#its at rank 5 so we can still keep it up!

[5t4r5and5uch01]

ROTTMNT IS TRENDING AGAIN!! Lets go!! More support! More support! 🙌🏽

[maythedreadwolftakeyou]

Ranking the Veilguard companions Hookup Potential based on the kind of bed situation they have going on in the Lighthouse

(im in early act 2 so have no idea what further romance scenes are actually like, this is just jokin time without any romance spoilers. just pics of how their respective rooms in the lighthouse look and some basic characterization we know about them)

Taash: 8/10

In another game or the real world I would only rate this a 5 because they have no pillows or addition blankets. however they do have a real bedframe AND it's big enough for 2 which means the they are doing better than 90% of the rest of the Veilguard so this score gets boosted. And while there's not many blankets, there are plenty of braziers around the room to keep you warm, and Taash is probably their own miniature furnace to cuddle up to. Crucially, they also have a whole wheel of cheese next to the bed, which means you don't even have to leave the covers to get a snack after.

Lucanis: 1/10

Oh no. I'm not even going to comment on the pantry angle because everyone else asks him about that to begin with, so this is just about the bed. Unfortunately the bed is a cot made of uneven wooden planks with some blankets on top of it, and is only wide enough for 1. This is because Lucanis hates sleeping and doesn't want to do it, so the less tempting his bed is, the better for him. Unfortunately this means sleepover potential is dreadful and you will have to find alternate solutions. He does at least have another blanket to go over him and one that's presumably being used as a pillow, so, he gets a 1 instead of a 0, but I am still planning on gifting him coupons for a back massage for Satinalia.

Bellara: 4/10

This setup is perfectly fine for sleeping. It's the lighthouse standard little bed couch thing, has a mattress/cushion, is elevated off the floor, has a pillow, and she's got her blankets folded below. Perfectly serviceable for getting a good night's rest which we know Bellara is not because she forgot to sleep again. However, it's very much a one person sized setup. You might be able to cuddle for a while but if one of you unconsciously tries to roll over you are going right to the floor. Ouch.

Lace Harding: 5/10

You might be wondring "why is sleeping on the floor rated higher than bellara's" and the answer is because this means you are not rolling off the bed onto the floor. it's not going to be comfy but we are not ranking comfort here we're ranking sleepover potential. Harding has managed to make this space look homey and the canopy gives the illusion of being in a tent or canopy bed to help with that illusion. There are rugs down on the floor plus the blankets and pillows--we know Harding is used to sleeping on the ground due to her career as a scout, and I'm sure she can scrounge up more blankets to make the cushioning big enough for the both of you. Your back WILL hurt in the morning but you'll get to have a fun night first.

Neve: 3/10

Girl I know you can do better than this. Which means you're not trying to on purpose, so, live your life I guess. I will say this cot IS bounds nicer than Lucanis's--you can see its a stretched canvas or hide on a frame rather than wooden planks, so it will have a little more give. However they are not THAT much comfier which I know having slept on this modern equivalent many times. Neve also apparently has 0 pillows or blankets so you're out of luck there, as well as the problem of it only being wide enough for 1 again. This woman has too many other things going on to think about romance so your Rook is going to be the one improvising on that matter I think.

Davrin: 10/10

Now here is a man who has his life together. Double or queen size mattress, rustic bed frame he probably lovingly carved and assembled himself by hand, and not only are there sheets AND blankets AND pillows, they are are full on matching set and this knight in shining armor dutifully makes the bed every morning. There's also enough pillows for two! While the remains of a giant corpse is hanging above you all night, the spacing of the ribs still gives you lots of room above to manouver, so just don't worry about that. As a bonus you'll probably even have a baby griffon come to cuddle in the night which is such a cute thought we're going to ignore how much worse getting stepped on by a griffon foot would be than even the biggest fattest housecat trying to stand on your stomach at 4:30am. My one criticism of the setup here is that due to the bed's positioning if the person on the inside needs to get up in the night they'll have to awkwardly crawl over the person on the outside, however everyone else's bed situation is so dismal I'm not even going to subtract a point for that. Great work Davrin.

Emmrich: ???/10

Where... does this man sleep. Peepaw I KNOW you can't be sitting in that armchair all night you need your beauty rest!!! There are 0 beds or cots or floor blankets in this man's room. HOW am I supposed to break his pelvis if he has nowhere for us to lie down??? We can't risk that old man's spine on the cobblestone.

Wait... unless. No, surly not. I mean--jk. Unless...? 😳😳😳

is daddy necromancer gonna fuck me on the sacrifice slab... 😳😳😳🥵🥵🥵

Bonus:

Solas 11/10

does not matter where he actually slept bc once my inquisitor Gets Him again they WILL be fucking on top of the piano in front of the mural in his Yearning Room

[kierahn]

DANCE FOR ME. [ y ! ceo x m ! reader ]

yandere! ceo x dancer! male reader

[ nsfw, minors dni. ]

warnings :

non-con elements [brightly highlighted!]

kidnapping

drugging

general obssessive/yandere behaviour

biting

slight violence

request here. (please //in the most desperate voice)

× you have always been his favorite dancer ever since he first laid his eyes on you during your solo performance. at first, he labeled it as a small interest towards a mere dancer, but he eventually found himself unable to erase your image from his mind. he would feel his pants tighten at the imagery of you dancing solely for him.

× ever since then, he had asked his secretary to keep track of your upcoming performances and to include it in his schedule.

× "I don't care if I have a meeting that day. Cancel them," Cero glowered at his secretary who nervously stood before him, clutching a clipboard in her embrace. "But, sir–" she tried to protest, but was cut off almost immediately by a harsh glare. his secretary's shoulders tensed, a shaky sigh escaping her lips. "R,Right away, sir.."

× "ngh.. ha shit." the CEO groaned as he stroked his own hardened member, the blaring music reaching his ears from inside the bathroom stall he had currently locked himself in. could you blame him ? he couldn't contain himself after seeing you perform for him. well, not exactly, everyone had their eyes on you and cero didn't quite like that. he wanted your performance to be for his eyes only to feast on.

× to put a solution to his growing obssession, cero tried to buy you off from your current boss, the club owner. but to his dismay, his offer was bluntly rejected.

× "5 million is a big price, but I'm afraid we don't sell our workers, sir." The club owner says with an apologetic look, trying his best not to offend the high-ranking man before him, but that seemed to fail from the angered expression the ceo wore. "One billion." Cero offered through gritted teeth, visibly desperate to get his hands on (y/n). This time, the club owner seemed to think about the offer, but he ends up sighing and shaking his head once more. "Again, sir, I'm sorry but we can't sell our workers."

× Cero wasn't very happy about that, so he did the second best thing he could do; threaten the club owner by showing him demolition papers filed for his own club. This seemed to be the owner's breaking point, agreeing to the terms to sell you off to the ceo to save his business.

× you had just finished a performance, changing in the eerily empty locker room. before you knew it, a cloth was placed over your mouth and arms wrapped around your waist, prompting you to helplessly squirm around. but it seemed like whoever the man was, he wasn't alone. a bag was suddenly slung over your head by another pair of hands, blocking your vision. the drug was quick to kick into your system, your body limping into their arms after a good minute of struggling.

× you found yourself waking up to a soft feeling under you, silk sheets brushing against your bare skin. you were still wearing the revealing clothes that you had worn during your performance. you were blindfolded and your hands were tied together beside your head, leaving you vulnerable as you blindly sit up and try free your wrists from the restraints made of fine silk.

× "you're awake," a voice pipes up. albeit calm, it was obvious that the man was trying his best to keep his excitement at bay. the space beside you sunk, indicating that there was a new weight that settled beside you. "great. this is great. i can't believe i can finally meet you up close." you could feel his warm breath hit your cheek, causing you to shiver slightly.

× a surprised gasp escapes your lips when you felt a cold hand slide its way up your torso, flinching away from the unknown man's touch. "what the fuck? don't touch me." you hissed angrily, causing the hand to halt. it didn't seem like the man was too happy with your harsh words.

× before you could say another word, you were pushed back down onto the sheets, the man's weight straddling your waist and keeping you down which prompts you to start thrashing around to try and get him off of you at any means and costs.

'smack!'

× a slap was delivered to your cheek, causing you to cease your struggles in shock as your head turns to the side from the force. the weight above you shifted, but you couldn't see him. your breathing was ragged, anticipating what the man's next move was.

× a hand harshly grasps your cheeks and your head was forcefully turned to face him. you felt something slipped inside your mouth, but before you could spit it out, he covers your mouth and pressed your nose to cut off your air circulation. "Swallow." he demands coldly.

× you were forced to swallow down the pill, not wanting to be suffocated to death, and he released his hold on you after you did so. but as you were about to sigh out a breath of relief, he pulls you up and settles you onto his lap, feeling something hard poke your thigh which sent a jolt of uneasiness inside you.

× his hot breath trails down from your ear down to your neck as he attacks it with gentle kisses. despite his previously rough treatment, he was surprisingly gentle with you– "Ow!" you exclaimed when he bit down on your collarbone, leaving a deep bitemark and drawing blood. he suggestively licked the crimson substance off your skin with his tongue before capturing your lips in his, forcing his tongue inside which left the metallic taste of your own blood.

× "Dance for me.."

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

routine vibe check: what’s the best starter pokemon and why are you right (pictures and long paragraphs of evidence welcomed and appreciated)

Gonna get a good grade in vibe check, normal to want and inevitable to achieve because I have objectively correct Pokemon opinions and will block naysayers

OKAY LET'S GO

I decided to do, like, a top 5 list or something, because I'm bad at picking a single favourite of stuff. And then even that overwhelmed me, so I found one of those tier ranking list sites and produced this:

It was done in less than a minute, so if I wanted to get really picky, I don't know if I would be fully wedded to it (not sure if maybe Sceptile should be one higher) BUT it did help to highlight the important ones.

So!

5. Bulbasaur

It's. Just. So. Nice.

Like you can find cooler, more beautiful, cuter, fancier... there's a whole bunch of ways for a Pokemon to be great. But you will never ever find a nicer Pokemon than Bulbasaur. It's so lovely. Look at it. Look at its face.

I can't put it higher, because the rest of the line is fairly bland in terms of development. It's good and logical and fun, don't get me wrong, but Ivysaur and Venusaur just look like bigger versions with More Flower and Less Cute rather than creatures in their own right. To be honest, if it weren't a starter requiring a three-stage evolution, you could do away with Ivysaur. Something I don't like about a lot of lazy three-step lines is that the middle step just looks like a transitional mid phase rather than a Proper Creacher, like they were artificially inflating the Pokemon number count. Meanwhile it took us until Paldea to get a Girafarig evo that would actually make the giraffe tall. Madness.

However my first ever Pokemon was a Bulbasaur I called Daffodil, and I have traded him forward onto every single successive generation since. He is, quite literally, my First Ever Pokemon. I love him desperately. I still have him. Not many people still have their First Ever Pokemon. But I do and I love him. So, Bulbasaur gets the fifth spot.

4. Snivy

Again, a victim of the Banal Transitional Middle Evo, but both Snivy and Serperior are incredible, and as Meatloaf took such pains to tell us, two out of three ain't bad.

But Snivy! It's so snooty! I was super lucky with mine, too, because I beat the 12.8% odds and got a female, and I loved her. Normally the initial baby starters are designed to be cute but Snivy has SO MUCH PERSONALITY, she's great. And the design of Serperior is utterly gorgeous. She keeps the expression, but rather than the Animal Crossing-style snooty-cute vibe of Snivy you get this thousand yard withering stare of an empress whose servant (you) has just turned up dripping mud in her throne room and asked her for money. Her green and gold colour scheme is exquisite. Her filigree design, including her high collar, give off the air of wealth and sophistication befitting her immaculate pedigree. And all this! In a simple snake. Incredible design work, 10 out of 10, no notes.

Begone, you miserable peasant. Have him boiled.

3. Torchic

Now I'll be real with you, lads, but Pokemon design hit its stride with Hoenn and then got better.

It's partly a fashion thing, of course - you look at some of the Kanto designs and they are remarkably 90s, because that's when the franchise launched. Others are clearly a product of what the 1990's were capable of producing in pixels on an already over-stretched cartridge medium. Like we like to clown on Red and Green/Blue now, but my god, those game designers performed a miracle with Pokemon. Every single square inch of space was used to make that game, and complex designs weren't going to cut it.

(With that said, there is still no excuse for Dragonite.)

And then Johto came about and its Pokedex sucks ass. It's mostly new evolutions for existing Kanto stars, useless babies to inflate the dex number, or poorly thought out single-evos like the inexplicably short Girafarig and the unacceptably dreary Dunsparce (our greatest thanks to Paldea for fixing both of those).

BUT THEN CAME HOENN (trumpets intensify)

And we get habitats! Biomes! A different regional climate, gifting us a brand new area of Pokecology! And therefore a brand new flush of creativity in Pokemon design across the board; less dated, and more inclined to be unique rather than a rehash of Kantonian stuff.

Which brings me nicely to this lad:

Now, I mean. Just look at him. Fucking hell. Cute starter stage, check. LOOK AT HIM FACE

AND THEN he became, at the time, a brand-new unique typing: Fire/Fighting. I realise that is now the norm for like, half of the Fire starters, but that's because of Torchic, actually. He was super popular. In fact if you ever play Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald and you do what my husband and I like to call a Mynci Dave run (use one Pokemon almost exclusively, meaning it gets all the experience points and therefore over-levels to a terrifying degree, allowing you to sweep the game; so named after the noble Primeape we first did this with, Mynci Dave), Torchic is the PERFECT Pokemon to choose, because almost everything is weak to either Fire or Fighting in that region.

