Player Name: Asher Personal Journal:asherdashery E-mail: ash (dot) sofman [at] gmail (dot) com AIM/Plurk/Etc.:asherdashery Timezone: EST Current Characters in Route: N/A
[This section of the app contains SPOILERS for the Out of Mind miniseries and seasons nine and ten of Red vs. Blue. It all came out years ago so I'm not linking the app, but, you know, just noting that to be safe.]
"What's the story? Am I the only one on this team that knows how to talk? "I don't think talking is your problem." "Oh no."
Red vs. Blue, an action-comedy set in the Halo universe, introduces Agent New York as part of an experimental Special Operations program called Project Freelancer (PFL), and understanding everything this man chooses to be is impossible without putting him in that highly specific military context. PFL, like many different groups during the Great War that serves as the backdrop to RvB, sought a way to combat the alien Covenant. Their proposed solution is to implant already greatly-skilled soldiers with AI fragments that will help manage their powerful, but dangerous, power armor enhancements. They determine the order of implantation partially according to a leaderboard that ranks the Freelancer agents according to their performance both in training and on missions. This leads to bitter competition among the Freelancers, despite their need to work as a team on the field. York ends up at the top of the lists just behind Agent Carolina, who is the undisputed leader of the elite squad pulled from those top players.
It's against that dangerously competitive, high-stakes backdrop that York establishes himself as a calm, grounded thinker, irreverent banterer, and all-around laid-back guy. Like many of the Freelancers, he's got a penchant for flashy entrances and dramatic one-liners, but he's just as likely to say something stupid as something clever. He keeps his speech patterns light and casual, as if everyone's included in some running in-joke of his, as if they're all bros even when they're at one another's throats. He talks incessantly, even at the most inappropriate moments, and cracks wise on the field and off. One might assume he doesn't take PFL's mission seriously and then forget to take York seriously in return. Some of his teammates do.
That would be a mistake. It's clear, both from the leaderboard rankings and from watching York in action, that he's one of the most capable and versatile soldiers PFL has to offer. He is one of only a couple operatives we see sent into missions alone both by Carolina and by the Project's Director himself, and when he's left to his own devices off-screen, he always returns having efficiently satisfied his objectives. (It's only on-screen that he fucks up.) Thus, he can back up the easy confidence he projects; his seeming disinterest in the battle for leaderboard slots underlines, not undermines, how he's earned his position behind Carolina.
York rather uses his levity--well, mostly to entertain himself, but also to gauge his team's emotional state and keep the bonhomie flowing. If Carolina is understood to be leader on the field, York sometimes lands in the unenviable position of peacemaker for PFL's most arrogant--and most dangerous--squad. This is sort of terrible because he's kind of insufferable, but he's the only one who even tries. He makes jokes to lighten the mood on missions and prevent their competition from interfering with their teamwork; if it isn't received well, he makes a note of it and adjusts his behavior to account for it so as not to strain communications. He breaks one of PFL's rules to help ease the AI implanted into his closest friend and thus make life easier on that friend, for a time. He tries to pull squad-mates back when they take their violence too far and shows himself to be, for the most part, of a team-oriented mindset. He's perspicacious and supportive and, while he can be stealth-mean (it's sometimes hard to realize he's just insulted someone when he still sounds like he's cracking a joke with them rather than at them) to the less-skilled members of his team, he gets vocally excited when any of them shows off a cool new trick.
"So can you open it or not?" "Of course I can! It's just much harder. I just brought it up 'cause I wanted you to realize how kick-ass I am."
York likes to play himself up to people as if just begging to be shot down. While he's happy enough to accept the praise should someone go along with it, he seems most comfortable when people respond sarcastically to his bragging. It follows that he treats others the same way; while his tone is never serious, he's constantly picking on his teammates, and if they don't push back he just comes off as an insensitive asshole. And he is an asshole, but he's an asshole who accepts this back-and-forth mutual bullying as the military way of life and is more than capable of taking his own licks in return.
He does this because he's well aware of his own weaknesses and limitations. He doesn't oversell his abilities when people need a straight answer--he notes when Carolina or Delta will have to factor his bad eye into their plans--and he makes no effort to hide his obvious attachment to Carolina, despite their positions as leader and subordinate within PFL. Rather than hiding his vulnerabilities, he maintains his and others' awareness of them so that, should anyone ever feel the need to attack him, they'll choose the routes he's left open for them; and because he's so conscious of them, he'll be prepared to defend himself.
(You know, in theory. This doesn't always work out as well as he plans. York fucks up a lot, and usually because he's overestimated himself.)
