#“We will score a 300 point game!”

[izel-scribbles]

venoms stupid threats are so fucking funny. boy what are you yapping about

[lovecla]

TAKE YOUR PAIN AWAY | quinn hughes.

chapter six:

<last chapter> <next chapter>

➴ chapter warnings: nsfw (masturbation (f. receiving), praise kink, fingering, dacryphilia, overstimulation, softdom quinn).

➴ word count: 4.6k

💌 from me to you: i’m sorry if this is terrible. wrote a line and then took a 30 minute break every time but hey! i’m trying my best!!! also thank u soooo much for 300+ followers i love all of u so much i hope u can feel the forehead kiss i’m giving u rn 😚 enjoy!

౨ৎ

2024, APRIL.

THE ARENA was packed with people, most of them wearing the Canucks jersey.

It was game night, and Quinn made sure you and Victoria had tickets, with the view you had asked for— perfectly near the Canucks players.

“Brock looks amazing,” Victoria whispered in your ear, and you giggled. “No, like, seriously.”

You wanted to tell her that you weren’t looking at anyone but Quinn. He was standing there, wearing his jersey and throwing the puck around while skating with Miller by his side. He looked stressed, but you knew that he always got anxious before a game.

You debated a lot about coming or not, even if Quinn had been the one to invite you and even if you weren’t exactly known for telling him no. But lately, every time he texted or called, you felt your hands getting sweaty, your heart beating faster and your stomach filling itself up with butterflies.

Everything that you swore you would never let happen again.

���Do you think they’ll win?” Victoria asks you, shoving a handful of popcorn inside her mouth.

“They’re on a winning streak so maybe?” You shrug. “I’m terrible with sports.”

“Ain’t that right,” she laughs. “The only thing that makes hockey interesting are the hot players.”

“And the fights,” you add, munching on your Snickers bar. “I love when they take off their gloves and start punching each other.”

“To me that also categorizes as a hot thing.”

“Fair point.” You nod.

The game went by in a blink of an eye, which surprised you. You thought that because you weren’t really interested in hockey, it would suck to sit there for two hours and watch men skating around, throwing a puck here and there. But by the end of it, you were sweaty and tired from all the screams you let out whenever someone from the other team got in the Canucks way.

You and Victoria got out of your seats, chatting about the game and how happy you both were because the Canucks had won 4-2. Quinn had scored two goals and you were ready to engulf him in a bear hug.

“I think they’re changing but we can wait at the VIP section,” Victoria suggests, walking you through the place like she owned, which was one of the things you loved the most about her; her confidence. “I hope they have snacks and hot dogs.”

“It’s a VIP room, baby, not a restaurant,” you laugh, secretly hoping for the same.

“Either way, I hope there’s food there, I’m starving.”

“We just ate a bowl of popcorn, chocolate and a family sized bag of Ruffles.” You point out, patting your belly over your shirt. “Plus the Coke.”

“It was diet, so it doesn’t really count,” she taps her temple with her index finger. You laugh, doing the same. “Girl math.”

The VIP section was, in fact, full of food. And drinks. And players' wives, girlfriends, families and friends. You felt like a fish out of water but sucked it up either way, texting Quinn and telling him you were waiting for him.

It took a while for him to get there, thirty minutes to be precise, but you knew that the games’ after hours weren’t exactly a chocolate covered strawberry, and with Quinn being the captain, he had to answer dumb questions and talk to interviewers.

But then, Garland opened the door and started yelling about the winners being in the area, which made you laugh.

“Hey, there, cutie,” he smiled at you, wrapping his hands around your shoulders. “Missed that pretty face. Did you see me out there? Nailed it.”

“Yeah, I guess,” you smile awkwardly. “Congratulations?”

“Boo, you didn’t even try to sound excited.” He childishly pouts, poking your cheeks.

“That’s because you’re not exciting, C,” Quinn’s raspy voice fills the air, and it’s almost palpable how all the attention in the room immediately goes to him. “Get your hands off her, come on.”

“Aye, aye Cap.” He kisses your cheek before leaving you alone, dragging Victoria with him.

You don’t even think about helping her because all you can see is Quinn standing in front of you, wearing a burgundy suit with his wet hair falling down his face. He looks so fucking good.

Cocking your head, you smile sweetly at him. “Hi, Cap,”

“Hey there, Mads,” he leans down, kissing your cheek lightly.

You think for a second before standing on the tip of your toes and wrapping your arms around his neck, feeling his hand find your waist instantly, like a magnet.

“Congrats on the win,” you whisper, not really wanting to let go. “You played really well.”

“Yeah?” He whispers back, pushing you away just so he could see your face. He smiles. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” you sigh, letting him go. Looking around the room, you notice that some people were staring at the two of you, and you blush. Right, you remind yourself, we’re not alone. “Hum. Wanna go eat something?”

“Yeah, I could eat,” he shrugs, looking around. “At home, though.”

“You’re inviting me over?” You chuckle, running your fingers through your hair.

“I am, yes.” He nods.

The little Madisons inside your brain start running around, pushing the danger button again and again while yelling “abort mission!” to each other, but you’re still human, and weak in the flesh.

“We can pick Bella up, if you want,” he offers, putting his hands inside his pockets.

“There’s no need to, she’s at my neighbor’s house,” you tell him. “She befriended Buttercup, Mrs. Fernandez cat, and now she asks me to let Bella stay there whenever I have to come home late.”

“Smart girl, isn’t she?” He checks the time on his watch, and makes a tsc noise with his mouth. “If we go now we’ll still catch my favorite pizza place open.”

“Greasy pizza for dinner? Isn’t that all models’ dream?” You joke, watching as he laughs softly.

“Quinn,” someone calls him, making him frown.

“I’ll be back in a second,” he sprints to the other side of the room, talking with another man wearing a suit.

You could see Victoria in the other side of the room between Garland and Boeser, looking like she was having the time of her life. She looked like the ice cream part of an ice cream sandwich, the thought making you cover your mouth with your hand to hide your laugh.

Quinn really didn’t take long, walking back to you and placing his hand on your lower back, like he always does.

The drive to his place was long and tiring, but you managed to make it faster with your remarks about the game. And Quinn listened to you, replying only when you were laughing so hard you couldn’t continue speaking.

Quinn’s house was still the same as the last time you’d been there, which felt like a lifetime ago. The three bedroom house was still only furnished with basic furniture, no pictures besides one with his family from when he got drafted.

“Can I shower while you order the food? I think I’m disgusting.”

“Not really. You still smell like a vanilla sundae to me, but sure.” He answers mindlessly while he taps on his phone, probably dialing the pizzaria’s number.

You shower in the same bathroom you showered the last time you’d been there and when you leave, you find Quinn’s clothes on the bed, also like last time. You smile, putting on his weirdly oversized shirt and boxers, leaving the shorts exactly where they were because you knew that they wouldn’t fit you anyway— and the shirt covered Quinn’s new boxers just fine.

You walked back to the living room, finding Quinn standing in the middle of it, with the TV on, watching the game from just hours ago.

“You played well,” you start, sitting on his couch with your legs crossed.

“Thank you,” he smiles, pointing at the unopened red wine bottle sitting on his coffee table. “Thought we should celebrate.”

“Are you kidding me? Of course we should!” You jump out of the couch, headed to his kitchen cabinets looking for wine glasses. “Uh. I just remembered I don’t know where your things are.”

You open the cabinet either way, mentalizing that it shouldn’t be so hard finding two glasses of wine. Only to hear Quinn’s low chuckle, and his body behind yours— his right hand holding you down by your waist and the other one reaching for the glasses inside the cabinet on your left.

“I like to keep them out of my own reach,” he jokes, but you don’t even think about laughing.

Not when his crotch is perfectly aligned with your ass, his hand hot and steady on your waist, his hard chest brushing your back. It’d been brief, only enough time for him to reach the glasses and pick them up, but it’d been enough for you to feel all over the place again.

“Maddie?” He calls you, and you realize you have been standing there for a few seconds now.

“Oh, right,” you smile awkwardly and walk back towards the living room.

While Quinn poured both of you wine, you contemplated what you should do.

Well, fuck my childhood best friend isn’t a thing I should do, you remind your stupid brain, who sometimes liked to conjure images of what fucking Quinn Hughes would look like for you.

The risk of fucking everything up was high and the risk of falling in love with him was even higher. Quinn wasn’t a hard person to love, and with the way he treated you? The way he was ready to hand you anything on a silver plate? It would be like breathing underwater. Impossible.

Thankfully, your mood didn’t take too long to recover, and after an entire bottle of wine and three slices of pizza, you were back at it.

“The worst thing is,” you started, helping Quinn tidy the kitchen and putting away the dirty dishes. “One of the girls sitting next to us was extremely obsessed with you. I swear, she spent the entire two hours shouting your name even when you weren’t there.” You laugh, remember how Victoria threatened to smash her head against the glass.

“I get that a lot and I already told you, I don’t get the appeal,” he shrugs, placing the remaining pizza slices inside a container and tossing it inside his fridge. “Plus, I’m not interested in puck bunnies. They’re not really my thing.”

You gasp, making Quinn stop what he was doing to stare at you. “Does Quinn Hughes have a type?”

“That’s not what I—”

“You do!” You gently place the wine glasses inside of the dishwasher, closing it afterwards. “What is it?”

He laughs, closing the fridge door. “Madison, I don’t have a type.”

“Of course you do. So that’s why you’re one of the few hockey players I know that rarely makes it to dating gossip websites.”

“You’re being insane.”

You shush him with your hand.

“Let me think,” you tap your chin with your index finger, really putting your brain to work. “Okay. Maybe you’re like Jack who’s into musically inclined blondes?”

“No?” He raises his eyebrow. “And since when does Jack—”

“Okay, then maybe you’re like Luke and like frat girls?”

“That doesn’t even sound legal. I’m twenty five.”

“You’re twenty four, we’re not in October yet,” you remind him, trying to think of other types of girls. “What about redheads—”

He gently places his hands on each side of the counter, locking you in place. He cocks his head. “Why is it so important for you to know who I’m into or who I’m not?”

“I just think it’s funny,” you bite your tongue, contemplating what you were about to say. But fuck it, right? You could blame it all on the alcohol later, even if you weren’t even tipsy. “Perhaps fifteen year old me would like to know if she’d have a chance with you.”

He frowns. “Fifteen year old Madison? Not a fucking chance. You were a child.”

“Boo, you’re no fun,” you roll your eyes. “If you don’t think I’m pretty just say that.”

He rolls his eyes again, mimicking your action.

“I didn’t say that,” he clicks his tongue, blue eyes looking down at you, moving around your face. “Ask me what I think about twenty-two year old Madison.”

You gulp, tilting your head back and staring at him in the eye.

Danger, mayday, Madison, get the hell out of there.

“What,” you whisper, licking your lips mindlessly. “What do you think of twenty-two year old Madison?”

“I think you’re perfect,” he whispers back, stepping closer to you, forcing your head to tilt back again so you could maintain eye contact. “I still think you’re the sweetest person to ever walk on Earth, and I’m going insane over the fact that you’re this close to me and I can’t fucking move a finger.”

His statement shocks you, making your eyes double in size. “Quinn—” you start, but he shakes his head.

“Ever since you got back here, ever since I saw you again after fucking seven years,” he steps away from you, running his fingers through his hair in a frustrated move. “You’re— God, you’re everything and you don’t even realize it.”

“I— Well,” you stutter, not even sure of what you could say. Hey, funny story, I want you to kiss me, like, right now.

“You wear my shirt like you’re proud to, you kiss my cheek every time we say goodbye to each other, you drive me absolutely crazy because I know you don’t care about yourself enough,” he calls you out, and you look somewhere else, embarrassed. “But the worst part is watching other guys lick the floor you walk on and not being able to do anything. The even worse part is looking at your lips whenever you wear those glittery lipstick things and not being allowed to kiss the hell out of you.”

“Quinn,” you breathe, leaving the kitchen like you couldn’t stand there anymore, pacing around his living room back and forth. “You shouldn’t be telling me this. We cannot—”

“We cannot what?” He walks towards you, only stopping when you’re toe to toe with each other. “Tell me you don’t want this, Maddie, and I’ll stop. I’ll pretend I never said anything and we’ll just be friends. But fuck,”

“We can’t do this,” you shake your head. “We’re friends. We cannot ruin everything just because we want to fuck each other.”

He smirks. “I never said anything about fucking.”

You feel your cheeks getting warm, and you bite your lips, hiding a smile.

“This is a bad idea. You know that, right?” You whisper, placing your hands on his chest. “Like, a really bad idea.”

“We’re both grown and it seems that we both know what we want,” he mumbles back, putting a strand of your hair behind your ear and holding your chin up. “Do you want this, Maddie?”

Realistically speaking, you’ve been wanting this ever since you realized you could like Quinn as something more than just your best friend. You’ve been wanting this ever since you realized that no one would ever treat you as good as Quinn did. You’ve been wanting this ever since you saw him again for the first time in seven years, looking gorgeous and extremely, dangerously hot.

You do want this, more than you’ve ever wanted anything else. But things could get complicated and… losing Quinn wasn’t something you were interested in doing.

“I don’t want to lose you,” you whisper, watching as his chest goes up and down beneath your palms. “I can’t lose you. If this goes wrong, then, then—”

“Madison,” he kisses your forehead, interrupting you. “Do you want this?”

“More than anything,” you confess. It was true, and even if you lied, Quinn knew you like the back of his hand.

Or at least he used to.

You weren’t prepared for how his lips would feel against yours. Or how he’d place his hands on your lower back. Or how his kiss would feel urgent and needy, making you whimper inside his mouth. Quinn kissed you like he was hungry for something only you could give him, making your knees weak and your breath quicken, the fabric of his shirt feeling soft under your touch.

You ran your hands through his hair, moaning with pleasure because you had finally gotten what you wanted. And just like your predictions, his hair felt soft, with you gently running your hands through his scalp.

