〈 PLAYER INFO 〉NAME: jen
AGE: 27
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wakeupfeverIM / EMAIL: guineabees@gmail
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hypershinkenRETURNING: new!!
〈 CHARACTER INFO 〉CHARACTER NAME: Dexter Grif
CHARACTER AGE: This has never really been addressed, but it's probably somewhere between mid-20s/30s.
SERIES: Red vs Blue
CHRONOLOGY: end of season 12
CLASS: Look, he's just here for the free food, okay? (Really, he's pretty self-serving and doesn't
actively try to be a good guy, but he isn't 100% a douchebag.)
HOUSING: Preferably he can get roomed with Simmons, but beyond that feel free inflict him on whomever!!
BACKGROUND:DRAMATIS PERSONAE
SARGE, trigger happy leader of Red Team
GRIF, a slacker
SIMMONS, a suck-up and second in command
LOPEZ, a Spanish-speaking robot
DONUT, a walking gay joke
CHURCH, kind-of leader of Blue Team and an asshole
TUCKER, a wannabe ladies'-man
CABOOSE, an idiot
TEX, Church's ex and a Freelancer
SHEILA, their tank
DOC, a medic
WASHINGTON, a Freelancer who can't pick a side
CAROLINA, a Freelancer with a vendetta
ALIENS, FREELANCERS, AI, ASSHOLES, REBELS, and MERCENARIES
Grif grew up in Hawaii with his younger sister, Kaikaina. After his mother ran off to join the circus (super talented, both the fat lady
and the bearded lady), he became responsible for looking after her. At least, until he got drafted. Quite an accomplishment, as the last draft had been hundreds of years previous and he was literally the only guy conscripted. Fortunately (maybe), he ended up stationed at Blood Gulch Outpost Number One--a shitty little Red Team base jammed in a box canyon with another equally shitty base belonging to Blue Team.
Welcome to Red vs Blue.
Things open with Grif and Simmons standing around talking, which is essentially what they do for the next five seasons.
Okay, but seriously. A majority of the Reds' time in Blood Gulch consists of standing around, waiting for Blue Team to do something. At least, up until they get a rookie. The appearance of Donut (said rookie) is actually what kicks the action into gear. He arrives while Sarge is on an errand to Command, only to be sent out by Grif and Simmons to take a trip to the "store" for elbow grease and headlight fluid.
Their attempt at a hazing backfires on them when Donut manages to successfully walk straight into Blue Base and take their flag from Caboose, the other rookie. When the other Blues realize what's happened and try to shoot Donut, Grif and Simmons roll out in the warthog (their jeep, which totally looks more like a puma) to try to save the guy. They manage to get the drop on the Blues, briefly pinning them down. Then, Caboose decides to be helpful and attempts to rescue his teammates with Sheila, their tank. It all goes tits up, though, when Caboose ends up inadvertently killing Church instead (and even worse, destroys the warthog). The Reds manage to make it back to their base with the flag still in tow, just in time to get a call from Sarge. Amazing timing, right? He is returning to Red Base, and brings air support just long enough to decommission Sheila.
Down a man, and more importantly a tank, Tucker radios in to Blue Command for reinforcements. This gets us Tex, a Freelancer and all around bad bitch. Oh, yeah, and Church's "ghost" shows up to warn Tucker not to trust Tex or even let her get involved. Meanwhile, over at Red Base, Sarge attempts to murder Grif, as is his custom. Around this time, Tex arrives, shows up the Blues, infiltrates Red Base, sticks a grenade to Donut's head, and then knocks out Grif and Simmons. But Sarge and Lopez end up capturing Tex, so it's kind of a draw. Oh, and at some point Donut gets sent off for medical attention.
Church simply isn't having this, and decides he needs to go save Tex. His plan involves letting Tucker and Caboose distract the Reds while he sneaks into the base to free Tex. He "possesses" Sarge to get inside, and because the Reds are such a tightknit group, nobody notices. He does get to free Tex, which is cool, but there's a little hiccup when Caboose shoots Sarge in the head. Grif ends up saving Sarge's life via CPR, which makes literally zero sense but there you have it. No gratitude is given this day.
On a happier note, Donut didn't die either!! And he got some awesome lightish-red armor, which definitely wasn't pink
or a recurring joke. Tex also works on fixing up Sheila, as a thanks for the Blues rescuing her from the Reds. Church takes the opportunity while she's occupied to try and figure out a way to help Tex out with another little problem--Omega/O'Malley, her crazy AI who was really interested in murderdeath. He goes to the Reds to try to get their help, culminating in Donut throwing a grenade at Tex and killing her. So really, it was a win for everybody.
