#iggy from maximum ride

[emorish-avian]

have i ever told y’all about my headcanon of iggy being a huge science nerd, specifically about his and the flocks biology

like

he takes everyone’s temperature to establish a baseline so that they know what a too high or low temperature for them is

he has medical notes on everyone in the flock to keep track of any issues they have

he researches a lot about hybrids and anything else at all related so that he can take care of his family cuz who the fuck else is going to do it. not a fucking doctor that’s for sure, because yk. doctors offices bring up a lot of bad shit for them

while jeb was raising them all, he wrote down any and all information given to them by jeb about their biology (in the fourth book, max says they need about 5000 calories a day when it’s warm, which i hc as either something jeb told them or something that iggy found out through measuring how much he ate in a day or whatever)

like i’m just imagining him as a twelve year old or something, sitting at a desk & calculating averages of calories consumed per day to establish a baseline, muttering to himself about the numbers or whatever and the rest of the flock just being like. okay whatever nerd (lovingly of course)

i also like to think about his relationship with jeb in regards to this. maybe he was constantly asking jeb questions about their biology when they were being raised by him at the e house. maybe they talked about how flight works a lot. maybe they bonded over their love for weird hybrid biology. maybe he felt disgusted by himself for ever loving jeb like a dad when it turns out that he was a bad guy the whole time

idk man. i’m just. hhhhhhhhh science nerd iggy

[definitely-not-a-wasp]

I think that by the time the Flock escaped to the E-shaped house, Iggy’s light perception was actually pretty decent. Still definitely blind, but nowhere near where he is by the start of canon. Then he started tinkering around with explosives and caustic chemicals on the regular and lost the rest of his vision over two years of tomfoolery.

He thinks this was an excellent trade-off.

[tributes-vamps-and-ginnyweasley]

Maximum Ride will always have a special place in my bookshelf. The area for books that caused extreme emotional damage. And I loved every second of it.

[cutepastelstarsalior]

Do you think if Maximum Ride was released around the 2010s when YA dystopian book were popular, the series would have a bigger fandom?

Like off the top of my head there is:

Bird kids who are science experiments and they run away from the government and maybe have to save the world

Found family

Weird love interest between the main girl with her fiend/found family like brother OR his clone

Clones in general

Werewolf like creature that can fly

Werewolf creature that are robots

One of the werewolves is actually a child and is Main girl’s brother

He died like, 8 different times and keep coming back from the dead :(

Iggy :)

Fang freaking blogs on his computer about the shit they get into and also use his blog to gather a bunch of kids to help fight the government

Rip fang he would love tumblr <3

The freaking apocalypse might happen??? It’s kind of unclear in the later books

There a talking flying dog

The flock wants to live a normal human life, they go to a normal human school and it’s fun.

The manga makes fang look emo. Love his long hair look

The also might be a sequel series that has zombies????

[tourettes-swag-tournament]

tourette's swag tournament — round three, part one

[ID: side by side photos of Iggy from Maximum Ride and Jay Walker from Ninjago. /End ID.]

[dailycrippledcharacters]

Iggy (Maximum Ride)

[Art by @vintrage]

[Image Description: A digital art drawing of Iggy. Iggy is drawn as a young white man with red hair and pale blue, almost white eyes. His hair is short and straight. He has freckles on his face and two light brown speckled wings emerging from his back. He is wearing a red, green, and gray jumper and holding a mug in his hands. End ID.]

Iggy is blind.

[takami-takami]

My obsession with bird coded and winged characters started with iggy from the maximum ride books when I was 13. Like it was all downhill from there.

