#I can’t even remember the tags I’d use for this stuff yikes

[seagull-scribbles]

I don’t want wholesome non binary characters, give them a bomb

Me and my friend are having a debate

[cescalr]

Oooh, definitely glee for the fandom asks! <3

Always with the hornets' nests with these ones, I see! Though i don't think there's a fandom out there that isn't in some way a hornets' nest once it gets large enough... hm. Alright. I'm just gonna be as honest as i can be about this, and tag accordingly.

Glee:

my favourite female character: augh. argh. ouph. so difficult. so hard. Since I'm working off of half-remembered show and half recently-rewatched show... its a tossup. Mercedes, Santana, Quinn. Probably Mercedes. She did nothing wrong ever in her entire life <3 well okay maybe except that one time she smashed kurt's car windows (but it was a banger song, though). Can't say Santana because of the Biphobia TM and other things like excessive use of bigotry-based insults, and Quinn. Oh god girl. Cheating is not cool! Funnily enough! So I find them really interesting but 'favourite' is hard to say. Mercedes. Mercedes for sure <3

my favourite male character: Blaine sam blaine sam blaine sam yes. I am imitating ripping petals off of flowers and coming to a conclusion based on which is the last name i said. So I guess that means Sam! But really this is a tie.

my favourite book/season/etc: Mannnnn idk. I don't like shows for seasons as-a-whole. Also i could not tell you what happened in any given season if you held a gun to my head. I'm not good at that. The only shows i know 'seasons' of are Buffy and Teen Wolf because i've watched them like 100000000000 times (exaggeration) for various reasons (mostly fanfiction research).

my favourite episode (if its a tv show): I can tell you my LEAST favourite episode (blame it on the alcohol, thank you Kurt king of biphobia! this is a persona foible it's not the worst episode in the show. by far. by far. it's kind of an average one. I'm just angry at it.) BUT er. Favourite? Idk. Genuinely some of the earlier Kurt-centric stuff was really well done (his convo with Burt... <3) and the Quinn giving birth accompanied by bohemian rhapsody was obviously iconic, but if I'll be honest I couldn't name any episodes of this show (other than That One previously stated, anyway). And yeah most of the time they were named after song titles and No i don't remember those song titles either. I'm just so bad at this. My memory is that of a goldfish's being haphazardly bounced around on a sieve.

my favourite cast member: it would be really funny if I said Demi Lovato [she counts!] but the truth is N/A: i don't know these people !!! They are strangers!! (i don't. follow celebrities. at all. I couldn't even name most of them. They're just people doing a job and their lives are irrelevant to me beyond their ability to perform that job well. I do not need to know where they live and what coffee they drink. Stalker shit tbh. I'm kind of a very private person myself, so rpf-adjacent stuff just... creeps me out. I've never watched a single cast interview in my lifetime and I'm not about to start!)

my favourite ship: Difficult to say! Grave and obvious lie. Blam. It's blam. Quintana is a close runner up though Santana really needs to stop dating people who cheat on the regular (I'll accept Quinn has grown enough not to do this by the time a Quintana coupling would be viable - and satisfying in terms of character arcs - narratively speaking).

a character I’d die defending: Blaine Anderson did something wrong for sure but like Kurt did it first so shrugs. Cancels out. Bad for each other! Case closed!

a character I just can’t sympathize with: genuinely don't remember if I had one of those the first time around because I was like 10 and just didn't pay attention if I didn't care, but Terri and her racist self take that 'prize' this time, alongside the obvious predator in the room [original choir teacher. Sandy? I forget his name immediately after hearing it. He doesn't deserve to be remembered]. Also JBI is just.... a yikes character all around. I mean, he's a blatant stereotype for one, in a the people who wrote this person don't like jews kind of way. Unfortunately common stereotype too, for the era, so not only is he that, he's also lazy. Just a one-note pervert who's the butt of various antisemitic 'jokes' you've heard from era-peer shows a million times over, tired and awful and a sour reminder of bigotry that continues to this day. Really regrettable character who's lack of redeeming qualities was probably purposeful. (I know Rachel and tina are also jewish, but this comes up very rarely and mostly only when santana needs to say something kind of fucked up, as is her modus operandi, for 'comic relief'. Tina's jewish-ness wasn't even canon for several seasons, because she didn't have a surname or a family or anything resembling complex character depth for several seasons. The one time I really remember Rachel's religion being important was when she was pressuring Kurt into believing in some kind of god, which??? don't do that. Bad example. Trying to guilt trip a friend into faith sucks. I take back what i said earlier Mercedes did that too. Boo. Girls try again that was a bad showing all around. Though i have no idea why Kurt went the acupuncture route as his 'secular' option but i think that has to do a lot with the writers doing literally no research ever once in their lives (you can tell they don't by the way they write the football segments of the show, which make no sense according to football fans who watch Glee, of which there are numerous because real life isn't like fiction where you can only like music or sports. Most of the kids in my school year were doing the most of everything ever if they were the 'popular' ones - we do that differently; popularity isn't really based on who know know; for some bizzare reason literally everyone knew who I was? Even people I'd never spoken to?? - but more about like... how much you can do, I guess. Overachievers, but I'm not saying that negatively; these people were generally - generally - very nice, and surprisingly chill for people who had no spare time whatsoever. I'm not entirely sure when they slept; A* across the board, at least one sport, at least one instrument, several extracurriculars, parties every weekend, dozens of friends and an s.o. . Eh? Way too much going on. Scary lifestyle! Impressive burnout rate, probably. Er. Tangent! Back to the scheduled programming).) There's uhhhh there's a lot of bad characters on the show, but i'd say Sandy and Terri and her equally but more loudly racist sister are truly completely irredeemable ones. Like they're not interesting or anything, they're just there to be narrative annoyances (which, in the case of Sandy specifically, is insane. Arrest that man!!! He has actively sexually assaulted minors!!!).

a character I grew to love: difficult to say because I tend to just make an opinion and stick to it. Also i don't remember who i liked at first and who i didn't, this show came out when i was eight. I didn't watch it until I was a little older than that, of course, but I frankly have spotty memory until my late teens, so! I'm not sure!! Quinn, probably. Pink-hair-era Quinn helped me understand her more, and seeing the moments of kindness hidden behind practical cruelty, when you understand her family and situation, makes things make a lot more sense. It takes a lot to get me to sympathise with a cheater, but I can see where Quinn was getting all turned around in her head about life because of her upbringing and socialisation, not to mention the profoundly negative impact cheerios had on her mentally and that the school's culture in general was not exactly a breeding ground for empathy and optimism.

my anti otp: can you tell (klaine). I don't dislike Kurt!!! Please let him have a fun chillaxed boyfriend in new york with his vogue friends. But also please stop attempting to control other people's diets thank you!! Thank you!! I'm of mixed feelings. Blaine and Kurt both did at least one bad, relationship-ending thing, and proved over and over again that they just weren't on the same wavelength in regards to life goals and ways of living it. They can't even share the same living space, which is kind of required for a functional marriage. I don't know, it just seems like they settled for their first proper, serious boyfriend even if that's not really the best match, and I... wish they'd just got to see more of life first, you know? They got married at like 20! Or something! I'm 23, I cannot imagine getting married at 20. That's a baby. Let them live first!

(same for Santana and Brittney, imo. I also don't really like them together because Santana and Brittney have very different ideas regarding monogamy, which is just never going to go down well in the long run. If your girl cheats on you like twenty times and tells you to your face its not cheating in her view of things, but you think it is, break up with her because you'll just make each other miserable. Brittney sort of seems incapable of feeling guilt but if she were, this kind of moral pressure would be Not Good, and obviously Santana isn't comfortable with the idea and doesn't have to be!! Just move on!!! Find other people!!!! Don't marry your first girlfriend if you've broken up like ten times this is simple!!!! Please!!!! But Klaine wins out over Brittana because - in my opinion, glee fandom please do not persecute me, I am known for this specific thing - I see... interactions that verge on abusive between Klaine that I don't see in Brittana. So. Oof? Ex; use of public perception to disguise attack; deliberately hurting Blaine in a stage-combat fencing match (you are not meant to make actual contact in these) and thus using Blaine's own dislike of making his difficulties common knowledge against him in order to 'punish' him. This is no good! Don't do this!!.[Also just to err vaguepost about a comment.... that is. not. what i would call passive aggressive. Physically attacking someone with a sword - no matter the type of sword, fencing foils hurt just as much, they're just not stab-you sharp... er, these days - is just straight-up aggressive.]).

Note that negative things stick in the mind better than positive ones; on a rewatch I may well alter my opinion!

But also I'm really, really stubborn. So it's not likely. Klaine.

[katatty]

Sims Tag

I was tagged by @charmandersims​! I might have been tagged earlier by other people too but can’t remember for the life of me. Thank you, tho!

What’s your favourite sims death? I’ve always thought death by flies is fun, although I don’t think I’ve ever had it happen in normal gameplay!

Alpha CC or Maxis Match? Maxis match, I guess. Although I guess I do use “alpha” hairs, alpha doesn’t really mean anything with TS2...

Do you cheat when your sims gain weight? Nope, I don’t think my Sims really do gain weight all that often, it’s hard to over-feed them in vanilla gameplay! Unless they’re doing a lot of gardening and eating the sparkly foods. I usually welcome weight gain since it’s rare to have “fat” sims :D

Do you use move objects? Yes, decorating without it is a pain in the ass lol!

Favorite mod? At the moment I’d have to say Story Progression for how much it changes the game! But my real favourite is probably the Sim Blender. So simple but useful :D

First expansion/game/stuff pack you got? I think I got Nightlife and University together with the base game when I first played? I like University the most :D

Do you pronounce “live mode” like aLIVE or LIVing? aLIVE. I think of live mode as being like TV, like “we’re live!” That said I don’t think I even say “live mode” all that often, I always refer to it as having the game paused/unpaused 

Who’s your favorite sim that you’ve made? Ever???????? Gosh, maybe Duncan Huckleberry or Emmie Aisling? Neither of them are even that interesting facially, I just find them both really fun to write. In terms of face, maybe Lin Mori from Nekojima?

Have you made a simself? Yes, a few years ago! I remember doing quite a ute photoshoot with her, though I haven’t ever played with one in years

What sim traits do you give yourself? Excitable, cat-lover, slob, lucky, loves the outdoors

Which is your favorite EA hair color? I dunno, brown I guess?

Favorite EA hair? I like the one Nina and Bella use, especially all the dyed variants you can get in the mirror! I also really like the one that’s like half up and quite messy (that Lin Mori & Grace Linguine wear), apparently it’s called updo?

Favorite life stage? Young adults! I just love getting all that extra time with them. College is sooooo fun to me

Are you a builder or are you in it for the gameplay? Haha, I would say I am a builder but ultimately I am in it for the gameplay! Every build I make is with actually playing it in mind, and even if my building stuff “does better” on here I'm more invested in my gameplay and devote a lot more time to it :D

Are you a CC creator? I guess! Builds are kind of a type of CC, and I share those fairly regularly

Do you have any simblr friends/a sim squad? I don’t know, haha. I have a few simblr friends! But not really a “squad”. I find the idea a bit offputting lol

What’s your favorite game? (1, 2, 3, or 4) 2, of course!

Do you have any sims merch? Nah

Do you have a YouTube for sims? No, but I have considered it. Maybe when I get a new computer so I can actually do screen recording without my PC crapping out lol

How has your “sim style” changed throughout your years of playing? I don’t know if it’s really changed that much, haha, I’m a creature of habbit! My gameplay style is quite different between each save/hood, but my visual style hasn’t really changed since 2015, haha!

What’s your Origin ID? I don’t have Origin, lol!

Who’s your favorite CC creator? Ooooof, whenever I get asked this I opt not to pick one, haha!

How long have you had a simblr? Since 2014, apparently! So nearly 10 years, yikes!

How do you edit your pictures? I usually don’t edit them at all, but when I do I use an old photoshop action by @sterina-sims

What expansion/game/stuff pack do you want next? hahahahahaha

What expansion/game/stuff pack is your favorite so far? I dunno, I think all of them add some value! But I do really love seasons, it adds so much beauty to the game and I love the gardening mecchanics! :D

I feel like I’m pretty late to the party on this one and I’ve seen everyone do it already... feel free to consider yourself tagged if you want to!

[helliontherapscallion]

(Y/n) and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week: Tuesday

Monday     Wednesday     Thursday (Part 1)     Thursday (Part 2)     Friday     Saturday     Sunday

Spotify Playlist (collaborative)

Warnings: anxiety, doctor’s offices, taking pain pills (not sure if I need to tag that, but just in case), stalkers, blackmail, swearing, non-consensual taking pics of nudes, slight body dysmorphia, self-loathing, toxic friends

Word count: 5,326

(A/N): another long chapter, my little wlw heart loved writing this chapter! Also holy shit I was not expecting the first part to blow up, thank you to everyone that read it! Gosh, it’s enough to make a grown woman cry :’)

You cracked open your crusty eyes to Wilbur poking his head into your room. “(Y/n), Dad wants you.”

You groaned rubbing at your eyes in an attempt to get the sleep out of them. “I’ll be down in a sec.” Your voice was scratchy and thick with sleep.

He closed the door silently and you heard his socked feet thumping down the hallway. Your pain faded slightly into soreness, but your shoulders and upper back were slightly stiff. After you drug yourself out of bed, you shambled down the stairs to see your family at the table eating breakfast. Your stomach growled loudly, making you blush slightly in embarrassment. 

Your eldest brother snorted. “Hungry (y/n)?”

You slumped into your seat next to him slowly shoveling food into your mouth. “You have no idea.”

“You wouldn’t be that hungry if you ate dinner when you got home like I told you to do last night, young lady. You better eat every single thing on that plate.”

There was no arguing with a stern Dadza, so you reluctantly complied. Meanwhile, Tommy and Tubbo were telling Wilbur about your match animatedly. 

“And the ball was like fwoosh and she- the ball and-and-”

“And she hit it and Haley hit it to the other side! It was so cool!”

Wilbur merely smiled listening to them ramble about how badass you were last night. They made you feel genuinely happy that they admired your volleyball abilities; they were probably your biggest fans and that made your day most of the time. You remembered the first match they came to during your freshman year, they had run up to you right after the end-of-match whistle blew to spew about how good you were on the court. They met the team that day. Your team adored having them at your games, over the years they slowly replaced your school’s mascot. They played a huge part in morale boosts before and during matches. 

He looked over to you, “I didn’t know my little sister could be so badass.”

You felt your cheeks flare up. “It’s nothing I haven’t done before. It really wasn’t anything special.”

“(Y/n),” Philza pursed his lips, “you did all that with a bruised back, I’d consider that something special.”

“Wait (y/n), you’re hurt?” Tommy and Tubbo looked at you with wide concerned eyes.

“Yeah, but it’s not that bad. I can still move and stuff.”

Techno rolled his eyes, “it’s bad if you’re going to the doctor for it.”

“Eh, it doesn’t hurt as bad as it did yesterday, so I’m not worried.” 

“You’re deadass wincing everytime you move your arm,” WIlbur deadpanned, “it clearly still hurts.”

“Well yeah, I didn’t say the pain went away completely. Fuckin’ dumbass.”

“Language,” Philza glared at you two, gesturing to the two fifth graders watching the exchange with interest. 

You and Wilbur resumed eating and murmured out a defeated “sorry Dad.” You both glared at Techno when he huffed in amusement. 

“If you three keep bickering, you’re going to be late to school. Remember, you two have to drop off Tommy and Tubbo today cuz I’m taking your sister to her appointment. Now go get ready, I’ll take care of your dishes.”

Your brothers took off up the stairs, each competing to get to the bathroom first. Occasionally, you would hear shouts and slapping noises. You felt glad you didn’t have to deal with that today. Judging by Techno’s gruff voice laughing and an explosion of loud complaints from the rest, you assumed that he won today. “I swear, they’re gonna put me in an early grave.”

“You and me both Dad, you and me both.”

You went into the kitchen and pulled out a bottle of pain pills from the junk drawer. Various bottles of Motrin and Advil were scattered around the house because when you live with a rambunctious family like this one, people are bound to get hurt and headaches are common. Popping three into your mouth, you washed it down with a glass of water. The sound of the running water faucet and the slight splashing of water filled the silence of the room. 

“How’s your back? Does it feel any better?”

“Kinda, today it just feels more sore than throbbing, my headache went away mostly, and my shoulder doesn’t feel any worse, so that’s better I guess.”

He shut off the water and reached for a towel to dry off his wet hands. He moved over to the freezer and grabbed a frozen package of peas that your family never ate. You all used it whenever one of you would get a bruise. He moved behind you and held it against your back without warning. Flinching forward from the unexpected temperature change, you winced with the wave of pain moving brought you. 

“Shit, sorry.”

“You’re good. Just give me a little warning next time,” you chuckled. He gently placed it back on your back and you sighed from the slight relief that it brought you. You leaned into the peas and closed your eyes. “That feels amazing.”

“I bet. That bruise was pretty bad yesterday, can I look at it again?”

You reluctantly left the sanctuary that was the medical grade frozen peas and leaned forward, moving your hair out of the way for him. “Knock yourself out.”

He made a hissing noise as soon as he moved your shirt out of the way. “Dad, it probably looks worse than it feels.”

“...Have you seriously not looked at this yet? It looks pretty bad, hun.”

“Well, sorry I can’t move to look at my back without being in pain. I’ll try harder next time.” You snarked him.

“Hey, watch the attitude. Here, I’ll take a picture so you can see how bad it is.”

You heard the rustling of fabric as he fished his phone out of his pocket and the obnoxiously loud click of his camera app. You turned around to look at the damage. You squinted at his bright phone screen. Your entire back was swollen in some areas and was covered in ugly reds, blues, blacks, and purples. You made a disgusted noise in the back of your throat and cringed away from the screen. You always got nauseous seeing injuries.

“Yikes.”

“Yikes isn’t the only word I would use, it’s bad (y/n).”

“It looks worse than it feels, I promise. I’m gonna go get ready so we’re not late to my appointment. It sounds like the boys are finally done with the bathroom.”

You hobbled up the stairs slowly and made your way to the bathroom. The door was wide open ready for you to use. Turning on the light, you closed the door in a hurry so that your brothers wouldn’t try to get in again to hog the bathroom like they usually did. You frowned at your appearance. Your hair was sticking up in every direction and you had dark eye bags around your dull looking eyes. A few pimples dotted your skin like constellations in the night sky, but much uglier and more out of place. Turning your body, you scanned your figure. Your eyes watered as you realized that you had gained some weight. Adrian, Sammy, and Annie were right, you looked like garbage all the time.

You ripped your eyes away from yourself in the mirror with disgust etched deep into your features. You were disgusting through and through. Ripping your brush through your hair, you winced at the pain emanating from the back of your head. You deserve the pain for letting yourself go. Once you were slightly more satisfied with your appearance, you stepped out of the bathroom and quickly changed into the clothes you would wear today. You decided on a hoodie and a pair of tights. You didn’t feel like dressing yourself up. 

You once again walked down the stairs and slipped on your shoes to meet your dad in his car. You idly scrolled through your phone while you waited for him, looking at your notifications for the first time that day. You had ten texts from the group chat that you were in with Adrian, Annie, and Sammy.

Sammy <3

(Y/n) where the hell are you?

Adrian <3

Do you guys think she ditched us?

I knew she was ignoring us

Sammy <3

Who ignores their friends?

Annie <3

(Y/n) apparently. 

She has more important things to do ig

Oh my god

Do you guys think she skipped school?

Adrian <3

I wouldn’t put it past her

Maybe she finally gave up

(Y/n)

I’m sorry guys, I just have a doctor’s appointment today

I would never ignore you

Sammy <3

Yk, it’s hard to keep defending you when you keep ditching us..

(Y/n)

I’m not ditching you!

I’m sorry I didn’t tell you guys about my appointment

I’ll make it up to you guys

Adrian <3

How?

You’ve already skipped out on us enough already

Annie <3

Oh ik!

She can write our final research paper for us Dri!

I haven’t started it yet lmao

Adrian <3

Saaaame lmaoooo

Sammy <3

Guys, what about me???

Adrian <3

Idk, figure it out yourself

Sammy <3

Rude!

Uhhh

Ur gonna put together my final presentation for us history

(Y/n)

Alright, I can do that for you guys

Sam can you pls send me the rubric? 

Annie <3

Thanks love ;)

(Y/n)

No problem, I like doing things for friends

My dad’s coming, I gotta go

Talk to you guys later

Adrian <3

Byeeee (y/n), ur the best!

(Y/n)

: ) <3

You put your phone down as your dad started up the car and pulled out of the driveway. The drive was quiet as you stared out the window and thought about how much work you now had to do. On top of your own classes, you had two more to write and a presentation to make in a class you hadn’t taken since the first semester in your sophomore year. The research papers had to be at least four full pages long with a minimum of ten sources each due on Friday and you had no idea how big Sammy’s US history presentation has to be or what it’s even about. But that was fine, you’d do anything for your friends. 

“So, who were you texting? Your boyfriend?” He asked jokingly.

“Oh, just Adrian, Sammy, and Annie. I don’t have a boyfriend Dad,” because you were a closeted lesbian, but you wouldn’t tell him that anytime soon. “You know that.”

