#instead of making me angry

[countessravengrey]

Omg yes.

This was perfectly executed, too. It had to be Walker who started it. Because he's being such an asshole in the movie, but also because he, in many ways, has had the most to atone for, because it's a fulfillment of a failed promise he made as Captain America.

He's not like the rest of them, used, often without their consent, to commit unspeakable acts. He wasn't already a covert assassin or some such working for some evil and corrupt faction (debatable; see below). He was a war hero. He took the mantle of a hero, a "good guy." He was supposed to be a shield, and he got caught up in delusions of grandeur. He forgot his purpose.

[Side note: not to be a John Walker Apologist On Main for just a moment, because he most definitely did and said those fucked up things in TFATWS. He made choices, and he deserved the consequences of those choices.

He was also a traumatized vet who should have been in therapy instead of shouldered with a burden (the mantle of Captain America) he was in no way equipped for.

That failed promise of him as Captain America is a metaphor of the failed promise of America as a country, in general, and the failed promise we make to our vets specifically. While he obviously had some predispositions that made it likely for him to become what he became (hubris, nationalist entitlement and misogyny, violence), the US military (and the conflicts we've far too often been the architects of) took that and blew it up into something monstrous and volatile. Becoming Cap turned that into a ticking time bomb. And then when it went off? He was abandoned, because optics. Because believe me, if the US government could have kept that murder hushed, they would have let John go right on being Captain America.

Which is why I was actually happy for him at the end of TFATWS when he came out in his nifty™️ new US Agent uniform and looked so happy. I was like, "aw, good for him." Because THAT is who he's supposed to be. A morally gray operative who skirts the line between hero and villain in service of a promised ideology that is never fulfilled.

And doesn't that just tell you everything you need to know about America.

He's not Captain America.

He's not Dimestore Cap.

He's US Agent.]

So, when he jumps in to stop that chunk of building from crushing those innocent bystanders, he literally became a shield. He might be--in another piece of beautiful metaphor--a bent shield, but he was still meant to be a shield.

And then for all of them to see him in this selfless act that could have killed him to jump in and help him.

And just imagine Bucky, the one in the movie with the most intimate knowledge of this guy, being like, "yes, this is who you were supposed to be when you picked up that shield."

And now I'm crying again.

the first time i cried in thunderbolts was when they all worked together to save that woman from the chunk of a building

superhero movies are about people who have the ability to help people and choose to do so

that isn’t all there is but i think the mcu has gotten so focused in the weeds of the multiverse and inner group politics and whatever that they forgot that the reason we watch superhero movies is because we want to watch good guys fight bad guys, but more importantly, we want to watch them help people because that’s why they fight the bad guys in the first place

[arcade-confetti]

Being someone who read Under The Red Hood and came out with the firm belief that, for Jason, it's not about killing Joker, it's about Jason wanting proof Batman would choose him over the Joker (bc shelia chose the joker). Makes seeing any other media where it's all about just wanting the Joker dead is a teeny bit frustrating. to be honest

Jason could've killed the Joker himself, really, really easily. Jason kidnaps the Joker before the confrontation. I can't open my comic for a reference right now, but it felt like he had the Joker for quite a bit before the confrontation. He had him. He beat him up with a crowbar. He had every single opportunity to kill the Joker himself, but he didn't because that wasn't his goal. Make no mistake, he did plan for the Joker to be dead by the end of it, but do you see what im trying to say here

Edit: If I knew this post was gonna get 1000+ notes I would've tried to word it better or something, this was a rant I made on the way to the grocery store 😭

It's not about making Batman kill either. When Batman says he won't kill, Jason adjusts and goes, 'Let ME kill the Joker or kill me to stop me' instead. The test is all about Batman choosing him. The whole final confrontation is Jason's first death again. The parent, The Joker, and the explosives. It even ends with Jason unable to move as a bomb goes off right next to him again because the parent didn't choose Jason. And instead tried finding an option that'd benefit them and (consequencely) letting the Joker walk, again, lol, lmao <-in agony

[bl4ckb1rd13]

pov your idiot husband did drugs again so you have to put on your best reproachful malewife face

[truuskn]

