A full life, if a trifle banal

In some alternate timeline, where all of us live our best lives, I am sitting quietly in a room somewhere, reading.

[unamccormack]

The End of This Day's Business, the lost last transcanonical work of Eleta Preloc, Cardassia's greatest dead writer.

It’s almost the last day on the job for Castellan Elim Garak. One or two loose threads to tie up and then he can retire home to his books and his garden and his doctors. Surely everything will work out fine? What might have happened after The Crimson Shadow and Enigma Tales.

Also, and unexpectedly, We'll Always Have Paris: the story of Garak, Parmak, and the third who walks always beside them.

More Questions Than Answers: What happens when you become completely detached from the life you once led? Garak on Starbase 375, rewiring his brain.

Bad Land: Kira, Garak, and Damar, on the lam.

Feel free to ask me anything, or Eleta for that matter, about this, or anything else.

[unamccormack]

What would The Traitors be like on Cardassia? I reckon it’s called The Order, and there are 3 people who are secretly designated dissidents, unknown even to each other. Everyone else is with the Order, and it’s their job to hunt down the dissidents. At the round table everyone gets a turn to denounce someone else, and the person with the most denunciations is exiled.

The dissidents have never won, in more than 25 seasons of The Order. Everyone knows it’s a massive fix but obviously nobody says so. It’s the third most watched show on Cardassia Prime after Clouds Over Culat and Real Housewives of Lakarian City.

[katbelleinthedark]

Amazing. And now the truly important question: does Cardassia have an equivalent to Love Island or The Bachelor/Bachelorette?

[unamccormack]

Yes but they are tremendously serious and ponderous programmes about the importance of marriage and the family. Everyone secretly finds them very dull but they watch dutifully so that they’re not caught out by Order informants and get a reputation for being anti-family.

[knivesandteeth]

after the reconstruction do they bring these back? is it a huge scandal when they include a "non-Cardassian" on the dating shows (they're still Cardassian but like maybe 1/4 Bajoran or something not even obvious)? Is the first season the dissidents win on the reconstructivist The Order a huge hit?

[unamccormack]

They come back full pelt with a series set on Risa and loads of aliens and the ensuing political firestorm collapses the conservative coalition in the Assembly enabling Castellan Ghemor to repeal Dukat's pre-war pro-family legislation. There are rumours that Ghemor's shadowy "fixer" Elim Garak advised the show's producers but surely that's the Ses'erakh gossip machine working overtime.

The dissidents winning The Order is indeed a massive hit, one of the most watched events on Cardassia in a generation, outmatched only by the first time Clouds Over Culat airs after the Fire, a Cardassian cultural moment as significant as Dirty Den serving Ange the divorce papers in the Christmas Eastenders or the wedding of Charles and Lady Di.

[katbelleinthedark]

Le gasp, like Den and Ange divorce papers! Also, what else does the rumour mill say: did Mr. Garak perhaps accompany the production crew on Risa?

[unamccormack]

Mr "Fixer" Garak is too busy fanning the political wildfires back in the capital, but he's getting hourly updates via his spy, i.e. one of the production runners.

[katbelleinthedark]

Damn. All that work and he didn't even get a free holiday out of it. :(

[unamccormack]

OF COURSE he didn’t even get a free holiday out of it. No rewards for Garak until he’s done ALL his chores.

[katbelleinthedark]

And the chores NEVER END of course. No rest for the wicked, huh? Man. No wonder he's unwell.

[knivesandteeth]

I would like to think Ghemor made him trek out there at least once for a personal touch given the "importance of this production to the soul of the union and potential future intergalactic relations". This is an obvious ploy to try and get the man to relax for the first time in his life. It, crucially, does not work

[unamccormack]

The travel is exhausting; the hotel is noisy; everyone else there is young and hooked up with someone gorgeous; he's only been home for ten minutes and they're sending him off again; it's very Federation and, yes, this makes him pine for Bashir...

[knivesandteeth]

Plus all the federation twinks (who remind him too much of Bashir) keep trying to call him daddy and do border wars RP with him. He's too old for this.

He looks cute in his cardassian-equivalent kaftan and sunhat, at least

[unamccormack]

He just wants to be back home in his shed drinking boiled water.

[galileoace]

Tangent: What's Clouds Over Culat about?

[unamccormack]

Clouds Over Culat is the great Cardassian telenovela created by me and @planetarywanderer on Twitter during lockdown! A multigenerational soap opera. A truly significant piece of Cardassian culture. Everyone watches it, even those who pretend not to.

[ljspencerauthor]

So, is it more East Enders/Fair City, full out Latin American telenovela, or does it go full crazy as in Days of Our Lives?

Inquring minds want to know...

[unamccormack]

Good question. I think it’s run for so long it’s been all these things over the years, and everyone has their favourite era. Except that patch of a few months with the hound-racing subplot, everyone hated that.

[ljspencerauthor]

yeah, every series has that one plot that no one wants to acknowledge ever truly existed....

[katbelleinthedark]

Okay, in terms of wackiest things in Clouds Over Culat, do we find them in

the characters' family trees/connections

the way people die

plot twists (among others to explain actors' departures)

the dramatic zoom-ins on characters' faces

A good soap has all of the above, but which one does COC have in abundance?

Also, what is its fandom like? What's the nastiest shipping war?

[unamccormack]

I personally am a huge fan of the dramatic zoom-ins on CoC. But regular and attentive viewers know to watch carefully when an expensive big white skimmer appears on screen. The producers bought one and filmed it crashing over a cliff and exploding. Now they use that footage whenever they can to save money. Whenever someone climbs into a big white skimmer your pulse races. Of course some people walk away from the explosion without a hair out of place. Scheming matriarch Mathra Fereny has done so three times, although one husband didn’t make it. But it turned out he was already married and it still isn’t clear whether or not Mathra knew and crashed the skimmer deliberately. That was her fourth husband unless you count the one she remarried in which case he’s her fifth. I refer you to the fan forum discussion threads: beware, they’re inhabited by some pretty formidable experts on the history of Cardassian enjoinment laws, both professionals and auto-didacts.

The skimmer has its own dedicated subforum on the biggest fan site and people regularly post pictures of themselves with skimmers of the same make. All location data monitored by the Order of course. Someone got into big trouble for selling off what they claimed was pieces from the wreck of the original skimmer. They were going for mad prices before the investigation got underway.

Incredibly, the actual skimmer was tracked down postwar to a quarry two hours outside Ses’erakh by former Order filing clerk Akem Retel, and is now held in pride of place at the Culat Museum of Popular Culture, opened by Castellan Garak in 2388,

[The ITC white 1957 Jaguar 2.4 Mk.1]

[katbelleinthedark]

History of enjoinment laws? I love fandoms where people get to whip out their legalese and knowledge of laws, we need more of that. (My inner lawyer is made happy.)

The exploding skimmer made me think of a particular Polish soap on which they killed off a character by having her crash her car into a stack of cardboard boxes. She died on the spot*.

[unamccormack]

CoC fandom is a broad church where all can find a home.

CoC causes of death list:

- White skimmer (multiple times)

- Cardboard boxes

- Fall down a turbolift shaft

- Mauled by regnars

- Poisoned by the highly toxic pollen of the perek flower

- Bomb on shuttle (of prominent politician)

[katbelleinthedark]

Mhm. Does COC involve crazy plots about long-lost siblings and illegitimate and/or swapped and/or stolen children or does the state family propaganda forbid that? Post-war, do we start getting more craziness in family trees?

Also: who is that one character that regularly gets killed and then miraculously comes back, "bitch you thought you'd seen the last of me" style and is it Mathra's niece?

Death by cardboard boxes, you will always be famous to me.

[unamccormack]

The plots are insanely crazy because they distract from the actual real-life hypocritical shenanigans of the Cardassian elite. As long as everything eventually resolves within the law.

One of the longest-standing actors (played Mathra’s second husband, she was his third wife) foolishly confused his fame with reality and was embroiled in a real-life marital scandal with a girl young enough to be his daughter. Wasn’t seen on screen again. Or off.

[Amazing clip: cardboard boxes, soft focus, child in peril. It’s got everything]

[knivesandteeth]

Do they ever include offworlders in Coc post-fire? Is it v controversial? How do the characters fare during the fire?

[unamccormack]

The show picks up exactly where it left off with absolutely no mention of the Fire. The characters have almost all been entirely recast (for obvious reasons), but this isn't out-of-place for a show that regularly did Miss Ellie style recasting, multiple times with some characters. The actress who played Mathra Fereny, who was very badly injured at the end of the war but survived, returns for a special one-off appearance as the character's even more scheming mother. There isn't a dry eye throughout the Cardassian Union.

You'd think there might have been some difficulty piecing together all the details of the years and years of prior and very complicated narratives, but as luck would have it, a full archive existed off-world. This was returned from its anonymous owner via a very strange route: a gift from Grand Nagus Rom to the Cardassian people. The special role of the Ferengi people in preserving this unique piece of Cardassian cultural heritage was later recognised by a series of crossover episodes with their equivalent show, Love's Latinum's Lost.

Yes, one big difference is that the new show has offworlder characters, many of whom are associated with the Federation relief mission. There are dramatic storylines around bringing home an offworlder as a potential spouse, but these characters quickly settle in as part of the core cast. Particularly popular is the handsome young human doctor, the show's most eligible bachelor.

A few old-school fans at first complain that the revived show is a little too self-aware and has become far too well-made. But people always complain when a long-running show gets a refresh. And when some of the young directors who cut their teeth on NuCoC go on to start picking up prestigious awards at offworld film festivals, all is forgiven and forgotten.

