#<- but it’s actually just him being a tyrannical killer

[afterartist]

Over a years difference (Im not checking the actual time cause im lazy and also if i looked at tiktok to check I would get distracted again and forget to post this and then my IRL friends will get mad at me for ‘hogging all your art and never posting it’) very rough redraw!!

Top 10 moments before disaster

Also I actually (kind of) understand how armour works now! Yay for me!!

Tho the first pic of paps and sans he still has the battle body because it’s a costume/cosplay and not supposed to be actual functional armour

Also shows off the thing I’m most impressed with this year, my growth in actually attempting backgrounds, even if they’re rough I at least try now lol

Barrier and Trammel (what I have finally decided to call Barrierfall Papyrus) used to be best buddies *insert build a snowman here*

Also yes I am trying to remake my first TikTok and no it is not going well

It made me sad when drawing this that I’m considering just making another au with a happy ending for them (which also could technically be cannon, as they do split the timeline already in the story but we never find out what happened to the other AU so it sup for interpretation)

[maklodes]

I feel like I barely have the right to get into “Star Wars would be so good if it were good” posting given that I haven’t actually watched VII-IX, but I keep thinking about the myriad plots and subplots that could follow VI, after the fireworks stop, all without slamming the reset button.

Like, as of Episode VI’s end, Emperor Palpatine, Darth Vader, and Grand Moff Tarkin are all dead, but much of the rest of the Imperial bureaucracy and military are still intact. Maybe there’s a legal chain of succession that establishes who’s next, but probably it’s pretty weak, because tyrants generally don’t like saying “you know who would benefit greatly if I were to ‘accidentally’ drink poisoned blue milk and die? That guy!” So there’s a likelihood of power struggles, different factions emerging among moffs and admirals. How would the Alliance respond to two moffs waging a brutal war against each other, extorting civilians to death for supplies, bombarding civilian population centers that are not logistically accessible enough for their side to extort but that they think the other side will, etc? Can the Alliance afford to intervene to help the innocents suffering in this conflict, or is it best to just let their enemies weaken themselves and clean up afterwards?

Meanwhile, some moffs and governors see the writing on the wall, and are approaching the Alliance and saying “Yes, I was a high official in the Empire, but I was one of the good ones, working within the system to make it as humane and decent as possible. Now I am preparing to join the New Republic, and preparing to hold free elections on my planet(s) (supervised, of course, by the erstwhile-Imperial bureaucracy under my control – who else is around that could competently manage such an affair?) Yes, there are a few incidents during my reign that can be classified as atrocities, but I can assure you that if anyone else in the empire had been in charge, they would have been more numerous and severe (anyone harsher than me would’ve been worse, and anyone gentler would’ve been force-choked to death by Darth Vader and replaced), so let’s just leave those in the past and work together toward a better future.” Can the Alliance accept such a defector on those terms? Can the Alliance afford not to?

At the same time, former members of the senate – dissolved at the beginning of IV – are saying “Alright! With that tyrannical emperor gone, we are ready to get back into the action and help rebuild the Republic,” while more radical members of the Alliance are like “no, FUCK those old senators. Those were the guys who elected Palpatine chancellor. Then they kept giving him more and more emergency powers. Then they voted to make him emperor. Then they stuck around as a rubber stamp Imperial Senate for like fifteen years legitimizing the Empire, before the emperor finally dissolved the senate. A few of them may be okay, but they are all on probationary status in the politics of the New Republic at best, and many of them should be charged with corruption/oath violation/etc and barred from politics and maybe incarcerated/executed.”

Some people might even question the whole idea of One Galaxy Government going forward. Sure, there are advantages to having a singular Republic/Empire coordinating things, but there are risks. Maybe local control – with the risk of the occasional local dictator, or local border war – is safer than putting all eggs into one basket? Coordinating the resources of a galaxy has proven useful in destructive massive scale projects like planet-killer battle stations. Is there a more productive use case for that much broad scale coordination? 

As more systems democratize and lift censorship and restrictions on holonet, you get paranoia and rumors going around that this or that office-seeking politician is the Next Palpatine. When a planet’s leading candidate for senator faces rumors of being a Dark Sider, the runner-up currently polling at 48% clears her throat and says “The threat of the Dark Side is too serious to be turned into a political issue, and unfounded rumors and partisan smears do nothing to help us re-establish our still-fragile democratic norms. At the same time, any credible allegations of Dark Side influence merit a thorough and independent investigation. After all, recent experience has shown just how destructive the Dark Side can be: whole inhabited planets got destroyed! Once we establish a transparent, impartial process to examine these claims, we can move beyond all this baseless speculation about my opponent (and the baseless speculation that the first anonymous rumors were traced to a holonet account belonging to my campaign’s chief of staff).” You could have HUAC / McCarthy hearings type shit.

You could have some genuine (aspiring) Dark Side guys – no one who knows the true Sith teachings, but maybe some force sensitives who see the force as a Will To Power thing. (The Jedi haven’t been abducting children who show force potential for decades, and the Sith had no room beyond two, so I guess force sensitives have mostly sorta been figuring out what they could of this stuff themselves for a few decades? Most of them are probably pretty weaksauce compared to trained Sith/Jedi like Yoda or Palpatine, but maybe they can influence weak minds and shit) You could have any combination of actual Dark Side influence and rumors: have some people correctly accuse real Dark Side guys, have Dark Side guys spreading false rumors that their innocent opponents are on the Dark Side, have two different candidates both being Dark force sensitives, spreading rumors about each other (or one spreading rumors, being a down and dirty political fighter, and the other refusing to stoop to that and going for the Stately Above the Fray vibe, but secretly being comparably ruthless), or (perhaps most common) rumors of Dark Side influence being spread in politics when no one involved is actually even Force sensitive let alone in touch with the Dark Side.

You could go a little deeper: some people in the aftermath of the Empire might think  that the Force – both the Dark and Light sides – has held the galaxy kind of kind of technical and moral cul-de-sac, accounting for the ways in which the whole setting combines backwardness and advancement:

Why is it that in spite of having overcome the light barrier many millennia ago and being able to build small planet-sized battle stations, they seem to have made negligible progress against senescence and death generally? Because the Force provides a frame in which you either embrace the Dark Side, in which case triumph over mortality is a personal achievement to be hoarded and lorded over your inferiors, or you adhere to the Light Side, in which case you reject the “unnatural abilities” of Dark immortality. Progress against mortality at a collective, civilizational level doesn’t make sense from either of those perspectives.

Why is it that in spite of apparently being fully sentient in many cases, droids are still treated as chattel property without rights? Why is it that they still seem to have widespread animal agriculture? Maybe because the Force doesn’t notice forms of sentience that have no or negligible midichlorian counts or force sensitivity or whatever. Obi-Wan could probably walk past a droid refurbishing facility where droids are getting reset to factory settings, or a slaughterhouse, and not feel any “disturbance in the force, voices crying out in terror and suddenly being silenced” etc, and when the Light Side is treated in some respects as the moral arbiter of the setting, and when a big part of the Light Side is “trust your feelings,” and when the “force feelings” don’t really apply to beasts or droids, they don't get a lot of consideration.

Why is it that the only visions of authority are somewhere on a spectrum from “centralized, despotic autocracy” (the Empire) to “decentralized, semi-feudal oligarchy” (the Republic, with a Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth-style weak senatorial authority, proliferation of local nobles like counts and princesses, etc, and, perhaps to an even further extent along that spectrum, the Confederacy of Independent Systems)? Maybe because it reflects  how the Force tends to structure itself: the Dark Side tends to concentrate power in the hands of a couple of megalomaniacs. The Light Side tends to distribute it across a broader order of Force-wielding elites, but still very rare as a fraction of the  population.

You might say that these ideas don’t really get to the essence of the core appeal of Star Wars, which is more like stuff like starfighter battles and lightsaber duels and such, but I’m not saying these themes would necessarily be debated in great detail to the exclusion of action and stuff. They just could be the reason for the lightsaber duels and starfighter battles and such. Consider: in Episode I, the pretext for a lot of the action was a dispute over tariffs. Stated baldly, I think that’s drier than anything I mentioned.

[atinyjules]

Where The Magnolia Blossoms Ft. Park Jisung {ch-1}

A/n: I disappeared for a while ig...but it was because I had to go help my dad in clearing our ancestral home. So while I was there, I saw a little Magnolia tree with blooming flowers and got inspired to write a historical au with Jisung as my lead, of course!

!!Mind you, this is all fiction. And it is not related to any history. None of the festivals or the things that take place in this story are real, and it is all purely fiction.!!

So here it iss

The Title of the story has been changed, and the name of the kingdom has been changed to Baeguk.

The mini - masterlist for this series can be found here

Genre: Historical au, romance, angst, fluff, forbidden love au, royal au

Pairings: Crown Prince!Park Jisung x fem oc

Warnings: mentions of death, blood, war, strong language , kinda angsty..

In the break of spring, when all the flowers began blooming and the birds began singing , a young prince sat and admired nature's beauty from his secret garden. His heartbeat was calm, and a soft smile graced his otherwise cold and rigid features. Away from all the pressures of the throne, Prince Jisung was at peace in his little hideout. When he was in the garden, he felt more like himself than he ever did in the big palace he was forced to call home.

The pressure and expectations of the throne suffocated him and made him feel sick. Like he was an animal who was forced to be a human. But at least the throne won't bother him for now. He's the youngest, after all, and the title of the Crown Prince belonged to his elder brother, not him, so for the time being, he could fly freely.

That's what he thought, until the day his life changed. The Crown Prince was murdered without a trace of his killer, and just like that, Prince Jisung slept a young prince and woke up the Crown Prince. Due to the sudden murder, the Crown Prince Jisung's life was way more restricted than his late brother, and all forms of freedom were thrown down the cliff. He was restricted from leaving the palace, restricted from meeting his subjects, restricted from visiting his secret garden, and most of all, the Crown Prince was restricted from behaving like himself.

He lost himself and became a puppet, a puppet who had to do whatever his father wanted him to do. Never could the Crown Prince Jisung be just Jisung, it was simply a wrong answer in everyone's eyes. If he could make a wish right now, he'd wish to be a nobody, and if his wish couldn't come true, he'd rather be dead instead.

I am a child cursed by the heavens.

"Your Highness, the King wishes to see you." One of the King's servants said to Jisung, who was brought out of his thoughts. Dismissing the servant, he couldn't help but stare at the calligraphy he just wrote one last time before folding it into a bird and discarding it outside to fly away from his sight.

A child cursed by the heavens can only wish for an early death.

❀❀❀

Jisung's

"Your brother's tomb has been mounted, so now your actual duties will begin. I know how you are, toughen up because, if you're weak, the kingdom will fall. I will kill you myself if you fail to go ahead with your duties as you should." Father said with a cold and chilling tone, making me nod timidly.

"Yes, father." I replied in a soft tone.

"Being too good is not good. The people will take advantage of a merciful ruler, but they will follow the orders of a merciless one. If you remain timid forever, everyone will take advantage of you and your powers. A timid and merciless ruler will fall, but a ruthless and tyrannical ruler will never stop rising." Father said and looked at me before scoffing.

"You're nothing like your brother at all. You're too soft, too timid... to weak. It's a shame that your brother was met with such an early end. He would've been the perfect ruler, but of course... the weakest one had to be left behind." He said, making me clench my fist tightly as I faced the floor.

"You better improve fast, or else I'll send you to Jihyuk." I felt my heart pause for a second at the mention of my brother's name.

"You're dismissed... get out of my sight." He said, making me stand up and bow to him before leaving for my quarter.

Seonhwa's

"You and your obsession with magnolias, why don't you ever make anything else?" One of the elder girls asked, making me perk up.

"It's pretty... besides, it's the kingdom's symbol." I said in a soft tone before getting smacked in the head by her.

"That's boring." She said and left with the newly made robes.

"Crazy wench..." I trailed before going back to doing my embroidery when an origami bird landed on my table.

"What's this?" I mumbled before picking it up and unfolding it.

"A child cursed by the heavens can only wish for an early death...this is so dark. I wonder who wrote it..." I asked myself before quickly hiding it under my skirt when I heard mom's voice.

"Seonhwa? There you are, what are you doing?! We need to quickly get the robes to the Crown Prince!" Mom exclaimed.

"Okay, okay... I'm coming." I said, making her sigh.

"Quick, quick! Or else our heads will end up on the king's table." Mom said in a rushed tone.

Right...the king.

After mom left the room, I got up and hid the calligraphy inside the cupboard before rushing out to help mom.

We had arrived in the main palace and waited for the Crown Prince's arrival after setting up everything. I was currently straightening out the Crown Prince's clothes when I heard footsteps.

"Make way for the Crown Prince." A loud booming voice proclaimed, making everyone panic and quickly get down on their knees to give respect to the Crown Prince. The door was slid open to reveal the Crown Prince in all his light. With a cold and stone like face, the Crown Prince entered the room and sat down in the middle of the room.

"Rise." The Crown Prince said in a low but commanding tone, making all of us rise from our position.

"Your Highness, with the Lantern festival approaching, his Highness, the King had asked us to prepare a robe for you to wear to the festival." Mom spoke in a clear and calm tone before revealing the robe to the Crown Prince.

"I want to see it up close, if that's okay." He requested making mom smile.

"Of course, your Highness." Mom said as me and another seamstress carefully brought it to the Crown Prince who took it and traced his hand over the embroidery.

"The embroidering here is beautiful. Who did it?" He said in a soft voice before looking at mom.

"My daughter Seonhwa did all the embroidery. " she said and bowed before motioning towards me, taking me by surprise as the Crown Prince looked up towards me.

"Seonhwa?" He said my name, making me bow to him.

"I am Seonhwa, your Highness." I said after bowing only to see the Crown Prince looking at me in shock.

"Is there a problem, your Highness?" The Crown Prince's royal guard asked in worry.

"I...no...it's...your very skilled. It's my pleasure to wear such a beautiful robe." He said making my eyes widen.

"T-Thank you, Your Highness!" I said a little too aggressively before kneeling on the ground and bowing, making mom face palm.

Jisung's

"She's definitely her... I know it." I mumbled to myself as I stayed awake in the middle of the night instead of sleeping.

I didn't think about her much, but now that I met her again... why is she all I'm thinking about? She made my heart skip a beat then and still made my heart skip today when we met. Why? Was it because we were older and more mature than we were in the past, or was it simply because I still thought about her all these years?

I got up and took out a box from the cabinet.

"Where did it go?" I rummaged through the box to find what I was looking for, a neatly folded piece of paper. I opened it and smiled as I began reading the contents.

You keep asking me why everyone calls me seonahwa right? So I'll tell you today! My real name is Seo Seonhwa, that's my name. It's a play on the word "Suseonhwa" (daffodil). Mom loves daffodils, so when I was born, she named me Seo Seonhwa because I was her precious little flower.

But some of the girls here call me Seonahwa instead. It's a pun if you didn't understand. They call me that cause I'm timid and cowardly.

When will you tell me your name? I can't keep calling you Park Salgu (apricot)can I?

After folding the paper and keeping it in the box, a transparent material caught my attention. I pulled it out to see the handkerchief with the embroidered magnolia Seonhwa made me when we were kids.

I silently sighed and brought the handkerchief close to my heart.

Park Salgu... don't you dare forget me... ever!

Park Salgu never did!

That's it for this chapter 💖✨️

I hope you guys enjoyed it! Yesterday was my Jeno's birthday but I couldn't post what I planned to. I completed 2 new chapters for his Broken Melodies series but because of the bad internet it didn't save and I lost everything 😭

And by that time I lost interest to rewrite it again 🤧 so I posted this new jisung fic instead.I had been working on this for a month before finally deciding to put it out for you guys so I hope you'll like it! Especially the Jisung simps🥹💖✨️

Chapter 2 can be found here

Likes and rebloggs are appreciated 💖 ✨️

[irishanimefan]

One Piece Anime Watchalong: Alabasta Saga 4/5

Drum Island (Eps 78-91):

Started 30/7/23 Finished: 6/8/23

After their stay in Little Garden, the Straw Hats are off again towards the kingdom of Alabasta, and upon hearing the news that the kingdom could have more casualties, Vivi desperately wants to get there as soon as possible. However, Nami has fallen ill to a fever which, if not treated in time, could kill her. So they take a detour to Drum Island where they hope to find a doctor to cure her illness. The only doctor on the island is Dr. Kureha, often called a witch. Whilst the Straw Hats look for Dr. Kureha to save Nami, the country's former tyrannical king, Wapol, returns to take back his throne.

Now this is what I'm talking about! This is the OP that I was waiting to see again.

Firstly, I want to talk about Vivi. I liked Vivi beforehand, but I was just waiting for her to do something substantial at some point during this saga. Something that proves to us that she is befitting of being a princess, not in the damsel needing to be saved, but somebody with actual authority and agency in their own story. In this arc, we finally get that from her. We know that she needs to get back to her kingdom, and upon hearing that the coup has escalated further she desperate to get there as soon as possible. However, despite the gravity of the situation and Alabasta being her top priority, she still insists that Nami needs to see a doctor in order to progress to the next stage. Another moment that was very effective was when the crew arrive to Drum Island and they are threatened by the townsfolk to leave or else be gunned down. Vivi is shot, accidentally, in the arm by the townsfolk, but just as Luffy begins to recklessly attack them, Vivi stops him by using her words instead of violence to persuade them to let them on the island. In moments where Luffy can be so narrowminded in terms of protecting his friends from danger, to the point his point can only be conveyed by physical violence, Vivi's reasoning actually gets through to him and follows her example. This demonstrates that, even though she is separated from her kingdom, it doesn't diminish the influence she has on others outside of her royal duties.

