#Marked For Death

[saisons-en-enfer]

Who else is going to love someone like me, that’s marked for death? Who else is going to be with me when i breathe at all? Who else would ever take your place and hold and keep me safe? Who else would ever stay?

[majestativa]

Medusa, nobody knows me like you.

[twinsfawn]

SELF PORTRAIT BY EMMA RUTH RUNDLE

(MARKED FOR DEATH ALBUM ART)

[beatsforbrothels]

Emma Ruth Rundle - Protection

[theactioneer]

Marked for Death (Dwight H. Little, 1990)

[a-swift-and-terrible-sword]

[piedpiperart]

Chapter 12 of Marked for Death is up on Ao3!

To summarize, Tim is de-aged to five years old and runs into the Red Hood, who is upset at Robin for replacing him. However, he finds himself with a fve year old when Robin suddenly goes missing.

[watching-pictures-move]

Movie Review | Marked for Death (Little, 1990)

Scattered thoughts on how Dwight H. Little tries to handle Steven Seagal as an actor:

Oftentimes this movie tries to fool you into thinking Seagal is giving a good performance by hiding his face in shadows. I'm thinking of an early confession scene and a later conversation with Keith David and Tom Wright. The former scene additionally frames him through the confession window to evoke a tortured facial expression. Under Siege would push this strategy further by keeping him in tight closeups and cutting quickly during his quips to create the illusion of charisma and comic timing. I don't think this one manages to save his off kilter delivery of one liners, although some of the quips don't make a lot of sense in the first place.

Even ignoring his weird running, Seagal with his height moves in a very particular way, and the early brothel shootout and the climactic siege get some visual mileage out of that. It's something that Out for Justice really pushes, and I think that movie benefits further from isolating Seagal in the narrative, although it must be said that Keith David does heroic work reacting to him like a normal person.

Seagal's refusal to be humbled onscreen means that he's hard to root for like a normal action hero who might face challenges or be put in a disadvantageous position, so this and Out for Justice solution accordingly by leaning into his meanness. The deaths he metes out are consistently painful and gruesome, and at one point he dares a villain to kill an innocent bystander. Both movies justify this by pitting him against totally unhinged villains who don't play by the rules, giving him permission to do the same. The one here is borderline supernatural, which lets Little indulge in some pseudo horror movie style, but also up the explicitness of the violence. There is some unfortunate racism in the portrayal, which the movie clumsily tries to mitigate with Keith David's dialogue once the action moves to Jamaica, although the sheer force and eerieness of Basil Wallace's performance cannot be denied. And let us not forget that Seagal later tried to atone for his crimes against the Jamaican people through the power of music.

[destroy-some-evil]

Screw stealing from the Boss. This is kill your shitty dad territory.

[merge-conflict]

marked for death

(written for a weekly song prompt, just cleaned up today for shippy saturday. non-binary V/Goro)

--

Ten years ago an Arasaka bodyguard had died protecting the emperor of Japan. Beset by the slowly creeping threat of retirement, Goro had always hoped he would end his career the same way– but now his troubles are much bigger than young soldiers with fresh implants and endless ambition. Now he has lost everything and his only hope of redemption relies on the ebbing life of the thief he’s managed to drag into an AI-operated cab.

“Please keep all limbs inside the vehicle during operation,” the AI chirps brightly, and Goro clumsily leans across V to pull her right foot inside. In the enclosed space of the cab her height makes it difficult to maneuver her upright, and he ends up wedging one of her knees into the back of the seat in front of her before leaning back in his own side, keeping one hand clamped on his seeping wound.

“Thank you for your cooperation,” the AI says, and the doors on either side shut securely, with a faint whir. Goro exhales, allowing himself a moment of relief. “Please insert a personal jack to confirm all passengers.”

Ejecting the jack from V’s wrist takes Goro longer than it should, with hands are slippery with blood, shaking from the fading stim and physical shock. His implants are dulling the pain in his side, rerouting connections, reducing blood flow away from sliced veins– but the damage is extensive. Without medical attention he will eventually slip into unconsciousness and die. After much fumbling he finally coaxes her personal jack free, and inserts it into the waiting port, before doing the same for his own.

