Add under facts stored away for later abuse:
Booster is famously modest.
Lower salience than Jennifer is Mike. Higher salience than Sal is basically Batman.
Booster should probably also know better than to pry into the condition Amber was clearly trying to hide from the cops.
But, Booster ain’t exactly a “none of my business” character…
To give Booster some credit, all they know is she’s injured and was hiding from the cops. They don’t know if she’s received medical treatment or not and are just… you know, naturally curious. I’d say depending on the severity of someone’s injuries, it’s a good thing to be curious about it in order to figure out if they may need medical attention. For example, one time a coworker arrived at work and I noticed that she was spacy, staring off into the distance at the wall, overall not herself. So I asked if she was okay and she nonchalantly told me she’d been in a car accident the previous day. Turns out she’d been in a car accident with her father, who was more outwardly injured (but thankfully survived!!). She declined treatment and went about her day, but because I and others pried, we convinced her to go to the hospital where, ta-da, it was discovered she had a concussion from the crash.
SecUnit (formerly Cimorene)
If my college roommate had brought a severely injured girl into our room for some down time, I’d definitely have questions. And that’d even be if I was a more oblivious person and not more like Booster than I should probably admit.
I had several days where I was the “I probably shouldn’t be at work because something bad happened” and coworkers were there to help push me to get help/support. Good on you for getting your coworker to check out their head injury.
God that’s real. I got known in high school for being the person who knows everything so whenever I didn’t know something it’d be made into a big deal by my peers.
I had some issue with that, too. I’m spectrum, so I’ve always got a few obsessions. And just ’cause I know helluva lotta stuff about a few obsessions does NOT mean I know helluva lotta stuff about every damn thing. Sheesh.
Ah yes, the “I hate having anyone acknowledge I’m good at things because then I feel crippling pressure to live up to this image and I don’t think I can” gang. I’m well familiar
Whoa, that’s taking things a little too far, don’t you think?
clif
Hey, not everyone can bomb seven different countries in two months, while complaining about not getting a peace prize. Most presidents are modest enough they don’t accomplish that in an entire year.
NGPZ
that a significant part of our country would rather elect a rapist and dangerous, militarist psycho than a criminal prosecutor who just so happens to be a woman of color, is an unfortunate, sobering reminder of what (mostly white) peoples’ values in our country ACTUALLY tend to be, even if lotta them won’t say them out loud 👀
Although I find it…funny? Strange? Ironic?…that there is person who is aware of Amber’s mental condition but NOT her nighttime activities. I never really thought about the limits of Booster’s knowledge, but it’s interesting.
Naw, Booster is the most insufferable one in the comic. Mike’s stoicism was more palatable than they’re smugness. There’s a reason undergrad psych students get a bad reputation for constantly trying to psychoanalyze the people around them.
*shoves you with pushbroom* Out! Out! It’s an unwritten rule that you don’t pollute a thread declared specifically for one type of responses with disagreements!
maybe booster heard “there’s a masked vigilante on campus” and just thought “lmao that’s ridiculous, must be a campus myth or something.”
Sirksome
I feel like Booster technically knows. They have all the puzzle pieces together but haven’t put the last piece in place. They’ve never had a scene with AG or seeing AG so maybe they don’t even think she exists. It does feel a little weird like I guess Booster never reads the paper.
Booster’s definitely one of my “love to hate ’em” characters — by which I mean, I love watching their schtick and I would run away from them at top speed in real life.
Oh wow really? We’re actually are doing “Amazi-girl is a dissociative state”? I mean, I’m not an expert in the subject, but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t work like how the comic has portrayed it so far, which is basically the same as Harvey Dent/Two-Face (and I’m pretty sure that’s not medically accurate either). In general I find the superhero stuff the worst part of the comic or at least when Willis attempts to do anything serious with it instead of just over the op shenanigans.
That’s pretty much been what’s up with Amber and Amazi-girl for a long time in-comic. Like most directly stated for the first time when Booster was introduced post-timeskip. I’m not going to say Amber and Amazi-girl are a perfect representation of DID however they’re not the worst and I have appreciated it being a clear part of the characters post-timeskip. And I say that as someone with a bachelor’s in Psych.
