#Blood Gulch Freelancers

[vonlipvig]

to whoever's been reblogging my old red vs blue survivor simulation posts, my god you've really sent me on a journey down memory lane, this is probably my favorite contribution i've done to the fandom lmao

[the-headless-horsedude]

i'd bet florida/temple would be like that one line from the princess bride. "good night, good work, sleep well, i'll most likely kill you in the morning"

[the-mercurial-star-o-vesper]

EVER WONDER WHY WE’RE HERE?

One of the funny things to notice about Red vs Blue, is that its a peculiar mix of Plot-Driven and Character-Driven

Its appears to be a plot-driven show, because our main characters have no real stakes, or the stakes are ultimately impersonal.

Normally in a story, it can get boring when a character is just reacting to events rather than participating. But that’s the thing about comedy, comedy doesn’t necessarily have to be funny, it just has to be light hearted, and comedy breaks the rules.

Its plot-driven in a way where the very plot of the show gets fucking annoyed that its main characters don’t have personal stakes or drives. It tries, repeatedly, to get the characters invested, and then they don’t. It is, in a sense, a Comedy of Errors.

Its plot-driven because our Main Characters are technically Side-Characters to a story that isn’t theirs. In fact, one of the most arc’d questions is literally asking, “What the fuck are we here for?”

The Freelancer Drama is the Sci-Military plot you would expect out of a major films series-- Red vs Blue is just typical military stories. Freelancers play the idea of the super soldier badass from films, and Red vs Blue is just real-world military stories, with all the idiocy, the bizarre commands, the wondering what the fuck are you doing and what the fuck were you thinking.

The Freelancer stuff is basically Halo meets Mass Effect, with galaxy ending stakes and weird powers and weapons. Red vs Blue is MASH, being a lighter end of what can be summed up as “Space Vietnam War”.

Even Church, the closest we have to a main character in the cast, has this dynamic-- real-world side, he’s a highly traumatized asshole who struggles with apathy and self-worth, which tends to be more real than naught-- but epic-plot side, he’s just the background MacGuffin you hear about, but only shows up about 2/3′s of the Movie in when most of the important shit is done and then he dies because he’s not important anymore.

So when the plot comes poking, Our Main characters (The side-characters, the typical campfire story grunts) ultimately tell it to fuck off half the time.  RvB looks you straight in the eye, and basically asks “Are you seeing this shit? That’s kinda fucked up, man.”

Meanwhile, the Freelancer drama is a bunch of unique characters that could all fit the Hero role of an epic space drama, with all their personal stakes, all the plot triggers going on and how they actively affect the world around them...

... and it sucks. Turns out, being a self-centered individual with super armor powers who is trying to get what they want at all times, like a typical story-character in name any movie / book / show, is absolutely fucking Miserable and Destructive. They’re the deconstruction of Main Characters, where each person is a Main Character who holds their own focus the plot-- and most of them die in the end to needless dramatic nonsense, trying to compete to be that Main Character at all times, to a severe “Narrator” (The Director).

And ultimately, it could’ve all been resolved with everybody living, if they hadn’t given that much of a shit.

Dropped the character-arc and just, sit down and talk. React to shit, you don’t have to be that important.

There’s very few times that our man RvB Cast, the Blood Gulch Crew, flips the switch from Reaction to Action. And it usually means, if ts the loss of a Squadmate.

The Galaxy is too damn big, and they’re a tiny group on the front lines, its impossible to care about every little thing and its impossible to believe that one small odd circumstance or one overly dramatic and angsty super-soldier can end everything, but you can at least ensure the bastard next to you gets to live to see the next planet-rise. Because that’s kind of a fucked up thing to let happen.

And that...

... is where the real Character Drive is. Its based on real-world like characters, people you would see or meet randomly and they’re always “That One Guy”. Any personal stakes are purely their own, and not really any of the plot’s damn business. Frankly you’re there to just do a job and hopefully not die, because real people don’t normally put their goals so grandiose.

Grif just wants comfort and doesn’t bother pushing himself to any lengths if there’s no point, Simmons wants to be appreciated for his intellect and be supported under pressure, Donut wants to be expressive after a life time of repression, Sarge wants purpose any purpose, Tucker wants physical comforts but he has no social skills, Caboose wants to be happy, Doc wants to help people in general, and Church is just looking for a decent enough change where he’s not in the pit he is now.

And the “Plot” is annoyed, because it views these things as unimportant. It wants to push, shove, drag kicking and screaming, until the characters do what it wants them to do... and then they continue not to, because any sane person would look at the plot, and run away screaming.

The Plot drives the Freelancers Drama, and events happened it fucked up everybody involved, because no matter the stakes or the arcs, the Freelancers all wanted one thing-- to basically be Space Super Hero Soldiers (Because you help people and that’s cool as hell). And you can’t really be character-driven when you all have the same goal and no real agency on how to reach it that isn’t reactive and doesn’t end in someone being dead.