[unamccormack]

The only acknowledgement of the Fire is completely symbolic: the opening of the revived show begins with a pan shot across a dusty Ses'erakh, coming gradually closer and closer to a lamppost on the Veterans' Bridge. There we find the beautiful young female lead looking sadly out across the river. Footsteps. She turns, to see her young man, in uniform, approaching. He breaks into a run and when he reaches her, they embrace. Cue theme tune and the legendary logo: CLOUDS OVER CULAT. (Yes, Clouds Over Culat is not always set in Culat. Don't look for consistency.)

This meeting place on the bridge is such a staple of Cardassian romantic literature and particularly visual narrative that it's become a scorned cliché. This time everyone bawls.

The theme tune in my head sounds a bit like the Crossroads theme tune, but you might have something else going on.

[unamccormack]

Too good to stay in tags. We all have our problematic faves. They send someone over for a set visit and to do some interviews. The piece goes around the Federation and now there are small cult followings on Trill, Betazed... Clouds Over Culat turning into one of Cardassia’s most surprising successful exports, like Warhammer and the UK. Not all the guls are entirely happy about this.

[yesterdaysprint]

The Kansas Industrialist, Manhattan, July 18, 1917

[unamccormack]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

I don't read a great deal of Tolkien fanfiction these days, but this is an absolute stunner. Faramir goes to Rivendell AU and a technical triumph.

[unamccormack]

What would The Traitors be like on Cardassia? I reckon it’s called The Order, and there are 3 people who are secretly designated dissidents, unknown even to each other. Everyone else is with the Order, and it’s their job to hunt down the dissidents. At the round table everyone gets a turn to denounce someone else, and the person with the most denunciations is exiled.

The dissidents have never won, in more than 25 seasons of The Order. Everyone knows it’s a massive fix but obviously nobody says so. It’s the third most watched show on Cardassia Prime after Clouds Over Culat and Real Housewives of Lakarian City.

[katbelleinthedark]

Amazing. And now the truly important question: does Cardassia have an equivalent to Love Island or The Bachelor/Bachelorette?

[unamccormack]

Yes but they are tremendously serious and ponderous programmes about the importance of marriage and the family. Everyone secretly finds them very dull but they watch dutifully so that they’re not caught out by Order informants and get a reputation for being anti-family.

[knivesandteeth]

after the reconstruction do they bring these back? is it a huge scandal when they include a "non-Cardassian" on the dating shows (they're still Cardassian but like maybe 1/4 Bajoran or something not even obvious)? Is the first season the dissidents win on the reconstructivist The Order a huge hit?

[unamccormack]

They come back full pelt with a series set on Risa and loads of aliens and the ensuing political firestorm collapses the conservative coalition in the Assembly enabling Castellan Ghemor to repeal Dukat's pre-war pro-family legislation. There are rumours that Ghemor's shadowy "fixer" Elim Garak advised the show's producers but surely that's the Ses'erakh gossip machine working overtime.

The dissidents winning The Order is indeed a massive hit, one of the most watched events on Cardassia in a generation, outmatched only by the first time Clouds Over Culat airs after the Fire, a Cardassian cultural moment as significant as Dirty Den serving Ange the divorce papers in the Christmas Eastenders or the wedding of Charles and Lady Di.

[katbelleinthedark]

Le gasp, like Den and Ange divorce papers! Also, what else does the rumour mill say: did Mr. Garak perhaps accompany the production crew on Risa?

[unamccormack]

Mr "Fixer" Garak is too busy fanning the political wildfires back in the capital, but he's getting hourly updates via his spy, i.e. one of the production runners.

[katbelleinthedark]

Damn. All that work and he didn't even get a free holiday out of it. :(

[unamccormack]

OF COURSE he didn’t even get a free holiday out of it. No rewards for Garak until he’s done ALL his chores.

[katbelleinthedark]

And the chores NEVER END of course. No rest for the wicked, huh? Man. No wonder he's unwell.

[knivesandteeth]

I would like to think Ghemor made him trek out there at least once for a personal touch given the "importance of this production to the soul of the union and potential future intergalactic relations". This is an obvious ploy to try and get the man to relax for the first time in his life. It, crucially, does not work

[unamccormack]

The travel is exhausting; the hotel is noisy; everyone else there is young and hooked up with someone gorgeous; he's only been home for ten minutes and they're sending him off again; it's very Federation and, yes, this makes him pine for Bashir...

[knivesandteeth]

Plus all the federation twinks (who remind him too much of Bashir) keep trying to call him daddy and do border wars RP with him. He's too old for this.

He looks cute in his cardassian-equivalent kaftan and sunhat, at least

[unamccormack]

He just wants to be back home in his shed drinking boiled water.

[galileoace]

Tangent: What's Clouds Over Culat about?

[unamccormack]

Clouds Over Culat is the great Cardassian telenovela created by me and @planetarywanderer on Twitter during lockdown! A multigenerational soap opera. A truly significant piece of Cardassian culture. Everyone watches it, even those who pretend not to.

[ljspencerauthor]

So, is it more East Enders/Fair City, full out Latin American telenovela, or does it go full crazy as in Days of Our Lives?

Inquring minds want to know...

[unamccormack]

Good question. I think it’s run for so long it’s been all these things over the years, and everyone has their favourite era. Except that patch of a few months with the hound-racing subplot, everyone hated that.

[ljspencerauthor]

yeah, every series has that one plot that no one wants to acknowledge ever truly existed....

[katbelleinthedark]

Okay, in terms of wackiest things in Clouds Over Culat, do we find them in

the characters' family trees/connections

the way people die

plot twists (among others to explain actors' departures)

the dramatic zoom-ins on characters' faces

A good soap has all of the above, but which one does COC have in abundance?

Also, what is its fandom like? What's the nastiest shipping war?

[unamccormack]

I personally am a huge fan of the dramatic zoom-ins on CoC. But regular and attentive viewers know to watch carefully when an expensive big white skimmer appears on screen. The producers bought one and filmed it crashing over a cliff and exploding. Now they use that footage whenever they can to save money. Whenever someone climbs into a big white skimmer your pulse races. Of course some people walk away from the explosion without a hair out of place. Scheming matriarch Mathra Fereny has done so three times, although one husband didn’t make it. But it turned out he was already married and it still isn’t clear whether or not Mathra knew and crashed the skimmer deliberately. That was her fourth husband unless you count the one she remarried in which case he’s her fifth. I refer you to the fan forum discussion threads: beware, they’re inhabited by some pretty formidable experts on the history of Cardassian enjoinment laws, both professionals and auto-didacts.

The skimmer has its own dedicated subforum on the biggest fan site and people regularly post pictures of themselves with skimmers of the same make. All location data monitored by the Order of course. Someone got into big trouble for selling off what they claimed was pieces from the wreck of the original skimmer. They were going for mad prices before the investigation got underway.

Incredibly, the actual skimmer was tracked down postwar to a quarry two hours outside Ses’erakh by former Order filing clerk Akem Retel, and is now held in pride of place at the Culat Museum of Popular Culture, opened by Castellan Garak in 2388,

[The ITC white 1957 Jaguar 2.4 Mk.1]

[katbelleinthedark]

History of enjoinment laws? I love fandoms where people get to whip out their legalese and knowledge of laws, we need more of that. (My inner lawyer is made happy.)

The exploding skimmer made me think of a particular Polish soap on which they killed off a character by having her crash her car into a stack of cardboard boxes. She died on the spot*.

[unamccormack]

CoC fandom is a broad church where all can find a home.

CoC causes of death list:

- White skimmer (multiple times)

- Cardboard boxes

- Fall down a turbolift shaft

- Mauled by regnars

- Poisoned by the highly toxic pollen of the perek flower

- Bomb on shuttle (of prominent politician)

[katbelleinthedark]

Mhm. Does COC involve crazy plots about long-lost siblings and illegitimate and/or swapped and/or stolen children or does the state family propaganda forbid that? Post-war, do we start getting more craziness in family trees?

Also: who is that one character that regularly gets killed and then miraculously comes back, "bitch you thought you'd seen the last of me" style and is it Mathra's niece?

Death by cardboard boxes, you will always be famous to me.

[unamccormack]

The plots are insanely crazy because they distract from the actual real-life hypocritical shenanigans of the Cardassian elite. As long as everything eventually resolves within the law.

One of the longest-standing actors (played Mathra’s second husband, she was his third wife) foolishly confused his fame with reality and was embroiled in a real-life marital scandal with a girl young enough to be his daughter. Wasn’t seen on screen again. Or off.

[Amazing clip: cardboard boxes, soft focus, child in peril. It’s got everything]

[knivesandteeth]

Do they ever include offworlders in Coc post-fire? Is it v controversial? How do the characters fare during the fire?

[unamccormack]

The show picks up exactly where it left off with absolutely no mention of the Fire. The characters have almost all been entirely recast (for obvious reasons), but this isn't out-of-place for a show that regularly did Miss Ellie style recasting, multiple times with some characters. The actress who played Mathra Fereny, who was very badly injured at the end of the war but survived, returns for a special one-off appearance as the character's even more scheming mother. There isn't a dry eye throughout the Cardassian Union.

You'd think there might have been some difficulty piecing together all the details of the years and years of prior and very complicated narratives, but as luck would have it, a full archive existed off-world. This was returned from its anonymous owner via a very strange route: a gift from Grand Nagus Rom to the Cardassian people. The special role of the Ferengi people in preserving this unique piece of Cardassian cultural heritage was later recognised by a series of crossover episodes with their equivalent show, Love's Latinum's Lost.