“I know,” he chuckled, “it’s been a while since I’ve seen them. How have they been?”

“They’re good. Adrian got a job at the diner, he’s a host. Sammy and Annie have been focusing more on raising their grades.”

“Good for them! You should invite them over for dinner sometime.”

“I was actually thinking that I could maybe go hang out with them on Halloween...?”

“(Y/n), the family was going to take Tommy and Tubbo trick-or-treating.”

“I know, but there’s always next year. Plus, we haven’t been able to hang out in so long! We’re always free at different times.”

“I don’t know (y/n), what if they don’t want to trick-or-treat next year? What were you planning on doing with them?”

“We were just gonna hang out at Annie’s house and watch some horror movies,” you lied. He would never let you go if he knew you were going to a party. Especially one where alcohol would be involved and hormonal teenage boys ran rampant actively scouting for an easy lay.

“...I’ll think about it.” The car pulled into the doctor office’s parking lot.

“Thank you Dad! It’s been a while since we’ve all hung out together.”

He chuckled as you both walked into the lobby, checked in, and waited for your name to be called. About ten minutes later, you were summoned by a nurse so you went into the back leaving your dad to wait in the lobby. The nurse recorded your height and weight (much to your dismay, you gained four pounds) and asked you the standard questions about your injury and uncomfortable questions about your overall health. The clacking of her acrylic nails on the plastic keyboard filled the awkward silence.

Once that was done, she left and you had to wait a little bit for the doctor. After slipping into the backless gown the nurse left, you mindlessly scrolled on your phone. Jumping when someone knocked on the door, you looked up to see your family’s doctor smiling at you.

“Hello (y/n), how are we feeling today?”

“I’m alright.”

“I hear that you had quite the fall onto some concrete, is that true?”

“Yes, I landed on my back and the back of my head.”

She reached over and squirted hand sanitizer onto her hands, rubbing it in and looking back at you. “Can you please lay on your stomach so I can take a look at your back?”

You nodded, shifting on the uncomfortable paper covered cushioned table onto your stomach. You felt her cold hands gently graze your bruises before she pulled out her stethoscope. “Can you take a good deep breath in for me?”

You complied and she instructed you to let it out. Doing this multiple times along your back, she put her stethoscope away and continued prodding at your exposed back. 

“There’s definitely some swelling in multiple areas… It doesn’t feel or sound like you cracked or broke any ribs, which is excellent… Do you have any pain deep in your shoulder when you move it?”

“Yes, I landed on it wrong last night at my volleyball match.”

“How would you describe your pain? Stabbing, sore, throbbing…”

“More sore, but a little stabbing pain when I move my arm.”

She moved her fingers to examine your shoulder. “It doesn’t sound like a sprain or fracture, can you move it up and down for me?”

You moved your arm up and down, front and back, and side to side. “You still have a full range of movement, that’s good. Can I have you sit back up again?”

You sat back up and she started testing you for a concussion. After passing her tests, you were cleared of having a concussion. “Alright (y/n), it appears that you only strained your deltoid and teres muscles and you have severe bruising along your back. Make sure you ice your back and, if you have one, wear a shoulder compression sleeve. Anti-inflammatory medications such as Ibuprofen will help with the swelling. Other than that, you have a clean bill of health! You can still participate in volleyball practices, but you need to take it easy. Don’t do anything that will strain the muscles any further.”

“Thank you Dr. Samson,” you smiled at her. 

“You’re welcome. I’ll leave you to change back into your clothes and you’re free to go! You may leave the gown on the table.”

She left the room and you redressed yourself. Walking out to the lobby, Philza’s head perked up when he heard the door opening. He stood up and walked over to you with a slightly worried face. You both walked back out to the car.

“So?”

“Dr. Samson said that I don’t have a concussion, sprains or broken bones. She told me that I just strained my shoulder muscles and I need to keep ice on my back.”

He visibly slumped in relief. “Thank god. What’d she say about volleyball?”

“She said that I could keep playing, but I have to take it easy.”

“Good, wouldn’t want you missing finals on Thursday. Do you know if the team you’re playing is any good?”

“Dad, of course they’re good, we’re the top two teams in the area.”

“I bet their setter is nowhere near as good as you are and I bet the setter and spiker aren’t as synced as you and Haley are. You two make a good pair.” 

“Yeah we do, don’t we?” You looked out the window and smiled a little and felt your ears turn red. The very mention of Haley’s name was enough to make you feel like you were on cloud nine. The car fell silent again as you neared your high school. 

In your AP world history class, the class was looking at the test you had taken yesterday. Surprisingly, you got a 74% on the multiple choice part and a 50% on your essay portion, so that landed you with a just below passing grade. You thought you completely flunked that test yesterday, so that was a pleasant surprise. It took a good portion out of your overall grade in the class, lowering it from a comfortable A- to a slightly alarming B. You supposed it could’ve been a lot worse. Besides reviewing your tests, the class didn’t do much except starting the reading for the next chapter.

Your psychology online class went like it usually did, however your phone blew up with texts about midway through the block. Glancing down, you saw that it was Haley. Shouldn’t she be in class?

Hales : )

(Y/n) meet me in the locker room right after school

I need to talk to you before practice starts

It’s an emergency

(Y/n)

What’s going on?

Hales : )

I’ll explain after school.

Can’t talk about it over text

(Y/n)

Alright, see ya then ig

You felt your gut twinge. Something’s wrong, but you didn’t know what. You were worried about Haley, usually she was really bubbly. You’ve never seen the senior act so strange before. You could only wait the block out until the bell would release you from the confines of the library and into the locker room. After sending a quick text to your brothers that you were going to stay after school for your practice, you stared blankly at your laptop’s clock as you counted down the minutes left in the class period. Ten minutes. Eight minutes. Four minutes. Two minutes. Thirty seconds-

You shot up from your seat as the bell rang. Pushing past some groups of freshmen that congregated in the hallways, you made a beeline for the locker room. In the locker room, you found Haley sitting on the metal bench on the opposite end of the locker room with her back facing the last row of lockers and facing the brick wall. She was clenching her phone in her hand with an iron grip. You hurried to sit next to her.

“Hales, what’s going on? Talk to me.”

“It’s bad (y/n). Like, really bad.”

“What’s bad? You’re worrying me.”

Wordlessly, she unlocked her phone and handed it to you. On the screen was something that you weren’t expecting to see. You scrolled through the contents and felt your stomach drop with each scroll; someone took pictures of you and Haley throughout the match last night. Every picture was a violation to yours and Haley’s dignities, they had gotten zoomed in pictures of your boobs and asses. Deeper, there were even pictures taken of you changing into your volleyball uniform through your open window. You were only in your underwear. Haley had a similar picture that you scrolled past as fast as you could. Scrolling to the bottom of the text message thread, the person that sent Haley the pictures added a caption to the last picture. It was a picture of you and Haley together celebrating your match, her arm slung around your shoulder with your mouth open mid-laugh.

Unknown

I’m sending these out to the entire school unless you stop hanging around her.

If you tell anyone, the pics will be printed off and put in every single locker and bathroom the school has.

You’ll be the sluts of Klinkver High. 

Cut all ties now. You have two days. 

Do not try me.

“Jesus christ Haley. Who the fuck would do this? This is sick.”

She took her phone back and locked it without looking at the screen. “I don’t know (y/n). I wanted to tell you not to openly talk to me for a few days. We don’t know who took these, we don’t know what they’re capable of. I don’t wanna risk angering them.”

“We can find them! If we look close enough, we might find a few clues where they were sitting. Do you remember seeing anything suspicious last night?”

“(Y/n), our best option is to leave it. We just can’t talk in person anymore; we can still text each other.”

“Hales, how are we gonna not talk? I’m your setter.”

She ran a hand through her thick black hair. “I don’t know (y/n). Just-just don’t talk to me anymore, I don’t want your pictures leaked.”

“I don’t care about my pictures. My name’s been drug through so much shit this past year that it won’t affect me. I don’t want your stuff leaked.”

She gave a watery laugh, “you care too much, I love that about you…” Glistening eyes turned to look deep into your own. “I’m so scared (y/n), I don’t know what to do.”

You pulled her into a hug, wincing slightly when she squeezed her arms around your upper back. She buried her face into your shoulder and started shaking with muffled sobs. “Haley, I promise I’ll catch whatever sick bastard is doing this to you. You don’t deserve this.”

She said nothing as you rested your chin on the top of her head and started to rock her back and forth slowly. You two stayed like that even after her sobbing resided, finding comfort in each other’s presence. Glancing at the clock, you realized that you two have been in the locker room for an hour. Practice was set to start in fifteen minutes, people were going to start coming into the locker room soon. 

You reluctantly pulled away from the hug and looked Haley in her bloodshot eyes, “I’m not going to let those pictures of you get leaked. I swear on my-”

The door to the locker room swung open and loud laughter echoed throughout the room. Haley pushed you away and speed walked off to a bathroom stall, slamming the door shut behind her. 

“Damn (y/n), what’d you do? She’s pissed.” 

“It’s none of your business, Zara.” 

“Oh, so it’s a lover’s quarrel then~” She cackled, her hair bouncing slightly with each heave of her shoulders. 

“For the love of… Haley and I aren’t dating, we’re both straight.” She’s straight.

“Mmhm.” She brushed past you to go to her locker. You followed her, your locker was in the grouping next to hers. You shared the area with Haley. You changed as fast as you could so that Haley would have time to change before practice starts. Speed walking into the gym, Zara was hot on your trail wearing a shit eating grin.

“Why are you in such a rush? Giving your girlfriend the silent treatment?”

“Zara. We aren’t dating. For the last time, we’re both heterosexual, not homosexual!” You wildly gestured with your hands to emphasize your point, your voice being amplified by the vast gym. Coach Williams gave you a confused look from across the gym. 

“You just keep telling yourself that.”

“I’m serious.”

“Hi serious,” a soft voice replied from behind you, “I’m Jazzy.”

You groaned at the pun at the same time Zara started cackling, giving the short libero a high five. “Nice!”

“That was so bad, Jaz.” You couldn’t help the smile that found its way onto your face.

Zara poked your cheek with a wide grin. “C’mon, you’re smiling!”

“I am and I hate it.”

Your bickering continued with Jazzy watching you two with a content smile. The remaining members of the team (Haley, Marlene, and Zuri) filed into the gym right as Coach Williams blew her whistle. 

Practice went by slowly without Haley talking to you. Sure, you had the rest of the team, but it didn’t feel the same with you guys ignoring each other. If the team or Coach Williams noticed you two not talking to each other, they didn’t say anything. By time practice was over, you all went to the locker room to change. After slipping into your fuzzy pajama pants, you sat on the bench and texted Wilbur to come pick you up. He was supposed to pick you up after practice today because he and Techno took the car home after school. Five minutes passed and he still didn’t reply. He probably won’t see the text until you got home from walking.

You sighed, resting your chin in your palm as you leaned forward. One by one, the girls left the locker room until it was only you and Haley left. 

“Do you need a ride (y/n)?” She asked gently.

“But what if the person sees us together? I can just walk home, it’s not really a big deal.”

She rolled her eyes at you. “It is a big deal. It’s cold and dark out. You could get kidnapped or something. You don’t even have a coat with you. I’m giving you a ride whether you like it or not.”

You playfully rolled your eyes at her and stood up to walk next to her, “okay, mom.”

“Don’t give me that attitude young lady.”

“You can’t tell me what to do, you’re not my real mom!”

She gasped and lightly smacked the back of your shoulder, “I married your- are you alright? Shit, I didn’t hurt you did I?”

“No, you’re good. It’s just this damned bruise.”

She moved her hands and frantically turned you around to pull the neck of your shirt down. You two stood in front of the school’s main entrance with the nauseatingly bright fluorescent light bouncing off the reflective surface of the tiles. The orange tinted street lights lit up the sidewalk outside.

“(Y/n)-”

“I know what you’re gonna say.”

She scoffed, “oh really? What am I gonna say then, o wise one?”

You turned around to face her, “‘oh, this is bad, yadda yadda yadda.’ Everyone’s been saying that about it. Honestly it looks worse than it feels. Tis but a scratch, m’lady.”

She snorted and covered her mouth, “never call me ‘m’lady’ ever again.”

You started to walk to her car in the empty parking lot. “Or what? What’re ya gonna do?”

“I swear to god, (y/n), I’m gonna leave you here.”

“Do it, pussy. Bet you won’t.”

“You really wanna bet?”

You grinned at her, “hell yeah.”

She broke off into a mad dash to her car, laughing freely into the night sky. You chased after her trying not to move your arms much, your laugh mixing with hers like a perfect symphony composed of the world’s best musicians. The sound of your rubber soles slapping the pavement resonated throughout the parking lot as you quickly gained on her. Reaching out to grab her shirt, she smirked at you and sharply turned to the right into the grass.

You grinned as her pace slowed down slightly. You’d be able to catch her at this pace. You pushed your legs to move faster as she looked at you from over her shoulder and shrieked in surprise at how close you were to her. You cackled at her reaction, reaching out once again, you grabbed her hand. She was stopped dead in her tracks as your shoulder was yanked with the sudden momentum, making you hiss in slight pain. Despite that, you didn’t let go of her soft hand. 

You both stood there under the moonlight and the soft orange street lamps trying to  catch your breath. The slightly damp blades of grass tickled your ankle as you shifted to face her better. Through gasping breaths and a dopey grin, you said “you… lost, pussy.”

She let out a breathy laugh as she pulled you to her car. “Shuddup.”

“Make me~”

She opened the passenger side door for you and got into the driver's seat. Her car smelled like vanilla and citrus. “Oh, you will later when I make you do more sets in weight lifting tomorrow, hurt shoulder be damned.”

She turned on the ignition and the car revved to life, soft indie pop wafted from the speakers. She backed out of the parking space and sped off to the main road. “You wouldn’t…”

“I’m your captain, (y/n). I can make you do whatever I want.” You felt your cheeks heat up a tad. You were happy that she couldn’t see you.

“Naw, you’re too much of a softie for that. Admit it, I’ve got you wrapped around my little finger.”

She chuckled as she pulled into your driveway and put the car in park. “...Alright, maybe you do. Just a bit.”

She turned to look at you. She looked stunning with the shadows accentuating the contours of her face perfectly. You found yourself glancing at her lips and leaning slightly towards you. To your surprise, she started leaning into you as well. Before your lips could finally mesh together, she pulled back with a sigh and ran her hand through her hair. You felt a rush of disappointment and fear course through your veins. She didn’t like you like that, you should’ve known better. You were so stupid. So, so stu-

“I can’t (y/n). I want to kiss you so bad, but we can’t. Not yet at least. Not until we find the pervert that took those pictures of us.”

You sighed, “right.”

The car was filled with awkward silence. Not even the soft music streaming from the speakers could alleviate the awkwardness. God, you really screwed up your friendship, didn’t you? Sammy, Adrian, and Annie were right; you messed up everything you touched.

You coughed, “I think I’m gonna…”

“Yeah…”

You grabbed your bag and walked into your house, the smell of chicken slapping you in the face instantly. Without checking in with your dad, you hurried up the stairs, desperate for the warm comfort of your bed. That, and if you wanted to get Sammy’s presentation and Adrian’s, Annie’s, and your research papers done by Friday, you had to start as soon as you could. You were going to skip dinner for tonight, you’d just grab more breakfast tomorrow morning. 

You plopped on your bed and got started on your research paper. Luckily, you already had all of the sources you were planning on using and the rough outline of each body paragraph, so writing the actual paper wasn’t going to take long. You worked until you heard a knock at your door. 

“(Y/n),” Techno’s monotone voice called out, “dinner’s ready.”

“Tell Dad I’m not hungry. Practice’s got me beat, I’m going to bed soon.”

He grunted, “you know he’s not gonna like that right?”

You felt frustration start to swim circles around your chest, “Techno, just tell him that I’m not hungry right now. Please.”

“Damn, you don’t need to be like that. I’ll tell him.”

You heard his stomping footsteps thumping down the hall. Shit, you pissed him off. You were a terrible person, he was just trying to get you to eat something, Pushing back the tears that threatened to spill from your eyes, you forced the panic that was starting to swirl around your body in laps deep into your being. You didn’t have time to deal with your failures and stupid emotions, you had to get this done. You didn’t have time to think about Haley’s warm breath ghosting across your lips. You didn’t have time to think about how she probably regretted almost kissing you. You didn’t have time to fall into an anxiety spiral, you needed to focus if you wanted Adrian, Annie, and Sammy to forgive you. You ruined yours and Haley’s friendship and did the same to yours and Techno’s. They were the only ones you had left. You needed to be a better friend.

Taglist (comment if you want to be added or if I missed you, it won’t let me tag some tumblrs :((( ):

@immadatmostthings  @thaticecreambish  @hee-hee-haw  @dearnataliealoveletter  @wasteofspacze  @dcml04  @bbigbbrainn  @dirtydiavolo  @vanhakirja  @rinzyx05  @misselsbells06  @ialexabsuniverse  @im-a-depressed-gay  @energy-drinkk  @mothra-main  @i-need-hugs  @dragons-lurk-here  @katj733  @m4r-s  @vievi  @dykeragee  @waterstrawberry  @aplaintart  @kakamiissad  @myunfinishedsymphony  @nagitokinnieissad  @autumnpleaves  @justanothergirlwithdemons  @zachariethememerie  @moon-asia  @m0on-blue  @strawberrysodababy  @akikko-yataro  @haikkeiji  @shiningsunrises  @cinnamonmochi  @queen-turtle-boiii  @imanewsoul  @sparkling-gayyyy  @angelicaschuyler-church  @vixenfoxpup  @ella-ivanov  @shio-yuki  @mosstea-png  @ijustshatbricks

[ziamhaze]

My Future in Fic

Yeah, so, the 100k fic that I’ve been working on for the past six months?  The one that was going to be uploaded to AO3 last week?  Yeah, it’s accidentally getting published...

Where do I start?

I suppose with a massive thank you to anyone who’s clicked on any of my fics over these past two years.  I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again.  I never ever thought about writing as a career.  I’ve never written anything prior to my Harry Potter AU Compartment 451.  I didn’t even take an English class in undergrad or grad school.  I genuinely just had an idea for a fic I wanted to read and since no one had written it, I had to do so myself.  Since then, I’ve written every single day for 2 years.  I left my job in the entertainment industry, got accepted to one of the best creative writing programs in the world on a scholarship, and now one of my stories is being considered at Harper Collins.  Yes, the Harper Collins.  It’s the longest shot in the world, but for legal reasons I was not allowed to upload the fic version on any website prior to submission.  Even if they don’t pick it up, I’ve been advised to continue to shop it around to agents.

What I can do, however, is share the premise.

If you’ve been following my tumblr and watching my tags - I SEE YOU ALL OUT THERE - then you’ll know that this fic was meant to have Zayn with his signature undercut hairstyle and one more little thing...

Someone sent me an ask a while back about what this fic was supposed to be about.  I believe I said something about it being an adaptation fic, but not from a film/tv show/other piece of literature, from a song.  This next fic was meant to be an adaptation of the song Younger by Ruel.  Later on, it also took shape with the help of Remember by Liam and a few others that you can find here.

The miniature summary is as follows:

When his father suddenly passes, twenty-nine-year-old Liam Payne is brought back to the Sydney suburbs where he grew up.  He doesn’t plan on seeing his childhood best friend, Zayn Malik, at the burial service.  They haven’t spoken since going from brothers to strangers one fateful day fifteen years prior.  But Zayn puts an end to this when he approaches Liam after the burial, offering his condolences and asking if Liam can help his archaeological research team with photographing their newest project.  The unexpected closeness forces each man to wade through uneasy emotions.  For Liam, a mixture of grief, lost identity, and confusion over why he’s willing to interact with the one person he swore he’d never forgive.  And for Zayn, a tidal wave of anxiety that comes from finally facing a part of himself he’s always chosen to deny.  When We Were Younger is a story heavily rooted in blurred identities and exploring what loss can look like in two different scenarios: death and friendship.

For obvious reasons, their names will be changed.  Liam, to Hutton.  Zayn, to Cairo (his ethnicity will also be changed to Egyptian).  As you can see, it was meant to be my big ‘enemies to lovers’ fic.  Technically, it’s ‘best friends to enemies to lovers’, but you know.

Right, so what does this mean for me going forward?

I still have so much inspiration when it comes to writing Zayn and Liam as characters.  I don’t plan on putting a complete stop to writing them, but with my career taking this large of a turn, I do have to prioritise my time.  That said, as of now, I can’t afford to write long-form fic any longer.

Soon, I’ll be starting a PhD program where I’ll be writing another full-length novel for mass publication.  For fun, here’s a little insight on the two ideas that I’ll be pitching:

1.  Underground boxer (loosely based off Liam) falls in love with arms gang leader (loosely based off Zayn).  Throughout their love story, the latter has to outrun the psychological trauma his father (the leader of Zayn’s rival gang) still throws his way. 

2.  Cold War AU.  Paris, circa 1950/51.  Ambassador’s son (loosely based off Liam) befriends new student (loosely based off Zayn) at the international school.  Paris is a ticking time bomb; war is about to break out at literally any second.  The two clearly have feelings for each other, but can’t act on them because homosexuality in the 1950s...yikes.  When war does break out, the two are separated, and as Liam’s character goes out to find Zayn’s, he learns a secret of his that changes everything.

