#how old and outdated do you gotta be to not realize how the internet works?

[apathetic-revenant]

alright I have had this Doctor Who rant building up in me for years and I gotta get it out eventually so I might as well go ahead and do it

this rant is about why I stopped watching the show after season 7 and it’s not gonna be complimentary so I will put it under a cut and not in the tag so no one has to read it that doesn’t want to. 

also it is very long. 

some background: I started watch Doctor Who when I was thirteen. because I have a knack for picking the worst place to start a series, the first episode I ever fully watched was Human Nature. it was very confusing, but I was entranced. I immediately went to the internet and looked up as much as I could find about the show, and before the next episode had even aired I was already whole-heartedly in love with it.

Doctor Who was very important to me for the next several years. it was something to hold onto through some pretty difficult times. it could be quite hard to watch in the US (let alone to get a hold of merch or novels) but I grabbed every scrap of it that I could. Doctor Who was something that I found solace in when everything else seemed absolutely awful.

so it really hurt to fall out of love with it. but I did. 

now I’m fully willing to admit that a lot of what happened had to do with very personal, specific circumstances for me, and truthfully I don’t know how much of it applies to anyone else at all. but...I don’t think that makes my feelings about it entirely invalid either.

I was sad to see RTD and Ten--my first Doctor--go, but I was very excited for Steven Moffat to take over. I thought that the episodes that he had written were some of the best in the show, and I was looking forward to what he would do with more free rein. but he disappointed me in a lot of ways.

I don’t like Moffat’s writing, not anymore. I think he did well under the constraints of only writing one story a season, but not when given control over the entire show. I think his overarching plot lines are grandiose, over-complicated, are more concerned with building themselves up than delivering a satisfying resolution, and show a tendency to think that stories get more interesting the larger they are in scale, which is sometimes true but certainly not always. I think he spends too much time talking things up--his characters, his stories--resulting in a lot of telling and not enough showing. I think the occasional bombastic reminder of how old/powerful/smart/morally conflicted/whatever the Doctor is is fine enough, but that Moffat turned the dial on that up so much that I got sick of hearing people talk about the Doctor at all, which is not a good thing for the protagonist of the show. I think he hamstrung his own monsters by insisting on bringing them back over and over on increasingly larger scales so that something that was originally scary because it was mysterious and unknown become banal through over-exposure. I think his characterization is extremely poor, resulting in characters that are either inconsistent, two-dimensional, or both. I think he relied too much on using Time Travel Rules for dramatic effect, which doesn’t work too well when said Rules were made up just for that episode and aren’t consistent. I think he has a deeply irritating tendency to extend his control not just over his own era but on the entire show: ret-conning the Time War to what he thought it should be, writing characters that are not just the most important person ever to the Doctor he is writing, but to every Doctor there’s ever been. 

but. 

all that is just writing. I think it’s bad writing, and not writing that I at all enjoyed, but just bad writing on its own doesn’t really offend me. Doctor Who has had plenty of bad writing in the past and it’s carried on quite well regardless, and even if I don’t like it, well, if other people do then that’s good for them and I can live and let live.

the problem is that bad writing is not all that I disliked about the show under Moffat’s tenure. it is not what made me truly and deeply uncomfortable with the show as it went on until I had to stop watching it altogether.

here’s where the personal bit starts to come in. see, I’m asexual. at thirteen, I don’t think I really knew that yet, but I had started to twig that there was something a bit different about me. I didn’t seem to be feeling all the things thirteen year olds were usually supposed to be feeling. I read YA books describing puberty in ways that I often felt uncomfortable with and disconnected from. but maybe I was a late bloomer, I thought--I didn’t really have a lot of other information to go on anyway. 

so when I was reading up on the show after watching Human Nature and read that the Doctor typically didn’t show any interest in romance or attraction, I didn’t exactly think “oh, it’s someone like me!” but it definitely drew my attention, even if all I thought was “oh thank god, a show that won’t spend so much time on all that weird boring stuff.”

of course, watching the second part of that two-parter made it pretty clear that while the classic series may have abstained from romance, the new series felt no such restriction. I was disappointed, but not too much, because this was pretty much business as usual and I was very accustomed to it. 

but I’ve never been able, since then, to completely disconnect my experience with watching Doctor Who with my experience of discovering asexuality and what that meant for me. not when it contained the only character I’d yet encountered who even came close to being canonically asexual. not when there was so much discussion in and around the fandom about how the Doctor should be written. not when the show itself was clearly conscious of wanting to prove that whatever had happened in the old series, the new series Doctor was not asexual.

it was little things. like the way, any time I read anything about that infamous kiss in the TV movie, the reaction to it was always characterized as being a silly fandom thing--oh these repressed nerds, fussing about how the Doctor kissing someone violates canon, just goes to show how stuffy and out of touch they are. or the discussions of ‘dancing’ in season one that scornfully made clear that of course the Doctor felt attraction because it’s such a fundamental thing that it’d be weird for even an alien not to feel it. I mean, who could empathize with a character who wasn’t interested in sex?! it was things like the way the EU in the hiatus years tended to play up the Doctor being asexual--all in the service of making him seem more alien, more detached from human emotion. it was things that I never saw anyone complain about, that no one else ever seemed to think was a problem in any way, so I thought the fault must be mine for being uncomfortable with it.

I’m well aware that this did not start with Moffat--the new series was taking part in it from the outset, and I have my own issues with that (I’ve never been able to get onboard with a romance between a 1000+ year old alien and a 19-year-old girl. sorry, I know lots of people love that ship, but I just can’t personally). but it got a lot worse under his tenure.

I watched the TARDIS--a goddamn inanimate blue box--get characterized as the Doctor’s wife, a woman, called ‘sexy’, because for some reason the connection between an alien and their biomechanical time machine needs to map nicely onto a heterosexual relationship. I watched River making orgasm jokes at the camera with a wink, and the sonic screwdriver used to make dick jokes. I watched a parade of female characters that all seemed to fall into the mold of Sexy Flirty Feisty, who all fell hopelessly in love with the Doctor, whose lives revolved around him even from a very young age. 

I remember feeling sick and stunned as I watched a scene where Amy started making out with the Doctor while he tried to get away, a scene that was clearly supposed to be funny. I watched all this at the same time that I was struggling with the idea that I didn’t think I wanted sex at all, feeling like I was weird and wrong for it, like I would eventually have to fall into the right mold and go through the motions no matter how much I didn’t want to, because there didn’t seem to be any room in the world for a person like me. 

but even then, I felt like the problem was more on me. Doctor Who wasn’t really doing anything that every other show I watched didn’t do. it felt selfish to expect the show to cater to me when I was clearly in the vast minority of people. anyway, I didn’t really expect asexual representation. I still don’t. I’d love to have it, but expecting would just be getting my hopes up a lot so they could be dashed over and over again. I know a lot of people still don’t even know that asexuality exists, or what it really is, which is becoming less and less of an excuse as it becomes more well known, but I still don’t ever expect it to be brought up in mainstream pop culture (at this point I pretty much figure I’ll just to have to do it myself). I assumed that this writing on Doctor Who came out of the same place, that they felt fine writing off any sign of asexuality in the old series as being an outdated artifact they were no longer bound to because they didn’t know there was anyone in real life who actually felt like that.

and then I read a quote from Steven Moffat, about Sherlock--another series featuring a character with a distinct lack of interest in sex or romance in the source material. Moffat said that Sherlock was not asexual because that would be boring--no fun at all--and that him intentionally distancing himself from his feelings was much more interesting.

that was the betrayal. that was when I realized--he knew. he knew what asexuality was and he chose not to put it in his work because it was boring. it was not just “I don’t see you.” it was “I see you, I know you exist, but I don’t care.”

all my struggle, my identity, my existence, willfully tossed aside because it was too boring to even think about, compared to the gripping tale of a straight dude who didn’t have time for women because he was too busy being really smart. 

in retrospect it’s not surprising. this was, after all, the same show in which a self-described lesbian falls for a man, I guess to show that Sherlock is just so appealing that women will change sexualities for him. but hey, it goes both ways--this is the same character that, according to Moffat, Sherlock only lost to in the original story because he fancied her and got distracted. obviously nothing else could explain a woman beating Sherlock Holmes. don’t worry, he corrected that little oversight in his show by having Irene have to be rescued by Sherlock, the way things should properly go. 

