#not in a blorbo way. like genuinely whats his fucking deal

[butchdykekondraki]

okay anyway. sorry for the repeated eminem posts i got reminded of his existence and he fascinates me to literally no end

[turtlespancake]

me when i write a character who is prone to dooming themself and then they run off and doom themself. core traits are stubbornness and a willingness to disregard their own humanity gET BACK HERE IM NOT DONE WITH YOU

[zed-the-buggy]

ok so larry and geeta

i really hate to rag on a character other people like for my own blorbo so uh, geeta fans i am so so sorry i would recommend skipping this post, i doubt its actually this deep </3 you are allowed to like her prommy

ok but ACtual analysis time, what the FUCK is up with larry and geeta (people who have never had a shitty two faced boss before ask. /j)

larry expresses anti institutional ideologies a lot, he wants to do things outside the system hes in will allow. he expresses a lot of negativity about his position, a lot of remarks which could rock the boat. which they HAVE with the amount of people now realizing most gym leaders have second jobs. and the system might! be kinda fucked! and deal shitty pay and is just kinda a whole gimmick of an industry in the whole universe. and larry sorta points directly at that, when he actively complains about Having to be a gym leader, Having to be an e4 member.

Geeta in this position would fucking hate Larrys guts! and would also point to her just quietly not saying anything when the player likes larry most. Because Geeta doesnt just dislike larry in this position. Geeta dislikes the ideals hes lowkey pioneering here. And when the player likes larry, its like the player is siding with larry. The player believes hes in the right, not Geeta, and it directly pits the player and Geeta at odds, in a very quiet way.

Geeta cant say shit. Geeta has to keep up the appearance of one big happy league full of amazing, positive members and they're all strong and etc etc. She keeps the facade of the entire league. Whether she genuinely loves the league or not, she has to keep an incredibly dedicated face up about the view of the league. But this same rule doesn't apply in private. The gym leaders, her workers have to keep that facade also, especially with Geeta, but Geeta doesnt have to give them that same light of day. Geeta can do whatever she wants, and the gym leaders just kinda have to deal with it.

i very much believe geeta and larrys relationship proposes this really. really sad idea. because geeta is larrys boss, and they. really dont like eachother! and geeta has. power. larry is afraid she will "dock his pay" for chitchat. but really it comes down to his chit chat going against the status quo, the status quo which Geeta benefits from. And ultimately, she does have the power to dock him for chit chat. She can rob him for being honest. And while Geeta's true treatment of the gym leaders as a manager will probably remain unknown, Larry's existence really offers the idea that it's probably not a great role.

Larry is not special. And thats the problem. Hes not breaking ass to go all out on a cute gimmick, hes not loving the institution as much as everyone else is to the point of doing more than its worth. Hes just doing the bare minimum to get by. Actively complains about his job, which for people in the right spheres it could seem like a huge deal to be a gym leader, and an elite four member. like bro! thats awesome! you just get to do pokemon battles all day! but really its not. once you live in the system, and you get sick enough of it, it loses its luster, and you realize that its just another grind, dodging pay cuts, trying to please the right people and constantly bust ass just to pay for the rent on your apartment and maybe groceries.

Larry is a pawn in the same system as everyone else. Geeta needs larry to be special. But he wont be. And Geeta doesn't take well to that.

Thats why hes the exceptional ordinary man. His ordinariness is what makes him the exception.

[not-alpharious]

The Fire Warrior novelization is wild

For anyone who doesn’t know, Fire Warrior was a game from 2003 where you play as a Tau Fire Warrior trying to rescue a kidnapped ethereal before it’s revealed that the planetary governor that kidnapped the ethereal was secretly a chaos cultist and you have to deal with that too.

What’s more unusual though is that the game actually had a novel tie in and it’s wild. It’s not perfect obviously, there’s a lot of parts where it skips from the main character, Shas’la Kais, starting to do something to after it’s been done with maybe a fight scene with the boss. But to be fair it is a novelization of the game and constant variations “He then turned the hallway and shot some guys” would get old fast.

What’s even more wild is that the book treats everything you do in game as something Kais actually does. As a result Kais becomes this freakishly hyper competent killing machine fueled almost purely by daddy issues. Like he is a genuine blood drenched cryptid and there’s practically no characters that aren’t at least slightly terrified of him. And that is not an exaggeration.

Like from everyone else’s perspective Kais is just a fresh recruit on his first ever battlefield and out of nowhere he’s gunning down hundreds of guardsmen. He takes out a tank with a hijacked imperial turret, kills an attack helicopter single handedly, saves the ethereal completely by himself from a heavily fortified prison, two shots a space marine, fights off two attempted boardings of his ship (which includes killing four more space marines completely by himself), counterboards the Imperial ship where he kills even more space marines and even more hundreds of guardsmen crippled the ship with a bomb and nearly kills the entire command crew all by himself, fights off a demonic invasion in the ship while completely lost to his blood rage, cripples the imperial ship even more, killing who knows how many CSM and demons the entire time, solos a chaos dreadnought, goes back to the planet to kill even more chaos marines and demons, fights his way through a titan to blow it up, solos a warp spawn, and a demon prince, falls to Khorne for a bit and eventually even kills a greater demon.

Within the book the entire time he’s doing all this he never has a mech or supplies, he’s constantly forced to fight God with guns and ammo he’s scavenged from the countless corpses he’s left in his wake. He rocks up to the Tau ship in orbit before he sneaks into the prison literally drenched in human blood and there’s nothing they can do about it because he’s basically the single best person at killing in their entire army at this point

These are all the things he does in the book because he does them in the game and it’s a just amazing to see the rest of the world react to this video game character played straight. Usually in other game novelizations, the sheer number of enemies your guy kills is usually brought way down and is just chalked up to the enemy numbers being inflated in the game for the sake of gameplay. But Fire Warrior decided to say fuck that, our blorbo really is just this much of a hyper competent war criminal and you should fear for your IRL life.

And honestly?

I don’t think I could respect them more for that decision.

[x-birdsong-x]

Curious what you have to say about Adams

Edit: speed-rewrote/rearranged this at 10pm in a burst of anxiety-driven rambling because my coursework started up again. posted it as is because i probably need to take a break and it's been in my drafts for a few weeks. there's not really an ending here this is one big post with me rambling about my underdeveloped blorbo

I've rambled at my buddy @/willowpelt about Adams for weeks now n I think any of my House moots know how very autistic I am about her,,,,

Adams is stubborn. And petty. And sheltered. She's short-tempered and avoidant and nowhere near as trusting as she likes to think/say she is. She does not make it easy to get along with her.

Her moods are about as reactive as early-season Chase, the closest any later character ever gets to being similar to that; the smallest thing can set her off and she's snapping at everyone like a cornered cat for the rest of the day (god knows what made her angry in the first place half the time). She can get physically destructive when she's angry enough and refuses to get physically destructive when she's angry enough until her upgraded dad tells her to and gets her a rage room to destroy with a baseball bat. Her reaction to House asking if she's still angry before that is to shut up and stare at him. She swings between Fight and Freeze depending on the situation. The one time she reads House even mostly correctly is when she tells him he took the first deal anyone offered him Because He Wanted To Punish Himself. The only time she even near-successfully lies to House (or Chase) is when she is lying about her family, and Adams is Not A Good Liar. She can not lie to House or Chase or even Foreman to save her life.

