Character Appreciation: Zed O'Brien
FW: I'm fairly neutral about Zed. He has a place on my F/O list yes, but more familial or platonic than the rest of them. He is an anomaly of my F/O list in that regard but still a good character in his own right.
Yeah, no. Posting this on his actual birthday was half-planned. And well, as I said above; Zed is just sorta... there for me. A character I could just vibe with while he's consistently reliable and maybe a little snarky at times.
Though the theories/ AU/ headcanon/ reference where he is either Abe Sapien, or Abe's lost son, or just a neat reference to Hellboy, in general, is hands down one of my favorites. The idea that the Hellboy organization lost to Libra because of Raju, or that Raju might not have known about Zed's real heritage is just too fascinating to me to pass up. Not that I think it is that per se, it's far more likely that Zed is just the stand-in for all Fishmen as a reference/shout-out to sci-fi.
Regardless of the timeline of release dates he gets compared to all sorts of Fishmen characters. Undine the undying(Undertale), Abe Sapien(Hellboy), Kisame Hoshigaki(Naruto/Shippuden), Sidon (Legend of Zelda), etc. But Zed is very different... to be fair, all of these examples are different as you'd be hard-pressed to find two fish characters played exactly the same between franchises but the fact they still get lumped together for being fish is weird... at least from a character perspective.
But when writing Zed I usually have to take a long time to think it over (and have my husband read over it for accuracy). Mostly because Zed treads the line between easy-going and a stickler for details. Like he doesn't sweat being in a life-or-death situation, but heaven forbid you mess up the plan at the last possible moment. Between that and being a pseudo older brother figure for Leo helps in some ways but not a whole lot.
Not that it's difficult to pick apart his type of character, it's more about the nuance of Zed specifically. Keeping track of all his particular virtues and values can cause a little trouble. Which is more frustrating because I know that I am very similar to Zed on that front and it's just... how? how do I write myself from an objective perspective? No, not literally but it feels that way far too often because Zed presents as such a blank slate.
Which just makes it that much weirder that I STARTED MY BLOG WITH A ZED X READER FIC!! Someone, please explain how that works huh...
But of course Zed is a well-spring of angst because he's a fish with such different biological needs to 90% of other Beyondians. Assuming that most people prefer to be human or human adjacent it makes for very easy conflict and knife twisting. Sadly the pool of proper angst to pull from biological differences becomes very one-note when it comes down to "one person breathes underwater and the other doesn't" but I am a stubborn, crazy b-tch who will find every kind of way to milk that drama out.
Though if it wasn't for Oasis (again) I probably wouldn't have as many thoughts about this fish as I do. But I have precisely one (1) idea that has never seen the light of day that... it's just too funny to pass up. It shall be written one day, assuming Zed doesn't spear me on his trident before then. I can be very annoying (but at least it's entertainingly annoying...)
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She’s got a wicked smile, doesn’t she ( ˇ෴ˇ )
🦈 Baby shark, doo doo doo doo doo doo~ 🦈
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