But those moments where Luffy's philosophy about protecting his friends from danger really come into effect in this arc, it's so powerful. Even before that scene (which I will get to in a bit) we had him helping out the Lapins, giant sized killer rabbits. The Lapins are seen as obstacles for Luffy and Sanji in order to safely escort Nami to see Dr. Kureha at the top of the mountain. Even despite the trouble that the creatures caused for them, including starting an avalanche that further disrupts their plan by knocking Sanji out cold, when Luffy sees a baby Lapin struggling to save their parent from suffocating under inches of snow, he doesn't hesitate to help. Even if it wasn't necessary to help the Lapins for how much trouble they've caused him, even though passing on the opportunity to help them meant that he would reach the castle and treat Nami sooner, he still insists on helping the parent Lapin out of the snow. All without a single piece of dialogue being said. That was so powerful. But that's just the end of it, there's also the scene where Luffy climbs the pillar to get to the castle, with his bare feet and bare hands, in the blistering cold, and also carrying the weight of Nami and Sanji. It's not an easy task, even seen struggling as the cold catches up with him and even slips and his fingers and toes are bleeding against the tough cliff face. It was such a nail-biting thing to watch. However, despite everything that he has endured and the pain he inflicted, he is determined to get to the top, and it's with that determination that brings him all the way to the top. Luffy is just one of the best protagonists in all of anime and manga, for real.

Now, let's move onto what was probably the best thing about this arc: Tony Tony Chopper. I can't tell you how much I adore this little blue-nosed reindeer! In the first half of this arc, when he was with Dr. Kureha, he intrigued me with his design and form. I then heard what his voice and at that moment he was just adorable (same voice actor who does Pikachu in the Pokemon anime). The way he was so tsundere And then we get to his backstory... fuck, this destroyed me. Chopper being casted out by both his reindeer family and by human society just for eating the Human-Human fruit, him being saved by Dr. Hiriluk and Chopper forming his first ever connection with him, learning about Hiriluk's life goal of making the town's forest bloom with cherry blossoms, and then, when Hiriluk finds out that he doesn't have long to live, he regrettably pushes Chopper out of his life. But it was goddamn episode 86 that broke me, from Chopper, all battered and bruised from an unfortunate encounter with the leader of the reindeer pack, bringing back an Amiudake mushroom for Hiriluk to cure him of his disease, to Hiriluk's speech about when a man truly dies, that episode was the hardest I've cried at OP so far. After Hiriluk dies, he's taken into the care of Dr. Kureha, who taught him everything he knows about medicine. Their relationship bares similarities to Chopper's relationship with Hiriluk, in that it's that doctor/student dynamic, but unlike Hiriluk, Kureha lacks the warmth and whimsicality. She's a lot more direct with her diagnoses and her tone is more blunt from the outset. It may seem that she only took Chopper as an apprentice out of obligation to her late colleague, but under that cold expression, she does actually care about him, as she's the one who recounts his scarred past. After Chopper announces to her that he plans on joining the Straw Hats, Kureha is angered by this and proceeds to chase him out of the castle with an arsenal of weapons. This would normally have a damaging effect on his mental state, as it would trigger the trauma he has faced in the past, but having made friends with Luffy, who accepts him, not as a monster, but as a living thing with thoughts and feelings, it perhaps may be a little easier on him because, no matter what threats come his way, he at least has his friends to protect him from danger. Even though Kureha may not seem to care for what Chopper does, she does in fact care for him deep down, realising that he's growing as a person and accepting the fact that he wants to explore the world. She was probably expecting this to happen as well because, not wanting their goodbye to be sour, she plans one last farewell by bringing the cannons out from the arsenal room, pointing them up to the sky, and firing them to reveal that the powder loaded into the cannons was the formula Hiriluk had spent 30 years of his life trying to make. It results in a gigantic waft of pink smoke, that turns the white snowflakes into something that resembles pink cherry blossom leaves. Hiriluk's dream had finally been accomplished. What a beautiful ending.

If there was a low point to this arc, and it isn't that much in the grand scheme of things, but Wapol as a villain was kind of pathetic. Granted, this is supposed to be the point, and the fact that somebody that entitled and obnoxious could have the power to rule a kingdom can be terrifying (if Helmeppo actually succeeded in becoming a tyrannical leader after Captain Morgan), taking the twenty best doctors only for his own care and exiling the rest. In fact, this exemplifies the dichotomy between Wapol and Dalton, who served as former captain of the guards. Dalton having this crisis within himself about wanting to serve and protect the people, but having very little power to do so because he's at the hands of a king who only looks out for himself. But taking Wapol as a character at face value is probably the least interesting aspect of this whole arc. At least his Devil Fruit power was memorable in that goofy, almost macabre sense.

Other thoughts I had about the arc: that "To Be Continued" title card being written in the snow for a split second was so cool to me! Usopp and Zoro didn't get that much to do during this arc, but their interaction with each other throughout was pretty sweet, with my favourite being after being swept up by the avalanche, they both shared the exact same dream, which was pretty funny! I don't have too much to say about Dalton, but he was pretty cool, and him putting his ideals first and foremost, even to the point where he was willing to die for the safety of his people was really powerful.

So yeah, Drum Island is my favourite arc of this saga so far. So much about this arc is just absolutely wonderful, and while it may not all be perfect, it is still a massive highlight for the series. I'm looking forward to see how Chopper slots into the arcs and the stories going forward. Speaking of which, the next and final arc of the saga is the eponymous Alabasta arc. This arc is longer than any arc I've encountered so far, so bear with me if there's a gap in activity here, especially when I have real life stuff to deal with as well. I'll see you all next time!

[bistephs]

Also Cass had a crush on a meta antagonist who killed and ended up waging a war to free is people from a tyrannical government. She empathized with his cause so much Batman got angry because she "fell in love with a terrorist". She hated her father but still let him keep tapes of her as a baby and kept hoping he would change. Cass fights hard for her beliefs but the core of that belief is that anyone can change and everyone deserves a chance.

i think cass's view towards killing is really really interesting, because while it definitely is her line in the sand it's also... much more complicated than that? like, you can't divorce cass's hatred for killing from (especially early in batgirl v1) her hatred of herself. cass hates herself for having been forced to kill one person when she was eight years old... but she constantly reaches out to other killers, almost all of whom unlike her actually chose to murder people. cass sees herself as irredeemable to the point of being willing to let shiva kill her in their first duel... but she repeatedly tries to redeem people who have, again, done much much worse than she ever did. because cass is empathizing with these people, because she's projecting herself and her own guilt and wrongdoings (real or imagined) onto them, because she wants to believe that they can change so she can believe that she has changed. cass can't forgive the act of killing because she can't forgive herself for having killed, and at the same time cass can reach out to the killer because she wants to give them the chance that she was given (and lbr in no man's land and batgirl v1 it was absolutely barbara and not bruce who did that for her).

and this isn't to say "oh cass doesn't actually think killing is wrong, she's just traumatized!" because she absolutely does think it's wrong lmao. it's just that her other core belief- like you said, anon- is that everyone deserves the chance to change. cass has to believe that people can change just as much as she has to believe that killing is wrong. her whole worldview is based on it.

for example - i have pretty mixed feelings about the end of batgirl v1, but looking at the final duel between shiva and cass, you have cass basically acknowledging that shiva will continue to kill and will never stop unless cass kills her. cass has tried to reach out to shiva, and shiva has rejected her every time. shiva will not change. and cass seems to accept this, and finally kills shiva.... and then leaves her body to fall into the lazarus pit and be resurrected, to give her another chance. because cass doesn't accept it. shiva says, point blank, that she will never stop killing unless cass kills her, and so cass kills her and brings her back. it's not even about whether shiva "deserves" another chance - it's about cass refusing to take that chance away. it doesn't matter who shiva is, it matters who cass is.

(tbh i think that the situation with david cain is even more complicated - cass has a really hard time coming to terms with cain being her biological father and wrestles a lot with conflicting emotions over him, because on the one hand he was an abusive monster who treated her as an object rather than a person and fucked up her whole life, but on the other hand he was the only person she had really any contact with for the first 8 years of her life. cain is pretty incapable of actually loving cass as a person imo, but i think cass did love cain, because she was an abused and manipulated child and didn't know anything else. so i don't think cass really can look at cain objectively, because he's her father and her abuser and she loves him and hates him and doesn't know what to do with any of that, and that's what's in the background of all of their interactions.)

tl;dr cass's view on killing isn't just black-and-white "killing bad batman good", it's a very deeply complicated part of her character. you can't have "cass hates killing" without "cass is basically incapable of not offering someone a second chance." which is a very very long-winded way of saying that i agree with you anon

[djarinsbeskar]

PREQUEL ARC: PART 2 - THE HOUK

A/N: Part 2 is here! First and foremost, can I just say thank you so much for the reception Part 1 received and to those who (gasps!) actually want me to tag them for updates??? I don’t know how to react??? I’m so touched??????? It’s so motivating and has reminded me why I love sharing my scribbles!

There’s a greater focus on world/character building in this chapter so if it feels a bit rambling or description heavy, I do apologise! Like I said, I’m trying to build some context to the reader-insert before we get to the smut, and I hope that I’ve kept her general enough that she doesn’t cross the line too much into OC territory and becomes unrelatable. As always, constructive criticism is welcome! My style of writing leaves much to be desired so I would love to know if something doesn’t make sense so I can improve and fix it. But enough of that, on with the show!

Pairing: Din Djarin/Fem!Reader

Word Count: 5.2k

Rating: 18+ (NO Minors)

Warnings: Language and slight injury detail.

Plot: You encounter Mando suffering one misfortune after another.

AO3 | Stitches Masterlist | Main Masterlist

8 ABY, Mynock, Dandoran.

The second time you met him, he had dislocated his shoulder after a nasty clash with a Houk.

Your dealing with the Mandalorian on Klatooine had moved to the back of your mind and you rarely, if ever, thought about it. It was merely another encounter with a rough character that needed some medical attention. You wouldn’t have been able to hazard a guess at how many similar characters you saw in a week while you worked at the clinic. Even more so when you’d left Klatooine after becoming disillusioned that the New Republic were actually trying to make a difference.

You had heard stories from the Core and Mid Rim planets. Stories of the investment and progress being made to rebuild after the tyranny of the Empire, of the billions of credits being poured into the development of new ship building centers on Corellia and large, extravagant residencies for government members on Coruscant. Things, you were sure, that were not actually urgent necessities as they were desires. Especially given that the funds you received from that same government to sustain the clinic thinned before drying up completely a few months after your encounter with the Mandalorian.

…Hemorrhaging more credits than is justified for the benefits we’re seeing in return.

The busybody politician with a colorful title and even more colorful robes waxed poetically, hiding the sentiment of disinterest in ways only a politician could. Half-heartedly trying to distract you by his explanations with empty praise and gratitude for your service during the Rebellion and your humanitarian work now, a true embodiment of what the New Republic stands for. He crowed like the colorful bird he looked like, dressed as he was with fine feathers lining the lapels of his robes.

You bristle at the memory of the hologram’s eyes flickering to look at anything besides you, running down the time you had spent weeks trying to get.

That was when the memory of the Mandalorian surfaced, surprisingly. How the day after you treated him you arrived at the medical center and saw  a familiar pouch of credits sitting innocently behind the check-in desk. When you enquired with the receptionist, she told you it was sitting there once she opened up earlier that morning. The only note left being on one of the datapads behind the desk, the scrawling font reading; to help with your work. You had let out a chuckle to yourself as you checked your schedule, wondering if the brutish male you had treated last night really was as cold as he portrayed himself to be.

The memory had incited a righteous anger that a bounty hunter was more willing to support a voluntary clinic than the government that set it up in the first place was.

I thought the Empire were the ones who put a credit limit on what a life is worth. You had hissed in return, interrupting what you were sure was a well-rehearsed and well used speech, before hanging up. You pressed the heel of your hands into your eyes, taking a shuddering breath as you tried not to be nihilistic in thinking that you had spent nearly half your life thinking you could make a difference, when, you were just serving the Empire in different clothing.

It wasn’t a fair comparison; you knew the New Republic was neither as cruel nor as tyrannical and oppressive as it’s predecessor, but you had been made so dreadfully aware that in places like the Outer Rim, people would always be overlooked by those in power because they simply didn’t offer enough to be worth looking at.

The realization was a raw wound to your soul. You had lost brothers and friends to the fight for liberation, but it didn’t seem as though the grass was much greener on the other side. Maybe elsewhere in the galaxy it was, but where you were needed most, the grass was dehydrated and dying under the relentless sun.

With the clinic penniless, your meagre pension from the Rebellion was not nearly enough to keep it functioning. Add to that the reluctance of the other medics to run the clinic alongside you out of their own pocket and the intergalactic beacon for medical aid that alerted anyone in the parsec of where to go being disengaged, traffic stopped. The native Klatooinians preferred their own healers and very rarely, if ever, sought out medics from the New Republic.

For the first time in your life, your path wasn’t clear. If you even had a path anymore.

That was how you found yourself on Dandoran, flying off a week after the last of the medics left Derelkann to the first planet that was habitable to humans. But by the Maker, it was even rougher than Klatooine. The temperate climate and lush greenery were more comfortable for you, but the city you found yourself in, Mynock, was to say the least, undesirable. Having once been Hutt Space, there were still several illegal operations active that kept the city going and you learned early on what areas to avoid and to always carry a blaster with you. But at least where there was activity, there was work for you.

***

You met Biran Sonter the very day you arrived, asking directions to the nearest medical facility, hoping they could use another medic. He was an elderly Mirialan male with a wealth of history behind him, his facial tattoos creased with deep wrinkles and a kindly smile that reminded you of your grandfather.

You were flabbergasted to learn that during the time of the Galactic Republic, he acted as the royal physician to the palace on Naboo.

As you choked on the tea he had kindly made for you at that revelation, you couldn’t ask him quickly enough how he ended up here? On an Outer Rim backwater skughole of a planet and his tale had been sobering. When the Republic first fell, anyone who did not immediately surrender to the rising Empire was terminated. Biran had, at the time, only heard word of the death of the beloved former Queen Amidala and blamed the Empire vehemently. Escaping on one of the last shuttles from the Mid Rim planet before legions of clones descended, he arrived on Dandoran where no one, not even the Hutts cared enough to notice him. All they knew, was that he was an excellent doctor who charged little for his services and kept to himself. That was good enough for them. While he treated a vast number of criminals ranging from thieves to bounty hunters, he was not wholly merciful. He somehow managed to avoid or talk his way out of treating anyone in the organized crime syndicates or known traffickers and killers. It may have gone against a physician’s code to do ones best to save every life, but he like many, made their own code in the Outer Rim.

You fell into a fast and easy friendship with the Mirialan after that, your similar histories of working in the medical field despite being decades apart giving you plenty to talk about. The practice Biran ran in Mynock was always busy and he was only too grateful when you offered to take the weight off his old shoulders and gradually, his clients began to expect to see you most of the day and Biran for a few hours in the early morning. You were never short on work between cantina brawls, accidents and the downright attacks that took place in Mynock and the next eighteen standard months seemed to pass in the blink of an eye, Klatooine a distant memory, as was the Mandalorian you met there.

The night you saw him again, was no different to any other you spent enjoying a quiet drink before heading back to turn in for the night.

You had been in the process of leaving the cantina, recognizing that the later it grew, the rowdier and aggressive the clientele became. You could handle yourself as well as anyone who made their home in Hutt Space, but you knew better than to be blatantly reckless when you were on your own. It wasn’t like you had the squadron you stayed with throughout the Rebellion for backup as you once did, and your closest ally would probably break in half if you pushed him too hard. So no, you were not staying late with Mynocks newest resident of a Houk warlord and the company he seemed to attract.

The Houk in question was a cruel and belligerent brute, a former local warlord by the name of Gappo Teff. His reputation for inflicting punishment disproportionate to any slight committed against him or the Empire was one of the many echoes of the former imperial rule that was still being felt in the galaxy nearly three years after its collapse.

The stories of the chokehold he held over Sullust would make even a hardened soldier’s stomach churn. How he managed to escape the liberation of the planet without being dragged to the noxious surface of Sullust to suffer for the pain he had caused so many, was a mystery. But there he was, sitting like a king in the cantina you found yourself in, bellowing laughter ricocheting obnoxiously throughout the space, not a care in the world that he was a wanted felon.  

