#it's interesting how we all have different preferences

[himasgod]

hello!! i saw that requests were still up, and to seize this opportunity... may i request for diasomnia dealing with a merperson s/o? it'll just be interesting seeing them deal with fish... - 🎣 anon

Diasomnia x Mermaid/Merperson!Reader

Headcanons of what a relationship between the Diasomnia boys and a merperson would be like…

Malleus Draconia

For him, having a mermaid partner is something fascinating and unique. He's heard stories about sea creatures, but he never imagined falling in love with one.

He has no problem with the water, but the ocean isn't exactly his favorite habitat. However, for you, he'll learn to swim in the depths without difficulty.

He takes you to explore places on land you may have never seen, like ancient forests and hidden ruins.

If there's an oceanic tradition for engagement, he wants to participate in it.

He finds it adorable when you get excited about seeing rare human objects on land, but he doesn't understand why you're obsessed with forks. (REFERENCE ❗❗)

Lilia tried to explain the reference to him, but he didn't understand.

When you try to teach him how to communicate underwater with songs or ultrasounds, his voice booms so loudly it scares the fish away…

But we all know he sings very well. Thanks, masquerade event 🙏

If you choose to sleep out of the water, he'll use his magic to make sure you're hydrated and comfortable.

Lilia Vanrouge

"Oh, how interesting! It's not every day you meet someone who can breathe underwater~"

He's met merperson in the past, but each one has their own habits. He has a blast discovering yours.

Without warning, he can jump into the water to surprise you. The worst part is that, while it should be difficult for someone his size to move so quickly in the water, Lilia seems to simply defy logic…

He loves to cook for you, but his dishes aren't always suitable for sea dwellers (or anyone, really).

The first time you tried his food, you were sick for two days. Still, he remains convinced that "maybe this time it will taste good."

Sometimes he uses his magic to turn things around: if you have a tail, he'll give you legs for a day, and if he has legs, he sometimes puts on an artificial tail to swim with you.

He finds it very amusing to watch others deal with the problems of him dating someone who lives in the water. Especially Sebek.

"Did you know that mermaids used to seduce sailors in ancient times to sink their ships? I wonder if that's what you did to me~"

He's just joking, but who knows…

Silver

At first, he wasn't sure how the relationship would work, since his world and yours were so different. But that doesn't stop him from wanting to be with you.

If you sleep in the water, Silver will try to stay on the shore to keep an eye on you…

Bro fell asleep on the sand

Sometimes he wakes up in the water because the waves have swept him away. More than once, you've had to pull him out before he floats too far out.

He prefers to swim in lakes or rivers with you rather than in the open ocean. Partly because he doesn't want to lose sight of you, and partly because the salt water gets in his eyes MY POOR BOY 😭😭

He wants to learn to understand the mermaid language, but it's complicated. He hears you sing underwater and sometimes tries to imitate it, though he's not very good at it.

If you teach him how to breathe underwater with the help of a spell, he'll feel strange at first, but he'll love the experience.

Gentle underwater caresses and hugs. Since he moves slower than you in the water, you use him as a floating pillow when you need to rest <3

Sebek Zigvolt

"A MERMAID?! HOW IS IT POSSIBLE THE YOUNG MASTER HAVE A FRIENDSHIP WITH A MERMAID?!"

He doesn't really have anything against you personally… but he's having a hard time accepting it. You have a different culture and different customs, and that baffles him.

So he started watching you every way he could to make sure you didn't do anything strange with Malleus.

It takes a while to get used to it, but he eventually accepts it and becomes a very protective companion.

Bro ended up falling in love with you 💖💖

He doesn't like swimming. Or rather, he doesn't like to admit he's not very good at it. He tries really hard to keep up with you in the water, but sometimes he feels more like a dog splashing around I LOVE HIM

"I DON'T NEED YOUR HELP! I CAN SWIM PERFECTLY WELL!"

