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comicsatlasrp-a-blog · 8 years

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You’re never going to leave, are you, Hil? Your application for Tony Stark / Iron Man with the faceclaim of Robert Downey Jr. has been accepted! I can’t believe you made me read through that many paragraphs, but hey, pretty sure you got him down to a T. Please send in your account within 48 hours!

Make sure your ask and submit are open. Follow everyone on the follow list. Track the necessary tags. Make sure your character’s bio is easily accessible on their page. Read this information on secret identities.

Name / Timezone / Pronouns: Hil / GMT / They/Them/Theirs

{ content warning for alcohol abuse, graphic mentions of torture, and body horror. }

Character Name: Anthony Edward Stark, MEN, SM, Ph.D. Character Alias: Iron Man Identity Status: this asshole got up in front of a legion of reporters and said “I AM IRON MAN” Position on Registration Act: pro-reg Character Birthday: May 29th, 1970 Character Age: 45

If there was one thing that Tony could say that would summarise his entire life, it would be that to move forward with society, with life, nobody could afford to not break any eggs. He’s been breaking eggs his whole life. That was why he was a futurist.

Born on the 29th of May in 1970, the crap came close; his old man was way too old to be an old man, and instead settled for being just an old man, barely treating him like a son, if at all. If anything, the way that Howard Stark came across to his only son, was indifferent, like he was just some child that he’d somehow wound up sharing a house with, and frankly, Tony got the impression that the man didn’t even like him. It wasn’t surprising that the two figures he grew up closest to were his mom and their butler, Jarvis. At least they didn’t keep running their freaking mouths about Captain America this, Captain America that. Seriously, he thought his dad said the words ‘Captain Rogers’ to him even more than he said ‘hello’. It wasn’t sickening, but it sure made him want to punch the man. How the hell was he supposed to live up to Captain America?

To avoid sounding like dear old dad, anyway, it was clear pretty early on that Tony had inherited Howard’s brains, only in a decade and with the means that gave him the ability to actually work on the things he came up with rather than sitting around with them festering in his skull. Four years old, he built his first circuit board. It would have been done when he was three, but he got a little sidetracked along the way. Six years old, he built his first V8 motorbike engine. Fifteen years old, he finally got rid of his nanny when he got into M.I.T.. That’s the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for all you people in the back, double-majoring in Electrical Engineering and Physics. Sixteen years old, he won the fourth annual M.I.T. robot design award with DUM-E, the first friend he ever programmed and built. Not that he mentioned that particular tagline during his presentation.

Just after turning seventeen, Tony graduated summa cum laude with a masters in Electrical Engineering and Physics. Which he already mentioned. But hey, it was impressive. Right? Apparently not. Whatever, he had a real friend now, James Rhodes (immediately dubbed ‘Rhodey’), and it wasn’t like his old man was gonna trust him with the company secrets, right? Besides, if the old man did pop his clogs, Obie had his back, right? Right.

So, he turned to the pursuit of KKC; Knowledge, Keggers, and Copulation. What? He was young. He could afford to party hard and study harder. Or study hard and party harder. Eh, both. Both was good. Whatever, he was working towards a PhD in Mechatronics and living hard and fast. It was the eighties, after all. The decade of electronics and rock n’ roll.

December 16th, 1991. The night was seared into his memory the way that no other night from his youth was. He’d never forget the sound of his mother playing the piano, nor his father’s cold words as they left him with an empty house. He was making preparations to throw a toga party when he got a knock on the door, and, thinking it was Rhodey, the sardonic grin on his face falling immediately with the realisation that those were not a college student, ready and waiting to party. Those were cops, holding their hats in their hands and stepping in to Jarvis’ polite welcome. Rhodey arrived later, as Tony sat isolated from the cops and the butler who’d practically raised him, still clad in his bed-sheet toga, with his leaf crown thingy hung loosely against his hands. They cancelled the party. Tony went out to the garage to work on some cars. He’d never forgive Howard for killing his mom. Never.

Tony threw himself into his studies after that, and the agreement brokered between Jarvis and Obie was that once Tony finished his Ph.D., he’d take over as CEO of Stark Industries. He didn’t have any input into the decision. He didn’t want any input into it. He wanted his mom back.

The lesson that had been hammered into his skull since birth was even more stark now; nobody got what they wanted, not really. So, he worked, and in his grief and intensified partying ways and his improved vigour for utterly losing himself in the pursuit of knowledge, Tony got his Ph.D., approximately four years early, finishing it by March of 1992. He was the CEO of Stark Industries before he was twenty-two, breaking records as the youngest ever CEO of a Fortune 500 company in the history of the United States. Those weren’t the only records he broke, though, shattering his way through, well, records, odds, and quite a few glasses on long weekends. Then he lost Jarvis, and Tony had no one but Obie and Rhodey, and Rhodey had just joined the airforce, so really he only had Obie. Good old reliable Obie, bringing him pizza when things went wrong, always there to lend a helping hand or to take the reins when it was so much he retreated to his workshop. Where would he be without Obie?

Still, Tony needed a hobby. So, he built a mansion, no biggie. On the coast of Malibu. But, a mansion, nay, any home needed someone to look after it. So he completely overhauled both his new creation and the family residence in New York, digitising them as completely as he possibly could, to the extent that– He missed Jarvis. So when he created an automatic and full artificial intelligence designed to run both the Malibu and the New York mansions, he named it Just A Rather Very Intelligent System. JARVIS. He’ll deny it to his dying breath, but there is a glimmer of nostalgia somewhere in Tony Stark, buried between the bitterness and the nonchalance, and JARVIS helped, if only a little, to soothe the ache left by his oldest friend.

Life was…pretty okay, Tony guessed. He tried not to think about it too much, just continued to build weapons of mass destruction and make several acquaintances. Cough. Sleep with people. And alcohol. There was some gambling in there too.

On the 1st of May, 2008, Tony was set to be awarded with, well, an award. It didn’t really matter to him. He blew it off, blew his cash, and blew his load in this gorgeous reporter. Then he blew her off as well, and fucked off to Afghanistan the next day to give a weapons’ demonstration. This was the life he led. The life that he led was freaking glorious.

Genius, billionaire, playboy, weapons mogul. That’s who Tony Stark was.

Was. Past tense.

On the 2nd of May, 2008, the convoy in which Tony was riding after the weapons demonstration in Afghanistan, was attacked. That’s what he got for coming into an active war zone, he supposed, but that didn’t seem to matter much right then because that was his name on the missile that was about to detonate and explode him. That was his name on the missile of one of the insurgents who had attacked them. There was literally a bullet with his own name on it, and it blew, and he blacked out.

