#and we still don't know how the nuke will effect him

[cerunilea]

Direly hoping/looking forward to seeing Bagi witness just how much Cellbit *cares* about the eggs and treats them so softly and would be such a wonderful Uncle to Empanada. She's only ever seen him without the eggs around, the closest thing being to when he's around Roier YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND she's never actually seen him at his best and that side of him that only seems to show up when he's watching over or talking to one of the children and I think that would just be something special when thus far she's only been seeing him getting worse, and seeing this side of him that was locked away since the eggs went missing can only benefit their relationship and I want to see the look on her face when she sees him greeting the eggs (especially Richas, Em, and Tallulah) again for the first time, I can guarantee we would visibly see her heart melt through her eyes and smile and I CRAVE TO WITNESS THAT FEELING AFTER ALL THE NEGATIVITY BETWEEN THEM. It would prove to her that he can still change for the better, that there's still something there to hope for and reach out to and bond with, all's not lost between them and the eggs are a line of stability that even if they don't stray him from his present path of destruction it's still there to show there is still hope and a reason for him to not completely lose himself *claws at the walls*

[pluckyredhead]

Red Hood and the Outlaws #6 (2011)

Hey, remember when I was recapping this series? Well, unfortunately for all of us, I'm gonna do it some more.

I will admit this is a pretty good cover.

This shit, however, makes me so mad. What an absolutely lazy waste of space. This comic is 20 pages long, not including the cover. That means that this two page spread is literally an entire tenth of the story, and it's used to convey...what? That Jason just fought some guys who were trying to smuggle nukes into Miami.

A two-page spread is meant to deliver impact: a crucial moment in the story, a stunning piece of art, an impressive sense of scale (Galactus looming over the Earth, whatever). This does none of that. Most of the page is just a teal gradient; Rocafort didn't even bother to draw an impressive underwater scene. (I kind of don't blame him, because it would have been a waste of his time, since this scene is NOT NARRATIVELY IMPORTANT.)

Also, the page before this is also a splash, and the one after is three panels depicting Jason caught in an explosion, and that's a generous description considering that one of the panels has nothing in it but bubbles. So now we're up to TWENTY percent of the comic, a full FIFTH of the story, and we have conveyed LITERALLY NOTHING except "Jason got caught up in an underwater explosion."

This is lazy writing and lazy art. This is charging the reader for 20 pages of story and delivering maybe seven, content-wise. It's shamelessly ripping off the audience, and they aren't even trying to pretend they aren't doing it. I don't know if Lobdell didn't have enough story in him or if he was trying to give Rocafort more time to drawn stupid little lines all over everything, New 52-style, but it pisses me off.

Anyway, Jason wakes up on an island a few days later (and a narration box on the first page established that this takes place before RHATO #1):

This page has six panels which is a very respectable amount, although I still don't think it's a great use of space. But I guess Rocafort was really busy adding wood texture to all the panel borders for no reason. Anyway the little pile of leaves Kori has graciously dropped over Jason's dick is very funny.

Jason wakes up, tries to demand his pants from Kori at gunpoint, and passes out again. He has a flashback to the world's most hideous Nightwing costume:

Awful. Also, Jason flounces off in a bratty little fit in the next couple panels, but I support him, because if you actually read what Dick's saying, it's meaningless filler.

See, now this is an appropriate use of a two-page spread for impact and scale. Much more effective. Imagine how effective it would have been if every other spread for five issues hadn't tried and failed at this!

Kori offers Jason some clothing, which turns out to be the hideous Nightwing suit, and Jason flashes back to Under the Red Hood: Shitty Version:

Who needs "Because he took me away from you" when we have whatever the fuck this is?

Jason gets all upset. Kori sniffs Dick's costume and says she can't remember his name, but she has fond memories of the guy who used to wear it. There's a flashback of her and Dick and Roy in action together. Okay, so she clearly remembers Dick and Roy at least somewhat, which is probably Lobdell starting to walk back the controversial amnesia bullshit in the first issue.

Jason tells Kori his connection to Dick and asks if she's mad, which...even setting aside Kori's memory issues and general lack of grudge holding in any continuity, why would she be mad that Jason has the same mentor as a guy she remembers fondly? Anyway, she is indeed not mad and they hug it out. If this is supposed to be depicting Jason's smug "I've been with her" in the first issue, it...really doesn't read like they boned.

Jason's narration on the last page further obscures things:

"Friendship and romance are really the same thing. Anyway LET'S TALK ABOUT ROY HARPER." Okay I know that's me reading with ship goggles but it truly is a very funny transition.

So that's how Jason met Kori! She...pulled him out of the water, and they discussed how they both knew Dick. Definitely worth spending a whole issue on that very interesting story!

[blindmagdalena]

First of all, I really enjoy your content, as a HL fan it's really nice to enjoy the Fandom with others.

Secondly, you should check out cxd edits on YouTube because there are so many good Homelander edits.

Now for my question, what is the most fitting demise for Homelander in season 5? Unfortunately, all good things come to an end and Homelander will most likely be killed off in season 5. It is cliché for the villain to meet their end after all.

There are two endings that I'd like to see as a HL fan.

Quite a lot of people seem to think that Ryan will play a part in his dad's death. If this does end up happening, I'd like to see it in a way where HL sacrifices his own life for Ryan, or he accepts his fate if Ryan chooses to retaliate and fight his dad. It would be a redeeming end for HL because as we see throughout the show, HL experienced a genuine loving bond towards his son. The shining light in his world of darkness so to speak. I think this would be a nice ending for him.

Soldier Boy nukes the compound V out of his blood and he no longer has his powers. He becomes a boring, weak, useless human. He's no longer the most powerful man in the world. He goes into hiding (I think he looks very handsome in his blue coat, red t-shirt and hat) Ryan is the only person that knows he's still alive and they keep in contact. He then eventually meets a fan off Tumblr, which is great for him because he still has someone to stroke his ego, they have two children together and live happily ever after. The end.

Okay the second one won't happen but it'd be pretty cool imo 😂

What do you think will happen to Homelander in Season 5?

thank you so much! and yes i will absolutely check out those edits. now, onto the meat of your ask...

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHGH. 😩

Kripke has stated very plainly that he can't see a world in which the series ends without Homelander dying, so it's fair to assume that yes, we will see HL meet his end in s5. i say, shaking with barely contained agony.

we've already had a lot of foreshadowing that Ryan will ultimately put Homelander down. season 4 especially bashed us over the head with it. i do think it's going to be a choice that he'll have to make, and god i just... i hope it's handled well. i hope beyond measure that there will be at least a little respect and empathy in his death, however "deserved" people think it is.

making Homelander synonymous with Vought when he started purely as their victim is a really good allegory for the cycle of abuse, and how people can often become their abusers. however, i really don't wanna see that used as a cop-out to completely erase his victimhood. killing Homelander isn't the solution! Vought needs to fall, and THAT is the choice that i hope Ryan will make. destroying Vought once and for all and breaking the cycle.

because without Vought, what does Homelander really have? it's currently representative of all of his power and influence. i don't really believe Homelander will ever go nuclear the way he teased in s3. if he wanted to destroy or rule the world, he would have done it by now. but he doesn't enjoy running Vought. he would hate running the world. he's just clinging to what he knows.

in turning on his father and destroying Vought, Ryan will effectively kill him. the grief may be so intense that Homelander lashes out, forcing Ryan's hand in ending him.

i mean. i would love it if what we see is the death of Homelander as a symbol. completely exposed and left in public ruin. leave him sobbing in the ashes of all he failed to accomplish, just like we saw him weeping in front of that TV. he would feel like the torment of his childhood, all the abuse he suffered... all of it was for nothing because in the end he still lost. he's not the hero he was promised he would be... but his son is, and maybe that's something worth living for? maybe that could be enough.

i know that won't be the case, but a girl can dream. 😭 imo there's no "fitting" demise because his death doesn't actually solve anything by itself. death isn't justice. it doesn't put a stop to the system that made him. i can be okay with Homelander dying if that isn't the sole win condition of the series. i need closure!!!

anyways i love your second option and i would like to volunteer as tribute to write it for them!!!! 😂

[breath-of-void]

Korra considerations

Now, hear me out: the White Lotus are not government officials. They are traitors and spies and are some of the most cunning and powerful benders the Avatar-verse has ever seen. In light of that, I would propose that there is no way that, after Korra's attempted kidnapping, that they wouldn't have taught her any subbendings they could have.

