#just altair and malik

[ryandoesfanart]

Time for a break on the roof, enjoying some sunlight! Would love to color this some day! It turned out better than i thought UvU'

[greenlaut]

bitter tea & oranges

sequel -> tea & dates

[koujaaku]

“Because I knew you, I have been changed for good.”

[ryandoesfanart]

Hey, everybody!! We have another beautiful fanfiction written by the amazing @miss-3625!!

If you happen to enjoy my Cat-series, you will have fun with this one-shot aswell! I absolutely love it and it had me smiling like an idiot the whole time... XD So check it out and leave a like on your way! Thanks for the support everybody

After a few months (wow time flies :')) I finally managed to write another Assassin's Creed oneshot!

It was inspired by this piece of art drawn by @ryandoesfanart so thanks for that and definitely check out his art!

NEW ONESHOT! :D

Title: Claws in my heart

Fandom: Assassin's Creed

Pairing: Malik Al-Sayf/Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad

Words: 3358

Summary:

"Malik."

Despite what others believed, Malik didn't want to hate Altaïr. But there was something about him that just made it so easy.

There was a cat in his bureau.

He just wanted to live his life in peace, was that really too much to to ask?

"Absolutely not."

[froschli96]

Can we talk about how Kadar says to Altaïr in the beginning: "An excellent kill! Fortune favors your blade!", and then in the bureau with Malik, before Altaïr goes to meet "Robert", Malik says to him "Fortune favor your blade, brother."

And then THAT is what prompts Altaïr to actually finally apologize to him?

(It's these little things in the writing that make me go feral! Another one of my favorite parts is Altaïr and Malik calling each other "Dai" - Altaïr first calls Malik Dai before doing investigations during the Majd Addin mission, showing his character growth in how he's willing to humble himself in front of Malik by basically acknowledging him as a superior of sorts (he's even THANKING him here for his help - compare this to "I am your superior, in both title and ability! You should know better than to question me!"), and then when they last talk before Altaïr goes to confront Al Mualim, Malik calls HIM Dai, in turn acknowledging his growth 😭 I just... I love them so much, I don't even know what to do with myself anymore.)

[ethan-acfan]

Altair has a bad habit of just staring at someone if they say something he doesn't like. The problem is that he has a natural glare on his face 24/7. So when someone is saying something stupid, Altair will stare at them. But to everyone else, he is giving them the most piercing glare, this often results in the stupid person shutting their mouth.

[masterorionart]

Wanted to do a little design exercise and drew some Assassin's Creed characters as cats

[maxispaxis]

Crush them with fragile shale stones found in your grandmas lawn

[voidcat-senket]

Rusted Sword (left Unattended)

Chapter 1: Eagle's Return

Fandom: Assassin's Creed 1 Characters: Malik Al-Sayf, Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad, Maria Thorpe, Abbas Sofian Ship: Malik/Altair

Summary:

Altair returns to Masyaf after a decade in Mongolia, only to discover that his son is dead and Malik has been declared the murderer. He doesn't believe it for a moment, but that doesn't undo the two years that Malik has spent in a dungeon cell. A retelling of the events following Altair's return to Masyaf and to Malik. If they had long been lovers. If the need to care for Malik had taken priority.

Tags:

Hurt/Comfort, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Minor Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad/Maria Thorpe, Established Relationship, Angs, tBackground Poly, Protective Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad, Mental Instability, Mental Anguish, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Brain Fog, Fix-It

[ryandoesfanart]

Cat-Series Nr. 06!! The saga continues! The emotional-support-cat! I´m trying to get into actual comic-drawing and since i´m on the high of my Altmal-Obsession rn, it´s the perfect opportunity for practice! So what do we think of this format? :3 We are at 399 Followers!! Thats so cool, i still can´t believe how big this little altmal-community grew over the past years! Thank you so much to every single one of you! I love drawing for all of you XD

[greenlaut]

[WIP] altair wake up your rival is bringing you tea and dates

[sir-yeehaw-paws]

"Let me show you."

