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#I was a super cringy middle schooler
will80sbyers · 3 months
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the fact that this is an Italian show talking about middle schoolers and it's so open with queer themes since season 1 even if it's not the best series ever because the dialogue and situations are a bit cringy sometimes if this show was watched by kids it would be a positive experience all around and I really appreciate that especially in Italy because we don't have that often regarding queer themes... Italy is one of the most homophobic countries of those that are considered "modern" in Europe (which is BULLSHIT btw it's all fake appearance in reality I think it's a super misogynistic, racist and homophobic country) so this is like a big deal for being a product made in Italian by Italian actors and acted by 14yo because there is still a strong stigma against it and people think the "they are too young to know" bs!!! I am so happy they did it and that Netflix supported it
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moominofthevalley · 2 months
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Thank you for the tags @inlocusmads and @alleykatart !! Here are three random facts (...and some bonus ones too) about me! 
This fact is very embarrassing and bisexual. In my junior year of high school, I had a very huge stupid crush on a girl in my English class. It was so bad. I cringe every time I think about it. Oh my god. I can’t stop cringing. It was so intense my top two songs on Spotify wrapped for that year (2022) were Brand New City AND Once More to See You by Mitski. I would bake for her – with her knowledge of course – at least every other week because I didn’t know how else to express my first-time sapphic yearning LOL. (Also fun fact, I came out as bi in 2018)! She drew me as a ‘thank you’ gift and I still have it hung up on my wall :’) Anyways. You do really cringy stupid shit as a high schooler. Also, I found out she did not like me back after I just spent three hours baking her a heart-shaped cake the week before Valentine’s Day. I was crushed haha. 
I’ve always loved writing and literature. In elementary school, my two best friends and I would spend every single recess and lunch break writing little stories together. One of said friends and I wrote this horrible cliche story about two twin sisters – who were essentially gothic copies of us – called Raven and Evelin Moonblood. GOD. We were super obsessed with Supernatural at the time and it was…so bad lol. I stopped writing after middle school, and I got back into it years later – in my senior year of high school, I took a creative writing course and loved it. I wrote a short story called It’ll Pass that was very obviously inspired by Fleabag and I was so proud of it. (I still am). I also wrote a short 10-minute play called Made with Love about a Filipino woman cooking her late Mom’s sinigang recipe and obviously, it inspired me to write my very first Crimes fic of the same name! 
Horror has always been my favorite genre ever. I love Asian horror films and analog horror, and even as a kid, I was super into cryptids and creepy shit like the Bermuda Triangle. It’ll always be my favorite genre to write, too, and I will GLADLY write like a thousand AUs of Emily and Trystan going through the bleakest horrific shit ever.
And some bonus mini-facts about me because I just will never shut up about myself lol…
4. The dog Emily and Trystan have, Twilight, is named after my real-life dog who looks a lot like her :) Though, mine is a pittie and not a boxer like in-game. I love her so much. She turns six in June, and every year on her birthday I cook her a little meal – usually with pumpkin puree and plain chicken. 
5. My writing routine is very annoying. I must always write at night – at least in the dark – and I have to either listen to jazz compilations on YouTube or listen to nothing at all. I usually write in my bed – which is a shit habit I’m trying to break – and I also have a horrible posture because of it lol. 
Anyways, that’s all the facts I can think of. Below is a list of tags from the top 6??? people that come up – no pressure whatsoever :) 
@jerzwriter @logolepzy @jonathanmoores @peonierose @otakudreamer @juudaimes-true-form @stars-are-within-me
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eonars · 1 year
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my friend just blew my third eye wide open on a 3.5 hr video call and like....its genuinely so naive and almost dumb of me to still do this but i just perpetually feel like my mental image of myself is permastuck as the completely friendless weird offputting ugly sixth grader i DEFINITELY was at some point but not anymore. but its like im still looking at everything from her perspective and assuming people still see me as her and not someone who can be hot and intimidating and cool and sexy. i immediately assume anyone who’s interested is interested in me for me DESPITE my looks because they just really like who i am and not ever just for my looks or god forbid body. but she laid it out to me really clearly that from the outside looking in a lot of the time it isnt this cringy ugly weird beast with some super cool guy who is willing to look past that because the ugly weird beast is funny and witty or whatever but actually a really weird insecure guy who’s parading around a hot black metal chick he found in front of all his friends and when it’s put like that im SHOCKED how much sense it makes like.....in this very specific situation we’re referencing i get taken around and meet all the guys and he makes a big show of cozying up to me on his boys couch and they all knew about me (even just in a vague Girl From Tinder sense) before i showed up but then he invites me back home and just.....doesn’t touch me the rest of the night and asks if i’d prefer to sleep on the couch. makes a really public thing of like oooooooo im rebounding look i got this young stunna 6ft tall tattooed titted up easy california girl are you impressed yet guys. and then drops me like a hot rock in a very embarrassing and apparent way when the opportunity to get back with his ex arises. it’s just a little dark sided when you look at it from that perspective but i think some other more recent experiences have kind of driven home that im out of my own loop and im not actually so ugly that i have to hope people just like my vibrant personality enough and in this particular niche we occupy i can actually be kinda hot and just sort of.....used for it??? i dunno if im even expressing myself clearly and just sound like i think im literally the hottest shit who’s ever thought of cutting a bathory shirt into a crop top out there but like it’s just WEIRD it’s a perspective ive never had on myself before and it kinda scares me that i can be so simple minded and naive at times while also apparently externally looking like this beguiling vixen of the night bc internally im still the specky chubby zitty middle schooler getting shoved into walls and getting my books ripped out of my hands!!!
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5 - do you like to organize? and 13 - talk about an au or story you came up with
Number 5-
Yes but only in video game stuff XD My Minecraft chests? Once I get to the point where I'm not holding everything in like 3 chests, organization is pristine. Whole area just for chest storage. My room? Pfft what is organization :P
Number 13-
I used to have way too many AU's but I forgot about most of them BUT I have one mini-story to share about one of them. So, back when I was way younger, there was this youtuber called Fandroid who I was super into (robot guy who made music and played video games) and I had this whole mental made up AU which involved all sorts of magic and stuff. The plot was stupid and confusing and probably had like 70 different plot holes because middle school me was bad at making stories. The tl;dr was this demon person wanted Fandroid's soul (cuz it was artificial and that made it. more. usable for whatever? which wasn't canon btw I made that up for the au) and tricked him into doing stuff to get it. And then some angel person who was actually the person the demon was a clone of because Yes had to try to make that Not Happen. And all of this was because of some fight to try to keep The Void from like eating the universe??? Cuz like oh three god/desses needed to exist to stop the void but the current three were all originally one god so their ability to stop it was fading. So some people had to be Ascended To Godhood Or Whatever to stop the Void? It was barely even an AU none of it had anything to do with anything other than "oh yeah these TWO characters from this one thing exist in it". I literally made up like 98% of the stuff in it. Plus it was dumb and made no sense lmao. But anyways, that stupid cringy AU I never wrote that I held in my head as a middle schooler? Somehow ended up being the start of my entire made up magic system which I can assure you isn't total garbage. Now my made up stories I keep in my head make Actually Sense. Apparently being cringe as a child is necessary for being a less cringey... Still child but an older child XD
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Glee Middle school! AU
I have gotten sooooo many ideas for this. I need to write it down. Most of this will only be a bunch of drabble that I thought about, and may or may not be included if I make this into a real fic. Ok? Let’s go!
So everyone is in middle school, doing normal middle school things. There’s not a glee club or anything, just the new Directions as quirky tweens. It takes place in the mid 00s, Idk it would just be fun with some 00s cheese with tweens. Though I don’t know if I’ll say a year, it could just be very timeless and just have an 00s vibe
Quinn is still called Lucy, and being bullied. Rachel is her only friend
However, Quinn soon starts to get attention from the popular girls, and if you know middle school, you know that if popular girls notice you, you basically abandon all the not-cool friends
Rachel is an outcast, the biggest reason being that she is a late bloomer
Santana and Brittany were, of course, early bloomers and they like to rub it in everyone’s faces.
Though, when no one sees, Santana and Brittany goes home to play with barbies and pretend to be horses and watch kids films. This is their biggest secret and they try to hide it as much as they can.
Well, aside from their... other secret, that they seriously can’t tell anyone about because that would mean the world would end
Kurt is also very bullied because of his flamboyant ways. He does hang out with the kids in the grade under him though (aka Artie and Tina)
However, since Artie and Tina doesn’t go in his grade, they only see each other at some recesses and lunch. Otherwise Kurt is alone.
But Kurt goes to a boys choir group on the weekends, where he meets Blaine. He really wishes Blaine could go to his school... Blaine is so cool
Also Kurt goes to ballet classes with Mike Chang. However, both of them ignore each other in school since no one can know boys go to ballet.
Finn and Puck are partners in crime. They pull of pranks after pranks and think life is a game
Though, Finn, just like Rachel, is kind of a late bloomer too. He won’t admit it to anyone though
Mercedes is a girl who is just neutral. No one picks on her, but she also isn’t very popular. She jumps a bit between friends, trying to find her group
That leads to Mercedes starting to slowly know everyone’s secrets and she gets really tempted to gossip, even though she knows some things aren’t very nice to gossip about
Generation 2 of ND (Marley, Ryder, Jake, Kitty, Unique) is some kids about to start middle school the year after and some of the older kids hang out with them sometimes and tell them all the drama and stuff that happens
Also it becomes a running theme that all the kids babysit the McCarthy twins from s6. Mason and Madison are like 7 years old and the middle schoolers just end up babysitting them sometimes. And learn a thing or two from it
The adults are here, but they are only here to comment on the kids chaos when needed
I’m thinking there’s gotta be some super awkward sex ed class, middle school cringy deluxe
Aka most of the kids just giggle through everything, someone asking very ”interesting” questions to the teacher and one kid who actually seems enlightened by it
Lots of friendship drama because it’s middle school people kids can be mean
That’s all I have for now
There’s some other Glee kids too but I can’t come up with anything for them atm
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swiftieoftheday · 4 years
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Good morning, Swifties! Today, we’re going to get to know the gorgeous @jessifer55​ :) 
Click “keep reading” to learn more about Jennifer and reblog this post so other Swifties can too! If you want to be Swiftie of the Day (everyone will get an opportunity to be) then just fill out this google form and follow this blog!
