"There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered." - Nelson Mandela

Hey, hey, people, Greg Owlman here. What? Did you expect someone else? Now, I know that it has been nearly a year since last we saw one another, but I have a valid excuse this time. Stuff happened. That's right, this is my excuse, and I am sticking to it. Sufficient to say is that on the Internet, it's best not to give away too much about yourself. However, posting your opinions, whether they are relevant or not, is another matter entirely. Where was I again? Right, I was just about to tell you about our newest offer. A THREE-IN-ONE COMBO PACKAGE, ALL FOR THE PRICE OF ONE. You heard it right folks, its three ideas for one post. A real doozy and a downright steal considering the economy. Not convinced, let me give you a taste of things that might have been.

"I need more photos of Spider-Man!" ; a classic meme about our favorite Web Crawler, but you want to know what's not a classic or favoured by anyone with taste? The answer is the current run of the Amazing Spider-Man title, which it's best described as the Paul Rabin SI/OC story. Dear lord, I can't even call this a narrative let alone a story. Are we sure it isn't Dan Slott writing under a pseudonym? He is doing another Superior WHO run afterwards? Jeez, not only is there another lame fanfiction in official printing, but we also have to deal with the Superior Spider-Man 3: The Revengeance instead of the Amazing Spider-Man 3 for crying out loud. Anyways, let's clean up this mess shall we? First off, no more Paul. Forget he exists and let's assume everything done following the Spider-Man Beyond didn't happen. Peter Parker has finally beaten those allegations and gotten his doctorate, hallelujah. Let's be honest, Peter is nearly in his late twenties and he doesn't need to deal with academics anymore than the rest of us. He is back working at the Daily Bugle again under Robbie as his go-to guy regarding science since it neatly combines two aspects about Spidey, his past working for the press and his love for science. But, Peter wants something more suited towards research and development. Here comes old Norman Osborn, stalking Peter once more since he wants the two of them to work together and is trying to break the ice regarding the fate of baby May Parker. You know Peter and MJ's newborn who supposedly died, but was actually kidnapped by Norman? Yeah, that May. Anyways, besides these things, Peter is facing his biggest challenge yet, which is being content with his life and beginning to find his happiness. Who is he dating, you might ask? Well, the way I see it, Peter might just deal with a burgeoning polyamorous relationship between him, MJ and Felicia, after all if it worked for the X-Men, it will work for these guys. Also, the way I see it, Peter is doing a lot more team-ups this time around rather than being forced to solo it. I want a proper New Avengers reunion, dang it!

Todd Howard at it again with his newest classic, Skyrim IN SPACE! I am not the first to say that Starfield is average at best, but that has to do mostly with the fact that Bethesda kept under wraps and didn't interact with their audience to receive feedback while they could still change the game. But I am not here to rant about the game, there are plenty of people doing that. Instead, I will present my own vision about what it could have been. First of all, I would restrict the number of systems to only a handful, after all quality trumps quantity every time. Second of all, I would move most of the major settlements to one world. That planet being Proxima Centauri b since apparently Alpha Centauri is a bust and we can't blame the Stranger from Outer Wilds regarding cloaking those worlds. If you are curious about how the maps would look like here are some Reddit threads that had the closest things in mind to my idea, the images belong to their respective creators. Here are the links: https://reddit.com/r/imaginarymaps/s/ASsmDhI3du and https://reddit.com/r/imaginarymaps/s/bVFWQGzk33 . Personally, I would have liked for all recruitable crew members to have a loyalty mission or even some recurring mini quests other than the stuff we needed to do in order to get them. With that in mind, maybe they could have added more dialogue options for the members of Constellation that don't get to interact with the main character as much. Looking at you, Mateo. Or maybe have the same aforementioned treatment, but sadly, old Toady boy decided that it isn't too cash money to implement. Also, am I the only one not really interested with whatever the Freestar Rangers plotline is doing? Sure, exposing the corruption hidden in plain sight within the Collective is all fine and dandy, but maybe we could have gotten something more exciting like uncovering a conspiracy to create psychic super soldiers and agents of a vague, yet menacing, government agency à la Firefly. Would have been way more fun than playing Space Texas Ranger. Speaking of factions, maybe they could have added some benefits to joining them other than getting a nice apartment at the end, like a monthly salary, the ability to skip contraband searches every once in a while or even discounts at affiliated shops for crying out loud. Honestly, at this point maybe it would be better to play Star Sector rather than give you guys idea about modding an economic simulation in a Bethesda game, thereby letting you play the role of a space merchant à la Salvor Hardin from Asimov's Foundation series. The books, not the TV series.

