#i will be posting rice the lesbian alien soon

[zillyspacebugz]

drawing i did at 1am well listing to sherlock and co!! i totally forgot my watermark dont steal it pls :/

just fyi i wanted to explain his identity. so i dont get yelled at. he is intersex 46xx but got implants. he likes he/him and xe/xem cus pronouns ≠ gender. he is a lesboy because he uses he him and has male genitalia so he considers himself a lesboy (kinda as a joke)

any further questions? dm me

[pluckyredhead]

I’m working on my Al Rothstein character profile and I want to include every interaction between him and Todd Rice from their JLA days in it but that would be way too long so here, have a separate post about it:

They are best friends! And opposites!

But Todd is also very obviously pining, and Al is oblivious! To everything! (There are MULTIPLE scenes in this series of Todd pining after Al while Al pines after women...who are pining after other women.)

Todd is actually struggling quite a bit emotionally in this series, and after a suicide attempt, Al insists on having Todd see a therapist. Todd has a panic attack when he meets her, because he can’t bear to talk to a woman. So instead Al sets him up on a date with her (and Todd never does get any therapy). THIS IS A NO:

Al is a doofus but mostly I’m mad at the therapist, who should have her license revoked. (However, that panel of enormous Al skipping along and Todd as a tiny grumbly ink blot behind him is very good.)

The team is surprised that Al’s okay with Todd dating someone else, because, well...

Al decides to talk to Todd directly, which is the smartest thing he’s done yet:

Thanks, Todd! That cleared up precisely nothing!

(Yes, I know “I don’t like labels” is a very dated trope. This comic is from 1996; Todd wouldn’t come out as gay for another 10 years. I also suspect that having Icemaiden as an out lesbian on the team - one of DC’s very first queer superheroes - meant that Todd and Bea and arguably Al had to stay in the realm of heavy-handed subtext.)

Seeking reassurance of his own heterosexuality, Al promptly asks a lesbian on a date:

HIS FACE. Bless his heart.

Oh Al, honey. It means you have possibly the worst gaydar in the whole DCU. Like, literally, he interrupted Sigrid giving another woman her phone number to ask her out. (He is rebounding from pursuing Bea, who had a whole...thing with Sigrid, hence that line about the women he asks out.)

Al used to be a college basketball player, so he goes and plays basketball with an alien until he feels better (comics!). Then he goes to find Todd:

I love this page so much.

They sort of leave it at that, but Todd does break up with his unethical therapist girlfriend:

ADORABLE. (Bonus points for Al talking about going to a seder and using Yiddish, although not sure why he mentions his “parents” since his dad died when he was, like, seven.)

The series was canceled very soon after this and Al joined the JSA, while Todd briefly went evil, like you do. Looks like the crush didn’t go anywhere, though:

UGH THESE TWO.

Todd eventually got better. Al ran away to Kahndaq with Black Adam and became a war criminal for his new boyfriend, but also eventually came back. They don’t interact a ton after this but there is an unintentionally hilarious moment in the 2007 JSA series where Todd gets scared by a spooky ghost so he turns into an impenetrable wall of darkness (like you do) and won’t let anyone in or out of the JSA mansion, AND will only talk to Al about it:

Todd: Al has never done anything wrong ever, in his life. Al: Aw, same to you, buddy! 😊 Rick: Jesus fucking Christ.

Anyway I love them and I’m so glad they’re back in continuity and DC should publish more comics about them, the end.