Sorry for the delay -- I had dinner and then the SCSC screening of “The Big Battalions” to get to :-)
Partly because @revolutionarygirlnerys was wondering whether my series was going to stay angsty and I thought I should try to get my head out of the angst pit for a while, I wanted to go in a more fun direction. Not that being at war on the Defiant is super fun, but where I see the timeline going is that the relationship is open at this point because there’s no way, no need, and no motivation to hide it anymore.
Here’s the first sentence for a sense of the tone:
In the month after they fled the reconquered Terok Nor aboard the Defiant with the core crew of the erstwhile Deep Space Nine, Julian and Garak had a lot of sex.
K - Say something nice about someone in any of your fandoms
@the-last-dillards is someone I am delighted to be in the fandom with. An excellent writer, invaluable archivist and garashir historian, creative mind, and just a lovely person.
N - Name three things you wish you saw more or in your main fandom (or a fandom of choice)
1. I like the recent spate of Garak and Keiko are plant friends fics in the Garashir fandom and hope there will be more.
2. More Datashir OR just Data on ds9.
3. More epic plotty fics that aren’t post-canon Cardassia (though I love those too!) Something like the tragically unfinished When the Farsei Blooms.
O - Choose a song at random, which ship or character does it remind you of
I asked Siri to play a random song and she came up with Skellig by Loreena McKennitt. The first line of that song is ‘Light the candle, John’ and that made me think of Beverly Crusher and the infamous Candle Ghost Episode.
B - A pairing you initially didn’t consider but someone changed your mind
@zaan-zaan has a pretty hot Jadzia/Garak fic that convinced me there was something to them, at least as fuck buddies: The Loneliest Moment
R - A pairing you ship that you don’t think anyone else ships
I always thought the awkward vibe that gets canonically addressed between Miles O’Brien and Kira Nerys while she’s knocked up with Yoshi could have been, you know... extended a little further. Like, I always wonder what would have happened if Keiko would have successfully TALKED the both of them into going on that vacation together! I know the polycule dynamic isn’t necessarily rare, but I find the idea of an illicit affair of which Keiko would certainly not approve to be... creatively interesting? If certainly not, like, APPEALING. And this has almost nothing to do with a Miles/Nerys pairing. More like... Miles and Keiko struggle to understand one another as committed partners; how would they function as nearly or perhaps even outright HOSTILE co-parents in the wake of a bitter split? Again. Like, I don’t treasure this notion. But I am curious about it!
U - 5 favorite characters from 5 different fandoms
In no particular order other than that which comes to mind:
1) Hooded Justice / Will Reeves from the Watchmen TV series
2) Chrisjen Avasarala from The Expanse
3) Elim Garak from DS9
4) Han Solo from Star Wars
5) Tuco Benedicto Pacífico Juan María Ramírez from The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
P - Invent a random AU for any fandom (we always need more ideas)
Truck Stop / just-off-the-interstate gas station AU for DS9, not shying away from any of the seedier tropes implied.
Through Tangled Glass! Sounds very intriguing! Please tell us more =)
I answered a bit about it here! I had so many time travel ideas after reading your fic that I had to jot something down, but being me it has to be unnecessarily angsty.
Here are a few more excerpts from Through Tangled Glass:
Excerpt 3:
Garak prods the translator twice. The pain sears in a blinding jolt down his neck and shoulders. The UT clicks in his head while blood pours into his uniform. Educational mode on. Click. All translation off.
“There,” Garak says in Kardasi. “Let’s see how you fare.”
“This is a waste of time,” Julian insists. He can control a lot of his physiology, he trusts Garak to find a way to circumvent it. He can’t outplay Garak at his own game, he knows it. But maybe he can play long enough to stay alive.
“You don’t have to make a big show, Dr. Faraj,” says Garak. “It bores me.”
“Look, if you want to question me, turn the translator back on and question me. I won’t give you any useful information.”
Garak smiles again. He cuts off the cuff of Julian’s sleeve. The fabric rends and rips and Julian can feel Garak’s perverse pleasure at destroying the offending garment. Ta’kak indeed. He dips the rag into the glass of clear liquid. He presses it to the cut under his ear. Julian gasps, biting down a cry through clamped teeth. The alcohol burns. Garak presses hard. Hard enough to staunch the blood in about thirty seconds. Hard enough to send sharp stabs of pain through his neck. The alcohol stings sharper than any knife.