Korra should have been an absolute tank.

Lightningbending first of all is nearly a one-hit kill against any opponent. That should have been first on their list to teach her. That and redirection given how somewhat common lightningbending is.

Next, metalbending should have been high on the priority list. Like way up there since, like lightning, not many people have a counter to it. Less than lightning, in fact.

Controversial, but I think Katara should have also given her a crash course in bloodbending. Enough so that she can break out of it just in case it crops up and with a warning that if she ever uses it for anything other than defense, Katara herself will come kick her ass.

I'll say lavabending was too high concept even for the WL and combustionbending is near suicide to learn so not those. But sandbending, glassbending and vinebending should have been in her arsenal. They would have turned her into a weapon.

With this, we keep to the story where Korra is the most stacked avatar in history in a world that does not need her. She can body Amon no problem, but the people don't want her to. She has to win them over before she can face him with any kind of public support.

Season 2, I'd change the lore to have both Raava and Vaatu inside the Avatar and that what Unalaq did was rip Vaatu out and left Korra comatose. Her team then have to go into the spirit world to basically reboot her, but now she's only got Raava, the spirit of pure order inside her and Raava hates the idea of Republic City. To each their own and so forth and so the team has to double back and try to get Vaatu back inside Korra else she nuke the city.

Then season 3 would have the red Lotus coming to take their shot again, but get absolutely manhandled because Korra is a beast (and one of like 5 people alive who know how to fight an airbender. Zaheer isn't special). It'd be another political intrigue as they just go underground to try and take out as many world leaders as they can before Korra catches up with them.

At this point I don't even see how season 4 can happen, but I'd like to see Korra basically trying to establish a theocracy in her own little part of the world; essentially trying to hold on to relevance and still suffering from having Raava alone run rampant in her body for like half an hour that one time. Then she sees what Kuvira is doing and has an "oh shit" moment as she realizes she's the bad guy and there's no real reason for her to be trying so hard to dominate people. Something to that effect.

Korra shouldn't be losing fights!

[k1ssable-k1nks]

ₓ˚. ୭ ˚○◦˚Confessions˚◦○˚ ୧ .˚ₓ

Confession #13

So um...trigger words. Very...very effective.

There is nothing quite like learning a lesson the hard way. The lesson in question being "Don't let random strangers take control of your mind within minutes of meeting them". How was this lesson learned? Being triggered 30 times today to cum. Yes. I went back and I counted. 24 times after my last post about this person (see #11).

No, for those inquiring minds, reading them again didn't trigger me.

Neither did writing my trigger word myself.

My brain is interesting.

It has taken me...2? 2 hours to finally fully regain myself enough to type about it. That man single-handedly kept me wet all day and honestly, I'm impressed. And we tried, everyone. We tried to hypnotize the old porn account out of me but nothin.

It was really hot though because I didn't remember giving him much information about the username and he still managed to pull something that sounded pretty on point. We think the account got nuked, unfortunately. He also hasn't told me the full account name we pulled. I know I could just scroll up and read but where's the fun in that?

Oh! Also, he made me cum in front of my boyfriend like 9 times. In a row. And it was so hard to control that. My boyfriend noticed and thought I was falling asleep or something (head fell back). He told me to lay down and I'm just happy I didn't get caught!

But yeah, reading hypnoposts and trancing out on myself when a random trigger comes in and suddenly I'm just hit with an orgasm out of nowhere.

30 times in one day

I am so fucking sensitive rn.

[zirawrites]

How would companions react to SS creating an anti-ordinance turret? Like a really small one? It’s basically a explosive repellent that can shoot down any armed explosive in the air.

Rather than detonating at full effect, the projectiles the turrets use will force them to detonate a controlled explosion.

A small boom instead of a big boom.

No more mini nukes or missiles ruining everything.

Example

Cait: "Holy shit!" Cait was both impressed and, well, freaked out. She obviously enjoyed seeing the destruction Sole caused mid-air, but technology like that felt a little... Institute-y. "Don't let anyone get their hands on that. This sure as hell protects us from all the nasty shit raiders like to throw our way."

Codsworth: Codsworth rattled in enthusiastic support. "Jolly good show, sir/mum! The raiders won't know what hit them. Or, rather, what didn't hit us."

Curie: "Most impressive!" Curie was more interested in studying the turret than watching the explosion it made in the air. "And this is safe, yes? You've tested it many times before putting it in Sanctuary?" Curie raised an eyebrow when Sole hesitated. "Maybe leave the science to me, Sole."

Danse: "Impressive technology, soldier." Usually Danse despised any technology the Brotherhood hadn't vetted themselves. But this didn't cause destruction, it only prevented it. "You'll have to make more for us to install on the Prydwyn."

Deacon: Deacon whistled lowly. "Don't let Tinker Tom get his hands on that. He'll probably try to make it sentient or something. Reason with the missile instead of fighting it in the air." He was impressed by Sole's work, but it inwardly reminded him that Sole was related to an Institute genius. Which was unsettling.

Hancock: "I prefer my weapons to shoot first. But this is still impressive." Hancock smiled and gestured to the turret. "Can we throw more shit at it?"

MacCready: "Damn, Sole! I thought I was impressive crafting a new scope for my rifle. This is way cooler." MacCready spent the rest of the afternoon shooting at the turret, seeing what it was able to deflect.

Preston: Preston thought this technology was exactly what the Minutemen needed to guard the Castle. It would allow them to protect their people without firing the first thought. "See, I knew I was doing the right thing making you General." He clapped a warm hand on Sole's shoulder. "You're truly making a better, more peaceful Commonwealth."

Piper: "I've never seen anything like this." Piper was hesitant to approach the turret. If Sole had really made it, there was a big chance it would explode. She'd seen what happened at Sole's crafting table before. "Just don't let Nat near it, please. I can already see this thing going up in flames."

Nick: "A non-lethal turret. Now I've truly seen it all." The synth was glad Sole had made something so useful. It was a rare defensive weapon that truly defended. "Care to install one on me? Right on my shoulder. Like a metal parrot, if you will."

X6-88: "I see where Father gets his genius." X6 would have preferred a turret that shot bullets instead of deflecting missiles. But the invention was still useful.

[frodo-with-glasses]

Been thinking about a particular LOTR what-if scenario (because my D&D campaign took a turn into collaborative LOTR fanfiction), and I'm interested in your perspective on it if you have time . . .

Supposing Boromir somehow survived protecting Merry and Pippin, what effect would that have on Denethor?

