#deep space pine

[kaijutegu]

It’s a visual joke I repeat every year, and it amuses me every time.

[gurguliare]

What is THE BEST Kira moment of all time?

I still like when she helps set fire to the old man's house! And when she accidentally dissuades Kai Winn from confessing although that is more of a Winn moment. I feel like I always mention these because they're the ones I can consistently remember. My new favorite Kira moment is the bit in the "Scholarly reception" section of her Wikipedia page where an academic article calls her "emotionally difficult"

[gurguliare]

who's your favorite romulan

kira’s gf

[gurguliare]

what are some random ds9 opinions you have that you haven't really talked about on this blog, but might like to?

HMMMMM

I like Ziyal/Garak. Well, not exactly, it would be truer to say that I don’t think the show version of Ziyal/Garak is that far off from my ideal fic relationship between the two—it’s intensely awkward, but it should be; there’s no chemistry, and there shouldn’t be; he’s terrified of her and it, which he should be. The writing isn’t amazing, but it’s not OOC, largely because they never wrote enough of it to get stupid. Except for Kira comforting him, that was ridiculous, although I can fanwank it as Kira in full-on inspirit the troops mode, any troops, only secondarily as a form of self-harm.

…idk, I think Ziyal’s narrative importance is sometimes underrated. Setting aside her personal arc about trauma, recovery, reconciliation, dumb teen ultimata, etc., because I haven’t watched the key Ziyal episodes that recently—her existence also provides important perspective on Dukat and Garak’s respective failures. If in early seasons Dukat and Garak are kind of ageless, kooky aliens, sniping at each other in the flat frame of overweening backstabby lizard people who are just Like That, then Ziyal’s interactions with each remind us that they’re members of a previous generation of a sick society, and like, Cardassia is still sort of a joke but it behooves a show of DS9′s ambitions to write inquisitively about the waste there, and the embarrassing unfunny (less funny) shame of it, having to keep going, having these people still around. “Dukat as dad” is a useful brute-force way to show how disappointing he is on the most basic level. It’s not that there’s no “there” there, although there isn’t, he’s an amazingly shallow person—but let’s say the shallowness is also partly circumstantial: even if he weren’t wedded to an unsupportable soap-bubble ‘ideology,’ even if he had never been given the kind of power he got, he would just have gone through life doing more harm. And then with Garak it’s like, oh my god, you can’t do anything more for this kid than pose on a rock and nostalge with her about a Cardassia she can never access? You look at her and think about the Cardassia that hates her? And like, it’s sad, for sure, it’s unbearably sad and unjust, but jeezy creezy do you miss that planet, and you won’t have to deal with the next thing after because they’ll never let you back? Nice!

[gurguliare]

I wonder if you'd be up to telling us your favorite NON-obvious episode of Star Trek DS9?

I only love obvious things. No, uh… I actually don’t know what counts as non-obvious for this. Some maybe less-evident picks: 1x14 “Progress,” 3x21 “The Die is Cast” (OBVIOUS TO ANYONE WHO KNOWS ME I JUST DON’T SEE IT TRUMPETED AS MUCH AS IT DESERVES), 7x22 “Tacking into the Wind” for juuuuust the scene where Damar shoots Rusot while Garak and Kira do fingerguns at each other and mug behind his back

[gurguliare]

Your two favorite Star Trek Deep Space 9 pairings, list both and say which is better. (Sorry I don't know much about DS9, not enough to give pairings, but I know you're into it?)

squints. uh, garak/bashir and [spins hat] sisko/dukat. wait, i fucked up. okay, garak/bashir, but on the other hand, i fucked up. for context, garak/bashir is an aging exiled spy and a compassionate doctor who becomes selectively deaf the moment the spy risks emotional honesty, and sisko/dukat is the brave, ambitious captain and his rapey cartoon antag, so, like, whatever,

[gurguliare]

DS9. Hard mode: DS9 season 5.

I’ll try s5!

Make the last third of “The Darkness and the Light” not Phantom of the Opera garbage. Also maybe put it and “Ties of Blood and Water” closer together and have some more explicit dialogue between the events of each; Kira’s whole surrogacy arc is played for humor right up until it’s played for toxic melodrama, and the former makes the latter seemjust as grafted-on. Connecting it back to her issues with her own father, and herself as a revolutionary vs herself as a person who can participate in rebuilding, would help me. 

instead of “O’Brien and Kira have sexual tension,” KIRA TRIPS INTO THE WORLD’S WORST STATIONSIDE SEDORETU and barely escapes with her life. by which I mean. more Bashir but less hetero-bastion-bro Bashir in those episodes, god, no, I don’t know 

