#grudgeby

The common assumption (or joke) from For The Future is that Boscha is lovesick for Amity.  But Boscha is definitely grappling with PTSD. Poorly.  She watched her only two friends get turned into mannequin corpses, and she only survived by pure luck. This would be horrifying for anyone, but it especially messed with Boscha’s image of being the best of the best of the best.  That would be enough to horribly effect Boscha’s self-image.  But in this Collector apocalypse, Boscha doesn’t even have to the tools to begin remaking that self-image, healthy or not.

One might think that a Queen-bee, bullying, star jock would flourish in the lawlessness of a collapse state; be living it up with confidence and power to abuse.  But Boscha is totally dependent on society.  For it’s titles, trophies and accolades as a lens for their self-worth.  (In the same way how Amity once lost her mind and composure in pursuit of a golden sticker awarded to Willow).  So Boscha is desperately trying to surround herself with trappings of the old world.  Amity is the last surviving member of the Grudgby team, who were Boscha’s tools for social climbing through competitive sport.  But they were also Boscha’s closest friends, though she’s not capable of acknowledging that vulnerability.  Not verbally, at least.

This is yeat another idea that I came up with while chatting with my buddy @ordinaryschmuck.

During their third year at Hexside, when they're about 16 or so, Amity decides to rejoin the Hexside Grudgeby team alongside Willow in the hopes of both enjoying herself and making better memories for herself. In an effort to support her girlfriend, Luz decides to join the Hexside Fearleader squad.

Like Earth Cheerleaders, a fearleaders job is to support the team. Only, instead of doing happy cheers and acrobatics, the fearleaders job is to scare and frighten the other teams players so that they mess up plays and run away.

It takes a little effort but Luz can be pretty creepy when she wants to be. With her patented Noceda eyeball trick, Luz manages to earn a place on the squad. Which ends up great for her, and terrible for Amity because her mind ends up turning to mush when she sees her girlfriend out on the field in her fearleader get up.

The Fearleader uniforms are black tops, skirts, leggings, and steeled toed black boots. They paint their mouths with red paint to look like blood and sharpen down their fangs (in Luz's case, she just uses a pair of fake vampire fangs.). And instead of pom poms, they have short metal staffs that they smack against each other and threaten to beat the other team with. Amity finds the whole ensemble adorable on Luz.

Luz: How do I look?

Amity: 😳 Amazing....

Luz was a little nervous about being part of the team, both due to her painful experienced with cheerleaders on Earth and her general social anxiety, but she quickly came to befriend the other Fearleaders who she came to realize that, while appearing frightening, were all extremely nice. They even asked her if she could teach them her eyeball trick.

Amity created a huge vine during grudgeby in imitation of Azura.

And it's shown to be an important sport to the people on the Isles, like it's apart of their culture.

But to mix magics is actually illegal. That's what gets me.

For along time teaching more than one type of magic was against the rules at hexide.

But yet its a sport that is promoted in the school and on the Isles.

And you can be sure belos wiped away alot of witch culture when he came to power if he went as far to change the history books. He's not above cultural genocide.

So the question is why keep grudgeby? what perpose does it serve? surely that would hinder his plans right?

Nope.

If you take a look at the kids that play grudgeby it's all the rich privileged witches. The kid who's parents would want them to join the emperors coven. The kids who's parents can afford to pay for tutoring from people like Lilith, and can give their kids a leg up in belos's system.

It's clear it's not illegal for kids to mix magics. Amity was shown training to learn fire magic when she takes abomination classes and also knows plant magic, also willow was allowed to switch tracks.

no one was arrested when Bump decided to let the students choose how many magic classes they want to attend. I imagine Bump was able to justify the change of rules to what ever councle/coven is encharge of education with; "they're going to choose one coven any way so what's the harm?"

So it was against hexides rules but not illegal.

I'll just get to the point and say the average student at hexide wouldn't have stood a chance playing grudgebe beforehand, and it was only the privileged kids who had access to a higher education.

Grudgeby is a sport that would train a witch to be a fairly good fighter. The kids who play it end up being stronger. They join the emperors coven and now belos has powerful soldiers straight out of school who don't need as much training with their magic. Maybe just discipline.

LUZ where the FUCK are you looking, what are you looking at?!?

What-