#side note but while the characters are all pretty one note/very standard in terms of stand out/memorable traits | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

whumpinggrounds · 1 year

Text

Writing Blind/Low Vision Characters

Time for another one of these I have decided! As always, this is based on personal experience with blind low vision people, classwork, and research. I do wear glasses, but I am not blind/low vision and this is not my lived experience. Please feel free to question, correct, and comment, as long as you are respectful! Thanks so much for reading :) On to the good stuff!

Vocab

Blind describes a person who has very little to no vision. This can be written with a lowercase or capital b (blind or Blind). Blind does not always mean no vision. It is medically defined as having vision of less than 20/200 in the better eye. Someone can be able to distinguish color, light and dark, or shapes, and still be blind.

blind refers to the medical condition of having little to no vision.

Blind (note the capital b) refers to the sociocultural experience of being a nonseeing person in a predominantly vision-based society. This distinction is newer and less common than with the Deaf community, but is becoming more popular, particularly with DeafBlind people. As always, the important thing is respecting what people identify as and want to be called

Visually impaired is a term that covers the spectrum of vision differences.

The term does not include disorders that affect one or more of the “basic psychological processes.” What this means is that though vision or the use of visual information may be impaired, if the nature of that impairment is not related to the structure of the eye, it would not be described as “visual impairment.” Examples include perceptual disabilities, brain injuries, or dyslexia.

B/VI is an acronym, standing for Blind/Visually Impaired, that can be used to refer to the community as a whole.

Low vision describes a person who is not fully blind, but whose level of vision is significantly impaired. More technically, this refers to vision that cannot be corrected through medical or surgical procedures, or conventional eyeglasses.

Legally blind (in the USA) refers to an individual whose vision is affected beyond what glasses can correct. This is a bit difficult to describe in writing but: If the strongest prescription possible cannot bring that person’s vision up to 20/20, they are legally blind. This is not the same as having no vision.

Deafblind or DeafBlind refers to an individual with any combination of vision and Deaf gain/hearing loss, ranging from mild to profound Deaf gain/hearing loss and from low vision to total blindness.

Visual acuity refers to clarity of vision and is the source of numbers like 20/20, 20/30, etc. This is another one that’s weird to describe so stick with me. My vision is about 20/40 (last I went to the eye doctor lol) which means that I see at 20 feet what someone with 20/20 vision sees at 20 feet. The top number is always 20, and refers to the 20/20 standard, while the lower number describes the visual acuity of the person in question. If their visual acuity is 20/10, that means they see at ten feet what a person with 20/20 vision would see at 20 feet. If they see at 20 feet what a person with 20/20 vision would see at 200 feet, they are medically considered blind.

Visual functioning is (basically) a measure of how well a person can use visual information in completing tasks. This is assessed a number of different ways.

Residual vision is another way of referring to the functional vision of a person with low vision or blindness.

I’m not going to go through all the different kinds of blindness and eye conditions, because that would take too long, and this is already a pretty long vocab section. But there are lots of different kinds of conditions and disabilities affecting eyes and vision! Please explore them :)

Blind Culture?

Is there Blind culture in the same way that there is Deaf culture? Difficult to say. It’s an ongoing debate, and I’m going to briefly address each side, and then leave it up to you to research further how this might affect your character and your story.

Historically, the blind community have rejected the idea that blind individuals have a shared culture. The reasons for this are very well outlined in this letter, which I highly recommend reading. To summarize it here: Blind people are not isolated from sighted people in the same way that Deaf people have been historically isolated from hearing people. The reason for this is generally acknowledged to be the lack of, or existence of, a language barrier. Blind people use the same language as the sighted people around them, while Deaf people have used signed language as opposed to spoken language. Where no language barrier exists, this position argues, no separate culture forms or needs to form.

On the other hand - there are certainly experiences that are shared by people across the visually impaired spectrum that fully sighted people do not have. Blind or low vision people access and interpret the world in different ways. There is, analogous to Deaf communities, a history of blind or low vision children being educated separately from sighted children, and of discrimination throughout the lifespan that has isolated visually impaired people from sighted society.

What does all of this mean? It means that there is less consensus about what it means to be visually impaired, and what values or traditions unite that experience. It means that there is less of a framework for how your visually impaired character might relate to other visually impaired characters or their broader community. I highly encourage further exploration within your own story, as well as making sure that whatever choices you’re making about the character’s relationship to their vision is grounded in conscious choice and research. Just because there are no easy answers about a collective blind culture does not mean that a blind character can be written the same as a sighted character but without the vision.

Assistive Technology

Assistive technology (as a reminder, this is not specific to visual impairments) refers to pretty much anything used to make the lives of disabled people easier.

Official American government definition is: "Any item, piece of equipment or product system, whether acquired commercially off the shelf, modified, or customized, that is used to increase, maintain, or improve the functional capabilities of children with disabilities. The term does not include a medical device that is surgically implanted, or the replacement of such device."

Braille is a tactile system of writing in which raised dots represent letters, numbers, and punctuation. More on this later.

A screen reader is a software program that either reads written text on a screen aloud, or produces a Braille display.

Speech-to-text programs are software programs that...convert speech to text.

Text-to-speech or TTS are programs that convert written text into spoken speech. These were also commonly used on landline phones by d/Deaf people before text messaging became commonplace.

Seeing Eye dogs are service dogs that are trained to help their blind owners move and navigate independently.

White canes are white canes with a red stripe. These are both navigational tools for B/VI people, and used to communicate to others that the person carrying it is B/VI. Accordingly, it is illegal in some US states to carry a white cane if you are not visually impaired. Only 2-8% of B/VI people actually use them, though, and it requires dedicated practice to use them effectively. They are designed to vibrate differently when they come in contact with different types of surfaces, and proper practice can help cane users distinguish between different obstacles.

Braille and the Braille Literacy Crisis

Braille, as mentioned before, is a tactile way of writing, which helps B/VI people read and write effectively. I’m not going to do an exhaustive explanation, but essentially, a different combination of raised dots represents each letter of the written alphabet. The sentence I’m writing, rewritten in Braille, would have the exact same words and structure, but would be expressed in raised dots. There are abbreviated forms that are less commonly used and may be used by more skilled readers or those reading texts with specialized, space-saving abbreviations.

Less than 10 percent of legally blind in the US can read Braille, and only 10 percent of legally blind children are currently learning it. This is a huge problem. Over 70% of blind adults are unemployed, and up to 50% of blind students drop out of high school. There is a strong, scientifically supported link between literacy and employment.

Technology should supplement literacy, not replace it. Screen readers and text-to-speech are great tools, but are not an adequate replacement for literacy.

Reading English text is not always the best possible method of reading. The misguided belief that reading Braille is isolating and stigmatizing leads many to push reading text over reading Braille, even when this is inappropriate or even impossible. Some children achieve higher levels of literacy through reading Braille.

Implications for your writing: Can your character read Braille? Why, or why not? What impact does their illiteracy have on their life?

Rethink

I’ve tried a couple different headings here cuz as always, don’t want to tell people unequivocally not to write things. But these are things you should really think hard about before you include them in your writing.

So, things to rethink:

Overused tropes for B/VI characters:

Blind seer/blind mystic

Innocent, pure, noble, sweet etc.

Bumbling oaf B/VI person

Feeling people’s faces as a way to “know what they look like”

Does not happen in real life, more of a stereotype/sighted person’s fantasy

“Helen Keller didn’t exist” TikTok conspiracy theory (not a writing thing but a pet peeve I can’t not mention)

This is ableist. The only reason people think she wasn’t able to accomplish things is because she was deafblind and that’s fucking bullshit. It is not a cute silly TikTok joke. It’s ableism, and it’s disgusting.

Blindness negating power/ability.

This can be anything from an actual superpower (X-Men) to a technological advance (Star Trek) to a supernatural ability (Avatar: The Last Airbender.)

In real life, this could be having someone with other senses that compensate to an unrealistic degree, or echolocation, which, while it proves successful for some people, is hard, takes a ton of effort, and doesn’t work for everyone.

Resources/Recommendations

Please add recommendations in reblogs and comments! I really haven’t watched a lot of TV or movies that have blind characters, which sucks :/

Haben: The Deafblind Woman Who Conquered Harvard Law By Haben Girma is an autobiography of a deafblind woman that is incredibly well written and discusses independence and activism.

The World I Live In by Helen Keller describes life as a deafblind individual and is really powerful and beautiful.

#disability writing guide #writing disabled characters #writing blind characters #writing blindness #low vision #blindness #blind characters #disability representation #writing disability

324 notes · View notes

datusaguy · 1 year

Text

Here’s a bunch of cool Easter eggs/potential references I’ve noticed with Karai’s sprites in Shredder’s Revenge. I’ve already done a color reference post for Karai though (which you can read here), so I won’t go over that very much in this post.

Firstly, her electrocution animation, 2nd pallet option and “flying attack” animations all seem like references to her time as Shredder in various media. As seen below, she displays a Shredder helmet and Foot Clan symbol when her bones light up. Then as I mentioned in my “Karai color references” post, her 2nd pallet is similar to colored Mirage depictions of the Shredder.

For her flying attack, she uses claws which I think she’s generally only seen with when wearing Shredder’s armor. Additionally, I think it might be a reference to X-Men’s Wolverine, most likely in one of the Marvel Vs Capcom games. I couldn’t find a specific move he has though quite like this though.

Like her flying attack, I think this is 2 references. 1st is that I’m pretty sure she did specifically fight with a chain in the 2003 show quite a bit and I’m not sure she did much (if at all in other versions). 2nd, it reminds me a lot of Scorpion’s “Get Over Here” from various Mortal Kombat games. It’s also the only Charged Attack that pulls in opponents.

While I’m not sure about any Karai-specific references for her “Super Flying Attack,” it does seem similar to Magneto’s Magnetic Shockwave in Marvel vs Capcpm 3.

Her standard attack string (“combo attack”) does look similar to moves both Ryu and Ken have done, although I’m not sure if either of them have all the attacks in one game (feeling like it may be MvC3 Ryu, but idk). Captain Falcon does seem like he has practically all the attack, even though realistically I don’t think you’d ever combo them all the way Karai does. Also, the string seems generic enough to probably look closely to multiple other fighting game characters.

Next are all the TMNT Tournament Fighters references. As mentioned in my Color References post, Karai has 3 (maybe 4) colors from the Genesis and SNES. In terms of her animations however, I think most (if not all), of them are for her SNES appearance.

As to what references there are, firstly I do want to mention her “neutral” stance is practically the same in this game and SNES TF. I can’t put anymore pictures in the post since I’m already at 30 pictures/gifs for the post and don’t think I can put anymore in, but you can see it in a lot of my gifs for both games.

Second is her dash attack which resemble her godly walk animation. It doesn’t have a hitbox in TF, but it’s also incredibly fast.

Third is her “Fling Slam” which ends off similar to her “Air Breaker” attack in TF. There may be a different command grab it’s specifically referencing, but I’m not sure, especially when there’s a plethora of command grabs in fighting games (off the top of my head though, it does end similar to a Tager grab from BlazBlue).

Fourth is her Dive Attack which looks similar to a dive kick she has in TF. It may not send her full screen, be as insanely fast nor cover up so much of the screen, but it’s still cool.

Fifth is TF’s Dark Thunder. Both her taunt and standard super remind me of Dark Thunder, the ladder especially since she can literally say “Dark Thunder” sometimes when she does it.

Last of the TF references for now is her “Super Flying Attack” which is similar to both Lightning Fists and one of her air normals.

As a side note, the TF air normal specifically is so incredibly good lol. She is a boss character in that game and her moveset in general is nuts so I get why it’s like that, but I love it. I do the air normal 3 times in the gif and I think it literally true string-ed into itself for the last 2.

This isn’t the rest of her animations, but I feel like they’re probably references as well. I do want to acknowledge Karai has used a sword multiple times before in multiple versions, but I don’t know more specifics than that.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed the post. Feel free to mention any extra info you might pick up on in the comments or reblogs and I could try to add it to my main post. I probably won’t do this for other characters since there’s so many references I wouldn’t pick up on, but who knows~. If you wanna see some other references, here’s a link to all of my color references posts.

(Also added this picture here cuz she looks so cool).

Shredder’s Revenge Color References:

1. Karai

2. Leonardo

3. Michelangelo

4. Raphael

5. Donatello

6. April O’Neil

7. Master Splinter

8. Casey Jones

9. Usagi

#tmnt #tmnt karai #oroku karai #Karai #shredder’s revenge #teenage mutant ninja turtles #references

23 notes · View notes

pokesmashorpokepass · 8 months

Text

Gen VI, Complete!

You read that correctly, we've made it through PokeFrance (Official term for Kalos, honest!) and have compiled the data!

With that said, let us begin the usual look at this generations...

Sultans of Smash!

(Which is just my fancy way of saying they got more "Smash" than "Pass" votes)

So come with me on this fabulous journey in smashing! Our Smashables are (under the Read More because, you know, this gonna take a while):

1. So for this generation, we do have three starters on the list! But, sadly, Chesnaught couldn't make it. So for our first starter, we instead have our second middle evolution, Braixen! Suppose it's not hard to see why, everyone loves magical girls and Braixen certainly counts! Counts enough to get a 66.4% Smash rating, which is pretty good says I.

2. But far surpassing Braixen is the greatest of Pokemon fire mages, Delphox! And when I say surpass, I mean really surpasses! Delphox has the honor of being the first Starter Pokemon to make it into the Gods of Smash, with a mighty 80.9% Smash rating! There's no stopping the magic of this witch! ...Side note, I think I will be naming my next Delphox "Browser", because she's a Firefox. (Ba-Dum-Tss)

3. Similar to the samurai, ninja have long been one of the more interesting mainstays of Japanese pop culture (especially abroad), and are almost always popular. So it's understandable that Pokemon's own ninja, Greninja, would have their fair share of friends and admirers! And with a smash rating of 72.5% in Standard Form, god damn what fans they have! The Ash-Greninja form, while not quite as popular Standard Form, also makes it in with a 52% Smash rating! Looks like not even a ninja of this calibur can hide how smashable they are.

4. This next Pokemon has a pretty accurate name. Florges, a combination of "Flower" and Gorgeous", certainly describes them pretty well if you ask me! And judging by that solid 67.8% Smash rating she's earned herself, I'd say many of y'all agree!

5. Everyone knows the "Jerk with a Heart of Gold" character archetype, and the closely related "Bruiser with a Soft Center". And it cannot be understated that these character archetypes are super popular. So of course, combining them into a single Pokemon and making that Pokemon a panda? Instant recipe for success, I'm sure! And said Pokemon exists in the form of Pangoro! Are they loved? I dunno, let's ask that 67.9% Smash rating of theirs. ...Survey says yes.

6. Many of us love cats, but often wish it was easier to understand them (or at the very least make ourselves understood to them). Fortunately for the Pokemon universe, they do have cats that can understand us and be more easily understood in the form of the psychic Meowstic! Coming in at 68.1% Smashable for Female Meowstic and 59.3% Smashable for Male Meowstic, it seems some of y'all really appreciate these cats! ...Now if only Female Meowstic didn't tend to fall into the French/Kalosian stereotype of being kind of a jerk (according to the Pokedex, anyways)

7. If there's two things I've seen a number of tumblr users like, it's tentacles and hypno stuff. So with that in mind, Malamar having both makes it very unsurprising they've gained entry to the Sultans of Smash! That said, at a 51.7% Smash rating, I have to admit I expected larger numbers. But anyways... Wait wha- ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOSQUID.

8. It's a tale as old as time, people look at the Tyrannosaurus Rex as a kid and think "That's them, that's the coolest fucking dinosaur ever!" While some move on or get different favorite dinosaurs, for some that passion never fades. And that passion for the majestic t.Rex, it seems, translates itself onto Tyrantrum! And at 53% Smashability, seems this king will have no reason to go on a tantrum. (Thank god, I don't think we could handle the repair bills to the property if they did...)

9. The Aurora Borealis has fascinated humans since they've first been able to observe that wondrous display of light. Thankfully for those of us who don't live in polar regions, the color-changing sails of Aurorus can help capture the beauty of such a natural phenomenon! Certainly, many of you have expressed a desire to admire this Pokemon up close and personal, if that 65.9% smash rating is any indication! Though really, the ice crystals and geometric patterns on their scales also do a lot for the appeal of this cool customer.

