[HASH]10. JACOB MARSHALL[/size]
RPer: Elliot
Recent appearances: Obscured Truth; Reemergence
Manly score: 3
Why so manly?If I honed the poll results down to just the characters who received at least four points, there’d be only nine entries in the list. So, I decided to exercise my supreme glorious Kim Jong-Il dictator tyrant power and cherrypick a wild card candidate out of the three-point boys. And what wild card could possibly be wilder than the wild card from the Wild West? No no, not – not Rance West. He’s further down on the list,
jeez. I’m talking about ex-detective, present vigilante, eternal real man Jacob Marshall. Quite simply, the guy is in control. It’s true he’s taken a certain degree of shit from specific personages, namely Antonio and Yoon – but any man worth his salt is capable of conceding the upper hand once in a while to a member of the weaker sex! (Bite me, Butterfly. You didn’t even make the noms.) And the rest of the time, Marshall exudes force with his towering presence, no-nonsense drawl, no-
bullshit lie-detecting ability, and slow, sure walk, punctuated by the jangle of handcuffs he’s just waiting to slap on some sorry fool
even though it is currently illegal for him to do so. Really, though, my favorite detail of Marshall’s decommissioned police gear is the empty gun holster. Go ahead, miscreants, draw a bead on Marshall. Let’s see if you can pull the trigger faster than he can plant a nice cowhide-leather boot inside your ribcage.
Crowning Moment of Manly:Until we see him really start taking action in Obscured Truth, his manliest moment will remain the Corrado Arpino incident recalled in [url=http://archipelagoexodus.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=orpboard&thread=2978&page=3[HASH]69454]that old
Post article[/url]. (Note: even though I wrote it, the idea and his “now-infamous words” came from Elliot.) Marshall’s in a Mexican standoff with a bloodthirsty Giarrettiera hitman, who’s got fellow officer Davidson at gunpoint (he of the unhappy fate at Lucas’ hands, but this came earlier). Anyone’s natural response, assuming they had too many X-chromosomes on their hands, would be to back down and try to negotiate Davidson’s safe release. Marshall’s response? “COME AT ME, BRO.” Or, rather: “Don’t think you’re safe, boy. Don’t for one goddamn second think you’re safe.” Sure, Jacob Marshall can get away with addressing a convicted murderer as “boy”, why do you ask? Listen, when your balls are as big as Marshall’s,
everyone starts to look like they belong in Spider-Man briefs. Although, actually, I kind of have to wonder if Marshall was really talking to Davidson, not Arpino. “Oh, you think you’re safe cause there’s no way I’d open fire on him and risk your life. Well, kiddo, you know why I wear a ten-gallon Stetson? To carry around all the fucks I don’t give.”
[HASH]9. REBA WINSETWait, what?
RPer: Lee
Recent appearances: Househeld
Manly score: 4
Wait wait hold on, so Lee’s bribe actually worked? Guys, you – you – you poor things, don’t you understand that you
never cut a deal with Lee that involves him posting in the RP? You dear gullible, gullible souls! Also: god damn it! Now I actually have to do this. Good job, guys. Enjoy your four Reba posts……………………..
in January!!!!Why so manly?*sign*…Hr’hrm.
I think it was Shaw who immortalized the brilliant maxim: “Reba is a different kind of ‘manly’ from Natalie and Rie. They are rugged in spite of their femininity, whereas Reba actually aggressively pursues a manly angle on situations as her natural preference.” What can I say after that? What, indeed. What…… indeed. Well I guess she uses the garrotteKind strife specibus which is definitely pretty manly. And, um… uh… well, the bottle of clear liquid probably isn’t water, like that’s probably at LEAST vodka or something… And, I guess, she wanted a son and was disappointed to get a daughter instead which is a classic man problem? On the other hand she is prepared to consider deep frying to be [url=http://archipelagoexodus.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=househeld&thread=2874&page=1[HASH]59025]an inherently evil action[/url] and that takes away like all of her man-points right there. Sooo I dunno.