Whichever I don’t write for the PhD will be the novel I write following it.

In the meantime, I’m going to continue to write (and edit) like crazy.  Ever since I randomly wrote C451, there hasn't been a day that’s gone by where I haven't written something.  It may have only been a paragraph or two, but never zero.  This is how you get better.  This is the equivalent of going out and shooting free throws for 30 minutes a day.  You have to put in the work in order to get better.  I'm very lucky that I'm incredibly self-disciplined and I've been able to crank out as many stories as I have over the past 2 years.

That said, I’ll be writing shorter little oneshots.  I have several ideas that I’ve been sitting on, but haven’t ever thought to write because I HATE writing short stories.  Little ideas that don't have huge plotline/climax potential, but that I want to just see on paper, I'll probably end up writing.  If I had to guess, I'd say they'll come out to around 10-15k.  Also, sequels?  Prequels?  Haha, you never know...

I’ve also got a series called “Sleep Drabbles” that are, yes, you guessed it, a series of drabbles based around one theme: sleep.  I also have a few scenes that I want to write which are based on ziam’s kids, not actually ziam themselves.  If there’s enough demand for that, I can upload those too, but they’re quite niche, so I don’t think the general fandom would be very interested.

As far as frequency for all of this, I have no idea.  I’ve always done things at my own pace and written stories that I want to write, for myself.  That won’t ever change, so I don’t want to commit to one drabble a week or one short-length fic per month.  It takes me weeks (months for this last fic) to research and interview the necessary people to get character arcs correct/believable.  I love that part of writing, and so if I have a little story that I want to write that may only be 10k but takes me ages to put together how I want, then so be it.  I will always be around to answer asks/messages and please, continue to tag me in your writing tag posts!  But please, no prompts.

So, that’s my future with fic.

Again, I cannot say thank you enough to every single one of you.  Every single thing that people tag me in (@malik-payne , @zqua1d , @zentiment , @liamisthesun , @redyellowberry I’m looking at you), I appreciate and love!  The recommendation lists that people have put me on, THANK YOU!  It’s wild to think that I used to look to rec lists for years and now I’m on them.  @ziamfanfiction THANK YOU for always having my back with exposure!  @paynefulperiods , my beloved beta reader, THANK YOU for always encouraging me and putting up with shit first drafts.  @march-z5 , THANK YOU for always being on call for ideas and listening to me bang my head against the wall at 4 am.

Now, might fuck around and make a fake picspam for the fic that never was...

Also, all of the behind scenes pages for each of my fics are now public, so feel free to check those out here.

I want to thank you all from the bottom of my heart for making this journey possible. I know people say that a lot when they gain a following of any sort, but I truly truly mean it.  You have to have talent in order to be an author, but you also have to have people who want to read your stuff.  Proof of concept is a real thing.

So thank you a million times over.

Speak soon my friends.

[theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin]

Why do you think Tomarry would work? I see a lot of people hating on it and the only response I ever see is that they come from similar backgrounds or people just like enemies to lovers. Also which horcrux do you think Harry would go best with (including Voldemort)

So, this is probably a more complicated question than you intended, but that’s because I live in bizarre head canon lands that few ever dare venture towards.

With that, let’s get started.

But What Do You Really Ship, Muffin?

First, it probably bears saying that I’m not really a Tomarry shipper. I know, I’ve written more than one Tomarry story, so if that’s not Tomarry what is? Well, remember that those Tomarry pairing tags are a filthy lie. October I committed the grievous sin of breaking up the Tomarry and throwing Tom at Harry’s mother. Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus is barely a Harry Potter fic in any capacity, and while the ship is the driving force of the fic, it’s also this nebulous, distant, thing that really shows up only in strange side stories where I try to make people laugh. When Harry Met Tom is probably the closest that I take seriously, but I also intentionally subvert all your typical Tomarry tropes for my own enjoyment. 

The only Tomarry story I’d say I’ve ever actually written is “The Burning Taste of Fire Whisky”. It’s a very popular story, sadly perhaps my most popular on Ao3, but I actually loathe it entirely. 

A lot of the time I feel like I just happen to have a Tomarry shirt on and then I suddenly became a subject matter expert. If you want the Tomarry opinions from real Tomarry people, I’m probably not the best person to ask. In fact, if you want really any standard answer about Harry Potter anything, I’m not the best person to ask.

Now, I’m not just saying this to be a hipster but to sort of give some background for why I’m going to give the answer I’m going to give and why it’s going to be 100% different from everyone else’s and yes, sometimes, I do think I came from Mars.

Will the Real Tomarry Please Stand Up?

So with that, the bottom line is: taking canon as JKR intended, completely at face value, Tomarry doesn’t work at all. This is because JKR fully intends a very flat, one-dimensional, and frankly quite boring Tom Riddle. Tom Riddle’s evil, Tom Riddle was born evil, Tom Riddle was evil in the womb because of rape. He is completely and utterly irredeemable and understands nothing of love.

Well, that sort of sinks the ship right out of the harbor, doesn’t it? A Tom Riddle incapable of love is one incapable of growth, especially in a romantic focused story. If you try to write it you just get weird sociopathic whump porn where Tom probably whips Harry in a closet somewhere.

Added onto this we get that, despite what she put down on paper, Harry is supposed to be a straight man. That aside, he’s also a righteous man whose understanding of things like love and friendship mean he’d never sully himself with gross Tom Riddle. Ew, what are you people thinking?

Well, what if we take canon just mostly as JKR intended? What if we just look at the characters the way she actually wrote them versus what she was trying to do? Still no dice.

Tom might now be capable of love, be a far more engaging character who can go somewhere, and be pulled out of a pit of rage and despair by someone but that someone ain’t Harry.

First, while I firmly believe Harry is gay (gay, not bisexual, compare his descriptions of Cho/Ginny to Tom Riddle/Sirius Balck/Cedric Diggory/Charlie Weasley, that boy pants after Tom Riddle and Cho’s kiss is “wet”) he’s also a much worse person and much dumber character than JKR intended. It’s really the first that damns the pairing.

I have a whole giant post on how Harry’s a little yikes but the long and short of it is that while Harry thinks he understands friendship and love he’s also someone who will cut out his friends at a moment’s notice if he feels remotely slighted, uses and sacrifices them for his own ends, gleefully uses unforgiveable curses when given the opportunity, and is the kind of guy who would cut someone up in the bathroom, leave them to bleed to death, and only really feel bad about it when it seems he might get in trouble for it.

This Harry ending up even with a Tom who could potentially be redeemed would more likely lead to, well, weird psychopathic whump porn where Harry tortures Tom in his basement to make him pay for all the horrible things he’s done while Harry claims he’s the most moral person ever because his mother loved him.

So, yeah, no Tomarry for you.

But Wait, Didn’t You Say You Believed in Tomarry?

What I believe in are archetypes.

Remove what Harry’s supposed to be, remove what I think he actually is (one maladjusted, violent, dude with a whole lot of anger issues), let’s make Harry what perhaps JKR didn’t even know she wanted: one of those rare fundamentally good heroes who warps an entire story with the strength of their inner nobility.

Harry Potter is meant to be a story about love and friendship. Now, it’s not actually, and we sort of end with Harry being Jesus and none of us are sure why. Except that he apparently forgives Dumbledore and Snape for brainwashing him to be a kamikaze agent. They’re the bravest men he knows. But let’s pretend it actually is a story about love and friendship.

To me, the strongest story of love we could possibly have had in this world is the redemption of Tom Riddle. Here is a man who was supposed to have been irredeemable since birth, he has done many horrific and unforgiveable things, grew up in extreme hardship in a society that spits on everything he ever was, and is mired in bitterness, despair, and rage. Beneath all that, Tom Riddle has given up hope in the world and is now content to burn it down himself.

Harry, through the nobility of his spirit and integrity of his character, somehow managing to redeem Tom Riddle is not only a fascinating story but a very good one at its core. The fact that they are tied together by destiny as well as tragedy, that Harry houses a shard of Tom’s soul (and I do so love horcruxes), only makes it more so.

This is the kind of story that carries epics, and that is why I gravitate towards it.

Now, do I change Harry up to do so? Good god, yes. I wouldn’t say any Harry Potter I have written is anything close to the Harry we know from canon. Some are closer than others, but they always in some way deviate. That said, from what I’ve seen almost nobody writes the actual Harry we remember from canon, so this is a very standard practice I can get away with, without too many people calling foul.

Ultimately ending in tragedy or in the full redemption of Tom: either works with these base characterizations and the world is your oyster.

What About All Those Other Arguments?

I’m not going to get into this too much except that I wouldn’t argue Tomarry works for the reasons you list. At all.

On the similar backgrounds, the fact is Harry and Tom don’t have similar backgrounds, JKR just says they do because she likes that trope (and so do many of the readers).

Harry and Tom have dark hair, they both came from abusive homes, but that’s where the similarities start and end. Upon entering the wizarding world Harry is treated very very very differently from Tom Riddle.

Harry, grows up in this weird sort of pseudo poverty where he dresses in rags because the Dursley’s hate him but he never actually has to worry about money. When he gets to the wizarding world he can afford everything he wants. He can buy a new wand, he can buy new supplies, he can buy all the candy off the trolly cart. Money’s not an object to Harry, is barely even a concept.

Tom Riddle is presumably on scholarship and money is everything to him. He buys a new wand but likely all his clothes and books are second hand. He can’t buy whatever candy he wants, probably can’t afford gifts for his peers, Tom is very aware of the haves and have nots.

Harry similarly never has to worry about a career. He never gets that far, fearing for his life so much, but the fact is that Harry has enough money that he doesn’t actually need to work. More, who would turn down the great Harry Potter? He wants to be an auror, is afraid he might not qualify, but it’s not really desperate.

Tom Riddle is to the world an impoverished muggle born. He tries for the Defense position and is turned down mostly because Dumbledore threw shade. Dumbledore tries to make it seem like Tom desperately wanted to work in this weird shop in London’s magical back alley, but probably that was the only position Tom could get (everything Dumbledore ever says, especially in those pensieve lessons, must be taken with a large grain of salt). Everything else goes to friends, family, and purebloods.

Adding to this, Harry has this glowing reputation. Now, Harry might not like it, he might want to be just Harry but the fact is that everyone has heard of him and most people worship the ground he walks on. Doors are open to him everywhere. His first introduction to the wizarding world is from a man who loves him and gushes about Harry as a baby.

Tom Riddle is someone with a muggle last name, who comes from a muggle orphanage, in other words he is nobody from nowhere. (For reasons I won’t get into here I find it very doubtful Tom ever revealed he was the heir of Slytherin until he became Voldemort and let Tom Riddle fade into obscurity). His first introduction to the wizarding world is some asshole lighting all his stuff on fire because the matron talked shit about him.

Harry wants to stay at Hogwarts because the Dursleys are abusive. Yes, this is terrible, but Tom wants to stay because Nazis are bombing London and Dippet says, “So sorry, Tom, no exceptions. Enjoy those luffas!” Harry’s concerns are never treated with the same disdain.

To make a long story short, they do not have similar backgrounds, at all. To say they do is utterly laughable and not much better than saying “they both have dark hair, they have so much in common!”

They both came from abusive homes, yes, but even the nature of those homes were very different and when they went to Hogwarts they were worlds apart.

... So much for not getting into it, eh?

As for Enemies to Lovers, well, it’s a trope and people enjoy it but it’s not my jam. I could go into why, but I think I’ve said enough.

Which Horcrux Do You Think Harry Would Go Best With?

We see so little of the individual horcruxes I’m not sure I can really take a stab at this. I sort of just make up their personalities as it suits me every time I write them.

With that I suppose I’m partial to the one in Harry’s head? Given that he has a front row seat to Harry, has seen Voldemort’s tragic demise, I think he’s in the best position to end up with Harry in a meaningful manner.

Especially as, if you think about it, he could represent the very last of Tom Riddle’s humanity. The single shard of humanity that remained in him until the bitter end.

[miraculouscontent]

Ask Explosion #4:

I’d bet a lot. With her bedridden (presumably), she’s probably going to be sidelined while Gabriel uses the butterfly and peacock himself. It’s not really a surprise, per se, but more of an observation; there’s not much she can do anymore.

Yeah, that’s very much what I was going for in that.

A classic case of projection.

Just a twisted idea of friendship in general, honestly. It’s like--you make eye contact with someone in this show, and suddenly you’re friends.

Adrien didn’t learn about Marinette’s crush in :The Puppeteer 2″; he thought she hated him and then after the statue scene, she played it off as a joke.

What I do think is that people tend to disregard some of the more salt-ridden things because of the fact that people are salty about them. Negativity can be draining for some people so they react to it by either downplaying it or pretending it’s not there.

Miraculous Awakening isn’t canon. Astruc has no hand in it and it’s all Jeremy’s “vision” of Miraculous.

I feel like naming superheroes directly after the miraculous should be banned, lol, even with Ladybug.

I still can’t believe people are so easily manipulated into thinking that’s Marinette getting her “clarity.” Like, really?

And yeah, I don’t approve of it at all. The whole debate with Kagami and Luka basically boil down to the fact that people are salty about them interfering with the love square. I adore both of them (Luka more obviously but yeah) so I don’t really get it. There’s an argument to be made about exactly how aggressive Kagami is, but I’m more just--she’s okay, I like her.

I think one of my biggest disconnects was in the fandom with “Miracle Queen” when Kagami told Adrien that his hesitance was hurtful and people got upset at that. I dunno, I just saw it as her expressing how she felt after Adrien had sent her signal after signal; I think she had a right to say that stuff.

I can’t prove you wrong ‘cause you’re right.

Uhhh, more spite, maybe? I dunno, I’ll probably side-mention the special in Treatment of Marinette Season 3, but as for LadyBugOut, the New York special holds no value because of how things are dealt with (would be too late for anything to matter).

Oh! I wasn’t aware of that. Fun facts. :D

I don’t remember that post admittedly. Could’ve sworn I mentioned a rival for Nino somewhere, just not remembering what I said right away.

I don’t think I’d have a specific order because I’m not sure how “villain-of-the-day” VS “overarching plot” I’d make things. I’d definitely reference past episodes but I wouldn’t feel the need to stick everything on such a strict timeline either.

Huh, never heard of that one!

I’ve got like, 26-ish in my inbox right now, and this “ask explosion” thing means I don’t have to worry anymore.

The anxiety didn’t come from the amount of asks; it came from me stressing over what people thought about the sheer amount of them that I had being posted on after the other.

I still have a tag for it, but I thought no one cared about it and also the overload of asks post-special made it hard for me to remember.

I ADORE THEM. It’s so refreshing to play the night stages because it’s kind of like a cool-down from the day ones. I’m a completionist so I tended to stress out a lot in the day stages whenever I missed a medal, but night stages are more chill.

EVERYTHING???? IT’S JUST SO PERFECT??

I think I like that it’s just so wholesome but there’s also no mercy about punching you in the gut. You giggle at Sherwin’s antics at first but then there’s the heartbreaking scene inside the actual school. The fact that there’s no dialog means that the characters have to be ten times as expressive to get all the emotions across.

As for my favorite parts? Hmm...

- When Sherwin ducks into the trash can as everyone’s walking into school, and you can see how Jonathan is thrown off and almost seems to consider checking on him before the bell rings and he has to turn around to go into school.

- The slow look of realization on Jonathan’s face when Sherwin tries to pull the heart back and the heart grabs onto Jonathan.

- THE HEART BREAKING IN TWO AND HALF OF IT GETTING LEFT BEHIND WITH JONATHAN. MY FEELS.

- The transition from the “sad” blue tint to the “happy” red one as Jonathan approaches Sherwin to give him the half of his heart back.

I know very little about the show but yikes if that’s how it came off.

Nope~ It’s just MiraculousContent, Miraculous-Content, and MC-Lukanette.

[forestwater87]

Every episode of Camp Camp ranked: A very (non)objective list

It's well past the time of year when Season 5 of Camp Camp would've dropped. I fully understand and support it not coming out; the crew's health and safety are much more important than a comfort show.

However . . . man, would it be nice to have some comfort right now.

So I'm reliving the entire series! I've been known to share with the world a whole bunch of Spicy Hot Takes, but I've never really sat down and talked about my feelings about the show as a whole. 

And what's the best way to do that? Well, just ask Jenny Nicholson: a numbered list! That is, here's the series ranked from worst episode to best, because I want to get the negativity out of the way early and focus on everything I love (and because people enjoy complaining, so let’s frontload all that). 

The takes will be hot. The feelings will be intense. The post, I'm assuming, will be largely unread.

Let's do it!

Oh and duh, there are spoilers. I tried to keep it pretty chill, but you’ll want to have watched the whole show or just not care about spoilers before going forward.

Also slashes in the middle of “naughty words” are meant to prevent this from being kept out of the main tags. Who knows if it’ll work? I don’t.

60. Who Peed the Lake? (Season 4, epis/sode 3)

Ah, good ol' Pi/ss Lake (or as @hopefullypessimistic84​ calls it because she's funnier than any of us will ever be, “Pis/s Fe/tish Dot Com”). Terrible, one of the few I’d consider nigh unwatchable. I actually kind of love this episode for being such great shorthand for "the absolute worst one."

Who signed off on an entire episode centered around Sherlock Holmes meets a bad om/o joke? Give me names and addresses: I just want to talk.

59. Reigny Day (Season 1, episode 6)

And nobody was surprised.

I'll admit I'm more willing to defend this episode than many people, but it's not . . . like, good. It seemed okay when there were only 11 other episodes to compare it to, but now that there have been so many bangers, this comes across as extremely weak. 

And let’s just say the Na/zi jokes hit a lot differently in 2020 than they did in the summer of 2016.

I’m overall happy with the direction the showrunners have moved Dolph’s character in, and I can’t totally blame them for using a kind of humor that was fairly common in the pre-Trump era, but yikes, this has aged like milk. And it wasn’t even very funny at the time, so it aged like milk that was already pretty bad to begin with.

58. Squirrel Camp (Season 4, episode 10)

This is a dumb one.

Not much else to say; it’s just kinda stupid and lame.

57. Fashion Victims (Season 4, episode 13)

I love Sasha, but this is filler. Which isn’t in itself a bad thing -- I have a couple episodes near the top that could reasonably be called filler, and a valid argument could easily be made that “filler episodes” don’t actually exist in a show with no plot -- but as much as I adore the Flower Scouts and enjoy the handful of good moments we get in this episode . . . who cares? Does anyone really give a sh/it about anything that happens here? Does anyone get their life from this one?

I didn’t think so.

56. Foreign Exchange Campers (Season 3, episode 3)

I know, I know, your Russian waifu came from this episode. Why do you think it’s so low on this list?

Okay, for real: this is . . . fine. It’s fine. It’s fine? I’m not mad at it, it just feels tonally incongruous and not very memorable beyond the fact that the fandom got really weird and kinda gross about Vera. But the episode itself? There’s some cute stuff with Neil and Nikki being jealous, but for the most part it’s a big hunk of white bread with some super mild white cheese that’s kinda soggy from sitting in a bag for too long and getting all condensation-y. 

That is to say: it’s fine.

ETA: Space Kid does say “fu/ck.” I can’t decide if that’s a point in the episode’s favor or against it.

This is the last of what I’d call the “bad” episodes. Everything after this ranges from mediocre to mind-blowingly amazing. But whatever our failing tier of Camp Camp episodes is, it stops right about here. 

Onto the good stuff!

55. Night of the Living Ill (Season 2 Halloween episode)

I keep switching this with “Eggs Benefits,” which probably means they should be tied. But whatever, this is my list and I am in charge and I’ve finally decided, after like 5 changes, that I like this one a little bit less.

It’s a fun Romero parody with nothing I’d call bad. Really this one’s only so low on the list because I think it’s kinda icky, and looking at those green snotty faces makes me queasy. If you think this is a bad reason to put it near the bottom of the list, then make your own post.

54. Cameron Campbell Can't Handle the Truth Serum (Season 4, episode 11)

I . . . don’t remember this at all. I initially had it a bit higher because I tend to love things with Campbell in them, but then I realized that nothing about this episode stuck in my brain even a little bit. 

Oh, this is the “Dolph has autism” episode that made everyone either extremely happy or really mad? Okay. I guess that���s the most remarkable thing about it. Neato.

Cam, I love you, but this was just not the best use of your sleazy charm.

53. Eggs Benefits (Season 2, episode 9)

This is one of those episodes with enough cute moments and good ideas to save it from being totally unmemorable, and I mostly enjoy rewatching. Platypus being a mom is a fabulous idea, and pairing the campers the way they did was mostly really interesting and fun.

The Preston-Nurf stuff takes it down several pretty significant notches, though. It’s what the kids would call problematic, and while I normally enjoy how the show doesn’t skew away from darker themes and jokes, it didn’t really fit either of their characters and just . . . isn’t fun to watch. It’s not especially funny, it’s not especially tragic, it’s just uncomfortable.

52. Camp Campbell Wants YOU! (Season 1, episode 0)

Honestly, this would be a lot higher if it was a full-length episode. It’s funny.