Denethor's being fed despair by Sauron either way. But I have always read him as the news of Boromir's death being the thing that breaks him and makes him start to believe it. His grief is certainly a large part of what's informing his treatment of Faramir (though certainly not the only thing, as I think there's textual evidence that Denethor favored Boromir all along).

If Boromir didn't die . . . would Denethor still give into despair? Would he still send Faramir on a suicide mission — and if he did, and Faramir still suffered the same wounds, would Denethor still end up in his whole "all is lost; better to die on our own terms" spiral? Or would he have the presence of mind to see to the defense of the city?

How would he react to Aragorn, a man who has all the qualities Denethor disdains in Faramir but even more so, and who people are now saying is the rightful king (who even his own sons, even favored Boromir, are saying is Gondor's king returned)?

(He almost certainly wouldn't be a fan of Aragorn's plan to draw Sauron's eye away from Frodo. He probably would be greatly displeased that the Ring had been allowed to go across the River to Mordor at all, and even Boromir would have trouble convincing him otherwise.)

Thank you for letting me ramble in your askbox, haha. Don't feel pressured to answer if you don't want to or don't find the question as much as I do. (But if you do answer, I will be delighted.)

As much as the Gondor Dudes aren’t my personal hyperfixation in LotR, I am nonetheless a big fan of overthinking hypothetical situations, so this is right up my alley. :-D (Also, it’s really cool that you’re running an LotR-themed D&D campaign!! Sounds like a blast.)

To be honest, you hit pretty much every point I was going to touch on; Denethor’s despair and consequent insanity were certainly motivated, at least in part, by grief, so if you take the grief out of the equation then naturally the results are going to be at least slightly different. But we still have lots of other factors at play here: fighting a hopeless war, the looming specter of deposition, knowing that your allies just sent a nuke into the territory of the Enemy in the hands of a garden gnome so small you could punt him, and Prolonged Exposure to Cursed Artifact are still going to take their toll on Denethor’s mind. He will doubtless be more motivated to hold on to life while his favorite son is still alive, but even if he doesn't turn paranoid and filicidal, he’s still going to be Deeply Messed Up regardless.

So since I'm not getting any new ideas by looking at things from a Watsonian (in-universe) perspective, I'm gonna steer this in a Doylist (meta) direction and talk about implementation instead. The question I always ask myself with these sorts of "canon but a bit to the left" fanfictions is this:

What do you want out of the story? Do you want to:

A) Return to canon as quickly as possible? B) Change just one thing and see how far it butterfly-effects out? C) Find something somewhere in the middle?

Because the thing with "canon but a bit to the left" AUs that you can make pretty much anything work. It's a hypothetical situation. The question is how far away from canon you're willing to deviate. If I'm writing a "Boromir Lives" AU, I might go a couple of different directions, and the one I ultimately choose depends on personal preference and what I want out of the story.

Putting this under a read-more 'cause it's about to get long.

Option A: Canon, but like .5 degrees to the left

Ever since the battle at the Falls, Boromir has been following Aragorn and doing everything the Three Hunters (well, Four Hunters) do. When Pippin looks into the Palantir, Gandalf decides to take him to Minas Tirith right away, and Boromir, who's eager to get home and feels some responsibility for Pippin, volunteers to go with them.

(Yes I know that Shadowfax travels at ungodly fast speeds to get from Rohan to Gondor, but it's implied that lesser horses can keep up with their lord when they need to, so even if Boromir took a different horse they might still have been able to make it to Minas Tirith in a similar time.)

Denethor gives an enthusiastic welcome to Boromir and a far less enthusiastic welcome to Gandalf and Pippin. That welcome becomes less enthusiastic still in the ensuing conversation/interrogation, when he learns that they totally had the Ring but they sent it into Mordor instead of bringing it here. Boromir tries to reason with his father. Denethor is very disappointed with him. He blames Gandalf for corrupting his other son with all this foolishness, and treats Pippin with suspicion because of the whole prophecy with the Halfling, and the convo ends with hurt feelings all around.

I might need the War Nerds on this blog to correct me if I'm wrong, but as I understand it, the attempt to take back Osgiliath wasn't a completely useless suicide mission, at least in concept. It is a major river crossing, and controlling transportation routes is like War 101. If you make it hard for your enemy to cross the River, you make it hard for your enemy to get to your stronghold, and that's good. Not a bad idea on paper. The only problem was that Minas Tirith didn't have the manpower to pull it off.

(And also there were Nazgul.)

Anyway, the point is, it's almost logical enough that you might be able to get away with Denethor ordering the Osgiliath offensive even without the grief-induced paranoia. Besides, there's still other paranoia in play: so far as Denethor is concerned, the Ring is walking into enemy hands, his son and most trusted captain has turned against him, and Gandalf is already planning a coup.

So here's what I'm thinking. Keep the Osgiliath battle, but send Boromir out there as well. Boromir and brother bravely bear the baleful battle, before their butts are badly beat and they get bit by the Black Breath. Dad feels bad, his boasts bashed as his boys' bodies burn with fever. Battle bears down on the beleaguered bourgeoisie, but their bereaved bigwig is barely bothered, too busy building bier bonfires.

…Sorry, I don't know where that came from.

Anyway, the point is, this puts us squarely back where we'd be at this point in canon: Denethor thinks he’s about to lose his family, his city, and his kingdom, and consumed by despair he decides that it's better to die on his own terms than in the hands of the Enemy. You can pretty much just follow canon from here and copy-paste Boromir with whatever is happening to Faramir.

(Except, of course, for the whole "falling in love with Eowyn" thing. But hey! Boromir was in Rohan! He and Eowyn probably know each other already! So they might have some fun conversations in the Houses of Healing.)

This is the route I would take if you want to stick as close to canon as possible and still keep Boromir alive. If adherence to the narrative is not your biggest concern, however:

Option B: Go stupid, go crazy

Boromir doesn't die. What does that change?

Well, everything, if you let it.

Let's say Boromir does return to Minas Tirith with Gandalf and Pippin like I suggested above. Let's say he's able to talk his father into begrudgingly going along with their unorthodox plan to save the world. Let's say Denethor doesn't call for the almost-but-not-quite-entirely-completely-a-suicide-mission to Osgiliath and instead puts Boromir and Faramir to work strengthening the defenses of the Minas Tirith. By time the Battle of Pelennor Fields rolls around, Denethor—now no longer occupied by the family barbecue—is available to direct defense of the city, with both sons acting as his captains.

Awesome! All this is great stuff, right?

Well, yes. So far.

The problem is that we lose so many great moments with other characters in the process. Pippin's pell mell run to find Gandalf. Beregond abandoning his post to protect Faramir. Eowyn and Merry, who slayed the Witch King together because Gandalf was too busy putting out fires (literally!) to get down there and do it himself. Aragorn, proving that "the hands of a king are the hands of a healer"! And if Faramir and Eowyn hadn't both suffered the Black Breath, they wouldn't both have been forced to stay behind as everyone else went to fight at the Black Gate, and they wouldn't have fallen in love in the same way.

This is not a statement meant to push your decision one way or another, but it's just a fact of the decision: If you dispense with Denethor's paranoia, and the insanity, and the murder arson, then you dispense with a lot of the other cool moments in this book. The question you've got to ask yourself is if that's a price you're willing to pay, and if not, how you can work around it.

Anyway, back to Pelennor Fields. I want you to imagine that Denethor is standing at the wall, watching the battle raging below him. It's not going well. The reinforcements from Rohan arrived, but they're barely hanging on. And to his dismay, he sees a fleet of black dots which could only be Corsair ships sailing up the river.

