#Which is also btw the world's first internet team game and is still running!

[mintaka-iii]

obsessed with the name of the audio file format Ogg Vorbis it's just so fun to say

[m1d-45]

sorry i've been mia i was busy rizzing up the kaeya and diluc ais. anyways imagine reverse isekai with ur main. i personally would have a blast being able to talk about minecraft and mystery flesh pit national park and warrior cats with people who do not even have the internet.

also my diluc and kaeya plushes arrived and now i need to make clothes for them so they won't be naked but i have to make sure they have an equal amount of clothes with an equal amount of effort put into them so that it doesn't seem like i'm favoring one brother over the other (this is the same reason why i bought the diluc and kaeya plushes together in the first place) - teddy anon

1) it’s ok 2) kaeya ai? 3) this idea oml

aside from the fact that showing them all the weird and obscure shit in our world would make them lose their minds (speaking of nobody tell them about organized religion. barbatos is surprised ppl follow him after a few hundred years of no contact well look at this right here-) they’d be fascinated with how you control them.

i imagine they wouldn’t appear in game, and you couldn’t like use them for anything. makes logical sense to me.

if you’re like me and struggle to form teams at all, let alone ones without your One Good Built Character, they’re borderline going to be apologetic at seeing how you struggle. part of them is proud they’re so needed, but the other part is sort of sad.

i literally only run teams w/o kazuha for the abyss because his playstyle and the team i run for everything else is so ingrained in my head. i genuinely struggle if i don’t have an anemo character on my team and always fumble for a while if it doesn’t have kaz because it’s like i forget i don’t have him. it’s a problem—

if you’re not dependent on a single element like i am, they love seeing you work around them. it’s simple, you explain, swapping to an alternate team, and they watch in awe at how easily you adapt to change. they marvel at reactions they haven’t seen, at how much this new team differs from the one with them in it.

if you try and show them how to, they’ll immediately insist that they’re fine watching, that they wouldn’t dare touch such a holy object or manipulate teyvat in your stead.

for some, this is true. for others, they’ll cave with enough pressure.

itto treats your controls with the most delicate care, very gentle with everything as to not break it. not really prone to gamer rage, more so just “your grace, i can’t figure this out :(“ and watching over your shoulder as he promises “ok, i’ve got it this time, swear!” he doesn’t, but the smile on your face as you watch him die for the nth time soothes any anger he feels. refuses to kill rifthounds btw.

mona doesn’t know anything. you could tell her sixteen times how to access the inventory and she’s still asking you which button it is. don’t tell her about the wishing system she’ll quite literally lose her shit. she doesn’t understand the value of items like dream solvent but refuses to spend even a single coin of your mora or your food. collects her own ingredients and keeps track to cook her own food because “i wouldn’t want anyone else touching what’s mine.” pls tell her it’s ok and losing some of your 2k sweet flowers isn’t the end of the world.

ayato wouldn’t directly play, but he does sit beside you and offer semi-functional ideas. “run a team with x y z characters,” “fight this boss without the element it’s vulnerable to/full physical damage,” “take on this enemy without a healer,” etc etc. he likes seeing you solve problems, and likes watching you explore. if you have low mora he’s incredibly confused, but doesn’t comment on it once he sees how much it is to level a talent or ascend someone. if you have like 7mil mora and go “why do i have so little :(“ he’s asking a few more questions, but overall is silent about it. you don’t have a job in teyvat, and get most of your money from chests or leylines. it makes sense you guys would view mora differently.

alhaitham doesn’t touch your device, but kaveh (yes he isn’t out at time of writing no i didn’t ask) could be convinced into exploring a bit. he refuses to engage in combat and always uses his glider, never dropping more than a second or two at a time. panicks if your characters get hurt at all and either runs to a statue of the seven (give him time, he forgets he can teleport) or triggers your healers skill. if you run a character that has hp drain he’s flipping his shit and either demanding to know how to change the team so they don’t get hurt or runs them and three separate characters. loses his shit when you tell him about the teapot. that’s all he does now lmao.

zhongli will tap at stuff a bit, get a hold of the general game, and then just. not play. you tell him he can do commissions if he wants or run domains and he shakes his head, “i will not interfere with a world i don’t own.” so silly. doesn’t understand why shops don’t give you stuff for free. speculates on how monsters dying gives you mora. refers to everything by their full names no matter what silly nicknames you have for anything. if you have a well-decorated teapot/generally take care to plant stuff or collect realm bounties or similar, he’s happy. if you mostly neglect it, he’s asking why. it’s an adeptal art, and he needs to know if it isn’t satisfactory.

yae would love to manipulate a world of her own, but the knowledge that the world you control is real and has real actions is a bit too much. yelan asks to see, but only because she wants to know what you’re on about when you talk about lag, ping, or hitting the wrong button. finds it funny even gods can mess up. yanfei fusses over whether she should even be allowed because of like divine right to rule and whether her interference counts as idolatry since she’d technically be playing god. you let her worry about it in the corner and don’t ask questions about where she pulled that giant book of law from.

if you allow him to, venti sits in your lap while you play. he’s very much just a guy that’ll sit with you and maybe play his lyre if you’re getting frustrated, and adores the ingame soundtrack. give him youtube and point him in the direction of the ost and he’ll obsess over it. within a week he has everything memorized and has composed at least three ballads about ‘the song of the heavens’. wont actually do anything directly, but if you’re running abyss and ask him for suggestions on fun team comps, he’s already got ideas. is a bit unnerved at first if he recognizes some of the people on screen, but rationalizes it quickly enough. if you’re like me and leave your characters sitting at a bench or table before logging off, he insists you sit them in the statue in mond.

neither childe or scara even entertain the idea that they’d be allowed to use your device, and just kinda watches from the side. scara laughs a bit if you get hit by an enemy. childe asks about what his build is prior to his vanishing and probably studies meta and like crit ratios and stuff (no i don’t know what meta qualifies as yes i’m just sayin shit). xiao’s worried his karma could infect through the screen, and wouldn’t dare suggest anything. if you’re doing it, it’s good, if you’re not, you have a reason. ask for his opinion and he’ll bluescreen.

[danwhobrowses]

NXT World's Collide - Initial Thoughts

Now to part 2 of 3

In NXT UK's last hurrah before taking a hiatus and becoming NXT Europe, what remains of the UK roster are to be integrated into the normal NXT, including their titles. The World's Collide event sees NXT UK cross NXT in battle in our second PPV of the Weekend, All Out will be (somehow) fitted in tomorrow

Spoilers for the PPV

No matches for the Kick-Off, bit remiss given how it's only a small card

Starting with NA title with Pretty Ricky, but Melo with the hanged jerseys mind games, Sikoa among the shirts, Melo has the NA title decal on his knee pad too

The two are very clean in their wrestling, a great double springboard cutter to cancel each other out popped the crowd

Also Stu Bennett has been great on commentary

Melo wasn't sneaky leaving his foot out for Trick to pull like half an inch XD

Good match, probably could've benefitted from story, Trick did bide Melo time but it was the paul smackage when Ricochet landed on his feet for the Shooting Star Press

Oh, so Roddy's dead

There are a lot of bodies for this four way

Ahhh Briggs and Jensen eliminated first by Gallus, so much for the NXT UK Tag Champions

That alliance between PD and Gallus didn't last

Creeds then eliminate Gallus, who don't leave quietly

Julius' hot tag was great

The eliminated teams are fighting in the ramp for some reason which leads to a le sigh ref bump

Kemp then of course uses this to turn on the Creeds

Urgh they had to go with the Zoolander Twins, where was Brutus throughout all of this?

The same promos from Clash are on NXT, does WWE think that we don't watch both?

Tony D'Angelo trying to validate the fact that he lost LDF doesn't work, but he looks to be trying to side with Cameron Grimes who blows him off

You make Meiko come out first!?