Anyway, Combusken is, again, kind of mid (although props for the inverted colour scheme and the fact that it actually does look like a teenager.) But Blaziken, on the other hand... Blaziken is a six foot ninja chicken with wings for hair whose Pokedex entry describes it as able to leap tall peaks in a single bound, a feat it achieves after strengthening its legs by hoofing Geodudes down mountains like they're fucking footballs

Also an impressive bulge.

My first was called Gilgamesh, and he was fucking great. For a long time, this mad lad was my actual favourite Pokemon, not just starter. Brilliant. Love him. Five stars out of three. King.

2. Fuecoco

It would probably surprise you to know I've not actually used one. I chose Sprigatito, and I do really like Meowscarada, actually. But pretty anthro cat boys have been done in Pokemon quite a bit at this point; cats, dogs and rabbits are over-represented in terms of Poke-taxa. Possibly this is another reason for a toad, a snake and a chicken being 5, 4 and 3 so far (ooh, basilisk ingredients, I've just realised.) They're new and unusual! I like an Eeveelution as much as the next person, but they're a whole family of cat-dog-rabbits, like.

However.

Nintendo has tried its hand at Pokecrocodilians three times (Feraligatr, Krookodile, Skeledirge), and they have gotten so much better at design each time that the three of them are basically a scale proxy for ongoing design improvement. Look, I've made a diagram:

EXCEPT

(Strap in)

This one is that rare thing: a three step line that deserves to be a three step line. Let's talk Fuecoco first:

SO CUTE. It's charming, it's charismatic, it's adorable.

It also has hints of its evolutionary end goal, but not like an undeveloped middle evo. It likes singing. The white face hints at the eventual calavera, and it looks a bit like a lil chilli pepper - a ghost pepper, probably in reference to the eventual Fire/Ghost typing. But the colours and shape right now also look a bit reminiscent of a babygro, because this thing is a cute starter. Lookit them teefs. That tuft. Its lovely smile. Beautiful.

And then, at the point you expect it to turn into just the awkward teenage version of the adult, instead we get Crocator:

Oh boy. Oh there's so much to say. Okay okay:

The region it's from is based on Spain, but this thing is incorporating Hispanic elements from across the board. It's a mariachi in a sombrero, except the sombrero also looks kind of like a ring of Mexican marigolds and kind of like a Catalonian Easter cake called Mona de Pascua that has an egg (or egg-shaped confectionary) in the middle. Body shape and markings look kind of like a piñata. The white face is now on its way to a calavera, with the cheek and nostril markings more defined. And it sings, with its open mouth (also how crocodiles release heat, appropriate for a Fire type) and signified by the mariachi theme.

THAT IS A LOT.

And then it becomes Skeledirge. A Fire/Ghost crocodile.

Now the obvious design here is the calavera and the  Día de Muertos theming, which is part of it. But there are also many examples of crocodile figures in Spanish folkloric ghost stories: the Catalonian Cocollona, the Lizard of Magdalena from Jaén, or the Drac de Na Coca, or even the Cuca - that one is Portuguese, but turns up in both Brasil and the Iberian Peninsula including in parts of Spain. It's got a Gaudi vibe (like Barcelona). It's got an alebrije vibe (like Mexico).

And the bird! Nile crocs have a cleaning symbiosis with Egyptian plovers; it also sits at the tip of the snout where male gharials have a sort of bulbous bit to help them make sounds (the singing thing).

But this is what the bird does when Skeledirge uses Torch Song:

It becomes a microphone, then grows in size and attacks the opponent in Phoenix form. Phoenix: Fire/Ghost. Resurrected from the ashes.

Quite simply, your fave could never.

5. Rowlet

My god. (My god)

gasp

Look at this lovely creacher. He is so round and so soft and so lovely. He looks like that baby Yoda meme. He looks like that cat that someone's landlord said they would make an exception for because he looks very polite. Look!!! At his lil bow tie!!! He is a smartly dressed young man and he is kind and he is... well, a bit vacant behind the eyes. A himbo, if you will. But he is all the better for that. What a lovely owl.

He looks a little like a barn owl, perhaps, and those were imported to Hawai'i, where Rowlet is from. But I think he looks a little like a Pueo owl, and given that he will eventually be a Ghost type, that seems right - pueos are one of the physical forms assumed by ʻaumākua in Hawai'ian culture, as I understand it.

And then, hang onto your tits, lads, because this is another banger - THE MIDDLE EVOLUTION IS ITS OWN DESIGN!!! (confetti cannons)

I said earlier that boring middle evos are like just awkward teenagers of the adults. Here, I present to you, a very deliberate Awkward Teenager, in Dartrix:

IT'S A DANDY

I love him I love him I love him

He plays with his fringe and if you touch it without permission he has a tantrum. God, he's so charismatic. Also, that fringe further suggests the pueo - they have pronounced outer rims around their facial disks like that. Look at his bow tie and tail coat. So smart and handsome

This one is so good that it could be the final evo. This is actually my issue with the Delphox line - Braixen is amazing, and then it becomes the bland boredom of Delphox. Braixen should have been the final stop. Here, Dartrix is much the same - good enough to be a high-quality end goal.

Where they differ is that Decidueye is better again.

IT SHOOTS ARROWS MADE OF ITS OWN QUILLS

Also, fun fact - This line is the only starter to change secondary typing. Dartrix is part Flying; but on evolving a second time into Decidueye, it switches to Grass/Ghost. In this evolution, it's definitely mostly a pueo, so the ʻaumākua reference is IN, but actually barn owls also have their associations with the dead in various cultures.

The crown of feathers around its head are also reminiscent of an ayaigasa - a hat worn by Japanese samurai archers. And yet! AND YET!

It still has its lil bow tie look. Bigger now, more of a cravat; but there it is.

A perfect Pokemon, and a perfect evolutionary line. No notes.

Anyway, thank you for this chance to waste three and a half hours writing this essay

[gelu-the-babosa-multiversal]

The idea of Heatwave being a Wavewave sparkling but mainly from Soundwave tears me up. So I'll submit you all to my PAIN!!!

The idea of Soundwave growing up in the pits, fighting for his life, becoming a top gladiator but still being seen as the lowest of the lowest, but then, this Sparkling appears in his life. A little red bot who seemingly was abandoned or was not picked when it emerged from the All Spark.

That being their first meeting, Soundwave was not yet the Soundwave we know so he didn't know what to do. His best hope was that the little bot would end just like him, surviving on its own... or just die with no pain. After all, there was no one else but him, just him, and Ravage too ofc but really no one else...

So, imagine how stupid must he have felt as he took the sparkling from the ground and was unable to put it down. Ravage in the background wheezing as she realizes what has happened ¨Oh yea, that's how I adopted you too HAHAHAHAH¨

And things well get hard. Why did he do it? Was it some left kindness on him? Did he lose his mind? or maybe, he just compasioned...?

Time passes, he keeps fighting, Ravage keeps being annoying but is still there for him, and the Sparkling now going by the name Heatwave, was there too looking from afar. Soundwave had decided that the little Bot would not participate in the arena, he would just watch and learn.

Heatwave was amazed at the way his ¨creator¨ fought other bots who were bigger than him and much more robust in comparison. Tho he didn't wish to become a gladiator just like his creator, but he still wanted to show how strong he was helping others.

Time passes, they're a small ¨family¨ for all they can say, but they are very strong and united. In every fight, Soundwave participates in the entertainment of the upper classes, he kept in reserve credits so that one day Heatwave can leave the pits and form a real life outside the misery. It would of course be a slow process, but Soundwave knew that he could do it.

A big surprise was when Heatwave shared with him that he wanted to become a Rescue Bot, a particular job that didn't really fit in any of the class rankings that Cybertron had been using... it was a job that came with intense training that if failed, all the blame would go to the bot who failed and not to the institution who trained them. A job that was more chosen to do for the pure of one spark than the want to win something. Such was that it was known that the High Council would prefer losing 5 Rescue Bot units than one Council member.

The job was clearly going to be a dead sentence, but after a long discussion, there were not many options like the Rescue recruit institutions offered to give a semi-normal life to low-class citizens... at least, for the time Heatwave would be trained he would have a home with basic needs, and once out of training and to the practice, the payment would be enough to even feed Ravage.

Soundwave still didn't want to say yes. to give Heatwave permission, but, Heatwave was just hotheaded, he was promising that with this he would be able to give Soundwave the life he could not grow up with... the life he gave to Heatwave...

Soundwave still saved credits as he kept participating in the arena, just in case.

Time seemed to fly through this change. Heatwave met his assigned team and close friends, Soundwave met new bots too, aspiring and strong allies for both of them. Yet, their ideals seemed to change as their lives grow appart.

They still saw each other, they kept communicating, and Ravage always reminded one or the other to call. But things just can't stay calm forever. The pits and many parts of Cybertron considered for the lower cast were being destroyed, homes and families being displeased so the upper class could take those areas. Slowly, a revolution was being armed with strong bots taking the lead. One in particular, Megatronus, wanted Soundwave as his second in command as he saw potential in him.

Soundwave wanted to decline at first. This could endanger Heatwave in many levels if it was known that they both were family. Megatronus seemed to understand, and it seemed that someone else would take Soundwave's place as SIC... is it wasn't for that one call...

The call that changed forever Soundwave's perspective on life and on his own decisions. It was from the Rescue recruitment system that chose Heatwave informing him of... the red bot dead, with the rest of his team...

Rescue Sigma-17 had been deployed to help another unit very far away, and as it seemed that the job was being completed, the communication began to cut. In short, all signals were lost and no vital was detected. Both units had been gone enough time to be declared deceased...

There was not going to be any effort on further location or send a 3 unit with more equipment to help or to at least know what happened. There was not going to be any effort on finding Heatwave's body for a proper funeral, his stuff as the stuff of his team would be tossed or given to their creators. That being said, Soundwave and Ravage received nothing but a big box full of credits, enough to live a luxurious life in the middle class...

It had a note from Heatwave. Just like Soundwave was saving for an emergency, Heatwave had been doing the same. Probably not eating or working extra to have this amount of credits...

... Soundwave tossed all that in their faces not accepting a damn. As fast as he could he went to Megatronus and began their plan to attack...

...

...

...

At light years far away, after more tragedy had occurred. A small ship floating in the middle of nothing received a message that redirected t it to a planet called Earth.

Landing, four bots from stasis had awakened to see the beauty of an organic planet and to encounter a figure not many would be able to talk to, Optimus Prime.

[alltimefail]

Entertainment Weekly just placed Dead Boy Detectives on their "Top 19 Best Supernatural Shows to Stream Right Now" list.

Mind you, Dead Boy Detectives is making these lists AFTER cancelation! IT RANKED AT NUMBER 5/19 (and beat out some pretty big names, I might add). The EW is a hugely popular publication! It's so bonkers to me that Netflix would cancel such a highly beloved, successful show that I had to write them about it, yet again!

If you need inspiration to keep talking about Dead Boy Detectives and hold out hope that we can save this show, THIS should help. Keep streaming, keep promoting it EVERYWHERE, keep creating for it, and for the love of all things wonderful keep bothering Netflix. This show shouldn't have been canceled, and we need to keep reminding them of what a poor decision they're making. ESPECIALLY with GeekedWeek coming up, we need to be SUPER noisy for and about Dead Boy Detectives.

A transcript of the email I sent out today can be found below the cut! A list of Netflix exec emails can be found HERE.

!!!! Note: you can use my email as a framework or as inspiration, but DO NOT copy and paste it word-for-word, or else it will be marked as spam !!!!

Dear [Insert Recipient's Name],

I hope this email finds you well! I previously reached out regarding Netflix's unfortunate decision to cancel Dead Boy Detectives, but since our previous correspondence, there have been several articles admonishing the surprising and untimely cancelation of Dead Boy Detectives. The publications include but are not limited to BamSmackPow, CBR, CHIP, Quotenmeter, Serienjunkies, Serienfuchs, Filmstarts, Movie Pilot, Kino, Vodafone Deutschland, Dread Central, Pop Culture, Sentidog, Geek Girl Authority. and Animation World Network.

Three notable articles have come out post-cancelation that I'd like to highlight due to their succinct, well-informed perspectives on why canceling Dead Boy Detectives was a poor decision are as follows:

The Death of 'Dead Boy Detectives' Was Untimely by Lacy Baugher at Tellyvisions.org

Dead Boy Detectives: The Latest Casualty in a Concerning Trend of LGBTQ+ Show Cancellations by Sam Huang at TellTaleTV.com

Netflix made a grave mistake canceling 'Dead Boy Detectives' by David Opie at YahooNews

It would be remiss of me not to emphasize how these publications are not just central to the US and UK; the cancelation of Dead Boy Detectives is being reported and scrutinized internationally, in several languages and countries.

What truly prompted me to contact you again is an article that was released by Entertainment Weekly today, September 11, 2024. In the article, "The Best 19 Supernatural Shows to Stream Right Now," EW placed Dead Boy Detectives in the #5 slot: it outranked other shows on your platform such as Stranger Things (#13) and Wednesday (#18). The Sandman, the show which Dead Boy Detectives is a spinoff of, is notably not present on the list at all. You can find the article here on ew.com.

Dead Boy Detectives was also ranked as the #1 Best DC Live Action Show available on Netflix by MovieWeb, outranking titles such as The Flash (which has a whopping 9 seasons), Lucifer (a show that was so loved by fans that Netflix picked it up after its own untimely cancelation, mind you) and, yet again, The Sandman.

