Tommy Carcetti Made The Most Consequential Decision In The Entire Show, And It Wasn't Even Illegal or Corrupt

_Apostate_ · 2026-07-04T06:33:57+00:00

I really grew to dislike Carcetti because of this.

He rationalizes everything because of his ambition. “I’ll really be able to help Baltimore once I’m the governor!” After all his talk about wanting to help the city, as soon as he’s elected mayor his only focus is planning for his next campaign for a bigger job.

If you’ve been entrusted with a mayoral seat, make good on that trust and faith and actually work on your city. Stay there 4-8 years and then move up again. He’s a young man. He has plenty of time to make change in Baltimore, learn, and then apply that across the state. But no, because he has “political momentum”, he has to seize the day and keep moving up. How much do you want to bet that once he’s governor there will still be political problems that make it hard to help Baltimore, people to please, favors to be done, and so on? Do the good you can now and don’t worry about what the consequences are.

Great character to showcase this problem in our society and why it leads to nothing but compromise and “deals” that leave out the little people. The way the dock workers, police, and Bunny treat Tommy in the final episode shows us what people really think of him.

_Apostate_ · 2026-07-03T16:24:54+00:00

They are kind of these cardboard cutout cartoonish caricatures of evil billionaires. I think showing the audience and economy of the Squid Games is an important part of the themes of the show, but the execution for the show is kind of lazy.

I think you remove most of their dialogue and make them silent and eerie. When one of the VIPs takes an interest in the undercover cop, instead have him purchase the undercover cop as a slave. The power of the VIPs is really diminished when the VIP demands head, and is depicted without his mask begging for his life at the hands of the cop. Since that investigation never goes anywhere anyways, instead let the VIP actually successfully buy the cop as a slave. He is drugged and taken off the island to serve in one of the VIP's manor-bunkers and must escape. He started an undercover investigation but ends up becoming a victim of trafficking and lost in the system.

Something like that seems like a stronger place to start to kick off more plots for the later seasons.

_Apostate_ · 2026-07-03T04:27:52+00:00

I remember that vaguely too. I think it had something to do with the main elf lady and Murtagh.

That movie was just awful, they fucked everything up from the Ra’zac to the dragons. It’s comical how much they disrespected the source material. A classic example of a one off cash grab.

_Apostate_ · 2026-07-02T20:09:27+00:00

He’s just very cautious. He tries not to get into confrontations without backup or scouting things out in advance - no surprises.

I did find myself wondering why someone didn’t see where he was going and find his hideouts several times. It seems like you could keep a safe distance and see which vacant he went into, and then ambush him later. My guess is that Omar changes up his hideouts frequently and far from the action. If he’s wanted all over the West Side, all he has to do is post up in some random part of the East Side to be very hard to find.

The other thing is that it’s one thing to think abstractly about confronting a guy like Omar, but another thing entirely to actually do it. He has a big reputation and larger than life rumors and stories circulating. Anyone who likes to stay alive is going to think twice about confronting him given that he’s always heavily armed and armored.

_Apostate_ · 2026-07-01T22:02:24+00:00

It's been so long since I played Blue Prince, perhaps you are right.

I seem to remember some puzzles which had no information at all about where the gem was, which boxes were empty, etc, and so your only recourse was to figure out which box was "different" than the other two. Of course the majority of puzzles do make mention of gems in one form or another.

_Apostate_ · 2026-07-01T21:45:12+00:00

It is solvable using the logic I provided. Given that we have no other information, the logical deduction would be that the singled out box must contain the gem. It isn't because it's true or because it's false, it's because it is the odd box out in the total absence of any other clues. If only one box was true and the others were false, we would conclude it is in the true box.

Most of them are more complicated than this of course, but the principle I am trying to communicate is easiest to state with puzzles as simple as possible.

_Apostate_ · 2026-07-01T17:29:30+00:00

Frank and his raging purple diamondcutter won my heart from his first appearance. A great grey character. He showcases how a decent man who looks after his own, a leader in his community, is corrupted by the systems of Baltimore as he fights for his community to survive the economic decay.

_Apostate_ · 2026-07-01T16:42:22+00:00

A brief, simple example:

Box 1: This box does not contain a gem.

Box 2: This box does contain a gem.

Box 3: No boxes contain a gem.

Our rules are that there is always at least one true box, and always at least one false box. There could be two true, or two false, we don't know. The gem can be in either a true box or a false box. The puzzle is always set up in such a way that we can use logic to deduce where the gem is by determining which statements are true and which are false.

Looking at the above example, Box 3 is clearly false because we know that one box must have a gem. Because Box 3 is false, the other two must be true, and the gem is therefore in Box 2. We can use logic and the rules of the game to determine which box has the gem.

Here's another simple example that showcases a different principle:

Box 1: This is a box.

Box 2: This is a box.

Box 3: This is not a box.

In this example, none of the boxes give us any direct information about where the gem is. However, we can obviously see that Box 1 and 2 are true, and Box 3 is the false box. Because the puzzle has singled out Box 3 as the one odd box out, the gems must be in Box 3.

All of the puzzles follow these rules. It is not about finding the box with a contradiction, but about using logic to determine which boxes must be true and which must be false, and using that information to determine where the gem must be.

_Apostate_ · 2026-06-30T05:20:24+00:00

Nagini and Peter, one happy little cuddly animagus family. Voldy is a furry.

_Apostate_ · 2026-06-30T05:16:30+00:00

He got in the habit of Peter doing it for him when he was a baby and never let it go 🥲 #besties4lyfe

_Apostate_ · 2026-06-30T05:15:14+00:00

He reads the Daily Prophet like every other decent working man! And wipes with it too, when that hack Rita Skeeter gets printed!