All of the hangovers in the world combined couldn’t compare to the wires and blood and copper in his tongue and the air and his chest and destruction and agony and MASSIVE GAPING HOLE IN THE MIDDLE OF HIS CHEST WHEN HE WOKE UP IN THE MIDDLE OF SURGERY and promptly began phasing in and out of consciousness, fear and pain battling against each other to keep him aware of his surrounds or to keep the knowledge of what was happening to him away. He didn’t know how long he was there. All he knew was there was a bomb with his name on it and now he was…he didn’t know what he was.

The first time he was lucid enough to experience the horror story enveloping his life, Tony almost died. Again. He moved, and the car battery he was attached to jerked, and he’d never felt more like Frankenstein’s Monster. Then Frankenstein himself showed up. Dr. Ho Yinsen had saved his life. The butchering of his chest cavity, removing much of his sternum and wedging apart his ribs in ways they were never meant to be wedged, had saved his life. All that stood between him and tiny shards of his own shrapnel stabbing him in the heart was the car battery that powered an electromagnet in his chest. He’d somehow managed to live long enough to become a cyborg, and he couldn’t even enjoy it.

Both he and Yinsen had been captured by the terrorist group known as the Ten Rings, a dangerous group who didn’t keep promises to let their captives live, and who didn’t give a shit who they took a dump on to take control of the Middle East. They wanted him to build them the Jericho missile, one that he’d designed specifically to only ever need to be used once. As in, total annihilation. He told them he wouldn’t do it.

With zero regard for health, safety, and electrocution, his head was dunked repeatedly in a vat of filthy water. Torture. No, seriously, torture. He’d never thought he’d ever be tortured, but now that it was happening to him it felt almost unreal, like it was a story, like any second now he was going to wake up in the middle of a board meeting. He never woke up. They were going to use his weapons - and how had they got his weapons? He’d never sold to them - to destroy Yinsen’s village. It was then that he agreed. It was then that he and Yinsen resolved to see those about whom they cared once more. They were going to get out of this hell.

The first thing they needed to do was give him some extra mobility; he couldn’t lug around a car battery everywhere he went, it was impractical and ran the risk of him dying with even just a stumble. Seriously, teensy stumble. One trip and bam, jagged tiny bits of metal lodging in the tin can he called a heart. So, he improvised. The Arc Reactor was designed by his old man, originally created as a clean and renewable energy source, using palladium cores and intricate engineering to appease the eco-warriors who’d been picketing the company some point or another. It was huge. No, really, it was massive. Physically massive. But, he could miniaturise it. He improvised, cannibalising his own machines and creating for himself a portable, miniaturised Arc Reactor to power the electromagnet that was keeping him alive. Stage one, done. Still in captivity, but hey.

Second of all, though, there was no way they were getting out of here alive if they made the freaking weapon for the Ten Rings. So, improvisation once again, became Tony’s strong suit. Literally. In all his desire to hide away from the world he’d suddenly found himself in, he found himself designing and manufacturing a suit of armour, bulletproof and equipped with all kinds of neat tricks. Even the software would keep it ticking over.

The Ten Rings caught on, though. Of course they caught on, because that was the shitstorm that was his life, wasn’t it? Sure, it was eventually; by the time it was too late, but they still caught on. The explosive booby trap set by the door that he and Yinsen had set exploded, and he urged Yinsen to boot up the software so he could get out there and get the man to safety. The man had saved his life. It was the least he could do to return the favour, right? There was something about being tortured and forced into labouring together that inevitably led to a nigh on excruciatingly close bond. Which was then forcibly severed when Yinsen went all Yippee-Ki-Yay Motherfucker on the Ten Rings’ asses to buy him some time, but who was he to judge when he followed as soon as the software booted up. He got out of there and he torched the place and got the fuck out of dodge, but none of this was done before crouching next to a dying Yinsen, a dying Yinsen who had saved his life multiple times during their tenure together, and he was told to do one thing and one thing only.

He had to make his life count for something.

Wandering through the desert? Not what he had in mind, but it beat being enthusiastically waterboarded for days on end, so it was a step up. Which was saying something considering however many days ago it had been that he’d have been more than willing to send back a fucking omelette for so much as having salt in it.

But Rhodey was there. Rhodey was there and Rhodey was talking about the Hum-Vees and Tony just…

It was the first piece of normality that he’d encountered in what felt like a lifetime, and it might have been hysterics, and it might have been exhaustion, or it might have been both, but he closed his eyes and he laughed and he all but collapsed into Rhodey. The next couple of days were honestly a bit of a blur to him; all he really remembered was threatening and smacking at anybody who tried to get too close to his chest, and a lot of rehydration. Wandering in the desert like freaking Jesus would do that to a guy, he supposed. He didn’t want to talk about it. So he didn’t. But in the wee hours of the flight across the Atlantic, when he was worrying at the raw edges of the Arc Reactor in his chest, he reached a decision.

All of his weapons had been used to destroy. Everything that he had worked for, it was only used for two things. Fuck money, it was used for power, and for killing. Mostly the killing. Peace wasn’t a weapon that only had to be fired once. Peace was a weapon that couldn’t be turned around and used to exclusively harm. And none of the Stark Industries weapons fit the bill. Each and every one of their products could be used by anybody with the money, evidently, who saw fit to turn anywhere they wanted into their own personal ashtray. The weapons’ trade was fucking toxic, and he needed to purge it out before he could work back towards making things right.

First, a cheeseburger. First, Pepper Potts. The woman who knew enough about him that if she turned out to be a double agent for somebody or whatever, he’d be screwed. Royally so. Not only did she know how he took his eggs in the morning, protocol for escorting his guests, or how to help him run his company, but she was a constant, and not an enabling one like Obie was. Even he knew that Obie was enabling him, what with all the pizza, all the free passes. Not Pepper, though. Oh, no. She would hound him for days upon days to get his signature if that’s what it took, and it wasn’t until he was sat in the back of a car with her, refusing to go to a hospital and instead demanding a press conference, that he concluded that if she was still here even though he’d just wandered through the desert for forty days, then he should probably try to keep her in his life.

Even though she was about to be colossally mad at him. Obie too. And Rhodey. And heck, pretty much the entirety of the upper crust. And the Western world. And the military. Government too. Actually, screw it, everyone was gonna be mad at him.

Because he stood up in front of them all, cheeseburger in hand– Okay, it was more like sitting. Too much standing still made his head spin, sitting was better, but sure, spin it like it’s a quirk, they’re used to that from him. But anyway, he sat down in front of them all and he straight-up said that Stark Industries would no longer be producing weapons. At all. No weapons. Just clean, renewable energy.

Predictably, everyone was mad at him, and he was swiftly advised to retreat to his luxury mansion in Malibu to recuperate from the stresses of being extensively tortured and held captive. He didn’t see anyone. He had JARVIS. He had Pepper. He had Rhodey. He had Obie. He didn’t need anyone else. What he did do, however, aside from avoiding the limelight, was slink down into his workshop and start tinkering.