Meanwhile malleus magically floating him so he doesn't sink

He gets very excited when he learns about merperson traditions and the importance of music and song. He may not admit it at first, but he enjoys it when you sing to him ❤️‍🩹

"IF A MERPERSON IS GOING TO BE MY BELOVED, THEN I'LL GET STRONGER TO PROTECT THE SEA!"

Suddenly, he has a new personal workout: holding his breath as long as possible to patrol the water with you…

but ends up passing out.

I love him sm please protect him

[livingfiction]

AARON, TT, PARASOCIAL, AND SO ON IMMA SAY THIS AND LEAVE IT ALONE...

This is a lot so bear with me, but also ppl over here don't mind reading

So I've been gone for a few days and I come back to see there are some arguments, negativity, and a lot of venom in general being spewed about Aaron and TT's alleged relationship or whatever. Now, let me start this off by saying everyone is entitled to their opinions. We all have them about celebrities that we love and follow. There are times that we disapprove of their choices, especially their choice of partners. And that's fine. But lets all remember we don't know these people (hello Jonathan Majors) and we don't know Aaron personally. We can watch a million interviews and dissect every little movement and motion this man does and we can "learn" him as much as we want, but WE DO NOT KNOW THIS MAN. And I'm sorry to say this, but honestly I would have rather he popped out with a white woman cause the commotion and frenzy he and TT have caused is beyond ridiculous. I even made a post about this when she posted those pictures and EVERYBODY came out the woodwork on the internet (except here of course) to talk about how all of it was a marketing ploy to "rehabilitate" his image with black women because obviously he doesn't like black women (mind you this is based off that one picture of him and that one white woman). And now we're on here and apparently TT is too aggressive for him and he likes women that are softer and more feminine??? (and idk where that assessment came from)

[ Side note: I do find it funny that ppl are saying that about TT as black women are often thought by default to be more aggressive, angry, and masculine in comparison to non black women and ESPECIALLY in comparison to white women. And ppl have been saying he prefers white women AND "soft" feminine women-which white women are thought to be more of in comparison to black women so🤷‍♀️...very interesting to say the least]

Also apparently TT is to ghetto and hood yet there have been plenty of jokes made about Aaron being from the "hood" in London, now granted their hoods are most definitely different, but hood dudes do tend to love hood girls so once again 🤷‍♀️😂 Now idk TT's personality cause I don't keep up with her and have not tried to dissect her personality. I think her and Iman had a show at one point and I may have seen a clip or two but I can't really tell you too much about her besides the basics and that she look good as fuck. She may be ghetto, aggressive or whatever else but shit ain't nobody holding a gun to Aaron head and forcing him to interact with her, Idk what they have going on because honestly I felt like ppl jumped the gun with pics but whatever it is whether it be BF&GF/ Friends/ Fuck buddies, acquaintances, PR couple(still don't believe that but whatever) Aaron is a 30 year old grown ass man and he's capable of making his own decisions. Some people are coming across like jealous ex girlfriends and as much as we joke about this man being our husband and boyfriend we DON'T KNOW THIS NIGGA, have never been within 100 ft of him.

And tbh I shouldn't be surprised this is happening, cause when male celebrities have large female fan bases it tends too. I mean look at the One Direction boys (even now), Justin Bieber, shit even Prince Harry! I remember people on here saying that the only reason he was with Meghan when they started dating, was because he had mother issues so he chose a woman that was nothing like his mother and he was just having fun and trying something different to distract from the pain and it wouldn't last--fast fwrd to 8 yrs of marriage and two kids later (yes they was coming up with some crazy shit) No woman will ever really measure up or be good enough to the fan that knows their fave celeb apparently better than they know themselves. Hell even Lori Harvey, the quintessential soft feminine, and high class black woman wasn't good enough because apparently she's a clout chasing gold digger ( despite her coming from more money than anybody she's ever dated and her being a constant trending topic before she LITERALLY ever opened her mouth to utter a word). In case anyone is confused I saw comments claiming she said no, when someone suggested she date Aaron, because he wasn't rich or famous enough ( I made a post about that too I think) .

