#manupulation

[certainpersonsandwich]

[gdsumonali]

[flibbertigibbety-jibber-jabber]

Rex Cliffe (from my GDA Mark Graysted AU) Origin Story Summarized ^_^

Most is spoilers for his origin comic!!! Yes its super emotional fr Canon divergence starts at the paragraph highlighted in green!!! TL;DR is in the tags lmao.

Soooo… @radkatzzstuff I just kind of. Went crazy writing and was supposed to keep it brief but got a liiiiittle too invested SO. I wrote a lot. Don’t read this as a fic, I can write better than this, it’s more like a draft than anything. YAAYYYY ^_^

+*.–––––––––––––––––––––––––––.*+

Rex Sloan was born a thief. His family stayed in a broken down house (which he was never sure belonged to them, but it was a roof, and that’s all that mattered), often sending him out to get whatever he could for them, smaller and faster and easier to pity. The first things he learned was that the rest of the world did not care about them, the second being how to evade being caught, and the third that everything was transactional—even anything free still came at a price.

When he was 10, a man offered his parents all the money they’d ever need in exchange for their son. They did not hesitate. He wasn’t sure if he was surprised.

The man tells him his name is Radcliffe, that he works for the government and wants to help Rex do good for the world. Rex isn't sure that he beleievs him, it goes against everything he knows, but at this man is providing for him, so he'll stay. For now.

Rex is trained in gymnastics and fighting, and he's given things. Things he'd never had—physical and not—and feeps… at home. Cared for. Radcliffe even calls him son. So he trains, even when he has to push his body to it's limits, even when he's.not sure if he wants to, because he couldn't let him down.

Radcliffe falls into place as a father-figure in his life. Radcliffe happily abuses this position to groom Rex into the perfect obedient assassin at his beck and call, slowly, like a frog in a pot of boiling water.

When the experimental injections to make him stronger are proposed, he's not sure if he wants this. But Radcliffe couldn’t hurt him—he called him "son", and his biological father rarely did that—and he’s obligated to do this, right? So he agreed to it all. He was paying him back. They make his muscle tissue denser and stronger as he trains, and when he’s strong enough, they do the surgery to give him his powers.

He's given implants that allow him to charge particles in inorganic objects to an unstable amount, and his tissue strong enough to not burn or be effected at all. They first go in his hands, then his elbows, then feet, then knees. It aches, but he pushes through.

When he’s sent out into the field for the first time, told he was taking out the bad guys in the world, given his first name to take out quickly and quietly, Radcliffe hands him an ID with the name “Rex Radcliffe”.

It feels like home.

Rex doesn’t question what he does, not really, because Radcliffe wouldn’t lie to him! He was different! Radcliffe cared about him! He’s given gifts, and praise, and more affection than he’s ever received in his entire life, and the ability to do something that actually matters to the world. All he has to do is sneak in packages filled with charged baseballs and trinkets to locations he’s given. He even has a cool sneaky suit, and a motorcycle!

So, he travels the world, taking out targets quickly and quietly, never getting caught. Radcliffe praises him, tells him he's incredible, that he's like a son to him, and Rex beams. Even when his ears start to ring, never quite going away, head starting to fill with static, bones starting to ache against the added weight, he doesn't stop.

He's doing good for the world.

…Then he’s told to take out the director of the Global Defense Agency, and to take out the whole damn Pentagon while he’s at it.

Rex… isn’t sure anymore.

He takes a drive on his motorcycle just to think about it all, when he meets a girl who calls herself “Atom Eve”. She's beautiful, and a superhero, like him. He thinks he is. Was?

He helps her take down the guy she’s fighting (Killcanon) and then he just… spills everything to her. She seems to understand, though, in a way. She doesn’t ask questions, just offers him a place to stay to get away from his father. Says he never has to go back—and that he shouldn’t, because they’ll just try.

But he does, Sneaks out during the night. Just to see if she was right. To collect his things, to look Radcliffe in the eyes one last time—because that’s his dad.

But when he sees the pictures of Radcliffe and his old military buddies, when he starts asking questions instead of giving “yes”, when Radcliffe throws him to the ground and yells at him, when he sticks up for himself and gets hands around his throat, when he reaches out—a new instinct he never quite got rid of—and,

His head explodes.

Rex stares up, covered in blood and gore and brain matter, repeating “I didn’t mean to, I didn’t mean to, I didn’t mean to”, and starts moving through too-familiar movements to rig up the building.

He watched the place he spent so long in, the first place that felt like home, go up in flames.

He runs back to Eve, who lets him in sobbing and crying—everything finally catching up to him—and clings onto her and repeating it over and over, that he didn’t mean to, didn’t mean to, didn’t mean to, and she holds him through it until he’s calmed down enough to figure out how the hell to get the rest of the government off their backs.

One day later, they head to the rubble and get rid of all the rest of the evidence, and end up taking down what remained of the entire property and destroying all of Erikson’s dreams with it and taking on a new identity: Rex Splode. Not Sloan, like the parents who sold him away; not Radcliffe, like the man who turned him into his pet; but Splode, like a hero who could do good for the world.

