(no subject)
Dec. 9th, 2019 09:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tinkeringtailorUser Name/Nick: Steph
User DW: None
E-mail: underwater dot owl at gmail dot com
Other Characters: Darlene Alderson, Peter Nureyev, Quentin Coldwater
Character Name: Elim Garak
Series: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Age: Middle aged (vague Cardassian genetics/year lengths make it 'eh.')
From When?: Immediately post In the Pale Moonlight.
Inmate/Warden: INMATE. Although Garak is on the moral side of the war in general he's only really redeemed towards the tail end of the show, and in general represents the shoulder demon for most of the series. He is murdery, genocide-attempting, vindictive, a nasty assassin, and generally inmate-shaped.
Arrival: Garak will be a voluntary inmate.
Abilities/Powers: None. Standard Cardassian (slightly stronger than human.)
Personality:
Elim Garak is a disgraced spy. He was initially an assassin, and then a highly ranked member of the Cardassian Obsidian Order. As a member of this secret police Garak excelled in ruthlessness, politicking, torture, vindictiveness, and general disagreeable tradecraft. Unfortunately he burned one too many bridges behind him. After playing the game and losing at it (betraying his mentor, superior, and incidentally biological father) he was cast out- he barely escaped execution and was exiled from Cardassia, where he made his way to Deep Space Nine.
DS9 was a Cardassian space station that recently changed hands and was taken over by Federation forces. There, Garak developed a new side of his personality- a congenial nature. Rumours abounded of his possible alternate identities, and despite the element of hiding in plain sight he managed to turn himself into a charming, harmless, intriguing, companionable sort. He quickly befriends several smartly placed high ranking federation officers, and is the close confidante of a few key characters within less than a season.
He tends to come across a little stuffy, a little prim. It's part of the deliberately cultivated charmingly harmless persona. He moves a bit gingerly, cultivates a kind of reserved middle aged physicality- until he's coming to get you, Barbara, and then he turns into six feet of muscle, hits like a truck and tears in like a hyena.
He tends towards the extremely pragmatic, preferring a bird in the hand to two in the bush. He's frequently the one arguing against suicidal rescue missions, or in favour of early preemptive genocide at the start of a long and predictably bloody war. The math is always on his side, but ethics seldom are.
He's pretty suspicious of emotional wellness and tends to disregard it- and think of himself in a lot of ways as above the question. When he was exiled to Deep Space Nine he hacked his own cranial implant to program it to release endorphins to make the experience pleasant, with no regard for the long term effects. He has violent claustrophobia that he's been deeply resistant about thinking about, in terms of being triggered by his own complex feelings about his exile and role in the human-Cardassian war. Getting him to open up about these issues generally requires things be at a crisis state, and even then the things he admits are generally only truth-adjacent and not really soul-baring. The idea of therapy to him seems rather human (frivolous, generally unduly sentimental.)
By the time I'm bringing Garak in, it's really a case of 'you are who you pretend to be.' He's committed a few actions that have revealed his absolute ruthlessness to the crew, but he's also beginning to be affected by his relationships with them. He's reluctantly involved in some of their sillier intrigues. He's mildly protective of a few of them. He's learned he can no longer grimly torture his close friends without batting an eyelash. He's- redeemed around the edges.
That said, Garak still wears masks within masks. Most of his initial reactions are still 100% calculated to attain the reaction he wants. We see him quite often in 'customer service mode' in his tailor shop and he can take an absolute humiliation and never bats an eyelash- or else in political situations, makes a show of being humiliated, and then once his tormentor leaves the room immediately rolls his eyes and goes back to life as usual.
Barge Reactions: Garak is 100% on track for two years of 'this is completely fine' followed by an explosive nervous breakdown once his endurance runs out. It will actually closely mirror the trajectory of his life on the station- surrounded by humans who make dumb decisions, cold, frequently humiliating, generally dealing with long stretches of boredom and periodic crises.
He will unfortunately NOT remember the time the barge visited DS9 but will be deeply amused to hear stories.
Path to Redemption: Like many mid-series inmates, Garak's path to redemption will probably closely mirror what he goes through in the show- coming to terms with his exile, forgiving the memory of his father, deciding on the role he has to play in the future of his people. Coming to a better grips with 'the ends justify the means' questions, letting some inner resentments go, developing a few close relationships with people he admires whom he can model some of his new behaviours on. It's very doable. The big thing a warden will need to break past is his massive endurance and general utter lack of transparency.
History: Link.
Sample Journal Entry: [5-10 sentences (of spoken/written monologue, not including narration) 1st Person POV. This sample should reflect the character's day-to-day behavior and a distinctive voice and must be Barge setting specific. You are permitted to link a thread from the Test Drive Meme, as long as it's recent (within 3 months of application date), Barge-setting specific, and in journal style.]
Sample RP: [3-5 paragraphs, 3rd Person POV. Must be Barge setting specific. You are permitted to link a thread from the Test Drive Meme, as long as it's recent (within 3 months of application date), Barge-setting specific, and in 3rd person/logs style.]
