Read Between The Line From The Other Side
buckle and lock in folks. i fear imperialfire is one of my favorite duos so this is bouta be LONG
Wemmbu's tones during the entire fight just keep coming back to me man. He sounds so TIRED.
When he was telling Flame "Are you seriously gonna make me hunt down Lomedy, or any other friends on the server you have? Really?" like Wemmbu doesn't WANT to that's the whole thing HNGGGG he doesn't WANT to do ANY of this he didn't want to be apart of Arachnids Civ, he didn't want to be fighting Flame now, he didn't WANT any of this. I absolutely adore this because it is almost a DIRECT parallel of POWER ARC
In POWER ARC Wemmbu was instigating fights, he was running into battle, HE was the one who sought out Flame to fight over and over. I've seen people on tumblr talk about how it was unfair to Flame how Wemmbu was trying to take a title that FLAME earned for himself, but after factoring in this fight? I think it was absolutely perfect. It's a comparison of how UU was back then, and how it is now. It ties in what Parrot was saying to Saps about how the server USED to be, it's direct characterization and its SO SOSOSOSOS GOODDDD
But back to my original point, Wemmbu sounded absolutely dejected and again in his TONES. "Or are you gonna keep digging away from me."
If this was the battle Flame truly wanted, the end of that sentance would have an uptick in tone. It would be a taunt, Wemmbu goading him into surfacing and fighting him. Here it's completely FLAT maybe even downturned.
This fight wasn't what Flame wanted. This fight was him beating up a desperate Wemmbu who only cared about the ONLY chance he has to save Egg. I wanna bet that Wemmbu wasn't even thinking about HIS freedom. His thought process ended at "Get Egg to safety" and didnt go to "Oh if Egg is free then I'm free" like YOU SAID @spokes-wormhole Wemmbu doesn't CARE about himself and it's so apparent here this is the one time I want to fully throttle Flame and shake him so hard to make him see what he did wronggg
If this was the fight Flame wanted, Wemmbu would've adapted. Flame caught Wemmbu in the same position with the webs sooo much I feel like again if this wasn't a battle out of desperation then Wemmbu would've adapted and figured out that Flame was using this over and over again.
FLAME EVEN CALLS IT OUT WHICH MAKES IT SO MUCH MORE APPARENT!!! He TELLS Wemmbu that he can restock, that he should just go get water and not fight drained, he basically said that he would rather Wemmbu go get a restock than just fight him with dwindling resources.
As @spokes-wormhole also said, "wemmbu is so desperate because this is egg's life on the lines, but he's desperate enough to not even try to help himself."
He was throwing himself headfirst, because if he left for a second just to restock? What if Flame pulled the stasis because he thought Wemmbu was running? What if Flame thought he wasn't being hOnOraBle and pulled the stasis. Again, this was the situation to Wemmbu. if he didn't win, it was all going to shit.
You could almost SEE Wemmbu's gears turning in his head as Flame told him that he was gonna give Egg's pearls back no matter what. It was that INSTANT split second change. To Wemmbu, this was Egg's life on the line. If he won, Egg would be safe, and if he lost, Egg would be dead.
This also just instantly tracks back to Rejoice for me, and as @goldfrog said, "To Wemmbu, he could have avoided Rejoices death if he refused to team, so its his fault. Wemmbu doesnt want to live through another friend dying because of him, so he’d rather die than take the blame like Spoke said. Says a lot about how Wemmbu despises guilt so much hed rather die than face it."
This battle ran so much more deep for Wemmbu than Flame realized. Yes, Wemmbu has only really lost Rejoice, yes it was from a Warden and not even directly himself, but YES he took it as his fault, YES he cared about Rejoice, and YES in WEMMBU'S EYES he let Rejoice down.
It was a matter of title for Flame, and it was life or death for Wemmbu.
I strongly believe (THIS IS ALSO BASED OFF WHAT @spokes-wormhole HAS THEORIZED AND HEADCANNONED) that Wemmbu would not survive Egg dying. Rejoice already changed him so so SO much, and losing Egg not only means that he loses a friend.
Losing Egg means he loses someone HE brought onto the server. Remember TZE? It was Wemmbu who asked for Egg to be on the server. Losing this battle with Flame means that he lets the one person who has ALWAYS had faith in him, ALWAYS, he lets them down. He would be the reason, and it would only be his fault in his eyes. He wasn't strong enough, he wasn't smart enough, he wasn't ENOUGH.
Imperialfire when I catch you-
(TYSM FOR LETTING ME USE YOUR IDEAS I ADORED SEEING WHAT YOU ALL MADE OF THE BATTLE :D ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT)
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