#but my other school work is still beating my ass so uni won in the end 💔💔💔

[sojutrait]

Did you finish the paper? The 2K words one?😭💔

NOPE i just turned it in at 1,300 words and played mystic messenger until 5am

[noorengels]

reasons i am sad (friendship edition)

in year 4 my best friend invited everyone to her birthday party and not me and they all actually kept it a secret really well they almost pulled it off except she held her party in la plaza which basically is the hangout spot for families in that area i spent all my fridays there playing until midnight bc literally everyone from school would go. so i was walking home with my entire family inc grandparents and uncles and we went through la plaza and there they were! every single one of my friends at her party! apparently her mum didnt let her invite me bc apparently i hit her which i didn’t i hit another girl so her excuse is invalid and its the first time ive been so publicly excluded i cried on a bench.

in year 7 we hated this girl bc she was so fake i genuinely believe she is a psychopath like she has all the symptoms except shes in set 5 maths lol so my friend was like what if i spread a rumour about her and i was like lol do it and she did and for some reason i was blamed??? and lost all of my friends and she bullied me so hard but i didnt realise bc i was “friends” with her bc our mums were friends so shed like walk with me to lessons and talk to me while belittleing me and idk she was just a fucking bitch she made me feel so horrible like it was emotional bullying but also like telling everyone who i liked and saying lmao you literally have no friends “count how many friends you have? omg you literally cant even reach ten can you???” like in front of everyone but then shed also be really nice to me at the same time like idk it was like she was my friend but she bullied me it was so horrible saffa i hate you and the original friend who spread the rumour went on to become her best friend for like 6 years so uh hate that

managed to make friends with people not in my class in year 8! which sucked bc saffa had alienated people in my class so now they all just didnt like me i was the weird girl with no friends because of her and it was so horrible bc id always be forced to join the ready made groups between friends by the teacher  bc i didnt have a group to work with or id get paired with the weird girl like i was only the weird girl after saffa made everyone hate me this girl was weird bc she just is idk 

in year 10 they made a gc without me! i basically created that group tho like i gathered these friends i hade made in different lessons (obviously not in my main class lol) and they literally just??? decided to exclude me for no reason. and then theyd talk about what they talked about in the gc in front of me like “omg remember last night on the gc” isha ur so fucking boring no normal person talks about their gc with the same people again do u have no other conversational points smh

in year 11 it got so bad to the point where once i sat with them and they all just left! like they took their stuff and moved to the table behind me i wanted to cry so bad i did at home i think its the worst one out of all of these because it happened to my face? idk saffa was horrible too but this was just “were leaving” idk like ive never felt as horrible as i did in that moment i cant even describe how im feeling rn reliving it

its okay bc i made friends with my best friend from sciences + history bc our surnames are next to each other so we always sat together! i honestly clung to this girl after that bc i refused to spend a second longer with that other group after 3 years of enduring not even being liked by ur friends so i made friends with her friends which was easy bc yes! 

so by the first term of year 12 i had three friends! in fact one of them was like ur not having a birthday party??? im taking u out to eat so my first birthday event thing in literally years was all thanks to arun i am honestly so grateful for him he didnt even go bc he was busy and we planned it the day before my birthday but it was literally me and two friends eating pizza at zizzis and im crying so much rn but year 12 was when i found people who genuinely cared about me

we established a group of like 8 lol and were planning a holiday for the end of year 13! very skam of us! we had a gc and everything! we were gonna go to spain bc im spanish so i could speak!

this trip was unspoken of in year 13 and i was like lol kinda weird um okay but nope nothing weird about it they just created a chat without me and were still going to spain!!! one of them even sent me screenshots of their airbnb to translate its like u want me to know lol

i did complain to one of them but thats it i was just hurt on my own and coronavirus happened so it got cancelled anyways so i won really

in yr 13 i also got closer to this boy called adam! i remember my friend was like you two would get on so well idk why ur not friends and i was like idk its adam lol do i really want to and yes i did bc he is in fact the isak to my sana! but anyways i hate him but i love him we have that kinda friendship where were alwAYS trying to beat the other one up and honestly the most heart felt goodbye when schools shut was between us both bc at first we were fighting and then he just stopped and his eyes softened and i was like whats wrong with you why arent u punching me and he went come here and we hugged and its like wow despite being a dick ill miss you

anyways so uhhh quarantine we skyped often it was fun and then restrictions were lifted i went to spain and the second i land they all stop talking in the gc????? like im abroad not dead why are u creating a new one??? this gc was agressively spammed so i know for a fact theres another im not stupid

i come back from spain and theyre like can we meet!!! we meet three weeks later and theyr like i missed u so much im so happy uou came i love you and it felt really genuine like they genuinely missed me

