We're not broken, we're just bent...

1: a panicked man points at the giant screen on the wall where there are three intersecting red lines and cries, "Ms. Stratt, MULTIPLE petrova lines have been found in our solar system!"

2: Eva stratt says, "impossible. get me a better view." Someone replies, "zooming out scope for full visibility!"

3: same view of Stratt but with a cast of red light.

4: zoomed out view of stratt standing in front of the screen, showing the AO3 logo glowing in the stars. Strat says, "good god."

I spent almost an entire work shift drawing this tooth-rotting fluff

Like okay, you've got the species whose rulers live their entire lives in a dark room with no furniture to symbolise their commitment. The people who directly equate hair circumference with social class and get super angry if all six of their penises aren't accurately depicted on an action figure. The reptilian marsupials who will force a guy to become the central prophet of a new religion whether he likes it or not. The celestial entities who are so obsessed with being mysterious they pretend they can't breathe normal air and wear fake spacesuits everywhere they go.

Even the minor species are like this. The Roswell grey type guys who literally communicate only in crop circles. The ancient beings who will make you wait four hours for them to answer a phone call and then just say "Zog" and hang up on you. The species that apparently consists solely of ten of the same guy, and every one of them starts every conversation with a comment about how much it sucks having a menial job.

Randolph Mantooth. September 19 1945 - July 9 2026. Rest in Peace.

"𝐄𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐛𝐨𝐝𝐲 𝐬𝐚𝐲𝐬, '𝐀𝐫𝐞𝐧'𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐭𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐛𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐠𝐧𝐢𝐳𝐞𝐝 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐝𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐄𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐲?' 𝐍𝐨. 𝐈'𝐦 𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐝 𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐲 𝐦𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫. 𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐬𝐚𝐯𝐞𝐝 𝐥𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐬. 𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐥𝐮𝐜𝐤𝐲 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐛𝐞?"

In memory of television, screen and stage star Randolph Mantooth who passed away on July 9th, 2026 at the age of 80 at a hospice facility in Ventura, California following a lengthy illness. Born Randy DeRoy Mantooth on September 19th, 1945 in Sacramento, California, he started acting in high school and received a scholarship to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts where he changed his stage name to "Randolph". After appearing in a few well-received plays in New York, he returned to California where he quickly became a popular and well-known staple of 1970s, 1980s and 1990s television, racking up a long list of acting credits. Best remembered for his starring role as Firefighter Paramedic John Gage on the NBC series Emergency! (1972-1977) and for his stints on the soap operas Loving, General Hospital, As the World Turns and One Life to Live in the 1980s and 1990s, he also made guest appearances on many popular TV shows during his almost sixty year long acting career, including Charlie's Angels, Battlestar Galactica, Diagnosis: Murder, MacGyver, The Love Boat, Fantasy Island, L.A. Law, Baywatch and Sons of Anarchy.

Finding the 1980s classic The A-Team available for download the other day has got me in a sharing mood, so if you're interested in checking out the first fandom I wrote m/m romance for over 20 years ago (christ on a bike), the first season is available for download here and the second season should be uploaded in the next couple of hours. After that, I'll have to rotate through the other seasons but I'll reblog when I have 3/4 up (and 5 if I can get it in).

What is the A-Team? Well, there's a thorough breakdown of the premise and main characters here if you like, but long story short there was a spate of one-hour action shows in the mid-Eighties that tried to make the American Vietnam War vet into a hero. Yeah, I know. If you can get past that (and fair play if you can't), this one always struck me a little differently.

When I was watching it in its original run at fourteen (and perving over George Peppard), I didn't pick up on just how much the show was aware of its own OTT-ness. In a lot of ways, it's a cartoon - but everyone involved knew it was a cartoon, and played to that in a hundred different ways. There were a lot of jokes and laughs and nods and winks. As an example, here's George in drag showing the baddies who's the boss ass bitch:

Not only that, it was surprisingly anti-establishment and left-wing for an American action show during the Reagan years. The enemies weren't 'street scum' as was standard at that time, but evil capitalists and rednecks. In one ep, for example, the Team goes to the aid of protesting migrant farm workers by robbing the rich landowner's banquet, pelting his minions with cabbages, and helping the workers all over the valley organize a union. The show was utterly ridiculous, but it wasn't without merit, and it was definitely smarter than it looked on the surface.

And then there are these two. Templeton "Faceman" Peck (Dirk Benedict) and HM "Howlin' Mad" Murdock (Dwight Schultz). The stars of the show were definitely Peppard and Mr. T, but as the show went on and it became clear they hated one another's guts, the writing featured Face and Murdock more than I think it would have otherwise. This worked out well for some fans, because these two had chemistry up the wazoo. When I first watched it, I couldn't quite figure out why I loved watching them so much, but when I stumbled across some fic nearly 20 years later, I finally got it. And then I wrote some of my own.

but the funniest part of this is not that they were debating the exile of a man who has been dead for over 500 years.