#genrebent spongebob analysis hour

[armorabs]

here’s what we know about mrs. puff:

she’s a former robber and burglar - is on occasion tempted to go back to her life of crime

has also gotten into legal trouble in another town as a driving instructor.

she has skipped town and changed her name at least twice, a result of the previous two points

she is not above killing those who slight her, even when she cares for them - has attempted to kill both spongebob and mr. krabs before

so here’s what i’m thinking. so she starts off as someone else - for simplicity’s sake we’ll say honey toadfish because i’ve already got posts for that - and leads a life of crime before eventually skipping town, and changing her name. let’s say sugar swells, or something. sugar swells starts a new life, eventually becomes a driving instructor, and does well for herself for a while but eventually things start going south and she gets into legal trouble again. 

(ETA (3/22/23): okay actually in the boards for lighthouse louie the newspaper about her crimes refered to her as bobbi blowfish, so since moe blowfish is her cousin i’m going to assume that bobbi blowfish is her real name, and then she changed her name to honey toadfish before skipping town again)

so she changes her name again and finds herself in bikini bottom, becoming poppy bubbles. she meets her future husband, mr. puff. they’re happy together for a time, and she becomes poppy puff. but eventually, he does something that upsets her, and in the heat of the moment she does something she can never take back - she kills him. she figures out how to dispose of the body without getting caught, setting his corpse up to be found by The Cyclops, and he becomes the lamp that he was suggested to become.

with the body disposed of, and certain she won’t get caught, life goes on for mrs. puff. she starts taking preventive measures, though - this can’t happen again. getting away with it once is hard enough, she can’t risk having to hide another body. so she gets anger management and centers herself, she becomes the patient and kind teacher we know her to be. and she meets spongebob, and things are great for a time - until they’re not, and she equally becomes the very high strung and paranoid woman we watched her become these last twenty years... constantly afraid she’ll get caught, constantly worrying that she’ll have to skip town... and a woman who is demonstratively bloodthirsty, and somewhat trigger happy. she’s killed once before, she knows how easy it is to do again!

and THAT’S what i think happened to mr. puff, if he was someone mrs. puff knew at all!

#its either that or she just claims to be a dead man's widower for clout and ''doesnt like to talk about it'' cuz she doesnt actually know #but wheres the drama in that #spongebob squarepants #poppy puff #the puff murder theory #genrebent spongebob analysis hour

[armorabs]

bestie (even though we aren't mutuals) someone said plabs was abusive... 💀

its really laughable to try claiming ANY relationship between two consenting unrelated adults of the same age in a noncontinuity gag cartoon is "abusive" when the relationship is inherently and conceptually malleable; entirely beholden to whatever they think is funniest for an episode - where nothing about it is Inherently Unhealthy or Unchanging

like. i'm not going to come at them because i imagine theyre probably just a kid figuring out their boundaries, how to express those boundaries, how to practice media literacy, and how to express what their comfortable with - i'm not checking though. i really don't care that much - i remember when i was younger i myself often had kneejerk and very strong reactions to something that i wasn't entirely comfortable or happy with. actually, i still do that (yall have seen me talk about what i think of plankaren...)

its one thing to say, "i don't think it's very funny" or "i don't think the relationship actually would work out" or even "i kind of prefer the canon pairings" - absolutely fine opinions to have, perfectly valid reasons to be disinterested in, well, anything! i'd be a hypocrite not to be understanding of just not liking something, even if it's perfectly fine.

but its like... rivalry is not inherently toxic or abusive. i have seen some truly bizarre takes exclusive to spongebob that specifically refer to RIVALRY itself as toxic and abusive. but to think that it is, is to fundamentally misunderstand what rivalry actually is. rivalry is not about hatred or being enemies - rivalry is just about competition, it is very specifically two people competing and measuring themselves against each other; and you can be competitive with your friends without hurting them or them hurting you. in the minutes where you play smash bros with a friend - you are rivals. in the moment you make a bet to see whether one of you can eat more of something than the other - you are rivals. but you are friends, too. every day labels overlap, sometimes briefly, sometimes longterm. that dynamics might not be simple and clear-cut is just a fact of life. people are inherently complex, so their relationships are too.

sometimes the rivalry between plankton and krabs is taken to extremes, sometimes either one can do some heinous shit as enemies, all part of the groundwork for visual gags and humor ... but not always. not every episode is related, and a lot of them end with a reset. the entire universe is changing, malleable, and inconsistent. the plankton and krabs that exist in one episode have not always experienced what a plankton and krabs that exist in another episode might have. its like looney tunes? you have to keep in mind... looney tunes is one of the inspirations behind spongebob, and how they write their episodes is influenced by how looney tunes is structured. 

