Line #41 DarthWiki/TheEighthGradeWars


1	It's just a normal middle school, with normal people. Tierney is hanging out with her friends, discussing various topics such as...\
2	Books, grades, religion...\
3	Why the trip has been scheduled for Thanksgiving Break this year instead of Spring Break,, what would happen if a plane full of students crashed in the middle of a forest, this rumor about a Forest Basement that traps people and their souls (also known as a Hell complex)...\
4	And this is why fate should not be tempted. The plane crashes in the wilderness, claiming a few casualties even before it starts falling. The rest have to work together to survive the distorted, erratic wilderness (the climate changes much more than it ought to in that scope). Far more dangerous are the people who are already there, dead or alive, trying to escape the Forest Basement at the price of anyone else's lives.
5
6	There are seven sections in this series: ''The DC Trip'', ''Culprit Revealed'', ''The Laboratory'', ''Infection'', ''Last Chance'', ''Broken Heart'', and ''The Final Battle''.
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8	This series has been in DevelopmentHell since 2014, but you can find story fragments and drawings [[https://jazzlover5972.deviantart.com/gallery/46628492/The-8th-Grade-Wars?rnrd=212416 here]]. If you want to see Tierney in a "published" work, see WebComic/SWAPEnsemble.
9	----
10	!! This series provides examples of:
11	* AdultsAreUseless: Mrs. Jensen lives in the Forest Basement as she does at school, seemingly unconcerned that anyone can die at any moment. Some of the kids even forgot that she exists until the end.
12	* AnArmAndALeg: Samuel loses a foot to Violet's trap, which carries over into ''Webcomic/SWAPEnsemble''. (His prosthetic foot is referenced in the 6th anniversary drawing).
13	* AnyoneCanDie: Several of Tierney's peers and close friends die, at least two per segment. Tierney herself is not immune.
14	* AuthorAvatar: Tierney ''is'' the author as she was in 8th Grade.
15	* AwesomeButImpractical: Rowena's lab and its twenty-five safehouse branches are decked out far more than necessary to be habitable in the Forest Basement. This includes some elaborate research stations and several types of clothing for occasions that may never occur.
16	* BirthdayBuddies: Justine is a full year younger than Tierney, despite them being in the same grade. Tierney thus takes to internally calling Justine her "birthday sister".
17	* BittersweetEnding: Though Tierney makes it back alive, she will never be the same after all the betrayal, broken friendships, and lost lives.
18	* CryingWolf: Rose lies a ''lot''. Tierney falls for it too many times, so she refuses to believe when Rose tells her she is DeadAllAlong.
19	* DeadAllAlong:
20	** Tierney thinks she died during a rough battle in ''The Final Battle''. It turns out she fell off a cliff in ''Broken Heart'', but she doesn't realize she's dead until the others spell it out for her. She thought Rose pulled her up, but both of them were spirits at that point.
21	** Rowena turns out to be a spirit. Though she spent fourteen years alive in the Forest Basement, she died before the eighth-graders arrived.
22	* DelayedDiagnosis: Subverted; Tierney has had a diagnosis[[note]]the dated "Pervasive Developmental Disorder: Not Otherwise Specified[[/note]] from a young age, but she never [[YouDidntAsk thought to ask why she has been in speech therapy all her life]]. Prior to the epilogue confirming her condition, the signs manifest in her very odd ways of dealing with her friend issues even though her social thought processes seem normal on paper.
23	* DespairEventHorizon: Tierney loses all hope as she bleeds out from her wounds in ''The Final Battle''. Even after she's revived and appeased, she can never see the world the same again. Fourteen years later, in ''SWAP Ensemble'', Tierney becomes the district's music director but still struggles to find enjoyment in the music she helps kids make.
24	* DisneyDeath: There are numerous cases of people being appeased once the seventh graders show up. Among the main eleven, Tierney, Liane, Kaylene, Denize, and Justine are brought back to life.
25	* DistractedFromDeath: After Justine gets soaked in freezing water, Tierney leaves the room to grab a change of clothes. When Tierney returns, Justine has already succumbed to hypothermia.
26	* DrivenToSuicide: Setareh discusses this to the point that it annoys Tierney. She almost jumps off a cliff in ''The Laboratory'', only to get pushed off after she changes her mind.
27	* EntendreFailure: When Tierney was in elementary school, she made a joke about nuts and offended everyone, but she had no idea that there was a second meaning there for three years.
28	* EveryoneIsRelated: Though Tierney will never be able to confirm it for herself, she's related to all her Korang friends. She is or will be also related to everyone else, though not always by blood. Rowena in particular is her fourth cousin by every one of her third-great-grandparents.