You broke the kiss, gasping for air and resting your forehead against his.

“We shouldn’t be doing this,” you mumble, inhaling his sandalwood scent. “We’re friends, Quinn.”

“I know. And I still want you just the same,” he grips on your waist, hard. You were sure that it would leave a mark on your skin and just the thought of it made you go crazy. “And there’s no going back now, baby.”

The pet name slipped past his lips, the lips you’d kissed so bruisingly just a few seconds ago, making you whimper involuntarily. The wetness between your thighs was just a tiny hint of how much you actually wanted him.

“Let me help you out, hm?” He kisses your lips again, his stubble scratching your face lightly, making you remember where you were, what you were doing and with whom. “Let me make you feel good, Maddie.”

“Please,” You plead, trying to even your own voice. You sounded needy and helpless, but you had too many things going on inside your head at the same time for you to actually start acting like yourself again.

He only hums in response, showering your face with kisses while he guides you to his huge, brown couch. He sits down first, opening his legs and looking up at you, his lustful eyes never leaving yours.

“If you want me to stop, Maddie, just tell me, and I will,” seriously, he reminds you, kissing the tip of your finger. “I don’t care how much I’m enjoying what we’re doing, if you want me to stop, you say so.”

“M’kay,” you whisper, nodding with your head.

He mimics your action and moves on with his hands, removing your— his— boxers, slowly pulling them down, until they meet the floor with a soft thud. Then he helps you remove your legs from the holes, the right first and then the left, his big, warm hands on your thighs making you feel wetter.

He pats the spot between his legs, silently asking you to sit there, with your back against his chest, your head resting against his shoulder.

He gives you goosebumps as he slowly trails a path down your neck with his lips, making a wet sound whenever his mouth touches your burning skin. His hands keep going up and down your thighs, slowly lifting your— again, his— shirt to expose half of your belly and your most intimate part for him.

“Place your heels on the edge of the couch, pretty.”

You couldn’t help but feel your face burn with embarrassment as you did what he said, sliding your feet apart until your legs were spread wide apart. Sex had always been something boring to you and you preferred to do anything else other than let a guy fuck you.

But with Quinn things were already so different. You felt close to him, not only because you were literally on his arms, sitting between his legs, no. Truth be told, Quinn already owned your heart, and getting him to touch you like this was heavenly, but also extremely embarrassing.

You moan as his right index finger runs up and down through your slit, barely touching your clit.

“You’re so wet, baby,” his whispers, voice filled with desire, making you shiver inside his arms. “Who got you so worked up?”

“You,” you breathe. “You did, Quinn.”

“Mhm, that’s right, aren’t you just so sweet, baby?” He chuckles, inserting one finger inside your pussy, making you involuntarily try to close your legs, only to have his left hand holding them apart. “Do you think you’re sweet all over?”

“Quinn.”

He thrusts his finger inside you, finding your spot almost immediately, the wet sound of sex helping the blush on your face grow. Then, after teasing you for a while, he removes himself from you, bringing his index to his mouth, licking the wetness away.

Your face was burning, you wanted to run away and never come back, and it was even worse when you caught the slightest hint of a smile on his face.

“You are,” he whispers, tightening the hold on your thigh and inserting his finger in your hole again, only to take it out after a while. “See it for yourself.”

You were going to die. That was it. Here lies Madison Carter, the girl who thought she could handle Quinn Hughes.

“Open your mouth for me, baby,” he instructs, his raspy tone reaching your ears and making your stomach warm. You slowly part your lips, wrapping them around Quinn’s finger, tasting yourself for the first time in your life. And maybe it was just the power of his words inside your mind, or maybe you were too horny to think correctly but if you closed your eyes and searched inside of your taste buds for a minute, you’d actually see that— it was, indeed, sweet. “Good job, baby.”

You whimper around his finger. Quinn slips two fingers inside your pussy, with little to no resistance with how wet you were. His fingers start up a quick finger fucking that echoes wetly in the living room, making your eyes roll to the back of your head, your cheeks wet with tears you didn’t even know you’d shed.

He’s fast, his palm touching your swollen, needy clit every time he thrusted his fingers into your hole, making you moan loudly, not even caring about the late hours. Your left hand grabs Quinn’s left arm, probably hurting him with how strongly you were holding him but you didn’t care—

You had always been easily overwhelmed and with how much Quinn had teased you, you knew you wouldn’t last long.

“Quinn, I— fuck,” your words get interrupted when you feel a third finger trying to get past your tight entrance, a loud moan coming out of your mouth when it succeeds. The stretch making your pussy hurt so freaking good, tears decorating your face like paintings in museums.

Quinn curls his fingers inside of you, making you slightly lift your hips, surprised with how much pleasure he could give you with just three fingers.

“I’m close, oh my god, Quinn, I’m—” overwhelmed with thoughts of QuinnQuinnQuinn, you sit back on the couch, once again trying to close your legs, and, once again, being unsuccessful.

“You can take it, baby, come on, give me what I want.” He shamelessly opens your legs more, thumb sliding left to right on your clit, making you gasp and whimper incoherent words, babbling nonsense that not even the smartest people in the world could comprehend.

When you came, it was like all of your worries went away, the weight in your shoulder ten, a thousand times lighter. You were crying and you probably looked like a mess, but thinking that Quinn’s responsible for getting you like this only makes you happier.

He didn’t stop fingering you, though, overstimulating your clit until the very last minute; until he had you crying loudly and screaming in his arms.

“Sh, baby, you can take it,” he kisses your wet cheek, slowly stopping his fingers. “Tell me, baby, you can take it.”

You hiccup, trying to hide yourself inside his arms.

“Say it, sweets, and I’ll let you go.”

“I— I can take it.” You whisper, voice hoarse and tired.

“Good girl,” he removes his fingers from your pussy, promptly sliding them inside your mouth, again. You didn’t need instructions this time, you just did what you knew he wanted you to, licking his fingers clean until there was nothing but your saliva on them. “You’re perfect.”

He tilts your head to the side, kissing your lips and brushing his tongue against his.

“How are you feeling, love?” He asks after he breaks the kiss, calmly covering you with your shirt again, wiping your tears away with his left hand.

Love.

“Like I’m made of cotton candy,” you smile tiredly, resting your head against his shoulder. You can feel his body moving as he softly laughs, wrapping his hand around your waist and pulling you closer. “Wanna stay here forever.”

“Sleep here tonight,” he offers, and kisses your cheek again. “I have tomorrow off.”

“Well, I don’t,” you chuckle, remembering that you had to be up early in the morning. “Besides, I have my daughter waiting for me at home.”

He laughs, nodding. “Fair point. Then let me take you home?”

“Yeah,” you agree, only to snuggle closer to his body. “Let’s go.”

You end up napping for about thirty minutes before he wakes you up and hands you another change of clothes, helping you change before he wraps his jacket around you and places a Canucks beanie on your head.

“You can never be warm enough.” He says before opening the door, letting you leave first.

On your way home, inside the warmth of his car, you thought about what this would mean to your friendship. Friends with benefits sounded childish, icky, and not something you were looking forward to. And you weren’t lying to Conor when you told him that you weren’t looking for someone.

Even if that someone was Quinn.

“I can hear you thinking.” He jokes, making you giggle.

“I’m sorry, I just— how do we act now?” You finally say, turning your head to the side and watching his side profile.

“You told Conor you aren’t looking for anyone right now.”

“I did.”

“Well,” he starts. “I’m not saying this because I want you to make a decision or anything like that. But,” he sighs. “I’m not the type of guy who will make arrangements to fuck you during the weekends and move on with my life on the week days.”

You frown. “I don't want that…”

He chuckles. “I know you don’t, baby.”

“But I don’t want a relationship now either. I don’t think I’m… ready.”

This wasn’t exactly a conversation you wanted to have inside a moving car, but oh well. It was too late now. Besides that, you trusted Quinn and you wanted things to be as clear as water between the two of you.

“We don’t have to date,” he adds before parking in front of your building, turning the car off. “What I meant is that I don’t share. If you think we’re better off as friends, then I’ll respect that.”

You blink slowly, tired.

“I don’t… I mean, I wasn’t lying when I told you you ruined the dating experience for me,” you mumble, fidgeting with your fingers, smelling his cologne on the jacket you were wearing. “I’ve only had two boyfriends before you. And honestly, I’m not interested in sharing either.”

“We can take it slow then, sweet girl,” he kisses your forehead, poking your cheek after. “Thank you for giving me a chance.”

You wanted to tell him that you had been the one waiting all these years, even if unconsciously. But you had already embarrassed yourself enough for the week, so you just gave him the tiniest, shyest peck on his lips and smiled, leaving the car after wishing him a good night.

Later, while you cuddled Bella and talked with her about your day— leaving the naughty parts aside, of course—, you let yourself dream about what a relationship with Quinn would mean.

Even if you knew that if he really got to know you’d become, he would get tired of you in a second.

“One day at a time, right, baby?” You kissed Bella’s head, letting your exhaustion win.

taglist: @hischierswhore @ru-kru @alwaysclassyeagle @he6rtshaker @nope-i-am-done @nngkay 🤎

[mazikeenhyde]

Less than a minute...

(Ive decided to be brave, I always wanted to try my hand at writing fan fiction so here we go! If i got anything wrong, like warnings for example please let me know so i can fix it! )

WARNING – 

A Poly!Judgment-Day fanfiction containing themes and mentions of DEPRESSION, LONLINESS, SOME SMUT, ANGST, SADNESS, ALCOHOL etc 

Overall, I’m just trying to make you all cry… 

READER X JUDGMENT DAY/POLY! – Rhea, Damien, Finn, Dominik x READER- Written in first person with Y/N (Reader Female)  

Italic font – flashback, speech or memories

Less than a minute 

The hotel room was quiet, the cheap TV fixed to the wall showing Monday night Raw on a low volume mixed in with the sounds of footsteps in the corridor, each sound filling the hot humid air. Outside the rain lashed down, heavy rainclouds hung low in the night sky blocking out the starlight, yet the full moon powered through, illuminating the streets, reflecting in the puddles that ran along the gutter line. 

 It was late, most of these anonymous guests rushing around just outside our door would be returning from busy work days to catch up on sleep or be heading out for a fun night on the town.  A blissful life for most, a chance to escape their homes and stay in a bed with room service, maids to clean up after you and a reception for any assistance required! I hated it though; it wasn’t my choice but when you are on the road traveling for what felt like 300 days of the year with your partners there isn’t much of an option. A different country every month, a different state every week, Christ a different town every night. I longed for those one-off days where we were all free to do nothing. Something many people take for granted is the ability to do nothing, and I missed it. 

Life felt far too chaotic, and despite being in a 5-way Polyamory relationship, I’d never felt so alone. I longed to go home, back to our own little house, we had been away for so long now. I could picture it, the front room shelves filled up high with my collection of books. My own little library I had spent a lifetime building now just collecting dust. The cabinets filled with Dominik’s board games that had bought about so many nights of endless laughter and equally some rather extreme arguments over winners, losers, cheaters and a half empty liquor cabinet that had been drained dry after a game of Scrabble. I still laugh now thinking back to when Rhea would demand the Alexa to define a word, we were sure Dominik had made up. Still, you could always rely on Finn to settle the score with a round of tequila shots and an accidental knock of the board. 

“Oh no!” Finn would laugh as he ‘accidently’ kicked the board off and onto the floor. 

“The board fell… guess we will have to play something else aye lass” he stated sarcastically, winking at me as he passed over one of the shot glasses. 

“I wouldn’t say No to a game of Twister” Damien suggested, raising his eyebrows as he took his shot and ran his fingers down my back. I swear that man would give me goosebumps from the top of my head to the center of my core with just a passing look and that fiendish glint in his eye! 

Rhea was quick to move herself over towards us resting her head in my lap, turning her view point to a more favored position. “I’ll second that” she smiled gently kissing the inner of my thigh, my breath was hitched, excited and on edge all at once. 

“Well I’m calling it!  I won..” Dominik stated with a huff as he began to pick the letter tiles up off the floor. Smirking over at him we each adorned a loveable gleam towards the boy. A little brat at the best and worst of times, but we wouldn’t have changed him for the world. 

Moving Rheas head onto Damien’s lap where the two of them began their own little make out session I crawled my way round to Dom, helping collect the remaining tiles off the floor and boxing his board game up. 

Smiling into his eye line I whispered ‘Never change who you are Dom Dom, We will always be here and we will always love you”

“What about when they break us up though?” he asked, I could hear the anxiety in his voice, his eyes. “I have to turn on Rhea and…and..” 

I held him close, his hands holding tightly to my back and I could hear his gentle muffled cries. 

“You’ll never be alone Dom, I love you so much. Even if I’m not always there to hold your hand, ill never be far away” I whispered in his ear. 

“Less than a minuite?” he smiled. 

-----

I couldn’t deny how much love I felt for each of them, work life had been tough for the four of them after the WWE had stated they would be splitting the group up to start a new storyline involving the likes of Liv Morgan, JD & Carlito. It didn’t stop the love we had for each other, but it certainly made traveling together difficult! I often reminded them that unlike myself none of them exactly blended into a crowd. 

Sitting in the middle of this king size bed I pulled my knees up to my chest, I had stolen Damien’s hoodie and a pair of rhea’s gym shorts in the hopes of being comfortable enough to focus while I studied my textbooks, but alas tonight my mind was elsewhere. I had been studying Law for some time, it had always been such a passion of mine and thankfully no matter where we slept I could bring my books and get my head down while my partners entertained the world. It also came in quite handy when certain members of the group had one too many drinks on a night out and needed some help in escaping the police without legal prosecution. Dominik can tell the world he did hard time in jail all he likes, but it was me that got the little brat released early after a dramatic night with Rhea at his parents’ house on thanksgiving. 

The WWE had offered me a position on their legal team once I had passed all my exams, yet that was over a year ago. I had deferred my exam date twice already, I wasn’t sure what was wrong with me but I didn’t feel the love, the passion or the joy I had done surrounding myself in plans for my future dream career, I was starting to worry I had wasted all these years for nothing.