[Sidenote: I wasn't aware that people thought that Lori and MBJ were a PR couple too because of that whole rumor about MBJ not liking black women , WHICH AGAIN ppl seemed to have pulled that out of their asses. Till this day I have no idea where that came from. Idk if its a pattern but it seems like the only time an A-list black male celebrity dates a black woman is if it he's trying to pander to black women so he can keep collecting our money despite not liking us 🤷‍♀️]

At the end of the day Aaron is a grown man in control of his own life, including the dating and career parts. If shit starts to go side ways or off the rails professionally that's on HIM and his team. He's in control of his own destiny. We all are in my opinion. And I genuinely don't give a fuck who he's fucking or dating...for real or for fake. I'm not trying to defend TT or their relationship or whatever but I'm damn sure not going out of my way to tear her down or whatever they have. All in all this shit has gotten ridiculous.

I'm just enjoying the community we built, the love and admiration we have for him, and the bonds we've built with each other. Lets just fucking laugh and read awesome stories written by these amazing fucking writers and everybody fucking relax!!!!

Thank you. That is all loves ❤️❤️❤️❤️

[ceescedasticity]

There are several ways in which "this is The Source Material" fails to lead directly into "this is what The Source Material says is True".

Inconsistency:

The Source Material gives conflicting information in different places.

It is possible (and in my opinion most preferable) for a canon to have no or negligible inconsistency. But the more there is of a canon, the more discrete units there are, the longer the period of creation, the more people who are involved in creating it, the more likely it is that there will be inconsistencies.

When going from an inconsistency to "what is True in-universe" there are several ways to go.

We can try to rationalize how both could be true. —Sometimes I'm pretty sure things which could be taken as inconsistencies are both true; it depends on how much I trust the creator(s) not to mess up.

We can create rules based on, um, metadata? to decide which is true. "The version written later is true" is common, and "the version written by the original author is true".

We can make decisions based on something other than the text — (our best guess of) authorial intent, thematic consistency, real-world conditions, real-world implications, or just what seems to make more sense.

We can just pick the version we like best.

Ambiguity:

No, wait, let's split that.

Ambiguity of omission:

The Source Material doesn't address a subject at all.

Everything has this ambiguity. Everything should have this ambiguity, you don't need or want every story with humans to go through explaining that they are physiologically the same as real humans unless there's some reason to think they're not. Sometimes things aren't relevant and/or interesting to the author.

There are multiple ways to go with this, too.

Usually broad strokes of reality are assumed to apply if canon doesn't contradict them. We don't need to be told human characters have lungs or need to sleep, or that a horse has four legs and may pull a cart. If a story is more-or-less set on Earth we don't need the continents described unless they're different.

There can be some disagreement about which departures from reality are necessarily given in the canon.

Sometimes there's a secondary canon, an apocrypha if you will, which does cover the subject. You can say that when canon and apocrypha conflict then canon goes, but in the absence of canon apocrypha fills in. Example: A minor character is unnamed in the original but gets a name in an adaptation.

Not everyone does this even when apocrypha exists and covers the subject; some people actively avoid it.

Sometimes genre conventions can fill in. Not everyone does this and some people actively avoid it.

Sometimes fanon can fill in. Not everyone does this and some people actively avoid it.

Active ambiguity:

The Source Material can be interpreted in more than one way.

Most things have this to some extent. Limited POVs, unreliable narrators, not reading characters' minds, etc. True omniscient POV can avoid it but that's not super popular these days.

Is The Source Material in the form of a potentially biased in-universe account?

Does the viewpoint character not fully understand the situation?

Are there lying liars who may or may not be lying at any given point?

All of these create room for debate. But, unlike some of the other areas, I think fans usually understand that there's room for debate.

The next category is Value Judgments/Conclusions but I'm going to pause for a moment.

My natural fannish habitat — my preferred niche? — is the canon-compatible. Here is the canon; now let's look at what's underneath or behind or beyond or inside canon, without contradicting it beyond a few carefully chosen allowances and sometimes narrative-required tweaks.

