#i also gotta prepare for the winner of the poll soon

[jell-o101]

The Tears Won't Stop

1 / 2

I bet 3 pennies y'all wont know what anime this will reference. And if ya do, you have my resepct.

This will be a short comic I will be doing because I need to get it out of my system.

[junker-town]

A cereal draft, because we are a sports website

Photo by: Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

You have three picks; what’s the best breakfast/toddler-dinner lineup you can make?

Guess what, jerks? It’s Saturday morning and we’re talking about cereal.

A spirited Slack channel debate about, huh, black jelly beans turned into a long and arduous discussion about which cereals reign supreme in this world. After 15 minutes of “several people are typing” notifications at the bottom of the screen, several ALL CAPS dissertations on the status of breakfast marshmallow, and a lengthy explanation of what bran is, we were instructed to bring this dysfunction to the world at large by our interim editor-in-chief Graham MacAree (please direct all complaints to graham.macaree at sbnation.com).

Yes, as the MLB playoffs rage on, the NBA nears its opening tipoff (check out our incredible preview here), and the NFL and NHL roar through their regular seasons, we devoted entirely too much time to a breakfast cereal fantasy draft. The rules were simple; five writers took part in three rounds of a randomly-ordered snake draft. Best three-cereal lineup takes all.

How are we going to judge that? That’ll be up to you to vote for in our poll below. The winner will receive nothing, but the loser will be relentlessly mocked and have to put their embarrassing failure on all future resumes going forward:

SB Nation, start date - present - wrote stuff - talked about punting - showed the world my ass RE: horrible cereal selections

Here we go:

1. Harry Lyles Jr. - Honey Bunches of Oats

I’m fully prepared to get roasted for this pick, and I encourage you all to tell me why I’m wrong, whether it be in the comments or on Twitter. However, I feel my reasoning is fair, and here’s why.

A good cereal tastes good, and this one is absolutely delicious. It’s got a good mix of tasting healthy, while also being sweet, but not overbearing. In making my No. 1 overall selection, I asked myself what cereal could I live with if I had to eat it every day for the rest of my life, and this was an easy answer. I’m a big fan of incredibly sweet and delicious cereals, but Honey Bunches of Oats felt like a good balance between I Feel Like This Is Healthy and This Is Delicious.

That’s enough to be the top pick, for me.

2. Hector Diaz - Cocoa Pebbles

Not only is it one of the best cereals, but it eventually becomes chocolate milk. That’s a bonus, which makes it a high-upside cereal on top of the already-high expectations for a chocolatey rice breakfast food with Flintstones characters on the box. And if you prefer Cocoa Puffs, you don’t respect the roof of your mouth.

3. Christian D’Andrea - Fruity Pebbles

Did I panic when the inferior chocolate version of the only cereal endorsed by a caveman was picked? MAYBE. Fruity Pebbles was getting snapped up early no matter what though; every bite is a sugary firework in your mouth. And they’re one of the rare cereals that get better as it absorbs more milk. Dredging up rainbow-colored mud from the bottom of your milk swamp is the most rewarding part of a Fruity Pebbles morning.

4. James Brady - Honey Nut Cheerios

My goal was to go for mass appeal — cereals that are unassailable in their universal greatness. So I went with an old standby, one that is perhaps overshadowed in sales by regular Cheerios, but far superior in every way. Maybe everybody doesn’t get hype for them, but who turns down a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios? Bad people, that’s who. Harry came close when he went with the Honey Bunches of Oats out of the gate, but letting the Honey Nut Cheerios slip to four overall was a mistake tbh.

5. Eric Stephen - Cap’n Crunch

The best crunch in the breakfast game, this cereal both lives up to its name and honors its leader’s climb through the naval ranks. I love everything about this cereal, whether it includes Crunchberries or not. The lone drawback of this delectable treat is that it wreaks havoc with the palate. This does not deter my enjoyment of Cap’n Crunch, as I hate the roof of my mouth. I’m eating a Hot Pocket as I type this.

6. Stephen - Golden Grahams

Outside of s’mores, I never cared much for graham crackers. Unless they came in a miniature, much crispier form and drenched in milk. Golden Grahams was among the best cereals at holding its firmness in milk. There are no soggy messes on my team.