What is your name? Jennifer
What’s your url? @jessifer55​
What are your pronouns? She/Her
When did you become a Swiftie? December 13 (yes really) 2018
How did you become a Swiftie? I was procrastinating on studying for finals and decided to listen to reputation because I loved lwymmd.
What is your favorite Taylor album? SPEAK NOW!!!!!!! (deluxe)
What is your favorite Taylor song? Haunted, literally every time I do a ranking of her songs it ends up on top
What is your favorite Taylor-related memory? She liked 2 (!!!) of my poc selfie night posts.
What is your favorite cursed fandom memory (if you have one)? Def either the flower mural or the paddington bear night (EDITOR NOTE: LMFAO HOW DID I FORGET ABOUT THE PADDINGTON BEAR NIGHT)
What are some of your non-Taylor related hobbies? Poetry (reading and writing); hiking; holding my cat like he is a baby (editor note: mood); spending far too much time watching YouTube videos
What other music do you listen to? Cage the Elephant, All Time Low, the Main, Waterparks, and pretty much any cringy fake-emo middle schooler band from the 2010s
Do you stan anyone else, and if so, who? Just Taylor! Everyone else I tend to separate the art from the people producing it.
Do you have any pets, and if so, what kind/who are they? 1 large, super-fluffy cat who thinks he is still a kitten (hint: he is NOT)
How long have you been on tumblr? Far, far too long
Anything else you’d like to share? I make the occasional Taylor edit! I’ve been doing it less than a year so I still have a lot to learn but I’m improving. I think. I’m also starting medical school in August so that’s neat/terrifying
Three of Jennifer’s favorite tumblr posts that she’s made: x x x
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liya4kar · 3 years
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9, 34, 43 for the fanfic writer asks!
Oh oh first ask, both for this fanfic ask, and also first ask ever on this blog~ So here we go, I hope you’ll like the answers!
3.   What is your most popular fanfic?
Hmm... If we speak of fic that gets the more hits and kudos on AO3, surprisingly, and not that I like to admit it, my drabbles collection Moments is high ahead. Honestly, I don’t understand why it haves so many hits. What do people find in it? The drabbles/short OS have no link with each other, have often very little plot, and when they have one it’s to make some heavy angst or really crack stuff. Like please, what do you like about it?
Speaking of multi-chap fics, Three Years have currently more hits, but The Magical Dexholders have more kudos even with only 1/3 of all Three Years chapters, and in general, new chapters of The Magical Dexholders have better reception than the ones from Three Years so I think The Magical Dexholders is kinda more popular?
And for OS/TS, Celebi-rities in Distress is the most popular but is followed closely by Don’t Listen to Other’s Confessions Or You’ll End Up As Responsible Than Them and as the last one is not yet complete, I think it will become more popular in the future.
(For everyone wondering where you can find those fics, I am working on a fic master post at the moment, but you can find all of them on my AO3 Account)
34.  How did you find the magical world of fanfics?
Aha... I’m kinda ashamed about it actually but here we go-
It was like, 7 or 8 years ago? I was starting to spend a lot of time on Internet at this time and I was a lot into Code Lyoko, and as I was looking for information and theories on Skyblog (basically, a French blog site that used a lot by middle schoolers back then, I’m not sure how it is now though) and I fell on a blog with a fic. I had heard of fic before, but never really understood what it means until I read this Code Lyoko fic, that I loved. I then spend months on Skyblog again looking for fics of Code Lyoko and One Piece at first, and then Fairy Tail after. The contents I found on the different blogs were really cursed though. I started to write my first fics around this time, one on Code Lyoko, that I posted on a forum where it ended up being suppressed because write by a “cringy person with a ‘writing’ like username and who don’t update fast enough” and well, let’s say my 12 or 13′s yo confidence did not really take it well. And there was also a crossover fic between Fairy Tail and One Piece, and this one was just awkwardly cringy and with bad self-insert OCs but hey, I was a cringy girl back then.
And then I never let go of fics, and as I started to go on smaller fandoms with not-enough fics in French to my taste, I went to English fics, and now I can hardly read fics in French, except for a very few ones (like one I’d been following for 5 years and which is now at what, nearly 200 chapters, or this Gintama Black Butler crossover fic that is desperately funny and well written).
So here we go, I guess? Ah, I was really cringy back then-
43. Guilty pleasure tropes and scenarios?
Ahahah... ANGST
I swear I have an addiction to angst. Making the characters suffer, both physically and mentally, separate them from their loved ones by any way possibles, making them put into question what they are or what is their relationship with another character, destroy what they are... I love it. And not necessary with and happy ending.
I have also a big, big weakness for Major Character Death. Like I know this character is my fav, but if you write a fic when they die, you can sure I will read it, and I have multiple Major Character Death plots in my head. And also a weakness for Fake Major Character Death, when for some reasons all the characters believe another character is dead, except that the Character is actually alive, and either hiding themselves to protect their love ones from something, or retained prisoners by something and going through a lot of suffering.
Also, love everything imply by separations and notably forced ones, where characters are forced to split way for some reason. Like how they are affected by the separation, what they do to see the others again, and the moment when they finally see each other again... Ah I love those tropes!
Something I’m fond of is also Found Family. Family bonds and relationships are, for me, something way more living and warm than romantic love. And I’m in love with weird friendships, crackships or things like that. Like damn, I know those characters never interacted in the canon, but let’s make them friends, or going through a horrible experiment together, or being relatives. Like I had so much fun writing Y and Sun for the Specord Writing Challenge, or Pearl and Yellow being cousins, and nearly all my AUs have non-canon relationships in it (Like there is this one AU where Blue, Silver, Pearl, and Moon are all adopted siblings and sometimes I just obsess so much on their interactions).
And sometimes, I just like to enjoy super crack fics where everyone is a dumbass, and where nobody knows what exactly they are doing. And, if they are well written and if there is a minimum of a plot behind, I can really enjoy a chat fic. 
Those tropes/scenarios are both the things I love to read and write, but please note that due mainly to a lack of time, there is what, barely 10 or 20% of my stories ideas that make up being written, so there is some tropes/scenarios I did not write a lot for, unfortunately.
This list was kind of long,  but after years of reading fics, I ended up having a large field of things I like. But yeah, basically I’m not hard to get attracted by a fic, as long that you have a plot and that the construction of your sentences is not too weird I can read it. And even for the plots, it can depend, a fluff fic without a plot can work pretty well too (well, except if I get super bored by this one super popular ship, in that case, you have to be an author I trust for me to read it).
I think it’s all for this ask! If you want me to answer some more questions, don’t hesitate to send an ask! (The questions list can be found here)
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maximumsunshine · 4 years
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Can 2020 also be dedicated to not putting down the people we were in the past?
What this post is saying: 12-year-olds aren't cringy. 12yo's are literal children who are still in the early stages of learning how to be individuals. They are learning to build their own self and peer group sponsored opinions. Elementary school aged kids still parrot a lot of what they see or hear mom and dad do and say. Middle schoolers are breaking free from that and deciding who they are as completely separate individuals. Further, they are realizing it's important, at least to them, to prove they are no longer babies like they were in elementary school. Add in the fact that hormones are starting to kick in, and yeah... you may not feel like 12yo you is something to be super proud of, but I want you to be proud anyway. The growth at this stage is tremendous and shapes who you become in later years!
High school is more of this but things become better defined. Hormones are really going crazy. Being the exact opposite of mom and dad is still super important. But at the same time, things settle down some and hobbies start to form that you might share in later life. That said, there is still this super drive to prove you weren't the baby you were in middle school and teenage rebellion is of course huge and you put your parents through hell, like they put their parents through hell, and so on. The cycle never ends. You need to start to assert yourself as almost grown and that means rebellion and it's ugly at times and for reasons you won't fully understand until you have kids and maybe not even then, but it's a totally normal and healthy phase of life.
And so on and so forth through each stage of life until you eventually move on to the next world.
What this post doesn't mean: that you shouldn't learn from those mistakes you made in the past.
12yo you can't be cringy, but you were still capable of saying and doing some hurtful things (maybe they were racist or homophobic or whatever). Don't continually beat yourself up for those things (the world will do that for you) but you do need to learn from past you and do better in the future.
As I said earlier tonight, 36yo me has receipts on 25yo me (for example) that I'm not proud of. That's life. But you are continuously learning and growing as you go. Otherwise, you're not doing it right.
So when people say kill cringe culture, something I support while heartedly, this includes cringing over something as innocent as the interests you had when you were younger. Learn from your mistakes, sure, but having interests, even if they didn't withstand the tests of time, isn't one of those mistakes. And teenage rebellion is just as important to development.
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happymetalgirl · 4 years
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February 2020
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After a slow, but solid, start to the new decade last month, February sure picked the pace back up with a ton more releases. As usual though, the early month has seen a few more filler albums pushed out without the bands’ labels stirring up much of hype around them, and for some of it, you can see why. We got several more solid projects though that have me excited for what else their associated record labels have in store for the rest of the year. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves here, there’s plenty to talk about for February, starting with Sepultura.
Sepultura - Quadra
Machine Messiah was the first album I reviewed for this blog, and in that review I made note of the silliness ongoing complaining about this Sepultura lineup not being the “real” Sepultura by fans who still clamor for Max to come back or for the current lineup to retire the Sepultura name. As the size of the Derek Green era discography gradually dwarfs the Max era catalog, Sepultura fans gradually come to accept that the past is the past and this is Sepultura now. And the mild contrast between Sepultura’s output as old late and Max’s creative output through Soulfly, Cavalera Conspiracy, and Killer Be Killed hasn’t really shown any major gulf in class between the estranged artists. Sepultura may not be putting out successive critically acclaimed masterpieces, but they sure have maintained a greater ambition for grander sounds and concepts than Max, who, by contrast, has come through with some solid projects himself, but has largely repeatedly retread the tribal nu metal ground of Roots and tried to give the death metal he practiced with Sepultura some modern updates, with mixed results. Machine Messiah found Sepultura weaving proggy and orchestral elements into their modern form of death metal with respectable success, and the band’s ninth album with Derek Green is a solid continuation of the styles and aesthetics that the band had been evolving into on and leading up to Machine Messiah. Quadra, though, I think just lacks a bit of that creative spark that its predecessor had. It splits the band’s compounded sonic evolution into its main parts by going through sections of thrashy songs, groovy songs, slightly experimental songs, and more moody melodic songs, and it makes for a nice flow to the album, but it feels like each part is missing some of the others while also not going all-in quite enough to make the splitting up of their stylistic components worth it. Again, it’s still solid, just not blowing me away.