10. Attention everyone, it is once again Real Eeveelution Hours! And for this list's Eeveelution, we have everyone's favorite walking trans flag, Sylveon! With their extendable ribbons, piercing blue eyes, and 69.3% Smash rating, it seems Sylveon continues the time-honored Eeveelution tradition of being absolutely smashable!

11. Hear me out here, what if snails and slugs were also... Dragons? If your answer to learning this was "Oh fuck yeah that sounds awesome!", then I have Good News! This Snail/Slug Dragon I proposed is a thing in the form of Goodra, with Kalosian Goodra being more slug-like and Hisuian Goodra being more snail-like! However people like them though, considering Kalosian Goodra has a 71.4% Smash rating and Hisuian Goodra has a 61.6% rating, it's clear people do like these dragons quite a bit.

12. It may not be Halloween, but for many of us there's always time for Jack-o'-Lanterns! And with Gourgeist, the next Pokemon on our list, you can have a jack-o'-lantern that can also be smashed, something a number of you want if that 50.4% Smash rating is any indication!

13. And next up on the list, we have a noisy one! Ever wondered what would happen if bats could be loud enough to shatter anything by yelling at it? Well, if Noivern and their 68% Smash rating is any indication, the answer is "People would want to smash it!" Though really, looking at them, I can safely say you'd have to be blind as a bat to not see the appeal. Sorry, the pun had to be made.

14. I'm gonna be honest, I tried thinking long and hard on how to be crafty with my statement regarding this next one, but I just can't do it. I'd need more than one lifetime to make something fitting enough for this majestic deer! Fortunately, Xerneas can give one all the time in the world they need to think of stuff! And judging by that 66.5% Smash rating, I think a few of y'all have a few ideas on what to do with all the time Xerneas' immortality will give you...

15. But where there's life, there must, sadly, be death. Fortunately, death is this case is the very cool looking Yveltal, who has achieved an impressive 63.5% Smash rating! Seems that for some of y'all, "Death comes for you" has a different meaning...

16. Balance is an important part of any ecosystem. Too much death and you have no ecosystem, but too much life and you risk one particular part of that ecosystem overwhelming the rest. Fortunately, to prevent this from happening, Zygarde is here! And judging by how 50% Forme has a 52.3% Smash rating and Complete Forme has a 61.2% Smash rating, I'd say a number of you wish to show Zygarde your appreciation.

17. Diamonds are great. They're shiny, they're stupidly hard to damage, and they can come in a variety of colors! And that's just in our universe, the Pokemon universe is lucky and has Diancie, a living diamond Pokemon! And if Standard Form's 56.1% Rating and Mega Diancie's 65.3% rating is any indication, Diancie also adds "Very smashable" to the list of good diamond traits!

18. And for the finale, I present to you... Another Pokemon who only had an alternate form get in? Yep! It's Hoopa, the genie in a bottle Pokemon! Specifically, it's Hoopa Unbound, who makes it in with a 55.6% Smash rating! And with his rings, they'll show you the wo- Eh? What? Copyright law?! Damn it! Ok my lawers just advised me to not finish that joke, so sadly I can't leave y'all on the Aladdin reference. But I can say that considering Hoopa has a history of stealing treasure with their rings, I'm beginning to suspect some of y'all have a thing for Pokemon with criminal tendencies...

And thus is the Gen VI Who's Who of Smashing concluded, bringing us up to 136 Sultans of Smash! Well then let's see what's next... Gen VII? Oh man, we've got some choice Sultans of Smash incoming...!

#pokemon #pokémon #smash or pass #summary #The Pokemon Sultans of Smash

4 notes · View notes

mystery-moose · 1 year

Text

Got tagged by @bettydice for this, and I’m doing it sleepy or else I’ll forget!

Last song: one of the boss themes from Final Fantasy XVI, but that’s cheating and also a spoiler, so I’ll say Baba Yetu, the original version from the Civilization IV opening. I find it optimistic and hopeful, and I needed that while I was finishing up my final for my summer math course!

Currently watching: the new one is about to come out so I’m rewatching the Mission Impossible series! Tom Cruise is a frontman for a dangerous cult and he bears a great deal of responsibility for their crimes, but by god those movies are all incredible! Yes, even the bad one!

Currently reading: Austin Walker currently has a book club podcast called Shelved by Genre, and as a result of wanting to hear his thoughts on basically anything, I’m reading the Book of the New Sun for the first time! It’s kind of incredible so far, a surreal mixture of medieval archaisms and distant future science-fantasy, but I’m really enjoying it so far. Lots of depth to this text, I can already tell!

Current obsession: at the moment? Final Fantasy XVI. It’s not perfect — even with my take that it’s good the side quests are boring actually, I do wish they were more mechanically involving, and there’s some visual customization and the lightest dusting of loot elements that I miss from the RPG stew. There’s also the issue of there being like… five female characters of note, and they’re all either supporting characters with zero plot agency, or unrelentingly evil, and I desperately wish there was a better balance between men and women in both major and minor ways, from cutscene direction to actual plot and writing for them. Especially in a series like Final Fantasy, which is usually better about spotlighting their women at the very least! And I haven’t even considered the diversity issue, which, while I now understand why they avoided it, does still reek of cowardice.

All of that being said… what a goddamn spectacle. I’m halfway through and each boss battle tops the last in terms of raw dollars-spent blockbuster status. The aesthetics both visual and aural are astonishing throughout the game but it’s in the major moments where it shines brightest. There are already moments I’ll never forget, and I’ve basically got to own this soundtrack the moment it’s available.

And the writing is good! With only a couple exceptions, it flows logically, tells its story well, carries a number of themes and touches on some cool subjects… it goes from Game of Thrones to Final Fantasy Standard pretty quick all things considered, but that GRRM flavor is still appreciated, as someone who also enjoyed FFXII and Tactics and has a thing for political intrigue and the movements of troops. It’s a hell of a thing they’ve done, corners cut where they’re least necessary and time spent where you feel it the most, and if any of what I’ve said has interested you (and you have a PS5) then you should check out FFXVI.

So yeah. I think that ranks as an obsession right now!

#moose memes #no for real I was SO frustrated by the Jill stuff in 16 #but they won me back baby #it also helps that I just hit the Mid point #and that’s a breath of fresh air #heh

6 notes · View notes

fancoloredglasses · 4 months

Text

Apokolips...NOW! (RIP Jack Kirby Dan Turpin)

[All images are owned by DC Comics and Warner Bros-Discovery. I hope I’m too small fry to sue…]

[QUICK NOTE: This review is going to go a bit more off the rails than normal, as it deals with history of the characters involved (and, in some cases, their creator) beyond the scope of the Dini-verse]

Following Crisis, Metropolis gained a few new regular faces in the pages of Superman’s titles, as well as a new faction (besides LexCorp): Metropolis PD’s Special Crimes Unit (SCU), whose job it is to deal with super-powered menaces (pretty much every city has one, even ones that don’t have a resident super hero, since you never know when a super villain might pack up and move to another city with easier pickings)

Heading up Metropolis’s SCU is Inspector Maggie Sawyer, who started out wanting to push Superman out of the City of Tomorrow (good luck with that! If Lex Luthor couldn’t manage it…), but soon became an ally. In the comics, she was revealed to be gay (which Luthor tried to use against her) and eventually transferred to Gotham (no clue if her sexuality had anything to do with that, but it was the late 80s and publicly being part of the LGBTQ community was even rougher than it is today)

Sawyer is also head of the SCU in the Animated Series, but her sexuality is never directly addressed (though there are hints that got past Standards and Practices)

Sawyer’s second-in-command is Inspector Dan Turpin (whom the papers dubbed “the Unstoppable Cop” due to his resiliency) His design was modeled in homage to…

(Thanks to SF Gateway)

Jack Kirby, who helped create most of Marvel’s most iconic characters (including Captain America, the X-Men, Thor, the Fantastic Four, and Nick Fury). When he left Marvel after a contract dispute, he went to DC Comics where he created the New Gods (more on them later) Kirby passed away two years before Superman: the Animated Series debuted. No doubt he would’ve been amused and/or honored.

[NOTE: There are a LOT of Easter Eggs related to Kirby in this episode. I’ll try to hit them all, but if I miss any, please let me know]

Anyway, enough back story, on to the subject of this review. If you would like to watch it, it’s available on Max or behind your favorite paywall.

We open with an armored car (carrying $20 million in confiscated money) with a police escort, with Sawyer in the lead vehicle, entering a secure facility.

Meanwhile, outside…something latches on to the facility with aloud THUMP.

That doesn’t look very friendly. The flying vehicle (we’ll just call it a hovertank) blows a hole in the wall. Sawyer gets on her car’s radio to call for backup, but the hovertank blows up her car and she barely gets out in time. However, the explosion throws her across the room!(I’m sure she’ll be fine, right?) Turpin goes to check on her, but she’s unconscious at the very least.

In the meantime, the hovertank grapples onto the armored truck and flies away.

However, they don’t get far as Big Blue shows up to stop them. However, they launch a sonic device that shatters nearby windows and plays havoc with everyone’s ears until Superman manages to destroy it with his heat vision. Naturally, the hovertank gets away while Superman is busy recovering.

Later, at Metropolis General Hospital, Sawyer is recovering from her injuries. Turpin vows to nail the bastards who did this (in much more kid-friendly terms)

…but Sawyer reminds him that he’s in charge of the SCU until she recovers, so all eyes will be on him.

(The woman by her side is Toby Raynes (voiced by SNL alum Laraine Newman) who was Maggie Sawyer’s lover in the comics. Their relationship isn’t mentioned in the series, so most viewers would just think they’re friends)

Meanwhile, at the mansion of mob boss Bruno Mannheim…

Well, now we know who owns the hovertank. While Mannheim gloats, his bracelet flashes, so he shoos his goons away so he can speak to his benefactor.

OK, anyone familiar with DC Comics will know who this is, but this is his first appearance in the Dini-verse (though not on TV, as he was the primary antagonist for the last two seasons of Superfriends), so let me explain…

Darkseid was created by Jack Kirby as the primary antagonist in his New Gods series. He is the ruler of a world known as Apokolips and one of the major Big Bads in the DC multiverse, able to go toe-to-toe with Superman and (usually) give at least as good as he gets. He will be explained further later.

Darkseid (voiced by Michael Ironside, who played Lt. Rasczak in Starship Troopers and Ham Tyler in the 80s V franchise) is not happy that Mannheim is using his technology for petty theft (to a god $20 million is chump change) Darkseid then disintegrates the pile of cash. Mannheim gets the message and toes the line.

[Quick note on Bruno Mannheim: In the comics, Mannheim heads up a terrorist organization known as Intergang that constantly gives Superman trouble. Three guesses who supplies Intergang with weapons]

The next day, Turpin holds a press conference, saying they can’t rely on Superman to deal with the vehicle.

Look, I’m not saying the Unstoppable Cop isn’t brave or capable, but one would think he shouldn’t be so cocky against something that could stop Superman.

Suddenly, the air crackles and a portal opens with a deafening boom (why do you think they’re called “Boom Tubes”?) and from it emerges…

The man on the weird apparatus crashes to the floor, sliding against the far wall (well, I guess that’s one way to make an entrance) He then staggers to his feet, yelling that about warning Superman before collapsing before he could say about what.

The next day…

youtube

(Thanks to The Night Beyond)

Told you I’d get back to Darkseid (as well as the rest of the New Gods)

Orion confirms the hovertank is from Apokolips offers his assistance against Darkseid’s forces.

[Quick side note: Why is it that alien invaders always start with the major population centers where all of the superheroes and military forces hang out? I mean, why not start in a less developed region like Africa or South America…or even better, one that’s difficult for terrestrial forces to reach like Australia or Antarctica? That way they could build a base of operations in which to obtain resources to properly attack the bigger threats to their conquest.

OK, soapbox moment over. Back to our story!]

(“Sinnott Air Force Base” is an Easter egg, referring to artist Joe Sinnott, who often worked with Kirby)

At Sinnott Air base, the hovertank has found a friend and the pair are destroying the fighter jets and the flight tower. A couple of jets on patrol fire on the hovertanks, which is about as effective as you’d expect. Then Superman and Orion fly onto the scene.

…but the Man of Tomorrow doesn’t fare any better. Fortunately, Orion is on hand to free Superman and down the hovertanks.

Back at Mannheim's estate, Darkseid checks in.

youtube

(Thanks again to The Night Beyond)

[Yes, the nuclear plant is another Easter egg. The island is named after Dick Ayers, another artist who worked with Kirby]

[Also, yes Orion was the infant Darkseid gave up. The child of Highfather was named Scott Free and eventually escaped Apokolips with his new wife Big Barda to become the World’s Greatest Escape Artist, Mister Miracle]

I think Superman will need not only Orion to deal with Darkseid, but the Flash to help evacuate Metropolis before it becomes an irradiated husk.

Professor Hamilton informs Superman that the explosion caused the atomic core to start burning its way straight to the Earth’s core.

In other words, it will transform Earth into another Apokolips!

Speaking of Apokolips, Darkseid knows Superman will attempt to stop the chain reaction, so sends one of his lieutenants to deal with him.

(Really? Steppenwolf? Was Pink Floyd taken?)

I’m not sure if he’s up for the task, but he is born to be wild.

Back on Earth, Superman attempts to contact Orion for help, but Orion’s device doesn’t work, having been fried by the EMP from the explosion.

So Earth is on their own unless they can find a Boom Tube lying around.

Funny I should mention that, because as Superman flies toward the reactor in an attempt to somehow stop it from burrowing…

Unfortunately, it’s not Orion, but Steppenwolf, riding in on a magic carpet his sky chariot. Steppenwolf sends his band-mates Parademons to attack the Man of Steel, but that ends about as you’d expect.

While Superman is distracted, Steppenwolf (sorry, I don’t have any other jokes handy; I only know two of their songs) fires an energy net that weakens Superman and sends him crashing to the ground.

The Parademons pile on to Superman, who is having trouble fighting back in his weakened state.

Fortunately, an attack helicopter fires on Steppenwolf, giving Superman a breather. Now who would be crazy enough to lead an attack on one of Darkseid’s elites?

…yeah, that tracks. Turpin then orders the SWAT team to attack the Parademons that are still giving Superman issues. With the MPD having things well in hand (for now...I mean, they are Darkseid’s forces), Superman is free to do what he was trying to do.

And he does indeed put it out by tunneling repeatedly through the ocean floor into the reaction’s path, extinguishing it (of course, that likely irradiated Metropolis Harbor, but who’s counting?)

This takes a lot out of Superman, so he takes a moment to catch his breath. Naturally…

…Darkseid takes that moment to make his presence known. He then hits Superman with his Omega Beams (think heat vision cranked up to 1,000), which takes the last of his reserves.

On the ground, Turpin is leading an increasingly failing defense against the Parademons.

(hey, you can’t say he’s not trying!)

However, Darkseid shows up on a war machine…

...with Superman displayed like a trophy.

Darkseid announces his intentions to conquer Earth and demands their surrender (and you’re making them in Metropolis? I mean, I know Lex Luthor lives there, but you’d think he’d make demands in Washington DC after leveling Metropolis)

Yeah, that’s on-brand for Turpin.

He then knocks out a Parademon, takes his energy lance and throws it at the war machine.

Nice shot, Dan!

Superman then manages to free himself and is ready for Round Two when more Boom Tubes open, and forces from New Genesis, led by Orion, emerge.

Orion tells Darkseid to shove off or risk war with New Genesis. Darkseid relents.

youtube

(Thanks to JayJoker958)

Rather fitting that someone who looks like an homage to Jack Kirby was killed by one of Kirby’s creations.

Quick note: There are a few Easter eggs that were in the original broadcast of Dan Turpin’s funeral that WB, for obvious reasons, made the animators re-animate and take out (they can be seen if you watch the episode on Max)

…Kirby’s co-collaborator at Marvel, Stan Lee

…along with Kirby’s creations Nick Fury, the Fantastic Four (well, three of them; Ben Grimm couldn’t make it), and Black Panther.

If you spot any others, please let me know!