Star Wars is a long way from home. Honestly, a lot of the stuff that Disney has done is a hit or miss, therefore the expanded material such as books and especially comic books have been carrying the franchise moreso than the movies or the shows. If it were up to me, I would just send the Sequels down the way of the dinosaurs, but sadly they are here to stay in all their uncreative glory. Therefore, I will not waste my time or yours with talking about anything after the Original Trilogy in terms of chronology. Oh, dear readers, what I have mind will take us all over the timeline. Honestly, I like the High Republic era, but they could have just said that the Republic lost contact with the Outer Rim territories after the Great Hyperspace Disaster than saying they haven't even been explored yet. Another thing that I liked is Star Wars Visions, which explores various themes and ideas while using the GFFA as background material without necessarily incorporating the stories into the timeline. Where am I going with this? Well, I have been wondering what if there were stories set throughout the Star Wars galaxy that we just haven't heard about and they are canon? I mean, we have a blank slate spanning thousands of years past and future, where we can incorporate our own stories regarding this galaxy far, far away without worrying about existing material contradicting us and these small chapters in the very large book that we call history could have consequences on the movie era stories or even happen long after these events passed. This is an opportunity, that too few authors online that I have seen have taken since most of them prefer to stick to what we already seen. As such, I duly elected myself to notify you about taking this chance by the jugular and see how far you can stretch the material. Have fun!

Now that I have presented my offer, all I can say that it's good to make a comeback even if no one will take notice of it. Also, I will take this opportunity to mention that my last post regarding Star Trek Discovery and how it could have been improved has done better than expected, therefore it would be great if you would spread the love to those other lonely posts of mine. Enough shilling and let's properly end this new chapter in my little corner of the platform.

This has been Greg for Owlman's Previously Owned Ideas. We do not advise you to trust Todd Howard's little lies ever again. We also do no refunds.

"A wizard is never late, nor is he early. He arrives precisely when he means to." - Gandalf the Grey , the Lord of the Rings

It's been a long road. Getting from there to here. It's been a long time. But my time is finally near. Sorry, not sorry, but I couldn't resist. Soooooo... It's been a while huh? I know what I said about trying to post something before New Year and all that pizazz. However, I have been in a food coma and then got swamped with work so not have a lot of time to continue my award-winning trash-talking about what Star Trek Discovery could have done to be an interesting show. Therefore without further ado, let's crack into it.

Season 3: Internal Strife! One year has passed since the Klingon War and the Federation has fallen on hard times since Starfleet is at its weakest and there are plenty of sharks smelling blood in the water. The Orion Syndicate, with the secret aid of the Romulan Star Empire, created the Emerald Chain out of several Federation planets and associates by muscling in on their turf. Some people in the upper echelons of the government suspect foul play, as such President T'Rina sends Commander Burnham to investigate the situation and throws her lot with Cleveland Booker, a rogue element within the supposed idyllic lifestyle of the Federation. Eventually, Michael rejoins the Discovery's crew, but often butts heads with Captain Saru since neither of them has any idea how to get past their issues of trust and trauma, even if they come to respect one another. At some point, they are joined by Adira Tal, an inspector with the United Earth Probe Agency after some troubles on the Jovian Moons. Together they find themselves on an emergency trip to the secular world of Trill, where Adira is forced to deal with her past and the isolationist tendencies of the locals. We already know that one of Dax's previous hosts had interactions with the Federation during the 22nd and 23rd centuries so there is no reason for other adventurous symbionts not to do the same plus we can justify the death of Gray with the Klingon's attack on Starbase 1 or just the War in general, as such we have a lovely aesop of letting go of the past and living in the present and such. Anyways, besides that we also have a lost Vulcan colony that has been rediscovered following the Earth-Romulan War, it was thought that the entire place was glassed in nuclear fire. It is here where Michael uncovers a person from her past whom she hoped to never see again and where T'Rina's resolve is tested as whatever the colonists are hiding might be truly damaging to the Federation and Vulcans alike. Spoilers, it is the fact that Romulans and Vulcans can live with one another and complement each other's style of living under the right circumstances. Also, the person that Michael wishes to avoid is her mother, who was neglectful due to her grief and trauma to the point where Michael preferred to spend time with Sarek's family. Michael finally forgives herself and therefore the Georgiou hallucination that has been haunting her fades away as Burnham learned to move on, all the while Saru decides to take a leave of absence and return to his homeworld to help expedite the unification process between the Ba'ul and Kelpiens. However, not everything is going well for everyone as T'Rina gets impeached due to the Council losing confidence in her abilities to lead and the new President-Elect happens to be none other than the hawkish Laira Rillak, who is a Denobulan this time around since these guys barely got featured after Enterprise. The whole thing also benefited the Romulans since now they have more up-to-date information about their enemies without having to start another war.