Crowning Moment of Manly:Um, she caught a falling bottle [url=http://archipelagoexodus.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=househeld&thread=2874&page=1[HASH]59670]with her boa[/url] which is surely good for some Indiana Jones cred. But why replace that emblem of man-power, the trusty whip, with something as flaky and insubstantial as a boa? Maybe Reba’s, like, So Secure In Her Manliness That She Feels Comfortable Manifesting Itself In Feminine okay seriously
can I be done now?? I hate to whine but I think it’s time to move on. Who’s… Who’s the next one on the list? Let’s see who the next one on the list is.
[HASH]8. SCAROh thank god.
RPer: Kuroboom
Recent appearances: Ishkabibble
Manly score: 4
Why so manly?:It’s kind of nice once in a while, in RP as much as in any other medium, to see a bad guy who steadfastly refuses to bat around the Villain Ball. At this point I would try to work in a joke about balls, but I already did one for Marshall and I do not want to give the impression that manliness is nothing more than a factor of testicular endowment
(*sniffle*). But I digress. Sure, we happen to sing Lucas’ praises more often for his twisted, kinky distinction, but let’s face it: that little blood-pervert, God love him, can’t claim to be half as manly as his comrade-in-harm Scar. Fun fact!! Scar has already come up with four mutually-incompatible ways to murder you. The only reason he hasn’t put any of those methods to work yet is, I assume, because he doesn’t think you’re worth the trouble. For like unto
the mighty lion what rules the pride what rules the Serengeti, Scar is pretty big on conservation of energy. He doesn’t waste a single word or, indeed, a single motion that strikes him as superfluous, preferring to remain stoic and store up his drive for the one thing that truly makes him happy: taking people apart in a decidedly brutal fashion. Though we may not all be on board with the whole murder thing, men everywhere salute Scar’s singular, overriding commitment, to the exclusion of all unnecessary activity. Oh, also I just remembered that there was totally an actual lion named Scar in
The Lion King. But that guy was a little bitch and I would like to apologize to the real Scar for inadvertently comparing him to such a sen
sational pansy.
Crowning Moment of Manly:For all of the savage destruction that he’s caused, I can’t imagine a better post than [url=http://archipelagoexodus.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=orpboard&thread=1340&page=1[HASH]29000]his first words to Lucas[/url] for demonstrating Scar both as a villain and as a stone-cold slab of beefcake. In the space of well under two hundred words, Kuroboom concisely establishes (a) that Lucas’ talky yap yaps are interfering with the quality Man Introspection Time that Scar was trying to spend with the catastrophe he’s caused; (b) that Scar had never met this stranger until two minutes ago and he is
already prepared to murder him; (c) that he considers it maybe just a teensy bit faggy for Lucas to call the sword Orycalthesis his “partner”; and (d) that Scar sees no reason to go gallivanting around with a fellow villain just because he happens to be there. That’s the whole package. An appreciation of silence, a policy of working alone, the brass to kill any potential threat, and the dismissal of all romantic nuance.
Control yourselves, ladies.
[HASH]7. MIKORPer: Lee
Recent appearances: The Crystal Part 2; Light and Darkness Collide; Summoner Style
Manly score: 5
Why so manly?After Scar, let’s maybe take a break from the horrendous menaces and highlight a gentler, more restrained, but no less respectable vision of masculinity, in the form of Miko. He may have a name that sounds like that raccoon from
Pocahontas (I’m going to see how many Disney movies I can namedrop in this article about manliness), but when “taciturn killer with a penchant for slashing and ‘sploding in equal measure” ends up ranking slightly beneath “guy who mostly, I guess, controls plant and fungal matter?”, you know Miko must be doing something right. Of course it wasn’t plant and fungal matter that Miko called upon to level Slateport way back when. It was Mothra.