“Ten more seconds,” Julian gasps, struggling for air through the searing pain. He screws his eyes shut, white phosphenes lighting up behind his eyelids. “After you stop the bleeding it needs ten more seconds to disinfect. Bloody...fucking...shit, you know how to cause pain.”
To Julian’s surprise, Garak does as recommended. Frowning, he pulls the blood-soaked cloth away from the wound. He dips it into the alcohol again, and pats the soaked cloth gently around his neck, a cool and gentle whisper amongst the pain. Clear liquid runs red. Agonizing cruelty and agonizing gentleness all in the same man.
“Really a shame. A neck is a terrible thing to ruin. I hope your gadgets smooth it over.”
“I know it’s just for show, but it’s nice to pretend like you aren’t going to just kill me at the end of this,” Julian mumbles.
“Of course I don’t want to kill you. Such a lovely, exotic creature,” says Garak, by all appearances politely bored. Absolute bastard. He cleans the blood from Julian’s neck. His fingers ghost over Julian’s collarbone. The earthy, spiced scent of him fills his lungs. “Are all your males like this? Narrow-waisted with such lovely necks? Such elegant limbs?”
And then he realizes where this is going. All those scandalous touches, all that brazen flirtation. Garak isn’t going to pry the answer out of him with a knife, he’s going to drive Julian into the most embarrassing confession of his life. Julian schools his heart rate and blood pressure lower, focusing on the firing of his sinoatrial node, the dilation and constriction of blood vessels. Resisting the constriction. If he has to think about urological anatomy to play this game, god, so be it.
Slowly, carefully, Garak cleans the bloody knife. He squares the spare chair in front of Julian, and with his clean glass of liquor in hand, sits.
“You really are lovely, aren’t you? You even smell lovely. Like salt. Do you taste like it too?” Garak says, and takes another sip of alcohol.
Julian watches Garak’s lips press to the glass, his mouth part, his tongue dart after to savor the liquid left on his lips. Something clenches low in his abdomen. In fifteen years Garak wouldn’t dare to be so forward, but then again, his Garak lives on a cold space station, in exile, at the mercy of a Federation captain. Here, in this dark little room, this Garak controls everything.
He’s going to kill Sloan for sending him in this compromised. What’s Julian supposed to do? Say, ‘hey, I know you’re torturing me but I know you fifteen years into the future and you give me chocolates and I bore witness to your father’s death and I faced him to save your life from that implant that’s in your post-central gyrus and we argue about Shelley and Riaz and Shakespeare and Preloc and I think about you stopping me in the middle of a rant about Meditations of a Crimson Shadow to rip my trousers off and shag me senseless.’
That would probably get him proper murdered. But oh, what a way to go.
Excerpt 4:
“You ought to have killed me quickly,” Julian says, chest heaving. “Because I intend to endure until you’re ashamed of what you’ve done.”
Something flashes in those terrible blue eyes.
“Confess,” says Garak.
It’s not a request, it’s not a question. It’s an answer, offered to Julian like a soft and precious gift. So simple. The solution to all his problems. Garak, his deliverer. Garak, promising freedom. And the truth shall set you free. Pain swims and shudders through him. The too-tight handcuff, the cracked cheekbone, the deep, dull ache of the sedative, the summation of a million wrong choices slamming into him at once.
“To what, my dear tailor?” Julian says, his voice cracking. “I can confess to any number of things. I confess I prefer Le Carré to Fleming. I confess I lied when I said Shoggoth was dull and convoluted, I actually deeply enjoy enigma tales. I confess flubbing the last question on my final exam. I confess I let Palis touch me even after I knew how she felt about monsters…abominations...like me, just to save my skin. I confess I could have carried that generator. I confess...I confess that no matter how much I say I hate my father I would still do just about anything for a scrap, a crumb, a subatomic particle of affection, of approval, of love. I’d give anything for him to just be proud of his son and not the...the,” he sobs. He’s losing his tenuous control, a weight dragging out of him, blackened and reeking of something old and dead and festered. “And not the thing he architected.”
Dukat’s Peens - you can't just drop that in, all casual like, and expect me not to ask about it.