[foundfamilyappreciation]

Round 1: Group B

Nevermoor Family (Morrigan Crow, Jupiter North, Jack Korrapati + the Hotel Deucalion) from Nevermoor

vs

The Flock (Max, Fang, Iggy, Nudge, Gazzy, Angel) from Maximum Ride

[sun-to-sorrow]

So like, reading Maximum Ride again after like 4-6 years and like, there are so many things I’m questioning. For starter Manga reader only because I have this issue of not being able to read other forms of something I’ve already read. Brain kinda shuts down. So like

1) The whole Max, Martina (Martinez?), and Ella thing is just so strange. For starters Max is just awful. Prioritizing a random girl being cornered and has an easy escape route (Max took it after all) over your 6 year old sister who is in the hands of actual mad scientist who you know has actively done shitty unethical things is just, why?! Angel could’ve been saved just a bit earlier if you listened to Fang! But also the whole Martinez has something to do with the school but then it’s completely forgotten.

2) Max leaving the Blind guy and the 8 Year Old alone because “Angel (who is to young to know how to escape the school) might escape and come back here”. Gazzy has little combat experience because he is either told to run/hide or uses bombs and Iggy is BLIND!

3) Iggy really goes between I have the best hearing in the flock to I have normal human hearing. Like sometimes he can hear Erasers (like only twice?) or the homeless people in the subway and most of the time either he’s surprised by them (angel’s kidnapping or the ambush when Max and Fang leave) or Angel finds then before him (the two children). Like, JP make it’s consistent! Let Iggy be the Flock’s alarm so when they don’t have him in the group they suffer more casualties! Especially during when Erasers become robots so Angel becomes useless (like de buff the girl honesty)

4) speaking of Iggy. He has been shown enough times that he’s really REALLY smart. Building bombs, being able to remember recipes to cook, learning and mapping places out (E house and Anne’s place), yet JP literally doesn’t expand or utilize it to its fullest. Iggy could probably be the Flocks brain but no~, he’s to blind to be the flocks brain, let’s have Fang (the right hand man, second command of the flock, has invisibility powers and (I just learned) immortality) and Angel (child with telepathy, mind control, shapeshifting, and probably other things) be the brains and Max (leader and golden child) have moments here and there. The most I’ve seen of Iggy utilizing his brains was lock picking or making bombs/planning out traps. I could be missing some but JP makes it so hard to know.

5) the severe infantilism of Iggy

6) Gazzy still has no new power unlike everyone else (but Iggy’s are pretty shitty because they all are powers to “help him see without him actually seeing”). Like let him have telepathy or maybe a way that only him and Angel can communicate each other.

7) Nudge. Like she isn’t as bad as Iggy and definitely not the worst like Gazzy, but god she’s still really poorly written. She has this whole thing of not wanting to be a freak and wanting to find her family and wanting to be normal and not having to run all the time but every single one of these just stops on a dead note! It like stops existing after like 2-3 chapters and never brought up. Like she’s the most interesting girl in the flock but just so butchered.

8) their looks. Ok I’m not gonna harp so badly on the Manga artist because she is Korean and Korean beauty standards and all that is just bad in general but that’s just cultural differences. But one thing I never understand was that makeup transformation. Angel who has short hair suddenly has hair that goes below her neck. Nudge’s bleached streak somehow stays even though her natural hair should’ve shown by the 9 manga vol. Fang who always was shown with straight hair now has really curly hair. That’s not how hair works and let’s not talk about Iggy and those weird dark tips.

9) Fax and Ella/Iggy (which I learned was canon. I was wondering where all those Ella/Iggy stories came from) I don’t hate straight ships. I just hate these straight ships.

10) oh poorly written trauma handled even worse my beloved. Your telling me Iggy, the one who was awake the entire operation on his eyes doesn’t have trauma. Your telling me Fang, who almost died to an Eraser doesn’t have trauma. Your telling me Max, the one who continuously has a voice in her head, a chip in her shoulder, seeing an Eraser in the mirror doesn’t have trauma?! Angel?!

But like I could continue because there is so much but, there where definitely things I liked. I like how Iggy was drawn. Out of all the characters he looked always bony and skinny and long. Like even next to Fang who is supposed to be the same height he looks so twiggy and tall. Gazzy was so interesting because he was that grey “I suffered through the school but I was also way to young to remember” and I wish it was expanded more. I liked the Ari arc if you ignore every other Ari part in the story. Total was nice if we found nice as before he talked.