Spotlight: Jazz is peak Prowl being able to comfort Jazz even though Jazz doesn't want to open up about how he's feeling and Prowl completely respects that

i love their dynamic so much here and in "all hail megatron", it's such a shame that their connection ended up being completely forgotten in the rest of idw series... reading "optimus prime" and coming across that one frame, observing what we have had and lost because the authors couldn't keep in mind how and who they were writing... it actually hurts

you guys. you guys! why are you doing this to us. why is it so hard for you to keep track on your story!! why do we have to see their relationship... fall apart?? without a decent look at it?? somewhere out there, in the background?? we're just left with the fact that they are over or maybe never even were there in the first place

prowl and jazz had so much potential at some point of idw history. the way how well they worked together despite all the difficulties, how sincerely prowl supported jazz even though he remained very closed off and aloof the whole time, how he really tried to be a good loyal friend, respected jazz's personal boundaries, didn't push, didn't go too far with his concern, didn't except anything in return and was just there to help... a rare bright moment for this version of my poor boy :'D

there were so many opportunities to develop this further, to show how they could exist in the new cybertronian future for which they had gone through so much hardship, how could they fight all the problems that were coming down on them, together, exactly as it was on earth. but, alas, we have to accept that they were quickly brushed aside and forgotten. a little time passes and they become strangers. forever. their entire bond is just erased. because that's how idw works with their characters...

[hungwy]

That guy is a fake I'm the only anon who really understands that you partake in intellectual endeavors not for the interest and curiosity but for the vanity. You live not through yourself but through your relationship with people. You understand that intellectual pursuits are regarded highly by people in general and that's why you make sure to share with everyone online that you're doing them, you want to be respected. The problem with this is that it's deceitful. Genuinely virtuous endeavors produce respect as a byproduct not as a goal. You suggest to everyone that you're smart when really you're just performative. You could be generating results and providing something of value but instead all you provide is this hollow facade of obscure words and references with no substance of your own beneath. And I'm so mad about your review honestly. The only reason you want to lean into things that piss people off is because as I said you don't live through yourself, but through others, and being able to elicit any kind of reaction makes you feel better. A true intellectual would be entirely indifferent, far too occupied by the inner world of their pursuits to give a care.

hmmm... not true actually. please consult the graph

[whatudottu]

Something something Cold's boredom activates when things happen the same way, yada yada Cheated gets fucked over more often than not, so... :P

[microphone-connoisseur]

Misc Post

Hot take: The people who've criticized the II movie "ruining" characters and/or their arcs just dislike the fact that the characters aren't acting the way they want. Someone has said before that the lack of an update from Season 2 for so long can give people a chance to headcanon a character so much that the character becomes not The Character.

The II movie isn't the problem. It's your personal view of the character that is.

[titfairy]

[electricpurrs]

people care so fucking much about the morality of the things you buy nowadays i'm not talking about boycotting for palestine or stuff it feels like it's about Everything now and if you buy anything with your own money that isn't essential for survival someone may come call you selfish for not giving every cent you have for charity because how dare you buy a videogame or something. why do we have to live like this. does it really make any difference at all. is this constant vigilance even useful. or have we decided having ocd panic attacks is morally righteous. i truly feel like being online has never made me so miserable. and for fucking what.

[luinen-bluewater]

Here's my take for the other races redesign with my Durge Tino. I took the liberty to slightly alter the template bc I also wanted to show how Tino's scrawny ass looks normally lol (and you get a Gith because I can't draw a Dragonborn to save my dear life, sorry :c) template by @hellothisisangle it's been super fun and challenging, thank you!

[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

[arcane-aries]

oath of vengeance paladin to ankarna bucky applebees is real and true to me

[germaaaaaaaaaa]

moooore peter and norm swap stuff

I did not bring that up last post but the main idea was by @redtalics ^-^ yapping in tag. If you are curious. Hi

[ryanthel0ser]

I'm so close to making a video (cause writing it out would not be read and my tone would not be conveyed well) about the DMC netflix anime because a lot of people keep saying that fans are upset only because it doesn't follow continuity which yes some are but for a lot of us it's not that.

And it's okay to like it! You can like the new anime and I am glad it's bringing new people to the series, from what I've heard from people more unfamiliar with DMC it's a decent action anime. It's also childish to say you're stupid for liking it, you're not don't let people make you think you are.

But I want people to understand why fans are disappointed with it outside of just disliking different continuities. I love seeing different takes on existing IP, I adore Trigun Stampede and I think it does an excellent job at doing exactly that, I am literally a fan of the ninja turtles who have different iterations everywhere. For me though, I don't consider the netflix show successful in that and want to explain why that is.

[msnihilist]

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

[presiding]

two different playlists, two different concepts for daud:

daud's casette tape: you know when you're in the passenger seat of a 40-something dude's car and his playlist is a banger in a dadrock way. this is that. if that guy was daud

the knife of dunwall: lofi noir-movie jazz & neo-classical to assassinate and brood to