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thecaffeinebookwarrior · 4 years ago

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The Importance of Antiheroes

By Brooksie C. Fontaine (me) and Sara R. McKearney

Few tropes are as ubiquitous as that of the hero. He takes the form of Superman, ethically and non-lethally thwarting Lex Luthor. Of Luke Skywalker, gazing wistfully at twin suns and waiting for his adventure to begin. In pre-Eastwood era films, a white Stetson made the law-abiding hero easily distinguishable from his black-hatted antagonists. He is Harry Potter, Jon Snow, T’Challa, Simba. He is of many incarnations, he is virtually inescapable, and he serves a necessary function: he reminds us of what we can achieve, and that regardless of circumstance, we can choose to be good. We need our heroes, and always will.

But equally vital to the life-blood of any culture is his more nebulous and difficult to define counterpart: the antihero. Whereas the hero is defined, more or less, by his morality and exceptionalism, the antihero doesn’t cleanly meet these criteria. Where the hero tends to be confident and self-assured, the antihero may have justifiable insecurities. While the hero has faith in the goodness of humanity, the anthero knows from experience how vile humans can be. While the hero typically respects and adheres to authority figures and social norms, the antihero may rail against them for any number of reasons. While the hero always embraces good and rejects evil, the antihero may do either. And though the hero might always be buff, physically capable, and mentally astute, the antihero may be average or below. The antihero scoffs at the obligation to be perfect, and our culture's demand for martyrdom. And somehow, he is at least as timeless and enduring as his sparklingly heroic peers.

Which begs the question: where did the antihero come from, and why do we need him?

The Birth of the Anti-Hero:

It is worth noting that many of the oldest and most enduring heroes would now be considered antiheroes. The Greek Heracles was driven to madness, murdered his family, and upon recovering had to complete a series of tasks to atone for his actions. Theseus, son of Poseidon and slayer of the Minotaur, straight-up abandoned the woman who helped him do it. And we all know what happened to Oedipus, whose life was so messed up he got a complex named after him.

And this isn’t just limited to Ancient Greece: before he became a god, the Mesoamerican Quetzalcoatl committed suicide after drunkenly sleeping with his sister. The Mesopotamian Gilgamesh – arguably the first hero in literature – began his journey as a slovenly, hedonistic tyrant. Shakespearian heroes were denoted with an equal number of gifts and flaws – the cunning but paranoid Hamlet, the honorable but gullible Othello, the humble but power-hungry MacBeth – which were just as likely to lead to their downfall as to their apotheosis.

There’s probably a definitive cause for our current definition of hero as someone who’s squeaky clean: censorship. With the birth of television and film as we know it, it was, for a time, illegal to depict criminals as protagonists, and law enforcement as antagonists. The perceived morality of mainstream cinema was also strictly monitored, limiting what could be portrayed. Bonnie and Clyde, The Good the Bad and the Ugly, Scarface, The Godfather, Goodfellas, and countless other cinematic staples prove that such policies did not endure, but these censorship laws divorced us, culturally, from the moral complexity of our most resonant heroes.

Perhaps because of the nature of the medium, literature arguably has never been as infatuated with moral purity as its early cinematic and T.V. counterparts. From the Byronic male love interests of the Bronte sisters, to “Doctor” Frankenstein (that little college dropout never got a PhD), to Dorian Grey, to Anna Karenina, to Scarlett O’Hara, to Holden Caulfield, literature seems to thrive on morally and emotionally complex individuals and situations. Superman punching a villain and saving Lois Lane is compelling television, but doesn’t make for a particularly thought-provoking read.

It is also worth noting, however, that what we now consider to be universal moral standards were once met with controversy: Superman’s story and real name – Kal El – are distinctly Jewish, in which his doomed parents were forced to send him to an uncertain future in a foreign culture. Captain America punching Nazis now seems like a no-brainer, but at the time it was not a popular opinion, and earned his Jewish creators a great deal of controversy. So in a manner of speaking, some of the most morally upstanding heroes are also antiheroes, in that they defied society’s rules.

This brings us to our concluding point: that anti-heroes can be morally good. The complex and sometimes tragic heroes of old, and today’s antiheroes, are not necessarily immoral, but must often make difficult choices, compromises, and sacrifices. They are flawed, fallible, and can sometimes lead to their own downfall. But sometimes, they triumph, and we can cheer them for it. This is what makes their stories so powerful, so relatable, and so necessary to the fabric of our culture. So without further ado, let’s have a look at some of pop-culture’s most interesting antiheroes, and what makes them so damn compelling.

Note: For the purposes of this essay, we will only be looking at male antiheroes. Because the hero’s journey is traditionally so male-oriented, different standards of subversiveness, morality, and heroism apply to female protagonists, and the antiheroine deserves an article all her own.

Antiheroes show us the negative effects of systematic inequalities (and what they can do to gifted people.)

As demonstrated by: Tommy Shelby from Peaky Blinders.

Why he could be a hero: He’s incredibly charismatic, intelligent, and courageous. He deeply cares for his loved ones, has a strict code of honor, reacts violently to the mistreatment of innocents, and demonstrates surprisingly high levels of empathy.

Why he’s an antihero: He also happens to be a ruthless, incredibly violent crime lord who regularly slashes out his enemies’ eyes.

What he can teach us: From the moment Tommy Shelby makes his entrance, it becomes apparent that Peaky Blinders will not unfold like the archetypical crime drama. Evocative of the outlaw mythos of the Old West, Tommy rides across a smoky, industrialized landscape. He is immaculately dressed, bareback, on a magnificent black horse. A rogue element, his presence carries immediate power, causing pedestrians to hurriedly clear a path. You get the sense that he does not conform to this time or era, nor does he abide by the rules of society.

The ONLY acceptable way to introduce a protagonist.

Set in the decades between World War I and II, Peaky Blinders differentiates itself from its peers, not just because of its distinctive, almost Shakespearian style of storytelling, powerful visual style, and use of contemporary music, but also in the manner in which it shows that society provokes the very criminality it attempts to vanquish. Moreover, it dedicates time to demonstrating why this form of criminality is sometimes the only option for success in an unfair system. When the law wants to keep you relegated to the station in which you were born, success almost inevitably means breaking the rules. Tommy is considered one of the most influential characters of the decade because of the manner in which he embodies this phenomenon, and the reason why antiheroes pervade folklore across the decades.

Peaky Blinders engenders a unique level of empathy within its first episodes, in which we are not just immersed in the glamour of the gangster lifestyle, but we understand the background that provoked it. Tommy, who grew up impoverished and discriminated against due to his “didicoy” Romany background, volunteered to fight for his country, and went to war as a highly intelligent, empathetic young man. He returned with the knowledge that the country he had served had essentially used him and others like him as canon fodder, with no regard for their lives, well-being, or future. Such veterans were often looked down upon or disregarded by a society eager to forget the war. Having served as a tunneler – regarded to be the worst possible position in a war already beset by unprecedented brutality – Tommy’s constant proximity to death not only destroyed his faith in authority, but also his fear of mortality. This absence of fear and deference, coupled with his incredible intelligence, ambition, ruthlessness, and strategic abilities, makes him a dangerous weapon, now pointed at the very society that constructed him to begin with.

It is also difficult to critique Tommy’s criminality, when we take into account that society would have completely stifled him if he had abided by its rules. As someone of Romany heritage, he was raised in abject poverty, and never would have been admitted into situations of higher social class. Even at his most powerful, we see the disdain his colleagues have at being obligated to treat him as an equal. In one particularly powerful scene, he begins shoveling horse manure, explaining that, “I’m reminding myself of what I’d be if I wasn’t who I am.” If he hadn’t left behind society’s rules, his brilliant mind would be occupied only with cleaning stables.

However, the necessity of criminality isn’t depicted as positive: it is one of the greatest tragedies of the narrative that society does not naturally reward the most intelligent or gifted, but instead rewards those born into positions of unjust privilege, and those who are willing to break the rules with intelligence and ruthlessness. Each year, the trauma of killing, nearly being killed, and losing loved ones makes Tommy’s PTSD increasingly worse, to the point at which he regularly contemplates suicide. Cillian Murphy has remarked that Tommy gets little enjoyment out of his wealth and power, doing what he does only for his family and “because he can.” Steven Knight cites the philosophy of Francis Bacon as a driving force behind Tommy’s psychology: “Since it’s all so meaningless, we might as well be extraordinary.”

This is further complicated when it becomes apparent that the upper class he’s worked so arduously to join is not only ruthlessly exclusionary, but also more corrupt than he’s ever been. There are no easy answers, no easy to pinpoint sources of societal or personal issues, no easy divisibility of positive and negative. This duality is something embraced by the narrative, and embodied by its protagonist. An intriguingly androgynous figure, Tommy emulated the strength and tenacity of the women in his life, particularly his mother; however, he also internalized her application of violence, even laughing about how she used to beat him with a frying pan. His family is his greatest source of strength and his greatest weakness, often exploited by his enemies who realize they cannot fall back on his fear of mortality. He feels emotions more strongly than the other characters, and ironically must numb himself to the world around him in order to cope with it.

However, all hope is not lost. Creator Steven Knight has stated that his hope is ultimately to redeem Tommy, so by the show’s end he is “a good man doing good things.” There are already whispers of what this may look like: as an MP, Tommy cares for Birmingham and its citizens far more than any “legitimate” politicians, meeting with them personally to ensure their needs are met; as of last season, he attempted a Sinatra-style assassination of a rising fascist simply because it was the right thing to do. “Goodness” is an option in the world of Peaky Blinders; the only question is what form it will take on a landscape plagued by corruption at every turn.

Regardless of what form his “redemption” might take, it’s negligible that Tommy will ever meet all the criteria of an archetypal hero as we understand it today. He is far more evocative of the heroes of Ancient Greece, of the Old West, of the Golden Age of Piracy, of Feudal Japan – ferocious, magnitudinous figures who move and make the earth turn with them, who navigate the ever-changing landscapes of society and refuse to abide by its rules, simultaneously destructive and life-affirming. And that’s what makes him so damn compelling.

Who needs traditional morality, when you look this damn good?

Other examples:

Alfie Solomons from Peaky Blinders. Tommy’s friend and sometimes mortal enemy, the two develop an intriguing, almost romantic connection due to their shared experiences of oppression and powerful intellects. Steven Knight has referred to Alfie as “the only person Tommy can really talk to,” possibly because he is Tommy’s only intellectual equal, resulting in a strange form of spiritual matrimony between the two.

Omar Little from The Wire, an oftentimes tender and compassionate man who cares deeply for his loved ones, and does his best to promote morality and idealism in a society which offers him few viable methods of doing so. He may rob drug dealers at gunpoint, but he also refuses to harm innocents, dislikes swearing, and views his actions as a method of decreasing crime in the area.

Chiron from Moonlight, a sensitive and empathetic young man who became a drug dealer because society had provided him with virtually no other options for self-sustenance. The same could be said for Chiron’s mentor and father figure, Juan, a kind and nurturing man who is also a drug dealer.

To a lesser extent, Tony from The Sopranos, and other fictional Italian American gangsters. The Sopranos often negotiates the roots of mob culture as a response to inequalities, while also holding its characters accountable for their actions by pointing out that Tony and his ilk are now rich and privileged and face little systematic discrimination.

Walter White from Breaking Bad – an underpaid, chronically disrespected teacher who has to work two jobs and still can’t afford to pay for medical treatment. More on him on the next page.

Antiheroes show us how we can be the villains.

As demonstrated by: Walter White from Breaking Bad.

Why he could be a hero: He’s a brilliant, underappreciated chemist whose work contributed to the winning of a Nobel Prize. He’s also forging his own path in the face of incredible adversity, and attempting to provide for his family in the event of his death.

Why he’s an antihero: In his pre-meth days, Walt failed to meet the exceptionalism associated with heroes, as a moral but socially passive underachiever living an unremarkable life. At the end of his transformation, he is exceptional at what he does, but has completely lost his moral standards.

What he can teach us: G.K. Chesterton wrote, “Fairy tales do not tell children that the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.” Following this analogy, it is equally important that our stories show us we, ourselves, can be the dragon. Or the villain, to be more specific, because being a dragon sounds strangely awesome.

