Is it just me or would the Shay situation end very differently if it happened under a mentor that wasn't, well... Achilles? How do you think other leaders of the Brotherhood/Hidden Ones would have handled him? (Also: what would the Templars do because I can't see Shay getting flipped by, say, Garnier)
Don’t worry, it’s not just you. The very premise of Shay’s defection hinged on one important thing: miscommunication.
They handled this by making:
Shay be so traumatized by what happened in Lisbon that he had mistakenly concluded that the Brotherhood (Achilles) knew what the POE could do
Achilles being too indignant by all of Shay’s accusations that he didn’t bother to try and hear Shay out
Everyone (especially Liam who is meant to be Shay’s best friend and Hope who is meant to be close to him) sided with Achilles with unflinching loyalty instead of trying to get Shay’s side of the story
Perhaps it was meant to show how far the Brotherhood had fallen, that they had grown arrogant, but there is also the fact that, one of the voice lines when Shay is in the Morrigan with Liam, Shay and Liam talk about how Achilles had not been the same since the death of his wife and son. That was meant to hint that Achilles was not in the proper headspace to continue being their mentor. This does not excuse Achilles’ actions but it is an indication that the other Assassins (who are all meant to be observant) should have been more cautious of his orders.
Anyway, Imma end that rant there and focus on your question concerning how the other known mentors would have done in Achilles’ position.
Honestly? Any other mentor would have done better in Achilles’ place.
Altaïr is, well, Altaïr. He’s well-versed in the Apple so, if he didn’t have any idea of what the POE in Lisbon (and Haiti) could do, he would have believed Shay if he told him how the POE caused Lisbon’s earthquake. Not to mention, by the time he was the mentor, he would be thick-skinned enough that he wouldn’t be provoked by Shay’s shouting.
Ezio would know the danger of the POEs and would actually try to calm Shay down first. He wouldn’t have dismissed his claims and Ezio would have been observing all his ‘students’ enough that he knew something was wrong with Shay first and focus on calming him down first (sidebar: Ezio would definitely not have made Gaultier an Assassin as he would have seen how dangerously arrogant he is, his connections to the French be damn)
Ratonhnhaké:ton (technically he would have taken the mentor title the day Achilles died) would have not lost his cool with all of Shay’s accusations. He’d let Shay say his piece then order him to sit down and get Hope and Liam to calm him down, believing that Shay would have a hard time calming down if he was the one to do it since Shay believed that he knew what the POE could do and blame him for the earthquake. Once Shay is calmer, he would talk to him once more.
We have no confirmation that Arno, Evie and Jacob ever became the mentor of their specific Brotherhoods so I’m going to skip them, especially Arno as the Parisian Brotherhood did have a council instead of a mentor during his time.
Bayek would have tried to understand Shay since he had seen just how frightening the POEs could be. He does have a bit of a temper on him but that was mostly contained to when he was grieving Khemu’s death. By the time he was a mentor, he had moved passed Khemu’s death so he would be more level-headed at that point.
Aya would be similar to Bayek as well. Although we do not have any actual scenes where Aya had to be the one to deal with all the Isu BS, she does respect the gods so she wouldn’t dismiss Shay’s claims that a POE caused the earthquake.
Also, you know I believed a character has fucked up so badly when I say this: William Miles would have done a better job in keeping Shay from defecting. Sure, he failed with Lucy but that’s because Lucy had little interactions with the Assassins so her emotional and mental state couldn't be observed properly. Bill would have most definitely let Liam and Hope take care of Shay while he’s in that state, either because he knew he wouldn’t get anywhere if he was the one to talk to Shay or because he can’t be bothered to deal with Shay’s ‘tantrums’. Bill is cold and distant, making it easy for him to be logical. The only actual time he loses his cool is when Desmond calls him the same as a Templar but that has like... 25 years of unresolved familial issues and discontent all rolled up into one short fused bomb so yeah, Bill would have done a better job than Achilles because he’s a cold bastard.