Nothing felt safe, not anymore. There was a fucking hunk of metal in the place of his sternum, not anchored to anything but the flimsy and still raw pieces of flesh that held it in place betwixt his ribs. The reality of his situation was sinking in and he knew that if he tripped, if he did so much as crash his car, this entire thing in his chest would rip through his heart before he could even say ‘Oh would you look at that’. Dead man walking, right here, and how in the hell was he supposed to fix his colossal fuckups if everything could go balls up with a snap of anybody’s fingers? Oh, and not just that, but then there was the fact that he couldn’t even take a fucking shower anymore, oh no, it was purely sponges and dry shampoo from here on out apparently. It wasn’t safe, not here, not there, not in his head, not in the wee hours of the night when he downed coffee after coffee.

So he built.

It was another suit, another shield, another layer of armour to protect him from the world. He only intended for it to be a comfort project, something to do to occupy his overstressed mind, an application for the arc reactor. It just…escalated from there. Suit of armour, hours and hours, logging plenty of time with the fire extinguisher as he was needlessly extinguished time after time. But it worked. It would work. It could work.

The board was trying to push him out. Post traumatic stress. He couldn’t challenge that he had post traumatic stress, but whatever, it was his freaking company and– Y’know what, he was done with that, he couldn’t do it, he just had to… Build. He had to build.

JARVIS successfully installed in the suit’s software and having concluded that he couldn’t take any more of his cars being utterly destroyed by test runs in his garage, Tony came to a conclusion. It was time to stretch his wings. Flying was an experience that freed his heart from the bear trap it’d been stuck in for all this time since he’d been back, soaring through the skies and letting himself twist and turn. He liked this. He took a shower that night. He took a shower that night before he turned up at his own party, his own party that he had to crash. He had to crash his own party. What, had his invite got lost in the mail or something? Bullshit.

Fucking. Obadiah. Stane.

He’d trusted him, and the man was the one who’d filed the injunction against him with the board. He was the one who’d petitioned it. And not only that, but he’d been selling weapons to the people who’d held him hostage. This man, who bought him pizza when he’d been sad. More bullshit stacking up, right as he’d been about to tear down the pile with reckless abandon. Turns out there was more to making things right than punching a hole through his Malibu mansion with his titanium-gold alloy suit.

The shit…really piled on after that. He’d been tied up and tortured and had bits of him hacked out and replaced with cold, unyielding metal, and yet nothing stung quite like the man who’d been looking out for him since day one literally reaching into his chest and ripping out the thing that was keeping him alive. He didn’t die, though. Obviously. He was too petty to die over a little thing like that. Obadiah hadn’t fixed the icing problem. Tony was a genius. Pepper was amazing. It was taken care of. Dead. Obie was dead.

His trust was hard to come by these days; beforehand it had been as loose as he could make it, him giving out his address to anybody who asked, but now he just– Who the fuck did these people think they were? Did they think he was about to up and let them cover up the one good thing he’d done in his life? He’d saved innocent people. He’d stopped a tyrant from murdering more. And excuse him for having had a stressful couple of months.

So, yeah.

“I am Iron Man.”

Suck it.

Only he was eating his suck it later, because while he’d apparently successfully privatised world peace, as he made abundantly clear on his visit to Capitol Hill, he was also unfortunately dying. Of palladium poisoning. Brought on by. The palladium. That was keeping him alive. The thing keeping him alive was killing him. And this just had to be some sick, twisted, ruin of fate. He was dying. Hardcore dying. Did the dying shit and everything, started selling things, started doing the most reckless things he could, started signing things over to the people he trusted. Like his company. Which he signed over to Pepper.

Not just that, but also the government wanted him to hand over the suit as well! Can you believe that? Crap. That’s what that was; crap. They even got freaking Hammerhead in there to try and schmooze them up. Cheek.

Of course, while this was going on, the son of a guy (what was it, Vanko?) with a grudge against his old man apparently decided that sins of the father obviously had to carry on through to the son, and – and this was the horrifying part – managed to replicate the miniaturisation of the Arc Reactor to new and destructive ends.

And then on the advice of a particularly delectable new hire of his, he hosted a blow-out party where he got absolutely shitfaced, pissed in the suit, blew up a couple of things, and got into an all-out brawl with Rhodey, who had in fact, stolen his spare suit. Obviously, Tony Stark was a model of lucid thought and lack of bullshit. He wasn’t getting that suit back. Also Nick Fury was a dick.

Thanks to SHIELD-mandated house arrest (which was total bullshit by the way; he totally drove all the way out to the company and back and nobody even batted an eye), he was tasked with the impossible. He had to figure out a way to not be dying. His only clue? Something to do with his dad. Why the fuck was everything to do with Howard anyway? The man was dead for crying out loud. Oh, that was right. Somewhere in all the bullshit files and bullshit journals and bullshit video reels, there was something. A hint. A slight chance that his dad actually had had even a little bit of faith in him as a non-screw-up. Maybe he was reading into things too much, but he was dying and his dead dad was telling him he cared. Kind of. Sort of. Okay, that was bullshit, but it did give him an idea.

So, the Stark Expo had a long and glorious history of being…long and glorious. It was the pinnacle of man’s creation, with booths and presentations all year around. And when Tony inputed the 3D map overlay into JARVIS’ holographic output, got rid of the trees and trash cans, and looked at it from a little farther back…

That was a whole new goddamn element.

Or at least, it had the potential to be.

Somehow, inexplicably, the father who had never said a kind word to him his entire life, had managed to save him from an excruciatingly slow and tetric road-rash death-like doom of a fate. Tony manufactured the element himself, jury rigging an assembly formation by essentially dismantling parts of his mansion and ultimately ending up with a brand new element with an aftertaste of coconut. He lived! Unfortunately, so did Vanko, the jerk who held a grudge against his old man for getting his old man deported for being a jerk.

Not gonna bore you with the details here, did a little asskicking, decimated some drones, accidentally gained a sidekick (War Machine is totally a sidekick), may have set the Expo on fire in the process, Vanko was dead, things happened, there was kissing that apparently looked like grapes (thanks, Rhodey), aaaaaaaaaand…earned a medal from that one senator who wanted to take his suits from him. So, all in all, not bad. Suck it. Boom.

So, yeah, that was his life. He saved the world. Saved the president a couple of times. Stepped in when peacekeeping went south, and did his gosh darned darnedest to get clean, renewable energy as far as it could possibly go. And some other stuff. Obviously. What? He’s an inventor. Slash consultant for SHIELD.

Speaking of, turned out the tesseract cube his dad fished out of the ocean was being kept under lock and key by said shifty government intelligence organisation, and was swiftly seized by one ‘Loki’. Guy with the eight-legged-horse-child maybe? Tony didn’t really have time to ask, and he hadn’t really had the chance to get Thor alone to ask him either. But anyway, getting ahead of the story here.

