#locus is obsessed with the meta just like he was obsessed with wash because he was the perfect soldier in his eyes 🤓☝️

[karvviie]

somebody on instragram told me to draw um. errrm. uh. well. uh. um. uh… uh. well uh

[originally posted august 2022]

[supercasey]

What your RvB OTP says about you

((I saw a similar list, but it didn't include a lot of my favorite ships and also I thought this would be fun. Sorry if any of this offends anyone: it’s all in good fun and just some observations I’ve noticed over the years about certain shippers. Let me know if I missed any other big ones!))

FUCK I FORGOT SISTER AND DR GREY

Tuckington: Chorus crew is best crew. Wash and Tucker are your all-time favorites and you're so proud of how far Tucker has come. You probably hate/love Felix, there is no in-between.

Mainewash: You like to suffer; you have an addiction to fics that involve one of these two dying. You live for the Meta and Antagonist!Wash team-up. You probably ship Doc with them if you’re into polyam. Cat person.

Yorkalina: You adore York to the moon and back, and are honestly a sucker for “goofy person meets strict person and teaches them to have fun” pairings. You have a replica of York’s lighter that you’ve never used.

Grimmons: You deserve a Fandom Grandma/Grandpa mug, buddy. You’re so tired, and you’ve probably been here since at least season 6. One day it’ll be canon, you just know it. In the meantime, you’re suffering.

Churboose: My mom ships this so here we are. Caboose is the most perfect of good bois and you’re only watching rvb for him at this point. You’ve cried over Church every day of your life. You named a pet Freckles, probably.

Washlina: You are the most chill/sweet person in the entire goddamn fandom. Seriously, you’re so nice. You don’t care either way if it ends up canon, but the latest content is still very satisfying. You’re so kind, I love you.

Sargington: You’re having the time of your life and I’m so happy for you. Sarge is probably your favorite character, but Wash is a close second. You’re chill about other ships but this is the guilty fav; don’t feel guilty, you’re amazing.

Docnut: Precious cinnamon roll who is too good for this world, too pure. Doc when he’s doing the O’Malley voice is way too hot for you. You probably have written/daydreamed about these two having a farm together.

Pastrytrain: Congratulations for being a good person. The pinnacle of “I’m staying in my fucking lane” when it comes to fandom drama. I know you downloaded the Pastrytrain dating sim, don’t try to deny it.

Kimbalina: Never mind, you guys are the actual diehards for the Chorus trilogy. Carolina is your queen and she deserves the love that Kimball can bring into her life. That hand-holding scene is now your desktop background. Probably wlw.

Tucknut: Trans with an amazing sense of humor. You swear a lot and make more dirty jokes than you should, but people love that about you. Donut is your favorite but Tucker is funnier.

Churnut: Donut is your favorite. You hate that Church is dead and pray every single day that he’ll come back somehow. The Donut arc this season had you fucking THRIVING and I’m so happy for you.

Norkington: You’re either gay or trans or both, and that’s the tea. You’re still obsessed with the PFL seasons, despite how long it’s been. Your favorite version of Wash is the PFL rookie version.

Nork: Yeah, you’re gay, sis.

Flowarge: Where are y’all??? I know I’m not the only one. You want a sitcom of rvb that’s just Parks and Recreation but with power armor. Sarge is best dad and Flowers is your other, more dead dad.

Flyoming: You literally don’t need any canon evidence to ship something; if they breathe they’re in love. Florida is your fav, and tbh Wyoming isn’t even in the top ten, but you’re too into older men to care. Daddy issues.

WashCT: People claim you’re boring but tbh you have really good taste, everyone else just isn’t interested. Knives are one of your favorite things but odds are you don’t know how to throw them. You really miss CT.

SouthCT: The wlw energy is literally so powerful in your bones, congratulations. Team #SouthDidNothingWrong, as well as Team #CTDeservedBetter; you are correct on both accounts. South is best girl.

Southlina: Not sure where y’all are at, but you’re all about that powerful lesbian energy. You probably hate York; if not I’m sorry for saying that. On that note you probably hate the PFL seasons but you’re too desperate for content to complain.

Fucker: You little shit. You are 100% involved in fandom drama but you’re thriving regardless; it’s impossible for you to be affected by everyone telling you that you’re problematic. Tucker is your favorite, but Felix is hot af.