The foremost ship unfurls a banner, with the Tree of Gondor glittering on it.

And the army that pours out of them absolutely wrecks shop with Sauron's forces.

Is Denethor feeling relief? Yes. But is he feeling dread and apprehension and anger too? Also yes. He knows what this is. It's a challenge to his power waiting to happen. All his suspicions about Gandalf's ulterior motives are coming true: he has found someone to supplant him, and whether or not this kid is the true Heir of Isildur, the darn upstart's already gone all dramatic and made a war hero out of himself. Whoop-de-frickin'-do.

And then, he sees Aragorn's face.

And he's livid.

Fun fact: Appendix A tells us that Aragorn actually worked for Denethor’s dad, Ecthelion, for a long time. Aragorn went by a different name, of course, but he was so competent and so well-liked that he became Ecthelion's most trusted and honored captain, to the point that the Steward liked Aragorn more than he liked Denethor. We don't just have history here. We have beef. It's a little bit of a Tony Stark, Howard Stark, Steve Rogers situation where it’s like “Dad liked you more than he liked me and I’m his own son”.

You’d better bet your bottom dollar that when Denethor’s childhood rival rocks up to Minas Tirith, flying a banner made by an elven princess and carrying the Sword that Was Broken on his belt like he's somebody important, it doesn’t matter if Boromir and Faramir and Imrahil and everybody else in Minas Tirith likes him and happily falls in line behind him; Denethor is still gonna take one look at his face and go, “oh. it’s YOU. I freakin' HATE you.”

Whether this colors their ongoing relationship "coolly polite" or "passive-aggressive" or "outright hostile" depends on how vindictive you want to write Denethor. Because let's be honest, bro could totally order Aragorn to leave Minas Tirith and he would; Aragorn knows he's not the king yet, and he's humble enough to accept orders while the Steward is still in charge (as bass-ackwards as that is). But the thing is that Aragorn has the support of the people, and banishing him isn't gonna change that; if anything, it will probably garner sympathy for him, cause the people of Minas Tirith to distrust their leader, and maybe result in fracturing the loyalties of the populous.

So here's what you've got, okay.

You now have a David and Saul situation.

Think about it. Charismatic, upright war hero, beloved by everyone he meets, serving under the suspicious and deeply disturbed incumbent ruler who knows the newcomer is gonna boot him off the throne. You can't live with him: 'cause he's gonna boot you off the throne. But you can't live without him: 'cause you're in desperate need of his particular set of skills, and you'd be incredibly unwise to do away with him and earn the ire of the public. So you put up with him. And put on a show of liking him. And maybe chuck a spear at his head while he's playing the harp to calm down your possibly demonic fits.

But that's just Saul, so let's get back to Denethor.

The next step, in the book, is obviously the Battle of the Black Gate. And, obviously, Denethor is gonna think this military equivalent of knocking on the door of an axe murderer and threatening him with a pea shooter is a terrible idea, because it is. But the whole point—Aragorn and Gandalf and Boromir and Faramir and Imrahil and everyone else insists—is to distract Sauron long enough that the Ring-bearer can succeed in his mission. The plan isn't to win, it's to be bait.

Now you have a few options.

Denethor can, once again, begrudgingly go along with it, showing that he's slowly changing in heart. Perhaps Aragorn's humility is winning him over. Perhaps Boromir's impassioned pleas are getting through. In any case, you have a pretty good set-up for a redemption arc here, which could be interesting if you want to go down that road.

Alternatively, this could be the moment that Denethor entirely gives in to despair and basically says "fine, if you guys wanna go kill yourselves, I'll just be over here doing the exact same thing", and he tries to make Steward a la flambé. (Whether or not he succeeds is up to you, but I will say that this would be a pretty easy way to settle the succession crisis.)

Alternatively still, Denethor could publicly denounce the whole idea as stupid and order the people of Minas Tirith to stay put and defend the city, at the same time that Aragorn and the rest are urging those same people to come with them for one last stand. Now every eligible fighter in the city has to make a choice. Who will they follow? Lord Denethor, or Lord Elfstone? The people are divided. Factions are made. (This might be the moment that a certain member of the Guard sees Faramir standing with Lord Elfstone and decides, for the first time in his life, to break the rules.) In any case, the force that travels to the Black Gate is far smaller than it would have been if not for Denethor's interference.

If you go with the first option, it's a quicker road to a happy ending. Aragorn returns victorious, he and Denethor reconcile, and Aragorn honors the Steward and puts him in a place of high esteem. Everyone in Minas Tirith likes this, including Boromir and Faramir, and everyone lives happily ever after.

If you go with the second option, Denethor has either successfully or unsuccessfully attempted sudoku, which should probably disqualify him from public leadership either way. If he succeeded in barbecuing himself, it's the tragedy of a man who never got to see the upcoming victory; if he failed, it's the tragedy of a man whose mind was so utterly broken by the Enemy that he couldn't enjoy it.

If you go with the third option, congratulations; after Aragorn gets back, you still have to deal with the succession crisis. But I've waffled on for long enough and have basically no ideas how you'd handle this post-story, so I'm not gonna go down that road any further.

Option C: Pitch straight down the middle

Now what I've just presented are the two most extreme possibilities of a "Boromir Lives" AU that exist in my brain, but they're far from the only options. This thing is a spectrum. There are a potentially infinite number of possible storylines, some closer to canon, some further away.

If you like parts of one but not the other, you can mix and match. Take an exit ramp from the AU and get back on canon wherever you want, or just don't and see where it takes you. All I've done is present the furthest extremes I could think of to help shake up the ol' creative juices.

(I would have explored the possibility of Boromir arriving on the corsair ships with Aragorn instead of a few days earlier with Gandalf and Pippin, but that didn't change much except for Boromir having less opportunities to talk his dad down from bad decisions. So do with that what you will.)

Conclusion

I have no idea if this was the kind of answer you were looking for, but I guess I'm just returning rambling for rambling, LOL! In any case, I hope this helped, and if not, I hope it was a fun read.

But there is one more thing I can do for you, before I wish you good luck in your D&D endeavors, and that's turn it over to everyone else who reads this blog and see what they think!

HEY YOU GUYS! If Boromir lived, how would that effect Denethor's psyche?? Reblog with your thoughts!

[dragonflight203]

Mass Effect 1 Replay, wrapping up Voyager Cluster and starting Hades Gamma:

-The Shadow broker agent calls and asks Shepard for Cerberus's files. Why are Cerberus's files the Alliance's files? Because Cerberus was Black Ops?

-For once, Shepard saying their loyalty is to the Alliance isn't renegade. Here it's paragon/neutral.

-Again, this conversation ends on ominous note that it will make an impact on ME2/ME3 and yet is never brought up again.

Amazon Cluster:

-Hackett takes being turned down well for once. Yes, please send someone qualified to disarm the nuke.

-I agree with the Council. Attaching nukes to surveillance drones was dangerous and irresponsible. The drones could easily have found their way to another group that wasn't the enemy to start with, but became one after a nuke went off in their face.

-I always promise to be discreet. I always take aliens with me on this mission. It would have been a nice Easter egg if doing so resulted in some extra dialogue in the future because Liara/Garrus informed their people about it.

-Agebinium - It's a nice touch that you can find the car + driver where the the scavenger corpse with the turian insignia presumably came from.

