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I (24f) have never had any luck with dating. Social anxiety always fucks me over and in combination with RBF I just apparently look unapproachable. I'm honestly sick of being single and I'm in a place where I'm ready to start dating. Been talking to a few guys on Bumble just to dip my feet in the water. But I never got the hang of flirting.
But wouldn't you know it, when I came back into my office after lunch, there was an electrician working on the lights. And I noticed he was hella cute. But I wasn't going to really say much to him other than "hi! Let me get out of your way" because well, the man has a job to do. I'm not going to distract him! He's on a ladder and could fall for God's sake.
Well one of my coworkers stops by and we have a pretty good friendship where we kinda act goofy together. She had said something that reminded me that I had to check the office mailbox before a certain time and I went "oh shoot! Hang on, I gotta check the mail! Be right back!". Well my coworker in a sarcastic tone says , "hey why don't you go check the mail?" And I replied "well, I think maybe I should just go check the mail instead" dumb shit like that back and forth. And I grab the mail box key and my coworker walks away. But Mr Electrician Hottie kinda just smirks and looks over at me and says "hey, maybe you should check the mail" AND WINKS AT ME. I died a little bit inside but played it cool and said "heh, you know, THAT is a great idea! I think I'll do that" and I walk off to do it, because I seriously needed to get it by a specific time to get a package to my boss before she left for the day. But that WINK. I had a little pep in my step going to that mailbox. That was possibly the most attractive wink I've ever seen. And somehow, I just wanted to flirt with this man. All shyness just disappeared. I'm determined. I'm gonna flirt a little and maybe get this man's number.
Anyways, 2 minutes later, I'm back at my desk, he's still up on the ladder, get gets the light working again and I said something about him now being in the spotlight.
He gets down, gathers up some of the trash from the pieces he swapped out, and said "hey I'm almost done, but I forgot something out in the truck. I'll be right back"
So I smile and replied "Is that a threat?" Ya know, kinda coy. And he just laughed and said "well it can be." And walked out with his work partner.
I'm thinking I'm doing well here. The vibes are good so far. Haven't really gotten to talk to him a lot since I really just got back from lunch and he was already mostly done. But progress! I've got him laughing and winking at me!
I can see him walking to the truck from the lobby windows and it's only been like 2 seconds since I just made him chuckle and he has a huge ass grin on his face. He grabs the last part from the truck, his partner says something and gets in the truck, and he gets a big ol smile again as he's walking back inside. I'm thinking"THIS IS IT. I'VE GOT THIS". He does his thing to finish up and he starts to leave. As he walks passed me, I smile and suddenly have NO idea what to say. Like COME ON SAY SOMETHING. He just smiles and says goodbye and I smile back and just tell him to have a good day.
WHAT THE FUCK. WHY DID I FREEZE UP THEN? I COULD HAVE BEEN LIKE "it was nice talking to you" batted my eyes or some shit and then asked for his number. BUT NO. I FUCKED IT UP.
I text my best friend like "oh fuck my life I finally flirted and still fucked up." She tells me to go back outside to the work truck and talk to him since I mentioned that it had been 10 minutes and he was still out there. But I couldn't. All my social anxiety came back and I doubted myself and whether or not he wasn't actually flirting with me. Looking back on it now a few hours like, of course he was! The wink goddammit! And by the time I thought, yeah I should go out there, my boss came around and I couldn't just up and go to the parking lot. I feel like that would be unprofessional of me and also, what am I going to say to explain why I went out? "Oh I wanted to flirt?" Nah. Thats not gonna fly.
So I know the company he works for, but not his name. I don't have the work invoice so I can't check that. And what the fuck am I gonna do? Call his work and ask for his name? What kinda creepy stalker shit would that be?
Anyways, now I'm kicking myself and stalking this company's FB page to see if they have ever posted employee pictures with names. And again, what would I even do with that info that wouldn'take me seem totally crazy? He didn't tell me his name, so how would I even explain how I got it?
GAHHHHH
I know it's stupid. It was very light flirting. But I felt some type of way about it. There was some chemistry there. I kinda was hoping the whole time that he was parked out there that he would come back in and just be like "hey wanna go out sometime?" But that did not happen. So now I'm going to go lay in bed, watch YouTube videos, and come to terms with the fact that I fucked up my chance.
Fuck my life. Would should I do? Anything at this point? Or cut my losses and try again 10 years from now when I get another chance? Because seriously, this never happens to me. I never get to flirt.

This drama is mainly about the events of Season 7/World Championship 7 (WC7), the season of Battlebots that aired in 2023. Big spoilers for the season inbound, including the overall winner, along with spoilers of the outcomes and winners of previous seasons.
I will try my hardest to be unbiased which is hard because I am extremely biased and any attempt to be unbiased could only come across as enlightened centrism. I will simply try to keep the bias to a manageable level.

Battlebots

In case you don't know, Battlebots (well, combat robotics, but Battlebots is the most well-known and publicized event by an order of magnitude) is a... sport? Game? Hobby? Lifestyle? Where the goal is to throw two robots of a comparable weight against each other, with the goal to destroy each other. Battlebots itself is in the heavyweight category, with a 250 lb weight limit per robot. Other popular weight classes (relatively popular - heavyweight is the only televised one) are antweight (1 lb), beetleweight (3 lb), hobbyweight (12 lb), and lightweight (30 lb.) Battlebots itself airs on Discovery, generally with a main season and a spinoff season each year.
If you watched Battlebots back in the late 90s when it was on Comedy Central, you might remember robots that were basically big wedges pushing each other around a square and maybe occasionally taking a bit of armor off. That's not how it is anymore. Bots are destructive, powerful, and great spectacles to watch fight. Seriously, you should watch Battlebots. It's on Discovery+ and HBO Max. If you don't want to spend the money, Norwalk National Havoc Robotics League (NHRL) has competitions every few months that are livestreamed for free on Youtube in the smaller weight classes.
In case it's not clear from the write-up, Battlebots is filmed usually in the fall, and the season airs spring the next year. So all of the events in this write-up occurred over a 2-week period in OctobeNovember 2022, but only were public drama as the episodes aired January-May 2023. Much like any reality/game show, all the builders, production, etc. knew the outcome of the season before anything aired, there's just millions of dollars of NDAs.