#dc comics #dini-verse #superman #orion #darkseid #jack kirby #fan colored glasses

1 note · View note

idiacide · 3 years

Note

First of all bless for making a gender neutral blog! also, i’m not sure if this is too far into oc territory for you, but if it’s fine, maybe some romantic headcanons for the staff with an mc in their like mid 20s or smth (or an adult at least), so instead of being a student they get assigned to them as like a ta or smth? sorry if this is too convoluted 😅

As a genderqueer person it was always kind of frustrating to me to swim through a pretty constant sea of fem!reader, especially when it was headcanons that didn’t particularly need to be gendered. Glad to see other people are responding to it! I’m gonna leave the age vague for basic comfort level (since Trein is 58) but this should fit the basic gist of it. Also I’m sticking with the academic staff for this because I don’t feel I have enough of a grasp on Sam just yet to comfortable write him. Some light nsfw ahead.

Dire Crowley: -You’re his secretary/personal assistant/gofer/sometimes, you swear, therapy dog that he carries around in a little purse

-Crowley keeps you busy constantly with constant campus antics (and, let’s be real, his own unwillingness to fix problems that he often causes). Still, there are decided perks. He never fails to express his gratitude, and he is very vocal about his respect for your own abilities. Pay is nothing to sneeze at either, and free room and board are just the cherry on top

-Despite his tendency to overhype his own benevolence Crowley really is a very generous man, in his way. He’s ready to lend a sympathetic ear when he can, and while he may not always be super helpful he’s always ready to be asked when his services can be of use.

-Getting romantically involved with Dire means getting to see a little more of his serious side. He’s so much of a character around everyone else that you kind of doubt anyone would believe you about what he’s like when you’re alone together. He can be genuinely a very tender and soothing partner, with the faintest bit of edge that keeps things fresh.

-And that edge does come through. He’ll say things occasionally with the strangest hint of prophecy, jokes that aren’t really jokes. There’s the faintest hints of a possessive streak as well. Not so much expressed in terms of jealousy, just....there’s something peculiarly inescapable about him. Like this is a man who would move heaven and earth just to make sure you were where he could see you

-.....Its probably fine : )

-Surprisingly, he’s a bit of a stickler for work/life boundaries. On the clock you’re back to your roles of boss and assistant with very little exchange of affection beyond basic friendliness. There are always fresh flowers on your desk, though, and he’s much less presumptuous of your time than he was initially.

-He gets very weepy if you make the two of you lunches to share. Very dramatic. Don’t mind him he’s a sucker for domesticity.

Divus Crewel: -You’re his teaching assistant, a position that includes inventory on the many ingredients he uses in the potions classroom, grading on exams and take home assignments, helping him with live demonstrations, and giving a few dedicated lessons of your own. As well as taking in his dry cleaning (this line of work is very hard on his clothes even with as careful as he is).

-It should surprise exactly no one that Divus is a very exacting boss. You do the job until its done right, and if you don’t do it right then you do it again and again until you’ve perfected it.

-Still, he’s also very fair. He makes appropriate note of effort and he doesn’t hold you to any standards he doesn’t also hold himself to. Screwups are punished, but successes are rewarded. He wouldn’t have taken you on for this position if he wasn’t well assured of your competence. He just wants you to demonstrate that potential fully.

-As a partner he fulfills nearly every expectation, albeit with not a lot of warmth. Divus isn’t particularly effusive emotionally. “Warm regard” really is a fitting turn of phrase for how he views you. That doesn’t mean you’re treated coldly, though. Far from it, off the clock he is almost shockingly prone to spoiling you with gifts and dinners and the like.

-He’s a bit controlling as a partner, not aggressively so but he has a tendency to take charge out of habit. He manages your clothes, your schedule, and your meals. If you tell him to step off, he will, he just has a very “I know best’ mentality and likes to take care of things he regards as precious.

-Absolutely no less of a hardass with you during work but there’s a certain playfulness about it, almost like he’s challenging you. He doesn’t mind if you give him a little shit for it back at home, almost encourages it.

-That riding crop is NOT just for show. Enjoy.

-He’s neither advertising nor hiding your relationship from his students, but any smart remarks about it are going to be immediately met with the full force of his cold sarcasm.

-Actually gets kind of a thrill out of workplace affection. Nothing too explicit, he’s not that unprofessional, but you may find him pulling you aside for a quick kiss in the supply closet or letting his hand glide along your waist in passing. Divus takes his job and his reputation very seriously, but he’s never once let it hold him back from enjoying himself.

Mozus Trein: -Being Trein’s teaching assistant is a little bit less varied in terms of tasks but is no less demanding. He assigns a LOT more homework than Crewel, and also expects you to help him keep up with research in order to keep his curriculum as updated as possible.

-He has very strong expectations of your work ethic and is very strict about deadlines. However, unlike Divus’ expectation that you reproduce his own work effortlessly, Trein actually expects a certain amount of back and forth. You’re meant to be reading these materials, not just copying them, and that includes himself.

-The two of you often enjoys some very intense discussion over a cup of tea, Lucius curled in your lap and purring like mad. Mozus’ eyes glitter a little more with each remark, and he looks so relaxed. A far cry from the stern pedagogue you see in the classroom.

-At his age Mozus has sort of lost the desire for any kind of grand romance. High drama and emotions will be all well and good for poetry, but ultimately he’s just looking for someone to take care of, and who can take care of him right back.

-His daughters are old enough to make up their own minds about you, and while he certainly wouldn’t stick around long with anyone who just despised his kids you’re not expected to take on more parental responsibility towards them than you’re comfortable doing. That said, he does get the slightest bit emotional when he sees you being affectionate with them. He’s a proud and loving father, despite his stern reputation, and it warms his heart to see you be a part of their lives like this.

-Being a good catparent to Lucius is NON-OPTIONAL though. You will adore that cat like he deserves or you will simply not be seeing Mozus.

-Mozus is a very attentive partner. He’s very tuned into your needs and fusses constantly over you taking care of yourself.

-He has a very strict sense of decorum. Chances are very good that once you started dating seriously he summarily dismissed you from the teaching assistant role and sought other help. He still appreciates your help with research, though, and enjoys hearing your feedback.

-His favorite evenings in the world are spent on the sofa, tea in your hands, talking quietly with the cat settled in between you. Perhaps its not exciting or glamorous, but it feels like home to him, and it softens him in ways no one could’ve ever expected.

Ashton Vargas:-You’re his assistant coach, which is pretty much as straightforward as it sounds. You help supervise his classes as well as the sports extracurriculars, as well as help with equipment maintenance.

-As far as bosses go, he’s alright. If you show up and do the job there’s not too much trouble.

-As a person though? Hoo boy.

-Someone had to hold the rivals to lovers stick

-Your relationship with Vargas likely started from an unsurprisingly physical place. Unfortunately for everyone the man is EXACTLY as hot as he thinks he is. He’s also a talented athlete which means that the competitive environment at work gets out of hand.

-Your students have a private betting pool on the two of you. Azul is running a small gambling ring on who starts it, who wins, and who’s the most pissed off by the end of the week.

-As well as how long till you hook up.

-As it turns out only a couple of months. In the locker room after all the students have gone home. The prick makes you clean up the room yourself too.

-Despite the tempestuous start....once you can actually get him to take the relationship seriously there are some unexpected perks to seeing Vargas.

-For as egotistical and demanding as he can often be. he’s just as much in your corner as he is in his own. He will loudly hype you up for anyone listening (and a few people who would rather not).

-He’s VERY needy affection wise, including on the job. Crowley has you in his office so many times for workplace conduct talks.

-Clingy in every sense of the word. Wants you to move in very quickly and is constantly blowing up your phone. Its kind of cute from a guy that burly and brash.

-He gets very excited over things, its one of his more endearing qualities.

#twisted wonderland #twst #twst x reader #dire crowley #divus crewel #mozus trein #ashton vargas #headcanon

154 notes · View notes

ryuuaka713 · 3 years

Text

Bungou Stray Dogs Dead Apple: “You used corruption, believing in me? How Beautiful.” A “DISSECTION” OF THE SCENE

I mentioned before in one of the posts by @nataliaphantomhivesblog, where we were discussing about the corruption scenes in BSD, that the scene in Dead Apple is my favorite. So, I decided (like any SKK trash) to make an “analysis” of that scene, just to make a point why I like it the most compared to the other corruption scenes (as if this post is the definition of being productive like I’ll just wasting my time rambling here LOL)

I divided this post into two parts. Part 1 is the more difficult one where I am attempting to write some “character analysis”. While Part 2 is more about how the scene is composed (it’s pretty boring. I’m sorry)

I will NOT include the infamous Lap scene (I know. I know. We all love that moment. But I would rather focus on the scenes before that).

Side note: I do not specialize in film or literary critique, so really this whole post is just for fun. Thus, why I put quotes on the analysis. Take this is as my personal opinion where I’m attempting to make sense by making it sound “fancy”.

But anyway. Here it goes:

In every Corruption scene, the thematic notion is always Trust—as in Chuuya trusts Dazai well enough to use his ability so long as he is present to nullify it. It is a very life-threatening process, especially for Chuuya since Corruption, despite being one of the most powerful abilities, can cause self-destruction the longer he uses it. So, Dazai should keep a close watch on him at all times, and then even giving him a sense of comfort to compensate to Chuuya’s worn-out body and for his efforts. This is the same trajectory in all 5 episodes of Corruption, but out of all of them, what stood out the most (for me) is the scene from Dead Apple.

This scene has amazed me ever since I first watched the movie. And while it just shows their infinite trust, the whole execution of this scene evokes more than just that thematic concept. What I see in this scene is something that all of us have already witnessed, but there is something unique in the way Dazai nullifies Chuuya’s corruption, and their dialogue may be just them bantering and yet, their tonality is different. It is as if, we just touched a moment that is reserved only for these two and we just happened to have the privilege to witness it. In other words, there is a sort of familiarity (or intimacy) and gentleness going on at this very moment—it is cathartic. This is what I want to look into—like how did we come to this?

PART 1: His Proper Partner.

In the Japanese version, ever since the episode where Chuuya made his first debut, they call themselves “aibou” (相棒), referring to a one-on-one partnership. While “nakama” (仲間)can also refer to a partner, it has a different connotation in which the closest English equivalent of that term would be “comrade” or “acquaintance”. The closest English equivalent of “aibou” is, to no one’s surprise, “partner” (or “pal”). And it makes sense, considering that the first kanji (相) can mean “mutual”, “together”, or “each other”. So, to have Dazai and Chuuya referring to themselves as that, it just manifests their familiarity on each other.

And in their case, their “familiarity” is both their advantage and disadvantage. It is a “disadvantage” because they use it to get on each other’s nerves (both in comedic and serious situations).

However, it also serves to their advantage, especially when they have to cooperate in the battlefield. This comes into light in the Lovecraft Episode where they executed Operation Shame and Toad—Chuuya acknowledges Dazai’s tactical mentality, whereas Dazai (as he referenced Chuuya’s mastery in martial arts) let’s his partner do the grunt work. Interesting enough, this is the same episode we first see Chuuya’s Corruption (but not the first time he uses it).

Using Corruption stipulates that “familiarity”, especially in Dazai’s part who has to be present to monitor Chuuya’s physical state, therefore he is aware, not just the consequence in using Corruption, but also of Chuuya’s limit. This explains why Dazai declares that he is aware of Chuuya’s moves and “breathing pattern”, otherwise, as what he himself says, he “won’t be a proper partner”.

What is witnessed in the Lovecraft Episode is the standard protocol that Soukoku uses when they are at their last resort. So, it is not a surprise that we get to witness Chuuya using Corruption, again, when he saves Dazai in Dead Apple, except it is done differently.

Even though Dazai is ten steps ahead of the enemy, the situation is still risky and even more complicated in Chuuya’s part since he is using his ability WITHOUT Dazai present. And that he has to save Dazai first before he can get it nullified. With that being said, it requires a careful approach, one in which they know the other’s moves—Dazai knows too well how Chuuya would react. For instance, the manga version of Dead Apple demonstrates how Soukoku communicates in their operation using “codes”. As such when Dazai got himself kidnapped, no one knew about his whereabouts until Hirotsu mentions about Dazai buying a microscope (to which it leads them to a dead end). However, Chuuya—upon remembering that Dazai teases that he needs a microscope in order to see him—demands to see that microscope, breaks it, and finds the transmitter. It is a well-planned strategy in Dazai’s part where all it takes is to leave helpful clues for Chuuya to pick up and catalyze the operation. In the Dead Apple movie, he does it again:

Indeed, for the audience, it is not new to see Dazai planning ahead and having ulterior motives behind his actions. It is not new to see Chuuya executing his plans and understands his motives either. But seeing these two working together despite those four years of absence, and without physically communicating is beyond human comprehension. Almost like the microscope scene, Dazai is not there to directly tell him about his plan. Chuuya doesn’t know about the antidote until that punch as his only “clue” is that Dazai is working alone, so he sees that something is amiss.

Seeing the critical state of Yokohama, Chuuya knows that he will use Corruption, but seeing Dazai’s corpse, it gives this uncertainty on whether they can make it out alive or not. And yet, what did Chuuya do? He jumped off the plane and activates his ability, knowing that there is “no time to chicken out” or else Dazai’s plan won’t work, and they’ll end up dead. Even if it means doing the job to protect the city, it still takes guts for Chuuya to work and place his life on someone he “hates”. Despite those 4 years of absence, the scene in Dead Apple just manifests that they never doubt each other’s capabilities. And to further validate this, let’s check out their dialogue:

Dazai: You used Corruption, believing in me? How beautiful.

Chuuya: Yeah I did. I believe in your disgusting vitality and craftiness.

Dazai: That was a somewhat violent way to wake up Snow White.

Chuuya: Tch. You’re the one who hid an antidote your mouth knowing I would punch you.

Not only does this scene perfectly parallels to the Lovecraft episode where we see Soukoku bantering while still in a critical situation, it also emphasizes the degree of their trust and how that trust has taken root from their familiarity.

Dazai: You used Corruption, believing in me? How beautiful.

Chuuya: Yeah I did. I believe in your disgusting vitality and craftiness.

Dazai’s first line is the main idea of their partnership, echoing Chuuya’s quote from the Lovecraft episode: “I used Corruption because I trust you”. This is a vital aspect in their relationship since it has been stated before in Fifteen and Stormbringer that “no one has trusted Dazai”… until Chuuya comes into the picture. Ever since their first teamwork against Rimbaud, Dazai finally has someone he can rely on both in strength and assurance, even smiling at the fact that Chuuya doesn’t even deny his proposal but merely asks for his reason.

With that being said, then it is appropriate for Dazai to say that line, touched by the idea that Chuuya still constantly trusts him. It just reminisced so much from what they have as children that it seems to this day, they never forgotten about it.

On the other hand, in Chuuya’s end, he confirms that trust and provides a reason, which is appropriate since Chuuya is Dazai’s “reason-living” like in Fifteen:

Chuuya’s line—“I believe in your disgusting vitality and craftiness”—is very similar in the excerpt from Fifteen, and this just shows how that line from the movie indicates his familiarity to Dazai. By “familiarity”, I mean that he knows his partner’s mental process and motives (as I have mentioned above). In this case, it seems like Chuuya has seen something that he and Dazai have in common: the desire to live. Of course, the latter always craves for death, but with his new viewpoint on Death, his mission in fulfilling Oda’s wish, and the fact that he is tethered to someone who wished to live, Dazai just couldn’t die. And Chuuya, being his constant companion, knows this. This is why Chuuya “believes” that whatever plan Dazai has on mind, it will always work, and in the scenario in Dead Apple it starts by taking a leap into Corruption—which is ironically, the very thing that could kill Chuuya, and by extent, would cause Dazai’s death if the plan is not well-thought or if they don’t work together. By referring to his “vitality and craftiness”, Chuuya is acknowledging his familiarity on Dazai, admitting their “rotten relationship”, and justifying his trust on him.

Dazai: That was a somewhat violent way to wake up Snow White.

Chuuya: Tch. You’re the one who hid an antidote your mouth knowing I would punch you.

