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| | | | Joined: Jan 2023 Posts: 10,699 Likes: 26 Coordinator of Chaos Moderator | OP  Coordinator of Chaos Moderator Joined: Jan 2023 Posts: 10,699 Likes: 26 | .
Season 26 Final Round!!: PWC
The air conditioning has been out since Tuesday, and nobody’s calling maintenance because nobody wants to be the one who gets stuck with the bill. Jimmy has stripped down to a tank top that’s seen better decades, and Selaim has resorted to fanning herself with a cardboard fan she swiped from a funeral home—the one with a picture of Jesus on it, because apparently that was the only one left.
“Can we talk about the fact that Baron’s only ten points back?” Jimmy says, mopping his forehead with a paper towel that’s been used three times already. “Ten. Points. In a heat wave. In July. He’s going to cook us all alive and then serve us on a platter.”
Selaim waves the Jesus-fan with mechanical vigor. “He’s the reigning champion, Jimmy. That’s literally his job description. The real question is why the Boss is only four points behind. That’s fishy. That’s a man who knows where the bodies are buried.”
“Probably because he buried them,” Jimmy mutters. He flops backward into a swivel chair, which complains with a shriek of metal. “But forget Baron. Forget the Boss. Mina’s sitting on top of the pile with a bunny for a sidekick. How is that even allowed?”
Selaim fans faster. The cardboard edge flaps against her wrist. “Dash isn’t a sidekick, Jimmy. Dash is a strategic asset. That bunny has charmed more voters than the Boss has ever bribed, and that’s saying something. Have you seen the fan art? People are knitting him sweaters.”
“People are knitting him sweaters,” Jimmy repeats flatly. He stares at the ceiling, where a brown water stain has begun to look, alarmingly, like a map of the underworld. “I just don’t get it. She’s sweet, she’s got a rabbit, and somehow she’s beating Aqua by four points. Aqua. The man who’s won six times.”
“Former six-time champion,” Selaim corrects, with the particular smugness of someone who has been keeping a spreadsheet. “The minions aren’t what they used to be. I heard the third battalion defected to Mina’s campaign last week.”
Jimmy sits up so fast the chair nearly topples. “They did what?”
“Defected. To Mina. Apparently Dash offered them carrots.”
“Carrots.” Jimmy’s voice goes thin and high. “Carrots. Aqua’s been training those minions since the dawn of time, and they swap sides for—what—root vegetables?”
“Organic root vegetables,” Selaim adds, as if this makes all the difference. She folds the fan, taps it against her palm thoughtfully. Still Jimmy—Aqua’s four points back. Aqua. Six-time champion. Lord of the Minions. The man has minions, Jimmy. Actual minions. The yellow kind. The kind that show up at your door at three in the morning with clipboards and matching uniforms.”
Jimmy holds up a finger. “I’ve met those minions. They’re terrifying. One of them asked me for my social security number and I just—gave it to him. I don’t know why. He had a very persuasive voice.”
“That’s the point. Aqua doesn’t campaign. Aqua deploys. He’s got a system. He’s got infrastructure. He’s got minions filing paperwork in triplicate. Mina’s got a bunny and a smile. Four points is nothing. Four points is a rounding error in Aqua’s world.”
“Yeah, but—” Jimmy scratches his chin, which is slick with sweat. “Weez.”
The name lands between them like a dropped ice cube.
Selaim stops fanning. “Weez.”
Jimmy gives her a look that could curdle milk. He peels himself out of the chair, pads over to the water cooler—which is empty, because of course it is—and kicks it gently, which accomplishes nothing. “What about Weez? Sixteen points back. That’s a lot of ground to cover.”
Selaim unfolds the fan again. Jesus gazes serenely from the cardboard as she waves him back and forth. “Sixteen points is a lot. But Weez has pulled off worse. Four-time champion, moderator privileges—he’s got resources the others don’t. And she’s patient. Patient people are terrifying.”
Selaim pauses, lowers the fan. “But you know who I really feel bad for?”
“Who?”
“Maiden.”
Jimmy’s expression shifts from thoughtful to something more complicated—a wince, maybe, or the ghost of a wince, half-buried under the sweat and the heat. “Oh. Maiden.”
“Four points back,” Selaim says, and the way she says it is different from how she’d said it about Aqua. Not impressed. Pitying. “Tied with the Boss. Tied with Aqua. And nobody’s talking about her.”
Jimmy opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again. Then he laughs—a short, sharp bark that has no humor in it at all. “Selaim. Selaim. You know Maiden doesn’t have a submission for this round.”
Selaim’s fan goes still. “What?”