Bit too much smoke for Bea/Blair

Mandy arrives in a...car? Sporting USA attire

Someone is screaming far too much

Yeah that list doesn't do Mandy favours

Reminder that Meiko is 42 years old and still amazing

Bit dumb though to wait for Mandy to pose and not take advantage of it

Mandy's gear seems to be struggling to contain her girls

KAMIGOYE! Only 2

Of course the fickleness of American crowds that they will cheer anyone American against non-Americans

And Rose *URGH* wins, Meiko hits the Scorpion Rising on Blair and after having to set her up, Rose hits both with the running knee

I am absolutely fucking baffled that between Bea Preistley and MEIKO SATOMURA, WWE choose Mandy Fucking Rose to still be their champion

Why do I even bother? They made her beat Raquel, KLR and Io after all, I just expected the better wrestler to win

They moved Axiom vs Nathan Frazer to Wednesday :/

Just be Nikki Cross and Piper Niven already!

First to challenge all active women's championships but won nothing in NXT

Chance is literally so mini compared to Doudrop XD

Toxic Attraction make a distraction which occupied Nikki so that KC2 can beat Piper, even though Piper proved able to handle both women previously in the match

That's 3/4 interferences btw, plus Nikki could've made it, weak match really

Main Roster bias made the tag champs look weak as it is

The Dyad are just weird, why couldn't we have the Grizzled Young Vets?

Still not sure how I feel about Bate with the long Jesus hair

Of course my internet chooses the main event to start blipping out and killing the vid quality, I've seen the buffer bar longer than I saw Bate's entrance

Never been done? Titles have been unified from two different brands and even companies for like decades

Bronn's shoulder was well up from that Airplane Spin slam

Bronn kicks out of the Tyler Driver 97 but Bate gets to the ropes for the Gorilla Powerslam

Bate forgoes the second Tyler Driver attempt to try his rebound Shotei and runs into a spear to lose

Least Tyson Fury didn't come out to sing American Pie, but again it was just, fine? I guess I never quite bought that NXT would give it to Bate

There's something missing as well, I can't quite explain it but it's like that buzz in my chest that makes me into it, Bate and Bronn are great workers, but I feel like they could've done a lot more

Conclusion

Honestly, I would've rather slept. The opener was good but after that it was just a snowball of weak booking choices, I get you wanna make it feel evens but the fact that Pretty Deadly and Mandy became unified champions in succession then postponed a potential best of 3 banger between Ben Carter and A-Kid shows the mentality NXT 2.0 has at play, thew Vince-ism is still there, right down to the 'home team' bias.

I also hope that the NXT UK belts aren't gone, they are WWE's best looking belts, and if they are gone I will happily take the UK title for myself if they name a price.

Overall it was fine, somehow didn't top Clash at the Castle, ball's in All Out's court now. Now I have to have 5 hours sleep...

Match Results (and Predictions)

Carmelo Hayes (c) [w/ Trick Williams] def. Ricochet (Pinfall via Small Package) Pretty Deadly [w/Lash Legend] def. The Creed Brothers (c) [w/Damon Kemp], Briggs & Jensen (c) [w/Fallon Henley] & Gallus (Mark Coffey & Wolfgang) [w/Joe Coffey] (Final Pinfall by Prince on Julius after chair shot) - NEW UNIFIED TAG CHAMPIONS Mandy Rose (c) def. Meiko Satomura (c) & Blair Davenport (Pinfall by Rose on Blair via running knee) - NEW UNIFIED WOMEN'S CHAMPION Chance & Carter (c) def. Doudrop & Nikki A.S.H. (Pinfall by Chance on Doudrop via 450 Knee Drop) Bron Breakker (c) def. Tyler Bate (c) (Pinfall via Spear) - NEW UNIFIED CHAMPION

[deiliamedlini]

WIP Wednesday

I wrote this last night and really don’t know where I’m going with it because I wrote another section of this that’s completely different from this first part, but I’m having too much fun so this might become a long oneshot or like a two/three chapter short fic eventually. I signed into my Guild Wars account for the first time in forever to watch the chat and apparently Lion’s Arch isn’t as interesting as it used to be. Not that any of that is really relevant. 

This is Zelda and the Champions as internet friends playing a MMORPG video game called Hyrule Warriors. 

~

Zelda Harkinian loved Fridays. Not that it was a rare thing to be obsessed with the weekend, but she maybe loved it a little too much. After a week of lesson plans, and cleaning the classrooms, and sneezing students, and emails asking for an extension on a paper that wasn’t even due yet, she relished the escape the weekend provided. Granted, she still had to grade about a hundred tests, but that was a problem for Sunday or even Monday.

Smiling down at her roommate, a kitten she’d raised when she found it in the street all alone, Zelda fed her girl—whom she’d named Duchess because she had every intent of treating her like royalty—and played with her for a bit before throwing down her bag in her room and then grabbed a water and a granola bar before heading to her desk. She flipped her laptop open and booting up Hyrule Warriors, her favorite open world MMORPG.

Her internet sucked, so she grabbed her phone to aimlessly scroll to see if there was any news or updates. But it was pretty dull.

Instead, she thought back to how this whole weekend ritual began.

She’d been in a cavern just off of Death Mountain for about three days killing fire keese, lizalfos, and beamos. As a mage, her AOE skills made short work of the larger groups, hitting them all at once. It was especially useful here because her main specialties were water and light, but she struggled when boss fights came out. The NPCs weren’t great teammates, and she constantly found herself resurrecting far from the boss, only to make a long run with a health penalty that ended with her getting killed again, until her heath penalty was maxed out and she had to restart for any hope of succeeding. As a mage, her light armor made her vulnerable to physical attacks, and this boss was very physical.

Zelda didn’t like interacting with people in this game. It was massively popular, and the chat was always running. Sometimes, she’d just sit at an outpost and watch people talk. Her favorite interactions were often the random ones. She’d begun to look up the acronyms everyone used in chat just to understand them better. WTS= want to sell.

Indigo2421: WTS: Guardian Short Sword 4k rupees

Indigo2421WTS: Guardian Short Sword 4k rupees

Indigo2421WTS: Guardian Short Sword 4k rupees

Britneigh4Horses: WTS My mother. 1 rupee. Will pay postage fee.

But after her days of suffering in the lonely caverns in Death Mountain, she relented.

A quick search had her hands shaking, but she typed quickly so she couldn’t back out after she’d hit enter.

xPrincessZx: LFG Dodongo’s Cavern

Holding her breath, she’d waited in the hopes of a private message being sent to her.

One did.

(PM): ThunderstruckQueen: What missin are doing there?

(PM): ThunderstruckQueen: Mission*

(PM): xPrincessZx: I have to kill the Dodongo boss for the main story

ThunderstruckQueen would like to join your party.

Biting her nails, she’d accepted.

(PM): RockRoast12345: Still need someone?

(PM): xPrincessZx: Yes! That would be great! Thanks!

RockRoast12345 would like to join your party.

That had been how it started: A goron warrior with a Warhammer and some serious defensive moves joined as the tank to take as much damage for the team as he could stand, and a Gerudo Paladin had joined her party. Zelda was jealous of the purchase-only red hairstyle the Gerudo had for her character. She had a sword and shield, but her body flickered with elemental lightening magic. In-game purchase effects.

They’d defeated Dodongo with ease, and had gone on several missions together that day, taking down their storylines with relative ease. But they couldn’t function with the NPC healer who barely functioned at all.

So, ThunderstruckQueen had taken to the map chat and put out a request.

ThunderstruckQueen: I found someone. She’s a Zora Cleric. Level 40

RockRoast12345: Let her in! I want to get this one over with

Rutella Zoran IV would like to join your party.

