thought i had while driving: the cardassians we see in TNG are all incredibly lean/lanky. gul “considers himself real hot shit” dukat is similarly proportioned. garak isn’t - he’s pretty solidly built for a cardassian we see onscreen

you know who else is almost upsettingly lanky? julian bashir, who is 2/3s leg. please imagine julian and garak as cardassia’s most confusing power couple. here’s this human who’s proportioned like the most perfect symbol of cardassian masculinity, married to a stout older man who is shorter than him. garak finds this hilarious. julian has no idea why particularly willowy cardassians keep staring at him balefully. to the average cardassian eye theyre the cardassian equivalent of one of those sitcom couples where one partner is super hot and the other one is just Aggressively Average and garak never stops being smug about it