Spotlight on Fandoms: Red vs Blue
I’m trying to wrap my mind around how to explain Red vs Blue and it isn’t easy because this is no ordinary fandom.
What is Red vs Blue?
It’s an online series that is offered freely for anyone to watch. It was created using the video game Halo. While the series is supposedly set between the games Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2, there is little to no suggestion in the whole series that this is actually the case. RvB is mainly there to poke fun at things. It’s a humorous series that occasionally has the most crackatistic plot ever. The plot however tends to suffer a huge deal in favour of the cracky part and there are a lot of inconsistencies throughout the whole series. Strangely enough, it doesn’t seem to matter. RvB sucks you in with the cracky and keeps you so entertained that you really don’t care what they come up with because it is going to rock anyway.
The characters
Before I continue, I’ll just explain a bit who the characters on both teams are as it will make things a whole lot easier! There will be some spoilers in this section, but I’ll try to keep them to a minumum. The plot is based on two teams who are at war with each other so I’ll introduce you mainly to the characters that make up said teams.
The Red team who totally suck consists of Sarge, Grif, Simmons and Donut. And a jeep. Which is called the Warthog and doesn’t look like an imaginary animal Grif made up called a puma.
Sarge is recognisable by his red armour. I don’t think we actually get to know his real name in the series. He’s the sergeant of the red team and thus is called ‘Sarge’. He’s more than a little bit insane, but that seems to be the standard in Blood Gulch. He speaks with a thick southern accent and uses the most hilarious metaphors ever. Anything and everything Sarge says is pretty violent/graphic. He’s a bit of a stereotype and will do anything to win the war. He has his own type of logic which doesn’t make much sense at all and usually ends in Grif somehow having to die.
Private Dexter Grif is well… lazy. He doesn’t want to be in this war, but got drafted and had no choice. All he wants to do is go home as he doesn’t understand what they’re fighting for anyway. He’s a coward, is badly out of shape, eats way too much and has questionable hygiene. And everyone on his team pretty much hates him.
Private Dick Simmons is the second in command on the team. He’s the teacher’s pet. Well, he’d like to be anyway. He continually sucks up to Sarge even if he’s actually a whole lot smarter and saner than Sarge is.
Private Franklin Delano Donut is the newest recruit to the red team. He’s straight from the academy and is still very naïve, which of course gets taken advantage of by the rest of this team. After getting injured early in the season, he returns wearing pink lightish red armour. The armour sadly enough goes to his head. As the series continues, Donut becomes more and more gender confused. And actually, the blue team tends to think Donut is a girl too.
The Blue team rules consists of Church, Tucker and Caboose. They are in possession of an intelligent tank called Sheila and at some point in the series, Tex joins them. More about that later!
Private Leonard Church (cobalt armour) receives command of the blue team after their leader gets killed early in the season. Church frankly is an asshole, but he’s also the most intelligent person in the series (minus Tex, of course). He gets killed in season one, but that doesn’t stop him from coming back as a ghost.
Private Lavernius Tucker wears the aqua armour. He’s women crazy and not smart enough to stop from taunting Tex and making sexist remarks. Besides picking up chicks, he is a little bit obsessed with wanting to use the sniper rifle (no one ever lets him), but when he picks up a nice shiny energy sword. I also feel the need to mention that he gets impregnated during the most recent season. Bow chicka bow wow.
Private Michael J. Caboose is the last official member of the blue team. He wears the standard issue blue armour and just like Donut he is a new recruit. Caboose is dumb. Like really really dumb and it only gets worse with every episode. He also has a crush on their tank Sheila and is quite jealous when said tank falls in love and elopes with the red team’s robot Lopez. Caboose also thinks that Donut is a nice lady.