Season 4: Honesty, not a lot has changed from the original format except that Gray is not coming back to life and Ruon Tarka is none other than former Captain Gabriel Lorca, who is now working with Section 31 after they went underground. Lorca's plan is quite simple as he takes advantage of the chaos happening around him and wants to undermine Starfleet since he is both petty and bitter about his imprisonment, he wants to push Laira to extremism, not unlike that of the Federation First party later in the timeline and also wants to get himself a new apprentice who happens to be the new Warrant Officer Cleveland Booker, who is quite rightfully angry at the resident hyper-advanced space whales for blowing up his planet and family. Hugh Culber, who got a very nasty case of having his back broken during season 1 because his Paul was having the mother of all mental breakdowns following his ill-advised augmentation with space tardigrade DNA, decided to become the onboard Counselor since he finally got over the fact that he spent most of season 2 in a medically induced coma and the break he took from dealing with his husband's bad decisions to deal with his own issues.

With all of this in mind, all I can say is that I have no idea what season 5 will bring and the move from the 23rd century to the 32nd century was not a great plan considering that they could have just done all of the above to obtain the same results, but hey that's just Hollywood's desire to milk that cow for that sweet, sweet cash. Keep in mind that during season 3 they transition from the Enterprise Blues to the Origanl Sweaters, but with something more akin to what those guys at the Axanar production have in mind. Also, I have been noticing that a lot of my followers tended to be from the Dark Side of Tumblr, so I made the executive decision to start blocking anyone who didn't have anything posted on their pages and no titles. After all rule 190 of the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition says "Hear all, trust nothing" and did I hear some things from those "followers" of mine that now I ain't trusting none of y'all without some proper IDs at hand.

This has been Greg for Owlman's Previously Owned Ideas. We do not advise you to let unknown people follow your profile unless you are into that kind of thing. We also do no refunds.

"That’s the true spirit of Christmas; people being helped by people other than me." - Jerry Seinfeld

Hey, hey, people, Greg Owlman here, and barring a copyright strike from a certain YouTuber, I believe it's time to get reacquainted with one another. It's me, the snake oil salesman that hopes to sell you ideas for the low, low price of getting some validation online and boy do I have a hot topic for your stingy souls. I know that little old me has been noticeably absent from this esteemed platform for quite a while, but between polishing up the present I prepared for you guys, the intricacies of real life, and my page being the new central station for all the accounts that deal with porn for reasons beyond my understanding, I have been busy. However this Christmas I give to you my reimagined version of Star Trek Discovery's four seasons.

Season 1 : Personally, I enjoyed the Dominion War saga from Deep Space 9 and I saw an opportunity to explore how the Klingon-Federation's conflict defined a good chunk of the TOS era, especially from the perspective of a hardened veteran such as Captain Lorca and a fanatic like Voq. With that in mind let's crack into it. The season begins with T'Kuvma radicalizing the fringe elements of the Klingon Empire such as the Purebloods, those not affected by the Augment Virus, and other discriminated minorities to take the office of the Chancellor for himself by starting a war against the Federation. It was during this conflict that people like Captain Lorca would be born, a necessary evil that works for the angels, and no, he is not from the Mirror Universe nor are we touching that can of worms for now. Lorca would be working with Section 31 and technically have a carte blanche from Starfleet, because he is shagging an Admiral, to do what is necessary to win the war, such as creating a more efficient warp drive by using a cyborg navigation system made from space mushrooms, trust me this makes more sense than what the show gave us, and by making more people like himself by basically being the evil mentor of both Michael and Tyler. Ash Tyler is not Voq this time around, but he did enjoy the hospitality of the Klingons and got the scars to prove it, both physical and mental. Meanwhile, Michael has to deal with a nasty case of a guilty consciousness and PTSD that take the form of the deceased Captain Georgiou, who acts more like the Terran Emperor since this is Michael torturing herself. Anyways, things don't go to Lorca's design as Michael doesn't fall into Darkness like Tyler is doing and the rest of the crew are really tired of the Captain's BS with how bad morale is going. It wasn't until the mission to Q'onoS by literally flinging themselves at light speed towards the planet and hope not to hit it in order to then get inside the crust and plant bombs that they finally had enough and mutinied. By this point T'Kuvma saw the writing on the wall as L'Rell betrayed him and Voq was dead, therefore choosing to kill himself rather than suffer the wrath of his people. It should be noted that this is not the last we would see of Lorca as a character and next time, he won't be siding with Paradise. L'Rell would use the opportunity gained by having the deadman's switch towards planetary annihilation and whatever remained of T'Kuvma's faction to get the big chair as the newest Chancellor of the Klingon Empire.

