#kaikaina is like. objectively very pretty!

[donut-entendre]

Heyyy just a reminder that saying Tucker's first name is lame is racist as hell. And also it's literally a cool name fuck you

[anneapocalypse]

[RvB 16.10] Tucker and the Post-Protagonist Problem

So I want to talk about Tucker’s characterization in seasons 15 and 16 (henceforth “Joe’s Tucker” for brevity’s sake), and how it relates to Tucker’s characterization prior.

I uh, realize this is a divisive issue, and you might not agree with my take on this and that’s fine—I am not here trying to ruin something for you that you like, or to force you to like something that you don’t. How characterization lands for us is subjective in a lot of ways. I just want to talk about where it lands for me, and I have some thoughts both positive and critical about characterization both past and present. And as I have a lot of ground to cover, this is going to be a long one.

A lot of the takes I’ve seen center around the idea that Tucker’s season 16 characterization—in fact, much of the tone and style of season 16 generally—is a return to the tone and style of the Blood Gulch Chronicles. I have seen this raised both as a positive and as a negative.

So let’s talk about Blood Gulch.

Tucker’s Character Arc

Let’s talk about how Blood Gulch sets Tucker on the path he will follow for the next decade.

Tucker’s hypersexualization, as the first and one of very few canonically black characters on this show, is not a problem that started with Joe. It’s a problem that’s been there, has always been there, and it’s kind of too late to retroactively fix it at this point.

You can’t go back and unwrite Tucker’s personality. What you can do is make Tucker a more complex character by developing other aspects of his personality, and that, I would argue, has been going on as far back as season 3, when he finds the sword and embarks on the Great Journey. Is Tucker’s arc in Blood Gulch goofy and weird? Yeah, absolutely, but he does have one.

Blood Gulch is a story about failure and yet Tucker is the exception that proves the rule—he ends up being the only person in Blood Gulch who actually succeeds. Church fails to protect Tex, Tex fails to kill Omega and fails to complete her final mission, York fails to help Tex complete her mission and then dies, Wyoming fails his mission and also dies, O’Malley fails to take over the universe, Doc fails at being a medic on every conceivable level, Caboose (if season 6 is any indication) fails to make Church his best friend, Simmons fails to gain Sarge’s respect, Sarge fails to kill even a single dirty Blue, Donut’s teammates more or less shut him down every time he speaks, Sister isn’t really there long enough to have a goal, Grif… well, to say that Grif fails would imply that he is trying to accomplish something in the first place, so we’ll let that one go. (I guess if you really wanted to, you could say Andy succeeds at exploding, so… that’s a freebie, you can have that one.)

But Tucker succeeds in multiple ways. He finds a special object and goes on a quest and gives birth to Alien Jesus. (Despite the apparent failure of the Great Journey, its true purpose ends up being fulfilled.) I think Tucker is in fact the only Blood Gulch character to actually defeat an enemy, when he permakills Wyoming!

And Tucker continues to grow in the Recollections arc. The ambassador gig might’ve started out simply as an explanation for his absence in season 6, and his desert predicament a way to bring him back to the story while moving the rest of the characters to a new map. But it also had the effect of adding a whole lot to Tucker’s character: new responsibilities, his relationship with his son, his ability to think on his feet and hold his own against a whole team of enemies trying to kill him. Fulfilling the Great Prophecy was not something Tucker chose. But in Recollections we see an increasingly proactive Tucker.

I want to stress two things here: first, that all of these things happen long before Chorus, and second, that none of this undermines Tucker’s established personality in any way. He’s still a lighthearted character who likes to crack jokes and make innuendos and flirt with girls, and generally doesn’t take his situation too seriously, including his “dumb job.” But that attitude also doesn’t undermine his capability, nor does it stop him from coming out on top.

In present-day season 10, while Carolina drags the Reds and Blues around the map, she gets pushback from pretty much all of them—for very good reasons. But it’s Tucker and Epsilon who take the lead in trying to get more information from Carolina—eavesdropping, prodding her for the details of her mission directly, and finally sending Epsilon to go undercover and try to figure her out. I don’t think it’s by chance that at the end, when the Reds and Blues finally turn on Carolina, it’s Tucker she pulls a gun on, rather than Grif or even Sarge. Tucker’s not the first or the only one to stand up to her, but his persistence combined with his capability does make him the most obvious threat to her control.

Tucker’s character progression has been a strong, consistent arc from Blood Gulch to Recollections to present-day season 10 to the Chorus Trilogy. The person Tucker becomes on Chorus is the culmination of a ten-year character arc, and the change Tucker undergoes on Chorus is not that he becomes capable. He was always capable. Wash sees that in him in season 11, and says so very clearly.

“You're a capable soldier, Tucker. At least compared to your usual acquaintances. You just need to try.”