So, Phil stopped by and while the rest of the people-band (if Natasha was in it was it really a boyband?) were off in Berlin, trying to feed bratwurst to a Norse God from another plane of existence, Tony was becoming an expert on all things radiation and uh…radiation. Then he joined them. What? They seemed to have it handled. Okay, nah, they were gonna get smoked if he hadn’t showed up when he had.

In any case, it seemed pretty shady that SHIELD just happened to have the tesseract and stuff, right? Was he the only one seeing this? Seriously? Captain Assmerica was just gonna sit there and let Uncle Sam tell him what was up and what was down? Eh, at least he made one cool friend at school that day; sweet little pokey guy, gets all green and stuff. But good old dad could say whatever the hell he wanted because apparently Capsicle America HAD NO IDEA HOW TO PULL A FREAKING LEVER. Science bro was gone. Loreal advert thunder god was gone. Phil was dead. And once again, Tony’s life had become a giant, steaming pile of shit. With his name on it. No, seriously. Horse-mother had apparently jacked his building to build a super spooky portal into space on it. Dick.

So, he did what he had to do. He walked up in there like he owned the place. Which is a weird distinction to make, because he did, in fact, own the place. Or 88% of the place at least. He couldn’t threaten the jerkweed, and he couldn’t shut down the portal. So, what could he do? Aside from being thrown out of the window, the answer to that was fight, and to thereby avenge Phil.

The Avengers assembled for the very first time, and oh, was it shaky on those rocks. But, Bruce turned up. He’d known he would. They fought. Not him and Bruce, the Avengers and the weird alien whale things that would forever haunt his dreams henceforth. Fighting was done. Alien asses were kicked. But they just kept coming through. They kept coming and they kept coming, and then they came some more. It was like a college boy’s wet dream, only gross and filled with aliens. But then, it takes all sorts.

Thankfully, there was a way to shut down the portal. But that would be too easy, right? Exactly! Right before the portal was shut down, surprise surprise, Nick Fury called him on a private line to inform him that the World Security Council was sending a nuclear missile straight for Manhattan. Options? Sea? No. Too close. Portal.

Flying through that portal was like staring into the abyss and having the abyss stare back, which is so cliche but the only metaphor that works, so suck it. He tried to get through to Pepper, but went to voicemail. Lost power. Lost consciousness. The last thing he wondered was whether or not this qualified as cutting the wire or letting someone else crawl over. Petty, he knew. But petty may as well have been his middle name at this point, honestly.

The first thing he wondered upon waking up, however, was ‘OH MY FUCKING GOD SOMEONE GET THE HULK A FUCKING BREATH MINT’. Less petty, he thought. Far more people would benefit from that musing being made public.

Loki was down. Loki was back on his own freaking plane. Tony had repairs to fund. Tony had…a team to extend an olive branch to. Almost immediately following their debriefing on the Incident, Tony pretty much informed them all that his casa es their casa or whatever; anything they needed, anything they wanted. And he helped out with SHIELD, fixing their repulsers.

Things were good. Things were…great. Except he could barely look at the sky some days without freaking the fuck out and accidentally summoning his suits in the middle of the night and nearly killing people in the process. But, no, he was Tony freaking Stark. Had to be fine. Well. The world knew he wasn’t fine. But he was that loveable kind of not-fine that meant people didn’t ask, and people didn’t care. So, he dealt the best he could, going down into the basement of every single one of his homes and constructing a small army of Iron Legion. Would that be the plural? Probably. He tinkered and he tailored. Kind of soldiered, definitely didn’t spy, though.

Unfortunately, after the Battle of New York, that one hack he’d run to gain access to all of SHIELD’s files may have got slightly…lost in the system. The drive was in the bottom of his junk drawer. So he didn’t find out about HYDRA until after the shitstorm had already hit the ozone layer, and woah, didn’t he feel like a dick for not having dug deeper sooner? He’d never admit that he was wrong, though. The authorities were wrong. There needed to be better regulation for this kind of crap. They needed to be better regulated.

This? This registration act? It’s the only way they can finally stop all the horseshit from cumulating into a gigantic pony turd pie that gets served to the world. Whatever form being put in check takes, Tony’s game. Better or for worse. The Legion will keep the world safe. The Legion has to keep the world safe.

#accepted #iron man #tony stark

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comicsatlasrp-a-blog · 8 years

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Welcome to Comics Atlas, B! Your application for Harleen Quinzel / Harley Quinn, with the faceclaim of Margot Robbie has been accepted! We thoroughly appreciated the potential of Harley to bring New York a world of interesting development! Please send in your account within 48 hours!

Name / Timezone / Pronouns: B / EST / She/Her/Hers

[[ content warning for abuse and manipulation under the cut ]]

Character Name: Harleen Quinzel Character Alias: Harley Quinn Identity Status: Public Character Age: 26

Doctor Harleen Frances Quinzel. Once a woman looking hopefully towards the future, one with a life practically set in stone, one with the world at her feet - Doctor Harleen Frances Quinzel is a woman who no longer exists.

All that it took was a man to wipe that woman from Earth’s very existence, but wasn’t there something to be said about love? That ultimately it makes a fool of us all? In some cases, it simply takes a dramatic twist. This is the story of a case that left nothing but madness and destruction in its wake.

Our story begins with a woman on the brink of success. There were no doubts that young Harleen was going places. With her successful notoriety as a gymnast, she earned herself a scholarship into Gotham City University where she’d end up studying psychiatry. Marks at the top of her class granting her a paid internship straight out of college to Arkham Asylum. While to most, it might not have sounded like the most glorifying position in the world, to Harleen, it was.

Why, the day that Harleen began her adventures in the psychiatric world that housed Arkham’s most insane, she could hear her mother’s voice tempting her to look elsewhere. Her success at university might have been her ticket out of the rotting city and onto greater endeavors, but that wasn’t what she was interested in. Harleen had an itch desperate to be scratched, she wanted to know, to understand, to figure out what it was that made the insane tick. What made them so corrupt? What made them so easily capable of carrying out such heinous acts without a single ounce of remorse? It was an obsession slowly built at first, but it would be amplified the very moment she met him.

The Joker. That was what he called himself. Never had she realized that something important in her life was missing before she met him: excitement. There was something different about this one, he challenged her. While fearful at first, Harleen grew turned onto the idea. From volunteering to outright pleading with her superiors to take on his case, the very moment that The Joker, her coveted Mista J, stepped into her life, nothing else would matter.

Mind games that she fell easily victim to, he was challenging, fearless - even face to face with her behind the bars of Arkham Asylum. It was different, fascinating by every example of the word. His actions towards her might have been considered abusive, but she wouldn’t see them that way. Instead, she’d see them as drastic measures - his way of showing her that he cared. Sympathy gained, it was thrice she’d help him escape the walls that confined him before being revoked of her license and gaining a padded cell all her own.