Walter White of Breaking Bad is a paragon of antiheroism for a reason: he subverts almost every traditional aspect of heroism. From the opening shots of Walt careening along in an RV, clad in tighty whities and a gas mask, we recognize that he is neither physically capable, nor competent in the manner we’ve come to expect from our heroes. He is not especially conventionally attractive, nor are women particularly drawn to him. He does not excel at his career or garner respect. As the series progresses, Walt does develop the competence, confidence, courage, and resilience we expect of heroes, but he is no longer the moral protagonist: he is self-motivated, vindictive, and callous. And somehow, he still remains identifiable, which is integral to his efficacy.

But let us return to the beginning of the series, and talk about how, exactly, Walt subverts our expectations from the get-go. Walt is the epitome of an everyman: he’s fifty years old, middle class, passive, and worried about identifiable problems – his health, his bills, his physically disabled son, and his unborn baby. Whereas Tommy Shelby’s angelic looks, courage, and intellect subvert our preconceptions about what a criminal can be, Walt’s initial unremarkability subverts our preconceptions about who can be a criminal. The hook of the series is the idea that a man so chronically average could make and distribute meth.

Just because an audience is hooked by a concept, however, does not mean that they’ll necessarily continue watching. Breaking Bad could have easily veered into ludicrosity, if it weren’t for another important factor: character. Walt is immediately and intensely relatable, and he somehow retains our empathy for the entirety of the series, even at his least forgivable.

When we first meet Walt, his talents are underappreciated, he’s overqualified for his menial jobs, chronically disrespected by everyone around him, underpaid, and trapped in a joyless, passionless life in which the highlight of his day is a halfhearted handjob from his distracted wife. And to top it all off? He has terminal lung cancer. Happy birthday, Walt.

We root for him for the same reason we root for Dumbo, Rudolph, Harry Potter: he’s an underdog. The odds are stacked against him, and we want to see him triumph. Which is why it’s cathartic, for us and for Walt, when he finally finds a profession in which he can excel – even if that profession is the ability to manufacture incredibly high-quality meth. His former student Jesse Pinkman – a character so interesting that there’s a genuine risk he’ll hijack this essay – appreciates his skill, and this early appreciation is what makes his relationship with Jesse feel so much more genuine than Walt’s relationship with his family, even as their dynamic becomes increasingly unhealthy and Walt uses Jesse to bolster his meth business and his ego. This deeply dysfunctional but heartfelt father-son connection is Walt’s tether to humanity as he becomes increasingly inhumane, while also demonstrating his descent from morality. It has been pointed out that one can gauge how far-gone Walt is from his moral ideals by how much Jesse is suffering.

But to return to the initial point, it is imperative that we first empathize with Walt in order to adequately understand his descent. Aside from the fact that almost all characters are more interesting if the audience can or wants to empathize with them, Walt’s relatability makes it easy to understand our own potential for toxic and destructive behaviors. We are the protagonist of our own story, but we aren’t necessarily its hero.

Similarly, we understand how easily we can justify destructive actions, and how quickly reasonable feelings of anger and injustice swerve into self-indulgent vindication and entitlement. Walt claims to be cooking meth to provide for his family, and this may be partially true; but he also denies financial help from his rich friends out of spite, and admits later to his wife Skylar that he primarily did it for himself because he was good at it and “it made (him) feel alive.”

This also forces us to examine our preconceptions, and essentially do Walt’s introspections for him: whereas Peaky Blinders emphasize the fact that Tommy and his family would never have been able to achieve prosperity by obeying society’s laws, Walt feels jilted out of success he was promised by a meritocratic system that doesn’t currently exist. He has essentially achieved our current understanding of the American dream – a house with a pool, a beautiful wife and family, an honest job – but it left him unable to provide for his wife and children or even pay for his cancer treatment. He’s also unhappy and alienated from his passions and fellow human beings. With this in mind, it’s understandable – if absurd – that the only way he can attain genuine happiness and excel is through becoming a meth cook. In this way, Breaking Bad is both a scathing critique of our current society, and a haunting reminder that there’s not as much standing between ourselves and villainy as we might like to believe.

So are we all slaves to this system of entitlement and resentment, of shattered and unfulfilling dreams? No, because Breaking Bad provides us with an intriguing and vital counterpoint: Jesse Pinkman. Whereas Walt was bolstered with promises that he was gifted and had a bright future ahead of him, Jesse was assured by every authority figure in his life that he would never amount to anything. However, Jesse proves himself skilled at what he’s passionate about: art, carpentry, and of course, cooking meth. Whereas Walt perpetually rationalizes and shirks responsibility, Jesse compulsively takes responsibility, even for things that weren’t his fault. Whereas Walt found it increasingly acceptable to endanger or harm bystanders, Jesse continuously worked to protect innocents – especially children – from getting hurt. Though Jesse suffered immensely throughout the course of the show – and the subsequent movie, El Camino – the creators say that he successfully made it to Alaska and started a carpentry business. Some theorists have supposed that Jesse might be a Jesus allegory – a carpenter who suffers for the sins of others. Regardless of whether this is true, it is interesting, and amusing to imagine Jesus using the word “bitch” so often. Though he didn’t get the instant gratification of immediate success that Walt got, he was able to carve (no pun intended – carpentry, you know) a place for himself in the world.

Jesse isn’t a perfect person, but he reminds us that improving ourselves and creating a better life is an option, even if Walt’s rise to power was more initially thrilling. So take heart: there’s a bit of Heisenberg in all of us, but there’s also a bit of Jesse Pinkman.

The savior we all need, but don’t deserve.

Other examples:

Bojack from Bojack Horseman. Like Walt, the audience can’t help but empathize with Bojack, understand his decision-making, and even see ourselves in him. However, the narrative ruthlessly demonstrates the consequences of his actions, and shows us how negatively his selfishness and self-destructive qualities impact others.

Again, Tony Soprano. Tony, even at his very worst, is easy to like and empathize with. Despite his position as a mafia Godfather, he’s unfailingly human. Which makes the destruction caused by his actions all the more resonant.

Antiheroes emphasize the absurdity of contemporary culture (and how we must operate in it.)

As demonstrated by: Marty Byrde from Ozark.

Why he could be a hero: He’s a loving father who ultimately just wants to provide for and ensure the safety of his family. He’s also fiercely intelligent, with excellent negotiative, interpersonal, and strategic skills that allows him to talk his way out of almost any situation without the use of violence.

Why he’s an antihero: He launders money for a ruthless drug cartel, and has no issue dipping his toes into various illegal activities.

Why he’s compelling: Marty is an antihero of the modern era. He has a remarkable ability to talk his way into or out of any situation, and he’s also a master of using a pre-constructed system of rules and privileges to his benefit.

In the very first episode, he goes from literally selling the American Dream, to avoiding murder at the hands of a ruthless drug cartel by planning to launder money for them in the titular Ozarks. Despite his long history of dabbling in illegality, Marty has no firearms – a questionable choice for someone on the run from violent drug kingpins, but a testament to his ability to rely on his oratory skills and nothing else. He doesn’t hesitate to engage an apparently violent group of hillbillies to request the return of his stolen cash, because he knows he can talk them into giving it back to him. The only time he engages other characters in physical violence, he immediately gets pummeled, because physical altercation has never been his form of currency. Not that he’s subjected to physical violence particularly often, either: Marty is a master of the corporate landscape, which makes him a master of the criminal landscape. He is brilliant at avoiding the consequences of his actions.

It’s easy to like and admire Marty for his cleverness, for being able to escape from apparently impermeable situations with words as his only weapon. He’s got a reassuring, dad-ly sort of charisma that immediately endears the viewer, and offers respite from the seemingly endless threats coming from every direction. He unquestionably loves his family, including his adulterous wife. As such, it’s easy to forget that Marty is being exploited by the same system that exploits all of us: crony capitalism. The polar opposite of meritocratic capitalism – in which success is based on hard work, ingenuity, and, hence the name, merit – crony capitalism benefits only the conglomerates that plague the global landscape like cancerous warts, siphoning money off of workers and natural capital, keeping them indentured with basic necessities and the idle promise of success.

Marty isn’t benefiting from his hard work in the Ozarks. Everything he makes goes right back to the drug cartel who continuously threatens the life of him and his family. He is rewarded for his efforts with a picturesque house, a boat, and the appearance of success, but he is not allowed to keep the fruits of his labor. Marty may be an expert at navigating the corporate and criminal landscape, but it still exploits him. In this manner, Marty embodies both the American business, the American worker, and a sort of inversion of the American dream.

In this same manner, Marty, the other characters, and even the Ozarks themselves embody the modern dissonance between appearance and reality. Marty’s family looks like something you’d respect to see on a Christmas card from your DILF-y, successful coworker, but it’s bubbling with dysfunctionality. His wife is cheating on him with a much-older man, and instead of confronting her about it, he first hired a private investigator and then spent weeks rewatching the footage, paralyzed with options and debating what to do. The problem somewhat solves itself when his wife’s lover is unceremoniously murdered by the cartel, and Wendy and Marty are driven into a sort of matrimonial business partnership motivated by the shared interest of protecting their children, but this also further demonstrates how corporate even their family dealings have become. His children, though precocious, are forced to contend with age-inappropriate levels of responsibility and the trauma of sudden relocation, juxtaposed with a childhood of complete privilege up until this point.

Conversely, the shadow of the Byrde family is arguably the Langmores. Precocious teenagers Ruth and Wyatt can initially be shrugged off as local hillbillies and budding con-artists, but much like the Shelby family of the Peaky Blinders, they prove to be extremely intelligent individuals suffering beneath a society that doesn’t care about their stifled potential. Systemic poverty is a bushfire that spreads from one generation to the next, stoked by the prejudices of authority figures and abusive parental figures who refuse to embrace change out of a misguided sense of class-loyalty.

Almost every other character we meet eventually inverts our expectations of them: from the folksy, salt-of-the-earth farmers who grow poppies for opium and murder more remorselessly than the cartel itself, to the cookie-cutter FBI agent whose behavior becomes increasingly volatile and chaotic, to the heroin-filled Bibles handed out by an unknowing preacher, to the secrets hidden by the lake itself, every detail conveys corruption hidden behind a postcard-pretty picture of tranquility and success.

Marty’s awareness of this illusion, and what lurks behind it, is perhaps the greatest subversion of all. Marty knows that the world of appearance and the world of reality coexist, and he was blessed with a natural talent for navigating within the two. Like Walter White, Marty makes us question our assumptions about who a criminal can be – despite the fact that many successful, attractive, middle-aged family men launder money and juggle criminal activities, it’s still jarring to witness, which tells us something about how image informs our understanding of reality. Socially privileged, white-collar criminals simply have more control over how they’re portrayed than an inner-city gang, or impoverished teenagers. However, unlike Walt, Marty’s criminal activities are not any kind of middle-aged catharsis: they’re a way of life, firmly ingrained in the corporate landscape. They were present long before he arrived on the scene, and he knows it. He just has to navigate them.

Just like our shining, messianic heroes can teach us about truth, justice, and the American way, so too does each antihero have something to teach us: they teach us that society doesn’t reward those who follow its instructions, nor does it often provide an avenue of morality. Even if you live a life devoid of apparent sin, every privilege is paid for by someone else’s sacrifice. But the best antiheroes are not beacons of nihilism – they show us the beauty that can emerge from even the ugliest of situations. Peaky Blinders is, at its core, a love story between Tommy Shelby and the family he crawled out of his grave for, just as Breaking Bad is ultimately a deeply dysfunctional tale of a father figure and son. Ozark, like its predecessors, is about family – the only authenticity in a society that operates on deception, illusion, and corruption. They teach us that even in the worst times and situations, love can compel us, redeem us, bind us closer together. Only then can we face the dragons of life, and feel just a bit more heroic.

Other examples:

Don Draper from Mad Men. A similarly Shakespearian figure for the modern era, Don is a man who appears to have everything – perfect looks, a beautiful wife and children, a prestigious job. He could have stepped out of an ad for the American Dream. And yet, he feels disconnected from his life, isolated from others by the very societal rules he, as a member of the ad agency, helps to propagate. It helps that he’s literally leading a borrowed life, inherited from the stolen identity of his deceased fellow soldier, and was actually an impoverished, illegitimate farmboy whose childhood abuse permanently damaged his ability to form relationships. The Hopper-esque alienation evoked by the world of Mad Men really deserves an essay all it’s own, and his wife Betty – whose Stepford-level mask of cheerful subservience hides seething unhappiness and unfulfilled potential – is a particularly intriguing figure to explore. Maybe in my next essay, on the importance of the antiheroine.

