#ha maybe he's targeting me

[amerasdreams]

researching about russia does make you paranoid because they do go to such extreme lengths sometimes to persecute people who do barely anything against the regime.

like, i know they're not trying to poison ME for just some social media posts, i'm not russian or near russia, but that comes to mind when i feel sick (when I haven't been sick since covid in 2022), or if I get some sort of scam online, I think they're targeting me specifically

It's almost 99% unlikely... but you can't put anything past them at this point.

i mean, if i were actually being effective, which would be more likely if i had a wide audience, i can see they might -- might-- try something. but i'm a nobody.

plus i'm really tired rn which makes me irrational (I'm sooo tired that I think i might be sick, which triggered all this. More than even the normal tiredness after running around all weekend - just 4 visits 4 miles away.... but also with some paranoia about them bc I HAVE had incidents before. when you've had something happen it does appear more prominently in your mind)

I do comment and share things I can't help but share... because I can't stay silent. when people are so immune to seeing evil in front of their face

and I don't look at replies to comments on youtube or instagram bc I know a lot are probably negative, perhaps trolls (i've seen some and I don't need that negativity)

[dykedvonte]

Can you talk about trans!Curly a little bit more? I'm curios if you have any headcanons and the like

-💀

It's just such a thing in my mind because it adds a truthful sadness and differing aspect to mouthwashing.

If Curly was trans it adds the horror of the horribly selfish thought he could have easily been in Anya's situation. It could've been him but it wasn't and he so conflicted on the pit it put in his stomach that brings and the shameful relief it wasn't. In this scenario he is friends with Jimmy for a long time still. Jimmy likely knew him pretransition. Maybe he gave Curly weird looks then, maybe they never stopped after, maybe they seemed meaner. They are guys now, bros, both of them are. He doesn't really have to worry what those looks mean anymore, Jimmy just has that face with him sometimes. It's recontextualizing a lot of things for him that he was in denial about or too ashamed to admit. How naive he was being and how he let that get another person hurt.

Specifically with Anya, it's he knows the dread and fear she's feeling. He can understand it because he had to live with it for a good portion of his life, he knows it cause he still does, just in a slightly different way. It makes him think of all the times he's been alone with Jimmy, all the times he's been way more drunk off his ass and not remember the night, Jimmy was always with him the next day. Makes him think of the comments he would laugh off both because that's what guys do but because that part of being a girl says to laugh so Jimmy doesn't do something. It's the selfish realization that he was never safe and he's uncertain now too. Mad at himself for forgeting that feeling, espcially since for a long time he would've been considered the only woman on a crew (with all that implies) for a long time.

He should've taken those blinders off, step back into that position for just a moment and it's so much more painful that Anya likely came to him because he should've gotten it. Those thoughts don't leave his mind after the crash when he's in an even more vulnerable position than she was...

[msnihilist]

"you guys are celebrating a murder" yes, I am aware?? 🤨 that's literally The Whole Point

[froschli96]

You know what, fuck it, I have to speak my truth! (this is gonna be a rant, so anyone who actually likes assassin's creed revelations and/or the secret crusade, be warned or maybe don't read this at all)

remember how altaïr talks to king richard at the end of ac1, and richard is like "[humans] come into the world kicking and screaming, violent and unstable. it is what we are. we cannot help ourselves."? and how altaïr answers "no. we are what we choose to be." and how that ACTUALLY has meaning bc he himself was "violent and unstable" at the beginning of the game but he has learned and is now CHOOSING to be a better person who cares about others and humanity at large? remember how his calmness and gentleness was something that he ACQUIRED over the course of the story?

and remember how in revelations they then suddenly had a PRE-AC1 altaïr say about the first of his targets "no man should pass from this world without knowing some kindness." and be all wise and calm and collected during a nice little chat with al mualim, who suddenly acts all fatherly? (like, this is suddenly supposed to be a positive relationship? what??)

also, during the confession the target says to altair: "you put too much faith in the hearts of men, altaïr. [...] humans are weak, base, and petty." and altaïr answers: "no. our creed is evidence to the contrary." KJASJFJDKL???? like, it’s almost insulting how close this exchange is to the one with richard. you know, the one that was actually earned after a whole game of character development. like WTF??? cool congrats now that development means nothing. like, apparently that was just altaïr reverting BACK to being the exemplary assassin who understands and believes in the creed that he was apparently just born as. (i also hate how having a young inexperienced altaïr saying this implies that altaïr's faith in humanity is a sign of naivete instead of a sign of the wisdom he has gained after being confronted with counter arguments for a whole game, and also something that distinguishes the assassins from the templars who use humanity's supposed wickedness to justify controlling them like in AC1, but whatever)

altaïr’s development in AC1 mattered BECAUSE he is not NATURALLY a good person, it actually said something about humanity's capacity for both bad AND good and how humans don't have to be forced to be good through mind control bc they can by their own free will choose to be better when taught how and when allowed the freedom to grow. but no. apparently altaïr has just always been calm, wise and gentle. and he just sort of forgot about that during AC1 bc…. ? bc of adha?? bc of abbas???