It might have been to do with the fact that he was at least seven and a half foot tall, with a mass that could easily fit three of you side by side across him and still not be seen. It might have been to do with the cold, milky blue of his small eyes, sunk into a skull so large it could probably shatter ribs and rupture organs if one were to be headbutted with it. The last thing anyone wanted was those eyes focusing on them. It could have been the heavy artillery modified blaster he kept laying on his lap; the weapon more of a cannon for those of a more regular stature. Whatever the reason, very few bounty hunters and even fewer New Republic guards came to collect him. He was probably one of the most easily found quarries on all Guild registers and New Republic wanted lists and yet, he languished in Mynock as if the Empire had never fallen and his reign was still assured.

Making your way to the entrance, you came up short as someone walked in, your nose coming abruptly close to a reddish-brown durasteel chest-plate. Taking a step back, your eyes did a double take at the familiar unpainted beskar helmet. Subconsciously, you had stepped to the side, the Mandalorian continuing to walk without a word as if you hadn’t nearly walked into him. Mandalorians were a rare sight these days, so you could be forgiven for staring. Though, you were most likely staring for entirely different reasons compared to everyone else in the cantina.

The armor was the same, if not a bit more worn, as was the dark boiled woolen cape and pulse rifle strapped to his back. But it was the gait; how could someone walk both gracefully and arrogantly, almost cocky in his self-assurance that he was in control wherever he went. It explained why he was so determined not to let his injury be known by his walk the last time you saw him. Because you had seen him before, there was no doubt in your mind that this was the same irritable reek of a Mandalorian you met in Derelkann years ago.

He stood in the middle of the cantina, assessing the place as his helmet scanned the area. If you didn’t know any better, you say he was…

“Oh, you gotta be kidding me.” You muttered to yourself when the helmet stopped on Teff. When you said bounty hunters didn’t bother to come after him, you should have been more specific. Smart bounty hunters didn’t bother hunting Gappo Teff, which explained why the one you knew of was right there looking for him.

A choice lay before you. Leave now and lock your doors until morning… or wait. For what, you couldn’t be sure. But if the Mandalorian wasn’t killed tonight by Teff, he was going to wish he was with the injuries he would probably sustain.

You let your head fall back on your shoulders as you exhaled. Why were you so soft for lost causes and wayward souls?

The Houks bodyguards left much to be desired, crumbling to the ground before they had even drawn their blasters, smoke rising from the blaster wounds inflicted effortlessly by Din.

The bodyguards weren’t what worried Din. Their boss hardly needed protecting, and he wasn’t going to go down without a fight.

The groan and screech of the metal table being shoved away by Teff as he stood to his full height made Din grit his teeth, arms open as he boomed, “Ah Mando, I was wondering when you’d try your luck at me. Your reputation is becoming rather infamous throughout the parsec.”

A guttural, wet laugh left the purple skinned quarry as Din remained silent and kept his blaster aimed. Damn, but the piece of bantha crap was big. He quickly scanned his peripheral, but it seemed the residents of Mynock had more self-interest than to trade blaster fire over one warlord, the barkeep casually making his was into the backroom of the bar to keep out of harms way.

“Why don’t you hang up that Guild work and let me make you a better offer.” Teff boomed, taking a swing of his drink, streams of the yellow fluid running down the sides of him mouth as those frosty eyes stayed trained on the bounty hunter.

Din rolled his eyes behind his helmet; negotiations by the quarry were his least favorite reaction to being caught but he knew better than to think he had captured the colossal male yet. Until Teff was either dead or frozen in carbonite, he was a danger. Luckily, the orders were to bring him in dead or alive. Seems the New Republic were fed up with him still breathing. He couldn’t say he blamed them.

“No?” the Houk pushed when Din didn’t respond, “Too bad, you’d have made an excellent addition to my collection.” And with more speed than Din had anticipated from the large male, he charged.

You had the good sense to leave the cantina as soon as the first blaster shot was fired, pulling the hood of your dusty grey jacket over your head while you made your way back to the practice to gather a few things. Things that would be completely obsolete if he died but you wouldn’t think that far. You were a realist, not a pessimist. The Houk might have had the advantage of height and sheer strength, but the Mandalorian was quicker, possibly smarter, and decked with enough firepower to make a starfighter pilot drool.

So, you put the odds about sixty forty in favor of the Mandalorian. Not that you would ever tell him that.

Teff roared in anger as Din rolled out of the way again, shooting his grappling hook to latch onto the Houks shoulder and yanked hard enough to throw the male off balance. Despite his large size however, Teff was able to slide his foot back to catch himself, putting him in direct line with Din.

He was on his feet in no time as the Houk charged at him, lowering his head so that on contact, Din’s left shoulder was thrown back into the wall of the cantina. His breath left him as the impact winded him, a dull but growing pain throbbing from his shoulder before Teff’s vile breath permeated even his helmet and a large hand wrapped around Din’s throat. He could feel his feet leave the floor and the weight of his body pulling downward made the pressure on his windpipe all the heavier.

“Oh well, at least you tried.” Teff gloated, his head leaning closer as if to peer into the visor and that distraction was all Din needed to lift his hand and engage his flamethrower, engulfing the Houk in flames. Din gasped in a breath when he was dropped, the squeals of pain coming from Teff disconcerting as he staggered around the cantina, desperately looking for something to extinguish the inferno his clothing and more vulnerable tissue had become.

Din waited a few more measured breaths before lifting the blaster and shooting the quarry in the vulnerable side of the neck, satisfied with the resounding bang the body made as it fell to the ground, flames still burning bright until he picked up the half-drunk tankard on Teffs table to douse the fire lest he be completely unrecognizable upon delivery.

Din looked around, the cantina was empty; the silence suddenly deafening as he looked back down at the body.

Now, how to get him back to the Razor Crest.

Din sighed.

“We have to stop meeting like this.”

You held up your hands unsurprised when the Mandalorian spun on the ramp of his ship, blaster raised and aimed right at you. He tilted his head slightly, taking you in and you tried not to fidget under the gaze you could feel raking over you despite not being able to see his eyes. What you could see though, was how limp his left arm was hanging to his side.

“The demon medic from Klatooine.” He muttered, finally placing your face and lowering his blaster slowly while you lowered your arms.

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” You snorted before nodding to his arm, “And you’ll probably be calling me a lot worse when I tell you that that arm needs tending to.”

He shifted slightly, turning his body so you wouldn’t be able to see. You just crossed your arms across your chest and stared at him pointedly. He held your gaze and was still as a statue. You could play the silence game too if that was how he wanted to do this. It was only a matter of time before one of you broke and you weren’t the one with a dislocated shoulder, so you’d say that the odds were in your favor.

It seemed like time dragged on before, without saying anything, the Mandalorian sighed and turned towards the ship.

You bit down on a smile, but you could still feel it creeping upon your lips as you congratulated yourself on winning. Two nil, you tallied in your head, not bad girl.

The ship… well the ship was a fossil and that was being generous. But it was clean and obviously well taken of, if the tidy hull was anything to go by.

Apart from the charred corpse lying in the middle of course, but those were just details. Easily overlooked. The smell however… that was a different story, but you held back any comments. You still couldn’t fathom how he’d managed to drag a fully grown Houk through the town one-handed, but then you knew that the strength and discipline of the Mandalorians was unrivalled. He could have done it through sheer determination and honestly, you were lucky to have found him at all. But people in Mynock liked to talk, so following the rumors' had let you there relatively easy.

A sigh broke your train of thought, “Let’s get this over with.”

The warrior seemed resigned to his fate as he stepped over the corpse and you followed suit, mind instantly running through the correct procedure and treatment.

“We have to get the bone in the upper arm into the correct position before it slips back into joint, otherwise the force will just break your arm.” You explained as you moved to stand in front of the large warrior when he sat back on one of the many crates pushed against the wall of the ship. You could barely hear the short exhales coming from the modulator and you could only guess that he was holding back speaking, whether in pain or frustration that you had strong-armed him into accepting treatment again.

“But hey, look on the bright side.”

His visor tilted slightly to look at you.

“No droids needed.” You shrugged a shoulder and sent him a grin when he said nothing. When he looked away, you focused your attention back on the problem shoulder; it wasn’t immediately clear that it had been dislocated, the pauldron he wore hiding the jutting ball of the joint that was no doubt pressed uncomfortably against his flesh. What you could see was that his left side was hanging just a bit lower than his right, and the inability to move the arm was a dead giveaway.

“Are you just going to stare at it or actually do what you said you would when you barged onto my ship?” The rasp was closer to you as he turned his head, the rumble of his voice decidedly deeper than you remembered last time. Or perhaps it always had been, and you just hadn’t been paying enough attention, more focused on the very real threat of having a dead body on your hands as the poison spread. You rolled your eyes; or it was all the short and biting commands he only seemed to know how to give as opposed to actually speaking that made you forget the voice. The man could be attractive, if he wasn’t so frustrating.

“I can’t see it properly.” You replied, agitated with him again. He got under your skin too easily, and ruined your cool demeanor.

“You dealt with the problem just fine before.” He snapped back, pain making him cranky.

“You didn’t have a bone out of place last time!” You stopped yourself, sucking in a breath before releasing it to prevent yourself from snapping again.

“At least,” you bartered, “let me remove the pauldron. I can feel around the duraweave to get an idea. I won’t see any more of you than I did last time.”

He didn’t say anything again for a time and honestly, he was the slowest person you’d ever met at receiving emergency medical care. Half the men you treated during the Rebellion would yell until you’d taken care of the worst of their injuries before they even considered if it was what they wanted or not.

“Fine.” Was all he responded, making no move to remove the offending piece so you took that as your cue to feel around the curved metal cautiously, feeling where it attached to his duraweave and releasing it into your hands before placing it down on a separate crate.

“There, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” A warning growl echoed in the hull, turning you back to your task with a hum.

It seemed the joint had popped forward, no doubt from caving in as Teff collided with Mando’s shoulder. You leaned forward, your fingers feeling around the area as gently as you could while his breathing came out a little shorter. You sent him an apologetic smile.

“I’m going to have to ask you to stay still, okay? Usually I’d have someone to hold—”

“I can keep myself still, just do it.” He snapped finally, turning to look at you before he looked away again. You said nothing more as you took his gloved hand in yours, turning the forearm over and feeling the hand clench in yours when he hissed.

“Shh, nearly there.” You soothed, moving your hand under his elbow to lift it so it was aligned with Mando’s shoulder. You stood, keeping the arm in place and twisting yourself to stand facing his side.

You were definitely out to get him. There was no other explanation for why he only seemed to be seriously injured in your presence. Din tried to tell himself he was being over-dramatic and irrational, that you hadn’t even been on the same planet when he was injured the first time, but then you opened your mouth and he felt justified in his petulant thoughts.

“On three.” He heard you warn and all he could offer was a single nod; the sooner he got this over with the better.

“One…” You jerked the arm forward and slipped the joint back into place quickly with a sickening crack and searing pain took his breath away before it began to ebb immediately.

“DANK…. FERRICK!” Din yelled as his good arm reached across to grip his left, bending forward as he breathed through the flash of pain. You moved out of his way, waiting for him to look back up at you through the helmet, deep pants making his chest heave. You cocked your head to the side when his eyes found yours, a clear question there.

He groaned as he sat back, leaning his head against the hull, “It… doesn’t hurt as much anymore.” He admitted, thinking that the smile you gave him was somewhat worth the knock to his ego at having to admit such a thing in the first place. And like last time, before he could even worry about the concerning direction that thought had led to, you were fluttering about opening crates and bins as if you owned the place.

“What the hell—” he made to stand indignantly.

“Do you have any spare cloth?” You interrupted, “Your arm needs to be bound for a few days. If you have bacta it might reduce the healing time a bit but honestly, I don’t think dislocations can be rushed despite recent studies. Rushing back to heavily lifting or activity for at least six weeks is a sure way to hurt yourself again.”

You were rambling now as you set a pile of disused yet clean cloth you found on your lap, sitting across from him as he just blinked at this enigma of a woman. Giving him orders in his own ship, were you daft?

Your eyes sharpened and shot to his and he was suddenly glad you couldn’t see behind his mask. His eyes had widened guiltily at the thought that you had read his mind.

“You will do what you’re told, understand Mando?” You warned as your fingers tied a loose sling from strips of cloth you’d pulled apart without even having to look at it, deft fingers looping the material and strengthening it with several more layers woven in for good measure.

“If you insist on getting injured so often, you live with the consequences. And the consequences are doing what you’re fucking told and being happy about it, got it? Sulk if you want, so long as you keep the arm bound and don’t take on any jobs for at least two months.”

He opened his mouth a few times at the audacity, did she have a death wish? He couldn’t remember the last time anyone had spoken to him as if he were no more than a child and it made his blood boil. But just as quickly as the anger arose, it simmered as she muttered while watching her fingers tie off the sling,

“You don’t actually seem like a bad guy, and the galaxy can’t afford to lose anymore… not bad guys.” She seemed unsure of giving out even this level of praise but then again, she only had their first encounter to go by.

He grunted; not sure how to respond. And when Din was uncomfortable, he resorted to silence.

You got to your feet once the sling was suitably strong enough to support the weight of his arm without unravelling or breaking and you indicated to him, “May I?”

He jerked his head up in affirmation and you maneuvered the sling to sit correctly under his elbow and forearm, coaxing him to lift it slightly with a tap before you looped the tied end over his helmet, adjusting the length slightly to fit against him.

“You left Klatooine.” the statement rose from the warrior, his tone quieter than you’d heard him all day. Was he... trying to make conversation? Din told himself that it was merely out of curiosity from seeing you by chance on two totally different planets.

Blinking in surprise, you sat back on the crate in front of him, crossing one leg over the other and leaning back on one of your hands, “New Republic stopped funding the clinic and I realized that they’re all the same when it comes to the Outer Rim.”

He snorted in agreement, honestly, he wasn’t surprised to hear the New Republic had cut their losses on charity. It wasn’t in their nature to funnel money away from the Core planets.

“But it’s not all bad,” you continued, “I work with a doctor here. He’s old now so he should be enjoying his retirement. I’m kept busy and…”

He watched you while he waited for you to finish, surely there was more? But when you just shrugged and sent him a tight smile, he felt an uncomfortable niggle at the back of his neck, a familiarity that made him almost want to smile back even if you couldn’t see it. Almost. But not quite. He was unnerved at the… empathy he had for your situation. He too just… kept busy. It wasn’t towards any end beyond supporting the covert and the foundlings there. But for himself, he just kept working towards some translucent, non-existent goal, one job ended, and another began.

Something in your eyes told him you were doing the exact same thing. It unnerved him to think about.

“Echoy’la…” the word left him without knowing and you blinked,

“Hm?”

He shook his head and stood, grunting a bit at the ache in his shoulder when it jostled a bit, “Nothing. It seems I owe you my thanks again, demon medic.”

“I do have a name you know.” You snorted, letting the previous topic go as it seemed to just make him more awkward and grumpy than he already was. You packed away the medikit and replaced the unused cloth back where you found it.

“Somehow I don’t think it’ll be as fitting.”

“Whatever, sunshine.” You looked over your shoulder at him, the sling looking so out of place as he hooked a thumb in the utility belt he wore. It was amazing that he could still look as intimidating as he did. You gathered your things and started down the ramp leisurely. He followed you silently until he was standing at the entrance to the ship.

“Demon or not… thank you.” He called out as your feet hit the dusty ground of Mynock once again. You looked back over your shoulder and gave a single wave, calling something back to him that did make him smile behind his helmet this time.

As you disappeared into the streets of Mynock, he tested the name you had thrown back to him, rolling the syllables, and testing the vowels as he repeated it to himself.

Pity, he thought. He hated being wrong about anything, but somehow, your name was a much better fit than demon medic.

Not that he would ever admit that to you, of course.

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[docgold13]

365 DC Comics Paper Cut-Out SuperHeroes - One Hero, Every Day, All Year…

Suplemental - Villains Who Are Sometimes Heroes  

Often times, the best villains are those who do not necessarily seem themselves as such.  They are the heroes of their own stories and believe their villainous actions are in the service of some form of a greater good.  As such, there are numerous instances in which a villain will come to act in the role of hero or antihero, where the bad guy is actually the good guy, or a former nemesis becomes a sudden ally.  Following the jump are some of my favorite villains who frequently end up playing a heroic role…

There can be no doubt that both Deathstroke and Bane are bad to the bone. Yet each have acting in the role of antihero more times than can easily counted. 

Poison Ivy is less villainess than ecological warrior.  Her actions may be evil in the minds of many, but for her she is merely defending the wellbeing of plant life and attempting to stave off mankind’s thoughtless efforts to make the planet inhospitable to both flora and fauna alike.

The Flash’s Rogues, especially Captain Cold, HeatWave, The Pied Piper and The Trickster are most certainly cads… yet they all abide by their own particular code of honor and conduct.  As such, they have been many a time where these rogues have fought along side heroes as opposed to against them.

The Shade has been one of the Justice Society’s most formidable of adversaries.  And yet it was later revealed that he isn’t that bad a guy and it was the malignant possession of the devious Culp who was responsible for most of his villainous deeds.  

Both The Star Sapphire and Goldface each began as villains but ended up heroes.  

Knockout and Scandal are wonderful and I’ll hear no bad words about them.  

Brainwave Junior‘s turn as a villain was initially attributed to his difficulties with mental illness, but it was later revealed to be the machinations of the evil Mr. Mind.  Once the little creep was expelled, Brainwave Jr. became good again. whew!

