#he has a bunch of queer friends who are cooler than him and he feels like he kinda orbits around their friend group

[aro-aceattorney]

GOD sorry i can't get over sad normal. normal who pulled away from the group. normal who married hermie two at 19 and got divorced 2 years later. normal who never stopped feeling weird, no matter how proud his dad is of him. normal who calls hero every week and talks to her for hours. normal who doesn't know his best friends' son. normal who hasn't seen teen high since he graduated.

[canary3d-obsessed]

Lost Tomb Lewks: Reboot Part 11

(LTL Masterpost) (All Canary Masterposts)(Part 10)

I’m making my post titles more specific because I’m loving the clothes in The Mystic Nine and in Ultimate Note, so I expect I’ll continue this series with other shows when I get to the end of Reboot Season 2. 

Look 56 is - surprise! - a cozy sweater. This one is a deep, huggable brown in a sort of waffle stitch (OP is not a knitter; knitters pls feel free to elaborate in comments). He wears this with loose blue jeans and...shoes. This show doesn’t feature his feet often enough for proper shoe commentary. 

This is a perfect look for pacing and talking, half to yourself and half to your buddy, as he gets absolutely, completely baked. 

Wu Xie is doing his pacing while he gazes at an enormous pin board filled with pictures linked together with red string. The red string board is becoming one of my favorite CDrama tropes. I’ve seen it in Detective L, Mystic Nine, that new show with Wue Xie number 2 Psych Hunter, and probably a couple more shows. It’s a thing in older American detective dramas, too, but not in modern ones and not nearly as often. 

It does look cooler than a whiteboard with magnets, but it seems like a lot of work. For this pin board, Wu Xie Wang Meng had to cut a bunch of red string and print out a bazillion cell phone pictures, which someone managed to take during all of the running around & death defying action. All so Wu Xie could theorize that everything connects to...some random point in the middle of the board? I don’t know who these guys are in the middle picture, but I don’t think they’re responsible for all of the rocks in the other pictures. 

If you change your mind about a connection, and move a pin, do you have to re-loop all the string to keep everything taut? What if you need to move an end pin when you’ve already cut the string? Perhaps OP is overthinking this. 

This look is a comfortable one for lying on the couch when you’ve exhausted yourself with string management. 

(more behind the cut!)

I love the aesthetic of this apartment. It appears to be full of furniture taken from Wu Xie’s study in Wushanju, but because it isn’t mixed in with the fancy older antiques, the vibe is totally different. The furniture is midcentury modern, with a lot of warm tones and leather, which matches Wu Xie’s clothing choices. This quality of furniture subtly reminds us that these guys are antique dealers. Even when they’re down and out, they have discerning taste.

The textiles, cushions, the throw blanket on the table, are all colorful, tactile, and comfortable, matching Pangzi’s clothing and overall vibe. Overall the space is a nice mix of both of their looks, which is appropriate for an old married couple long-term roommates. 

He completes this outfit with a olive-green hooded jacket with lots of flaps and pockets. 

Side note: their buddy  Jin Wan Tang (on the left) might be officially gay? Unlike the blatant subtle queer coding that appears in a lot of CDramas, this character (and that one guy in the Rain Village section) seems flamboyant in a stereotypical “gay best friend” way. But I’ve only ever seen one acknowledged gay character in Chinese cinema--the very stereotypical tailor in Kung Fu Hustle--so I don’t know if the semiotics are the same as in western media. 

Anyway, I dig his mix of business suit and funky jewelry, and I share his appreciation of shirtless Xiao Ge (in Season 1, not today, sorry).

Look 57 is actually a rerun of Look 45, but it’s one of my favorites, featuring a beautiful soft suede jacket in a warm camel color. This time we get a much better look at the jacket, so I’m featuring it a second time. (Previously he wore this to hijack Li Jiale’s truck.) The jacket features detailed tailoring, with pleated pockets with flaps and buttons, and a nice strong collar and lapel that contrast with the softness of the material. 

Under this lovely jacket he wears a cream colored sweater, jeans that fit really well for a change, and work boots. 

This outfit is good for mournfully looking at a heap of smashed ceramics. 

It’s also good for struggling through a gas attack designed specifically to destroy your unhealthy lungs...

...and make you hork up blood, because it’s not a Zhu Yilong show if there’s no mouth blood, and it’s been at least a couple of episodes since we’ve had any. 

This look is perfect for going to visit your snippy ex-boyfriend while you’re unconscious, so he can bitchily save your life. 

“Hey, Canary,” you might have thought up above, “with all these above-the waist shots, how can you tell his jeans fit well?”

This. This is how. 

Oh and hey, we finally get a really good look at his shoes. His shoes, people. 

Look 58 belongs to bitchy doctor/chef Huo Daofu. 

He’s wearing a white double-breasted chef’s coat featuring contrasting piping and buttons. It is perfectly fitted, which will will learn is true of everything this man wears. 

Over the jacket he’s got an immaculate work apron, and under it he’s wearing a thin grey turtleneck sweater with ribbed collar and cuffs. He wears turtlenecks a lot. Whoever is giving him hickeys, it’s not Wu Xie any more because he hates Wu Xie. Hates him! 

Cue endless tender medical care and eventual deep abiding friendship. Also possibly shacking up, it’s hard to tell how many people really live in Wushanju at any given time. 

The first part of Look 59 is a deep olive-green long-sleeve tee shirt worn over a grey undershirt. 

It’s a shirt. It’s green. 

He looks really fucking good in it, okay? His arms are beautiful even when they’re covered up.  This shirt needs three gifs because...it just does.

Look 60 is Bai Haotian’s awesome green satin roller-disco jacket. 

The styling is straight out of 1979, which is long before she was born, making this a fun retro throwback. Or possibly she borrowed it from her grandma. The collar and cuffs have sporty black-and-white ribbing.

The jacket has nice contemporary details to give it a fresh look. These include suns, moons, and mountains (I think) running down the arms in a contrast stripe, and the words “magical altitudes” in embroidered sections on the back and chest. 

Wu Xie’s Look 59, Part 2 is also featured in these caps. He’s put a strangely short waisted grey jacket over his nice green shirt. Other than the short waist, it fits nicely. 

Those jeans, on the other hand. Wu Xie’s ass deserves better treatment than this. Paging Xiao Ge

Periodic reminder: Xiao Bai is absurdly, absurdly pretty. 

So is Wu Xie.

Bonus Look 1: Okay, Xue Wu is a bad bad man but damn, his clothes are always amazing. He favors emphatically Chinese looks, but always  with contemporary tailoring details, so he doesn’t look old fashioned. For his daughter’s wedding he’s wearing a deep blue suit with blue embroidery and this cool gold collar pin. 

Bonus Look 2 is Wu Xie in his favorite blue marl sweater. Or he has a few blue marl sweaters. Anyway, this time he’s lying down and resting his eyelashes while he wears it. 

[aion-rsa]

Why The Great North Isn’t Just Another Bob’s Burgers

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It’s easy to take one look at FOX’s newest animated comedy, The Great North, and assume it’s exactly like the long running and beloved Bob’s Burgers. Two of The Great North’s creators wrote a good chunk of Bob’s Burgers episodes and the shows share a near-identical art style after all. At first glance some of the Bob’s Burgers character archetypes seem to be involved as well: awkward daughter, an odd sarcastic youngest child, and a loving, if somewhat offbeat, father.  So why bother with something like Bob’s Burgers when you could just watch Bob’s Burgers?

While there are a few surface similarities, by the end of the first episode of The Great North you’ll realize there’s so much more to it than just an Alaskan set version of the Belcher family. It’s got humor all its own, unique characters, and the potential to be something that isn’t merely a rival to Bob’s Burgers but a truly unique experience.

So let’s head up north to discover all the reasons why The Great North is so wonderful. As a brief primer, the show is set in Alaska and follows the Tobin family with fisherman dad Beef, artistic daughter Judy, loveably dumb son Ham, bear-suit wearing son Moon, oldest and eager to please son Wolf, his always chipper and new to Alaska fiancé Honeybee, and Judy’s best imaginary friend Alanis Morissette…played by Alanis Morssette.