While I am not a psychologist and do not play one on TV, it is my understanding is that it does not work that way at all. On the other hand, I am willing to suspend disbelief on far far more egregious departures from reality-as-I-understand-it than that, for the sake of a good story.
Doopyboop
See my question is, what exactly is the “it doesn’t work that way” that’s causing a disconnect? Something people need to keep in mind is that DID is still something that is being studied and understood. When it comes to media, I’ve found that the Moon Knight show for example actually does a very good job with portraying the different alters as well as how trauma like the kind the main character experienced as a child creates a split in personality/personalities.
Bill Erak
It varies wildly from person to person, as mental disorders tend to. (Source: <– person with DID.)
Doopyboop
Agreed, Bill! That’s why saying Amber/Amazi-girl is “wrong” or “that’s not how it works” is strange for me without properly elaboration. Like I will agree that you can tell that obviously, in the early years of the comics, the cracks show as far as it being clear Amber and Amazi-girl weren’t initially written to be plural. However, ever since Willis seemed to embrace such a thing in their writing, I’ve felt that they’ve done a great job with Amber and Amazi-girl.
That’s been the case for a very, very long time now, though. We’re not just “doing” that all of a sudden. There was a whole arc and everything about Amber and Amazi-Girl having relationship problems because they didn’t really communicate and didn’t even both date the same person, and then eventually reaching a point where they managed to start communicating and actually talking to each other. Their relationship being a dissociative trauma thing caused by the hostage event with Sal is pretty firmly established in canon by now. There will be plenty of people with DID for whom things work differently, that’s always going to be true, but I also personally know at least two people with diagnosed DID who have very similar communication styles with their alters to what Amber and Amazi-Girl do (sometimes switching with full blackouts for whoever’s not fronting, sometimes both ‘fronting’ enough to communicate between themselves and converse or consciously ‘hand over’ the front to someone else), even if none of them are engaging in comic book vigilante behaviours, so… from my point of view, Amazi-Girl is actually one of the more realistic DID depictions I’ve seen in fiction, even if it’s obviously with a bit of additional super-hero drama for the sake of being an engaging and fun story.
The reason it doesn’t work is that it’s ridiculous! Everything about Amber dressing up in a right yellow outfit and being a vigilante is ridiculous for this comic where everything’s else is relatively grounded. It’s a dumb holdover from Shortpacked that Willis should have dropped years ago. I can’t accept Amber walking around, talking like 2003 Norman Osborne/Green Goblin AND take it seriously as a legitimate portrayal of mental illness. If that were true Amber should be dead, probably from that car surfing she did, or have been arrested by now from assaulting people. This Willis’ trademark issue with juggling tone because once the colorful underwear comes out we’re throwing real world logic and physics out the window. And I could put up with it if it were contained to it’s own thing, but when I’m asked to take it seriously all I can wonder is why any of these dumbasses is still doing it even after it got one of their friends killed.
Doopyboop
Skill issue.
Rosicrucian
This is weird to bring up when we are genuinely in the arc where Amber suffers severe consequences for her need to be a costumed vigilante.
thejeff
Sounds more like your problem is with the super-hero thing at all, rather than anything to do with the DID. Which is fair, it’s a tone thing that some people do have a problem with. Like others have said though, the DID shouldn’t be a surprise it’s been well established for years.
It’s always been played seriously though. Not necessarily realistically, but seriously. Which is pretty common with superhero stories. She can pull off amazing feats, but there are consequences. It’s pretty hard to argue she got anyone killed. Mike died, but Amazi-Girl playing super-hero wasn’t the reason for that. Blaine was after Amber, not AG.
Sirksome
The flaw to me isn’t with the superhero antics or the tone. I think the tone has actually been pretty consistent and for a long time has lived in a sort of drama/comedy like Scrubs where there are wacky jokes but it’s not afraid to get serious. My issue is often the stakes are inconsistent especially with Amber/Amazi-Girl, sometimes fluctuating between characters even in the same scene. Like Amber being nearly beaten to death by cops in the same scenario that Joyce and Dorothy get a cute makeout moment in tear gas. Is this dangerous or not or is it only dangerous for Amber? How about the guy that’s accessory to kidnapping now just running around as a cartoon joke villain that gets pushed off by Tony? Do I take him seriously or not? I get confused by that and can understand how that confusion can lead to frustration with the whole concept sometimes.