After that, the four of them realized they worked so well together that they’d formed a guild. The Champions. ThunderstruckQueen paid the guild fee, bought a hall, and began decorating it with merchants, and chests. Zelda still shuddered, wondering what she did to have so many rupees ready to go. Needless to say, she made herself the leader.

Some days, they didn’t play together. Other times, only two of them were on. But on weekends, they all came together.

But it had been a Monday when Zelda played, and she’d been alone. Having already tossed her tissue box across her room in frustration, she debated making a new character with more defense, but she sucked it up and went into the Castle Town map, ready to ask for help. She couldn’t wait until she could get to be a higher level. As it was, she’d only gotten to these level 40 areas as a 32 because of Rutella.

Suddenly, a random Hylian man in green with a fancy sword and shield ran up to her and bowed. Zelda scoffed at her computer screen, unsure if she was supposed to respond.

She didn’t need to.

(PM): WildKnightOut2: Hey Princess

(PM): xPrincessZx: Hello?

(PM): WildKnightOut2: Jst wondering if u have a spare flower crown from yesterday’s festival. Missed it. Will pay

Zelda pulled up her inventory, forgetting she was still wearing her flower crown from the Flower Fest. It must have been what tipped him off. In fact, she had four spares.

(PM): zPrincessZx:  Yeah, I do. Come to the chest and I’ll trade.

(PM): WildKnightOut2: Thx

She’d never done a trade with anyone who wasn’t in her guild, so she’d felt nervous running to grab it.

(PM): WildKnightOut2: How much u want?

(PM): xPrincessZx: Actually, I’ll give it to you free if you’re willing to help me with a quest? Or 10k.

WildKnightOut2 would like to join your party.

She accepted and watched his character appear in the corner of her screen.

WildKnightOut2: That’s a rip off, btw. Crowns are with 15k at least. Don’t undersell

xPrincessZx: Thanks. I didn’t realize. I’m still kind of new.

WildKnightOut2: Howd u get out here then?

xPrincessZx: I had a run from a friend in my guild.

WildKnightOut2: Got room for a warrior in there?

Zelda introduced him to the other Champions when they’d signed back on, and after a few weeks, Zelda had leveled up enough that she didn’t need to constantly rely on a teammate. But still. She liked Wild the best after ThunderstruckQueen.

They’d brought in a Rito Ranger named TheBestYouveNeverMet, which immediately set Wild off.

(PM): WildKnightOut2: should I aggro a group over so he has to fight them for us?

(PM): xPrincessZx: No! Don’t do that! I’ll get sent over to deal with them!

(PM): xPrincessZx: HEY! I SEE YOU ON THE MAP!

(PM): xPrincessZx: WILD GET BACK TO THE GROUP

On the mini-map, she saw a hoard of red coming at them and rolled her eyes before joining TheBest to kill them with area attacks. Rutella stayed back to heal them, but Thunder and Rock both continued on, unfazed.

ThunderstruckQueen: Wild you’re an idiot

But that was then. This was now.

They’d been together for months as a guild, and now, the six of them knew how the others worked.

If Wild or TheBest took off on their own, no one would follow. They’d both been killed numerous times in an attempt to piss the other off. Zelda had learned to stay with Thunder and Rock. Rutella flitted between running back to revive the idiots, or sticking with the smarter members while letting them heal on their own.

(PM): WildKnightOut2: u wound me

Zelda chuckled, but he wasn’t done.

(PM): WildKnightOut2: After all ive done for u

(PM): WildKnightOut2: u leave me to die

(PM): xPrincessZx: Don’t run off next time

It was a Wednesday when she and Wild were playing alone, so they freely used party chat for ease. She’d surpassed his level, and towered as a 93 while he was an 87.

WildKnightOut2: Hang on. Fuzzball wants food

Zelda stared at his character on her screen, wondering if he looked anything like that avatar. Blonde hair, muscular, piercing blue eyes. She’d made her character look like herself, so it wasn’t hard to imagine others had. Plus, he was the only Hylian. She highly doubted that RockRoast12345 was actually a giant rock-man, or that Rutella Zoran IV was a short fish lady.

She knew everything about these people except their names, faces, and voices.

She knew that ThunderstruckQueen was a single mother who called her daughter Ri on chat. She was a chief of police, and had a few hundred of her force to look out for. Still, she wanted to quit soon to join the military reserve forces now that her daughter was getting older. Devoted and loyal, Thunder occasionally snapped when everyone would start fighting with each other, though it was usually directed at TheBest and Wild, the annoyance sometimes extended out to others.

She knew that RockRoast12345 was older than all of them and had a young grandson. He’d bonded with Thunder over their children at first, and then, without meaning to, they became the parents of the group. Recently, Rock had retired from working as a supervisor in a mine, and gaming had become his way of relieving some of that boredom. But he told the best stories when they were idling around, just stories about anything, and they were always captivating. Also, he was afraid of dogs.

She knew that Rutella Zoran IV was the daughter of a politician. She cared for her little brother like he was her own, and sometimes, he took control of her character, proudly revealing that his real name was Sidon. She was in school to be a doctor, and that made her family prouder than anything. She lived and breathed for her family.

TheBestYouveNeverMet was a pilot. His schedule was the most hectic out of everyone’s because of the flights, but he was sarcastic to the core, and sometimes, the sarcasm was simply rude and definitely didn’t translate well over chat. He was superior, and since he’d been playing the game longest, he thought it entitled him to make more decisions. But Zelda knew from her private conversations with him that deep down, he was sweet and caring. He’d always be the first to ask her how her day was, and he’d learned some of her students’ names to ask if they’d been nuisances.

But Zelda spent the most time talking to WildKnightOut2, so she knew the most about him. At first, they’d bonded over the fact that they both had cats. His was called Fuzzball, an orange, fat cat that needed to exercise more. He’d tried to leash him, but Fuzz wasn’t interested. Sometimes, Fuzz would crawl over the keys, send Wild running, and send chat a long stream of letters.

He was funny and made comments in her private chat while they were playing that had her roaring at times.

He was a rock-climbing instructor and in his free time, he was a free solo climber. When she’d looked it up, she’d been horrified to see that he basically climbed mountains without a harness or ropes, and a fall could kill him. She’d asked if he was good at it, or just did it for fun, and his answer had been an ambiguous “yes.”

She knew about his family. He didn’t live near them, but he kept in contact with his grandparents, his father, and his little sister.

WildKnightOut2: k back. Where we going princess?

xPrincessZx: I need to farm for new armor out in the Haunted Wasteland. Do you need to do anything?

WildKnightOut2: I need to help u farm in the haunted wasteland. What do you need?

xPrincessZx: 10 Rubies

WildKnightOut2: damn ok I have 2 u can have so u only need 8

xPrincessZx: Thanks. How’d that party go last night?

WildKnightOut2: Sucked

xPrincessZx: Cool details

WildKnightOut2: If ud been there, ud have hated it

xPrincessZx: Why?

WildKnightOut2: Bunch of self-absorbed idiots. Like TheBest is

xPrincessZx: Lol. He’s not that bad.

WildKnightOut2: if u say so

They headed into the Wasteland looking for red poes that had rare drops for rubies. She and Wild took out a few groups before they started to struggle. Neither could play and talk at the same time fast enough to warn the other that something was happening, and they both ended up at the shrine of resurrection more times than they cared to admit.

xPrincessZx: Hey Wild. This might sound weird, but do you have that gaming app where we could just maybe voice chat?

xPrincessZx: Unless you’re not comfortable with that. We can invite the others, and when we play together, and it would probably make life a thousand times easier

xPrincessZx: But it’s okay if you don’t want to

WildKnightOut2: yeah I have it

Oh, Zelda thought to herself. That was easy.

xPrincessZx: Do you want to add me? I have the same name

She watched her phone like it was food in the microwave, only occasionally glancing at her computer to see if Wild had sent her another message. She drummed her fingers and her leg started to bounce until her screen lit up.