Special Notes: None!
User DW: None
E-mail: underwater dot owl at gmail dot com
Other Characters: Darlene Alderson, Peter Nureyev, Quentin Coldwater
Character Name: Elim Garak
Series: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Age: Middle aged (vague Cardassian genetics/year lengths make it 'eh.')
From When?: Immediately post In the Pale Moonlight.
Inmate/Warden: INMATE. Although Garak is on the moral side of the war in general he's only really redeemed towards the tail end of the show, and in general represents the shoulder demon for most of the series. He is murdery, genocide-attempting, vindictive, a nasty assassin, and generally inmate-shaped.
Arrival: Garak will be a voluntary inmate.
Abilities/Powers: None. Standard Cardassian (slightly stronger than human.)
Personality:
Elim Garak is a disgraced spy. He was initially an assassin, and then a highly ranked member of the Cardassian Obsidian Order. As a member of this secret police Garak excelled in ruthlessness, politicking, torture, vindictiveness, and general disagreeable tradecraft. Unfortunately he burned one too many bridges behind him. After playing the game and losing at it (betraying his mentor, superior, and incidentally biological father) he was cast out- he barely escaped execution and was exiled from Cardassia, where he made his way to Deep Space Nine.
DS9 was a Cardassian space station that recently changed hands and was taken over by Federation forces. There, Garak developed a new side of his personality- a congenial nature. Rumours abounded of his possible alternate identities, and despite the element of hiding in plain sight he managed to turn himself into a charming, harmless, intriguing, companionable sort. He quickly befriends several smartly placed high ranking federation officers, and is the close confidante of a few key characters within less than a season.
He tends to come across a little stuffy, a little prim. It's part of the deliberately cultivated charmingly harmless persona. He moves a bit gingerly, cultivates a kind of reserved middle aged physicality- until he's coming to get you, Barbara, and then he turns into six feet of muscle, hits like a truck and tears in like a hyena.
He tends towards the extremely pragmatic, preferring a bird in the hand to two in the bush. He's frequently the one arguing against suicidal rescue missions, or in favour of early preemptive genocide at the start of a long and predictably bloody war. The math is always on his side, but ethics seldom are.
He's pretty suspicious of emotional wellness and tends to disregard it- and think of himself in a lot of ways as above the question. When he was exiled to Deep Space Nine he hacked his own cranial implant to program it to release endorphins to make the experience pleasant, with no regard for the long term effects. He has violent claustrophobia that he's been deeply resistant about thinking about, in terms of being triggered by his own complex feelings about his exile and role in the human-Cardassian war. Getting him to open up about these issues generally requires things be at a crisis state, and even then the things he admits are generally only truth-adjacent and not really soul-baring. The idea of therapy to him seems rather human (frivolous, generally unduly sentimental.)
By the time I'm bringing Garak in, it's really a case of 'you are who you pretend to be.' He's committed a few actions that have revealed his absolute ruthlessness to the crew, but he's also beginning to be affected by his relationships with them. He's reluctantly involved in some of their sillier intrigues. He's mildly protective of a few of them. He's learned he can no longer grimly torture his close friends without batting an eyelash. He's- redeemed around the edges.
That said, Garak still wears masks within masks. Most of his initial reactions are still 100% calculated to attain the reaction he wants. We see him quite often in 'customer service mode' in his tailor shop and he can take an absolute humiliation and never bats an eyelash- or else in political situations, makes a show of being humiliated, and then once his tormentor leaves the room immediately rolls his eyes and goes back to life as usual.
Barge Reactions: Garak is 100% on track for two years of 'this is completely fine' followed by an explosive nervous breakdown once his endurance runs out. It will actually closely mirror the trajectory of his life on the station- surrounded by humans who make dumb decisions, cold, frequently humiliating, generally dealing with long stretches of boredom and periodic crises.
He will unfortunately NOT remember the time the barge visited DS9 but will be deeply amused to hear stories.
Path to Redemption: Like many mid-series inmates, Garak's path to redemption will probably closely mirror what he goes through in the show- coming to terms with his exile, forgiving the memory of his father, deciding on the role he has to play in the future of his people. Coming to a better grips with 'the ends justify the means' questions, letting some inner resentments go, developing a few close relationships with people he admires whom he can model some of his new behaviours on. It's very doable. The big thing a warden will need to break past is his massive endurance and general utter lack of transparency.
History: Link.
Sample Journal Entry: [5-10 sentences (of spoken/written monologue, not including narration) 1st Person POV. This sample should reflect the character's day-to-day behavior and a distinctive voice and must be Barge setting specific. You are permitted to link a thread from the Test Drive Meme, as long as it's recent (within 3 months of application date), Barge-setting specific, and in journal style.]
Sample RP: [3-5 paragraphs, 3rd Person POV. Must be Barge setting specific. You are permitted to link a thread from the Test Drive Meme, as long as it's recent (within 3 months of application date), Barge-setting specific, and in 3rd person/logs style.]
Special Notes: None!
