#extension squad

[healerqueen]

Fortnight of Books 2024: Day 11

Book you can’t believe you waited till 2024 to read:

Extension Squad by R. M. Scheller. It’s a series of short novels with illustrations about characters with superhero powers—only they’re convicts in prison for murder who are forced to preserve their own lives by helping society. A very fun series. The author is a good friend of mine who is on Tumblr as @anythingforstories!

Book you read in 2024 and are most likely to reread in 2025?

The Ordinary Princess by M. M. Kaye is the book I reread most often. It’s a darling little novella about a princess who is cursed (or blessed) to be ordinary, in a world of beautiful princesses. Though her family is disappointed that no prince will marry her, she makes her own adventurous way in the world, with spirit and cheerfulness, and finds her own happy ending. 

[xulips]

✂

[kanohivolitakk]

I love how the entire extension corp subfandom so far basically collectively agreed on "found family" and/or "zokket is the trios dad" angle.

Like I seen most of their fans (if not even all) be really set on them having this deep platonic if not outright familial bond and deeply care for one another. And even those who aren't as sold on the found family/surrogate family dynamic still treat them as a set. And as someone who partially loves the trio because of their connection to Zokket, the fact we all just agreed on them being inseparable found family squad is really comforting to me.

Basically depending on how the Extension Corp fandom develops post-release, it could end up becoming the Bleck Crew 2.0 and as someone who really liked that subfandom I'm absolutely here for it.

[impishtubist]

More, Sirius didn’t know Harry was even in danger until he saw Peter in the photograph. When he asks Harry to live with him, his response along the lines of “of course, you want to stay with your aunt and uncle” makes it clear that he was under the impression Petunia and Vernon had some shred of human decency and raised their nephew with actual care. We have no idea what Sirius actually knew of the Petunia-Lily situation, Lily says Harry “smashed a horrible vase Petunia sent me for Christmas (no complaints there),” but this still doesn’t indicate what Sirius knew of the relationship. Perhaps the vase was just utterly hideous (which could also be interpreted as siblings just exchanging the ugliest thing ever back and forth, could be an inside joke, and so on. With no knowledge of the relationship, it can be interpreted as a normal sibling relationship). Plus, Petunia still gave her a present (and they were in hiding at the time, as Harry is already 1 and I’m fairly certain it’s said that they went into hiding before he was born), suggesting they were in some form of contact. It’s a common headcanon that Sirius and Lily bonded over their relationships with their siblings, but as far as I remember, that’s not actually canon, it’s just as possible that Lily refused to speak about Petunia and all Sirius knew was that Lily had a Muggle sister she didn’t see often (and there’s also a war going on, a war that believes Lily deserves to die, so it’s not exactly unreasonable to think that Lily wouldn’t put her sister in danger by frequently hanging out with her while the war is going on). Point is, Sirius didn’t actually know that Petunia and Vernon were treating Harry the way they did and also had no way of learning this since that’s hardly splashed across the paper the way the Weasley’s photo was, but he’d have broken out the moment he learned if he did. Even in the earlier years, Sirius didn’t know what was happening in the school. It seems Quirrell is just never mentioned again after PS so that definitely didn’t get reported and they swept the COS events under the rug, Sirius legit couldn’t find out. It’s a chance photo in the newspaper (and imagine if Fudge visited a different day when the picture was not in the paper anymore) that tells Sirius that Harry is in danger, he didn’t have any other source of information. Who’s he gonna ask about Harry, the Dementors he can’t communicate with? The other inmates, who know only as much as he does about the outside world? Fudge, who thinks he worked for Voldemort and wants Harry dead? And before anyone says he could have asked Hagrid, a) we don’t know if they were even able to speak in their cells and b) Hagrid also thinks he’s working for Voldemort so he certainly won’t be chitchatting with the man he thinks signed his best friend’s death warrant and nearly damned them all.