I guess that was the point where I lost trust in the show. Doctor Who had been there for me through a lot of rough shit, but it was not going to be there for me on this one. it was not going to make me feel more comfortable with myself, feel like I was okay just the way I was, like I could be proud in my own skin. I know it’s helped other people with that, and I am truly happy for them. but I wouldn’t be one of them. not while Moffat was in charge. I was too boring. now, another woman falling in love with the Doctor--now that would be interesting, eh?

I couldn’t trust anymore that any joke about the Doctor not understanding sex--ha ha, those jokes always seemed to go, look at the funny alien acting all confused and ignorant--would be any more than that, a joke, to be tossed aside the moment a tempting bit of lewd humor or romantic moment came up. I couldn’t trust that any female character would appear on the show--or even would have existed in the show’s history--without becoming yet another in the long line of women who fancied the Doctor. maybe the show would do better, maybe it would become something I could feel comfortable with again--but I was done waiting around to find out. 

I stopped watching the show. I went to college. I watched other stuff. I kept on struggling. I still didn’t see myself in media, in lots of ways, but I found people like me on the internet, I read niche fiction and bits of fanfic that finally described my experiences, and I started feeling better about myself. not perfect, but better. 

I wasn’t watching Doctor Who anymore, or Sherlock, but I heard things over time. 

like Moffat passing over three past Doctors, saying that despite them all being ready and capable he wasn’t including them in the 50th Anniversary because he didn’t think they’d want to “struggle into their old costumes” again, managing to simultaneously diss three great actors who’d been contributing to the show for decades and demonstrate a stunning lack of creativity for a sci-fi writer for a show with a large budget by apparently being unwilling to even try to figure out a way to work around them having aged. oh, but McGann got to come back long enough to get killed off. and we would have had Eccleston but he didn’t want to come back for the special that retconned all the work he put into his character as being based on a giant lie, I wonder why? 

like how Sherlock rewrote the ending of a story that originally had the villain finished off by a woman, because as the writers explained in an interview, it was completely unbelievable that that could happen. 

like lots of lovely little comments, about how women only watched Sherlock because they were attracted to Cumberbatch, or watched Doctor Who if the Doctor was hot enough; about how bisexual representation wasn’t needed because bi people were too busy “having fun” to watch TV anyway; about how the idea of a female Doctor was as silly as a male queen. well, fine. I’m personally glad that Steven Moffat dismissed the idea of a female Doctor because I shudder to think how he would have written her. 

I could go on, but I have other stuff to do. you don’t have to take my word for it, though; here’s a nice article to start with. 

I almost didn’t bother watching the newest season, but I made a spur of the moment decision to catch it. and I am enjoying it so far. it’s reminding me of the things I originally loved about the show. I was nervous about how the first female Doctor would be written, but watching Thirteen in action gave me a sense of empowerment I honestly wasn’t expecting. maybe someday I’ll be able to just completely enjoy the show again without having so many conflicting feelings about it. 

probably eventually I’ll go back and watch what I missed. there may be things I enjoy in there. episodes I like. I’ve gotten the impression I would like Capaldi himself. and if I just didn’t like Moffat’s writing, I would be happy to enjoy what I enjoyed and not bother with the rest. I would be willing to believe that he might improve or take a different tack that I enjoyed more. 

but after the things I’ve seen in Moffat’s writing, and the things he has said, I don’t trust him anymore. I don’t feel comfortable enough to ever fully enjoy his writing. I can’t respect him because I know he does not respect me. 

really I guess I should never have been all that surprised. like I said, I don’t really expect to see myself in most media. and plenty of works are worse than Doctor Who. 

I guess Doctor Who was just the only one that got my hopes up first. 

[jadewing-realms]

“You should have seen it.”

Fictober 2018 - Day 18

Yeah you could be Someone special You've got bright in your brains and Lightning in your veins You'll go higher then they've ever gone In you I see Someone special You've got fire in your eyes and When you realize You'll go further then we've ever gone (look) Just turn it on

~ Miracles (Coldplay)

Sasuke has been in Izuku’s room a hundred times at this point. They’re thirteen now, they’ve been friends since second grade, and they basically live in each others’ houses by now. Everything in his house is familiar to Izuku, and everything in Izuku’s is familiar to him. Sasuke can always notice if something new appears, always asks about it or admires it out loud. That said, the Midoriya household is generally very constant—steadfast, predictable. Bargain interior decorations, as Mrs. Midoriya has scruples, and more practical items than anything else. With… the exception of Izuku’s room. Every long now and again, like today, Sasuke feels the need to stop in the doorway and let his gaze drift over the overwhelming amount of red, white, blue and yellow plastered in every available bit of wall or shelf space.

The sheer volume of All Might memorabilia sometimes hits him square between the eyes and makes him feel like he needs to blink, rapidly, for a minute or two. Or several.

Sasuke shakes the compulsion away and sets his backpack down next to Izuku’s yellow one. More yellow… I forget he uses the color so much. Izuku’s already on his way back out into the main living space, squeezing past Sasuke when both of them occupy the space in the doorframe for a brief second.

“We were almost late,” Izuku huffs with obvious relief. “We made it back just in time!” He scampers off down the hallway and calls, louder here than he ever is at school. “Ready, Mom!”

With a smirk that holds more fondness than Sasuke intends, he follows after his friend.

Whenever he comes over after a long school day, it’s become a tradition of sorts to help Mrs. Midoriya make dinner. Sasuke’s never minded; not when he’s adding to her work with his presence. It’s always seemed fair that he contribute for himself. Mrs. Midoriya turns on some music—usually oldies; her music tastes are charmingly outdated, and growing up with this musical influence made it rub off on Izuku—and then she’ll assign each of the boys a portion of the cooking. Usually something simple and straightforward, like chopping vegetables, or cooking the rice, boiling noodles. She always handles the more difficult tasks, and still finds time to give them guidance with their tasks.

Then, when they’re all finished and the food is steaming and ready to serve, they all sit around the table and Mrs. Midoriya asks them how their day was. About their classes, their favorite part of the day, anything special that happened. They fill her in, give her details, leave some out—mostly Izuku refrains from any mention of whatever torment he had to endure that day at the hands of the sheep-headed masses who follow the example set by the likes of Bakugou Katsuki. Yes, today goes by much the same way every other day does.

When they finish eating, as usual, they load up the dishwasher together and, once it’s running, the boys are free to retreat to Izuku’s room. Today’s a Friday; tomorrow is Saturday and Sasuke’s gotten permission to stay the night for the first time in a while, so long as they finish their homework. They had spent the whole of the walk home from school coming up with things they could do this time.

Usually, they study, they talk Heroes, they watch YouTube videos, they talk more Heroes. Izuku brainstorms his Hero costume, Sasuke brainstorms his tech.

Again, though, Sasuke finds himself pausing a minute to look over the posters on Izuku’s walls… the figurines on his shelf… the notebooks stacked on his desk. Then he looks to his friend, who’s nose is still buried in his textbook as he does what their mothers requested, and can’t help but think…

He doesn’t need a Quirk.

Nobody else seems willing to tell him that though. Izuku’s told him (and only him) of what his mother said to him the day they found out about his lack of powers. And Sasuke’s witnessed first hand the way he’s treated in class… sometimes by the teachers themselves.

It’s true, despite his somewhat mediocre existence here at home, Izuku’s not ‘normal,’ not by a long shot. He is... unique. Fun. Outstanding, even. So he doesn’t have this One Thing that eighty percent of the population does. Sasuke understands that, understands it’s uncommon. What he doesn’t understand is why, exactly, that’s looked at as a negative thing.