Locington: You say “Unfortunate” way too often but I love you nonetheless. You spent the entire hiatus between seasons 11 and 12 writing porn, and you damn well know. Hell, you’re probably proud of it. Locus is your fav.

Murdersandwich: Are you still here??? If you are, you’re braver than any us marine. Modern AUs where these three get together are your bread and butter. Tuckington is your second favorite ship.

Murdersandwich+Sharkface: You unapologetic, horny motherfucker. You’re living your best life while simultaneously sobbing into your pillow every night over Felix and Sharkface. Locington is your default fav, but this ship still rocks.

Lolix: Fandom veterans from the ��Felix is problematic” wars and I salute you for your service. Here to have a good time, and ain’t nobody gonna stop you. You’ve probably written/thought about a “Felix lives” AU at extreme length.

Sharklina: Season 13 was so good in your opinion and you refuse to ever shut up about it. #SharkfaceDeservedBetter. You’re probably into punk aesthetics and you’ve made at least one playlist for these two.

Chex: #ChurchGetsPegged. Tex is your diehard fav and you will never in your life let RT forget that she exists. You’ll drag her out of her grave yourself if you fucking have to. You memorized Church’s speech from the end of rvb5.

Chucker: You cry each and every day about Church being dead. You’ve rewatched the BGC no less than twelve times, and that’s just this year. Everytime you see That Post, you reblog it. You know the one.

Sheipez: If Sheila were real you’d ask her to adopt you. Lopez is your current fav by default and you live for every moment he’s on screen. Caboose is your precious son and you’re willing to die for him.

Sex: You ship this purely because of the ship name. STFU, yes you fucking do. Tex is hot af and you love that one fancomic of sister without a bra on flirting with Tex.

Sucker: Despite popular opinion, you're not as horny as everyone thinks you are. Sister is your favorite and Tucker isn't even close but you love him regardless and think he fits well with Sister.

Suckington: I know you bastards are still here. Wash is your favorite but you love him being surrounded by these energetic shitheads who fill his life with energy and fun. Sister is best girl.

Greyington: I know for a fucking fact that this was a thing. Fucking sadist when it comes to your brand of porn, and Dr. Grey is your favorite character to ever exist.

Kimbones: You knew fuck all about Ladybones but you shipped her with Kimball anyways because you're a thirsty wlw. You've probably moved onto Kimbalina by now, but we will not forget the season 11-12 horniness you unleashed on this fandom.

[secretlystephaniebrown]

Time’s Running Out: Oscar

I actually don't really have anything to say about this chapter! Hope you guys enjoy, and let's see if we can finish this in the New Year!

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

It wasn’t fair.

It didn’t matter how childish, how petty that belief was, it was true. All three of the others would be reuniting with the Reds and Blues, and Wash was stuck in Armonia, helping organize squads.

“I’m sorry, Agent Washington,” Doyle said softly. Wash ignored him pointedly. Because he knew, deep down, that they were right. He had done more work with the squads than Tex or York had. He was part of the way that things functioned, while York and Tex had deliberately positioned themselves as outsiders.

But none of that made him feel better. Tucker and Kai were far away, possibly in danger, and it didn’t matter that the two of them were capable of defending themselves. Wash wasn’t there to help, to provide backup, to even just… hold their hands and tell them that things were going to be alright.

If he had thought it had been bad, being separated from Tucker, being separated from both of them was infinitely worse. He supposed he should just be glad that Tucker wasn’t having to go through isolation again, or that Kai wouldn’t have to, but it was difficult to think of it in that light, when the others were racing towards them, and the Meta was out there, and who knew how many other enemies.

“General,” Wash said, trying to keep his voice professional as the two of them examined the map. “Is there any way we can get out of the city and try to attack them from both sides?

“Hmm,” Doyle murmured. “That’s—hang on. Fredericks!”

“Yes General?”

“Do you have the sewer map?”

“The sewers?”

“You’d be surprised, Agent Washington.” There was a wry note to Doyle’s voice, and Wash wondered what kind of story that the general had involving sewers.

“Here you go, sir,” Fredericks said promptly, holding out a datapad with a new schematic. “Shall I go inform the Lieutenants of the New Republic—”

“Good man! And no, not yet, I need to make sure this is correct first.”

Doyle poured over the schematics with an intensity that Wash hadn’t quite seen before. He knew that there was more to the general than necessarily met the eye, but he also knew that the man was woefully unprepared for this position, and that Locus had deliberately kept things that way by keeping him in the dark about a lot of the military movements and by circumventing him in tactical and strategic decisions.

