I saw someone talking about this earlier, but I love the concept of The Winter Soldier being a ghost story. The IDEA of the Winter Soldier. Something you see out the corner of your eye. A ghost that leaves a trail of bodies. Something you never saw coming and never saw leave.
In CA:TWS the Death Squad mentioned by Bucky (idk how to spell the whole thing) is considered more dangerous. But in the 60 or so years that he was the Winter Soldier, he was the one people feared. Yes, the Death Squad was successful, but that was the work of 5. He created a reputation by being a one man killer. Not only that, but an efficient and deadly machine with one mission. To comply.
I kind of wish we got to see more of the Winter Soldier in action (but don't get me wrong, seeing Buck as the Winter Soldier makes me sad). Having more elaboration and action would be interesting though.
Riri Williams goes to MIT. Ned and MJ (probably) go to MIT. This means that they could all meet and possibly befriend each other, and if Peter keeps going to see MJ, he might learn that she hangs out with Riri. Riri, the person with an Iron Man-esque suit, something akin to that of Peter's dead mentor/father-figure. Riri, the person who's picking up the mantle that Peter was accused of wanting to pick up and getting away with it, while Peter lost his whole life because of that accusation, and the person who gets to be around Peter's best friend and girlfriend when Peter doesn't.
Maybe MJ and Ned would even help Riri out on building the suit like Ned helped Peter out with hacking his. Peter could probably use some help regarding his new suit, but that help goes to Riri instead.
Peter would probably build up some sort of resentment toward her, and I feel like if she got to build a relationship with an Avenger/Thunderbolt after Peter's relationship was destroyed, that could turn to a jealous hatred, especially if she was given access to Starktech, or got close to Pepper or Morgan or Happy or Rhodey or anyone who'd forged a connection with Tony, because Peter doesn't have that connection anymore, and probably never will.
Edit: I've tired of dealing with the reblogs, so say what you want I guess, but here's a screenshot of my conversational tags because words are being twisted:
"Billy is ungrateful to Wanda" is such a shallow take.
The Kaplans sheltered him from ending up LIKE Wanda-alone, unbound & misguided with all that crazy potential. They instilled good values, making him the brave and empathetic kid who stepped up, controlled his powers, chose to be good, and will root for Wanda cuz he sees the good in her too(Children's crusade).
My kind of outlandish solution to all the timeline wackiness in the Sgt. Fury comics:
The Howling Commandos were stuck in a time loop. The time loop was triggered by Junior Juniper dying. Every time the rest of the Howlers die, they all get shot back to an earlier point in the war. They don't have all their memories of their previous incarnations, just bits and pieces in the form of deja vu and odd precognitive senses, so they don't even realize they're in a time loop. And that's why some issues take place in say, 1945, but then oop suddenly they're in 1943, even though the story is told seemingly linearly. So the war really is endless for them. Eventually the time loop does somehow break when in the cycle they're in, Captain America (Steve Rogers) and Bucky Barnes actually "die". The first on-page major permanent death started the time loop, the first major retcon finally broke them out of it. The Howlers don't know this, though– they weren't ever really all that especially involved with Cap and Bucky. So they don't even realize when they're finally free because they don't even fully realize they aren't free to begin with. And Nick Fury eventually realizes what happened to them, which is partly why he ends up killing Uatu the Watcher decades later.
oh my god. oh my fucking god. i just had the most insane and delusional realization/theory about agatha and rio. hear me out ok
first lets recap. agatha's colors are purple, and rio's colors are green. purple is a mix of red and blue, and we associate red with rage, passion, love and blue with sorrow and grief. green is a mix of blue and yellow, blue being the same and yellow as happiness. bUT HERE'S THE THING OK. yellow is also associated with obsession, sensationalism, and cowardice.
we know for a fact that agatha and rio are bound by their sorrow. they share grief--of being hurt (agatha) and of hurting someone they love (rio). HOWEVER, agatha channels her grief through her rage. she turns her blue into red, and we see this in her snark, her devil-wears-prada act, flaming everyone around her.
and rio? she sensationalizes her grief.
