The Rise of Dick: Erecting a Legacy
The inspirational tale of how one man thrust himself into Rainbow Six history
One of the most wonderful things about the Six Memevitational is the breadth and scape of the origins of the players within; players who have sat atop the most majestic of thrones, magnanimously agreeing to convene with lesser folk to defend their region in the tournament; players who have crawled into the very depths of Siege Hell, seen with their own eyes horrors their teammates couldn’t begin to understand; players who have thrust their arm into the ocean of chaos, wrenched it out and basked in the throes of disorder and mayhem as it rains down upon all those who surround them.
And then there are the players whose names are like an urban legend. They’re the drawer under your bed you don’t want to open, the shadow in the alley you don’t want to investigate. You’ve heard whisperings about them, but no one really knows what they look like. All you’ve ever really known for sure, is that they’re a fucking Dick.
Maybe not ‘a’ fucking Dick. Just fucking Dick. Their name is Dick.
It’s easy to think back just a year ago to a time when peace and harmony existed in Rainbow Six Siege. No one ever memed. People were kind and polite to one another. The Pro League Subreddit Clan regularly traded with the Main Subreddit Clan, a respect between them unrivalled within the entire Kingdom. While the Pro League Subreddit Clan were endowed with riches of platinum, diamond, and lots of gold, the Main Subreddit Clan offered artwork, story and cosplay. It was a simple life, and things were good.
However, one dark secret the Kingdom shared was the underbelly no one spoke about: a cavernous maze of tunnels below the surface which had become home to the rejects of society. Stream snipers, Blackbeard mains, and, of course, Coppers.
No one ever questioned or spoke of this place. Most had heard of it, but many chose to deny, or simply ignore, its existence. Parents would do their best to prevent their children from learning of it, but inevitably their innocence would be shattered by another child in the playground telling a scary story. In a world of pure consonance, it was the teetering structure that threatened to bring down everything.
That said, it was pretty safely locked down. Every year, when a new SI Champion was crowned, the first decree that would be signed would be the continuation of the investment into maximum security. While the contents seemed horrifying, they were firmly kept into place, no fear of leakage.
That was, until May 2020.
Dick had been a normal kid at first. Nothing suggested he would end up an outcast one day. He did his homework, played Xbox with his friends. In 2017, he even got around to picking up Siege for himself. This was a rite of passage in the Kingdom, but he was disappointed to find that it just wasn’t for him. Life continued on normally, until January 2018 when he opted to upgrade to a PC. Once again, Siege was on the horizon, and his friends wanted to play with him too.
The Ranking was a ceremony that was taken seriously within the Kingdom. The Main Subreddit Clan typically felt more relaxed about it, and encouraged their children to pursue other forms of fulfilment from the game if their Ranking didn’t turn out well. The Pro League Subreddit Clan, however, felt differently.
It was Operation Chimera. Some unrest was building in the wake of Lion, one of the two new operators. Societal tensions were high as some from each clan butted heads on their opinions. Dick’s Ranking was coming up and he knew what was riding on it. He wanted to prove that he, too, could be good at Siege, and source precious metals or diamonds for the clan as well.
Once the first game started, he didn’t stop until all ten were finished. But once he saw the result, his heart dropped.
After that it felt like a whirlwind, like he was being pulled in every direction but not able to see what was in front of him at all. He was looking at a Vigil through a drone with static filling his vision, or had had a Thatcher EMP thrown at him. Whatever scenario it felt like, he knew what was happening: he was being exiled.
The first few nights, he was scared. It was cold and vast in the Kingdom’s Underworld, and the people there were the types he’d been warned to never go near. But after years and years of it, it had become normal. The Underworld was his home, and he sat on a throne of broken keyboards and hardware-banned PCs.
But May 2020 changed things. He didn’t expect it to. Why would he? But en route for his general scavenging, he found something: a hole. Its opening was bright, and it smelled fresh and alive, and in it was sat a little blue bird, tweeting at him to follow it. He didn’t know if it was a good idea, but he didn’t want to think about it in the moment. So Dick got close, and forced himself into the hole. It took some wiggling, but eventually his head got through, the rest of him coming behind it.
And to his amazement, what he’d found was daylight. Reality. Home!