But now he could see something more substantial; a core of hidden steel. This, Wash realized, was how Doyle had survived this long, despite everything. How he had managed to keep his sanity, despite the insane pressures of the war. Locus might have had the man cowed, but he was still a leader. And he knew Armonia, knew it in a way that a man could only possibly know a hometown that he loved with all his heart.

“Yes, that should be right,” Doyle said, sounding satisfied as he straightened up. “There’s an exit about a kilometer past their main lines. We’ll be able to move our forces out that way to take them by surprise.”

Wash felt a rush of relief. Finally.

It was time for things to get moving.

The plan was relatively simple. Wash and Doyle would escort a portion of the forces, including whatever artillery they could scrape up, and launch the attack from behind. Hopefully, the attack from behind would mean that they would be unprepared, take heavy losses, and scramble to regroup. Once they had turned around to face what they would hopefully assume would be the oncoming army, Kimball would open the gates and lead the rest of the army out to fight.

It was a gamble. It was a risky gamble.

But the enemy was on their way to gaining a way to wipe out the entire planet in a single motion. If there was any time for risks, it was now.

The sewers were too narrow for things to really be able to move as quickly as Wash might like, but the Pirates weren’t looking for an attack from behind.

Getting the artillery through the sewers was the real problem, but luckily the people who organized that aspect of the army were slightly older, and some of them had been actual soldiers, before the war had extended to recruiting everyone old enough to hold a gun.

Finally, everything was ready to go. The armies were gathered, the artillery was set up. Wash turned to Doyle.

“General?”

Doyle straightened his back, and for a moment, he looked like a leader who was about to see victory.

“Attack!”

Andersmith was the artillery-man closest to Wash, and he immediately opened fire.

Screams filled the air as Andersmith and the others hit their targets, and then the first army charged forward, and everything fell into chaos.

Wash charged with them, his gun firing. All around him, disaster reigned. Enemy and ally alike fell to the ground. Screams filled the air, and the artillery kept firing and firing, destroying everything they touched.

“Regroup!” A voice yelled from the enemy, and Wash turned to look, eager to take out any leader he could.

There was a familiar helmet staring back at him. The shape of it was strange, and accompanied dark brown armor, the shape of which was so familiar that it felt like Wash couldn’t breathe.  

Wash wanted to scream.

It was the man from the desert, the one that he and Tex and York had left for dead, the man who had scavenged Connie’s armor.

He was here.

Wash had gone through Connie’s files. He knew who the man was; her handler, her lover, the man who had dragged Connie into the world of intrigue and double agents. He had refused to call a retreat, even when Carolina and Texas had been at his doorstep.

Another round of artillery fire sounded, the force of it shaking Wash to his bones, and in the chaos, the man disappeared into the dust and turmoil of the armies.

It all came full circle, didn’t it? Everything was leading them here. Hargrove and Freelancer and Connie, all of them winding together in a strange new series of threads. All of them pulling Wash and his friends to Chorus.

Anger curdled in Wash’s stomach, hot and toxic. The man had tried to kill Tucker and Junior, the man had stripped the armor from Connie’s body. And now he stood with an army who stood posed to kill an entire planet.

Whatever role that man played in the story, it ended here and now. Wash promised himself this as he plunged himself into the fray.

Thatcher was a reasonable man, or at least he was most of the time. He had his moments, he had to admit, but in general, he was rather even tempered and logical.

Chaos reigned around them—somehow half of the army had slipped out of the city and attacked them from behind. He was going to have words with Locus over this; the man had assured him that there was no way out of the city for more than a handful of people. Overconfident, once again. It was indicative of what kept going wrong on this planet.

And to make matters worse, Washington was there, but there was no time to go after him. If it had been Terry in his place, he would have charged after Washington and all might have been lost.

There was very little more that Thatcher wanted than to charge forward and sink a knife into Washington’s stomach. To let him sit there and bleed out slowly. He had been Connie’s friend, once, Thatcher knew. She had mentioned him several times, and had even hoped that he would also turn on Freelancer.

And he had, that was what made it all worse. He had turned. But he had turned too late, and done so in a way which had destroyed anything useful that could have been salvaged from that disaster of an operation. If he had turned earlier, things could have been different.

Connie might still be alive, for one.