All this to say, Dead Boy Detectives is still making "Best of" lists even after its cancellation, and it is ranking exceedingly well on said lists! This speaks volumes in and of itself; people are just as outraged today as they were the day it was canceled and it's abundantly clear that critics and audiences alike love this show and want to see more of it! You have a hit show on your hands that is growing in popularity daily, meaning Netflix truly has everything to gain by listening to customers and rethinking this objectively unpopular and unfounded decision.

Please do not waste the immense potential of this incredible show that means so much to so many people. I appreciate your consideration today and implore you to listen to the outcries of fans and critics alike, to do right by the cast and crew of Dead Boy Detectives, and ultimately repeal its cancelation.

Sincerely,

[Your Name]

[physalian]

Transformers Prime Appreciation Post

You know what. You know what?? This show has featured in so much of my writing advice, it deserves its own “This show is amazing and has amazing writing and shit you can learn from it to be a better writer” post. It’s streamable on Netflix at the time of this post. I own it on DVD. I have all three seasons on actual, physical discs that I bought new for my DVD collection. That’s how much I love this show.

What is TFP? TFP aired on The Hub network, the joint venture between Hasbro and Discovery Channel that died after MLP ended, I think. We lost cable before that happened. TFP was probably single-handedly sustained by MLP money for a while, like the rest of HBO on GOT.

This show came out when I entered high school and I have extremely vivid memories of some of the constant previews they showed of the season 1 finale 3-parter, to the point where whenever I watch the scenes that were in those teasers, I still get a physical reaction from being bludgeoned over the head with those lines of dialogue.

I used to scroll ahead in the TV guide as far as the scheduled programming allowed, just to catch snippets of what episodes were slated to air within the next month. This show was the shit.

But it was too expensive and its budget got eaten by Friendship is Magic. The bronies ruin everything I guess.

It’s 3 seasons (technically 2.5 since 3 was only greenlit for half its episode count) of near-perfection and a tv-movie. There are a few weak episodes, sure, and one absolute dud of a clipshow episode, but there are no awful episodes. There ain’t no “Great Divide” for this show.

Why you should watch it:

1. A “kids” show that absolutely takes itself seriously

One of the Autobots dies 5 minutes into the series and it’s the inciting incident for the entire story. He gets blown up, taken prisoner, and then stabbed through his chest by a Decepticon’s fist without warning. He then gets brought back as a zombie, killed again, infects his partner with the zombie juice when she’s trying to save him, and dies for good.

Two main characters get straight-up murdered, long-running characters whose deaths have lofty consequences for the narrative. There’s betrayals, double-agents, robot torture, robots getting eaten alive by scraplets, gaslighting of an amnesiac, near-murders of POWs, near-murders of fan-favorites who get so hurt, their recovery spans 4 whole episodes, attempted child murder, terrorism, and mad science.

But there is also some heavy emotional shit. The surviving partner of the zombie is damaged by his loss for the entire show because she can’t properly manage her grief. There’s characters going on suicide missions to avenge their dead/dying friends, getting beat to shit while a child watches helplessly on the sidelines screaming at them to get up and run through tears. There’s war flashbacks to dead friends and comrades and the terror and fallout of being eons-old soldiers.

There’s quiet moments, too, about grief and loss and living with disability and disfigurement from battlefield wounds. There’s the machinations of a tragic villain, openly and explicitly abused in front of his whole team and who keeps crawling back and groveling at his master’s feet and his internal identity crisis over who he is, if he’s not with his abuser. There’s the fallout of an extremely divisive trolley problem where a normally calm and collected character loses their shit with grief over the decision that was made. There’s the quiet rumblings of dissent and rebellion in the ranks and all the backstabbing that follows.

And there’s clever moments. Rogues and rebels orchestrating complex and interwoven plots to further their agendas. A POW who no one would ever expect to be captured absolutely trouncing their captives and laughing all the while while they free themselves. Characters who always have a backup plan to force others into awful predicaments.

The first episode after the 5-episode mini-movie that opens the show features an A-plot about school science projects, and a B-plot about waking a loyal ‘Con from stasis and trying to convince him to bow down to the ‘Cons’ temp leader, Starscream, while Megatron is elsewhere. It does not end well for him. The very next episode features robots getting eaten alive by alien metal termites.

2. Depth of Character

Beyond the actual plot, the villains might be more compelling characters than the heroes across many arcs and episodes. You’ve got five main autobots for most of the show that generally fit the 5-man band:

Optimus: Leader

Ratchet: Smart Guy

Bulkhead: Tough Guy

Arcee: Lancer

Bumblebee: Heart

Also guest starring the Alien Robot Cowboy Samurai known as Wheeljack, he’s amazing.

These characters have some really rich episodes and arcs, and moments where they have to put their own values, wants, and agendas aside for the greater good or the problem at hand. They feel like real people, for lack of a better word. They laugh, they cry, they rage, they grieve, and since the show is one long storyline, what happens seemingly inconsequentially in season 1 will come back to haunt them in season 3.

But then you have the villains, an extremely dysfunctional team of “every man for himself, we’re all not here because we like each other, but because we hate the Autobots,” and I can tell from the fanfic that the ‘Cons are the much more popular characters to write about.

Megatron: The fascist narcissist warlord

Starscream: His scheming SIC both too smart and too dumb for his own good

Soundwave: The utterly badass TIC comms chief who never loses and is insanely, fiercely loyal to the cause

KnockOut: The absolutely gay-as-fuck cosmedic surgeon/chief of medical voiced by Daran Norris, who’s only design requirement was to make him a sexy sportscar, and they ended up with a cherry red Aston Martin. One of his first lines in the show is "*whistle* Sweet rims” at Optimus in truck mode.

Breakdown: KO’s himbo, canon* boyfriend with some of the best, cringey puns

Airachnid: Arcee’s arch nemesis, the only other female transformer, a “love to loathe her” type

And others down the line for both teams.

*Canon insofar as a kids show on a kids network allows a la “we’ve given you as much subtext as we can, do the rest”.

KO is technically my favorite but it’s a tossup between many and that is a feat, especially when they’re the villains. They are all extremely compelling characters.

3. The Story

With some exceptions, episodes don’t happen in isolation. Most of season 1 is a bit random with a foggy throughline, but season 2 is utterly amazing, sans that one clipshow the producers probably insisted on.

Season 2 is the show’s finest hour and without spoiling anything: The end of season 1 sees this database that had been in the ‘Cons possession suddenly now with the means to decode and decrypt whatever’s locked behind it. The database contains coordinates on Earth of a myriad of confiscated weapons, ancient relics, and the like and the entire season is one big fetch quest with both sides racing and beating the shit out of each other to decode coordinates and retrieve the relics before the other side.

The macguffins are pretty cool in their own right (alien mustard gas, a giant Final Fantasy sword, an alien nuke, a phase-shifter) but it’s the intensity of the story and the action and drama that happens around the various quests that is so amazing.

At one point, the show takes four episodes to tackle a fetch quest across four separate relics that involves the entire cast on both sides and the two rogues all gunning for their targets at the same time, ending with one character critically injured that grinds the whole plot to a stop.

The show is one long story, as I mentioned, where something that happens in episode 2 shows up again as critically important in episode 40 and that’s a heck of an achievement on the writers’ part, making it all feel like it was planned that way from the start, even though it wasn’t.

Season 3 is… lesser, mostly because it has half as many episodes because the show was canceled. However, the writers knew about the cancellation early enough to still deliver a satisfying story, and wrap up loose ends with a tv-movie that is also pretty good.

Episode-to-episode there’s definitely a mixed bag of what kind of tone you’ll get. It’s still a kids show and there are human characters so there are some lesser episodes with the humans’ lives as the focus and the Autobots running support. Then you’ll have small-screen perfection, but like I said, there’s never a single episode of story (not clipshow) that I skip upon rewatch, no matter how many times I’ve seen it. The second “clipshow” episode is far and gone above the first, told through the eyes of a character as they’re on trial, only their scenes through the story, as they await judgment that might see them executed.

4. The Production Value

The majority of the animation budget rightfully went to the transformers themselves, which left the environments and the human characters a little rough around the edges. But you came for alien robots and before I got this show on DVD, I streamed crap quality episodes online. Once I saw these characters in full HD color, for the first time since it aired on TV, I was blown away. The reflections are, bar none, the best part. Which seems like a strange hill to die on but these are shiny metal giants. There’s some shots where you can see the reactions of other characters reflected hazily in the chest plates of the speaking character, and this is kids animated TV.

Some episodes do stand out, possibly because they changed studios, but some do have some off-kilter coloring or shadows, but you wouldn’t notice if you’re not like me and have picked some scenes apart frame by frame.

The music, also, is amazing. It’s grand and epic and far and gone from the 80s synthesizers, with a few choir tracks thrown in. The foley and sound design can get a little gratuitous with the metal-on-metal squeals, but none of it ever feels out of place.

I bought the directors’ commentary without knowing it for seasons 1 and 3 and they talked about having all the digital screens in the backgrounds of both bases constantly moving and showing data, not just static, blank images, and it really ups the feel of the quality and care put into the show when there’s always something cool to look at in every frame.

There are also some money shots. At one point there’s a fight that demands Optimus and Megatron join forces and with zero dialogue between them, only choreography in the span of about 25 seconds of animation shows you that these two really were old friends, old allies, old confidants. Their moves are mirrored, back to back, showing that Megatron clearly taught Optimus how to fight and this shot, the one at the top of the post, is too good to not spoil.

5. The Writing

Beyond the overall arcs, I mentioned in my “How to make your writing less stiff” post that the dialogue in this show is stellar. Due to animation budgets, they didn’t have the means to fully render a huge variety of environments, and that includes anything on Cybertron. So, when necessary, outside of when characters actually go to Cybertron later in the show, they use some beautiful matte paintings and voiceover narration by Ratchet, absolutely dumping exposition on the audience in spectacular fashion.

I have the director’s commentary. I know Ratchet’s monologues were a thing of beauty. They also had the cast all recording their dialogue at once, standing in a big U for more natural line deliveries.

The actual writing though, from the different ways the characters speak to the lore, the backstories, how the show can be a horror trip one minute and a kids’ science fair the next, showed incredible variety and flexibility in the writers’ room.

Optimus’ lines remain my favorite because they’re just that juicy, but then you have characters like Starscream, a perpetual schemer who loves to hear himself talk, pontificating whenever he can about his plans and how much he hates Megatron and how self-important he is. Or other righteous characters who use Big Words like Optimus that don’t feel out of place against somebody like KnockOut who says stuff like “I like the way I look in steel-belted radials” or Wheeljack who clearly learned English from watching Clint Eastwood movies.

Or, a later character, Shockwave, the most “robotic” of the robots and very poncy and scientific with the way he talks and interprets the world, with most of his lines including whether or not a character’s choices were “logical”.

This show is fantastic at creating tension out of mundanity and keeping you on the edge of your seat for nail-biting action scenes. You feel the anguish and the grief with the characters. Their rage and elation and devastation.

Some faults, because I love this show and I can recognize them

The human characters are… well, teenagers. Miko is pretty divisive, you’ve got the camp of “wah she’s a girl and she’s annoying” and just people who don’t find them as compelling. Which, fair. Their animation is a bit gummy and sometimes they disappear for entire episodes and their human world arcs are kind of abandoned. They’re not the best, but this isn’t about humans, it’s about transformers.

Due to probably time constraints with the show being canceled, some transformers’ arcs also felt abandoned or not given their due time to shine (of which fanfic has made painfully clear and rectified). It’s a very tight plot, but there are some dangling loose ends.

Sometimes it is incredibly in-your-face that this is a show meant to sell toys, particularly in season 3 with the whole uh, “we must become beast hunters” and the soft rebrand.

There exists a subplot of C-list villains, human militants who want to dissect cybertronian biology and make weapons. While some of their episodes are absolute bangers, you can tell the writers were getting sick of them before they’re finally written out of the show.

And a few awkward lines here and there.

Other cool shit if nothing else has convinced you

No love triangle or romantic subplot for the two female robots and one of the female humans. You can read one of Arcee’s relationships as romantic or platonic, but she is far beyond just “the girl” of the group, she’s a badass. The other romantic subplot is between a mom who’s deadbeat ex-husband is inexplicably missing, and a pot-bellied Army vet, and it’s really sweet and healthy.

(I think) incredible representation of characters with disability, in Bumblebee’s various war scars and his mutism.

The Gays. I swear there’s a page in the art book (of which I am desperate to find a copy of) for KnockOut and the caption of his art legit says something like “we made him too sexy, oops”.

So. Many. Puns. Puns that know they’re awful and relish in it. Dad jokes, too.

Ratchet losing his mind over how human children can get “twisted limbs and metal burn” if they do a dangerous thing before realizing the latter does not apply. Ratchet losing his mind in general. Just all of the cranky medic. Jeffrey Combs can make a phone book entertaining.

One of the last times we’ll probably get Peter Cullen and Frank Welker together doing Optimus and Megatron, the OGs. And also, one tiny moment where Frank has to say “treasure” and he still flubs it just like he does for Fred in Scooby Doo.

Consistency between character injuries. If Optimus’ sword breaks in a battle, whenever he summons it before he can have time to fix it, it’s still broken in ensuing shots.

An episode of zombies infecting the Decepticons’ ship and Starscream and KnockOut accidentally admitting they love each other while cowering in terror, while also calling back to a different pair of characters they did not witness saying the exact same lines.