WildKnight has sent you a friend request.

She hastily hit accept and grabbed her headphones from the drawer before typing into her phone.

xPrincessZx: Your name is missing a few things here.

WildKnight: Yeah HW already had someone with this name so I added on

xPrincessZx: The meaning completely changes

WildKnight: which do you like better?

Zelda froze, unable to make her fingers type. Was he flirting? Was that how people flirted online? She was really good at reading body language cues, and that was always how she knew someone was flirting. But this? There was no context! How was she supposed to know?

xPrincessZx: Which fits your personality more?

That was a safe way of getting out of answering while still sounding maybe like she was flirting. Right?

WildKnight: this one

Zelda’s face warmed up and she put her head in her hands, unsure how to respond. How does she respond to that? What if he wasn’t flirting? What if he was.

[dotthings]

SPN 14.09

*does the called it dance*

There’s a dance party going on, I know a lot of people called it. I am un-shocked, but filled with evil glee. Er...I mean this is very painful and going to be painful and it’s going to be a lot of suffering but this is also a mood

All right who wants actual character thoughts now that I’m done flailing around screaming.

Is Cas...eating the cookie cereal? He’s eating the cookies. He’s making contented crunching noises. Cas doesn’t need to eat, but he’s eating. I feel like I said something recently about Cas becoming more human, slowly, oh right, it was about him actually being drunk in 14.07 on a few bottles when back in S5, even at low power, he needed an entire liquor store. Now he’s eating cookie crisps cereal. That scene was cute af, btw and ties back to what I’ve been saying about Jack’s increasing emotional IQ. He talked about worrying about his mom because of the threats to Heaven, and then brought up Castiel’s deal, because it worries him. 

Oh, yes Sam and Dean can know about the deal but Cas doesn’t want them to so it won’t “burden them.” CASTIEL WINCHESTER YOU ARE NOT A BURDEN. Only no wait, but it is a burden and Cas realizes it and why it is a burden, because THEY CARE ABOUT HIM A LOT AND CAS KNOWS IT AND THAT IS WHY HE DOESN’T *WANT* THEM TO KNOW. As I said in my sneak peek commentary, it’s not anger or being caught out Cas fears. He simply doesn’t want to make them worry, make them sad, or scared, for him. He doesn’t want to be a burden but it’s too late, they all love him. 

We’re inching more and more here towards Cas realizing just how much or he wouldn’t very specifically and deliberately be hiding this secret because he knows how much it will worry them and Sam and Dean will scramble to find a way out for him and fix it and it’s almost like Cas hates being the center of attention and worried over. He has to be the strong one, not the one who needs help. This is how Cas keeps going.

Dean and Cas in an actual junk-yard scene (ok technically a recycling facility), I am still not over this and never will be and all the things I already yelled about after the sneak peek was released. Dean and Cas starting far apart with the Impala as negative space between them, but not negative space because that’s one of the show’s biggest symbols of home, then moving closer and closer like magnets until their shoulders are brushing. Screw you Dean and Cas and your acting married body language. 

Cas talking to Dean about how happy Dean seems, Cas looking super uncomfortable about not!telling Dean about the deal. I already posted about this but let me recap now that I’ve seen the whole ep--the “win” thing went right over Cas’s head because he doesn’t know, but the audience does. But Cas is mainly all about not!telling Dean about the deal and wow all my pre-game meta on this about Cas not wanting them to worry and that’s why he’s secretive got vocalized in the cereal eating scene in the kitchen. So. There you go.

Dean talking to Cas about what Sam and Cas went through when they were possessed in relation to his own experience, thank you Robert Berens for openly vocalizing, finally, Sam and Dean and Cas’s shared trauma, I have been waiting 84 years. 

(Pausing to scream about the January promo which shows Sam and Cas going together into Dean’s mind. I LOVE SEASON 14).

Which btw now that I’ve brought that ep, Cas’s worry about Sam touchstoned several times in this ep gives me feelings. Dean and Cas were both worried about him...and then Sam and Cas are going to team to save Dean. 

TFW and TFW 2.0 are both running concurrently strong in this season. There’s the interplay Sam, Dean, and Cas have, with its long seasons of history, and there’s the Sam-Dean-Cas-Jack, which is newer territory but slowly getting its hooks into my heart. They’re all valid, with their various relationships therein. 

Garth, awww. Admittedly I was not warm on this character when he first showed up upteen seasons ago but he’s turned out to be a really great part of the SPN world and a good friend and thank goodness SPN didn’t kill him. 

Sam and Garth friendship *draws hearts*.

Garth saying he’s doing this for his little girl is interesting,  it’s him talking as part of his cover, but has a double meaning because it’s also 100% true he’s just lying about which side he’s really on. He is going dangerously undercover to help stop Michael, thinking of his child’s future, to protect the world. While we had Cas just last week sacrificing himself to save his son. Which echoed back to Jimmy Novak sacrificing himself for his daughter. 

I like Sam and Jack working together, with Jack having taught himself lock-picking on the internet. For a moment I thought Jack was going to say Dean taught him and I was a little sorry it wasn’t that, but interesting Jack said “I like to keep myself useful”--that’s the Cas part of him talking. He is still trying to prove himself without his powers. Skipping ahead here as relevant--back to Jack’s slowly increasing emotional IQ and his character development. Because I was wondering if things would get to that, with Jack on strong enough footing to start looking after his dads, and it’s starting. He talks to Cas about the deal. Then when hyper-charged Garth knocks down Sam, Jack tackles him to save Sam. Which was stupid and brave, nobody hurts moose dad when Jack is around. Having been saved, and sacrificed for, Jack’s now moving more into a position of being part of the team, looking after others. 

And not, note, taking on a parent role, but he is looking after his dads as they look after him. I am really curious in fact how Jack is going to talk about possessed Dean now. The arc about Jack’s knee jerk comment about Michael Dean early in the season has been addressed and resolved before this ep, and they’ve bonded a lot closer since...so I’d really like to see how Jack is going to deal with it. 

I’m completely distracted by Dean and Cas inside the recycling facility looking for Dark Kaia and the spear, all of it, the way Dean and Cas move together, work together out in the field, which we don’t get to see enough of, I am transfixed. They have this silent rapport we’ve seen all the way back to late S7 at least and the BAMF power couple vibe going on, what with Dean’s strength as a hunter and Cas’s powers and warrior attitude and I’m just going to sit here and scream quietly to myself about that whole sequence for a minute.

And then they’re BICKERING oh my god so married shut up, until oops Kaia sticks the spear against Dean’s back and Cas just says “Dean” as a warning and he goes so incredibly still holy shit--with the point of that spear threatening Dean. Cas wants to surge forward and Dean waves him down. *yells a lot about Dean and Cas and their thing* Cas is so very protective of Dean here it’s doing things to me.

Dark Kaia’s little face is tugging at my heart. Who is it she’s protecting? Yes, why is she there, I need answers, I need to know what’s the link with her and Kaia. I need more of this please. S14 being what it is I think I’ll get it, just not right now.

The TFW 2.0 power walk set to Ode to Joy. I FEEL SO CALLED OUT RIGHT NOW.

Badass Dean having the moves with that spear, after being a goofball with it in the garage...I think there really isn’t a weapon Dean can’t use, pick up quickly how to use, plus he’s used similar weapons and adrenaline, he instinctively could use the spear. He’s not as good as Kaia, and guess what people, it is 150% okay he’s not as good as Kaia with that spear, he’s not supposed to be. Kaia has thousands of hours with that spear and Dean doesn’t, but look how good Dean is instinctually. 