by nature, plabs can't be abusive because there is no consistent continuity, no matter how many people try to claim there is or try to find one and cling to it. there never has been a clear, consistent continuity. not every episode has happened in every other episode, not always. like, no continuity means there’s no real pattern. no real pattern means, well, obviously if there’s no pattern then there’s no cycle of abuse. and there is no imbalanced power structure, neither one has more power over the other, they’re the same age, they’re not related... so anything that could make it abusive, does not apply to them, and is not inherent to them because again this is a nickelodeon non-continuity gag cartoon created in 1999 with no real stakes or plot that often relies on absurdism and refuge in audacity. everything is exaggerated, and insane, and weird, and its laughable to overthink that and try to discourse about it.

(and thats not going into arguments about the exact nature of their relationship or how they feel about each other beyond that)

so anyways to write about spongebob relationships, inherently, you must make your own continuity to make it happen and to make it work no matter how plausible it might have been in the source material. it’s a necessity to a franchise with more than 300 episodes, comics, books, three movies, several games, multiple spinoffs, and much more to come - all inevitably to contradict each other to some degree as there have been countless people working on the franchise across the decades, all who have different views on the characters, the series, and their relationships - this is actually inherent to fanfiction as a whole but we're talking about spongebob so i'm covering that conversation in spongebob-colored paint - and to write anything, means that by nature... one must make it your own, the same way everyone who has worked on the franchise has to some degree, and to make something your own means that you get to - no, you HAVE to, you MUST - decide what you want to keep, what you want to use... and what you can just leave in its own, original setting

not to mention that nearly all explorations of the relationship with a romantic angle focus on what it would take to fix or improve the relationship, negating any toxicity that would have existed in the relationship to begin with! so... anyways

#genrebent spongebob analysis hour #IS THIS THE KRUSTY KRAB?

[armorabs]

ummmm ummmm didnt do anything for one of the plabs birthdays because (shrugs) you know how it is. but i do have a new tag for you all to gawk at:

genrebent spongebob analysis hour! for posts that are me specifically waxing poetic about dynamics and relationships in spongebob while fully realizing and acknowledging they don’t actually fit the tone or genre of the source material! 

this one mostly exists for me to easily find these posts again to point at if/when people question why i view certain characters or relationships certain ways, so i don’t have to say the same thing multiple times or multiple ways lol

#ill be going back and tagging older posts with this so itll be steadily growing as i find posts that fit the criteria i need them to

[armorabs]

i keep conceptualizing an elaborate scenario that focuses on a complex dynamic between sandy, randy, karen and karen 2 - what family means to each of them, and how they interact with each other in turn because of it

sandy and randy are raised on the importance of family and making an effort for family, they’re twins and they love each other. so when they love, they make an effort for each other. sandy loves karen, so randy makes a point to make karen feel included and wanted in their family. as far as he’s concerned, karen is already family because she matters to sandy. his sisters girlfriend is someone who matters to her, so she matters to him too.

and sandy makes an effort to incorporate karen 2 into her life. because she is hyper-empathetic towards robots and computers and all forms of technology, and she cannot stand to see them in states of disrepair and rejection. she has to find them a place in the world, even if there’s no place for them in her life. so, when she discovers karen 2′s form in a state of disrepair and she knows she’s capable of fixing her like shes brand new, and she’s going to give her a place and a life and a chance to be a person outside of plankton and his machinations for her as karen’s replacement.

but karen 2 isn’t just any computer, isn’t she karen’s sister? so sandy must make an effort to make a place for karen 2 in her life. she has to make an effort to make her feel included and wanted. that’s just how she was brought up. her girlfriends sister is someone ... is someone who should matter, right? she can’t fathom a sibling not mattering. her siblings are so important to her, it must be the same right? so she matters to her.

but what does that mean for karen and karen 2 - for whom the concept of family and siblinghood is abstracted. their relationship is tense because not only were they not brought up together with a normal sister relationship, but with their history it’s hard for karen to react objectively to karen 2 suddenly being in her life as someone her new partner makes an effort to include. karen 2′s only existed in karen’s life in relation to how easily discarded she is considered, and she doesn’t like to feel replaced. she’s been cheated on so many times, how can she trust that she won’t be hurt again? 

sandy would never hurt her, of course. karen knows that, but it’s so scary for her - for her girlfriend to suddenly just fix her replacement and make her part of their lives. but sandy and randy don’t see karen 2 as karen’s replacement. they both see her as karen’s sister, someone they ought to make an effort to include, because family’s family. family’s always been a distant concept to karen - something she wants in some capacity, but has no real experience with. she doesn’t know how to be a sister, or what it’s like to have one - even though she has one, whether she likes it or not.