I love when the Sirius Black Defense Squad (TM) appears in my inbox 🥺

Yes to all of this! I know fanon loves to write that Sirius knew how awful Petunia and Vernon were, but canonically we have no reason to believe he ever actually met them or that Lily really spoke of them, aside from the vase comment that could be passed off as sibling rivalry. Canonically, in POA, Sirius thinks that Harry's living a happy life with his aunt and uncle and he doesn't want to disrupt that if Harry doesn't want it! He truly did break out to protect Harry, because as we all know, no one else was going to do it 🤷

[lifesver]

alright hold on here are The Thoughts

i think growing up it was very like... leland trying to fit himself into a box, or an image that people had for him. which started with his dad and literally just trying to get the 'i'm proud of u' one singular time. dad was tough on him, only son, 70s, a little more sensitive than most boys his age etc. truly the root cause of why he can so easily get caught in cycles of people-pleasing, and is so easy to manipulate, and so easy to knock down a peg. bc he already has those preconceptions of himself, and when those things get confirmed, he just goes oh. yeah i guess so. you peaked in highschool? sure did man. you're not good enough for your friends? true!

leland who pushed himself into a golden boy status in his tiny little town. who made that his entire Thing for a while. he pushed himself in athletics and he pushed himself in academics so he could make it into that ivy school. and then getting to university where just about everything ripped a stripe off him. a lot of it was good humbling (from his friends), that made him loosen up and stop trying to exist in that box. but it was also just a wake up call of like, not being the best, and in fact being mostly average. which there's 0 things wrong with but when you have the ex golden boy complex it's so over for the mental.

i think about how after he had to drop out of school it was like. extra tough. going back to your small town after you were supposed to make something of yourself in college. seeing the people you knew from highschool, some of them having never left, some of them looking at you with judgement like haha how did you mess that up golden boy omg??? having to be there while his friends finished up their schooling, and then moved away. nothing like coming back to your childhood room after you've outgrown it and remembering being just a little younger than you are now, and all the things you thought you would be and get to do. spending basically a year rotting at home with zero motivation and just a completely gutting fear of being out in public until it's like. well i can't just do this huh.

and then having to go work for/with his dad so he doesn't put too much of a burden on his mother who's helping april with her kids now. just contractor work stuff and having to listen to his dad yap about whatever all day. having that oppressive influence on his shoulders again cutting down any personal growth he had made toward things like... self expression in the realms of his appearance or sexuality or identity and even just embracing silly interests or whatever. it all just went back in the box, bc he knew he wasn't going to be able to get out from under his dad's roof until he could save enough money to pay off school (lol rip the scholarship) and then move out. and generally just being like oh thats cool. i'm going to never leave this town. just like him (: cool cool cool!!

and he doesn't!!! he doesn't leave for twenty years. he gets a house and a dog and lives his quiet life. losing contact with most of the friend group after everything sort of cemented something in him that said hey don't bother letting anyone know you like that again, they'll leave you and it'll be your own fault. you don't want to trap anyone with you, you don't want to get your heart broken over and over, either. he never gets married, just has some messy short relationships, messy one night stands with people he can't bring himself to call back. he's the kind of person that's still like... warm and friendly for the most part, so people think they're his friend, that they know him, when he doesn't rly talk about anything real about himself anymore. i love 2 laugh

[ducksoup17]

no bc I dare people who think cheer isn’t a sport to come do what we do for a day. I dare you. try doing a triple toe touch. try doing any of our tumbling sequences. try doing an inversion to liberty to full down. try doing a cupie. you won’t

[cocolacola]

are people misinterpreting my favs or are they cardboard cutouts ive projected personalities onto

[charlotte-of-wales]

I talked my mom into paying for a personal trainer for me (as in, it’s also her personal trainer) and damn this lady only has me doing leg days I will be looking like ronaldo by the end of the month

[reverselayupz]

Money Morgan Geekie🔥

[sundial-bee-scribbles]

You should tell us more about your OCs!!! Idek most their names but they seem cool!! :3c

oh buddy idk if you know what you'd be getting into...

[townpostin]

Seiminlen Doungel Extends Contract With Jamshedpur FC

Versatile Winger Commits To Club Until 2024-25 ISL Season The experienced player aims to help the team reclaim its position at the top of the league table. JAMSHEDPUR – Jamshedpur FC has secured the services of Seiminlen Doungel, popularly known as Len, until the end of the 2024-25 Indian Super League (ISL) season, with a potential performance-based extension. "I have unfinished business from the…

[gremlingottoosilly]

Imagine another soldiers GF is visiting him and Konig sees her and is like "My GF now" what is he gonna do? Challenge the 7 ft. Tall killing machine?