The second Tattooed Man started off a villain but later became a hero, only to be killed in Heroes in Crisis (hopefully he’ll get better like most of the victims of Sanctuary).  As for Harlequin, she only acted as a villain to get the attention of her crush, Green Lantern (Alan Scott)… boy was she barking up the wrong tree.

Bizarro is not necessarily bad, rather he’s naive and easily manipulated and the majority of his evil acts have been the result of coercion by way of more purely evil villains.  And under the right direction, Bizarro can very much be a force for good, such as the time he served as a hero among The Red Hood’s band of Outlaws.  

Anarky is a political extremist and Thorne suffers from some sort of psychological malady.  Sometimes their on the right side of a conflict, sometimes on the wrong.  Are they bad guys… whose to say?

This guy… where do I even start?  Lex Luther certainly does not see himself as a villain; he’s out to save the world.  And there have been many a time where he has achieved exactly that.  He could have been hero on par with the greatest in the DC Universe… if only he hadn’t stolen all of those pies!

Plastique began as a terrorist and villain yet spent a brief time as a hero, a result of her romance with Captain Atom.  Alas the affair between the two proved to be short live, and so time did Plastique’s time as a hero.  As he Deadshot, he’s a stone-cold killer, yet his time with The Suicide Squad and Secret Six has hoisted him into the role of antihero… a role that proved a surprisingly good fit for the deadly marksman.

Cheshire is a deadly assassin who has proven formidable nemesis of The Teen Titans.  When he daughter’s wellbeing is on the line, however, the killer is quick to aide her one time rivals.  

Painkiller started off as a villain yet has recently turned to the role of antihero; mostly a result of the character’s involvement in the Black Lightning television series.  As for Manchester Black, I’m never going to be convince to trust this creepy peet… yet Superman has decided to do just that, recruiting the cad into his new team The Elite.

Both Fataly and Bleez have very good reasons to be as angry and vengeful as they are.  And though both have battled the Green Lanterns on multiple occasions, they have also assisted the corps in joining forces against common enemies.  

Thomas Blake made for a rather lousy super villain during his early years as Catman.  After a much-needed Gail Simone make-over, however, he became a truly terrific antihero.  Plus, anyone who likes cats as much as he does can’t be all that bad, right?

Although technically villains, I wouldn’t classify Jenette nor Black Alice as necessarily bad…  They both just have a different way of looking at the matter of morality.

Don’t mess with Lady Shiva… let’s just leave it at that.

Polymath’s tenure as a villain was merely a result of her desperation to save her father.  Once the Wonder Twins helped her do just that, she resigned from her villainous ways.  Shado‘s deal is a bit more complicated.  The devious archer has proven a formidable adversary to Green Arrow, but there has also been many a time where the two have fought side by side.  

So Dex-Starr is a rage-filled murder machine possessing awesome power.  Yet that is pretty much the case for all house cats, so I don’t see what the big deal is…

Both Killer Frost and Magenta fell into the antiquated trope of powerful women becoming evil due to some sort of hysteria.  Sure they’ve been bad guys plenty of times, but they have each also acted as heroes as well.  

Just like his father, Icicle Junior has taken the road of villainy, becoming a member of The injustice Society of America.  When The ultra Humanite took over the world, however, Icicle joined forces with The Justice Society and played a pivotal role in saving the day.  As for Junior’s baby-mama, Tigress, she remains a villainess… in the DC Animated Universe of Young Justice, however, Artemis is very much a hero.  Feels like only a matter of time before the comic book universe follows suit, turing The tigress from villain to hero.  

Both Clayface and Man-Bat are less villains than they are victims of circumstance.  And while each have battled Batman more times than can be counted, there has also been times where the pair have aided The Dark Knight. 

Once heralded as the greatest of The Green Lanterns, Sinestro’s path to villainy came as a facet of his quest to bring order to the galaxy.  His tyrannical notions aside, there has still been plenty a time where he has once more joined forces with his former allies among the corps.  

Both The Rubber Band Man and Major Disaster began as villains, but switched over to being heroes.  Major Disaster even served for a brief while as a member of The Justice League International.  

Lobo is a genocidal trashbox who has most likely had inappropriate relations with space dolphins.  Yet people seem to like reading about this jerk which has foisted him into the role of antihero.  I still think he’s garbage, but will admit that his daughter is super cool.  

These three don’t even require particular mention.  Catwoman, Black Adam and Harley Quinn’s roles as hero/antihero have been enough that they receive placement on both the 365 Villains list as well a the 365 Heroes list.  Quite the accomplishment! 

A rarity on this list… Terra started out a hero but it was later revealed that she was a double agent, a villain sent by Deathstroke to infiltrate and betray the Teen Titans.  She perished but later returned again, either cloned or resurrected or something like that.  In any case, she’s a hero again so yay…

So there you have it, a collection of scum and villainy who have, on occasion, acted in the role of hero.  Have I missed anyone important?  Let me know.    

[popanalysis99]

Toxic Men in TV Series who are the absolute worst.

(TW: R*pe and Sexual Assault)

While there are some men who seem to be interesting, let’s not deny the fact that there are most male characters who act like their “toxicity” is cool but honestly, it’s horrible and something not to root for. So here are the toxic male characters who are the absolute worst, excuse my misandry:

Kevin McRoberts - Kevin Can F**k Himself

We had to start somewhere from the bottom of the underworld. A recent entry on this list, Kevin is the lead character Allison’s husband who...let’s just say has the brain of a dumb frat bro who is extremely high on pot and hasn’t recovered since then. While most of the sitcoms in the past would portray these so-called goofy and dim-witted husbands as “big fun” and lovable, Kevin is not like that, at all. In this anti-sitcom nightmare, Kevin literally believes that the whole world revolves around him. He plans such stupid unrealistic schemes to seize the day, recklessly spends the savings on stupid irrelevant sports merchandises and doesn’t even let Allison have her own agency outside of his life. Plus he is so petty and spiteful to the point he destroys one good thing that any of the women in the series have, like Allison’s dream job and Patty’s love life. And that latter was because she didn’t bring him a burger! All of this makes him look less funny and more tyrannical. No wonder poor Allison got spurred into wanting to kill him.

Ross Geller - Friends

Ross may seemed like a “nice guy”, but let’s just agree it was a facade. Ross believes that he knows what’s best for the women he dates in the series and thinks he is superior and is always right about everything. He is seems extremely disturbed over the fact that his ex-wife, Carol is a lesbian and is jilted towards her current wife, Susan and snarks at the latter for it. And then there is her extreme control and jealousy towards Rachel, especially in her career. While Rachel is no saint either, Ross jumps to the conclusion that the man who got her a perfect job wants to sleep with her, then goes out of his way to humiliate and mark his territory on her and even if it’s revealed that the said guy has a girlfriend of his own, Ross still doesn’t abandon his theory, unless he believes that the guy is cheating on his girlfriend with Rachel. And then there is the fact that he joined his student girlfriend on a spring break just to have her all to himself, not caring about the fact that what if one of his students or colleagues would’ve seen him on TV with her and that could’ve put him in a huge scrutiny.

Joe Goldberg - You

The show is basically built around how toxic Joe is, but this didn’t stop him from having his own fanbase apparently, with most of them glossing over his actions. But Joe is not a dream boyfriend at all. Once he sees a woman in front of him, he immediately gets obsessed with her and believes she belongs to him and him only. And to achieve that, he stalks her, he checks everything about her, kills people he believes are harmful to her when he himself is the same and when the woman finds out about him and rejects him, he kidnaps and kills her and the cycle begins again.

Chuck Bass - Gossip Girl

What is it with the teen drama industry’s obsession with the “Bad Boy who can be redeemed with love” trope? Chuck Bass is “the bad boy” of Gossip Girl. If his attempted rape of Serena and Jenny didn’t give fans an indication that how deranged he is, his violent and emotional abuse of his girlfriend Blair cements him as this. He slut-shamed women around him, hit Blair once and even traded her for a hotel ownership and somehow he gets a happy ending with her at the end! What?

Nate Jacobs - Euphoria

Nate is a star quarterback of his high school football team and seems like he has it all, but underneath, he is fucking deranged. His untamed manly rage causes him to physically and emotionally abuse his girlfriend Maddy and blackmail Jules, who didn’t do anything wrong but just sleep with his father, which makes me think that Nate is blackmailing her into lying to the cops about his assault on Maddy when she wasn’t even there when it happened just because it’s fun for him. Honestly, I’d like to see the imagine Rue and Jules had of killing him become a reality someday.

Dawson Leery - Dawson’s Creek

Just because the show is named after him since he is the protagonist, doesn’t justify his actions. Dawson sees himself as some sort of a Nice Guy hero who believes he is entitled to everything. He has this extreme view on women and how they should fulfil his fantasies of his Rom-Com world. He is extremely critical of Jen when he finds out about her promiscuous past and tells her that she should be ashamed of herself for it, and gets jealous when his two best friends Joey and Pacey begin dating. And when he was briefly in the movie business, he was a rookie but was already a primadonna with the director and crew of the movie was working on and insulted a film critic for criticising his movie which was actually bad.

Kilgrave - Jessica Jones

Kilgrave is the main villain of the Marvel-Netflix series Jessica Jones. He becomes obsessed with the titular heroine when she breaks off from his mind-control. Before that, he spent years treating her as his sex slave and raping her constantly, which left her traumatised. He begins to stalker and believe it will be a “lover’s reunion” when he will see her again someday. He manipulates and brainwashes everyone around him to his whim and treats most women as objects but despite all that, sees himself as the good guy of the situation. Even after Jessica finally gives him his just desserts, he still haunts her everyday.

Fernando Vera - Mr. Robot

This spawn of satan is the reason why I decided to write this list in the first place. Where do I even start? He is first introduced into the series when he forces Shayla to go on a date with her and later rape her. This is what causes the misandrist vigilante Elliot to sell him out to the FBI and this apparently turns on Vera and moves his unhealthy obsession to Elliot. He has Shayla killed when he tricks Elliot into breaking him out of prison, then returns to have him all to himself by kidnapping his therapist Krista and forcing information out of her about Elliot so that he could “break him and build him back up”, like a fucked up version of The Taming Of The Shrew. He psychologically abuses Elliot into remembering being sexually abused by his father as a child and proceeds to gaslight him into thinking that he was just helping him. The huge problem with Vera is that he sees himself as some sort of Christian Grey who believes that his abuse towards both Shayla and Elliot is charming. Whenever someone failed his desires, he immediately gets bored of them and moves onto someone else, like when he got Shayla killed and moved onto Elliot. That’s why it felt so cathartic when Krista killed him.

Tate Langdon - American Horror Story

Apparently, he is Tate Langdon and he is...hot?? While most of the AHS fans glorified him due to his emo bad boy nature, let’s not forget the fact that he was a school shooter who murdered innocent students and staff and was in general possessive and toxic towards Violet. So no way he is boyfriend material!

Don Draper - Mad Men

Don Draper was the main protagonist of Mad Men. He was an advertisement and marketing executive who had a lot of vices and did a lot of horrible things such as cheat on his wife and treat almost every women and colleagues like crap.

Dexter Morgan - Dexter

While Dexter might seem like the serial-killer killer, there are a lot of things about him which are unadmirable. He gaslights those he is close to so that they could get off his back, obstructs evidence pointing out to him, captures those who didn’t even fit his victims like Doakes and caused the deaths of LaGuerta, Rita and finally his sister Debra. Yeah I think you should stay away from him.

Walter White - Breaking Bad

Aaah..the worst of the worst. Walter White is the protagonist of the series Breaking Bad. He first starts off as a pushover high school teacher who isn’t respected by anyone. When he gets diagnosed with Lung Cancer, he gets into the meth business so that he could support his family, but we all know that it’s not true. He relishes on the power and glory from being a drug dealer and then kingpin and because of that he ends up abusing both Jesse and Skyler, emotionally abusing and selling out the former to the sadistic Nazis and raping the latter several times. He is so petty and spiteful that he kills anyone insulting his ego, just ask Mike. And even after all this, he still claims that it’s all for his family. Like what?

[dreaming-of-assclass]

Omg Reaper 2.0's misogyny? I'm intrigued LOL especially since I don't remember a lot of details about him. So if you'd be willing to spill the tea... 👀

Ok everyone buckle up, it’s tea spilling time 😌🍵

Meta: 2.0’s Misogyny and Views on Gender Roles/Sociology

⚠️ TW: child abuse, domestic abuse ⚠️

So the specific instance I think of is during the Reaper arc, when the kids are breaking in to save Irina. And they first come face to face with him, and have to engage in combat. He takes them down effortlessly, we all know.

But...there’s a moment in which he purposely hits Kayano especially hard with his knee, and believes he has broken her ribs. He callously remarks, “Females are so fragile.”

Let’s break this down:

A. Kayano is literally the smallest girl/student. She is very petite, and everyone knows this. It's obvious even when she's wearing their uniform.

B. He knocked down everyone so easily, but seemed to take a particular joy in brutalizing her. A petite girl.

C. Given that he's been watching the class, he must've known that she was actually stronger than she seemed. But again, I question this particular violence and the comment afterwards.

For a while, I thought maybe he had just said that to be cruel for no reason. To rile them up and be an asshole. I mean, it would be fitting, right?

No. I came to the eventual conclusion that this man is a misogynist, for sure. And there are indicators that Koro, his only role model, might bear some resentment towards women himself.

There's also proof in the way that he treated Irina, even when they were "allies." He seemed to really disrespect her and look at her like a joke, despite her accomplishments as an assassin. And whatever worth he did believe her to have, he only thought it came from her sexuality.

Like...why else was Irina dressed down to only lingerie in the arc? Because it was part of his plan, and he looked down on her and her profession.

Expanding the context a bit, it really also does prove how he looked down on women. He had Irina appear half-dressed, upset, and completely weak before she tricked everyone. The embodiment of female fragility, and how sexuality is tied into that. I hope this is making sense omg

Now, moving onto his past~

I really recommend you read this awesome meta by @akamayumura (sorry for the tag!!) They delved into his childhood and psychological state very well, in my opinion.

We can infer that 2.0 grew up in a terrible household, and that is an equal contribute to his behavior, as well as the possibility of him having an anti-social disorder. I mean, he was so happy to see his father get killed in front of him...

Not only that, but he literally romanticized the killer. In that moment, he didn't experience grief, but gained a rose-tinted view of death. He literally begged Koro to go with him and grow into someone like that.

Clearly, there was some psychological reason for this. But that isn't unordinary for abused children to feel, having such a disconnect. He didn't view it as his father being murdered, but rather: a person he hated finally leaving his life.

And then he gained loyalty for the person who was responsible -> The Reaper.

I cannot find it for the life of me, but there is apparently a moment in canon where 2.0 describes his father as "tyrannical."

And you know what?

Usually in a household with an abusive tyrannical father, there is a weak, complacent mother.

This is so interesting that we're on this topic now, because I just read a book detailed all about this. It's called "Men Who Hate Women, and the Women Who Love Them" by Susan Forward. Please read it omg, it's so good and informative on how misogyny is engrained in childhood, relationships, etc.

But yeah!

This exact dynamic is a formula for men who grow up to be misogynistic because their first example of a woman in their lives is their mother, who is the victim in an abusive dynamic.

Here are some pictures from the book to help explain.

^ 2.0’s hatred towards his father

^THIS.

Either 2.0 grew up having to provide emotional labor for his mother, or there was none at all between them. Overall though, there is a sense of resentment and abandonment given that the father was so dominating, and his mother was a victim too.

Men who lived in households like this, often grow up into believing that women are to be controlled, because this is the example they had to go by for so long.

On top of that, there's a layer of resentment and distrust towards women because his own mother didn't stand up for herself and protect him. Why would another woman do so?

But to sum it up:

2.0 believes women are weak, fragile, easily controlled, and cannot be trusted at all.

There's evidence in his attack on Kayano, and the way he treated Irina.

Ahem, also notice how he seemed to act more professional around Karasuma, and took him much more seriously. Like yeah, Karasuma is more serious, but why on Earth would one of the best assassins in the world regard a government agent over another top-notch assassin?

If Irina were a male assassin, I definitely think the treatment and attitude would be different honestly.

ALSO.

2.0 loves flowers, we know! But there's another reason why he possibly used a flower shop guy as his cover.

To easily manipulate women, the target customers of flowers.

Hmmmmmm.

Anyways, yeah, we can deduce that his misogyny was born from his childhood of having an abusive father and seeing his mother as a victim.

Not to mention, that he spent most of his life with Koro, who definitely didn't treat him to respect women lmao.

I actually feel like Koro has his own personal resentment towards women/femininity...but before I make a post about that, I'll have to do more research.

Anyways, we all knew 2.0 had dad issues, but there are a lot of mommy issues on top of that.

This isn't me trying to cancel him or anything btw! He's still one of my favorite characters, I love him. I just find this characteristic of his to be pretty interesting and worth diving into. (Although I will admit, that Kayano rib scene upsets me a bit.)