She’d make it back to him, there was absolutely no doubts there. Through the isolation, the festering obsession, lack of outlet: Harley Quinn was officially born. With a twist and a turn, she made it out of the asylum herself and out into the world, vowing to find her Joker again, convinced they might live happily ever after. Hardly a care in the world who or what she must destroy in the process.

#accepted #harley quinn #harleen quinzel #abuse cw

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comicsatlasrp-a-blog · 8 years

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If I applied for Natasha would I need to use the same bio as the previous player?

No, you would not! Character bios are written up by each player during the application process, because everybody plays characters differently and we want to give people as much wiggle room as possible in regards to backstory. Just as long as you check up on the bios of the related characters or those that you mention in yours, you’re pretty much golden. Hope you have a nice day!

#answered #ask #anonymous

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comicsatlasrp-a-blog · 8 years

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Hey, guys! So, here’s the thing. The thing that is a thing. There is a thing that ought to have come to all of your attention over the past year or so, and that thing is that Nee has been one of the backbones of Comics Atlas for approximately that long, to the extent that she even gave us this wonderful theme and helps with a variety of things, from faceclaim help, to general worldly wisdom. As such, we would like to do something, and that thing is, that we are making Nee the third admin of Comics Atlas! This is going to allow us the benefit of three admins, and to take stress off all of us, and to gift us with her glorious ideas without having to jump through hoops. Thank you for your attention, I will now hand you over to Nee for her inaugural words. I have been and continue to be Hil. xoxo

Ayyyyyyyyyyyyyy So I joined CA back in April of 2015 so it’ been a year here at CA! Basically I’m the admin that doesn’t do anything, I pop in with pretty words and the occasional bout of faceclaim help and blah blah blah I’m rebooting the resource blog and blah blah blah I’m an admin blah blah. Okay see you guys on the flip side.

--Nee(thaniel) the Bearmaster.

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comicsatlasrp-a-blog · 8 years

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Welcome to Comics Atlas, Hayley! Your application for Harleen Quinzel / Harley Quinn, with the faceclaim of Margot Robbie has been accepted! We loved the effort you put into your app and we’re excited to see what you bring to the table with Harley! Please send in your account within 48 hours!

Name / Timezone / Pronouns: Hayley / CST / She/Her/Hers

[[ content warning for abuse and manipulation under the cut ]]

Character Name: Dr. Harleen Frances Quinzel Character Alias: Harley Quinn Identity Status: Public. Character Age: 33

It was a chilly autumn afternoon when Sharon and Nick quinzel would welcome their first of two children and only baby girl into their life. To say that Harley’s life was eventful as she was growing up would be lying. She was born and raised in Bensonhurst, located in the New York borough of Brooklyn. Though often said to be heavily linked to the mafia, Harleen never saw anything of interest take place in her childhood. It was a modest and relatively uneventful life, until the birth of her baby brother, Barry, when she was three years old. Not old enough to remember the birth of her brother, the first major event that made a mark on her memory would come when she was nine years old: Witnessing her father not only con a woman, but cheat on his wife. To say that it didn’t upset her life completely would be a straight-out lie. It is a memory that Harley can clearly recall to this day, even down to the smallest detail - such as what outfit her dad was wearing. Once he knew that Harley was there, all he did was close the door.

Only a few hours after the encounter, her father approached her and made her promise not to tell her mother, because all it would do was start a fight, and she didn’t want that - right? So Harley remained silent, the memory haunting her for years to come. It wasn’t until she was thirteen, when her father was sent to prison for the first time because he was caught conning another woman that she told her mother what had happened four years ago. It was a huge ordeal that went over in a way that Harley hadn’t expected: instead of crying, her mother yelled at her for keeping it a secret, saying that she should have told her immediately when it happened. Because of the stress she was feeling at home, the normally high grades she had in school were beginning to fall. Noticing this, her guidance counselor at school called in her mother and suggested that Harleen take up a hobby that would help her find a way to get rid of the stress she was feeling at home.

It was that year that Harley found her natural calling - gymnastics. She took to them easily and continued to do them throughout middle school and well into her high school career. Keeping her grades up and placing high in gymnastics competitions, it was speculated that when Harley graduated she would receive the gymnastics scholarship. When graduation day came, no one was surprised when Harley received the gymnastics scholarship to Gotham State University where she majored in psychiatry thanks to Dr. Odin Markus. Harley quickly rose to become one of his favorite and most promising students in the program, and managed to maintain good grades as well as snag a boyfriend - one Guy Kopski. The two were in love - or so Harley believed - and dated from their freshmen year to their senior year when they graduated. They were already planning their lives beyond graduate school - that was, if Harley got into the psychiatry program.

One evening when Guy was gone, Harley had Dr. Markus meet her in her dorm room to discuss what she thought would be a great graduate thesis. The basis of which would be: “There are only two circumstances under which a person disregards the rules of society. when they commit a crime, or when they’re in love.” To guarantee her spot in the program, she allowed Dr. Markus to observe as an independent third party. the test subjects would be herself and her boyfriend, who had developed a “think drink” to calm and center himself. One day Guy came to the dorm and began cracking jokes, but when Harley didn’t laugh at any of them, he questioned her. Harley told him that she had run a red light while driving a stolen car after blackmailing Dr. Markus and possibly shooting him. Telling Guy the last place she had seen him was in the gymnasium (where her and Dr. Markus had paid and dressed up a homeless man to act as him) and she wasn’t sure what to do, Guy simply stood there. With the evidence of the recently fired gun in the dorm room, Guy took off with the gun after asking Harley if she loved him.

When she found Guy in the gymnasium, he was laughing nervously while he stood over the homeless he had been shot, believing it to be Dr. Markus. He then begged Harley to help him shoot himself. The gun was fired, though it is unclear whether Harley actually pulled the trigger and when asked, she usually gives no recollection of it happening. It turned out later that Dr. Markus had spiked Guy’s “think drink” with a diluted Joker venom to counteract the stresses that Harley put him through. if Harley had known at the time, it may have kept her from thinking everything was caused by chaos. However, she was unaware and, then declared to Dr. Markus that she would do anything to get an internship at Arkham Asylum. Upon graduating and receiving an amazing reference from Dr. Markus, Harleen began her first year of residency at the asylum. During this first year she would work under one Dr. Crane, but only briefly and barely long enough to learn his name. It wasn’t until The Joker was brought in that Harley quickly began to realize what her full potential really could be.