She's completely Insane in ep 1 and is drastically toned down after that for literally no reason -- She gets attached to House before he gets attached to her and within two minutes of him calling her a dumbass she decides he's her Free Dad Upgrade and she'll never listen to anyone else ever again. She spends a good few seconds just pouting at him and then sulks for a good few hours when she finds out he briefly (indirectly) lied and then drops it completely when she's done. She gives him Vicodin when she's already on incredibly thin ice with her actual boss- and she doesn't like being in trouble here. She gets herself fired doing House's test and still finds a way to get a note smuggled into solitary just to tell him he was right. She's happy to meet up (for what she thought wasn't even work) with him when he first contacts her before ep 3 and sticks around from there.

Ep 5 is where she and Park are dramatically watered down even further just so Chase and Taub can play House-translators in a way that wasn't at all necessary given the way it's done covers misunderstanding House in ways Park and Adams literally never did.

And then there's ep 6. I project on Adams like a little whiteboard. I get mad when I think about her parents. Icicles by the scary jokes most Adams song of all time

This

Was Not

Her Fault

"You took the first deal they offered you because you wanted to punish yourself" is the only time she accurately reads House, the only time she almost manages to lie to any of them is when she's lying about her family. House spends their interactions this episode poking his second-to-newest daughter with a stick, as he does, and it gets little to nothing out of her except that her parents totally didn't do anything

When she does give him an answer, she starts it, and only when she has the opening to tell him He's Wrong, it was All Her Fault.

Honestly Adams would need years of therapy even if she hadn't had another episode after this (And Parents wasn't even her assigned episode, it was mostly Taub's)

The way Adams carries this around is genuinely so fucked up. Your sixteen-year-old with anger issues did a majorly impulsive thing. Something snapped and she went missing for two months and got into a very confusing very Not Good situation. She's not the type of person to have told them where she was- or at least where she stayed- while she was gone but I literally don't care if she didn't tell her parents that part of it I literally don't care if she got home and said she just stayed with a friend you can not tell your kid that She Did A Bad Thing that It Was All Her Fault that You Can't Believe She Did That that She Was Always The Problem There that She Caused All That Trouble to the point she believes it so strongly to the point she carries so much guilt so much desperation for absolution that when a kid who did the same thing who is the same age she was shows up she spends every second of it making everything worse by going This Is How It Has To Be This Is What You Need To Do Next

Runaways my beloved mess.

Why is this character-driven episode stuffed full of everything they needed to get into the season before Nobody's Fault/Chase covered months in-universe? Why are we following House running around without his ankle monitor all on-screen? Why is he taking the whole team with him to all these places? Why is Wilson here to say House is protecting Callie because he feels a connection with her but House never interacts with Callie at all past the opening? Why wasn't Foreman's relationship with Anita put in the episode before this - where it would've fit infinitely better because a point there was the patient's wife having feelings for her friend? Also I swear to god that reveal of Foreman going to that boxing match with House at the end of Parents did more for Foreman and House's relationship than any of this here.

Why is Chase so out of character and/or non-existent?

In context this one was Callie lying to keep covering up what her mom was really like, but this still feels ooc for Chase to me. Once they know about it, Callie's home life before she left is more fitting to Chase's situation with his mom and his sister than any other patient Chase has ever been matched up with and the one line he directly gets about Callie at all implies he doesn't believe her?

The most in-character thing Chase does in one of his so few significant appearances in this ep is be brutal when Adams tries (again) to go to him for reassurance/advice.

Chase doesn't ever hold back with her and I find it funny

The way Adams was handled here could have really worked if the episode had focused on what it was meant to focus on - if this one episode hadn't been used to scramble to tie up these other things pre-Nobody's Fault - if this other stuff wasn't taking up So Much Time in Someone Else's Assigned Episode.

I rewrite Runaways for fun- one version generally and one Much more self-indulgent version for the Warrior Cats AU because taking how Adams is handled in Parents - even moreso if they'd let her stay Crazy like she was in ep 1 - it could have worked as well to have had her be the one causing trouble through basically acting the way House does in the canon version of the ep, motivated by keeping Callie away from her mother, rather than causing trouble by doing what is, for Callie, the opposite of what she needs/wants.

Callie is given such a hard time here and Adams actually leads to multiple of those hard times but Callie still talks to her about Everything. Callie latches on to Adams as her safe person and looks for her opinion specifically when it only gets her nowhere and gives detailed versions of why she left/how she feels about her mother to Adams alone. They're so firewatcher's daughter to me,, nothing scares me more than the stranger at my door who I fail to give shelter time and worth

These two were the perfect matchup,, House read Callie like a book within minutes of first meeting her. He had this exact theory about her before he said it out loud. She's avoidant and stubborn and initially doesn't trust any of them. She swings between Fight and Say Nothing.

Callie at sixteen reached a breaking point with her family and ran away, got into (for her personally) a better situation, and then runs away again to get out of the hospital when the chance of being sent back home comes with it.

House read Adams like a book within the first day of knowing her (given he mentions noticing her getting bored in the three months she's been there - he'd done so much earlier than that without even talking to her). She's avoidant and stubborn and a whole lot less trusting than she thinks she is. She's Fight or Shut Up.

Adams at sixteen reached a breaking point with her family and ran away, got into an even worse situation, and then ran away from that to get out of it when going back home became the clear better(safer) option (and that really fucks with your mind when all you're told is that you did something wrong in the first place)

Adams blames herself for everything that went on when she was sixteen. She doesn't look back on any of it and see a reason for her leaving that she doesn't see as play stupid games win stupid prizes. But Callie's not doing that - She's found more stability away from home than she had at home, she's going to school, she still sees her friends, she's living on her own and knows what she's doing and where she wants to go even with the pushed-down emotions toward such a severed attachment to her mom.

Lightly counting the tiny retelling she starts here is watered down with the brightness turned up (succeeded by her being surprised that Callie still goes to school):

The way Adams responds to Callie is so much of her echoing. She spends this whole episode projecting right down to you think her mother wants to feel responsible for her daughter's problems?

It's you could at least let her in the room it's she's your mom and she's finally acting like it it's your mom knows she messed up and she's determined not to do it again and beyond the existing conflict Callie is upset that her parent is not listening to her(me too girl)

Adams' parents did something to make her snap before she ran away

And that Rebellious Phase is something Adams never really lost?? She's completely insane in ep 1. She and Park do a test House didn't want, she tries (and fails) at lying to Foreman for cover for House, she destroys a whole room with a baseball bat with only House telling her she's allowed to in ep 4. In Nobody's Fault she and Chase do a test House didn't want. Ep 18 she gives the kid a treatment House didn't want. She's yes a bit of a pain in Chase. She's stubborn as all hell in (parts of) Post Mortem and Runaways itself. Ep 8 and others she's just,, in One Of Her Moods.