Tucker grows into his capability on Chorus because his environment drastically changes. He is thrown into a real war with real stakes. He must rise to the challenges before him because to fail means to see real people die—his old friends, his new acquaintances, and the de facto team leader he has begun to regard with a grudging respect. This is important: Tucker’s arc on Chorus and specifically his arc in season 12 is about coming to recognize the stakes of the conflict—understanding that a wrong decision in this context will get people killed. He learns this the hard way, but the lesson sinks in fast, and Felix takes full advantage of that to goad and manipulate Tucker. Even after successfully reuniting with Wash and the others captured by the Feds, Tucker continues to struggle with insecurities brought to the surface by his experiences with the New Republic.

(I say “brought to the surface,” not “created,” because Tucker’s insecurities also do not materialize fully formed for the first time on Chorus, but we’ll come back to that later.)

I am not saying that Tucker’s rise to protagonist status was always planned, but I am saying that Miles chose him for a reason. Tucker’s capability in the Chorus arc is not an eleventh-hour add-on to his character. It’s always been there. Always.

“Dude, I'm kind of a badass all the time. You guys just happened to notice it then.”

Joe’s Tucker

You know what else has been there the whole time? Tucker’s insecurity.

This is an aspect of Tucker’s characterization this season that I like: the desire for approval. I think that’s consistent characterization; I think that’s been there since Blood Gulch and it was definitely there on Chorus, both in Tucker’s conflicts with Epsilon and in his growing respect for Wash.

I’ve written before about how I think a lot of the tension between Epsilon and Tucker comes from the fact that Epsilon doesn’t respect Tucker and regularly insults and demeans him--which frankly reflects far more poorly on Epsilon than it does on Tucker, but that’s another post. Wash, on the other hand, challenges Tucker because he sees him as capable, and Tucker responds, not only by growing into his own capability, but by coming to trust Wash in turn (“Wash will know what to do”) and coming to him for advice when he’s feeling down about decisions he’s made.

“Sis and Tuc’s Sexcellent Adventures” more serves to highlight Tucker’s inexperience back in Blood Gulch than it reflects on present Tucker, and that really doesn’t bother me. I am absolutely down for fumbling and inexperienced Blood Gulch Tucker versus the fucking character assassination season 14 attempted on him--yeah, let’s not get into that. Point is, nothing about Tucker’s adventures with Kaikaina early in this season has bothered me. Given the choice to see Tucker as insecure and posturing versus actively sexually irresponsible or predatory, I will take the former every time.

However. I can’t bring that up without also bringing up the “You’ve been served” gag from season 15. The implications of the Tower of Procreation are a messy can of worms that I really don’t want to get into here, so let’s assume for the sake of the argument that Joe at least intended that to be a basically consensual situation. Making Tucker suddenly an absentee/irresponsible father still feels like kind of a kick in the teeth, invoking some hardly-benign racial stereotypes and kind of spitting on Tucker’s established love for Junior--a child who was, by the way, conceived in a completely non-consensual manner of which Tucker was the victim, and whom Tucker nevertheless loved and accepted as his own once Junior was born.

Tucker was arguably the best father in Red vs. Blue, so uh. Undermining that piece of characterization 15 years in? That sucks. I don’t know how else to say it. It’s not as bad as “Fifty Shades of Red” trying to make him a statutory rapist, but it’s not great.

But let’s talk about some of the other beats Tucker hits in these recent seasons.

I laid out most of my thoughts on season 15 in my big fat RvB15 post so I’m going to try not retread too much of that here. I’ve said there and elsewhere that I think “Previously On” and “Reacts” are among the strongest episodes of season 15. Joe’s character writing really shines there across the board. Setting aside the Temple of Procreation business, Tucker hits several familiar beats in these episodes, most notably his insistence that Epsilon is Church (Tucker never really seems to draw a hard distinction between Epsilon and Alpha and I’ve argued before that this contributes to some of their tension on Chorus) and his looking up to Wash.

These episodes also introduce a new beat for Tucker that returns in “Nightmare on Planet Evil” and pays off late in the season, and that’s Tucker’s protectiveness of Caboose. Tucker and Caboose have had a tense relationship more or less from day one, each of them clearly seeing the other as competition for Church’s attention (though Caboose certainly takes that to an extreme, and his bias against Tucker probably also contributes to the way Epsilon treats him). It actually makes a lot of sense that following Church’s death, their shared grief might bring them together, and a real friendship might develop at last. Tucker helping Caboose to understand that Church is really gone is good development for both characters and it’s planted and paid off very effectively throughout the season.

Tucker’s relationship with Carolina likewise gets some good development throughout season 15, from Carolina joining the band on the moon (and singing so good), to Tucker helping her to her feet in the end sequence.

