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#if anything either warriors or four would be the best to formally lead (literal military captain and Guy Who’s Whole Adventure Was About
un-pearable · 6 months
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illadvisedly been reading LU fic again and boy has the fic scene only gotten weirder about the leader thing
#the core conceit is that these are all singularly competent and accomplished heroes#awkwardly forced to work together and collaborate#the whole idea that time is ~ obviously the leader ~ is such boring nonsense#like Yeah i can see why it would shake out that way in the comic but in these fics people straight up take it as far as time outright orderi#ordering people around and being honestly mean. and it’s written off as ‘well obviously they’d all listen to him’#and like. okay for 1) with the exclusion of four all of these guys did their adventures independently. ft. fun sidekicks sure but they are#incredibly skilled individual fighters and experienced travelers#2) uh. nothing about time other than him arbitrarily being the oldest (bc jojo thought it would be more interesting - he never appears at#this age in canon) would make him an inherently better leader. he isn’t even the most experienced out of any of them#NOTORIOUSLY the hero of time is one of the youngest and wrapped up his heroism by the age of 12#if anything either warriors or four would be the best to formally lead (literal military captain and Guy Who’s Whole Adventure Was About#Teamwork). and 3) i don’t even really care about any of 2 i just think they don’t NEED a single leader like this much less that they would#pick one. they’re all stubborn little shits. they’ve got there little cliches and generally all like each other but fundamentally links are#just. not the type to fall in line in a hierarchy.#the best take on the leader problem in fic is usually ‘yeah whoever’s world this is is in charge to get us somewhere safe 👍’ and like#group consensus. i Get the level of respect time gets as ‘leader’ in the comic but fic wayyyyy over extends it (as a result of the scope#being bonkers bigger) but sincerely i think it’s incredibly stupid and ooc to write them as falling in line behind a Single Guy regardless#of which guy it is. and let’s be real it’s only time bc ocarina of time is the single most influential zelda game#idk. jay’s LUposting while halfway through an assignment again 👍#text✨#admittedly yes you do need someone to make Final Decisions on things. that is not the way most fics write time though#(to his and EVERYONE ELSE’S detriment. stop making people boring. let them fight about what they’re going to do more. time would be waymore)#interesting if people actually address the whole ‘he’s the oldest so he’s in charge’ thing as it really is: everyone mistaking him for Super#Skilled And Talented when he’s spent the 30 years since he killed ganon farming in the middle of nowhere. and he’s just like haha yeah sure!#i definitely know how to coordinate 9 fighters with distinct fighting styles ! i can do that! <- guy who sends his wife on market trips bc#he grew up in a forest of like 5 total children and still thinks normal human adults are weird
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Oh my gosh you just discovered mash? It's such a good show. It has some really serious episodes, end of season 3 comes to mind. I always imagined the animorphs watching mash or like somehow finding solace in it.
OH BOY BUT HAVE I MENTIONED THE MASH AU OF ANIMORPHS THAT I LITERALLY JUST THOUGHT OF TONIGHT THOUGH?
No, obviously not, I literally just thought of it tonight, but buckle in for it anyway because I’m SUPER in love with this show!!!!!
Now, keeping in mind that I am NOT EVEN three seasons in, here are my current castings, ft. the 4077th being known as The One Full Of Babies Fresh Out Of Med School (these kids are like 27 tops, they’re practically infants in terms of the medical field).
Colonel Elfangor Shamtul, The Local Adult, who’s actually in his late 40′s and is a real actual grown up surgeon with a practice and everything, now the boss of a MASH unit in Korea and discovering that his talent for commanding a surgical theater actually translates really well into commanding a military unit.  Most everyone under his command thinks he’s the best thing since sliced bread.  All his superiors are basically looking for an opportunity to get his ass court martialed when they’re not handing down commendations for his weirdly effective slant-wise thinking.  His old buddy Arbron keeps them stocked then the supply lines are cut and if anyone asks Arbron and the Mountaineers are running a completely legitimate shipping enterprise.  Elfangor goes by first names with the entire populace unless a general’s there and has never enforced a dress code in his entire life because it would require him to give up his blue jacket.  He was transferred to command of the babiest MASH unit as a punishment after the first time his buddy’s legitimate shipping enterprise got tapped for being probably black market.