So yeah! Hope you enjoyed this meta! And I hope this tea is hot enough 🍵🍵🍵

[taylorrsmind]

what i thought about fear street  1666 (TW! Spoilers)

I loved the 1666, but the 1978 is still the best. Besides, a quick question, I don't know if I didn't get everything right because I only watched 1666 twice so far, but if Nick had already delivered the current generation's serial killer (Ryan Torres), why did he name Sam? because you see, Ziggy wasn't possessed, she of course lived scared to death, traumatized and all, but she didn't become a serial killer, her name didn't end in the cave rocks, after all, she was “free”. Why Nick would conjure Sam's name so early when no one would question after Kate and Simon died and took the blame from everything that happened? Why send a note saying "it's happening again" to Christine when he was the reason it was happening? Other than that, Nick didn't deliver much as a villain lol. I don't think it's the actor because he was well as a Soloman, I think it's because we don't see his villainization(is that a word?)? Like, I've been suspicious of him since 1994, but it doesn't show him being actively evil in any of the movies, just that scene of him conjuring the names and the ending a few minutes before his death with Deena, but I couldn't worry or be scared, you know? I expected him to try to justify himself or something until the cave scene, I didn't feel vilification(again, is that a word?) in the character and i think I should because he's literally responsible for everyone's deaths, he’s the big bad wolf, the true monster under the bed.From 1994 to 1666 I could guess he was shady af but it gave me more “anti hero thats gonna sacrifice himself in the end/// doesn’t want to be a part of this////is a puppet and has no idea what’s actually going on” and what I got was “Good is Evil or whatever” like even when he was talking abt his family, which wasn’t much he should have talked about that, his character should have appeared more, I think it would have been nice if maybe a moralization of the character in that scene where he's chasing Deena, like "Oh, my family has been doing this for years, my brother and mother are important to me, my blood is sealed to the devil since I was a baby Sunnyvale's safety is the most important thing, I do this for peace" very lunatic and a tyrannical even, wich does not in any way justify his actions, but who adds content to him as a villain, especially in a trilogy that had two great movies with horrifying killers and deaths. It just fell flat to me, for the big bad guy to barely even have good action, scarry scenes. 

Even his relationship with Ziggy was a bit thrown, the importance he gave her was there for no particular reason, just to make the audience think he's nice and in love and surprise us in the end, which didn't work and it's a tactic I hate, the old trick of wanting to outsmart the audience, something Gossip Girl, Game of Thrones and Pretty Little Liars made me completely despise. I 1000000% prefer a structured and predictable outcome than something that will blow my mind for its lack of sense and meaning. ALSO I wouldnt be bothered if Nick was just evil to the core with no debpt whatsoever. Hell, most Sunnyvalers are! But the thing is that, by trying to outsmart the audience and try to lead us into believing Nick is a good guy, the writer (s) ruled that possibility out. You show him puking at seeing kids dying, him confessing how he didn’t want the “Goode” burden to fall of his back but he had no choice, putting Ziggy’s life over his well being, bringing Christine back to life, warning her about the monsters he’s sending to her town and even showing emotion when seeing her after a long time. NOTHING I said would make Nick any less of a monster who should rot in hell, but it clearly shows several colors and divergency on his way of thinking. And like I said, the writers could have given us evil Nick that played Ziggy’s heart and the entire Shadyside, but it doesn’t add up with all of that, at the same time all of that also don’t add up with the Nick we saw on 1666. If this movies were shot in different periods of time and not at once like it was I would say it was because the writers didn’t know who the bad guy truly was.

I won’t get into this, but someone important should’ve died. Like, bring the nurse back to avenge her daughter. Kill Ziggy (the idea of sacrificing Ziggy and Nick at the end ugh the waste). Kill somebody. This is a horror movie, nobody died. Yall could kill black and asian extras. Yall killed my sister Cindy, but couldn’t kill Ziggy? It made sense, she’d reunite with her sister! 

Anyway, I know it sounded like I hated the movie but I REALLY LOVED IT. The actors were all great, the chemistry was there, and although I wish we’d seen more of Sam than just her “ghrghrghrhr” until the very end, I loved how both queer main characters were alive in the end, and how they paid respect for Kate and Simon and how Sara was considered the very first Shadysider (although it was pastor Miller sksks). I loved seeing Simon and Kate’s face there again although it wasn’t really them. I loved that Sarah wasn’t the big bad wolf although I saw it coming and would love to see female rage (like that scene where she was like “If they want a witch, they’ll get a witch gave me chills) but like I said, I prefer prediction than disappointment and I wasn’t (disappointed)with that. 

THE END SCENE GOT ME EXCITED I HOPE THEY MAKE MORE OF THOSE BUT AT A DIFFERENT TIME SINCE LIKE THE BOOK WAS STOLEN. Also Cindy is my favorite character she legit showed up on flashbacks once and I cried.

My ranking, for now:

1. fear street 1978 (the best 2021 movie i fear i watched the entire week and made everyone i know watch it too)

2. fear street 1994

3. fear street 1666

i dont this there’s any bad movie on this trilogy btw. all great. 

[jennathearcher]

🖊

Send me a “🖊+an OC“ and I will talk about that OC! It can be a headcanon, a fun fact, a small paragraph of backstory- anything!

Alternatively, send in just a “🖊“ and I will talk about any one of my OCs at random!

OHOHO who to pick who to pick

who am I kidding it’s gotta be Niko :P my serial killer baby~

So his full name is Nikita Ivanovich Prostov, he’s Russian; as far as I can tell for sure in terms of his background (thus far), he was born to Russian immigrants who settled in America, he speaks both Russian and English fluently and dabbles in several other languages, and he’s maintained a Russian accent despite spending most of his life in America

I haven’t properly named any of his family members (aside from his father, obviously, named Ivan), but they are all important figures in his backstory. For most of Niko’s life, his household was run by his maternal grandmother, the overbearing and borderline tyrannical matriarch of the family. His mother enabled the abuse and often participated in it, meanwhile his more passive father simply stood by and allowed it to happen. His older brother also became a bully and an abuser, while his younger sister was too young to really fully understand the situation and tended to isolate herself as a result.

I’m still kind of working on what Niko’s “inciting incident” was, something must have happened in his family history that directly contributed to the events that followed, but he hasn’t revealed to me what that was yet :P All I know for sure is that when he was 16 years old, he got into an altercation with his grandmother that resulted in him “accidentally” pushing her down the stairs, resulting in her death.

This was the inevitably tipping point for Niko, as he had his first taste of being responsible for the death of another person, and he chose the path he would take throughout the rest of his life; especially once his mother seemingly effortlessly stepped into the role her own mother had left behind.

In the weeks and months following his grandmother’s death, Niko began to formulate a plan, one that he put into action one fateful night. He took advantage of the fact that his father, in his cowardice, planned on abandoning the family, and struck on the same night he had planned to leave.

Niko was still young, and experimenting with different methods of killing to figure out what worked best for him. He waited for his father down the road from their house, where he cornered him and killed him with a crossbow. Then, he made his way back to the house, where he dispatched the rest of his family -- his mother, whom he strangled, his little sister, whom he drowned in the bathtub (this is the only kill he still regrets to this day, knowing that she was innocent and he killed her out of fear and cowardice), and his older brother, whom he stabbed to death. The stabbing ended up becoming his go-to M.O., and he set the house on fire before disappearing into the wilderness.

Now, Niko is something of a nomadic grifter, travelling from state to state and keeping a low profile. He just WATCHES people, and selects his victims at random. He’ll observe his chosen target from afar and stalk them, until he catches them at their most vulnerable moments and strikes them down.

Because Niko is so starved for affection and touch, he often lays down beside his victims after killing them until their bodies are cold, at which point he disposes of them.

As you can probably tell, I drew a lot of inspiration from classic slashers for Niko, especially Michael Myers :P I actually started developing him and got the inspo for him after seeing the new Scream movie XD I’ve lowkey been wanting to talk about him, especially to my horror-loving mutuals (shoutout to @malhare and @artificialqueer in particular, as well as the lovely person who sent me this ask :P thank you so much my dear!!) because all things considered Niko is kind of “vanilla” as far as serial killer OCs go XD Because he is a sad, lonesome boy and ends up stalking, kidnapping, and eventually romancing a final girl, who is one of my boyfriend’s OCs 8D

[fixielixie]

in my completely biased opinion, out of all the mxtx villain discourse, the one i think who would not only the most redeemable but who would also be the most interesting if so, is shen jiu. like i said, my opinion is completely biased because i think shen jiu is already so interesting as the awful bastard that he already is, so i also like to sit around and think "would it be possible for shen jiu to be Less awful than he is, maybe get him up to the bare minimum of decent." and because i spend so much time thinking about it, yes i do think its possible.

the reason why i think shen jiu is the most redeemable outta the mxtx villains (tho tbh im not as invested in tgcf so feel free to fight me) is because the likes of jiang cheng and xue yang are just like fundamentally shitty people. like from birth they were always kinda shitty and it just got worse as they got older. and i dont think theyd be much fun if there were 'good' people, actually no i do think xue yang would be completely unhinged no matter what, i just dont care about him enough to give it much thought so hence, /biased/ opinion.

shen jiu is also predisposed to being a little fucking shit, even in childhood and i think it has nothing to do with his awful living situation. hes the type of kid who would see that you want to play with a toy and specifically chose that one to make you cry and then try to kid!gaslight you like "you only wanted it because i was looking at it youre not allowed to cry about it!!!!"

but i think in a more stable environment, as in, not growing up in slavery, shen jiu could learn to be a somewhat decent person. you know the kind of endearing anti-hero whos still an asshole but not really. like a lot of his major faults come from growing up as a slave and then thinking he was abandoned and then having a literal serial killer as a teacher and finally being caught murdering students by the guy he thought abandoned him. like im surprised it only took luo binghe having a mother and being a good kid for him to become full out tyrannical. like before lbh he was just a Shitty Guy that no one liked, but lbh came around and triggered every part of his nasty little brain and was like "fuck this kid in particular, im sending him to hell."

i think theres a lot of moments in shen jius life that could have changed him from "awful nasty child abuser who enjoys inflicting pain on literal helpless children out of his own pettiness and jealousy" to "he's okay... i guess". i mean, the most obvious would be qi-ge somehow breaking him out of slavery or finding him quicker or yanno speaking to him. because i think knowing that the one person he cared about in the world didnt forget about him would have mellowed him out just a little.

[defensefilms]

Defense Films Lists His Favorite TV Characters Of All Time

5. Chris Partlow- The Wire

The ending of The Wire paints Chris Partlow as something closer to a serial killer. 

He wasn’t. None of his hits were done out of pleasure, curiosity or even impulse. Every one of those bodies helped the Stanfield organization become what they became, even the one on Michael’s stepdad.

What Chris represents is reliability and capability. The ultimate “get shit done” guy. Out of all the characters on the show, none were more dependable or crucial to the success of the institution they served. 

Lester Freeman was capable but not a good politician and ultimately a nuisance to his superiors. Bill Rawls was incredibly capable at his job but he was power hungry and ambitious. In season 5, Gus Haynes is the most capable man in the news office but the problem was that Gus questioned authority and didn’t “go with the flow” when the office decided the paper needed a “refreshing” of how they cover the local news.

Chris didn’t have any of these handicaps impeding the people he served.

He recruits the foot soldiers for the Stanfield crew, even training them himself and Marlo had something akin to a small army at his disposal as a result. He organized his sub-ordinates, handled all surveillance when Marlo’s crew was under investigation at the start of season 5 and took care of incoming shipments after they established a direct line to the Greeks. 

When the task required finesse or subtlety, like the time he stole Sergey’s picture from the court office, he was more than capable of that too. When Marlo is questioning how to address the murder of one of his dealers, he listens to Chris and chooses to retaliate on the perpetrator directly rather than targeting everyone on his corner. 

Marlo truly comes to rely on Chris in matters concerning Omar Little. Every step of how Marlo wants to get back at the near mythical larcenist, is first passed by Chris. Chris takes this as his number one job throughout the show. Anything concerning Omar is handled with brutal efficiency, tact and an almost out ouf place  sense of professional pride. 

That’s Chris’ most endearing quality. Through all the blood, guts, scheming, lying, betrayal that comprises Baltimore’s underworld, all of which Chris is very much a part of, he has a pride in how he approaches the day to day business aspects of what he does. 

Stringer Bell is arguably the best second-in-command in the show’s run but he was dishonest, ultimately harming the survival of the institution he served and damn near going rogue. 

Chris doesn’t share such qualities as blind ambition or selfishness. He understands that trust is all he has in this game. When the indictments eventually come down and Chris is facing a life sentence he doesn’t complain or even raise the possibility of turning state witness. Instead he ends up on the yard along side Wee-Bay. Marlo in turn makes sure that Chris’ people are taken care of financially.

Many of the men that serve in the various institutions depicted in the show could learn a thing from Chris Partlow. When the time came, he fell on his sword and did so in full acknowledgement that this is where it all leads. There’s a kind of honor in that.

4. Tony Soprano- The Sopranos

One of the biggest misconceptions about The Sopranos was that it was a story about a gangster. It wasn’t, or at the very least, that would be an over-simplification of what the story actually contained.

What it was was a story about a man and his family, both biological and criminal. That’s the tie the binds all of the story’s narratives together.

Another way of looking at Tony’s story is one of leadership. Having ousted his Uncle Junior from the seat of power, season 2 and onwards, as far Tony’s criminal life is concerned, focuses on what happens once you get to the top. 

While the show’s creators gave you plenty of grizzly, violent scenes, what leads to those is the story of a man struggling and failing at leadership. 

In every season, Tony has to deal with a problematic figure, employee or subordinate. 

Season 1 was his Uncle and the idea of old fashioned leadership. Then in season 2 it was the ever-acerbic Richie Aprile, representing a generation older than Tony’s, that still feels entitled to something. Seasons 3 and 4 gave us Ralph Cifaretto, the only one among the men I’m mentioning that actually earns his status and then in season 5, it was his cousin Tony Blundetto.

Each of these problems is uniquely stressful for Tony because of how they pull at the threads of both his family and criminal life. With the exception of his Uncle Junior, he kills all of them.

By that metric, Tony is in fact a very poor leader. 

He doesn’t really deal with the Richie Aprile problem because his sister beats him to it. He doesn’t willingly promote Ralph Cifaretto even though Ralph earns it and is the only one among the candidates with any real intellect and business savvy. In both the cases of Christopher Moltisanti and cousin Tony Blundetto, Tony allows favoritism and nepotism to cloud his judgement and ironically both those men die at Tony Soprano’s hands.

This paints a picture of a tyrannical man, slowly devouring everything around him because he’s got to be in control. Worse yet, his need to be in control doesn’t actually lead to smarter long term decisions or better people management.

Tony’s relationship with Ralph in particular is built on professional envy. He feels entitled to Ralph’s race horse winnings because “why should his subordinate benefit more from anything than he does?”. He then proceeds to take ownership of the racehorse itself without assuming any of the costs of owning the animal. Then to top it off, he steals Ralph’s girlfriend purely because he has the status to do it, even digging in to Ralph’s personal life in order to justify doing so.

Textbook mismanagement. Every type of managerial violation you could imagine.

So how does Tony handle it when an employee is actually being a problem on a criminal/business level?

He rewards Tony Blundetto’s deception after the Joey Peeps killing by letting him run an already profitable gambling joint. He promotes Christopher to “made guy” even with his drug problems being well known, and he promotes Bobby Baccalieri, partly at his sister’s behest and partly out of spite.

 It was fun to watch on screen but you’d hate to work for Tony Soprano.

How does that translate to his family? What kind of leader is Tony at home?

Season 3 does well at examining Tony as a father/paternal figure starting with his relationship with Jackie Jr, which is built on concern at first. Then later it starts to make Tony anxious. Before Tony decides to push nature towards taking it’s course, when Jackie runs afoul of men in Tony’s charge.

His relationship with AJ is also a bigger part of the show as the seasons go and it’s not much better in as far as the leadership or guidance that Tony offers. We can waffle on about AJ’s failings as a spoilt teenager but the real problem is that Tony doesn’t see himself in AJ. 

That’s the first step to any failure of leadership. An inability to find common ground or identify with the people you’re leading.

We won’t go in to how hypocritical it is because the entire way that Tony entered the mob life is because he himself was a mob prince and his father’s status definitely paved the way for him. 

Hypocrisy. That’s the other key to failure in leadership. 

All these negatives added up to make the most fascinating television character in over 20 years. A constant stream of contradictions and watching a man say one thing but do another was it’s own experience and you didn’t realize what a horrible human being you were watching until you saw the show over and over again. A scary observation that implies people are either blind or really comfortable with evil and narcissistic behaviour.

3. Noah Solloway- The Affair

Out of all the characters on this list, this one was hurt most by writers hitting a ceiling in how much they could say about the character or how much they wanted to say.  Divorced men don’t really have that much representation, so if you’re writing a character that so strongly linked to that one particular event in his life, you may hit a ceiling if you don’t actually have real life examples to work with.

They had the right actor, the right story and it was the right time in human history to tell this story, it just felt like they didn’t follow through on really speaking on the plight or rise of guys in Noah’s situation.

Anytime I watched The Affair, and unlike most, I was pretty loyal to it despite what reviews told me, I identified with Noah. All those other characters didn’t make sense to me the way Noah did.

