#Rubrice

[uhohdad]

First of all bestie take all the time you need

If the fic came out next week or next month or next year it wouldn't make it any less perfect so don't overwork or stress yourself your health is so much more important to us than the fick ( mentally and physically )

Second of all, I don't wanna spoil anyone who hasn't read your last post, but know I'm giggling like crazy while playing with my hair.

Also, do you do emojie anons here? 👉👈

First of all bestie tysm ily and i appreciate everyone being so patient with me y’all are <3 💖🩷💕💞💗🩷💕

and yes of course!! just let me know which emoji lovebug i think the only one taken is the teddy bear at the moment

OH also I remembered a few more Price (+ one Konig) fun facts I forgot to share:

⚠️THE TRIBUTES and THE GAMES SPOILERS BELOW⚠️

Price made the kids go to bed early the night before the games because he didn’t want to see or hear them. 😭 It’s too hard, because is it impossible not to be even the slightest bit charmed by his tributes.

Price was the one who was knocking on Plucky’s door the night she was upset over her training score :( He knew she was feeling some type of way. It’s also why he was trying to be delicate with her about the interview.

Reader’s ‘Price Voice’ in the arena was not far off in the least bit. Price is acting like he’s watching a sports team he bet the farm on - screaming at the screens, leaning forward in his chair, grunting mumbles to himself, hollering and highfiving when his kids find their fucking sense.

Also this wasn’t canon five seconds ago but it is now - Price absolutely got so excited by one of Plucky’s escapes that he gave Ruby a sloppy, excited kiss on the mouth. She stormed out of the room bright red, fists at her sides, and heels slamming against the floor.

Price not only matched them but made sure the outfits were “soft” for their interviews on purpose. It lends to reader being underestimated and it made Konig seem less intimidating so he could lay the lover boy angle on thick.

When Konig saw Reader in that blue dress - AYO. Bro was flabbergasted when he saw her backstage. And back in the suite he sat at that dining table and just watched her pace around the room with her pretty fluttering dress like a flower-goddess-of-wrath with fucking hearts in his eyes bro. So down bad.

[frownyalfred]

in other news, the person rating my fics in the bookmarks has dropped back down to a 7.5/10 😭 we were making progress last month, there were at least two 8/10’s that I saw. the straight A student in me needs to see the rubric to figure out where they docked the .5 points from.

[jet-teeth]

Aaand last one of the artfight batch, Vansire & Mekintel for Sadseraph!

[spacecircusofklowns]

🤔 In cartoon form, what would the emotions of klowns from outer space look like when they see humans? 🍽

[megsdoodletag]

Oops second ask related to your au. What do fulgrim and ferrus get up too in their down time? Hehehe.

Im imagining konrad falling from a hole in the ceiling mouth stuffed full of gigantic rats landing right in the middle some celebratory luncheon that malcador has tried to organise.

never apologize for oc/personal au asks this is like me catnip.

going to do these backwards:

this sounds completely plausible (konrad does pop up in places he is absolutely not supposed to be frequently and with great enthusiasm)

except malc isn’t around (yet). however, there is another hooded perpetual with weirdly strong psychic powers wandering the palace. this isn’t great for emp’s mental state but who said any of this was great for emp’s mental state.

now that first question. the short answer is ferrus and fulgrim at least start the au by being firmly On Vacation

ferrus and fulgrim, once they’ve spent some time working things out between themselves generally just kinda. hang around? they’re slowly working on undoing the damage they did to their respective legions, kind of leading the charge for emotional rehab here like ‘ok there’s got to be a way to learn these lessons without Dying Horribly. right.’ they are preoccupied with this for much of the plot, in part because unlike most of the other Primarchs, Fulgrim in particular (and Ferrus by virtue of sticking close by to him) is Not Allowed to interact with Juno. At All.* (*until she’s older). In fact he’s top of The List (which is a thing that does exist). (this could be the subject of a whole nother post however, so i digress)

Fulgrim is actually quite upset by this; he’s put some degree of effort into repairing his relationship with Ferrus, and wishes gman would afford him the same opportunity. gman said i don’t owe u shit, which he’s right about, and though fulgrim understands this that doesn’t mean he’s happy about it. especially when it means he’s effectively out of the running for ‘baby niece’s favoritestest coolest most spoil you rotten uncle’ like forever (don’t feel too bad fulgrim. you’ll never guess who juno’s favorite is. none of you ever stood a chance.)

luckily fulgrim has other children to occupy his time.

N’kari was really important to fulgrim post-fall, as a touchstone and companion. The two were still very close even though they had not seen each other for some time at the start of this au, so when N’kari has an unsanctioned hybrid clutch with a khornate daemon and is panicking about it he goes straight to his bestie who uses his imperial-green-card-by-marriage to shelter him from the two angered deities.