Optimus transforming, ramming Megatron in the chest in truck mode, booting him off a cliff, and using his tires to melt rubber in Megatron’s face once they land because he is pissed.

All of Starscream’s immensely satisfying comeuppance for situations he gets himself into.

Using the murder termites for good in a rather horrifying death of a random goon.

Megatron’s hate boner for Optimus that clearly shows how badly these two don’t actually want to kill each other, despite having a million chances to do so, because like Batman and the Joker, “you and I are destined to do this for eternity,” and killing one would leave the other alone, after eons of fighting.

The gorgeous matte paintings.

—

Somebody on here once drew KnockOut with Autobot blue eyes and I have not been able to find that post since. If anyone sees it, please send it to me, it was gorgeous.

Now go watch this show. You can do it in a weekend.

[lostonmyroad]

Moments That I Want Tattooed On My Forehead From S-Classes That I Raised Chapters 50-70

As always, BEWARE OF SPOILERS!!! Future chapters may be referenced!!!

The insane amount of lore dropped in these chapters wow

Chapters 50-60

help its genuinely still so funny to see yoojin in the early chapters going: “all i have to do is complete this one (1) task and then i can live like a slacker” before he gives up (cries in cale henituse)

everyone referring to yoojin as “monster daddy” and asking him to raise their children is amazing. no notes 

ARRIVAL OF THE KING SUNG HYUNJAE!!! He's a bastard he's amazing he's always on my mind

"...no matter how amazing Sung Hyunjae might be, he wouldn't be able to notice it easily. He wouldn't press his nose against my body and smell me, like my idiot brother had, would he" um. ok??? yoojin's completely normal though process

sung hyunjae essentially telling yoojin “aren’t you tired of being nice? don’t you want to go apeshit” within 5 minutes of their first real conversation

i forgot shj gives him a pair of earrings!! (and a bone for Peace)

yoojin’s disguise to get to the f rank dungeon being a fucking sun protection hat…it’s giving marvel baseball cap and sunglasses…and he has this because he used to stage one man protests??? sir what were you protesting against

oh that’s right the dungeons will appear at a faster rate because “time was only reversed for yoojin” oops

Chirpie makes its debut!!

yoojin trying to hide where he got chirpie from “i found it in the hallway”. king if yoohyun wasn’t suspicious of you already that would do it

yoohyun yeeting Peace and mama yoojin scolding him

chef myungwoo :))

bleh bug dungeon. i’m with you yoojin that was disgusting

yoojin not wanting to use Last Repayment :((

Riette makes an entrance! do you think riette demonstrated girl power when she abused her brother until he became an s rank

yoojin thinking about how he had raised yoohyun and was so happy about sending him to college…saving money for his tuition…and just losing interest in riette :((

yoojin saves bak hayool!!

this is where we see peak yoojin mafia behavior. unhinged. but justified revenge?? this is why i don’t understand fan interpretations where he’s like a wallflower like this man has murdered multiple people quite violently 

chapter 60 is just so much. like. i cant even describe. yoojin you need so much therapy

the way he sees people’s last memories before they die ugh…

yoojin playing 3D chess while everyone else is playing checkers fr

him calling his friend who doesn’t remember him bc of the regression and telling them to live a happy life always gets me ufffff i wish we got to meet this character

Chapters 60-70

Yoojin and the Awakening center — a tragedy in the making. Pre-regression trauma galore

The Association rears its ugly head!!! Yoojin has an authority figure problem (but it’s completely justified)

love how chill Yoojin is about Chirpie. random F rank monster that’s cute as hell that’s eating Peace's weight in magic stones and was born from an error in the system??? ehh no big deal it’s my pet now and i’ll kill for it

love the absolutely random detail about seok hayan’s pineapple earrings. thank you geunseo you know what the people want

yoojin funding public research!! hero of the people and my heart

yerim refusing to praise yoohyun and myeongwoo to their faces hahahaha. all of them petty as hell

MYUNGWOO GETS HIS SS RANK SKILL BABYYYY

yoojin still trying to protect myungwoo i love them

yoojin: *is keeping secrets from yoohyun and putting himself in danger*

also yoojin: why is yoohyun being cold with me

everyone’s giving yoojin flowers today lmfao

sung hyunjae you’re everything to me. you’re so bizzare. the bouquet??? showing up in a 2-seater car?? bullying seok simyeong??

Shj reminding Yoojin to wear his seatbelt because he's an F rank HDJEKXIDKD

oh yoojin. “who’d want to place themselves through hardships on purpose” like SIR are u that un self aware

yerim listening to this bullshit, eyes falling out of her head: i’m literally going to crazy murder you with yoohyun

the dungeon ppl have the actual worst timing. yoohyun is going to McFreaking lose it

yoojin and yoohyun finally work things out we love to see it :))

chapter 65 starts the explanation of the 50 s ranks requirement!!! water droplet is going through it

so much is just casually dropped in this chapter like. yoohyun is a born s rank! the dungeon ppl are manually inputting things for yoojin! the world might end! anyways!

yoojin having such strong mom energy that the dungeon people forgot he was a dude

one of the moments ever when yoohyun and Peace burn down the dungeon in worry and yoojin’s just there like. ah. shit. my bad i fucked up there a little

grown up Peace my beloved

chapter 67 yoohyun my beloved. you are so crazy. “hold still while i chop off your arm and fake your dear so i can keep you safe” 

the han brothers finally having a real conversation. yoojin i love you but you really needed to do this sooner

PEACE STAYING SMALL JUST SO YOOJIN CAN PICK HIM UP UWAHHHH MY HEART

Newcomer joins the battle

Chirpie turnin on the TV by itself and yoojin praising it like every proud parent ever

more monsters!!!

unicorns (white + black bc yoojin is terrible at naming) + gryphon (named Blue)

yoojin’s training method of using himself as a human chew toy is traumatizing for everyone around him.

same hyuna i would also be taking 10939392 photos

Peace and Blue WWE match. flex on em Peace

nobody:

yoojin: wow myeongwoo is hot now

BLUE LEARNING HOW TO OPEN THE FRIDGE

i love the monster shenanigans

[insert-stupid-username]

Ranking drivers based on how far they would get if they did my martial art. (if you scroll down to the bottom I made a little key for what each belt means)

Lewis Hamilton: 5th degree Black belt (2nd degree master): I think he is the cool master that everyone wants teaching their sections. I also think he definetly gets the kids rings in tournements

Yuki Tsunoda: 4th degree Black belt (1st degree master): he just keeps going. its the spite, the spite keeps him determend to earn more and more. Also I think he would run the tricking program and all the kids would love him. The reason he is not higher is age, even still he tested in all the minimum times (you have to be 21 to be considered to test for masters)

Fernando Alonso: 3rd degree Black belt: I know a man that has his personality. thats why he gets thrid. though in my mind he leaves the organization a bit in becuase he thinks he deserves better (he doesnt, hes just being stupid) he comes back years latter like bro we are so organized here

Daniel Ricciardo: 2nd degree Black belt: hes just chill, he comes back from a month or two than dissapears again. I think he just doesnt care to get thrid

Franco Colapinto: 2nd degree Black belt: I know someone from south america that is JUST like franco personality wise. Also I have no reason for this rank I can just picture him wandering around world championships with him Mate sharing with friends and yelling at sparing matches. Beware him in the ring he spars VERY agressive and would draw blood if it were legal

Kevin Magnussen: 1st degree Black belt: his kid quit a while ago but he got into it enough to get to black belt. He still trains but he just doesnt want to test for a higher degree

Oscar Piastri: 1st degree Black belt: he is satisfied and doesnt feel the internal push for more

Carlos Sainz: 1st degree Black belt: he thought I dont need to go furthur black belt is cool enough. He thinks he has learned everything needed

Checo: Blue belt: His kids stoped going so he desided not to go furthur. he was only in this to spend a tiny bit of time with them anyway, cause when else would he see them.

Lando Norris: Blue belt: I dont like him. so he fails his black belt test becuase he was too cocky and fireworked it (started strong but got weak fast) becuase of this single set back karatie was dead to him. (my least favorite type of student, I get so annoyed at these people sometimes cause like dude... you were so close... just freaking try dont give up when it gets hard. the students that legit cant continue I get but these I dont)

Alex Albon: Red belt: His siblings were his main motivation. without them pushing him he just gave up

Charles Leclerc: Red belt: thought he looked cool enough in red and didnt actually want a black belt (nobody there to compete against so his enthusiasum went away)

Liam Lawson: Brown Red belt: got distracted by another sport so he just stopped showing up and nobody knows what happened (for all the instructors know he could be dead in a ditch)

Valtteri Bottas: Brown Red belt: Started with his family and when they stoped going he kept with it until slowly he quit

Zhou Guanyu: Brown belt: His siblings quit so he stoped showing up

Esteban Ocon: Brown belt: I think he got bored and just stop showing for no reason

George Russell: Green belt: I can see him starting with carmen and then just fizzling out rather quickly

Lance Stroll: Green belt: he got frustrated that he wasnt progressing fast enough and so he quit

Nico Hulkenberg: Orange Green belt: He started with his kid and than quit when they did

Logan Sargeant: Orange belt: I just dont see him going to far. to me hes a kid that started cause of his parents was in the studio for like 5 or 6 months than just got bored/other sports seasons started so bye bye karatie

Pierre Gasly: Yellow belt: I think he would start it thinking he would be super good and skip belts but than quit becuase he wasnt progressing fast enough and he felt like a fool for not getting techniques perfectly the first time

Max Verstappen: Yellow/3rd degree black belt: If his father isnt pushing him he doesnt go further than a yellow belt. though dude does not strike me as a nerotypical person so if his father wants it or he gets hyperfixedted on it than he will 100% get to 3rd degree back belt. But that man would not go further cause I dont see him wanting to teach kids.

My credentials is Ive been a black belt longer than Ive been training. I was a colored belt for 6 years and Ive been a black belt for 7 years now. (im a thrid degree & teach a ton at my studio) (it goes lowest to highest: yellow, yellow orange, orange, orange green, green, green brown, brown, brown red, red, red blue, blue, first degree black, second degree black, third degree black, 4th master, 5th master, 6th master, 7th master, 8th master, grandmaster (there is only one of these at a time, the youngest to get it was in their 70s)

[mothofstars]

Epic: The Musical - Tier list to appease my autism

Epic is quite possibly my favourite musical of all time, and after the release of the Wisdom Saga, I really wanted to rank the songs and put my thoughts about them somewhere.

And I'm not about to spend 5 hours on this and not post it anywhere, so please enjoy my ramblings! From least favourite to most favourite, here is my Epic tier list!

30. Full Speed Ahead - Troy Saga

It's worth pointing out, I don't dislike any of these songs. I like all of the songs, and think they are all important and serve the overall musical. But this, for me, is a bit more of an 'establishing' song. It serves as exposition to get us from one place to another, both literally for the crew, and musically as we move from the emotional song of Just a Man to the more fun Open Arms.

29. Storm - Ocean Saga

This is also a little bit more of an exposition song, but for me I think this mix is stronger, I love the call and response, and for some reason still giggle when they all point towards the island in the sky!

28. Luck Runs Out - Ocean Saga

I like the way this shows the starts of the cracks forming between Ody and Eurylochus. Eurylochus, quite rightly, gets a little weirded out by the idea of climbing up to a floating island that has a potential god resting upon it. Ody on the other hand hasn't had the crap beaten out of him enough times yet, and still has the optimism that means he will do just that. You can hear a twinge of pain in Ody's voice as he realises that his second in command is starting to doubt his actions, all the while he is just doing his best to keep his crew together and alive.

27. Open Arms - Troy Saga

This song is great - What is there to say about this sweet boy that hasn't already been said? We all know and love him, and this song shows off that sweetness and love for life so well. However, this song is so much better when used in other songs to absolutely shatter your heart into a million tiny pieces as we all grieve our happy friend. This song is still strong, but I think its overall impact comes more from its use in other songs, rather than the original!

26. Polyphemus - Cyclops Saga

The brutality of this introduction to this saga is terrifying. I still get chills during the cyclops saga, and the turn at the end of the song is so well done. Each verse seems to add another layer of tension, and we feel like we are sneaking closer and closer to a conclusion that favours the crew, and then, we get stomped.

25. The Horse and the Infant - Troy Saga

This is one of the best openings to a musical - we know the main characters, we know what they want, and we know exactly where they all stand. This is achieved without too much wordy-ness and exposition, and just serves as a great and powerful introduction. Also, love how Ody is immediately humbled by being presented with a challenge he already struggles with, bringing him closer to the listener. I've been told by a few that if you have the prior context of the books that came before the Odyssy that the names being read out at the start is like a nice little round of references to previous stories - it's a shame this doesn't hit for me yet, as I am still learning quite a bit of the context surrounding this musical. For me, as well, there is just so much going on in this song, that my head spins a little lol.

24. Survive - Cyclops Saga

Very similarly to the Troy saga, the second song of the cyclops saga once again seems to have the aim of humbling Ody and making him closer to us, your average mortal, than a god. You can feel the genuine pain and fear in his voice as his friends fall, and the splashes and smashes of blood and club are poignant and painful to listen to. We get to see the tactician brain of his working to full speed, with a steady ticking in the background making it feel like Athena is right there with him, which is a lovely touch.