The story begins with my man being stuck in a rut, the kind of middle age funk  married men tend to fall in to, so he drives out to visit some folks and while he’s there he happens to meet a baddie. Story of every man’s life. Only he does what you’re not supposed to do and sacrifices everything he has so he can be with the bad-bad. 

Then my mans starts popping off with his book writing, gets a publishing deal and in his 40′s, he starts achieving his highest career peaks. See this is important because it shows that the writers understood the subject matter really well, as well as the demographic they were talking about.

Then the next season, they go in to some murder mystery plot, Noah ends up in jail somehow, almost as if the writers and producers didn’t feel confident that they could tell Noah’s story without the theatrics/murder mystery element. 

The other danger that the writers probably didn’t want to indulge was rewarding the character with any kind of happy ending or positive outcome. Noah’s infidelity serves as the jumping off point to all of the story’s unfolding plots, mostly depicting the impact on the lives of his immediate family, a handful of which play out in sad dramatic fashion. So the writers likely felt like Noah couldn’t win at the end. 

In the 1930′s when gangster films were first being made, they would commonly feature PSA messages at the start warning against criminal behaviour. 1931′s “Little Caesar” starring Edward G Robinson, features a warning at the end that makes it clear the film’s producers and writers needed the character to go down in flames at the end, to prove the moral point that “crime doesn’t pay”. 

A writer’s moral obligation and the times in which they live can lead some to write the ending that makes a moral point rather than writing the most dramatic or honest ending. I think Noah Solloway kind of suffered from this.

I don’t know. 

There was a chance to explore modern men in a way that most stories fail to. They had the foundation. They knew enough about who and what they’re talking about. However it didn’t manifest in the telling of the story. 

I’m not saying Noah needed a positive ending, it’s just that the one we got was not the most fitting nor did it wind up ending the story honestly or even dramatically.

Noah Solloway should have got the Tony Soprano treatment in as far as how much the writers explored his inner world but instead the show’s creators decided it didn’t matter. They didn’t answer the question of why this happens to modern men.

If nothing else Noah Solloway can be a blueprint or foundation for those telling this story in the future.

 2. Ciro Di Marizio- Gomorrah

About as slimy and as low down as a television character can possibly be. Ciro represents Machiavellian criminality pushed to it’s extremes. 

When writers plot a character’s trajectory, they often fill it with moments that make the character more endearing. Exploring the relationship the character may have with a child, friend or spouse that makes you see the character’s more genuine/compassionate/likeable side. The writers of Gomorrah did plenty of that with Ciro.

However, they didn’t hesitate to show you just how off-the-rails and downright evil Ciro could be. 

What’s funny is that Ciro is defined by loyalty and servitude when the story begins. He is a capable captain and rises to 2nd in command when the Savastano family needs him to. However the death of his close friend and mentor changes him for the worse and he goes ham. 

What follows is betrayal and Ciro basically masterminding a coup of the Savastano clan but the levels of paranoia that his new found power push him to, make him question whether it was all worth it. The world burns around him and a kind of justice is restored when Gennaro is able to take back power and restore the Savastano name. 

That’s one aspect of the show that Ciro truly exemplifies in that he rises to the top but the throne never truly feels like it’s his.

He is Iago-like in his ability to understand the weaknesses of people around him. He proves himself more cunning, capable, strategic, murderous and even business-minded than almost every other character. Every character except for Pietro Savastano (the man he betrays) and Gennaro Savastano. 

The show goes to great lengths to put forth the idea that crime families in Naples are on the same level as the pope. True modern day monarchies. Royal families that have the power to benefit or harm anyone around them. People bow their heads to them when they walk in public and use reverential terms when addressing them. They will often have salons, jewelers  or restaurants cleared out so they can enjoy the establishment in ostentatious privacy. 

When you look at it like that, Ciro was always an outsider. The difference between just sitting on the throne and being born of the throne. 

In that way maybe Ciro’s story is about redemption. 

He eventually sides with Gennaro Savastano again, helping him get his wife and daughter back after they’re kidnapped. He does this by essentially lying to/duping a crew of young dealers from Florence to fund this hostage rescue and then he offers himself as a sacrifice when the Florentines demand blood.

At his best Ciro served the clan and went to great lengths to restore what he had destroyed. 

1. Marlo Stanfield- The Wire

Is there any greater?

Sure there are characters like Tony Soprano whose world and whose inner thoughts the audience gets more familiar and intimate with. Within the same shared universe as Marlo is a character like Stringer Bell and the writers of the Wire go to great lengths to understand and convey his moral conflict as a drug kingpin turned wannabe real estate tycoon. 

Marlo is something purer though. 

You don’t need to know his inner-most thoughts like Tony because his utmost desire is simple, he wants to be the top kingpin of Baltimore. What more do you want?

He does not share Stringer’s moral complexity because unlike Stringer he is not conflicted at all. He’s not a drug dealer playing businessman, he’s just a drug dealer and that’s all he ever wanted to be.

From the start of season 3, it was fascinating watching this man move about on the screen with a confidence reserved for the richest and most talented. Indeed Marlo proves he has both in bundles. 

He outwits the older drug kingpin in Stringer Bell by maintaining independence from the Co-Op. He matches Avon Barksdale’s war effort step-for-step after Avon comes home from prison. He outsmarts the wily, Proposition Joe in order to learn how to launder his money and then get access to the Greeks.

It was fascinating watching Marlo avoid pitfalls, monopolize Baltimore, out-think his older counterparts and grow his empire to the scope that he did. 

There’s a youtube video that compiled all of Marlo’s scenes from his 3 seasons on The Wire and it pretty much plays like a feature film. Watch it here if you dig Marlo as much as I do.

You’re not watching a drug dealer become a kingpin, or at the very least that’s what I believe. It has more to do with watching the younger generation upset the order, and in a lot of ways that’s what Marlo represents. From the moment Marlo shows up, all old agreements are null and void. He does this over and over again throughout his story. Constantly upsetting the order and establishing his own. 

Indeed Marlo isn’t aware that this is what he’s doing. He’s acting on ambition, arrogance and naivety. 

It speaks volumes that most of the characters on this list have on-screen relationships that explore their personalities, like the aforementioned Ciro’s relationship with his daughter. Marlo has none of that.

Marlo’s most revealing relationship is his rivalry with Omar Little, a man he only ever encounters once. The continuation of their feud happens because Marlo refuses to let any perceived slight towards him slide. One way of looking at what this shows is that Marlo is both egoist and perfectionist, the latter of which is actually very prized personality traits in today’s business environment. The combination of the two is actually commonly seen among CEO’s and top executives.

Marlo shows every weakness and drawback of youth while exposing the follies of the more seasoned and experienced in his field. A walking contradiction in that way.

[gohyuck]

↠ lee jeno; assassin in the thirteen colonies, year 1776

the brotherhood: guide

pairing: assassin!lee jeno x reader; based on assassin’s creed

genre: fluff, angst, suggestive (explicit allusions to sex)

word count: 4.5k

warnings: minor characters die, kidnapping, descriptions of murder

"i would rather die on my feet than live on my knees.”

↳ personality: you don’t think it’s possible to meet a more honest person. you also don’t think it’s possible to meet a more gentle person. last of all, and perhaps the most critical characteristic he has, you don’t think it’s earthly possible to find anyone as damn impulsive as him. frankly - and you mull over this constantly - it’s easy to forget that jeno is a killer, perhaps because he is anything but cold-blooded.

he’s the most hot-blooded person you know. passion is the undercurrent for all of his actions - a passion, specifically, for humanity. all that jeno does is to preserve humanity - that of others’, that of himself. he is honest, he is kind, he is sturdy, he is stoic, he is courageous, and he leaves change in his wake, running into fires to salvage even ashes if he can. jeno thanks every deer he slays, paying them homage for their pelt, their bones, their meat. jeno, believing far more in his own ancestors than in religion, prays for the souls of every bastard Englishman he kills, for them to find their respective gods, to find their unholy souls, and make peace in the next world with what they were unable to do so in this one.

he’s hot-blooded about the pursuit of his mother’s killers, knowing only that they’re not part of the brotherhood of assassins, knowing only that they’re part of the other side. jeno, gentle and kind jeno who wraps his arms around your waist from behind when he returns from missions, who plucks you flowers from the field beside to your home because he thinks they look pretty behind your ears, grits his teeth and clenches his jaw whenever he speaks of avenging his mother. you’re not allowed to accompany him on missions, of course - he makes it abundantly clear that he cannot lose you - but when he comes home, white robes soaked in red and tomahawk - a gift from the Mohawk tribe settled near you - dripping blood all over your floors, you can’t help but wonder how hot-blooded jeno is when slitting bad men’s throats or impaling them on their own muskets.

outside of the four walls of your home, his passion for humanity manifests in murder, in relaying letters for the sons of liberty, in pouring tea into the boston harbor. jeno’s slowly becoming a symbol of resistance against the british, and while it isn’t his goal, you know leading the colonies to victory is written in the stars for him. it’s why you let him go every time, even when he comes back to you riddled with slashes, stabbed in the side or in the arm, grazed by bullets and covered in gunpowder burns. it’s why you stay with him through the long nights, wincing to yourself when he cries out at your attempts to keep him infection free. the colonists only want to be free, he tells you when you ask of him, of his passion. shouldn’t everyone be free? he lives up to his morals in all aspects as well, freeing captured members of Native American tribes as well as doing his best to speak out against the rampant slavery that occurs amongst the same people who believe in their own right to be free.

jeno is nothing if not fair.

inside of your home, he gives you a new meaning to hot-blooded. you can only describe it as being utterly and absolutely ravished - his arms caging you against the bed you share, tongue laving gently over the numerous bruises he’d harshly sucked into your skin moments prior. there’s no lack of stamina with jeno - even after the longest of missions he comes home, energized and shaking with adrenaline, waiting for you to allow him to take it out on you. his palms are rough, so very rough, but his fingers are nimble when he strips you bare of clothes, when he enters three into you to make sure you can take him. whether he’s feeling benevolent, or loving, or gentle, it does not matter - jeno always pounds you into the mattress until you only know his name, until it’s the only word that falls from your lips.

jeno loves humanity. it’s why he fights so hard for everyone’s freedom. jeno loves you. it’s why he’s always gentle with you in the aftermath of him, all loving kisses and breakfast in bed. when he’s with you, when he watches you go over the homestead’s books from the doorway of your study or allows you to sit in on his training, when he bathes with you in the nearby stream and teaches you how to skin a deer cleanly, when he asks you to read to him with his head in your lap as you stroke his hair, all is well. it’s a shame he isn’t with you often.

↳ origin: he’d been not but 8 when it had happened. his mother had never hid anything from him, instilling the belief that there is nothing greater, nor more sacred, than the truth. jeno knew from the moment he gained true cognizance that his father was not korean like his mother was - he was a british government official who’d happened to fall for his mother while landing near her village for work. she’d followed him to the young british colonies on the continent everyone was coming to know as ‘america’. 

she’d always believed that jeno’s father was a good man. jeno, armed with the innocence only children can have, believed the same. even after he abandoned them readily, leaving a 1 year old jeno and his mother to fend for themselves in the woods while going back to his own new home in boston, she relayed stories of his heroics to her son. even after it all, jeno held onto the belief that people are inherently good. 

it wasn’t until british soldiers burned down the settlement of the Mohawk tribe that had taken jeno and his mother, until jeno was dragged, kicking and screaming, away from his mother’s asphyxiated corpse, that he realized he’d been wrong, that his mother had been wrong. the redcoats were inherently terrible, tyrannical. jeno’s father, not only amongst them but in a position of power as well, was a bad, bad man. 

it wasn’t until he lost everything he had that he realized just how much he had to lose. 

it’s then that he decides that, someday, when he has power, he will do everything he can to fight for justice and for freedom. he does not want anymore little boys losing their mothers for no other reason than oppressors seeing them as unfit for life. the moment he turns 14 - a strapping young man, shoulders broad but heavy with the weight of the world - he leaves the rebuilt Mohawk settlement, being sent on his way by the tribe mother with only a name: achilles davenport, master assassin. it’s at davenport’s homestead that he learns the ways of the assassin brotherhood, the ways of the other side - known as templars. assassins fight for freedom. templars - many of them living as british officials and redcoats - fight for complete control. 

jeno never has to think about where he stands. 

↳ the starting line: jeno only meets you in his 20s, when you run away from your house in new york and make your way to the frontier to create yourself a home. you’re practically passing out while trying to chop wood while he’s heading back to the homestead with a clean kill for dinner. as you stand up to wipe the sweat off your brow with a grimy hand, you meet his eyes, dark and completely unreadable.

jeno is never seen unless he wants to be seen. you don’t know this yet, but someday you will. 

“do you need help?” he asks, already setting the dead deer down and sheathing his knife in the small scabbard at his hip. there’s a bow and a quiver full of arrows both slung over his shoulders, but as he nears you he pulls them off as well. you don’t say anything until he’s right in front of you, holding out his weapons for you to take. 

equal exchange: he trusts you to hold his things if you trust him with your axe.

you take them. 

“you’re peter, aren’t you? from the homestead? i’m (name).” you finally ask as you hand him your weapon. he raises an eyebrow before scoffing slightly, grabbing the axe’s handle easy as he does. 

“jeno is my given name, actually. peter is the name i use when i’m amongst the colonists.”

“and why is that?” you step back, just as he arcs the axe over his head. you watch, in awe, as he splits the tree trunk cleanly in half before pushing it off of the block you have it on with the side of the metal. he picks up another piece of wood from the pile you’d been going through before setting it down. 

“’peter’ sounds more natural here than jeno, don’t you think? wouldn’t want to call attention to myself.” he has an air of finality as he speaks this time, and you decide not to prod him. instead, you sit back, hands gripping onto his bow and arrows as you watch him break pieces of wood with ease under the evening sun. you can’t help but notice the way his shirt clings to his muscles as his sweat slowly seeps through the thin material, outlining the ridges of his abs and the bulges of his biceps. 

it’s the first time you see jeno, but it isn’t anywhere near the last. 

you become close friends over the next few years, with jeno eventually allowing you to be privy to his life as an assassin when you find him, bleeding from a gash in his arm in your living room one night, after returning from dinner with a friend’s. you demand to know what he’s doing - why he’s in a blue and white robe, why he has a tomahawk strapped to his chest and a rope dart in his hands - and why he’s so badly hurt, and he finds that he can’t keep you in the dark anymore, not when you care so deeply for him and when he cares even more deeply for you. 

it’s as you straddle him, eyes focused and teeth sinking into your bottom lip while you clean his wound, that jeno realizes that he’s finally gained something - someone - personal to fight for. you can’t ignore the way his soft gaze is fixed on your face, or how his large hands rest gently against your waist. once you’re done dressing his arm, you look down at him and slowly, very slowly, lower your lips to meet his. 

it’s unspoken, but he’s yours and you’re his from then on. 

↳ i would rather die on my feet...: it’s been years since you’ve been together, but the majority of jeno’s things are still at davenport’s homestead even as he sleeps in the bed in your house at night. you do not mind this - he keeps you separate from where he plans most of his missions for a reason. 

he wants to be able to come home to you, to press soft kisses your forehead and feel you bury you face in his chest as you breathe him in. jeno does work for the good of all humanity, but sometimes he feels as if he would give everything up just to have a quiet life with you. these emotions are strongest in the passing scenes of his life that are difficult for him to dwell on due to a lack of time: times when your bare body is asleep and curled into the side of his own naked form, times when you drag him out to dance in fields and laugh with him as he cooks for you. he knows you hurt when he’s gone, because he hurts when he’s gone too. jeno is thoroughly convinced that he only needs your smile to stay alive. 

with a love like yours, it’s inevitable that sometime tries to tear it apart at the seams. 

it happens when he’s out on a mission: paul revere needs aid - and a horseman - in delivering news to the people. your knowledge of the intricacies or whatever jeno is embarking on tonight is sparse, as always, and you let him leave after he spends a night mumbling promises into your skin that say that he’ll come back home to you, as always. it’s always jeno who goes out, who risks his life for the collective. it’s always jeno who’s in danger.

it’s why, when you hear your front door pull open while you’re in the kitchen, you rush out excitedly, not thinking it could be anyone but the love of your life. it’s why, in your shock at seeing 4 men with glittering ruby red rings centered with silver crosses - the telltale mark of the templar - you’re rendered unable to move. it’s why they’re able to subdue you - you, a scrappy runaway who can at the very least wield a simple blade - without much effort, succeeding in forcefully covering your head with a bag and dragging you, kicking and screaming, into what you realize is a portable jail once you come to your senses. you’re stuck into what’s essentially a glorified cage on top of what you think is a wagon, and as you feel the men’s sneers on you and hear their jeering laughs, you can’t help but think of one thing.

may God turn a blind eye when jeno finds those responsible for this.

when you reach what’s evidently your destination, you’re pulled roughly from your imprisonment, snagging the cage while almost blindly tripping and falling to the ground. you regain your footing just in time although a part of your dress has ripped, but that doesn’t stop whoever is behind you to continue shoving you forward with abandon. you try to take note of what you can - running your hands over the side of what must be a building when they shove you into it to see what it’s made out of, trying to get a sense of the smell in the air. you’ve never been helpless - you know how to hunt, how to fight, how to care for yourself and protect yourself - so you almost immediately set about taking stock of important information that can be gleaned by your remaining senses. you eventually stop walking, only hearing the distinct clink of a key and a door being unlocked before you’re shoved unceremoniously onto a smooth, rocky floor. they lock the door again immediately, and as their footsteps recede you realize that you’re stuck tied up and blindfolded, no explanation afforded to you. you can only assume that they want jeno, although you have a feeling they don’t know what they will get in return. 

all you can do is wait. 