Callie's actually fitting in some way for each of the team. Adams - ^^^ I'm autistic about them / Chase - caring for addict mom while just being a child himself. Dad unavailable in some way. Runaways is Adams' episode, but hell if Chase isn't actually involved in my rewrites / House - mentioned in the episode by Wilson / Taub - still adjusting to being a dad, struggling to feel an attachment to his kids and Callie is mentioned to have been closer to her dad than her mom / Park - Devotion to family / It's mad how Callie is (at least one of) the most developed patient(s) in the season even when the episode spends so much time on irrelevant stuff.

And with that - and again the way Adams is handled in Parents - The way Adams was handled here actually could've fit better for Park given that devotion to family and how they responded to the patient having left his family in ep 3:

vs.

I dunno. Have Adams cause trouble by pushing back at everyone who mentions getting Callie's mom involved.

That said I actually love Adams' last scene in Runaways I'm a complete sucker for the tone of these scenes (Parents, Runaways). Callie's parallels with Adams continue. House again tells Adams she's super fucked up. House tells Adams he doesn't care if she's fucked up. Adams has another crushing sense of unfinished business relating to that part of her life.

I'm obsessed with her. She's soaking up all my trauma like a sponge. I don't even remember when I first got so attached. She should be allowed to hit her dad with a baseball bat.

Adams also tells Chase she's seeing a trauma counselor post-Nobody's Fault and in the words of Willowpelt: "her therapist has it cut out for them and Adams doesn't even know it"

[yloiseconeillants]

me: i am so fucking normal about sidequest npcs with 6 lines of dialogue

also me:

so there's this 6 lines of dialogue sidequest npc in Amh Araeng that's like, a Traveling Historian who is investigating the Church of the First Light and he is so fucking cute and I love him and immediately was like 'i need to make this guy an alt or smth'

so I did that but I also decided that he was somehow related to some incarnation of Ariadne's on the first since we started talking about like, both Ronkan shards and shards around the time of the Flood of Light so I unilaterally decided that his great grandparents were 1. that Lugarhoo fate enemy but Blorbo-ified (it is literally just the Traveling Historian with a different hair color and cut)

and 2. the last heir of the king of the Laxan elves (??????) because I accidentally made pastel Medusa while fucking around in character creator with a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT shard concept

and decided that 'actually yeah I do need a pastel elf-' and then three seconds later 'and why shouldn't she be a princess that is actively seduced by the Shadowkeeper-'

with some vague aspirations of making her Forgiven Rebellion because have you seen that thing

*points* Clown Daughter. BUT I had ALREADY decided that the Current Ariadne Shards on the First were the Eulmoran Jongleurs because why not so said Princess could not possibly be Forgiven Rebellion without some major fuckery and I needed to stop stealing Fate bosses for Blorbos anyway so instead she was given plot armor to survive the Flood, which she needed to do anyway since she was, as conceived, the great-grandmother of my 6 line npc alt who I STILL HAVEN'T NAMED

I was content to leave it at "girl who fucks up big time and falls way too easily for Ascian plot in order to get laid and spends the rest of her life defending a village in Kholusia from sin eaters as penance' but the power of Yes-Anding and Friendship lead to Princess (now named Nimue) having

UNBREAKABLE BONDS OF CHILDHOOD FRIENDSHIP WITH KNIGHT ASPIRANTS AND A DREAM ALCHEMIST AND AN ANCIENT RONKAN WIZARD AND HIS TROUBLED APPRENTICE ALL WHILE DEALING WITH HER AWKWARD COUSIN

that like. her inevitable betrayal in falling for the Ascian plot in order to get laid actually HURT now??? like wow way to be the worst version of yourself and for what- like how to Justify the Plot and a Genuine Redemption Arc where before I was just sort of Handwaving Her Survival rather than actually developing a character

WELL glad no one asked-

but Nimue is under TREMENDOUS amounts of pressure from childhood to be the Last Heir of a crumbling dynasty (her father is a bit eccentric) that is facing threats from other countries, other noble families, and the growing so-called Elven rebellion AND she may or may not be haunted by the influence of a captured trickster god who whispers secrets to her it's fine it's chill. Said pressure has made her temper quick and sudden and she makes many, many mistakes she immediately regrets, but learns to recover from with the help of her friends, and her friends would also help her with the child that resulted from her foolishness with the blorbo-ified Lugarhoo that would be raised in a post-Flood world

and she ends up perfectly fine! Her daughter, Eglantine (Egg to literally everyone), is perfectly fine!

She's a bartender! Her knight friends visit often and help raise Egg who becomes the village's staunchest defender!

She's got a revolving door of traveling suitors but has a long-time partner who is dealing with the sudden redundancy of the shipwright business in a world without tides and other continents.

I STILL HAVEN'T NAMED THE FUCKING NPC ALT

[charmwasjess]

Rael’s PoV in Rabbit Heart made me wonder about outsider POV of Syku. In-universe Jedi are probably ‘known’ as loveless celibates (given Padme's question to Anakin) so how would non-Jedi react to Syku in the Rabbit Heart universe (if they’re obvious enough)?

This is such a fun ask. :D So, for those of you not familiar with my fics, the Rabbit Heart universe is me playing with the idea that in the canon gap between Dooku getting knighted/taking Rael and Rael’s knighting, Dooku and Sifo-Dyas try an actual “Jedi” version of a relationship and what does that look like. Anyway, Come closer. No, closer. Let me tell you a secret. 

Sifo-Dyas and Dooku are incredibly obnoxious together. 

Obviously I adore them, I ship them, they’re my blorbos, I think that they have valorous, interesting qualities. But I really am taking two characters who canonically seem to be widely considered “annoying as shit” by OTHER JEDI, you know, those zen people who respect everybody, and I'm banging them together like Barbie dolls. 

They’re conspirators in every sense of the word. Their togetherness is exclusionary by its very definition. They show off to each other at every opportunity. You get them in a room - even after a falling out and long separation at the end of Dooku: Jedi Lost - and they can’t stop making critical, sarcastic jokes at/to each other. Even at their most genuine and loving with each other, they couch it in insult. They amp each other up, compete, drag each other into shit that separately, they probably wouldn’t do. They both think they’re the main character. They’re both completely convinced of their own rightness. 

And the way that Dooku even sees Sifo-Dyas. He talks a lot about him at the beginning of Dooku: Jedi Lost - and this is SITH Dooku, who KILLED Sifo-Dyas, not just the recordings of little boy Dooku describing his best friend in such loving detail that Asajj has to fast forward through his burbling. To Dooku, Sifo-Dyas is SPECIAL. Sifo-Dyas is DIFFERENT.  Dooku has this real “us versus them” manner of thinking about his relationships (that he fully transfers to his Padawans, by the way.) The chosen people Dooku cares about are the people Dooku has decided are worthy: mavericks, rulebreakers, exceptions, extra talented so they don’t have to play by the rules for regular normal losers - just like he thinks of himself. (I think this is actually funny because I truly believe in his heart of hearts, Dooku takes a great deal of stability and satisfaction from knowing the rules and playing the game exactly right. It’s part of why he looks so fucking shattered in that last scene. He was the Perfect Sith Apprentice Good Boy?!) 