6/10
Ihsahn - Telemark
Kind of an odd one here, just a quick five-track EP: three originals and two covers. The first of two EPs to come this year from the Emperor frontman and black metal progressive progenitor finds him largely continuing in short form the slightly blackened prog-rock he had going on on Ámr. The opening track, “Stridig”, rides this mostly continuous guitar rumble over a few intriguing proggy passages while Ihsahn snarls in classic fashion. On the vocal front, his style is raspy and distinctly black metal, but he keeps the roughness on his throat to a minimum to not overpower the instrumentation around him and to make more potent use of melody with his vocals. The second track, “Nord”, introduces a few little modern Opeth-isms and some subtle horn accents to up the prog factor as the EP gets a little lighter. The title track in the middle of the record really goes to prog town even more dramatically than the previous two and takes with the horns with it. With covers of Lenny Cravitz’ “Rock & Roll Is Dead” (which sounds like it wouldn’t be too far off from a Marilyn Manson cover if he also decided to cover the song) and “Wrathchild” by Iron Maiden rounding the album, Ihsahn continues his use of raspy vocal tones and meager black metal rasp over the rock and metal classics while giving the Maiden cut a sweet extra flair with the brilliant addition of a little horn section. It’s a splendid little addition to Ihsahn’s solo catalog and a continuation of his proggy vision for his brand of black metal.
7/10
Intronaut - Fluid Existential Interventions
I have kind of long seen Intronaut as the heir apparent to Isis, with their spacy, sludgy brand of post-metal taking that of the post-metal godfathers’ into more proggy territories, and the L.A.-based trio have gradually grown more into their skin over the past few records, taking , and with The Direction of Last Things having been released almost five years ago, I was starting to get a little worried about if they’d hung it up for some reason. The band shows that the longer break has not dampened their boldness or creativity as they pick up right where they left off with the marriage of gargantuan sludge heaviness and ethereal post-metal atmosphere. The band get a little Meshuggah-type jazz fusion going on in the song “The Cull” and keep that jazzy flow going on the spacy sections of “Contrapasso”, while getting infectiously headbangingly groovy on “Pangloss”. I love the ways the band finds to shift in so many different directions so smoothly. I’d say though that the repetition of smooth movements in similar directions from song to song continue to be the band’s Achilles heel, sometimes really needing some kind of X factor or some kind of compositional surprise to break their cycles in these songs so as to not feel so circlular. The groovy riffage on “Pangloss” is probably the closest the band comes to diverting from their post-metallic mould, and as much as I love it there, I wish there was more. It’s a strong effort from them nevertheless, but I hope the band don’t take so long to progress in this vein on their next album.
7/10
Napalm Death - Logic Ravaged by Brute Force
With a new record on the way this year, I’m sure happy to get a little appetizer from the grindcore legends in the form of this two-song EP. The first song, the titular “Logic Ravaged by Brute Force” kicks off on a melodic brooding note, but quickly ramps up into the band’s famous high grinding death gear. It’s a pretty solid track, just a bit lacking in aggressive pay-off during the choruses, the verses constantly bringing the tempo down. But it’s definitely the kind of Napalm Death song that fixated on its melodic brooding mood and its titular hook, not necessarily representative of the band’s whole catalog or the album to come. The second track of the two, the cover of Sonic Youth’s “White Kross”, is a bit more of a burner, but it fits quite well into that mould for that kind of Napalm Death track like “Omnipresent Knife in Your Back” that could work as an album closer as well.
It’s just two songs and you want a number? Come on./10
Anvil - Legal at Last
The long-running Canadian outfit’s previous album, Pounding the Pavement, served little more than a reminder of why they never ascended to the heights of thrash metal during that genre’s peak of cultural relevance, and I have not revisited that record since re-listening to it to figure out exactly where to place it on the year’s worst-of list. The bar has never been super high for Anvil, and Pounding the Pavement really made it seem like the only way to go was up. The corny cover art to this follow-up here, though, didn’t give me much hope, and it sure isn’t much of an improvement. As with any Anvil project, the lyrics on Legal at Last are malignantly atrocious, and any attempt to enjoy the album is going to have to overcome the serious hurdle of tuning out some of the dumbest lyrics that sound like they were lifted from a high-schooler’s math notebook. I, again, kind of went into the project not expecting much, and knew I was going to hear some truly cringy bars. The “Chemtrails” song, nevertheless, manages to astound me with its ridiculously stupid lyricism feeding into the titular conspiracy theory seemingly unironically. Nice one guys. I’ll say, the band at least kind of redeem themselves with their pointing out the obvious corruption surrounding the fossil fuel industry and government surveillance. Anyway, predictably shitty lyrics aside, the band channel the same Motörhead-esque proto-thrash they’ve channeled their whole career with similar compositional predictability and lack of imagination, and it tires really quickly. And there really isn’t much to say about it musically. The riffs here, I’d say, are marginally better than those on Pounding the Pavement, and this album at least slightly more tangibly fun than its even more bumbling predecessor.
4/10
Sylosis - Cycle of Suffering
For some reason I didn’t quite like this album when I first heard it, and what an idiot I was in that moment, because damn this album is solid! Blending thrash with some technical death metal much like Revocation and knowing when to inject a little metalcore rhythm, Sylosis have come through with a ferocious and pummeling, but melodically nimble record that channels pure thrash aggression in every direction it travels. The band works in rewarding thrash breakdowns in songs like “Arms Like a Noose” and gripping harsh vocal melodies on songs like “Idle Hands”, and all sorts of little touches that only make the compositions more and more intense; I think this may be their best effort yet!
8/10
God Dethroned - Illuminati
The trajectory of blackened death metal has really been impossible to separate from Behemoth’s highly influencial landmark album, The Satanist, with bands in the field all aware and taking cues from the Polish juggernauts on how to size up the already-mammoth-y style to biblical proportions. And while they still have their instinctive old-school death metal war-like brutishness showing through on songs like the title track, God Dethroned seem to be more willingly working in ethereal choirs and . Songs like “Spirit of Beelzebub”, “Eye of Horus”, and “Gabriel” show a clear Behemoth influence wrapping itself around the band; the intro of “Broken Halo” is perhaps the clearest tribute or rip-off of “Ov Fire and the Void” I have ever heard, and the song only continues to expound on the integration of Behemoth’s style into God Dethroned’s. As nice as the alternating mesh of old and new for the band is aesthetically, there are a few too many bland, filler cuts on here like “Book of Lies” and “Satan Spawn” weighing down the more excitingly volatile tracks with dragging performances that can only sound so good over such dry compositions.
6/10
Five Finger Death Punch - F8
Ivan Moody did a little phone interview with Loudwire prior to this album’s release and his assessment of his band’s recent output was actually pretty sober and realistic. Along with detailing the mental health benefits that have come with his newly committed sobriety (which I am genuinely happy about for him) Moody admitted that the band’s past two albums (And Justice for None and Got Your Six) have not been very special, and he’s right. He even said that the band’s double album pair was bloated and should have been trimmed down to one album, and he’s definitely right. He stated that he felt that the band has been in a rut for awhile and expressed a rejuvenated desire to make music that isn’t so here-today-gone-tomorrow, and he’s right about that. And he said that on this album, F8, the band really stepped it up and improved their craft to finally make something special again, and that’s where his hot streak of correctness ends. Don’t get me wrong, he’s partially right about F8 being better than the past two albums, but that’s not a very high bar to clear. I was very critical of And Justice for None when it came out in 2018 and I agree that it and Got Your Six are without a doubt the band’s worst albums, and that is saying something because they were on a downward slide for a long time and it wasn’t very surprising the way they bottomed out so badly on those two albums. While I don’t think the improvement was quite as dramatic as he made it out to be, I will say that I can see what Moody was talking about with the refined songwriting on F8, it really does seem like the band tried to inject a little more boldness into their writing and their performances have a bit more of a sense of purpose this time around. The band gives us a few glimpses of their younger selves with returns to The Way of the Fist heaviness on a couple songs, and even though they still don’t have the best track record for ballads, the few mellow tracks on F8 are certainly better than the past two albums’. On that subject, the track sequencing on F8 isn’t quite so disjointed and awkward as it was on And Justice for None. But again, the improvements still aren’t as dramatic as Ivan Moody might see them. The band still don’t really break out of their box too much; it’s not so much an album of them finally getting them out of their creative rut as it is an album of them slowly making their way out of that rut or getting them more capable in that rut. Again, it is a noteworthy enough improvement over the past two (or four even) albums’ drivel, but it’s not quite a full return to form. Hopefully this gets them back in the right direction though if it’s not too late.
4/10
Blaze of Perdition - The Harrowing of Hearts
The Polish quartet’s fifth full-length is another set of solid modern occult black metal with just enough of a sense of atmosphere and emotional rawness lifted from blackgaze. I certainly wouldn’t call this an atmospheric black metal album, but the band does venture into those more ethereal realms of black metal too. They do well to maintain their intensity throughout it too, as the atmospheric elements serve to create a more expansive and grand feel to the music rather than just breaking up and diluting the darker, heavier aspects.
7/10
Sightless Pit - Grave of a Dog
After a pretty big past few years for them, Lingua Ignota mastermind Kristen Hayter, The Body’s Lee Clifford, and Full of Hell frontman Dylan Walker teamed up for a seemingly casual dark-ambient-noise-venture to kick the decade off. I’m contrast to the extreme abrasiveness most of these artists peddle through their main projects, Grave of a Dog remains predominantly ambient until Dylan Walker’s distorted-noise-backed screams on “Drunk on Marrow” usher in the industrial noise of “Miles of Chain” and “Whom the Devil Long Sought to Strangle” being the standout exceptions. I enjoy Kristen Hayter’s ever-languishing operatic vocals across the album, especially on the minimal, piano-driven closing track and on “Violent Ruin”, on which the trio play with some autotune on her voice that actually comes out nicely. But for the most part, this album is so casually below all these artists’ punching weight, it’s no doubt just a quick bonus album project for all three of them that I’m sure pales in comparison to their past and future releases.
