the way the wire sets up these two opposing forces in garak's psyche that I think continue to wrestle it out in the background for the rest of the show -- on one side, his father-who-won't-even-acknowledge-that going 'I hope you keep living in shame and despair and desolate isolation for decades to come sportđ' (tain has basically gone 'be so kind as to create a hell of your own making and then stay in there for me, there's a good boy'. and garak has done that. oof. tain made him build a closet in his own head and locked him in it by doing nothing except make it clear he's not allowed to get out because he deserves to be in there. he never had to tell garak to do anything; that's what makes him special. I. am in shambles)
and then on the other side coming in with a steel chair, julian's soft steady voice going 'no one deserves this' and 'I don't want to hurt you' and 'I'll help you through it'.
one side that not only utterly abandoned him to his own misery but engineered it in the first place to control him, and one side that boldly, brazenly, doggedly refuses to abandon him, both on principle and out of personal care, no matter what garak says or does through the episode to try to throw him off. (and accepting the personal care aspect seems to part of bashir's journey of the episode; he has to admit to himself that yeah they are friends at this point. he is not personally watching over this guy while he sleeps like a lanky dweeb guardian angel for purely professional reasons lol thank you for calling his fucking bluff jadzia.) tain and bashir are basically having a quiet faux-affable battle for garak's soul at the end of that ep and while it starts small, down the road it eventually becomes clear julian won. tain gambles that his own influence will always triumph in the long run (he got there first, after all), and he's wrong.
all of this is presumably also why garak writes a stitch in time specifically to julian (aside from all the normal gay reasons) -- at the end of that he all but says that it's partly because he knows in such a deep way that julian would never judge him as harshly as he judges himself. the kindest voice in garak's inner world is julian bashir, that's how deeply he's internalized it. what the fuck. that's one of the most beautiful ways of touching someone's life I can imagine I feel nauseous and disoriented adn I need to go lie down for a while
âI forgive you. for whatever it is you did.â is such an insane line.
like imagine going your whole life believing that youâre only worth as much as youâre useful, doing things you know deep down are horrible just to serve the interests of a man who wonât even acknowledge you as his son and then after he exiles you 2 years later you find yourself on your deathbed, all your crimes finally caught up with you, the young doctor who at this point you believe could not have a more different experience of life than you decides against everything youâve been taught about yourself that youâre worth saving.
and no matter how much you tell him youâre horrible, how wretched you make yourself look in front of him, he doesnât care. he doesnât care about your past. youâre forgiven. youâre worth saving, just by virtue of being alive. and heâs not saving you out of pity or even kindness, heâs doing it because he genuinely believes that. and for the first time since you were a small child, perhaps even ever, you feel like you have intrinsic worth.
garak would never judge julian for having an emotional support teddy bear because when garak was fifteen he had an emotional support pet lizard (which he named after his mum despite it being a boy lizard. still not over that) and talking to it like a crazy person was loadbearing to his sanity. I feel that maybe even more so than anyone else, he'd Get It. and I just think that's beautiful
I don't know if I'm just lucky or perhaps Star Trek has just the nicest fans ever but this commission was - again - such a lovely experience! This time @hobbithabits was the client and wanted an age swapped version of Bashirs and Garaks first meeting based on this fic: https://archiveofourown.org/works/54883567 (Past Prologue (Introductions and Intrigue))
Older Bashir was no problem, I've already drawn him and we got lots of beautiful pics of Sid. But younger Garak was a fun challenge. And I couldn't resist giving him Andys fluffy choir boy hair >:D.
Commissions still open <3