I like my understandings of characters and worldbuilding to be canon-compatible. I like being able to consider clashing and unappealing interpretations of characters and worldbuilding and say "this is wrong, because that's just not canon".

So it pains me to say that canon is as a rule not objective fact.

[bruhstation]

I want to know more about Top Hat past before she became a member of the Star Fleet

alright it’s time to strap in because this is gonna be lengthy and heavy at certain points

cw: japanese colonialism, mentions of misogyny and toxic masculinity, internalized transphobia

hwang dong-ha hailed from keijō, which will eventually become seoul after korea gained its independence. at that time, korea was under the japanese colonial rule, and mass industrialization progressed at a rapid speed. dong-ha’s father worked as a laborer at a railroad construction site, and despite the hardships the family faced, dong-ha lived an uneventful childhood. that’s just how things are with other families, she thought. dong-ha had little interest in playing with other children and prefers accompanying her mother at home.

as the iron grip the japanese empire had on korea tightened, the hwang family’s living condition didn’t seem to get any better. in 1921, the hwang family moved to the states, looking for better job opportunities. at least dong-ha still has her parents. 

after dong-ha’s father’s contract as a plantation worker in hawaii expired, the hwang family decided to open their own business in san francisco, utilizing mrs. hwang’s specialty in sewing. a small tailor shop/boutique that specializes in western coats and suits, squeezed between a tight row of stores. things were going slow with the culture difference and all, but business picked up at a steady pace after the hwang family met other korean immigrants in the neighborhood.

due to her upbringing, young dong-ha held onto rather conservative beliefs regarding success. her father is stubborn about the way things have to be done and that rubs off on her. look, dong-ha. look at what we have now! see? if you work hard, you’ll make it in life. you’ll always be rewarded. you wouldn’t have imagined this kind of life when you were a kid!

those questionable words of encouragement didn’t permanently work on dong-ha, though. as she grew older, dong-ha questions more of her world – what will she be doing in the future? will life always be like this? where does her agency start and end? will her world only consist of her, mother, and father? and like every single teenager out there, dong-ha rebels.

the hwang parents noticed dong-ha sudden interest in how she presents herself. if she wasn’t taking enough interest in fashion already, she’s now dressed to the nines in glossy suits and thick coats (conveniently conceals her figure, definitely not some foreshadowing) and acting like some sort of elite socialite, much to her parents’... worry. dong-ha had always been obedient, but attempts at suppressing her just resulted in her pushing her parents away more. she was just having fun with self presentation, being raised during grueling times, and her parents were being annoying about it? fine. she’ll seek her own people.

dong-ha’s companions throughout her young adult years were sons from upper class backgrounds. although her family is not wealthy, dong-ha was friendly and said yes to everything. being invited to cabarets and bars for pool games has now become a regular occurrence to her. she even acquired her liking towards wine from these outings. she will be normal. she WILL fit and everyone WILL like her and her clothes. and her personality – speaking of which, dong-ha becomes more arrogant and self-absorbed as she spends more time with these people. she often lied when asked about her personal life, losing more of her humility. and after a particular incident that got mrs. hwang dragging dong-ha back home in front of her friends, her relationship with her parents deteriorated.

as time passed, dong-ha grew increasingly wary of the subjects her “friends” discussed. how their parents become rich not out of hard work, or how the working class aren’t working hard enough, or the way they talk about women, or the way they view marriage as something transactional, or children… it’s all disturbing to dong-ha. but she doesn’t have any other friends. these men were her only companions besides her parents, and she had to stick with them. that’s how men are supposed to be. this is what she had to do.

this poses another problem – dong-ha was supposed to be a proper “man”. not to mention that she’s the only “son” that her parents have. is this what it means to be a man, then? be crass and rude to assert their dominance? flaunt their physique? fall for women and have them for himself? dong-ha is disgusted, but they aren’t… as if it’s something natural. it doesn’t make sense, and when people can’t make sense of something, they get angry. a man is supposed to be masculine, dress the part, control those below him, woo a woman, then marry her. that’s how things are supposed to be, damnit. but she doesn’t like any of this. dong-ha felt like an outlier.