Going to Dr. Arkham, she requested to observe The Joker, claiming she was writing a book on serial killers and wanted to study him. During their first session, the woman introduced herself as Dr. Harleen Quinzel, stressing that she could call him Harley Quinn - like the medieval jester. having been silent the entire session, it wasn’t until this moment that he began to laugh, asking if she was flirting with him. When Harley moved in closer, The Joker chose to strangle her. Instead of responding with shock or fright, the blonde gave him a loving look which caused him to let go immediately, stating that it was nothing more than a joke. This was the very beginning of the unexplained love she had for the man in grease paint, and only after a couple of months, it would be the reason the man escaped from Arkham and was released back onto the streets of Gotham. Upon hearing what had happened, Harleen’s medical license was revoked and when they attempted to admit her herself, she managed to escape with her darling puddin’.

Now? Harley is currently shacking up with the clown prince of crime himself, on the run from the law and currently going by a new identity. Harleen Quinzel is no more. Welcome to the stage - the one, the only cupid of crime, Harley Quinn!

#accepted #harley quinn #abuse cw

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comicsatlasrp-a-blog · 8 years

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I can’t believe you’re still here, Nee! Your application for Zatanna Zatara with the faceclaim of Katie McGrath has been accepted! I absolutely adore the mixture of awkwardness and power that shines through in your Zatanna, particularly considering the nuances of her characterisation. Please send in your account within 48 hours!

Name / Timezone: Nee / CST

Character Name: Zatanna Zorina Zatara Character Alias: N/A Identity Status: Public Position on Registration Act: Neutral Character Birthday: May 20th Character Age: 26

Zatanna Zatara, it’s a name people know, it’s a face that people recognize, Zatanna Zatara: The Mistress of Magic, daughter of the famed magician Giovanni ‘John’ Zatara himself.

See the thing is, Zatanna never did fall prey to that trope about fame and fortune, she didn’t have issues with her parents, she didn’t go off on a rebellious–okay, no, strike that last one from the record. She definitely went off on a rebellious streak and yes, she totally side eyes it, but we’re getting off track. Zatanna never really worried all that much about being in her father’s shadow. Ever. Cause you know what? The bright lights of Hollywood are kind of horrifying when you’re ten, your favorite outfit involves a denim hat with a giant floppy fake flower, and to top it all off, you have braces. So yeah, she never was that concerned about making it big, she had her dad, and her older brother and that…was kind of enough, at least for her. Cause the thing is, Giovanni 'John’ Zatara might have been ineffable and enigmatic and a little bit scary on stage, but back backstage he was just 'dad’ and it didn’t matter that he’d just sawed someone in half and put them back together with boxes, or made someone shoot across the room like a comet. What mattered was that he rubbed her head and messed up her hair before every show, and that he called her 'Rabbit’ because according to him, she was his goodluck charm. She got the very best view of the show every night because her big brother Damon’s shoulders were just the right height to make out her Dad’s wink that he sent her before the finale.

She was a huge nerd, she spat when she talked, her hair was an untameable mass of curls, and she hadn’t grown into her nose yet, she maintains that the bright flash of paparazzi bulbs are to blame for that one unfortunate photo where she looks like she has a hook nose. Everyone figured she’d grow up and make a move to get out of her dad’s shadow, but, that wasn’t really her style, sure, she loved what her dad did, she loved the way it made even skeptics question but she wasn’t looking to be her dad. Okay yeah, her dad helped her, sure, no denying it, taught her palming and slight of hand, and all the tricks a magician needs to get started, but that was it, it was just a start, everything after that, from sword swallowing to great escapes, that’s all her. The thing about Zatara’s? They don’t like asking for help, they don’t like needing it, not even Damon that time his head got stuck between the rails of the banister at that swanky hotel in New York. Okay, that might have been her, but the point stands. Help? Ha! She defies you, she’ll do it by herself or not at all. Mostly.

Her first show was when she was sixteen, she’d stayed out of the limelight so far, made appearances here or there, got out of her braces (thank jesus) and to top it off had learned a little bit of pyrotechnics. (Take that Damon! The curtains didn’t even catch fire!…this time.) It was a double act, a father daughter duo of the Zatara magical family tree, it went well…fantastic, people actually learned how to pronounce her name without that pesky extra 'n’ Zatanna. Not Zantanna, not Santanna. Zatanna. How hard was that? Christ. So yeah, she sorta made a name for herself, or, her name made a name for itself, because at the end of the day, the subheader was always, 'daughter of the great Zatara!’ and that…didn’t hurt her feelings any because she knew she had years to playing catch up.

Only. She didn’t have years after all, her Dad…went missing, and at first she couldn’t believe it because, it’s not like he could be kidnapped. How do you keep a master escape artist captive? And then, no ransom note came in, and Dad just never came back. Ever. She went looking for him, of course she did, she wasn’t sixteen anymore, she could bring her Dad back…right? Wrong, but somewhere along the way, she found out she was magic. _Real_ magic, the bibbity bobbity boo kind of stuff, and…well, she’d heard her dad say stuff backwards a few times during shows, said it was his magic words, but she’d never believed it, not with that hat tip and wink. Then again, she’d never believed in real magic either.

She’s not proud of it but here’s where that rebellious stage came in, the name of that rebellious stage was John Constantine and she spent…way too long with that rebellious stage, and that’s what she calls it, it’s like an etch-a-sketch, swipe it over and maybe she can ignore the latent embarrassment. She blames the magic. And the accent.

Then of course, she found her dad, only, he didn’t want to be found, there was this place, Shadowcrest, and it belonged to the Zatara family, which, was kind of mindblowing because apparently this really was a family act. The Zatara line is a long and illustrious one, one that goes all the way back to famed artist and magician Leonardo da Vinci himself. Zatanna Zatara, the youngest daughter of the line of Zatara. The line known for defining generations, making leaps and bounds in the world of knowledge…Yeah, no pressure or anything. Course, that was before she found out that she was related to Nicholas Flamel, and also he was real. Fuck.

Well, there was this…demon, thing chasing after Dear Old Dad and well, magical escapades with John aside, she wasn’t…fantastic? At the whole magic thing, at least, not enough to ward off a demon lord called the Great Terrible Beast, and what kind name is that anyway? Etch-a-sketch, we’re skipping this part, point is, Zatanna lost her dad that day, and, well, everyone else already thought he was missing anyway. He’s got a grave, she couldn’t bear to get him cremated, and even though everyone but her and Damon think it’s empty, people still showed up just to say goodbye.

She threw herself into work, the family name was by now a familiar mantle, and the shadow they cast didn’t so much hold her back or hide her, as lift her up, she part of something, something strong, amazing. Magical. But the stage lights can only do so much, and fame isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, trust her, she knows, she’s got a photo of her in that hat floating around on line somewhere along with that time she decided blond would be a good idea. She doesn’t know how they got it or where it came from but she blames 4chan she really does, and she blames twitter for why she knows what 4chan is. Whatever, we’re off track. So, Zatanna settled down in New York City, her dad’s second favorite city, sure, but she could only deal with LA for so long before she felt like her brain was melting. She does shows, sometimes, always spur of the moment, always with no tickets, she sat down and wrote a novel, Hex Appeal: A Modern Girl’s Guide to Magic. Then she figured, why stop there? She opened a bar, Hexuality, it caters to the magic crowd, people who use strings, and people who use spells, what’s it matter to her?