#my writing tips #writing tips #tommy shelby #peaky blinders #walter white #breaking bad #jesse pinkman #bojack horseman #don draper #writing advice #antihero #the types of antiheroes #long post for ts

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hiccanna-tidbits · 3 years ago

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okay, okay but hear me out!

Hiccanna, Moanida and Jackunzel (and maybe someone else if u want) going on a holiday trip together (it could be sea or lake or just swimming pool).

And that three couples playing "chicken fight game"~ When u have to sit on partner shoulder or ridding piggy-back and knock down or separate the other couple!

sksksks just imagine the fun and the chaos!! hahaha

Okay SO I recently watched Palm Springs so I’m just imagining The Gang going to like…a fancy pool resort in like Arizona??? SURE LET’S GO WITH THAT

I’m imagining the only resort the gang could afford to stay at is someplace out in the middle of Arizona or something

It takes a LOT of persuading to get Jack to go, because he haaaaates deserts. Rapunzel basically has to beg. Moana finally managed to bribe him with really good homemade ice slushies. (She’s used to making smoothies for Merida, so how hard can slushies be??? Just throw in some ice!)

Rapunzel offers to help Moana with the slushies, since she gave Jack SO many puppy dog eyes to get him to come. Since they’ve got two people working on them, they’re REALLY good slushies. Jack approves.

Anna also tries to convince Elsa to go, but the perpetually-single Elsa is just like “Um, deserts? Sunburns? Being indefinitely stuck with gross couples doing gross couple stuff?!? Yeah no thank you”

Hiccup tries to wake everyone up at like 6 am to go hiking because "that's when the desert iguanas are out guys!!! C'mon, we have to go!!!" Anna is only persuaded to go after Hiccup makes her coffee--she really wants to make her bf happy, but also mornings can suck her dick. Rapunzel is more than happy to go, because she loves mornings anyways!!! And oh my god, IGUANAS!!! Jack, Merida, and Moana are like "oh FUCK no" and put the pillow back over their head, shoo Hiccup away, and go back to sleep.

On their hike, Hiccup just goes "!!!!!!!" about every reptile he sees. Snake, lizard, horny toad, literally anything with scales will send the boy into an excited frenzy. Rapunzel has similar reactions. Anna could not love both of them more.

At one point, they stumble across a gila monster sunbathing, and Rapunzel is overtaken with the unwavering desire to adopt him. She gets Hiccup on board, and he tries to lure the lizard over with a dusty piece of a snake carcass he found (Anna tried to tell him he really shouldn't touch that, but he was not to be swayed and Anna ended up figuring he could just wash his hands really well when they got back). Anna finds herself in the unusual position of having to be the Voice of Reason, having to be like “hey uh I think this might be illegal and stuff??? Also aren't they poisonous???”

(I know what you're thinking. Bold of you to assume Anna knows the difference between poisonous and venomous.)

Rapunzel literally CANNOT stop gushing to Jack about all the wildlife she saw when she gets back! Jackrabbits! Kangaroo rats! Roadrunners! Peccaries! Centipedes! Jack has only mild to moderate interest in desert ecology, but loves hearing his gf gush so he listens attentively anyways.

Anna and Rapunzel definitely hit up the gift shops in the resort town at some point, and go ABSOLUTELY BATSHIT HOGWILD buying gifts for everyone. They probably max out their credit cards. It's embarrassing, really. But Anna gets Hiccup an absolute shitton of those little wall lizard things and he nearly cries tears of joy when he sees them, so it's all worth it, really.

Moana will not leave the pool like. The entire time. The girl is just obsessed with being in the water, honestly. She gets restless, though, and can't just stand in the pool and vibe--she needs to constantly be moving and swimming around or she'll explode. Merida is more than happy to indulge her by hanging out in the poor with her, but Merida is also constantly challenging her to swim races--a very dumb idea, considering Moana is on the high school swim team and water polo team. Merida, naturally, is an extremely sore loser and is not above excessive pouting, splashing, yelling in angry Scottish, and dunking her girlfriend in revenge. It's at least entertaining for all of their friends to watch.

Jack keeps fucking taking huge buckets of ice from the ice machine and dumping them in the pool. At first he only does this because he keeps griping about the pool not being cold enough (this boy will accept nothing less than sitting in the goddamn arctic ocean), but after her figures out that it pisses off his friends, he takes to pouring said ice directly over their heads. Merida has threatened to murder him several times for this.

Hiccup and Anna's main pool activity is just lazing around on their pool floaties (Anna has a duck one, Hicccup has a dragon one because obviously), sipping cocktails, and just generally vibing. Through some ungodly mixture of pure charisma and a fake ID that Rapunzel helped photoshop, Jack manages to talk his way into getting the whole group access to alcohol. Hiccup is a sangria or Moscow Mule kinda guy while Anna usually gets a Pina Colada or a Sex on the Beach (she's aspec, so she literally will not stop joking about the irony of this). Merida makes a game out of attempting to tip over their floaties and dunk them. Jack, chaos gremlin that he is, puts aside his usual rivalry with Merida to join in. They have a surprisingly strong dunking alliance.

Hiccup and Anna try to form a syndicate of their own, and try to lounge on the same floatie so that they can protect each other while fighting off Jack and Merida together. Unfortunately neither of their floaties were made to hold 2 peoples' weight, so the one they're on ends up tipping over, spilling their cocktails everywhere and dunking them anyways. Jack and Merida consider this a Win By Default.

Moana of course loops everyone into playing water polo at some point. Unfortunately some idiot decided it would be a good idea to let Merida of all people pick the teams, which means of course that they are incredibly rigged. It's Moana, Merida and Anna vs. Jack, Rapunzel, and Hiccup, so basically The Jocks vs. The Nerds (although admittedly Anna is more of a softcore jock--she's nowhere near on Moana or Merida's level, but she's still more naturally athletic than Hiccup, Rapunzel, or Jack). Naturally, Jock Team absolutely whoops Nerd Team's ass. Jack gets salty and demands a rematch. ...Jock Team kicks Nerd Team's ass again.

Throughout all of this, no one thinks to just...rearrange the teams a little. Merida was counting on this. All according to plan.

In the titular chicken game (yes, I remembered, don't worry!), it's Merida on Moana's shoulders (Moana swims and has a lot of upper body strength, what can I say?), Hiccup on Anna's shoulders (I mean...Hiccup's a twig, and Anna HAS to have a fair amount of upper body strength from throwing busts around and punching men off boats and such), and Punz on Jack's shoulders (Jack's pretty lithe and good at keeping his balance while jumping around, so he's their best candidate for not just falling over).

Jack and Rapunzel actually manage to stay in the game longer than anyone expects--their primary strategy is “be good at dodging and staying out of the way while Merida and Hiccup duke it out.” And it works! As limber as Hiccup is, Anna's not nearly as coordinated as Jack and is no match for Moana's sturdy footing. Also, neither Anna nor Hiccup are prepared for how goddamn ruthless and determined to win Merida is. Even though they really, really should have been. I mean...have you met Merida???

When it comes down to Merida-Moana and Rapunzel-Jack, Mer feels a little bad for having to go up against Pure Sweet Punzie. Unfortunately, Rapunzel turns out to be a very hardcore fighter when she puts her mind to it, and Merida is much more evenly matched than she initially thought and realizes she must use her Full Power. It definitely helps her snap out of Going Soft when Jack starts brutally roasting Merida in particular (as per usual). Merida gets a rage-fueled Second Wave, and finally manages to knock Rapunzel over in one foul swoop. Merida and Moana are victorious!

Moana and Merida basically always shower together after a day at the pool. They claim it's because they both know how to handle curly hair in chlorine, and just like to wash each other's hair, but the rest of the gang is pretty sure that's not all that's going on in there.

One day, Anna hits up the resort town alone to buy some kind of secret gifts for her friends with what little money she has left (this girl seriously has no chill when it comes to buying presents). She goes past this huge, fancy ice cream shop and she's like “!!!! OMG!!! I'm gonna surprise all my buddies with pints of their faves!!!” She just gets super hyped and buys everyone ice cream, getting so caught up in the thrill of it that she forgets that she'll have to like. Drive all this back all the way back to the resort in the rental car. In like. You know. 110+ degree weather.

By the time she gets back to the resort, the ice cream is, of course, goop. Poor Anna, feeling incredibly dumb and like an utter failure of a friend, just kind of bursts into tears. Like damn. This is too much. She was gonna make all her pals so happy, and all for naught! Jack just kinda shrugs and throws all the melted ice cream cartons in the freezer anyways. Once they're (partially) re-frozen, Rapunzel and Moana make slushies with them. They actually come out pretty decent. Anna is substantially cheered up.

Moana prepares some tropical fruit platters for everyone to snack on. Rapunzel tries to “improve” them by adding chocolate sauce and nutella to half of them. Sometimes it works (I mean...bananas and strawberries with chocolate and/or nutella is pretty solid). Other times it just tastes...very weird. Merida gest frustrated and yells at Rapunzel for “ruining all of her girlfriend's good mangoes.”

Jack just thinks this whole thing is so funny, and decides to swap the chocolate sauce with barbecue sauce to cause further chaos. Absolute mayhem ensures. Everyone has a bad time. Except for Anna, who apparently is just a freak who enjoys eating pineapple slices dipped in barbecue sauce.

At some point, Merida gets really drunk on appletinis or some shit and signs the entire group up for a local archery competition. Much to everyone's chagrin, it's no refunds. Naturally, basically everyone sans Merida does terrible. Rapunzel and Hiccup very nearly shoot themselves, while Jack and Anna come very close to accidentally shooting a group of referees (although Jack might have done this on purpose). Moana gets the farthest, if only because Merida's taught her how to shoot a bow at some point. Merida actually ends up winning--although unfortunately, the prize is $20 and a very cheap plastic trophy (which Merida STILL manages to find a way to break before the trip is even over).

The rest of the group is much more amicable to the concept of going on hikes when said hikes are in the evening. Hiccup and Rapunzel are still excitedly chattering about the local ecosystems the entire time, and Jack and Anna are just kind of looking at their nerdy SOs like “<3 <3 <3″ Moana and Merida, meanwhile, are just kinda vibing in the back, passively listening in and watching the desert sunset.

Rapunzel manages to capture Mer and Mo's interest and gets them to participate more with geology, of all things. Merida just thinks rocks are cool (especially when they can be thrown at people bothering her!), while Moana likes learning about the physical history of places--how water can carve out landscapes, and all that. Hiccup and Jack just kind of exchange a look like “I had no idea that they were into rocks, but...the more you know, I guess???”

Jack makes fun of every reptile they see, mainly to piss Hiccup off. Unfortunately it has the opposite effect, and Hiccup can't help but be entertained--mainly because Jack's insults are so weirdly specific and over-the-top that they loop around to being hilarious. Seriously, he keeps saying shit like “Those are the lamest scales I've ever seen. Absolutely drab, and not nearly shiny enough to prove that nature is beautiful. 0/10.” and “Ohhhh, this fucking rattlesnake think's he's so scary, with his dumb percussion instrument tail!!! I could be more intimidating with a mean look and a large pair of maracas!”

At some point, a bunch of tourists riding donkeys pass them. Anna, Rapunzel, and Merida just absolutely lose their shit fangirling over how cute the donkeys are, thus exposing all three of them as the unabashed Horse Girls they are. Hiccup, Jack, and Moana find this extremely amusing, and definitely aren't above teasing their girlfriends about it. Hiccup asks if next time they take a couples' vacation, the Horse Gang (as Moana insists on nicknaming them) would like to go to a ranch instead.

