#and pushed this narrative they never had before of Gwyn is the only parent TK has ever known and Owen has not been there

[im-overstimulated-and-im-sad]

6, 12, 21 for Owen please

Hi 🥰🥰

6- What’s something you have in common with this character?

As much as I love Owen Strand that is a tough one because he has confidence and leadership that I myself do not possess, and my eating habits are more akin to raccoon fishing stuff out of a dumpster lol… but I will say I also know what it’s like to have your life changed by divorce (I was the kid not the person getting divorced) but that is a reason I love the Strand family so much in general.

12- What’s a headcanon you have for this character?

Basically my headcanon is that Owen was not absent for TK’s entire childhood after the divorce- I maintain there was a couple of rough years where he wasn’t as present as he should have been but after Gwyn kicked his ass and he made it to TK’s holiday concert then he made more of an effort- I’m not saying he never chose work over his kid but he was always in TK’s life and saw his son every week otherwise they wouldn’t be as close as they are because even in the pilot it’s clear how close they are and who much Owen knows his kid, which I don’t think they would have been if Owen was truly never there

21- if you’re a fic writer and have written for this character, what’s your favorite thing to do when you’re writing for this character? What’s something you don’t like?

In fact I have- (Will Ferrell Anchorman voice) you can say I’ve written about a quarter million words about this character 🥰🥰

And that is because Owen is very fun to write- I love writing dad Owen, writing Owen as a dad taking care of/frantically searching for/patching up his kid(s) is very fun 😍😍

Something I don’t like (but won’t deny happen- I just felt it didn’t happen to quite the extent others do) is because my long fic starts when TK is five and goes through the years of the divorce it was much less fun to write trying but coming up short Owen but I did- the petty his ex wife is seeing someone new Owen, falling asleep and his kid gets injured when he was supposed to be watching them Owen- not showing up for not just there holiday concert but missing other big things Owen- less fun to write but I definitely have!

Thank you for the ask 😍😍😍

[marjansmarwani]

I agree with you about them setting up Owen continuing to spiral. They had it happen last season and then it was kind of pushed to the backburner with the fire and then the 126 shut down. It's kind of like he hasn't landed on his feet and he has a case of empty nest syndrome that has never dissipated. Sometimes I wonder if Owen was that lonely in NYC, or was TK and Alex in that bad of a place to where TK spent a lot more time with Owen and now he's finally happy and Owen is like- what do i do?

This is honestly something I think about a lot. Not so much the empty nest thing - though that is a really interesting point I will be thinking about from now on - but the spiraling part. The man is not okay, and that's very understandable. He's been through a lot. The way he was talking right after the volcano and then the concussion scenes with ghost Tim last season? That was an interesting Owen storyline. If they're going to focus so much on him I just wish they would actually do it in an interesting way. It's just one of the ways that they baffle me sometimes. They have this character who is really layered and could so easily be appealing (he really was so much more likeable in season 1, I think) and then they just make the absolute stupidest decisions with him. Like at the beginning of season 2 and the survivor's guilt arc I foolishly thought they were setting up: there was so much to explore there. There were connections to be made with Judd (we all know how they love their parallels) and there could have been a good story in there of exploring that, of putting it more out in the open for the rest fo the team to see and start to try and help with. If they wanted to keep Lisa around (which I always support) they could have used her as the ultimate tie to Owen's past; the one that knows him even better than TK, the only one who knew him before 9/11. The one who could see better than anyone else that he was spiraling and who could help him start to heal, or at least address it. It would have been a good way to strengthen his bond with the team, to explore his relationship with TK a bit more while simultaneously exploring the Gwyn and Owen dynamic of they still love each other but they don't work together. They could still do the "they're going to get together" fake out with them still growing closer and during all this Gwyn remembering why they're not together anymore and deciding it's time to go back to New York and her life. Maybe something serves as a reminder that she will never come first for him and that's okay, but it's also why she can't be with him because she can't live like that. It could go into TK loving his dad and wanting to make him proud, but during all this seeing his parents' relationship and looking at his own life and deciding he doesn't want to be his dad. He wants more to his life than that, and he wants more for his relationship with Carlos. So he becomes a paramedic. They could have still achieved so many of those narrative milestones without that baby plot.

I realize after I have written all of this that I have not answered your question at all, but I think that yes, it was different in New York. I don't know why exactly, maybe it is like you said, or maybe it's just that after everything (they both started the show in crisis and lived in that mode from the overdose and the cancer all the way to the shooting and then right into a pandemic) that's the first moment he's had time to breathe and consider. I don't know what the answer is and while I would love to think they are going to explore that, I really hate to get my hopes up too high.

[im-overstimulated-and-im-sad]

hill you will die on for lonestar, please

Oh there are so many, but my biggest one is-

Killing off TK’s mom was such a wasted opportunity and so, so lazy.

Partly because it bugs me shows still go to the killing off moms in shows for drama in general- but mainly because the other two times LS has killed off the loved one of a family member, it has made more sense for the show than it did with Gwyn’s death.

We saw very little of Gwyn before she died - like before the episode of her death, she and TK literally had one scene that was canon and not a coma dream (and it’s hard to count that because as a lawyer, Gwyn’s reaction to Carlos unilaterally buying a place would seem to be more along the lines of “he did WHAT” not “ohh how romantic!”)

And I know this is because Gwyn isn’t in town but considering they had her go through with the pregnancy, that it didn’t have complications, she had the baby, and TK has a half brother- (another hill attached to this one; why would they do this storyline if intended to abandon it- like that kid is a piece of TK’s mother out there walking around that seems like someone TK would want to keep up with- but we were told in season four Tarlos haven’t been to New York together yet).

And we knew that TK is close with both of his parents, but also, we were robbed of getting to see him introduce the best person he’s ever been with to his mom or have his mom meet his friends or commenting how much his brother is like him- we didn’t get any of that, because she was very far removed from the story and they still killed her off.

Which the only way this would have made somewhat sense to me was if this was what made TK’s sobriety be jeopardized- but no, to do that, they used an incident that was not TK’s fault in any way, shape or form and shouldn’t have been counted as relapsing.

And (call me Jake Peralta cause I’m about to monologue, son) the thing that bothers me most about this is they used her death to push this narrative of “Gwyn is the only parent TK has ever known, because his father has not been there for him once in his life”- which they really stuck with in season three and that really just makes me sad, because I don’t believe TK would’ve have agreed to Austin- or become a firefighter at all for that matter if that were true.

Like I know this won’t be a popular opinion, but Gabriel’s death made so much sense for the show and for storytelling, especially because of the nature of his relationship with Carlos- and also- we got three seasons of Gabriel.

Compared to the amount of time we actually got to see TK and his mother together, which was crumbs compared to the amount of time Carlos’s relationship with his father got-

Like I just wish Gwyn could have been as important a character alive as she was when she had passed away.

(And seriously- why would they do the baby storyline if they were never going to bring it up again. I need this explained to me- there was ZERO mention of him leading up to TK’s wedding- WHY.

Thank you for the ask 🥰