i've come to burn your kingdom down.

[avogado]

( PLAYER ★ INFORMATION )

NAME: juli
AGE: 23
CONTACT: recessionals@gmail.com
CURRENT CHARACTERS & LATEST AC: n/a

RESERVATION LINK: here!

( CHARACTER ★ INFORMATION )

DOES THIS CHARACTER MEET SKELETAL BASICS? Yes. Matt is the main character of the canon he originates from.
NAME & AGE: Matthew Murdock, 32 ( headcanon )
CANON & CANON POINT: Marvel’s Daredevil, taken from 1.10, “the path of the righteous”
CANON INFORMATION: the marvel cinematic universe wiki

PERSONALITY:

❝ I need to be the man this city needs. ❞

In many ways, Matt Murdock is a study in contrasts. He is both a practitioner of the law, and a vigilante who works outside of it. He is a staunch Catholic with a strong moral code, but also a man who is in danger of losing himself to callous violence. In many ways, this balancing act he performs with his own markers of identity define him. The constant struggle to be a ‘good man’, and the temptation to become an arbiter of his own brand of justice become markers of his personal journey.

Left to his own devices, he is a reserved man, the kind that often keeps to himself, in contrast with the more outgoing Foggy and Karen, his only friends. He is a man who appears to exert control over his life - all the way down to his perfectly pressed clothes, his articulate manner of speech and his firm handshake. He is a lawyer with morals in a business full of sharks, and he is more than capable of holding his own in that regard. But outwardly, Matt is also amicable and charming, and he definitely turns up that charm when he needs to, especially around women. Which leads to Foggy having a generous misconception of him as some sort of Don Juan. Matt also understands that the fact that he is blind often disarms people. He waves away their bashful platitudes like it’s nothing, but secretly he dislikes the fact that everyone seems to treat him as if he were made of glass. The reason why he initially became friends with Foggy, other than the fact that they were college roommates, was because he didn’t treat him like an invalid.

This is the image that Matt presents to the world at large - that of a young ideologue who is passionate about the work that he does. Who believes in fighting injustice with the system. Who has been known to quote Thurgood Marshall from time to time. And in reality, he still is this person on the inside. It's just that his innermost thoughts are where ideology and the harsh realities of life collide.

❝ I tried not to fight to make my dad proud, to to block it out. The sirens, the pain, the fear, all strangling Hell's Kitchen. For years, I buried my head and turned away. Then one night right after we quit Landman and Zack - I heard it. A little girl crying in her bed, in a building down the block. Her father liked to go to her room late at night when his wife was asleep. I called Child Services like you're supposed to. But the mom, she wouldn't believe it. The law couldn't do anything to help that little girl.

But I could. ❞

The fact remains that sometimes the system isn't enough. That men like Wilson Fisk often use it to their advantage. There is no one to turn to, not when the police and the politicians - the official arbiters of change are all in Fisk's pocket. And Matt is so deeply affected by injustice that he decides to put on a black mask and fight crime in the streets, because he believes that he can make a difference. He is one man, taking on an entire network of corrupt organizations with nothing but his own two hands. He wants to protect the innocent of the city, and his enemies know this. They kidnap young children and murder elderly women just to get to him, because they don't feel the need to adhere to the same moral codes that he does.

He sees it as a duty. He has to help, because he can. Matt refers to Hell's Kitchen as his city. Protecting it is his responsibility, no matter what. He can't stop, no matter how bloodied and beaten he gets.

Well.

They say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions for a reason, don't they? As much as he's motivated by his noble cause of making the city he lives in a better place, there are times when he is moved only by his rage, consumed with thoughts of revenge. Matt has a strict moral code -- he will not kill anyone. But where the delineation of that line ends blurs sometimes. He's perfectly happy to torture his enemies for information, to beat them senseless for a name, a location. He will put a man in a coma and not think twice about it, because he isn't dead. Over the course of the series, Matt causes the deaths of a fair number of people through his actions -- just not with his own hands. His mentor, Stick, tries to tell him that this is a weakness. That one day it will come down to him and the other guy, and he'll have to make a choice. And for most of the series, Matt refuses to believe him.

❝ I need you to know why I'm hurting you, it's not the boy, it's because I enjoy it. ❞

But Fisk is always one step ahead, time and time again. As the desperation sets in, Matt begins to wonder if the only way he'll be able to stop Fisk is by killing him. Even though as a devout Catholic, he knows that doing so will damn his soul to hell. So perhaps it's with an apt kind of foresight that his masked alter-ego was given the nickname of The Devil of Hell's Kitchen, because Matt has a little bit of the devil in him. You can see it in the way he gives into his rage, sometimes. In the way that he will continue to beat a bad man when he's down, beating him until there is literal blood on his hands. He is ruthless and cruel, and there are moments when hardened criminals beg him for mercy. Matt sets himself aside from the people he is trying to destroy - because he does not kill, because he refuses to use guns. But every time he gives into his rage, he gets a little bit closer to becoming what he hates.

He lives a double life of sorts, too. He continuously lies to Karen and Foggy about his nightly activities and the mysterious bruises that keep popping up on his person. Even more hypocritically, he berates them for getting involved in trying to dig into Fisk's operations, giving a staunch speech about how they'll fight him using the legal system. Matt keeps his friends and his love interest, Claire, at arm's length because he can't stand the added weight of the knowledge that they might get hurt because of him. This is a crusade that he believes must be undertaken by himself. Yet at the same time, Matt can't bring himself to cut ties with them, because they are the only connection he has to a normal life. When Foggy finally discovers his identity as the masked man, Matt eventually breaks down into tears, believing that he had irrevocably severed one of the only ties to happiness that he had.

