#ac meta

[fancy-strawberry-beard]

I wrote this a long time ago when I was still in the AssCreed trenches and was working on personality profiles for the modern day characters.

Alas, I don't think I'm going back anytime soon, so here's some Lucy Stillman meta as well as my last attempt at getting my "Leila Marino was being set up as a very important character + Lucy's foil in ac1" agenda off the ground.

[redvanillabee]

It’s almost like Jack learnt to lie from Peggy. Play up others’ impression of you to get your way. If they think you’re a ditzy woman, use that to conveniently misplace stuff. If they think you’re a power-hungry snake, use that to gain the upper hand over your manipulator.

[heyyy-its-j]

Okay, so, I might be reading too much into this, finding meaning that the writers didn't intend, but...

Whitney Frost was discovered by that talent agent in 1934. I've thought before that that was an odd choice of year, because Whitney would have been 23 at the time; it seemed to me that if they really wanted to drive home the point of how badly she was being exploited, it would have made more sense to have her get sucked into Hollywood at a much younger age, maybe 18 or 19.

So why 1934?

Because that's the same year the Hays Code went into effect.

As much as Whitney was exploited by the movie industry, the real tragedy of her story is the way her acting career (and the male-dominated world that trapped her in it to begin with) stifled her true potential, held her back from what she could have accomplished as a scientist. Much like the Hays Code stifled Hollywood's potential for meaningful, progressive storytelling.

[jennastarkhasaheart]

oh my god... i just watched the beginning of avengers (2012) in english for the first time, and that in combination with the context of aos makes it feel like a big budget agents of shield movie.

like, for explanation, i only ever watched it in german (im german, and when it came out i didnt know english, and then after you dont randomly change the language).

this makes it so different. i think i need to do a genuine mcu rewatch in english now, at least of the parts where shield is still around.

[momentofch-aos]

Today’s M’s Marvel thought of the day.

Peggy Carter writing and reading Daniel Sousa’s eulogy and Jack Thompson stood off to her left. Not her right hand side because on her right lays her right hand man’s caskett.

[alethiometry]

thinking about how kassandra was all alone with her stupid magic talking stick hologram lady holding her hostage for a thousand years before she met eivor and during that time i’m certain she was able to, like, interact with people and make connections and forge friendships. but the way she carries herself by the time she’s on the isle of skye it’s so clear that she’s isolated herself for long enough that despite being the one to propose working with eivor (at aletheia’s behest but still), despite being the one to point out what a good team they made, despite being the one to follow eivor into the temple and save her from the ambush, eivor is the one who, with a few simple words and a smile really brings kassandra out of her shell. this woman who was a complete stranger to her not too long ago is suddenly a kindred spirit and eivor sees that and even though she knows that there is more to kassandra than meets the eye and that she will never fully understand the cryptic little things kassandra lets slip about her immortality/destiny (imo kass does this on purpose partially as an inside joke to herself -- she’s not so far removed from the suave and sassy misthios we knew in odyssey -- and partially out of a very human need to acknowledge and express her own truth), eivor still performs all these kindnesses for kassandra. asking her to join her for a drink because she wants kass to be able to have fun for once in her goddamn life, acknowledging kassandra’s worries and insecurities around large groups of people without judgment, but rather offering her full support and presence (and how long has it been since kassandra has been able to lean on someone, rather than being the one whom everyone else leans on all the time? her entire life even pre-immortality i would argue). and eivor is just so kind to this person she just met, and kassandra is just so happy to be seen as a fellow human being rather than some demigod hybrid vehicle for half-divine bullshit. like kass just gets to be a person for a night, after a thousand years of embarking on an endless task that both defines her and hinges on the inhuman sides of her, the parts of her that set her apart from her loved ones. and for for kassandra it must pass by in the blink of an eye -- what is a few hours of revelry when you’ve lived a thousand years? it must not even seem worth it, from a purely objective standpoint. but eivor’s kindness and hospitality (even though they were, technically, crashing a wedding lmao) are so sincere, i have to believe it left an impression on kassandra for centuries, if not for the entire rest of her life. like, eivor just sees an indescribably lonely person and goes “well there’s nothing i can do about that loneliness in the long run, and i can’t relate to that level of solitude and that fucking sucks. but at least for tonight i can make it go away, and she can let loose and we can have some fun. so i will do just that, for her. because we have done a good thing for good people today, and it’s so important to stop and savor that and we both deserve to acknowledge that we are good. and even if i never see her again, spending these few fleeting hours together better than not doing anything at all. it’s the right thing to do, it’s the kind thing to do, and i want to do it, because kassandra is a person who is worth caring for in this way” and that just. fucks me up!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[amarriageoftrueminds]