The next 5 or so episodes fall under the “cute but not very memorable” umbrella:

51. Nikki's Last Day on Earth (Season 3, episode 4)

I love the ensemble episodes, so this was always going to score higher than any of the single-character “meh” eps. I didn’t see the twist coming, though I know a lot of other fans did. Textbook example of “cute but not very memorable” -- the Platonic ideal of that concept.

50. The Candy Kingpin (Season 3, episode 9)

A clever idea that plays on Max’s worst characteristics and then calls him out for them, while also giving Dolph some much-needed character development. Unfortunately, I don’t feel like it really picks up until the last third of the episode, leaving the rest just kind of sitting there.

49. Campfire Tales (Season 4, episode 13)

Who doesn’t love campfire stories?

That’s all I got. They’re campfire stories.

ETA: OH SH/IT THIS ONE HAS THAT REALLY SCARY STORY! Where David’s all like . . . Slenderman’d. Fu/ck, I didn’t remember that until I was writing out my thoughts for #35 or so. That definitely elevates it, but I’m too tired to try and re-decide where this should go, so just tie it with “New Adventure!”

48. New Adventure! (Season 4, episode 4)

New trio! Focusing on these 3 was a definite risk, and I think it really paid off. While the “plot” itself isn’t anything special, there are a handful of really great side gags (hi, Dirty Kevin!!!!) and it’s fun to see these three interact. They all get some nice character beats. It’s a good time.

47. Something Fishy (Season 3, episode 8)

This might’ve hit me harder if I’d actually seen The Shape of Water, but the send-up works fine without having more than the seen-the-trailer level of understanding. Gwen dresses pretty, which I love; Max sucks, which I also love. What drags this one down is mostly feeling like the surreal aspects of the comedy go a bit too far into the “what the fu/ck am I looking at?” territory without really . . . making an actual joke beyond “look! Wacky!"

Why is David at the opera with a bird? Why??

46. City Survival (Season 3, episode 11)

Literally do not remember a single thing about this episode except David getting mugged and being called a “homeless twi/nk.” That should probably rank it lower on the list, but David being a fluttery mother hen saves it for me -- as does the fact that it leads directly into one of my favorite episodes, and the single best story arc of the series.

Next set of episodes is what I’m going to arbitrarily call “okay! but like the good kind of okay, not the bad kind.”

45. Bonjour Bonquisha (Season 2, episode 7)

Max and Sasha masterminding a scheme is really fun; their dynamic is great (though it won’t be fully realized until Season 4), and heartbroken David is so tragically cute it actually makes my heart explode out of my chest.

Also I can’t resist a good “3 kids in a trench coat” gag.

44. Anti-Social Network (Season 2, episode 2)

Neil is very relatable and I don’t have much else to say about this one. It’s fun to see an episode that more heavily focuses on our nerdy science boy, and Max and Neil teaming up to save Nikki was really charming and sweet and set my Makkiel ship out to sea.

43. A Camp Camp Christmas, or Whatever (Season 2 holiday episode)

Why does this episode have a musical number? It’s not good.

Okay, that was mean. This is fun and cute and Gwen wears a pretty purple sweatshirt and Space Kid gives her a present and it’s really sweet. But that musical number is an instant fast-forward for me, sorry.

42. Preston Goodplay's Good Play (Season 4, episode 7)

We get some Preston character development! Awesome!

It’s done in a really trippy and surreal way that totally fits his character and heightens the drama of the episode! Awesome!

David has an apparently-tragic history of being a French mime! Not a good call! 

Next tier: Some good sh/it! (Tbh, these could all be put in just about any order; they might as well be one massive tie.)

41. Cookin' Cookies (Season 2, episode 11)

I love the Flower Scouts. I love Dirty Kevin. I love the idea of accidentally starting a dru/g empire. Another weird, borderline experimental one focusing on side characters, and I think it works better than “New Adventure!” because the scale of the melodrama is just so over-the-top.

The fact that this is in the bottom 20 but I have nothing but good things to say about it illustrates how dang good this show is. It’s only getting better from here, folks!

40. Romeo & Juliet II: Love Resurrected (Season 1, episode 7)

Preston is a terrible playwright. This makes sense, because he’s like 11, but he’s the kind of hilariously bad I wish I’d been as a preteen, because his play is absolutely bonkers. Max fucking with David is great, Tabii vs. Bonquisha is great, Bonquisha in general is a giant amazonian goddess and I want to be swept up into her giant arms. Neil is . . . a robot, for some reason?

So much fun!

39. Camp Cool Kidz (Season 1, episode 4)

I don’t love Ered’s characterization in this one, but there are a lot of wacky hijinks in this episode that I think make it really enjoyable. Max’s wide-eyed revolutionary naïveté is a fun change from his usual dour pessimism, and Nikki’s loyalty to Ered is both very gay and very charming. Plus we get to learn a bit more about how the camp operates (and fails to operate), and it’s a nice way to better establish the campsite as its own setting.

(Definitely think “Cool” should’ve been spelled with a K though. But whatever, I don’t write for the show.)

38. Scout's Dishonor (Season 1, episode 3)

The birth of Neeancy! The introduction of the Flower and Wood Scouts! Neil saying “cu/nt” -- one of the first and only truly shocking uses of profanity in the entire show! ZUKO!

I don’t know if my fondness for this one is rooted mostly in nostalgia or if it was actually really fun, but I enjoyed the he/ll out of it. Not as highly-rated as some other episodes mostly because it doesn’t really do anything, character or story-wise, but not every episode needs to be a massive game-changer that drowns us in feels. Sometimes it’s enough to have a fun romp, and this is very that.

37. Ered Gets Her Cool Back (Season 3, episode 2)

Awww, Ered. I have a soft spot for her, because I love the archetype of a spoiled bit/ch clearly still figuring out how to be a person and have friends. You really get the sense of her as a teenager trying to sort her shi/t out in this episode, which I would love to see more of. Her interactions with Nerris are top-tier, and I like that it’s a continuation of how her character’s been softening since Season 1 into this kind of big-sister figure.

Also, all the female campers in this show are lesbians. I do not make the rules.

36. Attack of the Nurfs (Season 4, episode 2)

I feel like this is a pretty underrated episode. But then again, I feel like Nurf is a pretty underrated character, so maybe that’s just my own personal bias.

I really enjoyed all the different iterations of Nurf, and I think Blaine did a killer job giving each one its own personality and life. It’s a fun episode that plays hard with cartoon physics (a 3D printer printing people! I love it!) and has a surprisingly moving ending.

At least, that’s what I think. Most other people seem to find this one pretty forgettable. Again: make your own da/mn list. I liked it.

35. Mascot (Season 1, episode 2)

This entire episode is memorable for so many things, but a few of my favorites:

David is established as kind of a di/ck.

Platypus arrives and kicks all the as/s.

Quartermaster is the best.

Nerris, Harrison, and Space Kid all get little moments to show off how cute they are.

Neil and Nikki bonding.

This:

34. Quest to Sleepy Peak Peak (Season 2, episode 3)

I love watching Nerris and Harrison bicker, and Neil and Nikki fit really well into their group. It reminds me of being a kid, and of playing Dungeons & Dragons (as an adult, because I’m so cool), and of summer . . . which is a really good thing for this show. There are a lot of funny one-liners, and it’s just a good dang time.

33. Quartermaster Appreciation Day (Season 2, episode 6)

I don’t think this one is all that well-loved, but I thought it was funny. There are literally zero important plot or character moments, but it made me laugh a lot, and that’s all I need a Camp Camp episode to do. 

I love QM, and the more we learn about him, the more confused and disturbed we end up being. What a fu/cking champion.

32. Arrival of the Torso Takers (Season 3 Halloween episode)

I lowkey hated this one when it came out, because I knew the Daniel stans were going to be exhausting. And they kind of were? But looking back, it’s a great way to reintroduce this motherfu/cker. He’s a lot scarier than he was the last time around -- but also less competent, which is a great way to kick him in the proverbial ba/lls -- and while I wish it had a lot more Gwen in it, it’s a clever and creative Halloween episode. 

31. Operation: Charlie Tango Foxtrot (Season 3, episode 10)

Charlie . . . Tango . . . Foxtrot . . . CTF . . . OH! Capture the Flag! I never got that before. Oh, that’s neat. I love this show.

Listen, every time the writers decide to take a risk and do something bizarre and creative, I’m going to be here for it at least a little bit. An entire episode told from the POV of the Woodscouts, explaining how hard they failed in all directions? A great gag where everyone in Petrol’s story talks in grunts? The return of Jermy Fartz?! Fantastic. 

30. Panicked Room (Season 4, episode 16)

Listen. I’m a sucker for my trash grandpa; anything Campbell-centric is probably going to be pretty good (except #54), because he’s just one of the most consistently funny and engaging characters. Good times are had whenever this terrible man is on the screen, and giving him a romantic backstory? A tragic romantic backstory full of mistakes and emotional damage?? One where he waited 17 YEARS for the love of his life???

We have no choice but to stan.

29. Party Pooper (Season 4, episode 15)

I’m so predictable. If you put Gwen in something, I will be happy. If you make an entire episode about how Gwen is under-appreciated and overworked and just trying to do her best despite the circumstances, I will dedicate my firstborn child to you.

Anyway, this episode is really sweet, and I liked the unexpected direction the writers took her relationship with her dad. He seems like a nice guy, they seem like they have a nice relationship, and . . . well, an episode about how hard it is to be an adult millennial hit pretty hard. Plus this was just a really pretty episode -- and not just because Gwen was in so much of it! Seriously, that night sky was a thing of beauty.

Also if you say a fuc/king word about Max and that godda/mn dog I will choke you out with your own intestines. Few things are more hilariously, annoyingly ironic than the fact that the entire fandom ignored and failed to appreciate Gwen . . . in the episode all about how everyone ignores and fails to appreciate Gwen.

28. Culture Day (Season 3 holiday episode)

Now, would it be arrogant to point out that I had the idea for a Culture/Heritage Day back in September 2018? Yes, especially since I don’t think the writers ever read fanfiction and it has literally nothing to do with this episode. Will that stop me? He/ll no it will not! I am a creature of ego! Read my stuff! 

Anyway, this is a really fun look at Neil’s background, personality, and relationships. Max looking out for him is just . . . oh my god, I cannot, I’ve written like 30 of these and my brain is starting to melt, but these two are so cute. I love arrogant Neil, and I love protective Max, and I love QM and Gwen fuc/king over the Flower Scouts to save the day. Everything about this episode is lovely.

27. Cameron Campbell the Camp Campbell Camper (Season 3, episode 7)

This should not be ranked so high (even if these are all essentially tied). This is a dumb episode based on a really, really dumb premise. 

But . . . I don’t know what to tell you. “Samboy Kidwell,” Max realizing he and Campbell are disturbingly similar and not liking what his future could look like, David’s “I’m not mad, I’m disappointed” face . . . this episode happens to hit all of my favorite things. It had a really good balance of heavy-handed moralizing and goofs, it was part of the most graceful lead-up into a finale the show has ever had, and I’m just all about it. 

Excellent job, Samboy. Count Olaf would be proud of your disguise.

There ends the “some good sh/it” tier. We’re starting to get into the really excellent stuff now!

26. Parents' Day (Season 2, episode 12)

I know. You want this to be higher. I hear you.

Honestly I’m kind of shocked it’s this high; it’s my least favorite of the season finales so far, and I had to push past a lot of prejudice to actually rank this where I think it deserves to be, as opposed to somewhere in the like mid-40s. Mostly because it gave fuel to the raging inferno of “Max has terrible parents and David should adopt him” headcanons, which I’ve detailed my problems with extensively in the past (in a post that, statistically speaking, none of you have read).

But, trying to be objective: is this episode actually any good?

Well . . . yeah, it really is.

So much work was put into giving each of the campers families that make sense with their characters and bounce absurdly well off of them, ranging from wholesome and adorable (Nerris’s family) to quietly tragic (Harrison’s parents), and they’re all designed so well; they’re fun to look at and fun to watch interact with the kids and each other. (The only exception is Dolph’s dad, who is both kinda lame and misattributes the cause of the weird Na/zi thing because it did not come from Germany, I assure you. But things with Dolph are always a little off, and I don’t really know how you would give him a backstory that actually works with the character, so they were caught between a rock and a hard place there.)

The drama of David having to choose between the man he considers his father and the camp he considers his home is really touching, and him and Gwen choosing to take a sad camper out to get pizza instead of covering for their boss’s a/ss is such a beautiful moment for both of them that I can’t really blame the fandom for losing their mind over it. Campbell’s arrest leading into the arcs of the next two seasons was great as well, and the finale left us all with this weird sense of foreboding because we didn’t know what was going to happen next; it was the only finale that actually ended on something close to a cliffhanger, while still being satisfying enough to keep us all from melting down.

Plus, it’s funny. Carl and Candy are really funny and the idea of Neil and Nikki’s parents boning is funny in a horrible way. The joke about Quartersister is funny. It’s a good episode.

Should this be higher? Maybe, but I can’t bring myself to put it above the rest of these episodes. Again: make your own list.

25. Mind Freakers (Season 1, episode 10)

The episode that launched a thousand ships. Assuming those ships are all Harrison/Neil, anyway.

It’s hard to talk about these Season 1 episodes because they feel so classic. Like, what is there to say? You’ve all seen it a couple dozen times; I’ve seen it a couple dozen times. Harrison is a di/ck, Neil is possibly an even bigger di/ck, and magic may or may not be real. (Though spoilers for literally every season: yes, magic is definitely real.) It’s so much fun watching these two smug as/sholes snipe at each other in an almost literal playground hair-pulling way that could very easily be read as flirtation. 

And the fandom did most certainly read it that way, at least for a little while.

24. Gwen Gets a Job (Season 2, episode 8)

It’s Gwen. What, was I supposed to not put it this high?

This was the first Gwen-centric episode, and it absolutely slaps. She’s pushed to the breaking point and responds by being a cold-hearted BAMF, and it got her some pretty significant hate from fans but I don’t give a fu/ck, I loved it. We got to see her all dolled up, and then we got to see her all disheveled, and both of those looks were gorgeous. David gives her a tiny fragment of the love and validation she deserves (I don’t know if this is when gwenvid started taking off -- I think it wasn’t really until “Parents’ Day,” or even Season 3 -- but I ate that s/hit up).

Also, again: job hunting post-2008. It’s a bad time, y’all. Camp Camp gets it.

23. Follow the Leader (Season 4, episode 6)

Yeah, I was kind of surprised at how high this landed, too. I guess I’m just a sucker for unlikely companionships, and these three have a great chemistry. The combination of competitiveness, sass, and reluctant admiration make their interactions a lot of fun. Their motivation of doing petty errands for Campbell for the sake of getting at the Box of Illegal Contraband is a great framework too, with high enough stakes to justify all sorts of wacky shenanigans without causing actual anxiety.

I want to see these characters forced to spend more time together. Please, RT, make that happen.

22. Escape from Camp Campbell (Season 1, episode 1)

In terms of numbers, this feels so low, but considering everything from about #45 on is ranked as at least decent, this is actually a pretty high rating. There are 21 episodes I’d call better than this, but these decisions were all pretty painful.

This introduces us to everyone! The main trio, the counselors, Mr. Campbell; we get a snapshot of the major personalities running around the camp, the major points of conflict (Max vs. David, primarily), the major building blocks of future episodes, setting, and relationships . . . 

Again, I don’t know how much of my love for this episode is nostalgia -- there’s a lot of squeeing at familiar faces and gags; this is the first time David gets hit by a bus!!! -- but it was a fun and funny introduction to a series that’s ended up being so important to me, and I’m so grateful this wonderful, quirky little show with its wonderful and quirky little premiere. 

Of all the episodes, I really can’t look at this one objectively. It’s too important.

21. The Fun-Raiser (Season 3, episode 1)

David and Gwen scheming is my ki/nk. They very rarely scheme together, but every single time their teamwork makes the dream work (or, more frequently, makes the dream fail horribly and have disastrous consequences) my soul flies out of my body and takes to the stars, where I write another 500 first chapters to gwenvid fanfics I’ll probably never finish.

This is a great follow-up to “Parents’ Day,” where we immediately see the consequences of the previous season finale and what happens when the one adult in the camp disappears. Mr. Campbell was a terrible adult, true, but at least he was smart enough not to steal QM’s hook. Like . . . whose plan was this? It was so bad. These two are hilariously incompetent sometimes -- often when their bad ideas are feeding off of each other, actually, a la this and “Space Camp Was a Hoax” -- and watching them frantically try and keep all their balls in the air is so great. 

The ending is satisfying, too; a bit graphic, in keeping with a show that tends to keep the violence limited to periodic spurts of bloodshed 1-2 times a season and mostly pretty mild the rest of the time, but between Max stepping up and fixing everything while still being his shi/tty self to our dear dumba/ss counselors getting their dumb as/ses handed to them (deservedly so, if we’re being honest) . . . it’s such a great note to begin a new season on.

20. Journey to Spooky Island (Season 1, episode 5)

A classic.

We get to meet our spooky boy Jasper, we get to watch the comedy trio play off each other and continue to sketch out the general contours of their friendship, and we get to see the Quartermaster with a big purple dil/do for a hand. What’s not to love?

19. The Butterfinger Effect (Season 4, episode 17)

CONTROVERSIAL HOT TAKES! GET YOUR CONTROVERSIAL HOT TAKES HERE!

I’ve already gone into some pretty intense detail about why I think this one is actually really good and carries the theme of embracing change that everything about Season 4 was centered around, but none of y’all read that so here it is in short: this episode is super funny, almost all of the campers’ transformations work really well as extensions of their characters while still being strange and surprising, and the fact that Nurf creates all of these problems by trying to solve them is deliciously fun to watch in a karmic sort of way.

Or maybe it’s just because any Nurf-centric episode is going to rank pretty highly for me. That is also possible.

18. Space Camp Was a Hoax (Season 2, episode 10)

Our camp counselors being bad people: it’s my drug of choice.

We get Space Kid tripping balls in what might be one of the funniest sequences in the show, the entire camp coming together to try and pull off the stupidest, most impossible task (and kinda maybe almost nailing it???), and once again the fun of watching Gwen and David scramble to keep from getting caught in their boss’s shit/ty lies is so great. And Lindsay’s voice acting is absolutely killer, even more so than usual. 

17. Jermy Fartz (Season 2, episode 4)

I get the sense this might be a somewhat controversial one. 

I’ve written before about why I think this episode is a lot of fun, but it mostly boils down to two things: watching the campers try (and fail) to be nice to the most bully-able person on the entire planet, and the essential likeableness of Jermy. 

No, really.

I think a lot of people were put off by Jermy’s general grossness, because . . . my god is he disgusting, but he’s also polite and good-natured, and seems totally self aware of how difficult he is to be around, without letting it make him depressed. He’s cheerful in a weirdly downbeat way that’s impossible to understand until you see him in action. He’s so matter-of-fact about his own awfulness in a way that I found entirely endearing. I don’t think I’d want him at my camp, either, but get that kid to a good dermatologist and gastroenterologist, teach him some basic hygiene and social skills, and you’ll have quite a little gentleman there.

I do however find it hilarious that apparently David got the type of tree wrong when making fun of Jermy. Not only is that a great moment for reveling in David being an as/shole, but he didn’t even have the right wood. F/ucking idiot. I love him so much.

These last ones are my favorites! (Well, duh, that’s how this whole ranking thing works.) Maybe not perfect, but just really good and with limitless rewatch value.

16. St. Campbell's Day (Season 4 holiday episode)

They Grinch’d Camp Camp. Those brilliant bast/ards, they really pulled it off.

Ignoring the fact that David is truly frightening-looking for most of the episode, this is a great bookend to Season 4, following up on the theme established in the first episode about how David is a flawed and selfish human being despite trying his best not to be.

This is another one I was surprised to find so high on the list, but the more I thought about it the more I realizes how good it is. David being a jerk is always one of my favorite storylines, and the fact that the trouble comes from him trusting Mr. Campbell too little instead of too much is a nice twist on the usual formula. Gwen coming to help him out despite a blistering hangover gave me aggressive shipping feels, yes, obviously. 

Between a lot of really funny little gags like QM’s failed satanic ritual and the genuinely touching moral about the importance of spending time with the people you love, it’s just a really lovely episode that gets just the right amount of maudlin for the holiday season. 

15. Jasper Dies at the End (Season 2, episode 5)

I kept switching this and “Dial M for Jasper”; it was a really difficult decision to make, figuring out where these two belonged. I think in the end, while the John Dies at the End reference was very, very good, this one loses me a little bit by being told from David’s perspective. Now, normally the more David is in an episode the more I’ll be likely to love it (see my #1 for proof of that), but his blinders when it comes to the camp and Mr. Campbell result in a really funny story, but one without the same emotional heft as hearing about what happened from Jasper’s point of view.

That doesn’t mean it’s not perfect for what it needs to be: each Jasper episode builds on the previous ones, and having the same intensity of “Dial M for Jasper,” where we learn how he died and how his relationship with David fell apart, would be weird and heavy at this point. In Season 1 we just found out he’s a ghost (and eagle-eyed viewers realized he’d been a camper with David); in Season 2 we find out how David views their friendship and time at camp; and in Season 3 we get Jasper’s perspective. It’s an absolutely wonderful raising of the stakes (for lack of a better term), but the one that packs more of an emotional punch is going to rank a bit higher than the one that’s mostly just for laughs.

