You Really Did Connect Those Fuckin Dots Bro - Tumblr Posts

OKAY OKAY OKAY

So to shapeshift, right, is to become that thing, isn't it? I'm sure that's how the Founder, and later Odo explains it. The changelings aren't just pretending to be that thing, in a way they're being that thing?

Okay so I'm a little unsure now that I'm actually writing this out so the rest of this maybe isn't as much sense as I thought it was....

BUT. If the above is correct it suddenly occurred to me another reason other than 'lack of practice' that Odo could struggle to imitate humanoid faces...

Could it be that he has too much of his own, distinct personality? Becoming a humanoid is to become them, to understand them entirely as a person (which is why Founders are the perfect infiltrators, and also why they hate being solids: their changelinghood is eclipsed by their target's personhood, even if they do of course hang onto their objective and knowledge from being a changeling).

But Odo developed as his completely own person, first. Changelings in the link don't seem to have a sense of "self", they are a communal species, but Odo is utterly himself. And so could it be that he is unable to put aside everything that makes him him in order to become and truly understand another person?

Or, in other words, the changelings who don't see humanoids as being proper 'people' can treat becoming them much the same as becoming a bird - they are understanding a different sort of lesser life form, and the fact that a humanoid has its own thoughts and feelings is non-consequential because they are on such a different order to a changling's.

But the thoughts and feelings of a humanoid are so similar to Odo's that -- in a way, because he understands them more -- he has more of an awareness of their individuality and difference to himself, and therefore cannot imagine them the same way he does a bird. He is distinct, and they are distinct, and shapeshifting isn't about copying, it's about becoming, and Odo could never become someone else because it would mean becoming less than himself.

This is a ramble and I don't know if it makes any sense but it's lit up my brain and I'm definitely feeling like