Like not to be the paranoid one but if I was in the flocked I would be questioning everything. A Gazzy photo from an abandoned apartment? They could’ve stuck it there after knowing their research was stolen just to trap the flock. Anna watching a new about Iggy’s parents? She purposely put it on so Iggy will be removed. Erasers still finding the flock? Did anyone thing that the others might have chips in them, especially when Fang, Gazzy, and Iggy where attacked. Also how does Fang still have his laptop when he was captured by the institute?

[casually-dreaming]

What’s your thoughts on Maximum ride?

i like iggy! and angels okay shes a bit too much sometimes/too treacherous but also max... mmmm i'd steal her from fang

[shuuos]

sorry idk valentine's day all i know is iggy from maximum ride's birthday

image desc under the cut!!

[image description:

a drawing of iggy from maximum ride. it is drawn in a sketchy, chibi-like style, stopping at his chest. iggy is on the left, looking towards the viewer as text on the right side reads "love is in the air? no. bird boy." near the bottom, some more text reads "to: blank, from: blank".

iggy is a teenage boy with scars over his eyes and a mullet, colored in a pale blue. he is holding a cartoon heart with a mischevious expression. his wings are also drawn cartoonishly small, and are spread behind him.

the background is an even paler blue, with a pattern of white hollow hearts.

/end ID]

[definitely-not-a-wasp]

Maximum Ride versus Spontaneous Power Ups

Part 1

I'm not saying that giving the bird kids power ups isn't fun and funky. But I am definitely not the first person to point out that they're not the best executed, and often take more away from the plot than they add. And someone asked me to state my opinions about one (1) contrived power-up, so now you get to hear about all of them.

Speaking from a general perspective, I have some major problems with Maximum Ride superpowers, and they're as-follows:

They just HAPPEN. There's no trigger, there's no effort on the flock's part to "unlock" them, and there's no explanation given.

They're often these one-off powers that don't maintain narrative significance or further explanations.

Most of the time, they have absolutely no drawbacks.

Yes, I know this is copy-pasted from part 1, what about it?

So this is what I would do to try to solve some of those issues without changing the plot too much. And because I'm nice, I'm sticking it under a read-more.

Pre-Book 1

In the beginning of book 1, Max states that a lot of the flock has "little quirks" like Angel's telepathy, and then the text makes it clear that this is only true of Angel and Gazzy. That means it's completely acceptable to shove a few more powers into pre-series, with the implication that the School caused this before they escaped.

Angel's telepathy, obviously: I've extensively talked about my thoughts surrounding Angel's telepathy, but to rehash, there are plenty of advantages and drawbacks to anything concerning the brain. Telepathy is a boon, but it shouldn't be a pleasant boon. And while this power can definitely grow throughout the series, I think it should stick to telepathy, and not extend towards clairvoyance/precognition like it did in later books.

Gazzy's mimickry: I think this doesn't even need to count as a power, because Lyrebirds can already do that. As Angel grows more powerful, his mimickry can further extend from bird calls to specific human voices to the sounds of objects, and have him learn how to throw his voice.

Nudge's Psychometry: similar to Angel's telepathy, this is a psionic ability, and putting it in pre-series instead of when they miraculously need it makes it feel built-into the narrative. This can also be slowly expanded upon throughout the series, from touching an object and knowing any emotions associated with it, to being able to recall certain moments attached to the object, so being able to touch something and know its entire history.

Gazzy's precognition: "Wait, Gazzy doesn't have precognition", you're totally right, but consider: Precognition is already a thing in the books, because Angel. Gazzy only has two power-ups and one of them is farts. By transferring precognition from Angel to Gazzy and making it start pre-series, there's a bit more of a balance to keep us from getting an OP six-year-old. Like Nudge and Angel, this can start small (having "bad feelings" and being really good at dodging attacks bc he sees them pre-emptively) and build up to something like knowing when someone dies or the exact date and time the world is supposed to end.