That being said: there are plenty of laughs in this one. Everyone -- Griffin, Miles, Travis, the animators -- nailed this one, and it gets funnier every time I watch it.

14. Camporee (Season 1, episode 11)

AKA the episode where Forest realized she was in love with Gwen. 

What a great idea for an episode, seriously. Every coming-of-age story has a talent show or a competition or a big game -- something where the kiddos can show off their improved skills and teamwork to beat their bullies or whatever. And this show has both kinds of bullies: the popular girly girls and the violent muscleheads. What a great moment to pull everyone together and show how friendship can help us accomplish anything!

Except . . . of course that’s not what happens. Of course they’re absolute garbage, and of course teamwork isn’t the answer. Gwen is the perfect foil for David here, being the anti-teamwork, anti-Camp-Campbell adult who can perfectly and effortlessly undermine David’s relentless optimism. David wants so badly for his campers to live in the same coming-of-age summer movie he did as a child, and their staunch refusal to do that leads to a really heartbreaking closer to the episode, as well as lead into the next one. Everything about this, from the challenges to the setup to Gwen shouting “we are winning this FUC/KING trophy!” is just gold.

13. David Gets Hard (Season 1, episode 9)

We have David. We have Nurf. We have Gwen. We have Max trying to be helpful in the shi/ttiest way possible.

We have all the makings of a da/mn good episode. And they deliver. Not a very emotionally intense or moving one, but so, so funny.

12. Dial M for Jasper (Season 3, episode 5)

This isn’t the fate any of us expected for Jasper, and it’s not the fate of a lot of people wanted. But godda/mn it, it worked. The constant bait-and-switch the episode keeps playing with, where you keep waiting for something really dramatic and tragic to happen . . . and then the reality is that Jasper died because Mr. Campbell was stupid and careless, and it was all just a horribly sad accident.

It’s anticlimactic, but in a way that suits the series, both as a comedic counterpoint to all the hype throughout the episode and as a way to establish that Cameron Campbell is a bad man first and foremost through selfishness and laziness, not Daniel-esque sinister evil. Jasper’s death was totally avoidable and totally Campbell’s fault, and while that’s sad, it also adds a weird sort of lightness to the episode. David didn’t do something terrible to kill his best friend, Jasper didn’t kill himself, and without having actively chosen to murder a child (well, not this time), the door remains open for fans accepting Campbell’s later pseudo-redemption. It was just an accident, and Jasper was “haunting” David to tell him that he was sorry for how their friendship ended. That’s really sweet, actually.

I think it’s the best way this reveal could’ve gone, and I’m so impressed with how they pulled it all off.

11. Into Town (Season 1, episode 8)

This might actually be the only flawless episode in the entire show. I mean, I call a lot of them flawless, and I mean that on an emotional level -- “I love this so much I cannot see anything wrong with it” -- but this one is a masterpiece of storytelling. All the technical jumbo I’m bad at, like planting and payoff and tension and all of that, is just perfect.

I feel like this is the kind of claim that needs to be backed up with a long-as/s essay full of citations and video clips and references to, like, Joseph Campbell or something, but this is my 49th entry in the list so I am not going to be doing that. Besides, I don’t think my English degree qualifies me to critique film/animation; I don’t even entirely know half the terms I’ve used to compliment this episode. Someone else please explain why this is such a good one.

10. The Quarter-Moon Convergence (Season 4, episode 5)

I’ve mentioned in other entries that the weird, surreal humor sometimes doesn’t work; it feels too much like being odd for its own sake, and sometimes gets so distracted in being surreal that it forgets to include anything funny or meaningful. 

This . . . is not one of those.

Putting Harrison and QM together is a stroke of genius; the two of them are literally the most magical beings in the entire show, and using them as the conveyance for this great Lovecraftian horror-comedy was such a good idea. I don’t know if we’ll ever see these two interact in another episode -- honestly, this felt a bit like lightning in a bottle, and I have a hard time imagining what could possibly bring them together again -- but if this is the only episode we get, it is such a fantastic one.

Harrison makes a really good everyman, despite his powers; he’s just the right amount of confident and insecure to pull off that wide-eyed apprentice to QM’s grizzled wise mentor. (The fact that QM is objectively a terrible mentor is beside the point.) I still don’t entirely know what the two of them accomplished, but it feels baffling and momentous, with the perfect amount of gravity to make things extremely tense all the way through to the end.

Also, I guess God is an octopus? That’s kinda cool. I like octopuses.

9. Camp Corp. (Season 3, episode 12)

Another unpopular opinion? Oh ho ho, I am so contrary! I am Not Like Other Fans! I am the Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way, refusing to have the same opinions of all you prepz.

I know this wasn’t the most well-loved episode, but I think it did a really great job tying together story threads woven throughout Season 3: Max’s selfishness leading to him hurting other people, his growing realization that he cares about his friends and the camp itself, the parallels between him and Mr. Campbell (and the fact that they both get this redemption moment in the finale). 

This is the most Max-centric season, focusing on his flaws and character growth, and they pulled it off in a really organic way that felt faithful to his character, touching without being too maudlin. The fact that his feelings about the camp are echoed in Gwen, Neil and Nikki, the other campers, and even Mr. Campbell drives home how important the camp -- and David -- are to this strange little family. 

Each season, Max reluctantly becomes a better person, without changing the fundamental core of who he is. That’s a really hard putt for the writers and Michael, and I’m blown away every finale by how they so consistently nail it.

8. Time Crapsules (Season 4, episode 18)

Gwen-centric? Check.

Max learning how to be a better person while still being the bratty kid we know and love? Check.

Looks at one of the most under-appreciated character dynamics in the entire show (i.e., Max and Gwen)? Checkity check-check-check.

I don’t really have much to say about this one, which I should: it was considered a pretty serious letdown to a lot of fans, and I’m not sure how to explain why I loved it so much. 

Comparing Max from “The Order of the Sparrow” to Max from this episode is wild. It’s not like 2 different characters: they’re still very obviously the same cynical, self-absorbed 10-year-old trying to survive summer camp. But he’s become a more considerate friend and decent version of that kid, and it’s great to watch. The moment where he and Gwen go too far and immediately regret snapping at each other is still painful (on my god, the VAs in this show, they’re so talented), Nikki and Neil both get nice subplots about how they’re also growing up, and the ending is fuc/king hilarious, perfectly breaking the tension from Campbell’s speech, which is both beautifully done and important to hear, especially if you’re in a period of uncomfortable transition (like, say, in your late 20s, or living through about 5 different national and global catastrophes).

And okay, I found that speech on the wiki for this episode and it made me deeply emotional, so here:

Here's the thing: you've got to take your failures and make something out of them. Take Camp Campbell for instance: a lot of poor decisions went into making this place what it is today. Sure, somewhere along the line it maybe strayed from its path, not living up to the camp it wanted to be. At some point, the camp realized that the camp would never reach the end of its path until it was ready or until it gave up. So, if the camp wanted to keep embezzling money and dealing with foreign powers, so be it! But, at some point, it didn't anymore. I never saw this coming, but I'm starting to think this camp is the best it's ever been.

If this is the last episode of Camp Camp we ever get -- and for at least a little while, it looks like it’s going to be -- I can’t think of a sweeter, funnier, and more lovely bittersweet note for this show to go out on.

7. The Lake Lilac Summer Social (Season 3, episode 6)

And again: No one was surprised. 

This is the longest non-finale episode of the show, and it uses that time perfectly. Rather than having some big emotional moments and character arcs -- which are great, don’t get me wrong -- the writers use the extended time to build a series of shenanigans as complicated as Gwen’s matchmaking web, and watching her try to set up a series of dominos (with David, for once, being the responsible, level-headed one) is almost as satisfying as the catastrophic results. 

Neil and Snake steal this episode, even from someone as in love with Gwen as I am, and for an episode that’s largely about making fun of shippers, there hasn’t been one that launched nearly as many ships as this. Neil/Snake? Tabii/Erin? Max/Nikki? GWENVID?! It’s all here, and I am here for it.

It was also fun to get a traditional episode setup in a very non-traditional show. I assume this means the beach and/or hot springs episode is forthcoming. (No, Pis/s Lake doesn’t count. Obviously it doesn’t count.)

6. Keep the Change (Season 4, episode 1)

Again, this is an episode I’ve said a lot about in the past -- and I was pretty uncharitable toward Season 3, which in retrospect was very unse/xy of me -- but I stand by a lot of my opinions then: this is a fu/cking great episode.

David is an as/shole, Max is an as/shole, Campbell is an as/shole. No one escapes the as/sholery. David schemes, Max catches him in the scheme, Campbell gets drunk and kind of gay . . . I’m 54 entries into this list and I don’t have much to say anymore: it’s just really good and fun and I love it.

5. Camp Loser Says What? (Season 4, episode 9)

This is another one I kind of hated when it came out, and again for fandom-related and personal-grudge reasons.

Fu/cking Daniel. That motherfu/cker. He shows up for 12 minutes and Tumblr bursts into flames. Every single time.

However, it’s really hard not to love this one. Daniel-as-Trump is a clever but subtle -- I mean, for this show’s definition of subtle -- allegory, and it’s amazing how much this slimy freak and the Woodscouts slot into it. David is a bise/xual disaster with the absolute worst taste in men, Dirty Kevin and Daniel are onscreen together for all of 2.5 seconds and the kevdan shippers lost their minds, and Xemug looks like Megamind for some weird reason.

My only minor complaint is that the ending is a bit anticlimactic, but it plays on Daniel’s stupidity and the value of teamwork, so it’s a very small nitpick in an episode that mostly works like gangbusters.

4. Cult Camp (Season 2, episode 1)

Duh. There’s a really good song and we’re introduced to a charismatic, sinister, and totally dumba/ss villain. What’s not to like?

I don’t think I even need to say anything about this episode. Season 2 started off the summer by throwing a lit firecracker directly at the viewer’s face, and ignoring the fact that we as a fandom proceeded to eat each other, it’s impossible not to get caught up in the episode’s wild energy.

And dude, that song. Fabulous. Fu/ck Daniel, but thank god he’s around to be such a prickly little pri/ck.

Now for the top 3: Literally perfect, wouldn’t change a single solitary thing.

3. After Hours (Season 4, episode 8)

I’m not sure anyone loved this episode as much as me. But this is my list, and I will put this up at the top if I want to and you cannot stop me.

It’s much easier in a lot of ways to talk about the episodes I hated than the ones I love this much. What do I say besides “literally everything about this fills me with joy and my life is better because it exists”? I don’t know. The counselors are my favorite characters, and between Gwen and QM having the weirdest bonding experience, Gwen getting to meet up with people who care about her silly fanfiction, Mr. Campbell being the trash grandpa of my dreams, David getting in way over his head . . . it’s the episode I always wanted, and they made it work so well.

Also, I just discovered that “Gwen Isn’t Your Mother So Stop Asking Her to Rinse Your Dishes” is an actual song and I am overwhelmed with delight. Here, I’m embedding it as well as linking because it’s so good:

God. This show. What the fu/ck even is up with this amazing, weird-as/s show.

2. The Order of the Sparrow (Season 1, episode 12)

Duh.

The entire first season is a great time (except “Reigny Day”), but it’s a pretty low-stakes kind of great time. There isn’t much in terms of emotional depth until the very end of “Camporee,” despite some hints at darker themes in one-off jokes and quick asides, so this episode comes a bit out of left field, tonally speaking.

But that’s not a bug, it’s a feature; if the show had been this overtly emotional from the outset, this finale wouldn’t hit as hard, and the rest of the season wouldn’t be as funny. 

This manages to serve as a capstone to the conflict of the first season, building on episodes like “Into Town” and “Escape from Camp Campbell” in a way that feels totally natural for both David and Max’s characters while revealing new sides of them. It works because it’s so unexpected, but it doesn’t come across as incongruous with their personalities. It’s the first and only time David swears in all 4 seasons, and that line -- I don’t even need to say it, you know exactly what I’m talking about -- still gives me chills.

Also, Gwen sings the camp theme song. Impossible not to cherish.

1. The Forest (Season 4, episode 12)

I’m not sure if this one is a surprise or not. It might be the obvious first place, or it might be a bit of an oddball for some people.

I had a really hard time choosing between this and “The Order of the Sparrow”; I switched their places half a dozen times, and the difference in quality between the two is razor-thin. I think part of that is because it accomplishes a lot of what “Order of the Sparrow” does: puts David in a situation where he’s pushed to his absolute emotional and physical capacity, crushes every shred of hope he has left, and sees what he’s actually made of when you strip everything away. It’s much more dramatic this time around, but it’s the same basic concept.

And just like in the Season 1 finale, what we see is a man who’s determined to do good even when he isn’t rewarded for it, even when he’s actively punished for it. Who wants to love nature, and life, and make the world a better place -- despite his faults, his selfishness and thoughtlessness and anger, David proves that he is fundamentally kind. He’s not nearly as deludedly optimistic as he seems; he just refuses to stop trying.

Because somebody fuc/king has to.

I’ll admit, some of what puts this one in first place is that I’m a sucker for whump, and David really goes through the ringer. However, I also think it’s important to acknowledge the risk Joe Nicolosi took with writing this episode: it’s all centered around a single character, it’s darker and more viscerally bloody than any other episode in the show’s history, the art is focused on these grand sweeping backgrounds that must’ve taken forever to paint, and there’s very little talking in a show that runs 99% on clever dialogue. This could have so easily backfired -- and for some fans it did -- but it was brave and beautiful and breathtaking.

I’ve actually only watched this in full once. It’s really hard to get through; it’s just so intense and even disturbing. But if there’s one episode I'll remember for the rest of my life, even when I’m 80 years old and haven’t seen the show in years, it’ll be “The Forest.”

It’s funny how such a sharp departure from the format and style of the rest of the show somehow manages to perfectly capture the heart of it. Talk about a fuc/king achievement.

So what have we learned?

I don’t entirely know what the purpose of this whole exercise was. I think it was mostly to get myself a nice Camp Camp fix that came from something other than slogging through 20 different fanfic WIPs, and to remind myself of what a strange and fun ride the last 4 summers have been. 

I also wanted to take a moment to acknowledge what Camp Camp means to me. This show has been hugely important to me on a personal level: I met two of my best friends through this fandom, and I’ve never been more connected to a community or readers than I have with CC. I know I bi/tch about this fandom a lot, but it’s a big extended internet family, and I’m so happy to be a part of it. Going through all these episodes, getting the chance to ramble about the things I liked and the things I didn’t, was a great way to reconnect with a series and community that I love.

So . . . what have we learned?

1. Season 4 was all over the place.

Some of this has to be due to the sheer volume of episodes, but when I sat down and organized everything into tiers:

There isn’t a single category Season 4 doesn’t have at least one episode in. I was surprised to see how high a lot of them ended up; it really was the best and worst of the show so far.

For the fun of it, I decided to give a number to each placement -- 60 points for the #1 episode, 59 for #2, etc. -- and see how each season broke down. Because that’s that kind of thing I think is worthwhile, apparently. And . . .

2. Seasons 1 and 4 are really good, actually.

Well, I don’t think anyone’s surprised to see how well Season 1 stacked up; it was amazing. But I was surprised to see how much I ended up enjoying Seasons 3 and 4, when if you’d asked me before this little project, I would’ve said they were the most underwhelming. Maybe I messed up the numbers a bit -- I’m no mathmagician -- but not only are they all really close, but Season 4 was one of my favorites.

3. This entire show is really good, actually.

One thing that really struck me when I put it all together visually is how most of the episodes sit in the “good,” “really good,” or “amazing” categories. The amount of episodes that are memorable, fun, and/or emotionally resonant is crazy. I don’t now how many other tiny cult-hit web series can say the same, honestly, and all of the writers, animators, directors/producers/other people whose jobs I don’t really understand, and voice actors should be commended for their outstanding talent and hard work.

4. Thank you, Camp Camp.

It was a real pleasure to relive all of these episodes again and think about what they meant to me. It won’t be the last time I sit down and watch this show -- and it certainly won’t be the end of my being a shrieking fangirl over it -- but with this break, where we have to get through a blazing, extremely difficult summer without a new season to fawn over, it’s nice to stop and appreciate what a precious gem of a show this is.

I hope everyone involved with Rooster Teeth is taking a much-deserved rest and prioritizing their health and well-being. Thank you for creating something truly special, and I can’t wait to see what happens next.

[random-mha-thoughts]

Here we are

Honestly, I never thought I’d get here.  I thought I’d come here, write some stuff that I thought would be fluffy and cute and the rest of the fandom might enjoy reading too, and maybe get a few hundred followers in return.  I didn’t expect that I can say there are 1000+ people who have read at least one of my posts and waits for more because they like what I put out.  I have trouble wrapping my head around it.

I’m gonna pause right here for a sec because I wanna take this time to wish you guys Happy Easter and Happy Passover for those who are celebrating as I am with my family.  My university sucks and doesn’t give the religious holidays off anymore because they don’t wanna be skewed towards any particular religion anymore even if the President is a Jew ffs so I haven’t been able to spend Passover with my family in LA for the past 3 years, but this year really hit harder because of the virus, and it’s the first year my parents decided to do the seder ourselves instead of with my larger family.  Although I’m upset about that, I appreciate my immediate family for coming together and making great memories because of it, and I really hope you guys also come to appreciate that as well, even if you’re not celebrating a holiday this week or anytime soon.  Sometimes we take for granted what’s right in front of us because we think it’ll conveniently be there forever, but be conscious of that for even a brief moment.

Anyway, I really can’t thank you all enough for following me.  It’s been a fun 3 months with this blog so far and I’ve made some great friends, written some great stuff, gotten amazing requests that i’m still writing sorry T.T and I can’t express how much I’ve appreciated you.  I read every notification, scroll through every reblog, smile at every like, and love every reply/comment.  I’m really happy that there are people out there who I can reach with my content and make your day a little better as we share our fandom.  My heart is so full 💖

I’m gonna take a few moments to call out some of special people I’ve met here:

@lovingshoto Angie, you’re such a sweetheart and one of my closest friends here, I really hope you go far and gain your own following on this site for your writing because you deserve it 😘💖 I’ll always be here for you~

@tokoyamis-luv Zara you lovely bean you! I enjoy all your little messages in my ask. You’re my little baby who I want to protect forever and ever, thank you for lending me your mind for when I’m in a rut with writing. I love you 😘💖

@todorokiakina1​ my darling, we talk almost every day, I hope you get your writing juices back up and running, I believe in you! Thank you for always chatting with me 💖

@sunshhinnee  I remember you as the first few follower who took the time to like and reblog everything I wrote in my early days, and for that I’m so thankful for you 💕

@rintomoj @xi-i-i-whatsyouremergency @estrellitaaart @aurora-vorealis @imconfusedanditsok @shoujo-roki  @cyanide9602 @uacrack ik we’re mutuals on my main and we don’t talk often but hmu?? tag me in shit?? idk lets interact more and talk

All the admins at @bnhaclaimedmysoul​ for being so nice and inspiring me to start my writing blog in the first place, my heart especially goes to @evnscntspul for being a sweetie moot on my main

@evielament @soulily0 @musically-inclined-fangirl @fandomfreak1000000 @zyxys1 @multifandom-fanfic @fucking-super-yikes @the-lonely-pie @roeroeroeyourboet I don’t have the time to go through every single person who’s liked/reblogged every single thing/most things I’ve written (there are a lot of you, i see you guys, trust me) but I definitely notice you guys the most 

@bnhaloser my precious little sweetheart thank you for your love and fanfic readings on your youtube channel, please get some sleep and I hope you’re not burning yourself out too much! I’m still looking after you from the shadows 👀

@birds-have-teeth Ashi my precious senpai who noticed me 🥺 i love you, thank you again for putting me on your author recs list, i’m so grateful for you 🙏🏻

@shoutodoki @justshotoswifeisall my senpai friends Val and Kayla, you’ve both inspired me and you already know how much i love and appreciate you, but i’ll say it again for good measure l love youuuu 💖💖💖

Special shoutout to @adainelartz​ @boomboombakugou and all the anons who have ever sent me all the lovely requests! I’m finishing them up, I’ve been busy with school stuff and I’ve been burnt out, but I’ll hopefully finish a few more this weekend into next week! 

And one more big thank you to every person reading this post, whether you’re a brand new or old follower, if you’ve only read one of my posts or you’ve liked my entire masterlist, whether you’re a quiet reader or a vocal one, I really do appreciate you all and I’d like to give you all warm hugs.  You guys keep me going and I couldn’t have gotten this far without every single one of you, and I can’t express my gratitude enough 💕💘

So! I’ll be doing requests this weekend, BUT I’m gonna be opening a 1K followers special event this weekend for anyone who wants to participate!  It’ll be mostly ask box stuff with a little something for the creatives to try their hand at as well.  I might even extend it to next week or until I hit 1,100 just for fun.  I look forward to talking to you guys then!