So yeah, I think people who encounter Dooku and Sifo-Dyas as a couple in this little spun-up world I’m playing in are going to be rightfully annoyed by them. Not because of the strangeness of a Jedi in an obvious partnership, but because Sifo-Dyas and Dooku are annoying as shit together even when (presumably) they’re NOT sleeping together. 

I can’t imagine how much worse sex makes them.

[yotsubaclover]

explaining my blorbo associations pt2: jules who i do not draw often im so sorry u look like that babygirl

song: i actually... have never made a jules playlist LMAO my jules brainrot is so academic i could spit theories for him but not songs. so i had to dive into my spotify likes and find something. goldilocks spot is actually from a very old jolyne playlist i made but i think it also fits jules. to me it's a song about being painfully aware of how... average? not-outstanding? just there? you are and the angst that comes with it, the bitterness towards other people (in jules' case, for not seeing him as who he knows himself to be—a noble). but there's also a stubborness and pride that keeps you from fully confronting those feelings/that dilemma and finding peace within it, which is fitting for the persistent turbulence within jules... a lot of this is my (quite liberal?) interpretation tho so yeah

color & object: purple is the color of royalty and lavender is pretty and calming and healing. quite the nice set of descriptions for someone like jules :)

animal: i dont kin assign animals often so this was hard. but i chose raven as a parallel to doves... because jules' dove of happiness was/is rosemarine, and because jules is almost like rose's shadow in many ways... also ravens are kinda bad omens i feel like for all the gentleness jules shows he is also obviously capable and willing to do terrible things, he's selfish and prideful and even a little greedy... and lol i think the negativity also fits some of his self-image

drink: tea! of course! what else would i put

aesthetic: i think classic dark academia with all its elite-ness and occult-ness and general fucked up-ness would be a very average jules genre. smack him in a dark academia plot a la secret history and he's right at home lol. even his fallen noble status makes for an interesting pov in a dark academia story. the genre's potential for class analysis and commentary too is jules de ferrier

other: i think it was a fic which was about jules and perfume which made me think about this association... lavender was the scent too so that is another explanation to the above lol. as for the shadows again it's cos of his duo thing with rosemarine but also everything he does is kind of... in the shadows... he has engaged in shady shit (gang moment???) and is often lurking/observing situations (as the right hand man yk) and also just him looking out for the people he cares about even if in incredibly convoluted ways (see: rosemarine and jules' deal with the thugs who wanted to beat him up when they first arrived at lacombrade). he does the dirty work in the dark or smth like that. tbh there are a lot of oppositions with rosejules, the light/shadow thing is pretty on the nose i think but my favorite is probably the feminine/masculine. (disclaimer thisis an idea spitball Only so pls do not sue me for incorrect use of terminology; im sorry feminist theory i promise ill read more of you BUT a lot of the ideas kind of branch out of 2nd wave ideas/concepts i believe)

because publicly rose seems to take the patriarchal role as the superintendent (ie. being the disciplinarian, having power, being the symbol of the institution) while jules assumes a more matriarchal role as advisor, someone more approachable and "kinder" than the patriarch... then it all gets skewed because of auguste's presence, so they actually switch with rose being "feminized" and jules being "masculinized" but anyway LOL i have many thoughts on this specific kind of. feminist/queer inspired reading of rosejules

i hate his ass so much cos it's so fucking hard to break his character down in a comprehensible way. the thesis topic thing is only partly a joke. i genuinely think with the depths i am going to look at this i can find something in him or maybe im just delusional lmao i probably am

[quetzalpapalotl]

[slides seductively onto a piano] hello if you're open to talking blorbos may i request your fave shockop headcanons

Hello, yes, sorry I asked for questions about my blorbos and then didn't answer for like a week, I was busy playing TOTK until I forgot my own name and doing other stuff, but thank you so much!!

My favorite thing about shockop is this extremely weird relationship dynamic they have going. Like, Orion is driven by his desire to do good and help people, but has realized that what he understood was good isn't necessarily, so now he's cashing on Shockwave to show him the way, and Shockwave is so hot and talks the talk so good, Orion has unshakeable faith in him.

Like, Shockwave modified his body without asking (and I hc Cybertronians have a weak sense of bodily autonomy but still), keeps a bunch of stuff to himself and is generally very sketchy, but Orion is 100% behind of whatever he says. Hell, Orion doesn't want to be Prime, he never talks about it, we only know he knows that's what Shockwave wants bc Roller bring it up, and Orion is seemingly okay with ruling the fucking planet if that's what Shockwave thinks is best.

But that's the things, despite having him on a leash, Shockwave's plan involved making Orion Supreme Ruler because he thinks Orion could use that power wisely. And Orion is actually capable of imposing his will on Shockwave, which he only does to get Shockwave to stay put during Shadowplay for his own sake, which is SUCH an OP thing to do.

There is a great deal of mutual idolization going on. They are people will similar morals which may not be all that great. There's something very sinester underneath it all despite the fact that they genuinely meant good and genuinely care for each other. Tho a part of that caring is caring about the good they can do for Cybertron rather than for each other as people.

Not that they don't care for each other as people, they're obsessed with each other, it's just kind of a loop. But yeah, Shockwave is so obsessed with OP that even after 4 million years of Shadowplay and 12 million years of going insane, he still wants Optimus to join him and will go out of his way to try to make him see his point even if that's of no benefit to his plans.

God, JRo introduced this weirdly ambiguous sketchy relationship and then Barber doubled down on that and I owe them my life. Great work, guys! I'm not really interested is pure fluffly wholesome shockop, these guys are insane.

I suppose that's not a headcanon so much as a reading, but uh, I'm not good which such open questions. Anyway, a more straightforward headcanon is about this scene

This would be their first time meeting after Shockwave joins the Cons and after the flashbacks of exRID #17. The reason the dialogue is so impersonal here is ofc, because Autocracy was written before Shadowplay and so before the mysterious Senator was established to be Shockwave, But my headcanon of what's going on is that the last time Orion tried to talk to Shockwave he tries to appeal to who he was and their relationship and got nothing. So he decided to try the opposite and treat Shockwave like a random Decepticons thinking that his Shockwave was so vain he would hate Orion acting like he's nobody to him and that would surely get a reaction. At least something like "This isn't the first time I've saved your life" but he still got nothing :(

[fayoftheforest]

rating the main five based on how sickly i think they’d be <3

(AKA I’m on my fourth cold since september and if i have to suffer then so do my blorbos)

Stan: 4/10. He gets nauseous quite a lot, but that’s typically to do with his anxiety and less a stomach bug. When he does get sick, he will keep powering through his daily life as if nothing’s the matter, until some kind soul goes “Woah, dude, you don’t look so good,” upon which he will realise that he doesn’t feel so good either, and then he collapses into a heap and crawls into bed until he’s feeling better. He has asthma, so sometimes that makes respiratory-related illnesses stressful and potentially dangerous, but he’s got a reliable stock of inhalers, and 1+ very stressed out caretaker(s), so he’s alright in the end, and usually recovers pretty quickly.