Yes, one big difference is that the new show has offworlder characters, many of whom are associated with the Federation relief mission. There are dramatic storylines around bringing home an offworlder as a potential spouse, but these characters quickly settle in as part of the core cast. Particularly popular is the handsome young human doctor, the show's most eligible bachelor.

A few old-school fans at first complain that the revived show is a little too self-aware and has become far too well-made. But people always complain when a long-running show gets a refresh. And when some of the young directors who cut their teeth on NuCoC go on to start picking up prestigious awards at offworld film festivals, all is forgiven and forgotten.

[knivesandteeth]

Do they do any dramatic reveals about one of those offworlders being Order agents in Deep Cover (maybe even brainwashed to forget who they are)?

Also yeah, everyone always complains - the most terrible star trek show is always the one airing rn. Nostalgia is a hell of a drug.

[bluewizardnonesense]

My head cannon now is that Garak hates Risa. He needs to work for his sex, if its just given out willy nilly then where’s the excitement, the intrigue, the risk of serious socio political consequences? Risa rubs his every hair the wrong way and gives him a paranoia panic attack by hour three of landing, he has to take a hostage to try to unravel the conspiracy out to get him to feel better.

Eventually the producers reach out to Bashir who gives them a very detailed scheme/ set of (roleplay) instructions for a “special attention” Risian (they do try to accommodate all guests) to follow in order to play along with the narrative Garak has concocted, get him disarmed, against the wall, and into bed.

The producers send the plot of the events to the writing room of CoC where they change very little except making it for their tragic war PTSD character that they undoubtably have. Garak cant sue for fear of the discovery process but does get begrudging royalties that he anonymously donates

[unamccormack]

What would The Traitors be like on Cardassia? I reckon it’s called The Order, and there are 3 people who are secretly designated dissidents, unknown even to each other. Everyone else is with the Order, and it’s their job to hunt down the dissidents. At the round table everyone gets a turn to denounce someone else, and the person with the most denunciations is exiled.

The dissidents have never won, in more than 25 seasons of The Order. Everyone knows it’s a massive fix but obviously nobody says so. It’s the third most watched show on Cardassia Prime after Clouds Over Culat and Real Housewives of Lakarian City.

[katbelleinthedark]

Amazing. And now the truly important question: does Cardassia have an equivalent to Love Island or The Bachelor/Bachelorette?

[unamccormack]

Yes but they are tremendously serious and ponderous programmes about the importance of marriage and the family. Everyone secretly finds them very dull but they watch dutifully so that they’re not caught out by Order informants and get a reputation for being anti-family.

[knivesandteeth]

after the reconstruction do they bring these back? is it a huge scandal when they include a "non-Cardassian" on the dating shows (they're still Cardassian but like maybe 1/4 Bajoran or something not even obvious)? Is the first season the dissidents win on the reconstructivist The Order a huge hit?

[unamccormack]

They come back full pelt with a series set on Risa and loads of aliens and the ensuing political firestorm collapses the conservative coalition in the Assembly enabling Castellan Ghemor to repeal Dukat's pre-war pro-family legislation. There are rumours that Ghemor's shadowy "fixer" Elim Garak advised the show's producers but surely that's the Ses'erakh gossip machine working overtime.

The dissidents winning The Order is indeed a massive hit, one of the most watched events on Cardassia in a generation, outmatched only by the first time Clouds Over Culat airs after the Fire, a Cardassian cultural moment as significant as Dirty Den serving Ange the divorce papers in the Christmas Eastenders or the wedding of Charles and Lady Di.

[katbelleinthedark]

Le gasp, like Den and Ange divorce papers! Also, what else does the rumour mill say: did Mr. Garak perhaps accompany the production crew on Risa?

[unamccormack]

Mr "Fixer" Garak is too busy fanning the political wildfires back in the capital, but he's getting hourly updates via his spy, i.e. one of the production runners.

[katbelleinthedark]

Damn. All that work and he didn't even get a free holiday out of it. :(

[unamccormack]

OF COURSE he didn’t even get a free holiday out of it. No rewards for Garak until he’s done ALL his chores.

[katbelleinthedark]

And the chores NEVER END of course. No rest for the wicked, huh? Man. No wonder he's unwell.

[knivesandteeth]

I would like to think Ghemor made him trek out there at least once for a personal touch given the "importance of this production to the soul of the union and potential future intergalactic relations". This is an obvious ploy to try and get the man to relax for the first time in his life. It, crucially, does not work

[unamccormack]

The travel is exhausting; the hotel is noisy; everyone else there is young and hooked up with someone gorgeous; he's only been home for ten minutes and they're sending him off again; it's very Federation and, yes, this makes him pine for Bashir...

[knivesandteeth]

Plus all the federation twinks (who remind him too much of Bashir) keep trying to call him daddy and do border wars RP with him. He's too old for this.

He looks cute in his cardassian-equivalent kaftan and sunhat, at least

[unamccormack]

He just wants to be back home in his shed drinking boiled water.

[galileoace]

Tangent: What's Clouds Over Culat about?

[unamccormack]

Clouds Over Culat is the great Cardassian telenovela created by me and @planetarywanderer on Twitter during lockdown! A multigenerational soap opera. A truly significant piece of Cardassian culture. Everyone watches it, even those who pretend not to.

[ljspencerauthor]

So, is it more East Enders/Fair City, full out Latin American telenovela, or does it go full crazy as in Days of Our Lives?

Inquring minds want to know...

[unamccormack]

Good question. I think it’s run for so long it’s been all these things over the years, and everyone has their favourite era. Except that patch of a few months with the hound-racing subplot, everyone hated that.

[ljspencerauthor]

yeah, every series has that one plot that no one wants to acknowledge ever truly existed....

[katbelleinthedark]

Okay, in terms of wackiest things in Clouds Over Culat, do we find them in

the characters' family trees/connections

the way people die

plot twists (among others to explain actors' departures)

the dramatic zoom-ins on characters' faces

A good soap has all of the above, but which one does COC have in abundance?

Also, what is its fandom like? What's the nastiest shipping war?

[unamccormack]

I personally am a huge fan of the dramatic zoom-ins on CoC. But regular and attentive viewers know to watch carefully when an expensive big white skimmer appears on screen. The producers bought one and filmed it crashing over a cliff and exploding. Now they use that footage whenever they can to save money. Whenever someone climbs into a big white skimmer your pulse races. Of course some people walk away from the explosion without a hair out of place. Scheming matriarch Mathra Fereny has done so three times, although one husband didn’t make it. But it turned out he was already married and it still isn’t clear whether or not Mathra knew and crashed the skimmer deliberately. That was her fourth husband unless you count the one she remarried in which case he’s her fifth. I refer you to the fan forum discussion threads: beware, they’re inhabited by some pretty formidable experts on the history of Cardassian enjoinment laws, both professionals and auto-didacts.

The skimmer has its own dedicated subforum on the biggest fan site and people regularly post pictures of themselves with skimmers of the same make. All location data monitored by the Order of course. Someone got into big trouble for selling off what they claimed was pieces from the wreck of the original skimmer. They were going for mad prices before the investigation got underway.

Incredibly, the actual skimmer was tracked down postwar to a quarry two hours outside Ses’erakh by former Order filing clerk Akem Retel, and is now held in pride of place at the Culat Museum of Popular Culture, opened by Castellan Garak in 2388,

[The ITC white 1957 Jaguar 2.4 Mk.1]

[katbelleinthedark]

History of enjoinment laws? I love fandoms where people get to whip out their legalese and knowledge of laws, we need more of that. (My inner lawyer is made happy.)

The exploding skimmer made me think of a particular Polish soap on which they killed off a character by having her crash her car into a stack of cardboard boxes. She died on the spot*.

[unamccormack]

CoC fandom is a broad church where all can find a home.

CoC causes of death list:

- White skimmer (multiple times)

- Cardboard boxes

- Fall down a turbolift shaft

- Mauled by regnars

- Poisoned by the highly toxic pollen of the perek flower

- Bomb on shuttle (of prominent politician)

[katbelleinthedark]

Mhm. Does COC involve crazy plots about long-lost siblings and illegitimate and/or swapped and/or stolen children or does the state family propaganda forbid that? Post-war, do we start getting more craziness in family trees?

Also: who is that one character that regularly gets killed and then miraculously comes back, "bitch you thought you'd seen the last of me" style and is it Mathra's niece?

Death by cardboard boxes, you will always be famous to me.

[unamccormack]

The plots are insanely crazy because they distract from the actual real-life hypocritical shenanigans of the Cardassian elite. As long as everything eventually resolves within the law.

One of the longest-standing actors (played Mathra’s second husband, she was his third wife) foolishly confused his fame with reality and was embroiled in a real-life marital scandal with a girl young enough to be his daughter. Wasn’t seen on screen again. Or off.

[Amazing clip: cardboard boxes, soft focus, child in peril. It’s got everything]

[knivesandteeth]

Do they ever include offworlders in Coc post-fire? Is it v controversial? How do the characters fare during the fire?

[a-k1tty]

*takes copious amounts of notes for that pop culture and identity essay that still isn’t finished*

Also, post fire, is there a character that is absolutely not a thinly veiled version of Gul Dukat?

Do they cast their first mixed Bajoran-Cardassian actor?

[unamccormack]

There is a thinly veiled version of Gul Dukat, a semi-regular buffoon, completely played for laughs. His grand schemes are always foiled. One episode follows him as he purchases a big white skimmer (he’s cheated on the price). He’s often seen proudly polishing it.