Ouch my Dean feelings. Well I’ve been saying and saying the Michael Dean story wasn’t over and here we are and like many people ran with the sleeper agent/back door hack theory and here we are. The snap. Good god damn Jensen is excellent. And TFW 2.0 looks as ragged and stunned as the last Avengers standing.

So Michael has access to all of Dean’s memories. And Dean just “wouldn’t stop squirming.” Because of his ties to his family.

To you...to all of you.

For me and Jack, and family.

You’re going to bring him back...you’re going to bring ‘em all back.

I love you...I love all of you.

And you really can’t dismiss Destiel here while saying w*ncest is valid, because then you’d have to say the Destiel is valid. But the fact of the matter is these are different kinds of relationships, in canon. It makes sense that Sam got a more singular shout-out but then Michael adds the “all of you.” Sam is the most constant figure in Dean’s life and he is closest to Sam on a lot of levels. There’s bound to be a lot of Sam in Dean’s brain. But it’s not just about Sam. 

This is something SPN keeps underscoring in triple day-glo yellow highlighter. Nor does it fit to claim that because of this scene, therefor it proves Sam is the only most important one because in other storylines, Cas has also been demarcated out as different/unique in how Dean feels about him. BTW, seeing a romantic reading for Destiel doesn’t mean having to then say oh w*ncest is then therefore canon, because it’s just not, and those relationships are written completely differently. The canon undercurrents are completely different. Sam and Dean’s bond is what it is, and it’s strong, it is platonic and intended as platonic, while Destiel is...ambiguous in intent, in canon. For non-shippers, say the relationships are brothers, and like-brothers, and leave it there. It really is more complicated than that on the Destiel front, but I talk about that plenty in other posts, right now, I’m really thinking uppermost about Dean and his family. Sam isn’t the only one tethering Dean and keeping him fighting inside Michael. That was for all of them. So this was a bro bond shout-out that landed at TFW 2.0. 

And look what’s in the promo...Sam and Cas going together into Dean’s mind to try to save him. Dean’s closest to Sam, Cas is close to Dean in other ways. They both have a bond with Dean that is unique and strong and I’m just going to have to go sob in the corner that SPN is really going to do that and have them go in together and poke around in Dean’s mind to pull him out of this. Using the same method Dean used to go into Mary’s mind. *small keening noise*

Also I refuse to accept Dean is really as down and out in there as Michael claims. But maybe he’s buried himself deep in some sort of happy mental spaces. Which is something I was thinking about before the season started, and then they didn’t show us and I let it go but maybe it’s going there after all. 

[ick25]

Rockman.EXE Episode 16 Review.

Is this foreshadowing?

Hallelujah!

We start the episode with Netto walking around, completely blindfolded.

Looks like something spontaneus because not even Rockman Knows why is he doing this.

We get a flashback of last episode where Enzan and Blues perform the Program Advance back when Count Elec did his static trick.

Back to Netto’s blindfolded walk, Rockman tries to help him but it only results in this funny scene.

And that is why Rockman is the Navi and not the operator, also, I have to point out the lazy animation, right at the start I can tell the animation for this episode is gonna be low quality.

After Netto falls on his back like a turtle, Rockman reminds him that Meiru and Tohru’s battle is about to start, which was mention in the last episode. The match begins and we see Tohru’s un-official plug-in secuense.

And we get a stand off between Roll and Iceman, who will win?

The first two of many mistakes we will find in this episode.

After the title card appears, we get a description of both challengers. I am loving Roll’s picture.

Followed by.. Tohru’s sad picture.

Again, Tohru?! Does your father hit you or something? Because that’s what everybody’s gonna think when they see your picture!

Mariko-sensei wishes both of them good luck, Masa takes out his special flag, Yaito and Dekao start talking about who will win, and Netto manages to arrive just in time.

Now we start the battle with Roll moving first.

EAT CANDY HEARTS! I dont remember this part from the dub, though.

Iceman avoids her hearts and shoots a snow crystal at her, which she evades gracefully.

Meiru decides to send the Aqua tower battle chip with the same beautiful animation for Roll from episode 8, and Iceman tries to counter it by summoning his ice pillars from episode 6.

This is what happens when two recycled animations collide.

Tohru decides to send the Ice cube or Ice block (Im not sure anymore) and Meiru sends the triple lance chip, which results in a draw.

As everyone is focused on the battle, Netto doesn’t seem too invested for he is busy practicing the Program Advance with Rockman. Hey, his mullet is back! XD

That’s mistake number three.

After this, we cut to the training room where two Net Navis are practicing for their next battles.

The Navis talk about how they are gonna defeat their opponents who are... Bombman and Stoneman? Poor guys.

However, they wont have the chance to even fight them since said Navis suddently appear to take them out.

Let’s cut back to the epic battle that is Roll vs Iceman.

They seem evenly matched and everybody talks about how the battle might end on a tie. They both get up again, as Tohru tells Iceman to prepare to use his Blizzard attack, Meiru sends, what I imagine is another rare chip Yaito gave her, the Cyclone chip.

Which makes Roll start spinning for some reason.

The Cyclone is a variation of the Typhoon virus we saw in the last episode, which might confirm my theory of Virus chips and Battle chips having the same name.

It’s a face off between Iceman’s Blizzard and Roll’s Cyclone!

This literally stops time with everybody, who cares about this match, waiting in suspense.

How will physics play out in this battle?

Like this, the Cyclone returns the blizzard to Iceman who freezes, resulting on the emo looking Tohru losing the battle. Iceman has been ICED!

The battle ends and Tohru congratulates Meiru for her victory. Oh look, Enzan was watching the battle too, does he have anything to say about it?

Or he can just ignore it and focus on these mysterious looking giants on the hallway. To be honest, after seeing Enzan’s giant bodyguards, I don’t find their hight weird at all, maybe that means they’re either Americans or Europeons.

We cut to mistake number four with Roll’s hair gone, as everybody praises Meiru and Tohru for their battle.

Except for Netto who is still doing the Program Advance air training.

Midorikawa announces the next two battles with the two strange operators, one in the main “flower” dome and the other in the “micro” sub dome, for what I can see from these layouts, the crowd is either really tiny or none existing!

Their Navis happen to be Bombman and Stoneman! We get full shots of both Navis resulting on consistant mistake number five, Bombman’s eyes are purple when they are suppoused to be red.

I say consistant since this happens a lot throughout the episode, so I better count this as one.

Midorikawa tells the audience that Bombman and Stoneman’s opponents have not appear yet, resulting in both Navis winning by default.

Its Drill Mach! Not Drillman! There is already a Drillman. EXE

Now that I think about it, how does one trademark their Navi’s Name? Does the internet tell you when a certain name is taken?

Anyway, Bombman and Stoneman win by default and Midorikawa says that they remain unbeaten, this not only confuses Netto, but Mahajarama tells the other World Three operators that they are probably the new Navis sent by Dr.Wily.

After commercials, we see the WWW operators having lunch outside the dome, complaning about these new operators whom they know nothing about. And I’m just focused on the weird hairdo of the little girl running in the background.

Wouldn’t it be akward if Netto just suddenly appear and see them all together like this and accusing them to be the World Three in front of everyone? But Netto is in the training room practicing the program advance with Rockman while blindfolded, however, something seems wrong because after the official animation for the program advance (in a completely different background BTW) Rockman falls backwards.

I’m gonna count that background fail as mistake number six.

Rockman tells Netto that there isn’t enough room, but Netto says that he is just too distracted by Bombman and Stoneman being unbeaten.

I found mistake number seven!

Netto tells Rockman that Higure-san said that all of Bombman and Stoneman’s opponents were attacked before their matches, making both of them very suspicious. 

Dekao comes in to tell Netto that the pairings for the upcoming tagged matches are going to be announced. Meanwhile, Higure is trying to get an interview from the huge operators, but they end up destroying his mic leaving him terrified.

