#this man is NOT a tumblr sexyman he is DERANGED and SHATTERED and ALONE and TERRIFIED

[lavalampstealer]

give me your John juniper headcanons if he survived please

Oh my god I’m so happy someone asked, I’d be DELIGHTED to put these out there :)) this is gonna also lightly cover Handler and Phoenix’s reactions/feelings to him surviving

Headcanon dump below the cut because it’s long

- He would have a massive scar on almost the entirety of the left side of his face from the Mask, making him near unrecognizable

- He would be blind in his left eye and have cataracts in his right

- His hair would be shorter and not as neat as before

- He would be missing his pinky on his right hand

- He would be a devastated shell of his former self and struggle with his identity

- He had placed his entire career, his persona, his whole identity on being John Juniper, world famous actor, but now that he was legally dead and (in his eyes) horribly disfigured, was he really the same person? He had it all, risked everything without a second thought, and now he was left with nothing. All of his wealth and belongings were surely auctioned off or distributed to god knows who or where. He wasn’t close to any of his family, he didn’t have a partner, there was no one for him to go to. Hell, he even burned the bridge with Gibson in a blind rage, his closest friend and confidant for the past [X] years. He had ruined his ties with Zoraxis and he thought the Agency sure as hell wasn’t about to help him. He had been relying on the rush he got from acting and deceiving, and he got so good at it that he couldn’t tell if he was tricking himself or whether his emotions were truly his own. Juniper was alive, but the man who was power-crazed and willing to launch nuclear missiles around the world without a batting an eye was gone. Was he still himself?

- A really good song that I feel matches him perfectly in this state is The Mind Electric by Miracle Musical (right now I’m actually working on an animatic of a specific part of it that especially fits).

- Much to his shock and confusion, the reason he was alive was because the Agency found his body when they went searching for Phoenix and treated him as best they could. He couldn’t wrap his head around it, why would they help him? Were they just keeping him alive so they could force information out of him.. and then what? Kill him? Kick him out into the world? No one would recognize him, not his face at least, and as for his voice it was much scratchier and had lost all of its bravado and smugness. He wouldn’t be able to bear seeing the Agent, that pesky, meddling, self righteous Phoenix who had ruined his plans and his life. He had no clue who their Handler was, he only borrowed his voice to lure them into a false sense of security, but by the way that man glared poisoned daggers at him like he was nothing more than a roach made him want to shrink into nothingness. No one had ever looked at him with that much hate, no, disgust before.

- He’s very conflicted about his emotions towards Phoenix. He recognizes how bad what he almost accomplished was and he feels awful about it, yet he can’t help but despise them because they had slapped him in the face and snapped him out of his star-struck stupor. He was so close, so close to proving to himself to the world that he was the best that he became blinded to the reality of his actions. He still wishes them dead but wouldn’t dare act on those thoughts because 1) he doesn’t care anymore, he doesn’t stand to gain anything from it anymore, he’s just tired. 2) the Agency would surely do worse to him if he offed their best agent. and 3) they were arguing in his favor for some kind of forgiveness or at least amnesty. Why they would do that he has no idea, but he wouldn’t push back if it meant his life being spared or a roof over his head. After all, the Agency couldn’t risk the beloved-actor-turned-mass-felon-turned-dead-man to be recognized in public, for their sake and for his.

- Phoenix is nowhere near close to forgiving Juniper, but they don’t completely despise him either. They can see that the he’s not who kidnapped them and tried to blow them up multiple times, that Juniper is lost. They take a sort of pity on him, and thats not to say that they didn’t go off on him for his actions. They just realize that there’s no use in berating him.

- He now hates that shade of emerald green he always wore because it reminded him of how he was before the Incident, so instead he opts for darker, muted greens or dark grey clothing. He dresses more casually than the suits he used to wear (think jeans/slacks and casual dress shirts).

I definitely want to write a story with him at some point, I love the idea of him losing it all, getting somehow worse and better at the same time, and then coming out on the other side as a decent, if not bearable, person. I wouldn’t call it a redemption arc, it’d be more of a healing/development arc because he wouldn’t be like “Yeah I’m gonna help the EOD kick Zor’s ass! Revenge time!” No, he’d never want to hear from any of them ever again and would rather live out the rest of his life without catching either of their attention. The EOD would set him up with a place where he wouldn’t be noticed by Zor and they’d ‘promise’ to leave him alone (in reality one of his neighbors is a retired Agency contact who gives them updates). He’d take up baking as a hobby and turn it into a local business, specializing in handmade desserts :) just get the man his therapy and let him live out of sight, out of mind.