The Family’s Lack of a Mom is Refreshingly Handled

A lack of a mom is a huge trope in animation at this point (look at damn near every ‘90s Disney movie) and if there is a mom, especially in a comedy, she tends to be wacky or overly loving. The Great North puts a new twist on both of these in its very first episode.

The plot of the premiere deals with Beef struggling to get over his ex-wife years after she abandoned the family. An ex-wife isn’t anything to write home about, a single dad taking care of a family is a comedy trope in of itself, but it’s what we learn about Beef’s ex that makes this element so refreshing.

Instead of the mom just not being present or having died off screen, Beef only acts like she’s dead, a fabrication everyone goes along with to keep him sane. When he isn’t around though Judy is quick to point out the rest of the family doesn’t buy this and they never liked her much anyway. She even flat out states,

“She was a really bad mom, okay? And it was actually better when she left.”

The other kids then list off horrible things she did, like name their dog Grandma solely so, “she wouldn’t be lying when she said we were with Grandma when people asked.” She runs a blog with her “new lover” about stores that wont chase you if you shoplift. Even in her goodbye letter to Ham she just wrote, “smell you later.”

I love this so much because it replaces all the easy sentimentality of a dead or simply absent mom that comedies love and instead opens up some fantastic new storytelling opportunities. In the pilot alone it gives us deep insight into Beef, that despite how awful she was he refuses to think anything but the best of her. Why is he like that? Is it his way of not thinking about all the terrible things she did? She’s left him so broken he has to concoct an elaborate fantasy to keep himself sane. It makes you instantly love the character and while he does seemingly get over this denial in the pilot I can foresee it impacting him for the rest of the series.

It’s also so refreshing because the kids aren’t all that broken up about it. Knowing their mom was terrible helps reflect a lot of what kids go through in real life. Sometimes they just have a bad parent and there’s no deep explanation of why, they just are and it’s not great. Maybe Judy and the others are hurt by this and I’d love to see the show tackle that in the future but even if it strictly keeps this part of their characters on the comedic side of things? It’s empowering. These kids aren’t broken up by their awful mom and want her back; they’re thriving BECAUSE she isn’t around. 

Nick Offerman Being Nick Offerman

Over the years Nick Offerman has perfected the deadpan and loveable character that brought him to fame in Parks and Recreation. His role as Beef isn’t a major departure from that mold but it does allow Offerman to be even warmer than his most famous character. 

As Beef he’s a capable man who gets up to see the sun rise and chop wood. He loves nature so much he steals a potted plant from a mall to take better care of it. His love for his family is on full display and he often goes to absurd lengths to keep them together. Offerman brings a great charm to the role and all of the jokes he delivers are winners. 

The Rural Location

Bob’s Burgers draws much inspiration from its city setting, while The Great North is set in rural Alaska. This may seem like a surface level change but once again opens up all kinds of new opportunities for stories and characters. Where the Belcher family was somewhat cynical to city life (you would be to with a landlord breathing down your neck) the Tobin family openly embraces the chilly north.

Judy sits out on the roof and talks with her imaginary best friend, Moon takes great pride in his ability to mimic a soon to be eaten cadaver laying out in the snow, and Beef specifically gets up every morning to stare in wild wonder at Alaska’s majesty while whispering “hot dog.” The whole family even delights in going to the mall, which is the kind of joy only someone living out in the middle of nowhere can truly appreciate.

The Different Character Dynamics

Even after eleven truly fantastic seasons Bob’s Burgers characters still manage to never feel stale and the team behind the show always finds new ways to play around with them. With such a rock solid cast of characters you’d think they could tackle any story imaginable but The Great North is already proving to be a home for stories that just wouldn’t work for Bob’s Burgers.

The most noticeable change is that most of the kids are older. Judy and Ham are both sixteen which opens up a lot of possibilities that couldn’t be done with the Belcher kids. They can get involved in more serious relationships, have jobs (as Judy gets in the first episode), and are able to be more autonomous from the family. Wolf, the oldest of all of them, is engaged! Imagine what could be done with a soon-to-be married couple? Honeybee herself also functions as a delighted fish out of water to Alaska, her thoughts on the Tobins’ life a needed commentary. Her outgoing personality also clashes well with Moon’s stoic nature.

Read more

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The 10 Best Bob’s Burgers Episodes

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Judy and Ham also share a more loving sibling dynamic than any of the Belcher kids ever have. In Bob’s Burgers the kids don’t wear their hearts on their sleeves, they’re more likely to make sarcastic quips about one other. The Great North though has Judy and Ham share a special bond, the two have a secret handshake that goes for an indeterminable amount of time. It’s really sweet and it makes me excited to see what kind of comedy can be mined from this more openly affectionate family.

Ham Is Gay And I Love Him

Ham is my favorite character so far in this show. He’s a little slow on the uptake but loves everyone in his family a lot and can even make a perfect replica of a cadaver… in the form of a cake. He also happens to be gay, a fact that is wonderfully confirmed in the first episode when he blurts out, “I AM GAY!

To which Moon responds, “we know. You’ve come out to us a bunch of times.”

Beef then adds, “we love you just the way you are, damn it!”

Ham, clearly not remembering his past comings-out, yells, “WELL, THANK YOU FOR BEING AN ALLY!”

It’s a great scene and kicks any subtext out the door. Queer audiences don’t have to sit around guessing who COULD be queer in the show (as they’re so often forced to do with so little representation in media) there’s a character who said OUT LOUD he’s gay. He’s one of us!

Bob’s Burgers has had several one-time gay characters (Bob did refer to himself as “mostly straight” once but that was more of a gag) but getting a gay teen in the main cast is sublime. He’s also a different sort of gay teen then we’re used to in television, with a tiny “probably thinks it’s cooler than it actually is” mustache and his “not quite all there” personality. He’s not a stereotype, he’s got some obvious flaws, but he’s loveable! Sure enough, his family loves him and accepts him.

Having a gay character in the cast opens up so many story possibilities. Are there any other gay kids in this rural town? What if there’s only one and he’s forced to date him? Does he know what kind of guys he likes yet? Where do the gay kids hang out in this town? 

It also must be reiterated that his family loves him and accepts him. While drama over coming out and acceptance is totally valid, I’m glad that Ham will get the chance to just be gay and his family will support him all the way. We can just see him happily (if somewhat absent-mindedly) live his life and that’s needed in a world with so little queer representation. As a pansexual man myself it’s heartwarming. I wish I had a character like Ham when I was growing up. 

Alanis Morissette Is A Main Character

Yes, Alanis Morissette is in The Great North (played by the actual Alanis Morissette) but in an absolutely perfect choice she’s not the REAL Alanis Morissette, she’s Judy’s best imaginary friend who just happens to be Alanis Morissette. Judy’s artistic so it makes sense she’d look up to someone as incredible as the Canadian musical genius. As an imaginary best friend she tends to serve as a sounding board for Judy’s thoughts and gives absolutely flawless advice.

Even better though? The imaginary Alanis Morissette also only appears in the Aurora Borealis. That’s… incredible. What a way to take advantage of the show’s location!

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 The Great North is a delight. It’s only been two episodes (the third one premieres February 14 and the first two are available on Hulu) but it’s already shown a lot of promise. Not in the “oh it’ll get good eventually” sense but in the “no it’s already great and I want to see more of it!” Don’t think of it as another Bob’s Burgers, just think of it as its own wonderful moose-filled show (it’s Alaska, what did you expect) and you’ll have a fantastic time. Truly, in these dark times we could all use a little help from imaginary best friend Alanis Morissette.

The post Why The Great North Isn’t Just Another Bob’s Burgers appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[storytime-with-moth]

Sokka and Zuko are rival RA’s

Writing Prompt - take what you like - I don’t need credit but I would love to read what you write! 

