#This has been Kaleidotrope Thoughts with Em

[courfaeriedust]

Okay I would like to talk about Sam the Quarterback in Kaleidotrope, because I adore her and also her arc is so funny to me.

So this is her big realisation moment:

I think this is one of my favourite pieces of Sidlesmith ridiculousness because it’s just, what??? This team have won basically every game intentionally playing badly, until the timing is dramatic enough to stage a desperate comeback. Every game. Every game, and they just think it’s all because of the Sidlesmith Magic. Like, what is up with that??? Do they think they’re a really bad team and it’s only because of the Magic that they’re able to win? Are they just fucking around til the last minute? Are they instructed to do this by their coaches in order to keep the football-watching population of Sidlesmith happy and secure that the tropes are still going as planned??

And what’s it like to play on that team? If they’re winning every game they must be highly ranked (I am very British please feel free to correct me on how American College Football works), so I assume the entry expectations are high? Do they recruit and then the freshmen come in like ‘yeah I can play good football’ and then get told ‘sure, but not until the final quarter’? How frustrating must that be?? But Sam seems to genuinely be shocked by the idea of playing some other way. But imagine also playing against this team. You start playing. You’re winning easily. You get cocky and then Sidlesmith start playing well suddenly and oops they’ve smashed up your lead and is this even the same team, suddenly you’re way outmatched and there’s nothing you can do and then oops you lost, even though no one should have been able to make up for that lead you had during the first three quarters. And you hear that they’ve done it to other teams, no matter how good. And so the next time you play against them you keep your guard up, you warn all your rookies. They don’t believe you after the first quarter, but you know what you’ve seen. You keep the lead up; Sidlesmith get some scrappy points but nothing nearly to the level you remember them being at last time. And then when you’re begging your team not to let this lull you into a false sense of security, BAM, Sidlesmith take it seriously again and even though you play your hardest you suddenly can’t do anything to keep hold of the ball. AGAIN. And you ask them about it afterwards, because this must be some kind of joke, right? They must be mocking you, or maybe they think you’re a terrible team and they don’t want to make you look too bad. But no, it’s none of that — or at least, they don’t say that. They just talk about the “Sidlesmith Magic”. All of them, with no conferring. If it’s a joke they’re all incredible actors. You seriously wonder if it’s some kind of performance-enhancing drug, this magic stuff, but you find out another team had accused them of that, demanded drug tests, and had to drop a bunch of their own teammates as a result. All the Sidlesmith team had been indisputably clean. So you’re left with nothing, no answers, a demoralised team, and thousands of questions about what the hell the Sidlesmith team are up to.

This got so very off track, but anyway: Sam’s incredible, what the actual fuck is up with that whole thing, and I’m so excited for Sam’s future where she just obliterates every single team in the league.