7. Brady - Cinnamon Toast Crunch

In sticking with my mass appeal scheme, I was hoping that Eric wouldn’t grab these with his two picks. While he grabbed one of my favorites, the criminally under-appreciated Golden Grahams, I was always looking for Cinnamon Toast Crunch as my second pick. They’re delicious, and anybody should be able to see why kids love Cinnamon Toast Crunch. I get that cinnamon is a relatively strong spice and can put some people off, but those people are bad people.

8. D’Andrea - Lucky Charms

Sugar surrounded by tiny scraps of cardboard — much different than James’ selection of scraps of cardboard coated with sugar. Eat the Charms within five minutes or you’re stuck shoveling hyperglycemic hamster bedding into your mouth.

Unlike Cap’n Crunch, it actually tastes like something, at least. The fact that nothing-ass Rice Krispies got their own dessert bar and this sugar menagerie didn’t is quite possibly the greatest upset in the breakfast world.

9. Diaz - Froot Loops

I have to admit that my preferred picks were chosen earlier than expected, but you can’t knock this pick. It’s sugary. It’s iconic. It may not have the upside that Cocoa Pebbles has, but it has a solid floor. This is a safe pick, in my opinion.

10. Lyles - Cheerios

Yes, basic Cheerios. This is a very bulletproof cereal that can be enjoyed by babies with a mush brain to people on their last breaths (not to get all morbid, but it’s the truth). Regular Cheerios are delicious, heart-healthy, and can be sweetened with a teaspoon or less of sugar, if you want to give them a kick. The idea that Cheerios could fall to No. 10 is incredible, and I couldn’t pass them up.

11. Lyles - Honey Smacks

This was a tough pick, because I am a huge fan of Cap’n Crunch Crunchberries. But those tear the roof of your mouth by the time you get to the bottom of the box, and for that, they lose points. And no, I’m not willing to let them “soak” to soften them up before eating them. As soon as milk touches cereal, it’s time to boogie. Soggy cereal, like french fries, suck.

Honey Smacks, however, are delicious, sweet, and the favorite of Hall of Fame wide receiver Randy Moss. So they have to be a great value at No. 11, right?

12. Diaz - Frosted Mini Wheats

Surprise! This cereal is bound to be the most uninspiring yet most solid pick out of the whole bunch. You get all the sugar from the other cereals with the semblance of it being healthy with the help of the shredded wheat. Think of this cereal as a tight end that mostly plays like a receiver. Surely, no one else will pick a more questionable cereal in this draft, but this is a fine choice to me.

13. D’Andrea - Cracklin’ Oat Bran

Cheerios, a cereal for toddlers and the elderly, and Mini-Wheats, which I’ve only seen in the wild at my grandmother’s house, both went before me. AND YET I was the one getting roasted for picking an old man cereal at No. 13. Anyone roasting me for drafting COB clearly hasn’t tasted it before. It’s dense and surprisingly sweet. Just like Hector.

And it doesn’t matter when the last time you bought this cereal was. If you’ve ever had it before, that 80s-ass, exceedingly polite box is the only one you envision when you hear the word “Cracklin.”

14. Brady - Reese’s Puffs

This one is part mass appeal, part “James would eat this every day until his death, which would probably come quicker because eating Reese’s Puffs every day is probably not good for your health.” And I don’t care. They’re DELICIOUS and they make for some amazing peanut butter chocolate milk (holy Christ is that a thing you can buy? I gotta go do some Googling.)

Plus, come on — following Harry picking the boring-ass regular Cheerios followed by Hector picking the Philip Rivers of cereal in Frosted Mini Wheats which itself was followed by the old-ass man pick of Cracklin’ Oat Bran ... I had to make a splash. And that splash was into a giant swimming pool filled with Reese’s Puffs.

15. Stephen - Honeycomb

I went with another strong structural cereal here, with the larger Honeycomb bites holding their shape longer than most. While other cereals crumble and wilt in the fourth quarter, my team is much better conditioned to close out this win. I absolutely loved the taste of Honeycomb, but I’d be lying if I didn’t include the commercial jingle as a huge reason for my allegiance to this cereal.

“Honeycomb’s big, YEAH YEAH YEAH!” The 1980s owned.