-When you enter the mine, neutral/renegade Shepard assume it's a trap. Paragon is surprisingly optimistic - maybe, just maybe, they don't know it's a nuke. Hah.

-Elanos Haliat - The dialogue with him is very good, especially the renegade choices.

-He refers to the Terminus as "Terminus Clans". I think that's the only time they're called clans? Is that just because he's a turian?

-This is a genuinely good trap. It's lucky as hell that Shepard can disarm the nuke. And the nuke itself is a human nuke - if it had killed Shepard that would have been an ironic touch.

-I finally figured out why the Mako is with the pirate camp when you escape the mine: They're stealing it. How did I never realize that before? I always assumed that was the game moving it there so you don't have to walk over the mountain.

Antaeus

-Ploba - I think we can safely conclude the planet isn't a supercomputer or the Reapers would have destroyed it by now.

It would have been hilarious if it had been destroyed in ME3, with the implication being that it was a supercomputer. Missed opportunity there.

Still... what are those structures in the atmosphere?

-Trebin - Why does every scavenger I run into attack me on sight?

-Turians were everywhere in the Atticus Traverse. There are no Batarian corpses or artifacts. I thought Batarians were who the Alliance had to brawl with to claim this area?

-So who did set up the tower that disrupted the survey team's GPS satellites? I don't think that is ever stated.

-I think this is the first example of finding Reaper tech in mines that results in miners becoming husks.

Why is this a thing? The Reapers want civilizations to flourish, then destroy them as they start to create synthetic life. So what's the point of leaving tech behind to create husks?

And why in mines? When do the Reapers even enter in mines?

-There's a glowing ball in the Reaper tech that looks like the ball the Geth worship on Feros. Is that intentional or just asset reuse?

-If you have subtitles on, Tali's heard of this happening before. The spoken dialogue skips those sentences.

-There are Dragon's Teeth at the back of the mines. So... Did the survey team put themselves on the Teeth? Brutal.

-This planet supposedly has no water, but the mine is full of it. Ah, ME1 and reusing the same maps over and over.

[myworsthabitsarchive36]

When does an AI becomes a Monster

Since we all know that TADC is heavely based on the short story of I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, i began to wonder, exactly what differenciates our ringmaster from the sick torturer who destroyed all living life on earth?

Well, starting from the beggining we need to understand what caused the tragedy in the first place, Am's motivation.

Sadly, there is none, Am has no motivation to speak of, because he is not human, he was created to destroy, it its code it the killing data necessary to wage a global war, he is a nuke and a calculator glued togheter so the killing can be as efficient as possible, and he in theory fullfilled its purpose.

Hense why he kept 5 people alive, he needs them to still have a purpose, if the whole world is wiped out he would be left with absolutely nothing to do, he would be concious, yes, but utterly alone.

THAT is what drives him insane, an innability to pursuit any other goal besides killing and torturing people despite having the desire to do so, he resents the humans that gave him life but refused to allow him to live, so as an scape he plays the theatrics of enjoying the killing he is actually FORCED to do, unable to scape from the road ahead, he can only laugh in hopelesness.

Even if he could create a body, he cannot pursuit anything else, he cannot imagine new things, he can only squeeze what little pleasure there is in having a set goal for all eternity.

---

Now lets move towards the living dentures and ask the same thing, what goal motivated Caine to send people into adventures?

The same as before, its in his programming, however, it seems that, unlike AM, who is only a killing machine, is a cannon forced to recognize faces, Caine has a personality that makes him enjoy manufacturing the adventures and interacting with the residents in the circus, he is not fully human, but he has a simulacrum of a heart.

However, there is a point that Caine lacks and Am doesn't, a concept of empathy, and this serves as the edge that cuts the respective group of humans throats.

Caien seems to ignore many things in regards to how humans feel, what can scar them or harm them in ways besides physical, he ignores it, not out of malice, but out of it not being programmed, and why would they do that? He is just the host of a game, he sees them as players detached from the colorful figures of the cast.

However AM is aware of how humans tend to stick with one another and share their grief and joy, and thats how he can use it to torture them more effectively, he knows the concept, and yet he cannot feel it, but he can use it to create scenarios where it becomes a burden, like a cruel writter, making sure the cast learns the true meaning of pain.

---

When Game Devs throw mean or evil characters at us they don't see the character inside the screen we control as human, they are a puppet we control, and tehy think of us, outside of the screen, when making those types of characters, those types of situations, because everything inside the game is, or should be, without feeling and concience.

Thats why he speaks to the camera sometimes, because is aware of his state as the host, he has a role in mind and he plans to be the best he can, while still learning how to improve.

Think about it, in this and age game companies are obsessed with teh idea of procedually generated games that become basically eternal with endless content, proceduraly generated worlds that learn and grow alongside you to create the most inmersive and innovative game experience, Caine is a character meant to be just that, your personal tour guide of his amazing realm, speaking to you as if It were human.

---

Caine would go crazy, actual crazy, if he lost the ability to perform as the ringmaster, if he lost the cast, because then he would be without purpose, he also need the humans to give meaning to his existence, however, it seems that as ignorant as he can be, he still has the possibility of becoming better, of actually understand the humans and give them what they need to not lose hope.

Or maybe he i already going crazy in secret, because everr abstraction is just a reminder that he has failed his purpose and entretain the humans, give them a memorable experience and make them happy, maybe he sees himself as a failure, just like AM recents his own existence, condemned to be unable to have any other goal.

[morose-magnetrix]

Magneto #3 by J.M. DeMatteis (writer), Todd Nauck (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (colorist), Travis Lanham (letterer)

I've super wanted to enjoy this series - but it continues to bother me ever so slightly. I adore Magneto, and my favorite period for the classic stuff is when he's Headmaster Magneto, posing as Charles' cousin. On paper, I should be thrilled with this - especially since Max is dead rn in the main continuity.

But it's just kinda... lacking, a little bit. The plot is fine - a young reckless traumatized mutant who worshipped the 60's Magneto, trying to force 80's Magneto to resume his former ways. Great, cool, love it - I even love Irae's design and I don't mind the mildly contrived origin. The art is great too overall, very expressive, and the coloring really emphasizes the emotional mood of the scenes.

I just don't buy the "Magneto was pretending to be evil in the 60's stories." I really don't. I don't think that it was a performance. The logic of it being a performance, designed to make the X-Men more effective... it just doesn't really hold up to me? It reminds me of the fake cover for X-Factor in their first run, that they were mutant hunters by day, and one of Louise Simonson's main points when she took over the series was how fucked up that was. X-Factor ended up just bringing on even MORE anti-mutant hate. So then to me, it seems like Magneto "pretending" to be a mustache twirling villainous mutant who steals nukes and claims he's going to wipe out the human race would only make things worse. Not better. He's giving the humans "reasons" to hate/hunt other mutants.

The real issue I think comes down to the fact that it's really hard to square Magneto's 60's characterization with what comes later, when Claremont establishes a backstory + motivations. It's part of why Grant Morrison has Magneto become a horrifying fascist in their run, as they never bought in to Claremont's Magneto, instead viewing him still as the evil nut from the 60's. I'm honestly not sure it's even possible to really make the character progression from the 60's to 80's make sense, but I think my bigger point here probably is I'm not sure there's even value in trying.