dong-ha admires women not in a way that’s supposed to fit how a man is expected to: not in an attraction, borderline domineering way, but as if they’re something… graceful. nigh unattainable. they’re resilient and beautiful. they’re beautiful not because she wants them for herself, but because they just are. she was disinterested in the idea of masculinity before, only performing it because that’s what is expected of her, and now she’s wholly appalled by it. looking back, she preferred the days when she was younger and helped her mother with sewing rather than mingling with loud, callous, and misogynistic men.

dong-ha’s friends noticed how dong-ha became less talkative, only drinking with a condescending glare directed at them. she averts her gaze when they were talking about annoying maids or girls, and the streisand effect gets into work. they’d poke fun at dong-ha and joke about how she probably had a bad night; “do you not like women? did a girl reject you or something? you’re being so weird, dong-ha.” and she still had to put on a facade. “they’re so annoying. but what if they aren’t, and the one who’s wrong is actually me? utter nonsense, dong-ha. have some self respect.”

so comes the turning point. after a late night out drinking her frustrations away, she came back home to think about reconciling with her parents and retreat back to her small world – consisting of just her, mother, and father. though she constantly goes back and forth between thinking she’s in the right and feeling guilt towards her parents, the latter of the two consciences won. she found mother and father in the living room that night, and a verbal fight quickly broke out. despite her attempts at apologizing, mother and father kept scolding dong-ha, and in reflex she came to her own defense. dong-ha’s father ended up making hurtful remarks about how she’s an ungrateful son who never appreciates what they have, instead distancing herself from her family to hang out with random wealthy strangers, and how he hated the way she always flaunts herself and other nitpicky things and that clearly cuts deep. because she has never seen her father this mad before. and her mother just stares at her, unmoving. not only is the world outside confusing, now her own world has been tainted.

she is furious. and prideful. and stubborn. wait, she is? she’s stubborn? no. it was them! they don’t understand her. nobody ever does. she’s the one who’s unlucky. the world doesn’t give her the answers even though she has asked so many of them. everyone’s just so incompetent! beneath her!

having given up in trying to make sense of the world outside her own, the disillusioned dong-ha moved to bigg city port while only leaving a single letter to her parents. she needed a new scenery to escape this contradicting world. no more family boutique, no more hangouts with the narrow-minded morons she used to call “friends”. she didn’t fit in with them, or anyone, really – is there really a place for her in this world? logically, there should be. dong-ha is prideful and stubborn. she believes she deserves much more than what she’s given as much as she feels sick at herself.

the boundless sea stretching beyond the docks and piers gained dong-ha’s interest. she asked for a job and some guy directed her to a certain captain archibald star. dong-ha landed a job in bigg city port as a helmsman for the star tug & marine. she was assigned the #4 railway tug “top hat”. captain star’s bouts of american patriotism often made top hat raise an eyebrow, but he was a pretty okay guy. as long as she views him as her employer and nothing else. still, she is quite vain, and due to a lot of dockside workers being men, top hat viewed everyone around her as beneath. doesn’t matter if you’re a star, or a zed, or the two idiots (her own words, not mine) from the railhead, there’s a high chance top hat has broken down your character and constructed several lists of thesaurus-sanctioned phrases personalized just for you inside her head.

though… dong-ha’s coworkers were far, FAR better than her “friends” from her youth. they actually have something meaningful to discuss during breaks besides objectifying women and money and other weird things. hercules is nice and pleasant to talk to, not to mention his open mindedness that earned top hat’s liking. warrior and big mac often gave her headaches, but they put up with her bouts of vanity with a wisecrack or two, much to her surprise. OJ was annoying at times, him being the wisest yet kind of old fashioned, but he’s still decent company. eddie and frank… they’re thing 1 and thing 2. (she likes them. nahhhh she doesn’t. that’s just how she is. actually she does like them. she’ll knock herself on the forehead before even smiling at frank and eddie.)