two days later i find out through snapchat theyve all gone on holiday together!!!!!!!!!!!!! all of them and just ofc didnt invite me they went to the beach for two days and kept posting about it and im so bitter about it like bro???????? why so secretive????? like i cried so much when i saw bc they still just idk why does every single friendgroup ive ever been in exclude me like i must be the problem theres no other explanation for it i am not the kind of person people want to have around i am so funny but im a bitch and will come for ur ass because i have the inability to lie i have no filter either which i know makes them dislike me i know it does but thats the price you oay for being my friend i just say things as it is becauxe i hate secrets bc secrets are always about excluding me so i rather be honest and upfront but that clearly puts people off bc im too upfront and im not getting a personality transplant im not tryna be boring but im so sick of always being the one on her own

adam was relevant uh hews my only friend rn he checked up on me the other day so cheers adam for making sure im not completely isolated

the funny thing is that all my friends hate adam bc “hes a dick” hes not he just says things how it is were so similar so if they hate adam they hate me and im over being hated lol bye!

i start uni next week and i clearly have no social skills so im not gonna make friends im so scared of being lonely i hate being left out

this went from sad to full on angry like i was crying at some point and now im fuming like im so hot rn my blood pressure isnt doing okay

[placetobenation]

Picture it.

Sydney.

2010.

A young peasant girl comes home from uni to watch SmackDown. An injury to the Women’s Champion necessitates an impromptu title match in her hometown. The fighting is short but fierce. Punches. Kicks. Heads bonk together. Great feats of strength are performed by a woman on one leg. Finally, a beautiful British lady wrestler wins the match, becomes the Women’s Champion of the World and starts screaming over and over. On the opposite side of the world, the peasant girl watching on television also starts screaming over and over. To this day, she is still screaming.

That young peasant girl was me.

And that lady wrestler was Layla.

Fair dinkum I yelled so loudly when she won the title that my father came running in thinking I’d hurt something. (“I’m fine Dad, some sheila just won on the wrestling,” I say, as he rolls his eyes.) Then I’m pretty sure I ran around the house high-fiving my mother. I was an amazingly cool 19 year old.

I’m embarassing myself like this just to demonstrate how completely head and shoulders in love I am with Layla. You better get your ponchos out because – in a stark departure from the rest of my pieces – I am going to gush like a geyser.

You see, when Victoria left WWE in January 2009 she left a decidedly Victoria-shaped hole in my heart. If you recall, Victoria showed me that in wrestling, I like my heels like I like my women: goofy and clever and showing a whole lot of ass. (A line so nice I’ll use it twice.)

Anyway, cue Layla. She’d been around since winning the Diva Search in 2006 and already showed a lot of potential, but when she hooked up with Michelle McCool and formed LayCool she embraced her inner Victoria and became the bumpiest, stoogiest, goofiest heel of all time. It was like I dreamt her into existence.

She had a deadset smorgasbord of shtick. She would mock and taunt and poke and prod, and then scream and run away in terror when anyone came after her. She loved to jump into Michelle’s arms, or hide behind her. And when she was REALLY threatened, she would… curl up into a ball on the floor. Like a toddler, just turtle up and hope that “If I can’t see you, you can’t see me!” still works as an adult.

Then she’d get caught and just EAT some shit in the most glorious way.

What a bumper she was! By the time we get to LayCool she is absolutely eating offense for lunch and bumping like crazy. She made everyone look good, particularly someone like Beth Phoenix, who would fold her completely in half. They had a match on Superstars that is basically a five minute snapshot of peak Layla – Laycool cut a promo belittling Beth, who came out and chased Layla around, Layla stooged her bits off until she was caught and bumped into another dimension as she cried and begged for mercy. I have watched that match about fifty million times. It is pure, unadulterated fun.

That’s what Layla was, really. Fun. She was the silly one that brought all of the ridiculous, over the top hamming to the LayCool act and their segments. She definitely brought that stuff out of Michelle McCool, who had always struggled with promos and showing personality before this. I already went into how much Michelle needed Layla to fully develop as a wrestler. In turn, Layla needed Michelle too; Michelle brought credibility and her Terminator-ness to the act and allowed Layla to goof off to her heart’s content. Working with Michelle also helped Layla become a much better wrestler, and honestly by 2010 I think Layla had an even better year in the ring than Michelle did.

But that’s me splitting hairs because they were both fantastic in 2010. Well, really for the entire LayCool run. I remember they would have these nifty little tags with any combination of the blondes on SmackDown – Kelly Kelly, Tiffany, Beth, Natalya – these matches were usually only two minutes or so, but they were just about the best two minute tag team matches you could possibly have. LayCool got pretty well hosed when it came to match time on SmackDown, but in true Diva fashion they always made the most of any time that they got.

On the rare occasion that they got time they really shined, taking the time to bust out old school heel tricks and use the referee to get some proper heat going. They had a random tag team match on Superstars that for some inexplicable reason was the longest women’s match in WWE since literally the 1980s. Absolute manna from heaven. This thing was just after TLC where Nattie put them both through the table, and seriously, Michelle and Layla sold the aftermath of that one table bump more than people like Shane McMahon sell leaping 30ft to their untimely deaths.