Now I have never stayed on campus before but TikTok has informed me that being an RA is like babysitting a bunch newly minted “adults”

I think it would be in cannon for both of the boys to have gravitated towards the responsibility, but come at it from two different angles.

Sokka gives me camp counselor, themed rooms, will show up to parties organize lots of mingle events, and is very approachable. Sokka probably took the job for the money and free room and board at first but ends up enjoying being a leader and bringing some safe fun to the freshmen. He especially likes that he can keep an eye on his little sisters boyfriend who is like a brother to him. Man that kid gets into trouble with that yes lets attitude of his. (No Aang you can’t fly)

Zuko gives me more of an orderly, and reserved vibe. Room rules are typed and handed out. His kids say he is really nice once he gets talking but he definitely gives off a scary frost impression. Zuko holds tea time hours in his room for kids to come and hang out and ask for guidance and advice.

Zuko and Sokka are in wings or floors next to each other, so their kids start a my RA is cooler than yours war which turns into a prank and party war. (Anything you can do I can do better)

Zuko and Sokka get pulled into the nonsense and actually start to get to know each other.

The freshmen then decide that war is not the answer but getting their RA’s to fall in love is.

Things I would love to see

Zuko subtly has pride things on his door (maybe a safe space sticker)

it is unspoken knowledge that Zuko's tea time is also a great opportunity to ask for LGBTQ sex Ed and health advice no judgement (god knows that the children didn’t get taught say queer sex in high school. He will provide condoms and dental dams)

Sokka has a bi pirate flag in his room because he is obviously a himbo birate

Sokka themes his floors rooms with magical elements (even funnier if bending is still in the AU - “uh sokka? It says I’m in the lava bending room. “Yes you are Lee!” “But I’m an air bender? “Yes you are Lee!” )

Once the pranks get out of hand Sokka shows up to tea time with Zuko and they have a really awkward tea (“So…. Are kids are at war?” “Yes… would you like some tea?” “Ya why not”)

Sokka and Zuko are some of the kids emergency contacts who have no families and one night they both show up to the ER to pick up two freshmen who got into a fight and they get all mother hen about the injuries and also disappointed mum about getting into fights

Sokka is in water polo or hockey (or maybe he just likes to go swimming late at night to clear his anxiety ADHD brain) so he always has wet hair from the showers and keeps weird hours (maybe runs into insomniac Zuko now and again)

Sokka starts showing up to more tea times and him and Zuko play pai sho

Aang definitely drinks to much at his first party and tries to fly

One of Sokka's dads has to be a professor or scientist so Zuko can marvel at the two men switching to a different language and talking with such passion about whatever to each other, a father and son on equal footing

Zukos is amazed by Sokka's two dads in general

Sokka becomes best friends with Iroh

Aang, Katara, Ty Lee, Toph, and Azula (maybe Haru and Teo) are all new students either first or second year

Sokka, Zuko, Mai and Suki are all older

Sokkas freshmen girlfriend (Yue) was killed in a drunk driver/driving accident or something tragic and so while he’s having fun being an RA he is also taking it very seriously (making sure no one drives and every drinks water) and hasn’t drank since her death

Feel free to add on

freshmen hijinks

Zukka moments

What’s the boys would be like as RA's

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

What would u say are the best and worst book narrated by each character ?

I sat down to come up with my least favorite book by each narrator and had a pretty easy time of it — there’s an unfortunate dip in quality in the series around #39 - #43 that I can point to as definitely not my faves — and then ended up totally baffled by how to choose JUST ONE favorite book by each narrator, because such a task is almost impossible.  In conclusion, I really love Animorphs, as you probably never would have guessed from reading this blog.  So, with a little cheating, here goes:

Tobias

Least favorite: #43, The Test

The plot of this book pretty much requires that all of the characters, but most notably Rachel and Jake, act in ways that really don’t fit with their behavior for the rest of the series.  My cynical hypothesis about What Was The Ghost Even Thinking rhymes with schmender schtereotyping, but even if I more kindly assume that everyone was just acting strange to jerk Taylor around, I can’t really enjoy this book.

Favorite: #49, The Diversion

Tobias’s point of view works so well for this book, because its plot draws attention to his status as a partial outsider not only for human society as a whole but also for his team.  He’s literally trapped in a liminal space that here actually gives him a lot of perspective on his friends’ families — and the importance of sticking close to his own.  (And by that I mean 93% Ax, 7% Loren.)

Other favorite: #23, The Pretender

Speaking of Tobias being sort of stuck between roles, this book is so good because it shows the strength of his position as both able to access and able to escape being human.  He moves flexibly between a ton of different roles in this book — a leader to the hork-bajir, a supporter to Jake, a parent to himself, a son to Elfangor, a quasi-hawk, a quasi-human, a quasi-andalite — and does so with astounding grace and aplomb.  Resting bitchface has never seemed like a cooler accidental superpower.

Another favorite: #33, The Illusion

This book is the brutal shadow-self to #23, instead shutting Tobias out of a whole bunch of different roles over the course of the plot.  It does however contain one of the series’s best villains (Taylor is terrifyingly sympathetic) and some of its best moments of heartwarming body horror in the final battle.

Ax

Least favorite: #8, The Alien

Honestly, there’s nothing really wrong with this book, but there’s nothing amazingly right about it either.  It has a few great moments (Jake’s naïve optimism at the kandron’s destruction giving way to fear for Tom, Ax having dinner with Cassie’s family, Tobias definitely not tattling on Ax) but overall the plot is just kind of inane and doesn’t do much to move the series forward.

Favorite: #38, The Arrival

Estrid et al. act as such a cool check-in for not only how much Ax has grown as a person through spending too much time around humans, but also how much the team as a whole has grown until they are actually more effective warriors than a group of battle-trained andalite assassins.  Every time I reread this book I end up making noises of triumph and fist-pumping the air, no matter how public my location is at the time.

Favorite favorite: #46, The Deception

This plot hinges on the stark contrast between Ax’s terrible and unavoidable awareness about the horror of open war and the Animorphs’ lack of standard of comparison beyond “hey, remember D-Day?”  MM3 and #28 both do important work to condemn humanity from the outside, but this book actually uses Ax’s perspective primarily for celebrating the whole human species from an outsider’s point of view.

Marco

Least favorite: #40, The Other

As I’ve mentioned here, at this book’s core is an interesting concept that very emphatically does not age well.  On top of the cringe-inducing attempt at an After School Special treatment of the idea that (*gasp*) queer men with AIDS are human too, it also has a largely nonsensical plot that strains both credulity and logic.

Favorite: #25, The Extreme

It’s a brilliant use of Marco’s perspective to comment on the constraints and terrifying outer reaches of Jake’s leadership, one that also contains a highly enjoyable mix of humor and horror.  Because Marco.  I could reread this one a thousand times and still find new aspects of the narration to delight in.

Also favorite: #15, The Escape

This book makes amazing use of Marco’s unreliable narration and lack of self-insight to contrast his willingness to imagine himself confronting sharks with his willingness to run from them upon a real encounter, along with his determination to kill his mom and his inability to stop himself from saving her.  Marco is at his most human in this book, and also his most lovable.

Also also favorite: #51, The Absolute

The governor of probably-California is one of my favorite minor characters in the series, and I absolutely love the dynamic between Marco-Tobias-Ax any time it occurs (this book, #46, #30, #49), meaning that this surprisingly fun aside acts as a much-needed breath of fresh air and comic relief in between the Animorphs losing the morphing cube (#50) and blowing up the Yeerk Pool (#52).  Plus, Marco + tank  = OTP.

Cassie

Least favorite: #39, The Hidden

I’ve said most of this before, but this book is just… nonsensical.  And it’s not delightfully nonsensical like parts of #26 or #14, it’s mostly cringe-inducingly nonsensical.

Favorite: #29, The Sickness

Arguably this is the best Animorphs book, both IMHO and by fan consensus.  It’s got a simple but devlishly difficult plot, a ton of great characterization moments for all six kids, a handful of brilliant devices and settings that meld beautifully to Cassie’s overall character arc, and a wide-reaching perspective on the importance of overcoming difference that is a huge part of what makes these books so good.  It’s also funny, horrifying, edge-of-your-seat engaging, and tear-inducingly beautiful at the very end.

