My best friend came into town today briefly for something. Regrettably, I work tonight. But he still came by to see me for about 15-20 minutes before I had to start getting ready for work. It was brief, but we both enjoyed it. And I got not one, but TWO hugs, both initiated by him! That might seem super silly, but besides words of affirmation, physical touch is my biggest love language and he's also typically not physically affectionate with male friends. So that made me really happy and smile.
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it's actually so fascinating to me that Brennan has created a character that maintains a pretty relaxed and mild-mannered demeanor and has said multiple times that the absolute Core of her is "FEAR" and how often we see this Fear manifest specifically in Avoidance; it really nails a relationship to that mentality where your brain fully Stops recognizing the emotion properly out of like, sheer self-defense from the stress of having to carry it all the time
I think this is also perfectly showcased in the way we tend to see Tula swing so suddenly from 'level and steady' to 'snarling Panic' and then back again - Just because your brain has detached itself from the Conscious Recognition of the emotion doesn't mean it can Actually stop itself from experiencing it. So the Fear is always there and always acting as a stressor, but because of that inability to Identify it there's no way to recognize or address it before that final straw hits and your bodymind jumps Straight into Full Meltdown Mode; but then once again, once you drop even a Little bit below that Peak Terror your brain ceases to process the emotion; it's like the most exhausting form of Poor Object Permanence in the world
And even if Tula is aware of this happening to her, that doesn't really make it any easier to deal with / address. Even if you're able to spot the symptoms Around the emotion -- chest pain, irritation, nausea, whatever -- because the Emotion Itself is basically impossible to find, you can't really Successfully Pin Down what the problem is OR a way to cope with it. If you can't figure out That You Are Anxious, then figuring out What Is Making You Anxious is impossible, which makes Find A Way To Make Peace With That incomprehensible. That's where the Avoidance comes in: you can no longer identify what might be a Dangerous Situation, which means that Anything New has a big potential to be Really Bad in a variety of ways (ranging "I don't Feel Good" to "Fully Lashing Out bc you've entered Fight/Flight and can't get out of it" to "Actual Outside Danger This Time") and that means the Only Way you know how to be Safe is to just Avoid Doing Anything New and Only stick to Familiar Situations, because anything unfamiliar is a monster of a gamble you don't know how to prepare for or cope with
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Opinions on Dream? :^
SO many feelings about him omgg rant under cut please forgive me
okay so i don't really talk or draw him much cause honestly,,,most of the times i just think he's a bit....boring? or more accurately plain? not in a mean way either but just in a 'fades into the background' type of way like don't get me wrong!! he's a really nice friend to his peers, his feelings about his powers and aura making his relationships harder to navigate and trust along with his whole conflict with nightmare and morality about what's good and bad IS very cool!! and i love it whenever they write him to be complex and not on this black and white mentality or when he's just straight up following along his friends with no free will or with a dubious purpose without ever addressing his issues or feelings! it's just unsatisfying to me :')
or when they're making him the 'naive' and oblivious, (sometimes childish?) character being marked as the obstacle and villain along with the other star sanses from the fic's pov, always talking about doing good things while fighting his brother and not hearing him out about the balance, (and for weak reasons most of the time. like it's been so long and you STILL haven't sat down with him when he's, generally, basically begged you to just have a talk? guys please :'( ) or when they go for the victim sad dream always missing the old nightmare, where corrupted nightmare is the incarnation of evil, with no sympathy or emotion except anger and sadistic glee, killing and hurting everyone and dream's just trying to protect the multiverse and dream's always been in the right. such extremes!!!
LIKE!! i hope i'm not the only one that thinks a 500+ year old should have had enough time to idk. learn things? about people and manipulation and deceit? after knowing what the villagers did to night? about the bad things in the world and how there's a lot of grey areas in life and that he maybe reflected on his past enough to process and ask himself if there should to be a convo to settle his differences with nightmare (and you can make nightmare the stubborn one too! or have them BOTH be petty and imperfect and have some things wrong and some right at the same time like why do i always see the good guy vs bad guy cliché with these two when they're the perfect example of why positivity doesn't have meaning without the negativity!! as long as there's a satisfying evolution or growth that doesn't leave me empty i'm good yknow?)
plus i believe dream really isn't as dumb as people view him. i do get some of you saying he probably can't read or write since that's actually a pretty interesting idea to explore! but in general please let him have emotions other than pure sunshiny happiness or endless sadness like he's gotta have more depth than that! let him make mistakes, have flaws that don't just make him the bad guy that's always in the wrong by default, and be angry or suspicious or jealous or bitter or battling his mental health problems/depression or malicious or smart or witty or mischievous and silly or sarcastic or ANYTHING dude i just want him to be put into different scenarios where he can be serious or lighthearted like it doesn't even have to be long or perfect but make him feel real.
it could definitely be that i don't read or see much art about dream or really look for it hard enough but also i just. i feel bad for even saying this fr and i wanna be honest about why i don't enjoy most stories about him cause he always gets the worst treatment along with ink!!! especially ink omg the poor guy has it the worst i think like wow do they mess him up :'(
always one dimensional in non shippy fics, or too plain or easily replaceable by other, more entertaining people in the significant other's life in most of his ships like man. i have read fics out there that made me genuinely FEEL and root for him and love his character so much it restored all hope for me!!! but i can only name one on top of my head and the others? it's been so long i don't even remember their names i just legit feel terrible cause i love him still and i can't find many headcanons that fit my interpretation of him yknow?
not to say people who write him very happy, mislead or sad are ruining him like that's silly- if i see something i don't like i just. move on bro i wouldn't force people to feel or think the same way i do about him cause anyone can have whatever headcanons they want!!! just talking about what i personally look for in him and why i can't exactly find it since most of the stuff out there just isn't my cup of tea :')
hopefully i didn't set anyone off with this rambling opinionated essay i just pulled hhh xD i know i know he's a popular character and i know a lot of people like dream so *sobs* please please recommend me artists and fics about him that you think is good it's been so looong since i've read or seen anything new that makes me attached to this little guy aughg<33333
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