Finn was always the voice of reason; he would often sit and help me revise while Rhea and Dom would shower together after the gym and Damien would take a nap. He was the voice of reason in the group, the glue that held us all together when things got tough. It was Finn that supported us all the most when our relationship went public, none of us had wanted to hide how we felt and the WWE were supportive, but that didn’t stop the online hate. The four of them were use to random strangers throwing insults due to the nature of their job, and thankfully I wasn’t of much interest to the fans. We had done our best to keep me away from the public eye, almost everyone just assumed I was part of the WWE teams supporting the group. There were a few fan speculation pages online who loved to play the guessing game but the majority saw me as nothing, as no one. 

Finn always knew when something was wrong, he hadn’t wanted to leave me this evening but I had persuaded them all to go on the promise when they returned we could order in and cuddle up to watch a new release on tv if we connected Damien’s laptop. 

“Chicken tenders! Ooh and nuggies?” Dom said, looking around the room in minor disbelief as we all looked at him with smiles. “What?” he asked. 

“Really Dom? Chicken tenders, I’d never have guessed that bro. There’s me thinking you’d want Sushi!” Damien stated sarcastically with a smirk as he zipped up his duffel bag. 

“Ew, raw fish? Bleugh! That’s gross!” Dom was genuinely disgusted at the idea. 

“Hey! Don’t knock Sushi you little squinnie! Just because the rest of us have some foodie culture, your mother should have had you expand your pallet better!” I replied as I walked over and flicked Dom on the head. He was quick to wrestle me up and onto his shoulder, spinning me round onto the bed where he climbed on to pin me down. 

“Uh Excuse me! I think you’ll find…Mami! has expanded my pallet just fine hermosa!” He stated, daring his lips closer to mine. 

“Oh I bet..” I whispered to him closing the gap between us, our lips aching to touch. “Your pallet has had its fair share of tasting sessions aye Dom Dom” 

Before he could respond Damien wrapped his arms around Dominik’s waste pulling him off me and planting him back down to earth, ruffling his hair upon release. 

“Alright you two, break it off!” Damien patted Dom on the chest as he tossed over his rucksack from the chair. I bought my chest up leaning back on my hands winking at Dom as he scowled at me with a mix of frustration and cheek. 

Rhea walked out from the bathroom with Finn following in tow, slapping Dom on the ass and wrapping her arm around his neck. 

“Behave yourself Dom Dom” Rhea said before looking over at me on the bed, “You too Bunny, Brats be warned there will always be consequences.” She laughed and pulled Dom towards the hotel door blowing me a kiss as the two of them headed out to work. Damien followed suit leaning down on the bed to kiss my forehead. 

“Te amo, Hermosa” he held the back of my neck touching foreheads before following Rhea and Dom. 

“Ill catch up with you three downstairs” Finn said and Damien gave him a thumbs up as he headed out the hotel room door and closed it behind them. 

Finn took a seat next to me on the bed as I sat up properly and moved to the edge, adorning one of those fake convincing smiles that had worked so many times before. 

“A night of studying then? We won’t be back too late I promise, you can pick the film tonight. I dread another of Rheas slasher films aye. We will be up all night watching the door” Finn said with a gentle nudge to my shoulder. I just nodded, unsure of how to respond. It was strange, I could hide myself in the love and laughter I felt for them all, the never ending flirting and sexual frustration that would build when we were in a room. But a reminder of the real world, of the real life we were living was enough to shatter my dreams back to reality. Every day was blending into one, the repetitive endeavors were tearing my soul apart. Tears began to fill the corners of my eyes as I was quick to stand and rub them away taking a sharp breath. I knew inside I was breaking, I was like a ticking time bomb and I needed to protect them all. Finn leapt up to his feet spin me around and face him.

“Y/N, listen to me lass, you know we all love you. No matter what, no matter how hard it all gets, whether you sit the exams and pass or fail.” Finn held his hands to my face cupping my cheeks. 

Finn had suspected something was wrong for a while, he and Rhea had sat down with me before to talk. They knew about my past, the scars I had whilst silver and faded now were a window into a past life I had battled for so long to break free from, always terrified it would find me again. I was like a rabbit in headlights when it all got to much, I would freeze in fear of my mind running away with my sanity. Hence the nickname Bunny. 

“I don’t know what is wrong with me..” My voice was fragile, broken. 

Finn held me in a close hug, his warm embrace relighting the fire inside my chest, a willing to keep going forward. The serenity was quickly broken by a car horn beeping outside followed by a text alert on Finns phone. 

BRAT NO.2  -

“Oi! Save some of her for the rest of us Finn >_< get your ass down here! We’re gonna be late!”  

Finn shook his head, “That boy tests my patience to its limit at the best of times, ive a good mind to put him over my knee’ 

I laughed wiping my eyes with my sleeves “Only if you let me watch” 

He smiled and held me close, “I can stay, if that’s what you need?” 

I shook my head and released him from the hug, “No. its okay, you go kick ass! I’m gonna jump in the shower and try to get in a quick nap before I crack on with those books, can’t defer the exam forever!” 

“We will be back before you know it” Finn said softly 

“Less than a minute?” I half smiled

“Less than a minute” He returned the all too familiar phrase. Finn kissed my forehead before getting his bag of the chair and reaching into his pocket to get his phone that had started to ring. He answered the call whilst slumping his bag over his shoulder and nodding his head goodbye to me before heading out the door. 

“Dominik, I am telling you now! I swear to god if you don’t…” Finns voice faded out as he continued down the hotel hallway, the door closing behind him. 

Taking a deep breath I shook off the heavy emotional cloak weighing me down and headed for the shower. 

4 HOURS LATER   - 

Looking around the rather large hotel room we had booked for the night I came to wonder; anyone would have thought we would have been used to this horrendous decor by now. No matter where we stayed every room felt much the same, whether it was the dismal wall art, low pressure shower heads or dull painted walls that felt like they were closing in. Though I knew the others were not fazed by it, they very rarely spent a lot of time in these rooms, aside from catching up on missed sleep or dancing the devils tango with any sparing energy the four of them would be in the gym or at the WWE training centers for live shows or TV. 

Sitting here I couldn’t steady my mind, I felt lost, lonely, empty even. It wasn’t their fault, they showered me in affection, I could want for nothing but more time with them. Yet it wasn’t that either, no amount of time in the arms of Rhea could fix the damage, she was the only woman I could love with the entirety of my heart, but as incredible as she was, even Rhea Bloody Ripley couldn’t fight off the demons inside me. 

The deeper I looked the more the world felt wrong. It all felt alien, uneasy, I wondered if it was just me, was I the problem? I checked the time, just after 10pm, they would be back soon enough, why did that bring about such panic, an anxiety drowning my heart, my breathe hitched and I felt it. You just know don’t you, it could have been years, weeks, days, hours or minutes that you had been fighting the voices in your head, the devil on your shoulder, but I was so lost in it all I just wanted to be alone. 

Slipping  off the bed I pulled on my socks and trainers and headed for the door. Pausing in the doorway I felt my heart sink a little, maybe this was it, maybe I wasn’t what I had promised I would be. 

A single tear fell down my cheek as I closed the hotel room door behind me, leaving my phone and keys on the nightstand. I needed to break free, only time would tell how long for, but I needed to feel. I needed to escape the War inside my head and the only way I knew how to do that, was to run. 

1 HOUR LATER   - 

Rhea and Dom walked through the carpark with his arm wrapped around her waist as they headed towards the rental car. It had been a hard night for them and all they wanted was to climb into bed with their girl and sleep. Damien followed just behind the both of them carrying the groups bags. Finn bringing up the rear of the group was locked into his phone, his face filled with concern for their girl who hadn’t responded to a single text all evening. They had received a message from the WWE management team that they could leave early to limit fan interaction ahead of SummerSlam. 

Climbing into the rental car Dom, Rhea and Damien waited for Finn. 

“Maybe she fell asleep studying?” Dom asked as Finn sat in the back passenger seat. 

Rhea had her phone up to her ear listening to a never ending ringing on the other end, Voicemail again. “Bunny? please call me back.” She ended the call and looked up to Damien in the drives seat. 

“Priest, Floor it!” 

--------

Reaching the hotel all four of them raced from the car inside, adrenaline fed through them as they reached the hotel room. 

Hands shaking Rhea swiped the card multiple times before holding it still long enough to enter. The realization. The Silence. It was deafening.

Damien rushed in to check the bathroom as Finn scrambled around the room with Dom, looking for something, for someone they knew wasn’t there. Rhea stood frozen in the doorway, in silence, her eyes locked in. 

“Rhea?” Dom hastily rushed over, hand on her shoulder as he turned to her eye line. There it was, on the bedside table. 

Finn edged his way over to the bedside as Damien came back into the room. Hands shaking nervously Finn reached down and picked up Y/N phone and hotel keycard. 

They all shared a look between each other, a look of fear and confusion. What were they meant to do now? Where did Y/N go? 

“I shouldn’t of left her…” Finn held the phone tightly pacing the same two steps over. “I could see it, I saw it, I shouldn’t of left her…” Finn repeated again. 

“Finn?” Dom hesitantly questioned his actions. 

Rheas demeanor quickly turned and she slammed her hand against the doorframe and rushed out followed by Finn and Damien desperate to find their girl. 

“Dom stay here! In case she comes back!” Damien yelled, he paused in the hall before rushing back to the room and holding Dominick’s face in his hands. “We will find her, I promise, we will all be back before you know it” Damien kissed his forehead before turning and running back out the door. 

Dom was frozen on the spot, he couldn’t move, he looked around the room at abandoned study books, half unpacked suitcases and clothing discarded on the floor. He felt smaller than ever before, his heartbeat felt cold, his chest filled with butterflies and his hands cold to touch. 

Walking over to the window that stood from floor to ceiling he held his hand to his chest tearing up at the rain lashing down outside . “Less than a minute?” 

[supersteiiar]

HIIIIIII❤️

Bribelle hcs if u hv anyyy?🥺

BOY AM I GLAD YOU ASKED

- briar’s “magic touch” as described by the show is having super hearing when she’s asleep. on days when she can’t keep herself awake faybelle makes sure to go to all of her classes for her and get her work/keep her updated on the latest gossip and news from around the school. in classic faybelle fashion she pretends to have no idea what briars talking about when she thanks her for it (or says some stupid stuff like “yeah well you’re my enemy and we have to be on equal footing”)

- them being “enemies” has always been more of a one-sided thing with faybelle being super dedicated to their rivalry and briar being like “well . i don’t hate her but if it keeps this cute girl around me i’ll play along”

- they’re both super competitive though so it works out great. they’re not fighting for the top spot in class or anything but they’re definitely teasing each other about scoring one point higher on a test or assignment

- ^ briar’s always willing 2 help faybelle study tho. invites her to “study parties” that turn out to just be her and faybelle LMAO

- i wrote abt this in a fic once but briar keeps sticky notes in her room with reminders to invite faybelle to her parties (bc of faybelle’s curse)

- they have each others coffee orders memorized because they’re gay as hell

- it takes them like twenty billion years to get together . not because either of them are oblivious to their feelings but because they’re scared to love each other . they’re both destined to be alone, destined to lose the ones they love the most. so even though they hang out 24/7 and the entire school considers them 2 be a couple, they don’t make it Official until like… post dragon games

- at that point the whole “300 years of service” thing scared faybelle so bad that she wants to make things official. and briars totally fine with that because lord knows shes been ranting to ashlynn and apple for AGES about how she “just wants to be faybelle’s girlfriend” LMAO

- faybelle shows her love thru acts of service (doing things for others when she could be doing them for herself) and briar shows hers through quality time (she has so little time but she wants to spend as much of it with faybelle as possible) . they both like gifts !

can u tell they’re my favorite ship LMAO

[grailfinders]

Grailfinders #350: Minamoto no Tametomo

happy new years, let’s get this bread. and by bread I mean giant robot archer named Minamoto no Tametomo. he’s actually remarkable not breadlike I don’t know why I said that. He is, however, remarkably Arashlike, but better because he’s a japanese man in a japanese series. He also has some extra tricks that Arash doesn’t have, like not making me figure out how to make him kill himself, which I’m very grateful for. As such, he’s not quite a xerox of Arash- he’s a Battle Master Fighter to master battling with a bow, and a Gloom Stalker Ranger to specialize in killing people before they know he exists and while hiding out in some shadowy villain lair.

check out his build breakdown below the cut, or his character sheet over here!

next up: the disaster lesbian oh fuck we forgot kyokutei bakin nvm they're next

Species and Background

the game’s bio stuff kinda makes it sound like he used to be human, but he’s definitely a robot now, so that’s a Warforged baby! give him +2 Wisdom and +1 Dexterity thanks to tasha’s cauldron of everything, as well as Constructed Resilience to get advantage against being poisoned and taking poison damage, plus immunity to disease! instead of sleeping you can take a Sentry’s Rest for just six hours. just kinda. standing there. menacingly. you also get Integrated Protection, giving you +1 to your AC no matter what armor you wear, plus you can’t be taken out of it against your will. the downside is getting out of your armor at all is an hour-long affair, but we’re not making builds for out-of-combat stuff. unless siduri gets voted in, I guess. you also get one bonus proficiency, and we usually use Arcana for techy stuff, so we’re doing that here too!

Tametomo is a Soldier of course, giving him proficiency in Athletics and Intimidation. it’s nice to have a background with a direct correlation to D&D again, that makes this so much easier.