The Culture

Something interesting about Battlebots that might surprise those unfamiliar with it is the culture. While teams work as hard as they can to reduce the other robot to splintered scrap in the box, back in the pits everyone is super awesome and nice and kind and helpful - a frequent occurrence is going to the pit of the bot you just took apart and seeing if there is any way you can help with the rebuild.
The classic example is in the 2021 season, when the iconic Witch Doctor's weapon disk kept breaking due to poor quality steel. They were scrambling to find material and resources to machine a new disk, when a ton of teams came together to save their season.
Team Sporkinok (yes, that's a trans Battlebot) lent them their pickup truck, to go pick up steel from a nearby supplier who was found by the captain of Team Blacksmith.
They needed to recreate the failure to figure out was wrong, so Team Shatter (the biggest, strongest hammer-bot in the competition) took their robot to the test box to try and break a disk.
They took the steel to the nearby build space of Team Chomp, who stayed up all night on their waterjet to cut new disks (the new disks worked well, by the way.)
After the season, they still didn't know for sure what the cause was, so they worked with Team Hypershock to create a dummy test robot, modeled after the very durable robot (and future 2022 champs) Tantrum, they could test the old disks on. They then sent the broken disks to a materials science lab run by a friend of the captain of Team Tantrum to perform materials analysis.
Many of these teams had fought Witch Doctor in the past, others would fight them in the future. But that doesn't matter - in robot combat, everyone is friends outside the box.
Right?

Riptide

Every year there are of course rookie bots competing for the first time. Sometimes from veteran teams and builders, such as last year's Blip (from the creators of Tantrum), or this year's RIPperoni, from former members of the teams behind Uppercut and P1, but just as often from new builders, at least new to heavyweight (almost nobody starts out with with the robots that can cost as much as a new car.)
One of these 'new-to-heavyweight' rookies last year was Riptide, captained by Ethan Kurtz (the guy with the "you know I had to do it to em" pose.) Ethan had found a good amount of success previously with the beetleweight Rival, and Riptide was basically Rival writ 80 times bigger. Riptide had a pretty good first season, winning 2 out of their 3 qualifying fights and making it to the quarterfinals before losing to the extremely good SawBlaze.
No real controversy, aside from a false start and early hit on HUGE in their first fight - written off as "I'm fighting a heavyweight on Battlebots for the first time" nerves, no hard feelings from anyone, not even HUGE. They also gave fan-favorite (formerly) indestructible brick Duck! such a bad thrashing that Duck! permanently retired after that fight (Duck! was having a bad year anyway, that fight was just the icing on the cake.)
Their success led to them co-winning Rookie of the Year alongside Glitch, who won an amazing 7 fights in a row, a feat only done before by 3-time championship winner and undisputed GOAT Bite Force (Glitch had to bow out of the tournament because their bot had taken irreparable damage despite the victories, but it's possible they could have extended it even further.) Riptide became well known for Ethan screaming "LET'S GO!" (or sometimes, "LET'S F------ GO"!", giving the censors a bit of a workout and annoying production) after big wins.
So coming into season 8, their sophomore year, hopes are high for Riptide and people want to see this breakout star do well, right? After all, there's no big controversy in their funding or anything, is there?

Stan Kurtz

Stan is the bald dude next to Ethan in the team picture. He's Ethan's dad, and also one of the main sponsors for the team through his company BeCourageous. Where did Stan Kurtz get his money to sponsor a big team? Well, he once had a company named RevitaPOP. RevitaPOP made vitamin B12 lollipops. If you know anything about 'alternative medicine,' this is where you say "oh no."
Stan Kurtz was once upon a time the president of Generation Rescue. Yes, that Generation Rescue, the Jenny McCarthy 'vaccines-cause-autism' one. He was instrumental in getting the 'movement' off the ground in the first place - I even seem to recall seeing a link to a talk he did where he said he was backstage for McCarthy's interview with Larry King, but I'm not about to sift through hours of his horrid talks and speeches to find it.
Stan Kurtz sold lollipops that he claimed cured autism, autism that he and his organization claimed was caused by vaccines. In fact, he claimed they even cured his son Ethan's autism! Remember this when you read about Ethan's behavior - it's not an excuse, but "autistic but prevented from going to any kind of therapy or anything because it would make his dad look like a liar" is certainly an explanation.
Let me divest into opinion for a sec. Stan Kurtz is evil. There is a direct line between the actions of Stan Kurtz promoting vaccine denalism and snake oil cures, and dead children. Fuck Stan Kurtz. Every other problem with Team Riptide could be overlooked if they did not have this dude as their primary sponsor (which necessarily would require replacing Ethan as captain, because you can't separate him from his dad financially.) Okay, back to the writeup.
But put a pin in "Riptide's captain and his dad are antivaxxers" - it's a surprise tool that will help us later.