Izuku has plenty of other amazing things he can do, even things he’s better at than most people.

Like homework. Izuku tears through it like a starving man inhales a loaf of bread. Every time, too. He’s as fast as Sasuke, and his grades are just as good. Midoriya Izuku is smarter than the average person.

Once they finish their studies up like good students aiming for futures in Hero work, they dive to the computer. As per tradition, the first thing they watch is Izuku’s old favorite. The classic throwback, of one of All Might’s debut rescues.

After that, they get lost in suggested views, allowing themselves to spiral deep down the YouTube rabbit hole… for science. Izuku takes notes, as usual.

Except… it’s really not normal in a general sense, is it? Sasuke’s never met anyone as dedicated to Heroism as Izuku.

Even if the likes of Bakugou Katsuki would try to insist otherwise.

Nah, Bakugou Katsuki is basic. Average. The usual. Boring. Not to mention annoying as h***, and a narcissist to boot. Why does someone outstanding like Izuku waste his efforts on somebody like that? Sasuke just shakes his head.

“Hm?” Uh oh, Izuku notices. Wait, Sasuke actually shook his head? Whoops… “What’s wrong?”

Sasuke blinks against the glare of light from the screen. He… well, now he needs to think of something to actually say. Something useful, thought-provoking, since they only do this to better their instincts and understanding of their chosen craft…

“I feel like we’ve seen all these already,” he points out. And it’s true. Everything they’ve been watching, he’s almost positive they’ve watched at least once before, if not more often. He knows what’s going to happen before it does, and as much as he does like these Heroes and their escapades captured for all to see via some idiotic bystander’s camera phone, he can’t say he’s feeling ‘the usual’ so much tonight.

Not when he’s being hounded by constructs of society like some middle-aged philosopher during a full moon.

“Hmmm…” Izuku scrolls away from the video right when Death Arms is mid-uppercut, searching for… something. Anything, Sasuke supposes. Something they haven’t seen before. Then suddenly, he sits straight, face lighting up as a thought occurs. “Oh! Did you see what happened just the other day?”

Sasuke raises an eyebrow. “What other day?”

“Oh, I dunno… it was, like, last weekend? Over in Minato, All Might took down a crazy villain. I got to watch from the street corner!”

“I heard something about that from the gossips in class, but no, I haven’t seen anything.” Sasuke shifts in his seat, tucking one foot underneath him. “We were visiting my grandma. She doesn’t have internet.”

Izuku’s eyebrows jump. “No inter—gosh, how can you even function without—”

“Nobody knows.”

With a quick headshake, Izuku hunches over the keyboard and lets his fingers fly. “Lemme see if I can find some footage; there’s gotta be something up by now.”

Indeed, when he searches ‘all might minato fight’ a great selection of results come up. Several have high view counts but are from months past, but the top result is from just a few days ago. It’s title reads ‘CRAZY All Might battle vs ROCK MONSTER (actuall footage).’

“Ah, a grammarian,” Sasuke murmurs with a fair dose of sarcasm.

Izuku giggles, but abruptly silences himself as the video begins to play. A click and it fills the screen, expanding the blurry view of a city street, from the perspective of a phone that appears to be bouncing. From the wind and puffing sounds, not to mention the violent jerking of the footage, the person holding it is running, down the sidewalk, and comes upon a crowd of people at the corner. Several others have their phones out and over their heads.

Halfway down the block, visible once the camera’s jittering stills somewhat, a massive villain made of stone looms, swinging its arm like a giant mace at the spangley hero that’s currently launching himself through said villain’s personal space. The bystanders are all murmuring, some shouting, cheering, the guy behind the camera is uttering expletives of pure awe and wonder, and above it all, All Might’s raucous laughter booms over the rumble of heavy rock.

“IS THAT ALL YOU’VE GOT, BIG GUY!?” the hero trumpets just before he delivers a Washington Smash to the underside of the rock monster’s jaw. The crowd goes wild. Sasuke leans forward in his seat, trying to see through the camera blurs despite knowing there’s no way he’ll be able to get a better look at the action.

Then the moron drops his phone, there’s a harried curse and the crunch of plastic on concrete, the hushed fumble of fingers, and the video ends.

Izuku whimpers a little. “Dang it, that was so short…”

“You could probably describe what happened to me better than any video.” Easing out of his investment, Sasuke leans back in his chair and levels his friend with a steady, expectant stare.

Come on. Do your thing.

Izuku laughs, rubbing the back of his neck. “I dunno, probably not, but… I can try!”

With a sudden vigor belying his previous hesitation, he then launches into a detailed eye-witness account of a rock monster that tried to attack the Number One Hero’s agency building like a total idiot and of how that Number One Hero launched right out of said building to engage with the monster himself. He lays the scene out play by play, describing each of All Might’s moves and counter moves with a level of specificity that’s more than enough to convince Sasuke that it happened exactly as Izuku tells it.

“He had the thing ambling around in circles!” he says, hands splaying animatedly in his retelling. “He was so fast! The rock villain brought his arm down like a pile-driver and All Might just swung off his arm—not an ounce of fear! For every time the villain missed, All Might would land a hit like it was nothing. And he was laughing the whole time! The rock villain got so frustrated, he didn’t even know which way to look. Then All Might finished him off with a Texas Smash that threw him a whole block down the street! You should have seen it!”

Sasuke doubts Izuku notices that whenever he talks about All Might, he looks just as fearless. Whether that makes All Might a crutch… or just means Izuku’s that passionate and dedicated to this dream, Sasuke’s not sure but he’d like to believe it’s the latter. He’s used to being surrounded by… well, depression. Grim reality. That’ll happen when the brother you looked up to and idolized (much like how Izuku looks up to All Might, actually…) turns out to be a psycho killer and takes your Heroic father away from you and widows your mother.

But Izuku… it’s like, no matter what he’s been through, he can still smile and fanboy like this—without fear. Sure, he hasn’t been through quite what Sasuke has… but that’s good, he supposes. Better to be average in that area.

Izuku meets his gaze and stills his laughter, looking a bit confused at the fact that Sasuke, as he now realizes, is staring.

“What?” Izuku blinks. “What’s that look for?”

Sasuke snorts, and his answer comes a bit more easily this time. “You really like All Might, don’t you?”

“I… I mean…” Izuku glances around his room, at the computer screen, and finally at his lap, and a small smile creeps across his lips, milder and more hesitant than the grin that had beamed from his face just seconds before. “Well, yeah. He’s… he’s the reason I want to become a Hero in the first place. He’s why I keep… trying. Hoping. I just… I can only dream that maybe, some day… I can be even a fraction of the Hero he is. He’s… he’s extraordinary.”

“Hm…” Sasuke follows the path of Izuku’s previous glance. All Might’s smiling face surrounds them, to an almost unnerving degree, his presence radiating from the walls. And he thinks… that if Izuku has these in here not only as a shrine to his ultimate inspiration, but also as a ward to keep the poisonous barbs from the outside World of Mediocrity from sticking to him once he crosses the threshold of this space… that makes All Might cooler than any villain fight.

And it makes Izuku pretty d*** cool too.

“Yeah, I guess he is.” Sasuke returns his attention back to his friend, who’s staring now at the notebook he has on the desk top between them. He’s opened it to his sketch page, where his concept drawings for his Hero costume are. Sasuke taps the page. “He’d be cooler without the rabbit ears, though.”

Izuku gasps like Sasuke just uttered the bitterest of heresies and he needs a cross to shove in his face or something. “No, the ears are iconic!!”

“Izuku, the guy’s the definition of an icon, and I doubt he’d be any less of one if he nixxed the weird haircut.”

“Noooo, he needs the haircut. It makes him approachable.”

“Uh-huh. Well, in that case, don’t you think you’re bordering on plagiarism with your bunny hood, there?”

“What!? D-Do you really think—”

As Izuku launches to his own defense, Sasuke just smiles to himself. Partly in amusement, and with just a hint of fondness.