Oh, I’ve got a number of interestingly named ones I could’ve dropped ;) (‘Slutty Cardassians’ and ‘Jadzia’s Ringworms’ being two of my faves.)
But Dukat’s Peens! (Very very important to talk about those.) I have been slowly chugging along at this one forever but I am determined to finish it. Basically, Dukat goes to Dr Bashir for a very sensitive problem (his hemipenes have prolapsed, oh no!) and he gets not the solution he was hoping for. He’s also just generally a dick during the appointment.
Excerpt:
“I must say, Doctor, you have a confident hand. You seem to be very familiar with holding a man’s ch’och.”
Bashir sighed and looked up from where he was examining the dried out tissue. “Dukat, if you’re going to be making comments like that, I can hand you off to one of the Bajoran doctors.”
Dukat lounged on the biobed in an examination gown, watching with amusement as Bashir worked.
“No need for that. It was merely an innocent comment on your anatomical knowledge, I assure you. You must learn to take compliments. After all, it’s not as if Cardassians are common patients for Starfleet doctors.”
N - Name three things you wish you saw more or in your main fandom (or a fandom of choice)
Off the top of my head,
1. At the moment, more edgy PWP where Garak is actually kind of scary. I am totally into all sorts of iterations of garashir, be it soft and cosy domestic or disturbing or silly or Garak is totally submissive and wants nothing more than to be dominated by Julian (which your excellent Blue Ink is a fantastic example of, OMG, and which I write a bit of myself because I do love that dynamic a lot), but when I first got into the fandom, and when I got back into it more recently, there was a lot of ‘scary, dominant Garak’ sexy fic and now there isn’t and variety is the spice etc.
2. Post-canon garashir in which they do not end up on Cardassia. I do think it’s very natural that they do, given how much Garak longs to go home, but it’s fun to explore the idea of them ending up on Earth, like in my fic The Park, or on a Starfleet ship, like in @aurora-nova-fic‘s Starfleet spouse Garak works, or on another world, like the Vadari Chronicles (also by AuroraNova). But there aren’t many more examples that I can think of other than what I’ve listed here.
3. Readers interacting with each other in the comments of fics. I am not sure if other writers would like this or not, so I don’t tend to do it myself on other people’s fic, but occasionally two readers will get into a (short) conversation in the comments on one of my fics and I just love that. I would love to see it more.
W - 5 favorite ships and 5 kinks you like best for said ships
Ha, I’m not sure I have five ships, really, and I’m not sure I am really into kinks as such, more dynamics. Let me think...
1. Garashir - okay, like I said, I think Garak really likes to be dominated by Julian. He really likes it when Julian tells him what to do, orders him to get on his knees, and uses his body a bit for his own pleasure.
2. Jeeves and Wooster - I don’t know! I really like these two as a pair, but not sure about kinks. Maybe Bertie likes to be blindfolded and held down sometimes? Spanked a bit? Yeah, that’s kind of hot.
3. Garashir again - public sex, like in a closet in the Infirmary or a quiet corner of the station.
4. Garashir again - scent marking. I really like the idea of possessive Garak marking Julian, and Julian maybe not quite understanding exactly what that means at first.
5. Garashir again (SORRY!) - Some sort of cuckolding or hotwifing. Either Julian gets off on watching other men bang Garak, or Garak gets off on Julian going out and sleeping with other people (men or women or any gender, really, I headcanon Julian as up for anything) and then coming home and telling him about it and Garak getting kind of hot under the collar. ATTB most hotly.
Plots Murder is a popular question it seems! I’ve already answered an ask about it but to rehash, Garak devises a plan to murder someone he thinks is out to kill him while giving his lovely boyfriend, Julian, a massage. Inspired by this fanart.
lol that’s the one I think I’ve told you about where jezri ended up going on way too long, long beyond what either of them was getting anything out of; he has 2 kids with ezri one of whom is special needs he can’t even pretend he doesn’t resent, they’re divorced, he’s a grim and frustrated person and anyway, he gets sent to try to recover a federation spy who got captured by the cardassians on their way back from a mission to romulan space, and that means petitioning garak who is frankly not jazzed to see him, but nevertheless grants him the favor and then tells him to fuck off forever
it really is like, “bad end” all the way down lol. everyone would hate this story which is part of why I’m intrigued to write it someday.