Kyle: 8/10. With canon and fanon as my witness, I do declare that is one sickly motherfucker. From the first snowfall he’s sniffling, and it doesn’t stop until the last of it has melted. But shitty immune system be damned, this boy can work a cold denial! He will keep strutting around no matter how down bad he is, insisting that he’s fine, like he’s genuinely fine, like no that wasn’t a sneeze followed by a painful coughing fit, you must have misheard, and yes his nose has always been that red, that’s perfectly normal actually, and get your fucking hand away from his forehead he’s not FEVERISH he’s FINE. Once he’s finally been wrestled into bed, he will lay there feeling deeply sorry for himself and worrying that he’s going to infect his caretaker(s), until he gets sidetracked contemplating all the things he has left to do today, and before you know it he’s puttering about the house again, and the cycle continues. 

Cartman: 3/10. He rarely gets ill, but you wouldn’t know it. It’d be too easy to dismiss him for a hypochondriac, but he knows exactly what he’s doing when he starts his woe-is-me speil over some suposed sickness. Over the years he has perfected faking illnesses into a fine art, to the point where unless you had good reason to be suspicious, you couldn’t separate his coughs, sneezes and general sickly presentation from the real deal. We’re talking Ferris Beuler level trickery here folks!! He generally abuses his talent to get out of school, work, or any unwanted responsibilities, but when the opportunity presents itself he will conveniently accidentally “sneeze” right on the back of germaphobic Kyle’s neck. Which is received about as well as you’d expect it to. (With rage, and threats of violence :)

Kenny: 6/10. The total opposite to Cartman, Kenny gets sick a little more than most, but is a master at concealing his illnesses. Kyle wishes he was on Kenny’s level. This guy could be on the brink of death and the only thing that would call attention to it is him ever so slightly clearing his throat, and then quietly apologising for it. If anyone does figure out that he’s sick, he won’t deny it, but he’ll certainly downplay it. He does not no how to handle sympathy directed his way, and reacts to any attempts at caring for him with awkward gratitude and a constant reminder that they really don’t have to be doing this right now. But, if shown just the right amount of kindness, he will break down sobbing because everything hurts and he’s just so exhausted and he misses being able to breath through his nose. After that he will fall asleep, and when he wakes up he’ll feel a bit better but extremely embarassed, and start apologising all over again.

Butters: 5/10. For once, he’s the most sensible of the bunch, because when he comes down with something, he’ll take a few days off until he’s back on his feet. But by god is he clingy when he’s sick. If you are not with him, he will be constantly texting you. If you are with him he will still be texting you because he may have lost his voice, but he’s still got plenty to tell you!! He also begins to feel very touch-starved, and becomes a lot more touchy-feely with others, which is welcomed by some, tolerated by others, and loathed by Kyle, because god fucking damn it Butters keep your icky germs away from him :(((

Anyway yeah those are my headcanons! I’d love to hear your own personal ratings too. Might make a part two for CATG if people are interested in my soft, loving sadism :)

[sketchy-scribs-n-doods]

the way i wish there could be more good faith analysis and fic about billy having adopted racial prejudice from his dad and then learning to properly recognize it and grow past it in order become a better person. i wish there was more posts and fics that tackle the bullshit lucas has had to deal with as a black kid in small town indiana because the duffers never even considered it. but the sheer puritan black and white thinking and performative activism or moral virtue signaling or whatever the fuck that is so pervasive in this fandom means that even the few posts and fics that dare to try and actually tackle racism tend turn it into either a punishment narrative, are depressingly shallow about it, make it about hating and liking the 'right characters', or miss the mark entirely

like i get it, homophobia/transphobia is easier to explore and talk about for most fans. it's complex and multi-layered just like other types of oppression, but so much of fandom is queer and dedicated to shipping and labels that yeah, i can see how talking about it is just. easier for a lot of ppl. also a lot of fandom is white. and lots of white gays get weird about discussing racism in their spaces. y'know the deal, but i digress. from what i can see, very few ppl want to explore how racism affects our favorite characters and the stories they live in. i know some ppl are probably afraid of getting it wrong, or they don't know anything about it and don't feel like they should. it's like, my blorbo is queer and so am i, so why wouldn't i talk all day about that? i get it. but it honestly just means a lot when someone tries earnestly. i have read beautiful fics about trans love through hardship by cis authors and such genuine fics about connection in the face of racism's poison by white authors.

there is just SO much untapped potential in exploring lucas and max and billy and patrick and argyle and all the other characters directly and indirectly affected by bigotry and racism within the narrative that never got the acknowledgement it deserved. plus it's super weird being used as a 'gotcha!' by white fans that hate billy (as if poc fans of billy aren't capable of seeing it for the bullshit it is) or seeing lucas' treatment in the show get brushed aside like it's nothing or how argyle gets sidelined an awful lot in the fandom (and don't even get me started on how messy the classism in this fandom can be, the borderline erasure of eddie's poverty and its effects on who he is as a person in fic is insane sometimes)

anyway. idk if any of this makes sense, but i can count like maybe 3 good fics and maybe a dozen good posts about billy that actually address this in good faith and only maybe a dozen more for every other character i mentioned. and i desperately want more. i am brown and queer and i want healing and love for all of these characters and i am going to have to start churning out more of it myself at this rate.

[tiredassmage]

[remembering that i can just blorbo post whenever i feel like it, that's how i introduced my swtor ocs. i can do it again for the bg blorbos i can just Do That that's Free to do in my own house. giggles!]

yeah, yeah, it's all fun and games flirting with poetic lines and declarations of attraction, isn't it, leo?

sure. right. hot men telling you pretty things is just a darling time! flattery is wonderful, he can enjoy this, surely this isn't something of depth and meaning and everyone's having such a good time-! haha, astarion's so good at this, this is amusing, surely-

oh.

oh fuck.

[most genuine leo reaction.] activate deer in headlights mode.

right! fun! haha! of course! totally just in jest! you know!!! because this physical thing is all very well and good, just a little amusement between... travel partners?

I don't think knowing everything was getting more and more elaborate and showy just for the sake of it prepared him to hear that. even knowing - or believing, at least - none of this is. more than just. just a little fun. nothing more. leo wouldn't say the whole thing has been at his own expense, not to astarion - genuinely gods forbid leo imply his own lack of self-esteem is somehow someone else's problem. genuinely. there's some level of awareness there that that says something about the other person's character that he doesn't mean, necessarily.