Anna gets like. Obsessed with palm trees. Like they're just so pretty and exotic and tropical!!! OMG!!! And they definitely don't have them wherever the gang is from in this AU. (Also if griping about Elsa not having "tropical powers" is anything to go by, she DOES canonically like the tropics!) She has to take a picture of like...every palm tree on her phone. And considering the gang is in Arizona, that means Anna is stopping to take a picture like...every 2 minutes. Rapunzel catches onto the fact that Anna likes them, and paints her a picture with some when Punz has the time. Anna definitely cries when she sees it. Hiccup can't do nearly that good, but he does buy her some little plastic figurine ones in a gift shop that she can put in her room. Anna also cries about this. She just cries whenever any of her friends indulge her random fixation on palm trees. Surely she doesn't deserve such niceties!!!

Rapunzel is just. In love with the desert landscape tbh. Like the huge funky cacti!!! The shrubs!!! The desert wildflowers!!! The mesas!!! All of it!!! So of course she needs to pull out her easel and paint it. Jack walks by one day and sees her working on it and, partly just to troll her, he's like “put some snow in it!” As he walks away, Rapunzel just stops like “wait...that'd actually be such a great idea for a surrealist-type fantasy piece!!!” After she finishes the main landscape, she adds an overcoat of little puffs of snow on top of everything, and has some clumps falling off of the cacti. When she shows Jack, he just about cries tears of joy, but frantically tries to hide it. She gives the painting to him as a present at the end of the trip. He hangs that shit front-in-center in his room and cherishes it forever and ever.

At some point, Jack gets the ingenious idea that he's going to prank Merida by catching a tarantula and leaving it in her room. It's one of the harmless ones--Jack fact-checks this by offhandedly asking Hiccup and framing it as a casual interest in local etymology. Still, Merida screams far louder than is at all dignified, and also probably loud enough to wake a neighboring country. Rapunzel later has to physically hold Merida back to keep her from absolutely beating Jack into a pulp. Rapunzel also manages to get the World's Largest Sheet of Cardboard and the World's Largest Cup and somehow manages to get the damn thing back outside.

#rotbtd #rotbtfd #rise of the brave tangled dragons #the big four #jackunzel #hiccanna #moanida #jack frost #rapunzel #merida #hiccup #anna #moana #headcanons #hcs #vacation au #my askbox

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horrorslashergirl · 4 years ago

Text

Slasher OC: Decebal Avram Chirilă

Full Name: Decebal Avram Chirilă

Nickname(s): Dacia, Dece, The Impaler, Vladislav, Tiger, Lynx, Dracula, Casanova

Age: 38

Gender: Male

Nationality: Romanian

Place of Birth: Bucharest, Romania

Current Location: Travels from country to country

Occupation: Former Romanian Soldier; Now Hitman

Languages: Romanian, English, German, French, Italian, Hungarian, Russian, Turkish

Appearance:

Height: 6'8

Weight: 240lbs

Body Type: Middle Bulky and Atheltic

Skin Color: Warm Beige

Hair Color: Dark Brown

Hair Style: Short on the sides and longer on top, wavy

Eye Color: Pale Grey, almost white, giving the impression he is blind

Face Claim: Stephen James

Clothing: He opts for comfortable clothing mostly because of his job as a hitman and because he is always on the run. He mostly goes with black T-shirts or shirts, a khaki army coat with many pockets, along with camo army pants again with many pockets and black combat boots. He has a long black scarf with the colors of the Romanian flag trimmed along that belonged to his father.

Other features: He has many scars on his broad back and down his arms; his back's scars are covered by tattoos of an eagle and a grim reaper with two swords in an X shape. His has full sleeve tattoos down his arms, picturing all kind of nature scenarios from his country, mountains and wild animals and AK-47's on each forearm. His neck, chest and legs are also covered by tattoos along with his hands. This guy is all inked up. He also has a silver earing on his right ear. He also wears an eyepatch that is covering his scarred eye that he got from a fight with his brother Alexander, the scar mimiking the ones Alexander has, coming from his eyebrow down his eye and over his cheek.

Weapons: Twin Swords, Twin Guns, and throwing knives.

Power/Skills:

Murderous expertise

Brute strength

Skilled usage of weaponry

Skill in hand-to-hand combat

Knifesmanship

Swordsmanship

Multilingual

Cunning Nature

Charisma

Driving expertise

Ruthlessness

Fearlessness

Manipulation

Marksmanship

Master tactician and strategist

Stealth mastery

Symbols: Here is the link to Decebal's symbols

History/Bio:

Decebal was named after a Romanian king by his parents, father Apostol Chirilă, and his mother, Maria Stratulat of Moldovic heritage. They were a poor family that lived in Bucharest during the communist times, a hard period for them. Decebal's father, Apostol was one of the rebels that were against this form of a system of social organization in which all property is owned by the community and each person contributes and receives according to their ability and needs.

Because of this Apostol and Maria, along with their three years old son, Decebal, were dragged into the communistic jails where they were tortured in all kinds of ways from whipping to starvation to being chained into coldness.

Decebal tried to protect his parents even though he was a small child and the army warden that took care of the horrific jails was surprised by the child's braveness and he took him away from his parents, not before forcing him to watch how his parents were killed brutally.

During the rest of his childhood and teenage years, Decebal spent most of his life in the dark underground jail, training with the soldiers, doing hard work. Despite that, the warden thought Decebal about all kinds of languages, cultures, and history.

'Just because you're a stray dog that doesn't mean you cannot learn to bark and bite.'

In his late teenage years as he grew into an adult man, he got more to the light outside, following the warden wherever he went and did was his so-called 'father' figure did; smoke, drink and got laid with all the ladies.

The warden's words during a drunken late-night:

'You know boy, you will do something big, much bigger than you can imagine. I saw how all these sluts looked at you... You make them fall into your arms like they are desperate whores.'

'Use everything you got; charms, brains, muscles. In this world, there are the ones that walk every inch of the ground as they own it and the ones that follow, all chained. Tell me, boy... Which one you are?'

One of the greatest abilities that Decebal earned during years in the darkness was that he got so used to it that now as an adult, he sees perfectly into the darkness, just like cats do.

Some people called Decebal 'Lynx'; the moniker originates from the fact that Lynx has exceptional night vision, remarkable hearing, and incredible instincts. The spiritual lesson Lynx carries to you is a reminder to partake of quiet observance, remembering there’s more to the world than what’s accessible through the physical eyes and ears alone.

After communism fell down in Romania, Decebal still maintained the attitude he grew up around; being sadistic, cold, and cruel. People weren't too fond of his attitude; his habits including fighting and torturing people that opposed him, getting laid with other men's wives, strolling down the streets like he owned everything.

He disappeared from Romania when there was a reward on his head to be finally executed. The Romanian army was hot on his trail, turning against him, but he simply vanished.

He strolls from country to country, not having a definitive home and working as a rogue hitman to earn money and to survive.

After a brutal fight between him and his twin little brother, Alexander; the two brothers which resulted in both of them almost dead, they get on an agreement of peace between them, with the help of their third part, their little sister Nadia.

Family: His little brother Alexander Chirilă and his little sister Nadia Nikolina Chirilă

His favorite killing style:

He prefers a kill that will put on a good show, he will shot his victims in both their knees, then he will dismember them with his sharp twin swords.

Personality:

Decebal has two paths of personality; the civilian one and the hitman one, that sometimes cross path depending on the situation at hand. In hi day to day life, he is a charming, handsome man, confident and sure of himself, but also having a modesty edge, just to draw people in closer, because he loves the attention, having a God-like complex.

Despite his childhood, he is a very educated man that speaks many languages, sometimes taking people by surprise, he can even put on fake accents. He also has vast knowledge about other countries history, mostly because that's what his 'father-figure' talked a lot about.

He is a flirt, he simply adores to make women swon by his charming looks and mysterious persona wherever he goes, people always wondering from where he comes. He knows how to sweet-talk people, being extremly manipulative. His looks; big and strong, in his eyes a flaming white glow.

You will rarely see Decebal without his charming smile or dark smirk that makes the ladies sigh and faint. He always puts on a winning attitude, knowing for creating many divorces along his travelings.

Here goes his saying: 'If the female raised her tail, who I am to deny.'

He has a romantic side, after all he does speaks the romance languages, but it's highly influenced his his Casanova attitude.

He is blunt; this man will tell if you're damn gorgeous or if you're down-right ugly or stupid. He has no problem putting his opinions straight on the table.

His favorite drink: Țuică- is a traditional Romanian spirit that contains ~ 24–65% alcohol by volume (usually 40–55%), prepared only from plums.

His favorite food: Sarma is a dish of vine, cabbage, monk's rhubarb, kale or chard leaves rolled around a filling of grains, like bulgur or rice, minced meat, or both. It is found in the cuisines of the former Ottoman Empire from the Middle East to Southeastern Europe.

His scent: Decebal's scent could be described as a 'game of seduction' with an "exciting rush" of citrus and cool spice top notes. Pungent bergamot "bites" with freshness, revived by cardamom and lavender. Caviar gives a provocative and erotic touch “like a trickle of sweat on a man’s chiseled body.” Masculine and rough notes of tobacco and orris root facilitate the heat of the composition. He has that scent that could be described as smoky confidence irresistible to women.

Other Characteristics:

He is a very good dancer, especially traditional ones and he also knows singing. Attending important parties with his 'father-figure' he learned from the women how to dance and sing. The women basically made him such a charismatic man.

He is a heavy drinker and holds his alcohol like it's water; his moldovic genes showing off.

He is more of a night person that a day one, mostly because of his very good nocturnal sight.

He is pretty much an Outlaw.

His accent sounds like italian, latin, but with a little bit of russian or another slavic accent. (That's how a Austrian woman described his accent one night)

He is a master at Poker. Another way he earns a lot of money is through poker and plus, he is a master cheater. FUN FACT HERE: He won a man's wife through poker for one night.

He is a sword swallower, bonus he has no gag reflex.

He also loves to smoke from his pipe.

============================================

There lived a certain man in Romania long ago

He was big and strong, in his eyes a flaming glow

Most people look at him with terror and with fear

But to Bucharest chicks he was such a lovely dear

He could preach the Bible like a preacher

Full of ecstasy and fire

But he also was the kind of teacher

Women would desire

DE DE DECEBAL

Lover of the ROMANIAN queen

There was a cat that really was gone

DE DE DECEBAL

Romania's greatest love machine

It was a shame how he carried on

He ruled the Romanian land and never mind the Tsar

But the kazachok he danced really wunderbar

In all affairs of state he was the man to please

But he was real great when he had a girl to squeeze

For the queen he was no wheeler dealer

Though she'd heard the things he'd done

She believed he was a holy healer

Who would heal her son

DE DE DECEBAL

Lover of the Romanian queen

There was a cat that really was gone

DE DE DECEBAL

Romania's greatest love machine

It was a shame how he carried on

(This is an interpretation of the song ‘Rasputin’ by Boney M, mostly because the song inspired me into creating him)

For power became known to more and more people

The demands to do something about this outrageous

Man became louder and louder

"This man's just got to go!" declared his enemies

But the ladies begged "Don't you try to do it, please"

No doubt this Decebal had lots of hidden charms

Though he was a brute they just fell into his arms

Then one night some men of higher standing

Set a trap, they're not to blame

"Come to visit us" they kept demanding

And he really came

DE DE DECEBAL

Lover of the Romanian queen

They put some poison into his țuică

DE DE DECEBAL

Romania's greatest love machine

He drank it all and said "I feel fine"

DE DE DECEBAL

Lover of the Romanian queen

They didn't quit, they wanted his head

DE DE DECEBAL

Romania's greatest love machine

[Spoken:] Oh, those Romanians...

=======================================================

But when his drinking and lusting and his hunger

#Decebal Avram Chirila #Slasher OC #Romanian OC #Original characters #Hitman #Outlaw

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cerastes · 5 years ago

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I dislike ch'en a lot, the same way many feel about blackbeard in fgo. For me its the hypocrisy of her ideals and agent of facism, of wanting to change the system and being a consumate bootlicker, efforts and skills notwithstanding. What is your opinion of the character? Is there something good of her beyond chapter 3? Do you have a favorite operator that is not amiya? Any good fan creation for akrnigths you would recommend?

