#that totally wasnt ominous at all

[maretriarch]

Sometime ago you posted something about sleeping outside and I genuinely felt bad and wanted to ask if you were alright. But then you said you were fine and then you were on day two on that I think? I hope you’re doing better now.

ahaha im a bit embarrassed by it all now but yes things are better and i wont be in that situation again im sure

[voguesriot]

DON’T HURT YOURSELF ✹ luke castellan

( summary ) social media au where your boyfriend became the asshole everyone warned you he’d be and now you’re looking for revenge (& luke is a down bad loser w no game)

( pairings ) luke castellan x fem aphrodite counsellor!reader

DIRECT MESSAGES

sarahdawson: hey girly ik we’re not like close or anything but something happened last night that i need to tell you about

sarahdawson: so i was getting strawberries yesterday and max was there and he was being really weird and like flirty and i’m so sorry i feel like such a horrible person even though i turned him down right away but he tried to kiss me and i hit him and then i went back to my cabin but i had to tell you

sarahdawson: i’m so sorry

yourusername: THAT FUCKING ASSHOLE I KNEW HE WASNT WORTH SHIT

yourusername: this is clarisse btw i took her phone

yourusername: (me again) thank you for telling me sarah it rlly means a lot 🫶

sarahdawson: if it makes any difference you’re way too hot for him and literally anything you need (even rigging archery lessons so the new kids take shots just as he’s walking by), i’m your girl x

♫ Don’t Hurt Yourself by Beyoncé feat. Jack White

♡ liked by silenabeauregard , connorstroll , and others

yourusername love god herself (love u mama) 💋

sarahdawson AHHH YOURE SO PRETTY

yourusername THANK YOU GORGEOUS 🥹🥹

clarisselarue too good for anyone 😮‍💨

silenabeauregard prettiest girl everrrr

chrisrodriguez pur girlie

yourusername what.

chrisrodriguez gods forbid a man expresses an ounce of girlish whimsy

yourusername nooo queen i appreciate you thank you

seaweedbrain you ate ‼️‼️‼️

seaweedbrain ate my dessert*

seaweedbrain it’s all fun and games until you end up stealing from the youth

seaweedbrain count your days miss counsellor

yourusername my girl sally should’ve kept you on a leash for a bit longer because you are rabid my love

seaweedbrain I WAS NEVER ON A LEASH WTF

racheledare STUNNA GIRL STUNNA GIRL I CHOOSE U BABY OVER A HUNDRED GIRLS

yourusername ME AND U 4EVERR 🙏🙏

lukecastellan nice dress!!

this comment was deleted.

clarisselarue lukecastellan i saw that.

lukecastellan why are you so ominous

clarisselarue why are you such a loser

lukecastellan have you ever been chill for a day in your life

clarisselarue have you ever known the loving touch of a woman

chrisrodriguez FOUL 😭😭😭

♫ Feather by Sabrina Carpenter

♡ liked by drewtanaka , pipermclean , and others

[ tagged: yourusername , clarisselarue , silenabeauregard , drewtanaka , hazellevesque , pipermclean ]

sarahdawson girls night w my favs 💘

silenabeauregard APOLLO CABIN 🔛🔝

yourusername FORREALLL

yourusername best night i’ve had in a long time i love u all sm ☹️🫶 ( liked by sarahdawson , clarisselarue , silenabeauregard , drewtanaka , hazellevesque , pipermclean )

silenabeauregard MY GIRLSSSSS

wisegirll prettiest girls in the world 💕💕

clarisselarue sarah girl love ya but maybe leave the singing to ur siblings 🙏

sarahdawson RUDE

yourusername sarahdawson dw baby i loved our duet xx

sarahdawson we simply are destiny’s child

drewtanaka yk who is shaking in his boots

seaweedbrain oh yeah cool i didn’t even want an invite it’s totally chill

yourusername calm down lil guy maybe when you’re older

clarisselarue if zeus doesn’t smite his ass before he gets the chance 😭

seaweedbrain clarisselarue I BEAT YOUR DADS ASS HES LITERALLY A DEADBEAT DADDY

wisegirll too far

seaweedbrain sorry clarisse

lukecastellan yourusername we could hear you singing all the way in hermes ☠️

yourusername NO THATS SO EMBARRASSING WHICH SONG

lukecastellan i think it was never lose me or smth

clarisselarue bros acting like he hasn’t been thinking ab it nonstop

yourusername lukecastellan i’m so sorry for any pain i’ve caused

chrisrodriguez AYY BRO MAKING MOVES

groverunderwood you call those moves? 😭

chrisrodriguez baby steps are still steps let me celebrate my guy in peace 😔

♫ Heartless by The Weeknd

♡ liked by connorstroll , and others

maxwalsh never been better

clarisselarue oh that’s not ☠️

lukecastellan this what you’ve been doing instead of coming to sparring?

maxwalsh it’s a better challenge

drewtanaka THE CLAWS ARE OUT MEOW

yourusername just posted to their story!

DIRECT MESSAGES

lukecastellan: you look really pretty

[the-fandom-hopping-mage]

doctor who 1996 movie

stop hurting the tardis pls she's the best and doesn't deserve any of the shit you put her through doctor

why is the master a slug

I know he was a cat once is he trying to start a collection

oh no he's horrified, you can tell by the fact that you can see the entirety of his eyeball

wait are time lord remains just slime is that what they're trying to say

AGH FISH

AGH KNIFE

well if you're gonna run away do it the second you see the car not when he's seen you and starts pulling in

hehe idiots the car's gonna come around the corner and probably hit you

how tf is he not dead on a slab

bro zig zag you gotta run zig zag

don't worry random child you're getting saved by an alien who's about to get shot by those guys and his boyfriend who took over his space machine

NOOO STOP HURTING HER shes probably fine but STILL STOP HURTING HER

why did he fall like that tat was hilarious "eugh" *le death* he sounds like a swooning victorian maiden

for the record I totally called his death

and that car

hey it's the tardis she's not a thing don't be rude she's the best character ever

how tf did he get over there

oh its not the doctor its the kid's dead friends

hello random child are you excited to see a dying man EXPLODE

why is he so casual about it "oh yeah guy who's bleeding out and just got shot hm .......................................... I'm gonna call you an ambulance"

oh hehehe the hospital is gon be so confused

oh ominous music did the master follow his boyfriend to the hospital that's rly sweet

wait where are the wounds

is this bitch dying from a shot to the arm

weak

WHERE DID THAT COME FROM THAT WASNT THERE EARLIER

if your listening to his heart why do you need a scalpel girl i don't think hearing = seeing

he's aliiiiiiiveeeee

isn't he back already stop electrocuting him

they're gonna be besties i know it <3

he's on his side how is he snoring

i can suspend my disbelief for aliens and shit but real life stuff you should get right

why are the lights outside changing colors is it aliens or just lighting

oh wait do they live next to a traffic light that would make sense

the doctor: thank you very much kind sir i shall 😴

we're 21 minutes in cut to the chase and die already please

also girl stop pouting his snoring isn't even that loud

oh now i understand what ppl meant by 'the master wants to be inside the doctor'

doctor who is so weird i love it

where's the lightning coming from

oh was that the 90s regeneration energy

rude i already made that joke like ten minutes ago keep up

isn't that a pull door excuse me

how did he hear that from two rooms away

wow ominous punching noises in the morgue you should definitely come closer to it

OMG IT'S ALIEN JESUS

"oh my gawd"

doctor: um rude

hehe the movie is still mimicking him

what's with all the convenient long dark ominous backlit hallways for the main character to pose dramatically in in media why are there so many

*ps i made popcorn :)*

some doctors (nine/ten) regenerate into a romcom. this doctor regenerated into a horror movie

hehehe he still has the john doe tag on the toe

where did he go why is everything destroyed the horror movie thing was a JOKE

in that shot he looks like owen wilson

bro the jesus thing was also a joke

i know who you are you're frankenstein

first i thought we were in asia then i thought we were in London now we're actually in san fransisco

hehehe it's the scarf

hehehe its a face

ngl that mirror does not look like its reflecting his face properly

nope sorry kit it's not a memory chamber no chameleon archs involved here

"I need the doctor's body" yeah i see what yall meant that's a totally sane and normal thing to say about your not-at-all-boyfriend

hehe they made the jesus jokes too

shut ft up bitch and stop talking to her like she's six years old you can pick up the goddamn pace with your fucking words

"bitch watch me"

how far did he back up

he's in the car

ha haha

why is there a security guard from the outside there is nothing wrong with that car

"grace why aren't you understanding this i have thirteen lives and two hearts pls its so obvious try to keep up"

and here we go again

that looks so cozy i want to live in that tardis

*deep voice* "it is me. i am the boy friend of the doc tor. i want his bo dy."

"Bah ruce don't scare me like that pls"

how does he know his name yall met once

awwwwwwwwwwwww she likes himmmmmmm

I'm rly a guy w/ weird eyes

text does not do justice to theweird voices I'm using (cause I'm saying half this shit aloud first)

BITCH WHY ARE YOU GOING CLOSER

"he's Nat Ded"

"oh shit i offended his boyfriend someone's in the denial stage of grief"

he did nat steal yo body bitch you're stealing his

i like this kid

omg shes literally me i eat pens too

yay he has shoes finally

*investigative glass* my scientific deduction is that that red liquid you took from my body seems to be my own blood, how curious

"iTs NoT bLoOd" ok girliepop what is it then?????? id love to know

aw i love hearing him talk about gallifrey without that underlying note of grief and pain and loss that all the nuwho doctors have

omg ive seen that shoe clip its so cute and silly

*run run run run run* he got the zoomies

girl: *looks into camera like the office*

*stealing from boyfriend* omg parallels to the whatsisface boyfriend

"you know this is all mine" i burst out laughing i honest to god died

ALL THE TIME LORDS ARE SO CASUAL ABOUT THIS "OH YEAH HES DEAD BUT HES ALIVE NOW NBD" "OH YEAH I HAVE TWO HEARTS WDYM YOU DONT"

"unspeakable crimes" you can say sex

how did he recognize gold dust on sight

kid its probably sand why tf would the doctor have gold dust

"DeAl"

omg its a golden snitch

"well of course it used to belong to me" I'm actually dying i cant

um bro that thing is the size of his body even if he is the 'chosen one' or whatever bs you're feeding him he probably couldn't lift it

bitch HOW

finally bro's catching on to the bs he's spouting

"i know who i am! im the type of guy who kisses women randomly!"

"doct-eah" they're so married

THIS IS SO RIDICULOUS "hes planning to take my body so that he will live and i will die :0 *run*"

doctor: honeslty woman try to keep up why isn't this making so much sense to you

first intelligent thing that woman has done all day

well that's conveinient

"oh fuck its my evil boyfriend"

aw chickens

"he's . . . british." HA

"jelly baby, officer?"

none of these people should have a license

good to know that his horrible driving skills apply to every vehicle not just the tardis

"you kill me" yes that is what will happen to you when the master gets his way excellent deduction

girl's got her priorities straight: alcohol > clock

how is that working there isn't any tension on the wheel they should be plummeting

THERE she is <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

weoweoweOWEOWEOWEOWEO "i cant find the brakes!?" *distant echoing weoweoweoWEOWEOWEOWEOWEO "aaaaaaah"

close your front doors idiot

why does she know that is she possessed by the slime

hehehe called it

"and you beLIVE him????" facts

BAHAHAHAHAHA OH MY GOD HE LOOKS SO STUPID DOES HE REALLY WANT TO BECOME FUCKING RASSILON????? HA

ok someone's sucking up to the kid

Lee's like wtaf is going on

oops i ran out of space on the other text block

i feel like she's faking or smth she looks like an angel w/ that thing and he's coughing

"i would never lie to you i would only protect you" funny how none of that is true even remotely

how the hell do all these characters remember all these super specific spoken instructions during high stakes situations, i can't even remember spoken instructions on a regular day

cant she just pull out one of the huge pole things wouldn't that stop it

he's always so kind even to the ppl who are actively trying to kill him and the entire planet

I CANT HAHA ITS SO STUPID

i don't think it's the tardis who's sentimental, doctor

SHE ATE HIM

why are we all so tense

that poor guy

you go boy

i despise these 90s romance arcs theyre so horrible yall met two hours ago

thats sweet

wait how does he die then

*after google* ohhh okay guess ive gotta watch the 50th anniversary now

[okase]

a dream

[shywhumpauthor]

ik that this idea is not your usual writing type bur im just in love with your writing and i want to see how will you write it. sooo: Civillian used to date Villain when he wasnt a villian yet. when he became villain he broke up with civillain to keep her out of danger. bcz duhhh he is dangerrr. few years passed and Civillain was walking down the streets at night ans she was backed up into a wall by Other Villain who was really scary. before he could do something Villain shows up to save her bcz he still has feelinga for Civillain.

