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haveyoureadgoodomens · 18 days

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Ever since watching The Wire for the first time, my brain has doggedly kept working away at the Especially the lies of it all, and specifically at how much the structure beneath the different stories Garak tells contributes to the overall meaning of what he’s trying to say. While the contradicting narratives of course expertly obscure the factual circumstances of his getting exiled, using them also allows him to tell aspects and facets of the emotional truth I don’t think he ever could have, if he’d simply told the actual story of what happened. (It’s very Varric-core of him honestly.)

The first story — the ‘oh, you think you know me?’ story — says I have done things that would sicken you if you knew any detail of it. It’s clearly meant to scare Bashir away so he’ll leave him to die shamefully in peace already lol. But it’s also one of his (probably much-needed lbr) little lessons to Julian that are so frequent in the beginning, given while Garak still has some hold on himself — “Don’t be so quick to forgive me if you don’t even know what I’ve done; what would you do if this really were the sum total of what I am?” (And Julian seems to surprise him by going ‘Well, exactly the same thing, because no matter who you are I am a doctor. But I sort of take your point.’)

The second story — the letting the orphans go story — says I have failed to smother my soul in its cradle when it was required of me, and I regret that more than anything I’ve done. To my ears this is the one most shot through with active self-loathing too, which is interesting. He’s officially lost the control he’s been clinging to and it’s about to get ugly. His TL;DR is ‘Sentiment is the greatest weakness of all’, even all the way back here. (Which is the one lesson Julian steadfastly refuses to learn, which I think in turn does some serious rearrangement of Garak’s soul over the course of the show haha. Get uno reversed into the process of loving and being loved without shame asshole.) This is also where he builds up to admitting to having any sort of need for companionship or closeness at all and — so much worse — that Julian’s role in his life actually has fulfilled some of that need, and he’s DRIPPING with defensive venom over it b/c well I get it Garak vulnerability is scary it can take a person like that.

(I also feel there’s something honest and forbidden in ‘Suddenly the whole exercise seemed utterly meaningless’. I suspect ‘actually… why the fuck are we even doing this???’ is not a welcome sentiment in an Obsidian Order water cooler environment, no matter what you’re saying it about lmao. The very first seeds of him deconstructing the things he’s been taught about Cardassia and his work might be hinted at here, though they of course take a looong time to come to any real fruition.)

The third story — the ‘Elim was my best friend’ story — says hey, remember that thing you said once, about how sometimes, you have to be loyal to yourself before you can be loyal to anything else? Well. guess what. I couldn’t even be that lmao. It also furthers that thread of being divided from yourself, split, that having ‘Elim’ as a separate person around in all versions of the story brings in. He’s in control of himself again, but he essentially hands his life and soul over to Julian to decide what should be done with them.

I’ve done horrible things and it finally caught up with me, I’m getting what I deserve → I let sentiment master me and the fact that I’m too weak to do what’s needed of me shames me more than the evil I’ve done → I fucked up. I betrayed myself and everything I held to, all for nothing, and I have no one to blame for it but myself. But it’s very nice that you’re here anyway, Doctor. (Wow. I didn’t realize quite how isolated and lonely that last one was before right now. The way Tain has shaped him really has just… locked him completely into himself, huh.) We can also see a movement through from a completely professional context in the first story, to an intensely interpersonal and internal context in the last one — even his fake stories spiral in towards intimacy, which I think is what he longs for here even if he can’t quite like. Touch that without the stories as a buffer yet, it’s clearly like touching a hot stove for him to interact with it too directly.

And you know what I find incredibly interesting the whole way through? Even on his deathbed, where he’s dying from the thing Tain had put in his head, he’s protecting Tain. He puts all the blame for where he is on himself (‘My future was limitless, until I threw it away’), even if he has to employ a strange twisty logic where he’s split himself into two to do it. Don’t get me wrong, Garak has done horrific things all on his own haha, but it’s notable that he almost isolates Tain from that. ‘Tain was the Obsidian Order. Not even the Central Command dared challenge him. And I was his right hand.’ Tain in Garak’s stories is this infallible implacable weirdly distant figure, even now. Indeed, as will make a lot of sense with the revelations further down the line, more than anything it seems the gaze of an abused child desperate for recognition looking up at an idealized (if not in any way nurturing) parent.‘He was retired at that point; he couldn't protect me’, Garak says, as if what he’d need protection from in the first place isn’t Tain himself lmao, as if Tain had no active part in any of this. He never lets blame touch Tain at all. At this stage he would rather consider himself a broken flawed tool than accept that the hands that have wrought and wielded him have ever had any fault in them. AND in the middle of it all, with plausible deniability, on death’s door and knocking meekly to be let in before he must finish the mortifying ordeal of being known and test the even more daunting possibility of being loved, Garak at the same time manages to drop the breadcrumb trail of clues to make it possible for Julian to find Tain if he so chooses and gets in the ‘sons of Tain’ thing too for future dramatic irony purposes. Truly he is the Michelangelo of lying. Every falsehood a multifaceted masterpiece. Elim ‘achieving a state of intertextuality in real life is possible if you work hard and believe in yourself’ Garak. I love him so much.

I think all of this is why “I forgive you. For whatever it is you did,” works so well, because it too works on a structural level. It’s such a deceptively multilayered response — it has the syntax of a joke, in a way, and it is kind of funny even under the circumstances, but delivered with such earnest warmth and fondness. It’s both recognition and acceptance (forgiveness!). It’s saying ‘I finally understand enough of what you’re trying to tell me beneath and through all that, in whatever way you’re capable of, I see you’ and ‘my answer hasn’t changed (bitch)’. The forgiveness Julian offers here is complete — on principle, and out of personal feeling and empathy (only one of which Garak deigns to respond to during the second story, where he calls it ‘smug Federation sympathy’, placing it more completely on the principle side than it probably is. ‘Dude you’re my friend please don’t just lie down and die in a completely avoidable way on me, who else is going to not only tolerate but actually gleefully enjoy me being annoying as fuck over lunch’ seems to be the subtext that’s a lot harder to acknowledge and invite in for both of them. And yet Tain seems perfectly clear on the fact that Julian is Garak’s friend, which, y’know. Must be fun living with the knowledge that Tain has eyes everywhere looming over you every day haha guess you’d just have to tune that out.)

