Julian Bashir
- You may be looking for the zine Bashir... Julian Bashir.
Character | |
---|---|
Name: | Julian Bashir |
Occupation: | Starfleet Doctor |
Relationships: | romantic relationship with Ezri Dax; friends with Jadzia Dax, Miles O'Brien and Elim Garak. |
Fandom: | Star Trek: Deep Space Nine |
Other: | Memory Alpha entry. |
Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Dr. Julian Bashir is one of the main characters in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, played by Alexander Siddig. He is Deep Space Nine's Chief Medical Officer.
In Canon
Bashir starts out as a TNG-like character: young, brilliant, oversexed & over-enthusiastic, far more naive and idealistic than most of the rest of DS9's staff. He even has a teddy bear, called Kukalaka. Later, he is revealed to have been genetically engineered as a child. Many fans assume this means that his naivete in earlier outings was just a facade, but this assumption is not required by the retcon.
Aside from Kukalaka, his closest associates on the station are the polar opposites, Miles O'Brien & Elim Garak -- the one "plain and simple", the other (despite his protestations) anything but. Julian has a classic buddies relationship with the married Miles, featuring beer, darts and frequent trips down the holosuites to refight the Battle of the Alamo. On the other hand, you don't need slash goggles to see that Garak flirts with him constantly. He also has an enduring friendship with Jadzia Dax, which features unrequited love or lust on his side. In the final season he gets to hook up with Ezri Dax, in a move which left many fans going ewww.
Fan Perspectives
2010
Blossom Morphine wrote:Butterfly wrote:The writers created him to be an imperfect character, someone who would grow throughout his time on the station instead of starting out being the perfect officer. Bashir was brilliant, beautiful, kind, and wanted adventure. He fancied himself someone capable of handling any situation, and was very talented in many areas, both physically and mentally, but socially inept. He was by no means a pure character, but he was still rather naive, especially for being part of a military organization, not to mention a little arrogant. [1]
Julian Bashir seems simple in the beginning, too -- he's the brash young doctor with too many brains and not enough sense. But as the years pass, his bravado is shown to be true bravery, and his arrogance to be as much façade as truth. He chose to be a doctor, chose to make saving lives his life's work. He chose to work not in the heart of the Federation, but on what he thought would be on the outskirts, what he assumed would be an unimportant space station. [2]
2011
The revelation of Bashir's genetic enhancements had a mixed reception among fans. Some felt betrayed by the change, while others welcomed the complexity it brought to the character or felt it explained earlier contradictions in his character. Regann wrote:[T]he genetic enhancement arc, though handled clumsily, was the saving grace for the Bashir character, who had been written so unevenly and sporadically throughout the five seasons before it, a complicated mess of contradicting traits that didn't add up. But then they did, because we knew that there was two Bashirs -- the public persona he created and the Julian inside, dealing with the deception his life was built on. There may even be three Bashirs, if we count the un-enhanced "Jules" in our tally. [3]
In Fandom
Bashir is one of the most popular characters on the series. In a 1995 poll including all Trek characters, he was the highest ranked DS9 character and one of only three DS9 characters to reach the top ten, coming in at number seven.[4] He's also very popular with fanwriters; nostalgia writes that he's easily ... the most-written character by far.[5] According to her, he's also commonly held to be Trek's only bisexual character,[5] and he certainly lives up to that reputation in fanfiction. Given Bashir's mixed-race heritage,[6] his popularity perhaps runs counter to the perceived fannish bias against non-Caucasian characters.
In slash, he's most frequently paired with Garak; Garak/Bashir is by far the most common slash pairing in the DS9 fandom and is still being written. There's also a large following for the buddies coupling of Bashir/O'Brien (aka BOBslash), which also includes threesomes and love triangles featuring Miles' wife, Keiko and/or Garak. BOBslash generally tends to lie on the vignette end of the spectrum, while G/B inspires anything from drabbles to novels. Bashir also gets slashed with characters from other Trek series, especially Tom Paris.
In the fandom's heyday, there was also an almost equally prominent strand of het which pairs him with Jadzia (usually referred to as Julian/Jadzia to distinguish it from the pairing with Ezri Dax). Bashir/Ezri did not find favour among fanwriters, and tends to appear only to be repudiated in favour of the author's favourite brand of slash. Ezri gets to die heroically a fair bit as well.
Gen fiction about the character is also very common, and is often angsty. Nostalgia lists awful epic Bashir Torture in which the good doctor is beaten raped by wolves as one of the main DS9 cliches.[5] Other topics include his genetically engineered status and his interactions with Section 31.
Fanon & Tropes
- Autistic Julian: Very common fanon in the newer wave of DS9 fans. Fans point to his social awkwardness and the genetic enhancement plotline.
- Foot Fetish: Due to a throwaway canon line about his previous girlfriend, Palis Delon, having the most remarkable feet, some fans headcanon Bashir as having a foot fetish.
- Trans Julian: Although still a minority, there is a not insignificant amount of transfic of Bashir. Some fans cite a line in canon that implies he could carry Keiko O'Brien's baby.
