@littlestartopaz asked for A, G, and P from this fandom ask meme!
A: Your current OTP (Topaz specified ATLA)
…I’m not very interesting and I actually really like Aang/Katara, but my favorite ship is Zuko/Mai and I’m perpetually really cranky that she’s apparently??? Not his Queen/Empress/Lady Wife/whatever you call it???? They’re a really devoted and incredibly salty pairing and that speaks to me. And also I like watching Mai wreck people while Zuko stands back and smirks.
G: What was your first fandom?
X-Men. Since I was seven. I wanted to be a mutant and go to Xavier’s about 10000000x more than I wanted to go to Hogwarts.
P: Invent a random AU for any fandom
The AU in which the Animorphs manage to drive off the Yeerks and still keep their shit pretty much 100% under wraps because the BPRD from Hellboy catches on before the general populace and makes all the ex-Controllers sign more nondisclosure agreements than anyone ever because they’re kind of like “…we don’t…have an aliens department…but we’re usually responsible for this kind of shit?” And they get kind of high-key glomped by the BPRD for the brand-spanking new BARD (Bureau of Alien Research and Defense), which is comprised of like five squeaky new agents, an ex-Marine captain who lasts about two and a half seconds before he quits, and an archivist who almost bawls her eyes out when she’s shown the stack of paperwork she has to do. Plus four sixteen-year-old humans, an Andalite who opts to stick around and play galactic liason for his best friends, and a talking hawk.
Some headcanons:
- The BARD has a truly astounding agent overturn rate, because people come in, and about 75% of them leave when they suddenly realize that they’re expected to take Jake’s lead. It’s a problem. It’s more of a problem because Marco, Tobias, and Rachel gleefully (and unsubtly) take bets. Tobias, for the first time literally ever, has money, because he has an uncanny knack for picking out the ones who will make it. He buys the others stuff because what the fuck else is he going to do with it.
- Hellboy thinks they’re the greatest. He worries because they are Very Young, but also: Rachel morphed elephant and cleaned his clock, he thinks they’re the greatest. And he gets being hurled into a war you don’t want to or aren’t ready to fight. Hellboy comes to visit the BARD all the time, especially since it’s an Approved Outing according to the BPRD. Also he and Tobias are weirdly good friends, which confuses a lot of people.
- Abe Sapien speaks fluent thoughtspeech and Ax finds him fascinating, they’re good friends. The first time he has a conversation with the others, Rachel punches him in the face for reading her mind. Jake comes pretty close too. Fortunately, Abe believes in the principle of ‘forgive and forget’ and is perfectly willing to not read their minds, so the lot of them get along okay after that.
- Rachel and Liz actually don’t match ideologies very well, they prickle off each other too much–being unable to control herself is Rachel’s greatest anxiety, and relishing the destruction is Liz’s greatest fear, and they scare each other. Liz and Cassie match up worse, though, because Liz is still the sort of woman who will ruthlessly immolate an entire room in order to save Hellboy. That’s not to say the Animorphs don’t like Liz, though, they like her just fine and she immediately installs herself as their de facto big sister. Her self-assumed duties include:
- making sure Jake remembers to eat
- listening to Marco complain about how fucking stupid bureaucracy is and how much easier when it was, quote, “just wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am and blow up a McDonalds”
- providing Tobias with a slightly more useful sounding board regarding Rachel than, well, Marco
- teaching Cassie to meditate
- explaining colloquialisms to Ax (she’s gotten weirdly good at this from hanging around Hellboy and Abe so much)
- letting Rachel rage when Rachel needs it, because if there’s one thing she gets, it’s the occasional need to scream yourself hoarse just because everything is so unfair