29	* EverythingExceptMostThings: Tierney tries to convince herself that her friends care about her, but she keeps coming up with major exceptions to each example.
30	-->"They have always included me. Except when I tried to offer my thoughts in a conversation and they didn’t pause a moment."
31	* EyeScream: In ''The Final Battle'', Tierney's left eye gets slashed. She still has the scar in ''WebComic/SWAPEnsemble''.
32	* FalseFriend:
33	** Tierney's friends warn her that Evelyn doesn't like her. Tierney decides to test this by inviting Evelyn to her birthday celebration. The plan falls through when Evelyn admits she only accepted the invitation because it would be better than spending time in day care with the boys.
34	** Rose acts friendly towards Tierney when they are alone but is rude and dismissive towards her otherwise.
35	* FairWeatherFriend: When Tierney and Evelyn's friendship falls through, Eliza refuses to talk to the former.
36	* GrandTheftMe: Jessica O'Daunt reveals that she used to be Kathleen [=McNay=], a girl four years older, before the real Jessica forcibly swapped bodies with her when she entered the Forest Basement five years prior. She finds out that the girl's spirit has already been appeased, so she can never get her body back.
37	* GratuitousForeignLanguage: Tierney peppers her dialogue with all the Tagalog she knows.
38	* GratuitousFrench: The majority of the main group is in French class. The prologue alone has several uses of "Tu me rends folle."
39	* HeldBackInSchool: Downplayed with Tierney and Joy, who entered school a year late. Tierney in particular was born in the late fall and wouldn't have noticed anything amiss if she hadn't met Justine, who is in her grade but a full year younger. Played straight with Isaac, who is also in the same grade but more than a year older than both of them.
40	* IJustWantToHaveFriends: Tierney seeks real friends. She admits to feeling left out by her friend group, searching for a friend who truly cares, finding such a person, realizing there are too many flaws in the friendship for it to count, realizing her real friends were her original friend group, and repeating the vicious cycle.
41	* ImpracticallyFancyOutfit: Tierney and Rose discover a wardrobe with fancy dresses that fit them perfectly and decide to wear them out in the wilderness for a day.
42	* ImStandingRightHere: The title of one of Tierney's songs. She sings it during Adopt-A-Beach after overhearing her friends making plans to hang out when she desperately wants to join them. Later, she calls them out for not noticing taking any note of her song or its lyrics.
43	--> I'm standing right here. Did you really think that I wouldn't hear what you said?
44	* InvisibleToNormals: When people die, their spirits can still roam around. Spirits can see each other, while their living companions cannot. Tierney does not suspect anything when her dead friends are mysteriously alive, and she hardly interacts with the students who are ''actually'' alive. The seventh graders can see the spirits because they entered at different times.
45	* IThoughtEveryoneCouldDoThat: When Tierney was in fourth grade, she tried playing something on the music teacher's electric keyboard in front of the class. The keyboard was pitched up a whole step, which completely threw her off, but she didn't think it was odd that nobody else noticed the pitch. A few months later, she auditioned for a talent show and made it clear that the pitch was bothering her, leading everyone in the room to discover her perfect pitch--including Tierney herself.
46	* IWorkAlone: By ''Broken Heart'', Tierney is so alienated by the lack of people to trust that she stops trying to team up with anyone. When Rowena calls her out on that, she asks why anyone would care if she dies if they never showed concern for her before.
47	* KidsWildernessEpic: Much of ''Culprit Revealed'' revolves around the kids trying to survive in the wilderness in between Tierney's freshly uncovered social issues.
48	* KillItWithIce: Justine succumbs to hypothermia in ''Last Chance'', and Tierney briefly suspects ice magic before deciding it's more likely that someone tampered with the thermostat.
49	* LateToTheRealization:
50	** When Tierney was younger, she made a joke about nuts and didn't just how inappropriate it was until three years later.
51	** Tierney doesn't realize that she died when she fell off a cliff. Rose did tell her immediately, but her tendency of CryingWolf makes Tierney brush it off as a joke. It takes until Tierney's perceived "second death" to realize she was DeadAllAlong.
52	* LyricalDissonance:
53	** "Whatever You Want" is a cheerful song about how great Tierney's friends are, except the song is actually a WishfulProjection.
54	** "Wasted Lifetime" is in the same cheerful key, but it recounts the events that led to the massive "breakup" with Evelyn.
55	** "Gone Forever" is in the same key as the reassuring "Anything for a Friend", but it is about hopelessness and loss of identity.