PRESS TRIANGLE TO SHOOT A MF'ER.

[thefandomlifechoseme]

Playing AC 2 and reading through the codex - on page 6

Though I ask my brothers now to abandon their rituals, I do not ask that they abandon the creed. THIS is what makes us assassins. Not the removal of a finger. Not a false promise of paradise. Not the prohibition of poison. Our duty is to the people, not to custom. If we must sneak, we shall sneak. If we must use poison, we shall use poison. If our blades can be used without removing fingers, we shall not demand they be taken. And we shall not manipulate our initiates with lies and parlor tricks. We shall speak plainly and honestly. We shall be made anew...

Altaïr. Honey. You need so much therapy. Get Malik to give you all the therapy.

[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

[ethan-acfan]

Altair bites. Like a lot. His lips are chewed and cracked, and his nails are down to little nubs. If he's losing in a fight, he will bite down as hard as he can and has taken out a chunk of skin before. He doesn't even realize he does it until Malik or Maria (depending on who you ship) point it out, and they only point it out when he bites them during *adult cardio* He has never realized he's done this but now all the "random" scars he has on his finger tips, knuckles, and inside of his mouth make a lot more sense

[noficbyhalves]

Malik in "this isn't copium, the fireball was intentional":

Because Malik's life was a series of compounding disasters, the cabinet door stayed shut, shaking violently and spewing thin smoke. When his foot hit the mark on the floor, the cabinet let out a blood-curdling scream.

At the very least, Malik had expected it, and the choked gurgle it morphed into as it slowly faded away. The last noises Kadar had made before the curse had torn his throat out, the ones that played on repeat in his nightmares. He held his wand loosely in a clammy grip and waited.

Something was starting to drip out of the bottom of the cabinet, a thick dark liquid pooling on the floor. It took several moments for Malik to realize it was blood, and the cabinet's door was bowing because of it. He didn't dare look away, but the further the door warped the harder it was getting to breathe.

The door crashed open under the pressure, and a body tumbled out, hitting the floor with a wet, meaty smack. Malik couldn't let his hand shake, couldn't show the nausea coiling in his gut. The phobodendron hadn't shown him Kadar, no. He didn't need to check the corpse's unseeing eyes, had recognized him from the second he saw the tousled brown hair, the moment he saw his face before it had impacted the stone floor. It was Altair's body laying on the floor in front of him, in a pool of his own blood, because why wouldn't he be? Might as well add to the list of people Malik had catastrophically failed. Haven't you done enough, why does everything have to be a fight. There wasn't enough air.

His blood was roaring in his ears when he finally dragged his eyes away from Altair, up into the yawning void in front of him. And there was Kadar, finally, one bloody hand wrapped around where his throat should be. His brother was still upright, looking far too small, shuffling forward and reaching out to where Malik was frozen in place. "Help... why won't you-" Kadar rasped, with vocal chords mangled by magic.

It wasn't really a conscious decision. Between one moment and the next his arm had swung up to point his wand at the grisly display. Dead in the eyes of what had to be the phobodendron, because Kadar's eyes looked wrong in a way he couldn't really place. (Or maybe he was just dead, and Malik was losing his mind.) Malik wasn't even sure if he had said anything, over the deafening sound of his own shaky breathing. A gout of flame engulfed the phobodendron regardless, and it shrieked an unearthly noise as it burned.

Malik wrenched himself away, the professor's voice buzzing in his ears but not registering as words. With a flick of his wrist, his things packed themselves away in his bag before he reached his seat. He snatched it off his chair without breaking stride, heading directly out the classroom door. Malik got two floors away before he had to sit down on the moving staircase and try not to dry heave.

[If you want to see more skies, please consider following! If a post has Malik with an apostrophe more than once it gets hidden from the tags for some reason :/]