The Red and the Rest is a Web Serial Novel about a secret MegaCorp of mercenaries for hire appropriately named the Red Shirts. Because of the strange world with a diversity of humanoids and tons of super powers, the Redshirts are able to perpetuate massive acts of violence and war profiteering to screw over anybody without money or connections.
Despite all of this, the story takes a humorous, often whimsical tone as the protagonists deconstruct and reconstruct various adventure and action tropes.
The first chapter of the story can be found here
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This series provides examples of:
- Abnormal Limb Rotation Range: Played for Body Horror with Kevin Grothers.
- And I Must Scream: The demon plunger plans to trap Carla in a tree, completely conscious but unable to move. And it implies that, even if the tree dies, she might go on to live in the wood forever.
- Asshole Victim: Smith and Hammerstein.
- Calling Your Attacks: So far, only two characters do this regularly, but Mel is starting to get into the habit as well.
- Colony Drop: The demon's favored attack.
- Combat Pragmatist: Mel is not above lying and using sneak attacks in a fight.
- Elmuh Fudd Syndwome: Carla has this as a side effect of having to adjust to talking with an entirely new body.
- Emotionless Girl: Pritha Prithvi. Sort of justified as she is a Really 700 Years Old guardian of a hidden demon who lives in a secluded cathedral.
- Fire, Ice, Lightning: Smith's attacks so far.
- Forced Transformation: Of a sort. Rather than being transformed, Carla is subject to a Body Surf attack that puts her inside her cartoon hat.
- From Bad to Worse: Chapter 9 is called "The Situation Gets Progressively Worse" and it's an understatement.
- Gadgeteer Genius: Smith.
- Hollywood Apocrypha: The intro to part two presents a permutation of the Adam and Eve Plot that takes into account the super powers and fantastic races in the story.
- Hypocritical Humor: Both Sainte Nero and Sainte Decius are named after villainous emperors who persecuted early Christians.
- Improbable Weapon User: Mel treats a shaken-up pop can like a hand grenade.
- Lemony Narrator: Most of the scenes focusing on Carla.
- Miniature Senior Citizens: Genkai, much like her namesake.
- Mood Whiplash: Chapter 9 starts with Toilet Humor and whimsical Lemony Narration and ends with the slow torture of the kindest character in the story.
- Nephewism: Carla is Mel's niece. Her mother/his sister hasn't shown up in the story.
- No Name Given: The demon is simply known as that. Probably helps to distract from the fact that he is basically a floating plunger.
- Obviously Evil: The demon's face seems to have been designed to look as malevolent as possible.
- Our Centaurs Are Different: Of all varieties, not just horses.
- Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Pritha Prithvi, the first centaur to appear in the story, is a human centaur. Like most centaurs, she has two torsos, meaning four arms in total.
- Our Elves Are Different: They mostly serve as androgynous background characters.
- Pun-Based Title: Most of the chapter titles.
- Red Shirt: Duh. Playing with this trope is half the point of this story.
- Rubber Hose Body: Kevin Grothers has this as a superpower.
- Shout-Out: Tons.
- Smith's attacks are named after Final Fantasy spells.
- In chapter three, we meet a minor character named Rabadash who is described as having the letters D-E-T-H tattooed on his knuckles.
- Smith's prisoner number is 01189998819991197253 and the warden of the prison is a short, cranky old woman named Genkai.
- Hammerstein and Genkai have dialogue straight out of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
- Carla mocks Mel for not knowing what a Super Saiyan is.
- Pritha Prithvi explains that she is only awake at night due to a certain moon prism power.
- The demon calls Carla a mewling quim.
- Pritha Prithvi's attacks are all from the Tales Series.
- Teleport Spam: The demon's magic mostly manifests as this.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Mel is addicted to orange soda.
- Sacred Scripture: The Gift Legends are presented as not necessarily truer than any competing holy book, but they sure do a lot for Worldbuilding, giving one religious explanation for the various humanoid species and Differently Powered Individuals.
- Transformation Is a Free Action: No it is not.
- Turn of the Millennium Technology and cultural references place the story in late 2001.
- When She Smiles: Averted. It turns out when a Perpetual Frowner smiles at you, it just looks awkward and forced.