IF YOU DONT WANT TO WRITE IT I TOTALLY UNDERSTAND NO RUSH, BUT IF YOU DO, CAN IT BE A LONG ONE? ANYWAYS HERE HAVE A COOKIE🍪 AND HAVE A GOOD DAY

Thank you for the cookie anon! I hope this is long enough

Cw: manhandling, creepy/intimate whumper, beating

Civilian shuddered as the cool breeze pricked the back of their neck, the little hairs along their arms standing on end. In the flickering yellow streetlights, they could barely see ten feet down the street, the ominous fog that had settled over the city doing absolutely nothing to help their growing anxiety.

They were stupid for being out there alone. Just earlier that day, there had been reports of multiple mugging throughout the city, centered around the very streets they walked down. They should have brought something to defend themself, pepper spray, or maybe a pocketknife. They only had one pocketknife, one that Lover had given them years ago. They knew exactly where it was, in their sock drawer wrapped between a pair of unicorn socks in case of an emergency. Lover had told them to take it with them whenever they went out. Civilian hated the idea, they hated violence. But they should have listened.

It was growing late, Civilian noted as they checked their phone. The battery was almost dead. A terrible situation to be stuck in, especially when walking the edge of Othervillain’s territory. They knew it was risky being out here in broad daylight, there had been a hit and run the week before just a street or two over, but with the moon weakly shining through a layer of clouds, it was downright idiotic to be out alone, a mere matter of time before something was bound to happen.

A scream caught in Civilian’s throat as a gloved hand wrapped around their neck, yanking them backwards into a dark alley. Stars exploded in front of their vision as their head was slammed back against a brick wall, their body pinned against it as another figure pressed flush against them.

“Well, aren’t you just a little doll,” The stranger’s voice was breathless as they stroked Civilian’s cheek with a gloved knuckle. Civilian’s mouth opened in a silent scream, they couldn’t make a sound. Their stomach twisted in disgust as the stranger’s predatory gaze wandered their body, lingering in places before eventually returning to their face. “Quite a catch, if I do say so myself.”

Civilian’s heart was pounding out of their chest, they were sure the stranger could feel it. They couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. Their mask- this… this was OtherVillain. A- a murderer! Oh his. They were going to die. OtherVillain was going to kill them and they were going to die here, all alone in the dark, dirty alley-

“Get away from them, Othervillain,” A harsh voice hissed, as the stranger was ripped away them, thrown back with ease as if they were nothing more than a sack of potatoes. OtherVillain stumbled, slamming back against the wall and collapsing to the dirty trash-covered ground.

“Stay out of this, Villain,” OtherVillain scrambled to their feet, as Villain stepped in front of Civilian. “They’re my catch.”

Civilian couldn’t move. It was as if they were rooted in place, frozen in fear. They could only watch as Villain launched themself at OtherVillain, slamming their fists into the other’s face.

Time seemed to fluctuate. One second, they were watching Villain beat the ever loving shit out of OtherVillain.

The next thing Civilian knew, Villain’s cold familiar eyes were inches from their own.

“-vilian? Civilian? Are you with me?” Villain asked, carefully raising a hand to cup Civilian’s cheek.

“Who-“ They turned their head, shaking off Villain’s hand, their eyebrows furrowing. They knew that voice. “How-“

“Did that bastard hurt you?” Villain asked, their eyes full of concern.

“No… how do you… know my name?” Civilian breathed.

“I… just do,” Villain’s eyes cast downwards, and Civilian gasped, the gears in their mind clicking.

“Lo-Lover?” Civilian felt sick. Lover always looked down when they lied, such an obvious tell once you realized.

“Hey sweetheart,” Villain tried for a small smile underneath their mask, the corners of their eyes crinkling. Civilian’s mind was reeling. Lover, whom they had been partners with for three years, and promptly been dumped by… was the city’s biggest enemy?

Their eyes rolled into the back of their head, and they collapsed forwards, their mind unable to take any more stress. Villain quickly caught their limp form, and scooped them into their arms.

“I’m so sorry, Civilian,” Villain whispered, pressing a quick kiss to Civilian’s forehead. “I had to. I promise, it will all make sense soon.”

[semi-imaginary-place]

dgs1 case 5 cont.

ah yes the top secret police assignment... whose details we are now discussing in public to an audience

really going to blast out government secrets to the whole courtroom huh

tons of people are born into poverty. yeah the true villain is corporation an trusts but cool backstory still murder.

and he almost got away with murder twice if it wasnt for us pesky meddling lawyers. i almost want him to get away with the mcgilded murder, almost.

yeh maybe dont carry a loaded gun is you arent prepared for someone to die.

eh I wouldn't say graydon and mcgilded are the same. for 1 the scope of their operations are very different. and their victims rather different too. mcgilded was racketeering and extorting and hypeaccumulating wealth, graydon was selling out the government. the pinning murder on other to get away with their own sure.

did graydon doublecross mcgilded oho?

the susato catflap stuff seemed a little contrived. i do get what they are trying to do with her faith in the law but i dont feel the execution is there. also she totally better at this than naruhodo im still salty shes not the protagonist.

k. asogi, a. shin, t. gregson, j. wilson. hmmm i did get spoiled on some dgs2 stuff but looking at the information available at this point in the game its rather ominous that 2/4 on this list are dead.

the game says that how naruhodou handled the mcgilded case was wrong but also steongly states the importance of trusting the defendant. truth or trust? mcgilded got an innocennt verdict because naruhodo ignored all the suspicious parts of the case like evidence changing. was he wrong to believe in his client's innocence?

h.

[zed-36]

hey hey! for the hot wheels asks: any questions that you wanna answer but haven't gotten (or repeat questions that you might've had multiple ideas for and wanna share)!

yeah totally!! i Always love talking asdjshdfdf ill do a few more for now

20. What would you like to see/have seen in a continuation?

Aside from the obvious “finish the story” in a general sense, i i really would like to see actual previous WR character’s present and expanded on if we assume a number of them did stay with Tezla. And honeslty, not even in a “they are all Silencers” way? bc i think that would be boring if they all were Silencerz. i also wouldve liked to have seen some solid cross team friendships form between individuals (vert and markie for example) because it never felt like anyone was really that close even though they started to work together at the end.

16. Any crossover/AU ideas?

i obviously explained a markie/kurt swap which is a sorta AU, so i wont go over that one again but. heres a few quick ideas i have on mind!

AU where Taro is Zed-36 instead of Kurt (based on my the comic theory/headcanon i posted)

complete team swap AU. Teku guys and now MM, MM guys is now Teku. sounds like a mess but also a fun way to push some characters tbh.

Gelorum/Tezla AU swap... They actually are the same (gelorum is still a drone) but their intentions are swapped. Tezla is the antagonist and managed to control the drone army while Gelorum is ‘good’ (as good as tezla was in canon lol) and gathers humans to help her. more complex than that but thats the basics

i would love to think of crossovers but i just dont like enough fandoms i feel would work lol... but i do think a crossover/AU with other existing HW stories would be cool, i loved Velocity X and it has a real cool aesthetic too which feels in line with Acceleracers. seeing those stories/worlds crossover would be neat.

4. Favorite & least favorite character(s)?

Most Favorite - Kurt Wylde because im predictable. i think hes a character with the most potential and also most interesting development even with where it lacks! of course ive spoken of what i would want to change, but i still like him a lot

Least Favorite - ok i dont want to be simple and say like.. Sparky/Monkey/Porkchop because theyre annoying comedic relief... so picking a character i genuinely dont care for that much uhhh it would have to be Nolo... as i have explained i just do not like his attitude through 90% of the movies. and i blame more of that on poor writing, because he did a complete 180 after somehow forgiving Tork which made no sense, but it didnt change my impression of him lol. i like the fanon but not the canon.

6. Favorite & least favorite realm(s)?

(Neon) Pipeline realm would be least favorite i think... in terms of like, idk i just found it very boring to watch? it felt like it would be cool but the whole scene with it was kinda lacking (aside from giving Silencerz stuff) and i think couldve been tackled in a much cooler way. Second to that would be Cavern Realm but its only because it was in a minisode that got no screen time and seemed very boring anways

Favorite in general would be Warped Realm! but thats from the cards only and i just think it sounds really cool. from the movies, i would pick the Metro Realm. even tho i felt it wouldve been nice to explore deeper (and got sidetracked to plot stuff i wasnt super into watching lol) its a favorite for how weird it is. i cant be the only one who found it super ominous?? the robotic traffic and stuff.. really weird and i like the slightly off-putting vibes

[dahniwitchoflight]

Homesquared Chapter 3

So i have seen smidgens of this on tumblr but just havent had time to do anything about it

and jesus christ Callie Jade is so horrifyingly creepy, and you know the things she’s narrating the characters can also hear which is also hilarious, it just reminds me of that comic about how “yeah sure there’s a giant ominous red floating eyeball in your kitchen, constantly staring, constantly judging, but can you be sure that’s a bad thing?”

and then someone tries to talk to it, but it doesn’t answer and the person goes “fine be an asshole i dont give a fuck”

thats exactly the dynamic happening with Callie Jade right now

Grumpy DaveKat is hilarious

and Hey! we finally get to see how people look, I really dig Roxy’s look

“ROXY: dude doesnt "believe" in "substances"”

This line from Roxy makes sense, as a person wholly ensconced in the idea of their own self and always being in control of themselves and their own mind and faculties they would hate anything at all that causes that iron mental grip to slip

That’s probably why Dirk avoided sleep even when his dreamself was awake, even sleeping and dreaming was considered a form of himself losing control over himself that he couldn’t integrate the idea himself and his dreamself were the same person rather than two identical people and also I remember that the Jujupop didn’t affect him either

Later on Dirk in the narrative will say something about his own trauma, but not really go into what it is, but if I had to hazard a guess (and really it’s not much of a guess at this point)

Dirk probably has memories of a version of himself being under the mental influence of another, Lil Cal, LE, Doc Scratch etc what have you, So Narrative Dirk may actually be a version of Dirk who’s not quite yet poisoned into being a version of those 3, but his words also hinted that just because he’s aware of a certain way that he’s acting doesn’t make him more likely to stop it

Like he’s equating that you can be aware of the influence something else is having on you and in the exact ways it is influencing you without being able to stop, the exact thing he is traumatized and afraid of being most likely

So his one driving fear, is he does not want to lose control of his own soul, his own being, his own way of life and existing, to something else, something other. Even though he most likely is fully aware of the things and mannerisms of the other that have slipped into himself? Like he’s probably fully aware of the similarities between himself and those mentioned above, but maybe the thing that he’s hinging on is that instead of those guys poisoning him into being like them, instead perhaps he can convince himself that it’s his own self influencing others to act like himself instead. His influence reaching out and expanding instead of shrinking as he fears it

Anyway, Dave and Kanaya have a cute moment, I really like that

We get a nice shot of them in shadows against a backdrop of stars and Kanaya starts talking about a story Rose would once tell so that’s story is already gonna be dripping in metaphorical potential

“ A Wriggler Story About A Young Prince And The Beloved Flower He Loved And Lost”

Though that’s a story I’m actually familiar with

KANAYA: A Singular Wild Rose He Failed To Cherish When He Had Her

KANAYA: And His Journey Of Discovering What She Meant To Him All Along

KANAYA: Culminating In A New Quest To Find Her And Win Her Back

KANAYA: The Story Comments On The Nature Of Friendship

KANAYA: And Of Course In Turn Love

KANAYA: How Once They Connect There Is No Distance Or Circumstance That Can Seperate Them

KANAYA: How The Worlds In Each Ones Mind Take On Contours Shaped By Their Memories Of The Other

KANAYA: Places And Moments And Orbiting Passersby Becoming More and More Entangled In The Context Of Their Mutual Affections

KANAYA: Such As With A Garden Calling To Mind An Engagement Once Declared There

KANAYA: Or Something To That Fucking Effect

So obviously Dirk and Rose

Dirk has Rose with him, discovers an actual genuine connection with her, likely because he already viewed her as an equal, despite his manipulations of her, and chapter 4 spoilers but he genuinely wants to play a game with her when there really isn’t any reason for it, so he is actually curious to see who comes out on top of it, Him or Her, so Dirk is probably in some way desperate to have an actual equal partner in some way instead of drowning in himself all the time, not surprising. But Rose, obviously, will leave and reject him, likely when the manipulation comes around and is revealed/Kanaya and all them reach her/that part of the story

But then the story tinges onto a romantic nature and is framing Dirk trying to get her back as a romantic quest to save his partner/friend something something love and friendship, “no distance can separate them” yeah that doesn’t sound like obsession with the first person you’ve ever truly seen as an equal/a real person, 

yeah “A Garden calling to Mind an engagement once declared there” definitely sounds like the garden of eden/adam and eve paradise fantasy that Dirk has been trying  for some reason, to setup on the new planet

Really begs the question for why Dirk cares at all to do all of this? Except we now the answer is already its not the thing itself he cares about, its the value hes putting into the story as something that generates interest in the audience

He doesn’t care about actually making a society or being gods or whatever, he just knows thats what the audience wants to see and cares about so therefore he does it

and the reason he does all of THAT is because is ties into his trauma of his sense of self eroding away becoming a person he’s unfamiliar with

I wonder how he’s going to handle how much he’s going to change in order to fit the role of the story he’s writing when all is said and done

the Dirk at the end of this is going to be very different than the Dirk that started in Homestuck, despite all of his fears and intentions, and that he could not say all of it wasnt his own doing because of the iron control he made sure to have from the very beginning, I honestly think that will be kind of a shock for him if a meeting like that ever one day happened

Specifically for the fact that he seems to be aware of the romantic in nature tropes hes writing himself and Rose into and for now still seems to be avoiding them, not having gone that far, but, well

Maybe this is where we’ll start to see where Doc Scratch’s odd tendencies starting coming from

You know he was always really weird with Rose and Vriska (Maybe because he sees Light players all as extensions of Rose herself?)