Corporal Aximili Isthill, the babiest baby, who is 25 and oh my God Elfangor is adopting this boy he loves him so much.  They’re not blood relatives but Elfangor got handed a gangly excitable kid as an aide and was basically like “that one’s mine thanks” and never looked back.  Ax is actually seven kinds of genius but none of them are medical--he has a stellar memory for medications but no head for anatomy--so he’s more or less single-handedly keeping the base running.  He’s apparently some kind of psychic, if his gift for knowing exactly what’s going on where and when at any given time is any indication, and he's discovered a frankly inhuman talent for electrical engineering since he got drafted out of his blossoming career as a perpetual student.  Elfangor is making this child get a doctorate if it kills them both, and since it turns out they actually live within an hour of each other in the States, there’s a non-zero chance that Ax will be moving in with him afterward.
Captain Jake Berenson, who is chief surgeon but not second in command and who just wants everyone to cooperate for five fucking minutes please.  He is begging.  And everyone knows that even though Big Jake (his army nickname within 0.3 seconds because he’s the tallest guy in the unit and built like a Mack truck) isn’t legitimately second in command, he’s the guy you go to if you want to get anything done.  He specialized in cranial trauma, which isn’t as useful as you’d think when half the head wound cases die before they reach the hospital, but Jake thought the brain was interesting and made his specialty decision while kinda drunk, so.  Leave him alone.  The reason he’s chief surgeon isn’t because of any particular medical brilliance--Jake is a good surgeon mostly through sheer pigheadedness, not because he’s a sparkling medical mind--but rather because when Jake starts barking orders, people listen.  
Captain Rachel Berenson, who is a surgeon because I don’t care about historical accuracy and because she fought tooth and nail to go to medical school and then signed up for the war when they wouldn’t draft her.  She’s at least 60% of the reason Jake is begging people to cooperate, because Rachel has made nine doctors, four nurses, and six patients cry since getting her white coat.  He’s not saying she didn’t have her reasons, okay, she has the right to defend her position as a doctor, but also please stop.  She knows more about chest injuries than probably anyone else in Korea and she likes to remind people that it means she’d be just as good at inflicting them as patching them up.  Marco labels her the Warrior Princess after two days of knowing her and it sticks hard even though she threatened to open him up with a rusty scalpel when she first heard it.
Major Cassie Day, head nurse, who everyone knows is the best at making sure that, once the surgeons have yanked someone back, they stay back.  Cassie is an angel, probably, or at least so goes common theory based on the sheer miracles she’s pulled off in her time.  As long as someone’s done bleeding to death when they get to her, she’ll probably drag them through--whether they like it or not.  She and Rachel are bunkmates because no one knew what to do with a lady surgeon and Cassie offered, and they’ve been best friends ever since, complete with Cassie occasionally helping Rachel’s more hare-brained schemes come together.  Everyone and their cousin, including Elfangor, knows that Cassie and the chief surgeon make out in the supply tent, but also the one time Cassie left for a week leave the entire unit broke down so no, they will not be reporting them for breaking frat regs.  No matter how much Elfangor’s second-in-command wants to.  One time someone talked shit about her skin color and was drummed out of the unit on mysteriously appearing court martial charges two days later.  Contrary to popular opinion, it was not Rachel who started the brawl that got him brought up on charges, nor was the guy actually murdered straight up.  Arm broken, yes.  Murdered, no.  Turns out Big Jake hits as hard as he looks like he does.
Captain Marco Reilly, who is the unit psychologist and also Rachel’s top enabler.  She spends 80% of her time defending herself as a woman and a surgeon, he spends 80% of his time defending himself either based on his race or based on his career, and they are responsible for 80% of Jake’s ulcer because they get in a huge amount of trouble together.  Psychology hasn’t really entered the generally accepted medical field, but Marco specializes in treating trauma and combat fatigue and he gets soldiers back on their feet better than anyone else.  He decided on his career when he was a kid and his mom was a nurse in WWII who wrote home about how she saw boys without a mark on them ruined worse than those who would walk with a limp for the rest of their lives, and Marco doesn’t believe in regret.  It’s also this mentality that generally leads to him and Rachel being a Problem for Jake.  That doesn’t stop Jake from accepting the offer of gin from Marco’s personal still, or from more than occasionally getting swept up in the shenanigans himself.