Li
@Sirksome: I’m not arguing with the rest of your points because they’re your subjective opinion so arguing would be really silly, but “Amazi-Girl getting nearly beaten to death” was NOT the same scene as Joyce and Dorothy’s tear-gas kiss. Amazi-Girl handled the police during that entire sequence without issue.
.
The reveal that she had gotten attacked and badly hurt came much later, as an end-of-storyline stinger with Sal late at night in the woods. Any jarring there was very clearly intentional, too.
.
So just like, point of order.
Astariel
The comic isn’t entirely grounded though. It mostly is, but there are exceptions other than Amazi-Girl. Joyce, Becky, & Dina have all teleported on-screen, and Joyce once read Walky’s mind.
Sirksome
@Li-Maybe I didn’t articulate that well. I’m not talking about moment to moment I mean that characters in the same scenario have different risk involved. The protest was a romance for Joyce and Dorothy but for Amazi-Girl it was truly dangerous. That makes it difficult for me to know if I should invest in a character’s safety. If it was meant to be a jarring reveal that yes Amber was in fact in danger that also still confuses me. It is all subjective at the end of the day, just saying maybe it could be done better. I do think some of the dissonance in the stakes do lead to the frustration and comments like the tone is inconsistent or the super hero antics ruin it.
Li
@Sirksome: okay, a few things.
.
1.) Yes, the reveal of Amazi-Girl face-down in her own blood was “meant to be jarring”. It was a shocking twist! It was a stinger! By definition, those involve jarring tonal shifts. The jarring tonal shift is what makes them effective at the thing they are trying to do.
.
You can say you didn’t like it. Plenty of people hate jump scares! But you cannot seriously be doubting whether or not it was supposed to be “jarring”. If I were the writer here, and your objection was a bug report, I would close it with “working as intended”.
.
2.) “the protest was a romance for Joyce and Dorothy, but truly dangerous for Amazi-Girl” — no! The protest was truly dangerous for Joyce and Dorothy, too. That danger is part of why they kissed. The adrenaline, the fear, Dorothy’s feelings of misery… those were all driving factors behind the kiss. And their kiss did not make the crisis around them suddenly stop being a crisis.
.
Again: you can dislike it! As immensely popular a trope as this is, characters kissing in the middle of a crisis often falls flat for me! imho, it depends a lot on whether or not you’ve bought into their chemistry, whether or not you empathize with their need to kiss in that exact moment… and a lot of times, I haven’t and don’t. But crucially: my exasperation with those kisses does not make them errors on the part of those authors.
.
Obligatory disclaimer: I’m not saying the protest storyline didn’t have ANY problems. Of course it did! I just don’t think tone is one of the things that went wrong there.
.
As an example of a different criticism I think is more valid: “taste”! The specific subject of the protest was genocide. As many other commenters have noted, it would have gone over a lot better if the protest had been for something else, especially something queer-rights-related, even if the tone of the scene had been exactly the same.
.
(Obligatory disclaimer #2: this is not the ONLY problem, it’s just one example.)
Booster is, personally, one of my absolute favorites and this is why. Which half is the goof? Good luck!!!! They’re behind four layers of affect!!
Not that I would know anything about figuring out how to manage a not insincere but definitely exaggerated social position, in part in my hypothetical case to manage navigating socially while visibly/audibly trans. Noooo. Nooo. …But if I had, I definitely went more ‘flamboyant semivillain’ then Mysterious.
My problem with this is that I have yet to have a reason to give two flying fucks which part of Booster’s antics here are ‘a goof’. Booster doesn’t have ‘mystique’. Mystique intrigues, it invites speculation and investigation. Booster’s schtick does none of that, because Booster never does anything that matters to the rest of the cast; by and large, at most Booster encourages them all to do the thing they were going to do anyway. Dumbing of Age without Booster is Dumbing of Age with Booster, but shorter.
