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acnelli · 3 years

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First Time Falling

This is my entry for the @hpqueerfest 2021. Thanks to the mods who hosted this! And a big thank you to my great beta-readers @nagemeikenu and @static-abyss who put up with my phone-writery (writing time is hard to come by these days).

This story was inspired by Prelude and Fugue by shes_gone, and it’s set in a world where Harry didn’t go to Hogwarts, but had been prepared for his destiny.

Pairing: Harry Potter/Ron Weasley Rating: T TW: strong language, mentions of war time, mentions of drug and alcohol consume Prompt: Falling in love for the first time as an adult (late 20’s-early 30’s) Summary: Harry Potter –Head-Auror and Savior of the Wizarding World– spontaneously asked out a cute redhead and it turned to so much more than he could have ever hoped for.

You can also read this on AO3 and FFN.

*** *** *** *** ***

Not bothering to knock, Ron Weasley marched into Hermione Granger’s office. The heavy mahogany door slammed against the wall, making Hermione jump up from her chair.

“Ron,” she shrieked as a bunch of paper fell off her desk. “What happened?”

Instead of providing his best friend with an explanation for his sudden intrusion, Ron paced back and forth. The panicked look in his eyes made Hermione assume the worst.

With one swift motion, Hermione stepped in front of the redhead, forcing him to stop his frantic pacing. “Ron, please talk to me,” she pleaded, taking his hand into hers. “What’s going on? Is someone hurt? Is your family okay?”

Hermione’s worried expression and the panic in her voice finally brought Ron to his senses. “No, don’t worry, Hermione,” he sighed as he closed her office door. “I’m sorry! But...do you have time for a quick cup of tea in the cafeteria?”

“As a matter of fact, I do. This report is giving me a headache and I need a break.”

Hermione grabbed her purse and gestured for Ron to lead the way.

“I swear, Ron, if you almost gave me a heart attack over something Quidditch related, I’ll hex you into next week and make your new Firebolt disappear forever,” Hermione added as they made their way down to the Ministry cafeteria.

Ron glanced over at the bushy-haired witch, suppressing a grin as he told her his distress was indeed about Quidditch. They grabbed their beverages and headed towards a free table. Gracing him with a dark look, Hermione gestured for Ron to finally tell her what’s going on.

“Harry Potter asked me out on a date!”

This statement caused Hermione’s drink to go down the wrong way, resulting in a violent coughing fit and her spitting out the tea.

“What?” she wheezed out between coughs, as Ron cleaned his face and shirt with his wand.

He waited patiently until Hermione recovered, both from the coughing fit and the shock. “See, even you don’t believe me,” Ron sighed, harshly rubbing his hands over his face, “I don’t blame you, though. I can’t believe it myself, after all.”

Finally being able to speak again, Hermione put her elbows on the small table and leaned forward, determined to not miss a single thing about this story. “Spill! How? When? Where? And don’t you dare to leave out even the smallest detail.”

Ron shook his head, still in disbelief about what had happened to him just twenty minutes ago. Not being able to wrap his head around it, he decided to tell Hermione today’s events from beginning to end.

“Today, Robertson sent me a memo to come to his office to discuss the ridiculous complaints about the Tornados/Harpies game last week,” Ron started and couldn’t help rolling his eyes about the things he had to put up with at work sometimes. “So, I went there, gave him my report about the match and a brief overview. Thank Merlin, he only asked his usual useless questions about referee bribery claims. I was ready to launch into a whole speech but he suddenly dismissed me and told me to write up a statement for the press.

“I was just on my way back to my office when I met Seamus. The fucking wanker had the nerve to claim the next Cannons match for himself. I know he did that just to spite me so, naturally, I gave him an ear full about it as we waited for the lift. We only noticed Harry Potter standing right behind us when we got inside the lift. I probably sounded like an idiot but Seamus and I kept the conversation up because I always get second-hand embarrassment when people stop talking if Potter walks by or joins the lift.”

Hermione patiently listened to his ramblings, restraining herself from telling him to get to the point already.

Ron sipped on his tea and shook his head. “You know what? I read too much into this. Just realised that I’m acting exactly as everyone else does. What’s the big deal? Just a bloke who wants to have a pint after work.”

Hermione stared at Ron, expecting him to go on with his story, but he just kept sipping his tea.

“Ron!”

“What?”

“How did he ask you out?” She accidentally raised her voice but Hermione was finally losing her patience with him.

“I told you, he most likely-”

“Just tell me the damn story, already!” Hermione snapped, blushing a little when she noticed the people on the other tables giving her funny looks.

“Alright,” Ron said, raising an eyebrow at her. “Calm down, barmy woman.”

“You're the one marching into my office like a lunatic. Spill it! Now!”

With a heavy sigh, Ron continued with his story, curling his hands around the tea mug to keep from fidgeting.

“Seamus had already gotten off at another level, so it was just me and Potter in there. I tried to avoid the awkward silence, so I asked him if he followed Quidditch and was going to listen to or even watch the Tornados match tonight. He said that he does follow Quidditch and that he intended to listen to the match at home but if I'd be up to it, we could listen to it at this new pub that just opened in Diagon. He totally caught me by surprise, but I must've agreed because he told me he'll meet me at the fireplaces at 5. Then he left the lift. Then I freaked out and came to your office.”

Ron marked the end of his story by taking another sip of his tea before he defiantly crossed his arms in front of him.

“Jesus, Harry Potter actually asked you out! Oh my God!” Hermione almost squealed, grasping one of Ron's arms.

“Nah! I don't think so anymore. I bet he just wanted to have a pint and was only being polite when he asked me to come along,” Ron said. “Who'd ask someone out like that anyway?”

“Someone looking for a partner?”

“Yeah, but think about it, Hermione. Why would he ask me out? The guy is not only fucking famous, he's also devilishly handsome. He could have anyone he wanted.”

“So?”

Ron looked at Hermione as though she'd just declared the desire to live as a chicken.

“So? So, why would someone ask me out while on a random stroll through the Ministry? Who'd think ‘Oh, that freakishly tall ginger with more freckles than skin looks kinda awkwardly cute. Let's try to get a leg over?'"

“I dated you,” Hermione interjected.

“You don't count.”

“Well, thank you!” Her sarcasm was all but ignored by Ron.

“I just know I'll embarrass myself tonight,” Ron insisted, looking quite unhappy. “Let's go back to work. I still have to write that useless report.”

“Devilishly handsome, hm?”

“Shut up!”

**** **** **** ****

Harry didn't know what had possessed him to ask the cute ginger out for a pint.

Maybe it had been the Prophet article speculating for the umpteenth time about when the Savior of the Wizarding World would finally settle down and make some black-haired, green-eyed babies. Rita Skeeter had many ideas about what worthy witch could conquer the heart of Harry Potter. All things considered, the article had probably not been the worst thing written about him so far.

Sometimes he wondered if he should've taken Sirius’ advice to feed the press and public meaningless details of his life. It wouldn't stop the constant speculations and made-up affairs, but it probably would reduce the paparazzi following him around, the crazy fans sending him love letters and maybe, they would find something more newsworthy than where Harry Potter bought his toilet paper.

But he hated the fact that people demanded this from him. He was 29 now, and while the great hype about him was over, he still seemed to be interesting enough to write about, even over a decade after his defeat of Voldemort.

He knew the majority of the Wizarding World was sincerely grateful for what he'd done. There were so many parents thanking him for the simple fact that they're still alive and able to see their children grow up.

It reminded him that it was all worth it. The sacrifices, the nearly friendless childhood, his secret life away from the public, the growing up with the knowledge that he might not live long enough to celebrate his 17th birthday. All of that had resulted in ending Voldemort once and for all.

When he'd destroyed the Dark Lord and his Horcruxes though, Harry’s hope of finally living a normal life got crushed soon after. In the post-war world, it had been next to impossible to lead a life like everyone else. Because of his childhood and his training by Alastor ‘Mad Eye’ Moody himself, he learned not to trust easily. And since occasions to make friends or interact with strangers had been few and far between, he never really learned what to look for in a friend.

He was well aware that he was complaining about a comfortable life. His parents had left him a respectable amount of gold, and Sirius bought him a flat in London after he graduated from Auror Academy. Maybe he'd gotten this job because of his fame and reputation, but he knew he deserved the position as Head Auror. There was hardly anyone with the same amount of training and experience he brought to the table, and he was under the impression the people working for him did genuinely like him as a boss. Two of them he even considered friends after all these years.

Aside from the two friends at work he also had his family. He had Sirius, Remus, Andromeda, Tonks and his godson, Teddy. He wasn't alone by any means, but he'd never met someone he could possibly fall in love with. Hell, aside from one of Tonks’ old friends from school and her father's attempts to set him up with several of his countless nieces—and later nephews when Harry told his family girls didn't do it for him—he'd never even dated. Toby—a fellow student from elementary school and the only friend his age—dragged him to Muggle pubs and clubs, resulting in the occasional snog or even a shag with a stranger. Needless to say, his first time hadn't exactly been romance novel material and it sure wasn't something he liked to think about. Sometimes, Harry feared that he would never fall in love, that he wasn't capable of developing those feelings for another person.

Those unpleasant thoughts combined with the Rita Skeeter article may have been the result of his sudden impulse to just go for it and ask the redhead out. But it also could have been the brilliant blue eyes, the kind, shy smile and the lean shoulders. Harry was sure, though, that the main reason for it had been the fact that this man hadn't treated him like a Messiah. It had just been an easy conversation, even if it had been only two minutes.

Harry hoped it would remain that way when they watched the game later. In fact, he could just brush it off as a friendly meeting with a fellow Ministry worker if Cute Ginger wasn't interested in anything more.

But when he thought about the redhead’s lopsided grin, Harry felt a foreign flutter in his stomach and he couldn't help but hope for more, even if it was just another visit to the pub.

**** **** **** ****

In the 30 years of Ron Weasley’s existence, he'd never been on time for something not work-related. Today, though, he was almost ten minutes early as he waited by the fireplaces for Harry Potter.

Again, he felt rather pathetic. For a hot second, he considered waiting in a nearby bathroom to pass the time, pretending to get to their meeting place just in time. But then he reminded himself that he wasn’t a petty teenager anymore, and even if Potter found it pathetic, Ron didn’t expect a repeat of tonight, anyway.

He decided to just treat this like a meet-up with Dean and Seamus every other Thursday after work. Just two guys, enjoying a couple of pints together, talking about Quidditch. Nothing special. Nothing to freak out over.

The atrium was busy as ever but he spotted Potter right away when the Head-Auror stepped out of the lift and made his way towards the fireplaces. He still wore his magenta work robes and Ron couldn't help but notice how sexy they looked on him.

“Hi!” Potter greeted Ron, smiling somewhat shyly. “Ready for some beer and Quidditch?”

“Sure! But I forgot to introduce myself earlier, so I figured I'd do that now,” Ron said, giving the dark haired man a smile in return, as he offered his hand for a proper introduction. “I'm Ron. Ron Weasley.”

“I'm Harry.”

**** **** **** ****

“No way! How did he get out of there?”

Harry barked out a laugh at Ron's tale of a night out with Seamus and Dean. His outburst was loud enough for the other guests of the pub to look in their direction. Ron found it amusing how a simple change into Muggle clothes, different glasses, and a slightly lighter hair colour resulted in no one recognizing the Boy-Who-Lived.

“Since it was a Muggle police station, Seamus had to spend the night there. Statute of Secrecy, and all. We picked him up the next morning and filled him in on what he'd done the night before, including showing everyone his pale arse.” Ron grinned deviously at the memory. “I invented some things for good measure. Unfortunately, Dean is too good for this world and told him a few hours later that I was taking the mickey.”

Harry shook his head, chuckling. “That reminds me of Remus searching the whole of London for Sirius, only to find him several hours later in a hidden spot on the roof. He was gazing at the stars and totally stoned. Combined with Firewhiskey, he didn't remember a single thing from that night.”

“Sirius?” Ron looked quite interested at the mention of his Godfather’s name. “Sirius, as in Sirius Black?”

“Yes. He was my Dad’s best friend. And he's my Godfather.”

“I'm just asking because I'm related to the Blacks. My grandfather married Cedrella Black.”

“Yes, I recognize the name. Her face got blasted off the family tree,” Harry said, and at Ron's raised eyebrow quickly added, “Sirius’ mother blasted everyone off that tree who didn't uphold the Black family's motto ‘Toujours pur’. So, Cedrella must have gone against the high and mighty Black Pureblood tradition.”

“Well,” Ron said, taking a swig of his beer, “she married a Weasley. I'm sure that alone was reason enough to disown her. The Weasleys have been notorious blood traitors since forever.”

“Sounds like your grandmother had good taste in men if you ask me.”

Harry winked at Ron, and the redhead felt the burning blush creeping up his neck.

Ron was once again amazed at how little time it had taken him to lose his nervousness. But Harry Potter made it very easy for him. Harry was confident, yet humble and polite. His humor didn't have Ron's sarcastic edge, but the redhead found Harry delightfully witty with a good amount of sass.

Ron didn't know what he expected but it was undeniable how easy it was to talk to Harry. He could only hope the raven-haired man enjoyed this just as much as he did. Harry laughed at his jokes and seemed genuinely interested in Ron's more-than-mundane life.

As much as Ron tried to see this as a meeting with a good friend, he couldn't help the warm feeling in his chest every time Harry smiled at him or his leg accidentally bumped against Ron's. And if the alcohol hadn't gone to his head already, making him imagine things, Harry's eyes kept flitting down to Ron's lips.

When the woman behind the bar announced the final round, they decided to call it a night since it was one of Harry's work Saturdays tomorrow.

As they ventured out of the crowded pub and into the cool night air, Ron was disappointed about the evening coming to an end. Time had flown and he was sure they could've talked for several more hours.

“Would you mind if I walk you home?” Harry asked just as Ron wanted to wish him a good night.

Ron nodded, not being able to suppress his smile as Harry obviously remembered him mentioning that he only lived a few blocks away.

They kept their pace slow and walked a little closer to each other than necessary, their hands bumping against one another. Every touch sent a jolt through Ron's body and he wanted nothing more than to take Harry's hand.

Eventually, they reached their destination. During the entire walk home Ron had gathered all of his Gryffindor courage to ask Harry out, this time for an official date.

“I- um,” Ron started, rubbing one hand against the back of his neck to ease his nerves. “I really enjoyed this evening and I was wondering...Maybe I got this all wrong, but you seem interested, and well, I'm interested too. And if you're not, that's totally fine. But...caniseeyouagain?”

And before Ron's face had the time to go completely crimson, he got his answer as Harry took his hand to pull him close, leaned up and kissed him.

Harry pulled back from Ron's lips, his stunning, green eyes slightly darker than usual and holding a hopeful glint.

Ron didn't give himself the chance to overthink as he put his hand on the back of Harry's neck and kissed him again. A deep groan escaped him when Harry licked at Ron's bottom lip and Harry took the opportunity to slip his tongue inside.

Ron was positive that he'd never experienced something more incredible than kissing Harry Potter. The only things he was capable of paying attention to were Harry and the wild thumping of his heart. And while it was exhilarating and new and positively made him weak in the knees, it also felt a lot like coming home.

Having lost all sense of time, Ron couldn't tell if they'd kissed for a minute or several hours when they broke apart. Harry's hands still gripped his shirt and Ron let his own hands glide from Harry's dark hair down over strong, well-defined shoulders to finally rest at his hips.

Both of them tried to catch their breath and Harry, who finally let go of Ron's shirt to put his arms around him, smiled up at Ron almost shyly.

“Yes, you can see me again,” Harry said, grinning.”What are your plans for tomorrow night?”

“Well,” Ron pretended to think about it for a second, “I thought I'd do this.”

And with that, he leaned in to kiss Harry again.

“I think that's a brilliant idea.”

**** **** **** ****

Just as he turned off the radio and grabbed his coat from the rag beside the door, a loud knock sounded through Harry's now quiet flat.

“Ten minutes early. Eager, aren't we?” Harry said as he opened the door for a tall ginger with a picnic basket in one hand and a broom in the other.

“Says the one waiting right beside the door like a good dog.”

Ron shoved his way inside, putting down the basket and broom before pulling Harry into his arms.

“Happy Birthday,” Ron murmured against the other man's lips. “And I thought I was supposed to give you a present, not the other way around?”

Harry pulled back a little, apparently confused. Ron grinned at him and squeezed Harry's arse. “Thanks for wearing my favourite pants today.”

Chuckling, Harry pointed at the broom Ron had brought with him. “No way I'll fly on a broom in these. Good thing I also packed my joggers.”

Ron hadn't told him where they were going for Harry's Birthday. He'd just instructed Harry to be ready at 9 in the morning, so they'd be back in time for dinner at Grimmauld Place with Harry's family.

Only two months had passed since their first kiss, but Harry already felt as though he'd known Ron for much longer. Every kiss, every touch, all the teasing and banter, and late night talks felt so completely natural, yet blissfully exciting.

“Come on, grab your broom. We're on a tight schedule.”

Ron winked at him and before Harry knew it, they were standing in the middle of a giant Quidditch pitch.

There wasn't a single soul besides them, but Harry immediately recognized the giant Hogwarts House banners from his family's keepsakes of their school years. Aside from that fateful day when he'd fought Voldemort on those grounds, he'd never visited the school. Not before, not after.

Harry tried to swallow down the lump in his throat. The surprise must be the result of one of their late night talks, when Harry confessed that his deepest desire while growing up had been to go to Hogwarts.

“Are we allowed to be here or do I need to arrest you for breaking into school grounds?”

Arms wrapped around him from behind and Harry could feel Ron smiling against the back of his head. “I wouldn't be opposed to playing the big bad Auror and the naughty Suspect later, but this is actually 100% legal. Having contacts with important Quidditch officials has its perks sometimes. And my annual chess game against McGonagall helped too, I suppose.”

“Okay then,” Harry said, lifting one of Ron's hands to his mouth to brush his lips against his knuckles. “Fill me in on that plan of yours.”

Ron let go of him and reached for their brooms, tossing one of them at Harry. “I thought we'd fly over the grounds first, so I can show you everything from above. The castle looks fucking amazing from up there and the Great Lake is a sight to die for when the water reflects the sun.”

Ron mounted his broom and flew in slow circles around Harry as he continued to talk. “I hope you don't mind that I invited your family for dinner. But I thought we could all show you the castle, introduce you to our favourite spots and secret places. Andromeda can show us the Slytherin common room. I've never been there myself. I'll show you the kitchen first. That's where I'll cook dinner later while the others show you around.”

Jumping down from his broom, Ron looked at Harry with a mixture of excitement and reluctance as he rubbed the back of his neck. It was a telltale sign of the redhead being nervous, Harry had learned in the last weeks.

“So, I thought this to be fitting for a 30th Birthday. I wasn't sure what to get you that you don't already have, and I reckoned this might be fun.”

Harry didn't know what to say and his silence only made Ron doubt his plan more. It always baffled Harry how Ron didn't realize how wonderful he was. He wished Ron could see himself through Harry's eyes.

Right at that moment, as Harry looked into Ron's blue eyes, it hit him. In fact, he knew he'd been harbouring these feelings inside him for weeks now, but only now he could see it with shining clarity.

He was falling in love.

The feeling was new, something he'd never experienced, but still he recognized it for what it was.

Love.

***

#hpqueerfest #mine #my stories #my fanfics #rarry #rarry fanfic #rarry fanfiction #hp #hp fanfic #harron #ronarry #harry potter #ron weasley #harry x ron #ron x harry #ron and harry #harry and ron #ron/harry #harry/ron

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destinygoldenstar · 3 years

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Total Drama: Refilming Action ; Episodes 1-6

I will say right now, that because this is a 9 hour long season, I’m not going to address the entire season in one go. Instead, I’ll be splitting this rewrite up to four separate parts. This is because I’m NOT just going to address what I would change and what I would not change, but rather retrospect this rewrite from as much detail as I can, that’s how I usually do things. Plus I think it’ll flow better.

I won’t go into as much detail with stuff that I didn’t change, but still address them for the story’s sake.

And if you’re wondering about the context with Island, I’m keeping the canon story of Island the same, and applying it to this rewrite. What logic from Island was carried over to Action, will apply, the same elimination order mentioned in Island, the same logic as to why some characters are in certain relationships with each other, everything. Not saying I wouldn’t tweak some things with Island, but overall that season was pretty great. There’s only one thing about Island that I’m changing to carry over to Action, and I’ll get to it later.