“Guest passenger confirmed,” the AI reports, the screen in front of Goro briefly pulsing green. “Primary passenger unconfirmed. Please try re-inserting the link.”

Goro does, a few times, without success. The longer they sit here the more danger they are in. “The personal link is damaged,” he says, with effort. He cannot take in a full breath– a blinking warning at the edge of his vision warns him of lung damage. “The bullet…damaged her implants.”

“All passengers must be confirmed before service,” the AI replies, and then pauses. “If you are unable to authenticate with the wrist jack, you may instead connect the diagnostic link directly to the port located near the right mastoid.” With a slight click, a cable springs free of the screen, and Goro picks it up, examining the sharp tip with a sinking feeling. “I’m afraid you will have to insert the link underneath the skin.”

“If I am not careful…she will die.”

“I suggest you proceed with caution.”

Goro lowers the cable to pull V closer and for the second time is astonished by her intense gray eyes, lit by some internal spark that is burning long after it should have been extinguished. She can’t pull herself upright, but she wraps her fingers around his wrist, where he has a firm hold on her collar. The expression on her face is serene, but it sends a burst of adrenaline through his system, and in response his implants steady his nerves in a cool rush of calm.

“Do not move,” he tells her, adjusting his vision so he can see the pulse of blood through the arteries in her throat, tipping her head back for a safer angle. Her fingers tighten on his wrist in alarm, but she does not struggle.

“Do it,” she hisses, when he hesitates.

Panic sets her heart beating frantically, the pulse in her throat jumping in time. Goro picks his angle, lines up the link and pushes it through the skin and tendon until it is nestled into the subdermal connector of her implanted interface. V’s back arches, her breathing panicked, forcing him to hold her still so she does not rip out the link or cause herself further damage. Blood spills down his fingers and over the back of his hand, soaking into the cuff of his shirt.

“Primary passenger confirmed,” the AI announces, before Goro can think of the right words to calm her. She tenses at the announcement but stops moving, except for the frantic pace of her breathing. “I advise you not to remove the link until we have reached our destination–“

A loud ringing in Goro’s ears prevents him from hearing the rest of the sentence. It’s all he can do to hold things steady as the car finally accelerates into motion, taking them further into the heart of a rotten city. V holds his gaze– both accusatory and forgiving with her blood oozing hot down the inside of his sleeve. Then between one street and the next, her eyes slide shut, and she slumps into his side.

The streets of Night City are as endless as they are ugly, and he cannot be certain if he orders the AI to drive faster or if he only dreams it. He grows weaker and weaker, with nothing but determination to keep him alive, to keep V alive– so long as she lives, there is hope of exposing Yorinobu. So long as she lives there is reason for him to live as well.

No sooner as he steels himself to stay awake then he finds himself jerked from unconsciousness as the cab comes to a rolling stop. Panic gives him the strength to open the door and crawl free from under V, limp but alive. A stranger is waiting– a man he can barely see in the end of his rapidly tunneling vision. On instinct he picks up V’s legs to help carry her, but after a moment he finds himself on the ground facing her body in careless repose. Death awaits them both in this filthy alley, within the shadow of Konpeki.

Before his eyes slip closed he is certain he sees a sliver of gray watching his weakness. Witnessing it.

When he finally wakes in the back room of the ripperdoc clinic, he can no longer escape the keen edge of despair– Arasaka-sama’s murder and the loss of everything, down to the cyberware implanted inside him. The emotion consumes him like the rising tide, inexorable and inescapable. He drowns in private grief, consumed with the contemplation of the bleak options before him, until he hears a low groan.

He’s not alone. On the other side of a narrow gap V lies on a makeshift cot the same as his own, connected to a portable set of monitors which display the vitals he can no longer see in the corner of his eye. She shifts in her sleep, making a strangled noise deep in her throat that mirrors the rage and agony in his own chest. Curiosity, or perhaps duty drives him to maneuver himself painfully out of bed.

The loss of stabilizing cyberware and too much blood make him clumsy, and he stumbles through his first step, crashing into her cot before he can grab the edge for balance. Her eyes snap open– desperate gunmetal gray once more arresting his attention.