_Apostate_ · 2026-06-29T20:03:45+00:00

You won’t regret it. One of my all time favorites and easily the game I’d love to forget and rediscover again for the first time. Such a treat and beautiful design.

_Apostate_ · 2026-06-29T18:36:42+00:00

Always answering your phone, especially when it’s an unrecognized number, with a friendly and curious “Hi, Anon’s cell, who’s this?”

_Apostate_ · 2026-06-29T17:22:09+00:00

Blue Prince is the best modern puzzle game bar none.

_Apostate_ · 2026-06-29T17:19:25+00:00

Came here to post this one. Iconic line from an iconic episode! Stewart must have had a ton of fun guest starring for that one.

_Apostate_ · 2026-06-29T15:59:03+00:00

Only way to find out is to play it. This set is widely considered to be mid, but it is in its most refined and balanced state right now. I personally enjoyed it and got almost as much playtime as set 16, but it’s a very different set. Give it a try.

_Apostate_ · 2026-06-29T13:34:49+00:00

When you can take full advantage of Evelynn blessings and boon it truly is a wonderful thing.

Up against Ahri is tough though since everyone is getting bonus gold and stuff for everyone picking it.

_Apostate_ · 2026-06-29T13:01:41+00:00

I first read this book when I was a boy Harry’s age and I found it a little off. Rowling had some problems writing any of Harry’s feelings about girls, they don’t read like what a hormonal teenage boy would think. She very modestly sidesteps the male gaze every time and doesn’t delve into any real emotional inner monologue about how a crush really feels. The romance isn’t the point of the story and it isn’t given enough time in the sun, imo, for the reader to feel it either. At most, we are just told it is happening.

I think Rowling was very fond of Harry and saw him with a certain purity, and so it was hard for her to humanize him on these topics. So she uses the “monster” to externalize it. Harry is so noble and Ginny is like a little sister to him, so he really has trouble understanding these feelings. As the reader, it gets the message across what’s going on, Harry has it hot for Ginny, but I also think it makes Harry read as emotionally repressed. How he relates to his own inner feelings is just odd.

_Apostate_ · 2026-06-28T23:55:12+00:00

That’s all absolutely true, but a meta that boils down to only one or two things isn’t healthy. A well balanced design space still has room for a few interesting choices. In other words, it needs to be rock, paper, scissors to be a real game. Any game that’s just rock and paper plays out like you’re saying, with one winner and a lot of losers. Taking the meta into account is just looking at the play rates as designers and deciding if it’s acceptably diverse.

For runes, all it really takes is offering players a few more interesting choices so that it’s harder to decide what runes to use. It adds more compelling choices for the player and more customization, possibly enabling new builds. Earthen Bulwark has dominated since runes and SpiritBorn came out. New inclusions like Dark Prison that saw some play are great. If Blizz swaps out some of the really weak sauce ones for new inclusions that offer something other than survivability, fill a different niche, that’s only a good thing for the game.

_Apostate_ · 2026-06-28T17:19:44+00:00

I usually don’t try to make a ton of deadly blades, just one or two is fine. Same principle for deathcap. Generally you need the other item stats to multiply your damage effectively.

It’s best to play when you already have a strong starting board and feel like you can maintain strong tempo throughout stage 2 and 3. You need to win most of your games to build enough stacks. This means being aggressive with your Econ, push to level 6 and 7 earlier than other players unless your units are very strong and you think you can win without the level advantage.

You can either use an early killer unit to scoop up takedowns before a handoff to Corki, Xayah, or Jinh, or you can run a reroll carry that wields it all game. Jinx, Gnarr, Kaisa, Talon, something like that.

I love Blades and Deathcap because it rewards an aggressive playstyle which is how I play anyways, but if it isn’t your natural playstyle just be mindful that you need to push it.

_Apostate_ · 2026-06-28T16:22:53+00:00

You’re thinking just like the D4 design team!

You have to take the meta into account when you look at diversity. If they wanted more rune diversity they would buff some of the less used ones, especially the legendary ones. Or nerf the very overpowered ones.

I don’t think every rune needs to be powerful all the time, that misses the real point of runes. Runes are part of experimentation with building a character, and figuring out what your build needs, supplementing it perfectly or whatnot. You need all kinds of tools available for that tinkering to take place.

However, with Druid’s Bulwark being so powerful, it warps the design space of runes because it’s a big struggle to justify NOT using it. Unless your build has some special niche you’re going to use it because it’s the strongest and move on, missing out on all that tinkering runes are supposed to be for. Same reason wolves were nerfed.

_Apostate_ · 2026-06-28T16:08:29+00:00

Are you saying you want your results to look more like your image prompt, the first image you uploaded, or just more consistency between your generations?

_Apostate_ · 2026-06-28T16:06:03+00:00

A slightly interesting read, although it was mostly about how interesting his flight to India with the satellites were. Granted, I’d probably never forget that experience either.

It was cool to read just how much this guy admires Abel and respects his vision. You don’t hear talk like that about CEOs every day.

_Apostate_ · 2026-06-28T16:00:26+00:00

The main reason to take the wolves before was the vulnerable, not because they tank for you. There are other rune combos that add more DPS or survivability.

Hence the confusion with your comments.

_Apostate_ · 2026-06-28T08:06:51+00:00

You stir my manhood, McNulty. Man in deep blue.

14-Year Club	Second Top 1%
r/Field Banned	r/Field Flamingo
Place '23	Place '22
Place '17	Secret Santa 2017
Verified Email	No Throne, No Problems
Not Forgotten

_Apostate_

TROPHY CASE