It takes a little while to cast a Cardassian-Bajoran actor because the production crew are genuinely anxious about getting the Bajoran angle wrong.

[unamccormack]

What would The Traitors be like on Cardassia? I reckon it’s called The Order, and there are 3 people who are secretly designated dissidents, unknown even to each other. Everyone else is with the Order, and it’s their job to hunt down the dissidents. At the round table everyone gets a turn to denounce someone else, and the person with the most denunciations is exiled.

The dissidents have never won, in more than 25 seasons of The Order. Everyone knows it’s a massive fix but obviously nobody says so. It’s the third most watched show on Cardassia Prime after Clouds Over Culat and Real Housewives of Lakarian City.

[katbelleinthedark]

Amazing. And now the truly important question: does Cardassia have an equivalent to Love Island or The Bachelor/Bachelorette?

[unamccormack]

Yes but they are tremendously serious and ponderous programmes about the importance of marriage and the family. Everyone secretly finds them very dull but they watch dutifully so that they’re not caught out by Order informants and get a reputation for being anti-family.

[knivesandteeth]

after the reconstruction do they bring these back? is it a huge scandal when they include a "non-Cardassian" on the dating shows (they're still Cardassian but like maybe 1/4 Bajoran or something not even obvious)? Is the first season the dissidents win on the reconstructivist The Order a huge hit?

[unamccormack]

They come back full pelt with a series set on Risa and loads of aliens and the ensuing political firestorm collapses the conservative coalition in the Assembly enabling Castellan Ghemor to repeal Dukat's pre-war pro-family legislation. There are rumours that Ghemor's shadowy "fixer" Elim Garak advised the show's producers but surely that's the Ses'erakh gossip machine working overtime.

The dissidents winning The Order is indeed a massive hit, one of the most watched events on Cardassia in a generation, outmatched only by the first time Clouds Over Culat airs after the Fire, a Cardassian cultural moment as significant as Dirty Den serving Ange the divorce papers in the Christmas Eastenders or the wedding of Charles and Lady Di.

[katbelleinthedark]

Le gasp, like Den and Ange divorce papers! Also, what else does the rumour mill say: did Mr. Garak perhaps accompany the production crew on Risa?

[unamccormack]

Mr "Fixer" Garak is too busy fanning the political wildfires back in the capital, but he's getting hourly updates via his spy, i.e. one of the production runners.

[katbelleinthedark]

Damn. All that work and he didn't even get a free holiday out of it. :(

[unamccormack]

OF COURSE he didn’t even get a free holiday out of it. No rewards for Garak until he’s done ALL his chores.

[katbelleinthedark]

And the chores NEVER END of course. No rest for the wicked, huh? Man. No wonder he's unwell.

[knivesandteeth]

I would like to think Ghemor made him trek out there at least once for a personal touch given the "importance of this production to the soul of the union and potential future intergalactic relations". This is an obvious ploy to try and get the man to relax for the first time in his life. It, crucially, does not work

[unamccormack]

The travel is exhausting; the hotel is noisy; everyone else there is young and hooked up with someone gorgeous; he's only been home for ten minutes and they're sending him off again; it's very Federation and, yes, this makes him pine for Bashir...

[knivesandteeth]

Plus all the federation twinks (who remind him too much of Bashir) keep trying to call him daddy and do border wars RP with him. He's too old for this.

He looks cute in his cardassian-equivalent kaftan and sunhat, at least

[unamccormack]

He just wants to be back home in his shed drinking boiled water.

[galileoace]

Tangent: What's Clouds Over Culat about?

[unamccormack]

Clouds Over Culat is the great Cardassian telenovela created by me and @planetarywanderer on Twitter during lockdown! A multigenerational soap opera. A truly significant piece of Cardassian culture. Everyone watches it, even those who pretend not to.

[ljspencerauthor]

So, is it more East Enders/Fair City, full out Latin American telenovela, or does it go full crazy as in Days of Our Lives?

Inquring minds want to know...

[unamccormack]

Good question. I think it’s run for so long it’s been all these things over the years, and everyone has their favourite era. Except that patch of a few months with the hound-racing subplot, everyone hated that.

[ljspencerauthor]

yeah, every series has that one plot that no one wants to acknowledge ever truly existed....

[katbelleinthedark]

Okay, in terms of wackiest things in Clouds Over Culat, do we find them in

the characters' family trees/connections

the way people die

plot twists (among others to explain actors' departures)

the dramatic zoom-ins on characters' faces

A good soap has all of the above, but which one does COC have in abundance?

Also, what is its fandom like? What's the nastiest shipping war?

[unamccormack]

I personally am a huge fan of the dramatic zoom-ins on CoC. But regular and attentive viewers know to watch carefully when an expensive big white skimmer appears on screen. The producers bought one and filmed it crashing over a cliff and exploding. Now they use that footage whenever they can to save money. Whenever someone climbs into a big white skimmer your pulse races. Of course some people walk away from the explosion without a hair out of place. Scheming matriarch Mathra Fereny has done so three times, although one husband didn’t make it. But it turned out he was already married and it still isn’t clear whether or not Mathra knew and crashed the skimmer deliberately. That was her fourth husband unless you count the one she remarried in which case he’s her fifth. I refer you to the fan forum discussion threads: beware, they’re inhabited by some pretty formidable experts on the history of Cardassian enjoinment laws, both professionals and auto-didacts.

The skimmer has its own dedicated subforum on the biggest fan site and people regularly post pictures of themselves with skimmers of the same make. All location data monitored by the Order of course. Someone got into big trouble for selling off what they claimed was pieces from the wreck of the original skimmer. They were going for mad prices before the investigation got underway.

Incredibly, the actual skimmer was tracked down postwar to a quarry two hours outside Ses’erakh by former Order filing clerk Akem Retel, and is now held in pride of place at the Culat Museum of Popular Culture, opened by Castellan Garak in 2388,

[The ITC white 1957 Jaguar 2.4 Mk.1]

[katbelleinthedark]

History of enjoinment laws? I love fandoms where people get to whip out their legalese and knowledge of laws, we need more of that. (My inner lawyer is made happy.)

The exploding skimmer made me think of a particular Polish soap on which they killed off a character by having her crash her car into a stack of cardboard boxes. She died on the spot*.

[unamccormack]

CoC fandom is a broad church where all can find a home.

CoC causes of death list:

- White skimmer (multiple times)

- Cardboard boxes

- Fall down a turbolift shaft

- Mauled by regnars

- Poisoned by the highly toxic pollen of the perek flower

- Bomb on shuttle (of prominent politician)

[katbelleinthedark]

Mhm. Does COC involve crazy plots about long-lost siblings and illegitimate and/or swapped and/or stolen children or does the state family propaganda forbid that? Post-war, do we start getting more craziness in family trees?

Also: who is that one character that regularly gets killed and then miraculously comes back, "bitch you thought you'd seen the last of me" style and is it Mathra's niece?

Death by cardboard boxes, you will always be famous to me.

[unamccormack]

The plots are insanely crazy because they distract from the actual real-life hypocritical shenanigans of the Cardassian elite. As long as everything eventually resolves within the law.

One of the longest-standing actors (played Mathra’s second husband, she was his third wife) foolishly confused his fame with reality and was embroiled in a real-life marital scandal with a girl young enough to be his daughter. Wasn’t seen on screen again. Or off.

[Amazing clip: cardboard boxes, soft focus, child in peril. It’s got everything]

[knivesandteeth]

Do they ever include offworlders in Coc post-fire? Is it v controversial? How do the characters fare during the fire?

[unamccormack]

The show picks up exactly where it left off with absolutely no mention of the Fire. The characters have almost all been entirely recast (for obvious reasons), but this isn't out-of-place for a show that regularly did Miss Ellie style recasting, multiple times with some characters. The actress who played Mathra Fereny, who was very badly injured at the end of the war but survived, returns for a special one-off appearance as the character's even more scheming mother. There isn't a dry eye throughout the Cardassian Union.

You'd think there might have been some difficulty piecing together all the details of the years and years of prior and very complicated narratives, but as luck would have it, a full archive existed off-world. This was returned from its anonymous owner via a very strange route: a gift from Grand Nagus Rom to the Cardassian people. The special role of the Ferengi people in preserving this unique piece of Cardassian cultural heritage was later recognised by a series of crossover episodes with their equivalent show, Love's Latinum's Lost.

Yes, one big difference is that the new show has offworlder characters, many of whom are associated with the Federation relief mission. There are dramatic storylines around bringing home an offworlder as a potential spouse, but these characters quickly settle in as part of the core cast. Particularly popular is the handsome young human doctor, the show's most eligible bachelor.

A few old-school fans at first complain that the revived show is a little too self-aware and has become far too well-made. But people always complain when a long-running show gets a refresh. And when some of the young directors who cut their teeth on NuCoC go on to start picking up prestigious awards at offworld film festivals, all is forgiven and forgotten.

[knivesandteeth]

Do they do any dramatic reveals about one of those offworlders being Order agents in Deep Cover (maybe even brainwashed to forget who they are)?

Also yeah, everyone always complains - the most terrible star trek show is always the one airing rn. Nostalgia is a hell of a drug.

[unamccormack]

Yes, but described as “on a distant and perilous mission”. Nobody ever ever mentions the Order. They might pop up again.

[unamccormack]

What would The Traitors be like on Cardassia? I reckon it’s called The Order, and there are 3 people who are secretly designated dissidents, unknown even to each other. Everyone else is with the Order, and it’s their job to hunt down the dissidents. At the round table everyone gets a turn to denounce someone else, and the person with the most denunciations is exiled.