and randy, randy is literally just some guy who doesn’t really understand the complexity of what’s going on - but at least karen 2 seems to be just as confused about what’s going on as he is, and

#karendy #story ideas #genrebent spongebob analysis hour

[armorabs]

wait i have a crazy new theory that’s gonna blow your mind: bikini bottom 2, aka the cookie bucket timeline, is one of many offshoot timelines that take place after kamp koral. 

the set pieces for bikini bottom 2 and the existence of cookie bucket as shown in in the 6th issue of the spongebob comics are all there in kamp koral. 

you have the friendship between krabs and plankton - devoid of any burger related conflict

sandy, a scientist without boundaries, actively preventing the invention of the krabby patty secret formula

and karen, the underappreciated and (so far,) isolated assistant

spongebob and patrick - still best friends, still nerds

sandy actively preventing the krabby patty secret formula from being invented until she deems it ready ... but any slight error can permanently remove it from the timeline. sandy is a child prodigy, but she’s only like 14 in kamp koral. she’s going to make mistakes. but a mistake like this has grander consequences than she realizes.

with the krabby patty never being invented, krabs and plankton have no reason to feud or start up a rivalry and with no burger-incited rivalry they wind up starting up the cookie bucket together after retiring from kamp koral, instead of going their separate ways with the krusty krab and the chum bucket.

with no wedge between krabs and plankton - with krabs serving as a best friend and assistant - there’s no need to undermine or ruin him, and with a solid and successful business he no longer has need for karen or any previously elaborate long-term plots.

karen, no longer needed, grows to resent plankton and rebels against him. the same way plankton sought to ruin krabs, she makes it her mission in life to ruin plankton and krabs.

and sandy... already a brilliant but flawed scientist, taking control of timelines and meddling in affairs to achieve what she wants and what she feels is best at 14 at the oldest is giving her way too much power - the perfect scenario where her flaws and mindset can become corrupted if left unchecked.

and so if sandy embraces the darker side of being a mad scientist, its only natural that spongebob and patrick would rise to counter her villainy as heroes based on their knowledge of superhero comics and shows - becoming super-spongebob squarepants and patrick-man.

#sb timelineposting #bikini bottom 2 #genrebent spongebob analysis hour

[armorabs]

i love plabs but exclusively if you focus on the mutual respect and genuine care they still have despite falling out - and this is something that is canon in multiple episodes, that they do respect each other and they do still care about each other deep down and are desperate to keep each other in their lives despite the rivalry, but have problems and issues with communication and opening up to each other that is conductive to truly repairing and rekindling their friendship on a stable basis - and have them work on repairing and rebuilding their relationship. thats the appeal. thats what its really about 

if you focus entirely on the bitter rivalry and choose to interpret a potential relationship as “hatefucking” or define it by the animosity they share and potential violence because of the pain that drives the rivalry, thats when you lose me because that doesnt really feel like something either of them really wants - but what do they really want? questions you have to really ask yourself if you care about them as more than vehicles for comedy they were created to be,

the thing about plabs is that its not instantaneous. it comes naturally to them to gravitate towards each other and its natural for them to find common ground and force each other into their lives, but all relationships require effort to work and it’d take effort for them to work out their problems so that they can have a somewhat stable friendship or relationship again... and the implications of effort is what really draws me in - the opportunities, the work, the effort, and the mutual respect and history and care that is already there. the ingredients for a hurt/comfort slowburn are already there, and it has the added appeal of just being funny. just being jokes and shits and giggles and guys being dudes. it can be deep, but it doesn’t have to be either. its just two funny dudes. it’s playing with the blocks to rearrange it into a compelling story that defies genre but doesn’t defy the spirit of the characters, because these characters were created to be flexible and malleable for potential stories... which means its easy to see the ways they can bend even if its not necessarily in a way that would be explored due to the nature of the source material and its genre

yes, the characters belong to a non-continuity gag cartoon - so they will never change. but there are constant opportunities for them to do so. and because of it, there are tons of potential stories that only a fan could explore because fanwork is not inherently beholden to the source material’s genre conventions. which i think can be fun when you remain faithful to the characters, their history, and motivation, and

#plabs #genrebent spongebob analysis hour

[armorabs]

man once again i am thinking about the fact that mr krabs blames himself for how plankton turned out. because of mr krabs blaming himself so many people thinks that means its actually his fault but like, objectively its all planktons fault. krabs didn’t steal anything, and krabs didnt start a fight, and krabs didnt MAKE plankton do ANYTHING - plankton just did that to himself cuz hes an idiot