I like Ch’en quite a lot. I love that she’s a dutiful hard-ass with strong beliefs in her moral compass and her mission, I love that she’s Not Your Friend, I love that she has her way of doing things, and that they are not convenient for us. I love all of that, because it helps with immersion a lot. The first thing I thought when she first appeared was “wow I want to kick your ass”, and that’s exactly what I like to feel about a character when just about everyone else has made me think “I like you/friend”. It rounds out the narrative world and makes me feel like it’s actually populated by people with their own beliefs, virtues, and flaws, instead of simply existing for the sake of making the designated self-insert character feel nice and loved. I wouldn’t post about Ch’en at all if I didn’t like her, haha.

She gets a lot of growth and exposition after Chapter 3, yeah, particularly in Chapter 5. She becomes, dare I say, likable, even. To the player as a reader, anyhow, definitely not yet to the Doctor, most likely. But yeah she’s got some real nice lore(tm).

My favorite Operators are Specter, Platinum, Saria and Shining. I’ll keep it brief because I can go on forever on each character, but:

Aesthetically speaking, Specter is a scarily specific of my favorite things for a character to have, appearance-wise and characterization-wise. I really enjoy amnesiac characters, so it’s really fun to see how little her own Files say of her in comparison to how much the Files, some game art, and the dialogue of others, particularly Skadi and Blue Poison, paint a picture of Specter for us. We know Specter was an Abyssal Hunter, was Blue Poison’s friend and likely partner, and may have known Skadi, while the latter definitely knows her and implies Specter has a very important duty that she must remember.

Platinum is a fun take on one of my favorite archetypes: The Friendly Assassin, one that is pretty niche, all things considered. She is an incredibly skilled assassin, a sniper, an enigma... But that doesn’t mean she can’t also be a fun-loving, chill girl just looking to have a good time, or pull a little prank now and then, even. It is very amusing to me that Kal’tsit is immensely concerned about her loyalties and her demeanor when Plat is actually just really playful and her loyalties lie with Doctor more so than Rhodes Island per se.

Saria is, again, a hard-ass and someone that holds others and herself to very high standards. Also, she’s a scientist who has a ph.d in microbiology and presumably punching, as well as powers over calcification, which is absolutely god damn bonkers when you realize you can kill the shit out of absolutely anything with something like that. And yet, she refuses to be on the offensive or use her powers in any way that could harm others, period, implying the last time she did so was to stop Ifrit when she went berserk during the Fire Demon Incident. Saria’s someone immensely tempered, and I admire that.

Shining has some very interesting lines that might imply Doctor was involved in or at least is cognizant of her previous life as a ruthless swordswoman. I’m a big fan of repentant warriors who decide to cast away their weapon in one way or another (this applies to Saria, in a way, but more so to Shining), and whatever she did or participated in, no doubt with the best of intentions if perhaps dubious and brutal methods, seems to have backfired so spectacularly that she became a wandering healer to try and repent for it, and maybe even find a way to solve it. It’s all fascinating.

This is my favorite Arknights video.

#hiziram

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hollywoodhangar · 4 years ago

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@silvcrreaper replied to your post “that said, part of me wonders how r!Ciel adapts to having a chronic...”

I think it depends on a lot of factors because r!Ciel's #1 goal is reuniting with his brother etc. And given how he's treated Lizzie and maniuplated the family into believing that o!Ciel is doing this out of some misbegotten belief of protecting the family, glories may be right in that it'd depend ENTIRELY on a blog-by-blog basis because it would depend on how others write the character.

(mcdonald’s tune) ba-da-ba-ba-baaa, I’m over-analyzing! sorry for the word wall, feel free to ignore *laughs* i’m mostly just going nutters.

Yesssss of course, that I know very well. How she interacts with any real!Ciel is purely going to depend on what his roleplayer&I decide and what their dynamic will be.

But oh boy, my brain is like, “but just in case, what about for a base story point? just out of curiosity, what would it be like?” God knows when we’re going to get r!Ciel to monologue about family, or how he actually feels about them outside of Ciel (yana pls-). Like so far like you said with Elizabeth, he’s definitely appearing to be tender and very gentle, very gentlemanly! Appearing to be. But, that manipulative talk concerning Francis&Alexis though.. yeah. Lying to paint Ciel in a brighter light, as compared to “He thought I was dead so he took my name and decided to claim everything I had set up for me for himself”? Or to use that as something against Ciel in the future? Or to his own personal advantage of getting closer to Ciel? Both? ? ?

And there’s also the way Bizarre Dolls are, too. R!Ciel’s a very advanced version who can blend in with society seamlessly! But he’s still one of them, and those things have proven to be incredibly brutal and aggressive, primal, ruthless, merciless. Does that behaviorism survive in a brain that’s been made “stable” (is he even that? we seen him progress from attacking the Undertaker into being who he is now - there is no different body, it all happened in the same brain)? Given the “WHO STOLE THE CANDY FROM MY TUMMY?” message paved on the townhouse’s walls in poor Agni’s blood is a very brutal message that he did himself, it makes me wonder. ANOTHER TOUGH NUT TO CRACK.

Of course, that dark tone’s been with him ever since he was very little, though. How serious and still he got when he told Vincent he has no need for “fake brothers”. That’s the same little kid who then went through a very horrifying situation with a damn cult and was killed by said cult, “resurrected”, and grew up to be part of a gruesome murder that involved writing a message to his twin with the blood of poor Agni. Is it a mix of personality and the Bizarre Doll nature?

It just.. MMM. There’s really nothing I can drum up when it comes to this and it makes me so antsy! All we have is his brief interactions with family, how he’s looking forwards to an actual damn confrontation with Ciel as well as a reunion (there is no way this is not going to end in violence, I think both boys know that it’s a possibility; I imagine they’ll try not to, but they both got their weapons drawn against the other’s barrel *UT, Sebastian*) and what personality we’ve seen him express so far. I can only headcanon the hell out of this based on his behaviors with family.

What’d he have is:

Very good childhood memories with Claudia, and potentially having seen her cutting a bloody path through a swarm of the kidnappers that invaded the manor during the night of the fire.

The Undertaker talking about her in great respect and adoration (as glories pointed out!).

Her horrified & disbelieving expression when he appeared (because you know, she thought he was dead). But also how she cares for Our!Ciel by how she tries to interrupt the arrest and fails.

How so far, he’s treating the present family with decency.

I think it’s very possible that he’d treat Claudia with that same decency and a charming warmth (a deceptive mask, perhaps), especially when she slowly defrosts from the shock. But, I know for damn sure Claudia does not matter as much to him as Ciel. I have doubts that anyone in the family would matter that much.

.... GOD I’M GOING NUTS THOUGH HOW DOES THIS LITTLE UNDEAD GAGE CREED FEEL ABOUT FAMILY???? IS HE THE KIND WHO WILL MAKE AN EFFORT TO KEEP THEM TIGHT TOGETHER (perhaps through his own desires, through UT’s, or Ciel’s) OR IS HE THE KIND THAT WILL SELL THEIR SOULS TO SATAN FOR A BISCUIT. Is he the kind that would THREATEN them, such as if Edward tried to continue the “I don’t like the thought of you marrying my sister” schtick but since this Ciel is a little more unhinged it might not go so humorously as it would with our Ciel??? OR??? ? ??? ???

...

if you read this far ur a brave soul. sorry u had to read all that nonsense.

#silvcrreaper #(( sorry for the long reply - I was going to do it in the comments but the text limit got me //laughs ))#♈ [ BLOG; OOC. ] ━ 『 out of creation. 』#long post

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spirit-of-vengeance · 5 years ago

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7th ROTG anniversary. Time to get emotional.

I never written this down, but now I feel the need due to the intense nostalgia and the notice of how quickly time is fleeing. I have a tale to tell, I need to share my story about how this film changed my life. Warning: it's long.

Brief into: I believed in the Santa, Easter Bunny (I really wanted in the Toothfairy too and unfortunately never heard about Jack or Sandy) even when I was 10. (Which was considered pretty old to believe) I even got into an argument with my teacher in the 3rd grade because she said 'stop being childish, they aren't real' because I was excitedly whispering with my classmate about catching the Santa this year. A boy, who ironically looked exactly like Jack Frost began endlessly teasing me and calling me stupid for still thinking he's real. On the way back home with mom I confronted her about this, not giving up until she told me whenever he was right or not. Backed into a corner, she was forced to give up. I cried every day for weeks. The magic was ripped away from me.

Year 2012, December. I'm 11 and a victim of hardcore bullying since my whole life. Students, teachers and sometimes parents. To cheer me up, mom took me to the shopping center to watch a movie. We couldn't really decide & she saw a giant poster of North smiling at people. Her eyes lit up and excitedly said 'Let's watch that! ' I followed the direction of her finger and my face scrunched in malice "I am not watching a movie with the Santa. Its stupid. I'm a big girl, I want to watch a bloody action movie! " but she was unbending. She could bribe me into it with a large bowl of popcorn; I was still grumbling when the lights went out.

The change: first snowflakes, first notes of the piano worked like magic. I immediately shut up and wondered what actually happens here. Why is it so soothing? At the first few shots of the North Pole when North is working on the ice train, I jumped in my seat and I shit you not, I thought the Santa is actually getting murdered. My eyebrow rose higher when I realized that guy with the chainsaw and swords is the Santa. Unfortunately, I can't remember more first reactions; stress, depression, traumas really ruined my long term memory. It seems silly now, but I kept the last piece of popcorn what I was munching on during it, I still have it in a little jewel box; one of my sacred memories. The car ride back to home was quiet, I was staring out of the window my mind stirring with creativity.

Aftermath: 2013-2018; while my classmates were busy getting drunk, being a petty bitch, giving oral in the toilet, (yes. I am talking about elementary school.), getting laid, I was lost in a world of wonder. I learnt 60% of my English knowledge in 3 months with reading fanfiction. I browsed deviantart for hours and laughed my ass off at the hilarious, extremely well done fanarts.

I grew up on mostly Blackice videos I wasn't 100% aware what I'm actually seeing tho, I was exposed to gay ships from a young age and plot twist, nothing serious happened😀. My mental health wasn't shit because I saw the Bogeyman and the Winter spirit kiss.

I began talking to the Moon. I cried my pain to him. Sitting on my windowstill, debating whenever I should jump or not. My extraordinarily strong bond with my mom and this film were my only lifeline. I was making it through, in my own world. My imagination created wonderful sights, scenarios; at nights I was certain I can spot Sandy on his cloud, at Christmas North trying to push himself out of the chimney cussing, at Easter that enormous bunny running around, at winters mostly yelling at Jack 'get out of my country' because I'm a summer person, going to school on a chilly yet sunny autumn day and see Pitch standing on the edge of the misty forest.

I began to change, respond to the pressure from my bullies. My personality began to morph. See the wonder in everything; like North. There's hope and spite, don't dare to give up; like Bunny. Awaken and enjoy creativity; like Sandy. Shit on the rules and have a damn good time no matter what; like Jack. Cherish memories and friends; like Tooth. Be ruthless and stand up from the most brutal blows; like Pitch. And never forget, the Moon will always be there even when he's an antisocial dick and says nothing.

My aim, my dream was to write the sequel. When I was done I wanted to send it to William Joyce. I wrote 200+ pages, but unfortunately in Hungarian. I still don't know why I stopped, why I abandoned that plan.

I was looking for ROTG posters because I wanted to email them to my friend to show what I've been obsessed with. I was just lazily staring at a Pitch poster, realizing his V neck actually never closes - then my eyes crossed the date: November 21. I let out an ungodly shriek of disbelief and mirth. Mom rushed into the living room with terror and met with the sight of me screaming in ecstasy "RISE OF THE GUARDIANS CAME OUT ON MY BIRTHDAY!!!! "

Around 2016 I became really interested in this roleplay stuff and oh god I was terrible. Cindy Flame then was an always angry Mary sue but after years of practice, expanding she is a completely built, extremely complex character, flawed, strong, tragic and ruthless; divine yet oh so human. So I was making friends online, most of them failed, I think one of them committed suicide but that belongs to an another story.

I have been lurking Tumblr for 3 years? More? Because I had no idea how this site worked and I was shy because I thought my writing is not good enough I realize now I felt right. I admired blogs from afar, read their writing and falling deeper and deeper into this fandom.