About that time, Doc made his fashionably late entrance to Blue Base just in time to not save anybody. The Reds attack, but run out of ammunition because Grif didn't bring any extra (which was his one job). Sarge, being the clear tactical genius that he is, bluffs that they're giving the Blues an opportunity to surrender. Nobody buys it, but they negotiate anyway and volunteer to hand over Doc as a hostage. Grif also has to declare that he's a girl and wants to kiss all the boys--no plan is complete without taking the time to demean Grif. It's a failed venture, really, as the Reds abandon Doc shortly thereafter.
A bunch of nonsense involving robots and goes down, culminating in Tex coming back from the dead to possess Lopez. Apparently O'Malley got loose when she died, and was now possessing Caboose. Church and Tex go into Caboose's mind to try to corral O'Malley while the rest of the Blues head to Red Base to recruit the Reds into helping them out. They fuck up and run over Grif with Sheila, almost killing him. Only almost, since Sarge ended up saving him by replacing most of his organs with Simmons' and turning Simmons into a cyborg. He also builds sweet new robot bodies for Church and Tex.
Turns out, though, that O'Malley has possessed Doc. The Reds and Blues form a truce to stop him--except for Lopez, he's too busy being Doc/O'Malley's evil sidekick. They find some teleporters where everybody pairs up and splits off, trying to locate where Doc has run off to. Grif and Church get stuck together, and also get locked up on Sidewinder (an outpost similar to Blood Gulch, except on an ice planet) while everybody else gets into shenanigans. When they all finally regroup, they find out that Sarge built a bomb into robo-Church. Of course, that's about when it goes off and blows them into the future.
They fuck around for a while, as they do, and Tucker finds a cool alien sword, of which Tex is super jelly. Eventually, though, they do end up fighting O'Malley and Lopez, Well, at least until the Reds bail out and end up back in Blood Gulch--much to Grif's chagrin. The teams once again split, each side goes on to do what they do best--the Blues go on an alien quest to advance the plot (and get Tucker pregnant), while the Reds continue to fight each other about absolutely everything. Simmons briefly defects to Blue Team, but doesn't do much more than capture Grif.
Grif's sister arrives in Blood Gulch around the time Tucker is having his alien baby. Turns out, she missed her brother and joined the army to meet up with him again. Unfortunately, she joined the Blues because she's color blind. Grif decides to send Sister over to the Blues, because that way the only one trying to kill her would be the Reds, rendering her totally safe.
In a shocking change of pace, the Blues take a turn to stand around talking while the Reds go on to discover an hidden underground cave. Turns out, this was where they were getting their commands from--along with the Blues. They also discover that the Blues old C.O., Captain Flowers, isn't as dead as everyone thought. He'd been revived by aliens and now, possessed by O'Malley, was working with Wyoming (another Freelancer) to kill the Blues and capture Tucker's alien son, Junior.
The Reds and Blues work together to take out Wyoming, while Flowers gets killed via stray gunfire. That just leaves O'Malley. They make a valiant attempt to destroy him, but he eventually possesses Tex again. Tex and O'Malley board a ship with Junior and Sister, along with Wyoming's equipment. As they are taking off, however, the ship is destroyed.
Turns out, though, that O'Malley survived the crash and ended up at another outpost. At least, until he was retrieved by the Meta. Yet another former Freelancer, Washington, is recruited to track the Meta down with the help of soldiers that had already dealt with Omega. The only ones left in Blood Gulch are Sarge, Lopez, and Sister. Sarge tells Wash to go after Caboose, which then leads Wash on a Blue collection mission.
Meanwhile, Grif and Simmons are about to be executed. Turns out, they got re-stationed after all that nonsense in Blood Gulch. Grif was promoted to Sergeant, where he proceeded to be a terrible leader and sell off the Reds extra ammunition to the Blues so he could turn a quick profit. Sarge arrives at the last second to save them, or at least retrieve them so they can get back to trying to kill the Blues. This doesn't last long, though, as the Reds and Blues are forced (yet again) to work together to try to stop the Meta from killing all of them.
The Meta is actually another Freelancer (Maine) who's out to collect AI and Freelancer equipment. Since ain't nobody got time for that, they decide to go after the Alpha and put a stop to things once and for all. The crew infiltrate Freelancer Command, with Wash and Church going after Alpha while Caboose and the Reds camp out to pose as a distraction when the moment is right. They also delete the Blues out of Command’s databases, cementing themselves as eternally victorious. There’s also a slight change in plans when Wash reveals that he’s actually there to get Epsilon, his old AI unit.
