DS9 sticker sheets finished !!

You can buy them here if you want

ACT four: what you LEAVE BEHIND

a multi-edit study on ds9 told in 4 acts. All acts are up and the study is complete

In conclusion, watch ds9.

I was initially skeptical about Vic Fontaine and the whole lounge holosuite concept - seemed a little out there to be so involved in the plots. But then obviously he went on and became central to some of the most moving/fun episodes! What was the inspiration for him and was he always supposed to become such a big part of the other characters' development?

Ira was friendly with Frank Sinatra, Jr. and wanted to create a character for him to play as a fun one-off. So we came up with the idea for Vic Fontaine.

Then Sinatra couldn't play the part (too busy performing), but by then, we'd become attached to the idea of the character and went looking for another singer/actor to play him.

We lucked out and got James Darren! He was lovely to work with and terrific on screen, so we decided to bring him back (similar to Andy Robinson and Casey Biggs) and the character grew from there.

Idk why I was thinking about this today but in the DS9 episode where they have do so the heist movie to save Vic Fontaine's casino from gangsters, there's a really good bit where Sisko says he doesn't like that holodeck program because it's the kind of place where a black man wouldn't have been welcomed in the real world of 1962 america, and as he has a (possibly hallucinatory) first hand experience with 1950's racism, it makes him uncomfortable.

And Cassidy says oh well Vic isn't like that, it's completely inclusive and yadda yadda whatever, which Sisko says is why he doesn't like it, because it's like, whitewashing history and ignoring the ugly parts. Really thoughtful way to handle that IMO.

ANYWAY, in the episode where Vic Fontaine is trying to play cupid to hook up Kira and Odo, he makes fun of Odo's clothes and refers to him as "Nanook of the North" which is like, a stereotype "eskimo" character from the 20's or something, so Vic is actually completely era-accurately racist after all, and Sisko was right, as usual.

*Sorry Nicole de Boer, nothing personal, but it’s true

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine // S07E10: It's Only A Paper Moon

Badda bing badda bang is now officially my favourite holodeck episode, its brilliant to see Vic Fontaine outside of his comfort zone, it's wonderful to see Sisko decide to help in spite of previous grievances and not caring, it's also great to see the team fall into their usual team structure once Sisko arrives.

And the soundtrack is brilliant, * chefs kiss * and the scene where the crew walk down the promenade to the ds9 notes of the theme is glorious and my second favourite scene in star trek when it comes to an entrance (the first is a new ship coming in for all the same reasons)

Anime Vic Fontaine

Vic Fontaine, Vegas Crooner

Was Vic Fontaine, an older lounge singer in 1960s Las Vegas, initially or intentionally the only one who could truly understand what was wrong with Nog? Or was it a happy accident? I've always found it so clever that he was the one. He's an older entertainer in the 1960s, he's been programed with the context of seeing alot of combat veterans that just want to forget their life for awhile. He just gets it. Yes Nog is in the enlightened future where everyone is understanding but they don't have the tools to REALLY get it which causes him to push everybody away

I love Vic Fontaine he's the reason I started watching DS9 and thank you so much for him

This was a happy accident, but it makes perfect sense for Vic to have some backstory as a combat veteran or at least as a friend/family member to a LOT of them buried in his programming somewhere, so I endorse this head canon.

I watched DS9's It's Only A Paper Moon yesterday, and I want to talk about it because it wasn't until right now that I understood why it slapped me across the face so much, and why I think that episode is so important to me.

This may be triggering to people with disabilities, heart conditions, disabilities from COVID, or medical or military related trauma. Read ahead at your own risk.

I developed a heart condition at 18 from the H1N1 virus (which is why I tell all my friends to take preventive measures if they had COVID, because these kinds of new and unknown viruses can have long-lasting effects on you we don't know yet). While I had a lot of tests and missed a lot of school that year, the effects of that wouldn't be clear for years until at 24 I got a pacemaker/defibrillator put in in what we later found out was a life-saving surgery. The trauma of that event took a long time to catch up with me. While I'm still facing symptoms and limitations from that period of my life, the immediate danger has passed. But it took A LONG time for the fear of what happened to me, the PTSD of that event, to catch up with me. I've dealt with huge panic attacks and hyper-obsessive fears regarding my heart since around twenty-nine, fears I live with and fight through in therapy to this day.

As someone facing those issues, I hooked onto A Paper Moon this watch in a way I haven't before. The issue deals with the loss of Nog's leg in battle earlier in the season, a traumatic experience he had in the middle of a warzone only halfway through their defense. During his recovery, Julian begins to play recordings of I'll Be Seeing You, put together by Vic Fontaine, a semi-aware holodeck program that is really popular on DS9.