6/10
Insect Ark - The Vanishing
With clear influences from avant-garde elites like Sumac, Deathspell Omega, and Neurosis seeping through the pores of this album, Dana Schechter continues to refine Insect Ark’s spooky, psychedelic brand of instrumental doom metal with the help of newly-recruited drummer Andy Patterson’s well-tempered percussive accents to give the brooding songs more than just a steady anesthetized heartbeat, but also a newly percussive sense of punch. And the two gel in artistic partnership in such an seemingly innate way you would think they’d have been bandmates for years. The Vanishing, again, continues to hone the spacy, darkly ambient metallic psychedelia Insect Ark has carved out a niche for, floating from unnerving oppressive heaviness to eerie drones of dark, brassy ambiance with ease and confidence. I definitely respect and recommend this one highly.
8/10
Godthrymm - Reflections
Godthrymm is the offshoot project of a couple of former members of My Dying Bride, and Reflections is the trio’s first full length project together after a couple of EPs (from which a few songs on this album are pulled) that gave me mixed anticipations for this full-length. A Grand Reclamation in 2018 sounded very prototypic and derivative of Candlemass without the crucial bombast to back it up, but the band made some strides on 2019’s Dead in the Studio that clearly piqued Profound Lore’s interest, with much more melodically compelling songs like “We Are the Dead” and “Cursed Are the Many” making it into this LP. The band had a more I like the emotive Spirit-Adrift-esque guitar melodies that “The Sea as My Grave” incorporates and the more straightforward funeral dirge of “The Light of You”, and the band even improved the originally amateurish “The Grand Reclamation” from the first EP greatly with a more professional vocal performance and better drum accents. Still, much of the melody on here is not enough to really conjure any strong emotions and the grand doom the album shoots for isn’t quite as epic as it should be as a result. The band did well to improve upon their first efforts together, but I think they do still have a way to go.
6/10
The Amity Affliction - Everyone Loves You... Once You Leave Them
I didn’t totally hate The Amity Affliction’s pop-oriented direction on 2018′s Misery, but I didn’t like it much either (granted they’ve never really been my style), and I wonder if fans felt similarly about the stylistic drift because Everyone Loves You... Once You Leave Them is a definitive return to the band’s roots that, while still not entirely for me, I can definitely appreciate more than Misery. The band’s older sound that makes its way into this album is proportionally much more metalcore than the sound they trended toward on Misery, and even though I still don’t find the pop-punk-ish vocal style and melody writing to be a very fitting compliment to the early 2000’s metalcore the band rides instrumentally, I can much more clearly see the appeal this time around and enjoy a greater portion of the tracks here.
5/10
Kvelertak - Splid
Norwegian alchemists Kvelertak have been eccentrically fusing punk at varying degrees of hardcore and rock ‘n’ roll with black metal for four albums now and they’ve been pretty damn successful at it the whole time so at this point it’s a matter of what the band do with their established style, how far they can take what they already, and how much expanding they have to do to keep it sustainable. Splid shows that the band’s answer to all those questions is “yes, we can”. While much of the vibrant novelty of the self-titled debut and Meir has worn off, what’s left is a band showing that they are indeed more than an attention-grabbing novelty act and can keep their style going beyond that initial excitatory period. Stylistically Splid only occasionally draws from new-ish territory, occasionally going significantly light-spirited and even dancy, but otherwise it’s pretty much the Kvelertak we know and hopefully love, maybe some of that initial charm is a little worn and sensible through the compositional repetition, but sure as hell not to the point where it’s not a good time.
7/10
Frigoris - ...in Stille
Germany’s Frigoris continue to struggle to set themselves apart from the ambient black metal pack, which they present themselves as little more than a statistic in the growing homogeneity of the genre with all the baseline competence to pass but nothing stylistically or compositionally unique or forward-thinking.
5/10
殞煞 Vengeful Spectre - 殞煞 Vengeful Spectre
Blending ambient elements of traditional Chinese folk music into the atmosphere of Deafheaven-esque blackgaze (the vocals being some of the closest I have ever heard to George Clarke’s) this anomaly of a self-titled debut from 殞煞 Vengeful Spectre is a fantastic way to enter the fold for the Guangdong outfit, establishing a signature style early and with impressive genre-blending competence. I am eager to hear what this band has in store for the future.
8/10
Tombs - Monarchy of Shadows
A pretty sizeable EP from the Brooklyn-based four-piece, Monarchy of Shadows gives a pretty concise and tasty portrait of the band’s crushing Gorgoroth-esque black metal that sacrifices hardly any heaviness for its dissonant atmosphere. The compositions get a little repetitive as the EP draws on though, which does do a harsh number on the project’s otherwise consistently solid aesthetic. Luckily the more death metal-infused portions of the album like “The Dark Rift” and “Once Falls the Guillotine” kick some needed energy and compositional life into the project. I’d say it’s worth a go for anyone with a hankering for black metal with unrestrained distorted heaviness and occult vibes more than shoegazy ambianc; it’s not a mind-blower, but it’s a good quick dose of it.
7/10
Delain - Apocalypse and Chill
After being thoroughly disappointed by Within Temptation’s writer’s-block-ridden LP last year, I was honestly not in much of a mood for any more pop-oriented neoclassical symphonic metal this year, but after hearing a lot of praise for this new Delain project, I thought I’d give it a try, and Delain sure did change my appetite for the genre. The band sound so much more cathartically vibrant with their willingness to depart from the neoclassical norm into synthetic and other diverse stylistic territories, incorporating adrenaline-fueled downtuned guitar riffs, upward key shifts akin to alternative metal and power metal, and resounding melodic choruses into modern symphonies with big but tasteful production bolstering, and the Lacuna Coil-esque vocal trade-offs across it all are executed brilliantly. And even when the band go more traditional they show they can accomplish similarly invigorating results with a more bare production pallet, a truly impressive display of symphonic versatility and creative courage.
8/10
Suicide Silence - Become the Hunter
After the calamity that was their ill-fated attempt to branch out into Deftones-imitation and clean vocals on their self-titled album, Suicide Silence show that they thoroughly learned their lesson with their gruff, classically deathcore groovy sixth LP, Become the Hunter, which finds the band playing much more to their instrumental strengths and their signature style of deathcore chug (there is a lot of thicccc, delicious chug on this project), finds them taking their riff-writing style back a bit to The Cleansing and No Time the Bleed and feels more natural than what they were trying to do on the self-titled record. Eddie Hermida got the memo about his vocals on the self-titled; it’s all screams and growls here, not a “tee-hee” in sight. Unlike the aforementioned albums with Mitch Lucker behind the mic, Become the Hunter isn’t quite as productionally rough around the edges or as horror-movie eerie and menacingly evil. It’s all about the crunchy guitar rhythms all across the album, which finds the band repeating themselves a bit, but not so much that it feels more like derivative writing rather than convergent compositional tactics across the song. While it could certainly be seen as a run through the motions or a retreat to the band’s safe zone, this was definitely the return to form Suicide Silence needed after the misfire that was the previous record, and definitely a more exciting album for Hermida to showcase his deathcore vocal talent than You Can’t Stop Me. For me though, it’s definitely an improvement on the band’s meager first album with their new vocalist and its subsequent creative dry heave, and it sets a much more convincing tone for Suicide Silence going forward with Eddie Hermida.
8/10
Neaera - Neaera
Despite their fluctuating quality across the first run of their career, I was a surprised and disappointed when Neaera disbanded back in 2014, but equally enthralled to hear the band return to the fold thankfully not too long after. With this self-titled record being the German act’s first after returning from the grave, the band rose back up in the most emphatic way I can imagine. As self-titled albums are generally meant to, Neaera represents Neaera at their essence, blending Swedish melodic death metal with modern NWOAHM metalcore as they always have throughout their career. Indeed, the fascinating thing about this self-titled album is that it’s really not significantly stylistically different from the band’s previous efforts aside from some minor production tweaks. But Neaera really found the sweetest balance for themselves between the menacing blend of death metal urgency with a thrashy metalcore sense of rhythm and the cathartic guitar leads of melodic death metal, and I can’t honestly think of any other project that makes a better case for the intermingling of these styles than the case this album makes. While plenty of metalcore out there incorporates some elements of melodeath, Neaera’s brand that they crystallize on this album is the other way around, primarily melodic death metal but with the raw pounding drive of metalcore to provide a more punchy dynamic to a style that often finds itself in great need of it. And the band manages to mesh these genres in a manner that, rather than diluting them both, brings out the best in both of them. I could seriously sing this album’s praises for much longer, but I think I will leave it at it being the best album I’ve heard so far this year.
9/10
Ozzy Osbourne - Ordinary Man
I’ll admit that I don’t really follow the public life of the original Black Sabbath frontman too closely or intentionally, but it is pretty hard to avoid as well so it’s not like it’s even possible for me to be completely ignorant of how he’s doing. It goes without saying of course, but Ozzy Osbourne is a bonafide icon and singular figure for heavy metal that very very few, if anyone else, can compare to, and with his career and musical output kind of petering out over the past decade as his old age begins to get the better of him, there seems to be a greater sense of awareness in the metal world that we probably only have a few years more with Ozzy, if that. And it’s going to be a very profoundly somber day when the vocal godfather of heavy metal is gone. That being said, this is quite possibly the last album we will get from the prince of darkness and yet listening to it doesn’t quite feel that way. In the weeks leading up to the album, Ozzy’s supporting tour was postponed (or maybe just cancelled), and the man himself said that he does not have his health as is not happy. Yet the album sounds like a very stale, yet modern take on Ozzy’s doomy and classic heavy metal sounds with some modern rock production updates that honestly sound a few generations younger than its seventy-one year old apparent creator, and Ozzy himself sounds uncannily clear, coherent, and healthy. I saw a little bit of dismissal of this album as not being a profound conceptual contemplation of mortality like David Bowie’s, Leonard Cohen’s, or David Berman’s last albums, and while I definitely enjoy those artist’s swansong albums more than this and while I do feel like Ozzy deserves a proper album that better represents his importance to and impact on metal and culture at large, I don’t know if that’s the kind of album Ozzy wants to make. The man is struggling with Parkinson’s disease and based on his music leading up to this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if he just wants to make fun rock music therapeutically to get his mind off the pain rather than honing in on it and intensifying it. Going back to criticism of the album though, Ozzy still sounds so checked out in his performances despite his suspiciously healthy-sounding voice that I can’t help but wonder how touched up it is, the exception being the title track featuring Elton John on which Ozzy does get a little introspective about realizing his ambitions and cementing his legacy as a music legend. Ozzy also sounds more enthusiastic in his performance with Post Malone on the galloping, blood-pumping closing track “It’s a Raid”, but for the majority of the album, it really sounds like he doesn’t even want to be there, and I just hope this wasn’t something people around him pressured him into. I really do want to reiterate my utmost respect for Ozzy Osbourne and all that he has done for the music I love so much, and I would love to hear him round out his legendary career in a more fitting manner. But if he needs to end it here to rest and heal, which it really seems like he does, I won’t begrudge the man or take anything away from his legacy and what he’s accomplished for music. Thank you forever Ozzy, and whatever you do next, as always, go fucking crazy.