Tex (black armour) is unlike all the other characters a freelancer. Her real name is Allison, but no one but Church calls her that. She’s smarter, faster, meaner and tougher than any of the guys in Blood Gulch and she knows it too. She used to be engaged to Church until she took part in an experimental military program where they inserted A.I.s into the soldiers’ armour. Tex got stuck with an AI named ‘Omega’ who got out of control. When the military was unable to remove the AI from Tex, O’Malley (this is the name Omega gave himself to indicate his union with Allison) escaped from the labs and became a freelancer. When Tex finally gets rid of O’Malley, she sticks around with the blue team to repay her debt, but she is set on destroying Omega once and for all.
There is one more character that I’d to mention and that is Medical Officer Frank DuFresne who gets called in to rescue and injured Tex (he however comes in months too late). He’s only a medic despite people constantly calling him ‘Doc’. He’s a pacifist and pretty much everyone hates him.
What is the plot? (There shall be spoilers here)
What is the plot anyway? Like I said, the series was meant to poke fun at things. The first episodes just concentrate on the ridiculousness of the war that the main characters are involved in. The war is nothing but an advanced game of capture the flag. There’s a blue team and there’s a red team and they’re stuck on a planet in a canyon. They hate each other even if they don’t really seem to know why. During the series there’s even been made a fair amount of suggestions that it really doesn’t matter and that command seems to just be keeping its soldiers busy.
As I mentioned earlier, Church gets killed early in the season which leaves the Blue team outnumbered. Deciding that they need backup, Caboose and Tucker call in the freelancer Tex/O’Malley. Church comes back from beyond the grave to warn them off as O’Malley stole his girlfriend by possessing her and saying that he can’t be trusted. Of course, they don’t listen and call him in anyway. Tex arrives and moves to take over the red base. She however fails and gets captured. With the help of Church, Tex is rescued and Church makes her promise to stay on to defeat the red team. Tex however gets killed in an attack on the red base and the AI who was stuck in her armour, jumps into Caboose.
Tex later returns again as ghost when she realises where exactly Omega went off to. She and Church jump into Caboose’s body to chase out Omega. Hoping that if everyone’s radio is turned off, Omega won’t have anywhere to jump off to and will die. Sadly enough, everyone has forgotten about poor Doc who they ditched somewhere in the canyon because he was too annoying and Omega possesses the poor pacifist. Which leads to hilarious discussions where the Doc apologises for Omega’s dead threats and tells him to stop being mean.
Most of the series is then spend trying to fight Omega. Up to a point where the Blue and Red team even work together for a little while to stop him. This post would go on and on if I would get into everything in detail so let’s just say that the seasons have; time travel, getting stuck in the future, mpreg, an alien called Honk Honk, a talking bomb called Andy, zealots, eulogies, Grif’s sister, Tex kicking ass, Church calling dips, Simmons painting his armour blue, Omega jumping into an unknown person, shizno and much much more.
Why should you watch RvB?
Because it’s crack. Yes, the series is anything but consistent, but you won’t care because you’ll be laughing your ass off. All of these characters are irritating and they have their quirks, but for some reason you will still love them all. There’s a fair number of cursing and crude jokes, but they rock. This entire series is insanity that you really shouldn’t miss out on.
You don’t have to take my word for it, you can find all the episodes online and available for free at machinima.com. The official website also has an archive which holds the most recent episodes and has a rolling archive which weekly hosts 5 episodes of the older seasons (to save their bandwidth). Most episodes are fairly short. I think an average episode is about 3 to 5 minutes long. The longest episode should be about 15 minutes, but that is really rare.
And if you are going to watch only one episode of this series, let it be the PSA; Real life vs the internet. While this isn’t like any usual episodes, I can promise you that it simply kicks ass and will have you rolling on the floor laughing. Fair warning there is bad language usage in this video so be careful where you watch it!
Useful links:
- The official website: http://rvb.roosterteeth.com/
- Episodes available online: http://www.machinima.com/films.php?series=Red+vs.+Blue
- On wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_vs._Blue
- Unofficial resource site: http://rvb.roostertooths.com/ (includes character profiles and transcripts)
I hope that this at least made some sort of sense. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to make them. Please, take the time to watch that PSA, I promise that you won’t regret it. Like most episodes it’s only about 3 minutes long.