Riptide in WC7

Fight 1: Glitch

Aside from that, people didn't have that much of an opinion on Riptide going in to WC7 (and even that wasn't too widely known until partway through the season.) Generally, there was a feeling of "let's see if they can keep it up" - often a lot of very promising rookie bots have weak second seasons. They started the season fighting Glitch, to see who was truly better. One hit, weapon-on-weapon, and Glitch fucking died. Upside down, weapon not spinning, no way to self-right.
Team Glitch asked Riptide to hit them again try to flip them back over, maybe knock some life back into the bot. Not an uncommon thing, but sometimes it backfires. Riptide did, launched Glitch across the box, and now Glitch was super-dead. Instant, extremely decisive knockout for Riptide. No drama yet.

Fight 2: MaD CatTer

Now on to the second fight. This one was against MaD CatTer, consisting of community college professor Martin Mason (goatee in the middle) and his students. Martin Mason is known for his intentionally cheesebally and over-the-top Macho Man imitation/homage, with lots of pointing at the camera and saying "Oh yeah!" Also by all regards the nicest man on planet Earth and one of the most beloved figures in combat robotics.
Of note is MaD CatTer's driver, Calvin Iba (guy beneath Martin's pointing hand.) Calvin Iba is one of the few builders better known for his smaller robot - his robot Lynx is the winningest beetleweight of all time, with an incredible 11 tournament wins, 8 undefeated, and an overall record of 86-11 as of December 2022 (and several events since then, but I can't find overall fight records of those events.) Now, Lynx is a very similar design to Rival (and therefore Riptide) - Lynx predates Rival by a few months, but the design is relatively generic and common at lower weight classes so it's not exactly plagarism.
This is relevant because Battlebots production tried to stir up drama, painting Calvin as angry that Ethan copied his bot and scaled it up to 250lb before Calvin could himself. For what it's worth Calvin did play into it a bit (he brought Lynx to the fight), but by all regards there aren't really any serious hard feelings about that. "Beater bars" (the weapon style of Riptide/Lynx/Rival) predate all three bots. Worth noting that Rival lost to Lynx in a brutal slugfest in the semifinals match of NHRL a few years ago, so maybe Ethan had a bit of a revenge arc more than anything.
On to the fight. MaD CatTer is a pretty serious bot - not most people's favorite to win it all, but a 'serious contender for semifinals' kind of bot - so nobody knew how this would go. It was back and forth for... about 10 seconds, then Riptide got one good hit and did not let up. MaD CatTer got taken apart like they never had before, left a smoking mess, stuck sideways against the arena wall, knocked out within a minute. Riptide then drove around a bit and punted pieces of MaD CatTer around the box, which got them a warning from the ref for being unsafe and for doing unnecessary damage to perfectly salvageable components of MaD CatTer. The team apologized later for that, saying they wouldn't do it again. Remember that.
Okay, two rapid knockouts against serious bots. Riptide is definitely not suffering from the sophomore curse. But in the post-fight interview, we did get a little taste of Ethan being a bit of a jerk - basically dismissed Calvin/Lynx as worse Riptide, and put his hand over Martin's mouth (without Martin's permission) as a way of saying "shut up wrestler man!" Could have been funny, but it came across as somewhat mean-spirited and Martin clearly was not cool with it (and Martin Mason is not a sore loser - he spends almost every post-fight interview gushing about how good the other robot is, even if MaD CatTer loses.) Production asked Calvin what he thought, and he said (while holding Lynx) "well, I designed this robot to be unbeatable, it's a great robot to base it off of. Good job." Good comeback.

Fight 3: Captain Shrederator

Captain Shrederator is a longtime veteran, being one of the few robots (alongside Witch Doctor, Hypershock, and Lock-Jaw) who has competed in all 7 seasons of the reboot. And they've competed for even longer - under various names and throughout various small tweaks, Captain Shrederator is basically the same robot as Phrizbee, from original Battlebots Season 3.0 in 2001. They're not exactly good by any modern standard, to be honest, but they're fun and an institution of the show. Worth noting that leading up to this fight, Nick Nave (son of Shrederator captain Brian Nave and a member of the team) had been hinting at possible controversy around this fight for a few weeks beforehand on the subreddit, so people were ready for some shit.
So going in, everyone expects Riptide to win. Here's a bot that made MaD CatTer look like a middleweight, versus a team with, at the time, a 6-18 career record. Riptide can't be complacent because even Shrederator can do some damage if you let it (by some metrics, Shrederator may have the most powerful weapon in the competition), but it's their fight to lose. Ethan Kurtz explains his strategy in an interview before the fight - get some big hits that flip Shrederator over. Once they're upside-down, they can't self-right and they'll be counted out. Makes sense, a solid, quick, safe, easy way to win. Well, watch the fight here if you can.
If you can't, I will summarize: It starts off with Shrederator dodging Riptide and spinning up, until eventually Riptide gets a solid hit that breaks a piece of Shrederator's shell off and destabilizes them. One more big hit from Riptide and Shrederator lands upside-down - it's over. Well, no. Riptide then goes in and hits them again before they can be counted out. And again. And again. And again. At this point Shrederator is basically completely dead, but it's still able to spin. Shrederator's team calls over to Riptide "yo, stop it we're dead already." Riptide hits Shrederator again. Riptide's weapon operator tells Ethan to hit him again. And so he does. And one more time, as sparks fly out of Shrederator's pulverized electronics. Riptide leaves Shrederator dead on the floor, as they go and, you guessed it, punt shrapnel around the box. At this point the referee has to physically take the controller from Ethan (while the rest of team Riptide tries to stop the ref.)
Of course this is a KO for Riptide, but in doing so they did around $10,000 worth of extra, unnecessary damage to Shrederator, and almost the entire bot had to be thrown out and rebuilt from spares. Riptide was not apologetic (and in fact later Ethan would gloat to the camera over how Team Shrederator hadn't even tried to rebuild their bot.) No members of Team Riptide helped Shrederator rebuild either, though one did offer. (It wasn't Ethan, Stan, or the weapon operator Sid.)
To say this was controversial to the community would be lying. Controversy requires some argument or debate. There was none - everyone thought Riptide went way too far. Riptide later tried to say "we interpreted their spinning as intent to keep fighting, and we couldn't hear them asking us to stop." Which was seen by most of the community as a load of crap, since Ethan had said to the camera that he didn't need to do those late hits just before the fight, and teams are bantering with each other in fights all the time. Riptide was formally warned by the ref again for this fight.
At this point, the editors I guess realized that controversy sells. In almost every remaining episode of the season, even ones where Riptide didn't fight, they had some clip of Riptide, or Ethan, or something else to rub in "these guys are really mean and have a good bot, wHaT iF tHeY wIn???" Very much a 'whenver Riptide's not on screen, all the other robots should be asking "Where's Riptide?"' situation. It got old very fast (read: instantly.)