Ultimately, Matt Murdock is something of a martyr. He's a man who is trying to walk the path of the righteous.

It's always going to be an uphill battle.

COURT ALLIANCE & REASONING:

Unseelie.

honor is a lie;
As a vigilante, Matt is someone who circumvents the rules of society in order to bring about what he feels is a greater good. His enemy, Wilson Fisk, believes he's doing the exact same thing. Matt's methods for bringing about this change are bloody and sometimes cruel. For him, it's not so much that chivalric honor is a lie, but that the law has been manipulated to oppress the downtrodden and benefit the corrupt. And those people deserve to be punished.

change is good;
All of his efforts are meant to destroy the current status quo, the institutional layers of crime that govern the people of his city. Matt wants to tear all of that down and rebuild. Sometimes, his actions cause widespread chaos, but he really wants to believe that what he's doing is just -- according to his own personal code, of course.

passion before duty;
Matt's fierce loyalty towards the people of Hell's Kitchen is a duty that he imposes upon himself, of his own choosing. He doesn't get beat to a pulp on dirty concrete streets because he has to, he does it because he wants to. It becomes something of an obsession that takes over his life, interfering with all aspects of it because he cannot let this go.

ABILITIES:

strengths;

( + ) ＂ＷＨＡＴ  ＤＯ  ＹＯＵ  ＳＥＥ？＂ "Ａ  ＷＯＲＬＤ  ＯＮ  ＦＩＲＥ."

the accident that blinded matt at a young age also spilled chemicals on him that gave him heightened senses that operate at a far higher level than a regular person’s. he has an incredible sense of hearing, touch, taste and smell and frequently uses this to compensate for his blindness. a few examples of things he can do:

- his hearing is so good that he can sense heartbeats, so he knows when a person is in distress, and he can tell when someone’s lying to him. also, he can eavesdrop on conversations from far away. he can hear bullets as they whistle through the air and dodge them accordingly

- he can feel the most minute details when it comes to his sense of touch - everything from temperature to the degree, to vibrations and air density. he knows when things move and where they are.

- matt's sense of smell is so acute that he can tell what foggy had for lunch two days ago. he can taste the iron in the air when claire's wounds begin bleeding.

( + ) ＹＯＵ＇ＲＥ  Ａ  ＷＡＲＲＩＯＲ．

- matt is a highly trained fighter who combines a multitude of styles - a little bit of this, a little bit of that. kickboxing, muy thai, wrestling, karate -- whatever helps him get the upper hand. he's capable of taking down multiple opponents by himself, although it probably helps that they can't sense what he can. he absolutely uses his senses to his advantage. he's capable of giving one hell of a beating, and doling one out, too.

- he's also well-trained in the usage of many different types of weapons - he may hate guns and refuse to use them, but he's still got perfect aim when it comes down to it. ultimately, matt prefers to use simple wooden staves, even against armed opponents

- as a fighter, he tends towards the acrobatic side of things, sometimes. think fancy flips and spinning kicks, as well as the ability to parkour across rooftops and climb buildings with ease.

( + ) ＴＨＥ  ＬＯＮＧ  ＡＲＭ  ＯＦ  ＴＨＥ  ＬＡＷ

- matt is clever. he graduated from one of the top law schools in the country, summa cum laude. he knows how to do his research, and he knows quite a fair bit about the law. he's a good orator, and knows how to give one hell of a speech.

weaknesses;

( - ) ＬＥＧＡＬＬＹ  ＢＬＩＮＤ

despite all of matt's other senses, he's still ultimately blind, which alters the way he accesses the world. for example, he needs braille to be able to read, and uses voice commands to make calls on his smartphone. he'll use a cane to locate objects in his path if he's in an unfamiliar area. he can't tell you what he looks like.

( - ) ＴＯＯ  ＭＵＣＨ  ＯＦ  Ａ  ＧＯＯＤ  ＴＨＩＮＧ

also, because of his heightened senses, there are instances when the external stimuli that he experiences can become overwhelming. as a child, he spent his days incapacitated by everything he could hear and feel until his mentor taught him how to focus his senses. he needs to sleep on silk sheets because cotton feels like sandpaper on his skin -- matt feels too much, and that isn't always a good thing.

( - ) ＳＴＩＣＫＳ  ＡＮＤ  ＳＴＯＮＥＳ

ultimately, matt's still human. he can take a hell of a lot of pain and injury without complaint ( and jokingly credits catholicism for that one ), but there are definitely times when he's been at death's door at a fight and needed urgent medical attention to squeak by.

INVENTORY:

- one white cane
- one pair of dark glasses
- a three piece suit - grey wool trousers, blue dress shirt, blazer and dark tie
- a leather wallet containing bank cards, cash, state ID and a few business cards reading NELSON AND MURDOCK
- one smartphone

( WRITING ★ SAMPLES )

NETWORK SAMPLE:
video;

( well, it turns out that the locket's brand of magic/technology is one that relies on dictation, which suits matt just fine. he's been toying with it for a bit, and the only drawback is that text function is tricky for him to navigate. not that he plans on using it much.

when he speaks, it is with his lawyerly tone of voice - clear and articulate and serious. he's dressed in a full suit and wearing his dark glasses. )

My name is Matthew Murdock. You might have already noticed that I'm blind. ( he gestures to the opaque glasses, usually a big giveaway. ) Which means I can't read the map I was given when I arrived. The imps were...less than helpful, in that regard.

( an understatement. )

So I suppose I'm asking for a little help. If there are any landmarks or major points of interest that I should know about, I'd appreciate the information.

Thank you.

LOG SAMPLE:

meme threads