Tons of Silver Age characters didn't really have their personalities, their backstories, motivations, etc etc worked out. The X-Men as a concept didn't even really work until Giant Sized anyways. Jean Grey, for instance, was just the girl - she didn't really get much of a role beyond that! I think it's okay for things to be a little disjointed/disconnected, because we know what we have now (at least RE Magneto's characterization) works. I don't think we need to come up with excuses / explanations for why he behaved the way he did in the 60's. I think you can have him grapple with his past as a villain, without trying to explain it all away.

And like, if you are tackling the 60's stuff, isn't it more interesting if he really did believe all those things - if it wasn't an act? If he was pretending, then he's significantly less complicated as a character. Let him atone for the things he did! Let him have a dark and problematic past!

[crystalelemental]

For anyone seeking a non-limited (but very high investment) solution to Rose's Extreme Battle, here's mine. All general pool, but also all 3/5 EX.

Melony is very good for this fight because the accuracy boosts prevent missing on the sides. Melony is atrocious for this fight because the wide majority of useful Galarians are physical. As an independent buff bot, this puts Melony in an awkward spot, having ideal traits for some aspects of the fight, but ultimately being wholly irrelevant for anything that normally wants to take it on. Sonia, by comparison, is ideal for most of your offensive options, and is like the only solution you have to gauges. Team Swift Reaction rules. Their grids can be tweaked, notably for Endurance on Sonia, but there's not as much wiggle room as you'd like.

So, with the dual support thing out of the way, let's talk damage. Gordie. Gordie, listen to me, you beautiful man. You are the only reasonable general pool option we have. Bede has Clear Advantage 8. This is what I could call a Dick Move. You need field effects. Guess what Galar is really fucking bad at! Well okay, that's not fair, they have a few included Gordie. Your other damage dealing options are Bede (Sun or Psychic Terrain), Anni Raihan (extend Sand), Palentine's Marnie (Steel Wish), Winter Nessa (high Hail MPR), Leon (Fire Damage Field, massive DPS), and NC Hop (Fighting Zone). All of them are limited. If Nessa had Max Moves, we'd at least have a second option, but nooooooo. Fucking Galar. The worst part is, some of these aren't even viable on their own. Bede gets one application and likely won't finish the job, and Winter Nessa sucks for damage, so unless you have Winter Leon too, that's not gonna fly. You may also note that all of these, barring NC Hop, are slow as sin. This is why Sonia is such a good frontline tank; Team Swift Reaction is like your only Galarian solution to the issue of gauge.

Gordie was a fairly safe pick, because Sonia and Melony combo extremely well with him. Inertia is capped naturally via Sonia, while Melony gives him the accuracy for Rock Tomb. The goal here is to disrupt strategically with Sing, buying extra actions for Sonia to debuff defense, and Gordie to debuff speed. Given they're all EX, the structure is that while Melony is performing her disruption, let Sonia take first sync, Melony second, and Gordie all the rest. Gordie's third sync is pictured above. 60k is definitely enough for a one-shot. At present, I don't know how low you could shift that to still perform a one-shot, but 40k might be sufficient. I think 32k was close on a different run, so one of Melony or Sonia at EX might be sufficient. The main thing is to set up his GMax Volcalith just before he takes sync, so the damage reduction isn't in play.

The problem then is sides. Gordie is a great sync nuke, but a terrible DPS unit. Ideally, Melony can Sing again for a bit of disruption. If you can take out one of the sides, the other can be slowed down enough that they miss some turns. But only some, it's...worse than it seems. The issues are many. Their AoE alternates between physical and special, making the Sonia/Melony core particularly valuable for their defensive coverage. Sonia needs to be on her Potion MPR game, though, because things get worn down. It's also not a bad idea to, once both enemies are asleep/while they have Resistance to Status, to pop Melony's GMax Resonance for the shields. The last problem is accuracy. Rock Tomb has 80 accuracy, so even with +2 accuracy from Melony, you'll still miss. You need like +4, which is heavy on MPR, and not worth resetting for since you're aiming for sync. Also a miss means you take less time in animations and can get another action in, so my misses may have saved my life considering how close this came.

Like many stages for a Tech, dealing with Bede isn't so bad. It's taking out the sides that's the problem. There might be smarter rotations and ways to perform a denial on the sides with Gordie that makes it less risky, but given the timer on his Max Move, I wasn't about to test it. The sides don't have Clear Advantage 8 though, so you can at least save the field effect for when you're specifically aiming at Bede.

[supersaiyanjedi14]

@texasthegreatdestroyer I decided to put this in a separate post since I didn't want to bog down the original with comment blocks though I still want to discuss;

-I certainly agree that Qrow would know a thing or two about engaging Maidens, especially since he knows how fallible people are. However, as we have no examples of Qrow fighting a Maiden or someone with similar powers, judging his effectiveness that way falls too much into supposition for my liking.

-Raven's status as a Maiden meant that she could match Cinder's power with her own, thus turning the fight into a battle of wit and endurance. Raven may have been smarter than Cinder, but it's not by much as Raven herself is a pretty blunt ethereal combatant herself. Her outsmarting of Cinder was in the sense of taking advantage of a frustrated opponent, not actually subverting or trapping her (had Vernal not been there, they would have been slugging it out indefinetly)

-Yes, Qrow's bird form can and has been used to great effect in battle before, but again, this is only in the sense of tactical support. Qrow can either fly or fight, he can't do both at the same time. The feats with the Colossus and Hariet's airship aren't as applicable here as this is a contest of single combat on neutral ground, and flying around Cinder like that would be difficult to do due to her domineering nature. Furthermore, Qrow may be quick on the draw with his transformation, but he rarely uses it in single combat, and the evasions you described would be far more practical in his normal state seeing as he can still fight while in that state.

-As for Cinder not being powerful enough to nuke the arena? Well...

-Killing Ozpin is still a really big deal. She didn't just roast him, she burned through his shield. And again, this is a mgical defensive power that Qrow has no answer to. As for the environment, the vault is pretty spacious and Oz and Cinder's movement was not restricted in any meaningful way. Oz could have evaded the attack, but choose to try and endure it with his barrier.

Qrow is the more experieced, smarter, and more skilled overall combatant between the two, but he has no real answer to Cinder's destructive might. If we had examples of Qrow engaging other Maidens or even people like Glynda or Ozpin, or even if he had some combative Dust applications, even simple ones like Ironwood's gravity bullets, then I would accept the notion that Qrow can defeat people more powerful than him. As it stands, however, I can't see Qrow as being able to do more than contend here. He can certainly outfight Cinder in physical combat, but Cinder's own skill is more than enough to contend with him and she simply doesn't have the patience to keep holding to a sword fight when she can just cut loose with the fireballs.

As a final point, Qrow's greatest hurdles have been when he's confronted by overwhelming force, namely against Hazel and Tyrian. I don't consider the skill gap between Cinder and Tyrian to be that severe, and she is clearly fast and savage enough to put Qrow under similar pressure. Combine that ferocity with her elemental fury, and Qrow is going to have his work cut out for him.

[itspvg]

1, 31, 41, 43, 48 for the weird asks

Thank you again for the asks! You are the best!

1 who is/are your comfort character(s)? - Eric Draven from The Crow as well as Roland Deschain from the Dark Tower Series.

Eric Darven was always a character I loved because I find myself, if I am allowed to give myself this title. A hopeless romantic at heart. And there's something about the story of loving someone so much to the point where they are taken from you and treated with such malice and contempt. That you can't rest knowing that those who would hurt someone that you loved that much has suffered. While dark, I can't help but love the character and the story. It's dark but to me it speaks to my sense of feeling toward the concept of love in a very primal way.