oh don’t get me started on the whole abbas thing. (it doesnt even make sense that abbas is so hung up about his father and "his family’s honor", like what about the whole point of al mualim not allowing parents to be close to their children bc it would make them weak? like, my dude, you’re not supposed to HAVE any family aside from the brotherhood)

they used the throwaway character that had like 5 lines and made him into altaïr’s main antagonist in revelations… like, abbas wasn’t supposed to be this ONE dude who had personal beef with altaïr, he was just supposed to show how while altaïr’s revered by many, a lot of his brothers also hate him, bc 1) altaïr is a shitty person at this point and 2) bc there’s no real feeling of community and family in this version of the brotherhood, but just a pervasive sense of competition and jealousy — these assassins don’t care about their goal of safeguarding humanity bc they’re too hung up on petty squabbles and divided by rivalries (you know, the things that made malik hate altaïr even before solomon’s temple and that he overcomes in the end which enables him to forgive and to reconcile with altaïr so they can work together and stop al mualim? (you ever just think about "we are one. as we share the glory of our victories, so too should we share the pain of our defeat. in this way we grow closer. we grow stronger." and cry? bc i do. all the time. malik, the man that you are))

and now abbas is altaïr’s childhood best friend turned lifelong enemy?? like, bowden bent over backwards to come up with an explanation for why altaïr is an arrogant ass at the beginning of AC1, when the explanation is right there: he was raised to kill without asking questions and was constantly praised for how good he is at murder, which resulted in him becoming arrogant and disregarding human life. like, it doesn’t have to be some shakespearean family feud type shit. and guess what, this "simple" explanation actually plays into the story’s themes, who’da thunk!

(like, abbas might not have been a "fleshed out" character in AC1, but he had a specific function and now that function is gone. mr bowden, mr mcdevitt, you know characters are allowed to simply exist to tell us something about their worlds and the systems they live in and sometimes that’s more important and also more interesting than having every single character have a detailed backstory to explain all their behaviors, right?)

with all of this revelations loses all nuance in regards to the levantine brotherhood and also the creed in general. like, altaïr being a master assassin at the beginning despite being a terrible person and not actually understanding the creed is a criticism of the brotherhood and the creed itself. like, it said something about the order that someone like altaïr was able to get that high in rank, simply bc he's good at killing, which also tells us what is considered important in the al mualim era assassin order. when you make altaïr’s arrogance the result of his personal conflicts instead of how we was raised by a brotherhood that only valued one's ability to kill, you lose that characterization of the assassin order itself!

and by suddenly making al mualim a semi good "father figure" you also downplay his manipulation of not only altaïr but all those under his care. (altaïr says something about al mualim being "as a father" to him exactly twice in the codex, but he doesn’t mean by that that he WAS a father to him, what he means is that he was the CLOSEST THING he had bc HE DID NOT HAVE PARENTS, not because his mother died in childbirth and his father was executed when he was young btw, BUT BECAUSE IT WASN’T ALLOWED, like his parents actually lived but weren’t allowed to be close to him, he says he came to view al mualim’s "weak and dishonest" love as enough and even better BECAUSE HE HAD NOTHING ELSE, BECAUSE AL MUALIM ISOLATED HIS ASSASSINS FROM THEIR FAMILIES. al mualim "loved" him bc he was good at killing people for him! hm, i wonder if this could be trying to say anything about cults and indoctrination and the inherent contradiction in fighting for peace and free will by taking children away from their parents and raising them to become killers?? like, altaïr wasn't ~the special orphan boy~ taken in by al mualim bc his father died a hero's death, it was "the way of the order" to have al mualim be the closest thing to a parental figure for everyone to ensure absolute loyalty! altaïr saying al mualim was like his father is not supposed to make you go "oh, he must have actually been a good guy for altaïr to consider him a father", it should make you go "oh that's kinda fucked up that he considers the dude who made him into a killing machine and who manipulated him a sort of father figure"!)

