#the Klingon Chef

[mercuryal]

Who got the 💦🫦SAUCE🫦💦? 🤤🥵

From Captains to Klingons, all these Star Trek Chefs work HARD to WHET your palate with HOT EATS and FRESH worms. Can your tastebuds handle the HEAT of what they’re SERVING up?

Give it a 👅🔥TASTE🔥👅

[best-star-trek-character]

[astralbondpro]

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine // S02E17: Playing God

[purplespacekitty]

Ramblings on Tora Ziyal

I think it’s well beyond a shame that they killed off Ziyal because I really would have liked to see her Cardassian-Bajoran identity more fleshed out and have her navigate the world beyond her father’s influence. She was starting to do that a bit with Kira and Garak (though I strongly feel that Garak should have been more of a mentor figure than a love interest) and it would have been really cool to see her get to hang out with Jake and Nog and just be a kid for once. It feels way too weird the way they began her character as this traumatized little girl who knew nothing but the brief time of her life she spent with her mother on Bajor and the horrors of the Breen mines and then magically turned her into this saccharine sweet, mostly well-adjusted young woman who loves her tyrant father despite his crimes (and in many ways, is seemingly unaware of them???????). Where was the therapy? Where was the rehabilitation? Where was the jaded child we saw in “Indiscretion”? What if Ziyal had been allowed to channel her anger and pain into learning about Bajor and Cardassia, into healing herself? Her dad basically plucked her out of the Breen mines after years of giving less than a Cardassian vole's asshole about her and then it turns out he originally planned to kill her when he found her? After she prayed for years that he'd come and save her? I'd be pissed.

But also, I wish they'd explored more of why she didn't appear to be all that pissed. We have almost no other context for Ziyal's childhood, certainly not any of what it was like before Dukat sent her and Naprem away. Was it simply exhaustion and desperation that led her to the conclusion that she'd rather die than not be with him once he'd found her? Was there a guise Dukat put up to portray himself as a kind father and mask the tyrant underneath before he sent Naprem and Ziyal away? Or did she even get to see Dukat at all in her early childhood? Did she simply assume he would be a loving father? Is that the image Ziyal clung to for comfort for all those years? Did she cling so tightly she could do little else but believe it?

It feels icky to kind of reduce her existence to Dukat Drama™ the way the show ultimately did with her death. Why didn’t we get to see her experiencing disillusionment about Dukat, who never actually changed for the better when she was still alive and trying to get him to stop being so horrible? Why didn’t we get any Rugal-level anger from her, the hushed-up child of a Bajoran comfort woman and the genocidal former Prefect of Bajor? Because, obviously, Dukat never actually took his fatherhood to her seriously. She tried to imagine him as someone he was not and he predictably chose to inflate his own ego by encouraging her. She wasn't much more to him than a device to garner some twisted idea of sympathy for himself. Ziyal needed more of a chance to break away from relying on Dukat for unconditional love. Because his love, as we know, was not unconditional. In fact, I hesitate to even call it love at all, given how ready he was to manipulate Ziyal, how ready he was to get rid of her. She had unconditional love from Kira, who immediately went to bat for her before she’d even met her when she found out what Dukat planned to do to his own daughter. And I totally believe Garak’s love for Ziyal could have grown into something unconditional, but they ruined it with some weird, out-of-nowhere romance with an uncomfortable age gap and then had her killed off like some tragic, helpless maiden.

DS9 was sort of the only place Ziyal could experience any sort of semblance of real safety in her life, especially considering both Bajoran and Cardassian attitudes towards biracial children. It would have been interesting to explore an arc with her making DS9 her home as a place that is conducive to the cohabitation of many different species and cultures while also wrestling with isolation and ostracization from those who share in the two most pervasively impactful facets of her identity. Maybe the writers wanted to focus on portraying her girlhood and favored it over exploring the complexities of her Cardassian-Bajoran heritage. But honestly, they failed at both. She never got to have a girlhood and she ultimately became more of a plot device than a fully-fledged character. This franchise started off with its most interesting and beloved main character being both Vulcan and human. I know Ziyal is someone else entirely, but they totally could have done more with her than they did.