↳ ...than live on my knees.: jeno knows that something is wrong before he even crosses the threshold of the front door. 

he’d stopped by the homestead first to update achilles on the state of the brewing trouble - redcoats had come by sea, forcing jeno to cart revere all over the colonies to let people know of this. jeno knows there’s still much to be done - not even battles have truly been won yet, let alone the war. still, even though he can’t afford to rest, he finds himself craving time with you. leaving you is gut-wrenching, but coming back is the easiest thing in the world. 

so once he’s done briefing achilles, he goes straight home. jeno hasn’t shed his robes yet, hasn’t cleaned his weapons. he isn’t easily exhausted, but his feet ache almost as much as his heart does, and all he wants is to lie down with you, pull you to his chest, and talk about the stars or about your interactions with people down at the pub you help out at or about the family of raccoons you’d seen while taking a stroll. being with you is like a dream he doesn’t enjoy being taken out of.

he’s jarred awake when he sees that your front door is very, very slightly ajar. jeno’s mind goes into overdrive immediately, but he steels his nerves as he takes stock of everything around him: aside from the door being open, the grass is kicked up from the bottom of your porch to what look like wheel indents in the dirt. there’d been a struggle. he gingerly approaches your door and, upon pushing it open, breath hitched, he sees a chair overturned. there’s a basket of vegetables upended on the floor, and in his mind’s eye jeno can see you, small grin on your face, walking out of the kitchen mid-dinner preparation to give him a proper welcome home. 

for a moment, he thinks the rage consuming him might kill him - that it might stop his heart and shut him down completely. the fear that overrides him brings his breathing back, though it’s fast and choppy and impossible to follow. 

he has to find you. it’s his fault - his existence, his connection to you - that your arms aren’t around his waist right now, that he isn’t pressing kisses along your hairline at this exact moment. he has to find you, and he has to make this right. 

jeno doesn’t bother cleaning his weapons before he walks right back outside, eyes glinting in smothered anger. his hands are fists, blunt nails digging into his skin and drawing forth blood. the stinging in his palms doesn’t affect him - his mind is on one track, and one track only. he doesn’t bother cleaning his weapons, knowing full well that he’ll be putting them to use again soon. 

it takes him no time at all to track down where you are - there only one wagon wheel manufacturer in boston, and he’s well-aware of how their wheels look. he’s sure - entirely sure - that you’ve been taken by templars; jeno has no reason to believe otherwise. he can’t stand the fact that they’ve managed to hit him where it hurts most.

he can only take comfort in the fact that they have no idea what they’re up against.

by luck alone, it’s a new moon when he gets to you a day later, and jeno finds it even easier than usual to camouflage himself amongst the trees outside the redcoat fort he’s staking out. he’s already taken note of the wagon and cage that are on his right, his eyes having honed in on the piece of cloth stuck - he recognizes it from one of your dresses - to the cage’s hinge. there are numerous redcoats on watch, but jeno, his mind sharply focused on one thing and one thing only, finds clarity in his decision-making tonight.

he trails the perimeter, hidden amongst trees, until he finds a guard that’s about his stature. it takes little effort at all to pull the redcoat into bushes with a hand on his mouth, and it takes even less work than that for jeno to jab his hidden blade into the other man’s throat from behind, leaving him to asphyxiate on his own gurgling blood. jeno lets him die, not bothering to pray for his victim for the first time ever. instead, he’s as cold as steel as he strips the newly dead man, changing into the red uniform without remorse while amongst the bushes. he stashes his own robe and hides his weapons before he emerges, a man on a mission.

it’s easy to hide his face tonight, especially as he pulls his hat down low. the shadow engulfs his face, and when he returns to the dead man’s post, the other, tired redcoat beside him doesn’t even blink. jeno tamps down on the urge to kill him, too - part of him wants to leave no survivors, not when he doesn’t know if you’re safe or not. 

if he raises an alarm before he finds you, though, he risks you getting hurt if you already aren’t. this is the only thing that has him tipping his hat down kindly at the other man before leaving his post, murmuring something quietly about a bathroom. the soldier is too tired to register the fact that jeno’s voice isn’t one he’s used to. 

it takes him no time at all to get to what he presumes to be the makeshift prison - a small shed-like building made of wood and reinforced with brick. nobody bats an eyelid at his red-clad form, nobody makes to look at his face or question him. his tomahawk is uncomfortable against his skin, but he doesn’t care that it has to be underneath his uniform for once. 

breaking the lock on the prison is easy after he smothers the guard on duty from behind. he snaps the man’s neck, just in case - the ripping noise from within the dead man’s body doesn’t bother jeno nearly as much as it should. it takes everything in him not to pull the door off its hinges in his haste to see if you’re inside, and he finds luck on his side when he hurries in to find you standing, propping yourself up against the single set of metal bars within the shed. you’re blindfolded and your hands are bound, and his eyes are quick to find the exposed patch of skin in your side from where your dress had snagged, but you’re alive. you’re very much alive. 

“(name),” jeno breathes out, and you visibly perk up. 

“jeno?” your voice is hoarse, a little raspy, and he realizes with a pang that you haven’t spoken in hours. it’s likely you haven’t had water as well. 

“i’m here, my heart,” he responds, rushing over to you to reaching his fingers between the bars and run a hand over your hair. “step back for me, love.” 

you can tell how panicked he must be from the way terms are endearment are slipping off his tongue with ease. jeno is a quiet lover, a sturdy one. you know that you have his entire heart, and you know that you always will. he proves this with his actions often, but he’s far less inclined to do so with his words. he’s worried, and you want to soothe him however you can.

you step back. 

the sound of the lock breaking is high-pitched and scraping, and before you can react you’re being pulled forward into a chest you know better than you know your own features. jeno’s arms wrap around you, and one of his hands busies itself in untying your hands while the other easily pulls the blindfold off of your eyes. his tomahawk is by the door, right beside a smashed lock. 

“are you okay? do you ache? did they do anyth-”

“we need to get out of here,” you cut him off, looking your love directly in the eye. “immediately. they wanted to lure you here, and you mustn’t let them get what they want.”

it’s not fifteen seconds after jeno drags the two of you into the woods, forcing you to climb up a tree before following you up into it, that you both watch, hidden amongst the leaves and the stars, as tens of panicked redcoats rush into the place they’d had you held. you’re close enough to hear the fear in their voices when they discover their deceased brethren at the door, and you’re close enough to hear their shouts of anger when they discover that you’re gone. they double their patrol, keeping a hawk eye on the woods around them.

it’s hours before you and jeno are able to leave, shrouded in the darkest part of the night. it’s a day before you’re back home, resting your raw wrists in a bowl of cold water while jeno cleans his weapons for good. it’s weeks before you tell him exactly what you’d seen, what you’d heard the night you were taken.

it’s months before jeno can even try to forgive himself. for what, he’s unsure.

↳ in due time: “this isn’t a good idea.” jeno mutters, and you lift your gaze from your book to look over at him. he’s been lying flat on his back on his side of the bed while staring directly at the ceiling for the past few hours while you’ve been reading on your side. 

“what’s not a good idea?” you ask, not too worried about his response. jeno gets into moods often, and typically you can pull him out of them just by talking. it isn’t easy getting him to talk, especially not considering his line of work, but he’s never had trouble opening up to you. 

“us.”

the book slips from your hands, falling onto your chest, and he finally looks over at you. his face would be unreadable if the sorrow in his eyes wasn’t so obvious. 

“now what the hell makes you say that?” your words are incredulous, your tone more hurt than scathing. jeno loves you, this you’re sure of - so what is he talking about?

“being with me hurt you,” he sighs, pulling himself into a sitting position. “and it - i thought i was going to kill everything in my path. kill everyone. for a moment i thought i was going to kill myself, i- i-... fuck.” jeno drops his head into his hands, and you find yourself staring at his back.

for a moment, neither of you speak. neither of you move. 

you reach a tentative hand out, laying it square on his back.

“being with you is why i live.” you whisper, and you feel jeno’s back shudder underneath your fingertips. “jeno, when you met me, i was running from a life of-of pain, a life where i was unwanted. you were the first person to ever make me feel loved. you still are. i did not get hurt because of you - i got hurt because there are awful people, who want awful things, and you’re single-handedly standing in the way of them ruining the world with their greed and hatred. this is not a bad idea. this is the best idea either of us have ever had.” as you speak, you shift closer and closer to him.

“you don’t- you’re okay?” jeno turns his head to face you, and you can’t help but nod instinctively. you aren’t lying. you lean in, pressing a gentle kiss against the top of his spine.

“of course,” you murmur into his skin, moving so you’re situated directly behind him. you wrap your arms around his torso from the back and rest your chin on top of his shoulder. he slowly relaxes under your touch, leaning back against you, and you let him soften before you continue speaking. 

“i’m always okay with you.”

[anhed-nia]

BLOGTOBER 10/30-10/31 (IT AIN’T OVER YET!): DISCONNECTED (1984) + PERSONAL SHOPPER

One night on a double date at a local night club, sweet, shy Alicia (Frances Raines) tries to tell the foursome about a strange experience she has had that day: She let an old man into her apartment to use her telephone, but he mysteriously vanished before she could let him back out. Her friends are not interested. Her boyfriend Mark (director Gorman Bechard), a smug radio DJ, dismisses her story as some sort of misunderstanding, and her vivacious twin Barbara Ann (Raines) cuts her off entirely by flirting openly with Mark, insinuating that she was with him that afternoon. This is the last straw in what appears to be an ongoing problem for Alicia. Outside in Mark's car, she refuses to accept his denial of sleeping with Barbara Ann, beginning an agonizing breakup process that drags out for days. Even at her job, Alicia can't seem to establish any personal boundaries; an awkward young stranger called Franklin (Mark Walker) visits during her shift at the video store, and reveals that he doesn't even own a tape player--he just found out who she was and where she worked from other club patrons the previous evening. Alicia rebuffs his unseemly advances at first, but with the insulting drama still festering between Mark and her manipulative sister, loneliness sets in. She could use some company to help insulate her anyway, since their town is plagued by a killer of young women...and stranger still, Alicia's telephone has taken on a mind of its own, broadcasting otherworldly sounds into her apartment, slowly driving her mad. She has a difficult decision to make about who or what she can trust, but it may be that there is no correct choice.

Gorman Bechard's atmospheric 1984 oddity DISCONNECTED follows in the footsteps of CARNIVAL OF LOST SOULS, joining a subset of subdued psychological thrillers about women alone. In Herk Harvey's 1962 classic, Candace Hilligoss plays Mary Henry, a withdrawn young woman who moves far from home after a traumatic accident. Where she hoped to find peace, she is stalked by a spectral male figure, and receives no help from the locals, who are all suspicious or covetous of her. The boundary between the living and the dead begins to dissolve, mirroring her increasingly ambivalent relationships with other human beings. Mary is torn between her longing for solitude and her fear of impending doom, having to choose between an intrusive suitor, and being left alone with her cadaverous stalker. Mary's unforgettable journey through her desolate surroundings, her isolation interrupted only by enemies both open and hidden, describes an experience that many female viewers have found familiar. Social life portends various threats--judgmental elders who pick at your morals and appearance, jealous females, emotionally and physically violent males--while solitude offers obliterating blankness, like a desert whose expansive monotony renders meaningless the defining lines of past, future, and self. In modern times, this distinctly female experience is complicated by the evolution of personal communication media. The telephone in particular--which has been historically and rather demeaningly associated with girls--is both a channel through which to reach out and touch someone, and an opening through which unwanted attention can insinuate itself into our lives. Two years ago, I saw DISCONNECTED--a loopy microbudget slasher movie from Waterbury, Connecticut--and one of my first thoughts was that it was somehow just like PERSONAL SHOPPER, Olivier Assayas' heady cyberpunk-flavored thriller from 2016, in which a servant to the stars receives threatening text messages from someone who may or may not be among the living. I've been trying to put the two together in writing ever since.

In PERSONAL SHOPPER, Kristen Stewart plays introverted American Maureen, the virtual slave of supermodel Kyra (Nora von Waldstatten). Maureen is a stranger in a strange land, travelling relentlessly around Europe to procure garments and jewels for her boss in Paris, and on her personal time, conducting a psychic survey of her late brother Lewis's mansion. Twin mediums Maureen and Lewis promised one another that whoever died first would send the other a sign from across the divide; Maureen has been waiting since his untimely heart attack for him to hold up his end of the bargain. So far she has only witnessed some scattered poltergeitic activity, along with the manifestation of a ferocious, unknown female specter, but the clock is ticking, as the manse is mid-sale to Lewis’ friends. Furthermore, it is her employment with the tyrannical Kyra that allows her to stay in Paris and wait for a sign from Lewis, so Maureen’s freedom also is dependent on the resolution of this situation. When she meets Kyra's arrogant lover Ingo (Lars Eidinger), he inappropriately insists that he can get her a better job elsewhere, but she explains that she can't change her life until she has closure with her brother. Shortly after this unpleasant encounter, Maureen begins to receive intrusive texts from an unknown caller. Due to her unusual relationship to the dead, she can't be sure if her new stalker is a part of her world, or not.

PERSONAL SHOPPER has very much the flavor of William Gibson’s speculative fiction novel Pattern Recognition, in "cool hunter” Cayce Pollard has the extra-sensory ability to detect what new designs will become popular next. Cayce’s special power manifests as a crippling allergy, and so she tries to remain in timeless, fashion-neutral clothes and settings whenever possible. Psychic Maureen feels a similar kind of existential ambivalence toward the super luxe materials she excels at curating for her client.

Maureen spends much of her screen time alone. Most of her personal contacts are with salespeople; she virtually never sees Kyra in person, and her boyfriend Gary (Ty Olwin) lives in Oman, which may as well be another world. Her chief relationship is to her dead brother, who is literally in another world, and who responds with frustrating ambiguity to her pleas for a clear message, even as his mansion rumbles with unexplainable activity. This void of connection seems somehow related to Maureen's tenuous sense of personal identity. With no close connections, she cannot accurately detect her own contours. Maureen is totally sublimated into Kyra's life, simply an extremity that grasps for whatever Kyra needs. At the same time, she is subject to Lewis's will, unable to make any moves--even to protect herself--until her late brother deigns to give her peace. Maureen's identity is entirely determined by other people, including the mystery caller who lures her into a confessional conversation with him. Although this third figure is the most predatory of them all, he is also the one who teases out the threads of Maureen's fraying individuality. When she admits to trying on Kyra's clothing, just because she's not allowed to, he entices her to stay in Kyra's bed while she's away, further feeling out her own limits. This is the only way Maureen can establish a self that is independent of the context of others: by violating the taboos established by those others. The rule-breaking method of finding oneself is an integral part of the human condition, as explained by media theorist Marshall McLuhan in a discussion of the self in the age of social media:

"Yes, all forms of violence are quests for identity. When you live out on the frontier, you have no identity. You are a nobody. Therefore, you get very tough. You have to prove that you are somebody. So you become very violent. Identity is always accompanied by violence. This seems paradoxical to you? Ordinary people find the need for violence as they lose their identities. It is only the threat to people’s identity that makes them violent. Terrorists, hijackers - these are people minus identity. They are determined to make it somehow, to get coverage, to get noticed."     

By breaking Kyra's rules just on principle, Maureen moves toward self-actualization. Unfortunately, this comes at a cost, as the mystery caller who encourages this process wants to possess her just as much as Kyra and Lewis already do.

Maureen's phone has become a ouija board-like portal to another plane, through which alien forces can cross over and affect our fate. In DISCONNECTED, Alicia suffers from a similar problem. Alicia's social isolation, and the increasingly meaningless division between life and death for her, is underlined by the fact that she lives on the edge of a cemetery. Her phone is her connection to the world--to the ambiguous Franklin, to her sister who she can neither accept nor reject, to Mark who she can't quite leave behind. She can't get rid of this device, even when it starts to ring almost constantly, with a horrifying, vaguely vocal-sounding barrage of electronic noise on the other end. As in PERSONAL SHOPPER, Alicia is largely seen alone, pacing in her apartment, wandering teary-eyed in the depopulated streets of Waterbury, and eyeing her phone with nervous anticipation. She finds herself living out an appalling version of the classic Twilight Zone episode "Night Call," in which Elva, an old widow longing for her late husband, is harassed by increasingly disturbing phone calls from beyond the grave. Like Elva and Maureen, Alicia also suffers from the conflation of companionship and otherworldly threat: Just as she doesn't understand the source of the distorted calls, she also doesn't know that Franklin--her potential savior from this dark chapter of her life--is a serial murderer, planning to have her for his next victim. When Barbara Ann makes a move on him, perpetuating the cycle of sororal abuse that started with Mark, Franklin kills her instead, removing one of Alicia’s few contacts with the rest of humanity.