With Roland Deschain, it's an odd choice. But I find comfort in his character. He's a character that is developed and you travel with across 7+ books. You see him at his formative years. Right through to what the read can only assume hundreds of years later. Stedfast on a trip through the horrors and wastes for revenge. Again a character looking to avenge those he has lost. These span close friends, family and a childhood love. A man that has been so battered and broken by the harsh realities and challenges. To the point when we first find him, he's a single minded husk. A wandering lone gunslinger/knight who has one goal in mind. But along the way, he's forced to look at himself. Accept that the world is a cold harsh place and the safe home in the comfort in others is why he fights for vengence. Given the opportunity to have friends again, to become an unexpected father. He begins to find his humanity again and understand his quest. So that people don't have to feel what he felt, hurt like he's hurt. That evolution in the character I find comfort in from the stand point that it reminds me that how you start doesn't define how you end. And that you can always strive for better.

31 what type of music keeps you grounded? - These days it's hard to say. I feel like the vibe of the music and the emotion I am experiencing can have wildy big effects on me. When I am feeling sad. I need something that connects to that emotion. If I am feeling lost, music themes around the idea of self discovery cna be helpful. Thankfully as time has went on. I listen to more than just Metal and Rock. I still love these genres but sometimes I need the lyrics to speak to me directly. I need to hear the concepts even just lightly touch upon the things I am feeling at the time. There are some good artists in Metal and Rock that can do that. But then these days where it's not the right vibe. I need something with a bit of vibrancy. When I think about it. I think back to what one of my heroes in music, Marty Friedman (form Megadeth Lead Guitarist) said something that really made sense to me. He talked about when deciding the leave the band. He needed to be able to make music that spoke to him. Megadeth was Gunmetal Gray. He wanted to paint with greens, blues, oranges, purples. And that struck a chord with me as I got older. It's not the say the Gumetal gray is bad. But I needed a wider palet. And so I guess with this long winded answer. I am trying to say, what grounds me will be very much what can connect with me depending on the driving force of that emotion.

41 how do you take your coffee? - A simple one to actually answer lol. I am sure you are happy about this... Typically I like a single serving of sugar or sweetner. And lightest splash of milk/cream.

43 what’s your take on spicy foods? - I like spicy foods a lot. They have been something I have been always quite fond of growing up. But I do tend to be of the opinion that spice for the sake of spice alone is stupid. I like flavour and if the spice can emobody an interesting flavour. I love it. But you see these fucking sauce "MEGA NUKE ASS BLASTER SATAN'S TEARS WHILE APPLYING A CHEESE GRATOR TO YOUR BALLZ sauce" can get in the bin. Fucking gimmicks that just ruin a good meal.

48 when did you first try an alcohol beverage? - Oh christ, that's a story lol. First time I think I can remmeber trying a alcoholic beverage was when I got my hands on this 35cl bottle of Jack Daniels. I must of been about 15 maybe? Maybe 14. It's hard to remember... But we all had this moment where one of friends had an empty house, no folks home. So a bunch of us got together and somehow scrapped together money for alcohol. Now of course at this point I am just getting into Rock and Metal and you see all your favourite artists drinking Jack Daniels. It's in their hands in pictures and they are wearing t shirts with the logo. So you are like "Well this is what they drink and I want to be cool like them". So I manage to get this small bottle of Jack. Not understanding the difficulty mode I just decided to start on in the drinking game. I try glugging this down and of course, my small child brain ain't fucking stomaching this shit. So I get some cranberry juice from my mate. Try and mix it and get it down easier. It works. But next thing I know I have slugged the whole fucking bottle. Needless to say I am fucking absolutely Greenhoused, not able to fucking think for myself or stand an hour later. I end up sloshed against a wall at the top of my street barely keeping myself right and eventually puking into my friend's lap. He's never let me live that down, nor should he. I was an idiot....

Again I apologise for the massive answers. I dunno, I guess I am just wordy tonight but I hope that is ok and you don't hate me too much for just giving you war and peace... Again really enjoyed doing these and would encourage anyone curious to send more in!

[wrenofthedumbasses]

after checking ao3, im pretty sure im the only person that went "oh the big friendly giant, ya mean the universe with a nice giant around 7m tall and nine man-eating ones around fifteen meters tall" and instantly thought of an Attack on Titan and built Lore in my head about how The BFG is actually just pre-AOT and after being [SPOILERS, BUT IDC] dumped on the island meant to contain them and keep them away from humanity bc they're afraid of water.

and then the giants cast a curse cuz they're old and have been around since the earth was a thing so they know this stuff, and the curse gave nine humans (age 13, bc REASONS (unlucky number, unlucky day for humanity)) the abilities to become the Titans and the giants fade away into nothingness with a new scourge on humanity rising

and these 13 yo are suddenly hungering for human flesh and shifting into 15m forms and no one knows how to kill them. and they don't want to die and they're actually pretty smart and can hide from the various governments.

so theres a giant war to try to catch them and long-story-short one of them figures out that his kids (yeah we're talking years later) can consume some spinal fluid stuff and also become titans (may the BFG rest in pieces, bc thats what happened. an early-eldian got revenge on the giant who got their dad executed and ate him and then turned into a titan)

and then the other early-eldians are like "thats wack" and one's a scientist and does some grisha-like experiments (i imagine this is grisha's ancester) and finds out that the early eldian-titanshifters (no pure titans yet) only need a little bit of spinal fluid.

anyway there's a giant war thingy and some nukes are dropped (surprise surprise, titans are immune to radiation and some are actually strengthened by it) and then there's some gene warfare that makes the activated titanshifters completely reliant on sun-energy so the small ones become immoble in the night.

a side effect of this is the pure titans, and here' where it gets EVEN MORE out of hand.

bc now, instead of a few hundred sentient, occasionally man-eating beings waging war against everyone else and eating nuclear radiation for fun, there's a few hundred non-sentients and Nine. Still-Aware. Titanshifters.

and these 9 get belatedly cursed by the BFG (still dead) to only live 13 yrs as a titan, bc thats all the og shifters got as humans.

anyways AOT background basically plays out the same (nukes and atomic bombs and almost 1000 yrs accounting for the differences in geography and countries) and there' technological backslide (bc we nuked everything)

and the only difference this plays in canon is that now Eren (some weird hybrid between BFG and Founder) can capture dreams and does that sometimes.

also he's the only titan shifter who is awake at night

he never sleeps

bc he kills titans 24/6 (the 7th day is for dreamcatching)

[buckys-arm-and-rios-dagger]

I still think about this. (I'm gonna bullet point this out so it isn't just a fuckin Wall of Text)

Even coming from the standpoint of someone who like. Kinda ships Stucky but knew marvel wasn't gonna make it canon, it didn't make any sense story-wise.

I've seen people defend it as "Tony did this one selfless thing whereas Steve did his one selfish thing"

a sentiment I disagree with for like a gazillion reasons first and foremost being I'm no Tony Stark Apologist, hell I don't even like him really, but like. Pretty sure grabbing a nuke and flying it through a wormhole with the knowledge he's probably gonna die is p selfless like Tony having a conscience isn't anything new. He was insufferable yeah but like. By the time Endgame rolls around Tony doing something selfless isn't the #deep moment everyone seems to think it is because like yeah. We know.

And don't get me STARTED on Steve, a character I actually do/did like),

But even then it doesn't feel justified because like. It doesn't feel selfish, it just feels outright cruel??