Nearing present day: I actually came to Tumblr to pursue a friend of mine. I was borderline desperate because I've thought they are one of the last one in the fandom and it scared me. The fun thing is, I actually never interacted with them after making this blog. So I break this two year old spell and hi @kingofnxghtmares it's me, Jasmine😊 You don't have to answer/interact/or anything, I wanted to get everything off my chest and finally tagging you just felt right.

So now I'm on Tumblr. And I love every second it. I've found amazing friends, insanely dynamic muses, crack threads, angst, the chance to expand my muse even more and where I belong. So there I am, wondering where 7 years went. I've grown up (somewhat), and I'm glad I was protected from the 'disaster teenage years ', drinking, heartbreak, drugs, etc instead I grew up in a magical world interviewed with reality so closely; it became an escape place when reality became too heavy.

About ROTG & finale: masterpiece. The animation is insanely lifelike yet fantasy. Every tiny, microscopic detail is perfect, the characters, the storyline, the atmosphere original and capturing. The music is gut wrenching. Everything is absolutely, 200% on point. I don't think there ever will be an animated movie which can be better than Rise of the Guardians animation and/or storywise. No 'love is the answer ' movies can ever come close this iconic masterpiece no matter how they rip it off looking at Frozen 2😒

I watched it today (I have it in Spanish as well and I only can encourage everyone to watch it, the Spanish voice acting is, 100% in my opinion Pitch's bested Jude Law, damn that rich hiss of malice was incredible ) on my 18th birthday while cuddling with mom, laughing and heavy with nostalgia. I think I will remain in this fandom for a very long time, I don't think I would ever be able to let it go due to my deep emotional ties. I would like to thank everyone who were present in making this film, the artists who still keep this fandom alive, all of my friends, roleplay partners; thank you for brightening my childhood, giving me purpose and a place to belong.

To my all of my friends:

@paintbrushtheelf @muerte-rojo @nightmarinqs @mr-mansnoozie @gatekeeperoftheunderworld @50shadesofpitchblack @flossinspector @magicmiyeh

@black-equals-mysoul @nxghtlight @lindzem

I love all of you,

Jasmine

#Trigger warnings for mentions of suicidal thoughts #wow this is long #And angsty #Idk who read it completely but they deserve a medal for it #wild author appearing without makeup #I know I don't look 18.#Long story cut short: ROTG came out on my birthday and I'm emotional #🔥author/writer's note🔥 | smoldering embers

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squidproquoclarice · 5 years ago

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Heyooooo! Dude I love your take on Arthur's death!!! Actually I have a little of a question, how do you feel about John's death? Its alot more sudden and brutal then Arthur's and I was wondering how you felt about it in the context rdr1. Love the blog!!

OK, so I’ll preface with a bit of a PSA: I know I’ve answered previous Asks about John and Sunrise and RDR1 timeline and said I kind of threw up my hands in frustration because it felt like there was no good out for John’s death. I did possibly come up with an out for John’s death this weekend that I feel actually could work. I’m not promising anything. I’m going to have to see what happens when I get to that Chapter in Sunrise and whether I can pull the trigger on that scenario or not, but given the UA I’m working in and some changes that have already happened, I do see a potential very small window of opportunity that doesn’t break the entire damn game for RDR1. Stay tuned.Honestly, RDR1 was some generally tight writing, IMO, because I’ve looked at that thing backwards and forwards and concluded with the canon scenario and variables they gave us, John is pretty much doomed from the opening credits. Once Ross found him at Beecher’s Hope, once Ross took Abigail and Jack hostage and imprisoned John to force his compliance, the entire story is more or less inevitable. Ross and John are on a collision course and it’s well set up.Ross is determined, ruthless, and unscrupulous. Unlike Milton, who liked making melodramatic speeches because he really just needed to be morally superior and kept fucking up the actual capture right up until he broke bad at the end and captured Abigail, Ross is much more dangerous. He’s a fanatic on a mission, and he has zero problem getting down in the dirt to do it. He’s only concerned with results. As a lawman, that’s a huge ethical problem, but as an antagonist, it makes him far more interesting than the generally Keystone Kops antics of Milton, IMO. Milton and the Pinkertons are just the incitement, not the actual antagonists of RDR2. I would say the real antagonists are Micah with his chaotic evil mentality and manipulations, and Dutch with his true self finally coming out due to both Micah’s influence and the pressure of the situation. Ross is very clearly front and center as RDR1′s antagonist. So you’ve got a dirty cop and an ex-outlaw he’s got over a barrel. Ross is going to force John to do the dirty work and go after Javier, Bill, and Dutch. Once he’s done that, Ross also is not merciful enough to leave John alone on the doorstep of Blackwater and the Bureau of Investigation, and just assume John will keep his mouth shut and not report what happened to his superior. He’s not the kind of man to leave loose ends like that. Killing John is cleaning up the mess, and it’s incredibly easy to justify, when you look at it from a law enforcement perspective rather than our sympathy with John and Arthur. Ross is a federal agent who’s found a dangerous man who’s been on the run for 12 years, and was part of what amounts to a criminal (and as of 1899, domestic terrorist) organization that wreaked havoc in probably a dozen states over a 20-year span. Bringing a small army to “capture” John Marston sounds entirely reasonable.John and Abigail are extremely tied to Beecher’s Hope. It’s something they’ve fought for, as we see in the RDR2 Epilogue. It was Abigail’s dream, and it’s become John’s. They’re also naive enough to assume that with Dutch dead, the debt is discharged and Ross will leave them alone to go about their quiet, unremarkable and law-abiding lives. They’re not unreasonable in that. They escaped Milton, they escaped others, and the really big fish have been caught. But they trust too much in Ross’ honoring this implied bargain, which says a lot about how much they’ve both changed in 12 years that the edges of their outlaw-based suspicion of the law and society have worn off. Like most white people, they now readily put faith in the honor of a man wearing a badge. And that’s the true tragedy. They’re failed by their own good faith that they’ve learned since leaving the outlaw life, and John in particular seems to learn it even more in the course of the game just in time to have it screw him over.Short of John abandoning Abigail and Jack–which would be completely OOC, particularly after RDR2–RDR1 all leads along that single track towards the inevitable conclusion. It leads to John in that barn at Beecher’s Hope. And God, that moment on the mountain between John and Arthur makes John standing there at those barn doors facing certain doom even more painful and poignant, because I think that’s the moment John possibly finally feels he measures up to the big brother he so idolized for 14 years. If Arthur could be brave enough to turn and face his death with courage and serenity, to buy those family members he loved the chance to escape, so be it. John can’t do any less. (I also feel like Curzon’s acting in terms of body language in “Banking, The Old American Art” with Hosea’s sudden lack of fear and turning to face Milton and what he has to know is coming, is also tied into all of this. Both his sons did the same in the end.) The power of Arthur’s story is a more internal one: it’s in his struggle to finally grow up and become a man, to find his own identity, to decide what truly matters to him, and to feel the right to give way to his inner goodness and help people rather than harming them. It’s no coincidence we really, really needed that journal like we didn’t in RDR1. Arthur’s story is in the life he decides to live while facing his demons, his mortality, the betrayal by loved ones, and the dissolution of everything he’s ever relied upon.The power of John’s story is a more external one: it’s in the inversion of the “cops vs robbers” dynamic and the inevitability of the tragedy it causes, with a generally good man caught tight by his own past, forced into killing old friends by a man as cold and callous as those criminals he’s hunting, and then being killed by him as a mere loose end to cover his ass. Plus as I’ve noted, while you can reasonably write a survival scenario for Arthur where he passed out on the mountain from exhaustion and struggling for air, it’s really hard to write survival from 20+ bullet wounds like John receives. (Thanks, R*.)

#john marston #arthur morgan #rdr2 #thank you for coming to my red talk #Anonymous

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0418-r-blog · 6 years ago

Text

Parallels

genre: angst, romance, university! au, mentions of sex characters: reader and Jiwon (Bobby), Ikon, others word count: 1855 summary: Jiwon doesn’t get attached and Y/n knew that.

Part 1 I only say the truth

Jiwon was a fuckboy. And you knew that.

It's been almost two years since Y/n moved to the apartment. When she arrived, Hanbin, Yuji and Jiwon already lived there and she took the place of another friend of them that went on a exchange program. At the beginning she was afraid she would feel outcasted but they welcomed her warmly and with time, all four became very close.

Hanbin was gentle and focused but was always trying to put up a bad boy facet that (almost) everyone believed in. Yuji was was sloppy, lazy and unpretentious in the most adorable way possible. Everything she did seemed to be a path to disaster but her charisma would always win. And Jiwon was transparent as a glass. He was sweet but at the same time, ruthless. He seemed quiet at first glance but his ability to relate to others was immense. He loved his friends, that was clear. But in addition, he was extremely devious and confident, traits that some hated and others loved. In the case of girls, it was the latest.

Jiwon was a fuckboy. Y/n knew it and every girl at the campus also knew it but for some illogical reason beyond her comprehension, they would still get involved with him. He wasn't a complete jerk that prevented people from liking him or being his friend. He'd always let his intentions clear and be brutally honest about everything, never getting attached to anyone while attaching himself to everyone. He was the type of guy that Y/n would usually find to be a jerk but maybe for knowing him in completely different circumstances, she was found of him.

"Good morning" a voice came from her back. When she looked, it was a complete stranger with a sweet smile, "good morning" she responded, having absolutely no idea who she was but pretty much knowing she's with Jiwon. A minute later, Jiwon comes out and gives his good mornings while displaying a shy smile to Y/n, that gave one in return.

"I'll be leaving now. Call me?" she smiled to him, gesturing a phone.

"Sure" Jiwon responded while opening the door.

"Is that coffee I see?" he asked.

"Yes, do you want some?" Y/n offered.

"Thank you" he flashed his bunny teeth and Y/n giggled while shaking her head for his cynicism about the situation. After that She quickly left to uni and promised that she'd go watch him play at night.

Each one of them had their own routine. Y/n went to her classes in the morning and in the afternoon she worked at the archiving department from University. Hanbin had a part-time job in the morning, classes in his afternoons and took the nights to compose or go to musical events in the city. Jiwon studied in the mornings and worked in a record store until late nights, playing twice a week at the campus radio as a DJ. And finally, Yuji, that was already graduated, worked in a office all day and took her nights and weekends to sleep, see her boyfriend and go clubbing.

This semester was incredibly dull to Y/n. The classes weren't exciting and everybody was super busy, barely being able to meet. Surprisingly her dull job at the University's library was quite exciting as unlikely as that might seem.

Drowning in books and documents all afternoon was strangely therapeutic to her. All her daily stress was unleashed in the solitude of the enormous file-room, the little laptop, scanner, and headphones that accompanied her since the beginning of the year.

After leaving work, she headed to the store that Jiwon worked. There was Hanbin, Yuji, and other of his close friends. Friday's on "Radio 3" had become one of the hottest spots in the city. The parties were practically infested with college students for it's proximity to the campus and the youthful but vintage vibe of the place.

Y/n was probably the shyest of the four and despite loving the company of her friends and getting a little tipsy at the end of the week, staying 6 hours grinding at a club was not her first choice. But Jiwon played at least once a month and she tried to show up some times.

Jiwon was very good at it and while his own productions were going a little slower because of work and school, he paid his bills by playing the music of others and his and Hanbin productions. Besides being best soul friends, Hanbin and Jiwon shared their love for music, and both, in their own way, ran after their dreams.

Arriving there, Yuji welcomed her with a tipsy smile, handling a beer in her hand,

"Hey love" she exclaimed

"Hey" Y/n responded

"Tired?"

"Pretty much" she chuckled putting the beer away and grabbing a bottle of water at the bar.

"Just stay for a while and then go home."

"Yeah, that's what I'm going to do. Let me say hello to Jiwon" she said and turned around.

"Ok, go there hottie"

"Haha ok" Y/n responded laughing to her drunk friend.

"You're specially hot these days" her friend responded with a silly smile.

"Yuji, control yourself, your boyfriend is right there" she pointed to her boyfriend while he waved backed, laughing.

"I can't!" her friend gestured putting her hands on her heart.

She pulled away from her friend and headed for the cabin to give Jiwon a shy wave, which he returned with a smile.

"You came!"

"I always do"

"Only when forced"

"True" she giggled. "But hey, at least I come every other month, stop being demanding"

"Ok, you're right, it's a honor already"

"Are you thirsty, DJ?" both laughed of how corny that sounded.