She’s lived a life, been on dates with jerkbags, spent much too much time in Gotham, and somewhere along the way, with demons, and angels, come hell or high water, she found a way to live a life. Now she’s a small time bartender in New York City and she never knows who’s going to walk through her door, superhero, super villain, magic user or average joe, but she wouldn’t have it any other way. Besides, making friends with drunks and magicians beats waiting for the other shoe to drop, and running away can only last so long, a city with this many people, she really hopes she can get lost in the crowd.

#accepted #zatanna zatara

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comicsatlasrp-a-blog · 8 years

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Welcome to Comics Atlas, May! Your application for Winslow “Winn” Schott with the faceclaim of Jeremy Jordan has been accepted! We love that we could see your love for him through the app and can’t wait to have you on our dash! Please send in your account within 48 hours!

Name / Timezone / Pronouns: May / PST / She/Her/Hers

Character Name: Winslow “Winn” Schott Character Alias: N/A Identity Status: N/A Character Age: Twenty Five

Growing up Winn was like any other kid, that had loving parents and everything was normal. But his father did have bad habit of buying more toys then one boy did need. Part of Winn always knew his father got them not only for young Winn but for himself too. The first few years everything was fine Winn was just average goofy kid. Who had a love for video games, toys, and collectables. Who had a habit of breaking a bone or two from falling, not being the more sport and active like other boys his age.

As he got older his father worked more and more leaving him with his mother more and more who he was quickly attached at the hip too. The two of them did hangout a lot and she played with him the best he could. School was easy for Winn he got by easy and seemed to get a head of his classes.

High school he did get in trouble once for hacking into the schools computer and changing grades for some kids in his class. He just wanted to seem cooler and they used him to get good grades to go on a class trip. That Winn went too but quickly was left alone during.

When Winn was in his final years of high school his parents kept fighting and had been for years so they broke up and did get a divorce. Winn lived with both his parents and did the best he could to keep the peace. His father worked very hard and had his work stolen and his ideas used to make money and that did settle well with Winslow Schott Sr. Who had enough of the drama and being used and hacked a toy into being a bomb that he left at the office he worked at it. Winns father ended up killing a few people and got arrested and sent to jail.

After that Winn refused to talk to his father and moved away with his mother and went to college in the city and quickly got job in IT at Catco. He made friends around the office and happened to help and fell for one that happened to be not a normal co worker but a rather super one at that.

#accepted

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comicsatlasrp-a-blog · 8 years

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Oh, you’re still here, Nee(thaniel)! Your application for Jessica Jones / (the Sandwich) with the faceclaim Krysten Ritter has been accepted! I think my favourite part of this application was literally the entire thing, despite the fever-addled-scrambledness of your brains during the writing. Perf. Please send in your account within 48 hours.

Name / Timezone / Pronouns: Nee(thaniel) / CST / she/her/hers

Character Name: Jessica Jones Character Alias: N/A Identity Status: "uM?????” Character Age: 31

She doesn’t get what’s so fucking fascinating, what the big deal is, they call this the fucking twitter generation, social media makes it possible to let everyone know every thought and every shit you had. What’s the fucking point? Who the hell wants to dump their shit on other people? It’s bullshit. There’s no fucking point, and she doesn’t give a shit what Malcolm and his little support group say, or that Trish keeps pushing her to see a head doc. None of that fucking matters because so fucking what? Everyone’s been through shit, you keep your head down, and you keep your feelings to yourself and one day you’ll be okay. It’s what keeps her going.

You want to know what made Jessica Jones into who she is today? It wasn’t her fucking family dying, it wasn’t even the fact that she’s sure it was her fault. It wasn’t the lifetime original movie that living with Trish became, it wasn’t any of those things. It’s not even the damn super strength.

Yeah sure, she grew up perfectly normal, little house in the burbs, parents that loved each other, a little bratty brother and you know what? She took it all for granted, too caught up in being angry at the world because she was hormonal and misunderstood and all that teenage angst bullshit that keeps little girls and boys insecure and upset. She had a good life, a normal one, until her family went on vacation one day and her dad ran the car into the back of a semi. It wasn’t even his fault, it wasn’t the fault of the driver in front of them, all she could think was that it was hers, riling her brother up, riling her parents up because she couldn’t get her way and god Jessica hasn’t gotten her way since, he life has turned to shit and she can’t even think it’s karma because she’s just not one of those people who can bother believing in higher powers or shit like that. She had enough of all powerful people and the feeling of being out of control.

The first day of the rest of her life and she was in a fucking hospital bed, could barely open her eyes, could barely fucking think, and all she can hear are these two total strangers going on about how she’s going to make them look better, poor orphan Jessica, family dead in a car crash. She cried, she’ll even admit it, she dares you to find a person who isn’t a heartless son of a bitch who won’t cry after finding out their whole family is dead and their life is gone. So yeah, that Journal? The one under the floorboards filled with teenage angst? She wanted it, she wanted it so bad she could feel it in the back of her teeth. That book was memories, and it’s stupid and she hates it but that book was her family, she didn’t keep the furniture, she didn’t keep her mother’s cooking or her father’s study, her little brother’s room, but that book? It would have helped.

Jessica didn’t get help.

Jessica got Dorthy Walker, if she thought life was bad before it was nothing compared to the revelation of finding out she was a freak at school, a freak at home, and on top of it all she can lift a marble sink over her fucking head. Patsy didn’t need help, that’s what she kept saying, cuts and bruises from her mom aside, all the dry heaving and the crying, she didn’t need help. Not Jessica’s anyway, she had a policy, no saving people who didn’t want to be saved, especially if it meant her little secret got to stay what it was. A secret. Then again, she really can’t stand people hurting the few people in this world she actually gives a damn about. Dorthy Walker doesn’t lay another hand on Trish, not if Jessica is there to stop it.

She putters around, makes it out of highschool and into mediocre dead end job after mediocre dead end job until, she makes a mistake. All of Trish’s pushing must have gotten to her, because she sees a man getting mugged and she steps in, steps in without thinking about it and if she had known what was going to happen afterward, she’s not sure she wouldn’t go back and remake that choice.