Anyway yeah this is def the story metaphor I think we’re going to see in this, but Kanaya doesn’t fully get it, she thinks the story refers to herself and Rose

DAVE: that seems kind of wack for a kids story

KANAYA: Its Possible I Am Projecting Slightly In This Specific Circumstances

KANAYA: It Was Just A Metaphor

KANAYA: But In A Way I Feel As If It Is the Greater Universe Trying To Tell Me Something

KANAYA: It May Simply Stem From My Longing To See Her Again And How Much Is Indicative Of Something More Sinister

Which is cool because it makes this opposing connection between Dirk and Kanaya as opposites, which I like because it solidifies a tiny bit more the idea of Sylph being Passive Create to A Prince’s Active destroy.

Oh yeah, there was a tiny hint of Mind metaphor as well, can’t forget Terezi is with them

KANAYA: How The Worlds In Each Ones Mind Take On Contours Shaped By Their Memories Of The Other

KANAYA: Places And Moments And Orbiting Passersby Becoming More and More Entangled In The Context Of Their Mutual Affections

KANAYA: Such As With A Garden Calling To Mind An Engagement Once Declared There

Basically the idea that your experiences of a person and your memories of them shape who they become as well, the boundary between you and I is controlled by both of us, so each has an effect of the personality Heart of the other through our own decisions and Mind

like the way people tend to mimic those they like and want to be close to, or the way they actively try to distance themselves and what they are like from those they hate

But that at all seems to be more about Mind in general than referring to anything specifically Terezi

though it is exactly that understanding of Mind versus Heart and how one affects the other that could make Dirk realize that in the question of the self he’s only had half the picture the whole time, he’s only had the understanding of Heart and has thus far not been able to understand how Mind plays a role in the sustaining of the self, how what other people do to help you to be you, which is his entire philosophical conundrum

“DAVE: the dude youve spent the last 7 years convincing yourself isnt an egomaniacal anime villain

DAVE: and who isnt actually lying in wait to completely decimate your life and your emotions and shit“

oh, that makes me sad, this is def bringing up some bad trains of thought for Dave ):

“ KARKAT: KANAYA BARELY EVEN TALKS, CALLIOPE WON’T LEAVE THEIR CABIN, JADE JUST FLOATS AROUND LIKE A CREEPY BALLOON THAT’S MOSTLY MADE OF HAIR.

OH RIGHT, I forgot Calliope is actually WITH them on their journey, despite seeming to want absolutely fuck all with Jade Callie, I totally thought she was gonna stay back on Earth C but I guess not!

It’s so odd to see them so terrified of their alternate self like this when they’ve interacted mildly before. I still don’t know what to think of that much, other than they seem to be doing that weird thing that the other kids went through, like how John scribbled clowns on the walls unknown to himself for the longest time due to Gamzee’s unseen mental influence

that’s exactly the type of shit Dirk would be afraid of, so I wonder if that’s what Callie was afraid of as well? Maybe its Jade Callie that’s influencing them this way not Gamzee, to scribble strange things on the walls and not come out, but it’s the same fear of the other regardless manifesting and changing the self.

It is a very oddly non social thing for Our Calliope to do, when the point of different between the two Callie’s was how social Calliope was versus how antisocial Jade Callie is. Worries me ): but at least they’re here I guess

KARKAT: SOMETIMES IT ALMOST FEELS LIKE WHATEVER SLATHERING MONSTROSITY OF A COSMIC HELLBEAST THAT PUT ALL THIS SHIT INTO MOTION...ACTUALLY LIKES ME?

ROXY: fucked up if tru

Karkat is really popular as a character in the fandom lol

and that’s that one, time to get to Chapter 4, which has a lot more juicy exposition

With all the Garden of Eden metaphors though I can’t help but think of the Apple of the Garden of Eden when I think of “story exposition” now

The juicy tantalizing forbidden red fruit that when you bit into it you suddenly understand and know things you did not before and you’re eyes are opened, I wonder if that’s enough to just make Apples a solid Symbol of Light in Homestuck’s context? Most of it’s association with knowledge is external to Homestuck, just referenced symbolically, it’s not actually used in any cirumstances pertaining to knowledge, but more as the metaphor of it being the gate to leave the garden of eden, more like a teleporter, Rapture and Revelation in general rather than just Knowledge itself

aka my new headcanon is that one thing needed to Alchemize a Transportalizer is inexplicably going to be an Apple, if that ever comes up at all

[introsquirrel]

Headcanons about bnha characters

I'm on mobile so bear with me

Todoroki Shouto

Undiagnosed autism

We all know he's academically smart and socially a dumbass but he plays it up a bit because he thinks its funny

Was punished for stimming as a kid so he tends stop and start randomly

Has never swept a floor

Thinks Tiktok is an Australian animal

Would kill a man for YaoMomo or Midoriya

He expresses all negative emotions with ice, so as a kid his ice flared up more. Now that hes feeling much more positive emotions his fire is flaring up more

Answers all personal questions ominously (ex: "hey todoroki, what would you be if you weren't a hero?" "I wasnt allowed to think about it.")

Is tactless but not cruel

Doesnt understand memes but he'll learn them because they are popular and fun for other people

Prefers cold drinks

Bakugo reminded him of endeavor when school first started but he doesnt think so anymore

Is actually very good friends with sero but hasn't realized it yet

Will fall asleep instantly if sitting in a moving vehicle

Tsuyu Asai

Trans!

Doesnt need hormones because shes part frog and can do it herself

Is pretty insecure about it but she is a believer in "fake it till you make it"

Doesnt eat bugs normally but will do it to mess with people (and as a power move)

One time in the beginning of first year she was going to the restroom while 1-b was in English and there was a spider under mic's desk so he was freaking out, so 1-b was freaking out. Tsuyu poked her head in and ate the spider and left. Mic swears the spider was huge and poisonous so 1-b only knows tsu as the 1-a person who ate a poisonous tarantula and they are quietly afraid of her

She has a swear jar for bakugo and plans to tell him the total when they graduate

Keeps a list of all of mineta's bullshit and presents to aizawa every week

Is very sensitive to scents and chemicals so asks no one wear perfume in class

Has to custom order her hygiene supplies because sensitive frog skin

She snores but it sounds like a frog singing

Has to be very careful of meds she takes so she prefers med free methods

Midoriya Izuku

Adhd

Has been hyperfixating since the dawn of time

Pretty good at drawing

VERY good a impersonations

Youd never know because he can only do them in front of his mom (and one time, All Might aka "eat this")

Likes kids but kids dont like him

Will not let people eat alone if he can help it (he dragged todoroki to his table)

His luck is 0 or 100, no on between, making him forbidden from joining the class d&d game

He's a combination emotional drunk and I-Love-You-Man drunk

Which is to say that he cries about how amazing all his friends are and will drunk text them rants about how much he loves and appreciates them

Perpetual baby face. This kid will be asked if he wants a kids menu in his 20s. He will be carded well into his 40s.

A pansexual disaster

Hates it when people (mineta) asks him his ideal type because how can he say "everyone in this class is amazing and I am suffering"

He's accepted that everyone is out of his league and is just happy to be included. Being in the friendzone means having a friend!!!

He and Momo can never be good friends because if they were they would be too powerful, and also they would disappear for months on end only to emerge having covered Momo's ballroom with a conspiracy theory-esque map of hero culture since humanity began

Does not own a comb

Tokoyami Fukimage

His parents are Shikamaru and Ino from Naruto and you cannot convince me otherwise

[blookmallow]

playing rusty lake Roots... theres so much going on 

i wrote this post at like 2 AM last night so its kind of incoherent lmao

ok so now im following the family history of... maybe the founders of the rusty lake hotel? someone who is Involved Somehow. some weird shit is going on and im really into it but not quite following yet 

oH god theres a dead guy in the clock. ok 

i spent like 10 minutes solving puzzles in this room with that dude in there the whole time and i had no idea OK SURE 

then i had to burrow into his chest to steal his heart, as you do. sorry sir apparently i need it for some reason but it doesnt look like you’re using it anymore anyway 

very romantic

the absolutely batshit solutions to some of these are so good like. “she likes him! he likes her! help them communicate” “ok i will... give her a rose” “she likes the rose! oh she pricked herself and is bleeding everywhere now” “i... use her blood. for ink. with the feather i got from a raven earlier. so he can write her a love note. with her blood” “great job! they’re engaged now” “i see” 

and you’ll NEVER GUESS where i found a ring for her 

god damn it its you again

why is this disembodied hand following me everywhere i go... i didnt kill it this time it was already dead but like, Why 

oh fuck its the dudes!!!! from the hotel!!!! its the guys!!!! 

i can also see them in the hotel across the lake despite everyone else being humans this time and it feels like this should be Before the events of the, uh. dinner party. but it might be shadows of the future to come or something, there’s a lot of ominous Fate and something to do with memories happening here 

oh. that’s why i needed the heart. i see 

im collecting sacrifices for some kind of revival i think, im betting this is gonna end up being how mr. owl happened somehow 

oH god that’s. ok. fuckign christ 

thats not. how any of this works but sure ok that happened 

really not a fan of the fact that the solution to “how do i get the key from the dog” ended up being “feed it the woman’s fucking placenta after she gives birth” lmao ok

i do like when the solutions are like. unexpectedly horrifying, though. that moment of “wait. no. no. oh god. thats it isnt it” 

also the woman would only give me one bottle of milk (there’s three babies) so i had to fill another one with wine and another with water. i feel like this is a bad method of caring for your triplets but what do i kno 

i know this all isnt really meant to be taken literally tho i think... everything happening here is highly symbolic but im not sure exactly how

the milk goes to samuel, who seems the most normal/put together child, maybe the one who was treated the best/the most privileged one/the one closest to the mother 

the wine goes to albert who ends up being the most fucked up one so maybe thats a sign he was abused/maybe one or both parents had an alcohol problem they took out on him the most 

im not sure what the water would mean though, that one goes to emma and shes a botanist so, water for the flowers, i guess, she later commits suicide but i dont know why yet (or maybe it might not be explained at all) maybe it’s a. wasting away/neglected thing? 

hm.