the stars (some of the zeds too, but you know how they are) also didn’t make any weird comments on how she likes to dress extravagantly even during hot weathers, and even if they did, said comments only go as far as mentioning how fitting it is with her character, nothing more. this is all pre-FBC, and she was still referred to with he/him pronouns. though top hat still hadn’t figured out that she’s a woman because she didn’t realize it’s an option for her (due to the morons she used to hang out with), she has thoughts about ditching the concept of being a “man” fully after reminiscing about how she’s often uncomfortable at being referred to as a “man” or anything that points out her lack of interest in anything masculine. her self discovery is further supported given the healthier environment she’s in, and the revelation that she wasn’t the only person who dealt/was dealing with gender issues (there’s hercules who broke the news for her, then she later met lillie, then ten cents, then sunshine, then boomer, then zip (THIS IS A WHOLE NOTHER CAN TO OPEN)) led to her embracing herself as a trans woman. fortezza bigg city is a tough story for the young’uns like ten cents and zip but things are much better on top hat’s side at this point 

of course, like how everything in this world follows a certain order, this is top hat’s world now. by the events of fortezza bigg city, at the age of 27, top hat is still her usual prideful self, but she’s working on being more compassionate towards people around her (lord stinker says hi). she’s sharp and quick-thinking and is quick to make stinging remarks just for the fun of it, but what’s top hat without a one-liner every five minutes? she’s no longer bitter and withdrawn. top hat’s having fun now <3

[sorryimananti-romantic]

hi! i know this may sound a little weird and random, but i have two questions that i’m honestly really curious about. and as i don’t know anyone who reads fanfiction in real life and you’re literally the only blog i consistently follow, i figured i would ask them here.

the first one is what’s your setup for reading? like the atmosphere and circumstances you have to be in. for me, i can only read at night with all the lights off while laying down for that full immersive experience (and honestly the darkness also helps in being a little in denial about what i’m reading). not only that, but also a movie or tv show playing in the background at a low volume.

and the next question is what language do you imagine the characters speaking in? i personally always imagine them speaking in korean and so when the author writes a line that very clearly implies they’re speaking english, i’m always like ‘woah, wait a minute’. and that also kind of goes with ocs with non-korean names. it pulls me out of the stories a little because i honestly don’t like it when either of those happen.

that’s not to say that the stories are bad. the vast majority of those stories are very well written and well thought out, it’s just for me personally that i don’t prefer it that way. (btw, congrats on releasing another story! i haven’t gotten the chance to read it yet, but i’m sure it’s just as great as your other ones!)

(pps, i am very grateful for all writers. you guys keep me away from rotting from boredom, so thank you!! hopefully what i wrote doesn’t sound insulting.)

hi, thanks for popping by!

to answer your question, i usually scroll tumblr at late night and i prefer reading on laptop as opposed to phone (but sometimes i use phone too). i usually have music playing in the bg. if i know i'm gonne be bingereading a series or a long fic, i usually switch to phone. dim lights at night, sure. sometimes i'll read during the day whenever i get a break from real life.

the second question is sth i haven't really thought about until you pointed it out AHAHA hmmm i gotta think about this. i learned 3 languages at once from birth so the brain is frankly a mess (english is one of them), plus now that i know avg korean i guess i do hear some phrases in korean while reading? especially the phrases that are easily translatable into korean?

i guess when i first started reading fanfics, that's when i might have focused on the language i hear while reading. i've consumed a lot of english literature so it's usually english for me while reading, and with fanfics it did feel weird in the beginning (esp when some korean terms are kept which sometimes also icks me and there's some weird switching going on but to each their own) but i learned to ignore it and simply enjoy. when it starts to play like a movie in the head, the language does not remain the focus (at least for me)

i don't mind ocs with non korean names when you have korean idols that go by english names LOL but yeah sometimes i find a few things weird but honestly, if the story is good? i don't really mind those things and i can keep going on. it really does come down to personal preferences i guess.

thank you so much! it was random and got me thinking in a good way ahaha but it's not insulting, don't worry <3 i hope you like star 1117 when you read it hehe

[javierduffy]

different.