Netto and Dekao happend to see this and decide to follow the mysterious netops, who attemp to murder them by throwing them off the second floor.

Okay, there is water below, but turns out Dekao doesn’t know how to swim, and Netto does the mistake of trying to help him from the front.

Which is kind of weird because fat people are suppose to float easily, but it looks like he was just exaggerating since they stop splashing after Saloma appears to help them out.

FYI, when trying to help somebody who is drowning, never aproach from the front! Always grab them from behind or else they will take you down too.

Anyway, Saloma tells them that she is paired up with Dekao and, by the power of super plot conviniense, are gonna fight against Bombman and Stoneman.

Its Bombman, not Bomberman!

I didn’t even now he was in the tournament.

We start the first match of the tag team battles with Saloma’s first plug-in sequence.

Now its time for the mystery operators to plug-in.

HOLY COW, THEY CAN TALK!

We start the battle with Saloma telling Dekao that Woodman will fight Stoneman, so Gutsman charges at Bombman and starts punching him. Woodman uses some vines to inmobilized Stoneman, something I had no idea he could do.

Dekao then sends a Battle Chip to Gutsman which he calls by the wrong name.

This doesn’t do anything to Bombman, and Stoneman frees himself from Woodman’s vines. The two Navis tell their opponents that they will never be able to move them, making Meiru cheer for Dekao for once.

I don’t ship them but this is cute.

Dekao sends the same exact battle chip from before but this time with the right name, so I’m gonna count the scene from before as mistake number eight.

Gutsman uses the Guts Hammer but Bombman blocks it with a barrier, and Woodman summons wood towers only for Stoneman to break them as easy as breaking a toothpick.

During this, Netto tells Yaito that there is something strange going on with the mystery operators since they haven’t move since the battle started, which Miyuki, Enzan and Mahajarama noticed as well.

In fact, Mahajarama uses an insane Alakazam psychic move to prove his theory to the other World Three members.

Mahajarama is a POKEMON! That’s why he can use Teleport! O0O

How can you see that from up there?!

Higure tells her that they are not plugging out and Enzan figures out the truth.

Who said that? Did Netto hear Enzan say that just now? HOW?!

Stoneman and Bombman, with another shot of Bombman’s purple eyes, reveal the identity of the operators before the whole audience.

They are Robots! What is even happening right now?!

Turns out Stoneman and Bombman are completely independant Net Navis, which means that they don’t need operators to battle or plug them in. Which raises the question of how they even manage to enter the tournament in the first place. Maybe the staff is even more incompetant than I thought.

Gutsman and Woodman decide to attack again, but Bombman and Stoneman are just too much for them and end up beating them easily.

Still counting the purple eyes as one.

Gutsman and Woodman are forced to log out, and Bombman and Stoneman declare that Sharkman and Rockman won’t stand a chance, spoiler alert!

The next tag battle is Netto teaming up with Commander Beef, who suddenly appears next to him.

This is followed by Yaito’s remark of the Commander feeling familiar.

Huh, he helped you get rid of the fire viruses back in episode 13, remember?

So Netto ends the episode staring at his future opponents, determined to beat them.

My thoughts?

This episode would feel like a huge filler if it wasn’t because it introduced Bombman and Stoneman, although we already saw them back in episode 14, their names were still a mystery. Anyone who played the game know that Bombman and Stoneman were World Three Navis, but there was no mention of them having operators, so the anime kept it that way by making them the first independant Navis.

The animation for this episode was very low quality since it featured a lot of miscolors and mistakes, shots were reused and others were added, and I’m not talking about the dub, this is to save money in the animation.

If you follow me on Deviantart you would know that I call the art style for this episode “Simple”, because it is usually found in episodes that don’t require a lot of movement and the action sequenses are kinda slow.

An example of this style being used was in episode nine, which also featured some minor animation mistakes.

For the dub version, Roll throwing her hearts at Iceman was cutted for some reason, and for the dialogue change, the scene where Yaito talks about the Commander feeling familiar was changed to her noticing that Masa was gone, which makes more sense since he was sitting above them.

[davewakeman]

Talking Tickets: 21 February 2020--MLB! NBA! NHL! And More!

Hey everybody! 

How’s your week? Let me know!

If you haven’t had a chance to fill out my short survey yet, I’d appreciate it if you’d take 3-4 minutes to share your thoughts and ideas so that I can make sure this newsletter and the podcast continue to deliver value to y’all.

Anytime you want to say hello or share something with me, you can always reply to this email…you definitely will get a response from a live human.

To the tickets!

————————————————————————————————————

1. MLB continues to struggle to put the Astros’ sign-stealing scandal in the rearview mirror:

My frustration with baseball is that they just are always on the back foot to use a soccer term.

This week really highlighted the challenge that is going to have for the game to ever right its ship.

I know they report that they are making more money than ever, but from an attendance standpoint, reporting tickets distributed while Twitter is showing you stadiums sitting there with 3,000-5,000 fans a lot of nights isn’t a great look.

Compare MLB’s reaction to the Astros scandal with the way that Man City’sbreach of Financial Fair Play in Europe is being handled and you see a leadership gap, which hasn’t been helped by the Rob Manfred trying to throw the blame everywhere but his office.

From a marketing standpoint, a tough situation, selling baseball in a crowded market, has gotten more difficult.

I’ll type up some more thoughts about this on my blog, but here are a few actionable things:

1. Stop digging. Rob Manfred’s PR team shouldn’t keep running him out there if he is just saying the same things. If you find yourself in a PR crisis, please don’t just start saying crazy things.

2. Step back and focus on how you are going to move forward. Just speaking about the scandal in the past tense isn’t very effective. You have to have a clear plan for moving forward.

In any organization, change begins by sharing a compelling vision for the future. This is obviously a challenge for MLB and all the teams, not just the ones directly implicated in the scandal. The teams need some leadership and a vision for how this ends and how the game gets back on the front foot, their partners and sponsors need this, and their fans and customers deserve it.

3. I’ve worked with teams that have won the World Series and one of the coolest things from my teenage years was making friends with a member of the World Series winning Big Red Machine teams and going over to my friend’s house to see his replica trophies.

Don’t slag on your trophies, ever. Those trophies represent much of the power and emotional connection your fans have to your sport and if you are crapping on that, why are people supposed to even care?

2. The NBA is seeing some financial challenges from their dust-up with China:

I’ve had the flu this week and I haven’t had the voice to record the intro to a new, updated episode with Greg Turner about doing business in China, but if you can make out anything from the first episode, it would be how this was to be expected. (Technical difficulties due to the firewall in China’s internets caused the first episode to be a big disjointed.)

It seems like the NBA is reporting taking about a 4% hit on revenue this year due to standing up for their beliefs in dealing with China.

In a world where brands are all shouting about how “cause marketing” is so important, real cause marketing means you put your bottom line on the line. The NBA did that, on purpose or not.

To me, the more problematic situation that the NBA is facing right now is a ratings slump at the local level with the Warriors falling 66% and the average team down 13%. Which mirror a slump in the NBA’s ratings this year despite a jump in viewership for this year’s All-Star Game.

Right now, we see the NFL rushing to finish up a new labor deal so that they can negotiate their next round of TV deals while extreme premiums are still likely to be had.

My concern is that losing ratings for a season isn’t going to harm the NBA too much, but if the trend of NBA viewing continues to lag, the issues in China become a multi-year challenge, and maybe you have some more injuries, retirements, or other on-court issues…the revenue becomes challenged. And, that trickles down to raising ticket prices, concessions, and merchandise to levels that to higher levels than they are now.

I mean, you’re already seeing in New Orleans with Zion.

As we’ve seen since the online shopping has become so prominent, we have trained consumers to wait and shop for deals. We’ve also seen an entire generation of marketers and business folks that have become almost blindly committed to managing by spreadsheet while consumer spending on experiences has increased dramatically.