There are some moments of weirdness in Tucker’s dialogue (“me and Carolina and the Blues” comes to mind), but overall, when it comes to his relationships, Tucker hits some strong beats in season 15, both carrying forward established relationships and building on them.

And I think in a lot of ways, this remains true in season 16. Tucker and Kaikaina’s adventures have mostly surprised me in a good way. I like what they’ve added to canon both past and present. I love the serious moment the two of them share--ironically, a serious moment about how they both wish shit could be a little less serious, certainly an understandabl sentiment for both of them. It’s an important moment of continuity for Tucker after the mishaps of season 15, and it’s a nice further window into Kai’s entrepreneurial ventures.

The cyclops episode is absolutely goofy, but it’s goofy in a way that gives us some classic Tucker--both his capability and his sense of humor. That he defeats the cyclops by punching it in the ball, in a wacky action sequence complete with some well-placed innuendo, I’d say brings together those aspects of Tucker pretty damn well. If I had to pick an episode that embodies that whole callback to the Blood Gulch spirit, and Tucker in Blood Gulch specifically, I’d probably pick that one.

The thing to note about this episode is that its absurdity in no way undermines Tucker’s capability or the more complex understanding of the world he has grown into over time. I have no major complaints with this episode.

Let me say it again for those in the back row: the Blood Gulch tone is not itself a problem and does not, in and of itself, undermine anyone’s character growth.

However.

(You knew there was a however.)

There are a few specific instances where I think Tucker’s characterization weakens in these recent seasons--in ways that have nothing to do with tone.

Again, I don’t want to rehash too much discussion of season 15, but I know I was not the only one a bit discontented with Tucker’s role in the plot. Like I said, I think Tucker has plenty of great moments in 15. His role in the story, however, seems mostly to be to step aside to let the plot happen, and then to act as ineffectively as possible to make sure things are allowed to escalate. I wrote about this in my season 15 essay as well, how not allowing the Reds and Blues to be suspicious also weakens Temple as villain because it seems like sheer dumb luck rather than his own cleverness that no one catches onto him, how weird it is for Tucker to trust a stranger given his past experiences, etc. Most of this comes down to narrative issues, I think, and making Dylan the protagonist; it affects Tucker most noticeably but it’s not limited to him.

It’s Tucker going full LEEROY JENKINS that really feels like kind of an insult to his established characterization. It’s not just Chorus Tucker who is good at coming up with tactics on the fly and figuring a way out of a tight spot. He does that at the temple in Recollections. He figures out how to defeat a time-distorting Wyoming in Blood Gulch.

And as I’ve said before, you can come up with reasons why Tucker is off his game in season 15. Grief and the possibility of Church being alive is probably right at the top of that list.

But I do want to raise again the most important lesson Tucker learned on Chorus, and that’s the difficulty of making tough calls in a high-stakes situation. I don’t think Tucker making a bad call in the fight against the Blues and Reds would even be a problem if we saw Tucker consciously struggling to make that call, instead of just running out half-cocked. Instead, he acts impulsively and someone gets gravely hurt because of it, and then Tucker feels bad about it.

That’s not new character development, that’s Tucker’s season 12 arc, again. Kind of like how a villain from the past with a grudge against Carolina for the loss of someone they loved isn’t a new concept, it’s just Carolina’s season 13 arc, again. You can make it make sense in universe, but it still feels derivative. Callbacks to the tone, humor, and style of earlier seasons is fine. Cannibalizing past seasons for plot, and retreading character arcs instead of moving them forward, is not a good look.

It looks like you just didn’t know what to do with these characters, so you did something that had already been done.

And I can respect, in light of some of that criticism of season 16, that Joe is really trying to do something with The Shisno Paradox that hasn’t been done. Regardless of how this season ends, and how this new arc ends up landing for me as a whole, I can and will respect that.

Which brings us at last… to Camelto, and my take on why this episode in particular rubs me the wrong way when it comes to Tucker.

No one could call this scenario derivative of past seasons--and upon further consideration, I don’t even think I’d call it regressive--because this Tucker doesn’t really resemble Blood Gulch Tucker or any other Tucker. I mean, sure, the hypersexualization is there, as is the insecurity. But there’s a big difference between posturing and threatening to murder people who insult your sexual prowess.

And you can say I’m taking the King Arthur shenanigans too seriously, but I do find something kind of jarring about Tucker casually sending a whole army to their deaths when he’s had a major character arc based around taking the stakes of war and human lives seriously. Yeah, in a meta context, the time travel shenanigans are meant to be funny, and they’re mostly closed loops so it doesn’t really feel like anyone is actively killing anyone who wasn’t historically going to die anyway. But from an in-universe perspective, it’s kind of uncomfortably callous. (You know, the kind of callous disregard for human life that was played dead fucking straight last season when it was Carolina doing it anyway moving on.)

