#but I don't think the bad kids themselves handled this situation unreasonably

[jq37]

Just to throw my two cents on the Rat Grinder discourse: They weren't worth the Intrepid Heroes' time. We didn't get the full picture of what's going on with the Grinders until the last quarter of the season. Before that they were just this other clique that hate the main characters, so in-character why would the Bad Kids bother giving them so much attention when they've got so much of their own crap going on. Kristens quest to get Cassandra back and her presidential campaign, Gorgugs courseload, Riz's million and one plates that he's been spinning all season, Adaines financial problems, Figs curse and her doubts about what she wants to do with her life. Fabian's the only one who might have had the time, but he had to be Maximum Legend. There genuinely was no time or even an incentive on the IH's side to develop the Rat Grinders characters.

I still think it's fucked up that these teenagers got taken advantage of by adults they trusted, but we didn't learn any of that until we only had two roleplay episodes left. Too little too late to even try anything diplomatic even if they didn't spend all their time after the Last Stand in hiding.

And a thing about Ivy that no one is roasting her about and really should: An elven archer? Really? Wow, never seen that before.

Yeah totally. Like, from a meta level, I see where the players themselves could have been more curious about the Rat Grinders. There are obvious plot threads that could have been teased out there (though, in fairness to the cast, the adult manipulation aspect didn't become clear until way later in the season--the rivalry and foil aspects were more obvious). This final confrontation could look really different if they'd played that all the way out all season.

But in character? The Bad Kids really didn't have a good reason to waste time on the Rat Grinders. They came into this school year already burnt out from their Night Yorb quest and wanting a break. But they don't get that because they immediately are beset by problems they have to deal with--Kristen's god is on death's door from neglect and she's on the brink of expulsion, Riz is running himself ragged trying to boost his resume for college, Fig is having a whole ass existential crisis, Adaine is struggling with money issues she doesn't want to talk about, Gorgug is taking FOUR YEARS of school at the same time, and Fabian is multiclassing and dealing with his empty house/not having parental support (or Cathilda's support) for the first time. They are dealing with SO MUCH high stakes, personal stuff before the plot even kicks in. And, mechanics-wise, this is represented with the downtime system that means that any time they spend on the RG's is time they can't spend on something that matters more to them. IMO, not prioritizing your haters is actually pretty mature. Like, they weren't proactively using their free time to bully them or anything (except for arguably Fig). They were snippy with them when they crossed their paths and that was it. As opposed to the Rat Grinders who literally had to be told by Jace to stop antagonizing the Bad Kids (though they must have been pretty ineffectual at it because the Bad Kids hardly noticed, which I bet stung considering they were so obsessed).

And also, it's not like they didn't try at all with the Rat Grinders. Early Insight checks on Kipperlilly just got, "This is a polished steel orb of a personality" which doesn't sound very worth interacting with in a sympathetic way if at all and then the next big thing they learn is that she had hated Riz since Freshman Year and that she wants Riz and Kristen dead. And that's AFTER we saw her smile and kill her party cleric. In their position I'm not spending further time trying to empathize with this person, I have made my judgement and it's up to the Jawbones of the world to find if there's something in there to be rehabilitated.

And that's not the only case. Adaine straight up saved Ruben from disintegration during the Frosty Folk battle when she easily could have saved the spell slot, but that didn't soften him towards the Bad Kids any. Adaine also was really keen to Scry on the Rat Grinders to find out what was happening at their meetings. But, in scene at least, she was never able to do that so we never got a scene of them, huddled together, clearly unsure about the path they're on but not feeling like they can walk it back or say no to the authority figures in their lives. She didn't get anything humanizing that would cause her to rethink their position on them the way that she did with Aelwyn for instance. So why would they think they're anything but gleeful co-conspirators?

Hell, the one RG Adaine was even slightly curious about was Oisin and now we know that he was feigning interest in her which, man, can you imagine how much worse that would have felt if she'd actually taken the bait and pursued him beyond just thinking he was cute? Of course, it's possible that her interacting with him more along with some good charm rolls could have changed the narrative in some way but we can only go off of what we know to be true in canon and those facts are (1) He tried to get closer to Adaine while actively planning the downfall of her and her friends, (2) he (along with Ivy) was mean to Buddy behind his back while tricking him into a plan that would force him to go against his religious beliefs, and (3) he called his KVX related dragon ancestors to try to kill the Bad Kids and endanger the entire student body population. Three strikes, you're out. If I'm a Bad Kid I'm not super interested in whatever else is going on with him. And again, literally all of Adaine's friends (except Riz) gave her help to do an Insight check on him during their confrontation in the hallway so she was looking for something there worth engaging with, but she didn't get much.