[Note to self: Confirm this later.] But that incident, easily the chapter in Pokeschool ORP history that still gets the most in-character discussion here on Archie Exie, was what set Miko off upon that classic real man’s character arc: the quest for redemption. As deadly as he can be when provoked, Miko recognizes the need to rein in his powers so as not to endanger innocent lives, giving him a layer of humility that generously permits those around him to carry on their business without worrying about whether they’ve cultivated enough chest hair to rival him. But don’t get me wrong. He will definitely hurl a redwood tree in your direction if he thinks you need to chill your damn D. Miko also gets automatic man-points for successfully managing
a supermarket a nautical voyage thousands of miles across the Pacific Ocean. And by “successfully” I mean “after lowering anchor for a few minutes to thoroughly swab the decks with some Final Fantasy character who was giving him lip”. By the way, just so we’re clear on the plant and fungal matter thing, the pinnacle of Jade Magic involves killing your opponent by conjuring a [url=http://archipelagoexodus.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=orpboard&thread=374&page=3[HASH]50533]giant blue rose[/url]. Now
that is how you pull off “real men wear pink”. You could learn from this, Winset.
Crowning Moment of Manly:You know, I could point to any of a handful of moments in the fight with Rick that would qualify, such as Miko’s [url=http://archipelagoexodus.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=orpboard&thread=374&page=3[HASH]33963]refusing Yoshi’s assistance[/url] because his principles demand that he square things with Rick by himself, or perhaps the bit where he sustains the pain from some massive trauma in his right shoulder and left calf by gritting his teeth and warning Rick [url=http://archipelagoexodus.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=orpboard&thread=374&page=3[HASH]34585]not to underestimate him[/url]. But, honestly, my favorite Manly Miko Moment comes before all that (and it is the first time that Miko ever came before anything, because he is a gentleman). It’s [url=http://archipelagoexodus.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=orpboard&thread=374&page=2[HASH]29986]this post[/url]. Partially because of what an eminently pragmatic, masculine use of Jade Magic that is (gathering all the phytoplankton in the surrounding water to coalesce into a makeshift land bridge), but mostly because of the way Miko reacts to it. “Miko's mouth tweaked slightly, evidently a subdued smile of pride in his intelligence.” Aw jeez, poor Miko. I’m sure it’s really hard to stay humble when you are so busy being THE MAN.
[HASH]6. COMMISSIONER WILLIAMSRPer: Pohatu
Recent appearances: The Case of the Burgled Boullogne; Ishkabibble; Obscured Truth
Manly score: 5
Why so manly?Why indeed? How did Commissioner Williams, a character who has until now not so much as taken his gun out of its holster onscreen, beat out honed pugilists like Natalie, Prime, and Cesare for a cozy spot in the top ten? Your guess is as good as mine, but I’m gonna speculate that it has something to do with the fact that the guy basically breathes
Reason You Suck Speeches. If you piss him off (easy feat) then the Commissioner will smack you down with the dialogue equivalent of Iron Palm, and a goodly part of the crackle to Obscured Truth – which isn’t even into the second act yet! – stems from Antonio’s and Nopcsa’s power to absorb such punishment and deal out some word-jitsu of their own, resulting in close-quarters verbal skirmishing of the kind that, in e.g. Light and Darkness Collide, would get diffused amid a whole bunch of useless… like, energy attacks and stuff. But Williams isn’t always on the offensive: quite apart from his wife and two daughters, we’ve also seen him enact the masculine protector role toward Ellen and Henry Odio following Larry’s demise. Which sorta makes you wonder, since, as Nopcsa pointed out and everything, Williams has kind of these giant gaping holes in his
JUSTICE! track record. Actually I don’t know why anyone in Winstone feels reassured by his presence at all. But I will go out on a limb and say it has something to do with his voice. You just
know there’s only one guy out there with the steely baritone of sheer manliness to voice Williams once ORP becomes an animated series. And that’s Ving Rhames. Also known as Marcellus Wallace, also known as the man behind
Cobra Bubbles from
Lilo & Stitch aw YEAH I knew I could get one more in!!