God the Howlies episode in AC was such a debacle. Another thing I’ve noticed is that after she and her team meet with the Howlies she’s essentially under their protection from the misogyny and the constant belittlement of her coworkers. Neither the Howlies nor her fellow agents object to her orders, despite being more experienced in military strategy (on account of actually being in the frontlines and not just cowering in a bunker doing secretary work) and the agents don’t make snarky comments at her like they usually do. She spends the half the season trying to earn her coworkers’ respect (something she verbalizes more than once) so you’d think as the founder of feminism & the lord and savior of poor oppressed silly Betties she wouldn’t take kindly to other men -whether or not they’re her friends- being the source of whatever little respect she gets. But she has no problem using strong and influential men as a reference when other men don’t treat her like she wants them to. Seriously, watching that scene where they were sitting by the bonfire (where they also established that Peggy was not like other girlsTM for loving whiskey. I’ll never get the American fascination with women who drink whiskey) sharing war memories was so cringeworthy. It’s like the scene in every high school movie where the freshman hegemon sees the awkward kid they bully be friends with the cool seniors and feels insecure when they laugh around, tell funny stories and share inside jokes; then starts to act like they’ve been friends with the awkward kid all along to stay in the cool kids’ good graces. It’s so fanfic-like. Peggy Carter is a glorified Y/N.

continuation of (XX)

You’re completely right. She’s a Canon Sue. 

They really looked at a comics character based on Virginia Hall (i.e. real peg-legged American heroine who managed to stay undercover in Nazi-occupied France twice, despite having a thick Baltimore accent, and helped captured Resistance fighters break out of Gestapo prison!!) 

...and thought ‘hmm yeah she’s boring let’s incorporate the Nazi woman instead and ignore the other non-Nazi love interests (they’re Jewish) oh and let’s make her a Bletchley Park codebreaker and a martial artist boxer and friends with a billionaire inventor and she has a Tragic Past and-’  

All she’s missing is the long ebony black hair with purple streaks and red tips that reaches her mid-back and icy blue eyes like limped tears. 💅 

(The irony of them doing all this thinking they’re making her Steve’s equal by it, when in fact it’s doing the exact opposite. She has no power or significance outside of a man. Steve is his own original character with shown competence and independent motives and backstory; she’s just a cheap mirror who follows everything he does. The very idea of a dance partner means she cannot perform her only function without a man. Even in WhatIf her only powers or accomplishments are all just Steve’s.) 

.

As for the Howlies ep; yeah it’s just more of the cringey mythologising of a past she never actually had (how Disney!) 

She wasn’t on the Continent with the Howlies. 

She wasn’t any kind of a soldier or fighter. 

Her training is not in anything that would be of use or interest to them. 

(They’ve got a tech/radio guy in Morita, a translator in Gabe, an explosives / French geography / Resistance Underground expert in Frenchy, airborne assault expert in Monty, an expert sniper / Hydra lab-internee in Bucky (the only reason they even know there’s a Valkyrie base is because he told Steve! without him, Hydra would’ve blown up half the world!), extra muscle from Dum-dum, all the gadgetry they need from Stark, all the aerial recon they need from Stark’s planes, and Steve’s brilliant tactical mind.