But those weaknesses remain weaknesses. York's relationship with Carolina, while never explicitly named, defines his life almost more than PFL itself does. He's seen to linger at her bedside for days as she recovers from nasty complications from her AI implants; he watches her training into the late hours of the night because he's worried about her furious rivalry with Agent Texas; when she's presumed dead, he clings to hope for her return and a chance to make things right between them once again. It's hopelessly romantic and honestly really sad. York would have done almost anything for her.
"How long has he been there?" "He hasn't left her side yet." "It's been days." "And he's dedicated."
Still, for all that dedication, he leaves her in the end.
Without going into too much detail: A few PFL agents independently realize what the Project has done to procure the AI fragments implanted within them. York, perceptive and analytical as he is, is one of those agents. They stage an attack to free the Alpha AI, which ultimately fails, but York escapes with his life and his own AI fragment, Delta. They go into hiding and turn to petty theft for a living for the next several years.
It's a sticky moral situation: He attempts to do "the right thing" only to resort to stealing from others to survive when that fails. But it's telling. York cares much more about those immediately in his circle than humanity or justice in general; his stake in turning against the Project was to save Carolina from being hurt like she had and to prevent AIs from being implanted into any more of his fellow Freelancer agents. Afterwards, though, he's on his own except for Delta, and his world narrows to keeping him and his helpless digital friend alive. The people he steals from don't really factor into his thoughts.
So he survives and he holds out for Carolina. He keeps tabs on Freelancer communications in hopes of tracking her down, of hearing that she now understands why he did what he did so they can reconcile and be what they once were. It's selfish wish-fulfillment and grossly unrealistic, but he doesn't give up until he has to.
But when he does have to--when he has no other reason to believe Carolina's alive--he lets her go. York isn't a stubborn enough man to pursue a lost cause, and for all his strength, he's smart enough to recognize what he cannot change and bow to the inevitable. To focus on what he can do.
So when one of the other rogue agents tracks York down and asks him to help her destroy PFL property (and maybe one of its agents, too), he agrees. For pride.
After giving so much of himself--the years of his prime, his strength and brain, the love of his life, his eye--to the Project only to find out he and the other agents were just used and lied to all along, and then sinking into obscurity and poverty after throwing away everything he ever wanted, the pull of doing something about it is irresistible. He's always been one of the best, even if he's made a point never to make a big deal about it. And if he's lost everything else, he might still redeem his life a little bit by helping out one person he'd never be able to best.
"Omega and Allison were always the best. No one could compete with them. Not me, not Wyoming, not anybody. Trying to beat them when I should have given up is how I got hurt in the first place." "Oh, so it is pride. I was registering an emotion, but I incorrectly categorized it as 'stupidity.'" "Yeah, they're closely related."
Tl;dr: York is a grounded, confident, devoted, but obnoxious asshole who just wants to do good by his people. You know, people in general, too, theoretically. But in practice he mostly just looks out for his own--for the poor souls who manage to put up with him.
Strengths/Weaknesses:
+ Combat and infiltration: York is a talented and highly-trained military operative. He fights with keen spatial awareness, despite his damaged eye, and attacks precisely and efficiently, with little wasted movement. He's also a "locksmith," and by locksmith we all actually mean lockpick. He's used to the tech of the Halo universe though and may not have much truck with any locks in Pokéworld. It does mean he's got a good grasp of computers and encryption, though. + Analytical thinking: While it's often hard to gauge what York really thinks with all his joking around, he's sharply observant and realized fairly quickly after the AI implantation process started that something was wrong. He can gauge a situation with speed and come to his own conclusions about how best to tackle it, without orders. + Multi-tasking: Look, the guy can talk and fight and deal with an AI in his brain all at the same time. It's an important skill for a Freelancer. + Cool under pressure: Don't trust York not to screw important things up. He's going to. What he is reliable for, though, is keeping his head and adapting his strategy on the fly. He will get you into trouble, but he will also, with grace and humor, get you out.
+/- Dedication: When York devotes himself to something, he is all in. Just ask Carolina. It can get kind of annoying. And unhealthy. +/- Pride: Pride leads to so many of his falls, but it keeps him on the straight and narrow, too. Or, well, mostly on it. While he's not as competitive as some of his fellow Freelancers, he's not proof against showing off. Once people know what to look for, they could very well try to manipulate him in this way. He also tends to overestimate himself and mess up, even in critical situations.
- Injured eye: York can't really see out of his left eye, and even ubiquitous tasks like reading cause trouble for him. This sight problem led directly to his death and is his most glaring physical weakness. - Obnoxious: His jokes and teasing get old really, really fast. He's not even funny. He just makes people think he is because his voice is so charming. - Unused to this age's technological situation and cultural mores: He's a space soldier. These are fuzzy alien creatures who could kill a man by looking at him, all in a world where human violence is a punishable offense and not a lifetime career. He's not ready. - AI implant: York's spent the last several years of his life with a brain tenant who ended up being his combat partner and sole friend, and it's going to take some time for him to acclimate to the emptiness where another mind used to be.