23. Remember Them - Cyclops Saga

Wow, this song is so strong and painful at the same time. The fade into the song, hearing Ody's mind snap straight into action and then him calling out to his friends with directions demonstrates his tactician brain and his ability to lead them really well, but also feels like he is also trying to guide the crew through the first big loss they will experience together. He steps right up, refocuses them, and gets shit done. Shame he didn't kill him, but this would be a very short story if he did!

22. Keep Your Friends Close - Ocean Saga

I am but a small, simple lesbian. The way Kira sings here just feels so nice and floaty, while also showing her more mischievous nature. The longing in Ody's voice as he sings for his family is so painful, and makes the next song hit so much harder. The promise of him being the same, knowing that not to be the case it heart-breaking. Also, give me more Winions. I need them as plushies please. Thank you.

21. Mutiny - Thunder Saga

The absolute gall of Eurylochus to be a massive fucking hypocrite and then pull out the line of "I'm starving my friend" with that much pain in his voice is breath-taking and incredible. He doesn't even feel like he really wants to betray Ody, but is just doing exactly what he thinks he needs to do to see another day. Little does he know. This song also suffers a little from the same problem I have with The Horse and The Infant - a lil too much going on

20. Ruthlessness - Ocean Saga

HELLO SIR! My goodness this mans vocals are so smooth but rough at the same time. The growl that he gives to his voice whilst still flowing the lyrics together so musically is just so impressive. And the background instrumentation imitating the crashing of waves against the ship is *chefs kiss*. And then..... ALL I GOTTA DO IS OPEN THIS BAG!!!!!! I think this song might rate higher for me if I didn't end it with the most tonal whiplash ever. It's hilarious, don't get me wrong. But my gods, does it pull me out of the song a little bit lol.

19. Different Beast - Thunder Saga

The way I jumped out of my seat when I first listened to this saga, admittedly at 6am, I think I could have punched a hole in the roof were I less vertically challenged. He means business, this song shows that, and gods is it good. The small plea for mercy from the sirens who feel like they already know the answer, and the ruthlessness of his response. Hey look, he is learning!...

18. Puppeteer - Circe Saga

A woman. What? She had me in just one song. I would thank her if she turned me into a pig. Her vocals are perfection, the chanting of her power, the way she can hypnotise a whole crew. I find it interesting too, how just the promise of a warm meal and a safe place, even if it might be a trick, is enough to pull the crew into her arms. They may be under her spell, but part of me thinks so may have chosen this if given the option.

17. Wouldn't You Like - Circe Saga

Look, all I'm saying is that it was very telling that the day after the Circe sage came out that my Spotify started filling up with TROY's music. He is amazing, plays the character in the best way I have seen bar none so far. And that fur coat and sunglasses?! What a look. Also its funny hearing a British phrase as a plant name.

16. The Underworld - Underworld Saga

Jorge please, my face is stained from tears shed in this song. Every single time I listen to this I shed at least 3 tears. It's like a subscription cost of pain in return for a song that is as moving as it is powerful and reflective. The call backs to the previous sings are haunting, no pun intended, and the choice to have his own mother play Ody's mother is genius, and I hate and love it. As someone who has lost a connection to their own mother, it always makes me tear up as he yearns to be with her again, and shows the regret in his voice that he never got to say goodbye.

15 and 14. Done For *and* There Are Other Ways - Circe Saga

I cannot separate these two songs in my mind. Not only do they flow from one to the other perfectly, but they just do such a good job of leading us from a battle of power to a battle of the mind, with the flowing, seductive vocals from Talya and the trance of the music behind it. Again, I would have absolutely stayed with her, I am weak. I like to think my wife would forgive me!

13. Little Wolf - Wisdom Saga

Little wolf is such a good song because, even without Athena, the vocals are just so damn crisp and punchy. When I saw that the animatic in the livestream showcase was a streetfighter style animation, it made perfect sense - the punch of the beat and the chanting of the team behind the enemy works so well. And then, my goddess arrives to swoop in and steal my heart. She has clearly grown in the last few sagas and years that have passed, and I think this introduction of her back into the musical does a great job doing that. She comes in, bestows wisdom, helps a kid kick some ass, and with it once again confirms my status as a lesbian.

12. Just a Man - Troy Saga

This. Is. Heart-breaking. I'm sure that many people have the same reaction to this, but as the beginning of Ody's journey, it just hits so hard. Him recalling his own young son, and then knowing how long they will be apart makes it even more impactful. The change of pacing from the lullaby of the first part, to the painful growl in his voice as his questions his actions and realises that he has done is just pain.

11. Monster - Underworld Saga

This was so hard to pick apart from I'm Just a Man. I love them both. The only reason this stands a little higher is the overall arc from the song that precedes this one into it is a little stronger, and I love the complete rage in his voice. He did all this, tried to do right by his crew and his wife, and is told by the man who he thinks will help him get home that "yeaaah nah you are absolutely fucked, have you seen yourself recently?!". Yeah, I would sing like this too. He can see where he went wrong, and this acts as a really nice turning point for him going forward. If he is going to be seen as a changed man, who's ruthless actions will hurt those him around him, he might as well go all in. he is the monster ra ra ra

10. Suffering - Thunder Saga

Jorge tucking his hair behind his ear. End of review. No but really, this is great. I know he did a TikTok on this, but the way the lyrics flow into each other to create this hypnotising melody is just breath-taking, and I will never forget the moment of 'wait hold up what is happening' the first time I listened to this song. First I thought that this was dream Penelope, back from her saga with the windy bag, and then was genuinely taken back by references to a daughter. oh no

9. Thunder Bringer - Thunder Saga

I get a bit annoyed, very stupidly, when I cannot sing along to a song I really like. It's one thing I love about listening to musicals, is learning the songs and then performing them to mu plushies in a vague attempt to satisfy the very anxious performer that lives inside me. Which means that a lot of my favourite songs are ones that fit within my vocal range, that i can sing along to. This one is so far outside of my vocal range, it might as well be on a whole other plane of existence. But my gods do I absolutely adore this song none the less. How can the asshole that is Zeus sound so fucking cool while being this much of a dick towards women while flipping off Ody in the background. This song is just an ego flex. Good job Luke Holt. Fuck Zeus.

8. My Goodbye - Cyclops Saga

I really like the way this song shows the 'youth', for want of a better word, of Athena and the impact on Ody's actions on her and its just so good. The vocals show so much of their pain and anger, and the mix is just perfect. The contrast is Ody screaming at her and then the genuine pain in her voice, the impact of her responsibility as a god is so good. No words can properly do this song justice. The best part is, neither of them are correct here. If they had just sat down and had a chat like grown ups they might have stayed alongside each other, but both think that their actions are the correct one, and i cannot entirely disagree with either response.

7. We'll Be Fine - Wisdom Saga

Kinda loving that most of the Athena songs are all sat together. It makes me so happy. The absolute sobbing that erupted from my eyes, nose and mouth during this song would have probably classed as a downpour. I love both of these characters so much, and Athena's vocals at the start are so heart-breaking and bittersweet, followed by the most heart-warming duet that has ever graced my ears. Also, the childlike joy and wonder behind the vocals from Telemachus are so beautiful and cute, and I would fight for him!!

6. Warrior of the Mind - Troy Saga

Ah, Athena, my beloved. I would perish for you in a heartbeat. I just love the heart that Teagan gives her through her performance - its so warm and playful in the introduction part, and they both almost feel like each others hype, its fantastic! It's also a great way to show off the influence that she has over Ody - she puts herself right in the centre, reminding him exactly why she respects him so much, while affirming her stance on his training.

5. Legendary - Wisdom Saga

Miguel's casting was one of the most perfect ones in this history of this musical. Not only because of his incredible vocals, but because they fit so perfectly with Jorge's. I can fully picture this kid and his dad together, their voices sound so much like each others, just like a younger version. This song is the perfect match of catchy and smooth, and it just soothes my brain perfectly. Special credit to the retort to Antinous about his mother. This is the perfect opening to one of the best sagas we have been gifted yet. Side note - I cannot wait to see Antinous get absolutely stomped into the ground (please gods tell me he does or I will never sleep at night) because my goodness, what a line delivery. I will throw this man. Protect Telemachus, throw Antinous off a roof like the baby, and someone get Argos a new toy.

4. God Games - Wisdom Saga

I'm not someone who listens to the demo's much (bar listening to Hermes laugh on repeat, and occasionally looking up lyrics). I like that they are out there, and my wife absolutely adores them, but I prefer to wait till the full release so I can listen to everything with a full cast and mix. Did that stop me from having over 20 videos of different people lip-syncing to the bits of Hera for this song, making me look like the thirstiest person in my area. No. I don't think that this song could be anywhere other than my top three. All the singers are incredible, all of the animatics are incredible (special shout out to Athena disco dancing into madness) and I wept like a baby when it was over.

3. No Longer You - Underworld Saga

This song is perfect. I have no notes. This is where my true top songs really begins. This song is so passionate while not straying into anger (outside of Jorge's owl impression that is), while at the same making the prophet sound entirely distant, almost uncaring. It's an added bonus that this song sits right near the bottom of my vocal range and so serves for great belting material when I need to let out feelings.

2. Scylla - Thunder Saga

This saga did an amazing job of making me absolutely loose my mind with every single one of its songs. Not all of them are what I would regard as my favourites, nor would I even say that this is necessarily my favourite saga (I think we can all guess which one is), but my gods can Scylla absolutely take my life. This song is perfect - The slow introduction into the absolutely mind bending vocals from KJ, with the growl of a monster and the voice of a monarch. Its incredible, and I will forever be trying to sing this just as half as well as they do.

1 . Love in Paradise - Wisdom Saga

I wish I could write all of the words that this song deserves, but I'm sobbing too much to focus, so you will have to deal with whatever I have that i can see behind this waterfall of tears. Athena travelling through the previous sagas and reliving all the pain that Ody went through sent me into a state to begin with. And then, Calypso arrives and reminds me how gay I am. I want to go to her island and give her hug. If it weren't for the animatic, and the little face that she makes when she finds out Ody is married, I wouldn't have stopped crying for a single second. Her intension aren't pure. She is desperate, she is alone, she is sad. She is very morally grey. All she wants is someone to soothe her, and in turn she tries to relieve his pain. It's important to note here that, outside of looking up her future songs, I have very little knowledge about Calypso. For me, based on the lyrics we have from "Not Sorry For Loving You", she seems to have been forced to remain on this island for hundreds of years with no contact. Is what she does to Ody horrible - yes. Do I think she wants to hurt him -no. And I also don't believe that she is trying to manipulate him to get off the ledge just so she can have her lover back - I read this as someone who is in love and trying their best to make them happy and keep them safe. Ody couldn't leave the island, and she couldn't let him be free, they have to ask Zeus for that. Not to get too deep, but her crying out to Ody makes me melt every time. The gut retching pain from Ody drying out for all those he has lost and who he thinks he will never see again is haunting. Give me a year and the ability to remove my fear of thousands of needle pokes, I will probably get the line "Life would be so much worse if you had died" nicely printed onto my body. This is the perfect song to top off all the other perfect songs here. I cannot express how much this song means to me.

Thank you, Jorge.

To give a summery, here are the Saga's ranked!

1 . Wisdom 2 . Underworld 3 . Thunder 4 . Circe 5 . Cyclops 6 . Troy 7 . Ocean

[breannasfluff]

Punishment and Shrines

Whump Rating: 1.5/5

AO3 Link

It’s a cave. Of course it’s a cave. Warriors and Wild couldn’t be stuck on a nice open plane, they had to be trapped in a cave. There might be air, but there’s not a lot of space. The cave-in saw to that. Sure, the chain will get them out eventually, but they were pretty far back in the tunnel.

Why did Warriors agree to go with the champion again? Right, because he was trying to be nice and get to know their newest member. At least he’s not stuck in here alone. Even if the darkness and tight quarters draw up bad memories.

“How are you doing, soldier?”

Wild doesn’t answer, but the sound of his breathing increases.

“Hey, it’s okay.” Warriors feels in the dark until he bumps into the champion; there’s little floorspace free. “The other will get us out.”

He doesn’t respond, just whimpers.

“Give me your hand.” After some fumbling the captain finds and squeezes it. “Do you not like the dark? Or the space?”

“Z-Zelda says it’s claustrophobia,” Wild manages. His voice is high and reedy with panic. “After the shrine I…”

“Shh. You don’t have to explain.”

Wild doesn’t seem to hear him, just clutches his hand tighter. “The shrine…the lid, it was right above me. I don’t—remember much. But sometimes there was blue light and liquid sloshed. I’d reach up but there was stone. They buried me in there. I couldn’t…remember why. But I was trapped. No one would let me out.”

Warriors winces because that kind of trauma leaves a mark. “Put your hand up, Link. See? You don’t feel any stone over you now. Sure, we are in a cave, but we have some space. You have food in your slate. I could test the rocks and crawl over them if we needed to find some more space. And most of all, you aren’t alone. I’m here with you, okay?”

The champion whines and squeezes his hand. At least helping Wild distracts him from the darkness. “I don’t like it either, you know?”

At first, there’s silence, but then a questioning hum.

“Yeah, the military wasn’t kind to recruits and all that. If you disobeyed orders, they’d put you in solitary confinement. Not for too long; at least not unless you did something bad.” Allowing traitors into his ranks was certainly bad. “The room was tiny; you could feel all the walls in the middle. Couldn’t stand up straight. It was pitch black and underground. It was just so…silent.”

He shudders at the memory.

“Did you have to go in there often?”

If the captain closes his eyes, he can pretend the darkness is a choice. “Sometimes. Not always for long, but once or twice…” he lets it trail off.