So, setting aside the attitude toward death, for me the whole tone of this episode with Tucker tips just over the line from “posturing and it’s funny” into “aggressively desperate to reaffirm his sexual prowess and it’s kind of pathetic and uncomfortable.” And that is not the feeling I’m used to getting from Tucker. It starts to feel a little bit mean-spirited, and coupled with the earlier episode about Tucker’s sexual missteps (which, on its own, I enjoyed), I start to feel like we’re more just dumping on Tucker, rather than giving him character development. It’s uncomfortable for me in the same way the back half of season 10 gleefully punishing and humiliating Carolina was uncomfortable for me.

And I did not feel that way last season. I felt like Tucker was kind of getting pushed around by the dictates of The Plot, and thus wasn’t allowed to be his best or most interesting self. But I didn’t feel like we were deliberately devoting entire episodes to making him look stupid.

And that’s what this feels like to me.

Taken as a whole, Joe’s Tucker has been… kind of all over the place. I can’t really characterize it one way, because it’s been a lot of things. At points I think it’s quite good, and at other points I’ve found it frustrating--in different ways.

We’re still mid-season, so I’m not ready to pass final judgment yet--this episode could end up being an outlier and if so I won’t lose sleep over it. I think I’ll forgive a lot if we just get a bit of Tucker being capable in a plot-relevant way--it doesn’t have to be a major way. He’s not the protagonist of this season, Grif is, and now that they’ve teamed up I think, and hope, that we’ll have a chance to see Tucker play a stronger supporting role.

The Post-Protagonist Problem

Lest I come down too hard on Joe, I want to point out that this fumble is not unique to either Joe or Tucker.

In what I’m going to call the “Post-Protagonist Problem,” Church, Wash, and Carolina all suffer from similar problems once their main arcs are over.

Alpha’s arc wraps up pretty effectively in season 6, but Epsilon has his own arc spanning seasons 8-10. Your mileage may vary but I find Epsilon utterly obnoxious in season 12, and I think there’s a reason for this beyond how needlessly mean he is to Tucker: he is still trying to be the main character two seasons after his main arc has ended, and thus he ends up actively fighting Tucker for the protagonist spot, and bogarting every scene he’s in.

Wash really has two main arcs that kind of fuse into one: his Recollections arc, bracketed by Freelancer and present-day season 10. You could argue that season 11 is really the culmination of Wash’s main arc, because it’s there that he truly settles into his place on Blue Team, ultimately sacrificing himself for them, even though he doesn’t die. From season 12 on, Wash doesn’t really have an arc—his interactions with Locus serve Locus’s development far more than they serve his own, and his role in the conclusion of the Chorus storyline is pretty secondary. In season 15, Wash has no active role in the plot except to get shot, and season 16—well, the verdict is still out, but his role so far has been fairly passive. (And the continuity of Wash’s characterization is fairly contentious in itself, but that’s another post. Oh boy, is that another post. We’ll get to you, Wash. We’ll get to you.)

Carolina’s main arc wraps up in season 10, she is hastily escorted offscreen for a season and half, and when she does return, it’s mostly to carry Epsilon around and say and do very little otherwise—she even gets nerfed immediately upon return. The only reason we got a Carolina mini-arc in season 13 is because fans expressed disappointment at her sidelining in 12, and Miles took note. It is also worth noting that:

Carolina’s season 13 arc has nothing to do with Chorus, does very little to advance the main plot, and does nothing to develop Carolina’s relationships with the main cast and in fact actively removes her from them for large chunks of the season.

Carolina’s role in season 15’s plot, though not an arc for her, is pretty much a retread of her season 13 arc with a different villain.

What this all adds up to is I think that Red vs. Blue in general, not just Joe Nicolosi, has trouble figuring out what to do with a character once their run as a protagonist has ended—and that’s kind of a shame, because it’s not like most of us wants these characters to go away. At least, I don’t.

There’s nothing wrong with a character taking a secondary role once their main arc is complete. But that secondary role shouldn’t discard established character development. A character’s shouldn’t have to regress simply because they’re not driving the plot. There are ways to offer follow-up to previous character development without placing a character back in the protagonist spot.

I’d argue that some of Wash’s strongest character beats post-season 10 are the ones that develop his mentor relationship to Tucker. I think both Carolina and Wash would benefit from developing their connection with each other post-Freelancer. It doesn’t have to be front and center or take up a lot of a screentime, it’s just a way to maintain emotional continuity for both characters in the background of the plot (and it can still be relevant to the plot--imagine if Carolina and Wash’s season 15 talk on the beach were about Epsilon instead of York).

Likewise, there are plenty of ways to explore both Tucker’s fun-loving flirt personality and his insecurities without feeling either regressive or mean-spirited.

