sakura_no_miko

Title: And Yet So Similar

Author: Cardinal_Daughter

Fandom: Dragonball Z

Rating: PG

Pairing: Vegeta/Bulma

Warnings: None, beyond some uncomfortable sex talk with a parent

Other notes: alternate universe, canon divergence, outsider PoV, family feels

Length: 7k

Summary:
They were like ghosts.

Trunks stays in the past during the missing three years.

Dragonball was never a series where I went looking for fic. Oh, I knew it existed, in the annals of bad late ‘90s fan websites. There was…lots of bad hentai. So much.

You ever notice that there are just some fandoms where you don’t go looking for fic? Maybe that’s just me, but it usually takes a certain combination of factors to make me want fic — usually an emotional connection and a sense of something not being fulfilled. The more content I am with a movie, the less likely I am to look for fic.

Then we got Dragonball Super. I actually saw the Dragonball FighterZ game first, having missed the fact that Super was a new show, and not another recut like Kai. And both Super and FighterZ have a ton of fanservice, mostly of the “what if these characters encountered each other?” variety. And one of the story arcs brought Future Trunks back to meet his younger self.

Yeah. Was definitely a Trunks fangirl as a child.

This fic is really enjoyable for the character interactions. I do love the ending scene:

She pauses to choke back a sob and finishes with a pleading, “Don't deprive my son of his father. Not again.”
“You speak of the adult as if he were yours.”
She draws a sharp breath, indignant. “He is mine. While he's here, he's mine. If you don't want to be a part of that, in any capacity, then that's on you .”

And the fascinating thing is, that’s actually about how it ended up going in canon. Bulma just looks at both kids and goes, yup, they’re both my son. More surprisingly, so does Vegeta. And both Trunks are basically okay with the whole thing.

(Although, the reverse happening in this other fic is also kind of interesting.)

This is just so many family feels. Of course, in canon, Trunks is one of a handful of survivors, so his closeness to Gohan and his mother is born as much out of desperation as love. It’s just nice to have a fic where he’s not being horribly tormented, you know? He has a chance to bond with his mother and father when the world isn’t ending. Oh, there’s a lot of awkwardness — I mean, I’d like to think I’m close-ish to my mom, but I really don’t need to know about how she met my father and I, um, came about. It’s hard enough to see that in Back to the Future.

(I do laugh at the idea of Bulma unknowingly hitting on Trunks, though. Dragon Ball Z abridged made the joke, this fic made the joke. it's always uncomfortably funny but I can so see it happening.)

But there is something to — like, there’s something to that moment when you first start to realize your parents are people. That they grew up and struggled with a lot of the same things you have. For Trunks, there’s all these different layers of revelation — that his parents maybe weren’t as happy as he’d imagined, that maybe he shouldn’t idolize his father because he was kind of a dick,

Oh, hey, on that note— Battle Lines is an excellent fic about (younger) Trunks coming to terms with Vegeta being a dick, but it is locked to AO3 users. I do love all of that author’s Vegeta/Bulma fics, though, and there are several others that aren’t locked.

Anyway, there’s something really raw and real about Trunks getting to interact with his parents without them knowing they are his parents. He gets to see them — well, I’m not a parent myself, but I imagine it’s not unlike being a teacher, or a manager. When you’re in a position of power, you have to present yourself in a certain way. There are a lot of things you can’t share and weaknesses you can’t show.

I had another thought reading this fic — it’s so happy. I’m trying to rotate in some quieter, simpler, happier fics, fics I enjoyed for the reason of being joyous. And a few of these are fics where I feel like, yeah, this character suffered enough in canon, so I want the happy fics. There’s, like, that certain variety of fic that you know you’ll never see in canon, because canon needs motivation and problems and stuff to keep the plot going. Which leads me to one last fic rec, which is a fix-it fic for Dragon Ball Super.

Sorry, had to let all my Trunks feelings out.

Now, if only I could track down one of the old, hideous screenprint Dragon Ball Z shirts that were all the rage when I was in high school. I’m pretty sure I could wear one like a dress, but I still want one.

Looking for more fic recs?

Originally posted on pillowfort on 01/13/19