“Maiden. She’s the dealer. She’s running the round. She literally can’t enter her own game. That’s in the charter. Section twelve, subsection—” He waves his hand vaguely. “Somewhere around the part where Phelan tried to rig the draw last season.”
Selaim’s face goes through several expressions in rapid succession—confusion, dawning comprehension, something that might be horror. “But—the standings. She’s four points back. She’s tied with—”
“She’s tied with Aqua and the Boss on paper, but she’s got nothing in the pot for this round. Zero. Zip. Nada.” Jimmy flops back into the chair, which groans beneath him. “The standings don’t reflect that because the standings are cumulative. But when the points drop from this round, she’s going to tumble. Hard. Like, off-a-cliff hard.”
Selaim sets the Jesus-fan down on the desk with a carefulness that feels almost reverent. “Does she know?”
Jimmy gives her a look that says of course she knows. “She’s the dealer, Selaim. She knows the rules better than anyone. That’s the whole point. She tied last round.” He pauses, picks at a thread on his tank top. “She miscalculated. Mina’s too far ahead, and Aqua’s too close behind. Four points was a cushion three rounds ago. Now it’s a death sentence.”
“So she’s—”
“Effectively eliminated from contention unless something catastrophic happens to the top three.” Jimmy says it flatly, the way you’d announce a funeral. “Two-time champion. Former champion. And she’s going to finish this season with nothing because she bet on being the house.”
Selaim picks the fan back up. She doesn’t wave it. She just holds it, staring at Jesus’s serene, cardboard face as if he might have an answer. “That’s brutal.”
“That’s ACRO,” Jimmy says. He pulls himself upright, wipes his forehead again with the paper towel, which has now reached a level of saturation that borders on the structural. “But hey—at least she’s not Phelan. Phelan got a restraining order and a ban from the set.”
Selaim makes a sound that isn’t quite a laugh. “Right.” She unfolds the fan, gives it a half-hearted flap. “Do you think the Boss rigged it? Tied himself with her on purpose so she’d look competitive?”
Jimmy considers this. The water stain on the ceiling stares back at him, its underworld map now looking, if he squints, like a rabbit. A very specific rabbit. “I don’t think so,” he says slowly. “But you want to know what I do think is fishy?”
Selaim angles the fan toward him. “Enlighten me.”
“Aqua dealt last round.”
The words land, and Selaim’s hand freezes mid-flap. Jesus wobbles on the cardboard. “Aqua dealt?”
“Dealt. Ran the game. Posted the results. The whole nine yards.” Jimmy leans forward, elbows on his knees, and the chair creaks a warning he ignores. “And you know what happened? Someone—I won’t say who—tried to slip in a vote after the deadline. After Aqua had already tallied and posted. A last-minute hail mary, the kind of thing that could swing a round if it counted.”
Selaim’s eyes narrow. “And?”
“And Miales ruled it invalid.” Jimmy snaps his fingers. “Just like that. Technicality. Vote posted after the results were posted, so it doesn’t count. Dead on arrival. No appeal, no review, no nothing.”
“Who was the vote for?”
Jimmy’s mouth twists. “Miales.”
The fan drops an inch. Selaim’s expression goes very, very still—the kind of still that precedes either an explosion or a very long silence. “A vote for Miales,” she repeats, each word measured. “After the deadline. Posted by—who?”
“Gryphon.” Jimmy drums his fingers on his knee. “But here’s the thing, Selaim. Aqua dealt. Aqua posted. And Aqua’s four points behind Mina. And then someone tries to put another vote, and the Boss—the same Boss who’s also four points behind—rules it out on a technicality.”
Selaim sets the fan down flat on the desk. Jesus stares up at the ceiling, serene and unbothered, which feels like a personal insult given the circumstances. “You’re telling me the Boss disqualified a vote that would have made him the dealer for the round?”
“I’m telling you the Boss disqualified a vote that would have helped the Maiden,” Jimmy leans back, and the chair makes a sound like a dying animal. “Convenient, isn’t it?”
Selaim is quiet for a long moment. The air conditioning, or rather the absence of it, presses down on them like a hot, wet blanket. Somewhere in the studio, a light flickers—a fluorescent bulb giving up the ghost.
“That’s—” Selaim starts.
“Suspect?” Jimmy offers.
“I was going to say ‘textbook,’ but sure, suspect works.” She picks up the fan again, not to wave it but to grip it like a weapon.
.
| | | | | Joined: Jan 2023 Posts: 10,699 Likes: 26 Coordinator of Chaos Moderator | | OP Coordinator of Chaos Moderator Joined: Jan 2023 Posts: 10,699 Likes: 26 | The band is on break, sprawled across folding chairs in various states of heatstroke, and the drum kit has developed a mysterious warp from being parked too close to a window. Phelan, exiled from the production booth but apparently not from the premises entirely, has set up a lemonade stand in the parking lot and is charging exorbitant rates.