So aside from their legions, Fulgrim and Ferrus’ downtime is largely occupied with assisting N’kari and Skarbrand raise their menace twin girls: Deimos and Phobos! They are somewhere between 7-10 years younger than Juno, and idolize her greatly, though she mostly knows them as these annoying kids who follow her around while she’s exploring the warp in her early twenties. Anyway that’s where all of Fulgrim’s ‘childless lesbian double income auntie at christmas’ energy goes; he spoils those brats rotten.

[paging-possum]

trying to get my degree in mad scientist school but my freaking evil potions professor won't put words on her slides so it's all pictures of snips and snails and puppy dogs tails with no explanations about how to actually combine them. got yelled at for not wearing my dubiously stained lab coat more often. performing my lab final organ harvesting but I had to pull an all nighter cram studying how to connect a human brain to a computer so im super tired and accidentally removed the wrong kidney and the guy on the table is laughing at me. three coffees deep wishing I had just studied to be a minion instead.

[lunarriviera]

Big Dumb Hot Cop & Effete Possibly Sociopathic Genius Consultant: A Manifesto

So it has recently come to my attention that this, my archetypal pairing formulation, has broken containment, probably because I've been flinging these terms around like a deranged person wielding a blunt instrument. Therefore it behooves me to explain what the hell I mean by all these adjectives, and who are some classic and contemporary examples of the idiots under discussion—who are by the way extremely in love with one another whether they realize it or not. (Don't you say "bromance." Don't you dare SAY that word to me.) I will use blorbo from my shows to illustrate.

I first realized that I am in fact a Big Dumb Hot Cop whisperer thanks to Chinese police procedural 猎罪图鉴 | Under the Skin (2022). Right away, it's very important to note that Big Dumb Hot Cop is NOT in fact all that dumb. He's only less intelligent IN COMPARISON to his Effete Slightly Sociopathic Genius Consultant, who is, as already stated, a genius. Big Dumb Hot Cop is in fact ruthlessly good at his job. He's driven, he obsesses about cases, he can walk into a crime scene and pick up on the one thing everyone else has missed. There is no suspect he cannot intimidate upon investigation. And he's even better when he's working with (or against, depending on what stage they're at) the genius consultant. They need each other, whether they're fighting or collaborating. They can only clear cases together.

Here are, then, police captain Du Cheng and his genius consultant, sketch artist Shen Yi, eyeing each other significantly as some witness is, I think, lying his face off? Honestly I can't even remember what's happening because the important thing here is their nonverbal communication. This is crucial for this pairing. They can think circles around each other without saying a word. Love that for them.

Effete Possibly Sociopathic Genius Consultant has two levels of Possibly Sociopathic. Most maddeningly of all, he has secrets. Sometimes many secrets. So at first, Big Dumb Hot Cop is going to think he's the criminal, or in some way involved in the wrongdoing. The second level is that he'll find Genius Consultant just worryingly, disturbingly good at predicting criminal behavior. And he will continue to be suspicious of him for exactly one or at most two episodes, until he's then swept off his big dumb feet by the rapidity and correctness of Effete Genius's deductions. There's nothing Big Dumb Hot Cop loves more than solving cases. Well, maybe beer. He also loves beer. Once he sees that Effete Consultant is useful, he'll do a 180º and stop complaining to his chief of police, and instead start demanding that Effete Consultant be his forever. He'll start hanging out in his office. He'll literally drag him to crime scenes by the wrist.

(And did I mention Effete Consultant must be very pretty? Did I mention that? He is lovely. Long, thin fingers to steeple while he thinks. Delicate features. Haunted dark eyes. Never sleeps. Shocking self-neglect. You may see where I am going with this.)

Another important attribute of Big Dumb Hot Cop: he's big. Or anyway strong, or a gifted fighter. Let's face it, he has to be, because Genius Consultant is going to be reckless with his own personal safety to the point of stupidity (now who's dumb, huh?). For example, consider another Chinese procedural, S.C.I. 谜案集 | S.C.I. Mystery (2018). Captain Bai Yutong is sort of impossibly physically talented (former fighter pilot! national sanda champion! runs over moving cars and then shoots at them, like some kind of weird urban biathlon!) and, like all good Big Dumb Hot Cops, his entire life is thrown upside down because he now has to drop everything to protect his effete consultant, criminal psychologist Dr. Zhan Yao, who's so careless with himself that in any another drama he would probably be driving Bai Yutong to drink. Thanks to the danmei on which SCI Mystery is based, however, we can safely assume Bai Yutong is taking it out on Zhan Yao in blow jobs.

Note that Bai Yutong is the cook, even though he's the gong, and that he moves in with Zhao Yan to "protect" him from...something, I can't ever remember what, and then just sort of forgets to move out again. For the length of the entire series.