Also my favorite: #4, The Message

Whereas #29 is probably just hands-down the best book ever written, #4 holds a special place in my heart because it’s the first Animorphs book I ever read and the one that convinced me to go find the rest of the series.  This one is sweet and mystical, bleak with the dawning realization that these poor defenseless cinnamon rolls are in this war alone but also hopeful with the realization that these precious cinnamon rolls are in this war together.

Jake

Least favorite: #47, The Resistance

Although I’m of the opinion that #41 is more poorly-plotted, this book manages to be both poorly plotted and glaringly racist.  Its plot doesn’t make sense on several different levels, not the least that Visser Three knows how to find the hork-bajir valley in this book and then apparently forgets how to get there for the entire rest of the series.  And don’t get me started on Jake’s reprehensible behavior from the moment he casually declares Tom “as good as dead,” through to him trying to boss Toby about what’s best for Toby herself, all the way on to him being a jerk to Rachel and Marco. Blah.

Favorite: #31, The Conspiracy

Unlike #47, this book actually makes really good use of Jake’s character flaws to drive the plot forward — he’s bad at being vulnerable, and that ends up being a huge problem for his team.  It also leans hard on the irony of Jake being the only one with a “textbook” family (i.e. upper-middle class, heteronormative and monogamous, European-American, traditionally gendered, outwardly happy) and also being the only one under constant threat for his life any time he’s at home, thereby accomplishing one of the series’s better comments on the fact that children’s lives aren’t as simple as we’d like to think.

Favoriter: #53, The Answer

There are definitely flaws with RL implications in this book, but the plot is so freaking brilliant that I can still regard it as a Problematic Fave.  The final battle is so well-engineered and the Moral Event Horizon is so terrifying as it swings by that I assign this book to myself for rereading any time I’m struggling to write action or battle.  It’s a scary, awful book, but also a very fitting capstone to the series.

Favoritest: #26, The Attack

This setting is so cool.  This plot is so cosmic and yet so personal.  This use of the chee is so bitingly brilliant in its commentary on pacifism as a luxury not everyone can afford.  This story has so many moments that are either heartbreaking callbacks (the opening scene with Tom’s memories from #6) or bloodcurdling foreshadowing (Jake and Rachel’s casually absolute trust that each will be willing and able to kill the other if necessary).  This narration feels like a middle-aged and yet middle-school protagonist struggling to figure out who he wants to be — and defeating a cosmic power at its own game with the power of love.  I could gush forever.

Rachel

Least favorite: #48, The Return

Again, there’s nothing truly wrong with this book; it’s just a silly and inconsequential aside into the main character’s maybe-dreams at a time when the plot outside her head is heating up to the boiling point.  It makes this whole thing come off kind of like Bilbo sleeping through the Battle of Five Armies.

Favorite: #27, The Exposed

I’m not normally a big one for romance, but this book makes me ship Rachel and Tobias so hard that my tiny bitter walnut of a heart grows two sizes every time I read it.  Rachel has such great self-awareness that she doesn’t like any situation she cannot control or at least do violent battle against, and yet she dives into the bottom of the ocean with both eyes open and her chin up because that’s what she has to do to protect the rest of her team.  Crayak has no idea what he’s talking about when it comes to asking her to turn on her loved ones.

Additional favorite: #32, The Separation

As I’ve said, I didn’t really get this book until I realized that it’s not so much about Rachel herself as it is about how the rest of her team views her, and how she defies their simple categorizations, both well-meaning (Cassie) and not (Jake), through simply being herself.  Rachel is both masculine and feminine, both tough and vulnerable, and she makes no apologies for any of it.

And another favorite: #37, The Weakness

This book has an important role for the rest of the series in that it shows how the Animorphs’ guerilla tactics can easily be taken too far, and also how Jake’s discernment of his teammates’ strengths and weaknesses keeps them all alive.  Rachel makes a fair number of logical-seeming decisions in this book that prove short-sighted, and of course it all leads to her and Jake’s brutal Checkovian epiphany at the end.

Added additional also favorite: #22, The Solution

A brutal but powerful read, this book focuses on the ugliest parts of Rachel’s personality (her sadism toward David) but also the most powerful ones (her compassion for Saddler and protectiveness toward both Jake and Jordan).  It also shows that her reckless taste for violence and her boundless desire to protect her families both biological and found are actually two sides of the same part of her personality.

Okay I have a lot of favorite Rachel books: #17, The Underground

It’s oat-freaking-meal.  Only it’s not just oat-freaking-meal, and I’m not talking about the extra-tasty maple and ginger flavoring.  It’s a biological weapon.  It’s a way to harm the enemy, but only through harming prisoners of war.  It’s a social dilemma the like of which we rarely see in children’s books.  It’s a lesson in decision making under uncertainty.  It’s a moral imperative, but no one is quite sure what that imperative is saying.  It’s a deconstruction of the implied assumption that it’s possible to write adventure stories in which no one gets hurt.  It’s awesome.  It’s hilarious.  It’s disturbing as fuck.  Welcome to Animorphs.

[sagegothel]

SCISSOR SISTERS → STI

TAGGING → Izzie Bash (@izziebash), Tia La Bouff (@tiaisms) & Sage Gothel

TIMELINE → October 5th, 2018

SETTING → Walt U Homecoming Football Game

SUMMARY → After Sage tweets something weird and disappears in the middle of hte game, Tia and Izzie take it upon themselves to go find her. 

Izzie cheered for the football game before her to get her mind off of what was troubling her. The halftime performance was only like, fifteen minutes away and Sage was nowhere to be found. She had been there once, but then she ran off and hadn't come back. Maybe she'd wandered off and fell in a well, or got insecure about Wayland and ran off to torment Meadow some more, or something else dumb. But this was the homecoming game. One of their biggest performances of the year! Why would she miss it? Then Izzie thought about what Meadow had told her, and how down Sage had been feeling, and while she wanted to be a good friend to Meadow, she couldn't help but feel a little bad for Sage. She just hoped she was alright. Izzie walked off to get some water at a nearby cooler and checked her phone for a moment, scrolling through Twitter. Out of curiosity, she searched up @sizzlingsage and quickly unblocked her, relieved that she hadn't been blocked back so she could see her posts, only to be shocked by what she found. The most recent one read "time to go bye bye" with a cryptic scissor emoji. Izzie furrowed her brow, trying to wrack her brain for what that could possibly mean. Sage wasn't the smartest, but her twitter was never so bleak. There was no going back now, Izzie was in full worry-mode. Spotting Tia nearby, Izzie accosted her with the tweet on her screen facing out to her. "Look, I know we hate each other now, and the feeling is definitely mutual, but look at this. Do you know anything about this?" she asked Tia, handing her her phone.

Tia was busy minding her own business stretching out her hamstrings as she prepared herself mentally for Halftime when Izzie came running up to her with a phone in her hand. Tia read the screen for a moment before glancing at Izzie in confusion. "Does she mean she's going to have sex with girls now? Cuz last I checked she and your cousin are still disgusting. But what else could it mean?" She asked, looking back at the phone just as it buzzed with an incoming text message. Tia couldn't help but read the message in the notification bar since it could possibly be clarification from Sage herself, and then immediately blushed when it turned out to be from someone else entirely. "By the way L'ogan really likes your cheer skirt." She giggled, handing her ex-bestie her phone back.

Izzie felt her cheeks go red as Tia recited L'ogan's text to her and snatched her phone back. "No, no one comes out like that. Not even Sage is that dense," Izzie rolled her eyes before exhaling and running a hand through her hair. "I don't know, I just have like...a really bad gut feeling. Vivi-- Meadow," she was quick to correct herself, " -- told me that Sage had been really sad and insecure and annoying lately about her and Wayland, and I dunno, you have Wes and Charlie and the @ pack and I have my new roommates, but I don't know who Sage has been hanging out with. You live with her. Does she seem any different? Lonelier or something?" She didn't want to outright say what she was worried the tweet might mean, and hoped Tia might fill in the blanks without her having to.