Ability Scores

Your highest score should be Dexterity. we both know you’re some kind of strength archer, but D&D thinks all archers are willowy elves, and we’re literally stuck playing their game. next up is Constitution. you are a bitch and a half to defeat, though that’s usually more because of your sniper’s nest. still, you don’t give up easy. third highest is Strength. we don’t need it for much in this build, but you sure do wear some heavy armor, and that comes with a strength requirement. plus it would be nice to actually make the weirdly strong archer guy weirdly strong. This means your Wisdom is lower than I’d like- your perception’s great, but I guess robots aren’t good at guessing games. aside from the centaur, I mean. This means Intelligence is neutral, and we’re dumping Charisma. every time we’ve seen you in the story up to this point you’re literally just a turret. so yeah.

Class Levels

1. Fighter 1: As said previously, you need yourself some heavy armor, so we’re starting as a Fighter for proficiency in all weapons and armor. you also get proficiency in Strength and Constitution saves, plus History and Perception. blasting a hole in a ship from 300 feet away is fun, but you have to see it first.

with our first Fighting Style you should grab Defense for another +1 to AC. I know archery makes more sense, but we can get that from ranger later, and they have less options. you also get to find a Second Wind as a bonus action to heal yourself. I mean healing is just like retroactively being tougher, right?

2. Fighter 2: second level fighters can use an Action Surge once per short rest. now you can attack twice in a single turn, or… no, that’s pretty much all Tametomo does, huh. well, it makes things easier for me!

3. Fighter 3: at third level, you pick your combat specialty, and as a Battle Master you can use a couple different Combat Superiority maneuvers. You start with three, and that will go up as you level. You can spend one of your four superiority dice, currently d8s, to add that die’s roll to a few different things. for example, Ambush gives you a bonus to your stealth or initiative rolls, (that’s a secret tool for later,) while Precision Attack adds it to your attack roll. Menacing Attack adds it to your attack’s damage, while also forcing it to make a wisdom save or be frightened of you for a turn. frightened creatures can’t move closer to you, making your position even more secure!

you’re also a Student of War, but you can’t really get anything cool with that.

4. Fighter 4: for your first Ability Score Improvement, grab the Sharpshooter feat. now you can attack at long range without disadvantage, quadrupling your potential range. you also ignore all but full cover, and you can take a -5 to your roll to deal an extra 10 points of damage! combine this with some precision attacks, and you’ve got a ton of bonus damage with almost no downside.

5. Fighter 5: Fifth level fighters get an Extra Attack, so now you can attack twice in a turn, or four times with action surge. Tametomo prefers quality and quantity with his arrows, so I’m sure this is a welcome addition.

6. Ranger 1: going over to ranger gives you proficiency in Stealth to never get seen while sniping, and as a Deft Explorer you’re also Canny in Perception for double proficiency.

you can also designate a flavored foe, adding a d4 of damage every time you hit them for up to a minute as long as you concentrate on it. you can use this proficiency times a day. it’s not quite as spicy as hunter’s mark, but importantly, it doesn’t use spell slots, has a longer range, and it’ll only get better as we level up.

7. Ranger 2: speaking of hunter’s mark, it’s spells time! you can cast cure wounds and hail of thorns using your wisdom. the former is extra toughness, and the latter is a flurry of arrows. plus we can finally pick up that Archery Fighting Style now for +2 to attack rolls! see, we got there.

8. Ranger 3: at third level you get Primeval Awareness, which is bad, don’t use it. you’re also a Gloom Stalker now, making you a Dread Ambusher. now you can add your wisdom to your initiative rolls, plus you get bonuses on your first turn. you can move an extra 10 feet, and you can make an extra weapon attack as part of your attack action! that’s three attacks, or six with action surge!

you also get Umbral Sight, giving you 60’ of darkvision, and you’re effectively invisible to other creatures using darkvision.

you can also cast Entangle now, which we’re interpreting as like, shooting an arrow straight through someone’s foot and into the floor. you can cast disguise self now too, but that’s just a free subclass thing we don’t need.

9. Ranger 4: use this ASI to bump up your Dexterity. better arching, yo.

10. Fighter 6: sixth level fighters also get another ASI, so bump up your Wisdom for faster fighting and stronger spells.

11. Fighter 7: seventh level fighters get an extra superiority die, as well as two more maneuvers! with commanding presence you can add your die to intimidation, performance, or persuasion checks, and with tactical assessment, you can add it to investigation, history, or insight checks. sadly they don’t have a perception bonus we can get, but we’re doing what we can.

but this all ties into your new ability Know your Enemy! if you spend a minute staring someone down, you can learn about their physical stats, ac, hp, or class levels.

12. Fighter 8: bump up your Strength so you can actually wear platemail. your whole body’s metal, it just makes sense.

13. Fighter 9: ninth level fighters are Indomitable, letting you re-roll a failed saving throw once a day. failing a death save is for other, lesser archers.

14. Fighter 10: at tenth level, you gain Improved Combat Superiority. now all your superiority dice are d10s. you also get two new maneuvers. Evasive Footwork adds the roll to your AC while you’re moving, and your Pushing Attack deals extra damage while also pushing the enemy 15’ away from you. if your arrows can sink a boat, you know they have stopping power.

15. Fighter 11: eleventh level fighters have another Extra Attack, letting you attack three times in a turn, or six with action surge. or four on your first turn. or eight with action surge on your first turn.

16. Ranger 5: rangers also get an extra attack but it don’t work with fighter extra attacks so just be happy with what u got.

you get second level spells though! cordon of arrows shoots a buncha arrows at your feet that automatically attack anyone who gets near. random arrow bullshit is kinda your thing. you also get Rope Trick, which lets you hide out in your own dimension for up to an hour. at first this sounds like it’s not something you can do, but really that’s how your entire schtick works, so go nuts.

17. Ranger 6: at sixth level, your flavored foe grows to a d6, and you’re roving! that means you can move another 5’, and you can climb and swim. this is the least like tametomo, but you can always just not move, so.

18. Ranger 7: with your literally iron mind, you get proficiency in wisdom saves. you can also turn your bow into a magic weapon now. I’d hope your dm would give you one by now, but if not we got u covered.

19. Ranger 8: with our last ASI, max out your dexterity for the most archery a man can be. you also get land’s stride which is a thing. if you have problems with magical plants at level 19, now you finally don’t!

20. Ranger 9: with our last level, you get third level spells! fear is whatever, but lightning arrow is how we’re gonna sink a ship. it turns your arrow… get this… into lightning. it doesn’t actually do all that much damage, but it’ll turn a single arrow into an aoe attack, and you could argue it should set stuff on fire, which eventually would take down a ship.

Pros & Cons

Pros:

with a bevy of powered-up bow attacks you can blast out some serious damage on your very first turn, and it’s consistent enough to keep mowing down enemies round after round. and yes, we checked- on your first round, you have just enough damage potential to take down a sailing ship in a single turn. it’s not likely, but it is possible.

you’re also delivering all that damage with a longbow, which means you can put that damage anywhere within 600’ of you with little issue. that’s 120 squares, btw, which is larger than most DMs make their maps if you’re not playing digitally.

we’re not just packing offense either. you’re tough to kill, with proficiency in two of the big three saves, 160ish HP, a base AC of 20 with the option to improve it temporarily, and extraplanar hiding spots at your disposal. any fight against you is going to be an uphill one, basically.

Cons:

you’re great at fights, but terrible at anything else. you have zero social skills, and your best trait for skill rolls is just the getting into fights skill. whenever you’re not shooting down boats, you’re gonna be bored.

being so good at so many parts of combat comes from you being Multi-Ability Dependent, or MAD for short. this means that you need a bunch of different skills to make your build work. sure your dexterity is maxed out, but that came at the cost of your wisdom (making your spells weak) and your constitution (the thing that keeps you ALIVE). further complicating things is the good chunk of stats that went into your strength purely for your shiny armor. if you’re a good archer, you don’t even need that stuff!

your class combo comes with a few pain points that make finding the best fighting style for you a bit difficult. superiority is best used sparingly to alter the flow of battle when needed, but we’re mainly using it to improve our damage, and in that case we’ll burn through all of our dice before the end of our first turn. we have obscene range, but our darkvision only goes out 60 feet. we’re ostensibly supposed to be unseen until our first shots, but we’re wearing plate mail, and so on. much like our stats, we’re pulled in a dozen different directions. we’re good at a lot of it, but there’s still some tension there.

[fontasticcrablettes]

I recently watched an 11 hour critique of Arise, because I'm the kind of person who loves an 11 hour video essay, but it's got me thinking about all the building blocks Arise put in place but under-utilized. So I've been brainstorming some "I can fix him" ideas.

For now I'm focusing on the lords, and how each one sorta has a connection to a party member in a way reminiscent of the God Generals or the Chimeriad. But those connections are flimsy and not fully realized, so how can we make this better?

Originally this post was going to be ideas for all of them, but my total rewrite of Vholran and Alphen's backstory got away from me so this is just focusing on Vholran for now.

--

Vholran desperately wants to be a dark foil for Alphen, but he comes across more like Zagi in his meaningless obsession with cruelty and totally one-sided rivalry with the protagonist.

So what if, Vholran and Alphen had a pre-existing relationship? 300 years ago, they were soldiers together in Dahna, with a bit of a friendly rivalry going on. Both came from noble Dahnan families, and they became friends when they entered the military academy around the same time (for even more spiciness, they could also have been lovers).

That friendly rivalry, though, was started to become progressively less friendly as Vholran grew jealous of Alphen receiving more attention and higher scores. It got even worse once they were actually officers on the field, and Alphen was promoted faster and received more decorations from their superiors.

One of their biggest clashes was in how they valued their troops. Alphen cared about every soldier, and was hesitant to use strategies that would cause large casualties, while Vholran saw them as expendable and would use reckless tactics to secure goals even if it led to high casualties for his troops. Vholran justified this by claiming that since they were of noble birth, it was their right to use the lower classes for their own gain. Alphen, meanwhile, thought all people had equal value, and nobility meant he had a duty to defend those with less power.

Then, they both got kidnapped by Renans to be used in the sovereign experiments. Neither of them really knew what was going on, except that it involved giving them some kind of power and the researchers were trying to find the 'strongest' subject to receive them. Vholran's jealousy intensified, and he was furious when Alphen was chosen and not him.

Vholran escaped the lab and sabotaged the Spirit Channelling Ceremony, and it was his interference that caused Alphen's powers to go berserk and cause all those people. Naori gave Alphen the mask as per the game, and took Alphen to the space ship back to Dahna.

Seeing this as a chance to get home, Vholran stowed away when she wasn't looking. Naoir had set the ship to cry-sleep for the trip home because Alphen had been injured in the destruction and needed the healing. But, Vholran once again fucked things up when he snuck his way onto the ship, and instead of being frozen for a few months to heal, they both ended up sleeping for 300 years.

Vholran came to his senses a bit before Alphen did since he hadn't been injured to start with. A quick scouting trip from the ship gave him some idea of what was going on in Calaglia. With his ability to use magic and pass as a Renan, he dragged a weak and still mostly out of it Alphen to the nearest Renan troops and announced he'd captured a runaway slave.

(At which point they would have put a spirit core on his hand, because... seriously why didn't they do that)

From there, Vholran does his thing in Ganath Haros, killing and replacing the current lord. His goal from here is to win the Crown Contest so he can return to Lenegis as the true Sovereign and take his revenge on the Renans for what they put him through 300 years ago. Once he hears about the uprising and Balseph's death, however, he decides to go investigate.

When they first encounter Vholran in Cyslodia, Alphen has a sudden flash of memory that this was the guy who'd sold him out to the Renan's a year ago. They have no idea who he is or where he came from, but the party is immediately wary of him as they see him as someone who had the chance to help an escaped Dahnan find freedom and instead turned him in.

The next time they meet, on their way to Mahag Saar, Vholran talks to Alphen more and flashes of memory come back, leaving him certain that he knows Vholran from somewhere. It's even more powerful than his sense of knowing Shionne from somewhere, because he actually does have strong memories of Vholran rather than her simply resembling someone he knew.

So when we finally get to the Ganath Haros arc, Alphen's mask has been smashed and he has all his memories back. Now, the opponent they are facing is not just the lord of Ganath Haros who kidnapped Shionne and has a one-sided grudge against Alphen. Now Alphen is out to confront his old friend who became his enemy out of jealousy and an inability to work together or value others. Alphen wants to rescue Shionne, but he also wants to confront the man who sabotaged the ceremony and put all those people's blood on his hands, the man who sold him into slavery, the man who ruined his life in so many ways over the years even though all Alphen ever wanted was to be friends.

But this shouldn't end in Ganath Haros. As the main protagonist's biggest foil, Vholran should be the main antagonist through to the end. So, after they defeat him in Ganath Haros, Vholran flees back to Lenegis with the Helganquil. Vholran isn't a Renan, so he has been able to see the Red Women the entire time, and figured out what was going on.

Because simply being ruler of Lenegis isn't enough for him, especially when he realizes Rena is empty. What's the point of being sovereign of a dead planet? But they have starships, and there's a whole galaxy out there. The water master core already gave him massive amounts of power, so what could he do with the astral energy of an entire planet?

The final act sees Vholran as the main villain, who has given up ruling Dahna, in large part because he's a petty bastard and wants Alphen to watch his world die, and has set his sight on the stars. He uses the wedge to begin draining Dahna of energy, and plans to use the Great Astral Spirit + Dahna's energy to power Renan starships to another world and begin the colonization and extraction of astral energy all over again.

We can tie Shionne's thorns into this, too. In the year since Vholran awoke and began plotting to use the Great Astral Spirit, his manipulation of it triggered heightened activity in her thorns, giving her the visions of the thorns destroying the world and convincing her to set off on her own journey.

I'm not entirely sure how he fits in with the Helganquil. I try to keep as much as possible from canon in proposed rewrites, but... I really think Vholran needs to be the main architect of evil schemes here. Perhaps he's overthrown the Helganquil and part of the third act sees the Helganquil reaches out to the party for help.

[pretty-idol-hell]

Well, after all that, the Grandprix is finally here and it's not all that different from the average ranking event. It's just a little more convoluted and comes with much higher stakes (better prizes).

Use your grandprix tickets to play grandprix lives and and collect grandprix points which will get you fabulous grandprix prizes after the event!