Agent York | Red vs. Blue | No reserve
Name: Asher
Personal Journal:
E-mail: ash (dot) sofman [at] gmail (dot) com
AIM/Plurk/Etc.: asherdashery
Timezone: EST
Current Characters in Route: N/A
Character
Name: Agent York
Series: Red vs. Blue
Timeline: The end of Out of Mind Part V
Canon Resource Links: York on the RvB wiki | Project Freelancer on the RvB wiki, for context
Personality:
"I don't think talking is your problem."
"Oh no."
Red vs. Blue, an action-comedy set in the Halo universe, introduces Agent New York as part of an experimental Special Operations program called Project Freelancer (PFL), and understanding everything this man chooses to be is impossible without putting him in that highly specific military context. PFL, like many different groups during the Great War that serves as the backdrop to RvB, sought a way to combat the alien Covenant. Their proposed solution is to implant already greatly-skilled soldiers with AI fragments that will help manage their powerful, but dangerous, power armor enhancements. They determine the order of implantation partially according to a leaderboard that ranks the Freelancer agents according to their performance both in training and on missions. This leads to bitter competition among the Freelancers, despite their need to work as a team on the field. York ends up at the top of the lists just behind Agent Carolina, who is the undisputed leader of the elite squad pulled from those top players.
It's against that dangerously competitive, high-stakes backdrop that York establishes himself as a calm, grounded thinker, irreverent banterer, and all-around laid-back guy. Like many of the Freelancers, he's got a penchant for flashy entrances and dramatic one-liners, but he's just as likely to say something stupid as something clever. He keeps his speech patterns light and casual, as if everyone's included in some running in-joke of his, as if they're all bros even when they're at one another's throats. He talks incessantly, even at the most inappropriate moments, and cracks wise on the field and off. One might assume he doesn't take PFL's mission seriously and then forget to take York seriously in return. Some of his teammates do.
That would be a mistake. It's clear, both from the leaderboard rankings and from watching York in action, that he's one of the most capable and versatile soldiers PFL has to offer. He is one of only a couple operatives we see sent into missions alone both by Carolina and by the Project's Director himself, and when he's left to his own devices off-screen, he always returns having efficiently satisfied his objectives.
(It's only on-screen that he fucks up.)Thus, he can back up the easy confidence he projects; his seeming disinterest in the battle for leaderboard slots underlines, not undermines, how he's earned his position behind Carolina.York rather uses his levity--well, mostly to entertain himself, but also to gauge his team's emotional state and keep the bonhomie flowing. If Carolina is understood to be leader on the field, York sometimes lands in the unenviable position of peacemaker for PFL's most arrogant--and most dangerous--squad. This is sort of terrible because he's kind of insufferable, but he's the only one who even tries. He makes jokes to lighten the mood on missions and prevent their competition from interfering with their teamwork; if it isn't received well, he makes a note of it and adjusts his behavior to account for it so as not to strain communications. He breaks one of PFL's rules to help ease the AI implanted into his closest friend and thus make life easier on that friend, for a time. He tries to pull squad-mates back when they take their violence too far and shows himself to be, for the most part, of a team-oriented mindset. He's perspicacious and supportive and, while he can be stealth-mean (it's sometimes hard to realize he's just insulted someone when he still sounds like he's cracking a joke with them rather than at them) to the less-skilled members of his team, he gets vocally excited when any of them shows off a cool new trick.
"Of course I can! It's just much harder. I just brought it up 'cause I wanted you to realize how kick-ass I am."
York likes to play himself up to people as if just begging to be shot down. While he's happy enough to accept the praise should someone go along with it, he seems most comfortable when people respond sarcastically to his bragging. It follows that he treats others the same way; while his tone is never serious, he's constantly picking on his teammates, and if they don't push back he just comes off as an insensitive asshole. And he is an asshole, but he's an asshole who accepts this back-and-forth mutual bullying as the military way of life and is more than capable of taking his own licks in return.
He does this because he's well aware of his own weaknesses and limitations. He doesn't oversell his abilities when people need a straight answer--he notes when Carolina or Delta will have to factor his bad eye into their plans--and he makes no effort to hide his obvious attachment to Carolina, despite their positions as leader and subordinate within PFL. Rather than hiding his vulnerabilities, he maintains his and others' awareness of them so that, should anyone ever feel the need to attack him, they'll choose the routes he's left open for them; and because he's so conscious of them, he'll be prepared to defend himself.
(You know, in theory. This doesn't always work out as well as he plans. York fucks up a lot, and usually because he's overestimated himself.)