I note that Jennifer is no longer in the building. And I’m sure that she would point out that calling herself Amazi-girl is not the most modest thing that Sal could have done.
I don’t know why but i just read Booster’s lines in this as LittleKuriboh’s Yami voice and it fits far too well and i don’t think that’s ever gonna stop now.
87 thoughts on “Crude remarks”
Astariel
You do not in any way hate having cultivated a mystique, Booster.
I suspect Walky probably won’t spill the beans on Amazi-Girl to Booster, but Amber might.
clif
Add under facts stored away for later abuse:
Booster is famously modest.
Lower salience than Jennifer is Mike. Higher salience than Sal is basically Batman.
Nono
I’d say Booster should know better than to needle a grouchy Walky, but I think they do know better, they just don’t care that much.
Folus
Booster should probably also know better than to pry into the condition Amber was clearly trying to hide from the cops.
But, Booster ain’t exactly a “none of my business” character…
Doopyboop
To give Booster some credit, all they know is she’s injured and was hiding from the cops. They don’t know if she’s received medical treatment or not and are just… you know, naturally curious. I’d say depending on the severity of someone’s injuries, it’s a good thing to be curious about it in order to figure out if they may need medical attention. For example, one time a coworker arrived at work and I noticed that she was spacy, staring off into the distance at the wall, overall not herself. So I asked if she was okay and she nonchalantly told me she’d been in a car accident the previous day. Turns out she’d been in a car accident with her father, who was more outwardly injured (but thankfully survived!!). She declined treatment and went about her day, but because I and others pried, we convinced her to go to the hospital where, ta-da, it was discovered she had a concussion from the crash.
SecUnit (formerly Cimorene)
If my college roommate had brought a severely injured girl into our room for some down time, I’d definitely have questions. And that’d even be if I was a more oblivious person and not more like Booster than I should probably admit.
I had several days where I was the “I probably shouldn’t be at work because something bad happened” and coworkers were there to help push me to get help/support. Good on you for getting your coworker to check out their head injury.
IntangibleMatter
God that’s real. I got known in high school for being the person who knows everything so whenever I didn’t know something it’d be made into a big deal by my peers.
Hence why I have to know everything always
Steamweed
I had some issue with that, too. I’m spectrum, so I’ve always got a few obsessions. And just ’cause I know helluva lotta stuff about a few obsessions does NOT mean I know helluva lotta stuff about every damn thing. Sheesh.
Thag Simmons
It is easy to forget which characters are in the loop about these things.
Doopyboop
If nothing else, you can always count on Jennifer to be wrong when it comes to Amazi-girl.
Needfuldoer
Hey now, Jennifer can be wrong about many things!
Stormtide Leviathan
Ah yes, the “I hate having anyone acknowledge I’m good at things because then I feel crippling pressure to live up to this image and I don’t think I can” gang. I’m well familiar
brionl
“I am the most modest person you will ever meet.”
Ray
You’re sounding very presidential there…
Armadillo
Whoa, that’s taking things a little too far, don’t you think?
clif
Hey, not everyone can bomb seven different countries in two months, while complaining about not getting a peace prize. Most presidents are modest enough they don’t accomplish that in an entire year.
NGPZ
that a significant part of our country would rather elect a rapist and dangerous, militarist psycho than a criminal prosecutor who just so happens to be a woman of color, is an unfortunate, sobering reminder of what (mostly white) peoples’ values in our country ACTUALLY tend to be, even if lotta them won’t say them out loud 👀
nadamás
Booster appreciation thread here just in case: they are the funniest motherfucker in this entire group. I laugh basically every time they are around.
Regina phalange
Booster is very much growing on me.
Although I find it…funny? Strange? Ironic?…that there is person who is aware of Amber’s mental condition but NOT her nighttime activities. I never really thought about the limits of Booster’s knowledge, but it’s interesting.
Doopyboop
I enjoy Booster’s fashion sense and as a fellow enby, I wish to get to their level of fashion someday.