I would love, love, LOVE to see her engage with different aspects of both Bajoran and Cardassian culture. I wonder if she would develop any kind of spirituality regarding the Prophets. Since Bajorans are widely a spiritual people, it's possible Naprem shared some of her spiritual practices with her daughter. If she did, does Ziyal observe those practices to feel closer to her mother? Does she seek Kira's help in learning more about Bajoran spirituality? Do they connect over the struggles their faith has gotten them through? Would delving deeper into Bajoran spirituality open a gateway to acceptance from other Bajorans? Or would it make them turn their backs on her even more? How does her Cardassian-Bajoran heritage impact the way she interacts with her own spirituality and beliefs? As far as Cardassian culture goes, Garak certainly has an eye for art and I could see her connecting with Professor Natima Lang, Hogue and Rekelen and learning about Cardassia's resistance movements.

Also, multiple Bajoran and Cardassian drinks, confections and meals are shown throughout the series and especially with respect to its main character, DS9 frequently places food in an important cultural, community-building role. As someone whose strongest connection to their own heritage comes from food, I would have loved to see Ziyal engage with both Bajoran and Cardassian culture through food.

Obviously, we were robbed of heaps and heaps of space station shenanigans:

Nog sharing what he learns from Starfleet Academy with Ziyal, Ziyal trying tube grubs and actually liking them.

Ziyal illustrating Jake’s stories into comic books or murals and the two of them creating stuff together and maybe some nerdy pop culture history discussions on the side. I feel like Jake, Nog and Ziyal would totally have weekly movie nights.

Odo looking out for her, giving her advice about handling bullies, the two of them bonding over being generally considered the odd ones out and Ziyal making paintings to add to his quarters.

Kira giving her lots of hugs, teaching her to fight, protecting her from bigots and helping her embrace her Bajoran background, teaching her Bajoran culture. Ziyal stealing clothes from Kira's closet occasionally ("You hardly ever wear anything other than your uniform, anyway! And they fit, see?"). Ziyal sneakily tagging along on Kira and Dax's trips to the holosuites, eventually convincing them to just invite her to them regularly, anyway. She knows how to use her cuteness as a force for good, but more importantly, she knows how to use it as a force for capers and hijinks.

Garak making her clothes, teaching her the art of cunning deceit and helping her embrace her Cardassian background, teaching her Cardassian culture. More hangouts in the holosuites basking on steaming rocks. And the two of them giggling in tasteful mirth at Bashir because he finds Cardassian literature boring.

Gossiping with Bashir and Jadzia, learning to treat wounds and carry a bat’leth, never growing tired of Dax’s many tales of woe, romance and adventure.

Sisko teaching her how to cook and inviting her to play baseball with him and Jake.

Quark occasionally letting her have a drink on the house because she can be more devious than him if she wants to be (“Listen, kid, if you’ll get rid of all this root beer for me, you can have as many free glasses as you want”).

Leeta and Rom being the cool aunt and uncle who buy her all the jumja sticks she wants.

Babysitting Molly and Kirayoshi and learning about plants, science and Earth history from Keiko. I wish Keiko had gotten more screen time - in general, but also of her in her element, studying plants and playing music. It's criminal that we never see Keiko play her clarinet in DS9, so I definitely would love to see the two of them playing music together if Ziyal felt so inclined.

Leaving O’Brien in the dust at darts for reasons he simply cannot fathom.

Listening to Klingon opera with Worf over glasses of prune juice.

Becoming an accidental stowaway on Kasidy’s freighter one day and Kasidy taking her with on missions to Bajor. Kasidy, Keiko and Ziyal hanging out together is a trio dynamic that never happened and definitely should have.

Talking stuff out with Ezri, the two of them commiserating over their respective identity crises.

Dressing up for nights at Vic’s.

Learning about Klingon music from that Klingon chef (I believe his name is Kaga) on the Promenade.

Punching each successive version of Weyoun in the fucking face (maybe even Weyoun 6, accidentally or intentionally, doesn't matter, it would just be funny).

Rebel strategies with Damar (I think he’d come around if he didn’t have it out for her and got over Cardassian bureaucracy), Kira and Garak.

Helping around the house whenever she and Garak visit Mila, long talks with Mila about her Obsidian Order days.

Weekly dinners with everybody.

I want to see her making friends and being supported by all the loving, caring people around her who love her (collectively and individually) more than her actual-piece-of-shit dad. I want her to grapple with the fact that certain people hate the mere existence of her enough to want her dead but also decide to go “hell with it” and fucking live for herself. She deserves to be more than the tragedy that made Dukat finally snap and descend into pure insanity. She deserves to laugh and cry and stomp her feet and dance and shout and sing and love and play and paint to her heart’s content. She deserves to be angry. She deserves to have a childhood, an adolescence, an adulthood and an elderhood. She deserves to live. And maybe to be the perpetrator of a few political assassinations as a treat.

So………....................suffice to say, I have a LOT of thoughts about Ziyal. I love her and I wish the show runners had loved her more, too.

