Give me Alex Rider’s politics teacher just being absolutely…astounded by the amount of knowledge this kid has on not only the socio-economic climate of literally every freaking country but the most freakishly good instincts of how each new politician that comes along is going to fare. It’s at the point he now has a secret cabinet of sticky notes on Alex’s off hand comments of each new public figure because God Dammit he always turns out to be right.
Give me Alex’s Riders politics teacher who stands up for him against others in the staff room because his essays provide the freshest viewpoints he’s seen in over 20 years. Ethics, politics, morality, social structures, negotiations, public figures, military influences and ulterior motivators; Alex Rider handles each topic with a grace and insight he hasn’t seen since university. Quite frankly he doesn’t know whether to be impressed or terrified. He settles on curious.
Give me Alex Rider’s politics teacher who’s family served in the army, who recognises the shadows of war in those dark brown eyes even if he can never understand why. The only one that seems to notice that seeing Alex’s controlled, efficient steps through a boisterous crowd of school children is like watching a ballet dancer glide through a swarm of drunk seagulls.
Give me Alex Rider’s politics teacher who let’s the poor kid take a nap in class or snack when he wants to (partly because 50% of the time he looks ready to drop) but mostly because deep down they both know there’s nothing that he can teach him here. Alex had an already pretty unusual and impressive grasp of foreign affairs before his uncle died and in the years since then? Well, he’s pretty sure Alex speaks more languages fluently than he has fingers.
Give me Alex Rider’s politics teacher whose subject gives him more of a glimpse into his talents than most people are allowed to see; who takes one good look at his extra little piece of the puzzle and thinks yeah. This kid is brilliant.
My favourite personal theory for Alex Rider that could semi-realistically be cannon and fits a lot of fic the fandom has made is that Alan Blunt arranged Ian’s death and only blamed it on Yassen.
- My most important evidence is that Blunt is simply a Bastard and the real villain in the whole series. I will not elaborate.
- Ian’s death would have been highly beneficial to Blunt when Alex was old enough to be sent on missions, but young enough to be impressionable and controlled while being indoctrinated into the agency. If Blunt had caught wind that Ian was training Alex all he would have to do was remove Ian and the boy was his.
-Semi-related to that point, Ian may have been pretty abesent but he 100% did not leave Alex’s custody with the bank. He would have known there was a chance of being killed in a mission and had better contingency plans for that. Blunt faked the documents which a 14 year old Alex would not have been able to argue with.
-Blunts actions towards Alex and easy control over him also suggest he’s been watching him for a while (possibly just due to his bloodline) but nevertheless would have had time to plan it all out.
-Next is that the multiple shots to the car don’t fit Yassen’s style and although Ian isn’t the same as John or Alex, I still feel Yassen killing Ian wouldn’t have been as simple as that. By blaming Yassen though, Blunt would have been preventing Alex from getting in contact with him and covering up about his family history right from the start. The Assasin was also an easy scapegoat for why Ian’s death would have looked a little too clean.
- We see that by the end of the series, Blunt methods are too extreme even for MI6’s own employees suggesting he was 100% capable of pulling off something like this.
-Even more, writing Yassen and Alex getting on so well when Yassen literally killed his uncle is something I’ve seen the fandom struggling with a lot. The whole narrative that Yassen killed Ian doesn’t really fit well to readers (especially knowing his past with Alex’s father) and it’s one of the main obstacles that stops them being closer in canon. I feel like they’re so similar to each other and the family like dynamic the fandom creates around them is just so fitting, Blunt blamed Yassen to avoid anything like this manifesting
-Final point, did I mention Blunt is a bastard? If not, Blunt is a Bastard and would 100% do something like this
The fandom question of the day - K Unit isn’t popular because:
A) At the time K Unit was popular the landmark fic was Amitai’s Hell is Other People and now it is (rightfully) Devil and the Deep Blue Sea by Pongnosis which has led to the fantastic Yassen-focused content
B) The fandom is largely older now and while we were younger, writing Alex in a family environment or at school was closer to our experiences and we’ve simply grown to appreciate more nuanced stories and characters
C) We’ve all realized they’re bullies who targeted a 14 year old kid to take their frustrations out on during high stakes, high stress environment.
D) Why K Unit when we could Sagitta?
E) TV show K Unit is better, however, the show isn’t developed enough to get to tease them out more
F) Stop mucking about and get back to writing
@valaks (this got too long to reply to your reply so i’m reblogging!)
right!!!! the Sargent even told alex “i want you to fuck up so i can kick you out” and in point blank on they’re super reasonable. wolf even apologies to alex while they’re still at the camp!
there’s so much room for it to be “yeah we were told to be dicks to you” or “it was heavily implied our careers would be ended if we tried to be nice to the actual child with us and we are not immune to blackmail” or even “we were specifically lied to about your parents sending you here as a wakeup call” or even…. letting them just have been dicks to him once without knowing the full situation, apologizing, and doing better? I mean I adore Yassen but its wild to me that when he’s The Worst it’s considered fine and when K unit was The Worst and then canonically apologized for this its because they’re bullies
Hell is Other People is such such such an amazing fic and I love it! I wish K unit was more appreciated in general–pretty much all the fics they appear in its as a side character for a scene or two. my personal mission is to bring k unit back so help me god, they’re so underrated I think. I’ve loved them since the beginning and my heart can’t take TV show k unit on top of them already without there being much content
Am here for this. I just adore side characters in general and with K Unit, because they were so heavily utilized early on, there’s a lot of fun trope flipping to do with them. There’s a lot of K Unit head canons re their family/roles in the team that are pretty consistent through the fandom but would love to see new takes on it.
My dream K Unit fic is the 4 times K Unit meets Adult Alex and (possibly) the one time he sees them.
Given Selection rates it’s unlikely that all of them would make it through so variation is very possible - have Snake the field RAF field medic who treats him on base or Eagle who got injured and they run into each other at a pub or a therapist office. They likely wouldn’t recognize Alex save for maybe Wolf and Fox but Alex has a good eye for faces and recognizes them and maybe doesn’t say it just have Snake or Eagle who notices that he seems too familiar. It’s not as if they know each other’s names.
Wolf and Fox don’t even have to be run into in the field - could have Alex seeing Fox in a cubicle fresh off of injured reserve and now working as analyst as he goes to Jones’ office. Or Wolf who is putting on a refresher training or a threat assessment meeting that Alex gets dragged into as a liaison given his familiarity with the enterprise they’re facing.
Can even have one of the times be something more dramatic - an op that went bad and his face is splashed over the news or even a repeat of his father’s cover where he gets sent to jail for “murder”.
I think reception would be strong - Outsider POVs do extremely well in the fandom, especially ones with K Unit (oddly enough). Which a whole other meta of mine.
Long story short: Would be here for more K Unit content especially through fresh eyes now that there’s been a time away from them
That’s such an interesting point about how strong and consistent their fandom characterization was! I love love love that dichotomy that you get with characters very unused in canon but super fleshed out in fandom. I’m quite attached to the fandom versions of K unit, especially given that I really enjoy the spook verses soldier thing you see sometimes but it’s so refreshing seeing a new version.
That’s such a fun idea!!! I enjoy them as a unit but GOD the potential that opens up when you have them all over the military. K unit 5 years later starting to retire from active work from various gunshots/ptsd/burnout/whatever with one or two of them still in it and running into Alex whose not even 20 year? The potential of it all.
Now I desperately want to write a “K unit but it’s 6 years later and only one of them is still serving in any capacity” fic