For Action, I am going to keep the core aspect and rules of the challenges in each episode, unless it really REALLY doesn’t make sense, and I’ll address that. But the core themes of each will be the same, is what I’m trying to say.

Like, episode 1 is a monster theme, episode 7 is a prison theme, episode 17 is a superhero theme, etc, just like in the canon, so that everyone KNOWS what episodes I’m talking about, even if they’re not familiar with the titles of each episode.

The only major thing I’m going to change with this, and might as well say it now: Episode 25 will NOT be the finalist challenge, but rather the semi-final challenge with the final three, and the finalists will be put to the test in episode 26 in Aftermath before the voting for the winner takes place.

That’s another thing I’m going to address. The elimination order in this rewrite is NOT the same. In this first half, there’s not a lot of change to that, but as the season progresses it’ll become more blatant that this elimination order is not the same as in the canon. So really, this is anyone’s game, and who the finalists are will be a mystery!

This is going to be a VERY rough overview, and I’m going to be going in as much detail as I can to the changes I made to the original canon.

However, there will be some brief lines or background details from canon that I won’t touch on, because it would be pointless, and unless I say it’s cut out, or if I don’t mention the scene it’s in at all, it’s probably still in this version.

(For example: “Nope. Call 911” won’t be mentioned)

A lot of those kinds of details could be fleshed out in the episode script. But if I go into THAT much detail, this rewrite will be WAY too long, and take like, 5 years to produce!! So please cut me some slack if I don’t mention some of your favorite details of the season!

If you don’t think something quite adds up, or if there’s any important stuff you think I missed, please, PLEASE, reply down below, I’d love to hear it! (Friendly notes, constructive criticism, and speculations for the rewrite are all welcomed!)

So, with all of this out of the way, there’s one last important detail I want to mention:

While the original contestants in the season: Owen, Gwen, Heather, Duncan, Leshawna, Geoff, Izzy, DJ, Lindsey, Bridgette, Trent, Harold, Beth, Justin, and later Courtney, are all in this rewrite as well, I’m going to ADD two characters to this cast.

Tyler.

And Noah.

Why do this? Why these guys?

Well with some certain plotlines of the season, I genuinely think these two will be the best of aid to spice them up. Plus with how many non-elimination episodes there are this season, I think adding eliminations for them won’t be so hard.

So, in a 16 way tie, campers are taken to the film sets for a whole new season of Total Drama, in a fight for $1,000,000. Who will come out as the finalists?

Well, let’s dive in!

Episode 1: Monster Cash

The season begins with a recap of the finale of season one. Not much to change with this aside from a goof where Chris said Gwen won instead of Owen (like, the alternate version of Island was lost until recently, so this makes no sense either way) and it’s a sixteen way tie instead of fourteen for this rewrite, of course.

And then the original intro itself is actually quite good, so much so that the only tweaks I have to make are the additions of Noah and Tyler. Noah is sneaking out the door the sasquatch walks by to steal a bottle of sorts, and Justin in the make up shot is about to pick up a perfume but finds it missing, prompting the powder coming in and getting in his face. This is one of those small details people can probably be able to pick up on after multiple viewings to figure out these character’s dynamic being portrayed in this intro.

Tyler meanwhile is in the camera room with Lindsey, eyeing her, playing with a yo-yo to try and get her attention, but as the screen shows the explosion, the yo-yo hits him in the head and knocks him out, making Lindsey’s eyes meet him just as it cuts to Izzy and the bear.

The rest of this intro is pretty much untouched, as these additions I feel will make the awkward shot of Chris and Chef on the stage with the awards shorter, because… that shot just feels held way too long and it’s always bothered me.

The episode opens like in the original with the bus arriving at the lot, and the interactions with the people getting off the bus, Duncan, Leshawna, Harold, Gwen and Heather, are all completely untouched.

However, instead of the bus just leaving and preventing reintroductions of the others for some reason, we keep going with the other characters getting off the bus.

First is Trent offering Gwen a hand after she crashed due to Heather, where she blushes and agrees to it. He asks if she’s ready for this, and Gwen says no, adding that she’s glad that he’s stuck here with her.

Gwen then snarkily replies to him “Hey, at least we’re not awkward creeps like the surfer chicks over there.”

And as she points a thumb out by the bus door, Geoff and Bridgette walk out already making out without a care in the world.

DJ gets off to ask if this is the actual stop, prompting Noah to lean on the bus door and ask “What other stop did you think there was?”

It prompts Heather to agree with Noah on that by saying she’s not staying here, and also prompts the hair weaves exchange with her and Leshawna.

Owen is then seen trying to get out of the door, but due to Noah in the way he gets stuck, and as Owen is able to suck it in and get out with a grin on his face and remark how great it is to be doing this again, Noah is seen on the ground crumbled. And then gets stepped on the groin by Izzy jumping out as well to hug Owen’s back, where the two exchange excitement about them both being in such an awesome looking place. (And yes for this whole rewrite I’m calling her Izzy, but the E-Scope thing is still here, so that no ones confused)

Next up is Beth coming out grinning in an agreement on the new season, prompting Leshawna to notice her braces removed, and making her compliment about it. Justin comes out as well to compliment her at it, and his looks already charm Beth enough that she openly expresses how good this feels. Lindsey trips over the door, but still compliments Beth as well and they make their Paris BFF exchange.

Tyler comes out of the bus from behind them as the last one out, but notices Lindsey and Beth are so excited with the whole Paris thing that he simply tries to make a cool pose to have her notice him again, but it’s cut off by Chris coming with the trailer. (And Lindsey doesn’t even look in Tyler’s direction.)

The bus leaves, and Chris comes in to escort everyone. Izzy’s boarding, the tour around the sets, the introduction to the Lame-O-Sine, are all untouched. The only tweak I’m adding is a bit with Noah commenting on the Lame-O-Sine itself, just as the campers get blown with the limo gas, he asks if this film set has any regards to sanitary, with Chris shutting him up, commenting that he doesn’t know how that would be of any importance. (I mean, this IS Chris Mcclean.)

Lindsey’s confessional is also untouched for the most part, but one tweak here is that before the lipstick part she expresses how with luxury like this, this might as well be her season.

The next part of this tour is untouched, as well as Gwen’s confessional because… well A, Chris is an egotist, clearly, and B, who wouldn’t want one?

I’m going to cut out the Geoff and Chris exchange about the eject seats though, not because it’s not in character for Chris, but because of basic logic. The trailer has a roof. Where would they be launched to? Plus there’s never a demonstration of this in the episode so… what’s the point? The Harold and Lindsey comments are fine though, I’ll keep those.

And overall the monster movie explanation and the legend of the animatronic monster is untouched, as well as Gwen’s confessional about how she shouldn’t have asked what happened to it. (Worst mistake of her life)

Just like in the original, that confessional cuts just as a roar from the distance is heard. From there, the scene is mostly untouched, DJ faints, Chris explains the challenge with Chef controlling the monster, and everyone tries to shove each other off the trailer with Harold getting thrown out entirely. Only a few tweaks are needed like Tyler being a part of the shoving, with him being the one to shove away Trent with overexaggerated jogging, only for Harold to karate chop him. Another thing is that the challenge is not to get to the trailers first, but rather to be the last one standing and not getting caught by the monster. (Because seriously, if the monster is supposed to PREVENT them from getting to the trailers, why would they park the bouncy castle prison RIGHT NEXT TO THE TRAILERS?!)

Instead of cutting to the campers running away on the beach set, Owen commenting how cool the monster is, and awkwardly cutting to DJ, we just start with DJ after Chris makes his comment about how it’s going to be a long season, where he rolls his eyes at the fainted DJ before petting the guy’s head calmly to wake him up, making DJ latch onto Chris’s legs to whimper.

THEN we cut to the campers running away on the beach set, Owen commenting on how cool the monster is, and Izzy getting ‘captured'. Owen calling out for Izzy to dodge the hand doesn’t get through to her, for obvious reasons, but she still sees the hand and is swatted to the crane. However as she asks them to do it again, Owen runs over to try and help her, but instead of her being taken to the bouncy house, Izzy bites into the monster’s grip and manages to pull out part of the skin and reveal wires, prompting it to drop her. Owen is eyeing her in awe just as she grabs his hand for them to continue running, saying she knows where they can hide.

However, we don’t cut to Owen hiding in the confessional, because what Owen says in that confessional makes absolutely no sense, like… what part of her crazily wanting a monster to step on her is implied that she’s cheating on Owen? I mean Owen and Izzy are both crazy, but they’re not lustful. So yeah, I’m cutting this confessional altogether.

Instead we instantly go over to the next group, where it’s untouched. Bridgette and Geoff are making out, Gwen and Trent question where to go, they get the suggestion from Justin to follow him, and Duncan’s comment on how this wasn’t the sort of action Chris had in mind.

And yes I’m also keeping the Bridgette and Geoff confessionals, because what they say there is going to play a factor later in the season.

We don’t cut to Gwen Trent and Duncan’s next part just yet, so instead we immediately follow the confessional up with Bridgette and Geoff getting captured. The way Bridgette and Geoff get captured is pretty okay, as well as Leshawna and Harold’s capture.

But there is a tweak here with the Bridgette and Geoff capture being seen from Harold’s point of view as he’s hiding under the umbrella, where the two appear as shadows to him and he as well as the audience are unable to see the bouncy castle yet.

Leshawna then comes in to expose his hiding place to get them both to start running, with Harold admiring her and smiling before she grabs his arm to get him running behind her. And just like in canon, the monster catches them both. Although we still don’t see the bouncy castle yet, to add momentum to the scene and a mystery as to the fate of the captured campers. So instead of doing it when they hit the castle, Harold says it while they’re still in the monster’s grip, trying to replicate Geoff’s words and confessing love for Leshawna, who just like in canon, exclaims “Say what now?!”

We then cut to Gwen, Trent, and Duncan running down the streets of the city set, along with Gwen jinxing the mention of explosions, bears, and fires, which is untouched. Justin is also with them, but as the monster appears amongst one of the flaming buildings, all but Justin are able to dodge just in time, leading Justin to get captured and Chef’s comment on how hot he is.

Justin’s confessional is untouched, but I am cutting out the scene with him getting in the bouncy house and everyone staring at him admirably, not because it’s bad, but again, the audience doesn’t know about the bouncy house yet in this rewrite.

We then cut to Tyler sprinting about among the streets of the city set, eyeing one fake building and attempting to climb on top of it after eyeing a certain lamppost with tan arms and a cartoonishly large bust poking out.

Unfortunately because it’s Tyler, the pipe he tries to climb up on turns out to be cardboard and snaps, causing him to crash to the ground.

The post, well I’m pretty sure we all know it’s Lindsey.

So Lindsey peeks out curiously and eyes Tyler laying on his back, where she runs over to ask if he’s okay. She helps him up as Tyler expresses he’s mighty fine, saying it’s all good as long as she’s here. With that, the two stare into each other’s eyes admirably…

Until the moment is ruined by Lindsey asking “Who are you again?”

They don’t get a chance to say anything else as a roar in the distance prompts them to start running, but they’re both pushed aside by Heather, demanding them to get out of her way. As she’s grasping onto her wig from another roar, she attempts to run into the building set and hide. Unfortunately for her, she’s shoved out by Noah demanding her to back off, and as he peeks out of the fake door he proclaims that this… well, this was his hiding spot.

Heather angrily tries to get inside anyway, scolding Noah “Sorry know-it-all, but in case you haven’t noticed, I, a far more valuable being, needs this spot more!”

“Mm… I’m not sure about that,” Lindsey comments in the back, which makes Heather snap at her to shut up. This causes Tyler to put a hand on Lindsey’s shoulder in comfort.

“Seems like you got no votes,” Noah replies, “And I’d rather keep my hair in one piece, thank you.”

He tries to slam the door shut, but because it’s made of cardboard, it makes the whole building collapse behind them, exposing them all.

Noah exclaims in frustration “Were these sets made for a school play?!” Just as the monster shows up behind them, capturing all four of them.

We then cut to Gwen, Trent, and Duncan continuing their run down the town. As the monster is chasing them, Duncan gives them the idea to hurtle behind a fake car, which they all oblige. There they find DJ scared as ever, hugging his legs and chattering teeth. Trent asks what he’s doing here, but before he can answer, the monster rips off the fake car and prompts all four of them to start running again.

Amongst the sidewalk they run by is Beth, who is holding up a cardboard bush to hide, where she peeks out to see the others running. Unfortunately the other four get cornered by an advertisement board of Chris and the Total Drama Yum Yum Happy Go Time Candy Fish Tails, (which of course is foreshadowing to that part in World Tour)

The monster gangs up on them, and it seems like they’re going to get captured. That is until Beth, in a cute character development from Island, calls out from the back of the monster holding up the cardboard bush to try and lure it away. As they see the distraction, Trent prompts the others to follow him to sneak past the monster. As the monster grasps onto Beth, the four begin to run to a building, prompting to hide in it only to realize it’s fake.

(I am not including one of Gwen’s confessionals, and cutting out the second one entirely, about Trent being a great boyfriend, because like, NOW IS NOT THE TIME!)

Because of this, the monster catches Gwen, Trent, and DJ, with Duncan mysteriously not being shown in the monster’s grip.

Thinking it’s the end, DJ prays to his mama and how much he loves her, while Trent ensures Gwen that he’s here for her, and he always will be. From this, Gwen has her confessional about how great of a boyfriend Trent is, saying that he’s a guy who understands her, and is willing to do everything for her. (Which of course would be a double edge sword)

That’s when the monster suddenly lets go of them, and they all crash to the ground.

As the screen fades out and comes back on, we focus on the sky for a second…

and suddenly see Gwen, Trent, and DJ bouncing into the air, which makes them all look down in shock, as it’s revealed after zooming out the camera that they’re being imprisoned in a bouncy castle.

As the three of them crash inside officially, they look over at everyone else who's been captured (Bridgette, Geoff, Leshawna, Harold, Justin, Tyler, Lindsey, Heather, Noah, and Beth) as they all casually but dead-pannedly greet the new prisoners. DJ is simply grateful that he’s alive, while Gwen remarks in shock “Wait, so Chris had the decency to not have the monster eat us alive, and instead gave us a cozy place to rest and be imprisoned inside for the rest of our lives?!”

Which gets a reply from Noah, saying “I know, it’s absurd, isn’t it?!” Who is reading a book without a care in the world.

As Gwen looks around, we get a few frames of Lindsey and Beth admiring Justin’s looks, with Tyler behind them with Lindsey in his arms, Heather fixing her wig, Bridgette and Geoff making out, and Harold gazing starry eyed at Leshawna, who scoots away from him. Seeing people missing, Gwen is about to say it, but Trent asks first “Where’s Duncan?”

We cut back to Duncan, who escaped the clutch of the monster, and is hiding behind the cardboard car. Ss Duncan comes out and cheekily remarks what lunatics the others were, the monster comes out to try and capture him. Duncan tries to back away, only for an arm to reach out for him…

But it doesn’t quite grab him, as the monster malfunctions, and is drawn back from an excessive amount of weight. As Duncan looks up, Owen is revealed on the monster’s back, barely hanging on to a spike, with his weight being enough to break the system. Izzy also reveals herself with a grin, revealing with only her laughter that their hiding place was on the monster’s back. She remarks how nobody has eyes on the back of their heads, but rambles on about how she wished she did and how she might have known somebody that does-

And her rambling is cut off by Owen having a confessional where he expresses how genius Izzy is. Sure, she’s a nut job and sometimes he can’t catch up, but she’s a mad genius, and an absolute magician. If he could kiss her, he would, “Wait-” he realizes just as it cuts back to the action… (yes pun intended)

Chef tries to get them off his back, but fails, and the monster malfunctions, prompting Owen and Izzy to be survivors alongside Duncan. Duncan exclaims in shock and confusion how this is possible, and Izzy gleefully responds how they went on a romantic date with it’s system while they were at their hiding, and it was absurdly beautiful… (god this show has a lot of fetish)

We then cut to the campers asleep at the bouncy castle, (no time change though) just as Duncan and Izzy come up to them, finding them all stranded by the trailers. Owen is behind them, but just like in the original he’s left dragging himself exhausted, but is still able to use the needle to pop the castle and free everyone.

Chris welcomes them all to the trailers, and proclaims that this next challenge will be a reward between the three survivors as a tiebreaker, winner will be able to pick the trailer for their respective gender of contestants, inviting everyone to the crafts tent. So that NOW the purpose of the plastic food bit actually makes sense!

The feast itself is untouched. Owen eats everything without hesitation, Chris reveals all the food was fake, and Owen wins the challenge for the guys, prompting all the confessionals about the entire situation.

All of these are untouched, however I am adding a last one with Noah.

In this one, Noah smirks at the camera with his arms crossed, stating “So… this is the guy who won the last season, and THIS is why…? I’m sure there’s more to it than just eating plastic, but I gotta say, I like what I see.” His tone becomes malicious at the last part.

The rest of the scene is okay as it is, as well as the comedic bit where Owen chooses the squashed trailer, and the girls get excited, only for monster Chef to squash the other trailer as well… because it’s Chris and Chef. They get paid to torture teenagers.

After Izzy’s confessional, the campers prepare themselves for sleep. For the guys, it’s untouched except for the additions of Noah and Tyler. Tyler calls a top bunk, and tries to jump on top (only to slip and crash) and as Noah is trying to decide, the moment Owen calls a bunk next to Justin, Noah glares at Justin in disgust, and turns to decide to take the bottom of Tyler’s bunk, stepping over the crashed jock.

The girls are completely untouched. There really isn’t anything else to add with them. No one wants to sleep with Heather because of her actions last season, they draw brushes, and they accidentally give Heather two beds all to herself… This isn’t too complicated.

The episode ends with Chris messing with the campers at 5 in the morning with the speaker, like the sociopath he is. (cutting out the Owen bit though, it ain't necessary) And Chris wonders to the audience what will happen next to his victims… I mean campers, before ending the episode with Chris demanding to put wrap on the monster.

Episode 2: Alien Resurr eggtion

Episode 2 opens with the contestants at the cafeteria getting breakfast. It’s untouched until Trent shows up to join in on Gwen and Duncan’s conversation. When Trent offers Gwen his toast, Gwen happily accepts it, with a kiss on his cheek as she tries to rip the toast in half for them both, finding it stale. Duncan glares at them raising an eyebrow, smirking that they’ll BE toast if they play favorites like this. Trent openly says that he’s cool with that if it’s Gwen, causing Duncan to ask playfully “Oh, so I’m not important enough for her to take toast from me?”

Which prompts Gwen to playfully shoot back, biting into her half of the toast “No. You just can’t be trusted with sharing.”

“Well don’t blame me for that,” Duncan replies, “We’re all enemies in this game.”

The rest of this conversation isn’t touched. Trent says he’ll always have Gwen’s back, Gwen says right back at him, and Duncan remarks that they’ll see if that's accurate once the money comes into play.

Instead of Owen having his confessional here, Leshawna is receiving her own plate as the others are glaring at Owen in confusion. Among her plate, she notices a paper of sorts behind her toast. Curious, she picks it up, her eyes immediately turning blank as she reads it.

The audience can’t see what the card says, and she doesn’t read it aloud, but on the front of the card, there’s a noticeable heart with an H + L written in it.

“Harold…” Leshawna groans to herself, looking up to see Harold glancing at her with a blush and a grin, awkwardly waving to her just before he coughs up a hair from the eggs.

This is followed up by the confessionals from Leshawna and Harold (that in canon was later in this episode) about how she already told Harold that things between them weren’t meant to be. But maybe he just couldn’t get over her lusciousness. And Harold saying that Leshawna isn’t over him yet, and that he sees the way she looks at him…

(I mean, we all wanted to bang Leshawna at one point, so fair enough)

From there, Chris goes on to explain the challenge, where this whole scene, the challenge directions itself, Chef asking for payment, Gwen and Duncan’s exchange on their love of alien movies, and Gwen’s confessional, are all completely untouched.

We then transition to the group with their tracking devices. This is all untouched, except for when Harold jumps into Leshawna’s arms, we don’t cut to any confessionals, because well, I moved them to earlier. Instead their awkwardness is countered by Noah walking past them, demanding “Let’s go lovebirds.” With Harold saying with a smile “Thanks.” Just as Leshawna puts him down.