What prizes!?

100,000 points: Photo studio background 200,000 points: 10 Exchange tickets 300,000 points: 300 free gold idollars 500,000 points: Silver Winter Dream Parade Hair Accessory 750,000 points: Silver Winter Dream Parade Shoes 1,000,000 points: Silver Winter Dream Parade Dress 2,000,000 points: 10 Gatcha tickets 3,000,000 points: 15 Gatcha tickets 4,000,000 points: 25 Gatcha tickets 5,000,000 points: 5,000 free gold idollars

Ranking rewards Top 100: Gold Winter Dream Parade coord and 10 rate-up gatcha tickets Top 500: 10 Rate-up gatcha tickets

Also there is a bonus for new gatcha coords!

The following new coords are included in Hibiki's Grand Ball gatcha...

It's a lot of What a Wonderpri World stuff, plus Hibiki's MR and Idol Key SCR. Also a coord called the PriPara Police Chief coord which I think is brand new!?

Pull any part of the new PPRs and you get a 15% bonus added to your grandprix score, 10% for PR, 5% for R. (There are no new SRs.)

If you somehow manage to pull all of this, your bonus will be 255%!

Don't be fooled though, this gatcha has other stuff, including all the PriParis coords as PPRs too...

So, what's the good news? Well, the good news is it's not that hard to complete the Silver Winter Dream Parade coord! Also they added a top 500 ranking which I had been hoping they would do for a long time...

Bad news is, with all those rewards I bet even the top 500 is going to be tough. I imagine a lot of people will be trying to hit 5 million just for the gold idollars. I mean it's basically free money!?

And of course the worst new is... no new song.

All that Hibiki imagery was just to promote the release of a new volume of the manga.

Yes, they really expect us to do this entire event

on Yeah!Yeah! Idol Party.

Like... having an event song is not unheard of, but usually, you can still play normal songs to build up points to play the event song or something. I've never played a game like this where you were literally only able to play one song.

And yet here we are. And there is definitely some precedent to this. I'm sure they have lots of data to show people are dedicated enough to play the same song over and over again. AND SO. HERE WE ARE. We dug our own grave I guess.

Anyway, if you have any more questions about the grandprix let me know.

[chasedeys]

Ik you’re new to this team and I’m so sorry this is what you have walked into😭. Now you can seee why before he was drafted , the entire sports media told Joe to force his way out to not play for this organization and they were absolutely right . I was mad when it was happening , but Gid were they and Carson Palmer right

hi yeah it's okay 😭 sort of....looking at joe and carson palmer comparisons makes me want to die :(( so i politely look away for my peace of mind 🤗 oh but question did joe like insist on playing for cincy? it's super sweet how he said that he's happy he's playing for the city and for the team especially through all his injuries and everything :((

no joke though still super happy i got into the bengals even if they make me want to just. die. ahaha! very toxic abusive relationship esque where i keep giving them chance because they keep love bombing me (offense being so good) despite constantly beating me down (defense being so bad) and it's soooo stupid to say how much i still love all these players even if germaine fucking pratt makes me want to kick his ass down a flight of stairs because what do you mean what missed tackles. i need them to start being more self-aware please god and stop picking twitter fights on shit you clearly are getting your ass kicked on 😭

but the point is i still am sooooo happy i started rooting for them!! because they are so fun to watch i am dead serious never in my life did i think i would like watching football of all fucking things. and its genuinely genuinely so impressive how they can find new ways to lose so spectacularly. setting a new total points (82) record for a bengals-steelers game. the team that didn't score a touchdown at all and still somehow won against a team we lost to twice even with 9 total touchdowns btw. made a whole career game for the opposing qb after years of not touching 400 yards. coming back from a 24-6 deficit in the fourth quarter. receiver with qb numbers on 2 separate games against the same team. career high 5 passing touchdowns games. 300+ yards 3+ touchdowns numerous times and still losing said games. broke a record about that all in one season girl how the fuck. this all just points to how shit the defense is which is sooo confusing because HOW can you suck that bad...an nfl defense…..(there's this hilarious bit calling the way they're losing 'high art' which is basically all this lmao)

i mean hard knocks will be an extremely painful watch but at least you can’t shit on the way they’re playing offense so it won't be a complete beat down so.

but basically i don't regret coming in when they're shit because they aren't really that shit (????) lollll it's fine the rpf keeps me sane tbh

[devilsupdates]

Jack Hughes will play in game 324 of his NHL career today.

He's sitting on 299 points after six points in his past two games.

Point 300 today?

#NJDevils  HC Keefe on his plyrs handling the moment after Isles scored 2 quick goals:

“I wasn’t too impressed that we gave up two like we did. I didn’t say anything to articulate that, other than, ‘Let’s not go away here.’ Really, the players took charge. They stuck with it."

[normalgoalie]

An incomplete list of some of my favorite Bruins moments from the 2022-23 (regular) season

Jakub being reunited with Pavel

Bergy and Krejci both coming back for one last run (and signing on my birthday!!)

Everyone being there for Chara’s retirement announcement

AJ scoring his first as a Bruin and kissing the logo on his jersey

Dancing On My Own

The Halloween outfits

“Taylor’s real wife (high key)”

DARLA I LOVE YOU

The rise of Uncle Nick

The Keith Kinkaid game

Zboril’s first NHL goal

Bergeron’s 1000th NHL point and everyone jumping off the bench to celebrate with him

Most consecutive home wins to start a season in NHL history

The corn riddle video they’re so stupid

That one practice where Monty made them use wrong handed sticks

AJ making crepes for breakfast

“Sorry I’m not up to date on drug abusing bear mascots from the 70s”

The outfits from the Winter Classic

Actually everything about the Winter Classic

And every time Derek said anything

The Yankees Suck chant breaking out in Anaheim

“Krej, I didn’t know you could one time it like that” “I can do anything”

Krejci’s 1000th game

Pasta’s breakaway in the All Star game

Linus scoring a goal in Vancouver

Every

Single

Goalie

Hug

The practice where Linus and Sway shared an apple and Tomas ate a lemon??

Siblings breaking the ceiling in Dallas

Coyle’s sister starting the Let’s Go Tuukka chant in Nashville (and Tuukka’s reaction)

Everyone wearing McAvoy Plumbing and Heating/Frederic Roofing shirts

Bergy and Marchy breaking the franchise record for most goals that two players both factored in on

Pasta extension (we paid that man!!!!)

The Trent/Dylan Cozens fight and them yapping at each other from the boxes after

Trent knocking someone out in one punch

Pasta scoring 60 on the season and 300 on his career via hat trick in Philly

Most wins in NHL history

Most points in NHL history

[redwineconversation]

Olympique Lyonnais Behind the Scenes (Episode 6)

Kind of like last month's segment, I didn't want to do this one either because of how annoying fucking stans are. They genuinely make me want to not translate / transcribe things because they have an inability to just take a step back and act like a normal human being / football fan. However, I also want [normal?] people to get to a point where they can understand this team the way I do, so it leads us to this: me screaming into the void at how much I hate stans overstepping boundaries while I translate a genuine cause of sleep paralysis.

Again, I feel this would be simpler if OLPlay would let one screen record and my technology skills were better, but here we are. Can't have everything in life.

Blah blah standard disclaimers apply; @OL Comms Dept either chip in for Starbucks or a bottle of wine, I'm cool with either option; banning stans from stadiums would make the sport a better place; what won't I do to put off vacuuming? Apparently not much; y'all know the speech by now.

Come for Cascarino being unable to hide her Lyon DNA, stay for Becho's admiration of the likable red team. Love a team who literally recoils in horror at the thought of being seen as human. It's not that Lyon creates monsters, they honestly don't. The players were already monsters before they signed for Lyon, the only thing Lyon did was take the muzzle off.

OLYMPIQUE LYONNAIS BEHIND THE SCENES (EPISODE 6)

[LYON -SLAVIA PRAGUE GAME FOOTAGE]

Danielle van de Donk: We had a draw against Slavia Prague at home as well. It was a bit frustrating, it was just not nice for us because we wanted to get into a nice flow.

Vicki Becho: It's not the kind of performance we want to do, it's not the kind of result we want. So it was disappointing for us, for our fans. It's the type of performance we have to keep in mind to tell ourselves there are still lots of things to work on, and that we have to do much more.

[OPENING SEQUENCE]

[LYON - STADE DE REIMS GAME FOOTAGE]

Delphine Cascarino: After the draw against Slavia Prague, we wanted to do much better, and then we played against Reims. There was good content in the game.

[LYON - STADE DE REIMS GAME FOOTAGE CONT'D]

Becho: I was really happy for Euge[nie Le Sommer] because she was going through a complicated period and that she scored, I was really, really happy for her. I remember Eugenie's brace because I provided the assist on one of her goals. Having playing time again, getting some minutes under my belt, it was the best of things. And in that game, when I provided the assist, I'm happy. That's what I take away from it. Beyond that, I told myself that I can do much better and those are just the kind of performances I should keep in mind to do even more.

[LYON - STADE DE REIMS GAME FOOTAGE CONT'D]

van de Donk: Eugenie [Le Sommer] scored her 300th goal, so that was amazing for her. And I saw the people in the stands with the little paper going up. Everyone on the bench was asking what that was for, I think it was Laura [Benkarth] and I explained to her that she [Le Sommer] had 300 goals for Lyon, which is just amazing. It's great, they're so much more up to date than I am. They're actually very helpful.

Cascarino: Obviously - obviously we were happy for Eugenie [Le Sommer] because she deserves that status of top scorer for Olympique Lyonnais. And yeah, I hope she will score many more. It's quite frankly exceptional for her and the club. It shows that she's really a club legend.

[LYON - STADE DE REIMS GAME FOOTAGE CONT'D]

Cascarino: There was a good context within the game. However we conceded a goal, so that was - that was a negative.

[LYON - STADE DE REIMS GAME FOOTAGE CONT'D]

Cascarino: Conceding a goal is never easy, be it for the goalkeeper or even for the forwards. We owe it to ourselves at Olympique Lyonnais to not concede any goals.

[LYON - STADE DE REIMS GAME FOOTAGE CONT'D]

Becho: We won, but it remains super frustrating because we've been conceding quite a lot lately. At the beginning of the season we weren't conceding at all. Lately we've been conceding more. We need to do better. We know our previous performances haven't been that good, we need to do better in terms of defense, and offensively we need to do much better.

[LYON - STADE DE REIMS GAME FOOTAGE CONT'D]

Becho: At the end of the game, when I saw Eugenie, I said to her "Another one? Another record? How am I supposed to catch up to you?" [Becho laughs. I don't] No, I really like to tease Eugenie. I'm really happy for her. She leaves such a big imprint at Lyon and even in French women's football, and global women's football. And I know that for many girls, she's a role model.

van de Donk: After the game, in the locker room, we celebrated of course with the song and everything. We did a little bit extra for Eugenie [Le Sommer], of course, because it's just amazing to achieve that.

[TRAINING FOOTAGE]

[UWCL DRAW FOOTAGE]

Cascarino: So there was the possibility between Benfica, Ajax and Hacken. We landed on Benfica, who is a really good team. So yeah, we know it won't be easy. They drew 4-4 against Barcelona. So we're expecting a really good opponent.

Becho: They can cause problems for us, so we will need to avoid falling into their trap. We'll need to play really good football to get past them. I would have liked to have played against Ajax, I see what they're doing this season and honestly it's incredible. They manage to sell out their stadium, they're doing a lot of things. So they're a really good team that I wanted to play against. In any case, to win this competition we have to beat the best.

van de Donk: I do think Benfica is like very tricky, they're all very technical players. I feel it's just like the Portuguese team. As we experienced it lately with the Netherlands, they're quite hard. But yeah, I'm just very excited. I mean, they're kind of my style of football so I love to see them play, now I have to play against them. They want to keep possession all the time, they have all the skills. It's just going to be frustrating, but we're just not going to have to bite, you know. And then get them when they're the most - I don't know how you say it - when they're the most vulnerable?

van de Donk: The thing is, when you build it from the back, that's kind of my quality, coming out with the press[ing]. I know when to go, so when people do it, it's fine for me. But I do think that Lyon has a good press. It's kind of our game.

[MICHELE KANG FOOTAGE]

Cascarino: Honestly, it was positive than it ended - that it became official, but unofficially we knew that the club had been sold to Michele Kang, so it was just formalities that needed to be sorted out. Now it's done and we can move forward with peace of mind.

Becho: We talked about it a lot. We heard a lot of people talking about it as well. But as long as it wasn't done, we couldn't look ahead as much as we can now. And now we have peace of mind. We know there is someone there for us, we know there is someone who wants us to have the best possible conditions. We know our future is set, so there aren't any worries in that regard. We're very happy on our side.

Becho: She hadn't even officially taken over her role and she was already doing a lot for us. We saw the number of staff members increase. A lot of things changed. For the better, but with the caveat President Aulas had already done an enormous amount for us. Knowing there will be this person going forward, it was reassuring for us.

Cascarino: Since Michele Kang's arrival, there has been a lot of positive changes. There's almost as many staff members as there are players. So it shows we're becoming even more professional. We're getting even closer to what is done for the men's teams. So it's really positive for Olympique Lyonnais. In every area, whether it's nutrition, fitness preparation, psychology, mental health, in every area, if there's any doubt then we have someone we can ask questions to. It really helps us to reach the highest level.

van de Donk: We were kept up to date with how the process was going with Michele [Kang] buying our side, of course. Because as soon as she stepped foot in our changing room, when I met her, I was blown away by her. I think she's amazing. She's going to do very, very good stuff for women's football. So yeah, I'm a big fan, not going to lie. When I heard it was done, it was just a nice feeling. I think we're in good hands.

van de Donk: She's so involved with the women's side. She was already making so many changes for us. You can tell that she wants things to be better and bigger, which is really nice for the next steps of professionalism in women's football. When it was all done, because everything in France takes a while I think, I think it was very good. I was very happy.

