Don't steal people's joy

I've been thinking a lot about the little ways we see Garak's character change over time, just in terms of how comfortable he is talking about himself and his past. Like at the end of The Wire, he's saying "haha what's up with Odo thinking I was in the Obsidian Order, that's weird," and he knows Julian knows that he absolutely was, but they basically both agree to pretend he wasn't and not talk about it. But then by Our Man Bashir a couple years later, he's just directly saying "your spy fantasy is stupid and unrealistic and I know because I actually was a spy." At some point in the middle there he got more okay with acknowledging and discussing that.

Anyone else think the reason ds9 deeply resonates with Queer people is because, at its Heart, its about a third space created but a group of patriotic people fundamentally alienated from their own people. Like obviously garak and quark but consider how were told in the first episode that Kira has been sent there to get her "out of the way" of the civilian government, how the things shes needed to do to both survive and secure their freedom seem deeply uncomfortable to all the civilian leaders. Dax considering both Joran and her eagerness towards reassociation make her basically a non entity on Trill. Bashir takes a while but the augment reveal puts him firmly in this Category. Obriens difficulty with his ptsd and moving passed personal préjudices puts him at odds with a lot of federation ideals. Siskos deep trauma around the loss of his wife and inability to move pass this, makes him very inconvenient to a federation desperate to pass itself off as a Utopia. He then becomes more and more unacceptable as he leans further into his role as in emissary, with the federation seemingly very uncomfortable with this religious expression. Jesus, Worf begins his tenure by getting himself exiled from klingon space.

I love the “captain’s log” mechanism in Star Trek as a method for time skips and exposition.