LayCool did it all as an act – promos, skits, short matches, slightly less short matches. They even managed to sneak in some epic, long term, Breaking Bad-esqe storytelling as well. And it was Layla’s character and her acting of it that drove the story of their eventual break up – it was all about her vulnerability and feelings of inadequacy compared to Michelle. For such a goofball who spent all her time cracking bad jokes and cartoon bumping her ass off, she was doing some legit character work at the same time.

I want to get back to those bumps for a second. I still can’t get over Layla saying that the first bumps she ever took were ON TELEVISION during her first match on SmackDown. (Chorus: Fuck this company!) But the truly crazy thing about it is that you would never, ever know.

She looked SO GOOD in that battle royal, brief as it was. I watched it before I even knew Layla had said that, and I just kept saying to myself how astonishingly solid she looked for her first match. And she continued to do so whenever they put her in the ring, which was only sporadically for the first 12 months. But really, I shouldn’t have been surprised she turned out as good as she did, because she sure showed a lot of promise pretty much from the get go.

She had debuted as a babyface after winning the Diva Search, but this woman was a born heel. Once Extreme Expose broke up on ECW (R.I.P.) and Layla began wrestling as a heel she immediately seemed to get it. One thing I noticed in particular is that no matter the match or how much time they got, Layla always took the time to target a body part and take over the face by working an arm or leg. Like the world’s hottest Arn Anderson.

I’m sure the six months she spent working with William Regal as his valet didn’t hurt her education in villainous bodypart work either. I really only mention this pairing just so I have an excuse to bring up the time that Layla threw her shoe across the whole ass ring at CM Punk and nailed him right in the fucking head.

But I digress.

Layla became a babyface again after LayCool ended in tears (R.I.P.) and she wasn’t quite the same, but it certainly wasn’t for lack of trying. Well, Layla tried, anyway. The company, not so much. LayCool were horrid people and completely unlikeable and they never made any effort to rehab her character once it was over, so she never got much in the way of sympathy. But Layla did her best by buying all the way into WWE’s Smiling, Dancing Babyfaces Just Want To Put Smiles On The Faces Of The WWE Universe policy. She smiled, she danced, she joked around in the ring, and she got a new sickeningly cheesy theme song. From the world’s hottest Arn Anderson to the world’s hottest R-Truth.

In the ring she made a great effort to switch it up her style and work as a babyface. Heel shtick was replaced with Smilin’ Babyface shtick, and she brought in cool, lucha-inspired moves like the double pump springboard crossbody and her wacky running rollup. And even if she never truly got over as a face, she sure had a lot of good matches as one. Great PPV matches with Beth Phoenix, great title bouts with Eve Torres. Her and AJ Lee even opened a SmackDown episode with a women’s match for the first time in, well, actually ever, I think.

The final few years of her career were mainly frustrating, as injuries and other issues kept pulling her away from TV. We just get little glimpses of Layla, like the feud with Summer Rae over Fandango and the ensuing tag team with her that stole my poor gay heart. Or when she turned heel on Kaitlyn in 2013 and immediately started partying like it was 2010, bumping and stooging away for a hot minute until she vanished again. Layla was one of the few to have fun matches with Tamina during this time, and even her second last match was a cool romp with Emma in the UK. I always missed her like crazy when she was gone, and marked like a mofo when she came back. They really could have used her a LOT more in those years.

But alas, Layla quietly retired in late 2015, having spent nine years on the roster, which at the time was the longest full-time run for a women’s wrestler in WWE history (Nattie and Foxy have outlasted her now). Not bad for someone who didn’t even start wrestling full-time until the age of 30.

It’s no secret at this point that I love a lot of these women, so sometimes it’s hard to tell one of my loves from another. But apart from Trish Stratus herself, I think Layla is the Diva that I loved the absolute very most when she was around. Certainly I’ve never marked harder for anyone winning any title in wrestling than I did for Layla winning hers. I can still remember watching it clear as day, sitting in this room, in the exact same spot on this earth that I’m in now.

In some ways, I really haven’t stopped screaming since.

It’s hard to come down from Layla, so I say don’t come down, just keep mainlining Divas! So next week I’ll be making another deep dive straight into my bloody, beating heart.

Check it out: Layla vs. Melina (Smackdown, August 14th 2009) Layla vs. Beth Phoenix (Superstars, April 8th 2010) Laycool vs. Kelly & Tiffany (Smackdown, May 21st 2010) Layla vs. Tiffany (Superstars, August 5th 2010) Laycool vs. Beth & Natalya (Smackdown, December 31st 2010) Layla vs. Beth Phoenix – Divas Title (Over the Limit 2012) Layla vs. Beth Phoenix – Divas Title (No Way Out 2012) Layla vs. Eve Torres – Divas Title (Night of Champions 2012) Layla vs. Natalya (Smackdown, November 14th 2014) Layla vs. Emma (Main Event, April 15th 2015)