TV viewership is a fickle beast. Live by the sword, die by the sword…I guess.

The real focus here has to be on creating communities of fans around teams, communities, stories, and experiences. These can absolutely happen online and offline.

P.S. The NHL is having hiccups as well. This can be even more problematic because the NHL probably would benefit from more television exposure.

3. Rage Against The Machine is raising money for charity and taking on the secondary market: 

I’m going to guess that the Rage Against The Machine tour is going to be interesting. It is their first tour in a decade. It is an election year. It seems like a perfect storm for them, yeah?

This idea that Rage is going to thwart the secondary market would seem consistent with their ethos. Raising money for charities also seems on brand.

Where the big challenge comes in, is whether or not the charity pricing aspect was explained clearly at the start.

Pearl Jam does a similar thing with their charity tickets that support their Vitalogy Foundation. They handle it slightly differently, which I think helps with the messaging and the fan blowback.

To me, this is just a situation where if you have a fan base and you can sell the tickets directly with no issues at all, sell. But today’s consumer also has a higher expectation of transparency…so that if you are going to institute a charity program like Rage to fight the secondary market, just share that at the start.

BTW, where did Tom Morello get his “85% of the secondary market” comment anyway?

And, Don Vaccaro and TicketNetwork have committed to donating all their service fees from the first 3 shows in March to National Action Network, the civil-rights organization founded by the Reverend Al Sharpton.

4. Congress is going to continue to investigate the world of tickets: 

Just as I trying to close out this week’s newsletter, this news came down the pipe. So, on February 26th, 2020, Congress is going to hold a hearing on tickets.

This comes on the heels of a letter being released that Pearl Jam sent to Representative Frank Pallone Jr on Wednesday saying that the BOSS act will hurt consumers and pointing to transferability and transparency of the number of tickets being on sale would be bad for consumers.

After the release of Pearl Jam’s letter, Bill Pascrell sent out a release of his own rejecting Pearl Jam’s feedback on the BOSS act.

This continued investigation of the ticket business is a global trend. Last week, I talked about the CMA in the UK halting the Viagogo & StubHub merger due to their concerns, even as the US government approved the deal despite these objections.

And, this week, news out of Australia shows that people are rallying around an Information Standard in regards to the secondary market.

Along with the UK government stating they will investigate the illegal resale of football tickets in the UK after a report in the Guardian uncovered the ins and outs of massive football ticket resale.

As for how do you approach this story:

* Pay attention to what comes out of next week’s hearing. I stated at the time of the workshop in June of 2019 that I felt like this would be an issue that would hang over the industry through the election because it is easy for both sides to beat down on ticket sellers, technology companies, resellers, and everyone involved in the industry directly or indirectly. Fun for the whole family.

* I’d also pay attention to what gets defined as “consumer” friendly. I’m on the side of giving Pearl Jam the benefit of the doubt. They’ve worked pretty hard and taken steps that definitely haven’t been in their own best interests to do what was right for their fans, but I’m also conscious of unintended consequences.

5. Red Bull shows how to grow a team from the ground up: 

RB Leipzig beat Spurs 1-0 on Wednesday! (Just adding to the suffering of having the flu. You think Dele was mad…try watching a poor showing while barely keeping your eyes open and feeling like reheated death!)

But this story is really great in the context of the continuing story of the Astros scandal in the States, Man City in Europe, and Thursday’s news of the arrest of PSG’s president for bribery.

Closer to home for me, it highlights what is possible with vision as the Mets are for sale and the sale has started to have its own amount of drama…and, as the Knicks continue to struggle at MSG.

3 things here:

1. Vision is so important. Melbourne FC just released a plan this week for their fans. It was called out on Australian radio, but without a plan and a vision…you don’t ever reach your potential.

2. Winning matters, but community is powerful. I’ve given this speech on 3 continents now…but you can’t just sell winning, you need to build a community. Leipzig is showing that now and we can see in a lot of places that there is a thing like winning fatigue. Or, in the case of the Warriors, a new arena and a lot of winning aren’t going to fix a bad season in every case.

3. Marketing matters: Red Bull’s involvement in sports and the way they have managed their teams shows that they understand the value of marketing and they understand that great brands, teams, and organizations aren’t built in a day.

While their teams haven’t been successful 100% of the time, they have been consistent and have continued to focus on their vision, their values, and their message over and over. That’s something we can all learn from. —————————————————————————————————————-

What am I up to this week?

I’ve got a couple of webinars coming up this week starting with Wednesday’s visit of my ebook created in partnership with Booking Protect: What Matters In Ticketing Now.  Sign up for the webinar and learn ideas, trends, and actions that you can take to put these insights to work for your business. 

On Thursday, I’m turning my eye to sales by putting together: The Language of the Sale–10 Ways To Use Language More Effectively In Your Sales Process. This is built on the last 6-9 months of sales training I’ve done with teams around the world and this one will be fast and actionable for your team as soon as you get through with the webinar.

Check out the podcast archives: new episodes coming this week now that my voice is coming back. If you have suggestions for guests and the podcast, fill out the survey at the top of the page. 

Please follow and like us:

Talking Tickets: 21 February 2020–MLB! NBA! NHL! And More! was originally published on Wakeman Consulting Group

[lolsmurfaccounts]

Funniest League of Legends Memes on the Internet

When it comes to League of Legends memes, there are a lot out there to choose from. You can check out dozens of different sites that have different memes. Some of them are good, some of them are terrible, and there are a few that are simply brilliant. We have gathered up a few that we find especially endearing, either because they speak to the majority of LOL players, or have demonstrate their meme with a really great picture or the perfect text to go with it.

Making memes is a bit of an art form, but the people behind these ones definitely have it down. Let’s take a look at the funniest League of Legends memes on the internet.

When it comes to 1v1, someone has to be the winner and someone has to be the loser.

When your friend challenges you with all of the confidence in the world and you beat the crap out of them in the battle, it is hard to keep the smirk off of your face. Who knows what Kermit was thinking in this original picture, but there is no doubt that the expression perfectly displays how the winner of a 1v1 battle that they never expected to win feels inside.

That’s pretty impressive, considering that Kermit is a muppet; and who knows, maybe he just finished a 1v1 with Fozzie Bear.

There are a million jokes out there about Brand, usually ending up with some kind of joke about how “he’s on fire!”

This meme takes it quite literally, showing a man that was literally on fire as a well-made Brand cosplay.

It’s too bad that lighting a fire indoors is so dangerous, because someone that could master flames like Katniss and Peeta did in The Hunger Games could win just about any cosplay contest out there. As for the subject of this meme, we just hope someone put him out quickly and that the hospital had a large supply of morphine for his recovery.

Everyone knows that Bronze players are at the bottom of the heirachy when it comes to League of Legends.

But this meme has determined that no matter where you are in the heirarchy, if you play Yasuo, Teemo or Riven as a main, then you are even lower than Bronze players.

There is a universal hate among LOL players for Riven in particular, and this is defintiely not the first meme to speak to that. In fact, there is another meme on this list that presents virtually those same characters negatively in a brand new way.

The bottom line is that, like Rodney Dangerfield, Yasuo, Riven and Teemo get no respect.

So true, internet meme Gods. So true. Yes, studying is important.

In fact, if you don’t study, you won’t get a good job, which will allow you to buy a really good computer and a huge monitor and a big internet cable with lots of bandwidth running through it – oh and a killer video card – so that you can play League of Legends far into adulthood.

So, there is no question that studying is important, also for those other more boring reasons. But the call of Diamond is so strong. Even if you are a noob, the presence of the LOL icon on your desktop will make it hard to concentrate.

The fact is, not everyone can afford a massive setup and a killer rig.