I would argue that 镇魂 | Guardian (2018) is a procedural, even if it also has ghosts, a talking cat, snake lady, eerie dark energy that gets flung around like paintball splatters, and a whole bunch of other supernatural stuff that was not approved of by Big Red (it's based on a danmei of the same title by Priest, a novel which has been pulled from circulation for censorship). Further confusing matters, Zhao Yunlan isn't particularly Big or Dumb, nor is he even really a Cop, technically; but I'm claiming him for this genre not least because of his Effete (drop-dead gorgeous) Possibly Sociopathic (Chief Zhao thinks he's a suspect for a good third of the story) and Definitely Genius, Later Gangpressed into being a Consultant, chock-full of secrets Professor Shen Wei.

Once they finally team up, though, they do this genre/pairing proud. Why, there's nothing they can't solve except how to stay alive. Look at them here enjoying some fine nonverbal communication: "Oh my god, you're just like me—you too will fling yourself directly into bodily harm in order to save a clueless civilian. Okay this could be inconvenient for both of us. Also wow for a genetics professor you're really fucking built, do you lift my bro." (Yes. Yes he does lift.)

A final example: the cruelly short-lived 光渊 | Justice in the Dark (2023), which like Guardian is based on a danmei by Priest, 默读 | Silent Reading. I got baited into watching the eight (8) existing episodes by seeing a cut of Captain Luo Wenzhou taking on like forty guys with a champagne bottle, a pair of curtains, an axe handle, and a birthday cake, like some kind of cultivator. He's so big and hot, and he's so very dumb. He's also a cop, and ACAB (which is sort of the plot of Silent Reading); and Fei Du is possibly using him for his own nefarious ends (cf. possibly sociopathic and secretive). But underneath all of Fei Du's "I am the abyss, fear me, rawr!" scary posturing, like a puffed-up kitten, he's just a very pretty tender-hearted effete genius, and you can watch Luo Wenzhou melting, and practically pinpoint the exact moment when his whole heart flies out of his eyes and he decides: Yeah, okay, that's it for me. That one. The annoying little traumatized fuerdai with some kind of a death wish that I do not understand. I'll be throwing myself in front of bullets for him and/or cooking him dinner for the foreseeable future, thanks.

Priest is gonna mess with this dynamic of gong/shou caregiving and safeguarding, because that's what she does; but the fundamental beats are still there. Look at these ninnyhammers, just this second figuring out they're actually kind people who belong to each other.

Here they are confronting a suspect together. (You will notice the large butcher knife wavering in the foreground.) Luo Wenzhou, highly trained, nonetheless cannot de-escalate the situation. It takes a pretty playboy in an arm sling to come wandering into the room, and then, using his superb personal knowledge of what it's like to be traumatized to the point of insanity, getting the suspect to disarm. I just love the way they look at each other, incredulous (Luo Wenzhou) and mock-fascinated (Fei Du). If I ever meet the person who directed this scene I'm going to need to kiss them on the mouth.

Once you accept the gospel of Big Dumb Hot Cop and Effete Possibly Sociopathic Genius Consultant into your media-based life, you'll find it has many applications, not all of which have to be procedurals. Consider: characters from the Daomu Biji franchise, possibly (Hei Xiazi is the biggest dumbest hottest not-a-cop I've ever met). Leverage, in a weird OT3 way. Assorted combinations of Avengers. Teen Wolf fic, absolutely. Various Stargate incarnations. Several other Priest danmei, not only procedurals. Definitely Mysterious Lotus Casebook. Et cetera. (You're on your own with MXTX, though.)

This has gotten long and there are still so many nuances and features and wrinkles and problems with the theory that should be ironed out, but it'll have to do for now. I'll simply close by saying: yes, there is also a classic example and you already know exactly who it is.

ETA: this fall I watched 雪迷宫 | The First Shot, starring Huang Jingyu and Wang Ziqi, among other stunning actors, and it rewired my entire brain. Guess who the leads are? Please meet Zheng Bei, captain of a brand-new anti-narcotics team. He's a big dumb northerner and he's just met Gu Yiran, effete southern genius consultant and pharmaceuticals chemist who's about to change his life and also help him catch meth kingpins. Here they are in a rare peaceful moment at home together. Did I mention they live together, because they do.

I quite literally lost my mind about this Zhang Yimou-produced drama and you should move heaven and earth to watch it; but the point is, it's them again. They argue, make up, tease each other, bicker tenderly, eat, walk, go on dates, save each other, bury loved ones, touch constantly, LIVE TOGETHER, and somehow survive a plot that really wants them both dead. Gu Yiran is also an unexpected badass who goes feral at the drop of a hat and has an almost Fei Du level of secret tragic backstory, whereupon Zheng Bei laughs and says: hold my beer, mine is even worse. They were made for each other in a lab and I am obsessed with them. There are other ships in this drama (because apparently Zhang Yimou said to himself at some point: you know what I have more money and cred than god, I'm gonna make a prestige Chinese BL version of Breaking Bad) but theirs is mine, because they embody this archetype so perfectly. If you like service top police captains and their high-maintenance brilliant consultants, you might appreciate The First Shot as well.