Another interesting thing I find in the dialogue is Dazai’s line: “That was a somewhat violent way to wake up Snow White”. Fans think that this is Dazai flirting, where he is implying that he wants to be kissed by Chuuya the same way the prince does to Snow White. For me, I think this little dialogue is more than just fanservice since it makes sense, not only in the context of the movie containing motifs of a “poisoned” apple. I think the reference of the fairytale in this dialogue not only foreshadows his “death”, but it also highlights their dynamic whenever they work together with Dazai acting childish and Chuuya knowing that he is actually being serious (or the fact that he cracks some jokes in most Post-Corruption scenes). This is still related to the whole “familiarity” theme that I have been rambling about; as mentioned before, Dazai and Chuuya would use whatever they know about each other just to rile each other up. These moments are generally meant for comedic effect, but these teasing and bickering can serve as their advantage.

Similar to the microscope scene I have mentioned, Dazai makes that microscope comment seem like a childish joke on the surface, however, Chuuya picks this up as a clue and sees his real motive. This kind of synergy is seen again in the prologue of the movie where Dazai jokes about Chuuya getting hit by bullets when he is in close range of the enemy, and yet, the latter takes it as a warning that an ability-user is nearby. We really don’t know if Dazai leaves a Snow White-related clue for Chuuya before the events in Dead Apple (it would have been pretty cool tho), but that dynamic in the microscope incident and prologue is very similar to that dialogue we see in the movie: Dazai is being playful, but Chuuya sees and calls out his ulterior motives. This is how Soukoku works!

PART 2: The Art of Catharsis

The relationship of Soukoku in the battlefield is one of the best teamwork we have seen in the anime. Both parties are synchronized in the way that Dazai’s brains and No Longer Human, and Chuuya’s fighting skills and Corruption perfectly compliment each other. Moreover, we also see the basis of that partnership, and this is something that the creators want to highlight in this scene (in other words, how did the animators deliver this dynamic?)

In my opinion, I think the words “gentleness” and “cathartic” fit in this scene. To start off, before this moment takes place, we have witnessed Chuuya fighting the Dragon.

That scene was intense! Chuuya activates Corruption, generates into pure destruction with him yelling Dazai’s name (despite the fact that he is not supposed to be in a proper mindset). The way this scene plays out is interesting; in the shot, we see the two main figures (the Dragon and Chuuya) mostly in red—which is a very vibrant color—in contrast to the blue and green background. By using the color that pops out, the attention is on them, and it is topped with the amount of action in that moment. Not to mention, the background music, containing a rock music and a rap, elevates that energy. It is a scene that heightens the adrenaline, so the audience can empathize with Chuuya—understanding him as a character that is full of life, and also his hastiness to kill it before he runs out of time.

When that fight is over, we notice that the music alters into a string orchestra. This is a very good change because the tempo is slower—a direct contrast to the rap music—as if it is slowly bringing the audience down from the hype in the fighting scene the same way Chuuya slowly goes down and hovers Dazai’s body. The music immediately stops right on cue when the punch happens, then the audience is left in silence. Usually in films, silence is used for the purpose of anticipation. In this case, the anticipation is placed on whether Chuuya’s punch and/or the pill worked and saved Dazai.

The transition from the white background into a blue background should indicate that Dazai is alive. And yet, the animators did this subtly rather than showing Dazai’s face (like in Season 1 episode 1), just so the audience is still in the state of anticipation (add that with the white noise in the background). Furthermore, there is a fairytale quality in that shot, like this is similar to when Sleeping Beauty (in this case “Snow White”) wakes up, that’s when the colors in the castle come back.

Getting close to that iconic shot, I love how the animators keep the “camera” in the same place (Chuuya’s face), that way we can further empathize with Chuuya by seeing a close shot of his state: he was at his limit! But as soon as the blood starts moving away from the screen, we can see a bandaged hand moving to his face. And then, finally!

Words cannot describe how much I appreciate the details of that scene, especially on Dazai’s gesture. He moves his hand slowly but quick enough to nullify him right on time. Not to mention, he does not just touch his cheek but rather cups it (look at the shape of his hand!). One can say that the gentleness in Dazai’s gesture is the exact opposite to Chuuya’s punch, and this sort of contrast further highlights the catharsis in this scene. In other words, after all of that intensity with the fight and seeing Chuuya’s bloody state, it is relieving to see that familiar hand touching him, indicating that Chuuya can rest. And seeing that we witnessed and empathize with him, we know what it feels like.

With that being said, that’s why the third shot above where the hand is fully placed on his cheek and he made a short gasp is my personal favorite. It is the contrast in Chuuya’s face where we can still see “Corruption”, and Dazai’s hand to which he activates “No Longer Human”. I have seen some people complaining about how they want to see Dazai’s face in this scene; personally, I think this scene is animated brilliantly as it is. It is only fair to see a close up of Dazai’s hand to indicate that he is nullifying “Corruption”, after all, “No Longer Human” is works through touch. To top it off, the beauty in “not seeing the face” is more powerful because it leaves more to the imagination—we don’t know specifically what kind of face Dazai is making, but the way that hand moves alone is enough to tell us what he is thinking at that moment. And finally, upon contact, we see Chuuya making a slight twitch—this is when Corruption recognizes No Longer Human and deactivates. This is when Chuuya recognizes that familiar touch and knows that his partner is finally awake, so he can finally rest.

Then we have that iconic shot! Like the one I mentioned above, the camera stays in one place, only this time, it is a long shot, so the focus is on them (thus they are on the middle). Interesting enough, there is no background music in this scene, and we can’t see their expressions. Usually, in this anime, when a character is seen faceless, in order to determine what they are thinking are feeling, the animators would usually make them do a gesture or a dialogue.

In this scene, where everything is silent and their faces “unseen”, our focus goes to their exchanges. Both Mamoru and Taniyama use their “bedroom voices”, and I think it is appropriate considering that their dialogue contains a deeper meaning in regards of their relationship. In other words, as mentioned before, it may seem like another day of bantering, but with their tone, there is something sincere and intimate in what they are saying. Also, the playfulness in Dazai’s comment and Chuuya’s response hits different compared to their other moments of constant yelling. You really don’t need the close up of their faces in order to see that they are at peace in each other’s company.

In addition, the color scheme of the scene is predominantly blue, which makes sense, not just because of Dazai’s ability, but also because it highlights the serenity in the scene. The blue color, the orb, and the bandages that glide silently are animated in a way that they buffer out the red that we have seen back with Corruption, and also indicates a sense of “protection” (which is later seen in the lap scene when Dazai has to protect Chuuya from the fog). In short, the ambiance perfectly fits with how Dazai is there to give Chuuya a sense of comfort in Post-Corruption, letting him rest so that he can compensate for all that he did.

**********

The scene in Dead Apple is something that lies in between of the familiar and the new—we have seen Dazai and Chuuya in this situation before, we know how they function as a team, and we know the level of risk they are taking. But this is something that we have never seen before; like subtleness in his gestures, the softness in their tones, and the fact that these two are in a position where they are saving each other, which becomes part of their instincts. They show how much they trust each other by knowing how much they knew of each other. They acknowledge the fact that their fates are tethered regardless of the years of absence. And finally, it is not just the Prince saving Snow White, but rather: the Prince saves Snow White and Snow White saving him in return.

OK, I just literally fried my brain. If you’ve read this far, I thank you so much for your time! I am so sorry if this is too long. I welcome for any critiques or discussions. So yeah, that’s my ted-talk

#soukoku #bsd #bsd analysis #dazai x chuuya #skk #Dazai Osamu #Nakahara Chuuya #chuuya nakahara #bsd manga #bsd dead apple #dead apple #bsd fifteen #bungou stray dogs #I dont even know if this makes sense #That moment when I said that I can make a five-paged essay of this and realized it's no longer a joke (*ﾉωﾉ)

499 notes · View notes

inkykeiji · 4 years

Text

i can take you there but baby you won’t make it back

character: dabi | todoroki touya

notes: stepcest (kind of—ur parents aren’t married yet) with dabi-as-touya x a very naïve and inexperienced reader, normal!AU (no quirks, dabi also has tattoos over his scarred + fully healed skin), university!reader, implied yakuza!dabi, excessive use of the words niichan and good, praise kink, fingering, face fucking, title credit = save that shit by lil peep lmao uhhhh yeah i hc dabi as a very intelligent and perceptive individual soooo i feel like he’d be a master at reading a person & their emotions and then adapting his manipulation techniques

warnings: 18+, pseudo-incest (stepcest), noncon/dubcon, slight somnophilia, emotional manipulation, toxic relationship, size difference, slight degradation, mentions of drug use

words: 7.1k

part 2.1 | part 2.2

synopsis:

“You want to be good for me, don’t you, sweetheart?”

“Of course,” you respond instantly. Later, when you lay awake in your bed, you’ll feel ashamed by your actions, by how readily captivated you were with him, by how easily he was able to manipulate you with those sapphire eyes and that rough voice—

But in that moment, you’ll do anything to pull that little smile from him, anything to hear him tell you you’re good. You just want to be good.

Something dark and primal flashes in those gorgeous eyes as they gaze down at you, a small grin spreading across his face. “Of course,” he repeats softly.

✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰

Your dad’s been dating Rei for a while—nearly a year, now—when things begin to get serious, and he proposes to her.

She accepts, so it’s not exactly a surprise when she suggests you guys move in with her—she’s got more than enough space, she tells you, it’s just her and her son in that big old house—and your dad seems pretty thrilled about it. This was the next step before marriage, after all.

You like Rei well enough, she’s always been nothing but sweet to you, and anyway, your father’s relationship really isn’t any of your business or concern.

It isn’t that you don’t want to move in with her—her house is in a better part of the neighborhood, a standard detached upper-middle class home, and just a short walk from a bus stop that’ll take you directly to university, which you start in a week.

It’s just…You’re a little apprehensive.

You know she has kids. She mentions them in passing every once in a while, but you can’t for the life of you remember their names, or their ages, or how many of them there are. You know they don’t all live with her, that her relationship with her ex-husband is complicated and rocky at best.

But you’re still surprised to hear that only one of them, her eldest, lives with her. She tells you he’s five years older than you are, that he’s a clever, smart boy, going off on a tangent about how disappointed she is that he didn’t go to university, because ‘he would’ve done so well—he could’ve shone so brightly.’ Something about the way she says that, the way her voice sounds almost sad, makes anxiety turn to lead in your stomach. She talks about him as if he’s already a lost cause, but he’s only in his mid-twenties, isn’t he?

You understand the moment you see him. The man standing in front of you as you shift from foot to foot unsurely in the foyer of this unfamiliar house is about as far from what you anticipated as he could possibly be.

He’s tall, skin pale as moonlight, with jet black hair and the most stunning blue eyes you’ve ever seen. But that isn’t what captivates you. It isn’t the lip ring curled around his bottom lip snuggly, and it isn’t the tongue piercing you’re about to find out he’s hiding in his mouth, either.

Every inch of the exposed skin of his arms is covered in intricate, seamlessly flowing tattoos—or, for a moment, you thought it was tattoos, plural. Upon closer inspection, you realize that each arm is actually covered in one giant tattoo, giving a new definition to the term ‘sleeve’. It’s all black ink, not a splash of colour anywhere, depicting an extremely detailed and anatomically correct mechanical arm, complete with what would’ve been joints, ligaments and bones in the form of wires and steel.

The tattoos extend onto the tops of his hands, made to look as if surgical staples are peeling his skin back to reveal the robot beneath. This same tattoo continues up his neck, along his jaw and onto his cheeks, all the way to his bottom lip, spreading across his entire face and disappearing into his hairline and onto his ears. Finally, there’s a small portion of the tattoo underneath his eyes, the surgical staples lining the edges of the face tattoos, too.

It startles you—you’re not necessarily scared, you just…weren’t expecting that. But there’s no denying the rush of breath that involuntarily escapes your lips as your eyes search his face, raking over his body in a brazen way that should make you feel shameful, travelling back up to find him smirking smugly at you, raising an eyebrow as your eyes meet again.

The look in his eyes tells you he knows, knows what you’re thinking about, knows how undeniably attracted you are to him, and scalding heat floods your cheeks.

He chuckles a little, which does nothing but add insult to injury, and sharp anger slices through your chest at the way that you stomach absolutely drops at his gravelly voice. You can’t believe yourself, can’t believe your body is reacting and responding so readily to this man—this stranger.

He introduces himself as Touya, in that rough, deep voice that forces a jolt of electricity to run through your veins. You idly wonder what your name would sound like on his tongue, how it might sound if his voice dropped to a growl, find yourself stuck thinking about this for the rest of the night.

✰ ✰ ✰

To your disappointment, and as much as you are unabashedly interested in him, you don’t interact much with Touya for your first few weeks in the house—in fact, you barely see him at all.

This only piques your curiosity about him more, finding that you’re unable to tear your eyes from him on the rare occasion that you are in a room together. He catches you staring every single time, and he has the audacity to chuckle to himself and shake his head when his gaze meets yours, your eyes quickly darting away and cheeks burning at his laugh.

You begin gathering little tidbits of information about him, purely sourced from interactions you witness in the house, desperately praying for something that’ll give you an opportunity to start a conversation with him.

Your efforts prove fruitless when, almost a month and a half since you moved in, you’ve still only spoken a handful of words to him. You do learn a bit about him through observing, though.

You discover that he’s a smoker, which really doesn’t come as a shock at all. Marlboro’s are his favourite, and he’s always got a pack in his back pocket or rolled up in the short sleeve of his t-shirt. He must have them imported—Marlboro’s are incredibly rare to find all the way in Japan.

Touya must have a lot of things imported.

You find out that every other Thursday, Touya discreetly stuffs an absurdly large wad of cash—all composed of ten-thousand-yen bills—into his mom’s hands, forcing her fingers to curl around it. She fights him on it, every time, but he’s firm and adamant that she take it. It always ends with Rei giving him a small, watery smile, Touya pressing a kiss against the side of her head and murmuring that he loves her.

After you witness this interaction for the first time, you begin to notice that, while the house looks relatively normal on the outside, it is stuffed full of luxury on the inside. Flat-screen TVs each complete with full entertainment systems, state of the art appliances that are somehow up to date with all of the latest trends (including a smart fridge—absolutely ridiculous), custom made furniture, ornate rugs, a housekeeper that drops by every Sunday…

You have no idea what he does for work, but you think you’ve got at least some sort of idea when you catch him one night, just past 2AM, exiting his room and using a thumb to brush excess white powder off his nose. His eyes catch yours, pupils blown and shining in the low light, and he smiles darkly at you, winking once as he walks away.

You don’t ask—no one ever does.

You don’t ask about the crimson splattered on the toe of his boot, or why he sometimes smells metallic, like copper, the strong scent wafting after him and invading the halls as he stalks leisurely toward the bathroom. You don’t ask why he leaves the house at odd hours in the night, and you definitely don’t ask about the soft clinking and clicking you hear through the thin walls every so often while he cleans his gun at 3AM.

You’re not sure if it’s really any of your business, anyway. So you stay quiet, and continue to wait.

The opportunity finally comes one Wednesday in October, two weeks before Halloween, when you’re in the kitchen after school busy fixing yourself an afternoon snack. Touya comes home uncharacteristically early—you rarely see him before 10PM, so his entrance scares you, and you jump a little.

“Sorry,” he murmurs as he passes by behind you, just an inch too close, just enough so you can feel his body heat radiating off of him.

“It’s fine,” you say quietly, shaking your head a little and trying in vain to stop your hands from trembling as you spread peanut butter across a piece of bread.

You can feel his eyes on you, and it makes you nervous, makes your skin crawl in a way you’ve never felt before. He laughs a little at your struggling, leaning against the counter next to you and crossing his arms over his chest.

“You don’t have to be so nervous around me, y’know,” he says with a smirk, eyes glittering at the way your lips part in surprise, your breath stuttering a little. “I’m your niichan after all, aren’t I?”

You hadn’t even considered using the honorific until he himself uses it.

Your hands freeze, hovering over your plate, and you look over at him slowly. “You…Want me to call you that?”

“You can, if you’d like,” he says smoothly, nonchalantly, like he doesn’t have a care in the world. It makes no difference to him, he tells you, but when he finally looks back at you, you think you can see it in his eyes—a sharp, small glimmer of…of something. Something that makes your stomach twist in a way you can’t decide if you like or not.

But this is it, you think, this is your opening to finally begin talking to him.

So you do. And the smirk he gives you the first time you address him by the honorific, voice quivering slightly as you ask him where Rei normally keeps the blender, is nothing short of predatory.

“It’s on the top shelf. It’s too high for you, though,” he says, voice so sickly sweet it almost sounds mocking. “Let niichan get it for you,”

It isn’t, but you let him get it for you anyway.