[jaegermonstrous]

So I've got Thoughts on Worf. Disclaimer, these are all heavily informed by own experiences and background, ymmv. Also disclaimer, I haven't gotten around to watching PIC yet. It's on my list, but I'm not there yet. But anyway.

So, Worf in TNG is pretty much our biggest exposure to the Klingon culture so far, and he's pretty consistent with the other Klingons we see. He's a big and tough warrior guy with the Stoic Warrior Thing going on. He's constantly getting his ass handed to him to show the audience the bad guys of the week are Serious Business. He's a pretty awful father, but we have no reason to believe other Klingons are much better. He's apparently got enough of a soft/personable side that he dates Deanna Troi for a bit [no shade to the actors here, but the logic behind that pairing has never worked for me, or at least the writers never did enough legwork to make it believable to my ace and autistic self]. But mostly, he's a Big Stoic Warrior Man from a culture of Big Stoic Warrior Men.

But Worf in DS9 is much less isolated from other Klingons, and it's here where - to me - he becomes incredibly interesting as an example of someone trying to reconnect with their heritage as an adult, especially someone who's either felt pressured to perform their culture "correctly" to an outsider [Federation] standard, or who's never had significant contact with the huge diversity of their culture and kind of internalized the idea that "this is how you perform my culture correctly" from a very limited amount of sources, and therefore become kind of an asshole about it when people [other Klingons] don't do or be as you expect them to.

From the doylist perspective we can just say "well, the DS9 writers really diversified the Klingons," but I find the watsonian perspective far more interesting; here you have Worf, the first and [so far] only Klingon serving in Starfleet, who was removed from his culture as a young child and raised by Humans [no shade to the Rozhenkos here, I think they did their best to raise Worf with an awareness of his origins]. He's been aware most of his life of being the only Klingon in a room full of Humans and other Federation species, most of whom have Expectations of what Meeting A Real Klingon would be like. So Worf, with his mostly second-hand knowledge of Klingon culture and a huge wall of Expectations surrounding him at every turn, becomes what he thinks of as The Ideal Klingon. He's stoic, he's gruff, he barely ever cracks a smile, and when you put him in the room with a bunch of diverse DS9 Klingons, he comes across as a caricature.

Let's look at some of the DS9 Klingons, and I think you'll see what I mean.

First up - Kaga, the Klingon chef. I personally love Kaga, and I wish we had gotten to see more of him. He's our first real indicator that Klingons in DS9 are Built Different. He's cheerful, he doesn't dress in a warrior's armor, he plays that Klingon accordion thing and sings to his patrons. He's a glimpse of what Klingons outside the military are probably like. I love that the DS9 writers did this, showcasing that Klingons [like so many of the non-Humans we get in DS9] are just people.

Next, we have Kor, the Dahar Master. Again, I adore Kor. In some ways he's a throwback to TOS Klingons, who were conniving, and mocking, and just generally Untrustworthy and would 100% stab you in the back if they thought it would get them what they wanted. But he's also a fantastic example of a DS9 Klingon. Kor is old, and tired, and kind of a drunk, and beginning to lose touch with his abilities and reality. But he's also clever, and cunning, and you can really see the intelligence and the ferocity that made him so formidable to Kirk and the TOS crew back in the day. And he's also charming and kind of a sweetheart, and he genuinely loves Dax like family. He's well-rounded in a way we don't get to see Worf be for a while. And even when we contrast Kor with Kang and Koloth, two other Klingons from the same era who align more with the TNG Stoic Warrior Man stereotype, you can see where their characters are much fuller. They have a history and a familiarity with each other and with Dax that really shines through. I mean, they swore blood oaths with a Trill. Yeah, Dax had to work really hard to be accepted by the Klingons, but once Curzon crossed that line, Kang, Koloth, and Kor were ride or die for Dax.

Third - General Martok. Martok is IMO the best foil to Worf, and sort of an example of who Worf might be someday [again, I haven't seen Worf in PIC yet]. And I really love Martok as someone who's very like Worf in a lot of ways, but also highlights how Worf has really made himself into a caricature of what Being A Klingon is all about. Yeah, Martok is big and tough and stoic, but you also see in the prison camp and later how that's not all of what Martok is. He has faith in and respect for his fellow prisoners in the camp, even the Romulans [who you'd think would be the last people a Klingon would ever trust or respect]. He's a Wife Guy, which I just adore. He's got a sharp sense of humor, he's got trauma from being held as a prisoner of the Dominion for so long, he's friends with Local Twink Julian Bashir.