Tia shrugged and started to go back to stretching. "I dunno, Charlie came out by having sex with a bunch of people and that's kind of on brand for Sage. As Izzie continued talking, Tia slowly started to understand what she was trying to say. Tia finally stopped worrying about the halftime performance and started thinking hard about Sage's recent behavior. "Gosh, I don't know either. I haven't been paying that much attention to her when i'm not...um keeping her out of my parties. You don't think she's cutting herself like that girl from Netflix, right?" She asked, practically whispering her question in terror as her face paled at the thought.

Izzie cocked a brow, considering that for a second. "Charlie's queer?" she frowned contemplatively, wondering how her gaydar could have been so off about the younger La Bouff. But then she snapped herself out of that, and started focusing on the actual topic here: Sage. "Yeah, Lux told me about your brilliant little plan at that party. You locked her in her own room in her own cottage? How mean." She wasn't really mad at Tia for it, and her tone showed. Tia could do worse. She was moreso thinking like Sage in that situation, and how terrible that must have made her feel. "And I've been calling her stupid to Meadow behind her back...That's not like, mean in person, but it puts out negative energy that I'm sure she had to feel." Izzie gnawed on her bottom lip as Tia voiced exactly what she'd been thinking. "I don't know, maybe? She wouldn't do something like that, do you think? She's not..." Izzie shrugged vaguely, not knowing how to finish that sentence. Instead, she jumped to her next idea. "We need to find her. Like, now. She tweeted this almost ten minutes ago, we could be too late already."

Tia blinked. "No? She's bi." She replied, wondering where in the talk of bi did she get the word queer. "Why's he snitching to you? Sage was mean first and I was mean better." She replied, crossing her arms over her chest a little petulantly before immediately dropping them since now wasn't the time to defend herself. "I don't know what'd she do. On one hand she doesn't seem that Hannah Bakery. But on the other, if Wayland was my only friend i'd go bye bye too." Tia frowned even more when Izzie said they might already bee too late and felt tears quickly begin to well up in her eyes. "Where would she go then? If she walked back to our cottage we could run and try to catch up with her. Would that work?"

Izzie huffed some air out through her cheeks with a roll of the eyes, not exactly in the mood to explain LGBTQ+ labels to Tia, or be offended at the joke she made at her cousin’s expense. She didn’t even want to explain that the only reason Tia thought Sage had been mean first was because she had been standing up for her. This wasn’t the time to fight. It was the time to find Sage. Izzie caught her bottom lip between her teeth, and gave a shrug. She really had no clue. “I don’t know. I mean, I guess we could try? That seems like our best bet,” she nodded, suddenly remembering how that Netflix season ended and got a little queasy. “Come on,” Izzie started for the nearest exit in a light jog so as to not draw too much attention to the two cheerleaders who were ditching the game right before halftime. Just as they passed the bathroom closest to the WU gym, Izzie heard a scream. She sent Tia a worried glance, but didn’t hesitate to barge in.

Sage was so sick of feeling sad and heavy and gross all of the time. She'd tried everything that normally worked to make her feel better already - her super rad diet, cuddling with Wayland, wearing purple, making up new dances - but all of her old tricks seemed to be failing. It seemed that nothing cheered a person up when they suddenly had no friends, and it felt like every time she tried to make a new one, she got shut down. Lux was nice to her, but he had his little demon girlfriend who like, death glared Sage whenever possible. She would have tried to make Freddie be her friend, but Izzie like, beat her to it. She'd even thought maybe Wayland's best friend would be nice to her if she was like, trying to find her a boyfriend too, but apparently being nicer than usual just made people hate Sage more. She wasn't the smart one like Izzie, she wasn't the rich boss-lady one like Tia, and she must not even be the pretty one anymore because nobody seemed to want to be around. Did that make Sage the nothing one? Being the nothing one was sad. Sage had started thinking more and more about just leaving Walt and going back home to her mom. At least Mother Gothel loved her and would never abandon her - she'd been sending her more and more notes inviting her to come back after she'd peaced out during the summer on the worst trip ever, and Sage was mega close to just doing it. She had to try one more thing first, though. A haircut had like, turned Kori's whole life around, even making her little sibling a hottie homecoming queen candidate. And it had made Kori nice to her for the first time ever. So when even cheering at the homecoming game wasn't making Sage happy anymore - the opposite, really; she'd left the field because she'd started to feel her eyes pricking with tears, seeing Izzie and Tia's big smiles and how much they didn't need her and maybe never had - she decided to go ahead and just follow Kori's lead. Maybe a magic hair cut would solve all of her problems, and if it didn't... Well, then maybe more than Sage's hair could go bye bye. She'd tell Wayland she loved him and like, thanks for being the only one who still cared, but that he could be with someone smarter and prettier like Meadow now too and she'd just go back to her tower and leave everyone alone. Sage ran her fingers through her long, dark hair one last time, loving the silky smooth feel of it. Then the used one hand to hold it out to the side, as straight as she could, as she raised the scissors she'd brought to the bathroom with her other hand and snipped. It took a minute for Sage to process what she was seeing in the mirror. The messed up make up and tear streaked face were nothing new, but she let the clump of short hair fall back to her head as she clutched inches and inches of detached hair in her fist, and blinked in horror before letting out a blood-curdling scream.

Tia glanced at Izzie at the exact same time as she glanced at her and burst into the bathroom with her. Immediately she felt relief at seeing Sage clearly not dead and then let out a bloodcurdling scream as she realized what was happening with Sage's head. Other than purple, long mermaid like hair was major Sage iconography. "What happened to your head!?" She screeched, running over like Sage really did have a razor blade jammed in her wrist and threw the scissors across the room before surveying the hair damage up close.

Izzie didn’t know exactly what she was looking at when she came into the bathroom. It wasn’t until she saw the clumps of hair detached from Sage’s body did she bring the palm of her hand to her mouth with a gasp. She followed behind Tia, coming up on Sage with a more calm demeanor — she didn’t want to scare her when she was clearly already disturbed. “What Tia means to say is....Why are you cutting your hair and why are you doing it in a bathroom at a football game? Rapunzel’s like, totally has a homecoming discount right now.” She took Sage’s chopped ends into her hands and fluffed them out to survey the damage. She was glad that Sage seemed to be okay, but then remembered that that girl from the show had also cut her hair. It was one of those things that people sometimes did when they wanted to feel something. “Are you....okay?” Izzie asked tenderly, combing her fingers through Sage’s longer strands.

Sage didn't know how long she screamed for before Izzie and Tia barged into the bathroom. It could have been five seconds or it could have been five years; time felt all blurry and weird to Sage, and she was pretty sure she had to be hallucinating now anyway. Tia and Izzie would never have come to search for her, especially not together, and Sage sniffled, the tears starting again as she realized how sad that made her. The two girls were the best thing that had ever happened to her, and she apparently missed them so much that she was seeing them where they couldn't possibly be. Except the scissors skittering across the floor sounded real, and the feel of Izzie's fingers felt real, too. And when she looked in the mirror they were actually in the reflection with her, too, and Sage took a minute to stop her chest from heaving with quiet sobs before she said anything. "No," she wailed, calm enough to talk but still not as calm as she would have liked to have been. "I look like weirdo punk rock Avril Lavigne got hit by a weed whacker or something!" she said, looking at her hair in horror before looking at the two of them. She didn't know if she was really supposed to answer Izzie's other questions; they might be here now, but if she said she wasn't okay because she missed them, she risked them telling her that they didn't miss her at all. Maybe they were only here because they needed to pee or because she was messing up the homecoming cheer routine, and she bit on her lip. "I don't know, a hair cut made Kori way more likeable, I thought I could like... try it or something," she replied, blinking her eyes until they felt dryer. "And Rapunzel's is still expensive, so like... sorry?" she trailed off lamely.