Also, however improbably, season 2 of 猎罪图鉴 | Under the Skin is currently airing, so fans of this pairing are being very well fed. I leave you with an image of these two doing what they do best: Du Cheng is intimidating a suspect with the palpable choler of his irritation, also his eyebrows, whilst his genius wife Shen Yi has spent the last three years perfecting being bitchy and supercilious to a gorgeous and highly utilitarian degree. I feel a very normal way about them.

[drmikhailov]

Both last of 2024 and first of 2025

[horuslupercal]

post your astarteskeeping takes that will have you like this

I'll go first: I don't think it's possible to ethically keep thousand sons as pets. I know they're popular for their beauty and intense hobbies but their social needs are incredibly complex and hard to meet even for professional keepers, not to mention the psychic aspect

[wh40kgallery]

Thousand Sons

by Lewis Jones

[flock-of-cassowaries]

My post-fall headcannon is that Will Graham just keeps opening Nature Valley bars on Hannibal’s bed, like “Gonna kill me now? C’mon, Mr. Moral High Ground! I thought this was your thing?”

Will calls it Rudeness Desensitization Training.

Hannibal calls it “the reason we have ants”.

[uhohdad]

I didn't know my favourite trope is uptight x grumpy until ruby×price

It was truly the pairing I didn’t know I needed and I have been so enamored with the idea of a morning after I had to go for it.

Ruby springing up in the covers, her forehead tight from a night of overindulgence in whiskey and fine wine. Immediately her eyes are blown, lips pressed to hold in the squeal of regret that leaves her.

“Morning, Princess,” Price grumbles, not the least bit genuine. He opens his eyes, already dawning a squint as he rolls onto his back.

Ruby gasps dramatically, a hand coming up to touch her lips.

“Oh, John, what did we do?! This is more than inappropriate!”

Her words come out frantic, all in one breath, and ends with a high pitched squeal.

“Oh - if anyone found out about this we’d be in so much trouble!”

Price’s eyes close with a sneer as his hand rubs out the headache throbbing against his temple.

“No one’s gonna find out,” He says, both reassuringly and dismissively, his voice still heavy with the weight of sleep as he nestles back into his pillow.

Her eyes find him, his bushy, burly chest and sturdy arms on display, seemingly trying to ignore Ruby and go back to sleep.

“You’re not taking this very seriously, John!”

“You didn’t seem to be taking it too serious last night,” he mumbles.

Ruby lets out an offended scoff, looking at him with annoyance in her brow after the shock of his audacity wore off.

There is no mistaking the flush of her skin.

“In fact,” Price continues, a smug grin forming as he takes in a teasing tone, “You were taking it-“

“John!” Her palm hits the covers in protest.

“What?” He draws, as if he didn’t know he was pushing her buttons, but the mischievous smile on his face is more than telling.

Ruby grunts in a high-pitch, rubbing out her opposing shoulder with one hand as John blindly sticks an arm in the air and wordlessly invites her to curl up at his side.

Her brows furrow and her lips warp as she considers it.

“I don’t have all day, Princess.”

Ruby mumbles under her breath as she gives in, practically assaulting the covers in irritation as she nuzzles into the warmth of his chest.

[frownyalfred]

thought that rubric thing was the funniest thing ever so i went poking around your fics to see if i could find that 7.5 and the first fic i looked at had a rubric in the bookmarks which was very funny. like, probably not the same person, but i was amused.

also, thought, ooh new author to check out… i already read your stuff.

oh well. might as well reread while I’m here <3

Okay I was also curious and now I’m DYING. Thank you to Akumzae over on ao3, who I’m pretty sure whipped this up after my shitposting about rubrics yesterday 🤣

I’m dying. This is perfect and exactly what I needed. It’s got explanations for point deductions!!!

[plusultraetc]

my favorite thing about Vlad King is that his hero name is VLAD KING and his quirk is BLOOD CONTROL and he has RED EYES and SHARP TEETH and he's 6'4 and built like a BRICK WALL and his PERSONALITY IS competitive but supportive, protective and encouraging, he gets along with his students and coworkers and his favorite things are tomatoes and cheese. he's got a dog :)

[spacecircusofklowns]

Part 3 🎉🎉🎉 The end of the movie (or cartoon x)))

And a little bonus at the bottom ✨

✨The end of the comic✨

[arttsuka]

Some doodles I did instead of paying attention to class