No, Izuku, I don’t really think that. I just think you’ll be fine being Just You.

[calliecat93]

Red vs Blue: Season 1 - The Blood Gulch Chronicles P1

 If you have been a fan of Rooster Teeth or been on the internet since 2003, chances are you may have heard of the series, Red vs Blue, at least once. Created April 1st 2003, the Halo-inspired webseries about two opposing teams in a box canyon and the stupidity hat ensues has evolved form a 3 minute show made by some nerds in a spare bedroom to not only the internet’s longest running episodic webseries, but the longest running American produced science fiction series. Originally helmed by creator Burnie Burns, the show has run for 15 seasons with a 16th upcoming and gone through various showrunners and tone shifts, but it has always maintained it’s comedy, character dynamics, and wide appeal.

I am very late to the game with RvB, having only gotten into it in early 2017. But even in that amount of time, looking back onto Season One after watching the rest of the show... felt a little jarring. There’s various reasons why. Low quality audio , below average voice performances, characters not being fully fleshed out, and outdated graphics.  When you look at this season and then look at... say Season 10, you can see how far the quality of all of these, as well as the writing, have come since the old days. However the importance of this season and it’s success cannot be ignored. Without this, Rooster Teeth most likely would not have existed. Which that would mean that Achievement Hunter, RWBY, Camp Camp, Day 5, etc would also not exist. It’s importance cannot be ignored here.

So I guess that gets the exposition out of the way, so lets go into the review.

Overview

Talking about Red vs Blue, especially the Blood Gulch Chronicles (Seasons 1-5) is honestly... not easy. The first season especially. Why? Well while RvB has always been a comedy, it later shifted into being more of a dramedy with an ongoing story. This one has the least amount of story, driven more by the characters shenanigans and dialogue.The good news though is that, despite what I thought when I began the show, you don’t have to know shit about Halo to enjoy it. There are some references, like one character referencing Master Chief and the Covenant in the first episode, but you don’t have to understand the lore at all. It may help, but its unnecessary. Which is good since I’ve never played the game and anything I know about is either from this show, Lets Plays, or looking it up.

The show’s concept is, at least in the beginning, pretty simple. So there’s this box canyon, Blood Gulch, smack dab in the middle of nowhere. In this canyon are two bases, Red Base and Blue Base. There are also two teams, the Read Team and the Blue Team. These two sides are at war because... ugh... some reason. The first episode points this out, so lets meet our cast. On the Reds, we are first introduced to Richard ‘Dick’ Simmons (voiced by Gustavo ‘Gus’ Sorola) clad in maroon and is the one pondering this to begin with (”Do you ever wonder why we’re here?). The other soldier, clad in orange, is Dexter Grif (voiced by Geoff Fink, better known today as Geoff Ramsey) and... yeah he has no idea why either, just getting strangely philosophical (”It’s one of life’s greatest mysteries, isn’t it?). The answer is because each side has a base in the canyon. Yeah, that’s the reason. Just go with it.

There’s two other Red soldiers, but we’ll get to them later. For now, lets shift over to the Blues. They only have two guys, Team Leader in colbalt Leonard Church (Burnie Burns) and Lavernius Tucker (Jason Saldana). Episode One very quickly establishes the two sides daily routine. Often, they just stand at their base on guard duty ether talking or watching the other side. Sometimes even both! It’s something that they’re used to/tired of with Church getting annoyed at Tucker pestering him about what the Reds are doing, which is the same thing they always do. Considering that these Season 1 episode are around three minutes long each, they do put that time to good used. The first two episodes alone are enough to establish the majority of the main cast and give us a feel of the two sides regular routine.

Speaking of Episode 2, Simmons and Grif have been called down by their leader, Sarge. Out of all the characters, Sarge is.. the most noticibly different in terms of voice. In the entire series he is voiced by Matt Hullum, RT’s current CEO... but the voice he uses here is DRASTICALLY different. But I’ll elaborate on that more when I get to character stuff. But speaking of voices, this is also a good time to mention one of the season’s biggest flaws, the audio work. It is very difficult to understand what the characters are saying a good chunk of the time with the filter effect not making it any easier. I had to turn up the volume various times to fully makeout what was being said. There is a reason why however. The RT guys were doing all of this out of a spare bedroom, pr in Matt and a few others cases, over the phone. The company was literally three guys (Burnie, Geoff, and Gus and at some point during BGC Gus temporarily moved to Puerto Rico, leaving only two guys) in a bedroom with an XBox and some cheap equipment. So it is very understandable why the audio was low quality, not counting the below average voice acting. But still the audio, especially compared to later seasons were they do have high quality equipment, is noticeable and annoying.

Okay, back to the series. Sarge shows the two privates their newest toy, the Warthog. An army jeep that... I gotta agree with Grif, I think Puma is a much more fitting name. We also learn that Sarge wants Grif dead. Seriously, he gets very creative with ideas in later seasons. The When You Wish Upon a Star parody in Season 8 always kills me. Lets put it this way, we learn that Grif gets shit on. A lot. The Reds are also expecting a rookie to be joining their ranks soon, much to the privates aggravation. A sentiment that the Blues can relate to as they too are expecting their own rookie. Oh, they’re also getting a tank! Cool... but can it play polka music like the Warthog? I don’t think so!

This leads us to episode 3! I’ll give the show this, it goes by quick. So while arguing over going to the Vegas Quadrant, which funnily enough was based on a true story that was later made into an RTAA, Simmons and Grif meet the rookie! Franklin Delano Donut (Dan Godwin), currently clad in the same red-colored armor that Sarge wears. Speaking of, Sarge is currently away at command and as left Simmons in charge... a memo that Grif didn’t get. No surprise there. Anyways, the privates decide to mess with Donut, tricking him into going to a non-existent a store to pick up some elbow grease and headlight fluid. Well now this RTAA suddenly makes sense. While Simmons does wonder if this was too harsh, Grif assures him that all that’s gonna happen is that the kid will run around the canyon for a few hours. What could possibly go wrong?

Meanwhile, the Blues got their tank as well as their own rookie, Michael J Caboose (Joel Heyman). They’re all admiring it with Church bringing up having a girlfriend back home. This causes Caboose to accidentally call her a... not nice word, annoying Church and setting up their relationship for the rest of the series. History in the making folks! Anyways, the two older soldiers get annoyed and send Caboose to guard the flag inside and await a general who doesn't look like them. Just as Donut arrives, and the two stupidly don’t turn around to see who they’re talking to, just assuming that it’s Caboose. So Donut goes in and since he doesn’t loo like the Blues... yeah you can both guess what Caboose does and how much Church probably wants to bang his head into the wall.

Church, believing Donut to be Sarge, wants to use a teleporter to cut him off... by making Tucker go first. Tucker refuses since it’s only been used on rocks, but Church forces him into it. And... nothing comes out of the other end. Wow, I’ve seen characters die early on, but daaaang. So Church goes on foot. Meanwhile, Grif eventually sees that Donut has the flag and he and Simmons get the Warthog. Church catches up to Donut, discovering that it’s not the sergeant... as Tucker finally comes out of the teleporter. His armor, which is normally aqua, is now completely black and he assumes that he got sent into the past. No, no Tucker, it’s two seasons too soon to bring time travel into the mix. Be patient kind sir! Anyways, the Reds show up and cause the Blues to take cover with Grif sending Donut back to Red Base. Kind of weird to see Grif doing his job tbh. Caboose, seeing that the others are in trouble, goes to get the tank.

We now meet Shelia. The tank! Yes, the tank has a name. She takes Caboose through the tutorial program... which he sucks at. Don't you just hate it when that happens? He is able to get it to the Reds, who have left the Warthog to get at the Blues, and the two plan to run back... with Grif leaving Simmons in the dust. Jerk. Well it doesn't matter, the Warthog ends up blown up when Caboose turns on the automatic firing system. Simmons yells at Grif for having the bright idea of exiting the Warthog... though if they had stayed in it, they’d be dead. But meh, whatever. In the meantime, Church realizes that Caboose is piloting the tank and comes out... causing Shelia to target on him and... 

