( SC credit to @randomstoreroom21c )
SHANG TSUNG HCs
I once again can’t stop thinking about MK1 Shang Tsung and his personal life and relationships /struggles / past / so have these rambles, keep im mind that most of these are HCs we came up with for our AU but I think they might generally apply as I just love them so much.
• To most of his allies Shang Tsung is respectable and influential enough to be a collaborator but too alienating and too much of a pathological liar to be a friend or even a partner as soon as they find out what experiments he conducts. This frustrates Shang Tsung because he desperately longs to experience the feeling of being admired. It’s kind of twisted though, because he is entirely unwilling to change his ways even towards other evil-spirited figures and still hopes that someone will love him for what he does as there’s a sense of “look at my power and my deceptive nature and how I simply do not care, isn’t that an attractive quality in and of itself?” He almost expects people to want him for it but it doesn’t occur in his mind that no matter if good or evil people consider working with him his ways will always make him untrustworthy.
• think when he was younger he tried to make genuine connections but usually ended up being discarded or he severed said connections himself because of his deceptive nature - so it never really got anywhere and eventually he turned spiteful without acknowledging that he was often the issue rather than others. It definitely got chaotic and he probably didn’t shy away from manipulating people into desiring him but deep inside he always knew that fake love and fake bonds wouldn’t bring him the satisfaction that he desires. It was always just a means to survival in the end so loyalty of any sort towards him was always forced rather than earned. He so badly wants to mean something to someone but in the end his actions drive everyone away and closer bonds are hardly ever considered. It’s basically an endless cycle he cannot seem to get out of.
• He does not mind having few friends especially due to a past of mutual backstabbings and untrustworthy alliances but he clearly does mind not having admirers as there is a sense of envy over Liu Kang’s power and the admiration he deserves because of his modesty. He was visibly taken aback after finding out that somewhere in other timelines there were versions of him who had actual influence and he asks himself why he was the one deemed “lesser” than his doppelgangers.
• Convincing Bi-Han, the literal grandmaster of the Lin Kuei, probably felt like one of the biggest successes to date for him. He was able to successfully use his schemes to tempt a powerful man into betraying his own family and join forces and it would only make his god complex grow. However he is probably a man who is hardly satisfied whatsoever so the fact that Kuai Liang and Smoke did NOT join would frustrate him to no end - especially because these fighters genuinely appeal to him and he had hoped for things to develop which might seem like a completely delusional desire to outsiders - again this comes from the deep underlying despair of wanting to be noticed and acknowledged but no one ever engages in such a way. He often seeks more in alliances than his partners and therefore he never quite feels fulfilled.