56	* MagicMusic: Magic music is actually common in the world, but it is less common where Tierney lives. An acquaintance named Charisse practices it before the field trip. Tierney earns this power on her [[PubertySuperpower 14th birthday]], though it turns out to be exclusive to the Forest Basement. She also notes that Elisia Harmony and Abigail Sound will get this power if they survive the predicament.
57	* MistakenForGay: Played for drama. Rumors about Tierney and Setareh dating leads to the former pushing away the latter. It gets worse when Setareh admits she's bi. Tierney tries to eliminate any possibility that they could be mistaken for a couple ''and'' that Setareh could harbor feelings for her.
58	* MuggleWithADegreeInMagic: Downplayed. Tierney's martial arts dojo and music teachers teach young musicians how to control their powers before they develop. When she gains powers in the Forest Basement, her skill is on par with other fourteen-year-olds at the dojo.
59	* NameOne: Setareh always asks for ''five'' reasons she should or should not do something. "Jumping off a cliff" is the worst of these somethings.
60	* NarrativeProfanityFilter: Tierney will never forget Evelyn's last words to her, but she refuses to write them down. She later puts the words into a song with a SoundEffectBleep when necessary.
61	--> "If you really are sorry..."
62	-->She told me to get out of her life.
63	-->I can never write the words she really said, but I can never forget them for the rest of my life.
64	* NoGuyWantsToBeChased: Samuel feels uncomfortable with Tierney's advances and sends a strongly-worded memo that it isn't a girl's job to pursue a guy.
65	* NoSocialSkills: Tierney has always had trouble getting along with her friends, and she has been in speech therapy all her life. Her parents try to get her into a private program, but she is initially rejected because she looks perfectly fine on paper.
66	* PartingWordsRegret: Tierney never speaks to Evelyn again and not properly apologizing to Eliza after their falling out.
67	* PowerIncontinence: Averted. Magic music requires intent to use. When Tierney lashes out and causes more damage than she claims to mean to, Rowena chastises her, saying she couldn't have broken things if she didn't mean to use her powers destructively.
68	--> "It's like swinging an ax at a wall. If you break the wall, you can't say you didn't mean to break it."
69	* ProneToTears: Tierney finds herself crying very often early on due to academic and social mishaps of varying severity. By the end, she feels like she has cried herself dry and worries that she would appear to lack empathy for not crying in reasonable situations.
70	* PubertySuperpower: The ability to use MagicMusic manifests at the age of 14 for those who have it. Even Tierney has to wait to use it as her Forest Basement gift.
71	* RealWomenDontWearDresses: {{Inverted\|Trope}}. Tierney is the only one in her friend group to exclusively wear skirts and is far more competent at fighting than the rest of them once they are all spirits. Some make fun of her femininity, going so far as to [[MistakenForGay incorrectly label her]] as a LipstickLesbian, but she realizes they're not worth her time after she has saved her friends and love interests on a few occasions.
72	* RecessiveSuperGenes: The gene that MagicMusic latches onto is recessive, so a MuggleMageRomance produces a carrier who is incapable of using magic unless the muggle in question is already a carrier. However, the "magic" gene has a high mutation rate allowing carriers to be born from parents who lack the gene.
73	* {{Reincarnation}}: People are reincarnated if they die in the Forest Basement and are appeased after everyone else in their batch has either died or left. Joy Maneje is a perpetual "fallen angel" but can only access her last two reincarnations.
74	* TheReveal: In ''Broken Heart'', Tierney learns the true curse of the Forest Basement. Everyone who dies becomes a ghost and can only be seen by other ghosts or people who entered ''after'' the ghosts have died. The fact that she can see her friends means she is dead. She did not die from the slash wounds, but when she was shoved off the cliff.
75	* SameSurnameMeansRelated: Downplayed; Tierney ponders whether she's distantly related to her Korang friends because their surnames are all in her family tree. While she will never confirm it for herself, they are.
76	* ScarsAreForever: Tierney still has the scar over her left eye in ''WebComic/SWAPEnsemble'', fourteen years after the events of the 8th Grade Wars.
77	* SoundEffectBleep: Tierney will not write down Evelyn's last words to her, but she sings them in a sound snippet that would become part of "Wasted Lifetime". She mashes a bunch of piano keys in anger when the swear word comes up.
78	-->"Get the '''angry piano mash''' out of my life!"
79	* StalkerWithACrush: Samuel accuses Tierney of stalking him when she spends a lot of time around him. Tierney later suspects that Samuel has feelings for her when he correctly names crushes whom she actually kept secret; her own friends couldn't guess in several tries, so he must be observing her very closely.
80	* StepfordSmiler: Tierney tells the prologue as a perfect set of middle school friendships. The first chapter quickly reveals that she feels left out of her own group.