So... yeah... Church is dead. Damn, and only eight episodes in too. But ah well, he’s dead! That’s that! It happens! No reason to care whatsoever! Moving right along now! Oh, and going back to the audio, that explosion nearly blew my ears out when I had it on 10% of the volume. SO thanks for that RT, bunch of assholes.

The Reds eventually make it back to the base as the tank continues to fire madly. Caboose is afraid to try anything to stop it since... you know, he just became a team killing fucktard and all. Fortunately, Sarge calls the team, currently on his way back to base. Grif, in rapid succession, explains what’s happening and luckily Sarge has a solution... by dropping bombs! To his credit it works as Shelia is blown up, though Caboose is able to exit in time. He mourns the loss of the lady in the tank (roll with me here) and the Reds take the first victory in what up to now was a standstill. And that ends the first half of the season!

So lets about the production a little bit. Season 1 is 19 episode long, averaging at around three minutes. This was not the plan. From what I understand, Burnie’s original plan was for RvB to be a miniseries, IDK the exact intended episode count but it wasn't supposed to be this long. I can only assume that the initial success caused him to expand on it. But the point is, there was no long term plan. As such, Burnie originally wrote the episode mere days before they were set to premiere. Unless you are South Park, that kind of production schedule is INSANE. Now since this was initially going to be a miniseries, its once more understandable, hence hwy I’m not going to go off on it like I would with any other show. I only bring this up for a historical perspective and because the next few episodes are going to contain events that will shape the series much later in the future. Events that were conceived shortly before the episode went into production. But I’ll get more into that when we get to the Recollection Trilogy. 

Now for the second half of the season. With a member dead and the tank totaled, Tucker, whose back to aqua-colored armor, calls command for backup. He’s answered by VIC. Now VIC is usually voiced by Burnie, but in this season he’s voiced by a different actor, and it shows. Anyways, the best that VIC can offer is to bring in a nearby Freelancer agent. Freelancers are neutral agents, often being employed by either side... or that’s the story Tucker gives. Oh Recollection Trilogy/Freelancer Saga, it’s gonna be FUN going over you. The agent being hired is known by Agent Texas, or Tex for short. It’s then that Tucker and Caboose receive a visitor... Church! As a ghost! Just... just go with it, okay? Anyways, Church came back to warn the two about Tex, an overly aggressive agent who murdered all of Church’s former squadmates on a snow planet known as Sidewinder. One soldier in particular, Jimmy, got beaten to death with his own skull. Man, that doesn't seem physically possible.

The point is, Tex is dangerous. Having this soldier in particular get involved may end up being more trouble than it’s worth. Church can’t elaborate too much, but he does make it clear to Tucker and Cabosoe that they, under ANY circumstances, should NOT involve Tex whatsoever. He also adds that Tex is the reason why he and his girlfriend didn’t get married, but he vanishes before he can talk further. Tucker is left confused... just as Tex arrives tot he canyon. Ho boy... so guys, do the Blues either A, heed Church’s advice and decide to not use Tex after all? Or B, disregard it completely and let Tex do whatever the Hell they want? If you guessed A, you are giving this show far too much credit, no cookie for you!

Well actually, I guess I can’t blame Tucker too much for not keeping Tex out though. I mean the first thing that they do is use Caboose for target practice. Considering what we find out later, there is another way to interpret this. But the Blues need Tex to get back their flag, and they have a very simple plan: go murder everyone and get it. Bloody... but hey, points for simplicity. Meanwhile, Grif gets the blame for the Warthog and yelled/shot at by Sarge. Donut is lamenting wanting his own armor color... before getting grenaded by Tex, who knocks Grif out and Simmons... meh, he just faints.  All as the Blues watch the carnage from the safety of their base.

Tex returns the flag to the Blues... somehow without leaving Red Base. Weird. But that’s not all that returns, so does Church! Needless to say, he’s not happy when he realizes that his teammates completely ignored what he said and let Tex get very much involved in the conflict. Speaking of Tex, Sarge is able to catch them and knock them out. Grif and Simmons get back up, the latter denying that he fainted. Donut is still down and heavily injured cause a grenade to the HEAD at POINT BLANK RANGE is totally survivable, but if they move fast, he can get treated and recover, so they go look for Sarge.

Lets go check back with the Blues, who have realized that Tex has been captured. Church is annoyed and Tucker brings up his previous comment about Tex being why he didn’t marry his girlfriend. This... isn’t the exact truth. This leads into the biggest plot twist of the season, one that Burnie came up with shortly before the episode’s release. So that girlfriend of Church’s? Turns out that is Tex. Yep, Tex is a girl. We confirm this when she gets back up and a voice filter she was using to sound masculine shorts out, revealing the voice of Kathleen Zuelch (Gynda Goodwitch in RWBY). Much to the Reds shock.

Church goes on to explain Tex’s deal. You see, she had been recruited into a secret military program and given an AI. This AI caused spikes in anger and aggression levels, turning Tex into a violent, bitchy killing machine. Still, Church does care enough that he rallies the others into mounting a rescue. How? Well Church plans on breaking into the Red Base, which with him being a ghost is the most logical option, while Tucker and Caboose play distraction. To help with this, he has the two go through the teleporter to turn their armor back. Yeah I glossed over this, but Freelancers supposedly dress in black armor. This gets majorly retconned later though.

The plan ultimately works pretty dang well. The Blues distract Grif, Church possesses Sarge (which Burnie’s impression ALWAYS kills me), who goes down and knocks Simmons out... again. Well it wasn't by fainting this time. Tex... takes this this all pretty well. The two make their escape, but Caboose is unaware of the possession and... ends up shooting Sarge. GDI Caboose. Which then leads us to, what is by far, the most confusing episode of the season. Not the show, oh Season 3 in itself is a major mindscrew, but man does this one hurt my brain.

So after being shot, Sarge wakes up in the afterlife where Church also is. Oh, Shelia’s there too and Church isn’t happy about... you know, her killing him and all. So Sarge is currently in limbo as in the real world, Grif tries to save him... with CPR... on a head wound... yeah if you wanna survive Blood Gulch Chronicles, then you are going to have to throw logic COMPLETELY out the window. Trust me, when you do it makes it more bearable. This works, again forget logic, and Sarge wakes up good as new. He still berates Grif for it though, even though he just saved his life and all. At least Church and Tex got away alive... okay Church is technically dead, but just... just go with it!

Sometime later, Donut is back and recovered. He also has his own armor color now! Pi... I-I mean, lightish-red!  Sarge also has obtained a speech unit for a Red member that I haven’t talked about yet because he has done absolutely nothing. Lopez, the group’s mechanic who as it turns out is a robot. Up until now he had zero lines and no overall relevance to the Reds antics, so I didn’t feel the need to bring him up. The speech unit works... except only in Spanish. I watched a recent RT Podcast the week before Christmas and Burnie, who also voices Lopez (yeah he does a good amount of voices, I think he did Tex’s voice filter too), got the idea from talking toys that would get stuck on the wrong language setting. When he explained that, it made SO MUCH MORE sense. So no one can understand Lopez and misinterpret everything that he says, a running gag for the entire series that’ll be better utilized in later seasons.

Over on the Blues, Tex is convinced to stick around until the Reds are taken out. as repayment for saving her. Why are the Blues keeping her around? Well Church wants to get the AI out of her head still and that would be kind of hard if she left. Plus forcing her when he can’t even fire a gun properly would not end well. They get Tex to work on repairing Shelia and Church finds that his body is still where he died. Worst, it’s rotting. Eww!! So a bit of a snag comes up. You see, when the Reds are dead, Tex will leave. Church can’t have that happen, so that means that he needs the Reds to stay alive. Since Tex almost has Shelia operational and will strike with her when done, he decides to go and warn them, leading us into the season finale.