I think you can have fun with a former protagonist as a secondary character while still offering up some emotional continuity through relationship development while letting plot development mostly take a backseat. I think Joe was almost there with Tucker and Kaikaina’s subplot this season--like, really close. Tucker can be silly. He can be insecure. Just don’t outright disregard the lessons he’s already learned so he can be made to learn them all over again. And do let him show his confidence and capability now and then.

[secretlystephaniebrown]

Time’s Running Out: Romeo

... whoops? Has it really been since March? OH WELL, MY COMPUTER'S FIXED, I'VE GOT FREE TIME AGAIN, AND I'M READY TO KICK THIS FIC'S ASS, ENJOY SOME FEELINGS.

Summary: The Reds and Blues; and their respective Freelancers, find themselves stranded on a strange planet named Chorus. Secrets, lies, and the unexpected seem to lie around every corner, and there might be even larger threats looming over the horizon.

They’re possibly even less ready for Chorus than Chorus is for them.

Pairings: Lots of friendships, Suckington, Yorkalina, Chex, eventual Yorkimbalina, possible others.

Start

Previous

Ao3

There was a moment of heavy breathing, with York staring up at her. There was blood everywhere, and for a second, she thought she saw fear in his body language.  

It was only a second, but it was quite possibly one of the most terrible seconds of Tex’s life.

She stepped over the corpse and offered him a hand up.

York reached up and accepted, taking it and then using the momentum to collapse against her. Relief coursed through her. If he was able to trick her into a hug, he was going to be fine.

“Is he…” York said, staring at the body behind her.

“Yes.” She said. She offered no explanations or apologies. She knew that Locus had been his friend once. The thought was strange in her mind, sharp like jealousy and bitter like rage.

York’s shoulders stiffened for a moment, then he exhaled sharply.

“That is excellent news, Agent Texas,” Delta said, appearing on York’s shoulder, as if attempting to reassure himself that York was, in fact, still alive. It was as close to physical contact that an A.I. and host could get.

“Dee, when did you get so bloodthirsty?” York asked, but there was relief in his voice too. One more ghost gone.

Tex bent over Locus’s dead body, and pried the healing unit out of his fingers, already stiff. Carefully, she pressed it back into place on York’s chest plate, watching as his body language slowly relax as painkillers did their job.

“They’re gone,” Tex said, and there should have been satisfaction in that, but there wasn’t. It had been too close.

She’d watched York die before, and it had been a long, long time ago now. She had stopped that world, she had punched a hole through reality itself to save him, but…

She had watched him die once.

She had come this close to seeing it happen again.

Tex reached out and pressed a hand against his shoulder. “York,” she said, struggling to find words. “I—you know you’re—you’re my—” the words felt like they were strangling her, which shouldn’t even be possible.

Church, in her brain, remained shockingly silent.

“I know,” York said. “Me too.”

She scowled and clenched her hands into fists. “No,” she said. “Don’t let me off like that.”

“Tex,” York laughed, his voice unsteady, his breathing labored. He took a step forward and stumbled. Tex leapt forward to catch him. “I know, okay?”

“I love you,” Tex spat out.

She wasn’t programmed to. It was an aberration.

She was programed to love Church. She was built for it. She was built to love Carolina. She was built for the strange affection for Delta, even.

She was a shadow, an artifice, a series of ones and zeroes all strung together, forming the very core of herself. Pieced together, placed in a body of a robot, built up and pulled apart and put back together again. Put back together by Reds and Blues and Church and Carolina…and the idiot in front of her.

She had not been built for this. This strange, tumultuous, bizarre course, which no one could have seen coming.

There was no romance in the sentence, there was barely even affection. It was brusque and harsh, somehow a declaration and a question at the same time.

She loved her idiot best friend, and she had nearly seen him die a second time.

She couldn’t see his expression.

“I love you too, Tex,” he said. He leaned against her. “Now, uh, not to rush you or anything, but I think I need to submit myself to Dr. Grey’s terrifying medical expertise.”

“Right,” Tex said, putting an arm around his shoulder and starting to lead him away.

The tightness in her throat, the one that should be impossible because she had no muscles to lock up or lungs to draw air with, didn’t go away.

“Let’s go back to Armonia,” she said. York’s blood dripped onto the cavern floor and Locus cooled next to her feet.

She was not built to be this way.

Teleport cubes and the knowledge that they might all be dead soon made the journey back to Armonia fast.

Kimball wished she could just have time to think.

Carolina had made the report over the radio—Felix with a key that could kill everyone on the planet, Locus dead, Church’s body destroyed, York injured but not in critical state. The last one was said grimly, through gritted teeth, taking any potential satisfaction from Locus—one of Kimball’s longest living nightmares—being dead.

The Reds and Blues and Freelancers moved back into the war room. They looked the worse for wear for their journey, and there’s no sign of Church in physical form, although Kimball would guess that he was implanted into one of their implants, like Delta or Epsilon.