All of it was the machinations of a malicious narrator who couldn’t get over his personal demons, and so inflicted them on everybody. S’bit like bad drama.

When our Cast finally could not ignore the Plot anymore, they confronted it and did so successfully-- so successfully that, in typical RvB fashion, they looked at it and then they abandoned it immediately, cos it was pointless from the start.

So in summary.

Plot-driven is actually Character-Driven, but its still simply not their plot. Real people do just sit around and talk until something interesting happens, and then don’t change very much afterwards. That’s real life, and you’d think that it wouldn’t work in a story.

On a military side, RvB in its first 14 seasons, is exactly how a military service is. The point of military is that there isn’t any unique character that’s not uniformed to the whole-- its plot-driven because you are told “Soldier, go here” and you’re trained to not ask questions (discover more plot) and be professional (be impersonal).

RvB takes the realistic route (Likely by incident-- but there were Vets in the original cast) in that a military attracts all extremes and the high stress gets to people-- so you end up with severe quirks, malpracticed coping mechanisms and plain apathy, trying not get shit duty, and following orders that simply do not makes sense if you think too hard about them.

Like I said, Space ‘Nam.

The moment that RvB tried to turned it around into a Military Space Drama, like what its been avoiding for Years, well, fucking yeah it was going fall to pieces. Because that was the exact antithesis of how RvB runs.

You do find the answer though, to one of Life’s greatest mysteries.

“Ever Wonder why we’re here?”

“Does it matter? Fuck it.”

[banamine-bananime]

all the things i want to read do not exist because i am still either writing them or just imagining them. the injustice. truly life is a nightmare.

[bornonthebob]

Not even sure what the situation is with the Red vs. Blue fandom on here nowadays (my last time as an active part of that was in 2016) but I figure if there’s anyone around, they’ll dig this thing I made:

A 46-minute celebration of the music of Red vs. Blue, in the form of a mega-compilation of clips from seasons 1-13—set to a massive medley of themes, leitmotifs, and other musical cues.

There is also a VFX breakdown video for the original portions, if you wanted to feel insane for eight uninterrupted minutes with how much unnecessary work I did.

There are currently two CC options—regular English captions for subtitles and lyrics, and “music citation” captions, in case there was a song you don’t recognize and felt like hunting down. I hope that’s helpful.

Enjoy!

[kojoty]

Dishes, picking up, run to Walgreens, work on jewelry, run to post office, laundry, writing sickfic. Primary goals. Gonna prob watch the rest of hlvrai or watch rvb whilst I task.

[specialofficerlemons]

If they met the BGC, what team would the other freelancers get sorted into? (This is in a world where this wouldn't be incredibly traumatic for Wash and Carolina)

I'll start

I think York would get put on Red Team. They would see his eye and call dibs immediately. With Donut's scars and Grif and Simmons whole skin graft/cyborg parts thing going on they'd need him to compete the set. I think Tucker would like him at first, but would feel like he was competition so he wouldn't want him on Blue Team.

[doubleodonut]

i fee like ive never seen anything with tucker using/having those wrist-mounted energy daggers. i just think itd be sick as hell

[olliedollie1204]

oh no i saw some rvb fanart while i was still thinking abt sasi......... u know what that means

[tgirljoker]

my dealer: got some straight gas 🔥😛 this strain is called “blood gulch” 😳 you’ll be zonked out of your gourd 💯

me: yeah whatever. I don’t feel shit.

5 minutes later: dude i swear i just saw a freelancer in the cave system

my buddy tucker pacing: blue command is lying to us

[cerayanay]

Everything in the Blood Gulch Chronicles was an organized lie by Project Freelancer except for when Sarge died and met Church in purgatory. That really happened

[slyvester101]

Tucker wasn’t there when Church died. Well, when he died the first time. When Alpha died, he should say. When his Church died. 

It was weird to hear about it, even weirder to see a part of him running around like that moment of time didn’t happen. Because Tucker knew this wasn’t his Church, he spent way too long bickering with him in Blood Gulch to not know the differences between his best friend and his amnesiatic copy, but the similarities are uncanny. Sometimes he’s tricked into thinking it’s actually his Church, only for him to misremember the details of a story they lived through, only for him to forget Tucker’s name, only for him to look blankly as Tucker chuckles an inside joke under his breath. 

And then Kinda-but-not-really-Church dies again, stuck in a memory unit and swept away by the UNSC, their newest recruit spray painted to look just like him. It’s not quite as fucky as when Not-Church was walking around acting like Real-Church, but Tucker still does a double take everytime he hears the wrong voice speaking behind a light blue helmet. 

And then Carolina comes around, takes them through hell to get Not-Church back, except he’s different. He’s more like Tucker’s Church. He cracks inside jokes, starts calling Tucker by name on the first try, remembers Blood Gulch as well as the rest of them. For a moment, Tucker thinks he’s gonna be reunited with his best friend, that he’s actually going to have him back and get to talk to him like old times and not have this gaping hole that Church left when he died. 