The experience left its mark. His wariness about enclosed spaces and total darkness has never gone away. He served in the war and it was a hard time. While it might make sense why the punishment was so steep, he’s hard-pressed to say it taught him anything besides fear.

“I want to be outside,” Wild whispers.

“Me, too.” Warriors is quiet for a while, focusing on breathing through the growing panic. Then, abruptly, his hand tightens on Wild’s. “Doesn’t your slate light up? Why are we sitting in the dark?”

A pause. “It’s small in here.”

“And?”

“The slate light is blue.”

“So—oh.” The shrine. The thing that would ease Warriors panic is the thing that would lead to Wild’s. He tries not to imagine the walls pressing in around him. “Right, sorry.”

Still, the champion lets go of his hand and fumbles at his side. Abruptly, the space is lit up by the blue light of the screen.

Warriors takes a deeper breath, relaxing at the visual reminder that he’s not trapped in the punishment room. He can see the rock pile from the landslide; the ceiling is fairly high for all they are pushed into a small space.

“Thanks—” he cuts off because Wild’s eyes are squeezed shut and buried in his knees. “Hey. You can turn the light off. That helped.”

The champion wavers for a moment, then taps at the slate till it goes dark. Immediately, a hand nudges his and he takes it. Warriors works to keep the image of the room in his mind, despite his senses telling him it’s getting smaller.

He’s not alone, he didn’t mess up. Wild is here and he needs to keep their newest hero safe.

Wild’s turned his slate light on and off twice more when Warriors is pushed to his limit by the time natural light enters the cave. He’s up in a flash, carefully climbing the pile up to the hole. “Guys?”

“Good to hear your voice!” Sky calls back. “Is Wild with you? Are you both all right?”

“Yeah, we’re fine, just tired of being in the dark. No injuries, just some scares.”

Sky’s laughter is welcome. “Time is pissed you two wandered off. He’s also worried, but trying to hide it.”

The captain snorts—that sounds like Mask—and backs up while Sky and the others pull boulders free. Wild joins his side as the light grows, pressing himself to the opening. When it’s wide enough to go through, the captain nudges Wild to go first. He slithers through, blocking the light for a moment until he’s pulled through.

A few more rocks are pulled out and Warriors follows. From there they follow the tunnel back up to the surface.

Wild bursts into the open with a gasp, running forward and throwing himself in the grass. Then he rolls on his back to stare at the sky. Warriors joins him, flopping down and grounding himself with the sensation of the dirt and grass. Sunlight warms his face.

“You good?” he asks.

“Yeah. Being outside helps.”

The chirp of birds and crickets fills the air and then Wild says, “Thanks for sharing. About being punished. I know that had to suck but—it helped.”

Warriors nods, even though Wild isn’t looking. “It was nice not to be alone. No more cave exploring though, okay?”

The champion breathes out a giggle. “No more caves.”

[mj-102009]

Million to One (Colby Brock x oc)

Summary: After rising through the youtube ranks of a paranormal investigator, Avery Denim meets Colby Brock and quickly gets what the hype was about.

Warnings: Cheesy, alcohol, ghostes?

Words: 5363

Masterlist

-----------------------------------

I watched the video again with a shaky breath in and out.

Andee looked around the room, her eyes brave but her body betrayed her fear. “Is anyone here?”

I didn’t glance up from the spirit box in her hands, keeping lazer focus on the device.

By my side, Eve had the camera trained on my face, she reached out and tapped my arm. “You good?”

I nodded. “Yeah, I just…I feel off.”

On the floor across the rem pod, Callum raised an eyebrow. “Avery with an off feeling is never good.”

Andee asked one more question. “How did you die?”

My feeling expanded in my chest and forced its way out my throat into words. “Polio.”

Everyone sucked in a breath and no one moved an inch. 

“She’s right.”

The crack of the spirit box had everyone jumping to their feet and yelling.

The clip ended with my “not surprised but very much dizzy” expression.

The video had been posted to tiktok over a week ago and had received over 57 million views and 5 million likes; shooting our 800,000 subscribers on youtube to nearly two million. Most of the comments circled around “Avery is so psychic” or “faaaake asf” (Although I’ve been too afraid to go through it too much).

“Well,” I announced to my phone, the instagram live was filled with more viewers than normal. “What do we think?”

Most of the comments were good, the bad drained out by enthusiastic greetings. I had the phone propped up on the water bottle as Eve and I struggled to make dinner.

“Where’s the ramen?” I asked, she leaned over and poured the noodles into the sauce.

“Avery, someone wants to know when the full video will be out.”

I hummed and thought. “Hopefully next week– unless I get busy.” She set out bowls and we sat at the table. “Wanna tell em’ where we’re going next?” I asked

“Not particularly,” She mused with a wry smirk. “I have to finalize shit before we can announce it.”

I sighed and shook my head at the live. “I tried.”

She chuckled and looked through the chat. “Is Avery okay?”

I spread my arms wide and did a mini twirl. “I’m vibin’”

“Yeah, guy, that video was filmed a few weeks ago,” Eve told them. “We’re at the very end of editing before we can put it out.”

“Hopefully,” I crossed my fingers. “Andee and Callum wanted to go out while we’re here– tonight I think.”

Eve bobbed her head. “Oh we’re definitely going out while we’re in Vegas.”

I put my hands up and danced in my seat. “Paaaarty!”

“GET IN LOSERS WE’RE GOING OUT!” I shouted out the window of my car, Eve whooped and waved in the passenger side.

Andee walked out in all her glory with Callum on her arm; she had on a knitted shirt over a black crop top with a mini skirt; he was wearing jeans and a black long sleeve shirt; Eve was in a yellow crop top and a white skirt; and I had on a black mini dress and navy heels. The three of us girls had on various amounts of makeup and different hair styles– I had my hair curled (courtesy of Eve’s skills) with lip gloss.

Eve whistled slowly and got out to open the door for them. “Got everything?”

She nodded and they buckled, I put in the GPS and left their airbnb. “Is Cal driving home?”

“Yup,” He nodded. “I’m going on water the whole time,” He ended that with a heavy sigh.

We laughed at him and Andee peppered his check with kisses (but still giggled). “Where are we going again?” She asked.

“It’s called Mandy’s,” Eve said over her shoulder. “It sounded pretty chill.”

I huff a breathy laugh. “Your lack of information is so very reassuring.”

“It’s not,” Callum chimed in over his phone.

“It’s not,” I agree.

We watched as Eve had her torso thrown drunkenly over the counter to talk to the bartender. Andee was shaking her head while I cackled and filmed her to show her later.

“Should we stop her?” I mused once I had my blackmail.

Callum shrugged. “We’ll watch her.”

I shot them finger guns and stood up to go to the bar– opposite to where my idiot friend was. “Hey!” I shouted to the bartender over the loud ass music, the woman came over and leaned towards me. “Can I have another one of these?” I showed her my empty whiteclaw, she nodded and reached under the counter for the fridge.

I turned to walk back to my table and my head knocked right into someone’s collarbone.

Now listen.

I’ve never tried to be tall– because I’m not (5’4 gang can we get a whoop). But the split second before I was ashamed, I was trembling under this tree of a man.

“Shit!” I exclaimed, jerking back. And in slow motion I felt my foot catch on the bar stool and I began to slip.

The man yelped as well and quickly caught my shoulders to keep me up. “Holy shit, I’m so sorry!”

I straightened myself and waved my hands quickly. “You’re fine, my fault– completely.”

When I looked up to see what walking muscle man I’d stumbled upon, I was rendered speechless. “Oh my gods– you’re Colby Brock.”

For a moment something akin to panic flickered across his face before he rubbed the back of his neck and nodded. A smile on his face that didn’t seem to reach his eyes. “Hi, yeah, nice to meet you.”

“My friend is such a huge fan,” I told him. “She’s definitely out of commission right now but she’ll cry when I tell her about this tomorrow.”

He laughed and studied me with a smile that had slowly turned genuine. I moved out of the way so he could lean on the counter beside me. “You look so familiar.”

For a moment I was flattered then I remembered the video and common sense reminded me: ‘Well no shit the paranormal investigators have seen the viral video about the paranormal.’

“Oh I do some investigating with my friends,” I vaguely point to our booth, cracking open my can. “If we weren’t in a fuckin’ bar I’d talk shop but I don’t want to ruin your ni-”

“No no no,” He waved his hands in dismissal. “You can’t leave until I can remember where I know you from.”

I burst into bubbles of laughter. “Okay, do you want a hint?”

He shook his head and narrowed his eyes at me. “Shit it’s so close– what’s your first name?”

“Avery,” I answered amused.

“Fuck!” He exclaimed, smacking the counter lightly . “From Miracle Chasers– Sam was talking about you the other day.”

I blinked and grinned. “Seriously? That’s wicked.”

He was still pouting. “I should have gotten that sooner, I’ve been tagged in your video a billion times.”

“It still makes my head spin,” I take a long sip of my drink. “But you guys are crazy awesome, Eve takes so much inspo from your editing style,” I gushed. “But you did give her the idea of the Conjuring house.”

He fake winced and told me. “Sensitive subject, man. I think it’s intense but definitely worth it,” Then he added on. “Just don’t go more than once– then it gets not worth it.”

I laughed and shook my head. “I’ll send her with y’all on your next trip there.”

“I’m sure we could all do something,” He suggested. “We hear you’re a bit of a psychic.”

“Oh we could totally do something soon,” I agree. “I’m not so sure about my abilities,” I chuckle. “I have zero control over when they come.”

He huffed a laugh. “How about I go introduce you to Sam and we can exchange socials?”

“Sure,” I nod and glance at our booth where Andee and Callum were gawking at me, I shrug and give them a ‘wait there’ gesture.

He ordered a whiteclaw and we made a playful argument over the superior flavor until we were in front of a booth with a few people in it.

Sam looked up and saw Colby first. “What took so long, brother? I almost called you,” he laughed before looking at me.

“Well I ran into a new friend,” He introduced me to the table. “This is Celina, Kris, and Sam.”

I waved and smiled. “Hey, nice to meet you, I'm Avery.”

Sam had to do a triple take. “Well I know who you are,” He shook his head in shock. “Sit down,” He insisted. “This is so crazy I was literally just talking to Celina about your channel.”

I slid into the booth beside Kris and Colby sat beside me. “We were just passing through before heading to California.”

Celina laughed. “What a small world.”

“I was talking about maybe doing an investigation with her and maybe her team one of these days,” Colby told them. “Maybe two for both channels.”

I nodded. “We’d be down for sure.”

Kris sighed. “One of these days it’ll be Sam, Colby, Kris, and Celina on that youtube title,” She shook her fist ruefully.

We all chatted and joked around for a while before Callum came over to grab me. “Hey, we’ve gotta dip before Eve jumps the bartender’s bones,” He said to me, trying not to fanboy.

I laugh and rub my forehead. “Oh my gods of course she is.”

Colby stood up and let me get out. “It was nice to meet you.”

“You too!” I smiled at him then the rest of the table. “Text me when you want to do something.”

Sam gave me the thumbs up and said goodbye.

I walked out with a shitfaced Eve on my shoulders. “Let's go out to the car before I give you the good news.”

Eve stayed quiet. “Repeat that again,” She said in an eerily hushed tone.

“I met Sam and Colby yesterday,” I said skeptically. “While you were drooling over the bartender.”

She looked off into the distance with a dead expression. “Did they see me?”

I shook my head. “Nah, I made sure of it.”

“I might cry,” She whispered as she started to cry. 

Callum was wheezing. “They traded socials.”

The tears that were streaming down her stoic face were almost comical. “You met Colby fucking Brock and got his number?”

“And Sam,” I added under my breath.

She brought her hands to her face and whimpered. “Oh my god.”

Andee sheepishly rubbed her back. “We can still investigate?”

“It's no use,” She whined. “How am I gonna become Eve Brock if he saw hot stuff over here before me?”

I facepalmed and shook my head slowly. “Girl-”

“Do not fraternize with the enemy,” Callum said in a faux military voice. “Sam and Colby are one of the leading channels centering on paranormal activity; do not let the nice abs lead you astray.”

Andee saluted and I looked at Eve. “Don’t worry, I’m not gonna take your crush.”

“Long time no see,” I said into the camera.

Eve shifted the camera to show the two of us. “Welcome to the Miracle Chasers with Avery and I. Today I'm overjoyed to welcome Sam and Colby!”

The two boys jumped out on either side of us and started yelling enthusiastic greetings. “WHAT’S UP GUYS.”

We burst into laughter and they hooked their arms around my neck. Eve put the camera on the tripod to get all of us in the shot.

“We have been trying for weeks to make this happen,” Colby said, shaking my shoulders.

I threw up my hands. “Every time we were in America y'all were in Europe.”

Eve was standing with her weight on one hip. “This is our first time meeting,” She looked at the camera. “They met Ave at first but we’ve only talked over the phone.”

“But we’ve made time and now we’re in one of the most haunted museums in America,” I exclaimed.

We cut the cameras and began to pull out equipment while chatting and discussing plans for the summer. 

I sat on a bench with Colby as Eve spoke with the tour guide, with a deep breath I asked for my water.

“You good?” He asked, passing the bottle.

Clearing my throat, I nodded and said: “It's just so stuffy in here,” my eyes flicked over to Sam who was filming this. “I feel like there’s hundreds of people when it's just us– it's giving me a headache.”

“I have motrin in the car if you need it,” He told me as Eve walked over.

“We have like 10 minutes til they start the tour,” She said, tossing us our passes.