His first thought was to run away, try and find somewhere safe where he wouldn’t be spotted. Approaching any clan territory would be ludicrous, and he’d just end up being exiled once more. If he really was here, and he really did have a second chance at freedom, he’d have to find his own way to do it.
The blue bird he’d seen in the hole was sat, still, by him. It was tweeting away, almost as if vying for his attention. Dick didn’t know if he was going crazy, but he figured he could follow the bird anyway. Maybe it knew something he didn’t.
Once he took a step forward, the bird took its cue to go on ahead, leading him into a woodland. It seemed daunting, and he was alone and helpless if anything went wrong, but what choice did he have? The journey led him to a clearing littered with sticks, leaves and logs. Still unsure about what he was meant to be doing, he figured he didn’t have much of a choice: the sun was going down. He’d have to make a hut.
As the days and months went by, Dick found his nomadic life became easier, just like it had in the Underworld. To make money, he’d turned to the only thing he had: humour. To his pleasant surprise, memes were doing well on the market, and he was able to make sufficient money to keep himself going without the help of a clan.
But what he thought was a simple business to keep himself alive began to evolve into something more. The demand for his memes grew. And with demand, meant more trade. And with more trade, meant more of a chance of being identified. He’d become accustomed to his new life, and didn’t want to be sent to the Underworld again. So he hatched a plan. He was going to buy a PC with his earnings, place in Siege, and hopefully exonerate himself from his Copper history if he were to be found out.
That wasn’t the only problem, though. His memes were spicy but the taste wasn’t for everyone. Controversy had started to brew within the clans, heated discussion turning into arguments turning into insults. People on a warpath to figure out Dick’s true identity. The harmonious structure that had held the Kingdom together for so long was slowly falling apart. The two Subreddit Clans began to collide at impasses so great they’d snap and fight. The Main Subreddit Clan didn’t want the Pro League Subreddit Clan’s precious metals and diamonds anymore — they’d become worthless in meaning. The Pro League Subreddit Clan’s interest in the creative endeavours of their counterpart fell to zero too.
All around him, things were falling apart. But throughout it all, Dick’s size grew. It was a pressure that pressed against the collapse of the world around him. People were hungry for Dick and his juicy memes.
He tried to preserve the integrity of his anonymity, but eventually the day he dreaded arrived: he got recognised. And suddenly, it felt like it was all over. By this point he was Plat I, and all the hope he’d had that it would be enough to save him disintegrated with the realisation that people knew who he was.
It was a difficult time; the Kingdom he’d grown up knowing was unrecognisable from what it was now. He’d never expected his memes to grow so big, to cause such destruction. As crowds began to surround him, collapsing in at a rate comparable to the newfound news’ spread, he saw two figures in org uniforms approach him.
He knew orgs were powerful in the Kingdom, and in his head he prepared himself for the worst.
‘Hey, kid,’ said the first. He was wearing a purple jersey, his hair up in a lame man-bun. ‘You want an internship?’
Dick looked up. The fuck? A what? He couldn’t even process his own incredulity. But then the second man spoke.
‘No, no, no,’ he said. He was in a white jersey, and Dick recognised the logo. He’d only ever seen it on TV or online, in media about the most powerful in their Kingdom. ‘How about a full-time job?’
— —
Even months on, the truth of his situation still hadn’t hit him like he thought it should have. His memes had left an effect on the landscape of the Kingdom, craters across the horizon that couldn’t be attempted to be filled. Children in schools had begun to learn about their history, their stories weaving in real-time into the fabric of the Siege society.
The upcoming Six Invitational had been cancelled, and he’d been hoping to attend. However, a different opportunity was awaiting: the Six Memevitational wanted him as a player. And as the King of Memes, how could he reject the perfect invitation?
And so was born Dick’s Disciples, a team to rival World Champions and plebs alike, composed of not only Dick, but other memers of the moment. Fans heralded and heckled his team, thrilled to see the titans of the Kingdom go up against each other in a tournament of this prestige.
It was a strange feeling — a good feeling. His friends and rivals had no shortage of trash talk, but it didn’t stop the fact he was here. The Copper IV scrub who’d been tempted by a stupid fucking blue bird, and built an empire off the back of it.
And the Kingdom was never the same again. All because of a great big fucking Dick that had exploded upon it.