And he knows—knows he’s got you the moment you gasp at the honorific leaving his lips, trying to hide it behind your hand, nodding quickly and squeaking out a thank you.

It starts after that. He begins playing with you; a sick, perverse game of cat and mouse, hunter and hunted, and you play your part perfectly.

You’d be lying if you said you didn’t love it, if you said it didn’t send wicked sparks of excitement shooting up your spine and an intense fluttering in your stomach.

And it starts slow. It starts with gentle pet names—honey, sweetheart, princess—and fingertips trailing down your arm as he passes you. It starts with a large hand placed on the small of your back, guiding you—out of the house and into his car, out of the kitchen and into the living room, out of the hallway and into his bedroom—and with little pecks on your lips stolen when no one’s watching, quick kisses that leave you feeling exhilarated despite their chastity.

Suddenly, he’s home a hell of a lot more. He’s sitting too close to you on the couch while you curl up with a textbook, his thigh pressed against you and flesh burning hot through his black jeans. He’s joining the family dinner a few times a week, idly hooking and unhooking his ankle with yours beneath the table while smirking at you from across it.

Suddenly, he’s asking you if you need a ride to school, or if you need someone to pick you up. You don’t, you tell him, the bus is just fine, but he insists. It’s what niichans do, he says. He wants to take care of you, he says.

Who are you to deny him that, really?

✰ ✰ ✰

The first time you experience Touya angry is about a month after the inciting incident, when he catches you walking home with a few of your university friends.

He had texted you earlier that day, telling you that he—very regretfully, he said—would be unable to pick you up from school this afternoon because ‘something had come up’.

You didn’t question what it was—you knew he’d lie even if you did. So you accepted it obediently, reassured him that it was fine, that you’d find another way home.

You’re pretty sure if you had told him that you didn’t have any extra change on you for the bus suddenly whatever important thing that had ‘come up’ which so desperately needed his attention wouldn’t be so urgent anymore. But you didn’t want to be a bother, or inconvenience him, so you say nothing.

Two friends decide they’ll accompany you on your walk home, so you aren’t lonely, they claim. Normally, the walk from campus to your house is about thirty minutes, but that day it takes you nearly an hour, wasting time goofing around and walking slowly as you talk idly.

Touya’s already pissed that it’s taken you so long to arrive home, that you’ve ignored all of his extremely considerate texts asking if you’re alright, but when he sees you squished between two boys, giggling as the three of you stumble up your driveway—he’s fucking fuming.

“Where the fuck have you been?” he asks, voice calm and monotonous, leaning casually against the doorframe.

Your head snaps up—you swear he wasn’t there just a second ago—blood running cold.

His stance is relaxed, arms crossed loosely over his chest, lazily raising an eyebrow as your wide eyes meet his. Technically, the only indication that he’s furious is the blazing blue fire in his eyes, but your friends can read the tension in the air surrounding him, shuffling a little closer to you. This minuscule action does not go unnoticed by Touya, sharp jaw clenching once.

“You had niichan worried,”

You’re frozen a few feet away from the porch, unable to find your voice, to move your legs, to breathe at all.

“I didn’t know you had an older brother,”

Your eyes do not leave Touya’s as you speak, the words hoarse. “Oh, we’re—”

“Yeah,” Touya bites, irritation finally bleeding into his voice. “She does,” his eyes float back to yours. “Come here, princess,”

Your body snaps into action, moving automatically before you can even comprehend it, allowing Touya to tuck you into his side the moment you reach him.

Your hands are shaking, but you have no control over them as your fingers curl in his white t-shirt, clinging to him. To your surprise, the arm around your shoulders hugs you closer in response, thumb caressing you.

“Thanks for making sure she got home safely,” he tosses over his shoulder, managing to make the simple sentence sound like an insult, tone bordering on patronizing, while he turns on his heel, marching you both inside.

“I-I’m so sorry,” you’re rushing to say the moment the front door shuts behind you two, Touya’s arm still wrapped firmly around you.

He looks down at you coldly. “Don’t you dare pull shit like that again,” he tells you, eerily calm voice forcing spikes of icy dread up your spine. He pauses for a moment, letting his words sink in as his eyes bore into yours. “You had me worried sick,” he breathes out then, squeezing you again. You’re surprised in the sudden change of tone, feeling your chest swell at the thought of him fretting over you, a small smile gracing your lips.

“I…I did?”

Touya’s eyebrows furrow, as if he’s offended at your questioning, mood morphing in the span of a second. “Of course you fucking did,” he spits like you’re stupid, arm dropping. “Do you ever check your phone?”

“Wh-What?”

Touya rolls his eyes. “Check your phone,” he calls out airily as he begins walking into the kitchen, shaking his head a little, disappointment rolling off him in waves.

Hastily fishing your phone out of your bag, you’re astonished to see eight texts from him and three missed calls. You scroll through the texts quickly, each one making you feel more nauseous than the next. ‘Is everything okay? You should’ve been home by now’; ‘Please answer me, princess, you’re making your niichan nervous’; ‘Where are you? Answer my fucking calls already’. Guilt turns sour in your mouth and you hurry after him.

“I-I really am s-so sorry,” you force the words out, unsure as to why there are suddenly tears stinging your eyes. He isn’t even doing anything—his back is facing you as he nonchalantly begins brewing a pot of coffee.

But the thought of him being upset with you, of losing his approval, sends a sharp pain searing through your chest.

“Are you?” he asks, and although his voice holds no malice in it, it causes your whole body to stutter with a harsh breath.

“Yes,” you whimper out, latching onto his arm and tugging in an attempt to draw his eyes to yours, to see how regretful you are, the remorse written across your face. “I should’ve…That was so careless and inconsiderate of me,”

“It was,” he agrees simply, voice still light, as if he’s discussing something as mundane as the weather. “But you’ll never do it again, right?”

“Right,” you agree readily, breathing out the word before you even realize what you’re agreeing to.

“Tell niichan you’ll never worry him like that again,” he finally looks over at you.

“I-I’ll never worry you like that again, niichan, I pr-promise,”

His eyes hold yours for what feels like eons, before he finally twists his arm out of your grasp, instead wrapping it around you and tugging you against his body. You stay staring up at him, eyes wide and obedient, breath bated as you wait for your next order, so pliant and ready to serve him.

“Good,” he whispers, eyes finally softening, and you feel like you can breathe properly again. His free hand cups your face, thumb running along your lips, then your chin, then your jaw. “You want to be good for me, don’t you, sweetheart?”

“Of course,” you respond instantly. Later, you’ll lay awake in your bed, feeling ashamed by your actions, by how readily captivated you were with him, by how easily he was able to manipulate you with those sapphire eyes and that rough voice—

But in that moment, you’ll do anything to pull that little smile from him, anything to hear him tell you you’re good. You just want to be good.

Something dark and primal flashes in those gorgeous eyes as they gaze down at you, a small grin spreading across his face. “Of course,” he repeats softly.

✰ ✰ ✰

He begins to trust you more. You meet his friends, each one terrifying in their own right. Jin is alright, although his brain is fried from drugs, and he talks to and contradicts himself a lot, earning the nickname Twice from Tomura.

Tomura horrifies you to your very core—a tall, lanky man with sunken red eyes and sickly pale skin who looks like he’s one bad day away from death—and Touya tells you very sternly to stay away from him.

A university student not unlike yourself, Keigo is your favourite. Keigo is the most normal, with his wild blonde hair and enticing gold eyes that always look like they’re playfully holding the secrets of the universe just out of your grasp.

Keigo’s brain is always going a hundred miles a minute, although you’d never guess it with his trademark lazy drawl, speaking as if he hasn’t got a care in the world. But he can always keep a conversation going, knows exactly what to say to avoid awkward silences or lulls in the discussion, and you appreciate that. You think he’s so cool—he has so much knowledge about the oddest things, everything and anything, ‘a walking encyclopedia’, Tomura calls it, and it fascinates you to no end.

It’s the speed, Touya tells you one night while you’re laying on the couch, your body on top of his, the pads of his fingers dragging down your back in rhythmic strokes. Speed is Keigo’s drug of choice, you find out. Speed is the reason why Keigo knows as much as he does.

“Sometimes he doesn’t sleep for days,” Touya says. “That’s how he has all the time to memorize everything he knows—though that big overactive brain of his plays a part in it, too,”

The thought inexplicably makes your heart sink in your chest, and you don’t say anything else. If Touya notices your shift in mood, he doesn’t mention it. You idly wonder what Touya’s drug of choice is, but you’re too scared of the answer to ask.

✰ ✰ ✰

It’s only a few nights later when you wake with a violent jolt, breathing laboured as you absentmindedly press your palm to your chest, trying in vain to calm your racing heart.

A nightmare.

You sit in silence for a moment, listening to the sound of your own harsh breaths echoing off the walls and debating what to do next. A minute later, you swing your legs over the side of the bed, wincing when your bare feet touch the cold hardwood, and pad down the hallway.

You try to trick yourself into believing that you aren’t using this purely as an excuse to spend the night with him. It really was so scary, you reason with yourself, it really has made you all shaken up…

Who are you kidding? You didn’t even attempt to go back to sleep.

You’ve been in his room plenty of times now—sitting daintily on his bed as he introduces you to new music, new movies, new books. Stuff that reminds him of you, he says, stuff that he thought you might be interested in. You’re grateful for it; there are so many things you’ve learned in the short time you’ve known him.

That isn’t all, though. There’s no denying the warmth that spreads through your body, that tiny excited flutter in your chest, when he calls your name and interlaces your fingers, leading you toward his room and telling you he’s got something to show you.

Yes, you’ve been in his room plenty of times now. But this is the first time you spend the night in his bed.

He’s still up, soft golden light leaking from under his closed bedroom door. Your hand quivers a little as you lift it to rap your knuckles against the wood. He appears in the doorway a moment later, leaning against the frame in a black t-shirt that looks like it’s a size or two too small for him, riding up to reveal a teasing sliver of milky skin, tips of his hipbones jutting out from the waistband of his plaid pajama pants.

“Princess? What is it?”

You didn’t realize you were staring, and you jump a little at his gravelly voice.

“Oh. I, um—Well, I just…had a nightmare a-and I can’t sleep,”

You can barely look him in the eyes as you say it, your cheeks burning. You both know it’s a lie.

But he plays along.

“Aw, baby,” he coos, drawing you into his arms, into his room, into his bed.

“You’re trembling,” he murmurs as he turns on his side to face you, propping his head up with a hand. “Poor thing. Was it a bad one?”

Your mouth feels like its been stuffed with cotton, rendering you incapable of speech, tongue dry and sluggish. You nod in response, heat seeping into your cheeks again at just how loudly your heart is thumping while you roll onto your side. There’s only a few inches of space between your bodies now, his hot breath fanning across your face as he speaks again.

“Do you want niichan to help you forget about it?”

The question hangs heavy in the air, and you suck your bottom lip into your mouth, eyes searching his. Your thighs squeeze together at the way his voice has dropped an octave, low and husky, familiar heat pooling in the depths of your belly. He waits patiently, lifting a hand to caress your cheek, then runs his fingertips down your bare arm, goosebumps following.

Finally, you nod. You think you see the corners of his lips quirk up into the slightest hint of a smirk, but you blink, and it’s gone.

“Here,” he whispers, hooking an arm around your waist and pulling you against him. Hand cupping your jaw, he tilts your face up and slots his mouth against yours.

You’ve kissed before, of course—in his bed, in yours, on the living room couch, on the kitchen counter with his hips shoved between your thighs—but this…this feels different.

These are kisses with intent, with purpose, with a goal in mind. These are kisses that keep you distracted—slow, soft, messy with saliva—as his hand slips down your body and between your thighs.

Your gasp breaks the kiss, wide eyes blinking up at him then fluttering shut as he brushes a knuckle against your clit. He hushes you, nimble fingers spreading your folds before he drags them up your slit, huffing out a laugh at how wet you already are.

“Were you thinking about something naughty before?” he gasps mockingly, sliding the pads of his fingers back down as he speaks.

His hand withdraws from your shorts and he orders you to lift your hips, tugging the waistband down your thighs. You squirm a little, forcing them further down your legs until you free yourself of them completely, eyes gazing up at him again, awaiting your next command.

Legs part dutifully as his hand travels back down to the apex of your thighs, pushing a finger into your soaking pussy.

It’s slow at first, thrusting leisurely with his middle finger a few times and loosening you up a little before adding his ring finger. Sapphire eyes watch his motions, captivated by how your eager little cunt sucks his fingers in selfishly.

“Look at that, huh?” he breathes, looking down at you. “Such a pretty little pussy you’ve got,”

You open your bleary eyes to peer at yourself, mesmerized by the way his fingers are pumping in and out of you, glistening in the dim light of his bedroom. He curls his fingers and you inhale sharply, hips twitching toward his palm.

“Oh?” he chuckles darkly, knuckles nudging the spot again. “Did niichan find something, baby?”

You don’t know, you’re not sure, you try to tell him, but all you can seem to manage is pathetic little whines while you nod your head.

“Have you ever touched yourself?” he’s asking as the pads of his fingers tap against that spot, your entire body jolting.

“Y-Yes,” you whimper out, a little breathlessly. “But it’s never felt like this,”

“Aw, baby,” he coos, and it’s so condescending. “Then you weren’t doing it right, sweetheart,”

He quickens his pace, chuckles at the way you try to desperately fuck yourself on his fingers at such an awkward angle.

“Poor little thing, can’t even get herself off properly,” he tsks. “You need your niichan to do it for you, don’t you?”

Soft whines spill from your throat as you nod eagerly, your stomach coiling tightly.

“One day,” he breathes, curling his fingers with a vengeance this time, your hips rolling up off the mattress. “When we have the time, I’ll teach you how to make yourself feel so good,”

He’s talking too much. You want to tell him this, tell him to shut the hell up, but every time you try to speak he presses the heel of his palm to your clit and grinds against it, effectively scattering all of your thoughts, soft mewls of niichan the only sound escaping your lips.

Can’t deny his voice is fucking hot though, a form of foreplay all on its own.

And he knows this, can read you like a goddamn book, especially when he’s got his fingers two knuckles deep inside of you. He can feel it, he tells you. You don’t even need to speak; he can feel your thoughts when his voice drops an octave and your cute little hole flutters, when he chuckles and your pussy clenches around his fingers—a slut for his voice, aren’t you?

“Pretty baby, you can’t do anything but nod dumbly, can you? Been fucked stupid by my fingers alone, huh?”

Your head barely moves, lost all control of your body by this point, only able to whimper in response.

“Gonna come all over my fingers, pretty girl?” the knuckle of his thumb begins grazing your clit in quick strokes. “C’mon, make a mess for niichan,”

And it’s pathetic, how quickly your body obeys. Your pussy squeezes once, twice, three times and you’re gushing all over his fingers, juices collecting in his palm, running down his wrist. You’re embarrassed—you’ve never cum that much before, have you?

Breathing still ragged, you nuzzle into his sheets, partially hiding your face from him. Nothing could hide the involuntary grin that forms on your lips, though. Arms snake under your boneless body, tugging a bit.

“Oh no, baby, we aren’t done yet,” Touya’s saying while he hoists you up, letting you lean heavily against him.

Head tilting in confusion, your glazed eyes find his. “Wh-What?”

He looks down at his lap and your gaze follows, a tiny whimper slipping past your lips at the bulge straining against his pants. “Doesn’t niichan deserve a nice reward for helping you forget that scary dream?”

Eyes darting back to his, you nod slowly, whispering out, “Yes. But—But…” But you’re hesitant; you’ve never done anything like this before. Shaking hands reach for the waistband of his pants, beginning to pull them down but freezing when the head of his cock peeks out.

Touya sighs. “Come on, you wanna be a good girl for niichan, don’t you?”

Of course. Of courses you do.

Then he wants you to touch him, he says. He’ll help you; he promises.

“But you gotta get it wet first,”

You ask how, and he laughs at you. “With your tongue, stupid,” he tells you.

He instructs you to kneel on the floor and you comply immediately, trembling legs folding beneath your body as you situate yourself between his knees. He inches forward on the bed a little, shuffling himself to the edge and caging you between his thighs. Bringing his cock close to your mouth, he taps the head against your closed lips.