As we walked down the hall I looked at Colby’s shirt. “Is that our merch?”

“Yeah,” He affirmed, showing it off. “We bought it as soon as it came out.”

Eve beamed. “Avery designed this line.”

“Oh shit,” Sam said, checking out the print again. “Might have to pay you to do ours.”

I flush and wave away the compliments. “Thanks, but at the rate that you move around it will never reach you.”

“So this is a rem pod,” Eve explained to the camera before handing it off to Sam. “Anything within a two-ish foot radius will make it go off,” She tossed me and Colby a few cat balls to put around. “Cat balls– literally just cat toys Avery ordered off amazon,” She pulled out the ovilus. “This is our Ovilus, it takes words being spoken by spirits and spits it out for us,” She waved her hand at me. “And Avery but she’s just weird.”

I smack her on the back of the head. “Am not.”

Colby rested his elbow on my head. “Nah she’s right.”

“Shuddup,” I laugh, turning to help set up for the investigation.

And to hide the deep blush that had crawled up my cheeks.

Sam handed me an emf reader and we moved to the office to sit in a half circle. 

“1…2,” Eve sets up the camera and settles back into her spot. “...3– Now we have migrated into the office where the earliest owner of this hotel passed away due to unknown reasons.”

Colby poked my shoulder. “Unless Avery can figure it out tonight.”

I huffed a laugh. “No promises, my ‘abilities’ tend to come and go as they please.”

“And there’s not really any sort of training for psychics, is there?” Sam asks.

“Nope,” I shake my head. “I mean, I meditate and push myself when we go to these places; but there’s not much else we can really do.”

Eve turned on the rem pod and we took turns asking questions all went without answer.

“Was someone with you when you died?” I asked, rapping my fingers on the cold floor. “Your wife-?”

The rem pod lit up and beeped for a few seconds.

All three of my friends stare at me to which I shrug. 

“Did she kill you?” Eve asked.

The rem pod remained quiet.

“Anything?” Colby whispered to me.

I leaned back to whisper in his ear, and the smell of his cologne surrounded me. “I don’t think he wants to talk about what specifically happened.”

The rem pod beeped once and I groaned. 

Eve kicked my foot and stood up. “Should we try the hallway?”

“Suuuure,” I said, hopping to my feet and scooping up the rem pod. “Oh stop it,” I mumbled to the angry beeping and I walked into the hallway and set down the rem pod. I stepped back with the intention of grabbing something in the other room but noticed that the beeping hadn’t stopped. “Uhhhh guys?” Colby poked his head out and I pointed. “That’s not you.”

“That’s not me,” I agreed. “Get the camera.”

The moment Eve walked over with the camera, it stopped. I pursed my lips and shooed her back into the room.

It started up again,

She walked over and it stopped.

“It's messing with us,” Sam muses, kneeling next to the device to reset it.

I drop a few cat balls on the ground before rubbing my hands together and cackling dramatically. “Let's really start this investigation.”

“Yes I’ll have a large fry and a medium sprite– Eve get that shit out of my face–” I giggle, pushing the camera away. “Then two flurries and a 4 count meal.”

Colby elbowed me and whispered. “And a coke.”

I repeated this and confirmed the order. “McDonalds at 3am is not it for me,” I complained.

“Sam is asleep,” Eve whispered. “Be quiet.”

“I will honk this fucking horn,” I threaten jokingly. “Send me that video, I’mma post it on tiktok.” She hums and clicks away at her phone.

Colby yawns and puts his hand in my face, I giggle and push it away. “We’re staying at your place right?” He asks.

I nod. “Yeah Eve lives with a friend of ours and I’ve got a house,” She kicks the back of my seat and I snicker.

We pulled into the driveway of my house and Eve stretched. “Alright, that's my car,” She nodded to the jeep by the end of my driveway, before hopping out of my truck and getting her stuff from the back.

“Goodnight,” I told her, giving her a hug. “Tell Andee I’m still pissed she took my blanket home.”

She rolled her eyes and waved to Colby and also Sam but he was still barely awake.

“I have the last two rooms down the hall set up with new sheets,” I whisper quietly to Colby as I get my backpack and Sam’s bag. 

“Okay,” He says walking up the porch steps. I softly call out his name and toss him the keys as I walk over to Sam and poke him until he wakes up.

He groans and mumbles: “Are we at the hotel?”

I chuckle. “No we’re at my house, c’mon a bed has to be more comfortable than the seat.”

“I dunno, these seats are nice,” He stands up and follows me to the house.

 “There should be enough blankets,” I tell them. “The hall closet has a fuck ton if you get cold.”

Sam thanks me quietly before closing the door and seemingly going straight to sleep. Colby thanked me and took a blanket from the closet. “Are you sure you don’t want your bed?” He asks for the third time.

I shake my head. “Nah man, I usually fall asleep on the couch after investigations anyway.”

“But I feel bad,” He half whines.

“I’ll wake you up if I can’t sleep,” I tell him. “Good night.”

He sighed in amusement and waves slightly. “Goodnight Avery.”

I went to bed that night thinking about how I was going to break the news to Eve that I had a wee itty bitty crush on the guy she’s been dreaming of for months.

That morning I popped a tray of cinnamon rolls in the oven and began moving our camera footage to my laptop.

“G’morning,” An extremely tired voice grumbled.

“Morning,” I chirped to Colby, tapping away with my coffee in hand.

He walked into the kitchen. “Coffee?”

I nodded and pointed to the coffee maker. “There's creamer in the fridge.”

“Mmm,” He sighed, taking a deep sip of his coffee. “Whatcha doing?”

“Sending footage to Eve,” I tell him, using the back of my hand to push up my glasses. “Where are y’all going today?”

He shrugged and sat beside me. “I don’t think either of us want to do much today.”

My alexa starts going off with an alarm and I snatch up a kitchen towel to take out the hot pan. “Do you– shit!” I exclaim, dropping the pan on the countertop and shaking my hand frantically.

“Fuck did you burn yourself?” He asks, walking over to the freezer and walking back with an ice pack.

“Yeah, thanks,” I reply, looking at the angry red spot.

“Lemme see,” He says softly.

Without hesitation, I give him my hand to which he studies the quarter sized burn on my hand. We both go quiet as he cups my hand and squints at the mark. Once I had realized that he was holding the back of my hand oh-so gently, my breath stuttered and my ears burned with a flush.

“Does it still hurt?”

“Little bit,” I say softly. “Not as bad.”

He hums and lets go. “Do you need anything for it?”

“I don’t think so,” I chuckle. “I haven’t gotten burnt in awhile.”

Colby looks at the cinnamon rolls and shoos me back to my seat much to my protests. I watch– still reeling– as he opens a few drawers until he finds the silverware and grabs the knife for the glaze.

“No no,” I bat his hand away from it and drop it in the microwave. “15 seconds.”

“Why?” He asks, baffled.

“My mama always did it this way,” I explained. “I guess it just works better.”

He squints at me. “Are you from the south?”

I flush and laugh. “How did you know?”

“You said ‘mama’ with an accent,” He teases.

I amp up my accent and drawl. “Hey, pretty thang.”

“Pfft-”

“Don’t laugh,” I say through laughter.

“You’re laughing too!” He argues playfully, also laughing.

I trail off into a giggle. “You’re cute,” I commented offhandedly, turning to the microwave and taking out the glaze. 

From behind me, he looks away after a few seconds and clears his throat. “What time is it?” He asks, tapping my phone. “I’m gonna wake up Sam.”

“Okie dokie.”

“What are you doing awake?” I ask Colby at 10pm, feeling like a parent who just caught their child sneaking out of bed.

He shrugs and plops down beside me. “Can’t sleep.”

“Imagine how I feel,” I laugh under my breath. 

“Yeah,” He rubs his face. “We’re investigating a haunted hotel tomorrow and I can’t stop thinking about one of us getting hurt one of these days.”

I hum and nudge his arm with a warm smile. “I get it, I really do, after tonight I did have a serious thought of quitting,” I admit. “But then I thought of all the places I haven’t been to and all of the people who watch me for thrills like that. And it might not be the same for you as it is for me– but that’s what’s been keeping me on this course.”

He stares at me in what I thought was deep thought but instead- “God, you’re amazing.”

I flush furiously and stammer. “What?”

“I mean-”

“Thank you,” I amended quickly. “You’re amazing too.”

“Thank you,” He says quietly.

We sat in silence until I turned to him. “You don’t have a girlfriend right?”

He chokes on air and turns to me. “What?”

I immediately regret asking and backing up quickly. “Uhhhh-”

A gentle hand slides around my cheek and holds my head softly, I stiffen in surprise as I’m turned to look Colby in the eyes. “I don’t,” He answers me in a frail whisper. “Can I kiss you?”

“Yeah,” I whisper back.

The first kiss was feather light on my lips, just a soft brush that had me exhaling slowly and melting into his hand. I moved one of my hands to the one that was cupping my cheek, the other quickly found its place resting on his neck as I leaned forward for another one. The second one was more sure, confident, it brought butterflies into my stomach and shivers up my spine. He sighs happily and uses his other hand to angle my head to where he wanted it to be. I smiled into the kiss and softly twisted my fingers into the curl of his hair on the nape of his neck.

“Wow,” He comments softly as we break apart.

“Yeah,” I echo his surprise. “You’re so pretty,” I murmured, pressing a kiss to his cheek.

He chuckles and rubs my face slowly with his thumb. “You ready for bed?”

I hum and slide off the couch to the pullout loveseat beside it. “C’mere,” I demand softly.

“Okay,” He agrees with zero hesitation.

And we fell asleep like that, not caring that Sam had an alarm set long before either of us were going to wake up. That is until he started sending the photos into the group chat with Eve.

I nibbled on the thumb anxiously and waited. “Hello?” A sleepy voice grumbled into the phone.

“Andee,” I sighed. “I kissed Colby.”

“Pfffft- you what?” She exclaimed, suddenly wide awake.

I groaned and dropped my head into the hand that didn’t have my phone. “Dude, what am I gonna tell Eve?”

“Don’t?” She responded helplessly.

“Can’t, Sam send a photo into our group chat,” I tell her. “She hasn’t said anything.”

Andee was momentarily speechless. “Are you two dating now?”

I sighed. “I don’t know, he just left with Sam for an investigation.”

“If you want to date him I say go for it,” She tells me. “Just because Eve likes him– its a celebrity crush by the way, she’ll live– but if she does care then fuck her.”

“Andee!”

“I’m serious,” She insists. “Dude, I love you both but if Eve is so caught up in her feelings that she can’t be happy for you then just don’t give a shit.”

I listen quietly and stare at my counter. “I really like him,” I say softly. 

“Then date him.”

“Hey how was it?” I ask, stirring a pot of soup.

Sam enters the house and promptly runs to the bathroom making me look at the door for Colby. He strolls in and sets down a duffel bag of equipment on the table.

“It was good,” He shrugs. “Honestly a little bit boring but better than nothing.”

I shrug. “Could have been worse.”

“Mhm,” He walks over to me and peeks over my shoulder. “Broccoli cheddar?”

My cheeks burn as he rests his head on my shoulder. “Yup.”

“Yum,” He said lowly, still staying in the same spot.

We stand silently until I ask a question. “What is this?”

“What’s what?” He looks around looking for the product of my inquiry.

I turn to him and gesture between us. “This.”

“What do you want it to be?” He asks.

“I-I don’t do flings,” I say carefully.

“Neither do it.”

“I like you a lot.”

“So do I.”

We both stay silent.

“I want to be your boyfriend,” He says simply, playing with my fingers at our side. “I know I have a lot of wild fans, and that we’ve both got a lot of shit going on all the time. But I really like you and I think this could work.”

I watch his eyes shift over my face as they search for a reaction. I smile. “Okay,” I whisper.

“Okay,” He agrees. “Can I-”

I curl my fingers into the front of his shirt and yank him towards my lips into a kiss.

“Hey, what are we doing for- Holy shit,” Sam deadpanned from the hallway, we broke apart and I peek over Colby’s shoulder. “In the kitchen, seriously?”

“It’s my house, I can kiss my boyfriend wherever I want,” I joke with a silly voice. 

Sam sits at the counter and plugs his camera into his laptop. “Finally, you two have been flirting in the group chat for months.”

“Hardy har,” I laugh. “Dinner’s ready.”

Colby and Sam walk to the stove to make bowls while I grab my phone from off its charger.

Evie Jelly Beanie: hey I saw the picture and Andee told me you were worried about me being upset and I just wanted you to know that no matter what you and him decide I’m totally chill with it I’m your sister not your mom I don't care who you date

Me: omg lol tysm we legit js made it official

Evie Jelly Beanie: yw ave be happy with ur bf

That night I tell Colby about Eve’s little crush on him. “But this was all before we had more than like 10,000 subscribers,” I assure. “She doesn’t care anymore.”

He chuckles and kisses the back of my hand. “That’s good, the next investigation we do together would have been real awkward if she did.”

I laughed and curled into his side. “Shit, Colby, to think this all happened because we were both in the same place at the same time. What are the odds?”

hey its me your friendly neighborhood fanfiction writer i dont be a ton of sam and colby fics so i dont do a taglist but I fs take requests plus check out my masterlist for more tell me what you thought!

[princessamahle]

a tour of the hashira's estates… part 2

Tengen: Tengen and his wives are unfornately short due to not much shown in their inhabitants

Here's what we do know: He lives out south. He lives out near the mountains. There is a possible explanation as many things have happened

Number 1: He may have lived near the entertainment district as he is familiar with people brothels and its resources and economy. But after it was destroyed he may had to go into hiding as he needed to recover his wounds with his wives. We didn't see him again after 3 months.

