#transcript from the rvb wiki

[double-o-donut]

Double O Donut

transcript under cut cause i couldn't figure out how to add subtitle file AND trim the full season length video at the same time with the programs i have RIP me if i figure it out i'll reupload i guess

Cut to Red Base

Sarge: It's very simple. We use a flea flicker maneuver with a run and gun two by two approach, tactical ops will be... aw hell, who am I kidding? Grif, Donut, just go stand in the way of their bullets while me and Simmons 2.0 sneak around back to grab Lopez.

Donut: Sounds like a plan!

Grif: No it doesn't! How about this time we try something that doesn't involve me being shot at or run over.

Simmons: Would electrified be okay?

Grif: No!

Simmons: Well, I'm out of ideas.

Grif: Look, instead of running straight into enemy gunfire like we usually do, why don't we try some reconnaissance this time?

Donut: You mean like spy stuff? That would be cool! I could wear a spy tuxedo-

Sarge: No.

Donut: -with a hidden spy camera-

Simmons: No.

Donut: -inside a tiny spy bow-tie-

Grif: No.

Donut: -or, I could wear a flower on my lapel-

Sarge: I said no!

Donut: -that sprays water in people's faces-

Simmons: Shut up Donut.

Donut: -no, a secret spy liquid, that would be awesome. (he chuckles, everyone stares)

Sarge and Simmons: No!

Grif: Maybe! Uh, I mean, no.

Donut: Oh, come on! I could be Double O Donut.

Simmons: You mean like, Doonut?

Donut: With a license to thrill, or be thrilled!

Sarge: Alright, since you're both so into the idea, Grif, Donut, you're on recon. Find us a way to break into their base, and report back on the double.

Grif: Great, more time alone with the idiot.

Donut: Grif, Grif, Grif, Grif, Grif, Grif! Lets pretend we're wearing super spy jet-packs! (Grif groans) No, no, no, no. Like this. (he makes jet-pack sounds as the scene transitions to a cliff while Donut continues to make jet-pack sounds)

Grif: Hey, can you not stop that for two seconds?

Donut: Come on Agent- (he clears his throat to speak with a lower voice) Come on Agent Grif, we've got to hurry if you want to save the princess from the evil goblin.

Grif: What princess? I thought you were pretending to be in a spy movie.

Donut: Look, my secret spy character gets to marry a beautiful princess in a castle, alright? Deal with it!

Grif: Donut, can you go find some higher ground or something?

Donut: But we're on higher ground now.

Grif: Why don't you use your jet pack to get to the highest ground?

Donut: Good idea! I bet the Blues won't think of that.

Grif: No, if they were that stupid we probably would've won by now.

Donut: Secret Agent Donut, to the rescue! (he makes more jet-pack noises as he runs off)

Grif: I could just shoot him. No one would ever have to know. No one.

[illusion-of-sea-axes]

The Club

 I was looking back through episodes (once again for fic reasons) and I noticed some timeline and world building details in the club. Mainly from our two favorite security guards. So here’s some dialogue and lore analysis. 

(Taken from the RVB Wiki Transcript)

Guard 1 (off-screen): I mean, ya think jobs wouldn't be so hard to come by.

Guard 2 (off-screen): Hard times, man. Everyone's hurting.

Guard 1 (off-screen): Not Lozano, apparently.

Guard 2 (off-screen): Nah, I've been with the family for a while. They ain't hurting, but they sure as shit ain't what they used to be.

I would like to refer to something that Anneapocalypse has pointed out; “A year is an extremely conservative minimum estimate for Felix and Locus’s post-military pre-Chorus career. I’d say really, plausibly, it needs to be a few years.” 

This dialogue seems to affirm that this is occurring the same time as the Human-Covenant War, presumably. By 2535, the Covenant have eradicated most of the Outer Colonies, which provided everywhere else with food, metal, and many other important features. The Cole Protocol references food riots as a common occurrence. Not to mention the constant fear of every human with sense that the war will end and they won’t be the ones on the winning end. The Covenant don’t want to make the humans subservient, they want to wipe them out. 

From what I understand, driver’s licenses expire at different times depending on the State you live in. Fred’s is set to expire in 2560 while Dillon’s is set to expire in 2564 (or 2364, it’s difficult for me to read). Basing it on the longest set time for an expiration date that I could find is eight years, (except in Arizona) and none of these men look older than forty (the expiration limits do change based on age, but usually only after someone turns sixty). 

using Fred’s date, since it’s the easiest to read and also the lowest, subtracting 8 years from it gives the date 2532, which is one year before the end of the war. Of course, it is the future, who knows when driver’s licenses expire then. But I do think that this wasn’t the first job Felix and Locus ever had with bounty hunting. 

Mainly because of what Siris says during The Call, the sequel episode; 

Siris: The three of us set out to stop criminals. We do good, we get paid, everybody wins. Ransom makes us no better than the guys we're trying to take down!

The way that Siris interacts with them, the fact they all have code names (though Siris and Felix are shit at using them, implying they knew each other before they took up the names and also that the names are new to them) implies they have had experience as bounty hunters before this job. How much? Not much, but clearly at least some. But this story is intended to show the turning point to Felix and Locus’ careers from guys trying to do good to guys trying to make bank.