5/10
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storyranger · 4 years
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So I borrowed The Berenstain Bears Chapter Book Collection on Overdrive for some light nostalgia reading in our new hammock. All was well, the usual mix of saccharine slice-of-life interspersed with Very Important Issues one expects from the made-for-middle-schoolers chapter book versions of a beloved picture book franchise. And then. AND THEN.
Then I reached the absolute insanity that is The Berenstain Bears: Lost In Cyberspace. As Strange Aeons would say, “buckle up, my homosexuals!” Please, suffer with me.
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Brother Bear’s classmate Bonnie Brown got a laptop from her rich uncle, and it helped her get even better grades! So her uncle had the bright idea to buy every student at her school a laptop to use for homework! Luckily Teacher Bob convinces him to try a test group first, so just his class gets them for now. Everyone in Brother’s class loves their new playground, The Internet! But the internet isn’t always a safe place. Babs Bruno starts hanging out in a Young Poets chatroom, and things are about to become dangerous!
Me: Is someone going to say something mean about her bland haikus?
Meanwhile, Queenie’s harlot teenage cousin, Bermuda, convinces her to sign up for online dating so she can meet hot older guys. Bermuda tarts her up and takes her to Pizza shack to meet a mystery man, but, surprise!–
Me: Please don’t be a pedophile please doesn’t be a pedophile oh god it’s going to be a pedophile
- the mystery stranger is actually her on-again, off-again boyfriend, Too-Tall! He was dared to sign up for the dating sign by his gang members. What a hilarious turn of events!
Me: I have never been happier about a super cliché plot twist.
Now remember kids, this could have ended a lot differently if Queenie’s internet date hadn’t turned out to be her preteen boyfriend who she already knew. But back to Babs Bruno, who has finally created an account in the Young Poets chatroom, and things are about to get even more dangerous.
Me: it’s a poetry chatroom for babies, cringy, maybe, but dangerous? You see, Babs discovers that the poems from two users, “Huff” and “Puff”, are actually a series of coded messages about their plot to BOMB BONNIE BROWN’S UNCLE’S HOUSE UNLESS HE PAYS THEM MILLIONS OF DOLLARS. Me: .
Me: ..
Me: ...
Me: WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?
 (Luckily Babs’s dad is the chief of police so everybody lives. Also the experiment showed that only the smart kids got smarter with the laptops, the dumb kids just used them to procrastinate and look up sports statistics, so Bonnie’s uncle returned them all and donated the money to the school’s computer lab.)
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birdsong-18 · 2 years
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i’m bored so i’m going to do the entire fanfic ask game tag! for funzies!
💖 What do you like most about your own writing?
The way that I try to paint landscapes. I’ve always had an affinity to describing atmosphere, and I try to keep that throughout my fics. 
😐 What embarrasses you most about your own writing?
I’m pretty bad at dialogue and keeping the flow of dialogue appropriate to the flow of the story. I’m also a stream of consciousness writer, so sometimes my ideas are really rambly before I clean them up. 
👻 What is one WIP you think you may never pick back up?
My really old fics from Middle School. I don’t think I will ever touch them again, but they stay on the internet because a new generation of cringy middle schoolers might enjoy them!
👀 Do you have any WIPs that you would never let see the light of day? If yes, what are they about?
haha yeahhh. there’s some crack fics I wrote about my oc’s interacting with dream smp, hamilton, the likes that will never ever be published. they’re mostally self indulgent fics that i wrote spur of the moment. 
📥 What is your fave fic to receive comments/messages on?
where the cold winds blow! It’s my baby child and I love it so much, and when other people love it I smile! I also really appreciate downhill comments because they’re always so happy. 
✏️ Do you write every day?
haha no. I write everything all at once in a spur of a moment “i want to write” vibe. 
🖊 Post a snippet from a current WIP.
this is a little funny snippet from the next chapter of where the cold winds blow that isn’t super spoilery!
“I want to get off of the boat.” Tommy groaned from next to Michael. He was lying back up on the deck, with his hands pressed over his closed eyes. His skin was pale, tinted a strange sense of green. 
“We can’t get off of the boat, we’re nowhere near land.” Michael bluntly stated, looking down worriedly at the man. Tommy groaned again, rolling onto his side and curling into a small ball. 
“I don’t feel good.” 
“If you’re going to barf, do so over the railing. I don’t want to get my shoes dirty.” George stated from the other side of Michael. He was also sitting, leaning against the railing, facing into the deck of the ship and reading from a large book. Tommy raised one of his hands and flipped George off.
“Don’t need your opinion, bitch.” Tommy muttered. 
“Well, he must be fine, because he’s not lost his insults.” George muttered. Tommy opened his eyes briefly, glaring at the man, before going even paler and closing them again. 
“Alrighty, kid.” Tommy’s moans were cut short by Connor approaching the group, his blue coat fluttering in the wind. In his hand was a small jar of glowing vegetables submerged in liquid. Michael could smell the jar from here, a stinging scent filling the air. “Finally dug up the stash. If you take one pickle every three hours or so, it should take off the edge of seasickness.” Connor shoved the jar into Tommy’s hands. Tommy’s nose scrunched up in disgust, watching as the liquid sloshed.
“What are these?” Tommy asked. 
“Sea pickles.” Connor said. “Work wonders on sea sickness. I give them to my newer sailors who don’t have their sea legs yet. Haven’t used them in a while, but they don’t lose their effect, just get more kick. Eat up.” Connor nodded, and walked away, heading towards the captain’s cabin. 
“I’m not eating these.” Tommy said, looking at the jar in his hand. 
“They’ll help you feel better.” George said. “And we need to talk, so stop being a baby.” 
“I’m not a baby.” Tommy stated, annoyed. “And stop telling me what to do, pussy bitch. These look rank and I’m no way in hell eating these.”
“Tommy, just eat one.” Michael said exasperated. “George is right, we need to get researching on the End so we don’t get in blind. We can’t do that while you’re bitching. We’re on this boat whether you like it or not.” 
Tommy rolled his eyes, letting out a puff of breath, but opened the jar and pulled out a pickle. He scrunched his face and put it in his mouth, chewing and swallowing as fast as he can. 
“Rank.” He muttered, shuddering. 
“Feel better?” George asked. 
“Yeah.” Tommy said, guiltily. 
🏅 What is something you recently felt proud of in regard to your writing (finished a fic, actually planned for once, etc).
getting over 200 kudos on downhill! also planning out the entirety of where the cold winds blow, because i might actually finish a fic for once. 
😈 Is there anything you enjoy doing that you think your readers hate?
probably excluding so much of the main cast of sbi from my fic. it’s a risk i’m taking though, for the story 
🌙  What time of day do you prefer to write? Why?
night because that’s usually when i have time in the day to write. or in the middle of the day while i’m at work in the English Department at my school (i feel so funky doing that, like i’m with all these fancy scholars writing silly little fanfiction)
👖 Are you a planner, plantser, or pantser? Is it consistent?
I’m a sometimes planner, but mostally pantser. again, stream of consciousness, and some of my best work have been a “hey, what if this happened? no. alright, I’ll write it then”
📊 Current number of WIPs
3 fics, 2 originals. 
👨‍👧‍👧 Do you tell people in real life that you write fic?
hahahaha no. 
🌝 Who is one character you haven’t yet written for that you would like to?
i should write more ranboo perspective. or techno, i haven’t done much with him. 
📝 What is one growth area you have for your writing?
dialogue. i’m literally so bad at dialogue, so i’m working on that. 
📚 Do you read your own fic?
yeah :) just a little re-read to see if it’s actually good. I’m also constantly refreshing where the cold winds blow by re-reading certain chapters to keep plot and world building consistent. 
🌈 What inspired you to write [insert fic here]?
i’ll just do all my public ones:
wtcwb: i wanted to write a fic for a while, and i love writing michael because he doesn’t have any character in the dsmp other than “child of ranboo and tuboo,” so he’s much easier to work with, becuase he can’t be ooc! i can’t remember the exact inspiration for the fic, but it’s going so well!
downhill: i love skiing and i went skiing over my winter break, and i got super nostalgic of skiing when i was younger! also tommy’s ski vlog came out and i was like “what if he could ski, instead of whatever the fuck that is.” then the family dynamic came out and it’s my most popular fic for some reason. 
alpine: lowkey wanted to write a downhill sequal, and the olympics were on so i was super thinking about it all the time lol. 
tangerines, fallen leaves, snowflakes, lillies: i wanted to do a character exploration of sbi fic, and it’s sort of working? I was also bored over january and decided to write something different. 
🤔 What is the hardest part of writing fic?
consistency and motivation to write. i’m a college student so i have no writing schedule, which is healthier for me anyway. it’s a hobby and i’m keeping it that way. 
🧠 What’s an idea you have that you can’t quite call a WIP yet?
sbi!klaus au. it’s march now so it isn’t coming back until Christmas. maybe another sbi family au. they’re fun to write :)
💻 Do you do research for your fics? What’s the deepest dive you’ve done?
yes i do research! i literally looked into the different categorizations of skiing in the olympics, as well as how quick an average olympic ski racer is to make alpine pretty accurate. if you count personal experience as research as well, then i’ve got around fifteen years of skiing experience for downill. i’m also taking a class on american political thought, which talks about the basis of the democracy the US is founded on, which is actually technically research for the monarchy vs. democracy thing i’ll be bringing up more in later chapters of where the cold winds blow. i basically take things i know a good amount about and look a little more into them to write fics. 
✨ Choose three adjectives to complement your own writing.
oh, idk. descriptive, funny, fun?
💭 What is a headcanon you have about your own work?
oh, man. I’ve got so many headcanons where i just insert myself into my fics. it’s fun i would 10/10 recommend. 