Max's, Fang's, and Iggy's ability to withstand the younger three's powers: I think that they should be essentially immune to their younger siblings not because of their own powers, but because of exposure. The younger kids can definitely glean some things, especially when their powers are weak, but the more invasive their powers become, the more immune the older kids get. IE: Angel can read their emotions and sometimes their minds, but she can't control them. Nudge can pick something up and know it's associated with one of them/important to them, but can't tell what they did with it. Gazzy knows if something bad is going to happen, but looking for anything specific or intentional feels like trying to see past a brick wall.

So all of the psionics are at the beginning. And furthermore, there's a clear divide that shows when the School started handling psionic powers. Max, Fang, and Iggy don't have powers. They're old models. But somewhere between Iggy and Nudge, the School had a breakthrough, and the new models have brain powers.

Once the Plot Starts

The next round of powerups makes most sense if it happens as a result of the School's experimentation in TAE-- have the flock NOT be threatened with murder, and instead have tests run on them until they break out, which can take a lot longer. This means that Iggy and Gazzy are excluded, because they were not in the School. But after they escape the School, some abilities can begin to crop up, like:

Max's super speed: originally put in SoF and developed after a slight fever, it could also easily fit into TAE, with Max breaking out of the School while heavily feverish and developing fast flight, specifically regarding dives— similarly to Gazzy's mimickry, this can be staged as less of a power and more of something that happened to her because of her bird DNA that the whitecoats were activation/fine-tuning at the School. The ridiculousness of 350 mph can only occur during dives, though.

Everyone except for Iggy and Gazzy breathing underwater: I didn't realize until I read the wikipedia page that everyone except Iggy and Gazzy canonically has this power, making it a PERFECT power-up to give them after being kidnapped when Iggy and Gazzy were conveniently NOT kidnapped. That being said, this is also a great power to give drawbacks to show that the Flock is not immune to experiments going wrong: FIrstly, they can only breathe underwater in fresh water, like lungfish; they suddenly have to drink a lot more water and easily get dehydrated; they are really suseptible to bronchitis and pneumonia because they're taking water into their lungs that were not originally designed to do that, so they try to do it as little as possible.

And from there, we have...

The Voice

Fuck this thing in particular. There are TWO directions Voice can take in my mind:

It doesn't exist. Full-stop get rid of it, because all it does is take away character agency and give Max answers instead of make the authors think about how Max can figure it out herself.

It's an instrument of the School, preferably controlled by Jeb Batchelder (if it wants to be wishy washy about whose side its on) OR Marian Janssen (if it's an outright antagonist). It disappears once the School is dealt with, and most importantly, is not her own power or a power of her flock. It is a power being used on her.

I've already wasted too much of my life on thinking about this. Since I've already covered gills and psychometry, let's skip over the NYC arc.

After the IFHL

From here, I think there are a few moments where some powers can be gained, and some should definitely not be gained.

Firstly, there's Fang's superspeed. This can develop like it did in canon, where Max donates blood, and Fang gets a fraction of her abilities. However, this isn't even a School-done power, so I think they should reject the blood at first. They get really sick, the doctors have to put them on heavy immuno-suppressants for pretty much the entirety of being at Anne's, and their body temperature permanently jumps up past where it should be.

Then they leave Anne's house, they go on the run, Max gets kidnapped and shoved in a sensory deprivation tank, and she absolutely does not to get to shut down her organs, because it never comes up again and never needs to. Her being able to smell the flock and track them down can have one of two solutions:

She doesn't. She tracks them down another way.

Instead of her hallucinating herself turning into an Eraser, Gazzy has been feeling increasing unease about Max being in proximity to Erasers and can't tell why bc he can't see Max's future. Then, when she escapes the tank in ITEX, she does so by biting an Eraser and swallowing quite a bit of blood and sinew on accident. Suddenly she can smell so many things and her teeth are much sharper than they were a few days ago. Congrats, Max! Power up!