As it happens, the AI are all just fragments of the Alpha, with each representing different aspects of it's personality. It's also revealed that Church isn't actually a ghost, but is actually the Alpha. Epsilon is the memories, and Wash plans to use it to take down Project Freelancer. They give Epsilon to Caboose and the Reds, telling them to get as far away from command as they can while Wash and Church try to defeat the Meta. The plan is to set off an EMP that will wipe out all of the Meta's AI and incapacitate him. Which works, but also ends up destroying Church in the process. :(
With that junk out of the way, though, life returns to normal for the Reds. They get a sweet new base on Valhalla where they are free to stand around all day doing jack shit. To make things better, Caboose is their only opposition! Which would be great, except that Command has no record of the Blues anymore and Caboose has plans to take Epsilon off on a journey to find Tucker. In a stunning change of attitude, Grif volunteers to go with him, claiming that if he helps Caboose out then Command might put the Blues back on record. And as long as the Blues officially exist, he won't be stationed somewhere else where he might have to do real work.
They end up in a desert, where Tucker has been waiting for a rescue party. Turns out, there was an alien artifact that also happened to be a weapon buried in the sand. The dig team had been killed by someone calling themselves C.T., then tried to kill Tucker. Caboose manages to get Epsilon into some old alien-tech, waking him up. He's essentially Church 2.0 and immediately decides to put himself in charge. They manage to defeat C.T., but are still left with a horde of aliens to deal with. Aliens who worship church as a deity.
Back in Valhalla, Wash returns with the Meta. They are now in cahoots, and also after Epsilon. First order of business? Shooting Donut, because that poor dude can't catch a break. Sarge and Grif get in touch with Simmons, who assures them that everything is cool in Valhalla. Which, of course, Sarge immediately deduces as being a secret message about how Simmons and Donut have been captured. So he and Grif head back to attempt a rescue.
All in all, it's a successful venture. Well, kind of. Grif runs over Wash with the warthog and they manage to retrieve Simmons before bailing back to the desert. Epsilon, in the meantime, remembers some things and starts the group on a mission to an old Freelancer storage facility. Because only good things happen to these guys, they find Tex. She kicks their asses pretty thoroughly for a while, but they eventually manage to get her to back off. She and Church decide to go to another Freelancer base to find Wash and the Meta.
While everyone else takes some downtime, Simmons works on getting the Blues added back into the official record. Grif also discovers records that show the Reds and Blues are actually just simulation bases to test the Freelancers. Red and Blue soldiers are actually the lowest ranking soldiers enlisted, since nobody would actually miss them in real combat. Sarge doesn't take it well. With nothing else to really lose, the group decides to go after Church and Tex.
When Wash and the Meta arrive, shit immediately gets real. In the ensuing fight, the Meta ends up pulling out Tex's memory unit. Wash ends up turning on the Meta to try and protect Epsilon. The Reds and Blues arrive and get dragged into the fight, which none of them really anticipate will go well. Surprisingly, they manage to work together well enough that they eventually overcome the Meta. To be fair, they did have to tie him to a jeep and throw it over a cliff, but it got the job done. Grif got pulled over, too, but sadly remained alive. Epsilon, however, got locked inside Tex’s failing memory unit while trying to save her. Super sad, really, but the Blues swapped him out for Wash and called it even.
They eventually get Epsilon out again, just in time to meet Carolina. She's another Freelancer, assumed dead for the last few years, and she is super pissed off. She recruits the Reds and Blues to go after the Director of Project Freelancer. They retrace their steps from the last few adventures, trying to find clues as to where the dodgy old asshole might be. While they don't initially trust her, the group learns that she's been fucked over just as much as they have by Project Freelancer.
It's not all sunshine and roses, though. Carolina and Epsilon manage to alienate the entire rest of the crew. The Reds, the Blues, and even Wash decide they’re done with the mission and take off. Carolina won't back down, though, and she and Epsilon go after the Director on their own. When they manage to find him, they learn that he's spent all this time trying to make another Tex. The result? A shit ton of Tex clones that they have to fight through. Things don't go so well, but at the last minute the gang arrives to bail Carolina out. Because even if she and Epsilon are total bitches, they're still friends.
It's rough, but they manage to defeat all the Texes. However, it's a lackluster victory when the Director ends up being a pretty sad version of his old self. Carolina leaves him alive, but he shuts his facility down and shoots himself soon after. With that settled, she and Epsilon leave the rest of the group to go hunt down and destroy any remaining and unaccounted for Freelancer equipment.