I do love that leo's a disaster in this sense. leo's... the kind of guy that won't easily end up in the clearly better for him option in wyll - wyll is so clearly and evidently a Good Guy and he's sweet and leo's a little sweet on him for it, but that. would also mean genuinely admitting to feelings. actually having those. and leo just... doesn't do that. not yet. not very easily.

but falling along at someone like astarion's heels isn't because leo entirely believes the honeyed words and endearments from the start. they're as nice to hear as they are for astarion to say, this early on, likely. it's not about saying things with intention. it's saying what sounds good. they're both guilty of it, full stop. the difference, perhaps, in leo playing along versus some of the targets astarion had brought cazador is that leo's not ignorant, entirely, of the fact that it's a game. he's just... willing to go along with it. in a way that'd be liable to get him into trouble. because leo unfortunately does a self-fulfilling prophecy thing where he struggles with deserving the kind variety of guy that might actually be good for him and supportive and thus leo instead trots himself right into questionable arrangements, romantic and otherwise aknlksfdl;dsf.

and he's. afraid of mucking up good things when they do come, so it's far easier to run away from these things, right?? right??? cutting a deal with a hag is obviously the safer option than waiting around for his feelings to get hurt or for when he inevitably causes some sort of terrible event himself, right? i'm sure that hag deal back in the city just worked out so well for him.

[it did not + the last person that told leo those three little words was that cute bard he definitely totally did not (yes he did) have a crush on and who was definitely too good for him (leo he was concerned about your safety and well-being, y'know, like a decent partner) + congrats you got a hag eye deal out of it and lost the first love of your life, i think (i'm still pondering details. i still don't know who made a deal in which direction, whether it was leo bargaining or his lover, but either way... at the very least, feelings got hurt and they stormed off in different directions and haven't seen each other since. and at worst... well. dealing with a hag has historically not worked out for anyone very well in this game)]

which is all perhaps just a really long way of saying leo i think you could do so much better, baby (for yourself, bc not that this relationship can't ever turn out sweet bc it can but that's something i know as a player that leo doesn't ahaaa), wyll and gale and literally also right there, but leo is also incredibly fucking skittish and astarion will play him like a lute and leo will let it happen and i'm just here with popcorn waiting to see if either leo runs from it all (again) when shit starts to actually mean something or if both of them are going to do the screaming opossum moment about 'seduce and manipulate haha just for safety right just as a little bit' turning into 'oh fuck Feelings' and ultimately work something out.

i mean, the screaming opossum moment is likely going to occur either way, it's just. will they actually manage to stick it out and make a relationship out of it or will at least one of them go 'good gods absolutely not kill it with fire and ten thousand bees me have an emotion? haha you're hilarious, no.'

in the meantime, i will be the screaming opossum watching it all unfold because gods they're going to kill me with the suspense.

[queenklu]

k-drama reclist!

Hello! While most recent fic is off to the betas and I’m waiting for new inspiration to strike, I thought I would write a love letter to all some of the best shows that have touched my heart this last year or so. As always, these rulings are 100% factual and correct, and categories include such necessary requirements as Is It Gay?, Blorbo Squad,  and Does the boy cry?

Tale of the Nine-Tailed

Plot: Producer of an urban supernatural tv show with ZERO CHILL keeps finding herself running into Actual Supernatural Beings who mostly try to eat her, except for the weirdest of all, a Nine-Tailed fox who’s working off his debt to the underworld and mostly moping about the death of his long lost love. The first half of this show feels like early spn in the BEST way, and the second half genuinely ruined me for most tv romances. Chemistry? Off the charts. Is it gay? No, but the het romance is so fucking good I forgive it. Do the boy cry? Y E S. Did not realize how starved for Men Feeling Emotions I was until I started watching asian shows, jfc. Women? multifaceted bamfs. Blorbo squad? Yes we ARE actually going to adopt his evil brother kicking and screaming and he will just have to feel some feelings about it. Music? I’m not joking when I say that half of my spotify top ten were songs from this soundtrack. Rewatchability? I’ve watched it twice and would watch again.

Beyond Evil

Plot: What’s a word for someone who’s SO outta fucks to give that he’s totally fine being suspected of his sister’s murder again because at this point it’s funny? That’s Lee Dongsik, a Been There Done That Detective who’s been kicked back to his shitty home town, which immediately starts popping up murders exactly like his sister’s from 20 years ago! And who should come on the scene but Starving For Affection Being Right Detective Han Juwon who is here to FIND ANSWERS!!(TM!)! Though mostly his methods seem to be marching up to potential murderers and begging them to confess. Anyway this show is a fucking DELIGHT of twists, turns, out-loud gasps, and sizzling hot Will-They-Won’t-They(Arrest Each Other For Murder). Is it gay? MMMMMMYES. Look at that gif! Are they gonna fight? Fuck? Who knows, least of all them! Do the boys cry? mueheheheheheeeeee. multiple times. in the rain. DELIGHTFUL. Women? Multi. Dimensional. What a concept!! No useless love interests! Will fuck you up and egg your car! Blorbo Squad. A+++ food family, work family, fucked up misfits who are going to get each other through this if it kills them. Additional notes: someone on the internet described this show as Hannibal (without cannibalism) + Hot Fuzz, and that is...not inaccurate.

Crash Landing on You

Plot: When Mega Rich Design CEO Seri accidentally parachutes into North Korea, and is somewhat reluctantly rescued and hidden by an army officer and his squad of blorbos soldiers. This is a really fascinating glimpse into the differences of North and South (and from what the internet says, former North Koreans agree that the depictions are pretty spot-on) and all the ways people are just...people, when it comes down to it. Chemistry? Phenomenal. A slow blossoming of two people who have been injured in very different ways and the ways they can grow together despite increasing difficulties. Blorbos? The best. I miss them. The genuine delight I feel seeing any of these actors again in other shows cannot be expressed. Music? I mean, FUCK, the music is its own character, own plot device, own heartbreak. FUCK. Rewatchability: I’ve watched it twice and I want to watch it again RIGHT NOW. Additional notes: Court Lady Choi AND the King from Mr. Queen are in this show!! MY LOVES!

Tomorrow

Plot: Desperately unemployed millennial accidentally falls off a bridge and winds up in a coma, where he strikes a deal: join the “elite” Grim Reaper Squad trying to prevent suicides, and he’ll get out of his coma faster! WARNING: Because this show deals with suicides in all shapes and forms, this show is not going to be right for everyone. ALSO, because our team leader is going through some shit on her own, I would argue that the first suicide attempt she handles is Not Great. However, she does learn and they all get better together. Do the boys cry? Yes, even the Big Bad (who I think would especially appeal to a certain demographic of tumblr seeing as he looks like a Korean Kylo Ren). Chemistry? BDE (Big Divorce Energy). Women? GOOOOODDD IS A WOOOOMANNN. Also, the women in this are allowed to make bad decisions! Blorbos? Kinda weird that our own entry character into this behind the scenes world winds up as more a blorbo than a main character. This isn’t a complaint, I love him and love seeing this actor again from The King’s Affection. Our giant puppy man WILL make friends with everyone, and that’s a fact. Additional notes: This show is both a good watch and a hard watch. Make sure you’re hydrated and have tissues on hand, especially for ep 9 which fails Does The Dog Die.