Tia felt terrible watching Sage cry like that, especially with most of her hair gone, she felt like she was watching the most surreal and terrible production of Les Mis ever. She wanted to hug her so bad that it only took half a second of wondering if that was appropriate before she actually did it. "You totally look worse than that, oh my god." Tia said, crying into Sage's shoulder before sobbing even harder because it had been so long since the last time they had hugged last and Sage was usually her favorite shoulder to cry on so there was like a weird Pavlovian effect happening there too. "You didn't have to wreck your head to be more likable, you're so great. And also please don't kill youself because your hair is bad and you don't have friends because I locked you in your room. You're like the best person ever and I'm sorry that you didn't feel like it enough to risk ruining your hair like this. It's all me and Izzie's fault!" She ramble wailed at Sage, lacking every bit of the ability Sage had at eventually composing herself. So Tia was still crying like a crazy person when she pulled away from hugging Sage to look at her hair again. "I think I could probably even it out to look cute enough until we can book you an appointment at Rapunzel's. Would that be okay?"

Izzie caught her bottom lip between her teeth, biting back tears as she watched Sage sob and heard Tia totally not help that fact as she sobbed too. "No, you look fine! It's just shorter, and hair always grows back, and me and T have had bobs and they're super cute!" she tried. But then Tia went on her big mess of a ramble, and Izzie's quivering lower lip finally gave way to tears, too. "It's so our fault. I should never have told you about ViviMeadow and Wayland. It was so mean and dumb and Wayland totally has so many reasons to like you better, because you're amazing." What she'd said to Sage that day in Tennessee had haunted her for months, she was so glad to get it off of her chest that she didn't really think Wayland had no reasons to like her. She leaned her head on Sage's other shoulder and sobbed, letting it finally hit her how much she missed being with the two of them. She hadn't smelled the combination of all three of their perfumes in so long, when she inhaled the realization only made her cry harder. Pulling away, she nodded frantically in agreement with Tia. "Yeah! This could be like, a lob! Those look good on everyone," Izzie sniffled, tucking a few strands behind Sage's ear before looking at the three of them -- three sobbing messes -- in the mirror. She picked up the scissors and handed them to Tia, not knowing how to voice what she wanted so badly to say. "I'm so glad we found you," she gave Sage's shoulders a squeeze. "I um....kind of really miss you guys. Like, what happened in Tennessee still hurts when I think about it, but feeling like we're never going to be friends again hurts even more."

Sage 's mouth parted slightly in confusion when Tia told her not to kill herself, of all things. She knew that her eating habits sometimes were so not a good idea and might like, end up with that happening to her, but she'd never tried to hurt herself like that on purpose. She was too happy that Tia and Izzie were here and crowding around her like they used to before to even care if that was the only reason they'd come looking, though. Sage wrapped her arms around both of them, not wanting to let them get too far away from her ever again. "I'm so not going anywhere now," she promised, tears streaming down her cheeks again. This time they were happy ones, though; she'd never felt as much relief as she felt knowing that they didn't still hate her after all, and that maybe things were actually going to be okay. "I was like, thinking about just leaving Walt forever and going back to my tower or something, if I was going to be locked in places anyway, but I like it here so, so much better. You know, with you guys," Sage said, her voice watery from all the crying. She probably looked like a raccoon now on top of the butt-ugly hair, but she could be the most hideous person in the whole universe right now and Sage thought maybe that would be okay as long as Tia and Izzie didn't leave. "Are you guys sure?" she asked them hopefully, not sure if she was asking about them fixing her hair or about whether they actually still loved her.

Tia tried wiping at her eyes and nodded in agreement with Izzie. "Yeah, it's so our fault. I should've never been so mean to you for standing up for Izzie or to Izzie for sleeping with Huntley when i was the one keeping secrets in the first place. You guys are the bestest best friends in the world and i'm so so sorry I made you both feel like you weren't." She cried, moving to hug Izzie too. She arguably owed Izzie way more than a teary apology and a one armed hug because she still wasn't ready to let go of Sage yet, but that was what she had right then and she hoped it would do for now. "Oh my gosh, I know I didn't act like it but I would've missed you so so much if you'd gone back to your tower. It was supes cray cray of me to lock you up like that and I can't even say i'm sorry enough for that but please be my friend again anyway?" Taking the scissors from, Izzie and stepped back a bit to get a better look at Sage's hair then went to comb all the way through it with her fingers before she began cutting. "I'm so sure. Your face will look so skinny and cute with a really good lob. After a while you'll forget you even had all that hair." Tia promised, glancing into the sink sadly.

Izzie probably would have jumped back into STI even if she hadn't gotten an official apology from Tia, but the fact that she did just made things so much better. It showed that her friends really missed her as much as she'd missed them. "I'm sorry for calling you a spoiled brat, you're just rich! That doesn't make you a bad person." Izzie gave a large squeeze when Tia reached across Sage and hugged her, too, blubbering mascara tears onto Sage's neck. Cheer makeup was so not made for crying sessions. "Never ever ever go back to your tower forever. You belong here, with us," Izzie said tenderly, clutching Sage's hand in her own as she watched Tia start to trim. "Yeah, and besides, hair always grows back. For now, this is just something fresh and new and exciting and it'll be great." So maybe she wasn't talking about Sage's haircut anymore, but Izzie loved a good metaphor.

Sage blinked her still watery eyes. Was she supposed to say it was her fault now, too? Both of them were blaming themselves, and she swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat from crying. "I'm so sorry, I should have figured out a better way to be good friends to both of you guys instead of like, picking a side," she said finally. She had felt bad, seeing the look on Tia's face when she'd defended Izzie over her. Tia had always done so much to make her life better, and she'd acted like one friend was more important than the other. So not cool. "And I'm super sorry for getting mad at you about Vivdow or whatever her name is now," she added to Izzie. "It was super not fair, I know that like, you guys have known her longer and stuff." It was hard for her to get it, since she'd only had Baz and Kori growing up, but she was trying. She was going to try so, so hard to make sure nothing like this ever, ever happened again. "My tower's super lonely, I would have missed you guys so much. Even just like, seeing you guys at cheer practice when you weren't talking to me was the best part of my day," Sage admitted, holding her breath as Tia and Izzie fussed over her hair. The snip of the scissors almost made her flinch again, but this time she was in good hands -- Tia's instead of her own, and she let out a breath of relief when she noticed that all the same length, her hair didn't look nearly as chunky and stupid as it had when she'd only hacked off part of it. "You guys are my favorite people in the whole wide world," Sage told them, trying not to start crying again -- happy tears this time. She didn't want to jerk around and mess up her hair more, but she had a feeling even if she walked out of this bathroom the ugliest girl in Walt, it wouldn't matter to her as long as she had Tia and Izzie by her side.