Fig was fully doing CIA, MKUltra, Fantasy Geneva Convention violations on Ruben to try see if she could get information or flip him. I think she did it in an objectively insane way so I'm not entirely shocked that it didn't yield the exact results she was looking for. But she never found the smoking gun (or whatever the opposite of that is) in his head that would absolve him/show the Rat Grinders were being controlled and her messing with his dreams never flared his conscience enough to make him try to break free (as far as we know) which is what I assume she was going for. If I was Ruben looking for a way out but scared of the repercussions, I might go to Adaine who saved me from certain death earlier the same year and has helped saved the world 3 times with her party and their friends in high (and low) places. Maybe that's what Fig thought might happen but it didn't so from Fig's POV? Gave him a chance. Time to start blasting. And again, at that age, if I walked in to the first day of class and the first thing this random boy does is sneer at me and flaunt his musical success, I'm popping up on his Nemesis Alert at that moment. Doubly so after he tries to trick me and my friends into doing drugs so we get expelled. I'm surprised she tried at all with him.

Fabian absolutely tried to interact with Ivy--in large part for self interested reasons of course, but that doesn't change that he did it. And she came across as callous and unkind from the jump. Their final conversation before the latest episode is the one where she talks about wearing Mazey like a sweater and then says that Fabian missed his chance with her before stalking off. That's a pretty open and shut interaction. No way 17 year old me is like, "Hmm, but why is she acting so mean? Perhaps I should examine that more closely to further understand her." Nah, I've decided she sucks.

And Kristen has tried with Buddy literally up until the last moment. She rolled an Insight check on him right before the fight started and she got a 1. She got nothing from him.

Mary Ann is actually the only Rat Grinder who hasn't done anything to make a bad impression on the Bad Kids--the only thing she did was have a really good Bloodrush tryout. So no reason to hate her specifically (and, in fact, she is also the only Rat Grinder that at least half of them are positively obsessed with), but no reason to explore her further. And Kristen still tried giving her a stuffed animal and her response was that she already had that one and that she was going to give it away. What are they supposed to do with that?

Even when they tried, they didn't get information that was worth chasing when they were so busy and had to manage their free time. Gorgug didn't even slot in downtime to talk to his bio parents when they visited. Why would he spend any time on Mary Ann to figure out her deal? Maybe if they were given more explicit opportunities to interact with them in passing. If Mary Ann was shown at Bloodrush Games. If during class time Oisin tried to interact with Adaine. If Kristen ran into Buddy and Bucky talking. If any of their forays into talking to them or looking into them yielded anything actionable or that piqued their interest--they opened the door for Brennan to give them something more than once. But they never got anything that was worth investing more of their limited time into.

(And also, they didn't learn that Porter was involved until WAY into the last quarter of the episodes. Which absolutely could have changed things since, as far as they knew the RG's were working alone to raise this god which isn't crazy for them to think because Kristen literally did that last year and it was of her own free will. If they knew early that the RG's were smaller players in Porter's plot then maybe they would have been in more of a rescue mindset--especially since Fig has always mistrusted him--but that's not information they had and by the time they got it, the RG's were in deep hiding, like you said.)

And so, coming into the last few episodes, that's who the Rat Grinders are to the Bad Kids. A group of kids who they first heard about in the context of, "they famously hate you," even though they'd never interacted before. A group of kids who they already thought sucked even before they tried to kill the entire study body an hour ago. A group of kids who are trying to doom all of Elmville to eternal rage and who are willing and ready to kill them to do it.

With that context, yeah I think their actions are pretty understandable.

(Also, lmao. Yeah, I think calling Ivy basic would probably hurt her more than most things you could say to her.)

#asks #farmer-10 #dimension 20 #fantasy high #d20 #spoilers #d20 spoilers #dimension 20 spoilers #dimension 20 fhjy #fhjy #and they knew the rage crystals existed for a while #but they had no reason to believe that the rage crystals are a thing that happened *to* the RG's #rather than being a thing that they're doing to others #so like yeah I totally get it wishing that they players had delved deeper into their whole situations #that's the fun of narrative foils after all #but I don't think the bad kids themselves handled this situation unreasonably #when ppl rub me the wrong way/are rude to me irl I avoid them #if they have hidden struggles that's between them and their loved ones and their therapist #and if I was a bad kid after such a stressful year even if I heard their tragic backstories at this point I'd be like #cool motive still murder

[just-absolutely-super]

Mini crack

Patch: mom! Why won't dad let me be interviewed and be on TV? We want everyone to know we took care of that hacker at school!

Remix: yeah! We deserve the recognition!!

Roll: boys, we agree with your dads

Mayl: yeah. You're too young

Remix: what!? No fair!!

Patch: yeah! We took that hacker out, no one else!!

Mayl: you're underage. Showing your names and faces on the news isn't a good idea. Especially when you two took care of a hacker

Remix: I don't get it?