Now, for the Templar side: let’s be clear, Shay wasn’t flipped by Haytham Kenway, he was flipped by George Monro. Haytham just finished the job when Monro died. Whether Monro’s kindness was an act to get Shay to the Templar’s side or not is irrelevant in this situation, what mattered was Monro’s actions towards Shay is the reason why it was ‘easy’ for Shay to change side. (Of course, being hunted down by people he trusted and the trauma of Lisbon definitely helped Monroe’s case)
So, if any Templar was to try and flip Shay, the one with the highest possibility of making him flip would actually be someone who has shown kindness, which is kinda hard to find since a lot of the Templars we’ve seen had been, well… aggressive douchebags. Someone like Monsieur de la Serre who has been characterized as both kind and more on the side of ‘we can find peace with the Assassins’ would work. If you want Shay to flip to the Templar side, you need someone kind or someone who would make Shay feel like he hasn’t done anything wrong, that the Templars just want to help.
In other words, either go for the kindness route like Monro or go for the ‘Project Siren’ route with someone like Lucy.
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lead balloon (the tumblr post that saved me)
if this comic resonated with you, it would mean the world to me if you donated to this palestinian family's escape fund.
--
no creative notes because this isn't that kind of comic.
I know I don’t owe any of you anything but I still felt compelled to write about my long term absence. And I feel far enough away from the dangerous spot I was in to be able to make this comic. I have a therapist now, and she agreed that making this could be a very cathartic gesture, and the start of properly leaving these thoughts behind me. I am still, at seemingly random times, blindsided by fleeting desires to kill myself. They’re always passing urges, but it’s disarming, and uncomfortable. I worry sometimes that my brain’s spent so long thinking only about suicide that it’s forgotten how to think about anything else. Like, now that I've opened that door for myself, I'll never be able to fully shut it again. But I’m trying my best to encourage my mind in other directions. We'll see how that goes.
I am still donating all proceeds from my store to Palestinian causes. So far, I've donated over $15K, not including donations coming from my own pocket or the fundraising streams which jointly raised around $10K. In the time since I made my initial post about where this money would be going, the focus has shifted from aid organisations to directly donating to escape funds.
If you'd like to do the same, you can look at Operation Olive Branch, which hosts hundreds of Palestinian escape funds or donate to Safebow, which has helped facilitate the safe crossing and securing of important medical procedures for over 150 at-risk palestinians since the beginning of the genocide.
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I really don't know how to explain to people that supporting gender liberation (liberation for trans people, liberation for gnc people, liberation from all oppressive gender roles) means you have to be able to see someone you think is cis "crossdressing" and be cool about it. You have to be able to see someone presenting in a way that doesn't make sense to you and not interrogate them about their identity. You have to be able to hear someone express a gender identity you don't understand and go "Huh! Neat," and go about your business. If you truly want gender liberation for all then you have to stop trying to exert control over other people's genders, period.
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to any americans who feel "paralyzed" and "dont know what to do" to help with gaza:
reading a fucking book. i beg of you.
in a time of knowledge suppression is it your duty to arm yourself with knowledge.
read about americas occupations in the middle east.
read about 9/11 from outside of america and see how they inflicted senseless harm and violence to countless amounts of people and have been suppressing your rights for the past 2 fucking decades.
read about any of the countless wars from the past 30 years. especially from a civilian's. and the victims and survivors' perspective. listen to the horror stories and do not plug your fucking ears as to what your country is doing.
and read about fucking gaza and palestine and keep up with what is happening no matter how "sad" or "uncountable" you might get.
dont look away from this.
you dont have the right to be comfortable during countless active genocides.
if you're knowledgeable, you're powerful, and our current state doesnt fucking want that.
you have the power to change things if you open your eyes and scream to the world.
wake the fuck up.
Edit: please check the reblogs there are readings and ways to help
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