Fight 4: Black Dragon

You want to talk about beloved teams, you have to mention Black Dragon. This Brazilian team is known for two things - their plush duck, which they won in a claw machine the first time they came to the US for a competition and have kept as a good luck charm ever since, and their durability - they had gone a near-record 24 matches without ever getting knocked out, winning all of those fights or losing by judge's decision. Leading up to this fight, Battlebots kept having segments showing how Black Dragon had almost surpassed Bite Force for the "most fights without a KO" streak (Bite Force was never KO'd in its entire 4-season career, going 26-1 with 1 lost JD.) Of course, then they had to fight Riptide.
This fight was probably the least controversial Riptide fight of the season - you can watch it here. Riptide went in and did not let up, unrelenting, leading to the Brazilian bot suffering their first ever KO in under a minute. Riptide was actually pretty chill in the post-fight interview, very respectful towards Black Dragon - I guess that ref warning stuck. For now. With that, Riptide advanced to 4-0 in the qualifiers, and ended up securing themselves the #2 overall seed (behind the undefeated Brazilian monster Minotaur, a favorite to win it all every season and the season 3 runner-up.)

Round of 32: Shatter

For those who don't know, Battlebots has a series of qualifying fights (this year, 4 fights per bot) to determine, out of the contenders (50 this year), which 32 get to compete in the tournament for the Giant Nut, and where they will be seeded. As the #2 seed, Riptide got to fight the #31 seed - hammer-bot Shatter, who you saw earlier helping Witch Doctor. Now, let me not mince words - Shatter was fucked. To paraphrase a comment I saw, "If Shatter drives like a god, gets the most perfect hammer shots ever, and in general is the best a hammer has ever looked in the history of hammers... they will still lose." There was no way Shatter could ever, ever win, barring some kind of catastrophic self-induced failure from Riptide. But damn it, Shatter captain Adam Wrigley was sure as hell going to try.
Now, for more info, the bots have rules that govern what you can do. There's a lot, but 2 are relevant - strict 250 lb weight limit, and the tip speed of a spinning weapon cannot exceed 250 mph. Bots are weighed before each fight to confirm the weight limit, and all bots with spinners have to do tip speed tests in the test box. After the weigh-in, you cannot modify or work on your bot in any way without the approval of production and safety. Not for anything. Maybe a sticker if you want.
So when a Shatter team member found Riptide working on their bot in the tunnel leading from the pits just before the fight, questions were had, and team Shatter demanded Riptide be reweighed and tip speed retested (there were rumors in the pits that they were spinning faster than 250mph.) The team later explained they were attaching a plastic hammer to the robot to mimic Shatter (teams doing funny decorative mods to their bot to mimic the other bot is a longstanding tradition.) All evidence seemed to point to that being the case, so nobody thinks they were lying about it, but it still warranted a reweigh. My opinion - that's fine, but tell production. If people think you're going to do something illegal, and you do something legal but in a way that looks illegal, don't be surprised when people think you're doing something illegal.
I will note that the show made a big deal out of how when Riptide was weighed before they were 'caught,' they weighed in at 250 lb, and the re-weighing said they were 248. There was some concern from Shatter about that, not helped by Stan Kurtz being kind of smug back to them. In response to one Shatter member asking "Why is it 248 now and 250 before?", Stan responded "You're right, there's something wrong. We made it lighter." Now, the thing with this is that there are multiple scales, they're not extremely precise, and if anyone has ever worked with industrial scales before you know how easily they come out of calibration. Some builders have said that whether or not the AC was on could add a pound of weight from the airflow. The "250lb" scale was not the same as the "248lb" scale as well. Generally, nobody really thinks there is something up with the weight, but working on the bot post-weigh-in absolutely warrants a reweigh, no matter who it is.
Riptide complained a lot about it, to the point where the word "whiney" comes to mind. You messed up, teams are meant to tell production before they add decorative stuff and you didn't, so you need to be reweighed. You've already pissed people off in the past so don't be surprised when they give you a bit more scrutiny. Take your lumps, apologize, act like adults, and maybe people will give you the benefit of the doubt next time. Instead, there was a lot of "oh boo is me, we're being discriminated against" - a direct quote from Ethan is "their paranoia is affecting our performance, I think it's really uncool that they did this." Granted, if the scale drifted the other way and they had to lose 2lb of armor to satisfy the arbitrary scale drift, I would get it more, but as it is they just look, well, whiney.
At this time, unbeknownst to anyone until they revealed it on a livestream, Team Whyachi (the team behind the powerful flipper Hydra, engine of (self-)destruction Fusion, and Comedy Central-era legend Son of Whyachi, who had the pit next to Riptide, was asked by production to put a spy camera up to make sure everything was above board. Allegedly they also began doing analysis of the audio and video of the actual fights, to make sure teams (read: one team) weren't cheating and spinning faster than the "maximum speed" they did in the test box.
However, aside from the (explainable, acceptable) scale drift, Riptide was not found to be cheating with tip speed or anything else. Shatter accepted this without complaint - they just wanted to be sure. So, that's out of the way. Ethan basically said "they are paranoid and are trying to ruin us so we will crush them" - fair enough, I suppose. Here's the fight (note: this video includes the entire 'weigh-in' drama before the fight if you want to watch it instead of just reading about it.) For what it's worth, Shatter lasted longer than anyone yet against Riptide - almost 2 minutes - but it went the way everyone expected. The most unexpected thing was in the post-fight, where Ethan basically said "Adam is a paranoid loser" (alongside, allegedly, some more personal insults that got cut), then went in for a "sporting" handshake. Unsurprisingly, Adam refused it.
Now, Adam is basically the "union rep" for the builders - he's the guy chosen (by the builders) to represent them when Battlebots is thinking about changing the rules. He is a very widely respected guy and is by all accounts very sporting and nice. So when you've pissed him off enough that he refuses the handshake (only the second refused handshake in modern Battlebots history, as far as I am aware), you know you fucked up. But either way, Riptide is on to the round of 16.