and then in revelations they suddenly portray that relationship as positive and healthy??? like, it would be one thing to give it some nuance by delving into the psychology behind al mualim’s "love" and maybe showing how al mualim did care about altair in a complicated, fraught sort of way (like, you know, there’s a lot of interesting things you could say about al mualim at several points addressing altaïr as "my child" in AC1 and how that parallels Garnier referring to the people he drugged and abused as his "children", and what that says about how the templars view the people who they say they want to save and in whose best interests they supposedly act (in any case, al mualim doesn’t use that phrase because he has any real parental feelings but rather to patronize and to invalidate any objections, like in a "mother knows best" way))

but they even fucking DARE to parallel that relationship with that of altaïr and darim in revelations, by having the reflection in the puddle of darim hugging altaïr showing altaïr hugging al mualim…. like their relationship wasn’t inherently abusive but just tragically cut short because al mualim was just "corrupted by the apple"… like WHAT???? so it’s not the very real problems like grooming, manipulation and indoctrination and the hierarchical structure of the brotherhood itself (all of which are antithetical to the assassin ideology), it was just the evil apple all along. great. that’s DEFINITELY a lot more interesting.

god im sorry i really dont want to spread negativity but this is driving me INSANE. like, somebody please tell me im not crazy bc i feel like somehow most of the fandom is in agreement that revelations and the secret crusade have better storytelling and characterization than ac1.

SPEAKING OF WHICH, can we talk about how, even IF we completely ignore AC1 and treat revelations altaïr as his own character…. the narrative still doesn’t really work?

basically, the whole point of his story in rev is that "he gave his whole life to the brotherhood", this obsession led to him not using his time with his family which has him ending up dying alone in a dark library and this in turn makes ezio reevaluate his life choices…. except. he doesn’t? neglect? his family? or whatever? like, his devotion to the assassins is sort of painted as this tragic flaw that leads to a lonely death bc it supposedly comes at the cost of his family, but… his wife has joined the assassins, (at least) one of his sons is in the brotherhood and even when he goes to protect the assassins against the mongols, he takes his family with him (except for the son who stays behind bc he has a family of his own and who, ironically, ends up dying bc of that)… like, you can’t describe altaïr as a good husband and father in the database and have his son tell him that "everything that is good in me began with you, father" when they say goodbye, and then want to make us believe that he put his family behind the brotherhood and that that is a character flaw that leads to his tragedy.

because you HAVE to have a character’s tragedy be the result of a character flaw. like. that is how tragedies work. otherwise it just becomes tragedy for the sake of tragedy which is… boring bc it has no purpose. and we know it is SUPPOSED to have purpose bc ezIO FUCKING QUITS BEING AN ASSASSIN AFTER WITNESSING IT!

it’s like they want to have their cake and eat it, too — they didn’t want to actually make altaïr a bad husband/father, but still wanted to make his life a tragedy where he loses his family which is why instead they outsource all responsibility to abbas who now has to be the reason for ALL the deaths.

like, they try to make at least maria’s death kind of sort of the result of altaïr’s rashness or whatever but like… these guys KILLED THEIR SON and TOLD HIM THAT ALTAÏR HAD ORDERED HIS DEATH. like, altaïr losing it in response to that is not rash, it’s fucking logical and justified! if anything the scene made me angry at maria for trying to stop him. like, GIRL, he was YOUR son too??? but god forbid we give female characters actual real emotions, she has to fill the role of "voice of reason who dies for altaïr’s man pain" i fucking guess.

like, it’s this weird mix where his tragedy is simultaneously painted as his own fault but also not really bc abbas is the one responsible for all the shit that happens. it just… it just doesn’t really go together.

the only way to make his story make sense narratively and to give it actual purpose is by looking at it in the context of ezio’s story, bc the things he sees in altaïr’s memories are supposed to be a revelation (ha!) to ezio specifically. and i guess that’s maybe the crux of it all — altaïr’s story in revelations was conceived of first and foremost to support ezio’s story and development. which is probably also why many people maybe don’t notice bc, having skipped ac1 and started with ac2, the majority of people mostly care only about ezio and only really appreciate altaïr’s story in as far as it serves to push ezio forward. (tho i’ve also seen a few people say that ezio is also written kind of weird in rev, but i’ve never really been an ezio girly myself so i can’t speak to the truth of that)

like, altaïr dying alone in the library doesn’t really have to make sense for his character, i guess, bc it’s only really supposed to be a cautionary tale for ezio.

so, i guess, for once, they actually had a MAN dying for another man’s character development, which is pretty woke actually. ubisoft, i take everything back jksdsfjhgdsahfhsdhfghfdsgjhsdgjh