Thatcher didn’t hate Washington as much as he did Texas. If Thatcher ever caught a glimpse of her on the battlefield, Thatcher wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep the same level of control that he maintained when he saw the grey and yellow armored soldier.

But there was a reason that Control had placed Thatcher in charge of this operation. He turned away from where Washington had disappeared into the crowd, and got back to trying to get things under control.

This entire mission was fragile; he couldn’t believe how much power that Control had entrusted to Felix and Locus previously. Allowing two operatives such unilateral control over an operation was highly unusual, even if they did have a fairly rigorous strategy to follow. The problem was, in Thatcher’s opinion, was that Control had chosen to go for people with Personalities. Felix’s ego and Locus’s obsessions had brought down the mission. Two more standard agents, who might have been less personally skilled, would have been able to take down the Reds and Blues with ease, and then this planet might have already been dead.

Thatcher knew where things had gone wrong. He had studied the case files, he understood things here on Chorus. He had a grasp of the big picture, in a way that Felix’s ego and Locus’s dedication to orders would blind them to seeing.

So he did the only reasonable thing he could do.

“Fall back!” He called out, as the army followed his initial order to regroup. The encoded radio channels meant that only those with the correct codes could hear the order; the pirates and the other leaders.

Which unfortunately included Felix.

“What?” Felix’s voice on the radio was practically shaking with fury. Luckily, the man had the common sense to keep it to the command channel, instead of broadcasting openly. “You’re insane, we outnumber them, you could win this.”

“There’s no need to take these losses, not when you two are about to find the key,” Thatcher barked. “Let them have this victory. It’s going to be meaningless in less than a day.” It wouldn’t be as grandly personal as getting to kill Texas himself, but even better, it would mean that she and the other Freelancers failed. They’d dedicated themselves to saving this planet, this useless backwater place, and they’d fail. The world would be dead, and Charon would swoop in and do whatever it was that Hargrove wanted. All it would take would be a single twist of a key.

He wished he’d managed to kill Lavernius Tucker back in the desert. If he’d managed to get his hands on the key then, things could have been a lot quicker.

“Coward,” Felix hissed, unaware of Thatcher’s wandering thoughts. “You spineless—patch me through to the army, they aren’t going anywhere—”

“Felix!” Locus’s voice booked no argument. Despite his problems with the man, Thatcher had to admit that Locus was intimidating and dangerous. And usually, he was a consummate professional, which Thatcher had to respect. Except for the part that he worked with the walking concept of a lack of self-control. “Control has placed him in command. Follow orders. We will retrieve the key.”

Thatcher felt himself start to smile as Locus signed off the line, leaving just him and Felix.

“Screw you,” Felix hissed. He didn’t like being put in his place. Now, Thatcher almost regretted that the rest of the army hadn’t witnessed Locus silencing him so efficiently, even if it was for the best.

“Careful Felix,” Thatcher said, keeping his voice genial. “Your leash is going towards the key. Don’t fall behind.”

He ended the call, and smiled to himself, even as the pirates made their retreat.

Tex had never liked Armonia, but after hearing Church’s beacon, she hated the city.

She and York hadn’t been able to get out fast enough, it felt like, even though she had only stopped to get weapons, and York had only stopped to have a touching moment with Kimball.

If Tex had been less worried, she’d have maybe considered talking to him about it. She didn’t know what to make of the entire situation; it was strange and unusual and bizarre to her.

Tex wasn’t bound entirely to Church; she’d been attracted to other people before, and so had Church. Their relationship was complicated and strange, all of their feelings and history and “destiny” all tangled together in a strange web that they were ensnared in. Talking about it was something they’d never really done, but at the end of the day, Tex knew they cared for each other, and nothing else mattered.

She had no basis for what York was going through; the strange maze of feelings that he’d stumbled into with Carolina and Kimball. Even if she hadn’t been so worried about Church that it felt like there was static drowning out everything else, she wouldn’t have a single idea of how to tackle those issues or address it.

But as it was, the only thing that mattered right now was that Church was in danger.

Normally, Tex would have laughed it off; the only thing that could hurt them was an EMP, after all. In their holographic forms, there was basically nothing that could harm her or Church. They were almost ghosts, able to pass through objects and avoid their enemies.

But The Meta was here, on Chorus, and even if Wash and York had burned out the fragments with the EMP, terror crawled through her circuits, sinking its claws into the wires and gears of her robot body. Every instinct she had said that the Meta could catch Church, and that if he did, things would be very bad.