Season 2 : Truth be told, I didn't like the whole Control or Red Angel ideas, as such we are changing it into a race between two factions within the Federation to uncover the mysterious series of strange signals and their connection to a strange entity, while also having a B-Plot about L'Rell's attempts to prevent a Klingon Civil War. This season starts much like the previous one did, with a bunch of mysterious signals appearing out of nowhere and other reported sightings of an entity known internally as the Red Angel. Starfleet High Command, due to not having the necessary manpower and needing somebody trustworthy to handle things, transfers Captain Christopher Pike to the USS Discovery alongside some other officers to investigate, however, they are not the only ones looking into the phenomenon as a Section 31 Task Force headed by Leland is feed information by their double agent, Ash Tyler to no one's surprise, on what the crew is doing and based on what they are hearing they might be able to make use of this discovery. Spock, the living MacGuffin and Red Angel bloodhound, is a resource both factions are trying to get their mittens on. This is due to his unique status as a hybrid in an era where such people were seen as unnatural and were often shunned by others, as such he gained the interest of the Sphere, who itself was quite lonely and unique, therefore both of them formed an interesting bond, although the latter would interact more through weird visions with the former. Anyways this season The Red Angel is the physical manifestation of the Sphere as it attempts to interact with the rest of the galaxy. Anyways, it all ends with Section 31 losing the support of Starfleet following the battle of Control, which was basically, a secret space station where a bunch of insane Starfleet Admirals handle the intricacies of Section 31 operations and got killed by Leland in a power grab in the last leg of the season. They were being technically cut off by the Federation to save face and L'Rell managed to transition the Empire from the feudal space Vikings of old to the new technocratic communists IN SPACE as seen in TOS. Saru would receive his promotion to Captain of the Discovery and Michael would get her old rank back in exchange for an undercover assignment under the authority of the Federation Council and office of the President.

For now, I suppose this is a good time as any to have a break. I reckon that is the case since the audience retention time is quite low these days, God knows I am barely able to keep an active interest in shows longer than 20 minutes nowadays. There is also the word limit that a usual Tumblr post has and I would rather not lose everything I have written thus far because of an error thank you very much. As such, for now, we shall part ways with a slight debt on my part, but fear not for I shall endeavor to give you the last two seasons before New Year. Until that day, I shall bid you adieu for now.

This has been Greg for Owlman's Previously Owned Ideas . We do not advise you to lurk around without posting for several months, because the naughty side of Tumblr might invade your followers list. We also do no refunds .

" A bad workman always blames his tools " - Ye Olde Proverb

To paraphrase Demi Lovato, I am coming back and more honest than ever. It has been a while since I have decided to seek validation on this platform. I know, I know, what sort of self-respecting person would want attention in the toxic wastelands of the wide world web. Well, jokes on you and ... me, I guess since I do seek the coveted 5 minutes of fame. As such, I return with quite an interesting tale to astonish.

Let us turn back the clock to a time that might as well have been yesterday for some and literally a thousand years for others. It is September 19th 2017, the date when Star Trek: Discovery has premiered and when thousands of fans cried out in anguish. Some of you might wonder why is that. Well, the reality is that Alex Kurtzman really screwed the pooch with this one folks and to be honest this isn't even his first time working with the Star Trek franchise. Oh no, the guy had his hands in the creation of Star Trek Into Darkness, a lukewarm movie adaption of The Wrath of Khan. He really learned all the wrong lessons from good old J.J. Abrams and then some, considering that most fans were not really impressed with the show from the first season until the last. To be fair, Discovery had some good to it, but the bad and ugly far outweighed even Anson Mount's performance as Captain Christopher Pike in season 2 and the return to the roots of the franchise in season 4. As such, one might wonder, are all creators unable to work outside of their own headcanons or is it just some of them. To answer that question let us turn our attention to Ron Gilbert's Return to Monkey Island.

Ron Gilbert is the original creator of the first two games in the Monkey Island series and was a creative consultant for Telltale's entry into the franchise, Tales of Monkey Island. As you can see the story moved on from Ronnie's original plans over the span of three additional games of which only two bear mentioning. However, he managed to convince the media overlord Disney to let him try his hand at creating his own version of the third game that would casually reset the canon back to the where Le Chuck's Revenge left off. Over the spawn of two years, he and his team have worked in secret to create the game and in an earlier build of it, the idea was that our favourite pairing of the Elaine Marley, former Governor of the Tri-Island Area and Guybrush Threepwood, Mighty Pirate, would be on the verge of breaking up after years of being blissfully married. You can imagine that the testers they brought in weren't too happy to learn that Captain Gilbert was planning on sinking their ship and they made their outrage known. Ron saw the writing on the wall and wisely decided to compromise on his vision with what the fans wanted, as such he and his team switched gears and now aimed to find a way to canonize most of what fans loved about the games that came after the canonical two.