What is Red vs Blue?
It’s an online series that is offered freely for anyone to watch. It was created using the video game Halo. While the series is supposedly set between the games Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2, there is little to no suggestion in the whole series that this is actually the case. RvB is mainly there to poke fun at things. It’s a humorous series that occasionally has the most crackatistic plot ever. The plot however tends to suffer a huge deal in favour of the cracky part and there are a lot of inconsistencies throughout the whole series. Strangely enough, it doesn’t seem to matter. RvB sucks you in with the cracky and keeps you so entertained that you really don’t care what they come up with because it is going to rock anyway.
The characters
Before I continue, I’ll just explain a bit who the characters on both teams are as it will make things a whole lot easier! There will be some spoilers in this section, but I’ll try to keep them to a minumum. The plot is based on two teams who are at war with each other so I’ll introduce you mainly to the characters that make up said teams.
The Red team who totally suck consists of Sarge, Grif, Simmons and Donut. And a jeep. Which is called the Warthog and doesn’t look like an imaginary animal Grif made up called a puma.
Sarge is recognisable by his red armour. I don’t think we actually get to know his real name in the series. He’s the sergeant of the red team and thus is called ‘Sarge’. He’s more than a little bit insane, but that seems to be the standard in Blood Gulch. He speaks with a thick southern accent and uses the most hilarious metaphors ever. Anything and everything Sarge says is pretty violent/graphic. He’s a bit of a stereotype and will do anything to win the war. He has his own type of logic which doesn’t make much sense at all and usually ends in Grif somehow having to die.
Private Dexter Grif is well… lazy. He doesn’t want to be in this war, but got drafted and had no choice. All he wants to do is go home as he doesn’t understand what they’re fighting for anyway. He’s a coward, is badly out of shape, eats way too much and has questionable hygiene. And everyone on his team pretty much hates him.
Private Dick Simmons is the second in command on the team. He’s the teacher’s pet. Well, he’d like to be anyway. He continually sucks up to Sarge even if he’s actually a whole lot smarter and saner than Sarge is.
Private Franklin Delano Donut is the newest recruit to the red team. He’s straight from the academy and is still very naïve, which of course gets taken advantage of by the rest of this team. After getting injured early in the season, he returns wearing pink lightish red armour. The armour sadly enough goes to his head. As the series continues, Donut becomes more and more gender confused. And actually, the blue team tends to think Donut is a girl too.
The Blue team rules consists of Church, Tucker and Caboose. They are in possession of an intelligent tank called Sheila and at some point in the series, Tex joins them. More about that later!
Private Leonard Church (cobalt armour) receives command of the blue team after their leader gets killed early in the season. Church frankly is an asshole, but he’s also the most intelligent person in the series (minus Tex, of course). He gets killed in season one, but that doesn’t stop him from coming back as a ghost.
Private Lavernius Tucker wears the aqua armour. He’s women crazy and not smart enough to stop from taunting Tex and making sexist remarks. Besides picking up chicks, he is a little bit obsessed with wanting to use the sniper rifle (no one ever lets him), but when he picks up a nice shiny energy sword. I also feel the need to mention that he gets impregnated during the most recent season. Bow chicka bow wow.
Private Michael J. Caboose is the last official member of the blue team. He wears the standard issue blue armour and just like Donut he is a new recruit. Caboose is dumb. Like really really dumb and it only gets worse with every episode. He also has a crush on their tank Sheila and is quite jealous when said tank falls in love and elopes with the red team’s robot Lopez. Caboose also thinks that Donut is a nice lady.
Tex (black armour) is unlike all the other characters a freelancer. Her real name is Allison, but no one but Church calls her that. She’s smarter, faster, meaner and tougher than any of the guys in Blood Gulch and she knows it too. She used to be engaged to Church until she took part in an experimental military program where they inserted A.I.s into the soldiers’ armour. Tex got stuck with an AI named ‘Omega’ who got out of control. When the military was unable to remove the AI from Tex, O’Malley (this is the name Omega gave himself to indicate his union with Allison) escaped from the labs and became a freelancer. When Tex finally gets rid of O’Malley, she sticks around with the blue team to repay her debt, but she is set on destroying Omega once and for all.