[sysig]

If it’s not you, what’s the point! (Patreon)

[wackywatchdotcom]

i love that with people who post about tadc often we all have a character were deeply unwell about . you can tell a lot about a person by what tadc character theyre obsessed with and how they express it

[neverendingford]

.

[liuisi]

hm.

[ananke-xiii]

I think the only thing I'll never change my mind about SPN is that I moderately enjoy Bobby (until he's alive at least, after that I wish they had just stopped but no, I was stuck with the ghost of Bobby past and the ghost of Bobby AU forever) but I'll never agree to see him as the "Good Father Figure" that fandom (heavily fuelled by canon, I have to admit, it's not a fanon thing or something like that) makes him out to be. And I say "fandom" because, while it makes sense for the characters to see Bobby as "Good Father", I'm very limited in my understanding as to why people usually don't question this view and take it at face value.

And I blame "Death's Door" for this because, on one hand, the "death is a door/ the door of death" concept is something that I deeply, deeply ADORE so this ep. is just SOOO enjoyable to watch. And, also, the implications that whatever you didn't deal with in life you'll have to deal with in death? This is my jam, LOooOOOoooVE this. Not only do we get to see Bobby's GIGANTIC trauma but we get to see it via him re-living it? Uhm, yes, more of this, thanks.

On the other hand, the bad: side characters' backstories that become really interesting only before they die is a meh for me. I can't make myself like this type of overly-emotional writing cop-out so this is a me-problem. Well, the other thing is also a me-problem, lol: Bobby's death reframes his life as "worthy" because he was "a good father to two heroes" or whatever he says in the episode and to me this is very boring. It shouldn't be, because it's a noble and wonderful thing, I just find it boring precisely because of what the episode has just showed me, i.e. Bobby's HUUUUGE trauma. As far as I see it, you can't explain trauma away like that. It's a very mediocre view of healing from trauma but still understandable from a writing pov because, well, Bobby is a side character and his death his functional to the main characters' story, sadly. But my point is that it could've been so without the resolution of his, I repeat, BIIIIG trauma thanks to him rejecting his own father's accusations by saying that, after all, he did something good with his life and this something was Sam and Dean. I think Bobby should have had his own moment there, face to face with the fictionalized version of his father but should've engaged with him differently. We had 6 seasons of implied parent-child relationship between Bobby and Sam and Dean, this extra glorification wasn't necessary, imo.

It's this over-explanation that bores me and it's also, I think, a huge factor in how lots of people seem to interpret Bobby as this "Good Father" type which he, let's just say it, isn't. And it's totally okay because that's the core of his character! Like, he was a deeply traumatized man who was aware enough of his own issues to decide that having children wasn't for him and this decision caused him (and Karen, his wife) some big problems. And then, and theeeeen, after tragedy hits him again, he finds out that, yk what? perhaps not only does he LIKE being a father, he'd also make, probably, a good father. But he's not. We think he's good because compared to John anything and anyone are better parents than him. The bar is in hell (lol) and all that. And because the show itself can't really imagine what being a good father actually means. Like, in SPN playing baseball and learning how to drive are portrayed as peak father-son moments but they're definitely not. They can be but, per se and without context, they're not, they're just conventionally accepted images of what a "good father" is supposed to do with his son.

It's, of course, way, waaaaaaaaay more complex than this but, essentially, a "good father" is "just" a parent who Loves his children. But, like, the very first STEP you need to take in order to be able to Love your children is to start working toward loving your inner child, which is another way of saying that you have to give yourself the Love you haven't received or, at least, some grace. Which is WEEEERK, loads and loads and loads of it. And this is impossible on Supernatural, duh, because it's the self-loathing people show where the "work" they have to do is something else entirely and it's more like a "job". But they went SOOOO close to get this in "Death's Door", all they had to do was for adult Bobby not to confront his own, imagined father but to hug himself as the scared little child he was. That was it. That would've been a huuuuuuge first step for the show as a whole.

