we meet Kilana, she is faced with an extremely important yet delicate task - to save a dying Founder without letting the Federation get their hands on them. She can't afford to trust Sisko, so she is forced to fall back on her diplomatic training. Disguise her real feelings, smile, put the opposition at ease, and get what she wants without giving anything away.
But it's clear that she is feeling the strain. You can see her fear bleeding through at points. She has real feelings, she just isn't allowing herself to show them. This is likely the most stressful thing she has ever done in any iteration, and yet she is still able to put on an impressive front.
The fact that both Weyoun and Kilana are so skilled at hiding their emotions makes it likely that the Vorta are specifically trained to do this.
With Weyoun, there are moments were you can SEE his training kick in. At one point, he allows himself to forget about his duties and has some fun at the dabo table. He is genuinely happy to the point where he is bouncing and stimming with excitment.
But the fun is cut short when Sisko arrives with a bottle of poisoned wine that had clearly been sent by Dukat. Weyoun, still full of energy, has to pull that all in and press it down. You can watch it happen - his body language closes up and he becomes very still.
He does still get to have a little genuine fun by drinking the poison in front of Dukat and Sisko. The conversation gets to a point where someone might say something damaging if the tension isn't broken, so he breaks it.
Hiding real anger is harder. When Sisko outright refuses to take down the minefield that blocks Dominion ships from coming through the wormhole, Weyoun is actually, sincerely mad about it.
Of course, Sisko doesn't react well to aggression, and Weyoun has to swallow those feelings and put the mask back on.
It only takes a moment, and all his true feelings are wiped away. He's calm and smiling again.
Even when Weyoun does lose his temper, he holds back. The Federation breaks through their lines, Dukat's plan is falling apart, Weyoun feels he's failing in front of his God, and he gives the biggest display of pure emotion we ever see - which is just a light slap of his hand on the table, immediately followed by a self-regulating clasping of his hands behind his back.
It's not much of a tantrum, but for a Vorta he might as well be screaming.
At another point, Weyoun 5 gets lost in thought when presented with some art he can't understand. He talks to Kira about it almost as if she's a friend,
and then has to snap himself out it when he realizes he is actually being vulnerable.
It's also with Kira that Weyoun lets some of his insecurities regarding Odo slip out. He stops her to ask about him,
and you can see his anxiety in the little crease between his eyebrows, the slight sigh he makes before asking his question. This is about what a God thinks of him. He can't quite hide his true feelings.
Kira asks why Weyoun doesn't just talk to Odo directly, and he's so surprised you can see real fear in his eyes. Then he quickly composes himself and masks again,
only dropping it when she's out of sight.
These real emotional responses of the Vorta are much more subtle than their performative ones. They are usually just a twitch of the mouth, a slight crease in the brow, or tension in the neck. Vorta aren't supposed to show their true emotions, so they are kept small.
Real fear
Real happiness
The Vorta, and especially Weyoun, are fascinating characters. I can't finish this without acknowledging that it's Jeffrey Combs' amazingly subtle acting that brings all of this to life. Very little is actually spelled out for us about what life is like for the Vorta, but so much can be inferred from the way he holds himself and the tiny facial expressions he makes. All of it paints a picture of a species that is strictly conditioned to hide their true feelings and only show what is useful to them in the performance of their duty. It's only in those moments when the mask slips that their real selves are visible.
In fucking tears over how annoyed the Female Changeling looks sometimes when Weyoun is talking to her, like, BITCH YOU MADE HIM SPECIFICALLY TO ADORE YOU
God, in retrospect Sarek really WAS that bitch. Not only did he leave his arranged marriage with a perfectly nice Vulcan princess, he then married a human and had a baby with her. And he wasn't subtle about it all, he was walking up to anyone and straight-up introducing her as 'the one who is my wife' zero shame, right in front of our salad. They were touching hands in public. Next thing they know Sarek and Amanda have adopted a human child together and it's so fucking obvious that Sarek adores her, he's not even embarrassed by it. And then Amanda dies and it's sad, but everyone on Vulcan goes 'oh. Okay, well that's very sad but at least he got it out of his system' and then BAM Sarek marries another human woman
Ohh he killed all of his men. Actually sisko did that. All keevan did was Make sisko do that. #innocent. Release Keevan from prison. LET keevan do poppers
Knowing that trans women of color started the movement in the united states and were literally immediately erased and excluded from what they started is the most deeply jading knowledge.
It is the original sin of the so-called queer community and it damns it from the cradle.
Without Stonewall, without the efforts of Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, the LGBTQ Community wouldnāt be where it is today. Donāt forget the roots, donāt forget the catalyst.
and then TERFs wanna be like, āhmm well the LGBT community existed before Stonewall!ā
but likeā¦Becky, of course LGBTQ+ people existed before Stonewall. Weāve all existed since the beginning of time. But the movement got a shock to its senses, a jump-start, a rocket-into-space when that glass shattered via Marsha P. Johnson, and when Sylvia Rivera was up on-stage protesting guess who was on the sidelines heckling her?
The same fuckers who wonāt ever reblog or acknowledge this
My apologies to the original poster as I photo captured this post to add to the thread-I reposted this last year for pride and expect to repost it every year I have left-itās our history people.
Marsha P. Johnson allegedly died of suicide in 1992, and her death was never investigated. Even I, a mere prole, could catch theĀ āshe was murderedā vibes from the circumstances surrounding the discovery of her body.
Without a trans black woman, LGBT+ rights would not exist. Never forget. NeverĀ āpay it no mindā.
Underrated ship dynamic is when Character A is an extremely intense, classical romantic warrior ready to burn down the enemies of Character B and worships the ground B walks on, full on Gomez Addams style of lover, and Character B is just.... completely normal.
Weyoun: I'm the Founder's right-hand arm.. man. I'm the Founder's everything. I'm her confidant, her best friend. Her silly rabbit.
Damar: Her what?
Weyoun: Her silly rabbit.
Damar: Is that what she calls you?
Weyoun: No.
Sometimes I wish I was afflicted with a curse that, at random points, turned me into a hamster or gerbil for a couple of hours, and everyone would go 'oh, that's so sad! But it's not really their fault, it's the Curse, we can't expect them to do anything now'. And then I'd be excused from life for a little bit while I sat in a safe little enclosure until I turned back.
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