There is one more character that I’d to mention and that is Medical Officer Frank DuFresne who gets called in to rescue and injured Tex (he however comes in months too late). He’s only a medic despite people constantly calling him ‘Doc’. He’s a pacifist and pretty much everyone hates him.
What is the plot? (There shall be spoilers here)
What is the plot anyway? Like I said, the series was meant to poke fun at things. The first episodes just concentrate on the ridiculousness of the war that the main characters are involved in. The war is nothing but an advanced game of capture the flag. There’s a blue team and there’s a red team and they’re stuck on a planet in a canyon. They hate each other even if they don’t really seem to know why. During the series there’s even been made a fair amount of suggestions that it really doesn’t matter and that command seems to just be keeping its soldiers busy.
As I mentioned earlier, Church gets killed early in the season which leaves the Blue team outnumbered. Deciding that they need backup, Caboose and Tucker call in the freelancer Tex/O’Malley. Church comes back from beyond the grave to warn them off as O’Malley stole his girlfriend by possessing her and saying that he can’t be trusted. Of course, they don’t listen and call him in anyway. Tex arrives and moves to take over the red base. She however fails and gets captured. With the help of Church, Tex is rescued and Church makes her promise to stay on to defeat the red team. Tex however gets killed in an attack on the red base and the AI who was stuck in her armour, jumps into Caboose.
Tex later returns again as ghost when she realises where exactly Omega went off to. She and Church jump into Caboose’s body to chase out Omega. Hoping that if everyone’s radio is turned off, Omega won’t have anywhere to jump off to and will die. Sadly enough, everyone has forgotten about poor Doc who they ditched somewhere in the canyon because he was too annoying and Omega possesses the poor pacifist. Which leads to hilarious discussions where the Doc apologises for Omega’s dead threats and tells him to stop being mean.
Most of the series is then spend trying to fight Omega. Up to a point where the Blue and Red team even work together for a little while to stop him. This post would go on and on if I would get into everything in detail so let’s just say that the seasons have; time travel, getting stuck in the future, mpreg, an alien called Honk Honk, a talking bomb called Andy, zealots, eulogies, Grif’s sister, Tex kicking ass, Church calling dips, Simmons painting his armour blue, Omega jumping into an unknown person, shizno and much much more.
Why should you watch RvB?
Because it’s crack. Yes, the series is anything but consistent, but you won’t care because you’ll be laughing your ass off. All of these characters are irritating and they have their quirks, but for some reason you will still love them all. There’s a fair number of cursing and crude jokes, but they rock. This entire series is insanity that you really shouldn’t miss out on.
You don’t have to take my word for it, you can find all the episodes online and available for free at machinima.com. The official website also has an archive which holds the most recent episodes and has a rolling archive which weekly hosts 5 episodes of the older seasons (to save their bandwidth). Most episodes are fairly short. I think an average episode is about 3 to 5 minutes long. The longest episode should be about 15 minutes, but that is really rare.
And if you are going to watch only one episode of this series, let it be the PSA; Real life vs the internet. While this isn’t like any usual episodes, I can promise you that it simply kicks ass and will have you rolling on the floor laughing. Fair warning there is bad language usage in this video so be careful where you watch it!
Useful links:
- The official website: http://rvb.roosterteeth.com/
- Episodes available online: http://www.machinima.com/films.php?series=Red+vs.+Blue
- On wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_vs._Blue
- Unofficial resource site: http://rvb.roostertooths.com/ (includes character profiles and transcripts)
I hope that this at least made some sort of sense. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to make them. Please, take the time to watch that PSA, I promise that you won’t regret it. Like most episodes it’s only about 3 minutes long.