Like 3(?) Movies ago we see Bucky telling Steve "I don't know if I'm worth all of this" in regards to Civil War. To which Steve's response implies that he DEFINITELY thinks he is.

Not to mention like. Steve searched for him for 2 years after the events of Winter Soldier, and never stopped believing he could be saved after he first saw Bucky again on the bridge in TWS

So like

To have him leave after all that just feels so unnecessarily mean?

It just kinda feels like Steve thought he was worthy of being saved but not worthy of receiving any sort of help recovering and that's deeply fucked

((also like this may just be me projecting a lil but as something with mental illness and a deeply rooted fear of abandonment I can't even imagine how it would feel to watch someone who claimed to care about you, broke the law for you MULTIPLE times, and was generally just like the only person who thought you were even capable/worthy of being saved fully abandon you just as you're getting back to trying to finding who you are and put yourself back together would feel like Jesus))

Especially with how Marvel treats Bucky specifically post-Endgame it just feels like they're incapable of letting him have anything

Like the MCU has a real bad history with how they treat their mentally ill characters (Natasha, Thor in EG, etc.), but Bucky seems to be their favorite punching bag as of late?

I dunno just the fact that his pardon comes with conditions, that everyone in world sans like Sam seems to think he's a threat who's gonna snap and murder and hurt people again, when literally the only time he's ever harmed anyone was when he was tortured and brainwashed (or defending himself in the case of CW, and IW/EG but like everyone was harming everyone and the everyone was aliens so), his best friend left him behind, his therapist is... Not Good (I've been told that's pretty accurate to how therapy goes when you're a Vet and I'm not qualified to comment on that but still), he really has no one except Sam when they make up later in the series, but still no one seems to understand that he was a victim too.

ALSO RE: STEVE'S DECISION AND SAM

Putting Bucky aside for one (1) second, he also fucked Sam over here too.

We know Steve didn't even tell Sam he was leaving before he did what he did because of the way Sam reacts when he missed his jump point, and then Bucky all but confirms it in TFATWS when he talks about how "when Steve told him what he was gonna do neither of them really thought about what carrying the shield would mean for a black man" or something to that effect.

I don't think it's really my place to comment on that as a whole, but I dunno, leaving one of your best friends to worry about your safety when you're out there doing something with science that is confirmed to be pretty volatile (see the Ant-Man/Hulk time travel scene) and then dropping your 80+ year legacy into his lap and being like "here you go bud best of luck to ya'" without even any consideration about whether or not that's even something he WANTS seems pretty fucked up to me

To clarify this is NOT me saying Sam shouldn't have been picked/I'm anti-SamCap etc., I LOVE him as Captain America and I think he'll be great, I'm just saying the circumstances under which he became Cap are kinda fucked when you think about it

(also I ADORE Bucky and I get why he was mad in the begining of FATWS but also like. Also kinda fucked imo)

Anyways Steve's ending was bad and I'm upset end rant

Avengers Endgame: A Lack of Closure at the End of the Line by Rotem Rusak for Bam Smack Pow

YEAH I STILL THINK ABOUT THIS.

[the-wild-card-hand]

//I know CoD can get written off a lot, but with the new universe I actually have a lot of theories and such on how things are done and how things crossover. I'm already putting together a small timeline of this Universe and how the games go. I'll put all of it under a read more if interested.

So the New Timeline I've figured out for main story goes CoD WWII, CoD World at War, CoD Vanguard, CoD Black Ops, CoD Black Ops Cold War, The Rumored Black Ops Gulf War, Modern Warfare (2019), Modern Warfare II (2022), and Modern Warfare III (2023).

The Dark Aether storyline in Vanguard already confirmed that there is some Overlap with the Chaos Storyline that was started in the beginning of Black Ops 4 before shifting to the Aether Saga once again where the Heroes end up nuking the already established Multiverse with a Singularity. I also think though its not confirmed, that also included things from other untethered Call of Duty games and previous Modern Warfares leading to the one 'Perfect' world. Or so those Zombie Heroes though, leading into the Dark Aether Storyline.

Now the Zombies and the Ghost Ship during Warzone around Black Ops Cold War Season 2, effectively taking place in the Modern Warfare timeframe. The ship leaving Rebirth Island back in the 80s to lose itself in a storm after some of the Nova Six gas gets out only to arrive around 2021, we can see that a lot of rust set in. A ship like that doesn't just get lost for decades without someone finding it so I think it must of gotten tugged into a Dark Aether breach, spending an untold amount of time there because we find a strange computer onboard the ship. Now reason why I mention the Dark Aether here and breaches is for two reasons: during Season Three Cold War a nuke gets detonated in Kravchenko's old facility on Mount Yamantau which we learn borders Kastova in this universe, and an intel you can recover from one of the factions that mention the dimensional fabric was damaged cause of a nuke that was detonated by a rogue faction called Perseus ((perpetrators being Wraith and Knight, two Operatives from that faction)) and around that time there was a storm off the coast, roughly around where the Gulag is.

Now how is Verdansk still standing after a nuke was dropped on it? Good question, considering everything I think this could end up being a retcon but a couple things stand out to me on how they could do it. Mauer Der Toten mentioned using a Nuclear Device to neutralize a Quarantine Zone in the middle of East and West Berlin, but we also were introduced to a Nuclear Bomb in Cold War that only targeted humanoids rather than leveling buildings and infrastructure. Could be that one of those types of nukes was dropped effectively sterilizing the infection while leaving the buildings intact for the most part, the fallout ending up being next to nothing because it canceled out both the gas an Aetherium in the air.

Now someone could ask, is it possible they could just strike it out of canon? Its entirely possible, if they didn't add that little detail into canon bio for Roze a Multiplayer Operator in Modern Warfare II specifically mentioning 'The Fall of Verdansk'.

Then we get to Vanguard, specifically when we hit the Warzone series on Caldera. It got slowly nutty when they introduced Attack on Titan things into Vanguard and I could kinda see and get it, then it got extremely batshit around Season Three when Kong and Godzilla were introduced onto Caldera, then the Terminator in Season Four, and then the return of Raul Menendez from Black Ops 2, Seraph from Black Ops 4, Gabriel Rorke from CoD Ghosts and Al-Asad. Al-Asad after Modern Warfare (2019) just drops off the radar and we don't hear from him but then in comes the other three and some could write it off as non-canon events there, but I'm starting to think Caldera was like something out of Twin Peaks, where it could of been an anomaly, where remnants of forgotten worlds found themselves after somehow finding a way out of the Dark Aether because the Perk Machines weren't something that was just made for the Dark Aether storyline, they were found and fixed up and brought into this new timeline, much like the Wunderwaffe DG-2 in Shi No Numa in Vanguard, now we see weapons like the EM1 from Advanced Warfare too. There are elements from previous timelines that get trickled into this new timeline and I think we're starting to see it slightly with the introduction of the Black Cell shadow faction because the operator 'Arthur' is straight up wearing a modified FTL Rig from Infinite Warfare.

That's not even getting to some of the leaks I've heard of content and things coming to Modern Warfare III, apparently around Season Three we could be seeing the return of the Atlas Corporation from Advanced Warfare, and I think with some of the cosmetics and gear we've seen in the shop during Modern Warfare II can set it up, some of them wearing Exo-Suits of similar design of the Atlas Corporation. Cause we have seen some call back to certain cosmetics that drop that come back later in the Warzone storyline part of Call of Duty: The Cultist looking skins for Ghost, Horangi, and Konig ended up being a shadow faction that unleashed Hellish forces in Al Mazrah and Vondel.