Church leaves the Blues to update him on Tex as he goes to the Reds. He takes over Lopez and tries to warn them of the attack... but since Lopez can only speak Spanish, it goes about as well as you’d expect. Tex finishes Shelia and makes her move. Tucker allows Caboose to radio Church over this, a point that we’ll get to later. Church can’t properly convey that his warning failed and Tex proceeds to open fire on the Red Base. Well... shit. The now repaired Warthog fails to help, so what can stop Tex? As it turns out... Donut! He gets what may be some of the best karma upon someone ever, managing to throw a long-distance grenade into Shelia, causing her to explode and promptly kill Tex... for now.

Church, mortified, runs to Tex, leaving the Reds confused. In her dying breath, Tex confirms that the AI is gone and thanks Church. So that leaves the question, what happened to the AI? We find out soon enough. Tucker, realizing that things have gone to Hell, tells Caboose to fall back to Blue Base. But Caboose turns towards the camera, his voice becoming noticeably more menacing as he insists on being called O’Malley. And thus, Season One and the first part of The Blood Gulch Chronicles, comes to a close.

Review

(WARNING: POTENTIAL SPOILERS FOR LATER SEASONS)

Phew! That was a LOT of typing! For Blood Gulch, I’m going to be covering each season in their own post unless it looks necessary otherwise. Mainly because out of the current arcs, Blood Gulch is the least story heavy and the hardest to talk about due to it. But that doesn't mean that there’s nothing to say about it. But, as the warning above indicates, I’m going to bring up later seasons, but I’ll try not to give too much away. So... lets begin with...

Machinima

I couldn’t find a good place to talk about this in the overview, so we’ll do it here. For those unaware, RvB is not a traditionally animated series. It is created via use of machinima. According to Wikipedia, Machinima is “the use of real-time computer graphics engines to create a cinematic production. Most often video games are used to generate the computer animation.“  In short, it means taking an engine like say an X-Box and using a program like say Halo to create the graphics. 

Now there is some belief that RvB is the first to do this, but that isn’t true. This method has existed since at least the 90′s, although it didn’t get the name ‘machinima’ until the early 2000′s. But what can be said is that RvB took the concept and made it work on a mainstream level. No one else was using machinima on the scale that Rooster Teeth was. The only other notable works I could find before RT’s influence was some short films using a video came called Quake, which was the first machinima to be created. I think it’s safe to say that no one had tried making a full-fledged continuous series out of it, or at least no one was hugely successful. It’s also not exactly an easy process, especially in 2003. For example, if you leave a character standing too long they’ll do a default motion as programmed into the game. This can kill a scene and therefore the machinimators will be forced to start all over again. If you have three or so characters all in the same scene and just one does this or you make even a minor mistake with the controls, you have to start from scratch. How Burnie and Geoff did this and lived I’ll never know. Just imagine how it is in later seasons when more characters are brought in, ugh...

The guys used the original Halo for Season 1 and years later would make a remaster. So as far as the machinima goes, it’s done pretty good. They’re limited in what they can do n some shots looked weird, like how when Tex’ filter shorts out she’s facing the Reds, then in the next shot is faced away form them. So that can be kind of jarring, but nothing that really throws off anything.  About the only thing I hated looking at was VIC, who is more uncanny here than in any other season. But meh, his scenes are brief so I can live.

The graphics... have not aged well. This is not RT’s fault, the original Halo is nearly 15 years old and was part of the first generation of XBox. It’s not going to like Final Fantasy, is all I’m saying. Blood Gulch nowadays looks... IDK how to describe it. The settings look more realistic and less bulky and cheap in later seasons, though granted we get more than one location in later seasons. We’re limited to only the box canyon here. But again, I’m not expecting Pixar-quality CGI, so it doesn’t really take away form anything.

Writing

Like I said earlier, episodes were written shortly before they were set to be released. There was also no long-term plan, so Burnie was pretty much making things up as he went along. I mentioned Tex’s gender reveal, but things like Church being killed and in turn the ghost thing were not planned. They were conceived essentially on the spot. Normally, this kind of production style would murder a production. But... I’m not gonna lie, the writing is not bad. Yeah there’s stuff that breaks my brain like the ghost thing and Sarge in the afterlife, but there do get explained in later seasons and humor is subjective, so it might just be me.

Because of machinima’s limitation, the script and writing was probably the most vital thing. If people didn’t find it funny or engaging, then they weren’t going to watch it. This is a very dialogue heavy show where the lines and interactions are what tells you about a character and what they are feeling. Since the character models... you know, have a helmet covering the face and body language is near impossible, you can get why. And the dialogue is pretty good. Tucker’s en about women hooking up like Voltron cracked me up. Oh that’s one thing, the series relies heavily on black humor that wouldn't be out of place in South Park, so... be prepared for that.

BGC is very comedic focused. There is a plot and there are elements that later seasons will heavily rely heavily on. But the comedy is ultimately what comes first. There's a lot of jarring things as I mentioned, but I can say this. They do put many of these things to good use. For example, the teleporter turning armor black. I guess that may be a joke about Halo that I don’t get, but Church later utilizes this to create a distraction. Church is a ghost, and he uses this twice ti limited success. Church mentioning a girlfriend was done to have Caboose make a slut joke, and then it turns out that Tex is that girlfriend. Considering how the writing schedule was, it’s impressive that Burnie was able to take so many little things that were jokes and utilize them for the plot later. Looking back, it’s like a precursor to the decisions he makes for the Recollection trilogy, but that’s for there and not here. Still, kudos for taking those elements and making something out of them. That’s the kind of writing I like to see!

But as I said, the plot is secondary. Season One relies heavily on it’s character and the shenanigans they get into. The plot is kicked off by Donut mistaking Blue Base for a store when Caboose was conveniently told that the make-believe general didn’t look like a Blue. Pretty contrived when you think about it. The biggest plot twists were Church’s death and Tex being a girl, which again were split second decisions. It helped keep things interesting, but it shows that not a whole lot of thought went into the story. Ultimately while the show is genuinely funny, knew how to use certain bits to it’s advantage, and had those two twists, I don’t thin that the writing is exactly what got the show to succeed.

Audio/Voice Acting

We already went into the audio, and how it’s not very good. But the voice acting... is not much better. Aside from Joel and to a degree Matt, none of these guys are actors. So it is not at all a surprise that the voice acting is below average at best. I can tell that they’re trying, but... it comes off as empty and unmotivated a lot of the time. The best of the bunch are Burnie, Kathleen, and the aforementioned Matt and Joel. And even then, it’s weak compared to later on. I’m not saying that the others are bad, it’s just obvious that they were new to this at the time. I mean here’s a video of Gus and Geoff’s first recording session. 

If you’re not distracted by how young they are  (seriously, QUIT GETTING OLD), Geoff missing about 90% of his tattoos, and Gus’ lack of hair, you can tell that they have zero idea what they are doing. I can’t blame them though, this is the very first session after all and again they are trying. Matt, Joel, and Kathleen were also working out of California so I can only imagine how tough getting the proper direction for them was. All of them do improve MASSIVELY though as the series goes on, Heck Season 2 is noticeably better but more on that then. I think another big reason on why it was lacking is because aside from Matt, they aren’t really playing a character so much as exaggerated versions of themselves, so they don’t have as much to work with. Hence why it’s good that Burnie fleshed them out in Season 2.

The show’s music is... actually pretty good! There’s not a lot, mainly just guitar rifts used during season transitions, but they’re work. They have a folk music feel to them (or in the Warthog theme’s case polka) and I’m not normally a huge fan of that genre, but here it works. The shows intro, Blood Gulch Blues, it itself is really catchy and fun to listen to. The music was done by a group called Trocadero, who would do several other seasons. Now do I consider this to be the best music in the series? Well... it’s good, but no. Later seasons have a lot of really good tracks. But still, the soundtrack is nice to listen to and I really enjoy it!

