3rd Seed Pyra (Xenoblade 2) VS 14th Seed Tamamo-no-Mae (Fate/EXTRA)
Tamamo’s lead held fairly steady throughout the night and morning, but once I was back from my wagie cagie, the final battle could begin, and I was planning to hit Tamamo with everything I had – not just hot Pyra pictures and glorious Xenoblade 2 music, but I also enlisted Pyra’s extremely attractive female friends – pics aplenty of Pyra and her Tsundere sister Mythra were posted, pics of Pyra and beloved Welsh catgirl Nia were posted, pics of Pyra and her gorgeous daughter Glimmer were posted, as well as screencaps of trannies and SJWs seething about Pyra’s boobs and Smash Bros. inclusion. Other Pyra fans were joining in, and our efforts were paying off - after some back and forth Pyra had lowered Tamamo’s lead all the way down to 5 votes, then 3. Tamamo again fought back, and after 296 votes she led by 6, before yet another Pyra push brought us a perfect tie at 158 – 158, before all of Pyra’s hard work was FINALLY crowned with a lead, and her momentum carried our redhead heroine all the way to a 5 vote lead with just 45 minutes left, and with just 26 minutes left Pyra even managed to further extend her lead ever so slightly, reaching a 6 vote surplus. Had the mad lass actually done it?
Sadly, no – as so many times before, Tamamo still proved to have some ferocious fight left in her, and eventually fired back with 4 votes in just a minute, then another vote, then it was 168 – 168, before going up by 3 votes, before Pyra for the umpteenth time came back, and as final few minutes ticked down, just a single vote separated the two combatants. The final moments of the match were worthy of a Shonen season finale – both girls powering up for a final, decisive strike with their Ultimate Attack, they collide in mid-air and a blinding flash of light engulfs them as the full force of their combined attacks unleashes a giant blast that devastates the battlefield. As the smoke clears, we see that both fighters are barely standing, but one of them has a foot just *barely* outside the now-ruined ring. Final results: Pyra 172, Tamamo 173. Pyra had lost by just a single vote.
BUT WAIT! It turns out the DRC polls can be a bit delayed, so while the final vote count said 345 immediately after the poll had closed, after a few minutes the vote count suddenly read 346. Could it be? Had the unthinkable just happened? The NEW final score revealed….that Tamamo had gotten another vote, securing her a 2-vote victory. Honestly, as a die-hard Pyra fan, I was if anything relieved. Just IMAGINE all the angry fox noises and cheating accusations if my girl had tied the match *after* the poll had ended. Fortified election much?
The Biden Junior jokes would probably never end – and it’s not like Pyra was certain to win a tiebreaker poll anyway. For the sake of the tournament, and my sanity, it was just as well that it ended here – and at least Pyra hadn’t actually lost by just a 1 vote anymore.I gotta say, as much as I hated Pyra losing, this was actually an immensely fun match to participate in, and really let me pull off a good Shonen Rival LARP – motivating Pyra by reminding her of that fated quarterfinals encounter with 2B, unleashing her final form Pneuma on Tamamo, and finally resorting to a Dangerous, Forbidden Technique to overcome the deficit (Pyra nudes and lewds). And while this wasn’t the outcome that I wanted, I felt that I did everything I could for my girl, and got to show everyone how awesome Pyra is. I guess Pyra's loss hurts less for me, because so many of my favorite anime characters are already Shonen Rivals who are destined to suffer heartbreaker losses to the Main Character after long, insane, down-to-the-wire battles.
If it’s ever acceptable to lose in round 2 as a #3 Seed, this was such a match – not only had Pyra gotten more than 100 votes in both of her tournament matches, but in her bout with Tamamo she had accumulated more votes than ANY OTHER GIRL IN THE THIS CONTEST besides Tamamo. I also do think Tamamo was a somewhat difficult opponent for Pyra - one of her absolute greatest qualities is her Tradwife cred, but Tamamo also prides herself on being an extremely devoted wife – and the Fox’s insistence on monogamy might even be more appealing to Rightwing Fedi (which is much more Christian than Mormon or Muslim) than Pyra’s status as a Harem girl. Of course, with such a close match any number of factors could potentially have tipped the match in Tamamo’s favor – Alice voters might have strongly supported Tamamo along with their own girl, and even me being distracted with the tiebreaker poll might have sapped Pyra of precious momentum. And imagine if that story about a Xenoblade 2 fanservice-hater being exposed as a gay pedophile had broken before this match? Or if the Nazi Uniform Pyra picture had come out in time for the poll?
That said, you can’t change the past, and for the sake of the tournament it was probably for the best that it was Tamamo who eventually advanced, given that the final would already end up featuring one Nintendo girl. And BOY, did Tamamo look amazing in this match – being able to rack up 174 votes at this stage of the tournament was nothing short of incredible, and suddenly even 2B was looking mighty vulnerable. I’ll also add that despite the inevitable trash talking and bitterness there was also a lot of mutual respect between Pyra and Tamamo fans, with lots of Tamamo fans acknowledging Pyra as a worthy opponent after the match was over. And Tamamo fan wan put out SUCH a wonderful poem about the match that, while naturally favoring Tamamo, still gave Pyra her dues, and was honestly one of the best things to come out of this whole contest.
https://poa.st/@wan/posts/AZwnvV80FMv7xB7CpU
#BestVidyaGirlContest