🍰 Name one of your fave comfort fics (doesn’t have to be your all time fave).
oh, man, i’ve got a few. 
comfort fics, i would say Multiplayers, Tommyinnit’s clinic for supervillains. 
[comfort] (as in i’m in pain, but i love this fic so much i’m re-reading): Passerine, All the Young Dudes, Like Magic 
👩‍🏭 If one of your fics was going to get you arrested, which one and why?
where the cold winds blow, for reasons i can’t reveal yet because it would be spoilers (i can hint at a very sad character death, and some morally grey characters that will make you very confused about your standing in life). 
⏰ Do you spend more time reading fic, writing fic, or do you do both equally?
reading. i read a little fanfiction every night before bed to wind down, and they are usually 2k+ words long. 
💋 [Freeform - what is something you want to know about one of poster’s fics?]
i’ll just give a fun fact: in downhill, i based the ski area off of vail mountain, and based the day they had around a pretty normal ski day i would do with my family when we were younger. the devil’s crotch is an actual run at breckenridge (double black and scary lol), and whippersnapper is at vail (i think? i haven’t skiied there in a while). also, the drive from denver to the ski area is 100% accurate. you drive about two hours west on 70, and you see loveland, go through a tunnel, pass dillon, silverthorne, and frisco (you can’t see keystone, breckenridge, or a-basin from the highway), and then copper. you go over vail pass, drive through east vail, and then see vail. you have to park in a parking garage before walking through the village to the lifts. wanna test me? open google maps and try me
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nerdgul · 7 years
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Ok guys we need to talk about "yaoi fangirls"
I get it. Yaoi fangirls can be pretty gross and “Cringy” soemtimes. but please stop fucking demonizeing then SO HARD Most of these peoole are preteens and teens and things like yaoi manga are their first look into anything lgbt (it certainly was for me and I know for a lot of others) and though this can lead to a warped view most are smart enough to /eventually/ realize all the problems with it or at the very least get boared of it. (Like the all the rape and femme uke and super masc seme dynamics) But the fact is, for many its a gateway into an entirely new community. Its easy to forget that the lgbt comminity isnt actually as out there and acsessible as we think because were all so use to tumblr and the like. but middle schoolers and high schoolers? Not so much. Theyre still discovoring things and still learning. Yeah its not the best way to learn but its a small step into normalizing homosexuality for a lot of people and its something so please stop bullying these kids and try to understand this when they leave “Cringy” comments on shit Cause lets face it yaoi/yuri and shipping is how a good chunk of us got to were we are today ok thank you
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evenstevensranked · 7 years
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#48: Season 2, Episode 8 - “Head Games”
Twitty becomes the star pitcher of LJH’s baseball team! He’s loving it until Louis starts to put pressure on him to win all the time. Elsewhere, Ren tries to sit next to Bobby Deaver on the bus come hell or high water.
But, I’m pretty sure the one thing everyone remembers from this episode is:
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(^ I cannot find the source of that gif for the life of me. So, if it’s yours... I’m sorry. Tell me and I’ll credit you!)
This one opens at the baseball field! Kinda refreshing. And guess who the announcer is?! It’s ARTIE RYAN!!! Played by Jerry Messing from Freaks and Geeks. This marks his first appearance in my countdown! He’s basically this overweight and sort of apathetic character, who dishes out some hilariously dry humor. He’s unfortunately only in five episodes over the course of the series. Then again, maybe that’s a good thing. It’s never fun when a character actor is overused and subsequently goes stale... (*cough* Beans *cough*) 
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What a guy!
LJH isn’t doing too hot with the current pitcher they have out on the mound. Louis is there with a radar gun, checking the pitcher’s speed and hanging around Coach Tugnut. When Tugnut asks where he got the radar gun Louis says: “Got it at a police auction. I would’ve got the jaws of life, it just didn’t fit on my bike.” He also rags on the pitcher saying “My grandma can throw a ball of yarn faster.” Idk why, but I kind of like these lines. They’re clearly pre-written and therefore feel a little cheesy as opposed to some gems we get from Shia improvising. But, there aren’t many other stand-out lines in this one. So, they’ll have to suffice. This pitcher really is doing a crap job though, so they switch him out for Twitty. Something that stands out to me is that Twitty is chilling in the dugout prior to this reading some giant book? Like? Is that supposed to be a joke? It just seems out of character. He should be sitting there — not paying attention, listening to music on his headphones and playing air-guitar or something. Not reading freaking War and Peace.
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So... I looked closely. That is a fictional book called “The Brains of Men and Women.” What the heck.
Twitty gets up to pitch for the first time that season and rox everyone’s sox off. (Yeah, I said that.) His stellar performance helps lead LJH to a victory! Artie initially introduced him by saying “Alan throws right, bats left, and lives around the corner from Del’s Pizzeria” which is fantastic. Fun fact: Just because I’m weird, I decided to look up Del’s Pizzeria… and it’s a real family owned and operated restaurant that opened in 1973! AND it’s actually in California! Granted, it’s 4 hours outside of Sacramento… so, if we’re thinking within the shows universe - that’d be a bit of a commute every day for a middle schooler lol. BUT STILL!!! I bet one of the writers or someone involved actually lived around there. Little things like that make me happy.  
Ren and Bobby talk in the hallway and it’s extremely awkward. Ren brings up Canada and how their system of government is similar to America’s. I can’t. To be fair, they haven’t become “official” yet. That actually happens in the following episode! But, I honestly think Ren and Bobby are so uncomfortable to watch sometimes because they simply don’t belong togetherrrrr! (I think I’ve made it clear who I prefer for her.) Well.. that, and they’re in Junior High. Everything about middle school relationships is awkward and I gotta admit again that the Ren/Bobby stuff portrays that pretty accurately. Ruby tells Ren to not say a word the next time they talk and let Bobby take control. Kinda awful advice and gives me Poor Unfortunate Souls vibes… but ok. It works, though! Bobby invites Ren to sit next to him on the bus for their upcoming field trip. Something that bothered me: Ren’s so excited about the invitation that she moves a guy away from his locker to scream into it. The only issue is that it’s HER LOCKER. There’s a crapton of other lockers the extra could’ve used!!
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Her locker seen in Season 1. 
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The “random guy’s” locker she screamed into. 
Twitty’s super happy about pitching so well. He’s the new star player! Tawny asks “Twitty, how does it feel to be the new sports hero? I mean, not that I’m into sports or anything. I actually find it to be a waste of the human spirit.” I relate to that so much, tbh. But, yeah. It’s all fine and dandy until Louis starts telling Twitty that everything’s different now. That the entire school is counting on him to win all of their games. And here we get one of the most iconic lines of the whole series. Louis explains, “You’re the closer, the man! THE BIG POPPA WITH THE BIG MOPPA!!!!!” (the first gif.) I was so unsure of where to rank this episode, solely because of how memorable this line is. But, one great line doesn’t exactly save this episode from being a little flat otherwise. I had my mom watch it with me today for an outside opinion and she was like “Dang, this one is boring.” Sooo. Yeah.
Anyway, Louis really gets inside Twitty’s head and he starts freaking out during their next game. He’s sweating like a pig and can’t think straight. We see Twitty imagine Louis’ face on the baseball he’s holding, repeating the Big Poppa line. It’s honestly so hilarious seeing Shia’s face on a baseball like that I really cannot handle it. It’s something else that made me want to rank this higher.
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Twitty took drugs before this game, right? 
Twitty pitches terribly and throws the ball pretty much everywhere but over the plate. He hits the peanut guy and Artie yells, “Oh! Right in the peanuts! That’s gotta hurt.” — A little cringy. But, Artie said it.. so, it’s ok. He also exclaims “Holy cow! Someone get me a hard hat!” when one of Twitty’s awful pitches knocks over the announcement speakers. I love it. LJH loses 29 to 2. Twitty blames Louis. After this, he starts choking at everyday things! Like pouring milk and putting on deodorant. Tawny and Louis go over to Twitty’s and try to snap him out of it. This is the one time ever in all 65 episodes that we get to see Twitty’s room! It’s on-point with his character, too. Kinda stoner-y, sporty, music-y, but also messy like a slightly neater version of Louis’ room. I like that they actually put thought into how it should look. When Tawny and Louis walk in, Twitty is lying on his bed all depressed. Louis tries to motivate him by screaming and clapping “Ya gotta get up! You got a game this afternoon. UP AND AT ‘EM! Up, up, up! Come on! Let’s get UP!” As if that’s gonna help someone who’s depressed. I love Shia so much.
The two try to help Twitty by giving him jellybeans when he thinks positively about pitching, and forcing him to smell Louis’ dirty socks when he has negative thoughts. At one point Tawny refers to the mound as “that stupid hill thingy.” I relate to her so much this episode. Their plan doesn’t work, so they call in Donnie for help. I really like Donnie. They bring him to Twitty’s room blindfolded and when they take it off he asks “…..where’s the surprise party?!” He’s so innocently dumb. It’s great. Once they fill him in on the situation, he recommends that Twitty relaxes at Big Al’s Spa — a place that once helped relieve him of sport-related stress.
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Twitty’s room! (Guitars and surfboards not pictured, lol.)
There’s a 5 second bit I always liked where Louis grabs and eats a jellybean from Tawny and she just gives him this side eye. They’re so cute.
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Nelson once again starts screwing things up for Ren. He sits next to her on the bus because according to his mother (and his hypochondria) that seat is the safest and he wants to live. He refuses to move. Wow. But, Ruby ain’t having it. She rearranges the ENTIRE BUS SEAT SCHEDULE in an elaborate plan just to ensure that Ren and Bobby sit together. 
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What an inconvenience. 
The first time, something goes wrong and Ruby ends up next to Ren. This pisses me off. WHY COULDN’T SHE JUST SWITCH SEATS WITH BOBBY AFTER THAT?! It’s a very obvious and simple solution. But, no.. they just sit there looking at each other across the bus like “ugh, this is so difficult!1! This is like an impossible algebra problem… how will we ever solve it?! We’re worlds apart! :(“ 
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So, instead of switching with Bobby.. She makes the entire bus swap seats again. Oh my god. This time Nelson ends up next to Ren, and Ruby ends up next to Bobby! SHE COULD EASILY JUST SWITCH SEATS WITH REN THIS TIME! But, they just helplessly stare at each other again. Seriously, how difficult is this?! Why couldn’t Ruby get it correct?! 