So… Odo/Kira. Is fine. Uh, the thing with Children of Time and Odo’s burgeoning crush is like… from the get-go Odo and Kira’s relationship is established as this HOTBED OF BETRAYAL, or rather, it exists on this foundation of them constantly using each other because they were living through some shit—and then in the show’s timeline, they find out or they don’t find out, and “knowledge” sort of takes the place of absolution, because, that’s how friendship works? Maybe? They aren’t sure? Odo’s infatuation basically is another secret betrayal, that’s how it’s framed, but the writers lose that element of like, Odo and Kira’s irresistible friendship forcing them to take the fucking lumps; instead it’s drama! alienation! how can she trust him! which is all FINE, but I think it has to happen side by side with the habitual ongoing intimacy, because their freaking closeness survived him… like… having her friends executed when he was an idiot teenager… Or whatever. I think them falling in love should be about breaking through the silence that makes their friendship like this accidental conspiracy, on a certain level, but to do that you have to actually have a handle on the pre-existing problems in their relationship, and I don’t know that the writers did.

I guess this season is notable for them just giving up entirely on trying to use the changelings/the war with the Dominion for existential horror. Like, oh, no, fake Bashir is going to blow up the station, if you successfully replaced the doctor who does the blood tests then why are there any real Federation officers left. Concept: back half of the season, everyone is a changeling, they haven’t been briefed. God I loved the scene where Sisko had to run to the elevator to turn back into goo, and then as soon as he had left the whole senior bridge crew, passionately relieved, turned back into goo. Secrecy preserved for another day.

god I love s5

[gurguliare]

Kai Winn, Quark (what?)

KAI WINN

1-3 things I enjoy about them

She was going to turn herself in and then Kira had a heartfelt conversation with her. I will never be over this. … I guess that’s something I enjoy about Kira, but—no it’s Kai Winn too. It is. Kai Winner.

Something interesting about them based on tenuous circumstantial evidence

I mean, she’s definitely like, chosen of the Prophets, right. Okay I thought I had more tenuous circumstantial evidence of this than I do, but it is My Headcanon. poor kid.

A question I have about them

Do… do you think she’s comfortable with her predecessor being a moon zombie? Has she visited Kai Opaka okay I think that’s probably prohibited by quarantine requirements or w/e but can you imagine. Sitting there sneaking tea under the hazmat suit flap 

A random relevant line I like

Holy hell I just went to her IMDb page to get the exact wording for this one and it had the best stage direction ever:

Weyoun: It is enough to know that you and I have found so many common interests. I feel that we are very much alike. [Kai Winn grasps Weyoun’s ear] Kai Winn: [debonair] No. We are nothing alike. Nothing at all.

DEBONAIR AS SHIT, MY FRIENDS.

My preferred version, if there is more than one version of their story (or part of their story)

idk “popped up on the astral plane five seconds after sisko did, looking F U R I O U S”

Favorite relationship(s)

Kira, Sisko, um, she was the only person who made Bareil interesting for even a milisecond—I’m not sure she has any interactions I don’t find super engaging and fun, except, of course, for Dukat. x_x

How would they react to Tom Bombadil

Grabs his ear, has to let go and grab her own ear to stop the singing. Never finds out he IS the wormhole

aaaaaand QUARK

1-3 things I enjoy about them

I like that pacifism is ingrained, complicated, ambient in his culture, not an instinct so much as a set of assumptions, and yet he had to rederive the principle under the worst possible circumstances, because humans stole his nephew. I like what a shitty brother he is. I like his… weirdly effective wheedling?? I mean I’m fond of most of his horrendous personality but it’s nice when he’s trying to position himself as Your Best Friend, Commander, and then someone takes him up on it. Which is abusive.

Something interesting about them based on tenuous circumstantial evidences

Can I put “Odo took his space virginity.”

A question I have about them

A bunch of vaguely formulated things about his interactions with Odo and Kira pre-Federation, I guess.

A random relevant line I like

Uhhhh. “I hate the Gamma Quadrant.” Short, sweet, relatable.

My preferred version, if there is more than one version of their story (or part of their story)

Can I—can I just delete episodes here? Whole swathes of Ferengi special episodes?

Favorite relationship(s)

Odo, Dax in theory but not in practice… I mean I like his dynamic with the whole senior bridge crew, basically, but I’m not sure I’d pick individuals out? ‘Sisko’ is always a safe bet though.

How would they react to Tom Bombadil

I’m sort of picturing Quark, over the course of an episode, coming to the conclusion that Tom Bombadil is a staple of Federation culture, like root beer, and that as much as Quark hates him, he’ll miss that bubbly mystery when Tom is gone. Everyone else of course is stuck on “how did this bearded anachronism bypass security”