Corporal Tobias Williams, who is in charge of triage and about 80% trained as a nurse in addition to his other duties.  (I know MASH doesn’t formally have someone in charge of triage but they SHOULD okay, listen, they SHOULD.)  He’s a decent chopper pilot, too, but the unit tends to contrive reasons to keep him around.  Rachel likes to have him assist her in surgery because he has an uncanny talent for spotting things that have the potential to kill her patients almost before she does, and isn’t afraid to mention it.  Tobias and Ax fall in together as inseparable besties within about a month, and Tobias learns not to wait for the announcement that wounded are coming in not long after--he just watches Ax tilt his head in that particular way and sprints off to the staging area without missing a beat.  For a bit a lot of the unit talked shit behind Tobias’ back, claiming that triage was slacker work, but then there was a day where Tobias spent nineteen hours on the staging area directing choppers and ambulances, stopped for twenty minutes to eat and chug an entire pot of coffee, and turned back out for another twenty hours, and went to assist in OR once the wounded stopped pouring in.  Then folks stopped talking shit.  Tobias is nervous and jumpy and generally quiet enough that no one ever thinks to suspect him of being trouble, which is why people are always shocked when it turns out that, say, it was his idea to smuggle in a dozen kegs of beer for New Year’s.
(Elfangor spends three months getting really attached to Tobias before he finds out some relevant information and has about a six month crisis about how to approach it.  His ultimate solution is TBD.)
Major David Pence, aka That Rat, who is Elfangor’s second in command and a screeching pain in everyone’s ass.  Everyone except David knows that his dad bought his way into med school and leveraged his rank in the army to force Elfangor to take the kid on as his second.  David’s under the impression that he’s great shakes at surgery and command both, and he straight up tried to report Elfangor when Jake was appointed chief surgeon over his head.  That was not a major event, because David tries to report someone about twice a week.  About half those attempted reports are either Rachel or Tobias or Ax--Tobias and Ax because he thinks they’re getting above their station, Rachel apparently for the crime of being herself.  He cannot be trusted to keep a level head in a crisis and Cassie has had to swoop in and save his patients more than once.  
Ji-Min “James” Song is a civilian doctor, their primary contact at a long-term recovery facility in Seoul where they send patients who are destined for a discharge.  Every time James rolls up to collect a patient, it is heavily implied that very similar chicanery is going on at his place, and he and Jake get drunk together to commiserate a lot.
Elfangor gets drunk with them too, sometimes.
#mash#animorphs#the one where the 4077 is full of babies#featuring stealth david? i just wanted him to be there to get kicked around as an easy target#for my soul#all i ever want is for the kids to get to burn david all the time always so he is frank and i'm not sorry#rachel and marco are the SOURCE of a lot of the shenanigans but the others cannot be trusted not to enable#elfangor is slightly more onboard with stuff than henry but also he gives biweekly lectures on how they need to not get court martialed#i have my reasons for these assignments!!!! i am particularly pleased with tobias as a jack of all trades but mostly a triage commander#(get it: he's the one with the wider view of the situation)#marco (idly): do you think i can make this still more efficient?#ax (chipper): i could double your output no problem#marco: .......marry me immediately#probably erek is the priest having a perpetual crisis about violence but much more slappable than father mulcahey#after jake beats the bejeezus out of that one dude erek gives him a lecture on turning the other cheek#and when he nods stiffly and marches out of erek's tent he gets a rousing ovation from the unit at large#also OBVIOUSLY rachel and tobias start doing the kissing thing eventually#it just takes longer because they are not as emotionally articulate as jake and cassie#which is not to say that jake and cassie were quick about it--everyone got to stifle in the pining for A Minute before they got together#marco feels like he Deserves his still at this point#ax had actually never been drunk before marco got him plastered and marco is THRILLED with drunk!ax as a phenomenon#idk i've got a remarkable amount of this sorted out given that i thought of it maybe three hours ago#idiot teenagers with a queue#m to the 6th power#asked and answered
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