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Thankfully, Nelson actually does something right and gets the brilliant idea to switch seats with Bobby! Wow! Genius! You could’ve done that the first time and saved everyone all the trouble. Jesus. So, yeah. Bobby and Ren get to sit together and they both admit that they get nervous around each other. Which is kind of cute I guess. Then Bobby says he “feels like a little kid again” because he used to get carsick when he was young. He proceeds to throw up into a backpack, lol. This guy is seriously not ~all that.~ Idk what Ren sees in him. He is literally so strange. Classically good looking, maybe. But there’s something off about his character. That’s the end of the subplot.
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Twitty, Louis, Tawny and Donnie roll up to Big Al’s Spa and discover that it’s run down now and literally just a mud pit. You’re supposed to relax in the mud as if it’s a hot tub. No, thanks. Twitty really does not want to bathe in dirt either. But Louis says “Twitty, Donnie drove 50 miles… I’m spending $15… YOU’RE GETTIN’ IN THE STINKIN’ MUD!” I just love Shia’s shouty voice. Twitty gets in and they leave him there for an hour. He ends up taking a nap and wakes up super relaxed and refreshed… unfortunately, the mud hardened and he’s stuck.
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I love Tawny’s outfit. I would wear that, honestly. I live in my Docs. Tawny is just me today. 
When Louis, Tawny and Donnie come back for him.. Twitty freaks out. He starts screaming “I’m trapped! I’m gonna be trapped here forever! And then I’m never gonna get to see my grandchildren!” Uh, Twitty… I’d be worried about not having your own kids first. It’s pretty funny, though. Twitty takes his anger and frustration out at Louis and yells “I swear to Bob, when I get out of here I’m gonna beat you up for a week!” …Excuse me? “I swear to Bob?!” Who is Bob??? Bob Marley? Bob the Builder? Bob Saget?!?! I mean really, “SWEAR TO BOB”?!?!?! Clearly, I’m assuming Disney can’t say “swear to god.” But, wow. They should’ve had him say something else in that case, because “swear to Bob” just sounds stupid.
Obviously, they’re able to dig Twitty out! As soon as he’s free, he starts throwing mud balls at Louis who hides behind a barrel that just so happens to have a target on it. Without noticing, Twitty hits the bullseye every time. In order to focus that anger during games, they put a picture of Louis inside the Catcher’s glove, haha. Hey, it works though! And according to Artie Ryan, “The Twitty-meister is back.”
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It ends with Coach Tugnut relaxing at Big Al’s Spa, per Louis’ recommendation… Except he’s stuck in the hardened mud with no one to dig him out. Oops.
The end!
Like I said last week.. Season 2 is just kinda there. Episodes like this and the other Season 2 episodes that I’ve ranked already are examples of what I mean. There’s just a strange amount of slower, more forgettable episodes imo. Although “The big poppa with the big moppa” definitely helps this one stand out in people’s memories, I think. This one is also a Twitty plot basically! Which is kinda cool! But, ya know.. The show is called Even Stevens and he’s not a Stevens. So the episode as a whole feels a little off because of that. And Ren’s subplot is okay here. I definitely relate to wanting to sit next to your crush on the bus. Again, a very realistic Junior High situation. But, I swear to Bob… (whoever he is) the unnecessary seat rearranging gets on my last nerve!!!
Thanks again for reading! If you didn’t notice.. the blog is now evenstevensranked.com! Yay! :D
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As usual, share your thoughts below! 
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brittanybutler · 7 years
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Thoughts/rant on the Girl Meets World Cancellation.
Disney was never the right home for GMW to begin with, and because of that - the quality and longevity of the show suffered from day one. Boy Meets World originally aired on ABC, which was a primetime slot/mainstream channel that allowed the characters to grow and the stories to develop into more mature territory. As soon as I heard that GMW was going to be on Disney, I knew that: 
It wouldn’t be very good
It wasn’t gonna last long
Most shows on Disney Channel center around middle schoolers. (Or at least the ones I grew up with did.) And as far as I’ve seen, only a few are set in High School and deal with “real life” today. Sooo… I was already concerned right there. Boy Meets World followed the characters all the way through elementary school, high school, and college/adulthood. There’s no way that type of growth was ever going to happen with GMW on the Disney Channel. Freeform or Netflix, or heck.. even ABC if they went for it, would’ve been far better choices. The chance of it getting picked up by those networks now and exploring more mature themes is slim, because I’m assuming Disney owns the rights and might not want to sell the show to a network that could potentially take it down a Degrassi path content-wise. (If you know what I mean.)
Technical stuff aside… The show wasn’t very good. Which is unfortunate, because it had so much potential. I understand that it meant a lot to people, and that’s great. And I also understand that it genuinely was the “best” show on Disney Channel… But, that’s really not saying much since Disney has only gone further and further down the tubes since 2010. The show was cringy 80% of the time, extremely preachy, and way too melodramatic. BMW was super extra sometimes, too. Don’t get me wrong. But, GWM was another level. The smallest little thing would set the characters off into a completely avoidable melodramatic existential crisis every week. Like, wow. Chill. My mom and I would watch it and literally laugh out loud at how ridiculous it could get. It was very frustrating. It also took a nose dive when they wrote in that god awful love triangle between Riley, Maya, and Lucas. That was ludicrous and unnecessary. (And kinda uncomfortable.) Not only that, I don’t even like Lucas and Riley together. They’re awkward to me because he’s so much taller/older looking and too much of a pretty boy, imo. If they didn’t end up making Charlie Gardner so creepy-like, he definitely should’ve been Riley’s “forever” guy like Cory/Topanga. He was quirky like Riley and clearly cared about her a lot and understood her. They totally could’ve easily made them work. But, no. They wrote him out in favor of the love triangle. Wow. 
I also couldn’t get on board with what they did to Shawn. I always thought that he should’ve stayed with Angela, and that Maya should’ve been his biological daughter to begin with. (Which would’ve made Maya biracial and I’m all for that because I’m a biracial person who personally wants to see more representation for biracial kids/people.. but. lol - No offense to Sabrina Carpenter.) 
To be honest, Auggie and Ava were the best part of that show and I’d much rather get a spin-off about them, lol. I was more invested in two 7 year olds than the main kids. Like???
Anyway.. going back to what I said at the beginning… Basically, Girl Meets World should’ve never been on Disney Channel. As I believe that’s the root of a lot of it’s issues. They’re even saying now that Disney shows typically only get 3 seasons (which is true, remember the stupid 65 episodes cap?) and only rarely get a 4th season - which is also true. (That’s So Raven, Wizards, and Hannah Montana are some of the few that made it to a season 4, for example.) But, Girl Meets World isn’t like those shows. It’s a show that should’ve gone on and on like it’s predecessor. For GMW to have been picked up as a Disney show with Disney limitations – means that they never even intended for it to live on the way BMW did. Which is rude and pointless. Therefore, yeah. It should’ve never been on Disney Channel. The End.
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evenstevensranked · 7 years
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#50: Season 3, Episode 20 - “Surf’s Up”
Recurring character Zack Estrada invites Twitty to go surfing with him and his friends. Out of jealousy, Louis, who was not invited — invites himself.. which causes all sorts of drama. Meanwhile, Ren meets and falls for a guy named Gil who she has reason to believe might be a merman.
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Okay, so I just want to start off by saying… a lot of people don’t like this episode. I looked at some old forums from 2000-2006 recently and so many people were like “This episode sucked!” right after it initially aired, lol. I guess I can see why they felt that way, but this episode is actually one of my personal favorites. Why have I ranked it #50 then, you ask? Well, upon re-watching.. it felt a little flat and sort of dragged on. It wasn’t as funny or strong as I remembered, but I still absolutely love the basis for the whole thing. If we’re looking at what I’m basing my rankings on, this one probably meets only 2 of the 6 requirements - “personal favorite” and “quality plot line.” So, now that you know my reasoning... let’s dive in. (Pun intended.)
In the opening scene, we see Louis and Twitty at lunch when *dun dun dunnnn* Zack Estrada calls Twitty over and invites him to go surfing at Troubadour Point. Now, this episode actually marks Zack’s last appearance. So, without getting into detail.. Basically, Louis has always been super jealous of this dude. Like, incredibly jealous. The jealousy dates back to early Season 1 and spans 4 episodes throughout the shows run. I refer to it as The Zack Estrada Saga. And here, it continues. The third to last episode of the series, and he’s still jealous.
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I know that feel, Lou. 
When Twitty returns to their lunch table he’s talking excitedly about spring break. Which, piggybacking off of what I said last week, is another reason why I fully believe these kids were intended to be high school students. Because, no middle schoolers I know go gallivanting off to the beach unsupervised for spring break, lol. But, hey! Maybe it’s different in 2017. Nah, yeah. Something’s telling me it’s definitely different in 2017. Middle schoolers look and act 25 years old these days, so.
Louis’ jealousy is very evident when he passive aggressively asks Twitty when he started hanging out with Zack and his friends. Twitty says he went surfing with them last spring break while Louis was at a temper tantrum workshop. This is the first funny moment of the episode. Louis responds by screaming at Twitty on the verge of tears, “nOW YOU LISTEN HERE! I EXPRESS MYSELF APPROPRIATELY NOW!” Louis decides to go ahead and invite himself to Troubadour Point even though he has no idea how to surf.
This episode was always somewhat refreshing to me, because it’s one of the only ones where we see our characters in an environment other than their houses or school. That’s something cool about early Disney Channel shows. They weren’t contrived or restricted to a sound stage on a fake beach like Hannah Montana, for example. They’re actually at a real beach and I love it. 
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They make a point to show Twitty and the owner of the beach shack rub a sacred lucky surf idol tiki thing and say “Pray for waves!” Louis enters the shack with his surfboard (which is bad luck apparently) and knocks over the tiki. Yikes. This reminds me of The Brady Bunch Hawaii episode, lol. I was just waiting for the bad luck music to play. Zack was already a little annoyed when Twitty told him Louis was coming, so now… his dislike for Louis is pretty strong. 
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Side note: I feel like Disney Channel totally typecast Brandon Baker as that ~ethnic surfer bro.~ For those of you who don’t know or never realized, he also played Johnny Kapahala (a.k.a Johnny Tsunami). I just came across this cute little followup series Disney did with him last year. Side side note: Brandon is actually biracial (white and fillipino) and they portrayed that accurately on screen in the Johnny movies! Random to mention, I know. But I’m biracial so I get oddly happy when I notice this stuff, lol.