[TRAINING FOOTAGE]

Becho: You're not allowed to lose a Lyon - PSG game. You're not allowed to lose. Those are the types of games we like to play, those are the types of games we want to play.

Cascarino: We know that PSG knows us by heart, we know them by heart. So it really comes down to tactics to win the game. We worked really hard in preparation for PSG. We worked really, really hard on tactics that week.

van de Donk: Every time we play against PSG, it's just - it's wild. I think everyone goes into a different mindset. I think everyone is just a little bit more focused because the rivalry, it's just amazing. It's just a different kind of level, everyone just really wanted to beat them.

van de Donk: Before the big games, we do a lot of tactical training during training sessions [news to anyone who has watched Bompastor coach recently]. It's not necessarily my favorite part of training sessions, but I like all the small stuff, all the small games, the technical stuff. But I do think we need all the tactical stuff. But it was good. You can taste what kind of game you're going to play or something. It's hard to describe how it is if you're not a player yourself. But normally you have a whole week to prepare. So the beginning of the week it's a bit more chill, a bit more jokey, we can have a bit more of a laugh during training. But before PSG it's just not like that, everyone is focused, "we need to get this and go."

[LYON - PSG GAME FOOTAGE]

Cascarino: It was a pretty close game, pretty difficult.

Becho: We started the game off well. We started really strong, we managed to press pretty high, we're in their half. We had chances.

[LYON - PSG GAME FOOTAGE CONT'D]

Becho: As time went by our level dropped, we weren't pressing as much, there was a slower reaction time. We weren't unified. We were a little - how to say this - we were late in the press, and it could be felt. The team opposite us starts to gain the upper hand over us.

[LYON - PSG GAME FOOTAGE CONT'D]

van de Donk: Obviously they have a good team, super fast wingers. On the midfield, I feel they just overload us. The attackers are dropping into the midfield so we're having to play four or five against three. It's going to get complicated if we don't do the defending very well.

[LYON - PSG GAME FOOTAGE CONT'D]

Cascarino: It was pretty frustrating to see that we weren't able to do it.

van de Donk: They had one long ball on Chawinga. It's complicated because she's just super fast. It was outside of the foot, I remember. So it was actually a very good goal, but it's just hard. Don't allow them anything and you give one long ball away and it's goal.

[LYON - PSG GAME FOOTAGE CONT'D]

Becho: For the whole game we didn't give them any opportunities, and that's - that's the top level. If we let them have one opportunity, we'll pay for it. We told ourselves that we had done everything not to concede that goal, but yeah. We conceded. So now we have to switch on.

van de Donk: No, losing is just not an option for us. There's certain players on the team who make sure we're not losing. They keep the standards very high and whenever we need to be picked up, they will pick us up. I think it was kind of an equal game, like both parties were in the "gray, but not bad". It was just a bit of a weird phase in the game. Luckily, when Delph[ine Cascarino] came in, she changed the game so, so much.

[LYON - PSG GAME FOOTAGE CONT'D]

Cascarino: I felt that the team needed help in that moment and was losing 1-0, so you have to take risks. You really can't hesitate to go into a challenge, and press for a goal.

Becho: I think it's harder to come on when the team is behind, because you don't have the same way to react. When you're losing, you want to do everything quickly, you want to score, you want to equalize. When I came on, I said to myself it will come from us, the substitutes. The game was at a bit of a stalemate. You have to bring something extra to the team. They have to feel like we are there for them, that they can count on us, that we're a relief.

Cascarino: It wasn't easy to come into the game, especially a game like that with so much intensity. But I owed it to myself to give it my best for the team.

[LYON - PSG GAME FOOTAGE CONT'D]

Becho: Delphine [Cascarino], when she comes on, we know what she is capable of. The opponent knows it too. But I don't think they were expecting her to do it so quickly and at that moment. Delphine got the ball and she did what she had to do, what she knows to do.

[LYON - PSG GAME FOOTAGE CONT'D]

Cascarino: Well in that moment I felt there weren't really any solutions because they were defending well, really, really well. They're playing one-on-ones. I could feel when I got the ball PSG as hesitating. So I took advantage of it and faked passing in order to dribble past some players. Then I put in a strong cross. I said to myself "it doesn't matter, Ada [Hegerberg] is a little behind." But I put weight on it anyway. And she managed to get the defender off balance enough to put the ball at the back of the net.

Cascarino: At that moment we - you're not thinking. You're acting on instinct. I saw there was a small amount of space. I scampered into it and it paid off. Sometimes it doesn't work, it depends. It depends on the situation. It depends on a lot of things.

van de Donk: Delph[ine Cascarino] did this trick with her leg, it was crazy. She runs with the ball. She's super fast, first of all. It's hard to keep up with her. And then she does stuff with her leg in the air, and she keeps going and goes past you. It's just done.

Cascarino: It made me happy in the moment to have been at the origin, if we can call it that, of the equalizing goal. But I was still disappointed with the final result because we didn't win the game.

[LYON - PSG GAME FOOTAGE CONT'D]

Becho: We weren't able to put forth the style of play that we wanted, but we didn't lose and that's what we should take away from it.

[OLPLAY STUDIO ANALYSIS]

van de Donk: I had no idea where Montauban was, it was a bit of a shock. It was quite far as well. But it was a cool game to be fair, I think they had a good crowd going on.

Becho: The away trip to Montauban, it reminded me a little of the away trips when I was young. You could tell the crowd was family-leaning.

Cascarino: Montbaunan was playing the game of their lives. It was good, the crowd was really pushing them to play well, so it was nice, we like those sorts of games.

[MONTAUBAN - LYON GAME FOOTAGE]

van de Donk: Games like that, they always start off a bit weird because the pitch is not as good, the opponent is fired up because they're fired up because they're playing against Lyon. They always go the extra mile, I would say, a bit harder in tackles and everything.

Cascarino: We gave ourselves a fright at the start. Unfortunately I gave away a penalty. I think it was the first time in my career.

[MONTAUBAN - LYON GAME FOOTAGE CONT'D]

Cascarino: Maybe subconsciously there was a little bit of carelessness. Maybe a bit of tiredness as well. The month of February is never easy physically. So maybe that's why there was a bit of a drop-off.

van de Donk: I think we're just very patient as a team. Instead of killing them straight away, I think we're like "get into the game first, play our game, and then the goals will come". In the end that was true, but the second half was more easy.

[MONTAUBAN - LYON GAME FOOTAGE CONT'D]

Becho: It was nice but in that moment, I wasn't thinking that- I was frustrated. Like I said, we've been conceding more goals lately, and it's something that I really hate. We are Lyon, and we - I want no team to think they can beat us or even think to themselves that we tossed them a bone or that they got something from us. No. We can't let them have anything. So I was frustrated to have conceded that goal.

[MONTAUBAN - LYON GAME FOOTAGE CONT'D]

van de Donk: Yeah, everything is a bit harder, it's a bit always - when you start the game, then after five minutes you know what kind of game it's going to be or how they are exactly. But that's why they are a bit more hard. I think it's a bit more difficult but very exciting always.

Becho: In the end, when you could see even the substitutes, Eugenie [Le Sommer] come on, Ada [Hegerberg] come on. We know we're a team where you can count on everybody.

Cascarino: Yes, the second half was much better and the goals kept coming.

[MONTAUBAN - LYON GAME FOOTAGE CONT'D]

Becho: After that, we were really happy to see Alyssia [Paljevic - former Lyon academy goalkeeper, best known for being the same height as Selma Bacha], who used to play with us. We were happy as well because we qualified for the semifinal.

[MONTAUBAN - LYON POSTGAME FOOTAGE]

van de Donk: Before the game I saw Alyssia, our little goalie from last year. I think she's amazing, she's such a good kid. So it was really nice to see her but I could tell in her eyes that she was a little bit down. I figured it's because she didn't start the game. But for her it was really nice, she came on so she could play against her old club. She's just amazing, I love her.

[INTERNATIONAL BREAK]

Becho: We're leaving for the international break.

Cascarino: First of all I really happy to be called up by the head coach. It was really nice for me to go back to the French National Team and play in my city [Lyon] as well. So it's really a pleasure for me to play in the Groupama Stadium. And yeah, we were really happy to have won.

Becho: In the final, we were playing against Spain. They were playing at home. We know that in that moment we have an entire stadium against us. But it's okay, we tell ourselves it's a final, it's the League of Nations. We have to win it. They were better than us, we're not going to hide it. They had a better game plan than us, we tried to play with what we had.

Cascaarino: They played really well tactically. They really moved the ball around, they really lulled us. And yeah, we know it, it's the style of play that they have and it worked. Unfortunately for us we weren't able to impose our style of play and, yeah. I came on as a substitute. It was complicated to come on in that type of game, especially when we were down 2-0. We weren't able to get any goals back.

Cascarino: Now we are ready for the month of March and we hope we will win everything in the month.

[shadowthief78]

Thoughts about Ego’s Backstory

Warnings for manga spoilers for Blue Lock below the cut!

So Ego is obviously one of the driving forces behind Blue Lock: he’s the organizer, the head coach, and I’m willing to bet he probably designed a good portion of the building/Blue Lock holograms/etc as well. But for such a majorly impactful character, we really don’t know much about him.

What we do know is:

He had a restricted diet sometime in the past

He has some kind of old friendship with Noel Noa

He used to have a job that required a special diet (possibly an athlete)

Above: Proof that Ego had some kind of career in the past that restricted his diet so he couldn’t eat instant ramen.

Above: Proof that Noa and Ego knew each other before Blue Lock.

I would like to put forth the consideration that his backstory went something like this:

Very talented athlete, went overseas because Japan was too small for him (much like Sae Itoshi), met Noel Noa along the way, failed to score a winning/somehow very important goal, returned to Japan and faded into obscurity until Anri hired him for the Blue Lock Project.

Here’s why I think that, and also take this with salt because it’s really mostly circumstansial evidence.

Firstly, in chapter one. The imagination story that Ego gives: pass or not at the World Cup? Maybe he’s just being imaginative but from what has been shown, Ego isn’t the kind of person to tell stories for the sake of stories. They’re always an allegory, like the famous “luck is bird shit” one. Is Ego drawing form parsonal experience?

Now, I’m not necessarily sure that he’s played in the World Cup. It might have been another game. But the possibility is there.

I also find the following page intersting: even though Isagi is speaking/narrating the “nameless striker” part, Ego is the focus of that panel. Heck, Isagi hardly earns a spot this page! This might be me just not noticing a lot of things, but it seems odd that Isagi referring to himself is superimposed over Ego and not, say, a picture of Isagi having lost. So, is/was Ego also some “nameless striker”?

What really made me consider all this was the panel below, from ch56, when Ego is explaining to the JFA why Blue Lock is necessary instead of just natural talent growth. Again, this might be a strech, but I don’t think it’s too far off to say that Ego might have experienced something very similar.

Afew pages after, we get this shot: Buratsuta saying failure isn’t allowed and Ego without a snarky comaback, for once? I do think this speaks to Ego having some failure in his past that impacted his philosophy of Blue Lock today.

And finally, Ego is so careless about his life after Blue Lock. Take a look at these three pages in Ch 131:

Ego doesn’t care! He’s giving up! He’s completely abandoning the one single thing he’s spent months or possibly even years building and defending!

Why?

What could have possibly affecte him to the point of willingly and knowingly giving up on something he’s spent countless hours designing the best possible training regimen for?

Listen, I really think Ego wants to help the Blue Lock participants succeed where he couldn’t. That’s why he calls them “lumps of talent,” “diamonds in the rough,” etc. Yeah, he does it kind of insultingly, but those things... they aren’t bad at all?

And it’s also worth mentioning that in the three panels, he’s basically lying. Not about the end of Blue Lock, I do think he was genuine about that part, but about the whole premise fo Blue Lock. He said right at the beginning that 299 out of 300 would die (more or less as a metaphor but, still...) but here he’s planned for the future of the remaining Blue Lock members. I don’t know if this was a lie all along or he planned it this way, but his promise of making a single #1 striker would have been broken here had Isagi not refused to accept this future.

Anyways. Ego is such an enigma and I really want more of his backstory. Maybe someone smarter than me has said this all before and I’ve just given an incomplete summary. My brain is shot after all this.

[crest-of-gautier]

EVP 999 reached on bone rattle arena! this makes my third gold map badge (my other two are jammin salmon junction + gone fission hydroplant!). i'm really happy to have been able to get this badge, it took 50 jobs starting from EVP 300 to get here.

the short of my thoughts is that it's important to take lots of breaks! but i have some other things related to salmon run and my journey with it in the past year that i want to share, so i'll put that under the cut 👍

i've only really grinded salmon run "seriously" since march 2023, and i only really attempt pushes on map rotations that i find favorable (it's important to have fun and having weapons you like help a lot!). and trying to get these map badges is a lot like a marathon, meaning that it's important to pace yourself appropriately.

i could go on about salmon mechanics that are important to learn. but salmon run at it's core ultimately tests your ability to quickly assess situations and make judgment calls. and the most important judgment call, to me is knowing when you need to step away from the grind because you've hit a skill wall.

the challenges i've faced with SR have changed over time as i've accumulated more experience with the mode. but generally speaking, i find that hitting a wall is characterized by repeatedly reaching a certain hazard level/wave, but not being able to completely clear it. i know i certainly found it annoying to reach wave 3 but not meet the quota.

when i started doing these pushes in 2023, i used to throw myself back into the queue because "we were just 1-2 eggs off! we'll get them next time!" and uh. here's the general gist of how that went:

(we failed again)

(i get increasingly irritated)

(my performance starts dropping from irritation)

(i get irritated that my points are dropping because there's only so many hours in a rotation)

("i need to keep playing otherwise i'll be stuck with the not as experienced players!!!")