They also refer to an IPD several times, presumably the city’s police department. There are only two known Halo cities that start with I. Irbit and Irbid. Irbid was on Tribute, though I don’t know if it was destroyed or not (it’s implied to be), an Inner Colony planet that was partially attacked by the Covenant but would be revived post-war. Irbit was a city on the Outer Colony world Talitsa, which according to its Halopedia page, “Outside of the moon's heavily fortified capital, the rest of the colony was essentially ungovernable.” The planet also survived the Covenant war.

This could explain why the city is controlled by what’s implied to be a mob boss. 

Lozano: You're crazy. Don't you know my dad? You can't do this?

and

Ruben: I have a reputation to uphold. If word got out that two bounty hunters killed my men, shot up my property, and kidnapped my son, all without consequence, that would most certainly be a sign of weakness. Which is why I am personally going to bash your skulls open and feed you to my dogs. Do we understand one another, or have you not yet grasped the gravity of the situation?

We also get an idea of the city’s size with this line; 

Felix: Every police force has bad cops, even the big ones.

Of course it could also be a completely made up city, it actually most likely is, but where’s the fun in that?

[boomotherfucker]

tagging @kryptonitanott because tucker meta throwing some random rvb thoughts out there since, well, you know. soon. this might be pure selfishness on my part (which, whatever, any reading of any piece of fiction is bound to be influenced by the person reading it) but tbh if i had to pick one thing i really like about tucker that i wish i saw more of, it's that he is clumsy with Mature Situations. like, it takes so long for him to even admit he misses church in s11, he doesn't even know how to verbalize an apology to him in s12, he arguably didn't even know that church was an AI before the reds told him and had to cover it up with nervous laughter instead of actually dealing with the consequences of what that meant* and when he tries to be a leader in s12 he expresses so much frustration with himself because it doesn't come naturally to him and he keeps fucking up and it's like he keeps trying to be a Mature Leader Guy but no matter what, that's not who he is but the point is, he is TRYING--not succeeding or failing 100% but trying. he is thrown into these situations that seemingly call for someone with more experience or prestige and tries to be that person--but he isn't. he doesn't know how to Feelings, he doesn't know how to manage people, he's constantly complaining about how he doesn't know, he can't figure out, etc etc. and all of this was pretty much bottled up and internal until wash came along and made it all real, first by unknowingly pushing his buttons when he was vulnerable and then by apologizing for it and making all these bitter feelings about church explicit and real--but wash was also the guy who told tucker he has potential if he just tried and took himself more seriously, so both factors were a huge influence on how tucker treated serious emotional situations from then on out, those factors are why he tries so much so yeah, i think the best thing about tucker is his frustration with his own inability to just Deal with his own problems let alone others' but also especially his perseverance despite or maybe even because of it. he doesn't really know how to Feelings, doesn't quite understand them sometimes until someone points them out to him, but he wants to, and that's a very human experience *idk if the wiki still says it but in the transcript for the episode where the reds tell him church is an AI, the script says something like *nervous laughter*--implying that he didn't actually know church was an AI. whether that is an accurate reading of that piece of dialogue or not is debatable but it's a more interesting reading to me anyway

[anneapocalypse]

(1/2) Im terribly deprived of people to theorize RvB with so I'm back about eta and iota. So I also dont remember on canon its stating which is eta and which is iota but the wiki has blue being Iota and yellow eta so thats what I'm going off of. And I've the wiki continues to be right it states Iota is happiness and eta is fear so my head cannon is sigma had encouraged eta and kept iota back from the META furthering his control by literally being able to stimulate METAs fear or happiness at will

(2/2) and after years of this iota just wasn't able to maintain itself there wasn't enough in the META himself to encourage it and there wasn't enough support from the other AI. This is all assuming the wiki is right about the colors and that they are fear/happiness

Dude please feel free to come discuss RvB theories with me any time, I live for this stuff.

The RvB wiki has a tendency to be... not the most reliable, in my experience, and it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve seen headcanon and editorializing presented there as fact, so I tend to take the wiki with a grain of salt. Fine for quick referencing, great for the episode transcripts RoosterTooths.com is missing, but I’ll never trust it as a sole source of information. That said, the colors are still anybody’s game, so you can’t be wrong!

Eta and Iota as “fear” and “happiness” respectively is established in the Fan Guide and therefore canon, though it’s the sort of thing where I wish it had been established by the show itself back in season 10 when it actually mattered. It is canon, it’s just one of those pieces of canon I don’t tend to prioritize, especially when I have previously established headcanons that I enjoy working with. But that’s just my personal feelings. Fear and happiness are far from an uninteresting combination, and there’s lots of potential there!

That’s a fascinating headcanon about Eta and Iota in the Meta--you could do something really neat with that in a fic, were you so inclined. Ideas about what was actually happening inside the Meta’s head are so interesting to me because we never get that perspective, and the Twins, well... it’s a shame we didn’t get more about them but hey, our city now.

I’d go into my own ideas on the above, but that’s the fic I’m finishing, so I must hold back for now. :)