Nog returns from surgery at the beginning of the episode, and is walking with a cane. Multiple people on staff, including Julian himself, is concerned over the use of the cane because medically, he shouldn't have a need for it. He shouldn't even be in pain based off of what they know from the new leg and the nerves around it, but he's in pain and having trouble walking. A lot of the arguments in the early episode revolve around people talking behind Nog's back about how they can't understand why he has the cane or why he's in pain when there doesn't appear to be a medical reason for it.

The answer is actually incredibly simple: It's not the leg, it's the trauma from loosing the leg. Nog, who is still incredibly young in the episode, had somehow seen himself as invincible, a young cadet wanting to prove Ferengi can be incredible members of Starfleet, who had seen quite a bit of action and was cocksure, and in one moment he not only lost that bravado, but he also learned he was mortal in one horrifying singular moment.

Obviously, Nog is lucky enough to live in an era where it's possible to replace a lost limb, but that doesn't change the fact that for a horrifying unmentioned, maybe SEVERAL DAY period of time, he was left on a makeshift bed, listening to fighting outside, knowing that he could be attacked at any time, could die at any time from factors not even exterior to him. And now he just has to... go back to life after that horrifying dose of his own mortality.

The only thing that gets him by is that recording of I'll Be Seeing You by Vic Fontaine, because that's the only thing that he had to take him out of that horrifying situation while he laid on that makeshift gurney. The episode explores that idea by having him play it while trying to sleep, and eventually go to the holodeck and try to live in it with Vic after he was shamed for being in bed too long and for listening to said music for too long.

The funny thing is, Vic is the ONLY person, INCLUDING THE COUNSELOR ONBOARD DS9, who recognizes that his pain is valid. Vic, as a hologram, recognizes that his pain isn't crazy, it's as real as the injury he experienced, because Vic has a perspective that none of these hyper-worn-down Starfleet Officers or parental figures in his life has: His LIFE is a series of not-real instances of pain, of happiness, of dealing with other people he knows are holograms. Vic isn't like Moriarty in TNG, he's not like other semi-sentient Holodeck programs, he KNOWS he's a program but he also finds that life to be very real FOR HIM. The feelings of one of his bandmates are as real to him as the problems of Julian walking in to talk about one of the many women he simps for not feeling the same, because despite knowing they're not physically real, he CARES for them and takes their lives seriously.

Nog's feelings are real. His PAIN is real, even if a doctor can't understand why. Nog's in the middle of a long, extended panic attack where he's internalizing a near life-ending medical emergency and doesn't know how to DEAL with it. He loses himself in the program because it's the only place he can get past the trauma of the event, he's hostile to others who try and look at him with pity or as a hero because he doesn't want to be DEFINED by that pain. Vic knows this, and builds him up in other ways. Gives him a life to live, watches him slowly not need the cane and not even realize it, gives him tools and an environment to cope and generally is the only person that validates that trauma.

The episode is maybe one of the series best mental health episodes possible, and DS9 is generally REALLY good with these issues. As someone with medical trauma, I saw myself in Nog. I'm sure others who have experienced disabilities in the military see even more of themselves in him. We relate to it because we're constantly belittled or told our pain is in our heads, when the truth is we FEEL it. I feel it multiple times a month, when I lay down and go to bed and lay on my side just right that I can feel my heartbeat, and then I overanalyze it, and then that leads to a panic attack and me grabbing a pressure cuff or a fingertip pulse whatever it is to see if I'm okay, but by then I can't come down from the panic attack until it's done. I feel it when I'm helping someone move or if I'm on a casual walk and I feel my heartbeat spike, and my mind overreacts and wonders if this is normal exertion or a heart attack.

Not FEELS these things. It's real pain. And Vic doesn't invalidate it. It's as real as the injury itself, and it's not one that he'll ever truly conquer. But the episode gives him time, space and kindness to help him find coping mechanisms in order to continue with his life and dreams, and THAT'S Trek to me. A future where these things can be understood and worked through, without the constant shame that people with disabilities face when describing the trauma responses they suffer on a day-to-day basis.

In the end, Nog is heard. The main characters come to understand that what he felt is real. The episode gives him the time to work through complicated PTSD, and while he's not okay at the end, he's learning to live with it. And it's really fucking special to see this explored with a character we saw grow up into a man, on a show where the future is meant to be better than the present, written by writers in 1998 where they had no right to handle this as well as they did. This was an exceptionally special episode of television.

Here's some more mildly unhinged Star Trek comics for your enjoyment :)