im missing a shot i thought i had here but you’re in an alchemy lab trying to make this elixir and the alchemist won’t take it, and the only other thing in the room is.... the dog 

so i was just like :( im gonna kill the dog arent i 

but then 

the dog drank the elixir and was fine so the alchemist tried it and immediately died, so apparently it’s a 50/50 chance of either reaction and not “it works or it doesn’t” all around and now we have an immortal dog :’  ) 

either that or it just doesn’t affect dogs. time will tell i suppose

anyway this is how albert turned out and i would do anything for him LOOK at this baby boy 

he wanted a butterfly so i solved a bunch of very strange puzzles to obtain one for him 

fuCKing hell 

albert you’re not gonna believe this look what i found

FUCK yeah you look great 

i brought him the butterfly and he immediately stabbed it to death but really im more concerned with the fact that it’s BLEEDING RED 

look at him go

i carved a pumpkin mask for him and he loves it 

i hope albert knows i would die for him 

ok anyway uhh its 2 AM as of when im writing this so i should stop but im trying to work out thoughts on what the fuck is going on here so far 

ok so

james married mary and they had three kids

james might have murdered his uncle or something im still not sure why there was a dead guy in the clock at the beginning 

somethin sure happened there

james became fascinated with alchemy and eventually died trying to create an elixir of life. something or someone is trying to do some kind of weird revival ritual with body parts. i highly suspect that might be where mr. owl comes from

its not totally clear what’s going on with albert, he had a mark on his head when he was a baby but im not sure if his face is like that just bc birth mark or if the wasp incident made it worse or something, i feel like it wasnt as visible in the childhood scene but i dont remember now 

he wanted the butterfly when he was a kid too but it wasnt clear if he liked it or wanted to kill it then too. not sure if the wasp incident Changed Him/was the start of lifelong rivalry with samuel, or if albert’s just mentally ill and that was just One More Incident with his siblings bullying him, or maybe a combination of both

emma grows up to be a botanist but commits suicide for reasons unknown

there was a really weird disjointed flashback on emma’s side of the tree where albert kind of inadvertently dumped a kid into a well (he was... spinning the crank thing mayb stimming or something, the player makes the swing go too far to make the kid land there in the first place so idk if thats just The Hand Of Fate or what, but albert didnt technically do it he just was the reason he lost grip on the. thing where the rope goes/he didnt help the kid) (but again he’s. not mentally well, i think it was ‘he didnt understand what was going on’ more than ‘he committed a possible murder’) so idk if maybe that was emma’s kid?? she also may have been impregnated by plants. dont know what the fuck that was about either 

samuel marries a fortune teller named ida (and has more kids i think. i wasnt paying close enough attention to the photo on the wall) who albert also loves but she seems to think of him as the devil and has visions about him i think

it looks like albert loses it and puts some kind of curse on samuel possibly black magic/voodoo/something which MAY have turned him into mr. crow, which, fucked up if true 

but im hesitant to accept “albert’s just Fucked Up And Evil” bc... the wine bottle seems to imply he was not treated well as a baby/possibly abused, samuel knocked a wasp nest onto his head which isn’t massively outside the realm of like. sibling rivalry stuff (my brother once smacked me in the head with a snowglobe so hard i had to be rushed to the doctor when he was rly little/i was younger and we’re Completely Fine now lmao) but maybe fucked him up worse than they realized 

and the whole thing with ida, too. theres no detail given but it definitely seems like samuel is the favorite child and albert is the “we don’t talk about that one” child so its like. years of abuse/unequal treatment/etc and we dont necessarily know how samuel’s treated him all these years or if there could’ve been more/worse things going on 

i dont know!! i like him and i want him to get help and not just be condemned as the family demon just bc he spooky 

[mrsrhys23]

My wish

Paring: Colt x Ellie / Drake x Riley

Warnings: None

Word: 1, 523

A/N:  I don’t own any of these characters, they belong to Pixelberry Studios. This is a part of @cxld-play and @bi-cookie​​​​​’s @choicesfebruarychallenge allenge​​​​​​​​​​​. The prompt is festival 

Permatag: @desiree---1986 @cordoniaqueensworld @itschoicesstuff @emilypowell001

RoD tags: @lovehugsandcandy @troublemakerinspace

 “Colt we are going to be late, unless you hurry up,” Ellie warned...again, biting at her thumb nail nervously and glance down at her watch. 

“We will be fine, “ Colt insisted from the ensuite bathroom. A moment later, he emerged holding his new jacket aloft. It had recently been his birthday and Ellie had thought he needed a new one, the old one was starting to get a bit tatty. 

She glared at him, then to her watch then back up to her boyfriend. They had  a total of fifteen minutes to get there but he didn't seem bothered by it and that was starting to piss her off. 

She stared daggers at him as he moved in front of the full length mirror in their hotel room, slipping on the jacket and admiring his reflection, running his hand through his jet black hair. 

“We’ll be fine.”

“We’re gonna be late, Colt, it's your fault,” she seethed. 

“I don't get why you’re so worried about it. It’s only some stupid festival. It’s not important.” 

Ellie and Colt had been in Cordonia for the last seven days. The country meant a lot to her since her mother was originally from there. Ellie had never actually been given a chance to visit before, she had always wanted to but didn't get the opportunity until now. 

Her mother used to tell her it was a beautiful place and it really was. It was like something out of a fairytale.  

The couple were attending The Lantern Lighting Festival in Valtoria  that evening and she was due to see some of her family there too. 

She was going to be seeing her cousin, who she hadn't seen since she was a child and his wife and daughter. 

Colt had a point that she shouldn't really be worrying about it but she was nervous. They had been staying in a hotel in Valtoria. Colt had another point when he said they’d be fine because it was only about ten minutes away from the estate, if that. 

She stared pointedly at her watch then at him, who simply sighed and turned to face her. 

“Come on then,” he said, doing up his jacket, Ellie had told him he should probably be wearing a suit but he refused, then moved to grab his phone, slipping it into his pocket, then they headed out and into the waiting SUV. 

Ellie wasnt surprised that Colt did not question it. She loved Colt endlessly but sometimes he didn't pay much attention to things. 

He looked at her oddly when she kept bouncing her leg up and down- if only he knew who her cousin was. 

The journey to the estate was fine. Yes, Ellie continuing to bounce her leg, rubbing her hands together and the humming was a little irritating but it was better than being continually dizzy while watching her pace around the hotel room. 

The pulled up outside the entrance, Ellie being captivated by the amount of people wearing beautiful, shiny gowns and the press swarming about. 

Ellie was about to open door but somebody beat her to it. She stepped out, smiling up at the man who had done so and thanked him. 

The sun was just starting to set, consequently engulfing the estate in a soft orange glow. Eliie loved the sunsets in Cordonia, they were amazing, all the shades of orange, yellows and reds mixing in together, it was just like her mum used to describe.

After Colt had climbed out too, they headed inside  being led to the  dining room, where her cousin had suggested that they meet because everywhere else was heaving with people, by a woman called Gladys.

She informed the couple that she would go and inform them that their guests had arrived and they were to just wait there for a few moments. 

“What is going on?” Colt asked.                    

Ellie looked at him like a deer caught in headlights, amongst all the chaos and adventures they had been going on she had forgotten to explain to him what was actually happening. 

“My mum had a brother, Jackson, he was in the king's guards. Anyway, he has a son, Drake, who is kind of a Duke now,” she explained, missing out a lot of details but she didn't have time to tell him everything. 

“Come again?” She shrugged, not waiting to explain it again. “Since when?” 

“Since an American called Riley came here, she was supposed to marry the king, Liam, Drake's best friend, that didn't happen, the king made her a Duchess and Drake married her, becoming a duke and they have a daughter, who is the heir to the throne,” she explained, rather hurriedly. 

“Are you making this up?” 

“No, I'm not making it up Colt. I know it sounds insane but so was us taking down The Brotherhood- things happen.” 

“Fair enough,” Colt shrugged, “When was the last time you saw this cousin of yours?” 

Ellie thought for a minute, “Probably when Jackson died. Nearly twenty years ago now, we’ve kept in touch since but we’ve haven't spoken for a while. I told him we were coming a few weeks ago and Drake invited us to come to the lantern lighting festival. Oh, did I mention the king will be here?” 

Colt shook his head, “No. No, you didn't.”

“Well he will be, with his wife, Madeline. Drake said she’s evil and we should avoid her so...She does sound spoiled from what I know about her. Her father also killed the former Queen,” Ellie mentioned.

“Alright,” Colt shrugged. She could tell he wasn't really interested in this. 

“My mum used to come to this when she was a kid. My dad  brought her back here and proposed to her during one of the festivals.” 

“I didn't know Detective Wheeler  was into romance,” Colt said, quirking a brow.

Ellie smiled, “Well, he loved her. He would’ve done anything to make her happy and coming back here did just that.” 

Colt smiled at her. His parents were never like that, they mainly made each other miserable. He really would’ve loved to meet her mum, maybe she wouldn't have been so against him dating her daughter.

Just then Drake walked in, followed by his wife, Riley, holding their two year old daughter, Jac, on her hip. 

“You’ve gotten taller,” Ellie mentioned, looking up at him. 

Drake hummed in response.

“Not gonna say hi?” 

“It's good to see you, Drake,” she smiled, pulling him into a hug. After the cousins had said their ‘hello’s’ they both turned to their partners. 

“Ellie, this is my wife, Riley and my daughter Jac,” Drake introduced. Riley stepped forward, shaking Ellie’s hand. 

“It’s nice to meet you,” Riley said. 

“You too.” Ellie turned to Colt, stood by her side. “This is my boyfriend Colt.” 

The two men exchanged a handshake and ‘hello’ then he turned to Riley doing the same.  Drake looked down at his watch. 

“We better get outside,” he told his wife. 

Riley nodded and they headed through the estate and outside. While they were walking, Drake turned to Ellie, “How’s your dad?” 

Ellie shrugged, they had only just started to rekindle their relationship. “He’s alright. How’s Bianca and Sav?” 

“They’re okay,” Drake nodded, “Sav got married, had a son, Bartie.”

“Good. She deserved that after everything.” 

“Yeah.”

 They arrived outside, Drake and Riley greeted Liam and introduced Ellie and Colt to him. Ellie saw Drake let out a sigh of relief when Liam informed him Madeline was indisposed. 

Ellie had met Liam very, very briefly at Jackson's funeral, other than being the king now he hadn’t really changed. 

Liam took Jac when Drake and Riley went to go and speak to the press, to  a male and female reporter that Ellie had clocked were called Anna and Donnie. After they had finished their interview everyone walked down by the river and was all handed a lantern each. 

Colt and Ellie stood beside one another, Colt’s free arm wrapped securely around her waist. He leaned down, “What am I supposed to do with this?” He asked, nodding to the lantern. 

“Either make a wish or choose something you’d like to let go of,” She explained. 

“A wish?” She nodded. He leaned in closer to her, right next to her ear, “But I've already got everything I've ever wanted.”

Ellie turned in his embrace slightly, planting her lips against his. After she pulled back, he leaned his forehead against hers. “Then choose something to let go of.”

Colt nodded. He looked up at the lantern, catching sight of all the others littering the starry night sky and then let go. 

He looked down noticing that Ellie had not let go of hers yet. He quirked his brow, she smiled up at him and let the string slip out of her grasp, floating up to meet the others. 

“Which one did you choose?” Colt asked. 

“A wish,” she explained. 

“Which was?” 

“If I told you it wouldn't come true but I’ve got a feeling it’s gonna come true pretty soon.” 

“Sounds ominous.” 

“Just wait and see.”

[genderfreezone]

Do you like the Evil Within 2?

Yeah! Certainly not as much as the first one (i was not immune to being sad they left out fan favorites Jojo and Ruvik's Cube)

The rest of this post is me rambling about things i didnt like about the game, and then things i did like (most of my issues are how they treat the female characters tbh)

Its missing kind of the action-noir-gone-horrifically-wrong feel of the first game. The scare factor also suffers bc our player character has been through this before, hes a veteran at dealing with this crazy shit, it doesnt phase him anymore and by extension it doesnt phase the player. They really like tripled down on the Evil Corporation thing and both the intrigue and horror suffer for it.

This game did not drink its respect women juice (the first one didnt really either, case in point: Everything About Kidman) Sebastian is surrounded by 5+ female characters and only 2 of them survive (and one of them is his 7 year old daughter hes spent the whole game trying to rescue... and yet they never bothered to give her any kind of characterization or agency. A highly empathetic and supernaturally powerful little girl in a monster-infested hellscape?? HELLO???? Lily really had the potential to be the most interesting, sympathetic, and complex character--especially as she slowly lost her innocence--in the WHOLE GAME, but she was just sort of relegated to Plot Device McGuffin) The rest of the female supporting cast are killed off for Sebastian's Man Pain. In fact, THIS ENTIRE GAME IS CENTERED AROUND SEBASTIAN'S MAN PAIN. Torrez is a walking stereotype, shes literally just Vasquez from Aliens. Hoffman was the most likeable and believeable, except when it Turns Out She Was In Love With Liam Or Whatever (psst, guess what, i dont care. Also O'neal was kind of a dick anyway? I dont care x2)

And you know who i SUPER dont care about? Bland-White-Bread-And-Mayo-Sandwich Myra. Where's the no-nonsense firecracker of a police lieutenant Sebastian married? Not here, thats for sure. Her entire personality is "mother" and "worries about stressed-out husband". We got more characterization of Myra in seb's jornals from the first game, where she never even made a physical appearance! Horror media does this SO MUCH, women are either A. Sexy Lamp B. Hurts Men (Sexily) C. Mother or D. Innocent Virgin. It sucks. Do better.