The air in the chamber crackled with the electric hum of anticipation, the kind that settles into the bones and makes the teeth ache. Jimmy straightened his lapels and stepped to the center of the dais, the overhead lights catching the gold thread in his waistcoat.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, and his voice carried the particular warmth of a man who had presided over enough final rounds to know exactly what the weight of the moment required. “The standings are set. The margins are thin. And the hour, my friends, has arrived.”
Beside him, Selaim adjusted her spectacles and consulted the tablet cradled in her palm. “Maiden has informed us that the entries for the Final Round will be posted within the hour. 60 minutes.” She held up a single finger, as though the number required physical demonstration. “The contenders have been notified. The judges have taken their seats. The archives have been opened.”
Jimmy clasped his hands behind his back and rocked onto his heels. “For those of you who’ve joined us late—and shame on you, truly—the Final Round operates under the old rules. Each leader submits a single entry. No revisions. No extensions. No mercy.” He paused, letting the word hang in the air like a blade. “The entry that Maiden posts will be the entry that stands. And the points—” he smiled, thin and sharp, “—the points will be absolute.”
A murmur rippled through the gallery. Near the front row, a woman in a wide-brimmed hat leaned forward and whispered something to her companion, who nodded gravely.
Selaim tapped the tablet twice. “We’ve received confirmation from all six leaders. Mina, Aqua, Baron, Weez, and Miales—all have signaled their readiness.” She glanced up. “The entries are being compiled as we speak. Maiden’s server is warming up. The timestamp will be visible to all, and the timestamp, as always, is the final arbiter of order.”
Jimmy raised his hand, and the chamber fell silent. Not gradually, but all at once, the way a room goes quiet when something important is about to happen.
“The Final Round,” he said, “begins now.”
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| | | | | Joined: Jul 2023 Posts: 278 Likes: 6 Member |  Member Joined: Jul 2023 Posts: 278 Likes: 6 | Let the voting begin!
1. Poorly Worded Choices (throughout season 26)
2. Piracy without Charity - that well known accounting firm
3. Pure Whimsical Chaos (Otters are adorable, aren't they?)
4. Pigeons With Confidence (Poop wherever they want!)
5. Please Wear Clothes (Some bodies are not meant to be seen!)
6. Perfect With Chocolate (Anything, Everything, Always)
7. Prolific Watermelon Consumer (I *love* summer fruits!)
8. Procrastinating Work Constantly (My character has priorities.)
9. Professional Workplace Chaos (We're still unhinged, we just do it business casual)
10. Personality Watchers Consolidate (we Muggles have to protect ourselves)
11. Princesses Won't Chase (After crownless frogs) | | | | | Joined: Jan 2023 Posts: 10,699 Likes: 26 Coordinator of Chaos Moderator | | OP Coordinator of Chaos Moderator Joined: Jan 2023 Posts: 10,699 Likes: 26 |
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| | | | | Joined: Apr 2002 Posts: 23,558 Likes: 3 Moderator |  Moderator Joined: Apr 2002 Posts: 23,558 Likes: 3 | I'll take 6,3,5
6. Perfect With Chocolate (Anything, Everything, Always)
3. Pure Whimsical Chaos (Otters are adorable, aren't they?)
5. Please Wear Clothes (Some bodies are not meant to be seen!) | | | | | Joined: May 2002 Posts: 3,325 Likes: 5 Teddy Bear Protector Member | | Teddy Bear Protector Member Joined: May 2002 Posts: 3,325 Likes: 5 | Tedted wants to know why nobody feels sorry for me
MousieHuggz !!! (tm)
--Mackey | | | | | Joined: May 2002 Posts: 3,325 Likes: 5 Teddy Bear Protector Member | | Teddy Bear Protector Member Joined: May 2002 Posts: 3,325 Likes: 5 | 7 covered in 6 is great, until the 4 get it
MousieHuggz !!! (tm)
--Mackey | | | | | Joined: Apr 2016 Posts: 6,811 Likes: 12 Member | | Member Joined: Apr 2016 Posts: 6,811 Likes: 12 | | | | | | Joined: May 2000 Posts: 84,312 Likes: 121 Wizop Administrator | | Wizop Administrator Joined: May 2000 Posts: 84,312 Likes: 121 | 1 9 6 please  | | | | | Joined: May 2014 Posts: 6,209 Likes: 7 Confusingly Confused Moderator | | Confusingly Confused Moderator Joined: May 2014 Posts: 6,209 Likes: 7 | | | |
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