You'd think, at this point, that the Reds and Blues might catch a break. You'd also be totally wrong. They got onto a ship that would allegedly take them home after being lauded as heroes for finally shutting down Project Freelancer. Of course, the ship crash landed on a backwater planet (Chorus), leaving them stranded.
For a time, they set up makeshift bases and play house. It's just their luck that they get interrupted by being dragged into a civil war that's been raging on the planet for years. Felix and Locus, mercenaries for the opposing sides, show up and the party gets split up.
Grif, Simmons, Tucker, and Caboose go with Felix to the main camp of the New Republic, while Wash, Sarge, Donut, and Lopez are captured by the Federal Army. Felix takes his new recruits to meet with the New Republic's leader, Vanessa Kimball, where they are told that if they can help Kimball and her men defeat the Feds, she'll help them finally go home. They agree and are all made captains and given units to train.
Surprising no one, training consists of everyone fucking up forever. Which is frustrating, considering that they need to get their units in at least somewhat competent fighting condition before they can go save Sarge and the others. Eventually, they say fuck it and take off on their own in a probable suicide mission. They don't stand much of a chance, but it's better than getting their lieutenants killed on a mission to save their friends.
Grif and the rest actually manage to pull it off, though, infiltrating a Fed base and meeting up with the rest of the gang. They also find Carolina and Epsilon, surprise, and learn that Locus and Felix are secretly working together to pit the New Republic and the Feds against each other. Chorus is, apparently, rife with old alien tech that the mercs real employer is after. It kind of becomes their job to take the mercs down, even if they are out-gunned.
While they're trying to stop Locus and Felix, Kimball is preparing to attack the capital city, Armonia. They're sneak attack had been expected, however, and the battle very rapidly becomes a stand still. The New Republic, surrounded, is about two seconds from being entirely wiped out when at literally the last second both sides get a broadcast. The Reds and Blues, while unable to defeat Locus and Felix, did manage to trick Felix into giving away their evil master plan.
The Feds cease firing and ultimately end up entering into an alliance with the New republic. It's tenuous, but they know that they have to work together if they have any hope of beating the mercs and their army.
PERSONALITY: If you asked Grif to describe himself, you'd hear all about how he's a maverick that doesn't play by the rules. What this really translates out to is that he's a lazy piece of shit who's main life goals include eating, sleeping, never doing any work, and generally having every awful habit a person can have.
For the most part, he's a pretty irresponsible and self-centered guy. He frequently sleeps through team meetings and abandons patrols in favor of dicking around, which often leads to him fucking things up one way or another (like running out of ammunition mid-battle, because that would obviously never be a problem). He puts a lot of work into getting out of it, funnily enough, with a precise system of being just argumentative
enough to put off getting direct orders. Hell, he even went out of his way to help the Blues out when they technically didn't exist, just so that he could avoid getting restationed to a base that might actually require him to do more than stand around shooting his mouth off all day.
It's not just a sedentary lifestyle he's dedicated himself to, though, oh no. He's also the most slovenly member of the Reds, if not the whole cast. Living with garbage strewn absolutely everywhere does not bother him in the east--cleaning is just something he does not know how to do. Which extends to personal hygiene. Grif is pretty gross on a consistent basis, with pretty much everyone he knows commenting on what a greasy slob he is at some point or another.
He has absolutely no respect for authority figures and has no qualms about letting his superiors know about it. He doesn't take orders well, often questioning them if not outright stating that he's not doing whatever it was he was told to. To be fair, he does know how the chain of command works--he just never acknowledges it for anything actually productive.
Permission to go AWOL, sir? He's also totally fine taking up time and resources to make personal demands. He has needs, and they are definitely more important than those of a whole army.
It's not just saved for superior officers, though, Grif is abrasive to just about everyone he meets. Most conversations with him are comprised of insults and thinly veiled sarcasm, even in instances where it might be smarter to just keep his mouth shut. If he sees an opening to take a jab at someone, he's gonna take it--friend or no. He's quick to panic though, which leads to a lot of back-pedalling from shooting his mouth off. While he's totally fine telling you just where you can stick what, up until shots get fired. Then it was all just some friendly joking around. Come on, you
totally don't really want to shoot him in the face, right?
An interesting thing to note is his somewhat parental relationship with his younger sister, Sister (or Kaikaina, according to Word of God). He was responsible for raising her in lieu of their actual parents, and--while she
is as dumb as a box of rocks--she's not dead!! So obviously he did something right. Grif has been shown to be pretty protective of her, immediately trying to send her home she gets stationed in Blood Gulch; then sending her to the Blues so that the only people trying to kill her would be the Reds, thereby meaning she'd be totally safe. He's actually moved to real emotion when he thinks she's been killed by the Blues, though he does pull an immediate 180 once he realizes she's actually alright.