BTW, even though Alicia eventually takes a liking to Franklin (center), her experience at the video store--here, trapped between an aggressive suitor and a similarly aggressive porn consumer--forms the most realistic portrait of retail hell for girls that I have ever seen in my life. When Franklin first arrives, announcing that a) the movies there aren’t good enough for his refined tastes, b) he doesn’t even own a video player, and c) he’s only there because he’s stalked Alicia from her local watering hole, his intensely condescending attitude and presupposing come-ons gave me a hardcore PTSD reaction from the many years I spent behind the counter of a comic book store. Yuck.

While Alicia doesn't understand what is happening until it's almost too late, Maureen's situation escalates horrifically when her latest jewelry delivery brings her face to face with Kyra's mutilated corpse. As she reels from this gruesome sight, she also detects a malevolent presence vibrating deeper in the apartment that sends her fleeing in terror. When she goes to the police, her mystery caller suddenly becomes more sinister, demanding to know whether she has told the cops about him. In short order, the caller tries to blackmail her into meeting him in a hotel room, but this climactic union is circumvented by the police: It was Ingo guiding Maureen's journey of self-discovery, and Ingo who killed Kyra. The revelation is enormously painful, not because Ingo is so important, but because he managed to victimize Maureen using her most uniquely personal characteristic: her relationship to the supernatural. She believed that something personally significant was happening to her, according to her special understanding of the world, but she was merely being preyed upon by a violent narcissist. Her profound belief in her own paranormal sensitivity--the one thing she is sure of, that distinguishes her from others--is what made her vulnerable to the insistent texts begin with: She wondered if it was Lewis texting her. Ingo exploits Maureen's convictions about herself to perpetrate a deadly fraud, leaving her violated and humiliated. Even though we witness the presence of an unseen entity (Lewis? Kyra?) moving through the hotel, perhaps influencing Ingo's capture, Maureen is left to suffer for being gullible and vulnerable, to mourn her own privacy.

Of course, Maureen's journey is not over yet, and Alicia receives a similar shock with a full half an hour to go in DISCONNECTED. She is rescued by her own screams on her last date with Franklin, as the sounds of their skirmish draw the police to his apartment where they summarily execute Alicia's would-be killer. Now she is left with almost no worldly connections at all--save for the malign presence that keeps calling her phone, blasting her with waves of mind-melting noise. To make matters worse, there seems to be a new victim in the rash of murders previously tied to the late Franklin. Alicia plunges into a spiral of nihilistic despair, in which her closest relationship is with her conniving ex--mediated by the phone, and by his radio show where he dedicates songs to her--second only to the mystery caller who dials her number several times an hour. Craving a human connection, Alicia eventually relents and lets Mark take her out again, and things seem to be on the upswing...until Alicia returns home to find that something worse than electronic fuzz has entered her home, to put an end to her misery. We don't share her final vision, but we do see the mysterious old man (William Roberts) from the beginning of the movie, the fellow she let in to use her telephone, strolling into the cemetery--presumably, from whence he came.

Like Alicia in the aftermath of Franklin’s death, Maureen also has to find a new way to survive after an episode of shocking violence. For Maureen, the only way through is out. As she prepares to leave Lewis' mansion, she encounters his widow's new beau, Erwin (Anders Danielsen Lie). This encounter crystalizes the movie's themes regarding time. Early in PERSONAL SHOPPER, Maureen is turned on to the visionary paintings of Hilma af Klint, a 19th century painter who claimed that she made her art at the behest of ghosts. She mandated that her work only be revealed to the public after her death, creating a communication channel between the deep past and the distant future. Maureen argues with her doctor about the future; he insists that her brother's heart attack was purely anomalous, but Maureen sees no reason why the same thing couldn't happen to her. She sees no future for herself, and is chained to the past by the ghost of her brother, who withholds the spiritual message that would allow her to move on. Lewis thought a lot about the future, Maureen remarks cynically to her doctor, despite the fact that he was ultimately deprived of one. Later, Lewis' widow Lara (Sigrid Bouaziz) explains that she feels the future is in flux and unknowable--a desirable quality, in her book--and so she is moving on to be with Erwin. So, when Maureen encounters Erwin on her final night in Paris, they have a pointed conversation about the shackles of the past and the fossilizing force of guilt on one's life. Lewis's ghost cruelly teases Maureen at the end of the scene, demanding attention but refusing to reveal himself. With nothing to show for her devotion to her brother, she flees Europe.

In both DISCONNECTED and PERSONAL SHOPPER, the archetype of the twins is used to describe opposing states of being, and the threat of having one’s life usurped by another version of oneself. Alicia's sister Barbara Ann is lively, sensuous, and self-serving: everything that Alicia is unable to be, and the consumer of everything Alicia wants for herself. With her unrealistic desires for honesty and compassion, Alicia is the more death-oriented twin: cut off from social life, deprived of pleasure by more ambitious people, and vulnerable to parasitic attacks from both sides of the mortal veil. Alicia even dreams of Barbara Ann murdering her, and literally taking her place in bed with Mark. Maureen's twin Lewis is described by his survivors as passionate and living on the strength of his own convictions; Although Maureen still lives, she is inert, somehow chained to him, slavishly waiting for him to grant her release, though he is content to torment and manipulate her. The protagonists of both films are subjugated to these duplicates who refuse to stay on their side.

Maureen flees to Oman to reunite with her boyfriend Gary--heretofore only a pixelated image in a video chat who begs her to give up her commitment to the kingdom of death, insisting that only the material world exists and is waiting to embrace her. Of course, when Maureen arrives in Gary's placid and spartan world at what may as well be the end of the universe, her problems have followed her. We will never see Gary in the flesh; he has left a written note of welcome for Maureen, which she reads just as she detects a supernatural presence in his dwelling. Hoping against hope that Lewis is finally reaching out to her, she asks out loud: “Is it you? Are you at peace? Are you not at peace? ...Or is it just me?” And, hauntingly, she hears a ghostly knock in the affirmative for every question.

The ambiguity of this ending has troubled some viewers, although multiple interpretations present themselves which are not mutually exclusive. In the most literal sense, Maureen can be seen as a terminally frustrated Carrie White-like figure who causes material disturbances with the power of her own inner turmoil. The paranormal phenomena she perceives are, indeed, “just her”. On a more metaphorical level, we can see that Maureen is haunted by her own grief, over her brother, and also over her failure to forge a life of her own. In her mind, her brother was a superior life force to which she remains subservient; she identified herself entirely as a receiver for his message, and without his active participation in her life, she loses all sense of purpose. She scrutinizes ghostly disturbances and the spiritual conduit of the telephone to inform her place in the world. Without an internal, independent reason for being, people like herself, and like Alicia, are forever haunted.

[fymagnificentwomcn]

t’s truly something how all princes/sultans in tmck are so pressed…I get their life isn’t easy, but all that blaming & truly how it can affect everyone’s perception. Murad even accused his mother of faking an assassination attempt on her life, incredible *sarcasm of course*. And Atike was just his cheerleader most of the time, ugh. All that blaming by people who even weren’t there. Thanks for writing that piece!

Aww thank you so much! This piece is my magnum opus I guess lol (Link here:https://fymagnificentwomcn.tumblr.com/post/610970504341405696/no-she-isnt-the-whole-evil-k%C3%B6sem-thing-isnt )

Murad’s angry 24/7 & gets so ridiculous with blame-shifting – he would need a good anger management therapy LBR.

And there’s one scene that portrays his character in nutshell:

Doctor: you cannot drink anymore wine, Your Majesty.

Murad, literally 5 minutes later: Yusuf, bring me wine!

Murad in 1 minute, another example:

Kösem: Don’t marry Silahtar to Atike, you also have another sister and if you do it, it will end in tragedy!

Murad: No worriez, I’ve thought about Gevherhan, I will marry her to Kemankeş ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

I mentioned a lot of blame-shifting in my previous posts, but he even at moment began questioning his mum about Gülbahar and whether she truly committed treason (and Gülbahar herself admitted to it).

Even when Atike asked him for permission to take children with her & Kösem to vaqf, he was totally okay with the idea, but later after kidnapping snapped at his mother that it was HER fault for gaving taken his sons there & began threatening her with exile far away. Charming as always.

Honestly, he’s like a broken record. In all his arguments, while Kösem has her logical arguments, his only argument is usually “I’m the only/rightful owner of Ottoman Empire, “I’m the shadow of God on Earth. Like dude do you realise how boring you are???

Don’t forget how mad he got when Kösem wrote to Kemankeş to have a backup plan if Murad died and Bayezid wanted to take the throne, which could have meant danger for other Kösem’s sons. After all, she didn’t take it from nothing, Gülbahar told her about assassination attempt to come & it actually already had happened by the time Murad received the letter. Yes, dude you are not immortal, you could have been killed, and life goes on you know? It doesn’t mean your mother doesn’t love you or is not going to mourn you, but she also needs to take care of your brothers and state ffs. He’s truly obsessed with this idea that after his death life will  (unfortunately in his view) go on – which is also meaningful since Kösem reminded him like two episodes earlier that state was going to remain even with both of them dead. And well we all know the “masterful” idea he conceived just before his death.

And it’s clear how even some of his siblings fear him – Gevherhan was scared immediately following the announcement of Kösem no longer being a regent (especially since he did in a way to put  blame on his mother for recent events to prop himself up, and he was also engaged in state matters at that point). Kasim also immediately fears being locked up in kafes or even executed. Judging by their conversations, despite problems going on, last 10 years were a peaceful time for their family.

As I said, out of all Kösem’s opponents only Handan and Derviş weren’t worse than her, and she was the only main player that never engaged in mass slaughter – Safiye, Halime&Co., Gülbahar&Sinan, Murad, Turhan - all did.

Same with Atike – she was a baby when when her father died, didn’t even spend her early years locked up as Ibrahim…. she’s honestly so blind it’s painful. The scene where she jumps at Kemankeş for trying to talk sense to Ibrahim not to appoint Genie Master as chief judge… please your brother is now acting contrary to Imperial law and it’s asking for further disaster if Cinci increases his influence among ulema by bringing people who pay him into it & it’s good Ibo is controlled in this way… nah, it’s actually necessary. And how you jump from this to your mother I have no idea either. A true performative “activist”, who talks about protecting her brother, but all is limited to talking  & exposing her moral superiority, while it’s not supported by any real actions helping him.

Well, you got your revenge on your mother for killing the husband who despised you, acted against your youngest brothers at that point, and likely was only praying you wouldn’t follow him also into afterlife.

I also forgot to mention one more example of Mu/rat manipulating the narrative – when he tells Atike following the failed dethronement attempt & Kasim’s death that their mother had lied to her and tried to kill him – he was after all put in kafes, he should be aware nobody planned an assassination attempt, bah he KNEW the whole plan from Sinan… and yes, Kösem being so adamant that nothing can happen to Mura/t cost her Kasim in the end.

Atike herself was aware that Mu/rat would have killed her brothers even if the dethronement attempt had not happened as she told him to his face after Kasim’s death and she stated that he had made the decision long ago. Later however she got the letter from Murad informing her who killed Silahtar and she even released Traitor No. 1 Sinan to spite her mum 😂.

I suppose princes at this point led the hardest existence because they were closed in kafes, unable to get decent education&experience or have families (maybe they were allowed to have sex with cariyes, but contraception had to be used or even abortion if the concubine of a sehzade has got pregnant) but at the same time they weren’t certain whether they wouldn’t be killed because the switch to anti-fratricide was pretty new&the times were turbulent. Osman clearly broke Imperial law by getting fetva from military judge to kill Mehmed, and Murad killed the biggest number of Ahmed’s sons obviously (yeah more than in the show because not all princes appeared in MYK, though we don’t know the exact number of Ahmed’s sons, Murad definitely also executed Suleiman, most likely his full brother). I laugh when people go about “rule-breaker” Murad. Wow by getting back to law that has already began to run its course, clap clap.

Murad was king of hypocrisy and it’s also a historical fact. As Halil İnalcık states in his book Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age: “ The tyrannical Murad IV was a habitual drinker and at the same time the most ruthless supporter of the prohibition againt alcohol”. Mu/rat tried to make use of religion in his attempts to drill absolute obedience, but he wasn’t a religious person himself & definitely tried to take from religion what it most suited him, while ignoring other things, e.g. he kept decreasing zakat, aka income tax that goes to charity. A small bit of trivia: apparently he was a big fan of Machiavelli’s The Prince, there were even some rumours that he translated the book himself (we can only imagine he also took from this book what he wanted 🤪 ).

Similarly Turhan manipulated the narrative, also in a hypocritical way – remember her going like: “how many padişahs you killed?” and she was the main force behind Ibo’s death… the moment Ibo told her that she “was a coward who hid behind his mother’s skirts”… it was clear he was doomed. There was explicit anger on Turhan’s side here. Not only because she felt insulted by him, but also because she felt a need to prove both to him and the world that she was capable to be on top without Kösem’s support.  Not to mention all her actions leading to Ibo’s situation, also her ordering Mehmed to sign his dad’s death order was so chilling “I don’t want dad to die”. Well, now let’s play morally pure, especially while murdering elderly (very elderly lbr :p) Haci in again a brutal way, including twisting his neck. It’s not even that she removed a padisah – she actively worked to make him crazier and for his rule to be total failure, it wasn’t even about her, Ibo or Kösem – whole nation suffered because she was impatient to take power into her hands./BTW pity we skipped the time period when they were both Valides and we know both tried to get rid of each other, without harming Mehmed/ And frankly even with Kösem it was a terrible & undeserved backstabbing because also Ibi criticised Turhan for this saying his mother always “loved and protected her, did so much for her” and I doubt Ibo was biased here considering that he was also on bad terms with his mum at that moment.

Later the situation truly calmed down & later princes could live much more peacefully because the practice of killing truly went out of style and also later there were less and less restrictions on princes and they could for example travel abroad with the reigning padişah. For example, Sultan Abdülaziz took princes for a European trip and they even had a chance to meet Queen Victoria.

And I laugh when people blame Kösem for “failing to protect the princes” instead of you know, blame the actual killer. Ahmed truly replenished dynasty, while Murad axed a number of his brothers, at the same time of course used his own propaganda. It is true that Murad executed the favourite of princes, Bayezid, during celebrations following the successful Revan campaign. Similarly, when Kasim was executed someone spread rumours about the prince impregnating a number of concubines & it was before the Baghdad campaign when even setting out on it Murad had to display his “splendour and glory”.

Show-wise I legit one read that Kösem killed Ahmed because she spared Bulbül following Safiye’s attempted coup lmao. It’s not like Ahmed wasn’t there when she made the decision & it’s not like it wasn’t Hümaşah who after all got Yasemin in, and I doubt anyone could oppose an Imperial princess anyway – she would have found another servant. And Bülbül later saved Kösem’s kids, so… scapegoating truly is in some people’s blood lmao.

I love how MYK played with the idea of historical representation & creation of narrative, how people “see” and how different factors might influence their perception & creation of narrative. And also how S2 put into different perspective some stuff from S1. I admit there were some things that back during first watch of MYKS1 made me go WTF? that I later understood when compared/contrasted with MYK S2. It’s clear that they truly planned a lot of the whole show back in S1.

It’s sometimes interesting how narratives may be created and repeated even without evidence supporting it - there is no historical evidence that Kösem took part in Osman’s dethronement, yet it is something that often pops up even in “historical articles” for example. People deduce since Kösem later became Valide quite soon because Mustafa’s (or rather Halime’s) reign didn’t last long, know Şehzade Mustafa’s (Suleiman’s son) story, and some rumours about what Ottoman women did to secure throne for their children, so they see getting rid of one’s stepson to claim throne for one’s child as logical and usual in Ottoman system,  even when there is no proper evidence backing it up. Because it seems natural and logical, so why not make it more spicy? We know next to nothing about Mahfiruz, but there is this “Betty vs Veronica” trope, so suddenly we learn that Mahfiruz was Kösem’s opposite, not politically involved or ambitious, but gentle & sweet, and even details like light hair pop up as opposed to Kösem’s dark hair (sometimes of course it is also extended to good vs. evil). Taken from where, other than fitting a known trope? Or when she’s presented as some sort of Mahidevran vol.2 as having as close relationship with Osman like Mahi did with Mustafa, perfect prince and jealous stepmother Kösem. I know some of the stuff is also derived from Western, orientalist plays, but those are obviously not sources and should not be treated as truth. And sometimes it it even repeated by historians. For example Uluçay, who  was very against Sultanate of Women & pretty much propagated a lot of rumours (and new approach to the period truly changed a lot of how academia writes about these women now). Let us look at this quote:

Taken from: Necdet Sakaoğlu, Famous Ottoman Women.

It’s clear what narrative Uluçay chose for his research.

It’s common practice to sometimes fill in the blanks (and sometimes even change stuff) with known cliches, tropes, and narratives.

It is truly a topic for an extended discussion, so I will stop for now, but when it comes to Ottoman history I do recommend Daniel Piterberg’s Ottoman Tragedy. History and Historography at Play, which shows how the same event may be even differently presented in historical works depending on chosen narrative that is often rooted in current context.