#also? it's an honour to have u in my inbox adsfldjgh i have been quietly reading some of your analyses and i am in awe of your ability

[mdverse]

Hey! So your Furtana art (and art in general) always brings me such joy and I think I feel similarly about Finn as you do, i.e. can't really love canon him but I do like aspects of his character and therefore like my headcanon of him. So I just wanted to ask, what would you change about canon Finn to make him more easily likeable? What do you think are the best things about him, and do you have any headcanons you'd like to share? :) (could be Furtana related haha, or not)

hi!! am glad my art can make u happy (especially the furtana stuff, they really have become my comfort trio haha).

i do want to warn you that i'm not great at analysing characters (or anything else ngl my brain is often very empty), and i'm even worse at putting my thoughts into words, but i'll do my best for u :)

i think the main thing i would change isn't even an aspect of Finn himself, honestly. if anything, the most important change i'd want would be for the characters around him to hold him accountable for his actions. bc let's face it, Finn gets away with saying a lot of things. he's the only character i can think of rn who used two different slurs, in addition to the entirety of mash-off/ikag, and probably more things that i can't remember off the top of my head, and the only time i know that someone for sure made him actually think about the consequences of his words was Burt. also santana slapping him, but idk if that really counts. i know u just watched ikag so i don't really need to go into the fact that pretty much no one tries to knock some sense into him (the kurt/klaine aspect of the outing really irks me and i don't feel like getting into that here but ugh). with the r-word i think he did realise immediately that he was wrong to say it and i think he regretted it, but my point is. most people around him didn't hold him accountable for the hurtful things he said and did, so he was able to get away with doing things without really thinking about the gravity of his actions. and that's really frustrating, bc we see that burt yelling at finn does actually have an effect - it's clumsy but he does try to support kurt after that. and i think we see it in s4 with him defending unique when she is dead set on playing rizzo; he knows there are risks in letting her do so, but he is 100% willing to protect her to the best of his abilities. he's capable of growth, and i think he's also willing to learn, it just seems to take a lot for him to get there sometimes. which actually leads pretty well into why i like vb au furtana! the thing about santana is that she just,, doesn't take people's bullshit. she's stubborn and won't shy away from a fight, even if she stands no chance of winning, which means that growing up together, santana would've always been ready and willing to throw finn's mistakes in his face. very bluntly. it most definitely also means that finn and santana fought a lot as children - usually over dumb stuff bc, yknow, they were kids. but regardless of what it was, finn would come out of the conflict with a new understanding of what he did wrong and most importantly, why it was wrong for him to do x thing. which isn't to say that vb au santana had a fantastic moral compass as a child, bc she did also treat kurt (among others) like trash for a while, but her constant presence and bullshit detector play a big part in preventing vb au finn from turning into canon finn.

in terms of what i do like about him... i think it's kinda similar to your recent post about santana and how you like that she's cruel and messy (i do too! wasn't sure how to respond to that post bc words are hard but,,, its sth i enjoy exploring in vb au... just letting her be harsh and defensive at times... but that's a whole other thing lmao anyway back to finn). i like that he's flawed. i like that he's confused, that he doesn't really know what he wants in life, especially after high school. i like that he's insecure, that he lashes out at people (though sometimes his anger issues worry me and make me think that he needed therapy. tbh a lot of the glee characters needed therapy but that's a whole other post again), that he feels like the (stupid) high school hierarchy is extremely important, that he struggles to merge that part of his life with his love for the glee club. he feels grounded, yknow? i love me some character flaws that make them instantly relatable. but i think what i love about him the most is how kind he can be. it feels weird to type that right after bringing up some of his worst moments on the show, but he really does have some incredibly sweet moments with people. to me, his growth shows the most in s4, bc teacher!finn had some moments where you could just tell that even if he didn't know what he was doing, even if he was scared to be leading these kids by himself, he still cared about them so much. things like helping artie make grease happen, helping ryder with his dyslexia, trying to help the s4 newbies bond with each other, making sure the club didn't fall apart after their sectionals. i am still judging him for deciding to do gangnam style but that's unimportant rn. idk i'm really losing my train of thought now so i'll just finish with this: finn is a sweet but dumb boy. he has golden retriever/dumb ginger cat energy written all over him and i just desperately wish he had been given more chances to properly grow from his mistakes, instead of pretty much everyone (except burt hummel, king, icon) glossing over it.

one more thing tho! i am once again shamelessly self-promoting but i know that watching ikag was a struggle for u and i humbly offer my version of santana's coming out in hopes that it's a more pleasant experience for u...