Round of 16: Hypershock

You saw Hypershock earlier. They're quite good - definitely a contender, though generally not going to be anyone's main pick to win it all. This year, they were the #18 seed after a rough set of qualifiers, fighting 2021 champs End Game, 2021 runner-up Whiplash, perennial contender SawBlaze, and the confusingly fast Claw Viper (seriously watch this, look how fast that boy is.) But after a solid win over #15 seed Lucky, they were on to the round of 16.
When I say Hypershock is a fan favorite, I mean they are the fan favorite - between their iconic style, aggressive driving, and captain Will Bales's humor and charisma, it's probably not wrong to say Hypershock is the most popular bot and team around. People love Hypershock, and people don't love Riptide, so this fight had a lot of "save us, O-Will Bales Kenobi, you're our only hope" energy with the community. Leading up to this, Will said in an interview that Riptide was good, but every team can't be good forever, and that someday Ethan will experience, in Will's words, a "humbling event."
But Hypershock wasn't the odds-on favorite here - Will Bales's flashy driving tends to lead to errors, and against something as nasty as Riptide, any error is death. The full fight isn't uploaded, but here's a clip of the post-fight highlight reel. Will started out doing a 'box rush' (charging straight at the other bot as soon as the fight starts), only to attempt to dodge to the side. Unfortunately, this led to him powersliding directly into Riptide's weapon, losing a wheel, and getting flipped over.
Now, the thing with vertical spinners in Battlebots is they spin 'up' - this means that the outer side goes up and the inner side goes down, so you can brace your own bot against the floor and send the other one flying. Now Hypershock is upside down, effectively spinning 'down,' so the energy from hits pushes the other bot down and themselves up. Riptide is spinning 'up' as normal. Both of these are extremely powerful weapons. Both want to send Hypershock into the air. So what happens when they collide? The energy of both weapons goes into sending Hypershock flying up over 25 feet and slamming into the ceiling of the Battlebox. Remember that that thing weighs 250 pounds. To quote Will in the post-fight interview, "nobody has ever been hit like that before." Much to the chagrin of Hydra captain Jake Ewert, who had the goal of being the first-ever bot to send another bot into the ceiling (and came within inches in their fight against Deathroll), Riptide made Battlebots history here.
The rest of the fight goes as expected at this point and Hypershock is KO'd, with Riptide moving into the quarterfinals. Sorry Will, you aren't the humbling event this time.

