Ruggie’s Home (pt1)

Ruggie comments more than once that “you gotta tread carefully” and “never let your guard down” in the savannah, as otherwise “you’ll be someone’s dinner”.

Ruggie says that Deuce “wouldn’t last five minutes in the Savanna”. It seems to be due to his upbringing that he is such an accomplished survivalist, saying that he is more self-sufficient than everyone else at Vargas Camp put together, that he used to dig up his own bait to go fishing all the time and expressing exasperation that the other students cannot pitch tents or start fires.

We see him teach Epel how to start a fire, where he explains, “it’s less about camping and more just plain survival skills. I had to pick up this stuff the hard way when I was really struggling to get by.”

Exasperated with everyone’s poor weeding techniques during Glorious Masquerade Ruggie says, “The smallest kids would handle this kinda job back in the slums.”

Cater and Ruggie happen upon two lost children during Port Fest, and after entertaining them with fireworks Ruggie tells them that they will need to work together to find their mother, asking, “When you want to get your mom’s attention, what do you normally do?”

After reuniting the family Cater compliments Ruggie on how he handled the situation and Ruggie explains, “I’m used to dealing with kids. I was always surrounded by lots of kids back home—I’m talkin’ little toddlers all the way to people my age. Most of ’em didn’t have any family of their own. So I had them help me with work and I kinda looked after them in the process.”

Cater says, “You didn’t baby ’em at all even though they’re little. I was pretty surprised, tbh,” and Ruggie says that Cater’s angle is probably what more people would go with, but, “When it all comes down to it, the only person you can rely on when there’s trouble is yourself. I had to teach them to solve their own problems. Kids back where I’m from wouldn’t make it if they just stood around crying when the going got tough!”