There are actually two mini subplots in this episode, which might contribute to its “off”-ness. We have Tom who’s trying to build a perfect sandcastle. And we have Beans who’s metal detecting, but just ends up stealing people’s stuff. Beans really shouldn’t be there. His bit is useless. I understand it was most likely an attempt to get everyone involved in the fun beach location episode.. but, I feel like there might be too many things going on here.
Tawny is sitting by Tom, all covered up from the sun. Tom asks her why she isn’t helping with the sand castle and she’s like “Oh, I’m just waiting for a little more cloud cover.” And, Tom says “Oh. Right. Heaven forbid a ray of sunshine should touch your precious porcelain skin.” Tom is the best. But of course.. Twitty, Zack and the surfer bros go running to the ocean and step all over the castle. Louis is trailing behind them like a lovable uncoordinated doofus and ruins the remainder of it. Tom is so sad. Bless his heart.
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Ren, Ruby and Monique are chilling on the beach too when some guys ask them to hang out. Side note: This one dude who Monique runs away with!! I always thought he looked familiar and as I was watching it again today — it hit me! He went on to be a member of fictional boyband Boyz N Motion from That’s So Raven! Omg. I looked it up just to make sure, and I was in fact correct. His name is Michael Copon. So, there’s that.
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Ren is on the dock throwing pebbles and shells into the sea when a guy emerges from the water and throws shells back at her, lol ok. The two start talking and she finds out his name is Gil! Yep. THE Gil who breaks her heart in a pancake house in The Even Stevens Movie. Gil swims away, and Ren can’t help but notice the giant glimmering fin that splashes in the water. I’d honestly be a little confused, too.
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My inner subconscious Social Justice Warrior came out a bit when Ren sees Monique and Ruby doing their hair and makeup and says “Ah! Makeup and hairspray at the beach. Very nice, girls. I thought you already met some guys.” To which they respond, “Yeah, and we wanna keep them.” NOOOOOO! Sorry. I hate to view things through that lens, but after spending so much time on Tumblr and Twitter (especially in the current climate of the country) it just rubs off on you! Ugh. You can’t escape it! Anyway, Ren tells them about Gil and the whole fin thing and they find it absolutely hilarious.
Out on the ocean, Twitty and Zack’s crew are bummed because there are no waves. Zack angrily says “Pfft! I wonder why…” And gives Louis the nastiest look as he comes paddling up to them all happy. I feel so bad. Zack yells at him for bringing his board into the shack and breaking the lucky surf idol. The gang desert Louis and head back to the beach for lunch. Twitty sides with them saying “sometimes I just need to do my own thing, man” and leaves Louis alone in the middle of the ocean. My poor baby. :(
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I will not stand for this! Protect Louis Stevens at all costs. 
Louis goes back to the beach and once again walks right through Tom’s sandcastle. Come on, man! You could’ve walked around it, lol. It’s not even like he was running.. he was casually walking. I can’t. He goes to the dock and finds Ren with binoculars looking for Gil. The two of them have a “conversation” that’s not really a conversation. It’s just them going back and forth ranting about their own problems without actually listening to the other. It’s a cute sibling moment, haha. I actually really love Louis and Twitty’s friendship, though. They’re like an old married couple in this episode. I think it’s adorable. During this scene Louis is so fed up with Twitty ditching him for Zack, so he decides to go surf on his own. Meanwhile, Ren is ranting about Gil being real, knowing what she saw and that she’s not crazy.
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“At least your best friend didn’t ditch ya. He’s hanging out with his ~new~ surfer buddies. They’re probably having a good’ol time. Laughing, eating onion rings. Twitty doesn’t even like onion rings! Ya know?! So, it’s weird. He’s probably faking like he likes them!” I love this.
Ren decides to go out on the ocean in a boat and call for Gil by making dolphin noises. She brought sardines to lure him with and everything. This is pretty funny and one of my favorite scenes because it’s rooted in miscommunication. Plots with comedic miscommunication are one of my favorite things ever and it’s executed really well here. Naturally, Gil pops up from the water. Like... I’d believe he’s a merman, too. Why is he out there in the ocean all the time?! What was he doing underwater?! How long was he under?! How was he breathing?! All valid questions. 
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How creepy is that?! lol
He swims over to Ren and tells her he was getting Lobsters for his dad, King Neptune. I’m dead. She’s like “Wow. So you really are a sea person…” - “Yep, born and raised!” he says. This is gold. Then we get a super cringy, awkward moment. After a tiny bit of flirting, Gil proceeds to dramatically kiss Ren????? Slow your rolls, buddy. That’s a little fast for Disney Channel, don’t you think? They just met 2 hours ago at the most, and Ren is in middle school. I’M TELLIN YA! THESE KIDS ARE SUPPOSED TO BE JUNIORS AND SENIORS IN HIGH SCHOOL, I SWEAR! It’s the only logical explanation for certain stuff. 
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Beans is a freaking idiot who hovered his metal detector over peoples’ pocketbooks and crap all day and stole their personal belongings. But he refers to it as “buried treasure.” How stupid can you be?! Like I said, he’s pretty useless here and did not need to be included in the episode. Plus, you know I’m not the biggest Beans fan. Finally, we see him hover the detector over a tip jar in the shack. He goes to steal all of it before Tawny stops him. Tom comes over and announces that the Lost and Found is open, yelling out all of the items in Beans’ bag lol. There’s one bit where Tom shouts “ONE GOLDEN……. oh geez, this is mine” and sneakily puts it in his pocket. Uh. What the heck was it?! Do I even want to know? Can anyone tell what that is?
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While everyone’s in the shack sulking over the lack of waves, Twitty decides to go out and attempt to surf again. While he’s sitting out there, a freaking giant wave comes out of nowhere and sweeps him away. Louis notices and runs to Twitty’s rescue! They don’t skimp on the dramatics here. Louis kicks into full Baywatch slo-mo mode with an 80s knockoff power jam “You can count on mEeEeeE, I will always beeee thereeee for youuUuUuU” playing in the background. So good.
One thing I really like about Even Stevens is that it doesn’t take itself too seriously. They’ll throw in giant computer generated waves, and a terrible green screen job - but it doesn’t matter. It’s not supposed to look good, it’s supposed to be funny. It doesn’t need to look real to sell the moment on this show. (Christy said something similar on the movie’s DVD commentary!) If this scene looked realistic, the episode would pull a 180 and turn into a drama. That’s not what they were going for, haha. 
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A totally not superimposed Twitty getting swept away.
Louis cracks me up. Literally anything out of his mouth is funny because of the way Shia phrases it. Once he rescues Twitty he says “You know what’s funny to me? That the worst surfer in the world is havin’ to save Hot Shot Surfer Boy over here.” They proceed to argue like an old married couple some more. Twitty says he never called himself Hot Shot Surfer Boy. Louis calls Twitty two-faced and insists he buy him a Philly Cheese Steak to apologize. It’s so petty, I love it so much. When suddenly… ANOTHER WAVE COMES OUT OF NOWHERE! We get a wonderful Louis Scream as they frantically paddle. They end up briefly surfing the wave together. 
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Twitty: “DUDE THIS IS SO AWESOME THIS WAVE’S LIKE… 10 FEET OVER OUR HEADS!” Louis: “DON’T CHANGE THE SUBJECT, TWITTY! I’M STILL MAD AT CHUUUU!”
Louis falls off and disappears into the sea, which is hilarious looking. But, also awful because if this was a drama, he would’ve died. But, anyway. Twitty comes riding up to shore and everyone surrounds him with praise for conquering that gnarly wave all by himself. Meanwhile, Louis washes up to shore covered in seaweed. This poor child. The two of them share one of those conflicting ~emotional~ moments where one person knows they’re being a jerk and looks off sadly at the person they’re letting down. :( Thankfully, Twitty tells the truth when Zack asks him how he caught the wave and everyone’s shocked that Louis actually did something right.
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Ren’s sitting on the beach when some guy approaches her, and she realizes it’s Gil…? But, he’s walking? With legs? And then everything gets cleared up. “King Neptune” is the name of his dad’s seafood company, and he swims with a uni-fin flipper. I almost wish there were more layers of miscommunication! It could’ve been even funnier.  
Louis and Twitty end up having a heart to heart while sitting in Tom’s sandcastle. It’s precious. I wish I had a friendship that tight. Instead I’m sitting here, indoors, blogging about a fictional friendship. Twitty apologizes for ditching Louis, and Louis apologizes for inviting himself. But, Twitty says he’s glad he did because he might not be alive. “Yeah… The whole save your life thing. Whatever, it’s all in a day’s work.” I love Louis. How could you not be this guys friend?! To this day, I wish I had a friend as funny and chill as Louis. Dang. Twitty even bought him a Philly Cheese Steak! Aw. They split it and it’s a nice moment. But, as they’re eating.. they have to throw in a bad line. “Huh. It’s a little dry, isn’t it?” Louis asks. Cue another giant CG wave. Get it? Now the sub isn’t dry anymore! Hah..hahaa..ha…? I never thought that line was particularly funny. It’s almost on par with this terribly cheesy (and insensitive) deleted scene from Titanic. But the visual of them getting hit by the fake wave while sitting in a sandcastle is one of those things that will always cheer me up. I can’t look at that without laughing.
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And that’s it! The episode ends with a random Twitty-Stevens Connection music video "Dawn Patrol" lol. The song always gets stuck in my head. Ugh. It’s so cringy in the best way. I actually love some of the bloopers they included. But, hey! Who’s the rando on bass? Beans became their bassist earlier in the season. They use Beans for a throwaway metal detector plot, but don’t have him play bass in the band he plays bass for. Okay. Also according to the episode credits, AJ Trauth actually wrote the song! Haha, awesome.
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So, yeah. My opening statements pretty much sum up my feelings towards this one. But, one distracting thing I feel like mentioning is that this episode uses one too many unflattering fish-eye style close ups? WHY?! Look:
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One too many! ONE TOO MANY! Paul Hoen directed this one. He still directs for Disney today, btw! I wonder what made him decide on this? It really stood out to me and gives the episode a bit of an offbeat, quirky feel. 
Thanks for reading guys! I feel like these posts are getting longer and longer. I have to reel myself in here. (Okay, no pun intended there.) As usual, chime in below. Are you one of the people on that old forum who thought this episode sucked? I personally like it a lot and was tempted to rank it higher!
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