"Yes, please." He said while grabbing the water of her hand.

Y/n intentions of staying only a little became a little different as the night go on and she felt like dancing and staying a bit more.

1 am. "Damn I need to go home" Y/n said out loud.

"Already?" Hanbin asked while dancing with Yuji.

"Yeah, I'm super tired. I'm gonna say goodbye to Jiwon. Bye, loves"

They waved back.

"Jiwon, I'm leaving now, see you tomorrow!"

"Hey wait, I'm leaving too. The other DJ will take over"

"Do you want me to wait you?"

"Yes, It'll only take a few minutes."

Y/n stood outside for 5 minutes when Jiwon came out and they started to walk towards the bus stop.

"Sorry, I was exhausted."

"It's fine, I'm dead" he laughed with his visible tiredness. "These last weeks have been brutal with the midterms and work but I can't stop playing here, it's the only way I have to share my music"

"You're not paid for playing?"

"No. The owner pays me for my work at the radio, as a cashier, to clean the floor, anyways...but playing is the bonus I have, a opportunity. So even when I'm dead, I play."

"That's good because your set is amazing"

"You don't have to please me, Y/n" he gave a small smile.

"No, I mean it. You're great, both your remixes as your own productions. Don't stop believing" she said while she signed the bus to stop. He gave a coy, thankful smile and both entered the bus and sat at the second to last row of benches.

"And you, what have you been doing?"

"Oh no, my life is not as exciting as yours"

"How's that, what your life has that is not interesting?"

"Everything!" she laughed. "I only study and go to work at the library in the afternoons"

"You don't like it there?"

"To be honest, I love there haha. But it's far from being a crowded club or dreams of being a artist or anything slightly exciting"

"I think everyone has a dream, a path. And if...uhm...-"

"Archiving"

"Archiving is what you like then archiving is exciting because you are exciting"

"Stop it, now who needs to try to please me is you. Not even the famous and coveted Dj Bobby saying that archiving is cool is gonna make archiving cool"

"Maybe?"

"No"

Both giggled loudly.

He cleared his throat and asked "but what do you mean with coveted?"

"That was the word you decided to remember?"

"Yes, explain yourself"

"What do you mean explain myself? You're the sensation among a lot of the girls at the campus and you know that very well"

He gave a cocky smirk.

"I just think it's unfair for you to be talking about me when you barely comment about your love life"

"What love life?" she giggled while Jiwon stared at her in confusion.

"That's right, while I admit my indiscretion you are so private I almost don't see any of your love conquests"

"Conquests? Jiwon, my love life is as agitated as hers" she stated while pointing at a old lady that was sitting in the first few seats of the bus that looked like she was at least 90 years-old.

"You don't know, maybe she's living the best life. It's 1 am after all"

"Oh my god, you're right, I'm even worse" both laughed uncontrollably earning some bothered looks in the bus.

"But really" he resumed "I find it very hard to believe in that"

"Why?"

"Well, how can I say this"

"What?"

"That's our bus top"

She got confused until she realized their bus stop has indeed arrived. Both walked in silence for two minutes towards their home until she got curious.

"What were saying?"

"Nothing"

"Tell me!"

"It's nothing"

"C'moooon"

"I was gonna say that I find it hard to believe that you don't have a love life when you're that hot"

"Jiwon!" she exclaimed while laughing.

"What? You wanted to know" he backed while also laughing.

"Stop messing with me"

"What do you messing with you, girl?"

"I'm not hot"

"You're very hot, gorgeous, A++ so stop being shy about it or I'll keep going" he warned.

She laughed, embarrassed, while both entered the empty apartment.

"That's what you say to all girls?" she mocked him.

"I'm not that lazy and girls don't fall for that, Y/n"

"Sorry" she said, embarrassed by her own statement.

"I usually invite them to see me play, then I take them to the bus stop, we chat and then I compliment them" he spoke while having the most vicious look in his eyes.

Y/n never saw him looking like that to her before.

"Jerk" she murmured while soft smiling. Her hands were getting strangely cold and her heart started to pound. She then rested her body against the kitchen counter and looked again at his eyes. It was pure lust. Her stomach was on fire, she wasn't even trying to understand what was going on.

"Are those compliments usually true?"

He smirked, slowly walking in her direction "I only say the truth"

She slightly bite her lips and softly murmured "I doubt it"

"Don't doubt me" he said while getting too close. Both bodies connected and in a snap of fingers, they began to kiss uncontrollably. It didn't take long until those desperate kisses on the kitchen migrated to his bedroom.

Thank you for reading!

#ikon scenarios #ikon imagine #ikon angst #jiwon angst #jiwon imagine #jiwon scenario #bobby scenario #bobby imagine #bobby angst #ikon

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minaminokyoko · 6 years ago

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Favourite avengers movies scenes?

How on earth do you expect me to ever narrow down enough to not list the entire trilogy in general? Holy hell. I am a big fat Marvel fangirl and I could write a fucking dissertation on scenes complete with charts and graphs. For the sake of argument, let me see if I can at the very least just highlight the tippy top favorite moments from the first three Avengers films. Keep in mind, I fucking love all three of them to death and could rave about them for days at a time.

The Avengers

-Loki’s confrontation with Nick Fury. This scene sets the tone for the rest of the film so fucking well, man. It’s just brilliantly done to see that whatever humanity that we saw in Loki in Thor has pretty much flown out the window and he’s here to wreak havoc and start a war, and he doesn’t care how many people he destroys in the process. I also like that it shows the vast gap in power and experience between the SHIELD agents and an Asgardian. Loki all but flattens everyone in a matter of seconds. Seeing him among other Asgardians can kind of make you forget he’s literally a thousand year old god and is tough as nails. He’s also low down and ruthless and that’s the kind of thing that is scary as hell when you realize that’s what they’re all up against.

-Nat’s “interrogation” with the Russians. I actually love every single Avenger’s introduction scene, but this one is so delightful in that Nat shows us just why she is an Avenger even though she has no enhanced abilities: deception, manipulation, and just being an incredibly agile combat expert. I am most delighted with her scene because before Avengers, I had no regard for Nat at all and thought she was just fanservice, but here, she completely proved her worth as a character and to the team, and I got on board as a fan of her just from her opening scene wiping the floor with these idiot Russian dudes.

-Tony and Bruce getting to know each other in the lab. From a character standpoint, this is an outstanding scene. Tony is trying to draw Bruce out of his shell, and the sympathy and empathy he has for him is so palpable that it’s why we all dubbed them the Science Bros and why it’s one of the best friendships in the Avengers. Tony is so awesome for joking with Bruce and treating him like a normal person and reminding him that there is at least one person aboard that helicarrier who doesn’t see him as some terrifying monster and knows just from reading up on him that he’s not a bad person. It’s so charming and wonderful.

-Stuttgart. Man. Man, oh man, this is a well done scene. The build up to Loki’s horrifying actions is so great and so is this freaking diva’s grandstanding once he demands the poor, confused Germans kneel before him. It’s fascinating to me because Loki has an almost childlike need for attention, as if his frustrations with his failure to take over Asgard as king has manifested itself into this very basic need to be acknowledged as being a powerful threat. Loki could kill an average human being with a flick of his wrist. His comparison of “an ant has no quarrel with a boot” while cruel is accurate, but here’s the thing, Loki: if you fuck with enough fucking ants, you can get your ass into a lot of trouble, and we’re fireants, not sugar ants, buddy. And ants who band together get shit done. The old man who stood up to him, in my book, is a fucking hero all on his own and I think it’s one of the most well crafted pieces of dialogue in the entire MCU. “There are no men like me.” “There are always men like you.” Oh, standing ovation for that piece of dialogue. Give it an Oscar. Then Cap swinging in to kick ass and Tony swooping in beside him with an equally over the top entrance to Loki’s was the icing on the fucking cake.

-Thor retrieving Loki. Hnnnnnnngh, okay, so here’s the thing: I fucking love Thor and Loki’s relationship even before Ragnarok came out and upgraded it. Thor is and always has been since his first movie a man with very deep emotions who loves and loves deeply with all his heart, and his confrontation with Loki just wounds me so much. How Thor throws Loki to the ground and yet yanks him to his feet and just holds him there, his hand on his face, looking so torn between agony and relief that his brother is alive. “I thought you dead.” “Did you mourn?” Fuck me, this scene is absolutely brutal to my feels. Thor and Loki’s debate was nothing short of excellent as Thor tries to bring Loki around, and the thing is, he means it. He means every fucking word, that he would take the Tesseract and bring his brother home, and he doesn’t care about facing the music, he just wants his goddamn brother back even after all Loki has done so far in the story. Y’all better stop sleeping on Thor, man. His heart is by far the best thing about him, forget all the delicious muscles and that perfect teddy bear smile. Thor has miles and miles of heart, and that’s why I love this scene so much.

-Nat tricking Loki into revealing his plan. This scene is so good I based an entire goddamn fanfic around its premise. Dude. Nat fucking Romanov, y’all. I love how this scene is staged and executed. I love Loki starting out almost gentle and conversational, as if for once he’s going to just be an actual person and not a monster, and then he slips back into that nasty egotistical megalomaniac when he thinks he has one over on Nat. And then Nat fucking schools him. It’s why I have a personal headcanon that he developed a hatecrush on her after she, a mere mortal, tricked the goddamn God of Mischief. It solidified Nat as one of my favorite female heroes forever. I loved seeing her use that feminine “weakness” to let him run his mouth. I also love that his cruel words did in fact affect her and motivated her even more to both save Clint and to go to war with Loki at the end.

-The whole ass helicarrier attack sequence. I mean, I don’t even need to go into detail. You already know.

-Tony confronting Loki. This is the scene that assured us that what followed would be one of the greatest fight sequences in cinematic history. I pretty much have most of Tony’s dialogue memorized because it had such an effective impact on me from a storytelling standpoint. Tony standing up to Loki as a mortal man with no suit, candidly threatening him with barely suppressed rage that Loki murdered Coulson, a comrade, in cold blood, is downright amazing.

-The battle of New York. Boom. Again, no words necessary. Perfect fucking sequence from start to finish.

-Thor trying one last damn time to bring Loki around. Oh, my heart. My poor fucking heart. Thor really loves his brother and he would do anything to have him back. Is it naive? Yes. But it’s also a beautiful statement of what family truly means to Thor and it breaks my heart. The fact that a tear slides down Loki’s face when he stabs Thor and mutters, “Sentiment” is so not cool. As much as Loki pretends to be the Big Bad Wolf, there is something still young and human inside of him even though he pretends it isn’t there. All my creys.

-Hulk trouncing Loki. I went and saw The Avengers three times in theaters, and two out of the three times, everyone cheered so loud I didn’t hear the Hulk say “puny god” over all the noise. It was that satisfying a scene.

Age of Ultron

-The entire beginning sequence. Fucking loved it. What masterful ass-kicking and showcasing of the team dynamic. It made me want a longer lead in to how they all got reunited because it was so enjoyable. “Language!” Oh, Cap.

-Jarvis and Ultron’s first scene together. Dude. James fuckin’ Spader, man. I never knew I could be so intimidated by a man’s voice. It was so unsettling for so many reasons, the resentment, irrationality, and anger from his unusual birth and creation. It was all the more frightening when he turned on Jarvis, and at the time, we didn’t know he hadn’t killed our beloved butler.

-Picking up Mjolnir. This scene needs no elaboration. It’s just perfection. Even people who complain about Age of Ultron admit this scene is just flawless.

-The team confronting Tony over creating Ultron. Cap’s line, which we now know goes even further after the events of Infinity War, just make me want to die. “We’ll lose.” “Then we’ll do that together, too.” Tony’s face, realizing that Cap doesn’t care that he fucked up–he cares that Tony couldn’t trust the team enough to let them in on what he was dealing with–is soul-crushing. Tony realizes he was wrong to assume instead of being honest with them.

-The confrontation in Wakanda. Everything about it was badass and it hits you right where you live seeing the Avengers having to face their biggest regrets and most painful moments of their pasts. Especially Steve’s. The image of him and Peggy finally getting their dance was so not okay. Special props to Tony in the Hulkbuster armor. That was one hell of a fucking brawl.

