especially the lies

Such a goated writing choice of TNG to give Data manners. Spock is half human and still finds any excuse to be a sassy bitch about them (and we love him for it) but then Data comes in and he's like, yes I also struggle to fit in with humans and understand emotion. I will respond by not only learning as much as I can about them to emulate them, but also making myself as likeable and polite as possible so they'll actually want to be around me because I've found they respond well to simple curiosity, openess and respect. And it works on all of us watching the show as well as most characters in it. There's this endearing sense of innocence and straightforwardness about him despite the fact his brain is this incredibly advanced computer. He just seems like a chill guy to be around. Not that I don't appreciate all the other autistic coded and/or alien characters we've had since then but I think that's why Data still stands out to me.

Thinking about how in the original pilot for Star Trek (the cage), they were clearly going for a romance angle with captain pike and number one, his dark haired second in command who is considered too cold and computer-like by other characters. You know. For no reason.

the sisko kirk hero worship homoeroticism would be entirely reversed if kirk ever showed up on ds9 thru his own time travel circumstances because the first thing that would happen is he would meet quark and the thing about kirk is there is nobody in the entire space and time of the universe that would annoy him more than quark it would immediately be like the worst day he ever experienced it would be like nonstop torment trying to understand why these things keep happening to him and then he would see sisko tactfully handling quark or god forbid see him getting quark to kiss the nagus scepter and like it would be over for him like sisko handling quark related paperwork would be the single most heroic thing hes ever seen like he would become immediately obsessed and bewitched

re: garak the sports commentator who knows nothing about sports. let me know who would be the best commentator partner to have with him in the booth ⬇️

Rom. Rom is delightful and Garak is never horrible to Rom.

intellectually i understand that ds9 probably has sonic washing machines or whatever but i think the station should have a coin-operated laundromat (you must go to quark's to exchange cash into Quark Coins to use it) and i think there should be drama wherein someone removes garak's wet clothes from the washing machine and leaves them in a heap on a table. and of course he finds out who did it by hacking the security cameras and promptly rigs the washing machine to explode the next time they use it.

julian always forgets to take his washing out and every time someone else puts it in the dryer for him to be nice. four years in and he still believes that there's a hidden transporter function in the machines that take the wet clothes and zap them over to the dryer automatically

Truly awful fifteen minutes in there late one night when both Garak and Kira turn up because they thought it would be quiet but no. Garak gnawing his knuckles in agony because Kira is throwing everything in together and not sorting them into piles for different temperature washes. Will she thump me now because I’ve spoken to her, or will she thump me later because she’ll know I could have saved her, and why is this my life.

Jake and Nog do, at some point, accidentally install a hidden transporter function, but instead of zapping your washing into the dryer, it zaps one sock per wash into the transporter buffer on the Defiant. Years later, this upsets a delicate first contact situation in the Delta Quadrant when O'Brien thinks to clear out the ol' buffer while in orbit and causes the heavens over a pre-warp society to rain socks for days.