They part instantly, obediently, his eyes flashing with something sinister as you take the head into your mouth and suck hesitantly, big eyes staring up at him waiting for approval.

He curses, his hips twitching ever so slightly, skin stretched taut over bony knuckles as a hand forms a fist in the sheets. Starting with kitten licks at first, the tip of your tongue barely touches him, tracing veins, then begins to gain more confidence as he groans a little, telling you what to you, that you’re doing good, so good for him.

Watching him through thick lashes, you have the audacity to look bashful as your tongue laves around the shaft, drenching it in saliva. A hand tangles in your hair and yanks, pulling you off his cock when he decides it’s sufficiently wet enough. Long fingers encircle your wrist, bringing your hand to form a fist around him.

“Like this,” he says, jerking your hand up and down.

You’re terrible at it, movements awkward and uncoordinated, but in that moment he doesn’t really care. He’s irritated a little, wondering out loud how anyone can be bad at handjobs while a large hand wraps around yours and forces you to speed up. Bad? Your heart sinks at the small three letter word, a hard lump forming in your throat, looking as though you may start crying.

But he cums quickly after that, ropes of searing hot white painting your cheeks and face. You watch him the entire time, panting a little, lips parted slightly and your tongue darts out to lick them, tasting him.

He laughs at your bitter reaction, and it’s such a patronizing sound.

“Don’t worry,” he says, collecting the cum off your face and forcing his fingers into your mouth. “Someday I’ll stuff your throat full of it.”

✰ ✰ ✰

You can no longer mention needing—no, wanting—anything around him anymore, because within the next few days it’s sitting pretty and perfect on your bed, propped up against your lace trimmed pillows.

He’s so good to you; you should be grateful you have such a generous niichan, one who eats you out and spoils you with gifts. You’re so spoiled.

And he tells you this, in the dead of night when you wake to find him shoving his cock into you, snarling a little at your soft whines of protest.

“Don’t be a brat,” he warns. Just be a good girl and take his cock. He does so much for you, can’t you be good for him?

Yes, yes, you want to be good for him, you want to be the best for him.

By this point you’ve lost count of how many times you’ve woken up in the middle of the night with his head between your thighs, prepping you to take him.

“Stay sleeping, baby,” he’ll tell you, words whispered into your hair as his cockhead nudges against your hole.

As if you could ever stay sleeping when only a few minutes later he’s pounding you into oblivion, large hand clasped over your mouth so tightly his blunt nails are digging into your cheek, so hard that it’s yanking your head back, neck beginning to ache.

He tells you to be quiet, “You don’t want anyone to hear, do you? Then we’d have to stop, and you don’t want that, right, sweetheart?”

You don’t, you whimper. Of course you don’t—you want whatever he wants, you want to be his perfect little baby, you want to be told how good you take his cock, the praise mumbled against your skin in a low, strained voice right before he fills you with cum.

✰ ✰ ✰

He disappears for a few days near the end of December. You have no idea where, Touya answering your curious texts with playful quips at first before he grows tired of it and tells you to stop fucking asking.

But eventually, he returns.

The front door slams shut and your body flinches with a jolt of excitement. Adrenaline spikes your blood when you hear his heavy boots colliding with the hardwood, getting louder, louder, louder…

He passes right by you, not glancing at you at all. Moments later, the sound of water hitting the tiled shower wall echoes down the hallway.

And you wait. Patiently, you wait, like the good little girl you are, not daring to move a muscle. Eventually he re-emerges, hair still damp, a few strands sticking to his neck.

With a groan, he collapses on the couch next to you, flopping his head into your lap and gazing up at you with glazed, blown sapphire eyes.

“You’re high,” you say softly, not accusatory, just an observation. He giggles a little.

“So what if I am?”

“What did you take?”

“Oh,” he gasps mockingly. “Oh no, baby, I can’t tell you that,”

Why? The question is burning on the tip of your tongue, and you can tell that he’s anticipating that to be your next response, but you bite down on your bottom lip, holding it in. You know his answer already, can practically hear his patronizing voice—Because good baby sisters aren’t supposed to know about stuff like this.

“Can I try some?” you ask instead.

All of the mirth fades from his eyes in an instant, and he moves in a flash despite his inebriated state, so quick you can barely tell what’s happening. His large hand wraps around your bicep in a bruising grasp, pulling you towards him as he sits up, his face an inch away from yours.

“Absolutely fucking not,” he spits, cobalt eyes blazing and voice rumbling against your chest. “And if I so much as catch wind that you’re using, have a mere feeling that you’ve tried it—even just once—I’ll slaughter you and the fucker you got it from. Do you understand me?”

Surprised tears spring into your eyes and you nod jerkily, body beginning to tremble as your breath gets caught in your throat. You want to tell him that you didn’t mean it, honest, you promise!; that you were just kidding around, you swear!, but you can’t, voice mangling itself with the hitched little breaths on the back of your tongue.

He growls at your silence, his grip around your arm tightening and you cry out, terrified that he might actually crush the bone with his bare hand.

“Say, yes Touya, I understand,”

“Y-Yes Touya, I understand,” you manage to stutter out, voice returning only at the command of a direct order, tears spilling over and rolling down your cheeks in pairs. His eyes search your face for a moment, his features contorted in fury, before he sneers at you, squeezing your arm once then roughly letting go, shoving you away from him.

You fall backward against the arm of the couch, heart thumping so vigorously you’re sure he can hear it. He groans, throwing his head back and closing his eyes, exasperated.

“Fuck,” he sighs, eyes opening to glare at the ceiling. “You’ve ruined my high,”

You stare at him, breath coming out in uneven huffs, clinging to the couch.

“I-I’m sorry,” you whisper, terrified to move lest you upset him more.

He’s silent for a moment, still staring up, until he lolls his head to the side, glancing at you through the corner of his eye. A small smirk spreads across his face.

“C’mere,” he says, nodding his head a little in indication.

“Wh-What?”

“C’mere,” he repeats. “Come make it up to me,”

Your body’s moving before you’ve given it permission to, crawling into his lap obediently, thighs on either side of his hips. His smirk widens, and you love it—you love how much control he has over you without even trying, you love the way a quiet whimper slips through your lips as his large hands begin kneading your flesh, running up your legs and grabbing your ass.

Lips trail up the column of your neck, and you tilt your head back, a silent plea for more. You can feel the way his lips curl into a grin against your skin, nipping at it a second later.

“So, how you gonna make it up to me? Huh?” he shifts his hips under you, pressing his hard cock into your clothed core. You whine a little, grinding against him.

“I’ve got a few ideas,” you breathe out while sharp teeth mar your collarbone.

“The hell you waiting for? Show me,”

You begin sliding down his body and he pushes on your shoulders, forcing you to your knees between his spread thighs. He watches you through half-lidded eyes, gaping pupils outlined by a thin ring of blue.

Holding his gaze, you lean forward with your pretty little tongue hanging out and begin licking along the straining bulge, tracing it slowly, the denim rough against your sensitive muscle. You relent though, lapping at his clothed cock in slow, long strokes, and his jeans are just thin enough for you to feel him pulse in response.

A giggle bubbles up past your lips, muffled by the denim, already beginning to feel heady as you pull simple reactions from him. Your mouth forms a cute little ‘o’ and you suck on him the best you can through his jeans, drooling all over his lap and soaking through the material.

The hand in your hair tightens into a fist, yanking hard and pulling your mouth away. “Stop fucking teasing,” he warns, a hint of something ominous in his voice.

You obey, because you always obey, tiny fingers working to quickly unbuckle his belt, pop the button, yank down the zipper. He aids you, lifting his hips and allowing you to tug his jeans down his thighs enough for his cock to spring out.

His own hand wraps around the shaft, you pausing mid-action as you reach for it.

“Open,” he demands, your dutiful lips parting immediately, letting him push his cock into the warm, wet cavern.

He sets a brutal, punishing pace from the start, refusing to give you a single moment to adjust. His other hand fists in your hair, forcing you to stay still as he rams his cock down your throat.

Reflexive tears burn your eyes, blurring your vision. You blink quickly to clear them, desperate to watch him, to catalogue all of his micro-expressions and the sound of his voice as he grunts out your name, to burn it into your mind, etch it into your very soul.

Touya’s head falls back against the couch, Adams apple bobbling with his rough whimpers, long neck and sharp collarbone on full display. If your mouth wasn’t otherwise occupied, you’d love to lick up his smooth skin, to trace the dips of his collarbone with your tongue and sign your name in brilliant splotches of blue and purple.

You’re gagging around his cock now, starting to feel lightheaded and struggling to inhale enough oxygen. The ache in your jaw is beginning to spread, but you ignore it, stretching your mouth open wider, to take more, to be good for him, to make him proud. It’s worth it for the hoarse, throaty moans you’re pulling from him, to hear your name shuddered out, followed by a breathy, “Fuck,”

He forces hot cum down your throat a moment later, and you choke on it, sputtering around his cock, throat spasming as it tries to force the foreign object out. He won’t let it, though. He holds your head in place, nose pressed against his pubic bone, and you can do nothing but take it, like a good little girl, like he tells you to.

But it’s all worth it. It’s all worth it, to hear his broken whines like that, to have him look down at you and pull your hair and tell you you’re good, so good for him.

And you’re sobbing by the end of it, gasping for air the moment he lets go of you, wheezing violently as your head collapses against his thigh.

“Did I—” you cough, voice raspy from having your throat fucked raw, “—Did I make it up to you, niichan?” you gaze up at him, eyelashes spiky with residual water. You’re the perfect picture of obedience, strands of hair stuck to your face where your salty tears have dried and swollen lips gleaming with saliva as you watch him with glittering eyes, waiting desperately for his praise.

He looks down at you, eyes devious and diabolical, chest heaving a little. “Of course you did,” he tells you, corners of his lips tugging up into a sharp smirk as you melt into him. “You always do, don’t you?”

#todoroki touya x reader #todoroki touya #dabi x reader #dabi smut #touya x reader #dabi may be a scumbag but he loves his momma #tomura baby i’m so sorry #promise u don’t horrify me at all oof #pls come horrify me more #christ if dabi isn’t touya we’re all gonna look like goddamn fools #a buncha clowns #anyway this is my first time posting something like this #n i haven’t written smut in an extremely long time #so pls be nice #actually u should always be nice #so pls be extra nice #no one beta’d this so there’s a good chance i’ll come back to it n revise it or whatever idk i’m just sick of looking at it rn #the ‘he talks too much’ is inspired by ch 271 w hawks where he’s all ‘he’ll keep talking’#dabi shut the fuck up challenge #prone to monologuing this boy is #also sorry abt the crazy sentences with a thousand commas #apparently now i’m oscar wilde w these run on sentences #idk i still kinda like em tho #i like oscar #tw pseudo-incest #tw noncon #tw dubcon #tw emotional manipulation #tw somnophilia #tw drugs

4K notes · View notes

likea-black-widow-baby · 2 years

Text

One thing I loved about MoM is that Wanda is allowed to be messy.

Full analysis under the cut

The MCU's treatment of Wanda has changed dramatically from AoU to MoM. Today we'll be tracing her journey from a standard postfeminist Strong Female Character to the more layered, messy, human version of her we see now.

Wanda doesn't get to look messy in the early MCU. Her first on-screen breakdown after Pietro's death is a perfect example of postfeminist objectification.

She gets to be powerful, but she tears through Ultron bots the same way that the only woman in a spy movie struts out of an explosion in a torn tank top carrying a single giant machine gun while all the men wear practical fighting gear. Wanda gets to be powerful as long as her titties are out and she's totally unscathed.

Elizabeth Olsen commented on the stigmatization of looking messy in an Age of Ultron promo interview: “Usually facial expressions aren’t great in slo-mo, because sometimes we’ll do super slo-mo moves, and, you know, you’re trying to do effort…But what I did just then, in slo-mo, is quite literally the most unattractive thing you could ever see anyone do. It’s so weird. And Joss [Whedon] would always remind me to use a calm face because that is okay to watch.”

The result being that Wanda looks dead-eyed in the movie where she's supposed to be the youngest and least experienced. So not only was she treated poorly in terms of over-sexualization, but media's (and Joss Whedon's) obsession with the picture-perfect woman prevented Elizabeth Olsen from portraying a human-feeling superhero in a franchise about humans trying to be superheroes.

The MCU starts moving away from this in Wandavision, exemplified when Wanda has her existential crisis and spends episode 8 in sweats.

She looks messy-- not yet violent-messy, but casual. She's allowed to be a mess in a very human way-- arguably the first time we see a woman coming apart mentally without her struggle being played for laughs (see, Pepper in Iron Man 2 and 3).

Side note-- I think this kind of breakdown is different from the ways we've seen Natasha weak because Natasha is permitted weakness in a very dramatic "look how pretty and sad and hot she is" kind of way. Pepper was always cast as hysterical for fretting over Tony and, while her concerns may be vindicated by the plot later, she is brushed off in the moment like one might pat a child having a tantrum on the head.

Anyway, Wanda is allowed to be an everyday coming-apart-at-the-seams messy in a manner not previously permitted to women in the MCU. But she's still immaculate in the final fight scene.

Agatha drains her power and it briefly gives her a haunted look, but it's still fantasy-messy. No real person is looking that much like a zombie, and even if Wanda briefly looks less than flawless, it's in an unrealistic way.

Which brings us to Multiverse. At the beginning of the movie, especially during her siege on Kamar Taj, I was fearful that it was going to be another repeat of AoU, CA:CW, or IW where Wanda gets to go a little crazy but remain the immaculate-looking Strong Female Character. Here's the scene that disproved my fears.

One might argue that it's just another instance of fantasy-messy, but what makes it different is how real her bones snapping back into place is portrayed. We can hear it. We watch her body twist back into its normal shape like a puppet seized by the strings, complete with ugly cracking noises that make her body seem real and breakable. It's a move a director like J*ss Wh*don wouldn't allow because it's gross and unsexy. Like people can be sometimes.

Gif credit: @lokihiddleston

Here's where all of this has been leading. Seven years and five directors later, Wanda gets to look like a human being. Cracked lips, tired eyes, greasy hair, face blotchy. It doesn't get more real than that. I hope Elizabeth Olsen enjoyed looking like this on screen, because I sure loved watching it.

P.S.

While searching for Elizabeth's quote, I found this very well-written article on postfeminism in Hollywood and the problematic handling of Black Widow, Scarlet Witch, and Mystique.

#Mundie says things #marvel meta #wanda maximoff #multiverse of madness #scarlet witch #Mundie learns how to use the cut feature instead of making her followers scroll through 1000 words of meta

40 notes · View notes

liesoverthec · 3 years

Text

OG 911 Character Details from Canon Pt 2

Hi y’all I’m back! I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who reblogged the last details post - I sort of just thought people would like it and it would die, so to see it travel and hopefully reach more writers was so great so thank you again!

Details under the cut since I went a little crazy 😅 and if this is your first time seeing this, the first part, and any future parts, can be found under this tag here!

Quick note before I get to the details - always, ALWAYS take details from dialogue or plot over details from the set or props if they contradict each other. The writers have the ultimate say over what happens on the show/for the characters, so whatever they say goes, even if it goes against something props has already laid down (eg, Chim’s birthday, sorry Libra crew. He’s an Aries or a Pisces). So keep that in mind for the future in case some of these details I have which are from props/set are changed in the future, or if you’ve noticed something yourself!

Also if you have questions, I am MORE than happy to answer them, although if you leave them in the tags on this post I’m probably gonna lose them, so if it’s something you’d genuinely like an answer to, drop it in my inbox! Besides my standard “ask” tags, I’m also tagging asks about canon details with this tag here. Every time I make a big post like this, I’m going to link all the asks I’ve gotten since the last post, but if you’re looking for more info in the mean time, that’s the other spot to look!

Buck has a grill on his patio.

Eddie doesn’t hang Christopher’s art on the fridge - instead it is either hung on the corkboard in Chris’ room to the left of the door, or Eddie puts it in an actual frame and hangs it using a hammer/nails in Christopher’s room. All the Diaz family has on their fridge is a bunch of bendy people magnets. (I absolutely ADORE him putting all this effort into treating Christopher’s art like it’s something you’d buy from a professional artist).

Info on everyone’s ages can be found here. (Little more discussion of Chim’s situation here).