Agent York’s armor was in the worst state—it had never been great, old fashioned, a patchwork of repairs and replacements—but now there was also a horrific looking puncture on his shoulder. Locus’s work, if Kimball had to venture a guess. She’d seen wounds like that before, just usually on the dead.

York was forced into one of the chairs by Carolina, who was unmoving, cold, and solid. Her concern for him might not have been visible to many, Kimball realized as she watched York insist over and over again that he was fine. But Carolina was solid, and insisted on him sitting the fuck down, York. Kimball found herself trying not to smile as York acquised, reluctantly.

“I’m fine,” he insisted, one last time.

“That’s not what Doctor Grey said,” Kimball said. “She said you lost a lot of blood.”

“I’ve got a healing unit! I’m fine!” York said, throwing his hands into the air.

Carolina tilted her head at Kimball, a silent gesture of appreciation for her support. Kimball felt her cheeks warming, and she ducked her head, even though no one could see it.

She saw York tilt his head, curiously.

Dread filled her, a different kind of dread than the kind she’d lived with every day since the war began, that had doubled and tripled since Felix had betrayed her, that had multiplied infinitely since the last few hours, when Felix had gotten his hands on a weapon to end all weapons.

This was different. Smaller. Stranger.

Dread might not even be the right word, she realized, unable to stop turning it over in her head. Apprehension? Anxiety?

York took off his helmet, revealing the now-familiar face. Was there more grey in his hair than there had been? Kimball forced herself to look away, as Carolina placed a hand on the shoulder that had not been shot.

Kimball had not intended for this to happen. They were at war. There was no time for her to fall for two idiot Freelancers, with noble intentions and mistakes and blood on their hands and—

She needed to focus.

“Felix will be heading for the Temple,” Kimball said, drawing her mind away from a gloved hand on an armored shoulder. “He might take backup.”

“Siris is the likely candidate,” York said. “He’ll be the only one who can…” He hesitated.

“What?” Carolina asked.

“Uh, look, I’m not one to really throw stones about co-dependency when Delta lives in my head, but, uh. Felix and Locus, uh… well, let’s just say my glass house has a few holes in it.”

“So Felix will be off his game?” Tex smelled blood in the water.

York shrugged. “Maybe? Or maybe he’ll be redoubling his efforts in order to avenge Locus. Hard to say. Felix is… again, not to damage the glass house, but he’s not… stable.”

“No shit,” Tucker said.

“He’s kind of unpredictable,” York said apologetically. “He takes pride on that. But I do think he’ll want to keep Siris close to him after this.”

“Then we’ll want a small group to head them off there while the rest of us make a run for the Communication Tower,” Kimball said grimly.

“That… sounds like a surprisingly solid plan,” Doyle said, and Kimball tried not to be annoyed that he sounded surprised.

“Carolina and I will go,” Tex said.

“I’m coming too,” York and Washington said in unison.

“Hey Wash,” Tucker said, sounding overly cheerful, with Kai on his side. “Can we talk to you for a minute?”

“Um…”

Before Wash had time to formulate a response to that, Kaikaina and Tucker had swept forward, and propelled him out into the hallway, each of them grabbing one of his arms in a show of shocking precision and coordination.

“So I guess it’ll be the three of us then,” York said cheerfully, and Kimball really wanted to strangle him in that moment. How could one man manage to be so infuriating? If she’d been a younger woman with more free time, this might have been worth a spreadsheet, or at least a list. As it was, she allowed herself to audibly sigh.

“You’re injured, York,” she said, and she couldn’t help how gentle the words came out.

“Hey, I’m fine!” York protested.

“She’s right,” Carolina said, and Kimball couldn’t tell, but she imagined Carolina’s fingers were digging into his uninjured shoulder. She tried not to focus on that, or the strange surge of pleasure that Carolina agreed with her, even if it was about something as objectively true as the fact that York had been shot recently, again.

Kimball was starting to realize why it was, exactly, that Agent York, despite being an infiltration specialist, might have needed a healing unit. He seemed to have the most atrocious luck when it came to obtaining injuries.

He did, however, have a pretty good streak going when it came to surviving them.

“I’m fine!” York said. “I’ve survived worse—”

“Not encouraging,” Tex said dryly.

“Dr. Grey said I was okay—”

“Emphasis on okay, sweetie—”

“Felix might bring additional backup—”

“We have plenty of reds to spare!”

“What? No we don’t! I don’t want to fight Felix!”

“What Simmons said!”

“Traitors! Cowards! Leaving the Freelancers to hog all the glory, even if one of them is a Red? Why you blue-livered—”

“Kimball,” York said, changing tactics. “Please. I’ll be okay.”

She looked at him and felt herself go still.