Bobby
Huge agree, and i drink the tears of the booster haters
KtBear
What tears?
Cameron Stone
Naw, Booster is the most insufferable one in the comic. Mike’s stoicism was more palatable than they’re smugness. There’s a reason undergrad psych students get a bad reputation for constantly trying to psychoanalyze the people around them.
flake
I think you may have take a wrong turn somewhere, mate
Big Z
*shoves you with pushbroom* Out! Out! It’s an unwritten rule that you don’t pollute a thread declared specifically for one type of responses with disagreements!
nadamás
Why don’t you go play with that stick up your ass and leave everyone else alone.
zee
Fuck i love them so muchhhhhh
Li
Love Booster!!
Sirksome
I guess Booster has never actually seen Amazi-Girl eh?
Li
Love Booster SO MUCH, they are a delight.
HeatherJean
Maybe they’ve never even seen news reports, or heard about AG from other students. Not likely. Maybe they’re just teasing Walky.
Throwatron
maybe booster heard “there’s a masked vigilante on campus” and just thought “lmao that’s ridiculous, must be a campus myth or something.”
Sirksome
I feel like Booster technically knows. They have all the puzzle pieces together but haven’t put the last piece in place. They’ve never had a scene with AG or seeing AG so maybe they don’t even think she exists. It does feel a little weird like I guess Booster never reads the paper.
Big Z
Booster’s definitely one of my “love to hate ’em” characters — by which I mean, I love watching their schtick and I would run away from them at top speed in real life.
Amós Batista
Embrace your assholeness, Booster…
SaffronComic
There’s a 50% chance Booster has figured out that Amber is Amazi-Girl and a 50% chance they’re bluffing.
Dara
I think they’re bluffing. I didn’t on first read but I read it again and… they’re bluffing.
clif
Never underestimate the power of the mask.
Morrison
Booster is a law enforcement employee
Pocky
Booster failing both an insight check, and persuasion back to back lol
Fail Earnhardt
And is this “cultivated mystique” in the room with us right now, Booster?
Bill Erak
I love you Booster, never change, you have never done anything wrong in your entire life and it will stay that way.
Throwatron
Booster should Kill and Kill and Kill, again
Cameron Stone
Oh wow really? We’re actually are doing “Amazi-girl is a dissociative state”? I mean, I’m not an expert in the subject, but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t work like how the comic has portrayed it so far, which is basically the same as Harvey Dent/Two-Face (and I’m pretty sure that’s not medically accurate either). In general I find the superhero stuff the worst part of the comic or at least when Willis attempts to do anything serious with it instead of just over the op shenanigans.
Doopyboop
That’s pretty much been what’s up with Amber and Amazi-girl for a long time in-comic. Like most directly stated for the first time when Booster was introduced post-timeskip. I’m not going to say Amber and Amazi-girl are a perfect representation of DID however they’re not the worst and I have appreciated it being a clear part of the characters post-timeskip. And I say that as someone with a bachelor’s in Psych.
clif
While I am not a psychologist and do not play one on TV, it is my understanding is that it does not work that way at all. On the other hand, I am willing to suspend disbelief on far far more egregious departures from reality-as-I-understand-it than that, for the sake of a good story.
Doopyboop
See my question is, what exactly is the “it doesn’t work that way” that’s causing a disconnect? Something people need to keep in mind is that DID is still something that is being studied and understood. When it comes to media, I’ve found that the Moon Knight show for example actually does a very good job with portraying the different alters as well as how trauma like the kind the main character experienced as a child creates a split in personality/personalities.
Bill Erak
It varies wildly from person to person, as mental disorders tend to. (Source: <– person with DID.)
Doopyboop
Agreed, Bill! That’s why saying Amber/Amazi-girl is “wrong” or “that’s not how it works” is strange for me without properly elaboration. Like I will agree that you can tell that obviously, in the early years of the comics, the cracks show as far as it being clear Amber and Amazi-girl weren’t initially written to be plural. However, ever since Willis seemed to embrace such a thing in their writing, I’ve felt that they’ve done a great job with Amber and Amazi-girl.