We cut to the people in the back, with Lindsey having the device. Because it’s Lindsey, she asks what the dots are supposed to mean, where Tyler offers to tell her that they mean… actually what do they mean again?

“I know, right? It never makes sense!” Lindsey agrees, where the two share a chuckle. Lindsey asks if she ever got his name, to which Tyler plays along with that and gives her the name.

“Tyler…” Lindsey tries to process that, smiling and giving a thumbs up at him, saying she’ll try to remember that. (Emphasis on ‘try’)

There’s also a Tyler confessional here, where he remarks that Lindsey rocks his world, and he hopes that she’ll be able to remember him fondly. “I mean, who wouldn’t remember the most skilled player in this unit?”

Heather snatches the device from them, claiming that they don’t know what they’re doing, and her answer to why they’re in the group, plus Lindsey and Beth’s confessional about Heather are untouched.

However, the campers aren’t thrown off by Geoff and Bridgette’s kissing, because… they’ve all smooched before, they should already know it’s them. Instead Bridgette and Geoff are making out in the back without a care in the world, and they don’t pay attention to the rest of the group trying to formulate a plan with the idea that Chef could be guarding the eggs, suggested by Beth. With this in mind, Gwen and Duncan lead the way before they make the next corner, making their ‘lets kick some alien butt’ exchange in the process. (We don’t cut to Chris for a split second here, so you know)

Just like in the original, everyone questions who should lead the way, and Beth ends up volunteering to go first. She makes the first mark to go, and everyone follows her, but Noah and Owen are in the back, leaning on the corner to find that Bridgette and Geoff aren’t coming. Noah makes the “do you ever stop sucking faces?” comment, with Owen replying in response “I wouldn’t.”

Which makes Noah look up at him like he’s crazy, before leaving to join the others and Owen stammering “What?! You wouldn’t either, I-I mean, whatever you think, I mean-”

It’s cut off by a confessional from Noah, who makes a comment “On movie settings like this, I wish romance side plots were illegal.”

Then it cuts to Gwen’s confessional about her placing second last season, which is untouched.

From there, we cut back to the group and Beth leading them to a spiral room of sorts, where they get the warning signs on the devices, prompting everyone to split up. And Duncan shuns out Geoff and Bridgette just like in canon. Because… well he put it in the confessional, their love will very likely get them caught, especially with how little efficiency they’ve pulled off before. That makes sense. (Trust me, I’m shocked I kept this in)

Instead of giving into this though, Bridgette, being the more straightforward of the two, prompts the idea that they should go south and look on their own. After all, love makes someone stronger, Duncan’s just delusional about that.

Geoff agrees and compliments her on how smart she is, and she gives in, where the two make out as they run through the doors.

We cut to Owen, Heather, Izzy, Harold, and Noah, where Heather snaps them out of it in an attempt to band them together, but just like in canon no one trusts her and thinks this is just manipulation. Noah says “Well who cares if it’s manipulation as long as it means we don’t die?” Prompting Owen and Izzy to agree with him. Heather is about to thank him for the support, but Noah cuts her off and claims that he doesn’t do teaming up.

The rest of this scene is untouched, Harold and Owen get shot by Chef, they both have their confessionals, Heather (and Noah) steps back, and Izzy pulls out her own gun and has her battle with Chef, which results in her losing. The only tweak needed is that Geoff and Bridgette are not in this scene.

After the Chris cut, we go to Heather and Noah getting caught by Chef, and it’s untouched as she loses her wig, and the confessional that follows. The only tweak needed is that Noah is shot just as Heather starts running.

Geoff and Bridgette are creeping their ways through their own hallways grasping each other's hands. From there, Bridgette nervously remarks “So… all this for a million bucks, huh?”

“I mean, it sounds reasonable to me,” Geoff replies, deciding to ask Bridgette what she would do for a million bucks. Bridgette hesitates to answer, as she doesn’t know that herself. She asks what he would do, and Geoff hesitates as well, coming to the decision that if he had the privilege, he’d host his own show. When she asks him to clarify, he explains that it would be about discovering more of those who barely have the screen time to shine, finding out the drama of their lives, and being a part of aiding their situations through his parties. (I mean, this is Geoff, a guy who loves his parties)

Bridgette claims that he could make a great host, and Geoff admirably stares at her, flirting that THEY would make great hosts. “You and me,” he claims, “We’re like apples and oranges.”

“Wait, we’re opposites?” Bridgette asks, which makes Geoff stammer in embarrassment “What? No! No, I didn’t-that was the wrong phrase to use, I thought, you know, apples are great, and oranges are great too, but-”

He’s stopped by Bridgette kissing him, and they start making out once more. This is where Chef catches them just like in canon.

We then cut to Lindsey, Justin, Beth, Leshawna, and Tyler, where they get caught, and it’s completely untouched. The only tweak needed is Tyler encouraging Lindsey that she knows what she’s doing, right before they get locked in, which prompts him to chuckle at himself and remark “Maybe that’s a good thing?” And immediately after he says that, they get rained on.

We then cut to Gwen, Trent, Duncan, and DJ finding the boiler room, and the eggs. As Gwen is being lowered down into the boiler room, Chef barges in with the gun, and in the panic, Gwen is barely able to latch onto eggs in time. Chef is about to shoot at them, but DJ gets in front to sacrifice himself in an over dramatic fashion. As he hits the ground, he demands that the others save themselves, and the other three start running with the eggs.

Chris then shows up with the nukes, and it gets Duncan out. And yes I’m keeping Trent’s confessional about Duncan despite my original intention to cut it, because ultimately, in this one at least, he does take into consideration how good this is for Gwen.

However, we do NOT have the scene where Trent has to choose between the egg and the necklace. It’s pointless. If Duncan’s egg cracked on impact of the nuke, then either Gwen and Trent are still holding their eggs, or they’re busted. That’s just basic logic. Same goes for Gwen’s confessional, we’re not doing that.

Trent and Gwen already have their eggs in their arms after Trent’s confessional, where they both tease Duncan as they begin running to home base with them.

So just like in canon, Gwen and Trent are crowned as the winners of the challenge, only for the reveal that they’ll be team captains on opposite teams, and that it’ll be a double elimination.

So now we reach the voting sessions, where the votes have been casted, and losers have been selected…

Trent and Gwen are safe.

The awards go to Harold…

Duncan…

Izzy…

Tyler…

Lindsey…

Justin…

Beth…

Noah…

Owen…

DJ…

Leshawna…

And lastly…

Heather.

Which means that just like in canon, Geoff and Bridgette are eliminated first.

I’m cutting out all the confessionals about it, but these two still accept their loss and make out as they catch the limo of losers. (I don’t know if that’s actually what it’s called, but I like it)

And before any of you Bridgette and Geoff fans yell at me for keeping this elimination, I want to make it clear. Their story is NOT in the show. Their story is in the Aftermath Shows, THAT’S where their development is, and if they stayed in the show like this, they wouldn’t have anything to do. I do not have anything against Geoff or Bridgette, but I do think that this canon elimination was a good call.

Okay, back to the show.

Episode 3: Riot On Set

Episode 3, we start off immediately by cutting out the long sleeping shots of the campers, as that’s not necessary and goes on way too long. The only shot shown is Gwen, because she’s the only one shown reacting to Chris waking them up. Beth still has her confessional though, as well as everyone’s reactions to the wake up.

From there, Chris goes on to explain how it’s time to form teams, where that and the Gwen and Trent exchange before, is untouched.

So we start picking teams. Only here, no, we’re not doing the boy girl boy girl thing, because with Tyler and Noah here, there’s more guys than girls.

Gwen goes first, and immediately chooses Duncan for her team.

Trent DOES have a confessional here, but it’s not about him in spite of Gwen’s choice. Instead, he remarks how she and Duncan would obviously get along, however, with the influence Duncan has, he’s going to spoil Gwen beyond repair, and he thought Gwen would be smart enough to see that. “You think you know a person”

Trent then chooses the BEAUTIFUL Lindsey for his team.

And again, Gwen has a confessional, but it’s not about her in spite of Trent’s choice. Instead, she claims that she thought Trent was going to think strategically with his choice, but ‘the beautiful?’ She doesn’t know what he plans on doing with a dim witted princess on his team. “You think you know a person.”

Gwen chooses Leshawna, just like in canon.

But instead of Lindsey suggesting Tyler (because she doesn’t remember him) Trent goes on to choose Justin right away, which prompts Gwen’s snarky comment about how choosing the good looking contestants will totally make him go far.

And in case you’re wondering why Trent IS only choosing teammates by looks, it’s because he KNOWS they won’t do well, aiding in Gwen getting a good chance to win. It’s not said here, but that’s the intention.

Gwen chooses DJ

Trent chooses Beth

Gwen chooses Tyler

Trent chooses Noah

Gwen then is given the suggestion from Leshawna to ‘keep her enemies closer.’ (Why Leshawna would do this strategy will be explained later in this rewrite) In spite of Heather, Gwen chooses her, which shocks her.

Trent is then left deciding between Owen or Harold, where in a confessional he remarks how they’re both flaky lunatics, but when it comes to who made it further in the last game…

Trent chooses Owen.

This prompts Harold to rant about how no one is putting his skills in consideration-

Which prompts Gwen to choose him just to shut him up.

Leaving Izzy for Trent’s team.

So with this in mind:

Screaming Gaffers: Gwen, Duncan, Leshawna, DJ, Tyler, Heather, and Harold

Killer Grips: Trent, Lindsey, Justin, Beth, Noah, Owen, and Izzy

With that, Chris explains the challenge, which is untouched, and everyone prepares to start their sets. On the way to the hill, Beth is seen trying to carry a light post, but due to her size she nearly tumbles, only for Justin to catch her and hold her in his arms, his looks charming her.

“Oh look, it’s a mannequin,” Noah says as he’s walking along them. Beth wonders why Noah isn’t carrying anything, to which he scolds that he’s got nerd arms over here, do they honestly think he’s trying to be useless again?

Unfortunately Tyler, who is above them, is trying to carry a box, but fails horribly and drops it, where it nearly crashes on top of Noah. Justin pulls Noah out of the way just in time and just like with Beth, carries him bridal style, trying to charm him with his looks. Justin claims that he would never say that to Noah, only for Noah to instead snarl at him and shove himself off of the man, scolding that YES, HE WOULD, and he’s seen him do it. Beth questions this, only for Noah to grab the box and try to lift it himself, telling Beth that she can have Justin, he doesn’t care.

We then go to Duncan helping Gwen when she nearly trips, and Trent, who is near them, asks why Duncan would bother.

“Uh… we’re on the same team?” Gwen says in confusion to that, where Trent remarks that he hopes it’s the only reason, and if that is, he thanks the delinquent.

“Relax, cool guy, I’m not gonna steal your girlfriend,” Duncan ensures him, where Trent’s eyes narrow down on him. He decides to take Duncan’s word, but is still weary. Gwen asks Trent if everything’s okay, catching up to him, and instead of being secretive to his OWN GIRLFRIEND, FOR NO REASON, he’s actually honest with her, and puts it simply that he doesn’t like seeing her getting close with a criminal. Gwen assures him that Duncan isn’t a bad guy, but they’re cut off by Lindsey tripping and Trent helping her, ending their conversation.

Heather, dragging a heavy box, scolds how this is unfair, and just like in canon no one listens to her ideas, and Harold is the only one backing her up, even if she pushes him away.

Also NO, Trent is not getting the necklace moment or his exchange with Izzy. Because in context of this rewrite, he doesn’t have this necklace, and he isn’t even trying to help his team win, which the latter isn’t even what he’s doing in canon, so the line just makes Trent look like a jerk.

With the heavy stuff, Lindsey has her same confessional about it, and instead, she suggests that they carry the cart to the mountain. That only gains blank stares at her team, and Noah remarks “Good job, miss obvious.” But just like in canon, the Grips get the idea to use Owen as their carrier.

Instead of Trent being a jerk and making fun of the other team and his own girlfriend, he actually calls out to Gwen that she should ‘try and keep up.’

Misinterpreting his words, the Gaffers are offended by that, and Gwen and Duncan agree that the Grips are going down, (without Gwen targeting Trent specifically) They suggest DJ carry the trailer, but just like in canon, he refuses.

Owen is near the top of the mountain, but is barely able to have the stamina to climb in time. Beth’s cheer is untouched, but after such, Noah is walking up by her, snarkily mocking “Owen, Owen, he’s our man, if he can’t do it, we’re freaking hopeless!”

Justin scolds Noah that he should at least try to help, but since he’s looking at himself in a hand mirror while saying so, Noah shoots back “Like what you’re doing?”

With that roast in mind, Justin shoves Noah out of the way, getting in front of Owen and taking off his shirt to charm Owen and get him to push further. Gazing at the situation transitions into a confessional from Noah, where he openly states “Justin is a piece of work. He doesn’t even look that great, and how even guys are falling for him, I don’t get at all. The thing about Owen is that he won last season in ways I don’t get how… I can tell Justin is trying to form something with that guy. Not if I can’t trick him first.”

From there, Noah decides to take a book in his hand and chug it at Justin’s face, deciding to take a handle of the cart himself to assist Owen.

“I didn’t know you cared,” Owen happily expresses, where Noah only says, in an unrealistic tone to what he usually sounds, that of course he would help a fellow teammate! Why wouldn’t he unless he was Heather?

From that line, we cut down to the Gaffers, and Heather scolds DJ that the trailer is NOT going to break! He’s being absolutely pathetic! Despite Harold kindly trying to encourage DJ like in canon, DJ refuses. Tyler offers to do it himself, but he isn’t even able to move the trailer when he’s continuously trying to pull it in the background for the rest of the scene. Gwen tries to encourage DJ that if anything bad happens to the trailer, they’ll help him out, only for DJ to claim that it’ll be on him if something bad happens to any member of his team. It’s because of this that the Grips end up getting to the mountain first and winning the challenge, everyone in that team exhausted.

The teams are explained that their objective is to make a movie, where this is untouched, as well as Heather’s confessional. The only change needed is that instead of Trent saying “Boring,” it’s Noah. Just like in canon, Izzy is selected to be the Grip’s actor, and the Gaffers suggest Duncan to do their role, but he lingers. Chef mocks DJ that he would never be able to do it, which catches DJ’s attention, only in this version Chef scolds DJ’s whimpering at his words, claiming that behavior won’t get him anywhere, trust him, he knows. DJ asks what he means by that, but we’re cut off by Gwen convincing Duncan to be the actor. It’s mostly the same dialogue, but Gwen also encourages Duncan that she knows what he can do, and sure he may want to be stubborn about it for reasons she doesn’t get, but the truth is that he’s truly a criminal if he’s willing to sabotage his team. Duncan asks why he should help her, and Gwen remarks that it’s because they’re all friends here.

This is meant to be a contrast of season 1s episode 4 where Duncan asked the same thing to Courtney, and she threatened him, which will come into play later this season.

The Grips preparing for the audition are mostly untouched, the only change being that Justin assists as well with Izzy, encouraging her that the best thing she can do when acting is to simply be herself and look pretty. Izzy says she already takes the former of what he said to heart, just as Owen asks for the lines.

The Gaffers are untouched. Not much else to add here. The only thing is that I’m cutting out Harold’s confessional after he helps out Heather. Because NO, in this rewrite, Harold is NOT crushing on Heather for no reason. The only explanation of such is that he saw her bare breast one time by accident, which is fair, but considering Leshawna is already a focus for him, and that he and Heather are friends…ish… that’s just unnecessary. Heather’s confessional is fine though.

As such, after DJ nearly scoffs Duncan but catches himself, Chef throws him aside to try and toughen the guy up. Chef also has his confessional explaining his actions into helping DJ toughen up and win the whole game as long as he gets the money share. This is one credit to the canon, especially from the episode before where here, and his brief lines before, make Chef trying to ally himself with DJ actually make sense.

After this, it’s time for the show, ACTION!

And overall… yeah these are untouched for the most part. The only thing is that Trent says nothing in the middle of this, instead only smiles for an unknown reason. Just like in the original, Duncan’s emotional heart throbbing performance is enough to make Chef cry, thus making the Gaffers the winners…

Like d**n Duncan, you should stop hiding your talent!

After the challenge, we have the Gwen and Trent scene, which is mostly untouched. The only tweak needed is that Trent doesn’t apologize for calling her a wannabe, because in this rewrite, he didn’t.

We then cut to the Grips slouching near their trailer, none of them sure of what to do. Tyler comes over to join in on Lindsey, greeting her. “Hey… Trevor, is it?” Lindsey greets, where Tyler corrects her briefly before apologizing about the loss, asking if there’s anything he can do to help her. Lindsey tries to think, only to not come up with anything and say “Well there’s one thing… and I don’t know what that is.”

Justin then comes over to ask if Tyler is on the opposite team, which makes Lindsey remark “Wait, are you?” Just as Tyler asks “So? I can still talk to her.” “Oh no, I’m not taking that from you,” Justin assures him, “I’m just saying-”

“That you’re taking that from her,” Noah remarks when walking by with two soda glasses in his hands. He walks past them and eyes Owen and Izzy by a tree, Izzy playfully pressing on Owen’s stomach with the two laughing.

Noah then has a confessional where basically addresses his plan to the audience. “Okay, so these guys hated me last season for whatever reason. Trust me when I say that being on a team with Justin, I KNOW I need to be one step ahead of him to get rid of this guy and win this entire thing. And when it comes to scheming like this, what better chances can I get than from the very goof who won last season. He might have some hints I can get from him.”

After the confessional, Izzy remarks how her legs are still cracked from playing the grandma, even remarking that maybe she actually broke her knee caps once, in a rambling story. Owen claims that she’d make a beautiful old lady, and the two smile at each other.

Noah comes in to join them, asking Owen if he had a minute. Izzy crazily asks if it’s top secret scheming going on, but Noah only remarks that with her brain, she could never tell. “Isn’t it great?” Owen takes that as a compliment, just as Izzy decides to jump in a tree to catch a squirrel. For the rest of the scene, Izzy occasionally is shown in the background of the trees catching the squirrel.

From there, Noah hands Owen one of the soda glasses, and as the latter is gulping down his, Noah tries to talk to him. He claims that he knows they barely know each other, and probably will never get along well. But the thing is, the Gaffers have a really good team on their hands, an evil strategist, a strongman, a nerd who won’t shut up, a self proclaimed jock, a runner up from the last season, a delinquent with insane acting skills, and Leshawna.

“What exactly do we have?” Noah asks him, where Owen suggests innocently “Justin?” “No, not Justin, we don’t talk about Justin,” Noah claims, trying to continue.

They need to step up their game before they lose again, and Noah believes that Owen has the best strategies for this game, given he won last season. “Those were my veteran days mate,” Owen replies as his bottle is emptied, seeing that Noah isn’t touching his glass and he decides to take his.

“What I’m trying to say here…” Noah claims, “We need to work together. You know… the code.”

“The code?” Owen asks, not getting it, and innocently assumes with a smile on his face “Wait, we’re friends?!”

“Wait, what?” Noah doesn’t get where he’s going, almost as if he’s unfamiliar with the concept. But before Noah can correct him, Owen draws the small boy in for a tight hug that visibly crushes Noah. Owen is cheering happily that they’re buddies, that he has a little buddy on his side.

“Yeah, sure…” Noah doesn’t buy the concept, trying to ask what his secret to winning is, only for Owen to burp in his face, shutting him up and blowing Noah’s hair in a spiky position. Izzy also shows up gleefully, the squirrel in her mouth as she asks how things are going, and that she caught a live one.

Said hair position is in the next confessional with a makeup artist hand trying to put a brush through it, where Noah can only mutter “I am going to regret this…”

There’s also a confessional from Owen where he cheerfully remarks that he and Noah are going to be besties. Though he wonders what Noah meant about a code.

We then cut to the elimination ceremony.

So now we reach the voting sessions, where the votes have been casted, and losers have been selected…

The awards go to Trent…

Owen…

Beth…

Noah…

Justin…

And Lindsey.

Izzy however does not want to go anywhere, claiming she’s not getting any recognition. Regardless, Izzy is eliminated just like in canon, with the claim that she can NEVER come back… EVER…

I mean, she’ll obviously obey. Right?

Episode 4: Beach Blanket Bogus

Episode 4 opens just like in the original with breakfast, with one tweak being that DJ is in the line, receiving a healthier looking piece of toast and bowl of fruit to everyone else, where he stares at it nervously. Other than that, this is untouched. Heather scoffs at her plate, Harold tries to brag, and Heather pushes him away and tries to wave over to Lindsey and Beth, who ignore her and instead gush over Justin. I am gonna cut out Beth’s confessional because it’s not necessary, we get the picture, and instead use the time to focus on something else.