Characters

To me, what makes or breaks a show is the use of it’s characters. A cliched story can be good if it’s both told well and if it’s character are utilized well. The cast here have a range of personalities and no two are the same. That said... they’re definitely not that fleshed out yet. There’s a few tiny things here and there. Simmons is a kissass to Sarge, Tucker makes the comment about using the tank to pick up women, Caboose is... not the brightest crayon in the box, but it’s not what defines them initially. Grif might be the biggest example of this I can think of. Later seasons establishes him as a fat, lazy slob who proudly shrinks his responsibilities, steals rations, and will eat expired food if he feels the need. Here? He... actually is trying to do his job with minimal complaint. I mean one of his lines in Episode 1 has him refer to joining the army to kick alien ass. He would NEVER say that nowadays.

Since I’m already talking about Grif, we’ll start the deeper looks with him. Grif is my favorite character in the show, albeit it took until Season 15 to set that in stone. So going back to now helps put things into perspective for me. As I said, the characters aren’t all that fleshed out yet. Grif is definitely the most laid back of the Reds, but again he’s willingly doing his job. He doesn't really display much of his more lazy characterization that we’re used to. The worst thing he does is leave Simmons to be killed by the tank to save his own skin, which yeah is a pretty shitty thing to do. None of these characters are exactly the most moral, to put it lightly. Back on topic, Grif’s the one who has them go get Donut, makes him go back to base, actually tries to get at the Blues before Shelia came, and even tried to save Sarge, I honestly believe that after Sarge got after him for using CPR, he decided ‘fuck this, I’m gonna get shit on no matter what the fuck I do, so I’m gonna do whatever the hell I want. It’ll make Sarge and Simmons pissy either way, so why even care? I’m just gonna do whatever the fuck I want and they can suck it up!” If that’s true, I can totally buy that and I’m sticking to that. But otherwise, Grif doesn't o very much aside from being the Red’s punching bag. Poor guy.

Simmons also does not do a whole lot. We do establish very quickly that he’s a kissass to Sarge’s command and he and Grif have this weird love-hate relationship. I can't think of too many nerdy moments for Simmons this season, IDT that really comes out until next season. Maybe even Season 3 when he’s fiddling with the portals. I could easily just be forgetting though. He’s kind of an arrogant dick, but he doesn't do anything that really makes him unlikeable. Maybe yelling at Grif about the Warthog, but Grif left him to die... yeah I guess I can’t blame him there... sort of. But otherwise, Simmons isn’t given a whole lot to do aside from arguing wit Grif and siding with Sarge. What I can say that him and Grif’s interactions were probably one of my favorite things in the season. The banter and chemistry between them felt really natural and I snickered at a lot of their bits, like arguing over Simmons fainting. This is probably because Gus and Geoff IRL are best friends, so I can imagine that their dialogue just wrote itself. But it’ works really well and helps make these two likebale despite both being assholes.

Sarge is still the leader and the one most determined to kill the Blues, but it’s definitely not as insane as later. The voice very much reflects this. Sarge has a very exaggerated southern accented voice in the show... except here and the start of Season 2. The southern accent is still there, but it’s mroe... .subdued? Laidback? Normal? IDK the right word, it’s definitely less exaggerated though. It was so jarringly different that I wasn’t sure if it was Matt still doing the voice at first. Sure enough it was still him. I can only assume that when they made Sarge’ murderous tendencies more exaggerated starting next season, Matt felt the need to do the same with his performance to reflect the character, And thank God for it. It felt so wrong here. Matt was probably the best actor, but that’s because he’s the only one given a character. As I said, Burnie essentially write exaggerated versions of his co-workers. Matt, as far as I know since I don’t work for him, isn’t a southern-accented drill Sargent. Anyone who works at RT reading this, please feel free to correct me. But anyways, Sarge is the leader, hates Grif, and is probably the most competent fighter among them, though not by much. Not much else to say otherwise except kudos for getting the most confusing scene in the season Sarge!

There’s even less to say about Donut and Lopez. Lope.... does nothing except fix the Warthog and shoot at Grif once. He eventually gets a speech module that only works in Spanish, and that only serves to make Church fail to warn the Reds. That’s it. Donut is the rookie who has no idea what is happening. He, next to Grif, is also the most different form later. he’s... normal here. I don’t recall him spouting even one innuendo an Dan’s voice is a lot less high pitched than later. He kicks off the plot by accidentally stealing the flag and is ultimately the one to defeat Tex. Which I will admit, was awesome and it was very fitting. But otherwise, Donut doesn’t get much to do here... or for much of the series infact. And don’t get me wrong, I like these characters and find them fun, but from a story perspective... yeah these two in particular aren't given much. But we’ll focus on that in later seasons.

As you may have noticed, the Reds don’t have much story going on.. and don’t for the majority of the series, sadly. They’re just the opposing force/comedic relief essentially. The Blues are the ones who move the story... well most of them. Tucker moves it the least, so we’ll start with him. He’s essentially there to be someone that Church can bicker with when not pissed at Caboose. In this season, this makes him the least interesting compared to Church with his ghost development and relationship with Tex, the badass Tex, and the dim-witted Caboose. His defining trait of being into women isn’t even really here aside from the earlier stuff with the tank. He will have more time to shine and show his competence, but that’s really not going to be until he gets the sword. We’re going to be waiting a while. But as with Grif and Simmons, the banter between Tucker and Church was really good and it worked. I can say the same for Tucker and Caboose as well.

Speaking of Caboose, he’s still an idiot... but not as badly. I mean Joel’s not even using the 'act like I’m taking to tiny animals’ voice that we’re familiar with. He’s using his regular voice. While Caboose is still obsessed with Church being his ‘best friend’and a dimwit, such as shooting Church when possessing Sarge, it’s not even close to what we’re used to. he has common sense and some train of thought for one, such as getting the idea to use the tank. It backfired horribly, but he recognized the danger. Now there is a potential in-universe reason on why Caboose became dumber, but we’ll cover that next season. For now, Caboose is at worst dimwitted and frustrating to Church, but hilarious for us. He’s still the character that I laughed at the most.

Tex comes in later, but she’s drastically different form the others. Not just because she’s the only girl either. She’s the most violent and willing to kill. I mean even Sarge hasn’t exactly done anything as brutal as hit a Blue with a grenade at point blank yet. Part of this can be blame on the AI making Tex more vicious than she would otherwise be. Personality wise, she’s no-nonsense and serious minded, there to get her job done as quickly and effectively as possible. She’s easily able to take on the Reds and only loses due to Sarge getting the jump on her... and even then she got the flag back tot he Blues so she didn’t exactly fail. She’s a tough person and doesn't have the best attitude in the world, even without the AI. She;s awesome and her arrival is ultimately the biggest story element. Her and Church's relationship is funny and really interesting, which helps both characters. Whether her feelings for Church are genuine or not, or even existent, isn’t expanded on here. But I do interpret her shooting Caboose as ‘practice’ as her getting revenge for killing him to begin with. Add that to her dying wors to him and... yeah I’m sure she does in her own way.

Finally that brings us to Church himself. Church is ultimately the character who pushes the story along and actually gets the Blues to do something. He’s a snarky asshole, easily frustrated and annoyed. He’s the straight man to Tucker pestering him and Caboose being... Caboose. His death is one of the biggest things to happen in the season and even in death, he pushes things forward. His relationship with Tex, he’s the one who plans her rescue, he’s the one who carries it out, and he’s the one most motivated to get rid of the AI. Lets face it, Church is the most proactive character and the one who ultimately keeps the plot moving forward, It’s why he was my favorite character in the beginning... that and Burnie being the only person I really recognized aside form Joel due to RWBY. Church is definitely who’d I consider the most well-written and relevant character, especially with what happens later and the closest thing that we have to a lead character.

Final Thoughts

Man, I did NOT expect this review ot get so long. I mean it took up 18 pages in my notebook, but still...