She has ample reason to hate him– to resent and fear him for tracking her down and returning her to Arasaka for interrogation and execution. But when recognition flickers in her eyes, her bruised and battered face breaks into a soft smile that grabs him unexpectedly by the throat.

He is not alone.

Unsure of what to say he merely clasps her shoulder in acknowledgement, and sees relief flit over her face. She speaks, but her words are garbled and soft, and he’s lost his translation soft. He squeezes her shoulder in response, and with great effort she lifts her arm to rest her hand on his wrist. Her expression grows serene and remote, until her eyes close. He is not alone.

[duranduratulsa]

90's Fest Child Actress of the day: Danielle Harris #danielleharris #markedfordeath #cityslickers #donttellmomthebabysittersdead #TheLastBoyScout #freewilly #daylight #urbanlegend#Roseanne #90s #90sfest #durandurantulsas4thannual90sfest

[saisons-en-enfer]

I am small but in your arms You are colder in your heart I am worthless in your arms But you offer this protection no one else has given me

[dailycharacteroption]

Marked For Death Operative (Operative Alternate Class Feature)

(art by Encreate on DeviantArt)

Ah, the concept of being “marked for death”. Typically the term refers to when a person is targeted for assassination by any person or group with the power to give such orders to assassins, typically with the flavor that because of the society they live in or their own self-perception of authority, the one doing the marking believes they have the right and authority to decide who lives and who dies. And effectively, they do as far as their power grants them the ability to order death with impunity.

However, in the context of today’s subject or gaming in general, the term typically shows up when an assassin-type character decides that someone specifically needs to die, and that is no exception here.

Said operatives are a bit more clearly assassins than other members of the class, and their focus on bringing death against a marked foe has certain elements of both the ranger and slayer classes of old.

As we’ll soon see, these deadly killers are every bit as effective as you would expect.

While these operatives still have their specializations, instead of being especially skilled in that area, they instead gain the ability to target a foe within sight, bolstering the accuracy and effectiveness of their weaponry against the target at the cost of being less able to focus against other foes.

Later on, they can expend a bit of resolve when performing a trick attack to bolster the negative effects of the strike as well, making them last longer.

The result is a version of the operative that is less skill-focused and more on buffing themselves against a foe and debuffing them for an extended period, making it something of an homage not just to the slayer class, but weirdly enough the cavalier class. Either way, if you’re more interested in the deadly aspects of the operative, this variant may be for you.

Like I said earlier, the traditional usage of the term does imply a powerful entity declaring death on others, but that still doesn’t need to be the case for your character. However, if your character does work for someone else, that could lead to some interesting stories, especially if the rest of the party doesn’t work for this figure and that leads to complications.

When you need to have an elusive target killed, you send a killer specialized for wherever or however they are hiding. Such is the case when Vilga, a scout and survivalist, was called in to hunt a mark that hid themselves on a toxic world, where the most prominent life form is housecat-sized flies flitting about the toxic vapors. However, the mark in question has their own ideas, and uses an encrypted transmission to set up a proxy to hire adventurers to intercept her.

Though they can move relatively easily on land, a desert world is the last place someone would expect to see one of the walrus-like morlamaw. However, this morlamaw is no ordinary wanderer. An exiled killer with a shocking gift for stealth. Once he gets you in his sights, he finds it hard to focus on anything else, almost as if he is hunting his mark.

The Bladebrother Guild follows the simple philosophy that once their target is sighted, their death becomes a foregone conclusion. As such, they are nearly impossible to reason with or bribe save for by impersonal means such as long-distance calls or proxies.

[onlyhurtforaminute]

bone crown-left for blood

[colourmeblood]

7. shuffle your favorite playlist and tell me which song comes up first and your favorite lyric ???

I’ve shuffled the playlist I’ve been listening to recently (which is made of songs played before the live set of one of my fave artists)

The song was Marked for Death by Emma Ruth Rundle. It has some really beautiful/touching lyrics… my favourite line would probably be this one:

“It was right that we did see each other in our shadow sides”

[whatreiley]

Marked for Death🏹

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Thank you for the trust with this one!!

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Now booking for July🏹