That being Heather’s role in this moment as an outcast, where she bitterly picks on her food from the rejection. She rants how she doesn’t get it, she doesn’t understand how everyone isn’t listening to her ideas. Harold then sits next to her, agreeing that she can write them down on a napkin he hands her, and he can see what they can do. Heather scolds him for this when she touches the napkin, disgusted as she asks if his snot was in this thing, where Harold makes the excuse that “It’s a condition.”

Heather then asks in annoyance why he’s bothering, and Harold puts it simply that no one wants to sit with him either, his head leaning out of the way just in time to avoid food getting thrown at his face. Duncan is seen by the table with Gwen and Duncan, and as he’s smirking at Heather and Harold, that’s a transition to their moment.

Trent scolds Duncan for being immature about that, and not paying attention, he spills salt on his eggs. Duncan gets a good laugh at that, saying that Trent’s clearly much better, which makes the latter bitterly toss a piece of egg in his mouth. Gwen scolds that Trent has a point, but Duncan only brushes that off, that it’s not like he’s ever followed rules. Trent leans over to Gwen’s ear to ask how she can stand this guy, and Gwen, actually knowing about Trent’s beef in this rewrite, puts it simply that they just… click.

“Kind of like how I clicked with you,” Gwen adds as a flirt as she’s helping clean the salt, but little does she know that Trent took that the wrong way.

From there, Chris explains the challenges and prompts everyone to go, and DJ is held back by Chef. There’s actually a little more to this exchange, as DJ asks what exactly Chef’s plan IS, to which Chef puts it that there’s payment in loyalty.

With that, everyone is taken to the freezing studio where the one who stays on the surfing board the longest wins an advantage for the next part. Just as Chris makes the Justin abs comment, Noah looks over to see Owen admiring Justin at that moment. He tries to snap his asset out of it by asking the big guy what his strategy is to make it through something like this, but Owen doesn’t answer and continues to admire Justin as much as Lindsey and Beth are.

“Stare at the male model for a good hour?” Noah wonders sarcastically, rolling his eyes to add “What a joke.”

This catches Justin’s attention, and his eyes narrow at his teammate looking away from him.

In a confessional, Justin states that he has no idea what sort of facial or physical trauma Noah has that makes him resist his hotness. “But what I do know is that he’s probably never seen a magazine in his life.”

Which cuts to another confessional with Noah, who remarks “I’ve seen plenty of magazines in my days. Mostly so I can cut them apart and make brochures.” As he’s doing so, he’s cutting apart one magazine, then shows a paper to the camera, a picture of Justin made of magazine papers. Only in that picture, the dude’s lips look like cartoonish smooching, he has a black eye, his hair looks like an afro, and he’s wearing newspaper rags.

To this picture, Noah says “If you ask me, this is very accurate.”

After those, just like in canon, Harold tries to impress Leshawna with his nonexistent muscles, only for an ice shard to make him be mistaken for volunteering to go first.

His surfing test is mostly untouched, only for one thing. While I AM keeping his confessional, I feel like the timing of it was… off? Like the camera focuses on Chris and then Harold is suddenly in the booth making an ass joke? Instead, the shark nearly bites Harold, and after a few dodges he retreats to the post like he did in canon, Leshawna makes her comment, and THEN we cut to that confessional, so that the audience has a better understanding of what he’s talking about, and why he’s even making said ass joke.

Other than that, Harold’s test, and everyone’s comments, are completely untouched.

After he crashes, we DON’T have Trent receive a bracelet and awkwardly count, nor Beth’s exchange with Lindsey.

So in other words, NO, Trent is NOT obsessed with the number 9 in this version. It’s stupid. This trait is stupid, and NOT funny. It comes completely out of nowhere. It makes no sense. Which is saying something when this character in both canon seasons is as compelling and diverse AS A ROCK.

(Sorry, I just had to get that out of my system.)

Instead, Tyler is giving a thumbs up to Harold, cheering that he did great. “Can you do better?” Lindsey wonders, as she’s next to him, and Tyler assures her that yes, he’s excellent at surfing, and he’ll be proud to show her how to do it. “How?” Lindesy asks, where Tyler gives his advice off screen.

We then cut to Tyler’s test, where he tries to do flips on the board, and yeah, it doesn’t work at all.

We then cut to Lindsey’s test, which turns out to not go well either. (Thanks Tyler) DJ has his, Owen breaks it, (which earns a face palm from Noah), then Gwen thinks it’ll be good until Chris pulls out a seagull gun, Justin then has it, and it’s all completely untouched. Yes, even the shark saving his life and shoving away Beth, that’s funny. There’s then a quick one second each montage of the others going, Leshawna, Trent, Beth, Heather, and Noah, all of them failing instantly. Just like in canon, Duncan is last and secures the victory for the Gaffers.

Owen says that the Gaffers seem unstoppable, which makes Noah remark “Gee, it’s almost like they selected competent teammates!”

He glares at Trent specifically, who tries to make the excuse that he knows what he’s doing, they just… they just need to be patient with him. After making that excuse he glances over to see Gwen and Duncan hugging, where Trent ends up having a confessional. “If Duncan’s hot, competent, capable, and willing to help out Gwen, how am I supposed to do the same for her? I know they’re just ‘friends’ or whatever, but…” he begins to freak out at his own words, realizing “I’m losing trust in my own girlfriend!! Someone help me!”

We’re cutting out the bus stop scene entirely, as no one has changed out of their bathing suits, nor are there any confessionals about it, or the Beth friendship bracelet moment, as cute as that is, it’s cut.

Instead we go right away to the sand castle building challenge, starting with Chris’s explanation of it. The Gaffers proceed to make an impressive castle with Harold’s guidance. The tweaks needed are that Tyler is part of Harold’s orders to fill the buckets, and Leshawna is more visibly amazed by what Harold can do than she was in canon. Other than that, this scene is untouched.

When Harold asks where Gwen and Duncan are, we cut over to those two sabotaging the bus. As they’re doing so Gwen is laughing as she scolds that this isn’t a good idea, where Duncan only remarks that at least if they’re stuck, they get to sleep in cabins again. Instead of Duncan triggering the bus horn, we actually get a more quiet moment where Gwen actually talks to him confidently. She expresses how she used to hate school buses as a kid, always with the loud children, jumping in seats, being obnoxious. She still hates them to be honest. Duncan expresses how prison had buses everywhere, where Gwen suddenly asks sincerely “You ever had any friends in Juvie?”

As Duncan is tampering with the bus, he remarks “Had a roomie named Mal once. He was weird, had like… SIX different voices every single hour, and I think I lost a few brain cells from being stuck with him.” He chuckles at himself, before being honest and saying “Overall though, I’d say I’m a lone wolf sweetheart.”

“I have a boyfriend,” Gwen scolds with the nickname, where Duncan counters that with “And you have friends. Not a lot of friends, but one guy shouldn’t hog you.”

“Courtney hogs you!” Gwen counters back, where Duncan argues back, smirking at his own words “Courtney is the kind of gal you don’t wanna mess with. She’ll probably watch this and cringe cause it’s true, but hey, she still kissed me.”

Gwen playfully argues, “Oh and I’m just some pushover, eh?!” And it seems like they’re going to have a petty fight, only for Duncan to bust the bus alarm and make it sound, which stops them and they playfully laugh off the error.

Back with the rest of the team, the Grips get started with their build, and Trent leads the way just like in canon. NO, there is NO nine thing going on, but Justin does question Trent’s orders with the castle, as everything looks uneven. Trent says that it’s fine, which cuts to Lindsey using the crab shell for the flag.

“See? Lindsey gets it!” Trent says in response to this, soon ordering Lindsey kindly to find some more shells as decorations.

Noah and Owen are on water duty, and Noah has a hard time carrying his bucket, nearly spilling it. Owen’s holding three on his own, and offers to help out Noah carry his. Noah actually thanks him, immediately stopping himself to ask about his skill with water jumping, (referring to Owen giving the Gophers the wheelbarrows last season by jumping off the cliff)

“Oh that?” Owen wonders, laughing to himself as he remarks “I’m not a good swimmer, pal. I just did.”

“You ‘just did,’ huh?” Noah wonders, not believing it, “You ‘just did,’ to win 100K?”

“Haven’t you?” Owen asks, and Noah only scoffs at that, stepping away from him to say “I’m clearly not a winner then, I’m just sad.”

Taking this literally, Owen tries to put his arm around Noah to assure him it’s okay, but not only does he nearly choke Noah, but one of the buckets falls and spills.

“You don’t know sarcasm when you hear it, do you?” Noah tries to say under his breath, barely sliding out, to bitterly make it clear to him “I chose you to be in an alliance with me! Okay? I started this, I get to make the charges with our contacts, and I need you to work with me on this.”

Owen apologizes as Noah picks up the bucket again, filling it up with water and still weak enough that he can only drag it across the sand.

As they make it back, Trent is trying to apply a massive shell on top, where Justin warns him that it won’t work, but Trent says that it’s fine…

Only for the entire castle to crumble.

Beth makes her suggestion to use paper mache to make a castle, only here, Trent doesn’t make any comments or names the castle. (So in other words this Gwen and Duncan exchange doesn’t happen)

Regardless, the Gaffers don’t lose their castle to random seagulls, instead Noah gets lost in the sand, and accidentally spills the bucket when he trips, making the castle collapse. (A tragedy to be held.)

The Grips win, meaning there will be a tiebreaker.

Hearing this news, Trent smiles over to Gwen, who looks away distraught due to her previous discussion with Duncan, instead going with Leshawna in a friendly exchange on the tidal waves. Trent then wonders what he’s doing wrong with her, as it feels like he’s not good enough for her anymore. Because he said this aloud, Justin stays behind to try to talk to him, giving him the suggestion that girls simply like to win. (You know, make Justin actually do something other than sit still and look pretty)

So no, the campers don’t have to collect sticks, and we instantly go to the next part of the challenge, a dance off.

TYLER and Trent volunteer, (without the ‘say my name nine times’ exchange of course) And the dance off begins with these two. The moves themselves aren’t too bad, but Tyler is clearly far more of a daredevil with his moves, being so absurd with failing stunts that it’s kind of a guilty pleasure to the others. I am cutting out the confessionals, like, come on, don’t ruin this dance party! And so Trent throws the challenge by tripping over a stick, Duncan and Gwen have an exchange, and Gwen’s confessional, which is… surprisingly untouched. (Don’t worry, this will make sense later)

The Gwen and Trent moment after is okay as well, only here Owen is NOT in this scene, instead it’s Justin, smirking at them from behind the bushes.

Chris offers the Grips to head to the bus during the party, only to realize the bus is… well… BUS-TED.

Tyler comes over while still doing his awful dances, and grasps Lindsey to join him, where the two share a short but cute and quirky dance before Chef grabs Lindsey to get her away from the other team. The Harold, Duncan, and Leshawna bit in the party is untouched, but on board with Leshawna showing off her dances, Harold offers to back her up. Though Leshawna is hesitant for his inclusion and his support of her despite everyone else laughing, she does smile at Harold genuinely.

Gwen and Duncan are by the poi bowl laughing at the two, Duncan cheekily asking if Gwen wants to make up some quirky dance of their own. Gwen smirks and claims “You can do better than that.”

Regardless, the two still grasp hands and dance away into the flames of the torches, Duncan and Gwen locking eyes as the two laugh off the night.

Cutting out the Owen and Lindsey bit, we then cut to Justin and Beth by the beachside, Justin talking Beth into an alliance. Beth however never gave anyone friendship bracelets in this rewrite, so that part is unfortunately cut out. Other than that though, this is untouched, as Justin has claimed his first victim.

Episode 5: 3:10 to Crazytown

Episode 5 opens with the boiling sun, where it’s completely untouched until the part where Owen is fanning Justin. As Owen faints, we get a camera angle of his blinking, where Noah is standing on top of his view, looking down to ask what he’s doing. Without hearing Owen’s answer, Noah decides to pull Owen away from Justin, trying and failing to drag him along.

“You need some moisture for that tone kid?” Justin asks in response to this, where Noah, despite sweating, only shoots back “I never heard of such a possibility.”

Justin decides to move and head inside to get away from Noah, and the latter looks back at the collapsed Owen. He makes it clear to him that part of this alliance is that talking to Justin is against the law. He then gazes at Justin by the trailer complementing Beth handing him a comb, the former giving a smirk at her naive generosity.

Gwen is by a tree trying to cool off, and Leshawna comes over to help her with the shade. “You lost pins to your hair?” Gwen asks curiously, remarking how Leshawna’s ponytail is much looser and way curlier than what the audience is used to. “Unfortunately,” Leshawna remarks, frustrated herself with it as she mutters “Mama aint gonna like seeing this on TV…”

Trent then barges in to ask if there’s anything he can do for Gwen, offering a bottle of water. She thanks him, and as she drinks it, Trent expresses how he’d do anything to get her what she wants. Gwen however gulps her swallow of the water when hearing this, weary of the idea. We don’t get their confessionals, instead Leshawna barges in on this when trying to fix her hair back in a ponytail, that Trent is just jealous of her team and how well they’re doing. Trent then kindly shoots back that “Hey, Gwen was robbed last season because of some brownies and a stupid bet, least I can do for my own girl is to give her what she deserves.”

DJ is in the pool just as Chef comes over to pop it, claiming that tough guys don’t need to swim to survive. DJ hopes he has something else in mind, and that’s where Chef hands him a spare lasso, and knowledge of one of the challenges, granting DJ the unfair advantage of that knowledge. Before DJ can leave, Chef grabs him by the shirt and threatens that he can’t tell anyone about this, and as DJ nervously nods yes, we get the gunshots from Chris, and the western theme introduction.

We also get the confessional with Leshawna, but before the canon part of it, Leshawna mutters while trying to fix her hair “Mama’s always said ya gotta look good on TV to win a million bucks from TV, and let me tell you, the amount of pins needed to actually achieve that for my kind of locks is insane…” Right as she trails off, the ponytail holder snaps and her hair turns into that afro, causing a groan. This is a brief slightly comedic characterization for Leshawna that will play part later in this rewrite, as an indication that this afro IS her actual hair style without her accessories, and not just a bad hair day.

The introduction to the set is pretty much untouched, though changes start to come with Harold’s reaction, which seemed a little out of nowhere given what prompted it was a mention of a Salon, so… this is a little weird. (And this is HAROLD we’re talking about!) So instead Chris further explains the challenge with the steed scolding, though that’s kind of cut shorter cause that shot was WAY too long. After the Beth, Harold, and Trent confessionals, we then cut back to Leshawna snarling at a still laughing Heather, where she scolds that at least she HAS hair, which shuts her up. Harold then comes up behind them trying to look cool, with his own cowboy hat on and using a floss to make a guitar strum. He greets himself to the beautiful Leshawna, complimenting on how great she looks. Leshawana asks if he’s being sarcastic, to which Harold wholeheartedly denies, and offers to be her knight in the Salon, only for Duncan to walk by when prompted to the horse, muttering “Let’s get this over with,” and he purposefully trips Harold in the water bin, cheekily scolding that’s EXACTLY how cowboys greet a lady. Leshawna then has her confessional about having her eye on Duncan, which is untouched.

Just like in canon, it’s revealed they’re gonna jump off a platform way in the sky, and Chris assures them it’s TOTALLY SAFE, only for a flashback to show a crewmember getting killed from this, and Chris cheekily deciding that it’s safe enough.

Even though Gwen doesn’t have allergies in this version, (because it’s pointless) she still shows concern about how they’re going to do this. Duncan makes the offer, Trent tries to back up Gwen on how dangerous it is, only for miscommunication to have both Gwen and Trent have confessionals about it… surprisingly these Trent making awkward comments things are ALL untouched. (I think what saved it was that Trent called himself out every single time and rightfully slaps himself)

Just like in canon, Gwen goes first, and we don’t cut to Harold calling bs on the jump in a confessional until after the shot of the horse’s face, to not break the flow of the fall itself. Regardless of that tweak, Gwen’s results are the same. As well as Trent’s fall itself with him jinxing himself to have a fence strip his right to have kids with Gwen… frankly he did that to himself.

Harolds and Duncan’s are also untouched, and before Owen takes his turn, Noah is calling up to him with a notepad in his hands, telling the big guy to show them what he’s got. However, Owen’s jump and crash are the same. Just as Chris calls Owen’s jump to count, Noah erases everything in the book, saying “Great, I’ll study that fondly,” just as he throws it in the water bin.

After DJ takes his turn (which is untouched) Justin makes his excuse, and Beth and Lindsey oblige, to which Noah proclaims that this is an absolute bc excuse, and he gets up at Justin’s face to do it. Justin refuses, instead making Noah do it instead, where he proclaims that if he’s going to be lazy, then the rest of them are as well. That is until Lindsey and Beth volunteer to jump in his place, where it’s untouched for them. Upon seeing Lindsey succeed, Tyler then makes his turn to try and do a swim dive and impress her, only for him to crash on the ground and miss the horse entirely. Noah also is forced to go, and he misses entirely, falling into the water bin instead with his soggy notebook on his face.

Leshawna and Heather are then forced to try and break the 3-3 tie, and this is completely untouched. (Yeah I’m shocked too, but the exposure here is kind of something you can’t write out in order for the logic and laws of physics to work, so…)

With the next challenge, we don’t have this filler fakeout challenge scene AT ALL, instead we go right to the cowboys and cattle challenge, without Trent asking “who's who?” Because… he literally just said who’s who, are you THAT dense Trent?! All the confessionals about this are fine though.

In this challenge, Beth captures Heather the same way… but with DJ, he manages to use the spare lasso to cut off Justin’s rope and get away, which is triggered by Chef giving a death glare at him. Other than that this is completely untouched, Trent throws the challenge, the Gaffers get their hands on the ropes, and they win by roping up the cowboys. The Gaffers win, and their reward is a cider party back at the trailers, where a brief cut shows the cans of cider looking disgusting. On top of this, the Grips are gonna be sending someone home.

(I’m cutting out the Trent bit with the branding thing though, cause I think we already get the message at this point.)

Trent gives a smile and a wink at Gwen, who upon realizing what he’s doing, her eyes dart to the side and away from him, unable to believe what’s happening. She looks over at Leshawna and Duncan walking out of the fence ring, and she sighs to herself, unsure whose side to take. Gwen then has a confessional where she wholeheartedly admits “Trent’s been throwing challenges for me… I know he’s trying to help, but this has to stop! Next thing I know, they’re gonna catch on too, they’re gonna blame me, and everyone will hate me! I can’t afford that, I just can’t! Trent’s…” she mutters under her breath, realizing as she asks herself “Who is Trent to me?” Where the question lingers as we cut back to the others leaving the sets.

Instead of the shower scene, we get DJ giving Chef back the spare lasso, with clear guilt on his face. Chef laughs at what’s occurred with the challenge, congratulating DJ, where he gives a fake laugh despite looking over at the rest of his team walking off and chatting away.

Leshawna is finishing putting on a different pair of shorts (remember, her old ones got ripped) and Harold is seen hopping by and tripping over due to being tied up by Duncan. Leshawna helps him out and frees him, where Harold bashfully thanks her. She asks if Duncan did this, to which he nods yes, but shrugs it off, instead claiming that Leshawna shouldn’t worry about her savior cowboy. Leshawna is only weirded out by that and tries to step away, making the excuse that she needs to fix her hair. Harold is confused by this, claiming he doesn’t have issues with her hair, but though Leshawna hesitates, she still leaves, claiming that They. Are Not. A Thing.

As she leaves, Harold gazes over at her lovingly, wiping away sweat on his face and remarking on how great the heat is.

“Let me help you with that!” Duncan suddenly exclaims in the back, where he dumps a whole bucket of water all over Harold, slipping him over in the sand, leaving the latter to complain about sand in his eyes.

We then get Leshawna and Duncan’s confessionals about why Harold is getting picked on so much, which are untouched. There really isn’t any better explanation than this. Harold rigged the votes against Courtney, Duncan’s girlfriend, last season, and Duncan wants revenge from how crazy Courtney went about it and thus wants Harold to be miserable… This isn’t too complicated.

And then we cut to…

Oh god, do I have to fix the Trent and Gwen breakup scene NOW?! Can’t I just… skip this, go back to it later? No? I gotta go in chronological order, don’t I?

UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH…

Fine.

So, we then cut to Gwen and Trent.

They’re both sitting behind the washrooms away from everyone, where Trent glances over at Gwen, who's looking away, and after a few seconds of awkward silence, he asks “So… what did you want to talk about?”

Gwen hesitates to answer, and Trent tries to assume “If it’s because of those comments about the horse and the other stuff… I’m sorry. It was a bad choice of words on my part. It was hot and… I’m sorry.”

“Trent…” Gwen mutters, finally turning her head to him to say clearly “This isn’t working.”

Trent blinks, unable to believe her words, suddenly whispering under his breath “...what?”

“You’ve been throwing the game,” Gwen puts it, “For me. I know.”

“I thought you wanted to win,” Trent makes the excuse, where Gwen puts it that she DOES, she does, it’s just…

“What fairness is that to just make you my slave?” Gwen asks him, making him think about that as she remarks “Trent, you’re a great guy. You’ve helped me back at the island in more ways than you realize, and you know I would help you if you let me…”

As she trails off, there’s a brief cut of Noah and Justin getting out of the washrooms and only wearing towels, arguing over soap and trying to snatch it from each other.

We then cut back to the couple.

“But you have Duncan now, is that it?” Trent asks with a bit of edge in his voice, where Gwen clarifies that he and Duncan are her friends. “You were my only friend on the island,” Gwen tells him, “You were the only person I wanted to talk to, that I could connect with outside of my own pathetic crowd, and trust me I’ve never had a man to connect with outside of my brother, so it meant EVERYTHING to me… but there’s also other people I care about now, these guys, Duncan, Leshawna, heck, even party obsessed people like Geoff and Owen… and now that I’m this open, I kind of can’t choose to be with one particular guy just because he’s the only one I can talk to.”

Trent lingers on his words when she says all of this, hugging his knees and realizing “Wow… we really DON’T know each other well… and this whole time I thought you wanted to be given what you were robbed back from last season.”

“What I need, Trent,” Gwen clarifies, “Is for the people I care about to listen to me. That includes you.”

Trent realizes this and sighs, where little do these two know is that Justin and Noah are both overhearing the whole thing from the other side of the washroom.

“...okay,” Trent agrees, “So you don’t want me to keep throwing challenges.” “Nope,” Gwen clarifies, where Trent makes it clear, “You know, day one, I picked my team so they would always lose.” He laughs at himself, where Gwen rolls her eyes and playfully says, “Well, don’t tell them that.”

Trent then asks with sincerity, “So you want to break up and continue this game as friends?”

“You’re invited on my list,” Gwen agrees with a smile, where the two embrace in a hug, accepting this choice, knowing it’s for the best.

As they part, Gwen then promises, “And I promise that after the overly dramatic elimination, I’ll talk to the others and invite you to our reward night. Chef’s making ‘cider,’ for us.” Trent agrees that this sounds great, and that he hears her loud and clear.

And Justin and Noah both heard this loud and clear as well.

(See, writers, it’s possible for couples to break up WITHOUT turning one of them into a jerk)

We cut to Justin and Noah in front of the trailer grounds, having exposed this information to the other Grips, who are all in towels after getting cleaned up.

“So Trent recruited us because he KNEW we were failures?!” Lindsey exclaims, where Noah scoffs “I mean, I can believe that.”

Justin cuts things off that regardless of why they were chosen, Gwen’s a part of this deal, and if they hope to survive this game, they have to get rid of them both. Meaning they have to agree on their choice to go through with this plan.

Noah then argues back, “Whoa whoa pretty boy, you mean MY plan! We should vote off Trent. If he’s throwing challenges, he’s gonna be a burden to us.”

Justin snaps, “Excuse me short stuff, who found out about this first? We need to use Gwen, we need HER help to get ourselves a win.”

Noah corrects, “I found out first, actually! And a loner goth like her isn’t going to be persuaded by looks! What idiot would fall for that?”

This gets them both to glance at Lindsey, Beth, and Owen staring off into space, which makes Justin smile and Noah frown. Noah snaps their focus onto him, demanding that the Grips need to strategize wisely here. Owen then is snapped back into reality, going “What Justin?”

Which makes Noah ask harshly “Whose side are you on?”

“I go with Justin,” Lindsey raises her hand to decide, “Gwen’s going down!”

Beth also raises her hand, commenting “I second that! Besides, Justin’s the better looking of the two.”

Noah scoffs at the roast, going “Okay, clearly I’m the stupid one. Ignoring how I found out about this first and called this meeting!”

“No, I called it!” Justin scoffs back, where Noah then goes, “Technically, by sixty eight tenths of a second, I called it first!”

Their argument fades to the background as the other three stare at each other blankly. “How do you keep a glass half full when a glass keeps tipping over?” Beth asks, where Lindsey answers “Pick up the cup again and fill it halfway-”

Which is cut off by Justin and Noah shoving each other on the ground pathetically. Seeing this, Beth decides “Let’s vote out Trent.” To which Lindsey and Owen agree.

We then cut to the elimination ceremony.

So now we reach the voting sessions, where the votes have been casted, and losers have been selected…

The awards go to Lindsey…

Beth…

Noah…

Justin…

And Owen.

And just like in the original, Trent is eliminated. He tries to protest, saying he should at least say goodbye to Gwen, but Chef grabs him and throws him away in the Limo of Losers before they can get the chance.

In this version, Gwen is walking over to the ceremony, ready to bring Trent over to the party, only for her to overhear Trent screaming out her name, prompting Gwen to start running towards him, realizing that Trent has been eliminated.

She runs along the limo as it’s leaving, barely able to keep up, she tries to get words out but fails, and Trent is only able to grasp the tip of her fingers, apologizing sincerely for everything he’s done… they lose contact, and the vehicle drives off with him in it.

Gwen is barely able to believe this, unsure how to react other than be devastated as she stops running and tries to catch her breath, standing on the road in the dark night. For all she knows now, she just ended their relationship for good. Now the Grips are against her, all because she didn’t tell them the truth. Trent’s gone… because of her. And all she can mutter in a weary voice is “...I’m sorry Trent…”

Before Gwen can start crying, she feels a soft hand caress her shoulder, and soon her face. She shivers, and soon looks up, seeing Justin behind her, trying to comfort her. He apologizes for the loss of Trent, and Gwen assures him that it’s not his fault…

“You’re right Gwen,” Justin assures her, silently gripping both her shoulders to keep her in place “It’s NOT his fault.”

Gwen’s eyes shrink as she realizes what he’s trying to say, and we fade to black, tensely ending the episode on Justin telling Gwen “...we need to talk about what you owe us.”

Episode 6: The 1st Aftermath

Episode 6 marks our first Aftermath show of the season. The first thing we’re doing is cutting out the recap with Trent and Gwen, especially with the constant sighs that… really sound annoying.

Instead, this recap remarks the previously eliminated contestants, Geoff, Bridgette, Izzy, and Trent, with the vague question of what are their perspectives of this story?

After the intro, we cut to Geoff and Bridgette introducing the aftermath show, where everything they say here is untouched until we get around to introducing the campers left out. Obviously, Tyler and Noah are not here in this version, so there’s no mention of them at all in this role call.

After such, we are then given the knowledge of Izzy and Trent’s arrival, as well as the webcams, and… what they say about Trent is surprisingly untouched, with the only tweak needed is to cut out the Katie and Sadie part of it. Remember, they’re not demonizing Gwen with THIS dialogue, only stating how they feel bad for him, which does still apply to this rewrite.

Izzy’s recap is untouched, as well as her introduction to the Aftermath shows. I don’t have anything to touch with anything Izzy Geoff or Bridgette says here, it’s all pretty solid. The changes start to come when we get to the Truth or Hammer bit, where Geoff is clearly reading a paper that says the event, not made on his own terms. He’s a little weary of it, but he still goes along with it when he sees how cool Izzy is with it. The alliance with Chef question is surprisingly untouched, because to be fair, Chef has seen Izzy in action, trying to recruit her isn’t uncalled for, especially with their history and dynamic. Just like in canon, Izzy also exposes the idea that Chef rigged the game for DJ, which due to the additions I added here, this makes a lot more sense.

We then move on to Trent…

(Oh boy, this is gonna be fun to fix)

And right off the bat when hearing the audience cheer for Trent, Bridgette remarks that Trent really did deserve better. Geoff comforts her that couples do break up, and NOWHERE do they blame Gwen for what happened BECAUSE THAT WOULD BE ONE SIDED. Geoff tries to imply “Maybe things between them would have been alright if it weren’t for Justin and Noah snooping on them-” which makes the audience realize what happened, and Trent to realize why the Grips voted him off, and instantly, he blames himself and that he should have been more careful, or better yet, listened to Gwen before any of this even happened.

Instead of laughing, Geoff tries to assure everyone that the Grips would have voted Trent off anyway, and that Gwen had nothing to do with the situation. Eva comments that she was still the very reason for all the havoc, and she should pay, only for Geoff to scold that Trent’s not a victim in the break up, it’s THEIR choice. Also, no, we’re not mentioning the Heather kissing Trent last season bit AT ALL, cause it’s unnecessary drama. (pun intended) Instead, Geoff tries to defend Gwen with the mention that she’s one of the most introverted people ever, and if she’s trying to figure out herself, then a relationship isn’t what she should be in, that’s simple logic. (Remember, Geoff and Gwen were tri-armed partners in Island, so Geoff defending her makes sense) Bridgette then makes the statement that shouldn’t be the case, if anything it just proves that Gwen is a pain, after all, THEY have things easy, why can’t they? Why can’t they help them?

Geoff makes it clear that it’s not that they shouldn’t help them, it’s that they volunteered for this show for a reason, and their paperwork and their job is to follow the script and also stop here for an ad segment-

Cutting to the Chef ad.

After the break, Izzy takes over as to introduce the havoc between Gwen and Trent, where Geoff and Bridgette are forced on opposite sides reading scripts. Izzy asks what teams they’re on, and Geoff reads the script to say ‘team Gwen’ and Bridgette reads it and says “Team Trent-wait hold on, when was this a war?”

“Now… quarrel for dramatic effect…” Geoff reads aloud, unsure what to do, other than play along haphazardly and try to say “Uh… Bridgette, you’re uh, you’re on team Trent, huh? What is wrong with you, Trent’s clearly uh…” he reads the script to say “‘A two faced, nine obsessed, rock-’who wrote this in the script and got away with it?!”

He glances over at a cameraman, who only shrugs at them.

After a face palm from Bridgette, she mutters “Let’s just see if Trent’s ready to come out…”

Only to cut to him on the TV, still mourning the loss of his relationship, where he remarks how he never even got to say goodbye to her, or warn her about the schemers in the team… “I’m such an idiot.”

Geoff then decides to simply do a recap video about Gwen and Trent’s relationship. They reminisce on how Gwen was a lone wolf whose heart was melted by a guitar playing friendly face that was Trent, and the many times where Trent was there for her to help the goth break out of her shell, where not even Heather’s plans could stop them from loving each other. And THEN Gwen decided to move onto other people, and on opposite teams, Trent tried to give her all the money and chance to win in the world, only for Gwen to throw that all away and dump him.

After the recap, Izzy moves to the panel, where just like in canon, Katie and Sadie are on Gwen’s side after seeing the Heather bit, Cody is on Gwen’s side (of course he is), and Courtney claims Trent is a loser by choice.

Trent then comes on, and when Bridgette asks what happened between them, Trent remarks that everything went fine until Gwen started to express herself and venge out further, hang out with Duncan more (which gets that Courtney comment) and he simply puts it that he didn’t obey the competition, and he didn’t listen to her. “So Gwen dumped you for another guy?” Bridgette reads in the script, which shocks her and causes an audience gasp.

“What?!” Trent realizes, “They’re just friends! She said they were just friends! Who wrote that?!”

That question gives a brief cut of Chris maniacally laughing behind camera, where he simply puts it “Boy do we love some juicy drama here.”

Geoff then asks about Trent’s point of view, and how crazy he got, with a brief reminder “Oh, and please be careful about the hammer.”

“What?” Trent realizes, where Geoff puts his hands up to make it clear “I’m just doing my job, this was NOT my choice!”

Trent makes it clear that Gwen meant more to him than the money, and seeing the hammer not go down, Geoff is confused as it was a million bucks, prompting Bridgette to scold “WE gave up a million bucks!”

Trent makes it clear that he’s not innocent, he screwed over the people on the Grips, and he gives a public apology to them. Geoff asks what he would do if he had gotten to go to that cider party, and Trent simply puts it “Whatever she wanted. She wanted me to meet her new friend group and join in, and… to be honest, I don’t know how that would have gone. Leshawna may be a great gal, but Duncan’s… I don’t know how I feel about him. I just can’t shake off the feeling that he’s eyeing her and…” he face palms himself, groaning that it might be Duncan’s fault.

“Why don’t you trust Duncan?” Courtney asks in disgust, where Trent tells the story that soon after his grandpa died, his ma told him the story of a criminal that his parents knew, who’d bully a girl to no end. He dressed all edgy, had a mohawk… and ma told him that “Son, if you love a girl, you support them. And you keep them safe from punks like them.” It was kind of a thing that got his grandpa together with his wife.

After hearing this story, Katie and Sadie come to the conclusion that Gwen didn’t listen to him. Courtney makes it clear “Duncan is NOT a punk, okay! He won’t be on my watch, I can fix him.”

The email on what girl Trent likes is untouched from canon, and after such we move on to video essays. All of these are untouched. As well as the recap events from unseen footage of the campers getting hurt… honestly it’s a tradition.

Trent then has his farewell song to Gwen, which is sweet enough in it’s own right and I’m fine with keeping it in.

With that, Bridgette and Geoff tear up at it, and they both express how happy they are that they did this show together, and they start making out, closing the Aftermath show, with them outstaying at the stage and quite possibly f***ed each other in the process. Good for them.

And that’s where we’re going to leave things for today. As you can probably tell, there’s no set schedule for these parts to come out, and I want to thank you all for the support given to this project. And trust me, this was ONLY the first six episodes, and this might actually be the MOST accurate part to the original canon, so… prepare yourselves. So feel free to tune in next time on TOTAL. DRAMA. REFILMING ACTION!!

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bokunoheroanalysisforthefuture · 3 years

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The race continues! Let’s see how everyone else gets past the first obstacle.

[No. 25 - In Their Own Quirky Ways]

Yamada is vibrating in excitement as he announces that the first event is an obstacle race - a lap around the stadium, made just for that day. Which again points to the events themselves being non-randomized, which I think we all already knew. Wonder what would happen if said ‘randomizer’ got hacked… ah, well, the staff are probably prepared for that?

Also, I love Aizawa’s gruff little ‘hey’ in response to Yamada’s excitement, like. You can tell he’s telling his friend to dial back without any further context.

As we go back to the students fighting the robots, Yamada continues his explanation: Anything’s fair game so long as the contestants stay in bounds, making the whole race a harsh game of chicken. And all the action is brought to the audience by the camera robots at each location! Aizawa wryly notes that Yamada doesn’t even really need him there. And pfft, I love how the camera robots are cheering on their larger brethren, telling them to aim for the humans’ legs and to smash the humans.

The other zero-pointers still loom menacingly over the students, with the collapsed robots acting as a barrier to progress as well. Some of them are particularly nervous, one commenting on how there are kids pinned under the collapsed zero-pointers, while another says the crushed students have to be dead, and that they didn’t know the students could be killed during this event.

(Seriously, though, what would have happened if students died during this? I have a strong feeling that wouldn’t have been good for PR…)

The metal of the robots starts to deform from underneath with several bangs, culminating in a hardened Kirishima bursting out from underneath, scoffing at the idea of his death. Yamada helpfully announces how Kirishima had been crushed. Kirishima’s quirk fades as he grumbles about Todoroki being a bastard for timing their fall like that, and that he’d be dead if he wasn’t him. We then get a helpful little quirk blurb from the narrative: Hardening turns his body hard as a rock - it’s the ultimate offense and defense!

Another part of the robot bangs from underneath, with a metallic-looking Tetsutetsu bursting up from underneath, complaining about 1a being full of jerks and that he’d be dead if he wasn’t him. Kirishima recognizes him as the guy from class 1b, while Yamada notes how Tetsutetsu had also been flattened. As if to continue to emphasize how similar their quirks are, we then get a narrative blurb: Steel turns his body hard as a rock - it’s the ultimate offense and defense!

Yes, they are written exactly the same way. Yes, Kirishima does realize how similar their quirks are. He dashes ahead with tears in his eyes, calling Tetsutetsu a copycat and that he fells generic enough as it is.

(Insert a ‘B-baka!’ joke in here somewhere.)

Kaminari calls the two lucky for being able to just smash through without worrying about being crushed. Rin of 1b (with a scale quirk, not mentioned yet), shouts at Kaminari, or I guess the other students in general, that they should team up so they can carve a path through.

Meanwhile, Katsuki is blasting himself up and over the zero pointers, telling himself he can’t let Shouto get ahead. As he flies up and over the top of the robots, Yamada complements Katsuki’s strategy of taking the high road, calling it ‘clever’. However, he’s not the only one to do so - Sero and Tokoyami are right behind him, much to his shock. Sero says that with his personality, he expected Katsuki to bust his way through, but that he avoided the potential fight. Tokoyami’s greeting is more simple, just stating that he’s happening to follow the same path.

The narration gives us brief overviews of their quirks as well - Sero’s Tape is shot from his elbows, and can be used to wrap things up, and can also be detached to lay down traps. Tokoyami’s quirk Dark Shadow is a shadow beast within him that can materialize and morph at will.

We briefly head over to the stands where Toshinori and some of the other school staff (Thirteen, Snipe, and Cementoss specifically) are watching on. Yamada announces how the current leaders of the pack are overwhelmingly from class A. Toshinori notes that Class B and the others aren’t bad, it’s just… And as if picking up on the same thought, Aizawa finishes that Class A knows there’s no time to hesitate.

We get to see this in brief flashes to some of the 1a kids: Tenya is kicking one of the smaller robots, Kaminari is using his electricity like a taser, and Jirou is using her earjacks to disable yet more robots. Kirishima is sprinting as fast as he can, Ochako seems to be making use of her quirk, and Ojiro’s looking pretty cool while taking out a robot with his tail.

Aizawa (and I suppose Toshinori, in his own way) continue their thoughts and explanations for Class 1a’s heightened performance: they’ve been exposed to the outside world, and up close. They’re had that fear planted in them, and they’re endured and overcome it. Each has grown from that experience, and forgotten how to hesitate.

As if to emphasize this, we see Izuku ducking under the attack of a robot, dashing past it to grab a piece of (apparently heavy) armor plating from the zero-pointer Shouto knocked down. He notes how the contest has just begun, so he can’t rely on One For All just yet. As he keeps moving, he notices that the same robot is still locked onto him and chasing, thinking of how UA made them pretty tenacious. He comes to a stop and turns with the plate, noting that with how fast it’s moving, it can’t break quickly - a flaw he takes advantage of by spinning with the plate in hand, the momentum tearing through the thinner arms and neck of the robot. He tells himself he has to keep moving, while also acknowledging how handy the sheet is and that it can function as a shield as well.

Meanwhile, Momo our goddess blasts away the competition - almost literally.

Like, Momo. I cannot even begin to describe how cool that is. Abet I dunno if making something that big was the best idea for her reserves… ah well, I mean, part of this early part of the manga is the kids making mistakes and learning their limits and pushing themselves, so. At least it looks cool! Izuku’s impressed with how easily she beat a zero pointer, without acknowledging his own success in doing so just a few months before this.

(Then again, neither she nor Shouto broke most of their bodies to do so, so shrugs.)

Snipe notes how most people are better off dodging the zero pointers in the exam (guessing the entrance exam is what he meant here), while then acknowledging that they’re really just slow hunks of metal if you try to take them down - so long as you find a weak point. Toshinori is distracted by Izuku’s actions being on the big screen (or at least one screen). His thoughts acknowledge how Izuku has to know how crazy this is, but he keeps busting through. He then thinks that by the skin of his teeth is fine, so long as he keeps going.

And with that, we’re through the first obstacle, and onto the second… next update. I need to close my eyes for a moment because headache, bleh.