Crowning Moment of Manly:Like I said, he doesn’t have much in the way of action scenes just yet, so I’ll have to drag out one of the aforementioned Reason You Suck posts, and his recent [url=http://archipelagoexodus.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=orpboard&thread=2978&page=3[HASH]71774]tirade against Nopcsa[/url] fits the bill pretty nicely. Nopcsa, you’ll remember, has just aired out a Chris-chan-sized load of dirty laundry concerning the Commissioner’s past failings. Williams responds by brutally picking apart the real reasons for Nopcsa’s recruitment to the case, which are
let’s just say not as flattering as the mind-reader supposes. Of course Williams goes on to lose his composure in a big way once that whole “mind-reading” thing really registers with him, but on the plus side, our whirlwind tour of the contents of his mind includes memories of being a disciplinarian father and fucking his wife, so…….. trade-off?
[HASH]5. VALON LORSHARPer: DL
Recent appearances: The Crystal Part 2; Head Games
Manly score: 5
Why so manly?Well, okay, first thing, pause whatever music you’re listening to and put
this on. That is, by [url=http://archipelagoexodus.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=orp2&thread=1164&page=7[HASH]69020]DL’s own decree[/url], the very theme of Valon.
Anyway! Another nobleman makes the list. But, more so than Miko, I think Valon is really ORP’s icon of regal authority. He’s the King of Dragons, you guys. Now I hear you saying that’s cheesy and Paolini-like, and I am
ashamed by this. I say to you, until you become the king of something comparably badass like Cuisinarts,
you shall not judge. You shall only admire Valon’s bitchin’ goatee and scaly purple swag. The guy can make jewelry just by thinking about it pretty hard and if that doesn’t strike you as manly then you have never carried a woman to bed while she was wearing nothing but the emerald necklace you pulled out of thin air for her five minutes ago. But seriously – no, wait, I was actually totally serious about all of that. Carrying on, then: He’s large, he’s in charge, he will lay you flat with a punch
or a Hadoken, and the air is filled with the thick scent of red chilis every time he [url=http://archipelagoexodus.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=orpboard&thread=1848&page=2[HASH]51865]farts[/url] so you know Valon’s diet must be as masculine as they come.
[Note to self: Totally factual. High-five.] Also, if you read [url=http://archipelagoexodus.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=orpboard&thread=2922&page=1[HASH]60182]spoken Drakengradianese[/url] backward letter-by-letter, it is actually fragments from a treatise on how to make your penis the size of a boa constrictor. Go look!
Crowning Moment of Manly:Since I seem to enjoy going for subtlety in these picks, I will pass over Valon’s jaw-ripping, joint-snapping, spinal-cord-knotting badassery in Head Games and instead highlight [url=http://archipelagoexodus.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=orpboard&thread=1848&page=1[HASH]42897]a certain moment[/url] in Crystal 2 when Valon pays for a plush fox (it’s for his soon-to-be daughter, making him a kickin’ father on top of everything else) by using Silver Magic to create a pair of
silver gold coins out of nothing. “Why yes,” he assures the merchant, “my kingdom is indeed positively fat with ancient riches beyond your imagining. But you see, my good chap, I fear for your safety. I fear that laying so much as a finger upon the millennia-old treasures of Drakengrad would so far outshine everything your ancestors have ever accomplished that your entire family tree would wither away in shame. So here, my fine fellow. Have these artificial facsimiles I just made. Now go and carry on with your little life, in peace and content.” Or maybe I made that speech up. It’s totally there in the subtext, though. Oh! Great idea here. Valon and Terrian should team up and completely destroy the United States’ economy via inflation. Valon can depreciate the gold standard while Terrian saturates the market with counterfeit bills. That way the
Power Response Agency will lose all its funding and cease to be a global threat, and all it will require is turning America into Greece. Real men think big!!!!!!