Visiting Paul wasn't the sanest thing you did - and not the proudest of your moments, too. Your relationships started to crack a while ago, not helped by the rumors his squad buddies are spreading whenever you're in the earshot or Facetiming him. You just wanted to give him a visit, maybe woo him over with some homemade goods, and maybe be a normal boyfriend and girlfriend again. Maybe. You didn't expect his colonel to give you such a scolding. "You know that poisoning the troops is a war crime, ja?" You're terrified. His colonel is fucking huge, has a creepy name - seriously, what did he do to be named King instead of Potato or a Shrimp - and has that weird boyishly rough voice that lools you into the sense of security, only for it to be broken the second he laughs, tearing into the dumb box filled with dumb cookies you made for Paul and some of his squadmates. You had friends at his station, you thought you could just get in without the bureaucracy bullshit - only closest family members are allowed here, and you are quite certain that your boyfriend won't wife you up anytime soon. "It's not poison, s...sir" "I look like a sir to you, Maus? Call me colonel" You want to answer that he looks like a fucking nightmare crawling out of your bad dreams, but you bite your tongue. Don't even resist as Konig gets his huge gloved hands into the box, slowly taking one of the cookies. You whimper as he snaps the thing in half - hours of hard work, you can already see them being trashed away all because Paul didn't respond to your calls and didn't pick them up immediately and because he didn't mention his colonel is going to be on the base and- Konig gets one of your cookies under his hood, the sounds of munching like music to your ears - an angel's horn, maybe, the ones that play during the apocalypse. You wait patiently to be prosecuted for your crimes - the ones you aren't quite sure you even committed, to be honest. "You'll do. Horangi will show you to my quarters." You think you're hearing things. Maybe, you somehow managed to hit your head on the way to the colonel's office, and now you're hallucinating the entire encounter? The colonel stands up - he is huge, god, too fucking tall to even be alive, you think - and drops a heavy hand on your shoulder, patting you almost awkwardly. You hate the way he looks at you right now - almost soft, almost gentle, his hand squeezes your skin in a way that is way more loving than your boyfriend ever did before, and you feel pathetic for leaning into the touch, if only for a second. You didn't know that Konig got his eye on you even before you went to the base. He knows a lot about his soldiers, and your sorry fuck of a boyfriend clearly didn't deserve a sweet little thing like you - for fucks's sake, you literally just brought homemade cookies to the military base; how much more of an angel you can be. He also knew that you're not quite satisfied with the relationships if he can judge by how much bitching Paul is letting out during his free time. Konig also knows that if he gets you to marry him as soon as possible, sooner he could put you in his house and make you bake him cookies every day of his retirement - that doesn't seem like such a bad opportunity now, not if he would have a pretty housewife attached to his hip. And if you don't really want to be with him, well... Nothing that a few weeks of extensive home training couldn't fix.

[seat-safety-switch]

Have you been to a teppanyaki restaurant lately? It's a fancy Japanese word that means, essentially, "fried on a metal plate." You go in there, you pay your money, and some dude does a bunch of corny jokes while frying your food right in front of you. Whole thing is a lot of fun, and you leave smelling like a barbecue just happened in your lap.

This sort of interaction between worker and customer is missing from many of our Western businesses. Things are just not fun. Nobody at McDonalds will flip a shrimp into her hat while cracking a joke about the stock market. When you get your car fixed, the team of mechanics doesn't build a flaming PB Blaster volcano to loosen the busted lower ball joint for your entertainment. And when you get someone to do your taxes, the lady they have working there takes one look at your box full of greasy parts-store receipts and just cries a whole lot, over and over, until the manager comes out and asks you to leave.

I figured it was time to change things up. Rather than ask already-overworked and heavily-underpaid workers to add an additional piece of unnecessary and annoying customer interaction to their plate, I wisely decided it would be best to ease everyone into it. Luckily for me, my general geographic area contains a very popular clown college. Thanks to recent maybe-errors in immigration policy, this school has over three thousand students at the moment, all learning the ins and outs of clownery and begging for a job, any job. And – unlike actual comedians – they don't get all froggy if you throw two dozen of them into a car and go driving around town, dropping them off at every business who won't pay our very reasonable "dismissal fee."