York’s arms were wrapped around her waist as the two of them raced across Chorus on the mongoose. Some part of Tex knew that Church would get indignant if he saw this position, but there was no amusement to be had in that thought, only fear.

Because Church might not get to see this to get all spluttery and angry over.

She leaned forward and increased the speed another notch. York didn’t protest, although she knew he was worried about the danger of them going that fast.

Tex couldn’t even process the fact that there was a key that could destroy the planet, the immediate threat of losing Church was so overwhelming. She’d let York worry about that sort of thing. Tex was bad at the big picture. She’d never thought about grander notions of justice or vengeance when she’d attacked Freelancer. Her only concern had been rescuing Church. Everything else was secondary to that notion, and it was the same here.

She would save the planet, she’d kill everyone who was threatening the Reds and Blues, she knew that. Church wasn’t her only priority.

But he had sacrificed his body, revealed himself, to buy the others more time. And he was in the most immediate danger.

Tex was not going to let him die for it.

<Agent Texas, I suggest you open your long-range radio and begin broadcasting,> Delta said in her ear. <If we are lucky, we might be able to pick up Church’s signal.>

<Luck, Delta?>

There was a hesitation. <Would you prefer it if I gave you the statistical probability?>

<York’s rubbed off on you.>

<As I believe he is fond of saying, “Better lucky than good.” Besides, the Reds and Blues are notoriously difficult to calculate for statistically. And despite being an Artificial Intelligence, Church is most definitely also one of them.>

Tex tightened her grip on the handles of the mongoose. “You’re right,” she said out loud.

She remembered the classes from Freelancer, the rules for things like Meta-Stability and when could an AI be considered human. Sure, she’d never actually attended the classes that York and the others had, but she’d been taught in private, with Omega as the justification for why she wasn’t attending with the others.

Church was too broken, according to the theories to ever really be human. Freelancer had stripped him of core aspects of himself, had shattered him into thousands of pieces, and only time and memory and their friends had helped him put himself back together. But Tex knew, deep down, that he was as human as an AI could get. He laughed, he cried, he felt, in a visceral way that Tex envied. He forgot that he wasn’t human, he forgot that he was, at a core level, made up of ones and zeroes in intricate patterns.

Tex was… something else entirely. No one even knew what she was, not really. She had been an anomaly, a curiosity, an impossibility. Her existence had spawned entire new theories about how Artificial Intelligence even worked, not that anyone else knew about her. She was a shadow of a memory, and she had rejected even that about herself.

She wasn’t human.

She was a machine.

She opened her radio, and started broadcasting. “Church? Can you hear me? This is Tex.”

A moment later, York’s radio also went live. “Tex,” he said. “I’ll talk. You drive.”

Tex wanted to protest, but his arms squeezed around her waist gently, as if reassuring her.

She turned her full attention to the road as York started to talk.

York was good at talking. He spun meaningless stories, usually involving locks that he’d failed to pick or bar fights he’d lost, with Delta occasionally chiming in with corrections or amendments or details that York had left out.

But when Tex felt Church, it was through her radio, not his.

<Tex!>

“Church!” Tex slammed the breaks of the mongoose so hard that York nearly lost his grip. <Church!>

Their reunion was like being hit by a ton of bricks as he slammed through the radio towards her, the binary that made both of them up entwining for one brief moment of intimacy that was more than any physical contact could ever manage to be.

He pulled apart, portioning himself into her mind, the two of them side-by-side but not overly connected. It was cleaner than even Omega had ever managed to keep things.

“Are you okay?” York said. “Church?”

Church appeared in a projection over her shoulder. “I’m fine, asshole, why the fuck are you holding onto my girlfriend?”

“Shut up,” Tex said, although she couldn’t stop herself from letting the fondness sink into her voice.

“Where’s the Meta?” York asked, not moving his arms from around Tex’s waist because he was a contrary asshole like that.

“Don’t know, behind me, but we need to move, there’s this Shark guy and I think he really wants to kill Carolina, and we need to help them.” Church’s fears were palpable through their connection, and it put Tex’s teeth  

“Shouldn’t we… fight the Meta? Stop him?” York offered, hesitating.

“No time,” Texas revved the engine again. Church’s presence was soothing her already, making her old confidence return. He was safe. Now she could worry about everything else. “Let’s go save the day, shall we?”

“An excellent plan,” Delta said.