PLANKTON instigated a fight with his best friend simply because his best friend wanted to defend a close family friend who practically helped raise him, and when the fight escalated to a torn recipe PLANKTON walked away - WALKED AWAY!!!! he wasn’t flung out or thrown out or robbed, he simply WALKED AWAY - with his half of the planned formula, and then when his decision to walk away backfired and he wasn’t instantly proven to be the superior crustacean between the two he dedicated himself to trying to steal what he left krabs and then ruin him 

(despite that there are several episodes that show that he does still like and care about krabs deep down, but doesn’t know how to cope with or express it because he’s been so thoroughly warped by ambition and wrath and his complex with being seen as superior - they were best friends for a reason, after all)

the formula krabs has now isn’t even the one he worked on with plankton so plankton can’t claim ownership of it in any way shape or form - in multiple ways. one, because plankton’s tantrum resulted in the contamination of their combined efforts after he had already left and thus had no intentional involvement in what would become the krabby patty secret recipe, and two, because krabs had to reinvent it again after he’d forgotten the formula after the written recipe was destroyed before, so that was complete trial and error on his part and plankton wasn’t involved with that either... so... plankton has absolutely no claims of ownership over the krabby patty secret recipe

and, also, krabs lets plankton off easy (almost never presses charges or calls the cops on him for theft or destruction of property)(which is probably because we know for a fact that HE still likes and cares about plankton but also understands that there is still a huge conflict between them that creates a barrier between truly rekindling their friendship until it’s ever resolved - but how can it be resolved when their goals conflict that way? how can it be resolved if he needs to stay afloat, and plankton getting his way would counter that??) and

#genrebent spongebob analysis hour

[armorabs]

listen to me this is controversial but the best depiction of patrick is when hes a lowkey psychological manipulator and genius - but so lazy, so carefree, that he comes across as a complete moron. 

see, there are moments that suggest he knows and understands more than he lets on (just as there are moments that suggest spongebob is perfectly aware of how annoying he is to others, and snarks about it) and has an in-depth education about topics you wouldn’t expect him to. like, activism and protesting, the law, and the ecosystem. those are all things he has familiarity with and can go in an in-depth and accurate tangent about! because he’s done it in a few episodes!

and there are moments where he seems to flawlessly figure out exactly how to get what he wants from someone, when he wants it, or exactly how to get out of trouble in ways you wouldnt expect someone as stupid as he supposedly is to be able to - thats the joke! and yet, combined with all of that! ... i find it a fascinating take on his character!

of course he’s a character that is meant to be stupid, a character we’re supposed to see as stupid. and with that episode where his actual brain is replaced with a brain coral and becomes an insufferable genius unable to figure out how he used to have fun, which suggests that’s what he’d be like if he were actually a genius... but also its a non-continuity gag cartoon where anything goes, and isn’t always consistent with anything let alone how intelligent or educated a character, or their demeanor. so that matters not

but this is how i personally like to see patrick - because i find it far funnier than him being stupid, or the idea of him being stupid, or the concept of him being stupid and being granted intelligence through whatever means an episode follows that day. you might be wondering why that’d be, and it’s easy:

plankton, karen, and sandy are all geniuses, but they all actively put their genius  to use. plankton uses his genius for evil, sandy uses her genius for good, and karen uses her genius for whatever the hell she damn well feels. sometimes she uses it to assist evil, and sometimes she uses it to assist good.

and in this interpretation of patrick - he’d be a genius, but uses it for nothing! 

brilliant, but lazy! he’d rather kick back and do nothing, or goof off than do anything worthwhile, anything for the betterment or detriment of society as a whole! and his morality may be questionable, but spongebob keeps him in check. he’d rather hang out and play with spongebob than do most morally reprehensible things, he’d rather catch jellyfish than invent anything.

its hilarious, and my absolute favorite interpretation of patrick

#spongebob squarepants #patrick star #plus i love the plankton/krabs and patrick/spongebob parallels and this would add to that lol #genrebent spongebob analysis hour

[armorabs]

i really do think krabs is a really neat character - not a perfect or even entirely good person by any means, with his plethora of issues, but despite that an interesting complex character. as the two are not mutually exclusive concepts

oh, yeah, its spongebob, so its not like this complexity matters within the context of the series, being a gag cartoon. but it being a gag cartoon is what help built this interesting complexity when analyzed with regards to information revealed in multiple different episodes, or different behaviors exhibited in different but similar contexts, and so on. its a gag cartoon, you dont have to take it seriously, and its suggested you typically refrain from doing so... but that doesnt mean you cant, because sometimes its fun. 