Final rosters:

Team Lyles

Honey Bunches of Oats

Cheerios

Honey Smacks

Team Diaz

Cocoa Pebbles

Froot Loops

Frosted Mini Wheats

Team D’Andrea

Fruity Pebbles

Lucky Charms

Cracklin’ Oat Bran

Team Brady

Honey Nut Cheerios

Cinnamon Toast Crunch

Reese’s Puffs

Team Stephen

Cap’n Crunch

Golden Grahams

Honeycomb

So who won? Vote now, so the loser may be heckled into breakfast retirement.

[wonderfulchaos69-blog]

Can you please write a servamp fanfic about this?? I think that it would be super interesting! (:

- First off, thank you for the submission! @maki900

- Secondly, this is definitely going to be a multi-parter thanks to Tsubaki’s interference. So we’ll see how that goes ^^

Title: Introducing Our Contestants Fandom: Servamp Characters: Servamps and their Eves, and the Creator makes an appearance too. Summary: Once every one hundred years, the Sins gather in hell to compete for who will reign supreme for the next century.  Notes: This was really fun to work on, so thank you for sending me this prompt xD

Most people assume hell to made of brimstone and misery.

That wasn't wrong, per se, given the core of hell was simply a massive ball of souls lighting themselves on fire, but it was a pretty bright place altgoether. There was well-coordinated traffic routes and neon lights posted up in advertisement for the latest trend. Lately, it had been 'how to properly whisper damnation into the ears of the innocent, a guide for dummies', since not every demon in hell knew what they were doing.

This year, though, there was a lot of commotion. Not only was there an increase in traffic and wild parties, but the original Seven Sins had come to visit for the annual competition. Not to mention, the uninvited Eighth had shown up too, always one to sneak in when no one was looking - and really, the audience had stopped getting disgruntled after the first couple of times it had happened. Now, they just accepted it as another part of the show.

A show that was put on every one hundred years, and the rest of hell's residents were excited to see what would happen this time. The Creator, the one who had brought forth the Sins into the forms they now had, was the judge for the competition. Along with a few chosen humans; apparently choosing one human for every sin. The Creator called it 'being impartial', but the audience called it 'free food after the show'.

Last year's winner was Sloth, who had nearly overthrown The Creator's judgement after the fact because it was such a pain to deal with spreading 'sin' everywhere. Too much work, for a sin that's primary job was to lazy about. Sloth had argued that there were too many hardworking people in the world and he couldn't possibly make every single one of them lazy. In return, the Creator had insisted he do his job and sent him back to the human world, where he had toiled for the past one hundred years.

Needless to say, Sloth was the most unmotivated for this competition, having worked too much for too long. Such a pain, he was still caught saying, along with: I won't ever do that again. He had high hopes for the others in the competition. He would even make it easy for them; he wouldn't lift a finger.

The most excited for the matches to start was Gluttony, who had a good feeling that this year's competition would be his. It had been too long since his last reign throughout the human world. He was pumped to fight. Taking names and asking questions later, that was what he was all about. The judge that had been assigned to him was a peevish man, the sort that adjusted their glasses to look cool and ruined the effect with a very no-nonsense expression on a scrunched up face.

Gluttony decided he liked him and put him in a headlock outside the arena, giving him a noogie as he laughed, "Don't worry! If you help me win, we hardly ever eat the winner's chosen judge!" For some reason, the man didn't look assured of anything. Instead, he was caught mumbling about being prepared for the worst. Oh well, Gluttony thought, he just has to do his job right and that's that. I'll win for sure!

According to the polls, however, it seemed fated that Greed would win this year. A Sin that had been stewing in wait for centuries, biding his time. After a tragic accident that resulted in the loss of his most favored judge, he had never been the same - and it showed. More flamboyant were his gestures, more audacious was his speech. Not a tournament had gone by since that he did not try to slaughter the entire lot of judges in one fell swoop, a maddened grin on his face and a bloody rapier within his grasp.

There was something different about this year, though. This year gave hell's demons hope that they would bear witness to a Sin thought long dead. Whether because of his newest judge's doing, or because he had mellowed with time's passage, it seemed Greed was taking the competition seriously for once. High expectations were placed on his shoulders. As well as high stake bets.