Martok is also the one who talks Worf down from being such a hardline asshole. When Alexander comes aboard the Rotarran, it's Martok who helps them start to build a better relationship. When it looks like the Worf-Dax wedding is off, it's Martok who encourages Worf to soften his stance [yes, it's also implied Dax is pressured into apologizing to Sirella, but that's another post for another day]. Martok is the example of being a Stoic Warrior Man while also being a rounded person.

This isn't to say Worf doesn't grow on his own, but a lot of his growth happens in DS9 in ways that [to me] read as someone who's really only engaged in their culture in a vacuum or in an abstract way, and now he's hanging out with other Klingons, he's Making Friends with other Klingons, and he has the space [and is actively encouraged by other Klingon characters] to soften his stance and be a little more rounded.

I could also talk about Dax here, and her interactions with Klingon culture and how those affect Worf, but I think I'm done for now.

[acabspocky]

PLEASE REBLOG/COMMENT/TAG YOUR FAVORITE BACKGROUND CHARACTER

I mean the lil homies your obsessed with but they were probably in three episodes or less!

Your friends don't even remember that character!

[ikilledamanforthisurl]

i'm not sure if this is bias from someone whose only seen voy+ds9 or if it's maybe more due to the setting of ds9 (a place people visit instead of people who visit places) but it is soooo delightful seeing all the PEOPLE!!! all of these unspeaking extras all dressed up in weird costume and extraordinary makeup. all of these aliens so different from one another and yet blending perfectly and harmoniously into the background, entirely irrelevant but no doubt leading unique and interesting lives. that probably sounds contradictory to love seeing the people when the show is no longer about Exploring To Meet People but idk something about ds9 feels different. feels alive and intriguing. maybe ds9 simply cant throw in human extras and call it a day like on a starfleet vessel because that just Is Not The Setting but also maybe ds9 does it willingly. happily. look at all of these different people. so many good unique character gimmicks get used in ds9 namely related to business owners/local workers and we are only so blessed with getting to know a few of them. a spy from the planet of state servitude who is drawn to the mundane and hedonistic self gratification owns a tailoring shop because hes banished from home. a bar tender who gets blackmailed into staying and his cop-vs-criminal dynamic best frenemy the Unknown Sample butt heads every day. all of the bajorans and their religious sites!!!!!! the school!!!!!! a worker from Capitalism Planet forms a union and then quits his job to be a freelance engineer and his sex worker wife who he loves very much. a guy from some sorta warrior culture who instead works as a chef serving live worms to his patrons who'll also burst into song during downtime. all of the shady visitors dealing in illicit substances and goods. all of the weird shapes and colours on these visitors from races whose names we may not even know. one of the starfleet crew guys gives birth to litters and he does this multiple times and some longterm professor on the station has a transparent skull and all this & more is conveyed to us strictly thru crewmembers gossiping about all the strange new different People around them because this show is all about People

[youngpettyqueen]

im gonna be unreasonable about Julian having the Klingon chef actually make their lunches rather than just getting the food from the replicators

[rainbowresurrection]

As someone who is exclusively attracted to men. Klingon Woman is one hell of a gender

[bagheerita]

I know "The House of Quark" is an episode about... Quark, but I spent the entire episode kissing Miles O'Brien full on the mouth.

[marxistgnome]

[filmjunky-99]

s t a r t r e k d e e p s p a c e n i n e created by rick berman, michael piller [melora, s2ep6]

'I like a customer who knows what she wants.' - klingon chef

'There's nothing worse than half dead Racht.' - melora

[anotheruserwithnoname]

Throwback to the days when you could use Google search programmed to translate results into Swedish Chef, Elmer Fudd, Klingon and Hacker. Sadly, they don't seem to work anymore but if I am mistaken I'll be overjoyed.

Admittedly I have not checked Google Translate.

I hope it's still around. I mean AI had to be invented for SOME REASON, right?

[n3llsb3lls]

Omg just had so much fun at Comic Con

[hollowslantern]

this klingon chef is hot as fuck

[dykespirk]

human things I think klingons would be good at:

competitive mobile games where you build kingdoms (like FarmVille)

shotput

drinking beer out of a shoe (a shoey I believe it is called)

pissing off the TSA

being hazed in a fraternity (they think it’s awesome)

pushing a big tire

watching Coyote Peterson videos (which they immediately try to replicate; a very honorable warrior to them)

being extremely opinionated on Top Chef

getting radicalized on Facebook

bringing large containers to 7/11 on the 11th of July

January 6th

Jacksonville, FL