With all of this in mind, you can see why Discovery and Picard were not all that well received since they eschewed what fans loved about the franchise in favor of being generic Hollywood Action Dramas with so much angst about current sociopolitical events that they forgot that the Gene Roddenberry created an sociopolitical commentary that was dressed like an Science Fiction Adventure series who sought to educate people of moral values that can make all the difference for a brighter tomorrow. Alex sought to pitch his own personal tunnel vision to an audience that was tired of being stuck in a bleak world. In other words he was a bad worksman since he had no understanding of his tools nor the experience to select the best options. If he wanted to succeed he should have done what an entrepreneur would do and basically ask his audience about their lives and see what is missing from their day-to-day lives or what could be improved about it, but he learned that lesson too late in the game. To be fair to the guy, he did manage to get Strange, New Worlds close enough to what fans wanted that he could be excused for doing his best impression of a monkey that doesn't see or hear others. But enough bashing a dead horse, let's get to the fun part of the show. Let's get dangerous and create our retelling of Discovery's story in order to get it more in line with what we Trekkies would want. I would also give my two cents about Picard, but that show was soo out-of-continuity that I don't think even Alan Moore would know how to save it from damnation.

First things first, I will present some of the general headcanons that I think would have made more sense from a lore perspective and which justify the changes made to the original version of events. I think that the implication that the office of the Klingon Chancellor didn't exist before the ending of the season 1 finale contradicted too much lore established in Star Trek: Enterprise and therefore I prefer to think that the events that T'Kuvma set in motion were just a prelude to his ascendancy as Chancellor-Elect and the whole war would have been his chance to prove his worth to the Empire. I wilfully choose to ignore the existence of time crystals and the mushrooms hyperspace dimension and those are some hills that I will gladly die on since both are very poor plot devices that can easily be replaced with ideas taken from previous entries in the franchise, more on that later. On the subject of Michael Burnham, I think she and her mother were survivors of a Klingon raid on a research colony that claimed the lives of the rest of the family and in order to escape their trauma they ran all the way to Vulcan, where there wasn't that much of a human presence due to the Vulcan's passive aggressive form of xenophobia and as such whatever person from Earth who lived there was part of a very tight community. With that in mind and applying some childhood neglect on part of Michael's mother, it would make sense that she would spend a lot of time around Amanda Grayson's family to the point of being considered as part of it. Also the plot point of Control going rogue is a cliché that I chose to ignore and therefore Section 31 will simply become more like Cerberus from Mass Effect following the Klingon War. Got all of that? No? Good enough, we have a lot more ground to cover, but I think I ran out of space for this post and will most likely have to do a second one so stay tuned for that.

This has been Greg for Owlman's Previously Owned Ideas . We do not advise you to spend more for an acquisition than you have to . We also do no refunds .

"Yeah? Well, my god has a hammer!" - Nick Fury , Secret Invasion

Kept you waiting , huh ? I know , I know . Not exactly endearing myself to the anyone , but that's fine . Still it has been a few days since my last incoherent essay regarding whatever topic wormed itself into my brain . So ladies and germs , I came today to rectify that situation . Before that , let's hear a word from our public relations department . As a disclaimer , I do not make this post regarding Technoblade as a means to gain attention , this blog exists just for shit posting ideas and my own personal opinions and today's topic is regarding him . Personally , I believe in the idea that as fans , we should strive to keep Alex's dream even after his tragic death in June and this is my contribution to that effort . If you don't like it , don't buy it . That is all . Now back to the show .

So a couple of days ago , I was reading through a couple of Thor comics and eventually I make my way to Jason Aaron's work , specifically his run of the Mighty Thor when Jane Foster was the one wielding the hammer . At some point I get to the War Thor business , when Volstagg picked up the displaced hammer of Ultimate Comics Thor and became the God of the Bloodstorm , then my mental gears start churning . Out of curiosity I started looking for the character's concept art and then it all made sense . For those of you not convinced or too unmotivated to open your search engine of choice , here is a photo of the design .

To me at least it kinda screamed Technoblade , but then I started thinking to myself what could be done to this design in order to make it into a fitting tribute to the Blood God . Now , I am not an artist nor do I claim I can draw anything even remotely to the level needed to do both the original design and the idea I have in my head any justice , so I will also add some bits and pieces that came out as close as possible to what I intended .

Obviously I went for the Pigglin Technoblade since that's the one that the version of the titular character that I personally enjoy . What isn't quite obvious however to the casual reader is the weird robot arm sketch . This is my attempt to immortalise Alex's struggle against cancer , something many people this day and age have to deal it . It was mentioned that he would have been amputated if the doctors didn't find an alternative treatment plan and it seemed like something that I needed to add . It is just my personal preference and if people want to not avoid it , then I have nothing against them since I understand it might be a sensitive topic . Anyways , I also used a hoofed hand design in order to lean into the hog design and I added the small horns from Old King Thor's helmet design in order to represent Technoblade's crown .