Friends, I'll be the first to admit that I fucked this one up, big time. I had absolutely no idea that clown makeup was flammable, or that their extensive bozo education did not include knowledge on safe food prep. That's just what happened at the A&W, which would have been bad enough if not for all the other stuff that happened. You've heard the rest of the defence from my team of attorneys, but I wanted you to hear it from me personally. If anyone has learned his lesson about employing clowns to blow up and then pop a balloon animal for laughs while standing next to the police bomb squad, it's me.

[yoyosdoodles]

THEM T H E M T H E M MY FAVORITE THINGS IN ONE I'M SO HAPPY PEOPLE ARE ALSO SEEING THE VISION AND I JUST WANNA AAHJDSBHVFNVKJS YA KNOW???? I need to make more art of these guys like fr They are doing funny things to my brain and I LOVE IT!! So many ideas I can draw with the Extension Corps n Bleck Squad So many fun interaction ideas AAAAA!!! ... Oh. Uh.. Since you're still here... NEW CRACK SHIP JUST DROPPED:

Zokket x Bleck is going to be my new crack ship and no one can stop me LMAOOOO ...This shouldn't have been so much fun to draw, but it was ajkasdjdxk "WAIT, WHAT ABOUT COZETTE???" SHE'S RIGHT OVER THERE! I SEPARATED HER FROM ZOKKET DON'T WORRY

[maidenvault]

Okay so, Crosshair’s hand.

Has anyone pointed this out? When Crosshair kills Nolan, he doesn't use his shooting hand.

He uses his left. Just as he very significantly has to in the series finale.

I don't know if the writers knew as far back as "The Outpost" that Crosshair was going to lose the use of his shooting hand and by extension everything he believed made him strong, a "superior" clone, and safe from being discarded when he was kind of fascism-pilled. But it feels extra significant in retrospect that his first action taken against the Empire is not done with the hand associated with the terrible things he did as an Imperial sniper. And it's after he just got a difficult lesson about how his own personal strength and skills aren't enough to protect him - he was saved twice by Mayday, then possibly only survived through the night because he wouldn't leave him behind and could share his body heat. He may be using his left hand when he shoots Nolan because his other arm is tired from supporting Mayday all the way back, which only adds to the symbolic touch I love that Mayday is using his rifle as a crutch to help him walk as well (and of course, he's at close range so quite meaningfully Crosshair doesn't use the rifle to shoot here either). It all supports the idea of this as the first huge moment of transformation for Crosshair when he's finally turning his fire on the real enemy out of a desire to protect others, however futile and too late it is in this particular situation.

Going back and noticing this really reinforced for me that Crosshair's hand injury probably isn't just meant as a manifestation of his trauma related to Tantiss. It would make sense considering it's his shooting hand that it also has something to do with his inner conflict regarding his changed relationship with violence and killing.

The Batch were introduced as these stereotypically macho soldier characters, an impression that's softened a little as early as the pilot of TBB but still distinguishes them a little from other clones. In a kind of funny way you can look at the whole series as being about these guys who were only brought up to fight gradually discovering and finding peace with their more traditionally feminine sides - literally because of Omega, a female version of themselves who shows them the possibilities of being a family and living for others instead of for violence.

For Crosshair this journey is much more difficult and like a painful rebirth than it is for anyone else because being a soldier was so much of his identity. He's always been the one to most pointedly distinguish his squad from regs because of their "superior" traits that he thinks will make the Empire value them, and he clearly internalized the way the Kaminoans only care about clones as weapons to be used in war. And it all betrays how little value Crosshair actually believes he has deep down. It was easy to go into S3 being especially worried about his fate because he's believed so long that he's not good for anything but fighting and he's the character it was the hardest to imagine adjusting to a different life.