Quarterfinals: Copperhead

It's the final episode of the season - the quarterfinals, semifinals, and finals are all in one episode. People are spooked because Riptide is a incredible, powerful bot built and driven by shitty people, and nobody wants them to win but they might. But to go any further, they have to beat Copperhead.. This snake-themed bot is probably best known for getting a new captain almost every year, and this year it's Luke Quintal in charge for his first time. They just came off of an insanely dominant upset over 2021 champs End Game.
Luke has said that he was too focused on Copperhead to pay attention to the controversy, so he became aware of it when, leading up to this fight, builders kept coming up to him and whispering in his hear "dude, you have to beat Riptide. You have to beat them. You might be our last hope." He's just a first-year captain/driver, with the oldest bot in the competition (Copperhead has had the same two frames for its entire 4-year career - this is the longest any frame has competed in the history of modern Battlebots without replacement), who's had to have back-to-back fights against rookie of the year Ripperoni, 2018 Most Destructive winner ROTATOЯ, and End Game. No pressure.
Now, people have tried ways to beat Riptide. You can't just tank their hits with a durable bot (Black Dragon.) You can't outdrive them with fancy footwork (Hypershock.) But something nobody has been man insane enough to try is to go weapon-to-weapon on purpose to break Riptide's weapon. Copperhead just went weapon-to-weapon with End Game and broke theirs. Copperhead is durable enough to take those huge hits Riptide deals out. So their strategy is to just go berserk until something breaks. But there's one major plot twist left.
Remember how I said the Kurtzes are anti-vaxxers? Well, the pandemic is still going on. In order to get into the pits, you either had to be double-vaxxed or test negative every day. Well, there's no confirmation that Ethan was or was not vaxxed (but let's be real), but guess what? In the greatest Chekhov's gun in Battlebots history, he tested positive for COVID the day of the Copperhead fight. Riptide is out their driver for their biggest fight ever.
Other builders have confirmed that this was not the first or only time that team members had to miss days due to testing positive, but previous times either 1) did not involve the drivers, or 2) were in the qualifying rounds where fights could be postponed to following days. But neither was the case this time. Now, this is really a shitty situation for Riptide, and I do feel some degree of pity for them - what a thing to happen. But at the same time, lmao.
Riptide has to spend most of the day deciding who would drive the robot in the fight. The first person they ask? Jack Barker, driver of End Game and 2021 world champion. Jack agreed - can you blame him? Riptide is a hell of a bot, probably super fun to drive, and who knows, maybe he could win another Giant Nut. This got as far as Jack driving Riptide around the test box, before Luke found out and was like "hang on, no. He's not on your team. It's not fair that you can just go to the best driver in the pits and ask them to drive for you." Production agreed and hastily made a new rule where the driver has to be a member of the team. This all was not in the episode, and was only revealed by Luke Quintal after the season aired.
Team Riptide then deliberated between the several members of the team who might stand a chance. They eventually decide on team member Felix Jing, who's an award-winning Vex Robotics driver but has never driven a heavyweight before. Felix seemed to be a nice enough guy, and pretty humble. However, in the deliberations over who would drive, they lose time and are unable to replace their damaged weapon from the Hypershock fight.
So the fight. Riptide box rushes Copperhead, and the first weapon-to-weapon sends Copperhead flying. Luke's bot is still going, though, and goes in for another clash. This goes on for a few hits, until a massive hit sends Copperhead flying up and Riptide flying back - but when they come to, Copperhead's weapon is spinning... and Riptide's weapon is cracked down the middle, exactly what Copperhead was aiming for.
Copperhead does not let up and keeps hitting, eventually ripping about a quarter of Riptide's weapon off completely. However, the damage from the last 4 years of fighting added up. Those big hits from Riptide were the final straw - one of Copperhead's two wheels just falls off. Copperhead can still move, just about, on just one wheel, but suddenly this fight got a lot closer. They keep hitting Riptide, but it goes to the judges after the full 3 minutes.
It's a split decision. Battlebots is scored on an 11-point system - 5 points for damage, and 3 each for aggression and control.
All three judges gave Copperhead three damage points to Riptide's two and Riptide two control points to Copperhead's one.
The first judge scored aggression 2-1 for Copperhead. 6-5 Copperhead.
The second judge scored aggression 2-1 for Riptide. 6-5 Riptide.
The third judge scored aggression 2-1 for the winner...
Copperhead!
They did it, they saved the goddamn universe. We will not have to live in a world where the ur-anti-vaxxer and his dickhead kid win Battlebots. Everyone is fucking ecstatic. I cheered. The audience cheered. God probably cheered. And boy, did the pits cheer - some builders have said this was the biggest celebration in the pits they had ever seen. Tim Rackley of Monsoon (big lad with the flag) apparently was picking Luke up and carrying him around the pits cheering. Riptide is out.
It's a pity Ethan wasn't there to experience his 'humbling event' in person, but it happened. He was there on a video call on a tablet - apparently, production did ask him how he felt and he went on a 5-minute rant about how the team was being forced to face jealousy and adversity because they had to get reweighed. The entire rant was cut from the episode that aired. I've seen conflicting reports if he said "if I was there we would have won," but it would be in character if he did.
Team Riptide used their appeal (each team gets one) to ask the judges to re-review the fight - they did (absolutely fair - you have nothing to lose, anyone should appeal in this situation), and as though to rub it in even more, the sole judge who ruled for Riptide changed his mind about Riptide's aggression, giving Copperhead a unanimous JD. The saga of Riptide in WC7 ends here.

Aftermath

There was zero drama of any kind for the rest of the season (all 3 fights of it.) All the fights were great, clean fights between respected and respectful teams and robots. Copperhead ended up losing to HUGE in the semi-finals - no surprise or shame there, HUGE is designed to be invincible to bots like Copperhead. HUGE ended up facing the mighty SawBlaze in the finals, and in probably the best finals match in combat robotics history, SawBlaze managed to win a unanimous JD, giving SawBlaze captain Jamison Go the Giant Nut.
Literally zero people were unhappy with this - both Jamison and HUGE captain Jonathan Schultz are some of the nicest, most genuine, humble builders in the sport, and going into the finals it was very much a "no matter who wins we all win" kind of thing. Both bots are also "non-meta" - "meta" being the general form of bot that Hypershock, Riptide, Witch Doctor, Copperhead, etc. are, a compact vertical spinner - seasons 3-6 saw meta bots win both first place and runner-up, so people were excited to see a finals match with something new on both sides.
This was very recent, so no news if Riptide will be invited back next year. I would be shocked if they weren't, though - controversy sells, and regardless of how bad the team is, the robot is a killing machine that makes for incredible spectacles. There is allegedly a "sportsmanship rule" being added next year - it's a pity that something that has gone unspoken for decades has to codified in rules because of the actions of one team, but hopefully it will help. Between unethical sponsors, destroying fan favorite bots, being rude both inside and outside the box, cheating allegations, and a stunning lack of humility, Riptide really checked all the boxes in the 'bad guys' field this year.
I could say "the viewing community is willing to give Riptide one more chance to apologize and redeem themselves" but that would be a lie. For the most part, the subreddit, main Discord, etc. are all sick and tired of ever seeing the team again, and would love nothing more than for some cool, nice builder to hijack the bot so we can have cool robots and cool people. I don't know how the builders feel - I imagine that they're probably not quite as vehemently opposed to the team on average, but there's probably no love lost.
I enjoyed writing this up quite a lot, because it really was a classic "villain defeats the main good guys, but then the underdog comes out of nowhere and saves the day" story. Also Battlebots rules. Feel free to ask me anything about the show, or any bots, or if you want to see some cool bots that I didn't include. And seriously, watch Battlebots, it's so good. Check out /battlebots - it's the off-season, so the shitposts are about to get real good. I'm running out of characters so the collection of miscellaneous facts I originally had stuck on the end of this writeup is going to be in the comments.