The story lacked the "digging up old buried memories" and "theres more to this than meets the eye" of the first game. It felt too...... Straightforward. Everyone told Sebastian the truth. EVERYTHING WAS EXACTLY WHAT IT SEEMED. It all felt too simple, too easy, like there SHOULDVE been something else beneath the surface. And yet there wasnt. (I watched markipliers playthrough and i loved his theory that Kidman was actually Lily. It had such potential. Kidman's entire resume for the police station was fabricated, who's to say the rest of her past wasnt fabricated as well? It would retcon a lot of stuff and like 80% of her backstory from the DLC, but you know games like this arent above retconning important shit, and at least it wouldve been sacrificed for something with actual intrigue. Maybe it wouldnt even retcon anything! Consider: tiny Lily is taken by Evil Corporation and dropped off in a non-nurturing environment that would lead her to become the kind of person who would willingly join & work for an organization like Mobius. At least wouldve been a nice excuse for why Kidman and Lilys face models looked so similar... other than... yknow.... "WomEN ARe hArD tO DRaWwwwwee")

Okay okay ive been ranting for long enough. It probably makes it sound like i kinda hate this game, but i dont! It certainly doesnt hold the same place in my heart as the first one (which i still have very glaring issues with lmao Kidman deserved WAAAAAAY better), but i do like it! It brings back salty, grizzled, tsundere Sebastian Castinellos. It brings back spooky monsters that kill you dead. It brings back having a fun theatrical over-the-top villain who takes himself a litte too seriously.

I love Stefano. Probably not in the way some other fans do, but i love him as a ridiculous theatrical over-the-top villain. He sucks! And i love that he sucks! I love him BECAUSE he sucks! Hes terrible and exaggerated and completely up his own ass and ITS GREAT. He isnt as ACTUALLY THREATENING as Ruvik was (even in his bad assassin's creed cosplay. I could go on and on and on about why Ruvik is simultaneously a ridiculous AND frightening antagonist and how much i love it but uh..... maybe later) but hes such a FUN villain! Hes the kind of pretentious art snob shitheel i cannot STAND irl, but in this game i LOVE to HATE him. Hes just SO over-the-top you kinda wonder if he actually subscribes to the pretentiousness he spouts, or if hes just being Exceptionally Extra.

The other villains? Theodore was.... forgettable. His monsters were forgettable. (Its like how i completely forgot that Frank Manera was a character in Whistleblower for like... 5 years lmao i guess this game also kinda followed that "having multiple named/characterized antagonists in one game" thing that Outlast did) Myra, i just didnt care. Her final design was kinda cool, i liked the red clusters of insect eyes. Her monsters werent really gross enough to be memorable. The only reson theyre gross at all is bc they kinda look like theyre made of semen. (I checked the wiki and apparently Myra's white goo is "psychoplasm" and her monsters lost 99% of their gross factor. I just dont care.) The Administrator literally just looked like a 3D human model of Maxwell from dont starve, and i have to laugh every time i see him. Hes not terribly threatening, all he does is threaten characters to work faster and doesnt actually follow through on those threats. He doesnt even make fun threats like HABIT or anything. He thinks hes so powerful and ominous that his mere presence will frighten the player but hes just kinda all bark and no bite. Hes The Big Bad Company Man so you know hes gonna get whats coming to him, and you know Kidmans gonna be the one to do it to him, so hes not even that much of a threat. Hes whatever.

Stefano definitely got all of the coolest monsters. Many Arms Buzzsaw Lady was terrifying and i love her. And OBSCURA was just *Chef's Kiss* Anima was cool, she kinda looked like a mix of Laura and Samara. The Harbingers were neat, but really only bc ive got a thing for gas masks. The rest of the monsters werent really unique or weighty/threatening enough to be memorable. Now the first game is a fucking TREASURE TROVE of unique monsters *muah* you got Sadist, Sentinel, Keeper, Amalgam, Heresy, Laura, Shigyo, the Twins, Alter Egos, and im probably forgetting some!! But holy FUCK!!!!! And if we're includong the DLC?? MOTHER FUCKING SHADE. SPOTLIGHT LADY. LIGHT WOMAN.  SEXY LEGS.  Whatever you call her, i fucking love her. Her design is so simple. Helmet. Sheet. Legs. Her voice? Unnerving as hell. Love it. (Also i just personally love the diving helmet. Also like you know how a lot of games have a spotlight mechanic where you have to avoid the light and if it lands on you, you're fucked? LET'S MAKE AN ENTIRE MONSTER OUT OF THAT. She's PERFECT.) Oh and also those weird crawling exploding dudes. They made gross sounds and it was great. (Tbh Keepers still probably my favorite, if only for horny reasons)

TATIANA HOW HAVE I NOT FUCKING TALKED ABOUT TATIANA. Shes like the ONE female character that i fucking LOVE in the sequel. I love how they finally gave her a personality, and that personality is literally just "fuck you, Sebastian" Oh GOD its great shes SO FUNNY. I just.... god i love Tatiana lmao. I love how she makes you kinda uncomfortable too, like she knows something, but she wont tell you bc youre stupid. I didn't like the kind of "all-knowing guide" thing they did to try and make her creepy (like she's a "guide" but then also turns around and is like "no i wont tell you what you need to know bc you """have to discover it on your own""" or whatever") it serves no purpose since she never gave you any actual information, and it didn't succeed in making her creepier, all it did was frustrate me. She was at her creepiest when she IMPLIED she was doing something behind the scenes or knew something you didn't know and then didn't elaborate (not REFUSING to elaborate, just... stopping talking and leaving the statement to hang in the air, like the "getting her nails done" and "its been a long time, detective" and the "now what makes you say that" from the first game) and she was at her funniest when she was interacting with Sebastian from the sidelines, her snide little comments and sarcastic clapping cracked me the fuck up. Tatiana not treating Sebastian seriously was a fantastic touch for a game that otherwise would probably take itself so seriously it would double back around to being silly. Without Tatiana, it would've been just another male-centric gun-toting "survival horror" game, and for the most part, it was just that. She was definitely a much-needed source of slightly derisive comedy and a definite high-point for me, even if they didn't so a great job of making her creepy or fulfilling her "purpose."

Oh I also really love the COLORS in TEW2. The first game fell into the trap of having the colors be totally washed out that a lot of horror stuff does, but it also kind of worked for it. Especially with the color pallette of our main villain and how the whole thing was His World. The saturation of the colors in the second game is a breath of fresh air and gorgeous to look at, and you can even see the color motifs of the game change with each new villain: the game starts out with Stephano has lots of blues and purples and dark reds, when Theodore takes over we get bright orange and yellow contrasted with black and brown, and in the climax with Myra the game goes back to having washed out colors and white (and with her villain design? Let's face it: they were kinda just trying to do Ruvik again) We did get portions that were still kind of wahed out whites and greens and greys, but it wasnt the ENTIRE game, even the big blood-and-brains splatterhouse sections of the first game kinda had their colors weirdly muted for that "Horror Aethetic."

In conclusion, i do like the evil within 2, but i also had a lot of problems with it. And i complain about these problems because i like the game and know it couldve done better, tried harder, and been a LOT more than it was (the wasted character potential is my real overarching pet peeve, probably becuase i loved the characters in the first game, and character development is kind of my whole jam) . But all in all, it was still a fun monster-zombie romp with at least one entertaining villain and fun-to-look-at designs and environments. It wasn't character or horror or even REALLY story driven in the way I know it COULDVE been, but i still had a fun time and enjoyed myself.

[tenacious-scripturient]

a run-down of / my thoughts on the novel ‘trade secrets’

so! i’ve recently finished this beautifully written novel by @bettsican​, and am anxiously anticipating for the second book in the trilogy! (seriously, give it a read. it’s a great lgbtq+ thriller and mystery story, i promise you’ll love it!! you can find trade secrets in many places, including amazon, where it’s only $6)

as i was reading it, i noted down all the thoughts i had. it was fun, interesting, and kept me on the edge of my seat!

oh, and spoiler warning, of course.

Chapter One

okay. this is interesting. why are they in paris? or rather, why are they NOT in paris?

2080. damn.

who is cooper hall and why is he important i want to knowwwwwwww

Chapter Two

HOLY FUCK

CHAPTER ONE WAS A PROLOGUE

OKAY IF I DIDNT NEED TO BEFORE I HAVE TO READ IT NOW

-ahem- anyway

nate literally everything you think of has to relate to smoking, doesnt it?

clyde you absolutely bitch raccoon

im sort of piecing together what’s happening here? either way this is a SUPER interesting concept.

i love the idea of every word being important

nate look at you being a nice guy. testing the CAPS before giving them to ur clients

or maybe it’s just good business

but whatever

okay, so credits are money in this world. but how do people get them? obviously there’s what nate’s doing but what’s the legal way to get them? ill probably find out soon

if it wasnt explicitly said by betty that nate ends up with another guy (i forget his name. cooper?) i would have thought audry was the romantic interest

audry you loving caring hypocrite

i feel like she’s gonna be one of my favourite characters

who is this young man that dares disturb nate’s slumber

cooper? cooper.

Chapter Three

nate get up

u turtle get up and hurry down the stairs

or—okay you can fall into that drywall that works too

ohhhhh so nate is a detective. that’s interesting

i also love this idea of keeping secrets (haha trade secrets)

dude are you sure that your embarrassing entrance wasn’t the ONLY reason you blushed? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

HEIGHT DIFFERENCE HEIGHT DIFFERENCE HEIGHT DIFFERENCE HEIGHT DIFFERENCE HEIGHT DIFFERENCE HEIGHT DIFFERENCE HEIGHT DIFFERENCE HEIG—

nate ur spending an awful lot of time looking at his features you funky little bisexual

oh damn ur smarter than u seem, just watching him take a single breath and you’re already making connections. i guess that’s why he’s a detective

im gonna assume this is cooper, even tho it never explicitly says so

i feel like we aren’t gonna get his name for a while, bc clients and whatnot and not getting attached

Chapter Four

NATE WEARS GLASSES???????

that’s kind of cute

im lowkey gay rn

anyway

NATE CALLED HIM SWEET-FACED AND PRETTY-FACED O K A Y

oh he has curly brown hair

and oh the glasses aren’t real glasses. oh. the use is actually pretty cool!

so from what im gathering civilians are people who don’t live in sanctuaries, and lemnis are people who do?

cooper sweetie why do u need so much money what have u done

nate’s pretty clever

HAH I WAS RIGHT WE AREN’T GONNA GET HIS NAME FOR A WHILE

well that’s that i guess

Chapter Five

he’s so timid awh

hehe he’s on nate’s bed

sorry

goddammit man calm down or else you’re gonna get everyone in a 5-mile radius around you arrested

wait…. zero-credit balance?? didn’t he just have a few hundred thousand credits???

OH THIS IS A FAKE PROFILE HE MADE

so cooper isn’t his real name either

oh

Chapter Six

oh we’re back to 2080

oh they’re back in the apartment??

it was obvious before but at this point it’s confirmed that they’re going to be doing some travelling together or something

Chapter Seven

this is getting really interesting i dont wanna stop reading and type everything that comes to mind

these are gonna be shorter now hehe

“i’d been a petri dish of mixed emotions and wild chemical changes for half the day” I LOVE THAT METAPHOR LMFAO

what happened with nate’s mom

i want to know

my prediction: she wanted him to either change up or completely remove the chip bc she did something horrible? or maybe she just wanted to leave idk im bad at predictions

either way it said she was crazy

o h

that’s why he’s terrified of cutting the chip

poor nate

Chapter Eight

oh this is strangely intimate

very intimate

i feel that, because cooper has such high pain tolerance (or doesn’t show pain), he has some backstory for it

Chapter Nine

lmao nate just went off didnt he

THEIR FLIRTING IS CUTE FHJKJDLSKAJDKLSJAK

also is being lgbtq+ widely accepted as the norm in this setting? bc nate considered cooper to be flirting with him

ughhhh it’s so good so far, from the character interactions to the suspense, especially in this chapter

Chapter Ten

rude cooper is rude, rude nate is even more rude

F E D O R A

“coop”

Chapter Eleven

aw i love jimmy already—

WHAT THE FUCK COOPER

EXCUSE ME

JIMMY

WHAT

HOW COULD YOU

goddammit

what the fuck is cooper hiding

cooper oh my god

you

you’re playing a dangerous game, mate

are you really that heartless

“deceptively innocent eyes” you got that right

this chapter hurted

thanks a lot jess

Chapter Twelve

“like a weeping wound on the canvas of my home” this has got to be one of my favourite similes ever omg

the way nate’s describing cooper makes my heart hurt awh

i feel like butterflies have some sort of symbolism

maybe being ugly on the outside and beautiful on the inside, or vice versa? the vice versa was basically cooper lol

aye we finally get to meet audry!!