Other shows that I have feelings about (but maybe not wholly good feelings) below the cut:

Vincenzo: stunning cinematography, great writing, great blorbos, //absolutely NO chemistry between himself and the leading lady.// It sure says something when the lead male has better a better chance of romance with the leading lady’s dad. For all that, though, the Big Bads were fantastic, the fight scenes were stunning, and the character arc of Vincenzo and his mom was where the actors in this really shone. 9/10

The Devil Judge: I wanted to like this show. The first half was really solid, deliciously gay, and full of found family. But none of the characters actually...grew? Or changed? Ultimately unsatisfying. 6/10

Crowned Clown: STUNNING, PHENOMENAL acting. Prince and the Pauper if the Prince was also a fucking psychopath. Absolutely riveting for nearly all of it, but the last episode works too hard to shoehorn the story back into plausible historical fiction, and it loses a lot of impact for it. Yeo Jin-goo (also from Beyond Evil, Hotel Del Luna) REALLY flexes all of his astounding acting muscles in this and pulls off the coin flip of both characters flawlessly. TW: for rape of a young teen, near rape of the queen. 9/10

Hotel Del Luna: Since I mentioned it above, there was one point where I was watching HdL and CC at the same time and Did Not Realize Yeo Jin-goo starred in both of them??? Part my own face blindness, part completely different contexts. TBH I enjoyed everything about this show except for the last 20 minutes, which fucked up an otherwise deeply impactful ending. This is a show about death, revenge, growth, and moving on. I also didn’t feel like the main ship was all that good, but the blorbos will be with me for a good long while. 8/10

The Rookie Historian: Do Not Watch This Show. jfc. Everything good about the premise (Prince who writes romance! Girl who hates his books!) was wiped off the map within the first few episodes. If this show had been a tight 8 eps the pacing wouldn’t have been so off? But it was grueling by the end and we gave up and read a synopsis of the last four eps. Did not feel like we had missed out by quitting early, should have quit even sooner. 2/10

My Only Love Song: Pure fluff, but pretty fun fluff if you’re looking for something light. The time traveling van was the best part of this show, and needed more air time. 7/10

100 Days My Prince: Thoroughly enjoyable! Delightful use of face blindness as a plot point! Main ship cute as hell! OHO! 9.5/10

My Shy Boss: Some fuckery near the end, but mostly pretty solid. GREAT Phantom of the Opera vibes, no real bad guy only bad choices made by delightfully complex people! Maybe the true friends were the anxiety disorders we tackled along the way. 9.5/10

[capeline-cutemeister]

OPINIOMS ON GRANBY…..?????

Jesus Christ three of yall messaged me about Granby why does everyone want opinions on him specifically First impression: It feels so long ago but i started the first book like less than a month ago bwahhhhhhh. At first I had mixed opinions on him. I thought he was going to be like Dayes (so cringe), and my opinion of him really didn't change that much until like, he obviously started not being a dick lol lmao. I honestly really like his character arc in the first book specifically because like. Mans got the courage to be like "Fuck im sorry for being rude and uncouth but I *cannot* let things continue this way" and honestly thats a really cool and chill moment. Like i love long and drawn out sentences (i love Jane Austen i love Jane Austen) but also i really like it when a character is real blunt and just doesn't drag it out. That also especially took guts because the last time that he did something like that Laurence threatened to get him in trouble for insubordination (very smooth Laurence)

Second Impression: Thats right baby Granby gets three impressions because hes that cool. This is Granby precisely from the beginning of Throne of Jade to *right* before he gets Iskierka. Just absolutely most badass guy imo. Super reliable. Best friends with Laurence, super competent. This is Granby at his best and treated with the most respect, and I think Novik had to give him Iskierka to nerf him.

Impression now: I feel so fucking bad for Granby. My severe dislike for Iskierka is not really hidden but she has dragged my poor Glorbo through the mud. When I think of Granby now i just think of that cat that had its face in milk and looks miserable and sad. Like goddamn what did they do to you. Hes still a really strong and awesome character, and it was AWESOME seeing him storm up to Poole in LoD; but he gets so much horrible stuff just tossed on him because Iskierka is a petulant child. Genuine princess behavior, hes a tired king.

Favorite moment: Its a tie between him telling Iskierka to fuck off and listen to him for once, and him in a blistering rage and storming up to Poole. Like you cannot understand how much i love those moments. Just Granby finally putting his foot down and going "No. I will not deal with this bullshit any longer, there are going to be consequences now." Of course that doesn't really go anywhere in LoD because Laurence is also a fucking badass, but meh. The heart was there, man was about to commit civil war in the Aviator Corp just for his friend. I really appreciate that <3 But also on the other hand I REALLY like him standing up to Iskierka in Crucible of Gold because HOLY SHIT she was so insanely disrespectful to him. Like I don't *care* that she is 'his dragon', it was like borderline homophobia in my eyes and the fact that it came from someone so close to him and the entire point of his service in the corp just broke my heart. So i'm glad that he put his foot down for once and made her listen to him. Setting boundaries is really important, and I think that he set them quite well.

Idea for a story: Any of them where he gets a better dragon than Iskierka. JKJKJKKJKJKJKJK Nah but fr i think my only real story idea with Granby would be to explore all of the things that he was doing when he wasn't with Laurence. His constant Struggles with Iskierka and having to deal with being friends with someone that committed treason for a cause he believed in. Most importantly how he developed and maintained any sort of relationship with Little. I dont have anything super unique unfortunately, its hard for me to do something that would be in character without getting rid of the things that make his character, if that makes sense?

Unpopular opinion: Hmmmmmmm well I haven't been around the fandom long enough to really see what is and isn't popular opinion with the blorbo, but i think that my most controversial statement about Granby is that I don't find him that amusing. I love and adore him and i think hes great but he is very sincere in my eyes and that leaves very little in the way of him actually being funny. I think there are only a couple of moments where I think hes funny/in a funny situation. But oh well.

Favorite relationship: Finding any non platonic relationship in Temeraire is so hard for me. I want to say my favorite relationship is him and little, but also i dont care about little that much. I think hes cute! But i was given very little to work with in the books in the way of *their* relationship other than that they have fucked. And like, idk. I think my favorite relationship in general though, is probably him with Iskierka, funnily enough. I think it shows the best of both characters whenever its done right, and I think it really let Granby Be His Own Character. Like everyone in the Corp wants a dragon. Duh. But when Granby gets his, she's a nightmare! He has to go through this long and twisting road where he is afraid to take too wrong of a step because Iskierka, and because hes friends with Laurence(traitor adjacent), and because hes always wanted dragon and hes afraid to fuck it up and etc etc etc. And he kinda has to learn to stand up for himself and others in a way that he probably hasn't had to before. Its not really a path that the other Aviators get to take, they just become background characters after they get their dragon. I mean even Ferris just drops off the face of the earth when he gets his Prussian.