Majority of people here are Christians, my father is and my mom is agnostic but they never forced anything on me. Never heard of the bible, saints, never had pictures around. Nothing.
But for some reason when I was around 10 yo I had a nightmare that I saw a virgin Mary statue with a plate of food underneath, stole me a piece of lunch meat and got slapped across the face by said statue who now looked pissed at me.
I was so scared that I didn't want to go to sleep for days. And so I decided that it was stupid to believe in and worship someone who would slap a child for a piece of lunch meat. So I decided I wouldn't want to be a Christian, ever.
With time, I realised being a Christian wouldn't have been for me anyway, so now, 17 years later, still not a Christian. Still kinda terrified at the sight of virgin Mary statues that are peppered all over the place I live in.

Hi everybody! Just had my consultation with Dr. Chen. Very lovely person but I unfortunately received some disappointing news about my options. I haven't had a enough bottom growth to have my T dick sit in front of my scrotoplasty so it's going to have to sit behind it. This will mean that my T dick will be partially covered though so I won't be able to stimulate it like I do now. My other option was to not get a scrotoplasty but that would mean being unable to get an implant so that's not really any option either. Feeling really frustrated with my body and disappointed that I won't be able to get exactly what I want. Has anybody else experienced this? I could really use any support the community has to offer right now whether it be comfort, sharing experiences advice, resources, etc. If anybody has any pictures to share of having phallo where the t dick is behind the scrotoplasty that would be fantastic. Im pretty set on Dr Chen but I'd also be curious to know if there are any recommended surgeons for that set up. Thanks so much everyone

This is a superb questioning on why specific Covid related policies have been removed. If you're interested in society keeping up protective measures against Covid, which we all should be due to being longhaulers, then like and comment on this clip on YouTube and also retweet it on Twitter:
https://youtu.be/p2rCtaBBdwE
https://twitter.com/CassyOConnorMP/status/1666298040175718400?s=20
This is where I found it first: https://twitter.com/MsAmyLewis/status/1666418535520944129?s=20
And here is one of many reposts: https://twitter.com/EnemyInAState/status/1666544700617109505?s=20
​

So about a month or 2 ago I had mentioned I was gonna do my first PC build I’ve decided to go pre built for a number of reasons. One of them being I have zero experience which isn’t an excuse but a good enough reason for the amount Im willing to invest in my first PC and not wanting to fuck anything up. Im a daytrader so I looked into company’s like NZXT , lytegaming, falcon, and new egg all pretty sweet falcon being the most expensive but the best quality /reliability for what I’m looking for in a PC but in the end -overkill- NZXT was the winner in end ended up going with the player 2 prime. And LG 34” ultrawide monitor. I appreciate all the advice and input I received from here once everything is received and setup I’ll post some pictures.

Click here
Looking for FF or Local Cash only
Open to reasonable offers.
Can provide pictures once I'm home.
* Fire Emblem Fates Special Editiok CiB + Awakening - $500 Shipped
* Dragon Quest 5 CiB - $140 Shipped
* Dragon Quest 9 CiB - $70 Shipped
* Radiant Historia Perfect Chronology - $100 Shipped
* Kirby Super Star Ultra, Dragon ball origin - Free with a purchase of $100 or more (1 Per person)

Hi everybody! Just had my consultation with Dr. Chen. Very lovely person but I unfortunately received some disappointing news about my options. I haven't had a enough bottom growth to have my T dick sit in front of my scrotoplasty so it's going to have to sit behind it. This will mean that my T dick will be partially covered though so I won't be able to stimulate it like I do now. My other option was to not get a scrotoplasty but that would mean being unable to get an implant so that's not really any option either. Feeling really frustrated with my body and disappointed that I won't be able to get exactly what I want. Has anybody else experienced this? I could really use any support the community has to offer right now whether it be comfort, sharing experiences advice, resources, etc. If anybody has any pictures to share of having phallo where the t dick is behind the scrotoplasty that would be fantastic. Im pretty set on Dr Chen but I'd also be curious to know if there are any recommended surgeons for that set up. Thanks so much everyone