The dissidents have never won, in more than 25 seasons of The Order. Everyone knows it’s a massive fix but obviously nobody says so. It’s the third most watched show on Cardassia Prime after Clouds Over Culat and Real Housewives of Lakarian City.

[katbelleinthedark]

Amazing. And now the truly important question: does Cardassia have an equivalent to Love Island or The Bachelor/Bachelorette?

[unamccormack]

Yes but they are tremendously serious and ponderous programmes about the importance of marriage and the family. Everyone secretly finds them very dull but they watch dutifully so that they’re not caught out by Order informants and get a reputation for being anti-family.

[knivesandteeth]

after the reconstruction do they bring these back? is it a huge scandal when they include a "non-Cardassian" on the dating shows (they're still Cardassian but like maybe 1/4 Bajoran or something not even obvious)? Is the first season the dissidents win on the reconstructivist The Order a huge hit?

[unamccormack]

They come back full pelt with a series set on Risa and loads of aliens and the ensuing political firestorm collapses the conservative coalition in the Assembly enabling Castellan Ghemor to repeal Dukat's pre-war pro-family legislation. There are rumours that Ghemor's shadowy "fixer" Elim Garak advised the show's producers but surely that's the Ses'erakh gossip machine working overtime.

The dissidents winning The Order is indeed a massive hit, one of the most watched events on Cardassia in a generation, outmatched only by the first time Clouds Over Culat airs after the Fire, a Cardassian cultural moment as significant as Dirty Den serving Ange the divorce papers in the Christmas Eastenders or the wedding of Charles and Lady Di.

[katbelleinthedark]

Le gasp, like Den and Ange divorce papers! Also, what else does the rumour mill say: did Mr. Garak perhaps accompany the production crew on Risa?

[unamccormack]

Mr "Fixer" Garak is too busy fanning the political wildfires back in the capital, but he's getting hourly updates via his spy, i.e. one of the production runners.

[katbelleinthedark]

Damn. All that work and he didn't even get a free holiday out of it. :(

[unamccormack]

OF COURSE he didn’t even get a free holiday out of it. No rewards for Garak until he’s done ALL his chores.

[katbelleinthedark]

And the chores NEVER END of course. No rest for the wicked, huh? Man. No wonder he's unwell.

[knivesandteeth]

I would like to think Ghemor made him trek out there at least once for a personal touch given the "importance of this production to the soul of the union and potential future intergalactic relations". This is an obvious ploy to try and get the man to relax for the first time in his life. It, crucially, does not work

[unamccormack]

The travel is exhausting; the hotel is noisy; everyone else there is young and hooked up with someone gorgeous; he's only been home for ten minutes and they're sending him off again; it's very Federation and, yes, this makes him pine for Bashir...

[knivesandteeth]

Plus all the federation twinks (who remind him too much of Bashir) keep trying to call him daddy and do border wars RP with him. He's too old for this.

He looks cute in his cardassian-equivalent kaftan and sunhat, at least

[unamccormack]

He just wants to be back home in his shed drinking boiled water.

[galileoace]

Tangent: What's Clouds Over Culat about?

[unamccormack]

Clouds Over Culat is the great Cardassian telenovela created by me and @planetarywanderer on Twitter during lockdown! A multigenerational soap opera. A truly significant piece of Cardassian culture. Everyone watches it, even those who pretend not to.

[ljspencerauthor]

So, is it more East Enders/Fair City, full out Latin American telenovela, or does it go full crazy as in Days of Our Lives?

Inquring minds want to know...

[unamccormack]

Good question. I think it’s run for so long it’s been all these things over the years, and everyone has their favourite era. Except that patch of a few months with the hound-racing subplot, everyone hated that.

[ljspencerauthor]

yeah, every series has that one plot that no one wants to acknowledge ever truly existed....

[katbelleinthedark]

Okay, in terms of wackiest things in Clouds Over Culat, do we find them in

the characters' family trees/connections

the way people die

plot twists (among others to explain actors' departures)

the dramatic zoom-ins on characters' faces

A good soap has all of the above, but which one does COC have in abundance?

Also, what is its fandom like? What's the nastiest shipping war?

[unamccormack]

I personally am a huge fan of the dramatic zoom-ins on CoC. But regular and attentive viewers know to watch carefully when an expensive big white skimmer appears on screen. The producers bought one and filmed it crashing over a cliff and exploding. Now they use that footage whenever they can to save money. Whenever someone climbs into a big white skimmer your pulse races. Of course some people walk away from the explosion without a hair out of place. Scheming matriarch Mathra Fereny has done so three times, although one husband didn’t make it. But it turned out he was already married and it still isn’t clear whether or not Mathra knew and crashed the skimmer deliberately. That was her fourth husband unless you count the one she remarried in which case he’s her fifth. I refer you to the fan forum discussion threads: beware, they’re inhabited by some pretty formidable experts on the history of Cardassian enjoinment laws, both professionals and auto-didacts.

The skimmer has its own dedicated subforum on the biggest fan site and people regularly post pictures of themselves with skimmers of the same make. All location data monitored by the Order of course. Someone got into big trouble for selling off what they claimed was pieces from the wreck of the original skimmer. They were going for mad prices before the investigation got underway.

Incredibly, the actual skimmer was tracked down postwar to a quarry two hours outside Ses’erakh by former Order filing clerk Akem Retel, and is now held in pride of place at the Culat Museum of Popular Culture, opened by Castellan Garak in 2388,

[The ITC white 1957 Jaguar 2.4 Mk.1]

[katbelleinthedark]

History of enjoinment laws? I love fandoms where people get to whip out their legalese and knowledge of laws, we need more of that. (My inner lawyer is made happy.)

The exploding skimmer made me think of a particular Polish soap on which they killed off a character by having her crash her car into a stack of cardboard boxes. She died on the spot*.

[unamccormack]

CoC fandom is a broad church where all can find a home.

CoC causes of death list:

- White skimmer (multiple times)

- Cardboard boxes

- Fall down a turbolift shaft

- Mauled by regnars

- Poisoned by the highly toxic pollen of the perek flower

- Bomb on shuttle (of prominent politician)

[katbelleinthedark]

Mhm. Does COC involve crazy plots about long-lost siblings and illegitimate and/or swapped and/or stolen children or does the state family propaganda forbid that? Post-war, do we start getting more craziness in family trees?

Also: who is that one character that regularly gets killed and then miraculously comes back, "bitch you thought you'd seen the last of me" style and is it Mathra's niece?

Death by cardboard boxes, you will always be famous to me.

[unamccormack]

The plots are insanely crazy because they distract from the actual real-life hypocritical shenanigans of the Cardassian elite. As long as everything eventually resolves within the law.

One of the longest-standing actors (played Mathra’s second husband, she was his third wife) foolishly confused his fame with reality and was embroiled in a real-life marital scandal with a girl young enough to be his daughter. Wasn’t seen on screen again. Or off.

[Amazing clip: cardboard boxes, soft focus, child in peril. It’s got everything]

[knivesandteeth]

Do they ever include offworlders in Coc post-fire? Is it v controversial? How do the characters fare during the fire?

[unamccormack]

The show picks up exactly where it left off with absolutely no mention of the Fire. The characters have almost all been entirely recast (for obvious reasons), but this isn't out-of-place for a show that regularly did Miss Ellie style recasting, multiple times with some characters. The actress who played Mathra Fereny, who was very badly injured at the end of the war but survived, returns for a special one-off appearance as the character's even more scheming mother. There isn't a dry eye throughout the Cardassian Union.

You'd think there might have been some difficulty piecing together all the details of the years and years of prior and very complicated narratives, but as luck would have it, a full archive existed off-world. This was returned from its anonymous owner via a very strange route: a gift from Grand Nagus Rom to the Cardassian people. The special role of the Ferengi people in preserving this unique piece of Cardassian cultural heritage was later recognised by a series of crossover episodes with their equivalent show, Love's Latinum's Lost.

Yes, one big difference is that the new show has offworlder characters, many of whom are associated with the Federation relief mission. There are dramatic storylines around bringing home an offworlder as a potential spouse, but these characters quickly settle in as part of the core cast. Particularly popular is the handsome young human doctor, the show's most eligible bachelor.

A few old-school fans at first complain that the revived show is a little too self-aware and has become far too well-made. But people always complain when a long-running show gets a refresh. And when some of the young directors who cut their teeth on NuCoC go on to start picking up prestigious awards at offworld film festivals, all is forgiven and forgotten.

[unamccormack]

The only acknowledgement of the Fire is completely symbolic: the opening of the revived show begins with a pan shot across a dusty Ses'erakh, coming gradually closer and closer to a lamppost on the Veterans' Bridge. There we find the beautiful young female lead looking sadly out across the river. Footsteps. She turns, to see her young man, in uniform, approaching. He breaks into a run and when he reaches her, they embrace. Cue theme tune and the legendary logo: CLOUDS OVER CULAT. (Yes, Clouds Over Culat is not always set in Culat. Don't look for consistency.)

This meeting place on the bridge is such a staple of Cardassian romantic literature and particularly visual narrative that it's become a scorned cliché. This time everyone bawls.

The theme tune in my head sounds a bit like the Crossroads theme tune, but you might have something else going on.

[unamccormack]

What would The Traitors be like on Cardassia? I reckon it’s called The Order, and there are 3 people who are secretly designated dissidents, unknown even to each other. Everyone else is with the Order, and it’s their job to hunt down the dissidents. At the round table everyone gets a turn to denounce someone else, and the person with the most denunciations is exiled.