If you spent all of your money on your video card, and you didn’t spend any on a cooling system, it might be perfectly reasonable for you to duct tape a desk fan to your tower. Sure, your friends and family members are going to think that you’re pretty weird, but if you can play League of Legends without your framerate dropping, then it will be well worth it. So, don’t despair that your setup doesn’t rival the one in your dreams yet.

Just keep plugging away a piece at a time and you’ll be playing on that dream system soon enough.

Does it feel like the people you play with are a bunch of chimpanzees who got out of their cages and found the controllers in the lab’s rec room?

Does it feel like the other team is a practicing team for the world championships every single time?

That’s what the creator of this meme thought, and whoever he or she is, they definitely have a point. When you lose (and especially if it happens often) you can feel like there is some kind of negative karma thing going on everything you and your time go out into the world to play.

It can be tough to get your friends to queue up for a game sometimes.

Just because you have an insatiable desire to play League of Legends all the time doesn’t necessarily mean that all of your friends share the desire. But what you have to do is make yourself as impossible to resist as Gandalf.

After all, what hobbit could refuse sharing an adventure with the great wizard. Unfortunately, not everyone is as cool as Gandalf, and depending upon which character you are playing and your experience level, you might not be able to get your friends to go on that “adventure.”

Yep, it’s true. Most of the tough talking players who claim to be adults, professional gamers or pretty much any other thing that people claim in chat are going to turn out to be little kids.

That’s just a fact of life when it comes to playing LOL. Sometimes you can tell and sometimes you can’t, but this meme definitely has it right about voice chat.

Voice chat reveals the truth, and 10-year-olds who claim to be 30-year-old men are going to have a really hard time fooling anyone when they have to use their microphone. Luckily, everyone else will be able to use voice chat to laugh at their squeaky little voices, which will almost make up for all of the insults they sent your way during your last game.

There is no doubt that sometimes, League Legends could easily be called League of A**holes and be totally legit.

Sometimes the people you play with – or against – are just terrible people. Maybe they are just having a bad day, but many act like that all the time. It’s like they disregard society’s norms whenever they are in chat.

But there are good people playing League of Legends too. You just have to find enough of them and add them to avoid the huge number of jerks that seem to be everywhere in the game. Then maybe this meme will stop popping into your head every time you read chat.

The name of this meme is League of Legends Supports Make Awesome Parents.

It is actually a pretty cool meme because it showcases what happens with parenthood. You raise your kids well, and then they take care of you when you are older. A cruder version of this is that you change your kid’s diapers so that they will change your Depends when you get old.

In whatever form you choose to put it in, there is no doubt that this can describe both the child-parent relationship and the relationship between a League of Legends support and the rest of the party.

Every LOL player can relate to this meme.

Sometimes, you just want to throw your controller at the computer. Sometimes, you want to reach through the screen and punch the other players on your team. Sometimes, you want to scream angry insults (or type them in all caps in chat). Sometimes you feel like that.

In fact, if you are just learning, you might feel like that a lot. But just when you think you are done with League of Legends forever, that little itch comes back and you want to play it. You might even dig the shortcut out of your recycle bin and restore it to its rightful place on your desktop.

If you are a Harry Potter fan (of either the books or the movies) you will likely realize this bit of dialogue.

When Harry looks into the Mirror of Erised (which is Desire spelled backwards btw) he sees himself with his parents. When Dumbledore looks into the mirror, he sees himself holding up a nice pair of wooly socks – or at least that’s what he claims.

So, what does this mirror, which shows us the deepest and most desperate desires of our hearts show Graves? For a long time, it was simply his cigar that he wanted back. But in 2014, he finally got it back when they added it into the game once again.

Ah, the curse of having the money to get the skins that you want and then going in game and finding out that everyone expects you to be able to perform well because you have great skins.

But what if you are not very skilled with that champion yet? In fact, what if you kind of suck at League of Legends overall? That’s when having amazing skins become a curse.

That’s exactly what is demonstrated here, with a car that looks like a $80,000 sports car but runs like something that you might buy off of a guy on Craigslist for $800. Well, you’ll get better if you keep playing. In the meantime, maybe consider holding off on buying those skins.

Okay, so apparently Donald Trump (and all of the people agreeing with him) are not able to tell by this picture that Obama’s inauguration had a much bigger audience than Trump’s did.

Maybe Trump thinks that Obama’s crowd was made up of extremely wide, obese people and his was composed mostly of skinny children and munchkins.

In either case, both crowds pale in comparison to the number of people who play League of Legends. That cannot be in dispute, although if you ask Trump, he’ll probably try to claim that is the case. In case you’re wondering, in 2016, it was announced that League of Legends had over 100 million players that played at least once per month.

Yep, it’s true. League of Legends is like a Roach Motel for humans.

You can log on, but you’ll never want to log off. Even if life makes you log off to you know..go to work..shower and do all of those other things that interfere with your League of Legends game time, you’ll still be logging on the minute you get done with all that stuff.

That’s exactly what this meme demonstrates. You can attract a rat to a trap with cheese, but if you want to catch a human, then you really need to put a League of Legends shortcut prominently on his or her desktop.

Everyone has come across this player. Maybe they are desperate for people to play with because they have gotten a reputation for not being very good.

But when you battle with them and they turn out to be terrible, it’s not GG and “see ya” with them. They want you to queue up with them again! So, you have a choice.

You can either be a nice person and give them another chance, or you can simply ignore them and try to find a team that will make sure that you win your next battle. It’s really up to you and how seriously you are taking the game at that stage. If you are on your way to Diamond, then it is likely going to a no.

If your potential employer asks you if you play League of Legends, then you know that it is probably going to be a cool place to work.

However, if you tell them that you main Riven, then you aren’t going to get the job, unless for some reason they also happen to play Riven as their main character.

This is unlikely though. No one mains Riven unless they have to. So, unless you want your potential employer to wash their hands and throw your resume into the recycle bin – pick someone else. You lied on your resume already, right? Why not choose a respected champion instead. Then all you have to worry about is them asking you to play.

Yep, that’s right. If someone is saying they are going to report you and you didn’t do anything then it is likely that they are simply a crybaby who can’t handle playing with real players. Unfortunately, you are going to run into these people from time to time in your League of Legends games.

The only thing to do is to simply ignore them and make sure that you do not play with them in the future. There are lots of kids playing League, and sometimes, you have to interact with someone who isn’t able to handle losing with grace. It’s just a fact of life when you play LOL.

It can be a little disconcerting when you are the only one with skin in game.

You can feel superior, sure, but your skill level might not even match up to your skin, like with the earlier meme we listed here. Even if that’s not the case, just because someone doesn’t have a skin doesn’t mean that they are a bad player.

So, try not to judge these people quite as harshly as the person who created (and then commented on) this meme. Maybe they can’t afford to buy skins, but they still might be useful to you in a battle.

This is definitely one of the best memes that we have come across.

While lots of people hate on Master Yi, Yasuo and especially Riven, this is a meme that demonstrates exactly why they aren’t getting any respect. What’s funnier is that it uses some sort of Wizard of Oz comic panel to demonstrate this. It looks like an older comic, but judging by the laptops and the fact that their hands are on the mouses, this panel was likely drawn for the very purpose of making this meme.

That makes us give mad respect to the person that created it, not only for their drawing ability and their wit, but also because this meme rings true for every LOL player who has ever played these characters.

Finally, we have a meme that everyone who has played LOL for any length of time can relate to.

That’s because everyone has run into someone who claims to be a platinum smurf (or any of the other higher levels) but cannot follow through with enough gaming skill to demonstrate it. Just because they are on a new account shouldn’t negate their basic gaming skills and the experience that they have already gotten with playing League of Legends.

So, when you come across someone claiming to be a smurf with a high level main, be skeptical if they cannot follow through. On the other hand, maybe they are just having a bad day. That does happen from time to time.