But he doesn’t get that. Of course he doesn’t. Because the universe just loves spitting in Tucker’s face, loves giving him a taste of what he wants before taking it away. It gave him a son, and then killed him, and then brought him back and then forced Tucker to send him away so he didn’t get dragged into a fucking fire fight over a stupid alien artifact. It gave him a home, a place he loved and hated more than anything and then sent him away, gave him a job he loved and hated just as much, and then he was back on his bullshit with his team, fighting Tex and a giant ex-AI possessed freelancer the size of a truck. 

It gave him his best friend and then took him away again and again and again.

It didn’t even let him be there when he died, didn’t even let him grieve before throwing another copy at him to deal with. 

He didn’t even get to say goodbye. He never gets to say goodbye.

[skwistokwarrior]

blue team: can they cook?

tucker: no. he's not the WORST, it'll be atleast somewhat edible, but he's still not allowed to cook. ever. like, ever.

church: yes and he's very valuable to them for this alone. they would have already starved in blood gulch without him. maybe not the best food but when you're on blue team, it is.

caboose: ok predictable but absolutely not no way in hell he can cook. he tries to help but they all have to usher him out (emphasis on everyone, he's a big boy)

wash: this one's a less common but honestly no. he's been in the military since he was 18 he cannot cook food for shit. i've already made a post on this but he's tried before for the blues and like. that was literally the closest he's ever been to death in his life, and he's a FREELANCER. he's not allowed in the kitchen without active supervision, and you would not believe the amount of protein powder this man has

carolina: also no. you think she had the time to learn how to cook? you're funny. i think she's learning, but it's a slow process, a very slow process. leave it to carolina to know everything but how to cook

tex: i mean, yeah, why not. she knew as a person and a robot. i like to think she made caboose sandwichs in the early seasons (because i love tex/caboose as a duo)

kai: yes and it concerns her that nobody else knows how to. and not just like knows, she's REALLY good at cooking since she's been cooking since she was young. she's blue teams savior (except she's never there so theyre still in distress LOL)

honorary doc: yes but he's not a big help to blue team because he's vegan everything. he told them he can cook and they let him. they were very disappointed when he started very delicately explaining how he substituted just about everything out of a typical dish for something vegan. (and it wasn't even good either, like he makes the food so bad other vegans would rather eat a fucking burger than his food)

in conclusion: they steal the reds food primarily

[rubykgrant]

Re-watching RVB, and like... yes, it was VERY cool that they made previous "nonsense" with certain characters very relevant with new context, but also? The order of events drives me crazy! What do you MEAN, they put the super secret original AI crime in a box canyon, in the middle of nowhere, while I guess all this Meta stuff was going on? Like, even if it wasn't clear that what the Meta's plans were, Maine and Sigma absolutely did just wreck a bunch of stuff and run off. Wash just went through the Epsilon incident. Tex attempted some kind of rescue for the Alpha, followed by him being taken away, thus Blood Gulch shenanigans... and somehow Tex is still getting assignments from Project Freelancer? Or "Command", whatever they're pretending to be called.

The whole project just got in trouble for Dr Sadboy doing his AI crimes, Carolina has gone underground, and Wyoming is still doing missions? York is just out there, traveling around, stealing stuff like Robin Hood (he robs from the rich, and gives to the him). South and North are doing stuff somewhere? Tex and Church keep DYING, and you'd think that would get Dr Sadboy's attention, but nooooooooo. Tex says she wants to "kill" the Omega AI, and like... I get that you're mad, but that feels counter productive? Also, the fact that she WAS an AI, who was tricked into thinking she was somebody else, and also got an AI partner... there is so much potential for that, because while Omega was "rage", it also could have been framed as him being "over-protective", and would take over Tex to make sure she could survive missions, but then BOTH of their anger issues combined would get out of control. Do we see anything like that? Nah.

I think it is believable that she may have lost her memories again at some point between the failed Alpha rescue and meeting Church in Blood Gulch, but he sure don't KNOW that, do we? What was happening??? I can also believe that whatever was actually going on, Gary acting like he doesn't now Church and just decides to mess with him makes sense, he WOULD do it for the bit... but Wyoming? Dude, do you know that's the Alpha right there? Do you have a plan for that? Besides time-travel until you shoot all his friends? Freaking FLOWERS? Like, yes, I can imagine my own "reasons" for all of this, I can figure out some kind of background-AU... but in the actual series, everybody is just running around doing whatever

[major-comet]

i like to think that all of - or at least most of - that crazy shit in blood gulch did actually happen organically, and freelancer just called it a simulation to gaslight them because they were caught so off guard by it all.

because my god this was supposed to be a safe hiding place for the alpha in the middle of nowhere, why does that medic have a rocket launcher. why is there an alien baby now. why does wyoming’s temporal distortion unit work like that, that’s not how we designed it to work how did they do that

​like isn’t it wash who first refers to everything having been predetermined? recovery one era wash that freelancer had on a tight leash?

really makes you think 🤔