Normally , I would have avoided posting this whole affair if not for one key detail . Today some representatives from the Foundation Kika came by my housing complex and they went door by door in order to convince people to sign up for a charity event that was happening tonight . It is meant to fund the continued efforts of combating cancer in children . The fact that these kids have to go through such ordeals and the very likely possibility that they might not make it even to their twenties just made me decide to push my inhibitions aside and write this . Screw cancer . What better way to celebrate Technoblade's existence than to dedicate my idea today to a noble cause . I am doing my part . If you are curious , I also added a hyperlink to their site , where details regarding next year's charity marathon are explained . Fair warning , the site is in Dutch , as such you should probably keep Google Translate nearby .

Anyways , to end this sales pitch , I am willing to part with the idea in the hopes that someone , someday will create something worthy out of my ramblings . Today's offer is on the house . Cheers .

This has been Greg for Owlman's Previously Owned Ideas . We do not advise you to post all your secrets on a Tumblr post , you fool , you moron . We also do no refunds .

" WHY BE THE [Little Sponge] WHO HATES ITS [$4.99] LIFE

WHEN YOU CAN BE A

[BIG SHOT!!!] " ~ Spamton , Deltarune

Greetings and bienvenue , loyal customers . Today , do I have the deal for you . Now you may think to yourself : " This guy again . Ugh , I thought you got the message . No one cares ! " . To which , I say : " Bah ! " . But enough , about the haters and naysayers . Let's talk about something people love to hate . Self - Insert fanfiction .

Everyone wants to be a [BIG SHOT ! ] . [ BIG SHOT !! ] . [ BIG SHOT !!! ] . But barely anyone wants to put in the elbow grease or has the moral flexibility of a piece of chewed gum in order to become one . As such , they tend to default to their favorite pop culture franchise and then ask themselves the question : " What if ... I was part of the story ? " . Now , as most fanfiction aficionados know and more casual readers are just finding out , this type of fan work is very self-indulgent . You might ask naively : "How self-indulgent can they be ?" . The sad answer is that they can quickly get into porn without plot territory or even cross into the forbidden realm of ... Mary Sues !

If your curious what a Mary Sue is , then ... look it up on TV Tropes . Honestly , I am an used idea salesman not a walking pop culture encyclopedia . But , long story short , they are overpowered little goody two-shoes with supercomputers for brains and who can do no wrong . Some authors tend to start as subversions to this idea , but slowly as the plot thickness they tend to cross the point of no return and become the very thing they swore to avoid . And this idea is not even exclusive to fanfiction , since it can be the main plot point of a TV show or a book . While not a literal Mary Sue , the titular mecha of Megas XLR is a literal fighting machine that can do anything and it cannot be defeated , although it's pilot is anything but that since he is a gearhead from New Jersey with the appetite of an entire nation .

Anyways , derailing this train of thought for now . Getting back on track of the original topic , Self - Insert stories tend to have a very common elements of how the plot evolves from the reincarnation or insertion of the main character into the target franchise by a random omnipotent being , the hero's journey to meeting the cast of their favourite piece of media , their attempts at using their seemingly infinite knowledge of the series to influence the narrative to their own goals , the emo phase where the main character angsts about missing the people back in their dimension , the reveal of their status as an interdimensional immigrant , romancing one of the characters from the fictional universe , the reveal of some edgy backstory and then either creating a alternative universe or following the same plot points of the original stories , but with extra steps . There is also the other variety of Self - Inserts that end up in Harem situations or desire to do their very best Doctor Doom impression and try to take over the Universe ! As you can see , it is rather self-indulgent if I do say so myself .

Now admittedly there are some Self - Insert stories that manage to make this narrative easier to digest and be fun at the same time , both for the writer to drone on about and for the random online person to read . One such story would be " This Bites ! " , a Self - Insert story about a random guy getting dragged into the One Piece universe , where he joins the infamous Straw Hat pirates , but rather than being a poor man's wet dream , it is an interesting retelling of the original universe , which adverts some of the more ... iffy parts of a Self - Insert narrative such as the aforementioned romancing whatever fictional character you happen to have a crush on and the big drama over being from another dimension . The latter being beautifully subverted by One Piece's main character himself , Luffy D. Monkey , who pretty much tells the main character in no uncertain terms to keep it to himself if it doesn't endanger the crew . Simply marvelous .