Example Fanworks
Fanfiction
Slash
- Converse Symmetry, by Terri Drummonds -- award-winning Garak/Bashir novel
- Drinking With A Child, by nostalgia & kbk -- Bashir/O'Brien short
- Exile, by The Hoyden -- Garak/Bashir in an intriguing alternate universe
- Going Native by Regann -- AU focusing on Bashir's genetic enhancements; G/B
- Nom de Plume, Roman a Clef & Folie a Deux, by Arcady -- Garak/Bashir series by one of the pairing's best-known exponents
- A Treatise on the Principles of Relativity, by Mosca -- example of pushing aside Ezri to write slash, here Garak/Bashir though the author is best known for her Bashir/O'Brien
- Wanting Home, by Brighid -- Bashir/O'Brien futurefic
- Psychostasia, by ComeChaos - explores Julian's fear of failure, and examines what happens when it's taken to the extreme through an eating disorder. (eventually G/B)
- For more G/B examples & recs, see the Garak/Bashir article
Het
- A Dead End, by dilly -- Julian/Ezri short that dissects the relationship
- Intifada, by nostalgia -- dark vignette; Julian/Ezri
- examples of Julian/Jadzia required
Gen
- Internment Camp 317, by Jewels -- Julian-centric ensemble story
- Oswiecim, by Gabrielle Lawson -- time travel novel, set during the Holocaust. Perhaps the most popular of Gabrielle's abundant gen Bashir writings
- Remember Remus by Lasher (1998)
- Sunrise over Eden, by Aelfgyfu -- relationship with his mother
- Triage, by Paula Stiles -- episode coda which deals with realities of war
- The Manipulation of Julian Bashir by The Tystie is a gen fic focusing on the aftermath of Dr. Bashir, I Presume.
- The Viewless Winds is a long, canon compliant story about Bashir's time as a POW in Internment Camp 317. As of May 2020, it is the longest Deep Space Nine work on AO3.
Fanzines
Bashir-focused anthology zines include:
- Salutatorian (2 issues; 1996)
- Palpitations! (1995)
- Doctor Julian Subatoi Bashir, This is Your Life! (2 issues; 1995)
- Bashir... Julian Bashir (2001)
Garak/Bashir
- Different Odds (1996)
- Doctor, Tailor, Officer, Spy (2 issues; 1997-8)
- The Plain and Simple Zine (10 issues, 1995-6)
- Strange Fits of Passion (e-zine; 1999)
- ' Tarkalean Tea (1996)
Nonfiction
Newsletters focusing on Alexander Siddig, the actor who portrayed Bashir:
- The Doctor's Journal (1994)
- Multi-Species Medicine (22 issues; mid 1990s)
Additional Art Gallery
Cover art forLoyalties by Angus
Cover art for the novel zine The Lion's Den, by unknown artist
Art for the cover of the novel zine The Collaborator by Angus
Interior art from Doctor, Tailor, Officer, Spy by Anja Gruber
Diplomatic Reception cover art, with Sisko, by Madalena Mumford
Cover of Outpost #3 with art by Julie Nosal
Cover art of Outpost #9 by Zaquia Tarhuntassa
Interior art for the Garak/Bashir novel zine Tarkalean Tea by TACS
Art for the cover of Palpitations!, by unknown artist
Meta/Further Reading
- Untitled Meta, Archived version by metatheatre, posted to tumblr (2012)
- Julian eats a lot of alien food and I find it really interesting., archive link; a meta discussion by tumblr fans ameerawritesstuff and butterflyslinky that touches on matters of culture in the 24th century, child abuse, and Julian Bashir's identity. (2018)
- Julian Bashir Helped Me Make Trek My Own, Archived version by Haden Cross on startrek.com. (June 24, 2020)
Archives
- Works tagged 'Julian Bashir' at Archive of Our Own
- Works tagged 'Bashir, J.' at fanfiction.net
- Julian Bashir at Trekiverse
- Stories tagged julianbashir on Wattpad
Author Sites
- Gabrielle Lawson -- gen Bashir-centric stories
Fanclubs
- The Doctor's Exchange -- for Alexander Siddig
- The Doctor's Waiting Room -- another Siddig fanclub
- Far Beyond the Stars -- for Siddig & Nana Visitor (who played Kira)
Resources
Canon Resources
References
- ^ Ship Manifesto: Especially the Lies: Garak/Bashir (accessed 7 October 2011)
- ^ Ship Manifesto: Julian Bashir/Miles O'Brien (accessed 7 October 2011)
- ^ Liars Make the Best Lovers (Garak/Bashir, DS9) (accessed 7 October 2011)
- ^ Brenda S. Antrim 'Netchatter', in Multi-Species Medicine #18
- ^ a b c Crack Van Overview: DS9 - TrekCrack for Grown Ups (accessed 7 October 2011)
- ^ His mother, Amsha Bashir, was played by Fadwa El Guindi, who is Egyptian by birth[1], his father, Richard Bashir, by Brian George, who has part Indian heritage[2], and Siddig himself is half Sudanese[3]