Alright, my FIL lives on very nice lake. His wife is very particular but a straight shooter and usually cool so she’s a bonus human..usually.
We got a puppy last year and when we were invited out for the summer to spend time they emphatically invited the puppy as well and we were surprised but they were like OMG OF COURSE and wife was like my son brings his two big dogs all the time, and your dog will def be better than his crazy golden, blah blah. For context they have two small dogs who are close to 10 now. (He’s a AKC canine good citizen since 7mo old and he’s a service dog in training but they’re not aware of the SDIT).
We had to cancel last yr bc partner had a work trip come up and both us and them were booked for the rest of the summer. We live several states away.
They haven’t come out to the state all FIL kids live in ever until there was a recent baptism. During that 36hr in January they were in town they wanted to see our house in person, and in a whirlwind before we turned around and left for dinner they did a run through of the house where they met our good boy (GB). He was 14 mo at the time and gated. FIL loves dogs so he went and really riled him up with pets and baby talk. GB doesn’t jump etc but he gets super wiggly and doesn’t bark but will vocalize awwoooos etc. So FIL insisted he be ungated so he could say hello etc properly while wife did a run through of the house. GB isn’t used to ppl he doesn’t know come over so he was jazzed up and a little over excited/very licky 👅 but I didn’t think anything of it at the time.
We had already committed to this summer and GB had been included again for the week of the 4th.
They usually want us to come a week and we do 4 days bc they can become too much, we don’t have a lot of PTO, and I have a disability so it’s hard to keep up w the pace and agenda of someone else for much longer and it takes a lot out of me. They are not good about things like a disability and so I haven’t disclosed to them and do my best to hide it tho they have noticed some things.
Recently, FIL was trying to plan a camping trip that involved a ferry with very limited schedule that wouldn’t work on the week of the 4th so he suggested we drive through the night and not stop at all. We reminded him we will have the dog so we can’t do that. But we also can’t do that bc we will have worked a full day and are not robots etc. He commented, “oh leave the dog with [other kid] and fly!” We relayed that we can’t bc we have something right after this that GB needs to be at that is 50% of the way between where Partner, GB, I live and FIL. Didn’t think anything of it as we were just discussing logistics but he did throw in “it’s wife it’s wife you know how she gets and worries about hypotheticals but when we met GB it’s just not what we were expecting and she is concerned”. I responded about the latter part saying if wife is concerned about anything plz let me know, GB was excited when you met him but that’s not how he behaves but if there are concerns let’s discuss and I’ll have management plan in place.
Today out of the blue FIL calls partner during the work day, several times, then texts asking him to call saying we need to talk. Partner couldn’t have a convo bc he had a meeting in a few min but FIL was like leave GB w [other kid], we want it to be relaxing and feel like a vacation, we don’t need GB bothering our dogs, etc. partner is like I can’t talk now I’ll call you after work.
I have a feeling it is because though they saw puppy pictures of GB they did not realize he’s a Pitbull/American bully mix bc something was said by wife to that effect. He was excited but not badly behaved and it was his house when they briefly met him. He ran, when freed from the gate, to get a toy “gift” to offer and would wiggle then sit and stair waiting for attention for the few minutes it happened.
I’m torn on how to handle this. Wife is normally a direct communicator and a straight shooter which I appreciate. I feel like if this was about her dogs not being comfortable with a dog guest (like something changed due to age or health) she would have communicated that. But instead she had FIL, who she knows bungles every communication of all time and offends people when giving the best news let alone bad, deliver a message that GB needs to stay w other kid.
A few things that are relevant here: - other kid has a baby, preg wife, will be starting a new job that week, they both work 12 hr shifts or 24s, they have no fence, it’s a crazy presumption by FIL - It 4th of July which is like the superbowl of dogs going missing or killed. GB is not afraid of fireworks but abruptly dropping him somewhere for a week during fireworks and potentially left alone for long periods during that could create a fear and I’m just not willing to do that. I’ve always said I would not leave a dog for the 4th. - GB has been training as my service dog and he is technically now my SD. I say technically only because I’m not ready for my SD to make my mostly invisible disability very visible. But I rely on him heavily. - I would not have committed to a week if he wasn’t coming and can’t do a week without him - I have a week long commitment with him immediately following this that is geographically between us and them So I’m not like trying to force my dog on ppl or their house at all. I just needed to vent and have to have a convo w partner when he finishes work so he can call his dad back and we need to figure out a solution here. Partner previously is on the same page as me but I know he has been looking fwd to the trip (me too) and will feel guilty bc he doesn’t get to spend much time w his dad. He could go alone and they will think I don’t like them or whatever which is annoying, there’s no emotion behind it it’s just not something that works for me so I’d opt out. But then partner and I can’t take time off together which sucks bc disability is worsened by stress which I’ve been under a ton of and the basis that our relationship is really lopsided in my direction for responsibility and if there’s not an opportunity out of our habitat to have fun w him for like a whole additional year to take some time of (he has very little PTO) that’s really unfair to me bc I’ve been putting the other random family of his ahead of me forever and I’m tired of it.
Idk if there’s any advice to be given. This is annoying, it’s been planned for 8mo so if we change plans many of the other options for the 4th are not available as alternatives. It’s just a shitty thing and I wish it was more direct and timely. And also I wish he wasn’t so damn good that it’s obviously a breed prejudice thing.
I’ve been taking him to swimming lessons so he’d be prepared 🫠. It’s just always something w these people and what is advertised or offered is never the actual thing.

Timestamp: https://imgur.com/a/mxp4aZX
https://imgur.com/a/MpH1MUI
https://imgur.com/a/HLS5kux
TV $1000
What I have here is the burris bth 35. It's been discontinued but it's a phenomenal handheld unit, with one of the best resolutions you're going to find around this price. It's a 384x288 core. The pictures I attached were before I really figured out how to fine tune this device and the picture of the squirel was over 75 yards away in the rain.
What you see is what you get, I'm pretty sure I have the OG box. The rubber is a little dusty but unit is in excellent condition. Glass is flawless and evrything works.
I'm looking for something like a clean peq 2a/ CTF2/ D2 or maybe a FP device that's a little salty. I can add $on my end if it's reasonable
I did register the device with burris incase of warrenty. Burris does right with their customers.
PM me your offers and let's talk
Lower flair will ship first. Will ship with signature. You can request no signature but then liability falls on you.