[xxplastic-cubexx]

you say they can’t put telepaths in marvel rivals, yet we have some very credible leaks that jean grey and emma frost are gonna be in the game soon.

that being said, jean has telekinesis (and the phoenix force) and emma has her diamond form. telepathy is all charles has, lmfao. odds are pretty low for him, but maybe not zero if they give him telekinesis!

if yall have me say he got psionic blasts one more time i am going to scream HE HAS MORE THAN TELEPATHY . LIMITED BUT HE HAS IT <- he has gone against sentinels and disabled armies with it before HE CAN FIGHT I PROMISEEE

and technically they did give him telekinesis in krakoa (and very weak telekinesis sometimes before krakoa) so .... not my fave move but he does have that ...... and ig they give him a gun sometimes ........ last resort type shit but he has options ..

[chaoticreivingu]

Heard some people saying that Drayton and Kieran might represent Zekrom and Reshiram's ideals but I think it's the opposite. Drayton is the reverse arcana version of Reshiram representing dishonesty and Kieran is the reverse arcana version of Zekrom representing obssessive idealism.

[dandelioncasey]

Just came across a post which mentioned this concept and now I'm wondering - has anyone found any fics where the shooting was about Hen and Chim, not Buck and Eddie? Or where the tsunami was Chim and Denny not Buck and Chris? Because I am DOWN to read those if anybody has written them, that would change the plots so much and I'm so curious 👀

[elminster-big-naturals]

"what kind of law did astarion pass to piss off the gur so much 😂"

aside from the fact magisters don't pass laws, the implication that cazador was just kind of casually waiting around for his moment bc knew astarion was Such a dickhead that someone was going to beat his ass to death eventually is extremely funny

[britneyshakespeare]

when john green said “people are like ‘are you sure that you’re gonna go to heaven when you die’ no. no of course not. i’m in the parking lot of target right now and i’m not even sure i’m gonna go to target” i felt that

[bmpmp3]

character designers when they need to design a mascot for a masculine vocal synthesizer: and i will put a mole. under his LEFT eye

[fromtheseventhhell]

what do you think about the affc 2003 old script release? sansa fans are claiming because it says “take north” it means actually retake the north instead of heading north

It's interesting to look at George's notes and try to line them up with the plotlines we already have, but it's hard to make predictions on future ones because of how fragmented they are. The only reason it's being used as proof is because Stansas have already decided that's how her story will play out; It's just confirmation bias.

Regarding Sansa's portion, I think it lines up with what we've already gotten from her AFFC + TWOW chapters. Her final AFFC chapter includes LF outlining his "plan", which is supposed to culminate in her revealing her identity, gaining the support of the Vale, and retaking the North...hence the "take the north" in the outline. The fact that it predates the Tourney on the list, introduced afterward in her TWOW sample, seems to line up. LF's "prizes" of returning her identity and Winterfell give us her motivations + reasoning for why she is, for now, willing to follow his plan. The only actual new point seems to be "Kill the Mouse".

It's hard to theorize on any of these because they could all be subject to change/revision but to me, this outline shows that George has an entire arc in the Vale planned out of her. The Tourney hasn't even begun yet, we have Myranda potentially realizing Sansa's identity, Sansa hasn't even begun allying with the knights of the Vale, an engagement to Harry hasn't been secured, SW's health is up in the air, I doubt that the Mad Mouse will be killed off anytime soon, etc. She has a lot of story left to play out where she is and nothing actually indicates that she will be physically heading North anytime soon. The issue is that people keep trying to align her book arc with the show. Ultimately we won't ever really know until George releases TWOW, but it is funny to me that this is taken as ultimate proof when there's so much from George that they ignore. They'll rally around a few fragmented thoughts from 10 years ago, but then they ignore it when he outright says he has no idea what D&D are doing with Sansa and that things will be very different in the books 🤷🏾‍♀️

[akkivee]

*rattles my cage* WHAT DID SHAKKU SAY????????? WHAT DID HE SAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYY?????????????

[icewindandboringhorror]

recent things

[todayisafridaynight]

brother was talking to me about how if you almost die from an extreme-temperature-related incident then your body is just forever fucked towards that temperature and that's why i think kiryu and saejima are weak to ice. i dont know why aoki isn't like that too but ignore that statistic everything else tracks.

[runefactorynonsense]

Cozytober - Day 26 - Catnap

[dailybaizhu]

baizhu eating chocolate,,, if he can

151: can and should are two different things