[pikechris]

the funniest thing is that the whole thing would be nearly the same only you have space and warp engines instead of the sea and sails. because the characters? could act exactly the same.

maybe stede is from a nice little human colony in federation space, born into a cushy life and dreaming of adventure while he's bored with a wife who hates space so he commissions a ship and runs away. maybe he knows nothing about captaining a starship and his ragtag crew don't respect him at first but he eventually grows on them. maybe they can read but not english so he reads old earth books to them, which he has more of on board than jean-luc picard because he's that kind of nerd. maybe he dreams of being a pirate but doing it differently and not actually just firing phasers and robbing ships and being violent. maybe he's never been in love before.

maybe the crew are a bunch of humans and aliens who have somehow come together and became a family and are all queer and weird (affectionate). roach is the cook who wanted to be a doctor. jim is an orphan raised by a romulan qowat milat nun to get revenge on the people who killed their family. the swede is an andorian. buttons talks to birds because he's some kind of telepath or something. olu is the only sensible one there, forced to run and join the pirate crew for some reason. frenchie loves to sing and play an acoustic guitar or something. lucius is charged with keeping the ship's log and draws stuff (and the crew) in his downtime. black pete tells stories about how he was on blackbeard's crew to seem cooler. maybe there are all the relationships, and maybe they're bad at being space pirates, and stede gives them enough replicator rations and fresh food and wages in latinum.

maybe ed is from a shitty human colony that borders orion space and gets raided a lot and isn't a nice place to live. maybe he and his family were poor, left to fend for themselves by the federation, maybe his father was a cruel drunk and he killed him and thought himself a monster but he was forced, maybe he ran off to join a crew, orion syndicate-adjacent, and built a reputation for himself and became a feared captain of a stolen klingon bird of prey. maybe he's depressed and bored of this life and wants something different.

maybe he hears of stede, rescues him from some klingons he was sold out to and sits by his bedside as he heals from getting stabbed by a bat'leth and admires his collection of actual paper books and fancy clothes and the eccentric starship he's got. they get along famously despite what everyone might think, and ed promises to teach him how to be a better space marauder if stede teaches him about being a well-mannered gentleman who wears all those nice clothes and parties with whatever the equivalent of high society is (people from earth and the good colonies?). he helps him avoid the klingons with a clever trick involving a warning beacon and crashes a party on a starbase somewhere where some of his crew scam a bunch of ferengi and give away the money. maybe they almost kiss under the starlight, under a viewport.

maybe they put on a show to escape some other crew trying to steal from the ship and the truth about ed's father comes out but it's alright and they're friends but falling in love and no one gets killed. maybe they have a bit of shore leave and send the crew to get some fresh fruits and veg because they're out and it's just not the same with replicators. there's a treasure hunt and no one finds anything and jim meets their romulan nana and stays to complete their quest and lucius sees that the co-captains have feelings for each other. maybe an old friend who's a bit of a twat drops by in a shuttle because his crew mutinied and stede and him don't get along and ed leaves but then boards an escape pod when he finds out it's a ploy.

maybe they're caught by starfleet admiral badminton and faced with serving time at the new zealand penal colony (hehe) or something worse (not death, the federation doesn't execute people, but they'd be apart all the same) but ed makes a plea to work for starfleet in exchange for information on the syndicate and some other elusive bastards and they're sent off to a starbase to go through a training course. ed leaves captain blackbeard behind and is content like this but stede doesn't believe it. ed finds him on a holodeck one night, sitting on a beach and watching a sunset, and they kiss and hatch an escape plan. maybe the mad admiral (and isn't that a theme in trek) finds him and ends up accidentally killing himself with a phaser pointed at stede but the damage is done and stede is faced with all his purported failings and doubt creeps in and he steals an escape pod and goes back home.

ed waits, and eventually leaves in a pod of his own and finds the revenge, but he's devastated because for once he opened up and showed someone the person under the monster everyone thinks him to be and look how it turns out? so he mopes for a bit but izzy is disgusted that this should be his captain, blackbeard, with a quarter of klingon blood in him—so he throws lucius and all of stede's stuff out of the airlock (lucius survives somehow, through the transporter?) and maroons the crew on an uninhabited moon somewhere and goes all monster, klingon warrior, mek'leth and all, even if he's heartbroken on the inside.

stede, meanwhile, sees his family be happy, mary prosper as an artist, dating another man. he's still miserable and can't stop thinking about ed. eventually, after a foiled murder attempt, mary helps him see that he's in love and he decides he has to go back. together, they fake his death (it involves a local wild animal, a hovercar, and a heavy cabinet that got transported wrong and fell), and he get himself a warp-one-only shuttle and heads towards his ship.

he finds the crew on the moon because there are life signs where there shouldn't be any, picks them up and finds out what happened, comes across an asteroid field that's just his books and artefacts, picks them up too, and makes his way back to the revenge eventually, even if it's warp capability is better. by this time, ed has heard of his death because it's all over federation and orion news, so when he sees just who is hailing his ship, there's just stunned silence. he lets them beam aboard and points a phaser at stede the first thing, but they talk it through and go right back to being co-captains and sharing quarters and being slightly incompetent space marauders, after they stole a cloaking device so as to avoid being caught by starfleet or anyone else.

they get married eventually, fully legally, by the first officer. that's the only big change that really happens, but other than that, the story can be pretty much the same. oh and also, all the modern technology makes them finding each other all the time make sense and be entirely possible, so that's nice.

people are coming up with and writing modern aus for ofmd which is great and I honestly love those in any fandom but. my trekkie brain immediately went STARSHIP CAPTAINS AU. pirates in space even. and now I can't get rid of it

[ashby-santoso]

I’m really here for some queer Harry/Ginny headcanons

Bi Ginny likes flying with the Holyhead Harpies because there are lots of other queer women there. Her mother still doesn’t really understand why it’s important, and her father is supportive but asks millions of questions...but thank Merlin, Harry just gets it. He does a bunch of the admin in the background for her, and jokes around with her team mates, and when she hears about a new sport they’re playing in the states he runs lots of the errands and makes the sign-up sheets while Ginny does all the front-line organising. She is completely psyched for running the UK’s first magical roller derby league.

NB Ginny who was always a tomboy but never thought it might mean something more, who worries Harry won’t want them, who lives under the crushing weight of misgendering every day...NB Ginny is working on getting their shit together. They cut their hair short to try and make people see them right - it doesn’t work so sometimes they still charm it long because they like the way it frames their face. They do what they fucking want thanks. (But it’s lonely.) (And they’re tired.) But since they came out, they’ve had a few old school friends get in touch unexpectedly. Luna’s no surprise, but Dean Thomas? It’s a funny way to reconnect with an ex, but Dean’s been making friends with all the queers in london and they can show Ginny around and make them feel normal again and honestly thank merlin for genderqueer exes.

Trans boy Ginny didn’t know anything about transness. He worried that the masculine aspect of himself was Tom Riddle, still inside him. It was Harry coming out to him as bi that finally made him break down, and the years between his 22nd and 25th birthdays were just a patchwork of fear and pain and loneliness…but also, ultimately, of growth. Every version of Ginny has intrusive thoughts about Tom Riddle, and in the end every version has learned to manage them, even if it was harder for some than others. But anyway, things are better now. He knows where he’s at, mostly. And Harry says his new stubble is cute. (It takes a while for anyone to remember that Arthur Weasley had 6 older brothers, and that this makes trans boy Ginny the 7th son of a 7th son...but that’s another story.)

Trans girl Harry (just like all the Harrys) hates the press, but Colin Creevey’s been moving higher and higher at the Daily Prophet and he does love to write about her. It’s hard to be annoyed when it’s all articles about her latest Quidditch successes and recaps of key moments in the second war, the text still humiliatingly enthusiastic but emblazened with THE GIRL WHO LIVED in enormous print. Ginny buys them all and pins them up in the bathroom to make her laugh. Molly Weasley has taken to knitting Harry fluffy, aggressively pink jumpers with curly H’s on them and she’s not sure how to tell Molly that she’s actually kind of a butch lesbian and her wardrobe is 90% flannel. It’s ok though, Hermione basically lives in Weasley jumpers these days because the unspeakables tend to work long hours in cold rooms with no dresscode. The two of them have this cute little butch-and-femme-best-pals routine going on and it’s fun to give her the jumpers and then borrow them back sometimes.

Ace Harry thought he couldn’t really be with anyone, and it was chewing him up inside. Ron couldn’t see what the fuss was about - “well, could you just date somebody and not have sex with them?” - which was sort of unhelping but also sort of really comforting. Hermione made him worried he might have all sorts of deadly diseases (“Google says it could be a symptom –”) until she found AVEN and figured it out. Harry cried. He and Ginny had lots of conversations, and it was painful but they said everything they needed to and then they got married. A little while later, Charlie talks to Ron who talks to Fleur who talks to Bill who talks to Ginny who encourages Harry to go to France to visit Bill. Fleur declares that she Knew Eet All Along and Bill takes him out to a grotty Parisian bar to meet a motley assortment of other aces and aros with an array of partners, friends and hangers-on. Being Bill’s friends, they are all much cooler than Harry and want to talk about things like French anarchist politics and how to look after facial piercings, but they also make asexuality jokes at every opportunity and they’re obviously keen to make him feel included. It’s…nice. He’s still mostly closeted but now he has a little fantasy of starting up an ace pick-up Quidditch team someday.