Most of all — ’Don’t give up on me now, Doctor’... and he didn’t! He didn’t. Augh. Ow.

#garashir #elim garak #julian bashir #star trek ds9 #ds9 #star trek #S2EP22 The Wire

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haveyoureadgoodomens · 1 month

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https://vm.tiktok.com/ZTdQuxw52/

I think I found my new favorite rabbit hole. This voice actor does Shakespeare scenes in a southern accent and I need to see the whole damn play. Absolutely beautiful

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haveyoureadgoodomens · 2 months

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Are you feeling lucky today? Let's put it to the test.

Roll a D20 and see what you get! Want to test your luck further? Roll again on the second collum, and if you really want to test the strength of your luck, roll again on the third collum. Combine what you get into a sorted tale, and don't forget to include the #fotfics!

🍀(Need a D20 to roll? Find one here)🍀

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haveyoureadgoodomens · 2 months

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i need this printed A1 POSTER ON MY WALL. RAHHHHHHHH *grabs pitchfork*

#mairimashita! iruma kun #naberius kalego #m!ik kalego #m!ik #mairimashita manga

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haveyoureadgoodomens · 2 months

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CLAMP EXHIBITION

Key visuals showcase different works and the 5 themes of the 2024 exhibition:

C for COLOR. CLAMP colors the world.

L for LOVE. CLAMP draws the forms of love.

A for ADVENTURE. CLAMP weaves the stories of adventure.

M for MAGIC. CLAMP casts its magic.

P for Phrase. CLAMP spins the phrases.

#clamp #clamp exhibition #cardcaptor sakura #magic knight rayearth #xxxholic #rg veda #x 1999 #ccs #mkr

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haveyoureadgoodomens · 2 months

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The Silmarillion is a book that fills me with many emotions, but the only part that makes me feel anger -not tragic grief at the narrative, but real anger- is the ending where the Lord of the Rings is summarized in three paragraphs.

It makes me feel anger because it gives a comparison for just how summarized the rest of the Silmarillion is. The entire fall of the Noldor, written in a way that condenses Frodo and Sam’s whole journey to “alone with his servant he passed through peril and darkness and came at last in Sauron’s despite even to Mount Doom”.

What else did Tolkien imagine over five hundred years of history that didn’t make it into any of his notes? What did he not imagine that still must have occurred? Who are the Boromirs and the Eowyns and the Bilbos of the first age? What witch-kings did they slay and what quests did they begin? What were the riddles and the detours and the love stories?

Its all been forgotten. No one knows anymore, and it’s likely that no one ever did. Not even Professor Tolkien.

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haveyoureadgoodomens · 2 months

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Falling

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haveyoureadgoodomens · 2 months

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All these gentlemen were drawn as part of the Gondolin Gang series for intea (my deep gratitude for this opportunity and inspiration ♥). Of course I will draw the remaining two, but now I want to show the finished ones 😃

I tried to draw different but stylistically similar and simple outfits, hairstyles and faces, so that one could believe that they live at the same time and in the same place, being in an everyday (medieval) environment - most of them had small bags for small things and clothes whose fit is regulated by a belt and not by patterns.

Egalmot got the most complex background - there's a cat there, did you see it? 🐈

Who do you like the most and who has the coolest handbag? 🙂👀

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haveyoureadgoodomens · 3 months

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I would visit Rivendell only to meet the Library Orc. We would be besties.

People seemed interested in Library Orc Blorbo so I decided to write down my headcanons about him:

His name is Garthaglir (it’s Sindarin for “poem keeper”)

He renamed himself after discovering a love for library sciences, shortly after he moved to the valley

Rivendell’s head librarian

Used to be an extremely dangerous warrior, now considers himself retired

Extremely tall and buff, blue skin, salt-and-pepper hair and a well-trimmed beard

Very distinguished, very polite

Has a tiny pair of spectacles he uses to read because he's farsighted

He doesn’t look like an old man but he is one deep in his heart

He was one of the first reformed orcs to end up in Rivendell, so he helps other orcs adjust to living there

Basically invented Middle Earth’s version of the Dewey Decimal system

Look, Rivendell’s library is like, unfathomably huge, there’s 6000+ years of books in there, someone had to organize it

He, Elrond, and Erestor are the only people who have keys to the part of the library where they keep the cursed books

The three of them also have a monthly book club

He holds a weekly story time for the kids

(Yes, he does do funny voices, no, you are not allowed to comment on it)

Has tracked people down at 3 AM before because “M’am? M’am you have an overdue book, here, I brought my library stamp would you mind just checking this out again? You can keep it out for another month that way. Just a moment, ah, yes thank you, I’ll be on my way now. Excellent choice in reading material.”

He has a fancy sunhat he wears outside during the day so the sun doesn’t burn him, it was a gift from small Arwen and he cherishes it

He has a library cat, her name is Mittens and he would die for her

Uses his free time to teach himself different languages; there are hundreds in Rivendell’s books

Enjoys recommending books to visitors, he’s gotten really good at getting a read on what people will like

Personally, when he’s in the mood for fiction, he prefers a good mystery

#silmarillion #elrond #rivendell #library orc #imladris #rivendel

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haveyoureadgoodomens · 4 months

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