(the cycle continues and i get a net loss of points)

fortunately, i don't do this anymore because it's largely unhelpful. it took awhile for me to get over the idea that throwing myself into another shift would get me back my points but. i did eventually!

these days i find that it's much more effective (and healing!) to take a 15-20 minute break (and sometimes an hour or longer!) whenever i notice signs of agitation or tension... any shifts that i do afterwards are MUCH easier.

the other reason why i think breaks are so important is because time away from the game helps you ask yourself better questions on what went wrong.

generally speaking if you can pinpoint why your shifts go to shit (thank you video footage and clips), you should be able to figure out a solution for that. and isn't that what learning is about?

i think a lot about how many shifts it took for me to get from EVP 300 -> EVP 999 on gone fission (124 of them). and when i think of that experience, i'm grateful that i learned the power of breaks since it took like half the jobs for me to get to 9's on bone rattle 💪

i definitely think that it's important to remember that getting through shifts will gets easier as you accumulate more experience. this is easier said than done but i think that if you can find ways to take note of your improvement, no matter how small, it will be easier to stay motivated!

i find this most noticeable with eggstra work... while i've only scored within the top 20% and never top 5%... i have gotten closer to the scores of the top 5% (i <3 marooners bay + jammin salmon junction eggswork) than i did at the start!

scoring aside, i cringe a lot at my spawning grounds eggstra work video, these have to be some of the most abysmal gameplay decisions ever and i'm happy to say that i wouldn't make that these days 💀! so if you've ever cringed at your old gameplay do not fret... it is natural and it's a sign of improvement!

anyway that's my lizz talk. while this is about salmon run i technically think this can expand to other pursuits in life. like creative hobbies. and sports! or maybe something else i didn't think of. learning is so wonderful and cool!

as a bonus, here's a notebook spread i made about golden rotation when i needed a break from the game... (did you know i really like my notebook... it's so fun)

[tamapalace]

Team Grape Wins Tama Bunny Tama Arena Event!

The results are in! Head over to the Tama Arena in the Tamaverse to hear the announcement of the results of the Tama Bunny game we’ve all been playing for the past week. The results are in and the score was team peach at 299 and team grape at 300. What a close race!

All members of Team Grape will earn their prize of 5,000 Gotchi Points on top of a special item depending on how many days you played for. We played everyday and earned the Bunny Crown!

Prizes will be handed out at the Tama Arena in the Tamaverse from Thursday, September 21st, 2023 14:00 JST through Friday, September 29th, 2023 at 13:59 JST. Whether you’re on the winning or losing team, be sure to pick up your prize!

Bandai has also announced that the highest score for the Tama Bunny game was a whopping 2,822, wow! Congratulations to Team Grape! It’s like another event will start soon in October, could it be autumn themed?

[shrimpbytes]

Fallout 76 SEASONS 4 years later

I spent a long time wondering if I should make this a video. Because I kinda don't want to put another 76 one on my channel, but my autism and desire to say "I told you so" is quite strong.

Then I remembered I have a blog I never use, so that.

Not to mention, I feel like I am less likely to accidentally get picked up by the worst defenders of capital here than reddit or youtube

Fallout 76 seasons is currently wrapping its 16th season. After somehow 4 years of this, I thought it would be ''''fun''''' to take a look back at how we got here and how depressing it all is.

SEASON 0

This journey actually starts before the scoreboard was made, what I will refer to here as Season 0. You see, for 76, the scoreboard wasn’t a brand new reward system from the ether, it replaced an already existing daily and weekly challenge system.

In the old days we were given challenges to earn atoms directly. No pussyfooting through ranks of nonsense. Just cold hard cash. Were the rates lower than the scoreboard? Not really. The weekly atoms one could expect 150-160 atoms free per week. When you consider dedicated players tend to finish the scoreboard in 8 or so weeks, that alone is pretty congruent with the atoms earned by the scoreboard…however. With daily challenges you can get 50-70 per week. Even if you only rolled 50 atoms per day, you could more than TRIPLE the weekly amount. 50*7+150 = 500 atoms per week 5 weekly challenges and 5 daily challenges. Let’s keep that 500 per week metric in mind. This is a small low-ball since some days would offer you more, but the challenges themselves were less engaging than the scoreboard, so 500 it is.

SEASON 1

May 2020. Everyone is happy and optimistic about Fallout 76 for the first time. Sure Fallout 1st came, but we also got Wastelanders. A story expansion with real NPCs, and a dialogue/skill system with varied ways to approach all kinds of checks that was arguably more in depth than previous Fallouts. And then Season 1 is announced and it’s not looking good as Bethesda gives us a set of numbers that don’t add up. You see obtaining the first rank would be 1000 score with each subsequent rank adding 25 score above the previous. So to get all 100 ranks you would need 220,275. You can otherwise get 7500 score from weeklies and 2000 from dailies for a total of 21500 score per week. Which given 10 weeks leaves you at 5000 short of completing the scoreboard. When this was pointed out Bethesda announced the repeatable score challenge for 10000 xp giving 100 score and that there would be double score events. So, not impossible but still a bit funky that they let us see numbers indicating they designed a system intending for us to fail.

Okay, shoddy math aside, what was Season 1 actually like? Well July 2020 rolls around and we finally get to see. I’ll lead in with the positives. Many of the annoying challenges go away. No more taking pictures of players or wearing specific cosmetic items to get your reward, but challenges otherwise stay the same. The format is more appealing as there is a fun little board game to help coax you through the grind.

What of the rewards then?

3 player icons 150

A bunch of junk

The single worst ui I have seen in a non-David Cage Game [Ammo converter]=500 atoms??

8 armor reskins 600-1200 each or 2000 for a bundle

6 weapon skins 500 each

1 pip-boy skin 500 ($5 for a pip-boy re-texture? Half the price of Nuka-World/Automaton/The Pitt/Broken Steel)

7 power armor reskins 600 each, 1200 for bundle

A brand new power armor skin and a reskin for it 1500? 3000?

1 chicken coop=500 atoms

9 camp decorations 300 each, 2000 for a bundle

1 deployable skin

2 backpack skins 1000

2 photo frames 150 each

2 poses 250 EACH

3,6,15, scrap kits 900?

3, 6, 15 repair kits 250+500+3*50? 900?

1 facial cosmetic item 300

2 jetpack skins500, 1000(bundled with their respective for 1800)

3 variations of the same outfit 1000? 3000???

39 lunchboxes: 1 = 50, 6 = 250, 15 =500, 40 =1000

1500 atoms

So if we take this favorably, we’re looking at 33.65k. Certainly nothing to sneeze at, right? Well..

Not at all

The above is a very generous way to look at it. One way that even Bethesda themselves wouldn’t.

After a season ends they try to recirculate the parts through either the bullion shops or the atom store. In particular, all of season 1’s tomfoolery can be acquired through bullion, or these two bundles: The captain cosmos bundle is 1800 atoms for just the jetpack and suit. In fact, less than half of what is in the Cosmos and Jangles bundle is even part of season 1. But let’s count the whole price anyways, why not? 1800+1800 is 3600, add in the atoms and now we’re at 5100  in ten weeks pretty on par with the old model, and I am just starting. 

What of weapons? Well, what of weapons? Who is the person that uses specifically a bow, a hunting rifle, a super sledge, a combat rifle, a handmade, and a gatling gun? and uses them enough that they’d want a skin on each of them. But not a unique skin either, they’re really set on keeping them all the same theme? Yeah, pretty much noone. That’s probably why Bethesda sells so many bundles. They know you only want one or a few things so they trick you into paying MORE because it looks like a deal. If you get six skins for the price of two, you might think that’s really good even though you’ll only use one, so really you paid the price of two, for one. Like going back to the cosmos jangles bundle. The Default cosmos outfit alone is 1000 atoms. Over HALF the price of the bundle individually. The bundling scheme gets even more transparent when looking at armors.

Sure, you may use more than one type of weapon, but you will barely ever use more than one type of armor. Many armors are just de facto upgrades over the lower tier ones. Once you have Secret Service or T65 armor, there is barely a reason to ever drop down to a weaker set, save for like the excavator armor’s enhanced carry capacity. Furthermore, most people will either play with either power or unpowered armor, not often both. In fact, the jet pack skin unlocked in the same season itself invalidates the lower tier non-powered armors. it LITERALLY can not be used with any of those armors so including them together on the pricing sheet is pretty damn silly. 

Believe it or not, the bundling scheme has yet to hit its stride, because if we could just take a moment to look at the consumable section. I have lunchboxes listed at barely more expensive than the scrap kits and repair kits, which well, they aren’t. They are exactly the same price in the shop. You get nearly double the amount of lunch boxes yet I rounded them to around the same price. Because lunchboxes get you one less than 40, so I rounded up to the 40 bundle for 1000 atoms, but the other consumables come out to 24, a weird number, that if I break apart using largest sums(ie the biggest discounts) ends up with 900 atoms. They are nearly the same price for nearly half the items. Because that’s how dramatic the bundle pricing is. Bethesda wants you to go for the big bundle every time, because it looks like you're getting more value, despite it not actually costing Bethesda a damn thing. Which raises the question, does that mean every consumable I unlock for free, the average price goes down? If I get two seasons worth of lunch boxes, totaling 78, is that like 1500 atoms instead of 2000? Well, something that might help this conundrum is to learn that scrap kits and repair kits are just useless. I have never once purposefully used a scrap kit in all my hours and boss fights just give you better versions of repair kits as well as many other goodies. They are ostensibly just bundled into the season to make it look more valuable than it really is.

The entire season pass is just one, big, bundle. If you actually sit down and look at what you want, you’ll likely find that even by the massively inflated 76 prices you probably would have gotten more under the old system. I wanted the marshmallow armor, something to put on my secret service armor. So for me personally, I would have to grind for 82 ranks to get something I actually wanted. Roughly 8 weeks or 4000 atoms in the old system to get a single skin that would usually be priced around 500 atoms, and I’d only have 1200 atoms thus far to show for it. The value being well under half of the old system.

I promise I won’t do this deep of a dive for every season, I just really wanted to hammer home that while the scoreboard system was more fun than the previous one, it has always been aimed at taking away our purchasing power. [foreshadowing]

CLOSING OUT 2020

Season 2 is not very noteworthy, although I do want to bring up again how artificial these prices are, with the Armor Ace bundle being 1400 atoms for some reason. The atoms earned was also bumped to 1850, which is nice, however 500, over ¼ are locked behind the final final rank. Once again hammering home the bundle method of putting what you really want at the end, so you’ll invest your way through everything else. All and all, a slightly better version of season 1 in my personal opinion. Which is probably why it’s the only one I actually finished. Oh. and it was 13 weeks, not 10. So in the old model that is now competing against an extra 1500 atoms when determining its market value. Oof.

Season 3 coincides with the Steel Dawn update. And as keen viewers guessed by the fact it is brotherhood themed, Bethesda’s worst traits begin rearing their ugly heads again. This is the first season to add 1st exclusive rewards. Meaning some content is just locked away from you unless you pay Bethesda $100 a year to artificially lock content from other players. This season drops the armor bundle entirely, so if you don’t use power armor, I hope you use one of the 5 weapons. What’d they make it up with? Uhh, just some camp amenities, most of which are just cosmetics…and two human beings. So is this season actually worth less than the previous ones, well as a power armorless hippy, I’d say yes, but it is hard to put value on a human life..

Okay okay. I know this really isn’t the point of the video, but I need to address this: You know how I mentioned some rewards can be bought with gold bullion? Well that means they’re purchased at one of the Wastelanders settlements. and idk, I just find it darkly funny that you can buy people from the settlers, who are the “good” side. What did Bethesda mean by this? Oh, and it’s 19 weeks long. So even if it had the exact same value as the two previous seasons, it would still really only be worth half as much, especially when you consider the classic system.

THE TEST

In my opinion, this is where the game begins its true death spiraling. Prior to now, 76 was known for two things besides its launch. Fallout 1st, Bethesda doubling down on their worst behaviors, and Wastelanders, Bethesda flaunting their best abilities. In hindsight, it’s hard not to notice that this one update both included another selling point for 1st, and a scaled down version of Wastelanders. Now would be a good time for Bethesda to see which avenue is more rewarding, and to be frank, Fallout 76 has a prosperity cult problem. That is to say, the most loyal fans believe the more money they throw at the multi-billion dollar company, the more rewards they’ll receive. So obviously, if Bethesda were to look at that data around this time, they’d see it makes more sense to milk 1st subscriptions than create quests that require significant resources.

And hoo boy, the milk is a flowing. TEST FAILED

You'll see after this time 76 starts getting given away, they no longer care about sales, only micro-transactions.

2021

Jan 2021, everyone celebrates as Nuclear Winter challenges are removed from seasons, and then they are quickly added back in

Season 4: Cold Steel. Not too much to say here, no more armor paints, but there are more outfits and some are early on for us normal armor peeps. To be honest, I greatly prefer outfits, because they can each be used no matter the tier of armor you wear underneath, so each one you get stands a chance of being used unlike wood paint. The 1st rewards are getting better though. Season 3 had a power armor paint job, but season 4 gets a brand new model and everything. That I guess uses some copy-pasted text. Because the description does not mention it can be used on either of the newer power armors. But hey, at least freebies still get 2ish new power armors right?

Season 5: Oh, never mind. Just one new power armor and it’s at the absolute max rank. great. The outfits in this pack are all Fallout 3 nostalgia…except the rank 98 uhh EVE Divine Cybermancy suit?

But that doesn’t matter, the notable part of season 5 is that it was released with Steel Reign and Finally implemented ranks beyond 100. Which I am going to use in defense of my season 3 'TEST' theory. Season 3 asked “More 1st bullshit, less story content?” and Season 5 said “More 1st bull shit, less story content.” Thanks 1sters! Oh, and it was 9 weeks long. The first season where you could technically keep earning atoms for additional play time like in the old days, is tied for the shortest season. The repeatable ranks are not worth too much. You can no longer grind repeatable challenges and you only get 100 atoms instead of 150 and nothing unique. So 100 atoms per 30000 or so score means 200 atoms per 3 weeks. Less than 1/7th of the olden days. Honestly, just take the time off and go hug your kids.