PEANUT BUTTER AND TRICYCLE I WANNA HEAR ABOUT THAT

i love audry omg

IT’S NATE’S BIRTHDAY?? HAPPY BIRTHDAY YA SMOKEY CONMAN

“bright eyes” is the cutest nickname ever

Chapter Thirteen

oh we’re back to 2080

wait what they’re trapped together

is this story gonna have a sad ending

please no

Chapter Fourteen

OH IT’S THE LINE ON THE COVER

i like that

nate’s back to where he left cooper

also if it wasn’t obvious before, it’s definitely obvious now that nate and cooper or gonna find each other again. hm. not sure how i feel about that

kind of pissed at cooper but also we need him for the story to progress

O H

COOPER IM ONLY KIND OF PISSED AT YOU NOW

IT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE

NATE IVE SAID IT BEFORE BUT YOU’RE PRETTY CLEVER

also who is ‘her’?

COOPER WANTS TO BECOME A?? LEMNIS?? GODDAMMIT MAN

I CAN FEEL THE PRESSURE RISING

nate’s in danger

wow this chapter is

a lot

i need a break

-cue a break-

Chapter Fifteen

i’m back

eisley is a cool last name

oh wait so even people outside of sanctuaries can become a lemniscate

i’m still not 100% sure what a lemniscate is

it’s so ironic elijah’s last name is king, but i assume you did that on purpose. i also like the slight nod to royalty by his first name

OH

COOPER’S BACK

why hello there

Chapter Sixteen

they’re

competing

to become a lemniscate

and one of them dies

do they fight back?? is that why they end up in prison??? so many thoughts are going through my head right now

nate, your fantasy about becoming a lemniscate is surprisingly dark. i’m totally down for it

Chapter Seventeen

oh wait so joshua is cooper’s blackmailer?? Interesting that it’s a lemniscate

i keep forgetting nate is wearing glasses

cooper, my dude, calm the fuck down. you’re gonna get yourself and nate killed

it’s the return of soft™ nate

Chapter Eighteen

oh there’s another one

oh this is very ominous i don’t like

Chapter Nineteen – Twenty-One

okay i was eating while i read so i couldn’t type here but just know that these chapters were really really good

Chapter Twenty-Two

wait fuck what’s happening this is all happening so fast

cooper brought out his gun,,,, it’s aimed at ivonne,,,,,,, they’re walking,,,

OH IT WAS A FAKE KIDNAPPING

nice

i like ivonne a lot

Chapter Twenty-Three

the entire story just changed course

this isn’t just about cooper and nate anymore, it’s about a corrupt government

NATE AND COOPER ARE HOLDING HANDS AS THEY RUN THROUGH THE BARRIER THAT’S SO ROMANTIC

also the line “only the dead are ever truly free” is beautiful

THAT’S WHERE PARIS COMES IN

THEY ALL GO TO FRANCE DON’T THEY

I’m so curious to find out where this story is going

Chapter Twenty-Four

this is doin me a confusion

but tbh these hints/ visions of the future, if you could call them that, are giving just enough information to keep me super interested. props to you

Chapter Twenty-Five

AUDRY STOP TEASING NATE

just joking keep doing it, this might actually get their relationship somewhere

ivonne is definitely my favourite character so far. she reminds a little of melia from xenoblade chronicles, in that they’re both ‘royalty’ that rebel. also they’re badass and smart

oh fuck the brother is here

okay thank god he’s not an asshole

oh god things are happening again

Chapter Twenty-Six

nate stop ogling at cooper when you’re in a life-or-death situation

holy shit the lemniscate are messed up

this crew is pretty great, it sucks that it’s almost the end of the book

WAIT I FORGOT THERE’S A SECOND COMING SOON HECK YEAH

anyway

YES COOPER PULL THROUGH

awwww yiss

Chapter Twenty-Seven

oh

oh

O H

oh my god i ship them so hard

THEY KISSED

THIS IS SO STEAMY

this chapter was art thank you so much for this

Chapter Twenty-Eight

AHAHAH AUDRY

once again, i’d like to state how much i love her

oh the tension just grew twentyfold

this is… great

oh god nate what are you planning, you just got together with cooper and now you want to leave him?

Chapter Twenty-Nine

what’s with all the dancing?

Chapter Thirty

oh god the description

so he’s going around and giving people credits, all the while confessing things that would help the lemniscate track him down. i assume this means he’s going to die, but why?

just what are you planning?

oh we’re back to clyde, the guy who started it all. it feels full circle

Chapter Thirty-One

OH

HE’S MAKING HIS CHIP SHOW THAT HE’S DEAD

that’s much smarter

FUCK

NATE YOU IDIOT—COOPER’S REAL NAME

SHIT NOW KING IS HERE

everything’s going downhill now isn’t it

Chapter Thirty-Two

wait that took an even darker turn

there’s so much happening right now i can’thandlethis

cooper and nate are couple goals

Chapter Thirty-Three

king isn’t as horrible as i thought

still horrible, but not a monster

NEVER MIND YOU’RE A FUCKING MONSTER WHAT IS THIS BS

cooper

actually

shot

nate

Chapter Thirty-Four

OH MY GOD

WHAT

THIS IS HOW YOU END IT

I CAN’T

HOW DARE YOU

NO

NO

NO

NO

i need the next book

like right now

what the hell

Final Thoughts

okay so this book was SO good, and so well written. like damn

aside from that horrible ending how could you do this to me

i’m joking, it was an incredible and emotional ending, i loved it and hated it at the same time

it very rarely felt static, and especially in the first half, there was a good mix of action and backstory/description. it was never boring

the story is just,,, so unique. i seriously haven’t read anything like it, EVER

the world-building?? Is?? so vast?? and insane??

the increasing tension and speed as the story progressed is perfect, i felt my heart beating faster the more i read

anyway that’s all from me

this book was amazing i cannot wait for the next

[spearxwind]

I totally understand the drop and tone dissonace thing I really wasnt into it until the past year or 2. Also it feels like I grew up on the internet w people animating furry oc fights/gore to dubstep with like really dramatic angles and camera movements so maybe that's my mind connected two and two?? Awesome music recs too, love the ominous vibes, love the nuances of all of your ocs you got good goobers on here bless you and your edgy rat boy

god sorry this took so long to answer i have had zero fucking free time lately D:

1. god i know that feel also.. like up until last year i was very against screaming n music but now 2/3 of my fave bands are ALL about big screaming and i love it... smh, (also the third screams on occasion so) its not guttural deathcore screaming but its still screaming. also god,, i missed a lot of that video content when i was a kid cause i was busy doing other things and listening exclusively to within temptation and trance sdfkjhsk

2. GO D I LOVE SHAring music 8)c ive shared a lot of music themes with lyrics for my ocs but I wanna do a round thats all 100% instrumental for them because yeah. lyrics are cool for meanings and symbolisms but i just love finding songs that just FIT even though they dont explain WHY at first hear. the melodies, sounds used, mood etc is so damn hard to pin down for ocs i just love when i find one for an oc 

without further ado though. also all of these are some sort of horrible EDM cause i like one (1) music. im sorry except im not:

- C [ andreas b - hybrid ]- Riptide [ lindsay stirling - moon trance ]- Danger [ defcat - blank messages ]- Alex [ sied van riel - Radiator ] (sidenote,,, this has been an alex song for so long. ive never found another one that fits so well even tho its not The Best™) - Ethan + Orion [ unison (by porter robinson but remixed by knife party) ] (they go together bc yeehaw) - Adam [ arkana - telekinesis ]- Siege [ thrill of the game - armen hambar ]- Cher [ tobu - higher ]

[adhdusagi]

Princess Tutu episodes 14-end

I watched the entire second half of the series in one day because I make good life choices

Previously on Princess Tutu Watch:

Okay I can get back to Tokyo Mew Mew now

+++++++++++++++++++

It was a lie, I could NOT

EPISODE, UH, FUCK……… 14! - The Raven

asdklsdhflhdl (google docs stop capitalizing my keysmashes) they’re bringing back “once upon a time there was a man who died”!!!!!! Honestly that might be one of my favorite lines in this whole show

Gotta love the sarcasm in “and they lived happily ever after”

The theme song…… it’s so good

Oh nooooooooooooooo

This scene is literally just the “I’ve got a headache that comes and goes” meme

Fakir you complete dork. You’re all dorks

“Princess Tutu and a crocodile are totally different” you tell ‘im, Mytho

Duck speaks so much more regularly than the other main characters? I mean, there’s Fakir over there like “Shall we go?” and Duck saying things like “I’m gonna be late!” and using “like” and “stuff”... I mean, I know this is the dub, but

Duck why are you using Fakir’s dumb excuses omg

Lilie is just the personification of my negative thoughts

BUT WHAT DID MYTHO TELL FAKIR

Awwwwwwww Duck, no

They’re in a terrifying Raven Dimension with like, ominous music and people wailing in the background and meanwhile Kraehe and the Raven are just having like, a normal conversation

Also, are the white feathers supposed to be like, what’s trapping the Raven there?

Duck please

Wait, Princess Tutu transformed on her own!

Episode 15 - Coppelia

Also, watching Fakir try and fail to stop Mytho from jumping out the window is Pain

Lilie you are a Strange Child

STEALTH DUCK RETURNS!

Oh no?? Fakir doesn’t want to get Mytho in trouble???

alsdfksfh the entire student population is Here For The Drama

Duck don’t yell in the library

Fakir just doesn’t make good decisions

Oooh that doesn’t look good

Sad Kraehe Theme Alert

You “just happened” to do a lot of things, Lilie

Omg Lilie “Want to just happen to go see?”

Rue just shows up to trash talk Fakir for a minute and then leaves

I say as if I’m not in So Much Pain

Yeah! Every single time Princess Tutu transformed in the first season, it was because Drosselmeyer said something, but now she’s transforming on her own!

Oh no Mytho

Also I like how Tutu doesn’t just flat-out say “you don’t actually love him” and instead is just like “how about you try doing things you enjoy with the guy you like instead of giving him Your Actual Heart”

Episode 16 - The Maiden’s Prayer

Wait is Angry Narrator back or did the other narrator just regain the heart shard of Withering Scorn?

Lilie isn’t even interested in the love triangle, she just wants Duck and Pike to fight

Is that Goatette

“So pretty…. What? Oh yeah I meant the flowers of course haha” Duck

Such a serious child

“Love only me, hate everyone else”/“The prince who loves me and me alone”

This child is amazing

It was such a good decision to give Fakir a little sister. A good decision for everyone involved

aslfsdjhklgdlghdjghfdklkdkalh Kraehe told him that Duck would suffer if she knew what was happening with Mytho so Fakir isn’t going to tell herrrrrrrrrr Fakir please don’t internalize that!! You are breaking my heart sir

Oh my god it wasn’t Goatette it was the sloth

*The Can Can plays loudly over a sloth just kinda hangin out*

Episode 17 - Crime and Punishment

This may or may not have been the last episode I watched the first time I watched this show?

“Eyes of truth” huh?

This dumbass child

Femio, from the other side of the school grounds: “DID SOMEBODY SAY ‘PRINCE’????”

What the Fuck are you doing with your hands, kid

Why are you a cow

Honestly as over-the-top as Femio is he is also simultaneously the most realistic middle-schooler in this entire show

Oh my god he’s on probation

I’m sorry I’m just talking about Femio but he’s hilarious

Truly a Grade A Idiot

What is he even doing with his life

I’ve become Lilie

These characters have emotional crises over people saying the stupidest things and tbh I relate to that

Oh dear!

The thing is, Femio would be really annoying in real life, but in a tv show he’s just amusing

Rue’s FACE, she’s so done

I like how Duck can tell which building Rue’s in just by the amount of crows around it

Tbh all the students probably have noticed what’s going on, they just think it’s some kind of weird performance art thing. Wouldn’t be out of character for this school

Fakir and Uzura really are siblings, I love this

The best part about this episode is it’s this completely ridiculous person unintentionally getting in the middle of everybody’s emotional issues

“I feel kinda like something happened, and kinda like it didn’t” Duck you are absolutely correct

And of course the Aquarium is good once again

Episode 18 - The Wandering Knight

Incidentally, how old are these kiddos? We know Mytho is older than Duck, so Fakir and Rue probably are too?? But like, probably only by a year? Who even knows what their actual ages are

I mean, Duck is a duck so

It’s! The trees from the opening!