The other contenders: Wrath, Lust, Envy, Pride, as well the uninvited eighth also had supporters among the crowd. Not as many, nor as vocal, but there were plenty who wanted to see them show the others what was what when it came to sinning. Surely, argued those who sided with Pride, over confident humans should be the next big thing. Tasty were the humans who fell victim to their own follies, building an ego that could not be quelled until they fell prey to the pits of hell.

Others liked Lust more and thought there was nothing more sweet and tempting than the sight of a human that let something so primal overrule their senses. Except Lust laughed every time it was brought up and waved a dismissive hand, telling his supporters, "Oh no, I couldn't. I have a cute little judge to protect from such sights!" That didn't stop him from stripping in front of his cute little judge and getting a slipper thrown at his face.

Then there were Envy's supporters, who were as quiet as could be, easily blending in with the crowd like the one they so admired. For centuries, they had pleaded with Envy to stand out the most, to not take the backseat and let the world know of a jealous person's reckoning. To again find someone who could shake the foundation of the world solely for their own selfish sake. Envy had shaken his head at the prompting and mumbled, "I have my hands full," as he pointed to the blond young man leaning a little too close to the hellfire pits, barely being snatched back in time by Envy who heaved a world weary sigh.

Lastly, for the original Seven, was the Sin of Wrath. She was reportedly the strongest. None of the others questioned her and her supporters worshipped the ground she walked on. For there was nothing more alluring to them than the strength of emotion that she wrought in her wake. Her Sin was the intrusive kind, the one that lingered in the back of a human's mind. The kind that every human was capable of when the pressure was on. The easiest, the strongest, but also the most unpredictable. She was the one to keep an eye on during every competition, because there was no telling what was going to happen next.

Her judge, though, was caught provoking Envy's and it nearly got the two Sins disqualified. A rally would have been held to have the humans eaten, discarded on the spot, but the Sins had loomed over the small voice that suggested it and the protest died before it even began.

Watching all of this while laughing was the Unforgivable Sin of Melancholy, who then grew bored and let everyone know, "This isn't interesting at all." He had purposely brought his own judge along for the ride, too, but the human had long since lost interest to him. A grumpy teenage boy going throwing a hormonal roller coaster, who was currently chatting up Sloth's judge with the loveliest of smiles. Such loyalty, that one.

But Melancholy wasn't here without reason. As the Creator's best creation to date, he had a duty to fulfill. Namely, to liven things up. "This year," he told the crowd that gathered in the arena, "I propose a war!" Raising his sleeve to his mouth and giggling, he elaborated, "My judge against yours. My siblings, I ask you: Do you think you can win against me? Do you think you can win with those that would have judged you?"

A murmur of interest swept the crowd into Melancholy's pace. When the Creator gave no dismissal on the matter, the other Sins began to consider it as well. Some were uneasy at the thought of humans fighting their battles for them, but some were excited by the prospect, getting ready to push their judge into the arena as soon as the go ahead was given.

"Sleepy Ash," spoke up the Creator at last, "the decision lies with you. What would you have us do?"

"Ugh," Sloth rubbed at his eyes and then blinked up at the bright lights of the arena like he couldn't make out what he was seeing. "This is going to be such a pain ... I'm a peace loving sin, why do we gotta fight all of a sudden?"

"Answer the question," the Creator insisted, but there was a subtle smile to accompany it. "Your little brother is waiting."

"Fine, fine." Sloth glanced at his judge next, considering, and then finally shrugged it off. "I'll let Mahiru decide."

"Then it's simple," Mahiru declared as he stepped forward, "we take responsibility for our Sins and fight in their place. That's the only thing that makes sense."

Rolling his eyes, Sloth told them, "You heard the man. It's going to be troublesome, but I guess I'll help out anyway. Here, wear this." He draped his judge in the fur-lined jacket he had been wearing, bringing the shadows hidden amongst the fur to life with a touch of his hand. "Go get 'em, tiger."

Likewise, the other judges were given trinkets from their Sins and it began, the first War to grace the competitions in hell. It was a sight that the audience couldn't tear their eyes away from. For what better sight was there than a soul dancing on a puppet string for the sake of their own demise.