If you’ve reached the end of this long, mushy note, you’re a real trooper 👍🏻 Please take care of yourselves mentally and physically in these rough times.  I wish all of you health, safety, and calm in your social-distancing/quarantining.  Stay on top of your work/school but remember to take breaks when you need it 💙

With lots of love hugs and smiles

~Tiny

[lavenderek]

i have a thought to express, feel free to scroll past.

i’m gonna discuss rape and sexual abuse in this post. it’s also long because i don’t really have a conclusion, it’s just some thoughts. 

so i was looking into that reality show that facilitated shane dawson’s horrible movie “not cool” and i stumbled across a reddit thread posted by someone who was a fan of his as a preteen. the OP alleged that shane’s content contributed to them developing some serious issues including body dysmorphia and the normalization of sexual behavior involving children. 

some of the comments were in support and agreement, but a large amount of them were like, “where were your parents? it’s not shane’s job to police what you see online. it’s not his fault you were too young for his content.” 

now, shane was well aware from the jump that his fans were mostly kids and teens - he talked about it multiple times - but that’s not what this post is about. this post is about that particular argument, which does not sit well with me.

it reminded me of a couple years ago when i made a very critical post about c*ptive prince. 

pause: i want to make it crystal clear that i am not drawing a comparison between people who like cp and shane dawson. i’m not mad anymore, so i am not making this post making a value judgment on cp or fans of it, positive or negative. 

specifically, i was really bothered by the way cp content was posted and shared with no mention of or reference to the actual material. people were calling it a queer romance. it was a little-known series by a little-known author, so there were no synopses anywhere online, only the summary you’d see on the back of the book. so people would seek out cp thinking it was a romance and be blindsided by the fact that, spoilers, the story is set in a fantasy world where child rape is a major tenet of society. the scenes are explicit, detailed, and many. it’s not a thing that happens once or twice and is a major plot point, it’s a thing that happens multiple times in every chapter and is just kind of a thing that’s going on. if you’ve ever read twilight, i would compare the presence of rape in cp to the presence of rain in twilight.

like, that’s how often it happened, that’s how it was treated. sometimes with indifference, sometimes with a negative opinion, sometimes it caused problems, bella talks about it every two pages. it is a very rapey series. 

and people like, did not want to discuss this. they were like, “the characters decide the rape is bad in the end. and that’s not even what the story is about, it just happens in the story. i don’t know what to tell you.” like... people were not receptive to any kind of conversation about this topic lmfao, it was very touchy. they wanted to acknowledge that rape itself is bad, and then they wanted the subject closed. 

now, why is this a problem? i read the books. there were parts i enjoyed, and there were parts i didn’t enjoy. i’m not gonna reread them, but i’m still game to talk about it. ultimately i wanted to be able to talk about books with a friend of mine, and while i was like, “yikes, this is a lot of rape, was not expecting the volume of rape,” it didn’t occur to me this would be a pervasive issue at all until a different friend of mine happened upon it. this other friend was a rape survivor, and i happened to know she would find this content very upsetting. when she said she was thinking of buying the book, i was like, “halt, you know what happens in it, right?” 

nope! she didn’t. she saw cute fanart and a ficlet on her dash, somebody told her it was a queer romance. nowhere was there any indicator in summaries online or the posts she was seeing that the book would describe a person being drugged and sexually abused. she was pretty relieved that i’d warned her and shaken that that’s what happens in the books lmao. she would never have guessed. the cp fandom was made up of people who loved the main pairing, and they’d talk about them being in love and draw them being in love, and it felt like everybody was just acting like the rape wasn’t even present in the books lmao. 

pause: i didn’t go in the tags. this is not representative of the fandom as a whole. this is just my and my friend’s experience of it as passive internetgoers.

people got uncomfortable and a little defensive if i brought it up. they’d agree to tag for cp, but if you don’t know what cp is about, that isn’t helpful information. like that post that’s like, “waterboarding at guantanamo bay sounds like a lot of fun if you don’t know what either of those things are” lmao. if you don’t know what cp is about, tagging for it just tells you what it’s called. and it very clearly ruined everyone’s fun if i talked about this. 

so that’s what i was mad about, i was mad that i felt as though there was no recourse here, and i was mad because i felt like the cp fandom was the emperor’s new clothes. nobody was acting like it even existed and everybody got uncomfortable if i brought it up, like, i legitimately wondered at some point if i had somehow accidentally read a kinky rewrite of it, that the real version did not have rape in it and nobody knew what i was talking about. i felt like i was going crazy and i got shitty in the middle of the night one time, and wrote that post. 

i ultimately deleted it, so i do not remember how it was worded; but i do recall that it was a venting post, it was not intended to reach a wider audience. i was not trying to convince anyone in that moment, i was just talking shit. so i can bet that it probably came across as very judgmental and unkind. 

i made a bunch of people very angry with that post. somebody got thousands of notes by reblogging with an impassioned smackdown saying basically what those redditors were saying about shane - it’s not their job to police what people see online. it’s not their fault you were unprepared for cp. 

i do not think this is a nuanced enough argument because i do not think it acknowledges that not all content is created equal. 

i even got an anon ask in good faith saying, well, a huge trigger for me is body horror, and people will draw or reblog stuff with body horror in it, and i can’t hold that against them. 

and like, no, you can’t, but body horror is not the same as rape or child sexual abuse. body horror isn’t the same as sex trafficking. right? like those things aren’t comparable in the way that i think the anon was wanting them to be. they were saying that both of these are common triggers that people would want tagged and be unable to move past in media, you know? and i get that, i got what they were saying. 

kind of like that cartoonist who wrote a spooky horror comic a while ago and somebody sent them an ask being like, “that was really scary, you usually post fun comics, this was damaging, unfollowed :/” like obviously a stranger’s fear of spooky things is not something he should be expected to take on on his own blog lmao. i am deeply afraid of ghosts, by the way. 

but according to rainn.org, 1 in 5 women experience rape in their lifetime. 1 in 5 women are not frightened by literal ghosts in their lifetime. 1 in 3 girls and 1 in 7 boys aren’t body horrored. body horror and ghosts aren’t used on a global scale as tools to control and abuse people and they do not have the same connotations of shame, degradation, and control. the things are not the same. 

i don’t have an easy answer. i can’t wave my magic wand and make people not enjoy the rape erotica, nor was that my goal in the first place. i wasn’t clutching my pearls like, “how dare you! do not draw this art! think of the children!” and i don’t know how else i would have solved the problem, aside from having a weird disclaimer under your art of two dudes cuddling that says “warning, these dudes are from a book that’s got several thousand words of explicit rape in it, and i know that, you’re not the only one seeing that,” like that’s a lot and i get it. 

i don’t have an easy answer because there isn’t one. i felt like “well, that’s not my problem” was an easy answer. 

as i get older, the more responsibility i have as an adult online to maintain boundaries between me and minors, for example. i am not responsible for their internet experience and they can’t get mad at me for cussing or writing about gay werewolves on my blog, but i do have to be mindful of that context if i’m interacting with someone online. that’s where the complexity comes in. you can’t wash your hands of the context of the things you say and do online. 

just how to solve these problems, i did not know then and i do not know now. i guess we take it on a case by case basis. 

if you’re curious about shane dawson and his horrible movie, by the way, this guy did a few funny videos about the horrible movie and this guy did a not funny but comprehensive breakdown of shane and his career. 

and i tried to tint my eyebrows for the first time the other day, i have red hair and my eyebrows are darker than my hair for some reason, so i tried to use an eyebrow tint to lift my brows just like, a shade, so be closer to my hair? but in doing this i discovered that my eyebrows are a mixture of red and brown? 

so the red hairs lifted to a sunny orange, and the brown hairs stayed brown. so my eyebrows are fully like, calico right now. boom, orange juice, that’s life

[yikesharringrove]

hello!! i was just wondering if there is anything like au’s, kinks etc. that you really don’t vibe with so that myself or anyone else won’t make you uncomfortable by asking you to write about it. much love 💕

Honestly, there’s not a lot I WON’T write. Even if it’s not something I’m into as a human (like kinks and stuff) I’ll still write it, even if it icks me out a little. honestly, my hard lines are like hard lines.

I also want to say who I’ll write. I’m a Harringrove blog, first and fucking FOREMOST, but I love Stommy, Keg Boys, and Buckleway, and would be down as hell to write Stonathan and Stoncy. ( I LOVE Jonathan, but I have trouble writing Nancy. Just can’t find her voice really.)

I’ll put them under the cut bc I’m gonna talk about stuff people may want to avoid, plus she’s LONG

So, I WILL NOT write incest. That includes Billy/Max bc in my brain and how I like to write them is as brother and sister, that they’ve fixed their relationship, so yes. Which leads me to...

I won’t write for any of the kids in a sexual context. Most of the actors are minors, are that makes me feel yucky to think about writing these characters that way. When I’m writing a sex scene between Billy and Steve, in the show, yeah they are teens and that IS underage, but you’re thinking of characters played by ADULTS. Joe Keery is like, almost thirty. He’s a GROWN MAN. That’s why I won’t write the kids like that. This includes writing kid/teen like Billy/Max of Steve/Dustin and aged up, because it just makes me feel weird picturing these real life CHILDREN somehow aged up in sexual situations.

As far as content, I’m okay with most things, including triggering topics. I try my best to give proper tags and warnings, and if it’s something I DON’T have experience with, I do A LOT of research for my fics. I’ve also gone through some serious shit and use writing as an outlet for it, so I don’t mind writing heavy topics. Things that trigger me specifically, are like super weird things (ex: the song Dancing Queen. Yeah. I fucking know. Used to love that song and now I can’t fucking listen to it) so I have the emotional energy to write pretty dark stuff.

I hate Karen Wheeler and fully refuse to write Karen/Billy (outside of like, Karen hit on Billy and it was grsss!) that’s BIG YIKES to me and their scenes made me v uncomfy. I don’t think I could write Billy/Hopper or Steve/Hopper either, they need him as a father, not a daddy.

I won’t write Harringrove as abusive. These two mean the WORLD to me, and tbh they’ve both dealt with enough abuse. Sometimes I’ll see dark fics where one of them is going through something and becomes abusive towards the other in some way, and that’s just not my jam in a pretty big way. I love fluff and softness for these two because they deserve it, and that’s what I write. Most of my angst has happy endings too.

As far as kinks, that’s my hardest line. Like I said, most shit I will write. There’s a lot of kinks I don’t know much about, or would never be interested in trying myself, but I don’t mind researching it to write it. How I actually write kink is to find articles written by people who participate in and enjoy that kink so I can get more of an understanding of it, what it feels like, and why they participate in it/enjoy it, and then usually watch some porn of it. (which is SO FUNNY bc I’m watching like, hardcore kinky porn squinting at the screen with my glasses on figuring out how I’m gonna write and describe stuff lmao) so most kinks I’m fine with putting in the hours. With a lot of kink stuff I feel as long as everyone participating in it is consenting and in a safe environment, then go right ahead! So I’m not weirded or grossed out by much.

HOWEVER. Kinks I won’t write: -Shit. Usually I’m pretty live and let live, scat play is GROSS. Straight up. Full offense meant. Kink shaming is intentional. -Age regression during sex. I’m okay with writing Daddy Kink, and I wouldn’t mind putting in more research to write age regression outside of sex, but I DO NOT want to write something where they are actively pretending one of the participants is a child. That feels kinda questionable to me. Along with this is diapers and things like that in any context. From research I HAVE put into daddy kink, it’s not about actually pretending the dom is your father, it’s more about being taken care of. I am fine with all that, but to have the sub be pretending to be a child just makes something in me feel off when it is in a sexual context. Again, I’d be down to put in the research if you want to request someone who lives as a little or in a state of age regression and have the other person take care of them like a child. It would be pure fluff. I just wanted to make that VERY clear. -Blood in kissing. You’ll see in a lot of Harringrove when Billy has a split lip and they kiss Steve can taste the blood or something, that makes me feel REAL ick. HOWEVER, I’m a big dumb slut for vampires, and am good to write that, or gore, or even some murder boyfriends, it’s just when someone gets blood that’s not there’s in their mouth that’s pretty yikes for me. -Petplay is fine but I don’t want like, actually anthropomorphic

Honestly, I think that’s like, it? I was seriously thinking of kinks that like, personally I would NEVER want to try but like, I would write them. I don’t care. \

One thing you may or may not have noticed is that I don’t use the F-slur. I spent a lot of my life dealing with a lot of internalized homophobia. I identify as queer, (I always write Steve how I feel, where I fall in love with people above being sexually attracted to just like, a gender as a whole and personally, I can’t have sex without emotional intimacy, but that’s more of a trauma thing) I come from a really conservative place and struggled a lot with my sexuality and thought because I do like guys and have feelings for guys, I’m just straight and pushed down all of my other feelings for people of other genders away. It was actually really recently, after I went to college in a liberal city and met all different kinds of queer people I realized that 1. I have had feelings for LOTS of different people throughout my life (I was deeply in love with my best friend in high school in a SUPER gay way and just kept pretending I wasn’t lol) and 2. I don’t have to label myself if I don’t feel comfortable with that. So I call myself queer. Because I considered myself straight, literally until I was like, nineteen, I always thought of the F-slur as the same way I do the N-slur. I believe the word can be reclaimed by people in the groups it was used to dehumanize, but since I felt I WASN’T part of the LGBT+ community, I never used it. Even now that I have accepted that part of myself, the word just still feels very wrong for me to use. I don’t mind reading it, and it’s used really often in Harringrove fics bc Neil LITERALLY says it in canon, but I just can’t bring myself to type it out, so I just don’t. That’s a SUPER weird side note, but that’s why you may see in stuff I’ll skirt around Neil or Billy saying it.

So basically, I’m comfortable writing most things. Sometimes, requests may take longer because I NEED to put more thought into it, or more research or I want to get it right, for example the one I just posted with nb Steve and trans Billy, I did a lot of research and read a lot of things written by trans and nb people about their experiences and feelings, etc. as I’m a cis person and didn’t want it to be insensitive or fetishy or just straight up BAD. But I LOVE writing so FUCKING much, I will put in the time and do research to see your head canons and thoughts come to life.

One thing that takes me FOREVER is historical type prompts. I’m BAD at history, like remembering stuff in general, so while I LOVE to take prompts set in different time periods, please know it’ll take me a thousand years to fill.

If you read all this, thank you, and I’m sorry for going on weird tangents about stuff, I’m kinda weird and my brain doesn’t move in one direction lol. Please keep putting in requests and letting me into your ideas! I love it!

[everything-laito]

Diabolik Lovers Tag 2!

I was tagged by @vampiretsuki and @akumacaron!!!

Rules: Answer the Questions and Tag whomever you want to tag~ I would love to read your answers so tag me (@vampiretsuki) and I will read them~!

1.- Would you rather wear Carla’s Scarf or Shin’s eyepatch? 

I love scarves!!! So Carla’s scarf :) But eyepatches are metal as fuck, but I’d do that for like a one time only thing. 

2.- Which moments has been the most shocking to you? (Game, Manga, CD Drama, Stage Play, Anime)

Ok the fact that in the anime Laito kills Richter, like I look back at it and lose my SHIT––that’s probably the best thing the anime has to offer. There’s so much symbolism and implications and UGH I might have to do an analysis of it myself, even though aka-anemone made hers on it. I know I talk shit about the anime a lot so it’s surprising that I’d be talking about it in a positive light, but that’s one of the most shocking moments I can think of now. 

3.- Have you had a Diaboy whom you hated (or had very little interest) and now you love him? 

Uhhhhh not really? I’ve always hated Reiji and uh,,,, I hate him a little less now. I appreciate his juxtaposition to the boys and his funny insults and regular comic relief. 

4.- Which moments (Game, Manga, etc) has made you laugh the most? 

EVERY TIME LAITO REFERS TO HIMSELF AS A GENTLEMAN I SWEAR––there was one moment I remember laughing recently too, oh god it was a tokuten CD; whenever I think of it I’ll make an edit to this. 

oh also whenever Reiji’s whip sound effect plays in the games or CD. Idk why but it’s so funny to me.

5.- Which moments has made you cry the most? 

I’ve played Laito’s MB route two times, and whenever that scene of him and Yui having consensual sex I always cry. First it was on the bus when I went to Cuba for a school trip three years ago (which yikes I hate crying in front of other people LMAO), and last year it was in the corner of the study room in my residence hall behind 2 whiteboards on wheels. I was waiting for my laundry to be done (for some reason the laundry room and the study room were connected lmao) 

6.-Which moments has been the scariest for you? 

Legit Kanato’s HDB vampire ending. That shit screwed me up dude, my stomach knotted even more than Laito’s ending. I’ll copy a snippet of a conversation between me and my friend (who loves Kanato) when I just got done with his vampire ending.

me: like Kanato really just took everything Yui loved and had, even her humanity; i just realized the latter, and WOW thats FUCKED UP like Laito did it too but SHIT kanato just,,, went more

my friend: Right?? And it’s so much more eerie with kanato because yui just seems so happy. And yeah laito also took everything away but kanato is just on this whole other level because at least yui remembers her old life and why she loved it with laito but she doesn’t with kanato

me: Yeah its just uhhhhhhhhhh oh god oh fuck

I think creepy stuff juxtaposed by happiness/cuteness just makes it all the worst. Its like that clip of children singing ring around the rosie in horror movies; that specifically doesn’t really get me cuz its so overused now but you get the gist. 

7.- Which moments has made you the angriest?

whenever reiji jk lol its more:

whenever Cordelia

whenever Karlheinz

also yeah still kinda whenever reiji

8.- Would you like to be a student at their nocturnal school? Would you stalk/see what the Diaboys are up to? Who? (Only pick 3 diaboys!) 

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA stalking Laito is a TERRIBLE idea. He’ll know right away. But uh,,,, :) I’ll fuckin do it

I’d also see what Yuma and Ayato are up to. I’d love to see what Kou is up to but his fans would easily catch on and probably yeet me into the sun.

disclaimer: don’t stalk irl it’s uhhhhh kinda really bad :)

9.- Have you had any DL Dreams? if so… Tell us your favorite or your most recent~! 

I’ve been in this godforsaken hell for 5 years now???? And I think about Laito literally almost every fucking day???? what do I get??? nO dreams with him. I think I’ve had snippets before but I can’t remember any now. It’s unfortunate. 

BUT. I do remember one dream I had where Reiji was in (the irony, I know). Here’s the text I sent to my friend (that was in the dream too) about it:

Me: BRUHHHH U WERE IN MY DREAM LAST NIGHT AND SO WAS REIJI FROM DIABOLIK LOVERS (the one that looks like a pigeon) AND YOU SAID THAT YOU LOST YOUR VIRGINITY IN HIGH SCHOOL TO HIM IM LOSING MY MARBLES LMAO

My friend: 😂😂yoooooo nooooo 🤭

Me: We were all in this bougie ass house waiting for someone, and you, me and Reiji are just on the couch and im introducing myself and all and I was like “I know who you are Reiji” and then the conversation continued and eventually there was a subtle hint in a sentence he said that insinuated that you and him had sex, and I was like “HUH???? [friend’s name] WHAT” and you were like .3. “yeah I hooked up in high school” and I was like “goddammit why didnt you at least introduce me to Laito or something if you knew his family” and you were like “lol”

Anyways I lost my shit when I woke up; enjoy my barely coherent half asleep grammar

10.- Is there something/habit a diaboy does that bothers/annoys you? 

AYATO WONT TIE HIS FUCKING TIE RIGHT IM––

Honestly Idc about that nearly as much that I can’t forgive Laito for the toothbrush scene, I can’t, it’s too weird even for me, and thats goddamn saying something.

11.- Is there something/habit a diaboy does that makes your heart flutter/melt? 

Literally almost everything Laito does except the toothbrush scene. But mainly voice drops. and his manic laughter. fuck.

Lmao this was fun!!! Now time for the tagging: 

@hotline-to-hell @nam00n @the-precious-sugar-chan @murasakiplum @the-tomboygamer123 @jardinsdeminuit @zaraenia have fun, go ham!!! Also if you wanna do this do it as well!!!

[anxiety-trademark]

The week in review:

Raw 11/09 NXT 11/11 NXT UK 11/12 Smackdown 11/13

Raw:

Shayna vs Lana?? God poor Lana. Preemptive “rip”

Lmfao Lana is so damn extra.

Okay but WHY is Asuka facing Nia later? And where has Asuka even been the past few weeks?

Yikes. Lana is so friggin useless in kf.

Rofl Nia mocking Dana’s voice, I cannot with her.

Did Dana and Mandy actually save Lana from #8?? They got half a point. I get why they’re reluctant to help Lana, but they’re nearly coming off as the mean, popular girls, and I know that’s not their personas. I get she fucked them over, but it was inadvertent. Buy some goodwill guys.

Are they the Gucci girls now? Honestly flashforward to current times, Charlotte fits right in with them. If you were gonna have Charlotte head a stable, Dana and Mandy are the perfect people to put with her.

“We totally saved your butts... Lana.” :/ Dana. Dana plz. With all the work you put into your craft, HOW are you still the weakest promo in the division?

“Okay listen, thank you, you’re welcome,” just let Mandy and Dana practice wrestling cuz their promos are fucking painful.

Lana No-Friends.

Why is Alexa happily destroying flowers??

Lol has no memory of seeing Nikki the week prior. Yikes. Are we still sure it’s not drugs???