If Tex had a face, she’d be grinning.

“Where too?” She asked Church, and started driving in that direction when he answered her silently.

[illumynare]

Some thoughts on Carolina and regrets, in RvB 15.10

So that beach conversation. When Carolina says, “Sometimes I think York was my chance at a fresh start.”

@anneapocalypse wrote a post about it. And… while I don’t take nearly so negative a view of the Yorkalina aspect to the scene, I absolutely agree that it was super weird for Carolina to be mourning her lost chance for a fresh start when the Chorus Arc made it clear that the Reds and Blues ARE her fresh start.

On a more meta level, I think this is a typical symptom of how-do-I-write-a-sequel. There’s this thing that often happens, where at the end of the first book or movie the hero has reached peace with himself, and then at the start of the sequel, OOPS NEVER MIND he’s totally still having issues about everything. Only they’re worse! With more explosions! Because this is a sequel!

So, I kinda wrinkle my nose at that.

But to slide into the fannish headcanoning how-can-I-make-this-make-sense space, I find it really interesting that Carolina is having these issues now. Especially combined with the “I’ve grown from being a dishonorable killing machine to an honorable killing machine” line. Because . . . honestly, I never thought Carolina had any problems with being a killing machine. Being a dishonorable one, sure. She was very upset to learn that the Freelancers weren’t “the good guys.” But she still totally wanted to be a “true warrior”; she still took pride in fighting to defend her new family on Chorus.

(Yes, I realize that “soldier” =/= “killing machine.” But Carolina’s never been an indiscriminate killing machine, even when she was fighting for the wrong side. If she’s talking about herself that way, it means a real shift in how she thinks about being a soldier.)

Do you know what Carolina reminded me of, when she said that? Felix and Locus, coming home from the Great War and discovering that they couldn’t live as civilians anymore. And Sarge, in 15.6: “Either I'm right, or I'm just an old man who's lost his marbles because he can't adjust to life outside the military chain of command, and continues to have increasingly absurd things to declare war on as a subconscious way of avoiding the sad truth that he no longer really knows who he is!”

Carolina doesn’t have a war to fight anymore either. Maybe part of her angst is wondering what she’s good for without one.

And—okay, I promise this post is not about to turn into a Yorkalina ship manifesto—but that way of looking at her line makes her saying York was her “second chance” seem a little more rational to me.

Because here’s the other thing that strikes me as weird. In that conversation, Carolina focuses on the moment that York asked her to leave with him and she threw him down the elevator shaft. But the thing is, at that point? Most of the Freelancer tragedy had already happened. Connie was dead. Maine was the Meta. Wash was crazy. The entire team had broken apart.

If Carolina was thinking how she could have saved her first family, that isn’t the moment she would be obsessing over. Granted, regret is seldom rational. But as much as she grieves over the other Freelancers (S13 made that explicit), I don’t think that’s the regret she’s talking about here.

Because Carolina is also standing by the beach house of Agent Illinois. She implies that he’s different from her, that he did get a fresh start. But honestly, what’s so different about the beach and the waterpark?

Nothing. Except how they got there. (And Illinois didn’t burn his house down.)

I think Carolina is focused on that moment in the elevator because it was the last moment she could have defied the Director before the entirety of PFL crashed down. I think she feels that because she didn’t, because she obeyed him until she was thrown away, because she tried to be more badass and obedient than an entire army of killer Tex-bots…somehow that’s left her as no more than a “killing machine.” And she’s focused on that moment with York because she feels like it was her last chance to avoid turning into that.

(And, okay, I really dig the genderflip aspects of Yorkalina, so I absolutely adore that York is now Carolina’s tragically fridged love interest who represents the simpler, more innocent life she could have had. You have fun in there next to the skim milk and the celery, dude.)

[toaarcan]

>TFW you love Carolina but you’d rather Tex wasn’t thrown under the bus for her.

Like, Carolina’s a great character. I loved her story arc in Seasons 9 and 10. The shit she goes through with her clash with Tex, her issues with the Director, how she feels after losing York and everyone else she loved and cared for, the struggle she has over the disintegration of PFL.

But I felt that during the Chorus Trilogy, she kinda became at best a poor man’s Tex, and at worst a vehicle to carry Epsilon into scenes.