Albert has a bachelor’s degree! I don’t know in what though, except that it’s some field for which is a Master’s is useful.

Athena was in a sorority in college, Delta Sigma Theta. Their website describes them as “ ...a sisterhood comprised primarily of Black, college-educated women ... [that] considers the issues impacting the Black community and boldly confronts the challenges of African Americans and, hence, all Americans ”, which I love for Athena, and feel is very in-character for her at that time in her life!

Chim is an aviators dude. When he wears sunglasses, they’re always aviators.

Athena also wears nothing but aviators.

Bobby wears square aviators.

Eddie, on the other hand, always wears Wayfarers.

Buck either doesn’t really like sunglasses or he constantly forgets he owns them, since we’ve only seen him wear them once in 60 eps, in a move I’m pretty sure was ONLY for dramatic effect.

Hen’s sunglasses change style over the seasons like her regular glasses do, but she tends to like browline sunglasses.

Info on Christopher’s school can be found here!

There are two colors of dispatch polo, and there doesn’t seem to be any rhythm or reason for who wears what. Maroon - Maddie and Linda. Blue - Josh and May. Jamal has actually worn both maroon and blue, so it doesn’t seem to be TOTALLY set in stone although I’ve never seen anyone else switch. Sue is too badass to wear a dispatch shirt.

Both Bobby and Eddie drive 4 door pickups. Bobby’s is navy. Eddie specifically has a black, 2020 GMC Denali 1500 pickup truck (in case you want to specifically look up what the inside of it looks like or what features it has 😂)

Info on the 118’s medical certifications can be found here.

Correction to Eddie’s living situation from last post: no next door neighbors, but instead UPSTAIRS neighbors. (Pointed out by Abigail in this ask). Also since someone else was wondering the notes of the last post - no, there is absolutely no discussion on the show of whether or not Eddie rents the apartment or owns it. But based on the fact that it’s 1) LA and 2) an apartment, my guess would be he rents it.

When Maddie isn’t feeling like herself, she tends to straighten her hair rather than curl it. It seems to be more when she’s uncertain about her place in her own and other people’s lives, rather than just when she’s simply worried - eg it’s straight in 2B, when she’s uncertain if she wants to continue working as a dispatcher/is unsure about her relationship with Chim.

For work, Chim, Eddie and Buck all use black duffel bags with a LAFD patch on the top. Hen uses several different cute bags, and Bobby seems to have a plain black duffel bag.

Watches - Bobby, Athena, Chim, Hen and Buck all wear their watch on their left wrist (but Athena ONLY wears hers for work, she takes it off at home.) Eddie wears his on his right wrist, and Maddie doesn’t wear one.

Chim (and Maddie by default) literally still have the exact same couch as in the pilot. (Which means that Chim has cuddled Tatiana on that couch, AND Albert has had sex on it. TIME TO GET A NEW ONE, BUCKLEY-HANS 😂)

The 118 has five different rigs - the engine (E118), the ladder truck (T118), two ambulances and the captain’s truck. 95% of the time, when the team is chilling in the cab of a rig and chatting (eg the ‘stuck under a live telephone pole’ scene in Jinx), they’re in the engine, not the truck. (Which I personally learned recently are NOT interchangeable terms!)

Athena and Michael got married when Athena was 37.

If you’d like to give Maddie a full name beyond “Maddie”, you should use Madeline. (I know, I know, in 4x04 she says Maddie is the name on her birth certificate, and that you should never use props details if they contradict script details, but I always thought that was a super weird exchange in 4x04 which could be explained by Maddie getting a nickname since she was born when Margaret and Phillip, you know, actually loved their kids and showed it, so of course Buck doesn’t get one, and in 4x04, Maddie was trying to avoid the entire issue of why she got one and Buck didn’t. But! Do what you want, and use Madeline as the full version of Maddie if you’d like, since that’s what’s on the BOLO in 2x13 😂)

Athena’s call sign is 727 L30, but she doesn’t have a specific squad car - the number changes throughout the series.

Chim really likes chewing gum, but he’s the only one out of the entire family!

The station has an Xbox One S, and it’s white.

In the real LAFD, there are stations 1 through 114. To avoid confusion while filming on the streets (I’m assuming), our fictional LAFD never uses the number of a real station. So if you want another station for a fic, and you want something that would be real in OUR universe, use the numbers 115 and above. They’ve gone as high as 221 in our universe.

Battalions - station 118 is in Battalion 7, which is also not a battalion in real Los Angeles. The 118 has interacted w/ Battalion 1, which is a real battalion, but other ‘non-real which makes them more likely for our universe’ battalions include numbers: 3, 8, 13, 16, 19 and above.

S1 Buck knew the term Jedi, but based on context, didn’t understand AT ALL the context provided by Star Wars, so there’s another edge of his pop culture limits for you.

Chim is the most tech-savvy out of everyone, hands down.

Athena has a VERY active Twitter account.

Abuela’s house number is 8902. I don’t have a street name for you unfortunately though. :/

Athena’s favorite flowers are white roses. None of the other women are really flower people.

Michael likes to wear purple.

When they’re at a call, Buck does pretty much all of the stuff with the hammer and the saw. Eddie does all the work needed with the drill.

Harry goes to Meadowbrook Elementary.

Buck lives on the fourth floor of his apartment building, across the hall from Apt. 416. The lovely @lovelessmotel found this listing for what is more or less the apartment. What happened was: the set crew rented this apartment for the one episode at the end of s2 when Buck moved in, and then over the summer before s3 built their own set of it, and changed some things - eg giving him an island, and moving the sink to a second counter against the far wall, you can see the changes here in this amazing gif set by the awesome Austen, but the listing should let you click around a little more upstairs and figure out dimensions better than what the show provides!

When Athena and Hen go out to eat together, it’s always fast food burgers and fries.

Waffles are Athena’s favorite food, and tiramisu is her favorite dessert.

Every takeout we’ve seen Buck eat has always been in a Chinese food takeout container, and we know he likes Thai food the best. EXCEPT! The one time we see him eat takeout with Eddie and Christopher, they have pizza. So take from that what you will......

Eddie has a cell phone and a landline.

Chim is a shameless multiple texter.

Chim and Bobby sleep closest to the door in their respective bedrooms (both right side of the bed if you are standing at the foot, facing the headboard), and Athena and Maddie sleep furthest away from the door (left side).

Some canon last names for other firefighters at the station in case you wanna add more people to a fic - Mitchell, Sanchez, Serrano (woman), Porter, Meyers (woman), Maxwell, Voyta

Hen and Karen really love decorating their house with dark/red wood.

Karen is Mommy and Hen is Mama.

Bobby has a brother, and a grandmother, and that’s literally ALL we know about his family outside of Marcy and the kids.

Evidence points to Eddie being the oldest child in his family.

Karen has multiple brothers (no sisters), but no idea how many - just that one of them is named Trey, and one of them lives in LA and has kids. They might be the same brother and they might not be.

Both Hen and Athena are only children.

Athena has been on the police force for 30 years.

Christopher and Denny are the same age (born in 2011), and Harry is two years older than them.

Michael lives in apartment 308.

The bank in this universe is CalAm.

Hen and Karen have a picture of Denny, May and Harry on their fireplace mantel.

Eddie having a black thumb + a lot of plants in his living room = him buying fake plants bc he likes the aesthetic ™ or someone (cough Carla cough) is taking care of them for him.

The COVID timeline in OG’s universe is fucked up compared to the real world’s, so it shouldn’t be used as a way to measure time! They just throw it in wherever it makes sense for the story they want to tell (eg the vaccines in s4 ep 8), since s3 was both done before COVID hit but also airing while it was happening. It makes absolutely no sense for May to graduate in March nor for Chris to be going to what is specifically labeled summer camp, and the vaccine plotline was INCREDIBLY early, even for real life, so don’t use anything from that as a measure of time. I’ve found except in specific examples, eg the two tsunami episodes, it’s very safe to say every episode covers a week - fall holidays on the show line up with their real life counterparts, indicating about the same amount of time is passing for us and them.

On that note - Jee-Yun was born in late January, early February 2021. (Conceived in Pinned, which was end of March/beginning of April, meaning Maddie was around a month along at May’s graduation in May ➡ 42 weeks + 3 days from then = late Jan/early Feb. Which unfortunately means we most likely won’t see her birthday celebrated on screen. If we assume she was conceived on the date Pinned aired, aka the very sexy hotel scene, then January 21st or 22nd would be Jee’s birthday, depending on if she was born after midnight or not.

Buck has had at least one other Jeep between the one Maddie gave him, and the one he has now, which means that when he needs a new car, he is purposefully choosing Jeeps.

I hope this was all as interesting/enjoyable to you as it was to me! And just to repeat - I love answering questions so pls let me know if you have any at all ❤

🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝

Tagging: @buckbuckley

#911 fox #911 canon character details #athena grant #bobby nash #chimney han #hen wilson #maddie buckley #evan buckley #eddie diaz #bathena #madney #henren #buddie #userac #hey yall if anyone else wants to be added to these tags let me know #im happy to do so #I feel like I have v little for Bobby here sorry :/#I’ll work on getting lots for him next time

366 notes · View notes

qqueenofhades · 3 years

Note

Hi. I’m curious. What did you mean by “women who read fiction might get Bad Ideas!!!” has just reached its latest and stupidest form via tumblr purity culture.? I haven’t seen any of this but I’m new to tumblr.

Oh man. You really want to get me into trouble on, like, my first day back, don’t you?

Pretty much all of this has been explained elsewhere by people much smarter than me, so this isn’t necessarily going to say anything new, but I’ll do my best to synthesize and summarize it. As ever, it comes with the caveat that it is my personal interpretation, and is not intended as the be-all, end-all. You’ll definitely run across it if you spend any time on Tumblr (or social media in general, including Twitter, and any other fandom-related spaces). This will get long.

In short: in the nineteenth century, when Gothic/romantic literature became popular and women were increasingly able to read these kinds of novels for fun, there was an attendant moral panic over whether they, with their weak female brains, would be able to distinguish fiction from reality, and that they might start making immoral or inappropriate choices in their real life as a result. Obviously, there was a huge sexist and misogynistic component to this, and it would be nice to write it off entirely as just hysterical Victorian pearl-clutching, but that feeds into the “lol people in the past were all much stupider than we are today” kind of historical fallacy that I often and vigorously shut down. (Honestly, I’m not sure how anyone can ever write the “omg medieval people believed such weird things about medicine!” nonsense again after what we’ve gone through with COVID, but that is a whole other rant.) The thinking ran that women shouldn’t read novels for fear of corrupting their impressionable brains, or if they had to read novels at all, they should only be the Right Ones: i.e., those that came with a side of heavy-handed and explicit moralizing so that they wouldn’t be tempted to transgress. Of course, books trying to hammer their readers over the head with their Moral Point aren’t often much fun to read, and that’s not the point of fiction anyway. Or at least, it shouldn’t be.

Fast-forward to today, and the entire generation of young, otherwise well-meaning people who have come to believe that being a moral person involves only consuming the “right” kind of fictional content, and being outrageously mean to strangers on the internet who do not agree with that choice. There are a lot of factors contributing to this. First, the advent of social media and being subject to the judgment of people across the world at all times has made it imperative that you demonstrate the “right” opinions to fit in with your peer-group, and on fandom websites, that often falls into a twisted, hyper-critical, so-called “progressivism” that diligently knows all the social justice buzzwords, but has trouble applying them in nuance, context, and complicated real life. To some extent, this obviously is not a bad thing. People need to be critical of the media they engage with, to know what narratives the creator(s) are promoting, the tropes they are using, the conclusions that they are supporting, and to be able to recognize and push back against genuinely harmful content when it is produced – and this distinction is critical – by professional mainstream creators. Amateur, individual fan content is another kettle of fish. There is a difference between critiquing a professional creator (though social media has also made it incredibly easy to atrociously abuse them) and attacking your fellow fan and peer, who is on the exact same footing as you as a consumer of that content.

Obviously, again, this doesn’t mean that you can’t call out people who are engaging in actually toxic or abusive behavior, fans or otherwise. But certain segments of Tumblr culture have drained both those words (along with “gaslighting”) of almost all critical meaning, until they’re applied indiscriminately to “any fictional content that I don’t like, don’t agree with, or which doesn’t seem to model healthy behavior in real life” and “anyone who likes or engages with this content.” Somewhere along the line, a reactionary mindset has been formed in which the only fictional narratives or relationships are those which would be “acceptable” in real life, to which I say…. what? If I only wanted real life, I would watch the news and only read non-fiction. Once again, the underlying fear, even if it’s framed in different terms, is that the people (often women) enjoying this content can’t be trusted to tell the difference between fiction and reality, and if they like “problematic” fictional content, they will proceed to seek it out in their real life and personal relationships. And this is just… not true.

As I said above, critical media studies and thoughtful consumption of entertainment are both great things! There have been some great metas written on, say, the Marvel Cinematic Universe and how it is increasingly relying on villains who have outwardly admirable motives (see: the Flag Smashers in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier) who are then stigmatized by their anti-social, violent behavior and attacks on innocent people, which is bad even as the heroes also rely on violence to achieve their ends. This is a clever way to acknowledge social anxieties – to say that people who identify with the Flag Smashers are right, to an extent, but then the instant they cross the line into violence, they’re upsetting the status quo and need to be put down by the heroes. I watched TFATWS and obviously enjoyed it. I have gone on a Marvel re-watching binge recently as well. I like the MCU! I like the characters and the madcap sci-fi adventures! But I can also recognize it as a flawed piece of media that I don’t have to accept whole-cloth, and to be able to criticize some of the ancillary messages that come with it. It doesn’t have to be black and white.

When it comes to shipping, moreover, the toxic culture of “my ship is better than your ship because it’s Better in Real Life” ™ is both well-known and in my opinion, exhausting and pointless. As also noted, the whole point of fiction is that it allows us to create and experience realities that we don’t always want in real life. I certainly enjoy plenty of things in fiction that I would definitely not want in reality: apocalyptic space operas, violent adventures, and yes, garbage men. A large number of my ships over the years have been labeled “unhealthy” for one reason or another, presumably because they don’t adhere to the stereotype of the coffee-shop AU where there’s no tension and nobody ever makes mistakes or is allowed to have serious flaws. And I’m not even bagging on coffee-shop AUs! Some people want to remove characters from a violent situation and give them that fluff and release from the nonstop trauma that TV writers merrily inflict on them without ever thinking about the consequences. Fanfiction often focuses on the psychology and healing of characters who have been through too much, and since that’s something we can all relate to right now, it’s a very powerful exercise. As a transformative and interpretive tool, fanfic is pretty awesome.

The problem, again, comes when people think that fic/fandom can only be used in this way, and that going the other direction, and exploring darker or complicated or messy dynamics and relationships, is morally bad. As has been said before: shipping is not activism. You don’t get brownie points for only having “healthy” ships (and just my personal opinion as a queer person, these often tend to be heterosexual white ships engaging in notably heteronormative behavior) and only supporting behavior in fiction that you think is acceptable in real life. As we’ve said, there is a systematic problem in identifying what that is. Ironically, for people worried about Women Getting Ideas by confusing fiction and reality, they’re doing the same thing, and treating fiction like reality. Fiction is fiction. Nobody actually dies. Nobody actually gets hurt. These people are not real. We need to normalize the idea of characters as figments of a creator’s imagination, not actual people with their own agency. They exist as they are written, and by the choice of people whose motives can be scrutinized and questioned, but they themselves are not real. Nor do characters reflect the author’s personal views. Period.

This feeds into the fact that the internet, and fandom culture, is not intended as a “safe space” in the sense that no questionable or triggering content can ever be posted. Archive of Our Own, with its reams of scrupulous tagging and requests for you to explicitly click and confirm that you are of age to see M or E-rated content, is a constant target of the purity cultists for hosting fictional material that they see as “immoral.” But it repeatedly, unmistakably, directly asks you for your consent to see this material, and if you then act unfairly victimized, well… that’s on you. You agreed to look at this, and there are very few cases where you didn’t know what it entailed. Fandom involves adults creating contents for adults, and while teenagers and younger people can and do participate, they need to understand this fact, rather than expecting everything to be a PG Disney movie.