The dissidents have never won, in more than 25 seasons of The Order. Everyone knows it’s a massive fix but obviously nobody says so. It’s the third most watched show on Cardassia Prime after Clouds Over Culat and Real Housewives of Lakarian City.

[katbelleinthedark]

Amazing. And now the truly important question: does Cardassia have an equivalent to Love Island or The Bachelor/Bachelorette?

[unamccormack]

Yes but they are tremendously serious and ponderous programmes about the importance of marriage and the family. Everyone secretly finds them very dull but they watch dutifully so that they’re not caught out by Order informants and get a reputation for being anti-family.

[knivesandteeth]

after the reconstruction do they bring these back? is it a huge scandal when they include a "non-Cardassian" on the dating shows (they're still Cardassian but like maybe 1/4 Bajoran or something not even obvious)? Is the first season the dissidents win on the reconstructivist The Order a huge hit?

[unamccormack]

They come back full pelt with a series set on Risa and loads of aliens and the ensuing political firestorm collapses the conservative coalition in the Assembly enabling Castellan Ghemor to repeal Dukat's pre-war pro-family legislation. There are rumours that Ghemor's shadowy "fixer" Elim Garak advised the show's producers but surely that's the Ses'erakh gossip machine working overtime.

The dissidents winning The Order is indeed a massive hit, one of the most watched events on Cardassia in a generation, outmatched only by the first time Clouds Over Culat airs after the Fire, a Cardassian cultural moment as significant as Dirty Den serving Ange the divorce papers in the Christmas Eastenders or the wedding of Charles and Lady Di.

[katbelleinthedark]

Le gasp, like Den and Ange divorce papers! Also, what else does the rumour mill say: did Mr. Garak perhaps accompany the production crew on Risa?

[unamccormack]

Mr "Fixer" Garak is too busy fanning the political wildfires back in the capital, but he's getting hourly updates via his spy, i.e. one of the production runners.

[katbelleinthedark]

Damn. All that work and he didn't even get a free holiday out of it. :(

[unamccormack]

OF COURSE he didn’t even get a free holiday out of it. No rewards for Garak until he’s done ALL his chores.

[katbelleinthedark]

And the chores NEVER END of course. No rest for the wicked, huh? Man. No wonder he's unwell.

[knivesandteeth]

I would like to think Ghemor made him trek out there at least once for a personal touch given the "importance of this production to the soul of the union and potential future intergalactic relations". This is an obvious ploy to try and get the man to relax for the first time in his life. It, crucially, does not work

[unamccormack]

The travel is exhausting; the hotel is noisy; everyone else there is young and hooked up with someone gorgeous; he's only been home for ten minutes and they're sending him off again; it's very Federation and, yes, this makes him pine for Bashir...

[knivesandteeth]

Plus all the federation twinks (who remind him too much of Bashir) keep trying to call him daddy and do border wars RP with him. He's too old for this.

He looks cute in his cardassian-equivalent kaftan and sunhat, at least

[unamccormack]

He just wants to be back home in his shed drinking boiled water.

[galileoace]

Tangent: What's Clouds Over Culat about?

[unamccormack]

Clouds Over Culat is the great Cardassian telenovela created by me and @planetarywanderer on Twitter during lockdown! A multigenerational soap opera. A truly significant piece of Cardassian culture. Everyone watches it, even those who pretend not to.

[ljspencerauthor]

So, is it more East Enders/Fair City, full out Latin American telenovela, or does it go full crazy as in Days of Our Lives?

Inquring minds want to know...

[unamccormack]

Good question. I think it’s run for so long it’s been all these things over the years, and everyone has their favourite era. Except that patch of a few months with the hound-racing subplot, everyone hated that.

[ljspencerauthor]

yeah, every series has that one plot that no one wants to acknowledge ever truly existed....

[katbelleinthedark]

Okay, in terms of wackiest things in Clouds Over Culat, do we find them in

the characters' family trees/connections

the way people die

plot twists (among others to explain actors' departures)

the dramatic zoom-ins on characters' faces

A good soap has all of the above, but which one does COC have in abundance?

Also, what is its fandom like? What's the nastiest shipping war?

[unamccormack]

I personally am a huge fan of the dramatic zoom-ins on CoC. But regular and attentive viewers know to watch carefully when an expensive big white skimmer appears on screen. The producers bought one and filmed it crashing over a cliff and exploding. Now they use that footage whenever they can to save money. Whenever someone climbs into a big white skimmer your pulse races. Of course some people walk away from the explosion without a hair out of place. Scheming matriarch Mathra Fereny has done so three times, although one husband didn’t make it. But it turned out he was already married and it still isn’t clear whether or not Mathra knew and crashed the skimmer deliberately. That was her fourth husband unless you count the one she remarried in which case he’s her fifth. I refer you to the fan forum discussion threads: beware, they’re inhabited by some pretty formidable experts on the history of Cardassian enjoinment laws, both professionals and auto-didacts.

The skimmer has its own dedicated subforum on the biggest fan site and people regularly post pictures of themselves with skimmers of the same make. All location data monitored by the Order of course. Someone got into big trouble for selling off what they claimed was pieces from the wreck of the original skimmer. They were going for mad prices before the investigation got underway.

Incredibly, the actual skimmer was tracked down postwar to a quarry two hours outside Ses’erakh by former Order filing clerk Akem Retel, and is now held in pride of place at the Culat Museum of Popular Culture, opened by Castellan Garak in 2388,

[The ITC white 1957 Jaguar 2.4 Mk.1]

[katbelleinthedark]

History of enjoinment laws? I love fandoms where people get to whip out their legalese and knowledge of laws, we need more of that. (My inner lawyer is made happy.)

The exploding skimmer made me think of a particular Polish soap on which they killed off a character by having her crash her car into a stack of cardboard boxes. She died on the spot*.

[unamccormack]

CoC fandom is a broad church where all can find a home.

CoC causes of death list:

- White skimmer (multiple times)

- Cardboard boxes

- Fall down a turbolift shaft

- Mauled by regnars

- Poisoned by the highly toxic pollen of the perek flower

- Bomb on shuttle (of prominent politician)

[katbelleinthedark]

Mhm. Does COC involve crazy plots about long-lost siblings and illegitimate and/or swapped and/or stolen children or does the state family propaganda forbid that? Post-war, do we start getting more craziness in family trees?

Also: who is that one character that regularly gets killed and then miraculously comes back, "bitch you thought you'd seen the last of me" style and is it Mathra's niece?

Death by cardboard boxes, you will always be famous to me.

[unamccormack]

The plots are insanely crazy because they distract from the actual real-life hypocritical shenanigans of the Cardassian elite. As long as everything eventually resolves within the law.

One of the longest-standing actors (played Mathra’s second husband, she was his third wife) foolishly confused his fame with reality and was embroiled in a real-life marital scandal with a girl young enough to be his daughter. Wasn’t seen on screen again. Or off.

[Amazing clip: cardboard boxes, soft focus, child in peril. It’s got everything]

[knivesandteeth]

Do they ever include offworlders in Coc post-fire? Is it v controversial? How do the characters fare during the fire?

[unamccormack]

The show picks up exactly where it left off with absolutely no mention of the Fire. The characters have almost all been entirely recast (for obvious reasons), but this isn't out-of-place for a show that regularly did Miss Ellie style recasting, multiple times with some characters. The actress who played Mathra Fereny, who was very badly injured at the end of the war but survived, returns for a special one-off appearance as the character's even more scheming mother. There isn't a dry eye throughout the Cardassian Union.

You'd think there might have been some difficulty piecing together all the details of the years and years of prior and very complicated narratives, but as luck would have it, a full archive existed off-world. This was returned from its anonymous owner via a very strange route: a gift from Grand Nagus Rom to the Cardassian people. The special role of the Ferengi people in preserving this unique piece of Cardassian cultural heritage was later recognised by a series of crossover episodes with their equivalent show, Love's Latinum's Lost.

Yes, one big difference is that the new show has offworlder characters, many of whom are associated with the Federation relief mission. There are dramatic storylines around bringing home an offworlder as a potential spouse, but these characters quickly settle in as part of the core cast. Particularly popular is the handsome young human doctor, the show's most eligible bachelor.

A few old-school fans at first complain that the revived show is a little too self-aware and has become far too well-made. But people always complain when a long-running show gets a refresh. And when some of the young directors who cut their teeth on NuCoC go on to start picking up prestigious awards at offworld film festivals, all is forgiven and forgotten.

[unamccormack]

Plus The Traitors US S4, that’s my weekend sorted

[unamccormack]

What would The Traitors be like on Cardassia? I reckon it’s called The Order, and there are 3 people who are secretly designated dissidents, unknown even to each other. Everyone else is with the Order, and it’s their job to hunt down the dissidents. At the round table everyone gets a turn to denounce someone else, and the person with the most denunciations is exiled.

The dissidents have never won, in more than 25 seasons of The Order. Everyone knows it’s a massive fix but obviously nobody says so. It’s the third most watched show on Cardassia Prime after Clouds Over Culat and Real Housewives of Lakarian City.

[katbelleinthedark]

Amazing. And now the truly important question: does Cardassia have an equivalent to Love Island or The Bachelor/Bachelorette?

[unamccormack]

Yes but they are tremendously serious and ponderous programmes about the importance of marriage and the family. Everyone secretly finds them very dull but they watch dutifully so that they’re not caught out by Order informants and get a reputation for being anti-family.