[HASH]4. RANCE WESTRPer: Ninety
Recent appearances: Big Country; Gasoline; The Last Best Hope
Manly score: 5
Why so manly?The man has horses. Two of them. Oh, sorry, is that not manly enough? Fail to appreciate the
intense manliness of liking horses, do you? Fine. For some reason, I’ll continue. Perhaps you would be more impressed by the sheer mastery over his own physiology which Rance draws upon to percolate epinephrine through his system via [url=http://archipelagoexodus.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=hof&thread=3302&page=1[HASH]69307]goddamn force of will[/url]. If anyone striding over this earth has won the struggle of man vs. self, it is Rance West. The struggle of man vs. man is also no big deal for him in most cases, thanks to an [url=http://archipelagoexodus.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=hof&thread=2587&page=1[HASH]50498]eminently practical[/url] choice of firearm (we do love our Texans and their gun-porn prose), though that’s hardly the alpha and omega of Rance’s arsenal. It’s more like the alpha and beta, or maybe the alpha and alpha-point-five. Indeed, rocketing through the streets of Paris and pasting his targets with half a dozen choices of boolit at once, Rance serves as an outlet of untrammeled male fantasy: a sort of ORP James Bond, with the tux swapped for a parka and all the martinis replaced with dakka. Oh, and he is also blessed with a truly majestic mustache. Just thought I’d be remiss in not mentioning it. Kind of the elephant in the room.
Crowning Moment of Manly:It’s easy to miss (unlike his mustache), but I’m going to give this to the detail of Rance’s [url=http://archipelagoexodus.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=hof&thread=2587&page=1[HASH]51982]laughing[/url] as he disperses his ungodly ordinance of leaden death among the
Prefecture goons. Now, when we see someone laughing his head off while indiscriminately firing an automatic, we are inclined to think that he (it’s usually a “he”. For that matter it’s usually Shouta) is a murderous nutcase who would be best consigned to the loony bin immediately. We might even consider this to be a slightly hackneyed means of establishing such. The only problem, in this case: so far as we know, Rance isn’t crazy. He does have that weird voice in his head at a couple of points in LBH, but that guy seems pretty obviously to be some kind of external agent popping in, not a manifestation of his own psyche. Why, then, should Rance be laughing while he fires the Heckler & Koch? If you even need to ask, then you do not have the mindset of a true man. A true man has no patience for humor. Puns, satire, comedies of manners, these things are for
bitches. A true man knows only one joke, which he has honed to perfection by calling upon it in every appropriate social gathering. The setup for the joke consists of loading a magazine and pulling the trigger a bunch of times. The punchline for the joke consists of heads blowing up. You see it’s the perfect masculine joke because it’s
efficient: you never need to preface it with “Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.”
[HASH]3. RIE NEPASRPer: Choobs
Recent appearances: The Crystal Part 2; Head Games; Ishkabibble; Luxury Train Ride
Manly score: 6
Why so manly?Well, Choobs wants to bang her, so I guess……………………….