Finally, they reach the School again/are kidnapped again, which is where I guess Angel could possibly unlock shapeshifting, but considering the School was talking about exterminating all of them, I'm thinking no. I think shapeshifting is also on the cutting room floor. However, I think the School definitely should have taken them all out for testing over a few days rather than skipping right to "kill the multi-million dollar investments that are supposed to save the world, bc why not?" (Seriously, who wrote this?), because—

Iggy's Powerups

I've talked about this before, I'll talk about it again, but Iggy's powerups were not brought on by the School, were not spotaneous, were not accidental power transfers, but were intentionally done by Iggy, who was gathering data and running tests throughout the entire series. He doesn't get enough data until he's kidnapped by the School again, at which point Max and Fang probably realize that he's getting a bit sickly and his eyes look permanently irritated, then that there are bruises on his arm he doesn't want to talk about. Then, after breaking into ITEX again and gathering proper resources, he gets:

Detecting light and movement against bright backgrounds, which was his intention.

Color sense, which was an accidental side effect, and not a pleasant sensation for him. Also comes with a disadvantage of not remembering what many colors look like, so he has to guess for a lot of them.

Decreased Oxygen Intake: "wait, he didn't get this in canon!" yeah, because the only power-up JP gave him was pseudo-sight to fix his blindness, so I'm giving him more. Turned out, what he was honing in on was making his eyes function despite them not getting enough oxygen. And he was doing that for his whole body, completely on accident. So his Blood Oxygen percentage can drop to 60 without any ill-effects, his resting heart rate is slowed to about 10 bpm, and he's taking about 1 breath every 10-15 minutes unless he needs air to talk. This takes place over weeks, so he doesn't actually notice it until someone points it out.

This comes with not-so-great side effects. He's cold all the time, his eyes hurt constantly and have permanently burst blood vessels, and his fingers and lips are permanently discolored.

Through the Late Series

After ITEX is taken down, I think the power-getting would decrease exponentially, because they're not being experimented on nearly as much. However, there are a few that I think could be fit in.

Nudge's "Magnetism": I put this in bold and parentheses, because it wouldn't be magnetism, it would be a honing of her psychometry; if an object has a strong enough emotional attachment to her or any of the other psionic kids, she can attract it. Minor telekenesis. As a treat. This is the closest thing I can justify.

Fang's Camoflauge: This was pure accident, and less of a power-up and more of a "came back wrong". Triggered by their death and revival, both of which were unnatural, Fang gets the voluntary organ shutdown that Max doesn't get, and has spaces of time where they don't need to breathe, blink, and their heart slows considerably, meaning that they can be perfectly still in a way that makes people look at them and think "object" instead of "person", and their vision just... glances over them. However, this is not something they can do intentionally. This is almost always when they're dissociating.

Fang's Immortality Genes: I guess that since it's integral to the plot of Nevermore, I can make it work. This was building from School's Out Forever, when they nearly died from Ari's attack, being killed in Fang, nearly getting blown up in Angel, and getting thrown off a cliff in Nevermore. In fact, I would go as far as having their expiration date show up and then pass. By then, it's discovered that they have the "secret to immortality". This does not actually protect them from dying. It protects their genes from unravelling over time, which means they're not ageing. This is not a power-up. This is not a successful experiment. This is the scifi equivalent of being undead, because Fang is pretty much a walking corpse by the end of the series.

Powers Left on the Cutting Room Floor

Angel's Shapeshifting: I barely like shapeshifting Erasers, and it occurs so late in the series that it's not needed.

Gazzy's Flatulence Bombs: Just let him do chemical warfare the old fashioned way I'm begging you.

Max's voluntary organ shutdown: IT ONLY HAPPENS ONCE. I promise you, Max could've thought her way out of that situation.

[pencilofawesomeness]

20 Questions for Writers

Tagged by @kiliinstinct so let's go

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

Okay so the number on my account is a slight lie because I have two anthology-type fics with many fics inside of them like an egg sac, and in htryds’ case I took all of them out and separated them and I pulled one out of the other so.... 130 unique works. And if I count the oneshots shoved inside my 2021 Whumptober anthology, then 159.