Ultimately, I don’t thin that Red vs Blue succeeded due to it’s writing or vocal performances. No, I think what made this work was both luck and being innovative. As I said, machinima existed, but not tot he scale that RT was putting it out. I think them choosing Halo, a popular game that was new at the time, really helped them. It also helped that they had somewhat of a fanbase due to their previous work on the sadly dysfunctional drunkgamers.com.  Which, as the title says, has a bunch of drunkards reviewing games. Think of it as a sort of precursor to Achievement Hunter. They also released a parody video of the then new Apple Switch, as seen here:

Sheesh, and I thought Gus looked young in the recording session video... but my point here is the show was a success for several reasons. They took an obscure media form and did something different with it, took advantage of the open opportunities (Halo’s popularity, their previous fanbase.) They were also very lucky when it came to copyright. Yes even then, when Youtube didn’t exist, they could have gotten into legal trouble for making this show. Fortunately, Microsoft and Bungie liked it and allowed them to continue without paying a fee. How the deal works nowadays IDK, but I’m assuming that things are good since it’s still being made and all.

Season One proved to be a major success. It drew in Halo fans and fans of their previous drunkgamers efforts. Now IDK how things worked in 2003, I was only 10 and had no idea how to use the web was was too young to watch RvB anyways. However they counted views or whatever, it worked. It launched machinima to a more mainstream market and they even got interviewed by CNN and other news groups. Rooster Teeth very quickly became a spearhead in the world of web content, and they’d only grow form here. Season Two was a guarantee, especially with a cliffhanger that would keep viewers interested. But we’ll discuss all of that in the next review.

[elecman108]

Happy New Year everyone. I’m plotting to do nothing specific for like resolutions this year (I never do) but I’m gonna start the year off with some thoughts in general about the world.

So I’m gonna spew out some ideas in text format under the read-more line so y’all don’t have to if you don’t want to.

Alright, so, yesterday, late as usual, I was catching up on my Youtube. Yogscast, Madcat, Game Theory, the usual mumbo-jumbo I watch. I was watching more of a Zelda Ocarina of Time playthrough by FWOB (Episode 16, Recording Goblins if you’re interested) and Dad and Dillon were talking about their christmas shit they went through, and one of them said something really woke, I can’t find the exact bit, but it was something to the effect of “Parents don’t care about your information you might have backed up in science if it’s something that was around when they were younger.”

So, if it’s like their example, dieting by drinking protein shakes, and it’s not exactly what you’re supposed to do, because those are for building muscle mass (And if playing Persona 3/Q has taught me anything, is that Aki is a muscle nut who drinks protein shakes to build muscle, so... I learned that from a video game!). But like, whoever it was who was talking about it had a background in that sort of thing, so he KNEW about it. And his parents were like “that’s your OPINION”. Like, no, that’s science. I thought nothing of it aside from “man, adults are dumb” because it was almost midnight and I was tired.

But today I was chilling at my grandma’s - as my family does on New Year’s Day for some coffee and chatting - and I realized exactly how true that their little statement was. Lemmie set the scene for a moment.

My parents and grandma were chatting about meats, and someone mentioned antibiotic-free meat. Now, in a class I’d had this past semester, I learned that, at least for chicken in Canada, that “antibiotic-free” applies only to how the chick is raise, not their parent chickens. Most of these grain-fed chickens come from antibiotic-overusing places and thus, those superbacteria on the chickens that are immune to antibiotics gets spread down the lineage to their eggs. So I mentioned that casually like “it’s not necessarily a good thing, antibiotic free. You gotta know where the egg originated from, otherwise it’s like, probably got superbacteria on it.” And INSTANTLY all adults (aside from my bro) were like “Are you sure? Because its antibiotic FREE. That means free of antibiotic use.” And lemmie tell you, I wasn’t entirely going to step down, but I had to otherwise I had three adults telling me my founded in facts science I got from a reputable source study from a class where my teacher only used reputable sources was not reputable, and I’d be “argumentative”. And that got me thinking.

What the fuck?

Because it’s science. We know it’s science. Use a thing, body gets used to it, bacteria/viruses try to get used to it. That’s how it works. You take the drugs too much, your body lowers itself as to not cause you harm from overusing the drug, stop using it and the bad things that have gotten used to it remain and cause problems later.

So why is that science “wrong”?

And here’s another thing for thought: why is it that things about COMPUTERS, instantly adults turn to the younger generation, because they know computers? Why is that fine and understandable, but science might not be if coming from a younger generation’s mouth?

And here’s the thing: It got me thinking.

And that’s never a good idea, because I think a lot. And when I do, I put it to the world.

Here’s something we all know about: Gun Violence in the US. It’s rampant, it makes me nervous when I go through and see guns in random stores, I’m constantly on-edge. Why? Because I don’t... want... to get shot? A logical thought. I don’t want anyone ELSE to get shot. Guns are causing issues, get rid of them. But why won’t they? Because back in earlier decades, when the people in power were younger, guns were fine. They were useful. Now people are getting guns and being all bah whatever about them and they’re just ending up in bad hands and causing shootings regularly. But they won’t change it because the young people who are trying to force change are “wrong”.

How about anti-vaxxers? They don’t want to vaccinate their kids because they think it’s “wrong” and could cause bad things to happen. Why? Because when they were growing up, their parents most likely didn’t believe in vaccinations and put their values on their kids.

Any new information is bad if old information, however false it might be, contradicts it.

Even if the new information is a solid fact.

This new generation of people, these millennials and such, we’ve grown up with the internet. We’ve grown up with phones in our hands 24/7. We’ve grown up in the age of information, where you can check your facts and check what other people say, but we don’t check. Why? Because we’ve been raised to think if someone’s older, they’re wiser, even if they know jack shit about what they’re talking about.

Mansplainning! It’s the same deal! Someone older (or who thinks they’re superior in knowledge, it might just be that) thinks that everyone else doesn’t know shit, so what they say is true, even if the person they’re explaining it to wrote the book.

The world is run on two sides of the same coin. People who won’t change their opinions or knowledge for new information, and people who’ve grown up with so much bullshit being thrown at them that they’ve learned to take everything with a grain of salt and double-check their sources, information, and make an educated and logical opinion. And the people who want change are the second side, and the people who can make change are the first.

It doesn’t work.

People are stubborn, I know this. I’m stubborn. Hell, I take information with a grain of salt all the time and will stick my foot in the door to wrong information if I’m under the impression it’s right. But I have to check. That’s my problem. I hate being wrong. Everyone hates it.

Actually, I might just hate being wrong because I had crippling social anxiety issues growing up from being bullied for the longest time for being “smart”. Which makes me now be incapable of taking a compliment without almost crying or replying with “but I’m dumb, let’s be real here”. Which I am. Well, I think I am. Because I’ve been told this, and I’m not open to new information.

So take this with a grain of salt. I have no backup information. No research, no studies, no nothing. All I have is life experience.

Tumblr’s nipple-bot-ban? User-base can’t change it because the company thinks it’s superior to its users, and thus their information over-rules our logic, fact, and experience with the platform. Our thoughts? Fuck those, they’re not ours, they’re wrong. That’s their logic.

Companies cut corners to make things cheaper for them to make so they can make money. But that’s wrong. Slavery by whatever food company that was (Nestle, I think? Don’t take that for fact, I forget the company...) is fine, because  they are right, and you, the person with the facts, are wrong. But you’re not. But they insist it’s needed or you’re wrong.

If it doesn’t make money instantly, they don’t want it.

Our society is being run by money-hungry capitalists stuck in their old, outdated information, and the new age of people who fact-check are screaming at them. Sometimes literally.

And some are just typing for half an hour on Tumblr because they have nothing better to do, and no other platform to put their thoughts on. Because the other one are... well, not the same sort of thing.

I’m not saying we’re going to have to outlive the old population to get anything done, but it might come down to that.

TL;DR: To make meaningful change, we need to fact-check our information and make sure we’re using the most up-to-date facts. And everyone needs to. The younger generation can’t do anything because the old generation controls everything.

Or, something along those lines. Regardless, I’m exhausted. Thinking about society and the world is exhausting. It’s... kind of scary. Really scary...