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adikospodcast · 3 years

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EP. 2: THE ABDUCTION OF EUROPA [TRANSCRIPT]

hello everyone and welcome back to adikos, a true crime podcast, or welcome in case you're new! my name is arete, i'm your host, and first of all i'd like to thank you all so much for all the support you've been giving me on my first episode: i'm obviously still really new to podcasting, it's something i only do in my spare time, but i'm really, really glad you guys enjoyed it, and i'm definitely gonna keep going with your support!

so, today i wanted to talk to you about a case that is really old and really well known, but that surprisingly few people actually know the ending to: i'm talking about the story of the abduction of europa here, and i feel like most people are tangentially aware of that, since she is the woman who gave the name to europe, but not many people actually know the full story beyond like, the moment she got kidnapped, and they don't know that this case actually has a happy ending, which is lovely to hear about for a change, with all the terrible and grim stories that are so common in true crime!

now, before we go on talking about this case, i wanted to give you a bit of background on europa's actual family history, because there are a lot of players at hand here, and i just wanted to make sure that basically you know who they are, even though i'm going to keep reminding you just in case throughout the video. so we have her father, agenor, who was born in memphis, in egypt, to poseidon, the god obviously, and to libya, but he left egypt to be ruled by his brother and he settled down in what would become phoenicia, and he founded the city of tyre. in tyre he met a naiad whose name is telephassa, though some people report it as argiope, but i'm gonna refer to her as telephassa since it's the most commonly used name, and the two married and together they had four children, who were: phoenix, who would become the heir to the throne, cadmus, cilix, and europa, who was the only girl in the family, basically. now, in this case we have another element, another participant, whose relation to the family is really unclear, and i wanted to try and clear up, basically, his presence in the whole story: he is thasus, and he's said to have basically a different connection to the family in pretty much every source i looked at; he has been said to be the son of agenor, the son of cilix, or even the uncle of europa and her brothers! so the one thing that we actually know about him for sure is that he is somehow, someway related to europa, which will be relevant later on when we get into the actual events of this case, but i just wanted to give you this basic, real brief overview of the family tree, so you can have that in mind basically throughout this story.

so, europa grew up in tyre, surrounded by her family and by plenty of friends: by all accounts, she was an extremely beautiful young woman, and she was really kind and sweet, she really got along with everyone she met. she and her brothers were really close growing up, and all three of them were really protective of their little sister, but she also had lots of female friends, aside, of course, from her handmaidens. so, according to one source i read, the night before everything went down, europa had a dream that really deeply shook her to her bones: she dreamt that she was being contented between two lands, which were personified as women, and one was dressed as basically was the custom in europa's culture, she was clinging to her, saying she belonged to her, but the other woman was dressed in foreign clothes that europa had never seen before, and she was violently tugging on her, and she ripped her away from the other woman, saying it was the will of the "bearer of the aegis" for europa to belong to her. the aegis is, as you may know, the legendary shield of zeus, it's basically his symbol, and in my opinion this may have been a prophetic dream of sorts that the fates may have sent to her, seeing what was going to come in her future.

europa woke up terrified and shaking, she was understandably really afraid of this dream; she called for handmaidens and told them everything about the dream she'd had, and they suggested going down to the beach together, to* help her clear her mind out, basically. now at this time it was nearly dawn, the palace was still asleep, besides the girls, and europa and her handmaidens just snuck out in silence, headed down to the beach without being escorted by anyone, but without even telling anyone, which is obviously a really unsafe thing to do – please always tell someone where you're going, in case something happens – but europa didn't want to have to wake anyone up, understandably, and besides, they thought, they were not completely alone: they were quite a large group of girls, so in their minds it would be a bit hard for anyone who wanted to harm them or sneak up on them to actually do something, because they were so many.

now, basically, the beach that the girls had gone down to was somewhat close to the palace, and it was at the base of a hill; and at the top of the hill was the enclosure of agenor's cow herd, which really just gives you an idea of just how old this case really is, this was still a time where having a big herd of animals was what made your wealth, what made your affluence. so, because this was right at sunrise, the cows were beginning to stir, obviously the herd was beginning to wake up, and suddenly they started acting up, for no apparent reason: they began pushing against the enclosure they were in, they even broke down the fence that was holding them in, and they set themselves free basically, and then the entire herd began running down the hill and running towards the beach that the girls were on, which is obviously really frightening, i don't know what i would have done if i was one of those girls.

now, at this point the girls were just lying in the sand, playing on the seashore, enjoying themselves, looking at the sunrise in peace, but when they noticed the herd of cows that was barreling towards them, obviously they got really scared, and they tried to move out the way so they wouldn't be trampled; however, once the herd actually got to the shore, it began to calm down, and the girls were able to get close again, and some of them even began to play with the cows, petting them. and when they were interviewed, europa's handmaidens reported that europa herself got really close to this one specific big white bull she said she'd never seen before among her father's animals, and she began petting him, and weaving him a flower crown, and the bull just sat there patiently and tolerated all that she did to him, just everything that she could do, he just to let her do whatever she wanted with him. now, the situation that the girls were in was obviously a bit unusual: obviously it's not every day, and it was not every day at the time, that you would go to the beach and be surrounded by cows, but they weren't really worried, you know, they had no reason to be; as long as they didn't anger any of the cows, any of the bulls, they thought they could enjoy themselves for a bit, then head back to the palace and tell agenor that the herd had escaped; however, they could never have imagined what was about to happen, obviously.

once europa was done leaving her little flower crown for her bull, she showed it proudly to all her handmaidens, she was really happy about it, and she climbed on the bull so she could reach him better and put it on his head. now, according to what the girls said when they were interrogated, in that moment, when europa climbed on him, the bull got on his legs, with no sort of warning whatsoever, he took off running straight into the sea as if he was taken by madness, and europa was obviously powerless to do anything but try to hold on and not fall off into the sea. she called for help, she screamed as if she was being murdered, but obviously the other girls couldn't do anything: they risked getting seriously injured if they got too close to the animal, and they thought they were too far away from the palace to get help there and come back in time before anything had happened.

now, what happened next was even crazier than that, and that is that once the bull actually hit the sea in his run, he wasn't stopped by the water, he kept galloping straight ahead as if he could just easily travel across the water, and europa obviously held on even tighter, she was terrified that she might fall into the open sea, she didn't know how to swim all the way back to the coast! and at that point, the handmaidens lost all sight of both her and the bull, and they realized that something supernatural or divine was probably afoot, so they rushed back to the palace, they called on to agenor, told him what had happened; now, many of the people who originally were reporting on the investigation when it was still ongoing were quite suspicious of the fact that the girls hadn't gone to call for help while europa was being taken away, but only after she had been lost, only after her traces had been lost, and some even insinuated that they may have had something to do with the disappearance!

now, obviously i can understand that you want to follow every possible trail you have and consider every single suspect during the search and the investigation for a missing person, especially when it comes to the last people that saw her, but i don't think that this suspicion really holds, or even held at the time, any water whatsoever: the girls, the handmaidens, were europa's closest friends, and there was no enmity between them that could motivate them to do something terrible to her and invent a lie to cover their tracks, and this is not even to mention the fact that they were a bunch of young girls on a beach, they had no tools or anything to even harm her or hide her body, even if they had wanted to hurt her. and to me this is, at least, the case of someone witnessing something terrible and being traumatized, shell shocked, and unable to do anything until it's over, and if i try to put myself in their shoes, though hopefully i'm never going to be in the same situation, i can completely sympathize with their behavior.

thankfully for the girls, agenor and his family had always known them and their families, and they were ready to believe their terrified account of what had happened, especially when they saw that the herd had been let loose and the fence was torn down in a way that couldn't have been done by them, even if they had tried. everyone in the palace was extremely scared and really upset at europa's disappearance, she was a lovely girl and all those who knew her really could never have hoped for something like that to happen, and everybody both in and outside the royal family offered to help look for her.

agenor, since he was the king of tyre, he was aging, he was getting really old, he made the incredibly hard decision to not go search himself for his daughter, but remain alone to rule the city on his own, as he was afraid he would be more of a hassle than a benefit to the search efforts; but he sent his sons, who were europa's older brothers, to lead the search parties that would look for her, and he made them swear on the gods and on their life that they would never come back home unless they had found her. telephassa, europa's mother. was absolutely distraught at the loss of her daughter, of course, but she vowed that she would find her no matter what, and she left tyre to look after her herself, alongside thasus and a small search party of their own.

all the brothers said their goodbyes to their native land and vowed to find their sister no matter what, and they left with all the volunteers who wanted to help look for the princess; they took different ships and sailed in various directions, so they could try and cover as much ground as possible, and whenever they encountered land, whether it be an island or a coast, they would explore it and usually interrogate the locals, if it was an inhabited place, on whether or not they had seen any girl in the likeness of europa, wearing the usual tyrian attire, possibly with a bull or with another animal, or even with a god; but no matter who they asked, all they received was no after no, and europa just seemed to have completely vanished into non-existence. now, these search efforts went on for years, and they explored practically every island and every coast in the eastern mediterranean, which is obviously a massive area to cover. i cannot begin to imagine what europa's relatives were going through, knowing their sister, their daughter was gone, and desperately looking for any sort of closure about what had happened to her. and the brothers were obviously interviewed many times on this case, later in their lives, and cadmus said that they knew their sister was still there, just barely out of their reach, as if the gods were taunting them or something, and that their failure to find her had deeply traumatized them for the rest of their lives, which to me is terrible to even think about.

eventually, even though they were being eaten up by guilt, by sorrow, the brothers had to settle down somewhere, after years and years of fruitless searching. cadmus ended up settling in boeotia, he founded the city of thebes and married the goddess armonia; cilix found himself in the south of anatolia and he conquered the area, the area we know as cilicia, and he gave origin to the population of the region, which we know as cilician because of him; thasus and telephassa had taken to exploring the northernmost parts of the coast, and they ended up in thracia, which is really far away, and they settled down in the very small island of thasus and they founded a colony there, and this was the farthest away from their homeland of tyre of any of them; as for phoenix, what ended up happening to him is one of the saddest parts of this whole case, in my opinion.

so, you remember how i said that agenor had forbidden his sons from ever coming back to tyre unless they had found their sister? well, the brothers took that really seriously, and for good reason: agenor was one to stick to his promises, no matter how outlandish they were, and none of them wanted to risk what may have happened if they had dared to come back. only phoenix, who was the heir to the throne, dared to come back years after the events, to reclaim his rightful place in the city; and as soon as he and his ships even set foot on the land of tyre, agenor spared his son no mercy whatsoever. at first, he thought that maybe he had actually found europa and brought her back, but once he saw that his sister was not with him he threatened to kill him, kill his own son, if he did not leave immediately, and that he would not be so kind the next time he saw him. and obviously phoenix ran away with his ships, with his people, but he didn't go really that far from home: he settled down in the northern part of the coast, and when his father died and the throne became empty he wasted no time going to tyre, snatching it up and conquering it, and basically conquering all the neighboring territories, and creating the area which we now call phoenicia in his honour.

now, you might be thinking that this story is sad enough on its own, it's one of the sadly many cases of a girl getting kidnapped, disappearing, and her family never knowing what happened to her despite their best efforts, and even falling apart because of her disappearance; but in this case, we actually do know what happened with europa after she was kidnapped away by the divine bull, and i think that once you hear what happened you'll find it a bit ironic, to say the least. so, once the bull took off into the sea with europa on his back, he actually landed in crete, and he brought the girl to the highest point in the island, in the middle of the woods on top of a mountain, so that nobody would notice what was happening and where, which actually means that she was probably not so far away from her brothers when they were first looking for her, since crete must have been one of their first stops, i assume, being so close to the coast.

obviously europa was really terrified, and she had no idea where she was, what was going on, but she had also caught on to the fact that this bull was probably a god, or at least some sort of supernatural creature, and she just froze and let him take her where he wanted, obviously she didn't want to anger him. when they reached the mountaintop, the bull tossed europa to the ground and he revealed himself in his human form; he introduced himself as zeus, the king of the gods, and told her that he had been beguiled by her virginal beauty as soon as he had set his godly eyes on her, and that he had brought her to crete to seduce her and then give her a husband which was fit to marry zeus's lover.

europa was understandably quite shocked: it's one thing to joke around with her friends about seducing zeus, and it was definitely another thing to be actually abducted by him, with the very real possibility of being violated by him. she balked at first, refused to do anything with him, and when zeus saw that forcing himself on her would be of no avail, he went for a different route to get to her heart instead: he gifted her a lavish golden necklace, sculpted by hephaestus himself, and promised her more gifts to come if she were to accept him. and seeing how far he was willing to go to seduce her, to have sex with her, europa thought she had no choice but to accept his advances; she gave up, she let him take her, do whatever he wanted with her, and when she was, later in her life, interviewed about her relationship with zeus and the children she bore by him, she stated that when he would come to seduce her she would just lay down, dissociate herself from what was going on, think of anything else that could get her through the encounters.

every time that zeus came down from the skies to visit her, he would bring a new present, and each one was more miraculous, more enchanted than the last: the first was talos, an animated bronze giant which moved of its own will, and whose entire original purpose was to actually protect europa from being kidnapped or harmed, which i think is quite funny; the second gift was laelaps, a hunting dog which always managed to catch its prey, and the third was a magic golden javelin which never failed to miss its target. and all of those objects have actually gone down in history, and you may have heard of them before, because europa actually kept them, even after the end of her relationship with zeus, as she passed them down to her sons, after all they were still magic items gifted to her by a god and they may turn out to be useful one day.

speaking of europa's sons, her relationship with zeus actually gave her three children, minos, rhadamantos and sarpedon. obviously she couldn't be left to raise them all alone in the woods, but she also couldn't publicly reveal that she had slept with zeus and had his children, which would risk unleashing the wrath of hera on herself, and also the judgment and disbelief of everyone around her; and of course zeus himself knew this, he had done this countless times before, and even to europa's own ancestor io, who you may know as the woman who was turned into a cow to protect her from hera. so, zeus introduced europa to asterion, the king of crete, and through his intermediation the two of them got married, and asterion even adopted arapa's three sons, since he had no male heirs of his own. and all of them, minos, rhadamantos and sarpedon, would go on to become really important figures, especially minos, who would actually ascend to the throne of crete, and europa was able to live a long, happy marriage with asterion and with zeus's blessing, though she never was able to see her brothers, or parents, or friends, or even just her country again, and they in turn never really know what came of her.

so, this was the case of the abduction of europa! i think this is a really peculiar story, like you don't hear many of them nowadays, and this is for a few reasons. obviously this case is extremely wrapped up in its supernatural element, of course, it centers the abduction of a girl by a literal god, and i feel like it just goes to show how far back this case dates to, to the point that the gods were still mingling with humans on a daily basis and engaging with them, both in the positive and, obviously, in the negative ways. and i think that cases which directly center the gods are far more tricky to handle than the ones where everybody is human: like, with the case of procne and philomela, which i talked about in the last episode, all the people involved were humans, they all had the same standard of morality, more or less, so we can more easily empathize with them, say what they did was right or wrong; but the morality of the gods is so deeply different from ours that we can think something is wrong by our standards, but we will never know the actual reasoning behind a god's actual action, we will never know what their morality is, what the moral value judgment of that action is for a god, and i think that's what makes cases like this really tricky to handle, and why i think i'm going to focus more on human-dominated cases in the future, if that makes sense.

another reason why this case really fascinates me is how bittersweet it is: obviously we know, from the reporters who tracked europa down years and even decades after the event, that she ended up being fine, living a long, happy life, but her brothers, her father, her mother never got to know that, and it's not like europa could exactly reach out to them or vice versa, and that is what really makes this whole story stand out to me: it's not every day that you get a case where everybody's fine in the end but they don't know that, and they are still haunted by that uncertainty; it's the way we, as bystanders from centuries and millennia later, are able to get a closure that the family involved was unfortunately never able to get.

i hope you guys enjoyed today's episode, leave a like if you did! let me know what you thought of this case in the comments down below, and if you have any suggestions or any cases you'd like to hear me talk about, and subscribe if you'd like to never miss out on another true crime episode of this podcast. always remember that every tragedy is born of man's hubris, and i will see you guys next time!

#podcast #tagamemnon #true crime #greek mythology #myth retelling #transcripts #europa #abduction of europa #zeus

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panharmonium · 4 years

Text

more rambling re: that last post (+ the merlin/will fic survey overview)

because i generally refrain from reading fic while i’m actively writing for a fandom, the only real ao3 reading i have done for merlin is my survey of the merlin/will ship tag. and the only reason i undertook that survey in the first place is because while i was doing an introductory cruise of the various merlin tags during my first exploration of the fandom (after i finally finished S5 and was able to start looking into fandom dynamics without fearing spoilers), i noticed that a LOT of the fic tagged with this ship was also tagged merlin/arthur, and despite the fact that i personally am more interested in gen stuff, i started to get both suspicious and annoyed about what i was seeing. but i also wanted to have the data to back up my annoyed feelings, so i made a little spreadsheet for myself and then just filled it in whenever i had time to kill and wanted something to do.

the data, when i eventually finished, backed up my annoyance pretty much as well as i expected, which was disappointing, but not surprising.

to clarify - i’m not annoyed by the fact that will and merlin don’t have a whole lot of material in their ship tag. will only showed up directly in one episode; i don’t expect him to be a popular subject. what i AM annoyed by is the fact that there are actually more merlin/arthur fics in the merlin/will tag than there are fics that actually focus on...merlin/will. by, like - an extreme margin.

(the rest of this is just me griping about fandom trends. popping it under a cut so folks can just move on with their days if this isn’t relevant to their interests.)

The Numbers

two quick notes before i get into the nitty-gritty:

1) i originally did this survey a few months ago, but i updated it this week with fics that have been added since then, so the numbers are current.

2) some of the data below would probably vary slightly depending on who was conducting the survey, so there’s a bit of wiggle room in either direction. the criteria i had to use [aka what counts as just a ship ‘mention’ vs actual content] would be subject to reader interpretation, obviously, but even with that, i do feel that most stories fell into pretty clear categories.)

so, without further ado -

total # of fics in the ship tag: 145

number of fics that are inappropriately tagged (meaning either will himself or merlin/will as a ship does not actually appear [which is kind of bizarre, but which i saw happen surprisingly frequently], OR where there is only a brief reference to will or past!merlin/will and that’s the extent of their inclusion: 50

number of fics that are duplicates of works already in the tag (ie podfic), or (in one case) a meta podcast about the show: 5

so, that brings down our total number of fics with some sort of actual merlin/will content to 90.

of these 90 works, only 17 of them are actually focused on merlin/will.

everything else in will’s ship tag, including the 54 works from the previously discussed "incorrectly tagged” category, is either a) fic where will is dumped, broken up with, or otherwise passed over in favor of arthur (and very occasionally gwaine, at least once mordred, once percival, once arthur and gwaine in a threesome, and once CENRED, which i’m sure will would be especially thrilled about), or b) fic where will is only included as a previous/ex relationship (again, almost always in lieu of arthur).

moreover - of the 17 actual merlin/will fics, 7 still end with will dying or the relationship ending for reasons other than him being passed over for arthur. an additional 4 are <1000 word PWP snippets, generally written for old LJ summer pornathons, one of which still somehow manages to be...you guessed it - all about arthur.

in terms of actual one-shots/full fics where merlin/will is the endgame/non-dead pairing, there are only 6 stories.

i repeat: will gets six earnest stories, IN HIS OWN SHIP TAG.

i repeat once again: will, in a non-dead, endgame form, gets 4% of his own ship tag.

The Content

the in-fic trends are frustrating, if you actually like this character.

the asshole. will is an abusive boyfriend. he is a jealous ex. he’s a shitty friend. he’s a stalker. he’s manipulative. he’s emotionally abusive. he’s physically abusive. he dumps merlin for someone else. he cheats. in one fic he’s so mad at merlin that he outs merlin’s magic to arthur. in multiple fics, i watched him literally go off the rails and try to murder somebody.

the fuckbuddy. they’re just messing around, guys! no, of course it’s not serious! they just do this for fun! of course there’s nothing to get in the way of arthur’s inevitable arrival! no sirree!

the unrequited. will is actually in it deep for merlin, but merlin doesn’t feel the same. this does not, however, prevent merlin from using will for sex, companionship, comfort, distraction, etc - until arthur shows up, when will either steps aside in deference to merlin’s all-consuming passion for arthur or is dropped like a hot potato.