When I do write my “dark” ships with garbage men, moreover, they always involve a lot of the man being an idiot, being bluntly called out for an idiot, and learning healthier patterns of behavior, which is one of the fundamental patterns of romance novels. But they also involve an element of the woman realizing that societal standards are, in fact, bullshit, and she can go feral every so often, as a treat. But even if I wrote them another way, that would still be okay! There are plenty of ships and dynamics that I don’t care for and don’t express in my fic and fandom writing, but that doesn’t mean I seek out the people who do like them and reprimand them for it. I know plenty of people who use fiction, including dark fiction, in a cathartic way to process real-life trauma, and that’s exactly the role – one of them, at least – that fiction needs to be able to fulfill. It would be terribly boring and limited if we were only ever allowed to write about Real Life and nothing else. It needs to be complicated, dark, escapist, unreal, twisted, and whatever else. This means absolutely zilch about what the consumers of this fiction believe, act, or do in their real lives.

Once more, I do note the misogyny underlying this. Nobody, after all, seems to care what kind of books or fictional narratives men read, and there’s no reflection on whether this is teaching them unhealthy patterns of behavior, or whether it predicts how they’ll act in real life. (There was some of that with the “do video games cause mass shootings?”, but it was a straw man to distract from the actual issues of toxic masculinity and gun culture.) Certain kinds of fiction, especially historical fiction, romance novels, and fanfic, are intensely gendered and viewed as being “women’s fiction” and therefore hyper-criticized, while nobody’s asking if all the macho-man potboiler military-intrigue tough-guy stereotypical “men’s fiction” is teaching them bad things. So the panic about whether your average woman on the internet is reading dark fanfic with an Unhealthy Ship (zomgz) is, in my opinion, misguided at best, and actively destructive at worst.

#long post #anonymous #ask

461 notes · View notes

oneprompt · 3 years

Note

Hiya! Could I ask for a male reader (or gn) who looks pretty scary but acts like luffy (childish, energetic) and how do you think they would meet/ join the crew, for law, Kidd and luffy (separate) thank you! ~poe

authors note : hello ! i hope you enjoy these <3 i did my best to portray the idea well , i really hope my work my live up to your standards ;;

Law x Energetic! Intimidating! M! Reader Headcanons

• Law isn’t one to be intimidated often, he hardly ever is. So, when you’re suddenly abroad your ship, he’s fully prepared to fight. He’s cracking his knuckles and all. But once you speak up, his eyes are wide. When he thought he had finally found another ‘ normal ‘ person, you’re just another Luffy..

• He doesn’t treat you too different but Law will definitely make sure you don’t do anything reckless to get yourself hurt. Luffy always ruins the plan and gets hurt, Law makes sure you won’t get hurt over nothing.

• Law does his best to protect you but not too often. He knows you’re capable of fighting off enemies, i mean just look at you. Although, that won’t make him cut you any slack if you do pick random fights.

• He actually loves the contrast in your heart to your physical build. Law enjoys how cute of a personality you have but he also enjoys how... incredibly attractive you are. Law is more attracted to masculinity then anything.

• You definitely were brought into the love pirates due to being a unit. Law needs more crew mates and figured to seek out someone with more physical strength.. On their way to find an actual crew member, they met you. And something about you immediately caught Law’s attention. You seemed so promising, really. But then, after you got onto the ship and finally gave him that silly smile, and Law knew he was doomed.

• Law certainly enjoys having you in his crew, even if it’s an utter handful to have you by his side 24/7. Although, he wouldn’t trade you for any other pirate. You’re the shining star of his crew and he sincerely loves and appreciates you, even if he isn’t too open about it.

Luffy x Energetic! Intimidating! M! Reader Headcanons

• We all know Luffy, if he sees a strong person or anyone he thinks is remotely crew, they have to get onto his ship! So, when Luffy meets you with his other friends, he’s eager to get you to join. You look so cool and strong... why wouldn’t he want you in his crew?

• And Luffy will want you to join even more when the straw hats get to know you even further. Unlike Law, Luffy is glad to see your lack of seriousness. He loves having fun and meeting someone who’s personality mirrors him will fuel up his energy.

• Once you join, the thousand sunny is a lot more loud then usual. I mean, it was to begin with, being full of eccentrics, but add another and it’s bound to get louder. You’ll have a ton of fun, mainly with Luffy, Usopp and Chopper! Your childish attitude just blends perfectly with that trio.

• Luffy loves rough housing with you! With how scary you look, it’s always fun for Luffy to try and take you on. He never tries too hard, though. It’s all for fun, really! Luffy has no reason to genuinely fight with you.

• When you two have to fight an opponent together? Oh boy, it can get messy! Neither of you two think before acting, often running off of endless adrenaline and excitement. You two may find that fun but my goodness, to the crew and others... it’s a mess, truly.

• But it’s not all fun and games, really. Luffy is capable of being serious, and so are you. You two may act entirely impulsive but when somebody is hurt or upset, you two are quick to settle down and buckle up, acting seriously for even just a moment.

Kidd x Intimidating! Energetic! M! Reader Headcanons

• Kidd only lets the strongest men accompany him. Wether through fights or just as an ally, he’ll only let the best of the best. He’s an ego maniac, what can i say? So, when Kidd meets you, he’s eager to have you join him. You didn’t talk, you looked amazing and so very strong, you were perfect!

• Well... he thought you were before you spoke. And my god, Kidd’s eye twitched at your bright tone. You were like a carbon copy of Luffy, nearly. Overly bright, childish, fun loving.. Could he endure such an individual constantly being around him? Kidd may dislike such an attitude but it’s not like he could throw you overboard now. I mean, he totally would but part of him felt a tinge if guilt for thinking that way... Wait! Why was he thinking that?

• Kidd acts rough and rude towards you, hoping that maybe him being that way will scare you off. But it doesn’t. If anything, it just made you more persistent to be his best friend, to shower him in affection. Why couldn’t you take the hint!?

• Yet, Kidd began to warm up to you. Of course, that took quite a while. And he still finds you rather obnoxious but you were oddly cute. Not that he liked you or anything! I mean, he just thought you were handsome and cute.. that’s not weird! It didn’t change the fact you were still annoying as hell!

• Acts incredibly competitive when you two are fighting. Kidd has mixed feelings about you, he hates how you make his heart feel all jumbled! So, he’ll always do his best to one up you on the battle field. If he gets more hurt then you, he’ll be mildly annoyed. The way you usher to help Kidd and his injuries after taking on both enemies as if it wasn’t a problem... God, you pissed him off!

• Overall, Kidd acts as a tsundere esque character around you, for lack of a better term. He’s a mess. One second he’ll be blushing whilst he stares at you, to calling you stupid and yelling at you the next. Kidd never had to deal with these emotions and it’s certainly new to him.

170 notes · View notes

starseed-twenty · 3 years

Text

Houses determining an 'age stage' 🔮

Okay, so this is a random long post, but.... do you ever think that perhaps the houses in our charts represent the stages in our life? From birth to death? Cause I do.

So basically... the first house (the ascendant) is our energy as soon as we leave the womb. But through life and its dynamic changes, our energy can change into the traits of the sign in the following house because circumstances drive us into having that sign's traits/vibe.

Personally, I'm starting to believe that each of the houses in a person's birth chart holds a stage or period of time in your life where your energy is more focused in that area/house. That's why you'll hear for example "if your 4H is in Sag, you most likely grew up in a carefree home"... cause at the time you were growing up, your energy was focusing on the 3rd and 4th house. And so you transcend into Sagittarius energy because it is in your 4th house.

For example, a person with a Capricorn Ascendant. At birth, they're calm, reserved little babies, who tend to get upset pretty easily. Until they get a little older (around 3 years old) and start developing these Aquarius traits/energy because of their 2nd house [unless Capricorn is in both 1st and 2nd house]. But once they get to an age where they're making sense of the world and developing a sense of being and being aware of the things they have, this is their 2nd house age stage activated.

Okay, so let me put it like this:

1st house age stage [birth to around 3 years]: Since the 1st house is the house of 'self' and revelation (or showing yourself) to the world, this is how it correlates to birth and being a newborn. 1H rules beginnings, the body, and approach to life. The sign you have in 1H is the sign you act as in your approach to life from the beginning to the end. [Side-note: This is because every house you enter that stage in is carried on with you until you're old and die. So you don't necessarily let go of the house because you're in a new age stage, but it merely becomes dim. It's there, but it's not ruling like the age stage you're currently in].

2nd house [around 3 to 6 years old]: This is the age or stage when you're making sense of the world and develop a sense of being and becoming aware of the things you have, as I mentioned. So you're basically becoming conscious about yourself, whilst adapting to the values, possessions, and skills you have. So the sign you have in 2nd house is how you handle that. For example, if you have Capricorn, you're more stern, careful, and calculative about all the possessions and skills you hold. You normally put those things at a high standard, and it can take a while for you to attain certain things because Saturn (Capricorn's ruler) encourages you to earn all that you have.

3rd house [7 to 10 years old]: At this point, you know who you are, what you have, and how you normally approach life. In trying to develop yourself a bit more, you look around you at who the people around you are. 3rd house is Gemini's house, and Geminis are very conscious beings; of people, things to learn, and their word (a bit too conscious, and that's where the 'two-faced' cliche comes in). So this age stage then comes with using the mind a lot. Learning stuff and getting ideas, speaking about them, knowing what friends are and being close with siblings, if any, and sharing stuff. The sign you have there is how you acted through all of this.

4th house [10 to 13 years old/puberty]: This is when you start grounding yourself and knowing where you come from, who your real family is, the foundations of your soul's intentions (life path), and where you feel secure.

This, I would say, is the basis or core of a person and who they eventually become at their peak or in the public eye. So if they grow up in a home that isn't too stable, they grow to oppose that to become more stable in order to bring balance [because 10th house is the 'aftermath' that's opposing of the 4th house]. So the sign you have in this stage is the sign you live out as [e.g, Sagittarius 4th house had a more free-spirited way of living in their pre-teen age].

5th house - [14 to 18 years old]: Now this is where a lot of us begin our adolescence age, and this is because the 5th house comes with this 'being a teenager' energy. 5th house is about creativity, hobbies, exploring, romance and love affairs, self-expression, and drama. A whole lot of drama. We dramatize the things we go through, our bodies and its changes, things that happen at school and at home, and sometimes the 'situationships' we're in. Everything's just such a story. And that is 5th house energy in act. The sign you have in 5th house is how you'd find yourself going about all of these things.

6th house - [19 to 24 years old]: At this stage, you've seen the world from your perspective and played around with your interests & hobbies, so you come to a point of either wanting to capitalize/profit from those hobbies or talents, or settle on simply trying to make money to become stable because now 'you're an adult'. So with that, you're more focused on working, routines, productivity, and self-improvement. For some, body changes also occur here because the 6th house is also about health and body.

Now the sign you have in your 6th house is most likely how you'll make that money or what your career will be like. For example, a person with Gemini in 6th could pass off as a Youtuber, Instagram Influencer, perhaps a Tiktok star, or anything in a field of communicating to people and spreading ideas or trends in a cool way.

7th house - [24 to 27 years old]: After developing yourself, your career, and your financial health, you then find yourself wanting to settle down romantically and start creating a home. So here come relationships becoming more serious, sharing stuff (your ideas & values going forth, your assets, and your whole life) with someone, and basically getting the real feel of marriage or long-term pairing. But the 7th house doesn't only rule love, it also rules partnerships, contracts, and alliances. So how you are one-on-one with people and merging with them is your 7th house influence at play. The sign in your 7th house is how you present yourself through all of this.

8th house - [27 to 30 years old]: The 8th house is a pretty complicated house, but nonetheless it's very good for growth [through changes]. At this age, many experience events that bring depth or deeply felt peak experiences. It's as if it's this rebirth of some kind where you rediscover yourself. From another standpoint, this is where there's more depth in a relationship/marriage, joint ventures or goals coming together, inheriting some money or assets, and also perhaps feeling really sexually liberated or just simply getting to the point of procreation (and this why most people have or picture having kids at this age). From any of these standpoints, the sign you have in the 8th house is what comes out the most as your energy.

9th house - [31 to 35 years old]: This is the age of you finding the true meaning of life and what your beliefs and values are contrary to what you've been taught, but really establishing your own and sharing them with your significant other or/and children.

This is when you're most philosophical, and have a bit of time for journeys, travel, expanding your knowledge, your taste/style, your beliefs, etc. This is why when you look at a lot of people at this age, they're a bit more settled down on who they've become and there's more of a visibility of what their life is about. The sign you have here manifests as the vibe you give out. For example, a Cancer 9th house more or less has nurturing and maternal energy at this age. They have this motherly or homey vibe towards their expanded mental state in a way where they feel like they have a lot to teach and it comes from a compassionate perspective.

10th house - [35 to 42 years old]: Once you're at this age stage, you're pretty much at the peak of your life because this is when all that you are, where you come from (your roots and home), who you've established yourself as and everything you've worked for reaches its final stage and becomes the real end phase of who you are. Anyone who starts knowing you at this stage can navigate the type of person you are (from your past) and not have a reason to think you'll still change into new characters. There's nothing much to come up with after this as you're practically done creating yourself. All you do now is mainly enjoy the fruits of your labour whilst simultaneously working on the career you been building, and also maintain the public image you've established. Your authority, your power, and your achievements are at their peak here. So the sign you have here is how you show all of this.

11th house - [42 to 50 years old]: This is when you're growing old and out of your peak. You're still a valuable part of the world and play a good role in people's lives, but you're basically leaving that zone of only focusing on yourself and you instead focus more on helping the community or leaving a legacy. The 11th house is about humanitarianism, social/global awareness, the community, social groups, end goals, and the future as a whole. So as you're more focused on these things because you're at the age where there's nothing much else to do but help out and be a great member of society for your final years. The sign you have here though can determine how you act out in all these instances. Cause if you have a Sagittarius 11th house for example, then you could be quite youthful and lowkey a rebel against societal norms. So in you helping out the community, you let people to see this vision that's a different version of norms. Like normalizing stretch marks or bringing a new genre or idea of music or wearing clothes that are weird at first but end up being quirky and cool.

12th house - [50 years old to death]: And at this final age stage of life, you're about to transcend out of your body and purely to your soul, so your soul innately/naturally starts feeling connected to its end stage where it's about to retreat from the world. This could be through last acts of service to humanity, deep connections with spirituality, healing, contentment, confinement, self-reflection, understanding karma, and dreaming. These all occur the most once you get to this age. Depending on the sign you have in this sign, you could experience a deep or light transcendence when you get to this age stage.

BUT - huge disclaimer:

The ages vary according to the maturity of a person's life. So for example, for one person, Cancer is in their 6H but they only start developing into their Cancer age stage at 21. At 19 or 20 they still present their Gemini age stage, because everyone differs, including the maturity of their age stages. So they feel more Cancer at an older age.

So... it depends on your life.

But this is most of the route or path of life many people go through.

Also, I'm starting to believe and see that wherever Cancer is in your house is where you feel pretty maternal/paternal, or you're just really loving and caring towards the people around you.

And wherever Leo is in your houses is most likely your shining point or prime of your life; things work out for the best for you at that Age Stage.

For example, Beyonce has her 10th house in Cancer and right now she's pretty much experiencing her 10th house age stage cause we can see how she's pretty maternal and motherly. Cancer is also pretty emotional so we've seen that after the whole cheating saga, she released all her emotions through an entire album. And Angelina Jolie has Cancer in her 1st house, and like I said 'the sign you have in 1H is the sign you act as in your approach to life from the beginning to the end', we can see how she's always felt pretty maternal, so that's why she's grown to have a lot of children (by even adopting some).

Another example, Rihanna having Leo in her 5th house, that's when she was practically discovered (16). And Kim K, she has Leo in her 9th house and that was when she was at the peak of her fame, from 2013 onwards, when she was beginning her 30's. And Ariana Grande has Leo in her 8th house, which I'd say is the age stage she's in currently, considering how she's the female pop singer that's topping charts the most lately.

So, conclusively, this is why I'd really think Age Stage in the houses is a thing.

And if you are trying to understand why your life is going hella sad and boring for the past 4 or 5 years, try and look at the sign in which your Age Stage is at in the houses. Cause it could be Pisces, Scorpio, or Capricorn. [Their rulers] Saturn, Pluto and Neptune can bring tense and deep energy that can make life pretty hectic. But, there are also profection years, so you can look at those too.

177 notes · View notes