one of the most vindicating moments of my existence was watching Garak’s first episode with my (non-shipping and non-trekkie) boyfriend (who had seen the first couple episodes prior to this). his INSTANTANEOUS reaction was “holy shit I thought you were exaggerating”
when Julian was being weird about Garak potentially being after state secrets, he yelled “your DICK is NOT A STATE SECRET” at the screen
I still remember my ex and I pausing the show after Garak’s first scene and looking at each other, baffled, and both saying something like, “Was that the gayest thing you’ve ever seen or was it just me??”
When he came back a season later, we had been just about ready to shrug the show off and then we saw his name in the credits and yelled, ‘YAY, THE GAY CARDASSIAN IS BACK’.
Beautiful times in the kingdom, my friends,