“not even will.” that sentence. over and over again. merlin had never felt like this before, not even with will. nobody had ever understood merlin like this, not even will. even in fic when they were like. married. or engaged. fanon arthur pendragon must be truly mind-blowing, y’all.

dead long-term relationship. will was merlin’s husband/fiancé/long-term partner. now he is Dead. merlin getting together with arthur is what allows merlin to Heal. (these stories sometimes contain some variation of “not even will,” as discussed above.)

lastly, in a related phenomenon:

who are you and what have you done with arthur pendragon??? i suppose in a way it’s nice to know that will isn’t the only one who gets the OOC treatment, but it is still really...something, to read fic where will is twisted into an unpleasant, abusive, canon non-compliant version of himself, and then to see arthur, on the very same page, transformed into a gentle, solicitous, kind, caring, equally canon non-compliant angel. fanon!arthur is more worried about merlin’s well-being than literally anyone i have ever seen. he is so invested in merlin’s emotional health. he is so concerned about merlin’s boundaries. he says things to merlin that no version of arthur pendragon has ever - EVER - in any universe, thought about saying to anybody. he wants to hear all about merlin’s problems, and he’s all about taking it slow and making sure merlin feels comfortable and loved and worthy and safe (from all that horrible stuff done by that horrible other guy; that must’ve been so hard, merlin; ‘it’s okay, i’ve got you now’) - the man is utterly unrecognizable. and you know what? it’s okay! it is fine to make your characters as OOC as you want. it is fine to make them better/nicer than they were in the canon. sometimes we all want that, right? it’s fanfic! have a ball. i will never tell anyone to stop writing what they like, and i will NEVER interact negatively with a fic i don’t care for. EVER. do not do this, people - click the back button and move on with your life. but i reserve the right to be annoyed, in my own space, about a persistent trend of will and arthur’s canon functions being flat-out reversed, in service of merlin/arthur. not in the sense that canon!will is particularly gentle or sweet, because that’s not the case - but in the sense that will, in canon, is the one who actually cares about merlin’s best interests, whereas arthur is, quite frankly, the ass. a lovable ass (sometimes). but an ass nonetheless, and one whose relationship with merlin is, from start to finish, an unhealthy, oppressive mess.

The Point

the point of me typing this up is not to say that what people choose to write is bad or wrong. this is fanfic! you can write whatever you want. you can make characters as OOC as you want. you can create as many AUs as you want. i don’t mind fic authors writing stuff i don’t personally care for; someone else probably loves those stories! and i am never going to interact negatively with anything i don’t personally enjoy - i am going to let people continue to have fun in their own ways, and i am going to grumble about my frustrations in my own space, and then i’m going to direct my energy into writing stuff i would personally like to read.

the point is just that i needed a brief second to complain, on my own blog, about my most familiar bbc merlin nemesis (otherwise known as ‘single-ship ubiquity’). and what i mean by this is that it is REALLY FRUSTRATING that other little relationships are not even granted the tiniest concession of owning their own ship tags, in a fandom that is already so SATURATED with merlin/arthur content. like - even if i’m generous and use the number 17 for the number of actual merlin/will fics in the tag, that still means 88% of will’s ship tag is actually fic about merlin falling in love with people who aren’t will (*cougharthur*). eighty-eight percent! of his own ship tag!

(to put it another way - the ship tag isn’t supposed to be where you go to watch your character get repeatedly dumped or left behind for someone else, okay? it’s supposed to be literally the opposite of that.)

will’s ship tag is already tiny. and almost all of it belongs to arthur. moreover, a significant chunk of it uses will as a convenient villain (completely contradicting every canon aspect of his characterization), when in the actual story will dies to protect arthur (who he doesn’t even like) and then lies to save merlin (at the expense of his own reputation, and despite the fact that he personally thinks merlin returning to camelot is a bad idea). his behavior in canon is selfless, and wholly committed to merlin’s welfare, and yet in his ship tag he gets treated like trash.

the kid can’t catch a break. and it’s such a pervasive thing that even though i personally am primarily interested in merlin and will as friends (i am pretty romance-averse in general when it comes to media, and i have never written anything that isn’t gen, for any fandom, ever, in my life), i am also so indignant on will’s behalf that i’ve basically become invested in the well-being of this ship as a matter of principle. it’s not my main thing, and it’s not necessarily how i view the canon-verse, but i am SO IRRITATED about how virtually all of will’s shipfic has been taken over by merthur (and about how maligned will is in his own tag) that i have actively committed myself to supporting merlin and will together in as many AUs as possible.

(this is basically like when i trained myself to love allison argent after teen wolf killed her off. i did that out of spite, y’all. it’s the principle of the thing.)

so, y’know. all i am saying is that i think will deserves his share of happy endings, and i think it would be nice to see fics where he is not just a stepping stone on the road to merthur or an unrecognizable parody of himself.

more importantly - EVERY merlin ship deserves to have a tag that isn’t completely swallowed by the local fandom behemoth. merlin/arthur already owns three quarters of the archive. a gargantuan oil tanker like that can afford to let the little rarepair canoes float down their own streams in peace.

#tl;dr version:#GIVE MERLIN AND WILL THEIR OWN FICS 2K20 #I WILL NOT REST UNTIL THIS INJUSTICE HAS BEEN ADDRESSED #(y'all think i am kidding but i have already walked the walk ok)#(i am currently the internet title-holder for 'most words dedicated to this relationship')#(it might be the platonic version but if you don't think i will stretch myself and try something new)#(then you underestimate just how aggravated i am)#(and just how much i want this kid to get everything he deserves)#the once and future slowburn #no kings no masters #fandom

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some-cookie-crumbz · 4 years

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Love your Huwumi fics!!! Can we get some Meet Cute 24 for them? Thnx

Well here’s another idea that’ll most likely escalate into something bigger lmao! Please enjoy this little bit of cute, flirty fun!

If not for Akiko’s insistence and offer of a discount, she wouldn’t have done it. Or so she told herself.

As far as Fuyumi was concerned, she still didn’t understand why she was expected to attend big, ritzy events to help promote her father’s business. After all, it wasn’t like she worked for or with him. She was a grown adult with her own career and her own life to live! She wasn’t obligated to do anything just because her father said so!

But even still… She liked to maintain friendly relations in her tense family. So when her father had offered to reimburse her the cost of some ballroom dance classes so that he could take her to an upcoming gala in two months time? She was… unenthused, but had agreed nonetheless. When she’d mentioned it to her dear friend, Akiko, she had jumped on it like a starved alley cat on a chicken nugget.

"You should take the class I teach!" she insisted before taking a small sip of her coffee. She made a face. "Ugh! They put way too much caramel syrup in this."

"I thought you taught salsa, flamenco, and ballet fundamentals?" Fuyumi asked. Akiko and her mother, Umeko, ran a dance studio together. Fuyumi had attended some of the ballet classes there back in high school but, once she entered college, hadn’t had the time to keep up.

She nodded, stirring her drink with her straw. "I do. But I'm also teaching pole and ballroom right now," she said. After deciding her drink was mixed up enough, she took another sip. She still made a face, but this time it was a bit more restrained. "Anyway, we're starting up a new six-week session this Friday. The class runs from 6:30 to 7:30, and I know you can make time that night."

Fuyumi let out a small whine and took a sip of her own drink, becoming immediately overwhelmed by the thick vanilla flavor. She swallowed hard and made a face. "You weren't kidding about them going hard on the syrup," she mumbled.

"Right?" Akiko laughed. "But back to the point at hand! The ballroom session we run doesn’t just teach the waltz; we also do the basics and intermediate steps of the cha cha and the tango! That’ll most def impress all those stuffy old douchebags you’ll be spending the night putting up with!”

Fuyumi whined a bit louder as she tried mixing her own drink up to try and distribute the syrup a bit more, maybe water it down a little. “I don’t know,” she trailed uneasily. Sure, it would be nice to be able to go to the gala and put her best foot forward, but more from the sense of just looking good for herself rather than out of spite. She loved Akiko but the other young woman was motivated by only a few things and vengeance was one of the biggest.

“Please sign up? For me? If you do, I'll have an even number of students to pair up! And I’ll even give you a discounted rate on the classes so you aren’t hurting as bad for cash while you wait on your dad to pay you back!" the other pleaded, fluttering her big brown eyes.

She snorted a bit at it before rolling her eyes. ”Okay, okay, you win. I’ll sign up,” she said, giggling when her friend openly whooped in delight. She took a sip of her drink again and found it… slightly more palatable. She then indicated the other woman with her cup. “But just know I’m only doing this for the discount! And you better draft up the receipts as if you charged the full amount!”

“Of course! Only if you agree to not tell mom that I gave you a discounted rate,” she said, tilting her head and waggling her eyebrows at the other suggestively. They stared at one another before devolving into giggles.

And before Fuyumi knew it, Friday night was upon her.

She swallowed as she walked into the packed room at the studio, the crowd thick enough that it was hard to catch glimpses of herself in the full length mirror against the opposing wall. She considered going over to talk to Akiko, but could see her preoccupied with introductions from some students. Instead, she headed over to the far wall where people were setting their bags down, the odd sensation of eyes on her making her move a bit quicker. She set her bag down and quickly tossed her hair up in a messy but tight bun before tugging self-consciously as the tank top she was wearing as her eyes scanned the room. Oh, gosh, should she have bought some proper dancer’s clothes? She had thought about it going out after work on Thursday, but there had been a last-minute staff meeting that zapped up what little free time she had before she needed to be home to have dinner ready on time. She had figured that the old tank top and capri sweats she’d grabbed would suffice for one class but maybe that was presumptuous of her.

She was snapped from her musing by a loud clap. She jumped and glanced over at where Akiko stood in front of the group with one of the male instructors by her side. “Okay, everybody, we’re gonna get you guys partnered up! Everybody stand with your back to the mirror and in height order, please,” she directed before turning to say something to her associate.

It was as she moved to join the others in the class that the sensation of being watched returned. From the corner of her eye she caught a flicker of movement and turned to face her watcher. She froze as she locked with sharp eyes of liquid gold settled in a tastefully scruffy face. He was physically fit, wearing a breezy tank top that showed off the defined muscles along his arms and dipped a bit low around the neckline to hint that there was more where that came from. His hair was a gleaming blonde messily pushed out of his face with a black headband. And then there was her deepest, darkest weakness; a light bit of facial hair along his chin and jaw. He was an attractive guy, to put it mildly, and must have confidence, given how he didn’t flinch away when her eyes sought him out. Instead, he slowly leaned back against the balance beam poised just in front of the mirror, tilting his head and flashing her a smirk, looking more like a model on set than some rando in a dance class.

She answered with a small smile of her own when he followed it up with a wink and wandered off to find her place in the line up.

Akiko did a quick scan of those present before she started matching up pairs. She took Fuyumi's wrist and led her right over to Mr. Golden. "Todoroki, Takami, you two will work together," she said, tilting her head out of the young man's view to wink at Fuyumi's pinkening face.

Takami was quick to take her hand with a small hum. "Todoroki-Chan, is it? A pleasure to meet you," he hummed, lifting her hand up to press a quick kiss to the top of her hand.

Fuyumi wished she could slap her cheeks in that moment but instead she politely cleared her throat. “Charmed,” she said gently, forcing herself to regain her composure.

“Oh, I am,” he practically purred.

She flashed a quick glance at her friend, greeted by the other’s dark brown eyes gleaming in amusement. “Okay, Takami. You can flirt with Todoroki on your own time, not my dime. Let’s get everybody on the floor and start with the basic moves, shall we?”

Fuyumi squared her shoulders, heart hammering as Takami led her to join the other pairs in the the lines, Akiko and her partner already having scrambled to the front and starting to give the overview of what the goal was for that days class. Fuyumi was rather relieved that there was a moderate breath of space between their bodies for the waltz steps, as it gave her some level of physical separation from her partner while still being close enough to exchange sly glances. Additionally, it seemed like Takami had a little bit of experience with some kind of dance before, given how easily he took the lead. Fuyumi herself had participated in other dance courses and, while the waltz lessons were new, also had a basic understanding of what to expect. She briefly wondered if Akiko also had some information regarding the prior dance history of her students to assist with picking partners, but couldn't say for certain.

She could, however, say for certain that her partner was charming and that she kind of liked the flirty looks they were exchanging.

“So,” he breathed quietly, at a point where Akiko stopped to help a different pair at the front correct their steps, “what has forced a fetching young lady such as yourself to a class like this?”

She felt a small smile turn up on her lips, a brief flash of courage sparking in her. “Hmm. That’s a rather strange way to put it. Do you think I have a reason other than humble interest behind being here?”

He cocked his head back a bit. “Call it a hunch, but… I get the feeling there’s more to this than a ‘humble interest.’”

“Is that so?” she hummed as they were instructed to return to their starting position to go over the steps again as a whole.

“I’d love to hear more about your reasoning. Maybe over coffee? Or dinner some time? My treat, for getting your phone number and to pick your brain a little,” he said.

She let out a thoughtful hum, sliding her hand slowly up to just a bit beneath his shoulder. Internally, she delighted in being able to touch the muscle she’d been quietly ogling not too long ago. She noticed the light way he shuddered at her touch and a part of her was thrilled by the subtle reaction. “I’ll tell you what,” she drawled. She didn’t miss the way his palm on her upper back flattened a bit more, shifting her just a hair closer and pressing a bit more of his warmth into her, as she spoke. She met his eye fully as she spoke. “If you can encounter me outside of the classroom, on the streets during the day… I’ll give you my number and we can have a little meetup.”

His eyes widened a hair before his grin shifted to more of a smirk. “Oh, so you’d like to play a little bit of cat and mouse? I like that,”

“I had a hunch you might,” she purred back, delighting in the playful back and forth between them. She normally wasn’t this forward or responsive to someone flirting with her. But when it got a guy like this to look at her like that, who was she to complain?

“Well, before we start the game proper, can I at least get the privilege of your full name? To let me know who to be listening out for?”

“Todoroki Fuyumi,” she said. “And what about you? I think I have the right to your name as well.”

He smirked and leaned a bit closer, “Takami Keigo,” he answered, voice barely above a whisper, right as the music clicked back on and they resumed their practice. Fuyumi had to suppress a shudder of delight as they moved, step by step, along the dance floor.

She would need to thank Akiko and Father for their instances after all.

#crumbles grumbles #Huwumi #my fics #I... Really enjoyed this!#I feel like we need more casually flirty Fuyumi in this fandom!#And I am Ready to Provide it!

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theres-a-goldensky · 4 years

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BL Show Review Series - Until We Meet Again

The next show I am going to review is (spoilers) my favorite BL to date. It’s called Until We Meet Again, and it is fantastic.

Disclaimer that these are my own opinions, and I don’t know where the BL community as a whole stands on these shows. If I disliked a show you loved or visa versa, no disrespect is intended!

MASTERLIST OF BL SHOW REVIEWS

Mild Spoiler Warning and TW: brief mentions of suicide and homophobia

Until We Meet Again Rating: 9 / 10

I’ve put off writing about this show, because I’m finding it hard to articulate all of the reasons why the whole thing works so well. First of all, it needs to be said that whoever did the casting should get whatever the Thai version of an Emmy is, because every person involved in this show is so, so good. The standout, however, is Fluke as the main character, Pharm.

Fluke is, in my humble opinion, unequivocally the best actor in the Thai BL world. So much of the emotional work is done by him, in a show that is very, very emotional, and he carries the weight of the narrative really well. This man can cry on cue, and I swear he can make himself blush on cue too. You believe every second of his performance, and he makes Pharm very likable, relatable, and sympathetic without tipping over into helpless damsel territory.

Part of what makes the character so good is the quiet but firm way that he sticks up for himself. When Alex, the popular drama club president, starts to flirt with him, instead of running to Dean or meekly tolerating it, Pharm smiles politely and rejects him in a way that leaves no room for confusion. And when Dean does something that Pharm is uncomfortable with, Pharm forgives him with the gentle caveat that he never do it again. It’s said kindly, but you understand that Pharm means it, and Dean understands that too.

Anyway, that’s a hundred words just about how much I love Pharm, and we haven’t even talked about the main relationship. See, this is why I haven’t written about this show yet.

A quick overview of the show is that back in the late 80s, two university-aged men named Korn and In fell in love. However, their fathers disapproved, and Korn’s father was a mob boss who had tight control over his son. In despair, Korn kills himself and In, sick with grief, follows.

(left: Korn, right: In)

Then, cut to modern times, we meet Pharm and Dean, who we quickly understand are the reincarnations of In and Korn, respectively. It’s Pharm’s first day at university, and while he’s there doing all the introduction stuff, he meets his future best friends, Team and Manaow, and locks eyes with Dean.

Dean and Pharm both feel this connection, and their relationship is the sweetest, softest, kindest thing you will ever encounter in one of these series. Dean is a taciturn third year who is the president of the swimming club. He has plenty of female admirers, but he’s been looking for someone all his life. When he finds Pharm, he knows that his search is over. He is so gentle with Pharm, who is dealing with PTSD from In’s memories. At the same time, Dean doesn’t play any games. He makes it clear that he likes Pharm and wants Pharm to like him back. He never tries to hide his feelings with Pharm or anyone else.

(left: Dean, right: Pharm)

Ohm, who plays Dean, has less to do than Fluke, because Dean is not the primary POV character of the show, and he’s much quieter overall. But what he does well is watching Pharm and touching him like he is the most important thing in the world. He’s open with his affection and never gets hostile or aggressive the way characters often do in these stories. He’s a big guy, but he’s very kind.

Korn and In’s story is told through flashbacks that are mainly meant to mirror Dean and Pharm in the present. It’s hard to watch their happiness when we know how it’s going to end up. Earth plays In, who patiently and insistently chases after Korn. His smile is like sunlight. Seriously, he is a gift, which makes it all the harder to watch him go through so much pain. Korn is much more stoic. I think of all of the characters, he’s the one I had the hardest time connecting with. He keeps a very stern face most of the time, but by the end, it still hurts seeing him suffer.

One of the key things that makes this drama different than other BLs is that it has a genuinely compelling plot. We get to watch as Dean and Pharm navigate their new relationship while trying to piece together what is happening inside their heads. They also need to figure out how much of what they feel for each other is them and how much of it is because of Korn and In’s memories. The story went places I truly wasn’t expecting at times and kept me interested the whole way through.

The supporting characters on this show are also great. The secondary couple is Pharm’s friend Team and Dean’s friend Win. Win is the vice president of the swimming club, and Team is a junior member of the club. They immediately have that playful, fighting vibe between them that is really fun to watch.

(left: Team, right: Win)

Win’s character has lots of tattoos and piercings. He looks like a bad boy, but just like Dean, he’s actually very nice. He’s more mischievous and outgoing than Dean though. This makes him a better match for Team, who isn’t afraid to match Win’s attitude and return his teasing back at him.

Oftentimes, the secondary pairings bore me a bit, but I loved, loved, LOVED Win and Team. They are getting their own series next year, and I cannot wait for it.

Something else I want to point out about this story is that there are no Evil Female Characters. No clingy ex-girlfriends or scheming, jealous love rivals anywhere to be seen. But there ARE female characters, and they’re all great. Manaow, Pharm’s other best friend, is the main one. She’s played by Thai BL mainstay Sammy. Manaow is loud and friendly and supportive. She also gets her own boyfriend, though I wish we saw more of that relationship (give it to us in the sequel, pleassssse). Dean’s sister Del quickly joins their group of friends as well. Then there’s the less prominent members of Pharm’s cooking club. Female family members who also play big roles in the narrative.

The show isn’t without its faults. The one BLARING example that comes to mind is product placement. Until We Meet Again has the most blatant and annoying product placement I have ever seen. It almost feels like the show is stopping and having the characters give full commercials mid-episode. I refuse to mention the names of the products, but they are highlighted in a ham-handed way that is even more crass when you contrast it with the quality of the rest of the show. The worst one, by far, is at least relegated to a sort of mini-story after the episode. It involves one character encouraging another to go to the sponsored clinic and get cosmetic work done. The whole thing is not just gross but also out of character for both of them. I’ve pretty much erased it from my mind. Capitalism can burn.

The other thing is that occasionally the pacing drags a bit. I enjoyed it, but the director lingers 5-10 seconds too long on some shots, especially those involving eye contact. This is normal for BLs, but not to this extent. There’s an almost-kiss scene that drags on for nearly a FULL MINUTE in an early episode. At this point, I’ve rewatched the show so many times that I know when to hit the skip 10 secs button to move things along at a faster clip. But the first time I watched, I was like, “OK, I get it. They’re looking at each other and remembering events from their past lives. You have thoroughly conveyed this.”