Ornathe
That’s been the case for a very, very long time now, though. We’re not just “doing” that all of a sudden. There was a whole arc and everything about Amber and Amazi-Girl having relationship problems because they didn’t really communicate and didn’t even both date the same person, and then eventually reaching a point where they managed to start communicating and actually talking to each other. Their relationship being a dissociative trauma thing caused by the hostage event with Sal is pretty firmly established in canon by now. There will be plenty of people with DID for whom things work differently, that’s always going to be true, but I also personally know at least two people with diagnosed DID who have very similar communication styles with their alters to what Amber and Amazi-Girl do (sometimes switching with full blackouts for whoever’s not fronting, sometimes both ‘fronting’ enough to communicate between themselves and converse or consciously ‘hand over’ the front to someone else), even if none of them are engaging in comic book vigilante behaviours, so… from my point of view, Amazi-Girl is actually one of the more realistic DID depictions I’ve seen in fiction, even if it’s obviously with a bit of additional super-hero drama for the sake of being an engaging and fun story.
Cameron Stone
The reason it doesn’t work is that it’s ridiculous! Everything about Amber dressing up in a right yellow outfit and being a vigilante is ridiculous for this comic where everything’s else is relatively grounded. It’s a dumb holdover from Shortpacked that Willis should have dropped years ago. I can’t accept Amber walking around, talking like 2003 Norman Osborne/Green Goblin AND take it seriously as a legitimate portrayal of mental illness. If that were true Amber should be dead, probably from that car surfing she did, or have been arrested by now from assaulting people. This Willis’ trademark issue with juggling tone because once the colorful underwear comes out we’re throwing real world logic and physics out the window. And I could put up with it if it were contained to it’s own thing, but when I’m asked to take it seriously all I can wonder is why any of these dumbasses is still doing it even after it got one of their friends killed.
Doopyboop
Skill issue.
Rosicrucian
This is weird to bring up when we are genuinely in the arc where Amber suffers severe consequences for her need to be a costumed vigilante.
thejeff
Sounds more like your problem is with the super-hero thing at all, rather than anything to do with the DID. Which is fair, it’s a tone thing that some people do have a problem with. Like others have said though, the DID shouldn’t be a surprise it’s been well established for years.
It’s always been played seriously though. Not necessarily realistically, but seriously. Which is pretty common with superhero stories. She can pull off amazing feats, but there are consequences. It’s pretty hard to argue she got anyone killed. Mike died, but Amazi-Girl playing super-hero wasn’t the reason for that. Blaine was after Amber, not AG.
Sirksome
The flaw to me isn’t with the superhero antics or the tone. I think the tone has actually been pretty consistent and for a long time has lived in a sort of drama/comedy like Scrubs where there are wacky jokes but it’s not afraid to get serious. My issue is often the stakes are inconsistent especially with Amber/Amazi-Girl, sometimes fluctuating between characters even in the same scene. Like Amber being nearly beaten to death by cops in the same scenario that Joyce and Dorothy get a cute makeout moment in tear gas. Is this dangerous or not or is it only dangerous for Amber? How about the guy that’s accessory to kidnapping now just running around as a cartoon joke villain that gets pushed off by Tony? Do I take him seriously or not? I get confused by that and can understand how that confusion can lead to frustration with the whole concept sometimes.
Li
@Sirksome: I’m not arguing with the rest of your points because they’re your subjective opinion so arguing would be really silly, but “Amazi-Girl getting nearly beaten to death” was NOT the same scene as Joyce and Dorothy’s tear-gas kiss. Amazi-Girl handled the police during that entire sequence without issue.
.
The reveal that she had gotten attacked and badly hurt came much later, as an end-of-storyline stinger with Sal late at night in the woods. Any jarring there was very clearly intentional, too.
.
So just like, point of order.
Astariel
The comic isn’t entirely grounded though. It mostly is, but there are exceptions other than Amazi-Girl. Joyce, Becky, & Dina have all teleported on-screen, and Joyce once read Walky’s mind.