Roll: think of it more like it needs to stay secret so bad guys won't try to mess with your school again or other things

Patch and Remix: huh?

Mayl: you'll understand when you get older boys

At Higsby’s

Patch: It’s so unfair! I’m a hero and can’t get any acknowledgment about it because my parents say I’m too young to show my face to the public! What’s up with that!?

Cal: I agree, it sounds unreasonable. The school would be toast without you and Remix

Higsby: Sorry to interrupt, boys, but your dad has a point Patch, huh. Maybe back in the day nobody would care, but you never know with the people of today. Kids get into dangerous situations, huh!

Patch: Well me and Remix can handle anything!

Higsby: Lan said the same thing when he was your age about him and Megaman. And look what kept happening to him, huh!

Cal: Huh? Did something happen to Mr. Hikari, dad?

Higsby: A lot of things, huh! I could tell you stories!

Patch: Really? What kind of stories?

Remix: We don’t hear any stories

Higsby: You don’t? Well that’s odd, Lan was a firecracker back in the day. Always got into trouble. Even ticked off a couple of Official people. You don’t know, huh?

Patch: Dad? Ticking off the Officials? As if, he’s one of the most important people at SciLab, they respect him

Higsby: ….Oh you really don’t know, huh

Patch: Know what?

Higsby: Welp, these chips don’t stock themselves, huh. Help me out in the back, Cal

Cal: U-Uh okay?

Patch: Hey! Come back! What did he mean by all of that. Dad is the most normal guy i know…

Remix: Maybe Mr. Higsby is confused. He’s a lot older than our Papas. He could be…uh, what does Mama say? Over the hill?

Patch: Hmm…yeah probably

#anon #responses #mmbn hc land #crack edition #the saga of people implying lan was a big deal and patch not believing them

[arcane-ish]

Arcane’s A+ Parenting Week - Secrets

Ah, Vander, my beloved, he really is the king of secrets, isn't he?

Okay, Vander actually probably doesn't have that many secrets, but I think his story shows how his secrets negatively affect his children.

Vander has a secret deal with Piltover. The deal is that he prevents people (however he does that ...?) from committing crimes in Piltover. However, Vi does not know this. Now he did tell her that "the Northside is off-limits" but it seems that Vi does not understand Vi (and I don't think it's entirely clear that it's off-limits to *everybody*, not just her because they are too young ("we could handle a real job")).

Either way, because of this Vi takes her siblings to a heist topside, causing the inciting incidents and endangering Vander's deal.

When Vi later does find out about the deal from Ekko she is upset, but not so upset that it would seriously endanger Vander's relationship with her, she is still willing to listen to him and his reasons.

Now generally I don't think that it is that unreasonable for a parent to not share everything with a child if they deem them to young. However, I feel if he didn't want to let Vi in on what is really going on and why staying away from topside is that important, then IMO he needed to have a closer eye on them to ensure that they are following his rules if he is not willing to give them a good reason.

To me, this is the other situation where I think he should have told Vi more about what was going on. IMO if he had warned here that there is an enemy from his past targetting him specifically, maybe she would have been more careful coming after him.

I don't think he needed to tell her the whole story (again presuming that he even guessed that it was Silco), but even just telling her about a concrete enemy and maybe even describing them might have helped.

Vander is a man who tries to hide his past. And imo that is a very relatable emotion. Particularly if it seems like he really has things to be ashamed of. I still think in this case, him keeping many things to himself, not giving Vi the necessary information to assess the situation bit him in the ass badly.

Now, if Vander's problem is that he doesn't share enough information with Vi about his past and about how he is running his operation, Silco arguably is the extreme in the opposite direction.

It seems that he is candid to her about his past crimes, he uses her as part of his operation, he lets her listen in on his business meetings and he even discusses his plans, strategy and priorities with her.

We didn't really really get to a point where we see that bit him in the ass specifically, but still, I tend to think that that isn't the healthiest parental behavior either.

(that said, it should be noted that Jinx in Act 2 is older than Vi in Act 1, so that makes it a bit more reasonable that Vander didn't include Vi as much in his operations)

Another character who finds themselves in a similar situation is Heimerdinger.

I feeI like Heimer is usually pretty clear on what he wants his "kids" to do (ie research more/longer before moving to real world application, stop the research, destroy the hexcore). But just like Vander he is pretty bad at explaining to them why they should do the things he wants them to do.

(just with Heimer we don't know if he is hiding something or whether he is just bad at "human")

The last one in our category is Singed. I think we can pretty much assume Singed has a lot of secret he's keeping. However, none of his secrets have really been revealed yet (pretty sure that is coming in season 2), so it's kind of hard to "rate" him in that regard ;)

#arcaneparentingweek #vander #silco #heimerdinger #singed #arcane