But those are comparatively minor gripes and didn’t detract too much from my enjoyment. Watch this show. Have tissues ready.

And if you’re interested in fanfic, I put together rec lists for multiple BL shows including this one that can be found here and here.

MASTERLIST OF BL SHOW REVIEWS

(Send me an ask if you have a show you’d like me to review - with the understanding that I will be completely honest - or if there’s anything you think I forgot or got wrong in this review.)

#until we meet again #uwma #bl review series #ohmfluke #deanpharm #dean x pharm #bounprem #winteam #win x team #kornin #korn x in #cooheart #kao x earth #thai bl #bl recs

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baconpal · 4 years

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With ARMS being free for the next couple days still I thought I'd talk about it here cus I think it's a pretty neat game. I've included a messy painting for your scrolling pleasure, but from here on out it's all words so strap in for some game design talk.

So ARMS is a fucking video game, it's hard to call it a fighting game just cus it's hard to call anything a fighting game anymore, but it's definitely about fighting and it's definitely a video game so take that as you will. People have a lot of trouble getting to grips with the game, especially the controls, but a lot of that is caused by how much more you can do than you'd initially think, and I really do suggest you try the free trial and mess around with whatever control scheme feels right to you. It was a pretty dark time the first couple months when it wasn't easy to change controls and that definitely hurt arms as a whole i feel which sucks.

It's not the most hardcore complicated video game ever but it makes very good use of the aspects of the game that are simple and loose in order to make a very free-form fighting game, and overall it does a lot of stuff that I personally consider very good design as someone with a big love of multipurpose mechanics and unique mechanics that aren't just gimmicks.

UNIVERSAL ARMS ARE COOL The one part of the game that is universal to all characters is that you got two arms that you throw around and control as they move. How those arms move and how you move around the stage are entirely dependent on the fists and character you pick, leading to very expressive playstyles in spite of every character having the same goal of hitting the other guy with some long-ass slappers.

The different types of arms all fill different purposes based on their shape and trajectory. Some arms are meant for straight forward boxing and clashing fists together, some are slow, heavy arms meant for countering weak punches or putting up defensive walls, some arms curve around the arena to avoid colliding with other arms at all, some have multiple fists to specific defensive options like dodging to the sides, jumping, or sitting in shield, and there's a variety of unique arms for all kinds of weird playstyles, including projectile arms (even though your arms are alright projectiles, they're even more projectile-y) as well as the variety of elemental arms; Elements allow for strengthening your playstyle by increasing factors like arm size, hitstun, arm disabling, movement disabling, knockdowns, knockback, vision impairment and other forms of disruption.

Overall, each arm carries its own benefits and risks, and switching arm layouts between rounds or matches is very similar to counter picking in a standard fighting game, meaning choosing arms is like choosing a character in and of itself. As a result, the game feels a lot more balanced than a lot of fighting games I've gotten into before, as any character has access to any arm, so no character has directly more damage than other characters, and powerful arms can be adjusted for all characters at once. Picking arms is just one half of ARMS' character building, the actual fighter you use also greatly changes the options you have in game, and for the most part follow a type of design philosophy that divides every action into parts, and puts lots of focus into making sure every little part of a games systems are put to use.

THE FIGHTERS AND DIVIDED MECHANIC DESIGN While the arms you chose determine the way your punches will travel and behave, everything relating to movement is determined by your character, and while most characters have the same general movement, every character has something different to offer and augments a very small part of that overall movement to change what kinds of actions each character prefers. To explain that I'll need to give a brief overview of all the movement options in the game, and split them up into parts to make discussing them easier.

Punching As explained earlier, most of this depends on the arm, but having an arm out causes your movement to be reduced, even more so with two arms. You regain all movement as your arm retracts back.

Grabbing By punching with both arms at once, a green band will connect them, and if that band touches the enemy, you will chuck em across the stage and do a good amount of damage. If the enemy punches the green band it splits and the grab is cancelled, but grabs will land even on blocking opponents, so it forms a standard power triangle of punch > grab > guard > punch, etc.

Dashing Pressing the dash button and a direction will let you do a short dash that's faster than walking around, and holding it allows you to do a longer dash that causes your arms to hang to the side and having more overall lag time. Completing a dash without getting hit or having your hands hit will give your arms charge for a short amount of time, increasing their damage or letting them use their elemental properties. If none of your arms are out, continuing to hold dash will cause a character to stand in place and charge up their arms, greatly extending the length of a charge without changing the effects.

Dashing causes punches to curve much stronger in the direction you're moving, and when an arm is out, you can only do the short dash, and when in the air with both arms in, you can do the long dash in the air, but a bit slower.

Jumping Pretty standard jumping, you commit to a jump arch for the most part, but can slow your decent by punching or change your direction with a dash. Landing from a jump is just like finishing a long dash, you gain some charge and can hold the button to charge longer. Jumps have a very notable amount of end lag where you are just fuckin standing there, with only your hands to defend yourself, so while gaining a height advantage is very useful, jumping is overall a risky maneuver.

Jumps can be short or high depending on the length pressed, though jumping with an arm out makes all jumps short. You can also jump out of a dash to jump further.

Guarding When you guard, you block all punches, even weird ones from the side and shit, but can't move. You can hold guard for as long as you want, and your arms will charge after guarding for a second, and you can cancel blocking into literally anything, as well as dash forwards/backwards out of blockstun. While blocking is useful, grabs go through it, and all damage that hits your guard will build up and damage your arms, which can disable them or break through your guard, you also cannot guard if you have a punch out or have a disabled arm.

Also just a side thing that I can't think where else to mention, while I really like how this game is fairly simple, for some reason there's just not a good place to put block on any control scheme. The default for motion control is very slow and not very accurate, and on controller the default is pushing in the stick, which is super awkward. You can remap the controls to anything that's comfortable, and my control scheme is nothing like the default, but the guard button is still never in quite a convenient enough spot, so sometimes it becomes hard to implement. Pretty much my biggest gripe with the game but it's hard to complain about it cus I can't come up with a better solution myself.

Rush A universal counter/super that all characters share. When you have full meter, pressing rush will deflect any fists about to hit you, and cause your punches to be very very fast for the next 3 seconds. Exactly how each arm behaves during rush is arm specific, but the general use of rush is for very big punishes, generally doing around the damage of 2 or 3 clean hits. It's still very possible to block or dodge a rush or to beat it out by sneaking a hit in or using your own rush.

With the basics explained, here's a general overview of how each character splits the movement into fine pieces and makes use of them.

SPRING MAN The funny spring guy is the first character on the list, and as such sets the standard for everyone else. Even with that in mind he's got a pretty defined style. Similar to ryu from streets, spring man lends himself to a grounded defensive style of fighting. Since all his movement is average and jumping is dangerous, he generally wants to stay on the ground and find chances to punish others.

He has two main differences from other characters, the first is pretty beginner friendly and easy to explain: when below 25% health, spring mans punches are always charged. This comeback mechanic is very helpful to beginners but can come with some disadvantages when using different arms, as many arms are slower or less safe to use when charged. His other mechanic is much more advanced than you'd expect of a main character, and that's his deflect. Whenever spring man is charging his punches (holding a jump or dash) and releases the charge before finishing, he will deflect any punches about to hit him just like a rush. Since new players are hardly ever gonna charge their punches, but may panic and dodge out of a charge before getting hit, it has its place for beginners but allows confident players to charge punches whenever they want and to find better punishes by deflecting the opponents attacks.

I really enjoy taking something as insignificant as releasing charge and making it into a conscious action. These are the types of design choices this game is full of that make me happy.

RIBBON GIRL Funny little air woman likes jumping around, and has 4 jumps of decreasing height, allowing her to stay in the air for a very very long time. Having more jumps also allows her to stay in the air long enough to air dash more than once, giving even more air control. As a kind of mixup/quality of life choice, holding an air dash will make her quickly drop to the ground, making her landings unpredictable, which helps when your main strength is constantly jumping, playing the exact opposite type of game as spring man.

NINJARA Funny ninja guy's air dash is a teleport, making his air movement a bit harder to read. His main mechanic is that he has no form of blockstun; when a fist hits his shield, he will teleport in the direction the player is holding and instantly be able to act, giving him the opportunity to punish attacks on block more easily than other characters. I don't play him enough to act like I know what this means for him, and the community memes him up to do nothing but air dash into grab but I'd assume he's a mobile bait and punish type.

MASTER MUMMY The big funny mummy is this games grappler sort of. He has higher throw damage than every other character, and his wide shoulders means his grabs innately have a wider hitbox, which makes catching rolls and dashes easier, but also makes a big target for punching. His jumps are narrow and his dashes are slow, but he has super armor when jumping, dashing, charging, or punching. I haven't brought up health since every character has the same health, but super armor also cuts damage taken in half to avoid the horrible pain of super armoring through a hit with multiple hits and ending up taking way more damage. This makes master mummy one of the beefiest guys in the game, and combine that with his other ability to gain health while guarding, master mummy generally wants to play a really dangerous punish game where he sits in shield to make you hit him, and punishes you by punching through your grabs or armoring through your punches. He also can corner people more easily since his arms are far to the sides, allowing him to hit people trying to run away from him more easily.

MIN MIN Funny noodle lady deflects attacks with her air dash much like spring man's charge release, her grounded back dash also does this, letting her stay pretty safe while retreating specifically. Her main mechanic is that completing a charge or landing a grab will cause her left arm to remain charged until she is knocked down. The possibilities are pretty wide with what an always charged arm can give you, and mainly depends on what arms you use, but overall it gives min min a strong advantage state while keeping a generally safe disadvantage. She's also pretty cute and I wish she'd kick my head off maybe.

MECHANICA Funny girl in a funnier robot will keep any momentum she has while charging, allowing her to slide across the stage with charged arms, or to hover in the air with charged arms. She also has super armor during these charging slides, giving her very hard to punish air and ground movement, but her large size and laggy movements do leave some openings.

TWINTELLE Funny model girl with twintail fists and a scientifically perfect ass (i don't make the rules her model literally has 2 spheres for a butt idk how much simpler you can get) slows down nearby arms while she holds dash, and also causes herself to float in place if she holds an airdash. This makes her charging safer overall, and generally lets her react to things easier and lets her punish easier, or hold the enemies arms hostage while she throws a punch around them. Also a character I don't play much but she seems to mostly be about limiting the opponent and slapping em. Also horny.

BYTE & BARQ Funny robocop and funny robodog fight together using the dogs predictable AI. It doesn't seem very predictable to the other player but its generally pretty simple. The dog punches a second after you do, the dog will roll under you if you hold jump, and he'll generally try to stay diagonally in front of you. When Byte jumps on the dog it will deflect punches like spring man, and he can high jump by holding jump when bouncing, which also immediately charges his arms. With this, the duo can stay airborne and rain down charged attacks at the cost of low mobility. Also, if the dog gets hit byte is by himself for a while and has absolutely no special traits to speak of by himself, this leads to a character with very strong advantage and abysmal disadvantage.

KID COBRA Funny snake has really wide jumps and very slow dashes, but when his fists are charged he instead has even wider jumps and very fast dashes that slide him around, allowing him to dodge punches very easily. In general his gameplan seems to be getting off a jump to get some charge then darting around like a crackhead. He also has much bigger arms than his skinny body would suggest, and a lot of people hated that about him when the game first came out but I don't hear much about it now so idk if it really makes that much of a difference for good players. Anyway another character with drastically unique movement with strong advantage and bad disadvantage.

HELIX Funny goo guy makes squash and stretch into gameplay mechanics. When he jumps, he actually stretches his body up and doesn't leave the ground until you release jump, and will stand in place, but has complete control of his torso, allowing him to juke punches while throwing down charged punches from up high. His lack of ground movement means you can surround him easily in this state, so he can't hold it forever. When helix lands from a jump or performs a dash he'll squash into a little puddle which ducks under punches, though any punches the opponent throws while helix is already in the puddle will aim down at him, meaning he needs to use it sparringly, but he can move all around the floor with charged punches in this form. Essentially he moves super slowly and is easy to corner, but his movement is erratic and slippery and he has lots of ways to get OUT of the corner once you put him in it, and if he has any distance on you he'll give you hell.

LOLA POP Funny clown and part time Dobson fan inflates while guarding and can walk forwards or backwards very fast while blocking, giving them a safe approach or retreat option. Much like ribbon girl, she can hold her air dash to quickly drop to the ground, except she inflates while falling, giving her a quick shield and making her bounce into the air again, letting her bounce over and over to regain charge on her punches. She's very elusive and hard to pin down, but she's a lot bigger and easier to punch then you'd think because of how much she spreads herself out in her animations.

MISANGO Funny tribal man has the tiki mask from crash bandicoot follow him around and change colors every few seconds. Guarding causes the mask to form a pillar in front of Misango that can get in the way of punches and grabs but also blocks the whole fucking screen get out of the way fuck. Completing a charge will put on the mask giving him some benefits until he gets knocked down. Red mask gives him super armor, blue gives him better jumps and dashes, and yellow builds more rush meter and also gives his rush even more deflecting ability. Not a guy I use much or understand the appeal of beyond being versatile I guess but there are some good as misango players so shows what I know.

BOSS CHARACTERS The next 3 characters are characters who were first in the game as bosses, but became playable characters, and is another thing I absolutely love about this game. Its the first game in a long time that makes the bosses be bosses through their character and not through being objectively broken assholes who roadblock you from playing the game. Their personalities and playstyle exude the powerful presence they have and helps round out the really good cast.

SPRINGTRON A funny robot copy of springman who has mostly the same size, slightly slower speed, and the same deflect on charge ability, but no comeback mechanic. What makes this character unique from the springer is that following through and completing his charge will instead put out a gigantic deflect that disables any punches it deflects, and will charge his arms for 9 seconds, the longest charge length of any character. The big deflect can be countered by just waiting for it to come out and attacking springtron while he finishes the move, but it makes him a very scary version of springtron who can punish you much harder at the cost of some versatility.

DR COYLE The funny mastermind scientist villain makes herself seem bosslike by having a drastically different control scheme from the rest. She floats around, so floating is considered her grounded state, meaning she always has access to short and long dashes, but can't charge by jumping. Holding jump causes her to elivate, forcing the opponent to punch up at Coyle and giving her constant heigh advantage while still being able to shoot around with dashes. Her charge is much like mechanicas but without super armor, and helps to keep her moving around. In addition, when coyle fully chages, one of her arms will duplicate, allowing her to throw out the same punch twice, giving powerful pressure to her neutral. The opponent can see which arm is duplicated before she has time to throw the punch, and her charge time is super short so its really easy to know what she's gonna do, but it still creates a threat simply by existing. Overall a very cool villain.

MAX BRASS Funny fucking CHAD. The guy from the painting at the start and my mans of choice, so I think quite highly of him obviously. The primary antagonist of the game and champion of the sport, Brass is genuinely just a tough guy who wants to have fun, completely betraying the imposing image he gives off and the general idea of "final boss = bad guy". He is a slower, wider character than most, and shares the deflect mechanic with spring man when releasing a charge, but when he fully charges, he will expand all of his muscles to become even wider, move faster, and have super armor and charged punches for 5 seconds. Like spring man, at the last 25% health, Brass will always be charged, which include being buffed up, which has its pluses and minuses.

This creates a character with the defensive strength of spring man, and the cornering ability of master mummy, giving him an overpowering image of beating down the opposition with his strong advantage state, combined with the an imposing "final form" when he's down to the wire. Like most of the cast, he has a tough time in disadvantage as a result, and his wide shoulders cause him problems with characters who can get close to him quickly or who move around too much.

While separate from his actual character, the stage you fight him on takes place at sunset, and the sun shines against his back, giving him a really strong silloute which is even more imposing when he buffs up or is own low health. Really has been a while since i've been so impressed by the presentation of a boss fight, especially for a boss who is actually really fair.

HEDLOK So this isn't an actual character, but is still part of the boss list and is yet another thing I think is super cool and well designed in this game. Hedlok is a robotic head with exaggerated facial muscles that latches onto peoples head and makes copies of their arms. This is used in the grand prix mode to make a rematch with Max Brass where brass has 6 arms instead of 2, and that giant head matches very well with Brass's giant body. He also appears to make Dr Coyle's fight more imposing as she flies around with those 6 arms. While thats all he does in the "story" mode, Hedlok can function on the head of any member of the cast with any combination of arms, and 2 of the game modes online incorporate this by having players team up against a CPU with hedlok, or letting players fight over hedlok to beat each other to death with him. I am really impressed with the design functioning to perfectly that any character can be augmented by the simple addition of 4 more arms without sacrificing any gameplay elements. It's really great how none of the game is wasted, as even the closest thing to a super boss is still considered from a player's point of view.

While just having more arms sounds objectively better, and for the most part it is, the game is still always fair, and as such these advantages still come with downsides for the hedlok wearer, the biggest being that you don't punch the 6 arms separately, they punch in sets of 3 of the same arm one after the other when a punch comes out, and all arms curve the same way. This makes the pressure strong but predictable, and also increases the time the arms stay out after initially punching, leaving a large weak point at hedlok's flank. Hedlok does have a much more powerful rush that can hit for nearly double a normal players rush, but this is to encourage players to block and dodge to the sides around hedlok, as a stationary target is all hedlok can really chew up.

STAGES Much like the characters, the stages are all wildly unique despite not being very difficult to describe, the feature a variety of heights and sizes, as well as various obstacles like pillars and trampolines, and no stage is just a boring simple arena (except sparring ring, whose gimmick is being a literal boxing ring). Stages like Spring arena, Spring stadium, Mausoleum, Sky arena, Ramen Bowl, and Sparring ring all provide different experiences through their minor changes in shape and height. Stages like Ninja college, Buster beach, Via dolce, and [NAME REDACTED] provide long, thin arenas which put more emphasis on height and straight forward defenses. Then there are stages like DNA lab, Scrapyard, Ribbon ring, Cinema duex, and Temple grounds, whose obstacles and weird shapes provide wild and dynamic matches that change with time.

The music for the stages also slaps, there's only really a few melodies that the game uses, but the stages all have such different instrumentation and theming, as well as incorporating original segments that keeps the soundtrack unified without being literally 1 song.

CLOSING THOUGHTS AND DESIGN TIDBITS Reading back most of this I guess I didn't make it very clear what I was talking about with all the divided design stuff but basically I just like how much emphasis is put on every little piece of the games design to pull the most out of it. It's amazing to have a game with such unique characters when all the attacks are universally shared. Some other small things from this game that are good touches for me are.... -Online lobbies are super easy to use, unlike a lot of first party nintendo online shit, and allow changing characters and arms without holding up any action or needing to leave and come back. -Online lobbies also have these cute little bubbles that show you what modes other people are playing and how their doing that update in real time, so while you aren't spectating directly, you do get to enjoy some amount of involvement in others matches while waiting for your own. -The other game modes in the game make great use of the same universal mechanics to offer wildly different experiences with the hoops mode, volley ball, and target breaking contests. -The tutorials are what a lot of people need in a fighting game that they don't think they need, and that's opponents who "spam" and do just one thing while fighting, giving you the chance to learn how to play around those strategies and become better. -You unlock the universal arms for character by playing a fun minigame that rewards your ability to actually play the game. This mode also favors giving arms to the character your playing while also spreading out some of the arms to other characters to encourage you to mess around. It also won't give you an arm if it won't be of any use to you, while lots of other games would love to waste your time with duplicates that mean nothing to you. -You can set controls to anything now, including changing what the motion controls do, and you can have any amount of duplicate inputs to help make your gameplay more comfortable.

Overall, while I talk about how simple the game is, it is still a very tough game due to how much freedom you have in your combat and how deep it can get. I love the game and I still get absolutely shitcanned by the top 3 difficulties, also there's lots of people who are way good at this game, but I'd like to see more from it in general cus it kinda died a sad death due to bad initial impressions, but smash has finally done one good thing and tried to help out a game get another shot, so hopefully things go well for the game.

Thanks again to anyone dumb enough to listen sift through this shit, if you were cool enough to have read it then you can add me on switch and fight me in ARMS or something idk. Here's my code, SW 7001 1122 2464. If you add me without having read this entire post I will know and you will regret it. Regardless, have a wonderful night and stay safe gamers.

#ARMS #my art #long ass post #juvenile rant #Max Brass #never had a post that was both art and rant but lets try it and see how it goes #also holy fuck this is long #good luck if you try to read this shit

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