SEVENTEEN EIGHTEEN NINETEEN - GJ
LOLLLLLLLLLLLL (ok benton let's go)
do you like seeing your Blorbo suffer?
YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (i asked for it)
uh. sure do. like. a normal. tiny amount. just a lil beeeeet. teensy tiny sufferin'. have i come to you with imagines of major character deaths? maybe. have i spoken at length about the joys of whump? possibly. do i de-tail elaborate scenarios of sadness, violence, and straight-up bad times? am i, in short, a dead dove aficionado
comfort is optional. (sorry fraser) (you're the softest toy of the lot) (you get put in the torment vortex)
do you ship your Blorbo with any character?
i do and i don't, in that if im defining shipping through the explicit lens of romance, i can technically see it with several characters (rayv, meg, rayk, bruce, victoria, eric, janet, mark smithbauer... who am i missing here... anyway) but it's not my main lens/not the first word that comes to mind when i think about the different dynamics he's in (all of which are interesting)
also i throw a curveball into the mix by also, equally, thinking there's a very compelling read of fraser as aromantic, and within that another interesting idea that centres around how aromanticism and romance as exploration aren't mutually exclusive
and whatever i write for fraser is always through the lens of him coming at relationships in a non-normative way, that is, he'd never "simply fall in love and pursue a romantic relationship," in my head. it's gotta at the very least be filtered through several layers of Justice Is The Most Important Thing (and it genuinely is to him, imo), loneliness, neurodivergency, lack of script for intimacy, academic overreads of what any of these ideas even mean, and basically the fact that he's a fairytale being trying parse human relationship notions and not entirely sure if they make a whole lot of sense
but devotion youknow. thaaat i think he'd get/has learnt since coming to the big city. service. sacrifice for A Specific Person (rather than for the entire world). missing someone. enjoying someone's company and trusting that they enjoy his. things like that
and i do think -- as of where im at right now (s4ep2) that on the "potentially unrequited but not really, it's just that fraser sees the world fundamentally differently and again, listen, that can be tough, but devotion is devotion" side of things, Ray Vecchio has been head over heels for him since... boy oh boy. Very early on in their partnership. i should try and track when i might pinpoint it.
(see i don't think it's fallen in love at this point, but it's certainly part of the Thing. the "i would follow you to the ends of the earth with only mild complaining and have, in fact, already proven this once by getting blown up and then signing out of hospital to go to the middle of nowhere to get shot at... with really only very mild complaining" thing)
and Meg Thatcher, of course, fantasises about how she'd kill for him if needs be (but i like a little aro read for her on occasion to)
and i think specifically s4ep2 marks a change in gear for Ray Kowalski too, but i'll have more to say about that as we move along. no gifs, because i cannot risk a spoiler, but the motorbike thing really was Smthsmth. @gjdraws and i (that's you 🥰) talk a lot about Fealty. and that right there... that was the Moment
so, long answer short: i do and i don't
(the world of aromanticism)
when it comes to Blorbos, do you have a type?
so ive got a new housemate who observed how often i call people in fiction "lil guy" (encompassing any gender, often large, also, at times, spaceships, objects, the concept of a movie or book itself, etc)
that being said. preferences. Lorge. Sacrificial. Highly capable, but also would probably die on their own. Tormented. Favourite of the narrative. ND vibes. if possible, hairy (so like. put together fraser and rayv and we have the perfect lil guy)
and on the flipside there's also whatever jacob anderson put in the water for louis de pointe du lac, but i think that's more because pathetique aesthete is. me. gender
there's the lil guy i project gender onto (jacob anderson's ldpdl, half of ben whishaw's ouevre, viola twelfth night, claude cahun, sherlock holmes as drawn, hawkeye pierce (mash tv series), al pacino dog day afternoon, daniel larusso, wallace from wallace and gromit, the doctor from doctor who, frodo baggins, lisa minelli's sally bowles (not to say jane horrocks wasn't perfection but genderwise), many final girls, conrad veidt, john turturro, clarissa mao (the expanse), jack rackham, mercutio) and the lil guy i want to tell me did a good job (benton fraser, jlm's sherlock holmes, amos burton, bobbie draper, camina drummer/cara gee in many things honestly, omar sharif's ali in lawrence of arabia, chozen toguchi, ray vecchio, and -- evil version -- milchick from severance @hunkydorkling youknow what i mean)
there's a third one which is lil guy who is specifically a woman that thinks she's hinged (wants desperately to be Hinged) but isn't hinged but IS in charge of things: meg thatcher, joan watson, helly r AND helena eagan, ms cobel, grace hanson (jane fonda), maggie o'connell (northern exposure), many final girls also, many women in the silmarillion including galadriel, eleanor guthrie, chrisjen avasarala (who's given up on the hinge tbf), lady macbeth, margaret houlihan etc.
and fourth one which is. fairytale character as other. benton fraser (again), momo, the last unicorn, pie 'oh' pah (imajica), mÃriel Þerindë, melian (silm), ariel (tempest), breq (ancillary series...) ... yeah that one could go on for sure for sure...
and then there's cary grant, who is somehow all of these, while also being "just some guy"
uh. yes. i have a Type. but it encompasses several ideas