81	* SuperpowerfulGenetics: The ability to use MagicMusic is hereditary because the magic latches onto people with a particular genetic makeup. Tierney lacks the gene but can use MagicMusic in the Forest Basement because the magic isn't as picky in that realm.
82	* SuperpowersForADay: Despite being a {{Muggle}}, Tierney gets MagicMusic on her fourteenth birthday as a gift from the Forest Basement. Those powers disappear when she leaves, never to return unless she returns.
83	* TalkingDownTheSuicidal: Tierney convinces Setareh not to jump off the cliff. Unfortunately, as soon as Setareh gathers her resolve to live, Christian shoves her off.
84	* TemptingFate: In the synopsis of ''The DC Trip'', Tierney imagines worst-case scenarios before dismissing them as a joke. Of course they happen.
85	-->"What’s stopping a huge falling out at any second? What’s stopping the plane from crashing down? ...That was a joke."
86	* ThatManIsDead: Tierney's song "Gone Forever" is about how all the traumatic events have changed her so much that she can barely even recognize her name. She tries to take a name that nobody will call her.
87	--> "That girl is gone forever."
88	* TragicKeepsake: Tierney gets several trinkets from her friends on her birthday, which carry bitter memories when most of them die and don't come back. Most heartbreaking are the apology postcards from Evelyn and Eliza.
89	* TrainingTheGiftOfMagic: Charisse, an acquaintance in Orchestra, briefly discusses how she needs to focus on two or three specialties in order to develop her MagicMusic most effectively. Tierney's martial arts and music lessons help her develop her non-existent powers, making her adequate when the Forest Basement grants her powers. She trains at Rowena's facilities to further improve her skills, but she can't keep her powers once she exits the Forest Basement.
90	* UnrequitedLoveSwitcheroo: Tierney suspects that Samuel has developed feelings for her after he hurt her when he starts making correct assumptions about her now closely-guarded love life, though he denies it.
91	* UtilityMagic: The most common spells are utility spells like telekinesis (picking up a dropped pencil) and temperature control (drying off from the rain), especially for teenagers. More complicated spells require more skill and energy to pull off, and they're blocked by music absorbers in school.
92	* VancianMagic: While MagicMusic can be cast freely, it can also be stored in disks/shells to be used by anyone else. Preparing spells in advance is helpful when one might need more magic than they can use without preparation.
93	* TheVerse: Shares a universe with ''Webcomic/SWAPEnsemble'', ''Webcomic/YnezHollocksDeadlyGame'', ''Literature/BehindClosedDoors'', and ''Back to the Basement''. Tierney is the school district's music director in the time of ''SWAP'' but dies not long before ''Behind Closed Doors''.
94	* WeHardlyKnewYe: Shortly after the seventh graders wind up in the Forest Basement, one of Violet's friends is killed by a hostile spirit.
95	* WishFulfillment: This story contains all the drama of the author's eighth grade life with several added stakes.
96	* WishfulProjection: "Whatever You Want" is a song about how great Tie's friends are, sung from their perspectives. It turns out that each verse says the ''opposite'' of how Tie really feels about each friend. For example, Rose promises to be honest when she has lied so many times, Evelyn assures Tie that she truly values her as a friend while she really does not, and Eliza insists that Tie is an important part of the group despite always making her feel excluded.
97	-->Whatever you want, whatever you need,\
98	I’ll always be here. You can just come to me.\
99	I love you as a friend, and I’ll never let you go.\
100	We’re all here, in one place, at one time, as good friends you know…
101	* YouAreNotAlone: While Tierney recovers from major injuries from an ambush, all of the friends she ever doubted give her encouraging words to continue fighting. She doubts their sincerity, but, in the epilogue, she accepts that they have some merit and should not be completely ignored.
102	* YouDidntAsk: Tierney sometimes trips up socially and doesn't think to ask what went wrong.
103	** Once in her childhood, she tripped on an innuendo. Even though many people stated that there was another meaning, she didn't ask about it. She only fully understood three years later.
104	** When she was in fourth grade, Tierney tried to play a piece on the music teacher's electric keyboard but was thrown off by the pitch. Since she didn't say anything, nobody told her that she had perfect pitch or that it was anything special.
105	** After Tierney falls off the cliff, Rose explains that she's dead, but Tierney doesn't believe her. She doesn't ask anyone else to verify this, leading to a lot of confusion later on.
106	** In the epilogue, Tierney's parents reveal that she has been in speech therapy because of a formal diagnosis. She thinks they never told her because she never questioned speech therapy until now. This leads to mixed feelings about her identity later in life.

Context DarthWiki / TheEighthGradeWars