To fully understand the Bashir/Garak thing in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, you need to understand that Garak first appears in the second episode of the series, very obviously trying to arrange a hookup with Bashir – like, it's just barely subtext – and then the network was like "what the fuck" and ordered to showrunners to knock it off with the gay shit, and as a result, Garak promptly disappears from the show for twenty episodes, next appearing in the fifth episode of season two. Can you imagine what that did to folks who were watching in real time?
For the unacquainted, this is literally Garak's first on-screen appearance:
It's about two minutes long, but watch until the end. Trust me.
I want you to imagine being a viewer who's into gay Star Trek fanfic, having this be your cold intro to these two characters' dynamic, then getting zero interactions between them for the next eight months.
I feel deeply silly saying this - I don't know how it's taken me so many literal years to notice, but there's not one but two vases of Sweet Flag on the table. Sweet Flag, or Calamus, is a very old, lesser-known symbol among gay men, adopted from its heavy use in Walt Whitman's poetry. And somehow, despite watching this scene ??? times, it took me this watch to finally register the pink triangles and lavender buttons all over the wall behind Garak.
As annoying as it is that the network yelled at the showrunners for this, it cracks me the fuck up that even the set designers were winking exaggeratedly at the audience like "Psst! Gay gay gay gay gayyyy~"
can i just say that i am obsessed with this moment
armand is giving insanely strong "bored housewife about to cheat with the pool boy" energy in this scene.
People love to make fun of Archeologists for how often we say objects were used ritualistically, as if we overuse that designation or just say it when we a don't know what something was used for. But that's only because people don't stop to think how full of ritual all of our lives are.
The meme is actually correct for the most part, hotdogs are ritually consumed during baseball games. Lots of people only even eat hotdogs if they're watching baseball. The expectation for us to eat turkey on thanksgiving is another example of us ritually consuming food. Drinking coffee every morning is another ritual we do. Going to the gym several days a week is a ritual.
"Ritual" doesn't necessarily mean "religious."
Batman: I have 800 costumes because I must be prepared for any eventuality
Wonder Woman: I have 1200 costumes because I’m 6,000 years old, I like a little variety, it’s important to dress for diplomacy, and Hephaestus doesn’t get much commission from anywhere else these days
Superman: I have one costume because my moms made it. No I will not get a new one and fuck you for suggesting it
dc comics heritage post
the author’s poorly disguised unchallenged ideas about how the world works, what is natural, what should go without saying
[record scratch] [freeze frame]: yeah that's me. that's me in the corner. that's me in the spotlight, losing my religion.
harrow the ninth asks the question "what is the first impulse of a genius necromancer when trying to retain any shred of coherency in a river bubble?" and gives the unambiguous answer "write fanfiction"