I don’t know if I’ve asked this before, but why does Fakir have a horse?

Oh my god Lilie

Can everybody STOP picking on Fakir for being afraid to die? He is 14, leave him alone

Ahiru is trying so hard to be helpful, give her a chance Fakir

Once again Rue shows up to get in a burn on Fakir and then leave

I swear every time the Aquarium plays in this show

Oh noooooooo Ruuuuueeeeeeee

Literally Protect All Of These Characters

Save These Children From Their Own Emotional Issues

FAKIR PLEASE

Pride is absolutely the worst feeling Mytho could get back right now?

“There’s something sinister going on that I’m not a part of!” And that really gets to you doesn’t it Dross. I bet it’s really… grinding your gears!!!

(why do I feel so proud of insulting a fictional character)

Episode 19 - A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Wow we really are starting this one off on a sinister note (it’s Drosselmeyer’s revenge on me for that pun)

Of course he can’t tell you, he doesn’t fuckin know what’s going on

Fakir please stop basing your entire identity around being a knight

Oh no, Mytho’s regained the heart shard of Basing Your Entire Identity Around Upholding A Role

I wonder if Hermia being tall is like, a meta Shakespeare joke, cause in the play Helena’s really tall and Hermia’s really short, but in every production I’ve seen it was the other way around

Rue stop projecting your insecurities onto your boyfriend

Ohhhhhhhh dear

Finally someone tells all the crows hanging around to shut up

Oh my god she really is super tall

Or Ahiru’s just super short

I am learning so much about ballet mimes

Cool bird shadows

Whoa, different raven background. And the Raven isn’t speaking with him this time? What does it mean

On no, Tutu

Hahaha oh no

Aaahaha they’re the same

THEY EVEN DO THE SAME ARM-FLAILY THING

Episode 20 - The Forgotten Story

ALRIGHT, TIME FOR THE FAKIR’S SAD BACKSTORY EPISODE

Raetzel: *walks in*

Uzura: And where do you fit in the shipping chart, ma’am

THIS is a High Quality Directatorial Decision

Oh no Duck. oh no she’s so earnest nooooo

It is just Extremely Wrong to see Mytho dancing to something besides Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy

Mr. Cat can hear the word “wedding” from three floors up

Oh my GOD they put broken heart stickers on the window

I mean, I say they but we all know it was Lilie

Again, Duck knows exactly where shit’s going down just because that’s where all the crows are

Oh no!

Everybody needs to stop giving Fakir shit Right Now. Everybody needs to stop thinking it’s a bad thing that Fakir didn’t fucking Die, and that includes Fakir OKAY????

I’ve been thinking… Raven Mytho keeps saying things like “people only want love because they want to be loved” and I wonder… if that was sort of his experience as a prince. Or maybe I’m just getting this mixed up with Utena lol. But it does seem like a genuine issue he has as opposed to just something he says to manipulate people. Hm.

Episode 21 - The Spinners

Every time the narrator says “once upon a time there was a man who died” I Will Flip

Duck tries to lean nonchalantly against a door, it goes about how you’d expect

Duck that’s not how writing works (ughgfjdghskjkgf my pain)

AW NO

Oh no Duck is too relatable

UUAAAAAA TREE GHOST TREE GHOST

“Follow my every order and be prepared to die if you should fail” it’s almost like you WANT me to hate you. FAKIR DOESN’T NEED THIS

See Duck agrees with me

PETITION FOR PEOPLE TO LEAVE FAKIR THE FUCK ALONE THAT MEANS YOU TREE GHOST

Ohshit it’s that old guy from the bookshop???

Uzura is NOT “unrelated”, obviously she is Fakir’s baby sister

“I’m just watching again” oh no Duck

Autor what the Fresh Heck are you doing to Fakir

YOU ARE NOT FINE?????????

Honestly Fakir needs to get in touch with his emotions, not get sleep deprived and hallucinate in a field

This tree is saying things Edel said??? Was Edel made from the wood of this tree?????? Oh my god???????????

Anyway that was Intense

Listen, Raven Mytho has real issues and you can fight me on this

Ah, I see Dross is practicing the time-honored authorial tradition of “If the Story Isn’t Working, Hit It With a Wrench”

Episode 22 - Crown of Stone

But who’s going to protect Fakir huh? Answer me that, Duck

One big-ish happy familyyyyyyyyy

I needed this life advice tbh

Aaaaaah Uzura’s talking to Rue!

“Are you the Rue we’re worried about?” I love how she just included herself in that

Autor, I’m……. not sure you want the tree ghost cult to acknowledge you

Uhm, I’m pretty sure Autor doesn’t fit into the shipping chart and I think Uzura would agree with me

Ah fuck!!! Fakir turn around

Wait it’s an owl on a grandfather clock?? Is that actually a thing? These watchnotes are coming full circle

“I want people to love me, but is it okay to just be loved?” yep, the prince is having issues

Autor, I’m pretty sure Ahiru is figuring all that out right now

And like, the Book Men totally know it too, so

HOLY CRAP THIS SEQUENCE

AND THE MUSIC THE MUSIC IS PERFECT

SKLAFDJKVHFJK;JKLSdf;DSLKJFAKSDAKFJHFKLJJFGKLHGJFHSDLJ

I love this show

EPISODE 23 - Marionette

OH! OH! IT’S THE MUSIC EDEL ALWAYS PLAYED BUT SPED UP! That’s actually kinda creepy!

Anyway now I know why I’m so protective of Fakir, we’re both writers who can’t write anything

Oh noooooooooooo Rue

Oooooooooooh don’t like that

Ruuueeeeeeeeee please don’t stab your boyfriend we’ve been over this

Incidentally, hulu needs to quit it with these bogus commercial placements

Drosselmeyer: How dare you try to resolve your emotional problems!

Dross that’s called character development

Hahahaha joke’s on you Dross!

aaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

I! LOVE! THEM!

No of course your heart is lovey-dovey Uzura! Your heart is the lovey-dovey-est!!!

Incidentally, Autor is That Guy who says just because you haven’t finished/published anything you’re not a Real Writer. And he is Wrong

Episode 24 - The Prince and the Raven

Okay, just from this title I know I won’t be able to handle this

THIS ISN’T EVEN THE PENULTIMATE EPISODE

YOU ARE HITTING ME WITH ONCE UPON A TIME THERE WAS A MAN WHO DIED RIGHT OUT OF THE GATE I CANNOT BELIEVE

Okay but and then this story explains all of Raven Mytho’s emotional issues as well???

*sigh* Autor……. Fakir literally just told you his motivation is to protect people and you’re still going on about controlling the fates of all mankind… are you sure you’re not Drosselmeyer’s direct descendent?

Rue don’t go into the crow building

Honestly I’m still dying over the fact that you can tell where things are happening purely based on which building all the crows are at today

Tiny Rue is breaking my heart

UUUUAAAAAAAAAAAAAA TINY RUE IS DOING BALLET

Omg Rue in the beginner’s class!

Oh noooo Uzura’s saaaaad

I KNOW I’ve heard this songgggggggg

THAT WAS A BIT OF THE FOSSILS FROM CARNIVAL OF THE ANIMALS???

Okayokayokay so it’s not Carnival of the Animals but DO YOU KNOW WHAT IT IS it’s another piece by Saint-Saens and DO YOU KNOW what that piece is called????? fuckin Danse Macabre!!!!! I am immediately filled with a sense of foreboding!!!

The music choices in this show are going to destroy me one day

HOLY CRAP????

I can’t believe so goddamn much happened in this episode???

Episode 25 - The Dying Swan

I’m not rrrrrrrrreadyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

Not even the narrator’s obvious disappointment in Drosselmeyer can give me solace

Oh my god so is the Drosselmeyer we know just a character in Dead Drosselmeyer’s story?

I think it’s a testament to this story’s power that I’m having so many emotions about it even though I know what’s going to happen? Like, some stories, reading the summary is pretty much the same as hearing the story, but Princess Tutu is not one of those stories

Like I just overcame my social anxiety to ask my roommate to be quieter, that’s how good this story is

Aaaaaagh Rue’s change from saying “you love me” to saying “I love you” my HEART

Oh shoot! Mytho’s angry! I thought one of the gate heart shards might be anger

Oh my god Autor literally no one cares what TEA Drosselmeyer drank look at Fakir he’s so done

Aaaaaaaa ohno

EVISCERATE HIM FAKIR

Holyshitholyshitholyshit

Okay but see the lake is outside the city so Dross just took some random normal duck and plunked her down in his fairytale town and that’s why like, a cat teacher seems weird to her because she’s not from inside the story

OH NO THEY’RE PLAYING THE SWAN BUT THIS TIME IT’S RUE

rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr fuck OFFFFFF

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh it’s the sword birds

excUSE you Dross, the knight has NOT “long been useless”

Episode 26 - Finale

I can’t believe after 9 years I’m finally going to finish watching this show

Okay it’s happening

It begins and ends with “once upon a time, there was a man who died”, the absolute most perfect first line in the history of first lines and you can fight me on this

Okay I’m already almost crying just from the theme song, like the Tchaikovsky fits perfectly into it? I’m gonna sing it

I’m just screaming???? They’re all in distress

BUT DUCK IS NOT GOING TO GIVE IN TO DISTRESS

RUE IS THE SWAN

DUCK DECIDES TO WRITE HER OWN STORY AND THE MUSIC FROM THE END OF THE THEME SONG STARTS PLAYING MY HEART

I’M ACTUALLY CRYING

IT’S ALL THE PEOPLE SHE HELPED

THEY ARE PLAYING THE THEME THAT PLAYS WHEN DUCK IS HAPPY

FUCKING -- AND YOU HIT ME WITH ONCE UPON A TIME THERE WAS A MAN WHO DIED NOW

LOOK! LOOK THE SCENERY OUTSIDE THE TOWN FADES IN

I watched it.

[patriotsnet]

Why Republicans Are Wrong About Everything

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/why-republicans-are-wrong-about-everything/

Why Republicans Are Wrong About Everything

Why So Many Republicans Cling To Trump

Saagar Enjeti: Trump, GOP, On Wrong Side Of EVERYTHING Since Coronavirus Began

Ben Shapiro got part of it right. A toxic mix of status anxiety, persecution fears, and echoes of the Civil War helps explain why they follow Trump into the abyss.

On September 17, 1862, over 10,000 Confederate soldiers were killed, wounded, or went missing in a single day at the Battle of Antietam. Very few of them came from slave-owning families, so why did they agree to give their lives in defense of human bondage?

I was reminded of this question when I noticed that Politico Playbook had recruited conservative celebrity and author Ben Shapiro;to explain why the vast majority of House Republicans voted not to impeach President Trump on Wednesday for sending a murderous mob after them on January 6. Politico was slammed by liberals for opening its best-known section to a conservative whos been charged with being bigoted and intolerant. But Shapiros explanation of the rallying around Trump during his final days wasnt totally off base. He was on to something about how Republicans see the world.

With Trump leaving office within a week, defending his incitement of an insurrection doesnt seem to be in the long-term self-interest of Republican officeholders.;But the Civil War example helps explain why people sometimes do very self-destructive things out of spite or insecurity.

White supremacy was such a consensus view at the time that Lincoln felt compelled to defend it.

Like the rebels at Antietam, no one wants to die for nothing.

Support Nonprofit Journalism

Why Are Republicans So Mean

Let’s state right off-the-bat that conservatives indeed have much to offer. In fact, the very notion of conservatism itself keeps us grounded in tradition and prevents our society from spinning into the chaos of constant flux that would surely result if we were to impetuously pursue every new liberal idea to spring forth from our fertile minds. And conservatives admirably believe in America, established order, family, freedom, and success. This all sounds wonderful.

But when it comes to other people who happen to be different from the establishment, Republicans seem to be downright mean and nasty.

We are constantly reminded of the meanness of Republicans over and over again. One recent example is evident in the xenophobic remarks of the Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump, who recently referred to Mexican and other immigrants as rapists and murderers.

Basic common sense, however, tells us that human beings are not any more or less violent based upon where on a map they happened to have been born. And the evidence in studies bears this out as well by indicating that immigrants are no more likely to be violent than members of the overall population. Makes sense.

