DS9: A More Just Universe

[andraste]

This week, I started rewatching Star Trek: Deep Space Nine from the beginning, partly because I am out of TOS and DISCO withdrawal is still a problem, and partly for vidding purposes. (The vid is likely to be a looooooong time coming, but it will not get here any faster if I don't start looking for clips at all. Especially since I expect that most episodes will have zero relevant clips, but I watched the show so long ago that I have no idea where most of the things I might need are.)

This has reminded me of several things I had forgotten, like how rude everyone is to each other in the first episode, that Quark and Odo are already fighting like old married people by the time the audience arrives, and how I will be mad forever that Garak/Bashir is not a canon pairing.

Usually I am philosophical about this sort of thing, but it will always be my go-to example of fictional same-sex relationships that would have happened on screen in a just universe. Every time I watch Bashir freak out about Garak spying on him and everyone else react with 'um, I am not sure that is why Garak is interested in you???' I remember how stupid this is all over again.

Now, I am not saying that they should necessarily have lived happily ever after together - Garak is Garak and the relationship would have had plenty of challenges to face. But we should not have been presented with a situation where they basically stopped talking to each other for three seasons for no reason that the writers ever bothered to explain on screen. I mean, the logical conclusion is that Bashir is upset about Garak's attempted genocide, but it would have been nice if anyone had actually said something to that effect. And I still cannot believe that we never get a proper reaction from Garak about Bashir's big secret. (I mean, one of the good things about the later seasons is that Garak gets to interact with people other than Bashir more, but they could have had that and still let him talk to Julian!)

At least they get a great scene together in the final episode. (And my headcanon that three months after that, Ezri dumps him and Julian finally gets a clue and runs off to Cardassia.)

Comments

[selenak]

That is my headcanon, too, and boringly I agree with all you said. (And Garak/Bashir was also the first time for me where I felt that treacherous impulse, resentment of a rival pairing which seemed more favored by the canon writers, to wit, O'Brien/Bashir. *g*) They should have been the first on screen m/m Star Trek pairing, truly.

It's been years since my last DS9 rewatch. Having watched some movies and tv with laterday Siddig el Fadil/Alexander Siddig in it, I can now say that we know Bashir will age really really nicely, far better than the DS9 make-up people anticipated in the two episodes where they had to age him up, which I imagine will please Garak. :)

[andraste]

I feel like the whole situation would bother me far less if they had just kept on as they were, instead of feeling the need to slap a giant 'NO HOMO' label on Bashir and have him spend all his time with safely married O'Brien. (Which did not discourage slash shippers at all, anyway. The people who liked Garak/Bashir were annoyed but did not stop shipping them, and there were a bunch of new Bashir/O'Brien shippers for them to ship war with.) As it is, not only did they not have the courage to introduce Trek's first m/m canon relationship when it would have made perfect sense, but they had two characters who had previously been close friends just ... not talk to each other for three years. Because of reasons.

I bet Garak is incredibly smug that he picked out Bashir when he was but a callow youth of twenty-seven, too naive to realise he was being blatantly flirted with, and ended up with a total silver fox.

Actually!

[vamspires]

I believe in the DS9 novels, Julian and Ezri breaking up happens. Unfortunately, so is Julian getting to Cardassia. It's unfortunate because I believe Julian becomes either catatonic or is in a coma. I don't actually I know much because this was the most info I could find on wikipedia alone.

Though technically speaking the DS9 novels are not canon, and Julian might just recover eventually even if we do take that as canon.

Re: Actually!

[andraste]

Well, a good example of being careful what you wish for! I guess if he's unconscious rather than dead they might wake him up later?

Re: Actually!

[vamspires]

We can only hope so! If there were such a DS9 novel released this year that would really set things off with a bang. Gay rights is waking up Julian Bashir.