Number 2: He has a craving for hot springs… And where can he dig one? in the forest of course! in Demon slayer one winged butterfly novel he had zenitsu with the help of inosuke dig out a hot springs for his training. Tengen loves a good bath with many of earth's nutrients to heal his wounds.And feels his wives deserve just as much. He's even shown going again after the defeat of muzan with his wives and giyu being a constant visitor.

number 3: The wives tend to use many outdoor cooking supplies to get lunch done during the day. its possible this was due to the hashira training they had to support but also they had quite alot of slayers to feed and assist. This is why they have a shed to place all the cooking ware. the only problem with this logic is that when tanjiro went to other hashiras they all had their training at their estates minus gyomei who is use to outdoor activity. Even sanemi had aloud the slayers to stay on his estate for his gruesome training. And their estates are very huge.

The only explanation I could think of is due to how he grew up and that ninjas tend to live very humble lives. Many ninjas were from low-ranking backgrounds, including farmers and villagers, and were not part of the nobility. They were often hired as mercenaries and learned to fight using stealth and poison to protect themselves. Ninjas were also known for their survival skills and guerrilla fighting techniques. Tengen tends to keep this hospitality but still wants to lead a flashy superior life to it.

so i'm giving tengen a 2 out of 5. While it is nice to know he probably has a smaller estate we have not truly seen it. But guest would enjoy the lovely forest scenery and hotsprings.

[aeviiteernal]

Omg can you do a Myers (or maybe even Demogorgon if you write for him lol) with a Surviver who is basically IMPOSSIBLE to catch? Like their looping skills are insane and if he ends up getting them he cant feel good abt it bc all gens have been done in that done or everyone escaped😭

i love looping the killer for 5 gens <3 also sorry for not posting for a bit, been focused on my personal life and trying to hit a higher killer rank for the reset. but, i am still here AND alive !

Michael Myers

When Michael saw you in his trial, he knew it was going to be a tough one. After all, word from the other killers (and some matches himself) always groaned and complained how you could run them until everything was done.

He wanted to be the first one to finally kill you.

Thankfully for him, where the Entity had sent everyone was Midwich. Granted he brought the offering and was running scratch mirror but we won't talk about it..

Deciding to go into the trial with a plan: he wanted to lure you out through your teammates and pursue you immediately.

After downing half your team, Michael waits patiently for you to slip out and make your appearance...

To be expected, you finally made your grand appearance and Michael made his first move towards you.

You were trying to quickly patch up Nea, knowing for a fact it was a stealth killer as you heard no terror radius. That only solidified when a knife swept your back, making a deep cut. A yelp scream from your lips, forcing you to stop healing and start your chase.

With you injured, Michael thought he could easily down. Well... He was wrong.

You took him everywhere you could, going to different loops, winning his mind games--even him falling for yours--you tried your damn best to keep him distracted as the others did gens.

One, two, three... Michael lost track as his bloodlust intensified, only wanting to catch you. At this rate he would be incapable of salvaging this trial if he left now. So his only goal was to get you.

You made a mistake, a fatal one which pretty much landed you directly in his arms as he ripped you off the pallet.

For as silent as he can be, you could hear a frustrated exhale come from his mask as he went to throw you on a hook.

At least you know you wasted his time and made him resent you...

The Demogorgon

My sweet, sweet, demo...

An apex creature, causing quite a bit of trouble amongst survivors with its ability to track down anyone injured.

Of course, nothing that you couldn't handle.

Your team had a rather rough start, you were on Coal Tower and some of your team had been hooked which left you to be the only one that was never hooked once.

Neither was any gens done, so it was an anonymous agreement to have you distract the beast.

Not that you can complain, it was preferred you take chase anyways.

You walked through the blue realm, searching to find it. Thankfully it didn't take long as you stepped into direction line of sight of it.

And so the chase begins, not wanting to let your team down and to at least give them some hope.

Running around, you narrowly dodge its shreds, baiting them out by faking a vault and letting it smack against it.

Even if you got hit during chase, it never deterred you. You wanted to run for a million dollars.

As gens popped, the more the chase got intense. You were getting tired, and you know the Demogorgon was just as frustrated and tired. How could a human like you give it so much trouble?!

Eventually you were smacked to the ground and took to a hook. As soon as you were placed on it, the sound of the exit gates powering alerted the killer.

Although you may not be able to tell, you certainly did demotivate the demon as it ran off to go and get the rest of your team and try to get a second kill.

[thanx-files]

*banging pots and pans together* I FINISHED ANOTHER SEASON OF THE X-FILES!!! GATHER ‘ROUND FOR MY HOT TAKES!!!

Spoilers, as usual. It’s all below the cut.

The End

I’m not even sure what to think. This finale felt like a regular ass X-File until the last minute on screen. No one was dying of an incurable disease or being drugged within an inch of their life. No one even faked their death! Though we did have another delightful moment of Mulder physically attacking his colleagues in the halls of the Hoover Building, plus another reassignment! Classic finale stuff.

I’m honestly still processing the image of Mulder’s office gone up in smoke. That’s one of the few spoilers I’ve managed to avoid. I can never keep track of whose side Mr. Morley is on, but damn. Damn.

Backtracking tho: MSR goes crazy this ep, but on the down low. He is thinking about ONE of the ladies. ONE of the ladies is thinking about him. Scully doesn’t care what anyone thinks except Diana — not even what Mulder thinks. What a fucking interesting distinction, right? Alexa! Alexa, play ‘Girl Crush’ by Little Big Town!

Not to mention the way she goes back to his place after everything that happens — the fanfic of it all, going home with him to make sure he takes a nap on his couch and doesn’t jump the tracks. She’s confused and tired and probably angry, and she loves him so much despite it all. Agh. AGH.

Anyway if anything bad happens to the kid I quit the show. Earlier in the series, I was tired of bad things happening to women (still am) but now I am tired of bad things happening to kids. Scully is, too, damn it.

The verdict: This is good. This is solid. It’s not the same levels of drama we are used to from a finale, but it’s enough of a paradigm shift to make you wonder what’s next. And maybe it would feel old-hat (the X-Files are shut down again, what else is new?) if we didn’t see Mulder’s life’s work go up in literal flames.

Season 5

This season, y’all. This season! It has EVERYTHING. It’s got needle drops and fun dances and unreliable narrators and fun and humor, but it also has FUCKING EMILY!!! Redux and Emily are within TEN EPISODES of each other. Are you kidding me? It has Catholicism! It has Scully to the rescue!

Pros: Lots of Scully!

Cons: Lots of Scully being sad.

Yeah, season 5 may be a new favorite. It has its clunkers for sure, but it also has some all-time best episodes. It’s literally watering the seeds of doubt, showing us that absolutely nothing and no one is trustworthy — I’m so mad that we never talk about “trust no one” anymore — that the truth may well be out there, but that we wouldn’t fucking know it if we found it, right now. Mulder is more skeptical than Scully ALL FUCKING SEASON! She may not be ready to write it in a field report, but you cannot seriously tell me she doesn’t believe something. She believes enough to know that something is wrong with Chinga. She believes enough to shoot the shadow in Mulder’s hospital room. She believes enough to set the nephilim free. To protect Gibson. Meanwhile, Mulder is kind of done taking people at their word. He needs evidence. He needs to see to believe. These two have changed each other so much in 5 years!

I just love it. I just do.

Episodes

I’m making a Tier List this time. And heaven help me, it is not particularly balanced.

It’s also worth noting that this ranking might change over time. I tried to account for both quality of the ep and my own personal feelings about it — which aren’t always the same thing. For example, I’ll rewatch Unusual Suspects long before either of the Reduxes.

[raguonmynieceandnephew]

EPIC THE MUSICAL ACT ONE SONGS RANKED BY ME

The first act is out and recency bias towards saga 5 has passed. let's go lesbians

20 - POLYPHEMUS

I would like to express that just because she is last she isn't bad, ok? The worst Epic song is better than your fave's entire discography, let's not get it twisted. That being said, Polyphemus is by far the weakest for me. It's just too slow, and like, of course it is, it's the build up for the plot defining moment of the show. It has to be slow to contrast with the explosion that will come right after. But it's soooo much and so not the vibe for me. Still love her tho

19 - LUCK RUNS OUT

Not gonna lie, this song is only this low because they changed the "We could be caught of guard" verse. It was SOOOOOOO much better than the melodic version, like, that was a giga downgrade it really upset me and my homegirls ngl

18 - WARRIOR OF THE MIND

Again, a queen, a trendsetter, a trailblazer, we love athena, but her songs in the beginning of the musical are kinda not my thing. Warrior of the mind sounds so weird to me in its saga, i struggle making it fit in my head.

17 - STORM

Wait, wait hear me out, hear me out! Don't shoot! It lacks flavor. It lacks a spice, it lacks something it. I really wasn't feeling it much in the tiktok teaser days of this one, and while the full release is good (again, there is no such thing as a bad epic song) storm left me wanting more, not in a too good of a way. It felt like there was something that needed to be there, a je ne sais quoi, idk

16 - SURVIVE

I think i might get doxxed for this list, but it is my truth. TBH we reached a point in which i have no qualms with the songs. Survive is definitely not bad but like, it gets outshone by literally everyone else in the list so it goes here.

15 - THERE ARE OTHER WAYS

Ooooooh boy. I hate that she is so low. I do, I really do. The second verse just doesn't do it for me as much as the first, and it sucks because the intro and the duet are a fucking masterclass.

14 - PUPPETEER

The numbers are treatcherous because, yes 14 is in the lower spectrum but like, we are already in No Skip territory. I didn't think I would like Puppeteer but the intro with Ody and Eurylochus is simply perfection. The feels, the almost love confession that was cut off, the wordplay is just INSANE, love her

13 - THE UNDERWORLD

What do I need to say about Underworld that wasn't already said in every corner of this website? Putting your IRL mom to play Anticlea is VILE, 10/10 fuck you jorge

12 - KEEP YOUR FRIENDS CLOSE

She was gagging me since tiktok. Perfection. Bonus points for being Penelope and Telemachus first appearances in the show (SHOW ME THE TWINK, JORGE). Also, "OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOODYSSEUS OF ITHACAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

11 - MY GOODBYE

I talked shit about athena's sons in warrior of the mind and I was about to put this in 16th place wtf, it didn't feel right so i did a re-listen and holy shit this song is phenomenal, omg THE JUST A MAN LINE? CINEMA

10 - OPEN ARMS

Steven Dookie, the man that you are. This song is so fucking good, holy shit. It's cute, and fun, It's everything. It encapsulates why the first quarter of a musical is always my favorite, because of all the setups, the motifs, the weapons it creates to shred our hearts

09 - REMEMBER THEM

She is perfection, she is serving pauleira, she is giving me everything I want. By far the best outro in the show, argue with your mothers.

08 - FULL SPEED AHEAD

The harmonies, the character intros, the simplicity, the naïveté, the HARMONIES, YES, AGAIN THE HARMONIES. Troy saga best saga, and if you disagree you can eat my ass

07 - DONE FOR

This song is what truly hooked into epic so Just a Man could reel me in. The drama, the irony, the implicit horniness, the fact that i found out they were dating IRL around the time this was announced, truly divine (ha)

06 - NO LONGER YOU

Wig? Snatched. This was my favorite song for a while, I even auditioned for it lmao. Deffo my favorite one to sing, still. Mason DEVOURED this track, and the prophecy? Odysseus's scream? Setting up Monster, AKA one of the best things in this show? Gagged me, your honor.

05 - THE HORSE AND THE INFANT

We are reaching greatness here you guys. The duet with Zeus gives me chills every time. I just know this + Just a Man as INTROS (REALLY LIKE, THIS IS THE INTRO) are gonna make pussies throb and ppl cry in the theater

04 - WOULDN'T YOU LIKE

Hermes is my favorite character in the show, and this (and Dangerous) are my most anticipated songs EVER. The tiktok snippets really did it for me.

03 - MONSTER

I mean, come on. Do I even have to say anything? When he quoted Poseidon. The venting about all he lost, THE CONFIRMATION THAT HE DID, IN FACT, KILLED THE BABY. HE BECOMING THE MAN TIRESIAS SAW IN HIS PROPHECY. I MEAN, COME ON

02 - RUTHLESSNESS

Chills. Literal chills. When this song dropped I was INSUFFERABLE. Ask anyone close to me. She was on repeat for WEEKS. Steven Rodriguez's voice is so fucking insane, so fucking SEXY (I ain't afraid to say it bitch, that man can get it). But like, Poseidon as a character, Odysseus being an idiot, "Ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves" like HOLY SHIT. And now, all i can think about is how Get in The Water will sound in his voice. Just thinking about it gives me chills. I just know he is going to devour it.

01 - JUST A MAN

Remarkable, showstopping, absolutely the best song ever made. The lyricism, the production, the poetry, vocal performance, I really don't have much to say because it's not needed. All of my favorite moments in this soundtrack, unreleased songs included, are moments in which this song is referenced.

The "Monster" chants in The Underworld and in Monster, "after all you're just a man" in My Goodbye, the entire song of "Monster" is he becoming the Monster he is asking about in this song, like, DO YOU GUYS UNDERSTAND HOW MUCH I LOVE THIS SONG? My life's dream is to go to broadway once to see this fucking song live, and i know it will be life changing. Just a Man is the most beautiful thing ever.