See, Carolina’s not really a “funny” character. She’s cool and badass and she has a great story to tell but she doesn’t really slip into comedy the way the others do. She has some funny scenes, yeah, and good lines, but nothing to the extent of the Reds and Blues, or the previous BGC-aligned Freelancers. When Season 11 went into mostly classic-style standing around and talking, Carolina was absent the whole time, and I honestly think part of Miles’ reason for doing that is that she just wouldn’t fit into that story.

While she returns in Season 12, I don’t think she was handled particularly well. THe downgrade in the flashiness of the fight scenes took a lot of the flare from her, and her getting knifed by Felix during her return certainly put a dampner on things. Plus, with Locus focusing on Wash and Felix on Tucker, she ended up having much less of a connection to the villains and thus the fight scenes with them. Like she was just in those fight scenes because Tucker isn’t enough of a badass to take on Felix alone

Sure, Season 13 added Sharkface to the villain group, but he was defeated and killed before the big clash against the villains, so Carolina’s rival is already dispatched before the Purge fight and Tucker still doesn’t get to have a big fight with Felix, he only assists during the BGC’s fight with him. This season also gave Carolina that issue with her dependency on the Freelancer equipment during fights to work through, but she got through that pretty quickly, and a good chuck of her equipment is probably inoperable now that she doesn’t have an AI anymore.

Above all, I get the feeling that Carolina has ended up being just “the competent badass one the writers wheel out for a flashy fight scene and other than that is just in scenes so Church can be there”.

Comparing Tex and to a lesser extent Wash, both of them were much better integrated into the BGC than Carolina. Tex wasn’t just a badass and competent fighter, she was funny too. Her interactions with Church are hilarious, she has some great scenes with Caboose, Tucker, and Kaikaina too. Her first meeting with the Reds isn’t just funny, but manages to keep her sounding menacing and dangerous even when she’s cornered, disarmed, and at gunpoint in a hostile base. She has quirks that fit in with the rest of the teams, like her habit of punching people in the middle of the night. 

Weirdly, a lot of this goes down before she becomes a real main character. In the early seasons she’s only there for half of them at best. She joins the full-time cast in Season 3 and 4, and her integration into the group only gets better, and her absence in Season 6, outside of a recording and two glimpses of her AI form, already assimilated into the Meta, is more than a little noticeable.

Season 8′s Tex is a separate character created by Epsilon, and her story isn’t the best, going from frustrated at her resurrection to accepting it and doing her damnedest to survive and bring the Director to justice, and she doesn’t get much of a chance to grow before Epsilon decides that she has to die because he’s obsessed with her (Yandere Epsilon is the worst part of Season 9 and I will fight anyone that disagrees). They try to set up the idea that Tex has a problem with her AI screwing up and causing her to lose at crucial moments, even though that doesn’t make sense with what’s shown of her before or since. Honestly it looks like a sloppy excuse to shuffle her out of the show quickly before Carolina shows up. 

However, Season 9 and 10′s flashbacks also do a lot of flesh her out a bit more, showing the original Tex’s story with the Freelancers. She’s a fairly generic overpowered rival for Carolina in Season 9, but Season 10 showed her shift from an emotionless killing machine into the character we knew before, added a lot of nuance to her previous anger and cruel attitude, culminating in her desperate efforts to rescue Alpha as the Mother of Invention crashes, and South, a tank, and Carolina all try to stop her. 

I think what helps with how well Tex fits into the BGC is that she was written as part of them first. She’s a Season 1-5 character who just happens to be equally capable and powerful as a Season 6-10 character, as opposed to a Season 6-10 character trying to fit in with the wackiness of the Season 1-5 characters.

Wash is kinda the exception there, being a Season 6 character who absolutely does fit in with the Season 1-5 characters. I think what helps him there, though, is that our introduction to him involves him meeting the BGC and dealing with their madness. He forms an effective straight man to their antics, and plenty of comedy is derived from that. In contrast, Carolina is introduced working with the other Freelancers, isolates herself from the BGC when she does meet them, treats them like cannon fodder through most of Season 10, and is never really shown to reconcile with them, they bail her out of the fight, but after the fight is over, and the Director dies, the characters aren’t shown interacting again until midway through Season 12, and the they’re just friends straight away.

Wash is still funny, because of the way his professionalism and seriousness clashes with his friends. He’s the straight man now, and he’s basically got a lock on that role. Having another straight man doesn’t really add much. 

I’m basically rambling now, but I’m now hoping that Season 15 fixes this and integates Carolina into the BGC as well as Wash is and Tex was.