But in retrospect, it was stupid to think they'd let him off that easy and of course the whole point is that it takes a lot to get him there. What exactly he went through on Tantiss beyond the electroshock torture we've seen is never delved into but personally, I think being a soldier is something that's poisoned for Crosshair after he becomes a victim of the Empire himself and subject to their attempts at reconditioning. He's not psychologically able to be that person anymore, but for a long time is still trying to largely rely on himself and his own strength. He tries to sacrifice himself for others because he's still holding onto that part of himself in a way.

But for once in Star Wars we've gotten a fully realized redemption arc showing that sometimes what's harder than giving your life in a redemptive way is to actually have to figure out how to live with the bad things you've done and be better. Some of the people Crosshair hurt were his family, and he has to learn he can only make things better by being there for them. He has to learn that he actually can survive and figure out a way forward from his life as a soldier if he lets himself rely on them, just like he only survived Barton IV with help from Mayday. As @moonstrider9904 explains so well in this post, that is what's so important about Crosshair losing the hand and making that final shot to save Omega with Hunter's support. Symbolically he's had that toxic part of himself actually cut off and it's the final, most painful part of his rebirth. But because of that he's forced to find that he can live on without it, that he's surrounded by people who love and believe in him anyway, and that having superhuman skills as a killer was never what gave him worth.

No, having his shooting hand cut off doesn't "fix" anything or mean that Crosshair is healed. He's probably only begun to recover from everything he's been through. But all we really need to see is that he's firmly found his place as part of a family instead of a squad, and he's not going to be alone as he deals with all of that.

[buildingmycottage]

I saw a post here on Tumblr once that went something like "in a world where god, Jesus, and the apostles are all men, that has to do something psychologically to women" and it made me think: The Netflix version of the show "She-Ra Princess of Power" is a show that is HEAVILY women centric. We know maybe three guys in power, King Micah (who, after his return from Beast Island, wasn't *really* in power), the head sorcerer in Mystacor, Hordak/Horde Prime. (please do correct me if I am wrong) The show, albeit about princesses, has the princesses have actual roles. Even the ones that are "weak" or perceived to be weaker than the others (read: Perfuma), are extremely powerful.

The two men whom we consistently meet in the show other than Hordak, Bow and Seahawk, are not the "macho man" in most shows. Seahawk sings an entire shanty as to how lonely he is and how he just wants to be friends with Mermista, and Bow cries and even hugs frequently all the other characters in the show. Both talk about their emotions and work through them in /relatively/ healthy ways (the Dragon's Daughters 1-3 will be sorely missed). My point being, is that the women in the show are shown as strong, beautiful, muscular, fierce, sad, frustrated, loving, traumatized, hurt, laughing, and more. They all have different body shapes/ types of bodies. There are three openly gay couples: Bow's dads, Spinerella and Netossa, and Catra and Adora. Incredible! In a kids show (and adults too lets be real) there are three openly gay couples. No one treats them any different. Bow is one of 13 kids of George and Lance. No one bats an eye. In fact, according to She-Ra Wiki page (https://she-raandtheprincessesofpower.fandom.com/wiki/LGBTQIAP%2B), so many characters are queer. Besides the ones listed above: - Scorpia and Perfuma are romantically involved - Bow is Bisexual - Glimmer is Bisexual - Mermista is Bisexual - Seahawk is Bisexual (dated Falcon) - Falcon is Gay - Lonnie is Poly and Bisexual (dating Rogelio and Kyle) - by extension Rogelio and Kyle are queer - Entrapta is bi - Jewelstar is trans - Peekablue is gender non-conforming - Double Trouble is nonbinary and there is MORE In the show, as there are a ton of non humans, almost any time we meet someone, she/her pronouns are used (see episodes when Best Friend Squad are in the crimson waste). Can't you see how amazing this is? A show where there are no one-dimensional characters, women are constantly having intelligent conversation with one another, women are leaders, women working together, openly queer characters, and a beautiful plot line where there's magic???? When the princesses work together, they turn into the colors of the rainbow and their powers are enhanced. Little girls are getting to see themselves as normal. Women aren't treated as secondary citizens. Hell, almost every Bright Moon guard we see is female. How would the world be different if shows like this were the norm? Where women are able to be magical, and they aren't dressed to show off their bodies? Where women's armor actually protects them? Where they grunt and are sweating after they fight? Where womens' love wins? Why can't this be normal? (Happy Pride!)