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

This also requires some math for the above reason so.... 948,078. (Holy cow I am so close to one million, wait—)

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Mainly Fairy Tail, Genshin Impact, and Twisted Wonderland, in that order, buttttt I have a few other fandoms under my belt and I am known to branch out on a whim. (Others include Voltron, RWBY, Fullmetal Alchemist, Seven Deadly Sins, Arrowverse, Transformers, Owl House, and literally so many others that I haven't actually published...)

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Alright, we got:

—5. Demon Tales [Fairy Tail] - 762 —4. The Eighth Tower [Fairy Tail] - 914 —3. Sparks in the Night [Genshin Impact] - 1,066 —2. Pain Comes in Many Forms (and so does Comfort): Whumptober 2021 [Genshin Impact] - 1,121 —1. Of Dragons and Fairies [Fairy Tail] - 1,405

(So I guess, to no one's surprise, it's mainly HTRYDS but I will say I continue to be baffled by Sparks in the Knight, that random twoshot I wrote in two days XD)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Yes! I love responding to comments, both because it's fun and I love to let people know that I totally did read and enjoy their comment. (And I've even been able to just chat with people this way, beyond the scope of the fic itself, which is a fun little community feature I do enjoy as well.) If there's a comment I haven't replied to, it's probably because somehow it was marked as read and therefore I forgot to go back and respond.

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Hmmm that is a tough one. I do tend to want to end things on a lighter note, despite the amount of whump I write... Maybe Mortal Instinct, actually, since I pull a bit of a (self-perceived) fate-worse-than-death bit. Though solely by audience reaction I guess it's Coming Home since I left it on a purposeful note of suspense, eheh.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Oh geez, um... I think a lot of them?? Have very happy endings?? Uhhh maybe I'll just say Of Dragons and Fairies, then, because it's meant to be very hopeful and family-shaped, with that bright future ahead.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

No not really, actually. I have had a very good experience, especially on AO3.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Ha. No. (Guys I'm so aroace I barely write romance I will probably never write smut XD)

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

Yes actually! Not many that are finished/posted, but boy I actually love them a lot. (Many live in my head in amorphous form to be honest.) Most are AUs, so like the world of X with the characters of Y, but for straight-up crossovers, I think the craziest is The A.I.D. Files which is a co-project with @therosefrontier where we have a longstanding universe where we combine literally everything into a multi-sectioned multiverse, and the story focuses on an agency that is comprised of people from all manner of universes, leading to a team that includes Tech E. Coyote, Dani Phantom, Iggy (from Maximum Ride), Jim Hawkins, Numbah 5, and more. That said, there's not any present plans to continue it even though it lives on in our heads XD

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of...

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

There is one! (That I know of, lol.) Sparks in the Night was translated (into a paraphrased version, at least) into German, which can be found here.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yup. With my sister, over the years. Not really a direct one on AO3 though. (Just a shared storyverse or series there.)

14. What's your all-time favourite ship?

Uhhhh I am not really a shipper at all, so I don't really have a hill I will die on, even though I do have ships I enjoy.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

I hold onto the delusional hope that I will go back and finish all of my wips one day because I haven't abandoned them in my heart, but, I doubt I will finish United because it was a largely original world and I have been scheming for a way to make it an original work altogether, so when I revisit it, it will probably be for that.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Um. I like to think I do good character voice/inner monologue. Strength of tone and syntax and all that.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Fight scenes pain me and I also am not great at scenic/setting descriptions, mostly because I forget.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

In most cases I think there are better ways to go about it, but it has its place. Especially if the POV character doesn't know it and is trying to learn or pick up words. (Essentially it boils down to making sure the experience is understandable and authentic to the reader's promised language, otherwise it is just a surprise obstacle/gate, like expecting a reader to understand excessive medical jargon in order to know what is happening. If the language is meant to be understood by the pov character, and therefore the audience, then I feel it's best to offer a direct translation in some way.)

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Sonic the Hedgehog. In a place. That I will not name because I was very young. But it was Sonic the Hedgehog...