While he's not what one might call traditionally smart, Grif isn't a complete dumbass. He might be prone to taking the occasional fanciful leap in logic, but he also has a tendency to be pretty insightful. Whether that comes from his tendency to over-think dumb stuff until he lands on a paranoid conspiracy theory that coincidentally happens to be true, or an actual analytical ability is anybody's guess. Either way, it has been noted that he's the craftiest of the Reds, even if that really doesn't say a whole lot comparatively.
He's kind of a coward when it comes right down to it. He would much rather run away screaming than get into any actual combat situations, which is unfortunate considering his career path. When the fight gets brought to him, though, he's shown some ability to not be absolutely useless. He's not the best shot and he definitely isn't the most physically imposing, but he has taken out his share of the bad guys. While he'd rather not get into a fight at all, he sure as shit doesn't want to die. Self-preservation beats out fear every time.
All that said, he's honestly not
that awful of a person. While he's requested permission to go AWOL on occasion and tried numerous times to get himself court-marshalled, Grif has yet to actually bail on his crew. Despite how much he claims to hate all of them, he's often one of the first to express concern for his teammates when they're in real danger. In fact, he's come to the rescue of most of them at least once--like jumping the Meta and almost getting himself killed to help Sarge.
So while Grif's basically a huge scumbag, he's not 100% an asshole.
Also, he is terrified of bats and heights.
POWER: 1. MK VI Power Armor, in a stylish OrangeIt as a lot of cool stuff that it can do, but Grif has basically made his career around not knowing about how most of it works. For the most part, it serves as all-purpose armor in most environments, with the helmet also being able to process communications and navigational displays. Each set can be equipped with armor enhancements that can give the wearer extra abilities, though the only one Grif has is a helmet camera.
2. Resilience/RecoveryIn canon, Grif has been run over with a tank, hit with grenades, fallen from really high places, been shot, and otherwise had the ever-loving shit knocked out of him on multiple occasions. None of these things has killed him yet, nor really done much more than briefly incapacitate him. You see, injuring or threatening to injure Grif is kind of a running joke in the series.
In game, this will translate to, well, pretty much the same thing. He can still get knocked out, injured, etc; he'll just get over it a lot quicker than a normal dude. [Unless of course he gets killed, in which case he's just gonna be dead. :(] It's not a healing factor at all, just the ability to get back up and keep trucking after taking damage that might leave a normal dude on the ground crying.
3. InvisibilityThis one is made up for MoM!! Pretty straightforward in what it is. The only drawback will be learning how to actually use it in a useful way. At first, he will need to put a lot of focus into getting it to work; then, more work into maintaining it without having to actively concentrate on keeping it active. So invisi-naps are a ways off, but at least he has a goal to work for.
〈 CHARACTER SAMPLES 〉COMMUNITY POST (VOICE) SAMPLE: Test Drive!!LOGS POST (PROSE) SAMPLE: "Look, let me go ahead and cut you off there, pal." He gestured a time-out to the poor soldier saddled with escorting him. "I'm hearing a lot of words from you right now, and I just don't care about most of them."
Lame.
This was so fucking lame.
Getting superpowers was supposed to be awesome, at least it was whenever the possibility came up in conversation. You know, a sweet origin story, some cool new abilities, living above the law and doing whatever you wanted... Definitely not getting drafted into some shitty military program to, what? Fight the Russians or something? Couldn't even have the decency to have cool alien overlord villains. Fucking typical. And goddamn was there a lot of paperwork.
But, okay, he'd just have to look at the positives. Even if he was still stuck with his same old armor, nobody had tried to force him into some stupid ass tights yet. He was getting totally taken care of by the government with what seemed like minimal work. Not getting shot at constantly was also a definite upgrade--not that Grif was entirely confident things would stay like that. Situations had a way of turning to absolute shit at the drop of a hat where any of the simulation troopers were involved.
Oh, and Matthews wasn't here. Clearly God was real.
"You just drop me off at the nearest place to get a ride somewhere
not here and we'll call it even, okay? It's a win-win."
FINAL NOTES: i’m so sorry for all the dumb space marines, this series is the worst.
also, this doesn’t really belong anywhere, but i figured i’d drop a note that grif is sort of an idiot savant when it comes to vehicles. you know, in case it ever comes up.
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