“Lexi I’m not playing.” “That’s too bad, Nikki.” What she means, Nikki, is there are 2 options: play or pain. You should just play. Actually side note; wasn’t that Nikki’s whole damn character when she debuted? ‘Nikki wants to play’? ‘Play with Nikki’??

Omfg Alexa is god damn stellar. Nikki tells her to choose either Fiend/Bray or [Nikki]. Alexa thinks about it for a moment, “okay. I choose... *blows the flower petals in Nikki’s face* him!” Then fucking claps, giggles and walks away. Imagine if you had a whole damn roster that could be this entertaining.

Also Nikki is really talented in her own right. Working with Alexa did wonders as far as promos and acting go.

Survivor Series team is supposedly at ringside because Asuka is about to go one on one with Nia. I’m not seeing the correlation.

Shayna officially playing the role of henchman now, I see. That’s interesting.

Asuka does a lot of things worth praising. Her Octopus is not one of them.

It’s always nice seeing Nia bump like she does for Asuka.

Oh that kickout into an armbar by Asuka was BEAUTIFUL.

Asuka said “fuck all y’all we’re busy rn”

I hate Shayna’s hammerfists SO much.

This Survivor Series team is a fucking disaster in kf.

aaaaand there’s number 8. Jeeeeze. “You don’t belong here, you’re gonna drag us down. Just quit.” This is a bullying story done right tbh. No personal petty bs insults, no body shaming. Just straight up physically assaulting the weakest link that has zero friends. It’s a good story. I feel sympathy for sure.

Highlight: Alexa & Nikki backstage segment

---

NXT:

See I don’t mind Shotzi’s backstage promos at all. She exudes passion. I can feel her emotions. But 9 times out of 10 she ends it in a howl and I want to scream.

Weak final thought though. There was really nothing better you could end it on? Okay.

So Xia calls out Raquel and then doesn’t show. Not sure if it’s for kf or meta reasons.

I like Raquel speaking Spanish while brawling. She should incorporate that more, especially with Zelina gone. We need more Latina talent (no disrespect to Bayley or Sasha, if they wanna start speaking Spanish then good on them)

“Everybody better take their-- my name out of their mouth.” SIGH can I get a non-awkward speaker that isn’t Nia? Anyone? Anywhere? Hello??

What the hell does any of this Xia stuff mean? Fine I’ll be patient.

So is Toni a face? I thought she was a heel. Did I misinterpret the heel turn pre-covid era? That’s even worse, she’s even more the same now.

Ugh rough day when I’m here cheering for Toni. God I hate Candice.

Do you really have the right to call anyone a ‘punk rock poser’ Candice? I mean... REALLY?

It’s not that I hate Toni’s headbutt, I just hate it when people take themselves out delivering a headbutt.

Anticlimactic sequence. Toni says fuck your second rope neckbreaker to Candice, then Candice says fuck your second rope leg drop to Toni, just to follow up with a mere kick to the jaw and a pinfall attempt. Missed opportunity to really get something going.

Sad attempt at putting her feet on the ropes by Candice.

Good let Toni be a “sore loser” fuck Candice.

So the masked figure is Indi, right? Why are they keeping her masked? What’s the purpose? Yeahhh that’s really not a surprise. Anyway.

It’s a damn shame what happened in 2020, the whole world has felt it. And it’s a damn shame that you didn’t get to show out in front of 80k people. I truly feel for you. Your loss, however? In kf I can’t feel bad because you sought HER out on HER show. In a meta sense? She did you a favor taking that title. You were 5 seconds from being called Charlotte 2.0, and you deserve better. You deserve the opportunity to grow and make a name for yourself without being handed everything before the age of 25, and you’re SO much better off for it.

The downfall of “nxt’s hottest new act” was a great story. It sucks to be her, but it was a great story. Rhea’s gonna be a fucking STAR on the main roster. She will thrive. She will exceed expectations. She will make a name for herself. She had to eat that humble pie first, though. Obviously I know how this match ends already, and rightfully so. 

Highlight: I guess the Io/Rhea Prime Target

---

NXT UK:

Kind of a bummer that there’s only ever one women’s match/segment every week on UK. I want to ponder whether it’d be different sans a pandemic, but I’m not certain it would be.

Xia Brookside is too animated in her moves, and her moves are always too slow for it to mesh well.

They compliment Xia’s “technical work” but she just comes off as someone who has learned the absolute basics and has no idea how to utilize them in a match.

Interesting to note that they seem to be building up 2 heels in Nina and Jinny, yet the champ herself is a heel. Not quite making me believe either of them have a chance at defeating her in the future.

Nice I always love a good codebreaker. Points to Xia.

That was a nice cartwheel off the turnbuckle using the ropes. One would assume the tweak to the knee was a farce.

Stupid small package. Stupid result. At least Nina got some heat back, but she should’ve won, lesbireal.

Side note: I see UK does in fact have a pc. No excuse for these women to get gassed so quickly then, get it together.

Highlight: The network exclusive video package for KLR vs Piper

---

Smackdown:

What a racy outfit. I don’t hate it, Sasha wears it well.

There’s like a million things you can do with Sasha that doesn’t involve a live promo in the middle of the ring. Explore them plz.

Carmella’s not a technical master by any means, but having her superkick and then finish with a facebuster is super weak.

What’s also weak: where the fuck did Bayley go?

What’s even weaker than that: Carmella had like the best theme music and now it’s gone. Tragic.

Lol why is Nattie stomping her feet like she’s throwing a tantrum? She’s hilarious tbh.

“If team Smackdown is going to win,” lmao let me cut you off right there. Imagine the SD women actually winning at SvS. Good joke.

Omg Chelsea is alive? We gave her a tag match in nxt with the women’s champion Charlotte Flair... Charlotte fucking Flair... and then kept her off tv for like 6 months for this? Is this her grand debut?? Is she even ready for the main roster???

Wait hold on. Back up. So Chelsea touched Adam’s shoulder and had some off camera conversation to make her way into this triple threat match? *sigh* okay.

I don’t quite remember who this team consisted of, but if I had to guess, I’d assume Liv wins this match since Ruby is already on the team.

Love Chelsea’s theme music, love that a giant picture of herself is no longer her titantron... HATE the flowy wedding dress veil that she wears on the bottom half of her outfit.

Should stick Chelsea with Nattie tbh.

What the hell was that by Liv? A fake out standing crucifix turned into a ddt? Fucking beautiful.

Nattie and Liv work together nicely ngl. Liv really does have a lot of potential, but she’s god awful on the mic. Tag team wrestling is best for her for the foreseeable future.

“This is a fatal 4way,” Cole reminds us, because Chelsea and Tamina have seemingly died.

Should’ve just made this a singles match between Liv and Nattie, jesus.

Lmfao Liv pinned Tamina. What took Chelsea out? A dropkick off the apron. A dropkick off the apron took Chelsea out for 3 minutes, and she got maybe 3 moves of offense. Yikes, what a debut.

So when does Bayley get added as captain?

Highlight: The match that totally wasn’t a singles match between Liv & Nattie

---

*Bad week in wrestling, but yet again, Raw shines the brightest because as small as their roster may be, they’re being utilized decently well.

[jimmyandthepulsatingmass]

A Look Back at Old Jimmy

Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass is one year old today!  To celebrate, I thought I’d share some stuff about what Jimmy looked like in its original incarnation.  Spoilers: not as good!  But, fans will probably find it interesting, so check it out after the break if you want a super long, super informative post about a version of Jimmy that was never meant to be!

When I originally conceived of Jimmy, it wasn’t meant to be a huge game with a focus on exploration.  Instead, it was meant to be around 8-10 hours and mostly linear.  It wasn’t going to be a commercial game; instead, it was going to be a game that I posted on rpgmaker.net, like many of my other earlier games, and a means for me to show everyone that my game design had matured.  The game was broken up into four segments, each representing a different character.  Each segment was its own game.  For example, Lars’s segment was going to be a first-person dungeon exploring game (called Dark Dungeon), Andrew’s segment was going to be a visual novel about going to school, etc.  I forget if Helga or Buck had the more straightforward RPG segment, and I can’t remember what the fourth segment was going to be.  Of these, I’d only been working on the RPG segment, and I’d finished all the battle designs and locations, so, at the point that I stopped development, this section was almost complete.  So, naturally, that’s what most of this post will focus on.

In the frame story, the house was uncolored, and by completing each segment of the game, you’d gradually color in the house and make your family happy.  When you had colored everything in, you would leave the house and then the ending was very similar to the ending that eventually made it into the game.  Everything was drawn with crayons (by which I mean the crayon tool in MS Paint, haha) other than the sprites.  Also, looks like this screen showed off Jimmy’s old sprite.  Yikes, right?

Here’s the whole family.  This isn’t a scene or anything (none of the dialogue was in at this point--other than some battle dialogue), but I just wanted to show off all the sprites.  Let’s just pull that band-aid off quickly.  The setting is a castle that gets destroyed by the Pulsating Mass.  The entire RPG section takes place in a faux medieval section.  I pulled some ideas about the videogamey aspect of that world into the Everchip segment (mainly how dialogue is delivered), but nothing too important story-wise.

This was Jimmy’s room inside of the RPG world.  If it looks familiar, that’s because the opening of this segment of the game was going to be a shot-for-shot remake of the opening scene in Chrono Trigger, just drawn way worse.  Helga would have delivered Chrono’s mother’s dialogue, but, like I said, I hadn’t done the dialogue yet, so I’m just manually opening the curtains.

Here’s a look at the world map.  The little dragon aspect of the map could also breathe fire; he moves randomly, so I didn’t happen to catch it when I made the gif.  The gif quality kind of sucks, so here are the area names: Hazeleye, Stoney Craw, Bursa Pass, Marrowick, Eastern Brow, Legs of the Ancient Giant, and Pulsating Mass. 

Here’s a little effect that I thought turned out alright.  The areas in dungeons were short and the paths were narrow.  Enemies were designed to be at chokepoints, so there were fixed encounters.  You didn’t get any experience or money from them--you just got to progress.  I’ll get into that more, later, but here are some other shots of maps I thought didn’t look totally terrible:

The entrance to Bursa Pass, a mountainous area.  You’ll probably recognize the bird effect in the background from Lars’s beach scene.  This is actually where you would have first found Lars; he would have been sitting in front of the sign and carried off by a giant bird similar to Grimclaw, but its name was Throbbing Feathers; you can see how I cannibalized a lot of that stuff and used it in different ways in the final game.

This was Throbbing Feathers’s nest.  He was the second boss.

Another shot of Bursa Pass.

This is a little reflection effect I liked in Marrowick, a forest area where you encounter the Rotting Jack-o’-Lantern, among other things.

This is a short area called Eastern Brow.  It was meant to be an observatory, but it also kind of looked like a cannon, so I ended up planning for Jimmy and the family to go there and fire themselves out of it to get to the top of Legs of the Ancient Giant.

Here’s a typical part of the Pulsating Mass.  It was very pink.

Equipment was fixed.  You couldn’t buy equipment or items, and you only gained levels after beating bosses.  Like I said earlier, the game was super linear.  Battles were built more like puzzles since you couldn’t power level to get around them.  Here’s what every other character had equipped for the curious:

My favorite part about looking through the equipment was that I forgot that Lars could only equip a Tommy Bahama Shirt on his upper body.

Here’s a weird part of the battle system that didn’t make it into the full game.  In addition to their normal skill sets, characters had a “Moxie” set of skills.  These four skills were the same for every character.  In addition to HP and MP (SP here), battles utilized RPG Maker’s TP system.  You would gain a set amount of TP each turn, and you could get double by guarding.  TP allowed you to use these Moxie skills, which were basically surrogates for items.

Here are a few skill sets, starting with Helga’s.  There’s a lot of overlap with the full version of Jimmy.  Helga apparently was a cheerleader in Jr. High.

This is just to show that some of these skills that you’re familiar with didn’t operate the same way.  Also, the characters’ HP and SP would normally be full, as you get full recovers after each fight, but I had artificially leveled him, so the numbers are wonky.

Here’s Jimmy’s complete list of transformations.  He had a few extras that didn’t make it into the full game, as you can see.  The final four were optional ones you could get for fighting new monsters that replaced the bosses in each area.  “Imagine Face” lets you transform into a monster called “Giant Face,” which was the tank role; the Revolting Blob was more of a status inflicter.  “Imagine Tree” is the “Tree of Life,” which took over the Phoenix’s big healing role (the Phoenix focused a bit more on offense), and “Imagine Guardian” was a monster called “Ancienter Guardian” (A harder version of the Ancient Guardian you could fight earlier in the game).  It had an offensive role and the ability to interrupt, kind of like a more powerful Red-Billed Squawker with a group attack.

By the way, transformations could only be used inside a battle.  There wasn’t a point of transforming in the field because of the linear level design.  They also took a turn to use; a lot of the combat was slower and built around utilizing each turn correctly.

Speaking of battles, here’s what one would look like.  As you can see, Mortimer made the transition from Old Jimmy to new Jimmy, but his design is a bit different.  The battle backgrounds were stationary.  The TP I was talking about earlier is shown here (as MP--Moxie Points).

Here’s Mortimer getting wrecked by Andrew.  Some of the battle animations look pretty cool as crayons, but there just aren’t a lot of them.  This is because anything that was used on players didn’t have an animation because of how VX Ace’s default battle system works.  Note the end message says “Jimmy’s Family;” HItomi, Jonathon Bear, and Punch Tanaka weren’t playable characters in this version.  Of these, only Punch shows up in the game at all.  Jonathon Bear is just referenced via Jimmy’s shirt, and Hitomi wasn’t planned at this point.  Jonathon Bear’s history with Jimmy wasn’t even conceived at this point.

Since I showed off Mortimer, here are a few more friendly faces:

You’ll notice their designs are basically the same as in normal Jimmy.  There were only a few monsters that I kept, design wise.  These two operated a bit differently in battle, though.  The Elder Mr. Asp was invincible, and he would berate his son every turn.  Then, at the end of each turn, the message, “The Elder Mr. Asp is ravaged by age!” would appear.  After a few turns he died of natural causes.  Here’s how it played out:

Apparently the Elder Mr. Asp was originally kind of a creep in addition to being a jerk.  Also, I kind of wish I would have gotten a gif of him coughing, because I was using timing tags so that the cough and hack were instant, then the wheeze was drawn out really slowly.

The last thing I’d like to share is a bunch of monsters.  There were a LOT, so I grabbed some I thought people would find interesting:

50′s Style Vampire’s original design.

This guy’s name was Albert Hands.  Just kind of liked that.

Bad Weather’s original design.  None of the other cloud people existed yet.

Elegant Ice Swan was an enemy rather than a piece of furniture.  There was a mechanic where you could use elements--like fire--and they would have adverse effects on some enemies.  Elegant Ice Swan would just melt if you hit it with a fireball.

Flesh Orb’s old design.

Here’s the Giant Face I mentioned earlier.

Grumble Bear’s design is the same for the most part.

Happy Little Sunflower’s original design.

This is a superboss named Karma.

Luna and Sol’s old designs.  Sol looked okay.  But, uh, Luna...

This guy’s name was Mumbles.

Here’s what Buck looked like when he got taken over by the Mass.

This is a dude named OctoCarl.  I think he’s a cool dude.

Overweight Dinosaur was an early monster.

Early Phoenix design.  You can still see this reflected in the Phoenix’s sprite in the full version.

There’s Punch Tanaka; he was too cool to have an action pose.

Here’s the Red-Billed Squawker’s early design.

...and Revolting Blob’s.

This is a monster called Bad Lunch.  It tries to trick you into eating it.

Rotten Jack-O’-Lantern’s early design.

Here’s a monster called “Seeing Lips” that operated the same as Lingering Eyes.  It also had a mechanic like Balanced Equations where if you didn’t kill both before the end of the turn after killing one, they would revive (and get a full heal).

This is a monster called The Amazing Residue. I wish I would have been able to include him in the full version.  All he does is show off every turn and beg for people to pay attention to him, and the way to beat him was to use Andrew’s “Boring Lecture” ability to put each party member to sleep.  Afterwards, he sulked off.

Here’s Throbbing Feathers, aka proto-Grimclaw.  In this battle, you didn’t ride on his back, but Lars was in his claws, so you had to keep Lars healed while beating Throbbing Feathers in order to win.

This is the Tree Man that you didn’t get.  He looks terrible, but if you set him on fire...

...this happens.  It changed his move set and made him lose HP each turn.

This is a monster called Water Spirit.  The way you beat it was by alternating freezing and melting it.  Each of its forms had different abilities, so you had to switch the forms smartly in order to win.

Wubbly was one of the few unchanged designs.  He had way more health, though, since there wasn’t an artificial “last 8 turns” challenge to draw the battle out.

Well, that’s about all I think I want to share.  Old Jimmy was a way different game, and there was way more planning and A HELL OF A LOT more work between what you see here and what Jimmy eventually became.  I hope y’all enjoyed seeing the little ideas that germinated into something more in the final product and all of the weird evolutionary dead-ends that never made it out of Old Jimmy’s bizarre, crayon-colored world.

[cutepresea]

1-1 Titan Symphony: Titan Island

Apologies for the upcoming spam, but since service for the English version of Symphogear XD Unlimited is going to be discontinued in a few months, I’ll be posting text transcriptions of the scripts for events that have been/will be available, just in case anything happens to the videos others have uploaded/will upload.

If you want to blacklist these, you can use either the tag #titan symphony for just this event, or #xdu event scripts for all these posts in general.

I’ll be starting with Titan Symphony, the Attack on Titan crossover event, and going “in order” from there (Valkyries’ Summer actually comes before both A Light That Pierces the Clouds and Kimono Rumble, but it won’t be in English until late June). Each part of each event will be its own post, so 1-1 will be first part of Titan Symphony, 1-2 will be part 2 of Titan Symphony, and so on, while 2-1 will be the first part of One Winged Wielders...You get the idea.

Note that this is copied straight from the game itself, so any grammatical weirdness, mistranslations, and/or mischaracterizations are not my doing.

Hibiki Tachibana: "Is this a new mission?"

Genjuro Kazanari: "Yes. We've received reports of a strange incident on a nearby island. Our HQ sub is currently en route."

Chris Yukine: "We haven't even got back home from our last mission and there's another incident?"

Genjuro Kazanari: "There's no time to lose. You three will handle this mission. The others will be on standby back home."

Tsubasa Kazanari: Things must be pretty bad on that island if we're having to change course so suddenly."

Genjuro Kazanari: "Indeed. Take a look at this photo"

Genjuro Kazanari: "This is Titan Island. A small, inhabited island within Japanese waters."

Hibiki Tachibana: "Titan Island? That's a weird name."

Elfnein: "Its official name is different, but that is what the local residents know it as."

Elfnein: Ever since mysterious, giant bones were unearthed there long ago, legends of Titans have taken hold there."

Tsubasa Kazanari: "Well that explains the name, then. What's become of those bones now?"

Elfnein: "The islanders now know them as the Bones of the Titan King[1]. They're enshrined as an object of fear and awe."

Chris Yukine: "Wait, hold on. You don't suppose those bones were part of a relic, do you?"

Elfnein: "That's what the government feared, so they investigated in secret, but it seemed they were just fossils."

Elfnein: "The details were sparse, but it was concluded they were possibly of an extinct species of large mammal."

Genjuro Kazanari: "Or so we thought. With things as they stand, the Bones of the Titan King can't be ruled out as unrelated."

Genjuro Kazanari: "The incident started with a powerful radio disturbance blanketing the island."

Genjuro Kazanari: As a result, communications on the island became impossible, and no aircraft can approach."

Genjuro Kazanari: "While we were looking into the cause, someone from Titan Island washed ashore on a nearby island."

Hibiki Tachibana: "Washed ashore?"

Genjuro Kazanari: "The person was gravely injured, and quite shaken, at that."

Genjuro Kazanari: "They claimed that Titans had suddenly appeared on the island, and had begun attacking the people there."

Hibiki Tachibana: "Titans?!"

Chris Yukine: "What the hell?!"

Tsubasa Kazanari: "So what you're saying is that our mission..."

Genjuro Kazanari: "Is what you think it is. You will search the island for survivors, and investigate the cause of the incident."

Genjuro Kazanari: "If the islander's report is true, however, there may be Titans lying in wait for you."

Hibiki Tachibana: "Do you... Do you think the Titans can talk?"

Elfnein: "There is a possibility, however we have not learned much from the islander who was rescued."

Elfnein: "Meaning that the Titans are still a complete mystery."

Genjuro Kazanari: "Also, the islander told us that a mysterious man was spotted on the island a few days prior to the incident."

Genjuro Kazanari: "We're not sure who it could be, but they must have some connection to all this. Be careful out there."

Tsubasa & Hibiki & Chris: "Roger that!"

Chris Yukine: "So this is Titan Island? Seems like a quiet enough place."

Tsubasa Kazanari: "Let's start by heading to the village. We should be able to find some locals there."

Chris Yukine: "And maybe some Titans, too..."

Hibiki Tachibana: "Yeah. Maybe we could just ask the Titans why they attacked the islanders?"

Chris Yukine: "This ain't the time for your usual antics. What the hell are you expecting to talk about with Titans?"