But those weaknesses remain weaknesses. York's relationship with Carolina, while never explicitly named, defines his life almost more than PFL itself does. He's seen to linger at her bedside for days as she recovers from nasty complications from her AI implants; he watches her training into the late hours of the night because he's worried about her furious rivalry with Agent Texas; when she's presumed dead, he clings to hope for her return and a chance to make things right between them once again. It's hopelessly romantic and honestly really sad. York would have done almost anything for her.
"He hasn't left her side yet."
"It's been days."
"And he's dedicated."
Still, for all that dedication, he leaves her in the end.
Without going into too much detail: A few PFL agents independently realize what the Project has done to procure the AI fragments implanted within them. York, perceptive and analytical as he is, is one of those agents. They stage an attack to free the Alpha AI, which ultimately fails, but York escapes with his life and his own AI fragment, Delta. They go into hiding and turn to petty theft for a living for the next several years.
It's a sticky moral situation: He attempts to do "the right thing" only to resort to stealing from others to survive when that fails. But it's telling. York cares much more about those immediately in his circle than humanity or justice in general; his stake in turning against the Project was to save Carolina from being hurt like she had and to prevent AIs from being implanted into any more of his fellow Freelancer agents. Afterwards, though, he's on his own except for Delta, and his world narrows to keeping him and his helpless digital friend alive. The people he steals from don't really factor into his thoughts.
So he survives and he holds out for Carolina. He keeps tabs on Freelancer communications in hopes of tracking her down, of hearing that she now understands why he did what he did so they can reconcile and be what they once were. It's selfish wish-fulfillment and grossly unrealistic, but he doesn't give up until he has to.
But when he does have to--when he has no other reason to believe Carolina's alive--he lets her go. York isn't a stubborn enough man to pursue a lost cause, and for all his strength, he's smart enough to recognize what he cannot change and bow to the inevitable. To focus on what he can do.
So when one of the other rogue agents tracks York down and asks him to help her destroy PFL property (and maybe one of its agents, too), he agrees. For pride.
After giving so much of himself--the years of his prime, his strength and brain, the love of his life, his eye--to the Project only to find out he and the other agents were just used and lied to all along, and then sinking into obscurity and poverty after throwing away everything he ever wanted, the pull of doing something about it is irresistible. He's always been one of the best, even if he's made a point never to make a big deal about it. And if he's lost everything else, he might still redeem his life a little bit by helping out one person he'd never be able to best.
"Oh, so it is pride. I was registering an emotion, but I incorrectly categorized it as 'stupidity.'"
"Yeah, they're closely related."
Tl;dr: York is a grounded, confident, devoted, but obnoxious asshole who just wants to do good by his people. You know, people in general, too, theoretically. But in practice he mostly just looks out for his own--for the poor souls who manage to put up with him.
Strengths/Weaknesses:
+ Combat and infiltration: York is a talented and highly-trained military operative. He fights with keen spatial awareness, despite his damaged eye, and attacks precisely and efficiently, with little wasted movement. He's also a "locksmith," and by locksmith we all actually mean lockpick. He's used to the tech of the Halo universe though and may not have much truck with any locks in Pokéworld. It does mean he's got a good grasp of computers and encryption, though.
+ Analytical thinking: While it's often hard to gauge what York really thinks with all his joking around, he's sharply observant and realized fairly quickly after the AI implantation process started that something was wrong. He can gauge a situation with speed and come to his own conclusions about how best to tackle it, without orders.
+ Multi-tasking: Look, the guy can talk and fight and deal with an AI in his brain all at the same time. It's an important skill for a Freelancer.
+ Cool under pressure: Don't trust York not to screw important things up. He's going to. What he is reliable for, though, is keeping his head and adapting his strategy on the fly. He will get you into trouble, but he will also, with grace and humor, get you out.
+/- Dedication: When York devotes himself to something, he is all in. Just ask Carolina. It can get kind of annoying. And unhealthy.
+/- Pride: Pride leads to so many of his falls, but it keeps him on the straight and narrow, too. Or, well, mostly on it. While he's not as competitive as some of his fellow Freelancers, he's not proof against showing off. Once people know what to look for, they could very well try to manipulate him in this way. He also tends to overestimate himself and mess up, even in critical situations.
- Injured eye: York can't really see out of his left eye, and even ubiquitous tasks like reading cause trouble for him. This sight problem led directly to his death and is his most glaring physical weakness.
- Obnoxious: His jokes and teasing get old really, really fast. He's not even funny. He just makes people think he is because his voice is so charming.
- Unused to this age's technological situation and cultural mores: He's a space soldier. These are fuzzy alien creatures who could kill a man by looking at him, all in a world where human violence is a punishable offense and not a lifetime career. He's not ready.
- AI implant: York's spent the last several years of his life with a brain tenant who ended up being his combat partner and sole friend, and it's going to take some time for him to acclimate to the emptiness where another mind used to be.