Sirksome
@Li-Maybe I didn’t articulate that well. I’m not talking about moment to moment I mean that characters in the same scenario have different risk involved. The protest was a romance for Joyce and Dorothy but for Amazi-Girl it was truly dangerous. That makes it difficult for me to know if I should invest in a character’s safety. If it was meant to be a jarring reveal that yes Amber was in fact in danger that also still confuses me. It is all subjective at the end of the day, just saying maybe it could be done better. I do think some of the dissonance in the stakes do lead to the frustration and comments like the tone is inconsistent or the super hero antics ruin it.
Li
@Sirksome: okay, a few things.
.
1.) Yes, the reveal of Amazi-Girl face-down in her own blood was “meant to be jarring”. It was a shocking twist! It was a stinger! By definition, those involve jarring tonal shifts. The jarring tonal shift is what makes them effective at the thing they are trying to do.
.
You can say you didn’t like it. Plenty of people hate jump scares! But you cannot seriously be doubting whether or not it was supposed to be “jarring”. If I were the writer here, and your objection was a bug report, I would close it with “working as intended”.
.
2.) “the protest was a romance for Joyce and Dorothy, but truly dangerous for Amazi-Girl” — no! The protest was truly dangerous for Joyce and Dorothy, too. That danger is part of why they kissed. The adrenaline, the fear, Dorothy’s feelings of misery… those were all driving factors behind the kiss. And their kiss did not make the crisis around them suddenly stop being a crisis.
.
Again: you can dislike it! As immensely popular a trope as this is, characters kissing in the middle of a crisis often falls flat for me! imho, it depends a lot on whether or not you’ve bought into their chemistry, whether or not you empathize with their need to kiss in that exact moment… and a lot of times, I haven’t and don’t. But crucially: my exasperation with those kisses does not make them errors on the part of those authors.
.
Obligatory disclaimer: I’m not saying the protest storyline didn’t have ANY problems. Of course it did! I just don’t think tone is one of the things that went wrong there.
.
As an example of a different criticism I think is more valid: “taste”! The specific subject of the protest was genocide. As many other commenters have noted, it would have gone over a lot better if the protest had been for something else, especially something queer-rights-related, even if the tone of the scene had been exactly the same.
.
(Obligatory disclaimer #2: this is not the ONLY problem, it’s just one example.)
Taffy
Have you read this comic?
nadamás
You are an obnoxious little scab and i hope you het pelled off soon 🤗
Zamperla
Booster is, personally, one of my absolute favorites and this is why. Which half is the goof? Good luck!!!! They’re behind four layers of affect!!
Not that I would know anything about figuring out how to manage a not insincere but definitely exaggerated social position, in part in my hypothetical case to manage navigating socially while visibly/audibly trans. Noooo. Nooo. …But if I had, I definitely went more ‘flamboyant semivillain’ then Mysterious.
Freemage
My problem with this is that I have yet to have a reason to give two flying fucks which part of Booster’s antics here are ‘a goof’. Booster doesn’t have ‘mystique’. Mystique intrigues, it invites speculation and investigation. Booster’s schtick does none of that, because Booster never does anything that matters to the rest of the cast; by and large, at most Booster encourages them all to do the thing they were going to do anyway. Dumbing of Age without Booster is Dumbing of Age with Booster, but shorter.
Bogeywoman
Booster is the second most modest person in the building. The first, of course, is Carla
clif
I note that Jennifer is no longer in the building. And I’m sure that she would point out that calling herself Amazi-girl is not the most modest thing that Sal could have done.
Kyulen
It would be nice if Booster could not be an obnoxious ass for a little while. At least Mike was entertaining while being an asshole.
nadamás
I hope Booster continue to annoy you for many years to come.
Acher4
Walky’s side-eye is going to poke out of the panel soon. :P
yak
so booster’s the type of know-it-all that doesn’t read the news?
Jerna
“This is where I have cultivated a mystique I unerringly had to live up to, Raphael.”
“Cowabummer.”
Sharizard
I don’t know why but i just read Booster’s lines in this as LittleKuriboh’s Yami voice and it fits far too well and i don’t think that’s ever gonna stop now.
Rosicrucian