-The Sokovia final battle. There are just so many awesome points in the final battle sequence, man. Everyone is out there just kicking ass and doing what they do best. Special props to Hawkeye getting through to Wanda, and Hawkeye’s “nobody would know…nobody” moment with Pietro.

Infinity War

Disclaimer: I have no idea how to isolate moments in a movie that is by far one of the most well written comic book movies since The Dark Knight, but I guess since you asked, I have to try anyway. Hoo boy. Strap in.

-Loki’s death. Let me explain something to you: I went entire years without caring about Loki, and then around the time The Dark World came out, I slowly became converted to both a Tom Hiddleston and a Loki fan, and then after Ragnarok, he finally just seduced me completely to being smitten with his stupid trashy self. It is important that you realize that I recognize that Loki is a selfish, inferiority complex-having, murdering bastard and I do not excuse a goddamn thing he does because of his fucking Daddy issues. That being said, in spite of how much of a flaming trashbag he is, I love him anyway, and I tried for months to tell myself that I knew as a fellow writer that Loki was going to die in Infinity War. It was assured not only from the trailer, but from me knowing that his character arc was always going to end with his death. What hurt most of all is that, as I predicted, Loki died trying to save Thor. I cried my eyes out. Hell, once Thanos closed his hand around Loki’s neck, I covered my eyes because I just didn’t have it in me to see it end this way for him and for Thor. Thor being helpless to stop it is truly what made it worse. There is nothing on heaven or earth Thor wouldn’t do for Loki, even knowing how wicked Loki is. And the fact that Loki couldn’t let Thanos kill Thor after all these two have been through was like an icepick through my heart. Loki wouldn’t have died protecting Thor if Thor had not loved him unconditionally this entire time we’ve watched their story. Thor’s love did have an effect on Loki throughout these films, and that’s why I literally burst into sobs and couldn’t bear to see him die that way. It is one of the most gut wrenching things ever put to film, and certainly in the MCU. I’ve only had the stomach to watch that scene twice because it hurts me so much, and neither time was I strong enough to actually watch Loki’s final moments. Goddamn, it’s just so painful. Capped off with Thor slowly crawling over to his brother to be with him one last time before the ship explodes and just laying his head on his chest in the kind of grief that honestly should get Hemsworth a fucking Oscar. Bravo.

-Cap, Widow, and Falcon reuniting with Vision and Wanda. Holy shit, yes. This fight was gorgeous, gripping, and fucking awesome. Special props to Cap and Widow being the ride or die Avengers Mom and Dad team. We can infer from their actions that the two of them have been together since the end of Civil War possibly, so you can not tell me Cap and Widow are not a thing on some level. Captasha all day, err day. They perfectly compliment each other and I headcanon that they’re together and no one will convince me otherwise.

-”We’ll fight you too.”/”We don’t trade lives.” That sound you hear is me screeching. Some people have said Cap wasn’t given a ton to do this time around, and I emphatically protest it simply because, yes, he has less screentime, but man, he does so much work in this role that reminds us of why we all love Captain America. His values mean so much. Cap will lay down his life in the blink of an eye for someone who needs it. He cares so deeply. He is the pinnacle of selflessness and it’s so important to see in this film.

-Thor meeting the Guardians. Perfection. Just…perfection.

-Irondad and Spiderson aboard the Space Donut. Jesus fucking Christ, I am so on board for Irondad and Spiderson that it’s insane. I love that entire fucking interaction from start to finish. I love Tony’s strict, fatherly anger and exasperation because he just wants his baby boy to be safe on earth while he’s on another suicide mission, but the baby boy wants to help his dad out and baby boy also doesn’t quite realize the consequences because he’s too young. Extra points for Tony’s death-glare after Parker says, “It’s kind of your fault I’m here” and the fact that even the fucking cloak did a double take at Parker when he said it. Oh, it’s so perfect.

-Gamora making Peter promise to kill her if Thanos gets to her. I just…I want to die. This was so beautifully done, and so in character for both of them, and Peter and Gamora are just so soft and sweet and in love that it’s so overwhelming. At the very least, I take a small comfort in knowing that they were a happy family for four years before this shit happened to them.

-Gamora “killing” Thanos. Again, can we just award Oscars to like half the fucking cast in this movie? Jesus Christ, I cried at this scene too because the fact that she’s just completely unraveled as she finally thinks she’s killed her goddamn abuser is so deeply tragic. Gamora is my favorite Guardian. Hands down. She is so three dimensional. She tries so hard and she is so much more than the deadliest woman in the galaxy. She is so complex and it is the worst pain ever to know that Peter actually kept his promise and tried to kill her to prevent her from being in the hands of her abuser again and Thanos foiled their plan, and had the fucking nerve to say, “I like him” before he took her again.

-”It’ll kill you.” “Only if I die.” “…yes, that’s what killing you means.”

-The battle of Wakanda. Motherfucker. This is some A+++ motherfucking good shit hurr. What always gets me hype as hell is Cap and T’Challa sprinting down the goddamn hill at 80 mph and I just can’t even handle that shit because it was so good and satisfying. Everything about this battle was incredible.

-The battle on Titan. Same thing. It’s so creative and well crafted and amazing. You feel every blow. You flinch. You want them to beat that son of a bitch but he’s just so fucking strong. It is an incredibly engaging fight, man. Hoo boy.

-Thor’s entrance to the battle of Wakanda. I distinctly remember the entire audience going absolutely apeshit during this scene the night Infinity War premiered. Like the first Avengers, I saw it three times in theaters, and two out of the three times, the crowd went fucking wild. That was so fucking satisfying, man, as are the neat little scenes of levity with Cap introducing himself to Groot and Cap and Thor remarking on each other’s changes in appearance. It was so pure and good and perfect.

-Cap squaring up with Thanos. I. Can’t. Breathe. It was so powerful. Like the above scene of “we don’t trade lives,” this is why we love Captain America. Why we love Steve Rogers. This man, this mortal human man, took one goddamn fucking look at that twelve foot all powerful alien giant and said, “Not today, bitch.” Steve fucking Rogers stood there and took it. He put his life on the goddamn line for Wanda, and for Vision, and for the rest of the universe, and he actually held that goddamn line for a moment. The incredulous look on Thanos’ face is what seals it. He is utterly confused that this little man is actually holding him back, that this mere mortal doesn’t give a fuck that he can’t overpower him, but he is giving it his all because that is who he is. Steve will not quit. Steve will not falter. Steve will die doing what’s right and that is one of the most moving things in the whole MCU, imo. He just planted his feet and said, “No, you move.” I know we saw that scene in the trailer, but it was so unbelievable to see it in context that Cap gave it everything he had trying to protect Wanda and the rest of the universe, and I still get choked up just thinking about that shit.

Welp, you asked for it and now you have it. I told you I was gonna rave, man. God bless anyone who actually read this nonsense. Marvel had me at hello with these characters and they have way too much sway over my emotions, as you can see above. Ten years, man. Ten years.

#The Avengers #Avengers #Avengers Age of Ultron #Infinity War

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captainxsassafras · 3 years ago

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I agree with a lot that's already been said, but I wanted to add my two cents in. I think in particular a few things would be his biggest obstacles to a relationship:

1) While he's developed genuine feelings for his family and friends, and while I think he's at a point in his development that he's grown to recognize other people's inherent worth more, he can be dismissive. He's not stupid enough to think that other people will never be better than him at certain things. Yeah, he's lived a long life and had a while to learn and practice certain things, but we all have things were better at and things were not. And while Kurama knows this and understand this, he can still be dismissive (although, most of the examples given to us by the manga are in the face of people being ridiculous). But we do see him respect and have meaningful relationships with people. It just might be hard for him to avoid being dismissive of a partner at first and I could see him falling into older patterns of dismissal if there were disagreements in a relationship because patterns are patterns and people use patterns we're comfortable with.

2) I do think he'd would resist feelings of romantic attraction, particularly to a human, and especially to a human who isn't involved with the supernatural for several reasons. Even as Yoko Kurama, cruel bastard he could be, he was incredibly calculating. He was crazy smart and cunning and thought ahead. He didn't feel like the type to enjoy wasting life and I don't think we ever really got any indications that he enjoyed killing/hurting people who didn't get in his way or weren't involved in thievery and such. He just doesn't seem like the kind of person who would want to entangle someone in the potentially dangerous life he leads, either in the past or present, but particularly now that he's really begun to find value in human lives. On the same note, even if he's let sentimentality into his life, he's ruthlessly practical coupled with a sense of responsibility for the people he cares about. Yeah, he was furious that he had to kill a child, but he still did it. If he developed this feelings for a human in particular, it would be a rough go at first with him utterly denying himself the right to feel those for you. Good lord, the mixed signals (I don't care how good an actor you are, I don't think you can control everything all the time). And I think it would still be a lingering problem even after a relationship could potentially start. This would be a continual insecurity and concern that he would revisit and you guys would seriously need to work on together. I think there might be times when he would psych himself out of a relationship by rationalizing and thinking the risks outweigh the rewards. It would kind of depend on his partner and where he's at with recognizing his own mental state as to whether or not the relationship would survive the emotional withdrawal he'd start to initiate.

3) And I personally think this one might be the one of the greatest obstacles to a long-term relationship: he's so incredibly independent. This isn't a criticism. It's a product of his life and his reaction to it. Given his life as Yoko and the thought of growing up as a human child with the soul of a once powerful demon who probably made a lot of enemies. God, can you imagine going from the height of your power to being in a human body with all the knowledge of a hundreds of years old being trapped in that noggin? Yeah, he's gotten used to being the capable one, the knowledgeable one. He's so damn used to being the one to take care of things and do what needs to be done (see above: ruthless practicality 😅) even when others can't. I think he ends up taking a lot of emotional burden because he's one of the older ones in his group of close people.

Because yeah, he keeps his distance, but he also shoulders some of the most brutal and unfortunate kills. Most of his battles are psychological as well as physical in a way that I feel is closer to his center than some of the others. (Not to say the others don't go through psychologically taxing battles and don't face challenges that really shake them to their core. There's just a very constant flow of enemies who want to use Kurama's own cerebral and cunning (and more recently sentimental and feeling) nature against him.

And he knows he can't do everything in his own. I think particularly then event we see in the manga/anime timeline show that he can't always do everything himself. Yusuke is the big main character who ultimately finishes the fights. And Kurama is smart enough to know his own limits (even when he tends to push them). But I think he's still adjusting to letting other people take care of things (like we saw with the mirror. He was so ready to sacrifice himself and take the entirety of that burden, physical and emotional, on himself that he didn't even consider the option of seeking outside help).

He's so damn used to being a stronghold of himself. I think it would be incredibly hard for him to relinquish any of that that he hasn't already given to his mother or his friends. It takes a lot to relinquish that kind of independence and safety and for such a guarded person, he's already done so much for letting people in. I think it would take a long time for him to relinquish this and let someone begin to both take care of him as an s/o and it would take a lot of time and learning for him and a partner to learn how to work together and be a part of each other's lives taking care of each other and being so intimate without him fringe like he's lost the control that comes with being so independent and taking care of everything himself. And again, I think this would be a long-standing issue that would need to be worked on well I to the relationship. It might be a forever thing, but I think he could work on it with partner if he felt strongly enough about them.

(Bonus points: he's very self-aware; enough to understand most of his own issues before and within a relationship (I think there are some he still isn't completely aware of). This could be either a help in working on a relationship OR a hindrance in psyching himself out of a relationship.)

And this sort of took on a life of its own. I think that there are other issues that would arise (secretive, can be manipulative, etc.), but most have already been said. These are some issues I think would be serious flaws. I think, as with most issues, they could be worked on an resolved, but they'd definitely be present and could ultimately be damaging to any relationship. (And in particular, as someone who struggles personally with the last one, I think that would be one of the biggest flaws he would have when already in a relationship).

Something has been on my mind lately. Kurama would no doubt be the perfect boyfriend/husband. But everyone has their flaws. Even our favorite fox boy. My question is: What would Kurama’s flaws be regarding a relationship?

I'm interested to see what people think. Those that are good at headcanons feel free to chime in

#yyh #yu yu hakusho #kurama #yoko kurama #shuichi minamino #minamino shuichi #yyh kurama #yuyu hakusho kurama

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