And Iskierka is great because despite how horrible she acts she really does care for him, im not blind to that. But her path in their relationship is that she has to learn to stop being so overbearing, so crazy, so difficult to work with. She has to understand that she is not infallible, and that the things that hurt her are not the same as the things that hurt other dragons, and that realization comes at a pretty horrible time in her life. She has to grow up, which while we see other dragons grow up in this series (like mentally i mean), i dont think that theres ever so stark a comparison as with her.

Idk if that makes sense, but I like their relationship the most out of Granby's relationships because its the most unique for both characters, imo.

[queenretcon]

What would you say are the best stories featuring Booster?

I struggled with this for way too long (and forgot about it for a minute oops sorry) bc I am horrible at answering ‘what’s the best ___’ questions. I genuinely have been asking ‘does it have to be the best or can it just be my favorite’ since I was like nine.

In light of that, I just decided to list the comics that make my brain melt, that have the characterization and plot elements I yell about the most, or are just really solid stories I think everyone should read:

- Booster Gold volume 1 #2 (better than the growing pains of the first issue, and sets up a lot of the themes around performance and failure that have stayed Important)

- BG v1 #6-7 (first origin story and first Superman crossover!!! Lots of important stuff set-up here)

- BG v1 #25 (part of Millennium which isn’t good thought I enjoy boosters arc. But mostly it’s the wrap up of his first solo! Also: ted yells at booster to get his shit together and come home to the JLI for the first time and I scream every time that happens)

- Justice League #4 (the moment where booster clicked as a character for me)

- Justice League #8 (the first blue & gold story!)

- Secret Origins #35 (the perfect booster origin with the frame story of booster telling ted about his past. My two appearance blorbo Snake Eyes is from here.)

- JLI annual #2 (first of the heroes-for-hire blue & gold stories and also includes the best ending of any JLI issue. Chef’s kiss.)

- Justice League International #25 (my favorite jli issue for yeeeears. Others have overtaken it as faves but still so good)

- Conglomerate arc, especially JLA #37 & Justice League Quarterly #1 (the best booster arc I’ll accept no slander implying otherwise. the (in)famous Club JLI story is the set-up for this arc)

- JLA #51 (return to blue & gold hijinx after the conglomerate arc)

- JL Quarterly #10 (sequel to boosters origin that is so important. Should be mandatory reading even if it doesn’t get the attention it deserves. Quarterly has various good booster stories, but 1 & 10 are the most important reads imo)

- JLA #70 (I’m not huge on boosters characterization from the jurgens jla run, but this issue is good)

- all of Dan Vado’s JLA but especially the Judgment Day crossover that ends it

- Extreme Justice #6 (sequel to BG vol 1. booster gets back what dirk davis took from him. Hell yeah.)

- I’m uncomfortable calling the magically fixed disability arc “the best” but I stand by Robert Washington being an unsung great of booster characterization, and the way he set up booster for future stories at the end of EJ was so exciting, even if it all got wiped away by:

- Superman #124 (does this immediately get rid of my darling Armor X costume? Yea. Is it still good enough to warrant its place on this list? Also yea.)

- Adventures in the DCU #8 (just cute blue & gold hijinx during a period where we didn’t get a lot of those!)

- Okay so listen. I know there are good stories in the v2 era. But I think they’re the exception, and because of that, I don’t reread that era as often as I should and don’t want to recommend stories based on ‘I remember liking this one I think?’ alongside comics like Secret Origins #35 or JL #4 which I’ve read so often I could redraw panels from memory.

- BG v2 #39 (this one’s good though & I reread it recently. I actually like most of the giffen & dematties run that led up to this (rani’s from this run!!!!) but smack in the middle of stories I really like is the fucking femdom space pirate vore plot so we’ll just go with recommending this one issue which doesn’t have all that)

- Justice League Unlimited #43 (giffen makes me want to throw things at him often, but when he’s good, he’s the best. Just a really solid blue & gold issue setting them up in the JLU universe in a way that combines boosters jlu deal with their comic selves really well.)

- Booster Gold/The Flintstones (best modern booster story.)

- Booster Shot from Actions Comics (okay I just reread this bc I’ve been meaning to & I wanted to be able to recommend something else modern other than the fucking flinstones crossover and while it has its flaws, I think it was a good set up for booster in the contemporary era that has yet to be built on successfully)

[whispers-of-lilith]

Toji or Law (or both if you want =3 )

11. Would you date this character?

23. Favorite picture of this character?

Hi Quin! I'm more than happy to do both, gives me an opportunity to talk about a blorbo other than Toji too lol.

Law

Would I date him? Absolutely! Past his initial prickly and sometimes scrungly exterior, the man is a sweetheart. We're both nerds, we both hyperfixate on things & we both prefer quiet over loud / boisterous settings.

He's smart & cares deeply about the people he loves, so I believe dating him would be enjoyable. Not only that, but look at him, he's so easily flustered how could you not fall for him? 🥺

Gosh there are so many pieces of art / screencaps of Law that make me swoon or go feral. Recently though, I stumbled across this piece by @/blithe-bee over here on Tumblr & something about it just made my brain mushy.

Relaxed Law? Depictions of the white lead disease even after consuming the devil fruit? AND THE WHITE STREAKS IN HIS HAIR?? The fucking white streaks sealed the deal for me tbh. A simple piece, but great composition & structure, well rendered & captures Laws "leave me tf alone, I'm relaxing" aura really well.

Toji

Would I da– yes. Don't even have to finish the question. This man could do the most despicable things & the answer would still be yes. I could go on a whole rant about how he wasn't as terrible as people like to make him seem, but I doubt anyone wants to read an entire dissertation on the subject lol.

Is he a little shit? Oh, most definitely. But, at the end of the day, it was obvious he had the capacity to lead a normal life [well as normal as he could considering the abuse he suffered]. He tried to get his shit together when he was with Megumi's mom, but when the person he genuinely loved died, I don't really blame him for choosing to go back to his less than stellar way of living.

We'd have a hell of a time together, even if I did have to pay for everything as he gambles every penny he makes away. He knows what he wants & cares about the people close to him in his own little way. He's smug, but lord knows I'd swoon and melt under that smirk and some flirting.

And uh, have you seen him? No one can tell me this man doesn't know how to fuck. Just give me 5 minutes & I'll have ascended into a higher plane of existence. 😮‍💨

Okay, okay, so I have an entire folder on my phone dedicated to pictures of Toji– I like him a normal amount. But, I will spare you my actual favorite picture of him bc it's spicy & instead I'll choose something more tame.

Some of my favorite Toji fanart comes from @/ddub1618, they do amazing domestic!Toji comics that make my heart all warm and fuzzy.

Or there's this piece from @/101Neg. The lighting, the feral expression, the way your eyes are drawn around the piece, THE FUCKING VEINS. Fjsisjchjs, their art is so pretty.