Hibiki Tachibana: "That's not what I meant. I just figured since they're big people, maybe they can talk like us little people."

Tsubasa Kazanari: "In any case, we'll first need to confirm for ourselves what they truly are... I can see the village."

Hibiki Tachibana: "This is awful..."

Chris Yukine: "Guess the stuff about the attack was true. And look at these footprints..."

Hibiki Tachibana: "Are those from a Titan?"

Tsubasa Kazanari: "We have to hurry and investigate the village. There may be survivors!"

Hibiki Tachibana: "Right. I'll go look over there!"

Chris Yukine: "How were things on your end?"

Tsubasa Kazanari: "I found no survivors, unfortunately. But no bodies, either. Just bloodstains here and there."

Hibiki Tachibana: "Same on my end. I wonder if this means that they were attcked, but all managed to get away?"

Chris Yukine: "Maybe. Perhaps they fled the village and are hiding somewhere."

Tsubasa Kazanari: "Let's follow the footprints. If the islanders fled the Titans and were followed, we should find both."

Hibiki Tachibana: "Okay, let's go check it out!"

Hibiki Tachibana: "Helloooo? Is anyone heeeere?"

Chris Yukine: "I don't see anyone."

Tsubasa Kazanari: I think we've traveled pretty far inland."

Hibiki Tachibana: "Then they must have fled even further!"

Tsubasa Kazanari: "I suppose so. Let's keep going..."

Islander: "I-Is anyone there?!"

Hibiki Tachibana: "I heard a voice! Is that one of the islanders?!"

Chris Yukine: "He's over there! Looks like some people are safe after all. Heeey! Over here! We're here to help, so just--"

Tsubasa Kazanari: "...There's something there behind that man!"

Hibiki Tachibana: "Is that...a Titan?!"

Tsubasa Kazanari: "Oh, no. It's going to catch him!"

Islander: L-Let me go! Help! Somebody heeeeelp!"

Hibiki Tachibana: "Huh?"

Chris Yukine: "Did it just... eat him?!"

Tsubasa Kazanari: “Rgh! So that's why there were no bodies back in the village!"

Hibiki Tachibana: "We were too late... He was coming to us for help, and yet..."

Tsubasa Kazanari: "What's that sound?!"

Chris Yukine: "What now?!"

Tsubasa Kazanari: "It's coming from the woods. There they are!"

Chris Yukine: "It's a whole herd of Titans! There were this many of them?!"

Chris Yukine: "Yikes... Dealing with this many of them isn't going to be easy!"

Tsubasa Kazanari: They're making a beeline for us. I think they're looking to make us their next meal!"

Hibiki Tachibana: "Wait! Why are you attacking humans? If there's a reason you're doing this, then maybe we can--"

Hibiki Tachibana: "Aaaah! Lemme go!"

Tsubasa Kazanari: "Tachibana!"

Chris Yukine: That idiot! I TOLD her this would happen!"

Chris Yukine: Still, I'll be damned if I'm gonna let her get eaten!"

Hibiki Tachibana: "Oof! Thanks, Chris-chan!"

Tsubasa Kazanari: "It doesn't appear these things can be reasoned with."

Chris Yukine: "Yeah, they're nothing but monsters. It looks like they see everything as food. Including the islanders..."

Hibiki Tachibana: "Yeah. If we don't do something, they might eat the rest of the survivors."

Hibiki Tachibana: "We're going to stop them right here and now!"

Hibiki Tachibana: "Raaaaaaagh!"

Hibiki Tachibana: "No matter how much I pound on this thing, it keeps regenerating!"

Chris Yukine: "Then I'll just have to blow it to smithereens!"

Tsubasa Kazanari: "I'll cut it down!"

Chris Yukine: "That didn't work either?!"

Tsubasa Kazanari: "It looks like all we can do is slow them down."

Hibiki Tachibana: "Elfnein-chan, what's going on with these Titans? ...Elfnein-chan!"

Chris Yukine: "The radio disturbance is blocking our comms, remember?!"

Hibiki Tachibana: "Oh, shoot, that's right!"

Tsubasa Kazanari: "If we don't know how to beat them, then fighting will only waste our energy. We need to fall back for now!"

Chris Yukine: "Yeah!"

Hibiki Tachibana: "Haah... Hahh... Looks like we lost them."

Chris Yukine: "That's great and all, but just where are we now?"

Tsubasa Kazanari: "We were practically running blind escaping those Titans. I'd guess we've come further inland now."

Chris Yukine: "I'd like to get back to HQ, but we'd have to deal with the damn Titans first."

Tsubasa Kazanari: "Maybe we could try to sneak the long away around without being spotted?"

Hibiki Tachibana: "Hey, come over here! Look at the base of this cliff!"

Chris Yukine: "Stop shouting! What if the Titans come swarm us again? Whoa, what's that?!"

Tsubasa Kazanari: "It seems some sort of hole has opened up between dimensions. What on earth could this be--"

Chris Yukine: "Hey, look! Something's coming out of the rift!"

Hibiki Tachibana: "Is that a person?!"

??? (Eren)[2]: "Who are these guys?" Hibiki Tachibana: "Thank goodness, there are still survivors left!"

Chris Yukine: "Wait, these guys don't look like the other islanders. See all that gear? Looks pretty suspicious to me."

Tsubasa Kazanari: "You don't think it could have been them terrorizing the islanders, do you?!"

??? (Eren): "Those are some strange-looking clothes... Armin, you seen anything like this before?"

??? (Armin): "No, this is new for me too. Mikasa, what do you make of them?"

??? (Mikasa): "I can't tell if they're friends or foes."

??? (Levi): "Then we'll just have to ask them ourselves."

??? (Levi): "Hey! I've got questions, and you're gonna answer them."

Hibiki Tachibana: "Y-Yes sir!"

??? (Levi): "What is this place?"

Hibiki Tachibana: "You don't know? This is Titan Island."

??? (Levi): "Titan... Island? Why the hell would you bring us to a place with a name as ridiculous as "Titan Island"?"

Hibiki Tachibana: "Wait, you've got it all wrong, we didn't bring you here. But that means you're  not from around here, right?"

??? (Levi): "Rgh, I'm the one asking the questions here, kid."

Chris Yukine: "Jeez, this guy sucks at holding a conversation. We've got questions of our own, too. No need to be rude."

Chris Yukine: "You guys must know something about those Titan-things that appeared on the island, right?"

??? (Eren): "What's there to know? A Titan's a Titan."

Tsubasa Kazanari: "So you do know something! I knew it, they must be--"

??? (Eren): "Titans!"

Chris Yukine: "They followed us all the way up the cliff?! But there's barely room to breathe up here!"

??? (Levi): "Two Titans, huh? The pleasantries can wait. You guys stay out of our way until we've taken them down."

Hibiki Tachibana: "Wait, you're going to fight them?!"

Chris Yukine: "They can fly?!"

Tsubasa Kazanari: "Are they using wires? I've never seen equipment like that before..."

??? (Mikasa): "Now!"

Hibiki Tachibana: "It disappeared!"

Chris Yukine: "How the hell did they do that? We took them down so many times, but even then they just got back up..."

??? (Levi): "Didn't I tell you to get out of the way? ...Huh?"

Hibiki Tachibana: "Wh-What's that noise?!"

??? (Mikasa): "Is it an earthquake?!"

Tsubasa Kazanari: "Behind us!"

Hibiki Tachibana: "Wha?!"

???[3]: "You've gotta be kidding me..."

Chris Yukine: "What the hell is that?!"

Tsubasa Kazanari: "Brace yourselves!"

Hibiki Tachibana: "Grrgh!"

Chris Yukine: "Its attacks are too big! All I can do is dodge them."

Tsubasa Kazanari: "Our attacks are barely making a scratch."

??? (Eren): "What's with their gear?"

??? (Levi): "Do we really have the time to be concerned about their damn gear?!"

??? (Armin): "They're coming from the other side of the cliff! At this rate, we'll be surrounded!"

??? (Mikasa): "We won't be able to take them on while we're still fighting the Colossal Titan."

Tsubasa Kazanari: "They're unlikely to be able to scale the cliff, right? As frustrating as it is, we should retreat to HQ."

Chris Yukine: "You're right. We have to focus on making it out alive!"

Hibiki Tachibana: "You guys should come back to HQ with us!"

??? (Levi): "Well, unknown to us as you may be, you seem to at least know your way around this place."

??? (Levi): "If we stay here, we're as good as dead. We'll come along to their HQ for now, and ask questions later."

??? (Mikasa & Eren & Armin): "Yes, Sir!"

Chris Yukine: "Seriously, they still don't trust us? We're doing them a huge favor here."

Tsubasa Kazanari: "At this stage, I can't say I trust them, either. Let's just focus on getting out of here and back to safety."

Hibiki Tachibana: "In that case, I'll lead the--"

??? (Armin): "Stop, stop! The Colossal Titan's attacking!"

Hibiki Tachibana: "Urgh!"

Hibiki Tachibana: "Th-Thank you. If you hadn't said something, I would've been a goner!"

??? (Armin): "Oh, you're welcome."

??? (Armin): "Thankfully, that attack actually opened up an escape route for us. Let's go, and fast!"

Tsubasa Kazanari: "All right! Back to HQ, everyone, and not another word until we're there!"

Hibiki Tachibana: "Haah... Haah..."

??? (Eren): "Haah... Wow... We made it, somehow..."

Elfnein: "Welcome back, everyone. I am glad to see you're all unharmed. However, I must ask... Who are these people?"

Chris Yukine: "Truth be told, we're not really sure ourselves."

Chris Yukine: "It doesn't look like they're involved in this mess, but they definitely know something about those Titans."

Genjuro Kazanari: "My name is Genjuro Kazanari. I'm the commander of S.O.N.G., the organization investigating the Titans."

Hibiki Tachibana: "Oh yeah, we haven't introduced ourselves yet. I'm Hibiki Tachibana, and this is Tsubasa-san and Chris-chan!"

Hibiki Tachibana: "And you guys are?"

Levi: "Levi. As for those three..."

Eren: "I'm Eren."

Mikasa: "Mikasa."

Armin: "My name's Armin."

Genjuro Kazanari: "Nice meeting you. Now, I think we should put our heads together to work out exactly what's going on here, yes?"

Levi: "Yeah. I think there's more going on here than any of us truly realize."

Levi: "We were pulled in by what almost seemed like a rift in space. When we came to afterwards, here we were."

Levi: "Now first things first, what exactly is this place?"

Genjuro Kazanari: "...I see. So in your world, you have Titans instead of Noise. And you live behind walls for protection."

Genjuro Kazanari: "And while the Scouts were on duty outside the walls, you guys got sucked in by a rift and wound up here."

Genjuro Kazanari: "Those are the important parts, right?"

Genjuro Kazanari: "I'm sure you can tell are no Titan-proof walls[4] in our world. You four must have come from a parallel world."

Levi: "A parallel world..."

Eren: "You can't be serious?! There's no way we came from another world!"

Armin: "While it might be hard to believe, it would certainly explain their equipment, and this facility, too..."

Armin: "I think they're right, Eren. We've arrived in a world parallel to our own."

Eren: "That's impossible... Then again, you're never usually wrong, Armin."

Eren: "In that case, how do we get back to our own world? We have people waiting for us back home."

Elfnein: "To move between parallel worlds, you would usually use Gjallarhorn, but I'm afraid that is not possible here."

Elfnein: "I'm sorry to tell you this, but if you were sucked into a rift, there is probably a reason for its opening."

Hibiki Tachibana: "Is this rift like the one we saw by the cliff?"

Elfnein: "The very same. It is also most likely the reason for the radio disturbance that blankets the island."

Elfnein: "If we can consider the rift you all came through an "entrance", your "exit" is likely the cliffside rift."

Armin: "So you're saying if we go through that rift, we'll come out the other side back into our world?"

Elfnein: "I think that may be the only way. However, there is a possibility that the link between worlds may close..."

Eren: "Then we've got to get back there before it does!"

Armin: "You're forgetting about the Titans. We'll never reach the rift if we don't do something about them."

Tsubasa Kazanari: "In my opinion, it seems rather likely that the Titans came here through the same rift as you four did."

Chris Yukine: "What even is a Titan?"

Armin: "Even in our world, they're quite the mystery."

Armin: "What we know for sure, however, is that if they catch you, they WILL eat you."

Tsubasa Kazanari: "I see, so then the islanders..."

Hibiki Tachibana: "......"

Armin: "They have regenerative abilities, so the only way to get rid of them is by attacking the nape of their neck."

Armin: "Our omni-directional mobility gear was created for just that."

Chris Yukine: "That's some useful tech. Back at the cliff, you used the blades on those things to slash their necks, right?"

Armin: "That's right. But that huge one, the Colossal Titan... Of all the Titans, it's the one we know least about."

Armin: "It caused a horrible tragedy back in our world, though I'm not sure if that was the same one we ran into."

Genjuro Kazanari: "So it's close to the rift? Doesn't that mean you'll have to take it on to return home?"

Armin: "......"

Eren: "We'll do whatever we have to do. No matter how long it takes, we absolutely have to get home."

Levi: "He's right. And now that we've cleared everything up, I imagine we'll be heading out shortly."

Hibiki Tachibana: "I'll go too!"

Eren: "...Why?"

Hibiki Tachibana: "Huh? Because it's dangerous, duh!"

Eren: "So? You've no obligation to tag along just because it might be dangerous."

Eren: "Sure, we'll have to do something about the Titans, but we'll just take our time and work something out."

Hibiki Tachibana: "But what if the rift closes before you get there?"

Hibiki Tachibana: "You said you had people waiting for you back home, right? They're probably worried sick about you!"

Eren: "Do you think fighting Titans is easy? If you're that concerned about helping, then quit getting in the way!"

Hibiki Tachibana: "That's just..."

Tsubasa Kazanari: "This isn't just any Titan, this is the Colossal Titan. Are we supposed to just sit and watch it destroy you?"

Eren: "Listen, it just caught us off guard. This time I'll definitely--"

Levi: "Shut up, all of you. I already told you, we don't have time for this."

Levi: "Do as you like. I won't stop you coming along, but if you hold us back, you're gone. I won't warn you twice."

Hibiki Tachibana: "Master, what do you think? He said we could go too..."

Genjuro Kazanari: "Hmm. If the link between the worlds isn't broken soon, there's a chance this mess could get even worse."

Genjuro Kazanari: "The three of you can go, so long as you focus on figuring out the cause behind the rifts."

Hibiki Tachibana: "Of course... Thank you, Master!"

Eren: "...You seem pretty calm for someone who just sent his subordinates to their death."

Genjuro Kazanari: "All I can say is, don't underestimate Hibiki-kun. She'll do the impossible to help someone."

Eren: "......"

Hibiki Tachibana: (I don't just want to go with them, I want to fight together, too. That probably won't be easy, though...)

Notes:

[1] “Titan King” was a reference to Daidarabotchi in the original Japanese script. Not sure why they didn't keep it in English when there are so many other references to different myths in Symphogear. Oh well.

[2] Labeling the ???s here for convenience since I didn’t use visuals. The game itself doesn't label their names until they introduce themselves

[3] Sorry, I can't tell which character said this since they were still labeled ??? and wasn’t shown onscreen at the time nor was there an accompanying voice clip

[4] They accidentally a word here. It needs to read, "I'm sure you can tell there are no Titan-proof walls"

[fromtheringapron]

WWE New Year’s Revolution 2005

Date: January 9, 2005. 

Location: Coliseo de Puerto Rico in San Juan. Puerto Rico. 

Attendance: 15,764.

Commentary: Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler. Jonathan Coachmen joined commentary after match 4. 

Results: 

1. WWE World Tag Team Championship Match: Eugene and William Regal (champions) defeated Christian and Tyson Tomko.

2. WWE Women’s Championship Match: Trish Stratus defeated Lita (champion) to win the title. 

3. WWE Intercontinental Championship Match: Shelton Benjamin (champion) defeated Maven. 

4. Muhammed Hassan (with Daivari) defeated Jerry Lawler (with Jim Ross).

5. Kane defeated Snitsky.

6. Elimination Chamber Match for the Vacant WWE World Heavyweight Championship: Triple H defeated Batista, Randy Orton, Edge, Chris Jericho, and Chris Benoit to win the title. Shawn Michaels was the special guest referee. 

My Review

Man, New Year’s Revolution 2005 is awful. I happened to order the show on a whim back in ’05 and had the misfortune of watching it live. I thought it was so underwhelming and now, rewatching it 15 years later, I can say I absolutely stand by that opinion. This show took place at a time when WWE were really starting to pile on the amount of pay-per-views they were doing in a calendar year, sometimes having two within the same month. This often resulted in throwaway shows with paper-thin cards, and let New Year’s Revolution 2005 be exhibit A. It does have the unique distinction of being the first WWE pay-per-view out of Puerto Rico, but that only makes it all the more head-scratching why they didn’t bother to make the show a bit more special.

The undercard is a whole bunch of nothing. The first two matches are stricken with a bit of bad luck, with back-to-back injuries that completely kill the the show’s momentum out of the gate. The latter of these, Lita’s injury, ultimately results in her ongoing feud with Trish Stratus coming to an abrupt halt, which is disappointing as the Lita/Trish rivalry is genuinely one of the most iconic storylines in the history of WWE women’s wrestling. But if the injuries were purely accidental, there’s no defending what they do with the Intercontinental title match. I get Maven is just a throwaway challenger for Shelton Benjamin, but did they really need to resort to turning the match into one long, weak Maven promo? A card this threadbare can’t afford a lot of filler. I’d even go so far as to say it’s something they shouldn’t have even tried on Raw.

The Elimination Chamber match is far and away the best thing here, but it’s brought down by some frustrating booking. It’s easy to forget Triple H once had to vacate the World Heavyweight title for a short while, largely because it wound up being completely unnecessary. Triple H wins the belt back here, as anyone could predict, but why even go with the vacancy storyline to begin with if it’s never actually going to lead to any major change? Maybe they just wanted to build more intrigue for their first ever Puerto Rico pay-per-view, but surely there’s another way to do that without essentially running us in a circle. On the plus side, the actual match is pretty fun and does a great job of weaving in the slow-burn Batista/Triple H storyline. The subtle moments in building up that story shows how much effort all parties involved put in to make it something special. We even get setup for an HBK/Edge feud thrown into the mix, so at least the main event is successful in propelling some stories forward.

Overall, the first edition of New Year’s Revolution sees the WWE trying to get their calendar year off to a roaring start. Unfortunately, like many a resolution at the dawn of January, this show fizzles out quickly and barely results in anything of consequence. If you want to start the new year off the right way, I wouldn’t recommend watching this show. Maybe just catch up on some sleep or something.

My Random Notes

The show is aesthetically confusing. Palm trees and Puerto Rico flags are interspersed with . . . fire-breathing dragons and allusions to Armageddon?!? I feel like the latter stuff was planned from day one, but the former was tacked on at the last minute.

My mind drifted for much of Kane vs. Snitsky but, holy hell, Kane’s loosened boot is distracting as shit. I wanted to reach through the screen and tie it up myself.

Speaking of which, I’m happy to say this is the first show I’ve ever covered on here to feature the one and only Mr. Gene Snitsky. Snitsky is such a wonderful mid ‘00s oddity, exactly the type of character you could’ve only gotten from this time period in WWE history. This era had a lot of hosses who eventually fizzled out (Luther Reigns, Matt Morgan, Tyson Tomko, etc.), but Snitsky’s inherently bizarre affect ensured he’d at least be someone we’d remember.

Footage of WWE Divas lounging poolside at a resort air throughout the broadcast. Who in 2005 could’ve predicted that Diva Search fifth-placer Maria Kanellis would still have a steady role on WWE TV nearly 15 years later, especially one that sees her leverage her pregnancy for more airtime? Show of hands.

On Randy Orton’s 04-05 face run: Yikes. I seem to remember moments where it dipped into some seriously cringe-worthy territory. It felt like they were trying to make him the next Rock when he really had more of an Austin streak in him. He’d have better luck as a face later down the line, though ultimately none of his face runs have interested me much. Orton circa early to mid ‘00s looks like an insufferable Abercrombie & Fitch catalogue come to life who you wanna see get smacked and I wouldn’t want him any other way.

It’s so weird in hindsight how the iconic Trish/Lita rivalry reached its fever pitch amidst one of the most ludicrous storylines in WWE history - the Kane/Lita/Edge/Matt Hardy love square with a guest appearance by Snitsky. You always hear how much of a game-changer their rivalry turned out to be, with the pregnancy, miscarriage, slut-shaming, and wacky wedding hijinks that fueled a good part of it kinda mentioned as an aside.

The decision to forgo commentary for Hassan vs. Lawler is a weird one, for sure. It’s not really a match you’d want to hear without context. Was Todd Grisham or whomever not available for that block of time to step in and call it?

Needless to say, but JR and Lawler obviously look like the assholes in the Hassan feud. Like, major Trump-supporting assholes. It’s so hard to feel bad for them when they’re getting their asses whooped. There’s a lot to discuss about the handling of the character of Muhammed Hassan, but I’ll leave it right now at it’s really gross watching the face roster espouse post-9/11 racist ideology and having it embraced by both the company and the fans.