York’s face was pleading and desperate. His good eye was focused right on her, as if he could see her expression, beneath her own helmet, and she swallowed, because she knew why he was appealing to her.

She was the only one who knew about him and Siris.

“Fine,” she whispered. She shook her head, and then spoke louder. “Very well. But be careful. All three of you. We can’t afford to lose you.”

“Can’t afford to lose the planet either,” Grif muttered. She shot a glare at him.

Tucker, Wash, and Kaikaina re-emerged a moment later.

“Hey,” Tucker said, grinning. “I’ve got an idea.”

“Aaaaand now I’m terrified,” Carolina said, her voice drier than a desert.

Kimball should not find that as attractive as she did.

Tucker took his sword out and turned it on. “Why don’t we even the odds?”

Doyle and Kimball exchanged a look.

Something like hope began to stir inside of Kimball’s chest.

“Okay, so a quick detour first.”

Most of the others went off to arm up, but Carolina stayed behind.

“You shouldn’t let him go,” she said, grabbing Kimball’s arm.

“Agent York is a professional.” Epsilon made a noise that sounded a bit like an incredulous snort. “I give him the courtesy of assuming he knows his limits.”

Carolina shook her head. “This is the second time he’s been injured this week. The healing unit is effective, but even it has limitations.”

“He needs to do this, Carolina.” Kimball says, and winces. She forgot to add the “Agent.” “You should ask him why.”

“… You… already know?”

“He told me,” Kimball said, wincing as she realized she’d probably overstepped somehow. “I asked him, after he got shot by Siris last time.”

“I… see.”

“You really care for him, don’t you?” Kimball asked, unable to stop herself. She pressed a hand against her visor. “I’m sorry, that was inappropriate.”

“You care as well,” Carolina said, and she sounded half-resigned, half-surprised.

“What can I say?” York said, sticking his head into the room. “I have a type. Anyways, we should probably get going Carolina.”

Kimball felt as if she was suddenly, horrifically, rooted to the floor. Did he just… did he just… what did he just say? And if he… he didn’t mean it like… like that? He couldn’t. There was no way he had just implied what she thought he had implied…what she wanted him to be implying…

She shoved that thought to the side to deal with much later and turned to face York instead. “Remember what I said,” she said. “Don’t give him the chance.”

He saluted, jaunty and confident, using his just-injured arm to boot.

“Yes ma’am,” he said.

“I’ll bring him back,” Carolina said quietly.

“Just be sure to bring yourself back too,” Kimball said, and then blushed again. She had never been so grateful for her helmet in a non-life-threatening situation.

How were those two possible?

Tucker and Kai’s grip on Wash’s arms were like steel as they propelled him into the hallway.

“You’re not going,” Tucker said.

“Not without us,” Kai added, looking stubborn as hell.

“I—”

“We’re not being separated again!” Tucker said, and Wash flinched. Tucker’s voice echoed in the hallway.

They hadn’t had time to reunite properly, with everything. They hadn’t been alone, hadn’t had time to talk, hadn’t had time…

For anything.

And now things were ending, spiraling out of control, and Wash had been about to go off on another mission without them…

Time was running out for him to say everything he had to say.

He took off his helmet.

“You’re right,” he said. “We stick together. No matter what.”

Kai immediately tried to kiss him, but she was still wearing her helmet, so Wash had to duck out of the way to avoid a bruise.

“Ha!” Tucker said, pulling off his own helmet, which meant he got to kiss Wash first.

Something soft and giddy unfurled in Wash.

A moment of quiet peace, stolen, in the hallway, as Tucker kissed him, Kai making loud protesting noises as she struggled to get her helmet off.

The world might be ending, but he still had this.

He’d always have this.

As long as they were all alive—and that sounded almost too close to a wedding vow, so Wash shied away from that train of thought, and settled for whispering, “I love you,” against the shadow of Tucker’s jaw.

“We love you too, dumbass,” Tucker said. “Which is why we’re going to kick ass at the Temple of Communication, together.”

“That’s great,” Kai said, “Now let me kiss our boyfriend.”

Tucker laughed, and pulled away, and Kai was pressing in before Wash could so much as think about missing him.

[anneapocalypse]

Hello! This will probably be a bit long winded but I was wondering what your thoughts are on the possible development of "romantic" relationships in rvb? All of the ones encountered in the show are already established, The Director/Allison, Church/Tex, Carolina/York, etc. Although unnecessary as your post pointed out, the beach scene between Wash and Carolina could be interpreted as the start of something. Do you think this would benefit the show, or would it be an unnecessary distraction?

Ah, yes, the romance question. It’s a bit of a… shall we say, a fraught question when it comes to Rooster Teeth and Red vs. Blue. 