Season 6: The average length of seasons goes up from here, just under half exceeding 100 days, and all but one above ten weeks. Allows each season to take up less man hours and each player to get less stuff over time. Other than the aforementioned time skimping, I think the board itself is better than season 5’s, but I am also a capeshit enjoyer. (I also think it’s hilarious the power armor is based on the stealthy femme fatale hero)

2022-ish

Season 7: Generally average, but I can’t help but notice the clean blue suit which is quite literally the type of thing they give away in the atom store. Of note this time, you can no longer pay for ranks after rank 100. Not sure why you could ever do that, but props for taking it out…I think?

Season 8: A pretty bad season all things considered. Which much like the Brotherhood one, should have been obvious because they’re relying on vault tec again. Seriously, someone needs to confiscate Bethesda's nostalgia card.

The power armor paint is just yellow. It’s just yellow. There isn’t even one for T65 armor, the objectively strongest and thereby most used set for two years by this point. They brought back the useless low tier armor upgrades and 1sters now get a reward every 5 rounds instead of 10 including this Billy Bass mailbox.

This is it. This is what I will never forgive Bethesda for. Give me the bass Bethesda.

There is no unique power armor at the end and the rank 98 outfit? It’s a vault suit. With leather armor…really? And for some reason you get firehouse materials at the end in lieu of anything else. I guess Bethesda does care about the build community after all. In full honesty, a very obvious shift towards 1sters. Quite literally doubling what they were getting before (a reward every 5 ranks instead of every 10) and dropping a steamy one down our chimney. The fattest L yet, and what a way to end year 2. I look forward to many more years of quality seasons.

Season 9: Better than 8, but still clearly on the downward slope. Still shilling out useless armor skins and now having 1st rewards at yet again doubled rate(a reward every 5 ranks instead of every 10) , including locking this beaut away.

It’s no billy bass mailbox, but the Dullahan is nearly as fuckable and also this good boy.

Guess what? If you don’t pay for 1st(and grind to rank 100) you are spitting on Seymour’s grave.

SEASON 10

It got its own header, must be scary: This is the season that made me start working on this essay, because genuinely, fuck it. You see, Season 10 locks the Auto-Axe, a returning Fallout 3 weapon, and one of the best weapons in 76 behind rank 15.. As well as the union power armor, which for SOME REASON is split up like the pieces of Exodia

Forcing you to reach rank 75 before you are even allowed to finish the full set. Not to mention the plasma caster skin, a weapon I actually use is locked behind rank 92. Not that it matters since all of the skins in this season are just…brown. Well, you’ll probably be able to get them with bullion afterwards right? Nope, 76 instead adds another currency in the same update, stamps.

As before, it is really hard to explain why something is bad in 76 without explaining every other system in the game, but in short you need stamps to get these after the event and stamps were very hard to get. You could potentially get 20 stamps if you absolutely nailed one of two just two 10 minute long quests. It's been over a year and they added just two quests. You could only get the full 20 if you were the expedition leader, which you could only do once per day. Otherwise you can only get 10 per run. With each Power Armor piece being 800 stamps, that would mean 40 runs per part and I can not stress this enough: there were only two quests. Minimum runs: 200 in 200 days or Minimum Days: 1 in runs. Bethesda really hates Pittsburgh huh?

2023

Season 11: Same idea as the last few, the unique weapon is now locked to rank 85, a full ten ranks higher than exodia himself. But the paints are more interesting than rust

Feb 2023, Season 12 Rip Daring and The Cryptid Hunt adds rerolls. You get one per day and it allows you to change 1 challenge you got for a better one. Fo1st holders get a second one per day, the scoreboard drops some and you can buy them for 50 atoms. Okay, 50 atoms isn’t much and you get some for free, what’s the big deal. Well, remember those annoying challenges from Season 0? You know, say wear a specific armor while doing a specific tedious objective?

Yeah? Well, what if, we brought those back, but made you do them with ludicrously expensive or season pass related armor? Because that’s what happened. Some challenges were only completable with the Union Power Armor.

So now we’re setting up a precedent where lapsing on one season can cause you to struggle harder through the next, maybe even encouraging you to buy our brand new microtransaction. Fantastic. Also, when it first launched sometimes the rerolls would send you to do a seasonal event that wasn’t in season. This is more than 4 years into 76’s lifespan and what a way to cap off year 3 of season passes.

Season 13: This season we see that the 1sters are getting a lot less useless crap than they used to. Repair kits being swapped out for cute lil’ plushies. But do not fret freebie, there is a mothman plushie…locked all the way down at rank 97. The season locked weapon is thankfully only rank 5, but you also get a pipboy skin at rank 66? Ooh boy, don’t miss the rank 66 pipboy skin. It is also the only other 9 week season. They know the effect mothman has on people and rushed him to the atom store.

Season 14: Rank 5 gave us the second light machine gun skin ever. The first one coming out a full 4 years after the game’s launch. No I am not salty. Sidenote: giving an infamous nazi gun the “fight for freedom” paint job. What did Bethesda mean by this?(The only other skin is enclave..) There is not a single outfit skin, but at least we got winterized metal armor…That’s the worst chafe of your life. 1sters get an exclusive item that prevents spoilage entirely. Marvelous.

Season 15: I actually quite like the styling of this one, but it still curries the same bad habits. No real improvements to speak of save for style. I really wish I had more to say, with this being the last scoreboard, but it honestly just leaves on a brutal whimper

SEASON 16

Finally we arrive at the current season. Maybe this is the one where it will finally turn around. And I regret to inform you that

THERE IS AN ASSAULTRON IN FISHNETS!! 76 is back baby. 76 is ba-!

Oh

Oh no

In the interest of full disclosure, I was planning a 4 year retrospective well before season 16 was actually announced since I had more than enough solid evidence in my case(looking at you season 10), and let me tell you if that announcement wasn't just the most damn monkey paw curling moment of my life. All of these years one of my biggest problems with the system is that most of its “value” comes from things I never wanted nor used. So to see them say “we’ve changed it. Now You get to pick what you get. Just like the old days! ain’t that grand?” should be what I wanted right?

…If I may bring out the math once more, my point with the “you get to choose” of it all was that in the old system, it was much faster to save up for the handful of things you wanted rather than be forced through all these ranks., but you have to get to rank 100 anyways to have access to all the stuff, so the grind isn’t actually lessened.

You need 3,735 tickets to complete the whole thing, at 25 tickets per rank that means you have to reach rank 149 to get everything. There aren't even more rewards. There are a total of 140 rewards with 45 being locked behind Fallout 1st. That means only 95 items for people without 1st. Previous seasons had more than 100, with one reward at each rank and then a bundle at rank 100. So you're doing well over 50% MORE grinding for LESS reward

That said, the tickets you save not buying T45 might allow you to buy all the rank 100 rewards when you actually reach them. So, if you actively save up money, you can finish the scoreboard AT rank 100. I repeat, you have to intentionally manage your resources to “complete” the scoreboard with the same amount of grind. They also went back to their old strategy of not having armor skins, but they still have low rank power armor skins? I guess for collectors...except both the X01 and T51 skins are locked behind Fallout 1st. These are two of the most iconic nostalgia armors representing Fallout 2 and Fallout 1 respectively. They are even locked behind a higher rank than T65(a much stronger armor), proving that they are just doing it for aesthetic reasons, ie to bait collectors. Yet again, another clear instance of Bethesda strong-arming people into buying Fallout 1st/participating in SEASONS via nostalgia bait.

You know what else? It's not even possible to get all of the rewards just doing weeklies and dailies as a free player.

The tickets necessary to get all non 1st items is 3010 tickets I believe. So reach rank 121. Each rank after 100 takes 3,500 score. So with weekly score of 31k(300/day, 100/week) this would take you until the tenth week. This season was 11 weeks long, so it's possible until you remember that there are technically rewards at rank 150. Seeing as you can barely make it to 121...you simply can't get that far. There are ways to increase score gain, but players who have maximized that still find themselves coming up short. One reddit user only reaching rank 145 after playing as optimized as they could without outright grinding the early levels with just xp.

To place the final cherry upon this The Help Pie: atoms are just plainly and objectively less available in this season. For one they're not available as a repeatable after rank 100(and you have to reach 150 to get repeatables anyhow). There are 2200 available for 1st players and only 1200 for f2p. That's right, a full 300 down from season 1 4 YEARS AGO, 650 lower than most seasons and 800 less than the previous ones, but hey at least Fallout 1st subscribers get 200 more. So a 40% decrease in income for us peons and a 10% raise for the bourgeois...except no. Because if we consider the loss of repeatable atoms, even many 1st users have experienced a cut.

Wrapping up, and a Hopeful Future?

So yeah. Fallout 76, despite public opinion, has been gradually getting less worth money and time as the years go on. We get new content less often than we did back in 2020, and our time keeps being worth less in-game currency.

But I do have a slight ray of hope.

As I mentioned before, I have a hypothesis that the reason we stopped getting story content for nearly 3 years after season 5 was because of the 'TEST'. To explain it more thoroughly: The last big story content was 5 main quests way back in July 2021 and it coincided with adding 1st only rewards to the scoreboard. By adding both at the same time they could see if the sales of new quests could rival an influx of Fallout 1st subscriptions. That seems to have failed since it would take nearly 3 years for us to get another story update in March 2024, all the while season passes became more and more geared towards selling Fallout 1st.

But this new story content is important, because it released in conjunction with Season 16, the worst season so far with the greatest disparity between 1st and f2p atoms. More importantly, however, it released in conjunction with the show.

The Fallout TV Show brought a massive influx of new eyes to the series, and of course, its latest game. I find it hard to believe that such a radical change to the Season system and the first story expansion and three years were just a coincidence, this feels like another marketing test.

You see, Season 17 has been announced, following the same model as season 16, and along with brings the FIRST EVER IN 6 YEARS map expansion to 76. So they have a new mass of players, who may not be aware of the severe decline in season quality that, if steam numbers are to be believed, outnumber the existing population(who were there before 16) by a factor of around 4.

Maybe if the map expansion proves as a viable way to keep this huge population going, we could see many more similar updates in the future. However, if the new season pushes significant 1st sales, then it's likely we'll just see the same decline we have been for years.

Unfortunately, I am expecting the latter since we have seen a large portion of the new population already fall off. The thing is, at its core, 76 is still not a very good game. It's easy to forget that when old players all have builds that circumvent most of the problems, but to a new player, the issues will be glaring.

That said, I still believe in the potential. The team has some very clear talent even if it's so often hidden from us.

Some Sources:

Proof you can not reach rank 150: https://www.reddit.com/r/fo76/s/4wcIpN7aJz

Some Math:

Season 1: https://www.reddit.com/r/fo76/comments/gjom2q/score_rank_math_hours_played_and_cost/

Season 16: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LF0po3MfJ2w

Some Lies:

https://segmentnext.com/fallout-76-will-not-have-a-season-pass-or-paid-dlc-pete-hines-confirms-again/

[2dkapsddr]

April 25th, 2024 - PIU 2023 PHOENIX, IIDX 31, DDR A3, CHUNITHM PARALOST

after all my hard and awesome and super cool work and effort these past few days, it's time to reward myself on the one day i don't have to go to class... with an ARCADE DAY!!!! been really looking forward to this day to finally grind out my favorite arcade rhythm games, though i almost ended up cancelling my plans due to the rain and none of my family being willing to take me there... but thanks to me accidentally making my mom scold my sister, she took me there and i had the time of my LIFE!!!

struggling to figure out what i wanted to try first, i decided i wanted to grind out some PIU and hopefully regain my Intermediate Lv.10 title that i lost in the switch from XX to Phoenix. i tried looking up the requirements for the title on the website, but they're measured by this weird points/rating system for individual levels that i genuinely can't figure out?? ah well, no matter. if i play enough of the specified level, maybe i'll reach that point threshold soon enough! and so i did... very exhausting...

got tired pretty quickly and failed out of a D19 (MATADOR) at the very last hold, so i moved on to IIDX to get a bit of practice in for my hands while i waited for maya to come online and give me my new list of charts to clear!! first set went alright, i guess, and i even finally unlocked camellia's beach side bunny remix!!

while i waited, i switched over to some DDR and tried regaining my 14 clear lamp, which went alright! i got the clears, but i also got green FCs with them... more preemptive progress for my future goal of getting the 14 green lamp someday... (ohyeah also, kilonova ESP-17 extra stage clear!! exhausting but really fun chart...)

found a free credit in the chunithm cab and eated it (hoping to get the elusive SS rank on Shukusei Shinpan...) only to FAIL AGAIN AUGHHH JUST GIVE ME THE DAMN ONE MIL (ah well, at least i still have until i get onto my card again :]

moved back to DDR to try reclaiming my 15 clear lamp this time, but then i decided to give Ichizu a few tries when all of a sudden... i got THIS.

A BLACK FLAG. ON ICHIZU. AN EVIL AND BRUTAL 15 WITH A BAJILLION 16THS. AUGHHH AND IT WAS A RANDOM CHOKE IN THE FIRST 30 NOTES AS WELLLLL

i tried running it back several times (at least 10 times) in hopes of somehow getting the PFC on another try since i was so close, but it simply wasn't meant to be... i got some really good PFCs up to 300 combo twice, but the fatigue started kicking in and i couldn't play for much longer as i was starting to suffer from a massive headache...

i DID see a friend later that day who tried cheering me on through my failed attempts, so we played a fun set before i finished for the day where i nabbed some pretty good scores that i didn't think i could do!! (melody H4CKER is such a banger song oh my fucking god)

maya finally came online and gave me a list of 10s to try during my set, so i did just that and tried playing with a massive headache going on... big mistake. didn't clear any new 10s and only got AAs on some other charts before i decided that was enough gaming for today and went home... (that HARD BRAIN was cracked AF tho)