with its loose, if not just non-existent, continuity, the archetypes chosen for characters are used as building blocks that are continuously played with and used as the foundation of episode plots. outside of the block metaphor, this means they have to be flexible, and with that comes ... well, a diverse expanse of portrayal and characterization for each archetype represented. and with the sheer amount of content for this franchise, and the archetypes that krabs represents, lead to an interesting complex character

hes many things: he’s the cheapskate, the selfish boss, but he can be the selfless, or the wise mentor. he can be the loving father, or the neglectful father even. he’s the veteran, the pirate, the lover, the enemy, ect ect ect ... hes taken on a lot of different roles, as stories have required him to take. it may mean that he’s not consistent, and that may not necessarily make him a good person - but the way these different roles that one man (er, one crab) plays contrast with each other in a way that i find makes an interesting character?

in some episodes he loves pearl more than anything in the world, he’ll give her whatever she wants at the drop of a hat. in some others he values money more than her happiness. in some episodes he may be a caring and wise father figure to spongebob, willing to spend thousands of dollars to help him. and then in some others he’d literally sell him for pocket change. in some episodes he’ll spend an obscene amount of money on someone he wants to impress and cherish. in others he doesn’t want to spare even a penny. in some episodes the rivalry with plankton is treated like a game, something they both do more or less for fun. in some others its treated deadly serious, throwing each other under the bus - so on, so forth, is he a good person? is he a bad person? it depends on the episode.

and i haven’t even gotten into the topic of how, out of the entire main cast, he’s the only one we have any extensive backstory on, and we are shown how his behavior changes over time because of it... while other characters we have snippets here and there - like squidward went to school with squilliam, ect - but not an overarching narrative of their life prior to the series, unlike krabs. not even plankton, who is the same age as him and his childhood best friend! (an aside, i feel like more episodes detailing planktons past outside of his rivalry with krabs could be interesting)

we’ve got episodes like friend or foe, krusty krab training video, main drain, pull up a barrel, shell of a man, grandpappy the pirate, frozen face-off, and selling out - all showing us snippets of his past or focusing on it. and then episodes like hooky and squilliam returns - among who knows how many other episodes - just casually alluding to or mentioning his past exploits, and it paints a very interesting biography for the crustacean!

i could even go on for paraphraphs or write an entirely separate essay on these episodes and more and the biography they present to the viewers collectively and what it means for krabs’ character, but this is already getting pretty long so maybe i’ll save that for another time.

#spongebob squarepants #eugene krabs #genrebent spongebob analysis hour

[armorabs]

spongebob family headcanons, with a little dash of marine biology 

first of all, lets establish that spongebobs parents and his paternal grandmother are all designed to look like sea sponges, while spongebob himself is designed to look like a synthetic kitchen sponge. this comes from grandpa squarepants. 

my headcanon is this: grandpa squarepants is a synthetic kitchen sponge who immigrated to bikini bottom and married a sea sponge that would become spongebobs paternal grandmother.

interspecies/interracial relationships are extremely common in bikini bottom - based on how often background characters pair each other up with fish of different species, and how often they reproduce children that don’t look like specific species of fish, or have a mixture of qualities from different species...es

and i know in middle school we’re all taught that sea sponges reproduce asexually by budding - and that’s true! a lot of them do. but a lot of species of sea sponges reproduce sexually too, releasing sperm to fertilize egg cells. now, some sea sponges release their egg cells the same way the sperm is released. but some sea sponges retain their egg cells until the larva is able to swim away.

and it wouldnt be the first time the series could have suggested that sea life reproduced a child with an ordinarily inanimate object (see: squidwards fantasy of having children with a krabby patty) - however in this case the ordinarily non-sea life inanimate object is a sentient, living being. which we know to be possible in bikini bottom because of characters like dirty bubble, bubble buddy and son, karen, and 2bunz.

truth or square shows spongebobs mother, margaret, carrying spongebob to term. so from that we know that spongebob is biologically related to his parents rather than adopted, and we can assume that margaret at least is a species of sea sponge that retains the egg cells. however, spongebob himself is capable of asexual reproduction through budding - this likely suggests that one (or more) of his ancestors might also be a mix of two sea sponge species..es... one that reproduces asexually and another that reproduces sexually.

anyways theres no point in arguing whether spongebob is a synthetic sponge or a sea sponge or a budding sponge or a nutting sponge cuz hes all of the above

#spongebob squarepants #genrebent spongebob analysis hour