[knivesandteeth]

after the reconstruction do they bring these back? is it a huge scandal when they include a "non-Cardassian" on the dating shows (they're still Cardassian but like maybe 1/4 Bajoran or something not even obvious)? Is the first season the dissidents win on the reconstructivist The Order a huge hit?

[unamccormack]

They come back full pelt with a series set on Risa and loads of aliens and the ensuing political firestorm collapses the conservative coalition in the Assembly enabling Castellan Ghemor to repeal Dukat's pre-war pro-family legislation. There are rumours that Ghemor's shadowy "fixer" Elim Garak advised the show's producers but surely that's the Ses'erakh gossip machine working overtime.

The dissidents winning The Order is indeed a massive hit, one of the most watched events on Cardassia in a generation, outmatched only by the first time Clouds Over Culat airs after the Fire, a Cardassian cultural moment as significant as Dirty Den serving Ange the divorce papers in the Christmas Eastenders or the wedding of Charles and Lady Di.

[katbelleinthedark]

Le gasp, like Den and Ange divorce papers! Also, what else does the rumour mill say: did Mr. Garak perhaps accompany the production crew on Risa?

[unamccormack]

Mr "Fixer" Garak is too busy fanning the political wildfires back in the capital, but he's getting hourly updates via his spy, i.e. one of the production runners.

[katbelleinthedark]

Damn. All that work and he didn't even get a free holiday out of it. :(

[unamccormack]

OF COURSE he didn’t even get a free holiday out of it. No rewards for Garak until he’s done ALL his chores.

[katbelleinthedark]

And the chores NEVER END of course. No rest for the wicked, huh? Man. No wonder he's unwell.

[knivesandteeth]

I would like to think Ghemor made him trek out there at least once for a personal touch given the "importance of this production to the soul of the union and potential future intergalactic relations". This is an obvious ploy to try and get the man to relax for the first time in his life. It, crucially, does not work

[unamccormack]

The travel is exhausting; the hotel is noisy; everyone else there is young and hooked up with someone gorgeous; he's only been home for ten minutes and they're sending him off again; it's very Federation and, yes, this makes him pine for Bashir...

[knivesandteeth]

Plus all the federation twinks (who remind him too much of Bashir) keep trying to call him daddy and do border wars RP with him. He's too old for this.

He looks cute in his cardassian-equivalent kaftan and sunhat, at least

[unamccormack]

He just wants to be back home in his shed drinking boiled water.

[galileoace]

Tangent: What's Clouds Over Culat about?

[unamccormack]

Clouds Over Culat is the great Cardassian telenovela created by me and @planetarywanderer on Twitter during lockdown! A multigenerational soap opera. A truly significant piece of Cardassian culture. Everyone watches it, even those who pretend not to.

[ljspencerauthor]

So, is it more East Enders/Fair City, full out Latin American telenovela, or does it go full crazy as in Days of Our Lives?

Inquring minds want to know...

[unamccormack]

Good question. I think it’s run for so long it’s been all these things over the years, and everyone has their favourite era. Except that patch of a few months with the hound-racing subplot, everyone hated that.

[ljspencerauthor]

yeah, every series has that one plot that no one wants to acknowledge ever truly existed....

[katbelleinthedark]

Okay, in terms of wackiest things in Clouds Over Culat, do we find them in

the characters' family trees/connections

the way people die

plot twists (among others to explain actors' departures)

the dramatic zoom-ins on characters' faces

A good soap has all of the above, but which one does COC have in abundance?

Also, what is its fandom like? What's the nastiest shipping war?

[unamccormack]

I personally am a huge fan of the dramatic zoom-ins on CoC. But regular and attentive viewers know to watch carefully when an expensive big white skimmer appears on screen. The producers bought one and filmed it crashing over a cliff and exploding. Now they use that footage whenever they can to save money. Whenever someone climbs into a big white skimmer your pulse races. Of course some people walk away from the explosion without a hair out of place. Scheming matriarch Mathra Fereny has done so three times, although one husband didn’t make it. But it turned out he was already married and it still isn’t clear whether or not Mathra knew and crashed the skimmer deliberately. That was her fourth husband unless you count the one she remarried in which case he’s her fifth. I refer you to the fan forum discussion threads: beware, they’re inhabited by some pretty formidable experts on the history of Cardassian enjoinment laws, both professionals and auto-didacts.

The skimmer has its own dedicated subforum on the biggest fan site and people regularly post pictures of themselves with skimmers of the same make. All location data monitored by the Order of course. Someone got into big trouble for selling off what they claimed was pieces from the wreck of the original skimmer. They were going for mad prices before the investigation got underway.

Incredibly, the actual skimmer was tracked down postwar to a quarry two hours outside Ses’erakh by former Order filing clerk Akem Retel, and is now held in pride of place at the Culat Museum of Popular Culture, opened by Castellan Garak in 2388,

[The ITC white 1957 Jaguar 2.4 Mk.1]

[katbelleinthedark]

History of enjoinment laws? I love fandoms where people get to whip out their legalese and knowledge of laws, we need more of that. (My inner lawyer is made happy.)

The exploding skimmer made me think of a particular Polish soap on which they killed off a character by having her crash her car into a stack of cardboard boxes. She died on the spot*.

[unamccormack]

CoC fandom is a broad church where all can find a home.

CoC causes of death list:

- White skimmer (multiple times)

- Cardboard boxes

- Fall down a turbolift shaft

- Mauled by regnars

- Poisoned by the highly toxic pollen of the perek flower

- Bomb on shuttle (of prominent politician)

[katbelleinthedark]

Mhm. Does COC involve crazy plots about long-lost siblings and illegitimate and/or swapped and/or stolen children or does the state family propaganda forbid that? Post-war, do we start getting more craziness in family trees?

Also: who is that one character that regularly gets killed and then miraculously comes back, "bitch you thought you'd seen the last of me" style and is it Mathra's niece?

Death by cardboard boxes, you will always be famous to me.

[unamccormack]

The plots are insanely crazy because they distract from the actual real-life hypocritical shenanigans of the Cardassian elite. As long as everything eventually resolves within the law.

One of the longest-standing actors (played Mathra’s second husband, she was his third wife) foolishly confused his fame with reality and was embroiled in a real-life marital scandal with a girl young enough to be his daughter. Wasn’t seen on screen again. Or off.

[Amazing clip: cardboard boxes, soft focus, child in peril. It’s got everything]

[unamccormack]

What would The Traitors be like on Cardassia? I reckon it’s called The Order, and there are 3 people who are secretly designated dissidents, unknown even to each other. Everyone else is with the Order, and it’s their job to hunt down the dissidents. At the round table everyone gets a turn to denounce someone else, and the person with the most denunciations is exiled.

The dissidents have never won, in more than 25 seasons of The Order. Everyone knows it’s a massive fix but obviously nobody says so. It’s the third most watched show on Cardassia Prime after Clouds Over Culat and Real Housewives of Lakarian City.

[katbelleinthedark]

Amazing. And now the truly important question: does Cardassia have an equivalent to Love Island or The Bachelor/Bachelorette?

[unamccormack]

Yes but they are tremendously serious and ponderous programmes about the importance of marriage and the family. Everyone secretly finds them very dull but they watch dutifully so that they’re not caught out by Order informants and get a reputation for being anti-family.

[knivesandteeth]

after the reconstruction do they bring these back? is it a huge scandal when they include a "non-Cardassian" on the dating shows (they're still Cardassian but like maybe 1/4 Bajoran or something not even obvious)? Is the first season the dissidents win on the reconstructivist The Order a huge hit?

[unamccormack]

They come back full pelt with a series set on Risa and loads of aliens and the ensuing political firestorm collapses the conservative coalition in the Assembly enabling Castellan Ghemor to repeal Dukat's pre-war pro-family legislation. There are rumours that Ghemor's shadowy "fixer" Elim Garak advised the show's producers but surely that's the Ses'erakh gossip machine working overtime.

The dissidents winning The Order is indeed a massive hit, one of the most watched events on Cardassia in a generation, outmatched only by the first time Clouds Over Culat airs after the Fire, a Cardassian cultural moment as significant as Dirty Den serving Ange the divorce papers in the Christmas Eastenders or the wedding of Charles and Lady Di.

[katbelleinthedark]

Le gasp, like Den and Ange divorce papers! Also, what else does the rumour mill say: did Mr. Garak perhaps accompany the production crew on Risa?

[unamccormack]

Mr "Fixer" Garak is too busy fanning the political wildfires back in the capital, but he's getting hourly updates via his spy, i.e. one of the production runners.

[katbelleinthedark]

Damn. All that work and he didn't even get a free holiday out of it. :(

[unamccormack]

OF COURSE he didn’t even get a free holiday out of it. No rewards for Garak until he’s done ALL his chores.

[katbelleinthedark]

And the chores NEVER END of course. No rest for the wicked, huh? Man. No wonder he's unwell.

[knivesandteeth]

I would like to think Ghemor made him trek out there at least once for a personal touch given the "importance of this production to the soul of the union and potential future intergalactic relations". This is an obvious ploy to try and get the man to relax for the first time in his life. It, crucially, does not work

[unamccormack]

The travel is exhausting; the hotel is noisy; everyone else there is young and hooked up with someone gorgeous; he's only been home for ten minutes and they're sending him off again; it's very Federation and, yes, this makes him pine for Bashir...

[knivesandteeth]

Plus all the federation twinks (who remind him too much of Bashir) keep trying to call him daddy and do border wars RP with him. He's too old for this.

