User:Ch4zm/June 2025/Alewife Lore Jam

original

The AA.png Alewife Arsonists are a Golly team from the Alewife Metro Station in the Alewife district of Cambridge, a neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. Unsurprisingly, the Alewife Arsonists are big fans of setting things on fire in any way possible - be it a classic Molotov Cocktail or a flamethrower attached to a drone.

In Season 14 the Alewife Arsonists were shocked to discover that their cross-town rivals the BB.png Boylston Boogers were joining the Golly league, replacing the ATL.png Atlanta Glitter Sharks . The Arsonists and Boogers have been frenemies since childhood, and compete each year for the MTA Crown.

ideas

• The Commuter Rage Gestalt: The Arsonists are not a team of individuals, but a single, psychic entity formed from the collective, incandescent rage of every commuter who has ever been screwed over by a Red Line delay at Alewife. Their slogan, "Burn it down!", is a literal echo of a million muttered curses. Their cellular patterns are fueled by pure, unadulterated frustration, making them erratic, aggressive, and prone to explosive, often self-destructive, final generations.

• Guardians of the Primordial Burn: Deep beneath Alewife's concrete labyrinth, in a forgotten maintenance shaft, lies the "Pilot Light of the Commonwealth," a primordial, sentient flame that has burned since before the city was founded. The Arsonists are its chosen keepers. For them, games are not sport, but ritual combat. A victory feeds and brightens the Flame; a loss causes it to dim, and if it ever goes out, all of Boston will be plunged into an era of cosmic indifference and lukewarm clam chowder.

• Embodied Driving Habits: The Arsonists are the metaphysical embodiment of every driver who has ever navigated the Fresh Pond Rotary right outside the station. Their automata follow no logical rules of engagement. They will cut off opponents without warning, execute blatantly illegal "moves" that defy the game's physics, and treat every single match like a blood feud over the last parking spot at Market Basket. Their patterns are chaos made manifest.

• A Colony of Fire Salamanders: The perpetually damp, crumbling concrete of Alewife Station is the perfect breeding ground for a rare, interdimensional species of fire salamander. The Arsonists are a hive-mind of these creatures. They perceive the game board not as a grid, but as a substrate to be heated, cracked, and reformed through sheer thermal will. They often leave behind "ash patterns"—dead cells in the shape of their fallen foes.

• Sentient MBTA Warning Signs: The Arsonists are an emergent intelligence formed from the perpetually flickering, glitching, and often nonsensical electronic signage of the MBTA. Their communications are distorted, automated announcements ("Now arriving, PATTERN DECAY. Stand clear of the closing doors."). Their signature color isn't just red; it's "Shuttle Bus Replacement Red," a hue that inspires immediate dread and hopelessness in their opponents.

• A Choir of Profane Townie Angels: They are a chorus of the disembodied, overlapping shouts of every Townie who ever yelled at a yuppie to "Go back to Wellesley!" from a triple-parked sedan. Their strategy is pure intimidation and psychic noise. Their automata form patterns that are the CA equivalent of leering at you from a porch while drinking a 'Gansett, judging your very existence. They don't win by being better; they win by making their opponent so existentially uncomfortable that their patterns simply give up and go home.

improvements

• The Alewife Arsonists are a collective of commuters who hail from the Alewife station of the Boston MTA line.

• The Arsonists channel the psychic energy formed from the collective, incandescent rage of every commuter who has ever been screwed over by a Red Line delay at Alewife. It is not a skill, or something they do, it is a state of existence. Their patterns are fueled by shallow puddles of impatience, deep wells of frustration, and an erratic aggressiveness that is prone to causing self-destructive flame-outs in the final generations of matches.

• During games, Arsonists are known for creating a chorus of disembodied shouts of every Townie who ever yelled "Go back to Wellesley!" at yuppies from a triple-parked sedan. The Arsonists have patterns that are capable of leering at you from the porch while drinking a 'Gansett and judging your existence.

• They don't win by being better than their opponents - they win by psyching out their opponents with noise, throwing them off guard with their erratic and aggressive play. This wears out their opponents and forces them to lower their defenses, which is when the Arsonists go for the kill.

• Most matches occur on the South End of Platform B. Due to limited accessibility of the matches, poor lighting, and local blackouts on all Arsonists and Boogers matches in Boston, many ardent, lifelong Arsonists fans have never actually seen a live Arsonists match.