Super underlooked DS9 character. Basically saved from being a one-off cause they needed an extra person form the episode that Jadzia's old hosts occupied her friends bodies for fun. Then she was kind of just around and working at the bar. Once her relationship with Rom got going she really comes into her own , they're adorable together. Among all the spies and terrorists in the show she's just a straight shooter and a genuinely nice person. Leeta has her shit together. Chase Masterson also advocated for worker ownership of the means of production in an interview.
I'm two seasons into ds9 and when does it get good? My introduction to trek was lower decks
Wow, okay. That's a terrible first Trek. It's 90% super obscure nerd jokes. My advice is actually to watch TNG first. The first two seasons of that are even worse but hold fast, this is a trial. Enjoying awful shit is a huge part of loving Trek. TNG gets super good by then and you'll get the vibes and be familiar with the setting, DS9 kinda assumes you know what's going on a little. From there you could do DS9 but I'd suggest at least watching a best of list from the original series and then the original series movies then DS9.
Lower Decks is a comedic take although does actually get the spirit pretty good and DS9 is somewhat of a deconstruction. If you wanna keep up on DS9 feel free and it's one that you'll just kinda love and not really know when it happened to you. Seasons 5&6 are the peak but it builds. I would suggest my watch order though, you have to put off the best one but part of why it's good is how it uses the space politics set up by the other shows. It's all one long continuity.
Edit: once you've watched all of Trek you're gonna notice so fucking much with Lower Decks. I'm glad a none fan can actually enjoy it though. That was something that worried me where there is sooooo much fanservice and references and nerd Easter egg stuff that I wasn't sure how someone who wasn't a Trekkie would enjoy.
There's guides for which episodes of TNG and DS9 are "must see", and which to skip. I'd recommend watching the most pared-down option for TNG through S5, then the must-see episodes of DS9 seasons 1 and 2, then all of DS9 starting with season 3.
If you're coming from LD, consider TNG a show about the bridge crew of the most prestigious but also stuffiest ship in Starfleet, played completely straight, and DS9 as a less stuffy bridge crew assigned to an absolute backwater civilian station that suddenly becomes incredibly strategically important, but they don't assign it a new bridge crew, and the weird and/or sleazy alien civilians are still there to cause hijinks.
S3 is where the show starts ramping up in quality and S4 is already above 2/3 ratio of good or better espisodes.
I would agree with the suggestion that it is probably better to either go back to start with TNG(and I'd start with S3 straight away and then come back for the good S1-2 episodes only you can find lists on google) or watch alongside.
There is a lot of nostalgia already in DS9, when certain characters appear on the respective sister show it only really hits already existing fans, originally this was done for cross promotion but there is merit in it even if you disregard the ulterior motive.
Specifically the two characters that moved over, their character growth depends on the pre-existing knowledge of the previous show, specially for Worf.
There are also certain scenes and episodes during the war arc that could be considered nostalgia bait. You could keep going but i feel you'll miss out on that part of the experience.
Classic trek imo works so well because there is a shared consistency between the shows. You imagine that the characters in Voyager would fit perfectly on DS9 or TNG and vice-versa and it makes it all seem like this huge family.