Ace Ginny takes years to figure it out. When she finally does, the really important things between her and Harry don’t change - the late-night conversations, the stupid Quidditch jokes, being there when he comes home from therapy every week. Knowing she’s ace makes her happier, calmer, more centred - but sometimes the weight of the world comes down on her shoulders, the weight of every book and film and conversation telling her there is something wrong with her. Then she doesn’t feel like touching him, doesn’t want to curl up and cuddle like she usually does - but this is nothing new for them. Harry has bad days of his own sometimes and so they already have their own little language of fist bumps instead of hugs, blown kisses and cups of tea and giving each other lots of personal space in a way that adds up to saying, I love you. Ginny starts volunteering at a wizarding LGBTQIA charity, and she doesn’t really talk about her personal life in the Daily Prophet interviews she does but she makes sure all the people who matter know where she’s at, and she makes sure everyone knows what she thinks. She supplies Harry with hundreds of shiny pamphlets to put in the back of his Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom, so all his students will know it’s ok to be queer or ace or trans. The pamphlets disappear startlingly quickly, and he says it’s the only time he’s really proud to hear hero-worshipful teenagers saying Well HARRY POTTER told me or Did you know that GINNY WEASLEY says...

[blahrutocs]

some monty facts you probably dont know cause i never talk ab him basically:

+ he will actually get offended if people call him nice, he does most of his nice stuff in secret, he’ll walk old ladies across the street but if u catch him he’ll tell u he was 

+his place is kind of chaotic, i always picture like 90 posters, two dressers but still clothes on top and hanging up in various places.... a bunch of makeup scattered everywhere.... random ass bottles of facial glitter in the kitchen.... stim toys everywhere n powertools just like.... hidden under the couch or placed in the middle of the coffee table, not for any real reason, it's mostly aesthetic. he cant fix stuff. he says thts what he's friends w/ ana for. 

-he's v good at video games. kind of unnaturally. its strange. even games that are pure luck he almost always wins

-he was born when his older brother montgomery (gomer) was 13 and when his bro met him he asked his parents to "return it to where it came from" which is p much their whole relationship summed up,

+it is believed that monty used to steal his brothers videogames. no one knows what happened to them after that. if they were eaten or just thrown out or what but like, just. gone.

-one year he went as his older brother for halloween, which consisted of a mustache, a sweatervest, khakis and frowning a lot and also yelling “MONTY!” his parents thought it was so cute, gomer hated the whole thing .......so much......

+they moved from quebec when monty was five, and gomer chose to stay behind w/ an older friend until it was time for him to go to college. in one timeline he has a fiance who is possibly pregnant? and monty and him still don't get along, which if anyone asks monty says it's Specifically because of his horrible Moustache and beard that he refuses to shave.

+he's cousins with sal!! sal planned a queer prom (almost singlehandedly) of which monty was voted prom queen. ana was prom king. they were sort of just... genderless titles honestly, sanchez videotaped it, it got weird

+he cuts his own hair and also a few others in the group + he hates braiding but he always ends up having to help sal when he’s redoing his twists, which hes super dramatic about btw

+all four members of the group (maya, sal, ana, monty) always have at least a small bit of pink in their hair.... they also have matching necklaces w/ eachother’s initials on ‘em that they made at this artsy event at school or smthn....

+he really likes the colour pink for decor but his fav colour is red

+he has a comic book he’s been working on for a while... he’s had some of the charcters since he was like, 8. it’s developed into kind of a magical queer adventure story. all his friends help him w/ critics and stuff, he prefers going to ana just bc the others only ever point out shit like spelling mistakes and it annoys tf outta him whereas ana and he can be like “lets be real this shit’s gotta go” bc they’re both able to be more like... stoic i guess? it has a decent following, around 700-800 people on average......... they have long conversations about it, ana has some characters of his own but no coherent story arc he wants them to follow....

+he’d def be slytherin tbh... he’s super cunning and resourceful

+altho in their group ‘best friend’ is considered more of a tier, he’d probably say ana was his bff if push came to shove

+actually pretty insecure

+he can hack........ not like, super scary level stuff, mostly just stuff to mess w/ people cause he’s a dick. he thought it’d be cooler than it is. he blames hollywood..........

+politics stress him out, so most of his opinions are entirely (if not completely) satirical

+i dont know much ab his parents or what they do but i do know they’re both fairly carefree ppl. when he was younger, they were both carefree and obsessive, so they’d let him do whatever he wanted but on their terms. his older brother resented him a lot for some reason. his parents bought a house near his dad’s brother (sal’s dad) s he’d be close to family while they were out. the guest room was converted into a room for monty for a while until he was finally old enough to be left alone in a house when they weren’t there. they were home on most weekends, but gone almost all of the time besides that.

+sal’s grandparents aren’t 100% on board the gay train so whenever they visit they pretend to be straight, which is annoying since like... they both have pink / partially pink heads, so........ hets gonna het

+his first language is (quebecer) french, he feels a lot more confident when he speaks in it.... he plans to teach his kids french if he ever has them and has a very suppressed desire to hae a small ceremony in montreal..... he doesn’t mention it tho cause he’s Super Tough and Vulnerability is Bad,

-he sleeps w/ a weighted blanket!! he gets really anxous at night. he’s also got a lap pad which he brings with him whenever he’s having a real bad day...... maya made him them

-he can dance ballet

-he needs his glasses, but like........... does that make him wear glasses? no. also, the glasses he does own are bright yellow and giant circles..........

-the first one in their group to discover anime..........no one was ever the same.......

+very good chance he has an oral fixation, he has a stim chew necklace... i imagine it smthn like this but maybe w/ size difference..i dont think he chews tho?

-hes observational n kind of obsessive...... also very quick on his feet.

-natalia is the only one who’s ever beat him more than once consecutively and now he’s obsessed with defeating her once and for all.........

-he’s very academically gifted but like, none of his teachers liked him bc he was always talking and distracting ppl like.... it was a lot, 

-he has a sweet tooth

- he is very short and Very in denial of it, i picture him wearing big shirts and sweaters a lot... a lot of really cool coats....... also his fashion style is pretty androgynous but i still picture him dressing in super bad baggy clothes tho

-doesn’t know how to respond to ppl being genuinely nice to him? mostly he’ll just cry

-he has a cat (momoko) who really likes jumping on people when they aren’t looking

- his fav animal is a polar bear

- he and sal have both had a crush on ana, though luckily for him sal got over his...... monty is frustrated and bothered like, all of the time. he’s just sitting there....watching him take ironic selfies like ~why do i like this man~ ~i am suffering~

-he and his friends make up a lot of convoluted games.... like there’s the opposites game, where friends will ask questions and they have seven seconds to answer the exact opposite of what they’d answer truthfully. (the other players decide if it’s accurate or not) it usually ends up in a political or philosophical debate but they have fun. monty and sal invented it, ana’s the best at it. there’s also doublesided truth or dare which is typically a drinking game....... you ask someone something, and if they answer then you have to answer the same question (or be punished) if they don’t, you can choose a punishment for them. punishments and questions can both only be used once, the drinking game could be punishment + shot or shot = punishment..... they get bored a lot, once they even played w/ the punisher being able to choose the punishee’s drink specifically....... 

-cutting ppl off is harder for him than he pretends it is........... he acts like he can cut you off in the flick of a wrist but he Cannot,

-is very rarely still tbh

-he always sits in chairs very weirdly i think..........  he cant just sit in it straight forward he’s gotta be like upside down or sideways or both like he’s. Why? he’s basically a cat.

-he’s agnostic

-he can’t ride a bike and refuses to learn, he always just hitched on someone else’s bike..... it isn’t a problem of balance or anything he just does not want to for w/e reason