she answers agatha's rage with mocking confidence, challenges her passion with her own obsession, hunting her down but never quite killing her--she processes her grief through this facade of sensationalism, but underneath it all is her own cowardice--which the better word for it here is shame. she clearly regrets having to kill(?) nick, but the question no one seems to be asking is this:
why didn't Rio just leave Nick alone?
yes we assume she's the personification of death. but she said it was her job, which means she has someone she answers to. if rio is everything she seems to be, why didn't she challenge whoever it is that gave her that job? if she loved agatha so much, why cause any harm to nick (her son) at all? it looks like she accepted it so willingly, which is why i think agatha hates her so much. so in my mind, i'm thinking rio is always regretting that choice, and she might have thought it cowardly or shameful. because what could have possibly been powerful enough to punish her?
WHICH LEADS ME TO BELIEVE that Rio's trial is having to face that choice again: Rio's trial is going to be about sacrifice. about LIFE.
and i think it fits with the themes of maiden-mother-crone. there's this really good post that i 100% agree with that delves more about the themes (@shutupineedtothink), but essentially what this person talks about is how jen's trial is birth, and rio's trial is life, which completes the witch cycle. i posit that jen's trial is about confronting death. jen is a midwife. midwives don't just make sure that the baby is delivered safely, they are there first and foremost for the mother--because the mother's life is what ensures the baby's. birth is such a dangerous process, because at any moment both mother and baby could die. the midwife's role is to avoid both from happening.
and that exactly opposes jen's essential conflict: rather than confront death (whether that's the death of her powers, the death of her legacy, or the death of belief in herself), she avoids it. thus, the crux of her trial is for her to confront death, and in doing so, face herself. she's been hiding behind the fact that she's bound to excuse all of the choices she's made so far--the trial, then, forces jen to remember that she's not defined by her binds. her potions and knowledge all help the coven dance with death and leave (mostly) unscathed.
the same goes for every witch--the road opposes their essential conflict and forces them to face it:
alice's conflict is denying the identity her mother passed on to her: how can she protect herself, her loved ones, if she doesn't know her own power? if she doesn't know herself? (in comparison to jen, who already knows her capability and denies it (and has it taken from her), alice refuses to know it when it's being handed to her on a silver platter)
agatha's is most likely her power: she defines herself with it, after earning it with blood sweat and tears from years of study and experience. but without it, who is she? what can she do?
lilia's is her past: she is hopelessly stuck in it. she can't shake all of the things she's seen and experienced. and if she's stuck in the past, how can she be able to face the future?
teen is still a bit of a mystery, but i can guess that his conflict is that he doesn't know where he really comes from--and why he's being hidden (we'll end it at that bc there are so many ways that could go)
THEREFORE WITH RIO, her trial is going to be about saving lives, as opposed to taking them. if rio really is the personification of death, she's the one being in the world who absolutely cannot be attached to anyone or anything. and she's THE green witch: she deals with ephemeral things all the time. flowers bloom and die, animals prey on each other, hell even the seasons are a metaphor for death. but here she is, hopelessly in love with agatha. thus, with rio, i think the road will put her in a position where she has to choose between agatha and teen. if she chooses agatha, she'll risk losing agatha's heart forever, because that will be the second betrayal. if she chooses teen, agatha will die. so i think it'll force her to come up with something to save them both. she has to go against her nature of taking lives the way she didn't when faced with that choice earlier with agatha and nick.
because what else does the yellow in her green stand for?
I am calling it now: the reason that Doomsday even exists is because Steve broke the timeline when he went back to Peggy. That is why RDJ plays both Tony and Dr Doom in the MCU; why Steve Rogers is YOUNG in his return trailer and not the old man we saw at the end of Endgame.
The whole thing in the Dr Strange movies and the Loki series is about how you cannot go back in time and try to change the past. That is EXACTLY what Steve did in Endgame, even knowing the risks. (Idk why but I have a feeling that there was an ulterior motive than Peggy).
My guess is that Steve will have to go back to his original timeline (before he went in the machine in Endgame) and try to fix his mistakes. This will also tie in the Loki series and all it set up in the lore/universal rules.
I’m just saying there has to be another reason why everything that happened at the end of Endgame was so OOC/went against the character arcs of everyone.