Let me preface this by saying that there will be, by the nature of answering this question, some ship negativity, and I want to be clear that my issues with the ships in question are with the way they are handled in canon; I am not saying and I do not think that nobody should ship them or that shipping them makes you a bad person or something. That being said, please feel free to just skip this post if you don’t want to hear criticism of canon ships.

And as always, these are of course just my opinions.

Let me also state for the record that I like Washlina! It’s what I’d call a passive ship for me, it’s not “my” ship in that I don’t write them romantically when I write them, but there are some fan portrayals of them that I enjoy a whole lot, so I have no on-principle objection to a romantic relationship between the Last Two Standing.

So would I like to see it made canon?

No, I would not. And it has nothing to do with the ship itself or with romance subplots generally, and everything to do with how Rooster Teeth writes romance. 

To put things in perspective, Mainelina is my otp, my heart and soul, and I am grateful beyond words that Mainelina wasn’t a canon romance because based on the way Red vs. Blue does romance, it would almost certainly carry little to none of what I actually see in Mainelina when left to my imagination, and it’s quite possible that were it codified in a canon relationship, I wouldn’t ship it at all.

For a pithy example of the general cluelessness of our writers when it comes to canonizing romance, we need look no further than Katie Jensen and Charles Palomo. That we’re meant to see a budding relationship between our two young lieutenants as sweet after Palomo canonically sexually harassed Jensen (yes, loudly talking about staring at someone’s butt and embarrassing them about it in front of their peers is sexual harassment, and the way Jensen responds conveys clear discomfort) perhaps says everything it needs to.

But that’s a pithy example and a ship that is, at most, canonized in the background in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it kind of way. What else you got, Apocalypse?

Well, we could talk about our girl CT, who in season 10 is shoved into a romance with a dude who doesn’t even get a name, in a thread that does nothing to further her character arc and in fact muddies what previously were clear motivations, marring what should be a story of her unique courage with the suggestion that she is motivated by feelings for a man we barely know.

Or we could talk about… York/Carolina. (Dramatic sound effect here!) 

I’ve said probably everything I need to say about York/Carolina already so let me sum up: York/Carolina in canon is portrayed as almost entirely one-sided in season 10, yet York is hammered on as source of guilt for Carolina years later; he’s framed as being right about everything despite misreading Carolina’s motives and never taking the time to explain his own; his paternalistic and patronizing attitude toward Carolina is framed as objectively correct and as recently as season 15 Carolina has been framed as wrong for not throwing away her entire life and career to run away with him. 

This is not about York being a bad character or the ship being a bad ship; it’s that there is a deep-seated and long-running gender bias in the writing of RvB that tends to portray female characters, especially but not limited to Carolina, as not knowing what’s best for themselves and suffering because they don’t submit to the wisdom and levelheadedness of the men in their lives. (The Dakota twins are a non-romantic example of this. You could put Kaikaina Grif in that category as well.) 

But Anne, you might say, why does a canon ship have to be perfectly healthy? Why can’t it be rocky, have normal human problems, or even be downright unhealthy? 

It can! You notice what canon ship I haven’t mentioned yet in this sordid list? Yahtzee, it’s Chex, which arguably in all its forms is on some level unhealthy, rocky, messy, obsessive, mutually destructive, codependent, and other adjectives as well. Why am I not out here criticizing Chex? Because, for the most part, Chex isn’t framed as healthy. Original Flavor Leonard’s obsession with Allison, the central conceit of the entire show, is pretty clearly established by season 6 to have led him to commit some pretty horrible acts. Alpha and Beta Chex is a ship I love for all its awful; it is as rocky and prickly as it is at moments painfully earnest and even moving, and I love it. I don’t need it to be flowers and wedding bells and happily ever afters. It’s not made for that. It’s not what I’m looking for in it. 

Even then there is valid criticism to be had over the way eTex is written out in season 9–hell, we could have a discussion about the fact that every time Tex leaves Church, she dies. At the very least, we can say that overall it is fairly clear that Church’s relationship to Tex is not always a healthy one, and that he regularly puts his own selfishness ahead of her wants and needs.

Framing aside, that is not what I want for Carolina. 

I don’t trust the writers, any of them, to build a dynamic between Carolina and Wash that I am even comfortable with, never mind happy with. I don’t trust them not to write Wash as paternalistic toward Carolina. Hell, romance entirely aside, I still don’t trust them not to keep hammering on Carolina’s Past, Her Terrible Past while sweeping Wash’s transgressions under the rug or playing them for laughs. I am weary of gendered double standards, and romance between a man and a woman on this kind of show can only exacerbate those problems in the writing. And once a ship dynamic is crystallized in canon, it becomes harder and harder for the fandom to work outside that dynamic–not impossible, but much less common.

I don’t trust them to put Carolina in an onscreen romantic relationship and do right by her, and based on precedent the odds are not in her favor.

Given the choice, I’d prefer that be left to the fans.