Admittedly , I am rather biased about this whole mess , since I read so many Self - Inserts that were obviously pulled from someone's private diary , that I grew jaded with the whole concept . You would too , after reading so many fanfictions about being a rather influential character in Harry Potter or Naruto and you are romancing the titular characters regardless of gender orientation or care for the original material . I mean , what deal would a civilian musician have with a military operation , even if Commander Sheppard recruited an archeologist and a tech-savvy vagrant , both of them were literally informants to an ongoing investigation and had their lives in danger . There is no sense , it is like the random omnipotent being gave the main character a +1 to their charisma or something , since they managed that feat of luck . Or just importing a flipping lightsaber and barely changing some terminology . Honestly , if you gave me five minutes and gave me some time to read through the codex , I could write something more believable from an in-story perspective with just the available lore . Like instead of magic space crystals , just say that it is a graphene blade that is created from a micro - forge in the hilt and agitated by mass effect fields to the point of being a high frequency blade . It stays true to canon and it is original , which are both good things . Then there is the whole sub-genre of " The Gamer " fusion fiction , which all I have to say is , go play a video game rather than read about it . Also , how could a person memorise an entire wikia page about a series to the point of being able to make a minor character's astrological chart without having their memories of the past erased just to make space ? And how can they just adapt to their new circumstances with no issues ? It's not like people of the modern era speak the same languages that were spoken in the Renaissance or even know how to operate future technology that requires information that didn't exist yet . It just boggles the mind to think about .

As you can all see , I happen to have opinions and those writers also have some "interesting" opinions of their own . Maybe , I am reading too much into the whole thing and lost track of the original desire of just reading something for fun . After all , fans tend to become rather toxic when someone threatens their headcanons . But enough about that . Rather than tell you about ideas I dislike , I will tell you about ideas I like . As such , I would rather read a story about a casual fan of a series being sent to their favourite piece of pop culture , where they have some general knowledge of how things will turn up , but not the entire series bibble worth of it , who will ultimately end up living their own adventures of learning about themselves and other through interacting with alien cultures and traditions , which haven't been explored in the lore rather than be shanghaied into the more action packed main plot . Their life story might intersect with the original narrative at some junctions , but it is more self-contained since the self - insert is having a blast with a plethora of original characters rather than worrying about some omnious doom only few know about . On the subject of their knowledge , I would rather skip the part of the whole dramatic reveal of their origins since at this point it is rather insignificant and serves only to burden the characters with a self-awareness that is just ripped out of the 90's . I don't say that the confidants of the inserted player couldn't be notified of this in order to reinforce the bonds they have , but it is a rather dead horse trope that needs to be left to rot in peace .

In conclusion , we all have something to trash talk something out of a need to vent the frustrations caused by an unrelated incidents from our real lives . What's important is to be a constructive critic , since you can moan about your hate boners all you want , but if you don't tell people how to improve , then your just contributing to the problem .

Now that I got off my high horse , you can comb this essay for whatever ideas you want to use for the low price of your attention span .

This has been Greg for Owlman's Previously Owned Ideas . We do not advise you to buy gold . We also do no refunds .

" You ever wonder why we’re here ? " - Simmons , Red vs. Blue

As a matter of fact , I do wonder why we are here . Specifically , why are we on this post ?

If you are reading this , then it means your a fan of either Red vs. Blue or Gears of War and that your really bored that there hasn't been any content for neither franchise . Don't despair , for Greg is here and man , do I have something for you guys .

Now , we all know about fanfiction , some of us read it , others avoid it like the plague and yet it is often these very brave people who write these things who tend to try to give us fans something new out of our current or past fictional fixations when the creators aren't doing anything new with it .

You may be wondering if I am trying to promote my own work to you , but I am not a writer . Oh no , I am not brave enough for that . What I am trying to sell to you is an idea , which you can take for your own use or ignore it at your own leisure .

Still with me ? Great , then enough dilly dallying , we have a show to catch . Now , what I am about to unveil to you is an crossover fusion between Red vs. Blue and Gears of War . You might say that it is yet another Halo rehash , worse than the Netflix show , but it is more of a Gears of War story with elements of Rooster Teeth's series more than anything .

The general plot happens after E-Day or Emergence Day when the Locust Horde launches its surprise attack on humanity and continues on past Victory Day or when the Lambent has been turned inert and the Locust went into hibernation . Why is it happening around this time period ? Because translating the plot of Red vs. Blue to a Gears of War setting isn't something that can be justified with the available lore we have from The Coalition studio , as such whatever weirdness was occurring in the seasons prior to Red vs. Blue : Recovery One must be carefully curated or we might get something fun here and we don't want that . Anyways , we can't really justify such things as Agent Wyoming's temporal distortion unit or Junior's existence , as such we might need to hand wave them away with something else . While on this subject , it might not be possible to keep the American States naming theme Project Freelancer seems to have , but then again due to a lack of a topological map regarding the world of Sera and having barely any knowledge regarding the process behind naming the cities , countries and continents of Sera , we can just say that the Freelancers got their names from places that people barely know of and leave it at that . We can however , say that the bomb that threw the Reds and Blues into the "future" of Season 3 was the Imulsion Countermeasure Weapon from the ending of Gears of War 3 .