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

Oh geez um picking favorites is hard. The How to Raise Your Dragon Slayers series as a whole is obviously my baby and I am very biased towards it, but one of my favorite pieces might actually be a FMA/MHA au oneshot that I lost in a harddrive crash and I am haunted by it because I wrote it in a frenzy of inspiration and honestly I think it slapped. XD

-

Okay so let's see which victims to tag... (Though obviously there's no pressure to do this lol): @therosefrontier, @forwantofacalling, @breezy-cheezy, @ljf613, @xxthe-hidden-spyxx, and whoever else wants to do it

[animation-557-butterfly]

The Flock of Max (from the manga📕by NaRae Lee)

🪽Max, Fang, Iggy, Nudge, Angel, and Total 🪽

Maximum Ride is written by James Patterson

Mmi enjoyed reading the manga version, when I was in middle school and high school)

[tourettes-swag-tournament]

tourette's swag tournament — round one, part two

[ID: side by side photos of Hisirdoux Casperan from Tales of Arcadia and Iggy from Maximum Ride. /End ID.]

[junpeijackflash]

Happy Pride Month, lovers and haters of Maximum Ride!

I promised I'd talk a bit more about my rewrite by revealing which members of the flock are LGBTQ+, and now that I've finally finished fixed Chapter 7, now's as good a time as any.

This will be spoilers for stuff I've planned further into the future (as in: most of this is only really relevant from book 2 onwards). This also isn't all the LGBTQ+ characters I have. There's a couple of OCs (and a handful of stolen James Patterson characters). Might talk about them later, might not. Who knows.

Characters are below the cut!

Alright, we're all clear on spoilers? (though I guess it doesn't matter in the case of a rewrite with no confirmed release date lol)

Then, in a semi-particular order, let's start with...

Nudge!

Using a new picrew for all of these. Link can be found here: https://picrew.me/ja/image_maker/626197

Nudge is pansexual, which tbh is the headcanon I've had for her for years now, so this doesn't feel like much of a change. I should note here that she - along with the other members of the flock, minus one exception - don't technically use the terms I'm using here to describe their sexuality, for one reason or another.

For Nudge, it's because she doesn't discover any words for describing her experience other than "gay" for a while, and she doesn't really like calling herself "gay" since she doesn't feel like the term fits her.

She doesn't have any romantic relationships, but she does have a crush, and gets incredibly shy and embarrassed about it.

Iggy!

Iggy is, by definition, gay. However, Iggy doesn't particularly like the term "gay". He usually either uses "queer" or just goes unlabeled.

Iggy is also the only character that I have a planned romantic relationship, and it's with a stolen James Patterson character! Place your bets everyone! It's not gonna be who you think it is!

Both Iggy and Nudge are already out by the time book 1 starts. These next two come out after a bit of self-discovery during book 2.

Max!

Maximum Ride is aromantic, realizing this after 14 years of living when she's finally confronted with other people her age and realizes that dating and romance are in fact real things people want to do and not something made up for television.

I haven't decided whether or not she's asexual as well. Feel free to headcanon that, or whatever you want. I'm leaving it up to interpretation.

Of course, Max isn't going to be having any romance, considering she is the last person in the flock who'd want that.

And finally, the last member of the flock, and the only trans member......

...oh come on, like you don't know who I'm talking about.

Fang!

So yeah, I've fallen victim to the nonbinary/trans Fang agenda, and I'm here to make all of you join as well.

To keep things simple, and not spoil all of my Fang Development Plans, here's a basic summary of Fang's pronouns book-by-book.

Book 1: he/him

Book 2: he/they

Book 3: they/he, but in the "Only people very close to me get to call me 'he', everyone else has to use 'they' or I'll kill them" sort of way

Should also note: the flock as a whole is not even aware of the concept of being trans or the fact that people can be something other than male or female until book 2. Finding out helps Fang start questioning their gender.

That about wraps it up. Sorry if this is underwhelming, I never know what I do or don't want to say regarding spoilers. The only two flock members who aren't included on this list are Gazzy and Angel, but that's really just because they're very tiny children and I was thinking less about who they might have a crush on and more about the brand new childhood trauma they'll be getting and living with for a very long time.