joke not a joke crack au: no headgear ruth or as I'd call it, Ruth's World Saving Serve (How to Save the World with Literal Cunt). I feel like she'd enjoy the vulgarity. i also only added literal bc i feel like she'd be into those shitty YA "basically porn but called dystopia/fantasy/sci-fi for the plot it uses as a mask" novels with the long ass titles. it'll make sense later. this is heavily inspired by the Ruth x Max hookup in the last installment of the 'The Pasqualli's "Incident"' fic series!
basically the canon thing (at least i think it was canon and said on a livestream) is that Ruth only wears her headgear because she thinks it'll stop Max from attacking her physically, knowing he's middle class and won't exactly like medical bills and something he could clearly get charged and caught for or at least something similar to that.
but what if her dentist decides, "no Ruth you cannot keep wearing the expensive headgear, you have retainers now and it's custom fitted to keep exerting force, meaning you might actually go backwards in your progress."? yes yes bullshit medical thing but like... what if?
and obviously Ruth takes it off bc "holy fucking shit i am not going through the pain of tightening things AGAIN even with max around" and also "damn my parents actually sort of give a shit about my health even if it's for the money saving reasons and they're definitely going to be pissed if they have to pay for braces AGAIN"
so when she comes back into senior year, she's basically looking like Emma Perkins or a scrawnier and curly haired version of Linda Monroe (just lauren roles basically). and those two are smoking hot in some way since Linda is mother and a Honey Queen winner and Emma can be mistaken as a Latte Hotte. ruth's pretty now.
which leads to max. ofc max has a nerdy type. and ofc he's wondering why the new hottie on the block seems to be avoiding him and hanging out with spankoffski and lipschitz of all people. as spoken, he's totally into the unapproachable type ("there's only one out of reach, her name is chasity - it's a wound i can help her bandage!") even if Ruth has no idea she's freaking doing it.
but when Steph gets Pete to meet her at Pasqualli's, instead of Max beating the shit out of him (still threatens to and insults him cruelly duh), they make a weird ass deal that if Pete can get the "new girl" to go on a date with Max by next week, Pete gets to meet up with Steph. He'll let this meeting slide but once the deal is set, Pete's on a deadline to get his ass beat.
so instead of the Waylon prank, it is basically like those teen movies with bets to win except max fucked up with his bet and the nerds + Steph + maybe Grace (girl is trying to throw him at someone else to get rid of her lust) + maybe the jocks (they realize Ruth is freaky but normal and are desperately trying to use her to get back normal teen ways of living and dating) are abusing it to try and get him to be a good person.
and so through the power of dates, teenage horniness, and maybe a witchy intervention (holloway diner dates duh!!), Ruth is serving and using cunt to try and reeducate a bully on why bullying is bad and how to not treat woman like shit unless with consent and in a bed.
i love my freaky ahh crack taken mildly serious au.