Rex and Eve get together immediately, and Rex is… happy? He thinks he is, at least. Eve is happy, now that she’s not alone anymore and has someone who understands her and admires her powers. Her parents are as happy as they can be, now that Eve has a boyfriend who can look after her in her superhero-ing escapades. His family is the happiest, in their big house far away with a daughter they love.

But Rex… Rex is restless. He’s not sure what to do with himself without orders, missions, someone to turn to when he’s not sure what to do. It’s all he’s ever known. He’s never been without it.

The nervous energy builds up until it, well, explodes. Charging things on accident, brushing into things and watching them explode, more and more the higher-strung he is. He charged something in Eve’s house once, and had to wrap it up and throw it into the road, blowing a hole in the asphalt but not damaging any houses.

Rex is doing well, though, and is figuring it out! Slowly, gradually, but he is! He has everything he could ever want now! He gets to have fun, go out and about, find some kind of stupid hobby, talk to someone his age, run around, and is in love! God, he loves Eve so much. She loves him, she gets him, she cares for him, and she’s too good for him. She’s always there for him when he needs it, and he does his best when she needs him too. They’re figuring it all out, together, even though they don’t know what they’re doing. He’s so lucky to have her as his girlfriend.

But he’s scared. Scared he’ll mess up again, scared he’ll hurt her or her family on accident, so scared that his fucked up unstable powers will kill someone on accident all over again.

And it comes to a head over a year later, when he was trying to get someone out of rubble and was knocked over, falling on top of them, kneeing them hard in the stomach, watching their shirt light up and his biggest fear come true. Stumbling through the debris, covered in blood and gore, and still holding what was left of their hand, all Rex could do was repeat, “I didn’t mean to.” Eve finds him, guides him back home, does her best to be there for him even though he flinches away when she tries to hold him. Even though she’s shaking too. Even though they’re both afraid. Eve was always stronger than him. He admired her for that.

Rex is gone by the morning.

He uses money he pocketed from Eve’s parents to bus his way to the Pentagon, and breaks in with the papers he still kept from his time with Radcliffe.

It doesn’t work smoothly—he knew it wouldn’t work—and agents appear from thin air and apprehend him. All he asks, looking where he memorized the cameras to be, is to see the Director.

Rex waits in an empty room for a while before he just appears in front of him.

“The name’s Director Cecil Stedman, kid.”

Rex hesitates, then holds out his hand.

“Rex. Rex… uh, Spl– Cliffe. Rex Cliffe.”

Rex doesn’t take his hand, but the deal is still sealed.

Rex Cliffe is home again.

(I might add a continuation to how he meets Mark and stuff later idk!!!!!) (or even clean it up to post to ao3… heh…… who knows………)

[fndman]

An unavoidable crossover!

[bastam]

Cross of Iron (1977)

[nuclearfaggot]

i’m crying owen the manipulator goat. he’s so horrible and i fear i’m quickly becoming a massive fan

[delululululusworld]

People, I'm blocked by him. Is it true that it's a bigger deal when a guy blocks a girl in oppose to a girl blocking a guy?

[achilles-rage]

DOWN BAD LOSER BUCK TURNING INTO DARK DOWN BAD LOSER BUCK AFTER HAVING THE SWEETEST GIRL IN HIS BED AND HE JUST CAN’T LET HER GO🦋🦋🦋

[tama1313]

(HNK spoilers!) I may be biased because Ghost is my favourite but I have a theory why they decided to do that to Cairngorm.

If they only cared for Lapis and projected them over Phos, they didn't have to turn Cairn into Antarct. But they eventually did.

Why?

Well, Phos and Ghost has a lot in common: they both are "outcast" with difficulty at actually socialize (even if in different ways) and they both lose someone they deeply cared (the only gem they could connect with).

Therefore Ghost does not only project Lapis on Phos. They know what's feel ling being through something like this.

Therefore the whole plan to turn Cairn into Antarct in my opinion, was actually more a clumpsy tentative to preserve Phos from any further sorrow and avoid them to suffer like Ghost did (also sweet reminder that is not Ghost's fault if they were born like this and more than once in the manga is hinted that they trust Cairn and evel let them take control over their shared body)

Sure, what Ghost did was wrong but hey! We are in HNK, not in a Disney movie

This manga is full of morally gray characters with ambiguos morality (our beloved protagonist too) which's action are way worse than theirs, and yet I see Ghost getting a lot of hate

[lieximhuman]

my biggest art flex is that i could draw very comprehensible pictures at 1 years old >:3

OH. and that in what- 1st grade my drawing was the invite to some sort of school event. like. wow. i know they picked me cuz it was cute to have a childrens drawing but still. i drew ppl playing football ofc (brasilll >:))

[the-incorporeal-sandwich]

Can't believe Loki Laufeyson just had his F1X TH1S moment go white boy go

[jaydeepsolanki24]

[graphicsnart]

[starfxkrinc]

FUCKKK IM TRYIN NOT TO MESSAGE HIM BC I RLLY DUG INTO HIS ASS LAST TIME WE TALKED BUT LIKE NOW I WANT GIM AGAIN FAURK