Kilgrave. You wanted the answer? There it fucking is. Kilgrave took her under his control, forced her to be something she wasn’t, act a way she wouldn’t, do things she never would have–it’s not her fault. She tells herself that every day. It’s not her fucking fault, she never really thought it was, not even when she could feel her chest caving in against the palm of her hand. She died. Jessica killed a woman, there were four deaths on her conscience and the numbers just kept piling up. She escaped him afterward, too little too late, but she left him there, in that street to die, pinned by a bus, destroyed. She hoped. She wanted him dead. She hoped he was dead and she started the road to recovery, she tried. Jessica went to the little head doc, hundreds of dollars for some advice Main St. Birch St. Bullshit Dr. Was this meant to help? Is that what people think? Some little three street mantra from her past and she’d be okay every time she smelled Italian food? Every time she walked by a street and got deja vu for a time she wanted to scrub out of her head like mold from a shower wall? Is that what healing is? If it is she didn’t want any of it.

Then he was back, she thought she was putting herself together and some of it was slipping sideways, twisted up and tangled in a mess she could never fix but, she was trying. The alcohol helped, helped more than anything else, more than the street names did, more than the pitying stares of Trish. He was back and Hope Schlottman’s parents were dead and she was in police custody and all Jessica wanted to do was run away, get so far away he’d never catch her, run until she’d never have to think about New York city and the man haunting it ever again. Then again. Jessica’s always been a fan of practice what you preach. You can live in denial, or you could hide, Jessica wasn’t the type for it.

Kilgrave made her life a living hell, this time with feeling, everyone around her was a threat, and so was she, if they were near her they were hurt, she couldn’t save herself and she couldn’t save Trish. She couldn’t help Luke either, fuck a man, kill his wife, and leave him in the hospital, she doesn’t get many second dates.

The thing is, Kevin, Kilgrave, whatever the fuck he wants to call himself, stalked her, controlled her put her life on puppet strings, he destroyed the life of a kind man who wanted nothing but to help, Malcolm Ducasse was the one who’d gotten her into this mess and one more time, she saved him again, and maybe just a little bit, he saved her too. Stopped her from imploding, crumpling in on herself until she was nothing left but resignation because how do you stop someone who can control everyone with a word? She’d barely escaped the first time, and not with herself intact, she was even less of a person then before, after him, after what he’d done, violated her body, her mind, and every cell of her body, how do you tell yourself you can stand against an unstoppable tide when you could turn the corner at any moment and find a knife in your gut before you can blink? And that was the worst of it, she didn’t want him to have control of her but he already had it, had it in the way that she was still alive, explode her house while she slept, kill her in the street, hit her with a car, what did it matter how she went? She would have known the whole time who orchestrated it and that’s it. She knew she was only alive because, what? It amused him to let her live, he could have set anyone within hearing distance at her for a full 12 hours, more, if he kept recruiting, but he wanted her alive. And what for? Some sick little ploy at revenge? To make her kill herself?

Trish almost died, a cop under Kilgrave’s control, and Jessica…couldn’t think about that for too long without wanting to crush things, throw things and break buildings because she can’t dent a wall and be done. She has super strength, she can’t punch a punching bag, if she let loose she was more likely to take down a building, so she drank to dull the concern, and shoved her away harder than ever to protect her, up until she realized that by her side or not Trish had a target on her back. She cared about her, and that was too obvious, she couldn’t hide it though, even if she put up a damn good front of it.

Then Reuben died and she hadn’t even been there for that, woke up covered in his blood next to his body and all she could think was that he had nothing to do with her, barely existed on her peripheral but still, to close, no one could come near her without being caught in the blast radius and that–there were days she struggled with that. Was she the monster? Every person she came close to hurt, or died and it was a struggle with everyday to remember this wasn’t her fault, that this wasn’t her. Giving into him wouldn’t do anything but hurt her, she couldn’t save anyone by giving into him. She had to remind herself.

Main Street. Birch Street, Higgins Drive.

She’s home again, Reuben’s body is in the bay and Malcolm and Trish are left behind to deal with the fall out one more time because she can’t, She’s too busy walking into a spider’s web and trying not to get stuck when all she has is the word of a psychopath she’ll be okay. It’s all she’s had for weeks, it’s to her surprise, not that different from before. Her skin crawls though, she covers up, she can’t stop drinking, see? Not that different at all, and of course, the slaves, collateral damage. That’s it, that’s what people are in this game of cat and mouse, at least, she thought so, to him at least, collateral damage because he never knew them, never had to look them in the eye, or their survivors in the eye. He probably wouldn’t have even cared then.

She tortures him, it doesn’t feel as good as she thought it would, having him, weak and powerless and in pain. It didn’t make her feel better, it didn’t make her feel like she was in control either, she wondered in the brief moments when she let herself, what it would take to feel okay again. Then she didn’t have time to worry because his parents were found, his mother was dead and he was on the run, Trish was trying to put a bullet in her head and they had to protect the one person who could make a cure for him.

She would have laughed at that if she had it in her to be anything other than angry, enraged and tired with the same breath. Of course it was like a disease, you caught him like a sickness in your cells, your thoughts, she’d have snorted, god, every single cell, what a fucking laugh. Still, Hope got released from prison and Kilgrave had her and they had one bargaining chip, the only person that could make him stronger, the only person who could make a cure. Him for Hope and Jessica had to walk into the spider’s web one more time.

“Well, we need a signal. Something you would never say, like… ‘sardines’ or ‘pickle juice.’ You say it, you’re still you.”

“Like, ‘I love you.’”

“That’ll do.”

There was a body count that kept climbing, kept getting higher and higher, first Reva, and with her came the death of Luke’s happiness, whatever life he’d had. Hope Schlottman’s parents, the death of Hope, and if she was a different person she’d think of it as symbolism, Hope…gave hope when she died but that’s not how Jessica is, that’s not who she is, so she thinks of it as just another body on her conscience. Another life.

She needed to stop him and he needed more power until even she was under his control and she was too busy trying to minimize the damage to realize someone she’d tried to protect was in the thick of it. She’d thought when he’d said bye to her he’d said bye to all this danger too, but she was wrong about that, only knew her mistake when she was hauling him out of his exploding bar.

Then of course she had a partner to help track Kilgrave down. Then she had an enemy, no one was safe, even Luke’s impenetrable skin couldn’t stop Kilgrave from getting under it, playing puppet master with his brain and his voice. It was one of the most terrifying moments of her life fighting Luke, he seemed unstoppable and there wasn’t much that scared her anymore. She honestly thought in those rushed, blurred out seconds that he’d crush her skull in and leave her there, in a dirty night club for the police to find. She got lucky she guesses.

‘Let’s start with a smile.’

‘Tell me you love me.’

'I love you.’

She ends up killing him, she ends up getting caught for it too, his neck snapped and she dropped him because she couldn’t bare to touch him anymore, it’s not that easy to feel right again. Killing what kills you isn’t always enough.

People think we’re all born heroes, but life, if you let it will push you over the line until you’re the villain, problem is you don’t always know that you’ve crossed that line, maybe it’s enough that the world thinks she’s a hero, maybe if she works long and hard. She can fool herself. Maybe she can feel right again.

#accepted #jessica jones

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