Speaking of the Reds and Blues , while I am partial to the whole idea of simulation troopers , I am not really certain that in a world where everything is a battle of attrition with every soldier being a cannon fodder , a nebulous organization can get away with whisking away manpower is something desirable by the government during a time of crisis , as such we can simply go with the idea that they are mixed group of Stranded and ex - Gears . Stranded are basically everywhere and with the breakdown of both society and military discipline , disgruntled soldiers who deserted might be just as common , hence justify why this band of misfits is even possible by the standards of any modern-day military . Also Lopez might not be a humanoid robot right now , but he can be a JACK unit . But now , you might be wondering , what is the deal with the Freelancers then ? To which I say , the Freelancer Program is basically creating armor enhancements , then in order to test those modifications without the chance of losing said equipment to the Locust , they basically create tensions between rivals Stranded factions , then sell out their services to both sides and afterwards walk away with their data and a fresh pile of corpses no one will care about . Now your curious why are they doing this ? If you haven't watched the show , then spoilers , the Director of this whole mess is such a simp that he wants to Frankenstein's Monster his dead wife using Artificial Intelligence or more specifically Split Personalities that were surgically removed from an AI based on the Director's own mind . How would have this worked , who knows ? I am of the mind that he is an Artificial Intelligence specialist and didn't really have an idea how to resurrect his spouse without reverse-engineering the human mind , therefore he was blinded by the saying " If the only tool you have is a hammer, you will start treating all your problems like a nail ” . Suffice to say things didn't work out for the man . Now applying this whole shebang to a Gears of War setting is pretty easy since we know Artificial Intelligence technology exists in the lore and I can stretch the limits of belief by saying that he planned to use AI and cutting-edge robotics in order to transform his dead wife into a cyborg revenant not unlike Commander Sheppard in Mass Effect 2 . But I digress . The GoW Director's plan involved studying the neuroscience behind combining human and synthetic personalities as well as reverse-engineer desired traits by first separating them from the Alpha , more on him later , then cobbling them back together in order to get the gist of the puzzle , hence the Meta . This whole idea came from the concept of Huginn and Muninn or thought and memory , for those who don't speak Old Norse , which I interpret as the founding blocks of a person since we each have our own way of thinking as well as different memories that define our lives , therefore the Director would need to re-create both to get his money's worth . Long story short , he basically used his agents as guinea pigs to see how he could use an AI to simulate his dead wife's way of thinking as well as how divergent memories might interfere with the process . By far the best successes in that endeavor were the Meta , Private Leonard L. Church and Omega . Leonard is the mix of the hollowed out Artificial Intelligence Alpha with the mind of Private Jimmy , who were blended together in order to get the Alpha away from the more moralistic elements of the Program and basically ended up as a deadbeat soldier fighting a losing war for survival , which is way out of the way come to think of it .

With that out of the way , we can also say that the Freelancers were formed during the waning days of the Pendulum Wars as an attempt by the Coalition of Ordered Governments at a super soldier program since they weren't doing all that hot in the super weapons department against the Union of Independent Republics . The Director told the Chairman and upper echelon of the military what they wanted to hear , new armor and weapons capable of pushing past human limitations , while omitting the tiny detail about what he really wanted to do . Honestly this sounds like someone trying to cramp on Gendo Ikari's whole deal at this point . He managed to produce enough results to justify the Freelancers existence despite problems with mass producing the equipment by pummeling the revolutionary movements financed by the UIR into a pulp as well as making his organization as self-sufficient of the government as possible . This ultimately allowed them to continue existing even after the fall of human civilization as their existence was a secret known to a few and whatever evidence remained became the stuff of legends . That is until two of their former agents decided to put an end to all of this following the end of the Locust War , hence the plot of season 10 coming into play .

I know I haven't really talked about the story itself , but honestly seasons 4 to 10 are easily transcribed onto the GoW storyline that it barely needs any editing . Season 11 to 13 , however , might need some adjustments such as the Federal Government of Chorus being an UIR or COG remnant still in power following the post-war period that is fighting a pointless battle against the Stranded New Republic movement who want to do away with all the ideologies of the past . Little do they know that they are manipulated by a fringe element of the actual COG in order to get easy access to their natural resources . Locust is now named after the enemy that left a very profound psychological scar on him and Fenix might have been a Freelancer reject that has something to prove . Meanwhile the Reds and Blues were being transported by the UIR navy as per a recall order of all surviving Gear assets by the COG and have stumbled upon a minefield planted by the Pirate faction .

I will not touch upon any season or spin-off series after the Chorus Saga since there is no way I can hand wave away time travel shenanigans , godly AI and paradoxes , hence we are pretending they are not real for the time being . Pun not intended .

So yeah , that's the whole darned thing off my chest and ready for any of you to pick up for the price of reading this whole thing . What , did you really think I would actually ask for money ? I am bold , but not that bold .

This has been Greg for Owlman's Previously Owned Ideas . We do not take any responsibility for your blood pressure . We also do no refunds .