Crowning Moment of Manly:[url=http://archipelagoexodus.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=orpboard&thread=2922&page=1[HASH]61615]FEELINGS ARE BORING
KILLING IS AWESOME[/url]
[HASH]2. KURORPer: Kuroboom
Recent appearances: Light and Darkness Collide; The Phoenix’s Last Incarnation
Manly score: 7
Why so manly?Take the lone-wolf appeal of Scar and the atonement mandate of Miko, mix ‘em together, stir it real good, and then put that down and go live on an island for three or four years by yourself and you will
be Kuro. If you didn’t want to be Kuro, I’m sorry, but you probably should have finished reading that sentence before following the instructions. Anyway I don’t know what you’re complaining about, seeing as you are now one of the manliest men in ORP. As mentioned somewhere previously, Kuro lived on an island for a few years by himself. And I’m not talking Staten Island, I’m talking one of those little refrigerator-sized sand dunes with a single coconut tree from
The Far Side. I assume. It doesn’t seem to have been specified anywhere. But all I’m envisioning here is the kind of island where Kuro had to subsist on a diet of deep-fried seashells and build a hut out of sharks. Why did he live on this island for so long, you ask? Plane crash? Floo powder mishap? How ‘bout:
self-inflicted banishment for past misdeeds which are not immediately clear to me upon ten minutes of research? If you had the means to travel to a deserted island and back whenever you felt like it, I would
dare you to spend more than a week there without caving and returning to civilization. What? No, you – no, you can’t bring your computer. They probably don’t have wi-fi out there anyway. Look, just accept the fact that this man of the windswept wilds, this sun-parched hermit, this Kuro, is ten times the man you’ll ever be. If you’re not persuaded, please let me remind you that [url=http://archipelagoexodus.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=orpboard&thread=2975&page=1[HASH]61688]his home planet was destroyed[/url] and his parents killed, leaving him to defend Earth as his only remaining abode. And what American icon, what stalwart paragon of rippling masculinity does this remind you of? That’s right! Clopin from
The Hunchback of Notre Dame!Crowning Moment of Manly:[url=http://archipelagoexodus.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=orpboard&thread=2975&page=1[HASH]64062]Dies.[/url] Doesn’t freak out. Ponders silently over his corpse for over sixty seconds, then unflinchingly uses a gambling term that makes it sound like he shat himself postmortem.
And no one in the room so much as giggles. Such is the icy-calm presence of this sombre hombre. No matter which side of the last roundup he’s on, his demeanor is unflappable and his tongue is never in his cheek. Godspeed you, black emperor.
[HASH]1. DANIEL HUCKABEERPer: Biscuit
Recent appearances: Burgled Boullogne; Gasoline; The Last Best Hope
Manly score: 7
Why so manly?I believe it was Aristophanes who first observed that “Huckabee sleeps in a sandbox filled with broken glass, rusted nails and live badgers,” to which Shaw replied over tea, “And he’s the sharpest, crustiest, orneriest thing in there, even while unconscious.” All true. But we are not here today to honor the Ten Sharpest, the Ten Crustiest, or even the Ten Orneriest Characters in RP. We are here to honor the Ten Manliest Characters, and by an overwhelming landslide vote (read: I picked him over Kuro cause I like him better), Daniel Huckabee tops the list. What need I say? Seriously, what need I say. Do I need to make jokes? Because I’m pretty much all out of those. Should I draw some kind of hilarious comparison between this Huckabee and the fat fuck who was campaigning for Republican nominee in 2008? Also, upon reflection, why does Mike Huckabee look so much fatter in his Wikipedia photo than in most Google Image results? He’s got some mad Jabba jowls on Wikipedia and on GIS he looks mostly okay. Perhaps his fatter cousin stepped in to assume his persona after Daniel Huckabee
assassinated the real Mike Huckabee in some unknown pocket of Europe. There can only be one.
Crowning Moment of Manly:I have thought and rethought my choice but I keep coming back to the [url=http://archipelagoexodus.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=hof&thread=3302&page=1[HASH]69155]first post that sprang to mind[/url], which is the one where the showdown against Mickey Sharp(e) gets ugly as both gunmen haul in human shields: Rance on Mickey’s side and Shana Merrygams on Huck’s. So, between this and my pick for Marshall, apparently I think the absolute manliest thing you can do is to show no regard for the well-being of other people who are held at gunpoint by your enemies. I don’t know whether or not to be disturbed by this fact. I’m – I’m kind of leaning toward “yes.” It’s something I wish I hadn’t discovered about myself, and I might not have undertaken this project if I knew it was going to result in such uncomfortable personal revelations. But, hey! Might as well roll with it. To all the sorry pencil-necks who scored zero points in the poll, you know what you must do to earn some MAN-CRED around here. I Ketut Topan, I’m looking at you. Pohatu out.