He looks cute in his cardassian-equivalent kaftan and sunhat, at least

[unamccormack]

He just wants to be back home in his shed drinking boiled water.

[galileoace]

Tangent: What's Clouds Over Culat about?

[unamccormack]

Clouds Over Culat is the great Cardassian telenovela created by me and @planetarywanderer on Twitter during lockdown! A multigenerational soap opera. A truly significant piece of Cardassian culture. Everyone watches it, even those who pretend not to.

[ljspencerauthor]

So, is it more East Enders/Fair City, full out Latin American telenovela, or does it go full crazy as in Days of Our Lives?

Inquring minds want to know...

[unamccormack]

Good question. I think it’s run for so long it’s been all these things over the years, and everyone has their favourite era. Except that patch of a few months with the hound-racing subplot, everyone hated that.

[ljspencerauthor]

yeah, every series has that one plot that no one wants to acknowledge ever truly existed....

[katbelleinthedark]

Okay, in terms of wackiest things in Clouds Over Culat, do we find them in

the characters' family trees/connections

the way people die

plot twists (among others to explain actors' departures)

the dramatic zoom-ins on characters' faces

A good soap has all of the above, but which one does COC have in abundance?

Also, what is its fandom like? What's the nastiest shipping war?

[unamccormack]

I personally am a huge fan of the dramatic zoom-ins on CoC. But regular and attentive viewers know to watch carefully when an expensive big white skimmer appears on screen. The producers bought one and filmed it crashing over a cliff and exploding. Now they use that footage whenever they can to save money. Whenever someone climbs into a big white skimmer your pulse races. Of course some people walk away from the explosion without a hair out of place. Scheming matriarch Mathra Fereny has done so three times, although one husband didn’t make it. But it turned out he was already married and it still isn’t clear whether or not Mathra knew and crashed the skimmer deliberately. That was her fourth husband unless you count the one she remarried in which case he’s her fifth. I refer you to the fan forum discussion threads: beware, they’re inhabited by some pretty formidable experts on the history of Cardassian enjoinment laws, both professionals and auto-didacts.

The skimmer has its own dedicated subforum on the biggest fan site and people regularly post pictures of themselves with skimmers of the same make. All location data monitored by the Order of course. Someone got into big trouble for selling off what they claimed was pieces from the wreck of the original skimmer. They were going for mad prices before the investigation got underway.

Incredibly, the actual skimmer was tracked down postwar to a quarry two hours outside Ses’erakh by former Order filing clerk Akem Retel, and is now held in pride of place at the Culat Museum of Popular Culture, opened by Castellan Garak in 2388,

[The ITC white 1957 Jaguar 2.4 Mk.1]

[katbelleinthedark]

History of enjoinment laws? I love fandoms where people get to whip out their legalese and knowledge of laws, we need more of that. (My inner lawyer is made happy.)

The exploding skimmer made me think of a particular Polish soap on which they killed off a character by having her crash her car into a stack of cardboard boxes. She died on the spot*.

[unamccormack]

CoC fandom is a broad church where all can find a home.

CoC causes of death list:

- White skimmer (multiple times)

- Cardboard boxes

- Fall down a turbolift shaft

- Mauled by regnars

- Poisoned by the highly toxic pollen of the perek flower

- Bomb on shuttle (of prominent politician)

[respocked]

bajoran government campaign showcasing the diversity of the bajoran people

[unamccormack]

What would The Traitors be like on Cardassia? I reckon it’s called The Order, and there are 3 people who are secretly designated dissidents, unknown even to each other. Everyone else is with the Order, and it’s their job to hunt down the dissidents. At the round table everyone gets a turn to denounce someone else, and the person with the most denunciations is exiled.

The dissidents have never won, in more than 25 seasons of The Order. Everyone knows it’s a massive fix but obviously nobody says so. It’s the third most watched show on Cardassia Prime after Clouds Over Culat and Real Housewives of Lakarian City.

[katbelleinthedark]

Amazing. And now the truly important question: does Cardassia have an equivalent to Love Island or The Bachelor/Bachelorette?

[unamccormack]

Yes but they are tremendously serious and ponderous programmes about the importance of marriage and the family. Everyone secretly finds them very dull but they watch dutifully so that they’re not caught out by Order informants and get a reputation for being anti-family.

[knivesandteeth]

after the reconstruction do they bring these back? is it a huge scandal when they include a "non-Cardassian" on the dating shows (they're still Cardassian but like maybe 1/4 Bajoran or something not even obvious)? Is the first season the dissidents win on the reconstructivist The Order a huge hit?

[unamccormack]

They come back full pelt with a series set on Risa and loads of aliens and the ensuing political firestorm collapses the conservative coalition in the Assembly enabling Castellan Ghemor to repeal Dukat's pre-war pro-family legislation. There are rumours that Ghemor's shadowy "fixer" Elim Garak advised the show's producers but surely that's the Ses'erakh gossip machine working overtime.

The dissidents winning The Order is indeed a massive hit, one of the most watched events on Cardassia in a generation, outmatched only by the first time Clouds Over Culat airs after the Fire, a Cardassian cultural moment as significant as Dirty Den serving Ange the divorce papers in the Christmas Eastenders or the wedding of Charles and Lady Di.

[katbelleinthedark]

Le gasp, like Den and Ange divorce papers! Also, what else does the rumour mill say: did Mr. Garak perhaps accompany the production crew on Risa?

[unamccormack]

Mr "Fixer" Garak is too busy fanning the political wildfires back in the capital, but he's getting hourly updates via his spy, i.e. one of the production runners.

[katbelleinthedark]

Damn. All that work and he didn't even get a free holiday out of it. :(

[unamccormack]

OF COURSE he didn’t even get a free holiday out of it. No rewards for Garak until he’s done ALL his chores.

[katbelleinthedark]

And the chores NEVER END of course. No rest for the wicked, huh? Man. No wonder he's unwell.

[knivesandteeth]

I would like to think Ghemor made him trek out there at least once for a personal touch given the "importance of this production to the soul of the union and potential future intergalactic relations". This is an obvious ploy to try and get the man to relax for the first time in his life. It, crucially, does not work

[unamccormack]

The travel is exhausting; the hotel is noisy; everyone else there is young and hooked up with someone gorgeous; he's only been home for ten minutes and they're sending him off again; it's very Federation and, yes, this makes him pine for Bashir...

[knivesandteeth]

Plus all the federation twinks (who remind him too much of Bashir) keep trying to call him daddy and do border wars RP with him. He's too old for this.

He looks cute in his cardassian-equivalent kaftan and sunhat, at least

[unamccormack]

He just wants to be back home in his shed drinking boiled water.

[galileoace]

Tangent: What's Clouds Over Culat about?

[unamccormack]

Clouds Over Culat is the great Cardassian telenovela created by me and @planetarywanderer on Twitter during lockdown! A multigenerational soap opera. A truly significant piece of Cardassian culture. Everyone watches it, even those who pretend not to.

[ljspencerauthor]

So, is it more East Enders/Fair City, full out Latin American telenovela, or does it go full crazy as in Days of Our Lives?

Inquring minds want to know...

[unamccormack]

Good question. I think it’s run for so long it’s been all these things over the years, and everyone has their favourite era. Except that patch of a few months with the hound-racing subplot, everyone hated that.

[ljspencerauthor]

yeah, every series has that one plot that no one wants to acknowledge ever truly existed....

[katbelleinthedark]

Okay, in terms of wackiest things in Clouds Over Culat, do we find them in

the characters' family trees/connections

the way people die

plot twists (among others to explain actors' departures)

the dramatic zoom-ins on characters' faces

A good soap has all of the above, but which one does COC have in abundance?

Also, what is its fandom like? What's the nastiest shipping war?

[unamccormack]

I personally am a huge fan of the dramatic zoom-ins on CoC. But regular and attentive viewers know to watch carefully when an expensive big white skimmer appears on screen. The producers bought one and filmed it crashing over a cliff and exploding. Now they use that footage whenever they can to save money. Whenever someone climbs into a big white skimmer your pulse races. Of course some people walk away from the explosion without a hair out of place. Scheming matriarch Mathra Fereny has done so three times, although one husband didn’t make it. But it turned out he was already married and it still isn’t clear whether or not Mathra knew and crashed the skimmer deliberately. That was her fourth husband unless you count the one she remarried in which case he’s her fifth. I refer you to the fan forum discussion threads: beware, they’re inhabited by some pretty formidable experts on the history of Cardassian enjoinment laws, both professionals and auto-didacts.

The skimmer has its own dedicated subforum on the biggest fan site and people regularly post pictures of themselves with skimmers of the same make. All location data monitored by the Order of course. Someone got into big trouble for selling off what they claimed was pieces from the wreck of the original skimmer. They were going for mad prices before the investigation got underway.

Incredibly, the actual skimmer was tracked down postwar to a quarry two hours outside Ses’erakh by former Order filing clerk Akem Retel, and is now held in pride of place at the Culat Museum of Popular Culture, opened by Castellan Garak in 2388,

[The ITC white 1957 Jaguar 2.4 Mk.1]

[beautyofsorrow]

retrieving my copy of emissary from the touch tank (display case at the library) so i can photograph my complete ds9 numbered collection like a trophy my IRLs politely admire and pretend they comprehend

[beautyofsorrow]

dear everyone, please behold my books :)

[beautyofsorrow]

“that’s a lot of ds9” don’t worry! i have more!!

[lovesthe1980s]

Kim Wilde [1981]

[girlfleeshouse]

The girl is a scholar. She is irresponsible. All she wants is vindication.