But Republicans seem to harbor some sort of a fear of foreigners and an aversion against other kinds of people who are not part of the established in-group. Their view seems to be that these other people are not like us, they pose a threat to us , and thus automatically they should be regarded as enemies.

There Arent Real Forces Within The Gop Leading Change

There is some appetite for change within the GOP. In those 2024 polls, at least a third of Republicans either were supporting a GOP presidential candidate other than Trump or were undecided.;

In YouGov Blues polling, only about 40 percent of Republicans identified themselves as Trump Republicans. A recent survey from Fabrizio, Lee and Associates, a GOP-leaning firm that worked on Trumps presidential campaigns, found that about 40 percent of Republican voters didnt want Trump to continue to be a leader in the party. Those numbers dont necessarily mean that those voters want the GOP to change drastically. But there is a substantial number of Trump-skeptical/ready-to-move-on-from-Trump Republican voters. But that sentiment isnt really showing up in the Republican Partys actions during the last three months basically everything GOP officials in states and in Washington are doing lines up with the Trumpian approach. So what gives?;

related:Why The Recent Violence Against Asian Americans May Solidify Their Support Of Democrats Read more. »

It is hard to see Republicans changing course, even if a meaningful minority of voters in the party wants changes, without some elite institutions and powerful people in the party pushing a new vision. And its hard to see real anti-Trumpism forces emerging in the GOP right now.;

Don’t Miss: Republican Flag Pins

Reality Check : Biden Cant Be Fdr

Theres no question that Biden is swinging for the fences. Beyond the emerging bipartisan infrastructure bill, he has proposed a far-reaching series of programs that would collectively move the United States several steps closer to the kind of social democracy prevalent in most industrialized nations: free community college, big support for childcare and homebound seniors, a sharp increase in Medicaid, more people eligible for Medicare, a reinvigorated labor movement. It is why 100 days into the administration, NPR was asking a commonly heard question: Can Biden Join FDR and LBJ In The Democratic Party’s Pantheon?

But the FDR and LBJ examples show conclusively why visions of a transformational Biden agenda are so hard to turn into reality. In 1933, FDR had won a huge popular and electoral landslide, after which he had a three-to-one Democratic majority in the House and a 59-vote majority in the Senate. Similarly, LBJ in 1964 had won a massive popular and electoral vote landslide, along with a Senate with 69 Democrats and a House with 295. Last November, on the other hand, only 42,000 votes in three key states kept Trump from winning re-election. Democrats losses in the House whittled their margin down to mid-single digits. The Senate is 50-50.

Most Republicans Said That President Obama Should Be Impeached Because Of The 2012 Attack On The Us Consulate In Benghazi

Their own investigations, however, proved them wrong. Every Congressional inquiry, including those by the Republican-led House Intelligence Committee, concluded that the Obama administration did nothing wrong regarding Benghazi, that there was no stand down order given, and that neither the President nor anyone in his administration lied about it. Each and every Republican investigation has reached this same conclusion, but Republicans continue to exploit this tragedy for political gain.

You May Like: How Long Has Trump Been In Politics

Nominating Mitt Romney For President

Despite the failure to grab the Senate, the GOP was still riding strong anti-Obamacare sentiment and voter frustration over the slow recovery from the Great Recession. Much of this was fueled by the Tea Party movement, which added a rare Republican grassroots element to the GOP.

When you think about it now, all of that made former Mitt Romney an extremely odd choice for the Republican nomination for president in 2012. He embodied the establishment GOP in almost every way. Romney had years as a hedge fund manager at Bain Capital on his resume at a time when most Americans were still blaming Wall Street for the nation’s economic woes. Worst of all, his universal health coverage plan enacted while he was governor of Massachusetts looked eerily like Obamacare. In fact, “Romneycare” was seen as one of the models the crafters of the Affordable Care Act used when they wrote the law. If the GOP wanted to put up a candidate who invigorated its anti-Obamacare and increasingly anti-establishment base, they couldn’t have missed the mark much more than they did with Mitt Romney.

Bidens Bill Is More Popular

We live in the middle of an era of tremendous polarization, yet Joe Bidens American Rescue Plan is shockingly popular. Its one of the most popular, least polarizing pieces of legislation in recent memory. According to a recent Politico/Morning Consultpoll, 76 percent of voters support Bidens plan, including a majority of Republicans.

Its worth noting that most polls show that 70 percent or so of Republicans believe Joe Biden is an illegitimate president. Therefore, a large segment of people who think Biden stole the election also supports his COVID and economic recovery plans.

Obamas Recovery Act was never this popular. A January 2009 Gallup poll found that the public favored Obamas plan 52 percent to 38 percent.

These are good numbers but nowhere near the sky-high popularity of the Biden plan. At the time of this poll, Obamas approval rating was hovering around 70 percent. Bidens plan is more popular than he is Bidens job approval is 52.8 per FiveThirtyEight. That disparity is evidence of Bidens COVID plan’s political durability and the dangerous game Republicans are playing by opposing it. People who dont like Biden but like his plan are the exact people who the Republicans need to win over to take back Congress.

Read Also: How Many States Are Controlled By Republicans

Times Republicans Were Wrong

It’s no secret that politicians tend to use exaggerated political rhetoric to get people to vote for them. In recent decades, Republicans have repeatedly made very ominous predictions about the horrors that will result from Democratic policies while painting a rosy picture of what will result from Republican policies. Now we have the luxury of looking back over the years to examine those predictions and policies. Below, you will find twenty-one examples of times Republicans were blatantly wrong.

Taking The Perspective Of Others Proved To Be Really Hard

Why both Democrats and Republicans are wrong on inflation

The divide in the United States is wide, and one indication of that is how difficult our question proved for many thoughtful citizens. A 77-year-old Republican woman from Pennsylvania was typical of the voters who struggled with this question, telling us, This is really hard for me to even try to think like a devilcrat!, I am sorry but I in all honesty cannot answer this question. I cannot even wrap my mind around any reason they would be good for this country.

Similarly, a 53-year-old Republican from Virginia said, I honestly cannot even pretend to be a Democrat and try to come up with anything positive at all, but, I guess they would vote Democrat because they are illegal immigrants and they are promised many benefits to voting for that party. Also, just to follow what others are doing. And third would be just because they hate Trump so much. The picture she paints of the typical Democratic voter being an immigrant, who goes along with their party or simply hates Trump will seem like a strange caricature to most Democratic voters. But her answer seems to lack the animus of many.;;

Democrats struggled just as much as Republicans. A 33-year-old woman from California told said, i really am going to have a hard time doing this but then offered that Republicans are morally right as in values, going to protect us from terrorest and immigrants, going to create jobs.

Don’t Miss: What Color Ties Do Republicans Wear

Reality Check #: The Electoral College And The Senate Are Profoundly Undemocraticand Were Stuck With Them

Because the Constitution set up a state-by-state system for picking presidents, the massive Democratic majorities we now see in California and New York often mislead us about the partys national electoral prospects. In 2016, Hillary Clintons 3-million-vote plurality came entirely from California. In 2020, Bidens 7-million-vote edge came entirely from California and New York. These are largely what election experts call wasted votesDemocratic votes that dont, ultimately, help the Democrat to win. That imbalance explains why Trump won the Electoral College in 2016 and came within a handful of votes in three states from doing the same last November, despite his decisive popular-vote losses.

The response from aggrieved Democrats? Abolish the Electoral College! In practice, theyd need to get two-thirds of the House and Senate, and three-fourths of the state legislatures, to ditch the process that gives Republicans their only plausible chance these days to win the White House. Shortly after the 2016 election, Gallup found that Republican support for abolishing the electoral college had dropped to 19 percent. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, a state-by-state scheme to effectively abolish the Electoral College without changing the Constitution, hasnt seen support from a single red or purple state.

Surrendering Before The Battle

The midterm elections of 2014 gave the Republicans control of the Senate that they should have won in 2010. But even before the new members took their oaths of office, then-Senate Majority Leader-elect Mitch McConnell promised never to trigger a government shutdown. That effectively took the sharpest arrow out of the GOP’s congressional quiver, and again relieved the greatest pressure the Republicans could have exercised against Obama.

Don’t Miss: Did Donald Trump Say Republicans Are The Dumbest Group Of Voters

Unified Republican Opposition To Obama’s Policies Helped Them Retake Congress In 2010 Here’s Why It May Not Work Again

When the House of Representatives passed President Bidens COVID-relief plan last weekend, every single Republican voted against it. Earlier this week, Senator John Thune, Mitch McConnells deputy, predicted that every Republican Senator would vote against the Biden plan. Thunes reasoning was typically cynical. He said the Republicans wanted to:

make the Democrats own a piece of legislation that I think is going to have long-term adverse consequences.

This was the latest example of Republicans saying the quiet part out loud. Thune is admitting they are making a bet that the Biden plan wont work, and Republicans can reap the political rewards of a sub-standard economy in 2022. This is the same bet the Republicans made in 2009 when they decided to oppose Barack Obamas efforts to address the financial crisis.

Politically, the 2009 bet paid off. The Republicans rode a wave of economic discontent to control of the House and a massive set of wins down-ballot that would impact politics for more than a decade. But just because it worked then doesnt mean it will work now. The Republicans may be making a massive miscalculation by re-fighting the last war.

Republicans Said President Obama Would Raise Taxes Sky High

It never happened. Income taxes for over 95% of Americans remained the same or lower than they were before Obama was elected. The only people whose income taxes increased were those who make more than $400,000 per year, and their taxes rose only 3%. For most Americans, taxes are still lower now than they were under Reagan.

Read Also: Trump Quote In People Magazine 1998

Blowing The Midterm Elections

The 2008 elections gave Barack Obama a clear win in the presidential election and the Democrats a filibuster-proof supermajority in Congress. They proceeded to spend that political capital almost entirely on passing Obamacare in a lengthy process that included a number of unusual compromises with their own party members, like the “Cornhusker Kickback” and controversial legislative tricks like the “deemed as passed” maneuver. All of this took place even as the Affordable Care Act failed to gain majority support in the polls.

That set the stage for a strong Republican advantage going into the 2010 midterm elections. On paper, the GOP did score a resounding victory, picking up 63 seats in the House of Representatives and a net gain of six seats in the Senate.

But Republicans blew a solid chance to retake the Senate. They put up weak candidates in several winnable races. They included Sharon Angle in Nevada, who was seen as too radical and managed to lose to then-incumbent Harry Reid despite his very weak approval ratings in his home state. Arch-abortion opponent Ken Buck won the GOP nomination in Colorado, . The biggest mistake of all was Christine O’Donnell in Delaware. O’Donnell lost after she became infamous for her revelation that she had once experimented with witchcraft.

As a result, the Democrats kept control of the Senate and the Republicans lost a chance to force Obama into what could have been a series of advantageous compromises over the next six years.

The Gop Is A Grave Threat To American Democracy

Unless and until Republicans summon the wit and the will to salvage the party, ruin will follow.

About the author: Peter Wehner is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. He writes widely on political, cultural, religious, and national-security issues, and he is the author of The Death of Politics: How to Heal Our Frayed Republic After Trump.

The hope of many conservative critics of Donald Trump was that soon after his defeat, and especially in the aftermath of the January 6 insurrection, the Republican Party would snap back into its former shape. The Trump presidency would end up being no more than an ugly parenthesis. The GOP would distance itself from Trump and Trumpism, and become a normal party once again.

But that dream soon died. The Trump presidency might have been the first act in a longer and even darker political drama, in which the Republican Party is becoming more radicalized. How long this will last is an open question; whether it is happening is not.

To better grasp whats happening among 2020 Trump voters, I spoke with Sarah Longwell, a lifelong conservative and political strategist who is now the publisher of The Bulwark, a news and opinion website that is home to anti-Trump conservatives. She is also the founder of Republican Voters Against Trump, now the Republican Accountability Project.

Recommended Reading: Donald Trump People Magazine Article 1998

Prior To Going To War In Iraq Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld Optimistically Predicted The Iraq War Might Last Six Days Six Weeks I Doubt Six Months

What’s more, Vice-President Dick Cheney said we would be greeted as liberators by the Iraqi people after we overthrow Saddam.

They were both horribly wrong. Instead of six weeks or six months, the Iraq war lasted eight long and bloody years costing thousands of American lives. It led to an Iraqi civil war between the Sunnis and the Shiites that took hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives. Many Iraqi militia groups were formed to fight against the U.S. forces that occupied Iraq. Whats more, Al Qaeda, which did not exist in Iraq before the war, used the turmoil in Iraq to establish a new foothold in that country.

The Iraq war was arguably the most tragic foreign policy blunder in US history.