What, exactly, would they need her for?? Carrying more clipboards? Tidying more flags off maps? Missing more saboteurs? Not getting to more grenades on time?? More irrational attacking of Steve?? Hmm. I guess she would be pretty good practise for having a Nazi nutjob around who could fly off the handle at any moment... 

If there were more Howlies than shown in CATFA, they wouldn’t even need her as a spare pair of hands -- they accidentally made her even more irrelevant!) 

And if she’s supposed to be a spy: 

1) she definitely wouldn’t be wherever they are, she’d be undercover somewhere, where a spy would be needed; 

2) why would she walking around with the famous guys and appearing in public showreels, thus blowing her cover and rendering her even more useless than she is already? 

3) why would Dum-dum be so weirded out by her presence and not know how act or what to do with her there, if this had been something she already did during the recent war? (Answer: she didn't. They stole Bucky's valour and gave it to her).

As well as having zero military experience or background, Pggy has no rank.

As Steve himself clearly pointed out when he ignored her ‘orders’ on the plane, she has no right to boss Commandos (or Agents) around. She’s just so in love with the sound of her own voice that she assumes (in ignorance of how society actually works for non posh people) that her high opinion of herself = the right to be in charge. 

Very typical Upper Class assumption of superiority. 

All her scenes with the Howlies are straight up lies.

She wasn’t even on first name terms with Bucky, the original Howlie! 

And to paper over this giant crack, they just introduce new Howlies, as if to say ‘ohh, yeah, she did spend loads of time with them, it was just characters you didn’t see, it was just off screen.’

Newsflash, fucker! That’s not how characterisation works! 

Hmm okay, I just decided Pggy’s actually a many-tentacled alien in disguise as a human. It’s just that the scene where you found that out was off-screen. 

And, ah yes, spirits. Yet another thing they've stolen from Erskine and Bucky -- the only people in all of CATFA shown drinking them (by choice).

(Steve and the Howlies, including Dum-dum, drink beer in the pub scene, when they are at liberty to choose their poison. Pggy is never shown drinking at all. But hey, why let a silly thing like consistency get in the way of further bullshit!)

The people writing really think that what makes a character good is just ‘introduce them and then show how great they are by having every other character kiss their ass. Job done!' 

Kind of like a reverse Whorf Effect. They don’t have to actually go to the bother of showing us how she’s great, exactly, they can just tell us she’s great -- because everyone says so! 

What’s laughable is that HA’s really out there saying Pggy doesn’t need external validation. 

If that were the case, she wouldn’t be throwing temper tantrums and shooting at Steve in public when he’s interested in someone else, or defining her whole life around him. And she would never once say anything about getting her male colleagues’ respect because, actually, if she didn’t need their validation, she would never mention it; she would be indifferent to them, (gaining their respect as a motivation would never even cross her mind.) 

In fact, they show us her in every iteration being absolutely desperate for male validation. The classic ‘not like the other girls’ Pick Me. (Tbh I think probably the writers are too old to be aware of this; their politics are still in the 90s). 

Most damning of all is the ‘I know my value’ line. 

Passing over the absolutely rancid ‘I’m a cool girl -- and cool girls’ don’t complain!’ vibes (oppressed people should just shut up about it -- as long as they know they’re oppressed, that’s all that matters. Hmm. Sounds like something a Republican would say.) 

It’s said to stop a male colleague going and speaking up for women’s recognition in the workplace. 

It shows that actually Pggy doesn’t give a shit about feminism. She wants herself, personally, to be respected by the men... but not women generally! 

(Textbook white feminism. Has the glass ceiling shattered for her by powerful men, by virtue of her class, and then as soon as she’s given power to help other women, she instead immediately rebuilds the glass ceiling underneath herself, when it looks like there’s a danger of other women slipping through. They cannot be allowed to do that, since their presence would undermine the idea of her specialness, for being the only woman there.) 

If instead Pggy had insisted on being given recognition, as a woman... that would’ve had a positive effect on all the other female workers in the SSR. 

But they’re not the Main Girl, so who gives a shit, right? 🙄

[subjet16]

hard at work organizing this beast of a post (essay?)