So, to me, Bobby couldn't actually be a "good" father because he hadn't resolved his deep, deeeeeep, immeeense trauma that he brought to his DEATH. But the interesting thing about him is that he could have been a great father. It's the unexplored potentiality that makes him compelling and quite tragic, frankly. I mean, he's "The One Who Tried To Do The Very, Veeeery Minimum At Least" and that's actually already a lot in that show.

This, thiiiiiiiis I like. So this is the Bobby that I moderately enjoy.

[leori-the-unlearned]

rereading IDW sonic is giving me a better picture of just how skewed tangle’s recent characterization is :(

i know continuity marches on and all but man. tangle is the only one getting THIS bent out of shape all the time and it sucks. she’s the everyman (she really shouldn’t be) and keeps getting mistaken for a different character trope by each new arc’s writers

[indigodawns]

.

[joshuaalbert]

tbh i do think changeling jack would have been a better option like. first of all i think just actually sticking to the changeling plot, rather than the antagonists being the changelings and the borg in an alliance that i guess doesn’t not make sense but ultimately brushes aside the changeling stuff at the end probably would have been better, but i also think there’s some potentially interesting stuff in there. again with the caveat that this is kind of operating off of like...not totally changing the setup but trying to do something better with the same beginning.

like ok loose concept 20 years prior to ep 1 beverly picks up this kid while she’s on a mission in the wake of the dominion war and initially doesn’t know he’s a shapeshifter or anything, just that he’s a child who needs help. he’s on her ship for a while and she gets kind of attached to him, especially when he shows an early interest in medical stuff, but at some point she gets confronted by some subset of starfleet that’s after him, and it comes out that he’s a changeling who did something bad in an attempt to escape capture by starfleet and they’re here to take him back.

and like. she’s gotten to know him, and she feels protective of this kid and she believes he was genuinely acting out of fear and possibly reacting to mistreatment, whereas their charges seem. kind of questionable? they feel like the result of paranoia in the wake of the dominion war and she doesn’t trust the people that are going to bring him in to treat him fairly, and she’s already somewhat more disillusioned with starfleet than she used to be because she’s already lost one son to starfleet ideals and is starting to regard jack as another, so that questioning really gets kicked into overdrive here on a broader scale. she makes the choice to protect this kid that she’s gotten attached to and they escape, but they have to go on the run, and that’s why she’s been off the grid for so long. she raises him, and they do their medical thing, but eventually they run into trouble and she doesn’t know where else to turn, so she reaches out to picard and tells him not to involve starfleet (both because they’re potentially compromised but also because her trust in them is still not at an all time high)

and then also since that’s dealing with the dominion war and that story belongs to ds9 i would have loved to bring back sisko (probably like. as at least a 2-3 episode arc, one of which replaces the episode w/ro laren bc i love her and all but she deserved better and we could have made the points that were made there in other ways). like. put him face to face with picard for the first time since the ds9 pilot and have them reassess each other after this time. i don’t know exactly how i’d see that dynamic playing out but i think bringing them back together to try to negotiate a threat would be super interesting AND like. i would really love to see picard going to sisko for advice about fatherhood tbh. maybe picard has read jake’s work and is familiar with the fact that they have a very close relationship so in trying to bond with jack he realizes sisko could be a really good person to learn from, even if they’ve had personal struggles in the past (and even if they’re never like Friends now). idk feels like a way to bring sisko back in and give him some closure that would have worked thematically on multiple levels.

like idk i dont have a whole plot seeing as ive been thinking about this for. not very long. but by focusing more on the changeling plot and giving it personal relevance we can focus on questioning starfleet and the federation, and how having to question these things picard has dedicated his whole life to affects his identity, but ideally to me the conflict would be one that shows the potential for positive change.

[bas-rouge]

My toxic trait is that all of the breeds I'm interested in are rare breeds that are impossible to find

[tenok]

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