RFU

"Moronic crapfest? Yes. Nonsensical stupidity? Yes. A class-action lawsuit waiting to happen? Yes. The reason we get so much hate mail? Yes. It's asinine and juvenile and is nothing like our other projects and makes us look like complete and total jackasses.

But is it fun? Hells yeah."

"Pointy Hat Guy #1: "But...they're innocents! He's controlling them!"

Phoenix: "Yeah. And we're kicking their asses!""

- Overheard during the RFU gang's initiation battle with the Truthkeeper, "The Beginninning"

Weasel, Inferno, Phoenix, and Bryllin are four community college dropouts faced with the infinite tedium of continuing to live in a shitty town.

Then the Pointy Hat Guys arrive, and tell the four that they are the world's only hope, foretold by prophecy to be the saviours who shall defeat an ancient menace that threatens to bring about the end of days. Thus begins RFU, the series formed from pure Refuge in Audacity that avoided launching a thousand lawsuits. Armed with billions of dollars, near infinite weapons, magical powers, and stupidity, they must fight demons, Nazis, villains stolen from other, more successful stories, and other villains taken without explanation from the author's other unpublished works. Along the way, they find love with celebrities and are more likely to destroy the world than save it, or else only save it by accident. They aren't the greatest heroes, and barely qualify for the title, but they're the only heroes around.

The series runs on a trademarked, secretive, and horribly unstable blend of Better Than It Sounds, It Runs On Nonsensoleum, Refuge in Audacity, and Rule of Cool.

Sadly, the authors, rather than having the balls to die and cause Author Existence Failure, just faded away, leaving many stories unfinished and the site to vanish from the Internet. RFU is now found only at the archived Trilogy Press site.

A long-delayed comic relaunch minus all of the blatant infringement, fanboyism, and bad writing (pretty much everything that made it great) has been in the works for several years and is aiming for a release in 2008 2009  2010 eventually maybe?

The series provides examples of:
"Inferno: Look, have you ever tried to do a parody this big when you've got a cast of about six major characters? ...Some changes need to be made to the source material.
 * Affectionate Parody: The polite way to describe most of the story. Otherwise described as "Copping a feel on the comic industry since 1996."
 * All There in the Manual: A disproportionate amount of backstory is cited as having taken place in prior "seasons" which are either unwritten, unposted since they were written back when the creators lacked talent, or otherwise lost to history.
 * Alternate Universe: All of the author's stories are presented as AUs which occasionally overlap, particularly during "When Worlds Collide".
 * Badass Normal: Having gone to the bathroom while the others were extorting superpowers from the Pointy Hat Guys, Weasel naturally defaults to this.
 * Bag of Holding: Our heroes have one, mentioned as having been obtained 12 episodes before it was invented.
 * Big Applesauce: The stories from "Anarchy Waltz" onwards reveal that the Statue of Liberty is an interdimensional weak point following Omega's escape from/absorption of the shadow dimension he was banished to in Trilogy Press's more serious (but less tangible) "Trilogy" series. Weasel reveals that he just likes writing dramatic scenes at Liberty Island.
 * Big Bad: At any given point in time, Hitler, Hitzer, Omega, or any combination of the above.
 * Buffy Speak: No big surprise, the main author is a Buffy fan.
 * Butt Monkey: Weasel. "Well, you made sure to cover all your bases, but you forgot about one thing. I get shafted. A lot."
 * Cloudcuckoolander: Phoenix and Bryllin.
 * Congruent Memory: Bryllin's drug-induced genius.
 * Cool Car and The Alleged Car: The Weaselmobile, a 1976 Chevy Malibu painted in varying disgusting shades of brown and yellow. Pimpified by the Pointy Hat Guys, causing it to have "everything James Bond ever had... All of it. And a Slurpee machine."
 * Day of the Jackboot: Due to our heroes screwing up, again, Hitler succeeds in becoming Hitzer and taking over the world.
 * Economy Cast: Lampshaded in "RFU Gear Solid 2" when Phoenix (Raiden) gets fed up with Inferno being the President and Otacon:

Phoenix: Such as?

Inferno: I was already established in the role of Otacon from back in â€œRFU Gear Solidâ€\x9D, so obviously, I needed to reprise that role in the sequel. But my name is James, and the presidentâ€™s name is James, so Iâ€™m doing double-duty, as well as playing myself every now and again, making it triple. Bryllin did double-duty as Scott Hawking and Peter Stillman. And Weaselâ€™s playing all three Snakes.

Phoenix: Still...

Inferno: Listen here, bitch boy. While you're screwing around playing n00by McGee, the rest of us are pulling triple duty, so get your ass back out there and progress the friggin' plot!"

"Weasel's Annotation: Did I call that one or what? Fuck Fox."
 * Eleventh Hour Superpower: The Omega Blade after it's given back to Weasel by Slash Hazard.
 * Ensemble Darkhorse: Oneshot villain Truthkeeper from the first episode was loved by fans, despite never appearing again. The authors once outlined a spinoff story explaining how the lack of any heroes other than the core cast was due to Truthkeeper and oft-mentioned but never seen villain Crimson King murdering them all; sadly, the story was never fully written.
 * Exactly What It Says On the Tin: The little preview bar for "Scooby-Buu" is dead serious about Cell not being the killer.
 * Five Man Band: Weasel, The Hero, Inferno, The Lancer, Phoenix, The Big Guy, Bryllin, The Smart Guy (only while stoned), Amber, The Chick.
 * Heel Face Revolving Door: The heroes betray each other at the drop of a hat; they keep a list of 'turncoatings', with Inferno in the lead at 29.
 * Heroic Sociopath: All the heroes, given certain values for "heroic".
 * Hitlers Time Travel Exemption Act: Trying to prevent Hitler from gaining a magical artifact stolen from Dragonball Z results in him gaining said artifact. Another attempt to steal the artifact results in him using it.
 * I Knew It: Phoenix forcing the Ninja to scramble for code names and settling on "John Doe" results in a nigh-prophetic guess at the cancellation of the Fox series of the same name (bear in mind "RFU Gear Solid 2" was written in late 2002/early 2003, in the early days of Fox's Chronic New Series Rescheduling Syndrome).

""You've worn the same t-shirt everyday since 1994. And you spent the last year in a shadow dimension where time flows differently, so technically, you've been wearing the same shirt for several hundred years now. And, well, it smells.""
 * Limited Wardrobe: Lampshaded in "What, Like the Back Seat of a Volkswagen?" and called back in "RFU Gear Solid 2":

"Deadpool, taking on Jason in "Little Continuity Busters": THE 'POOL GUNDAM'S NOT JUST FOR SHOW!"
 * Mind Screw: As if the AI Colonel Codec scene in Metal Gear Solid 2 could get any worse more hilarious, "RFU Gear Solid 2" extends it with a smattering of previous RFU quotes, increasingly in(s)ane Shout Outs, and a Zeta Gundam reference in Al Bhed.
 * Mooks: Often Nazis or vampires. Preferably Vampire or Robot Nazis because at least they aren't all "Strudel Strudel Volkswagen."
 * Murder Is the Best Solution: Not that the heroes can be bothered to think of plans that don't involve murder.
 * One Steve Limit: Normally played straight, but averted during "When Worlds Collide", assigning numbers to same-named characters and having them play introduction games.
 * Real Person Fic: Scattered throughout the series, but Council of Elders and Anarchy Waltz are specifically the adventures of the heroes' celebrity advisers. Also, Samuel L Jackson likes his fingers.
 * Refuge in Audacity: Perhaps the only real point the series has.
 * Set Right What Once Went Wrong: In "Little Continuity Busters", a series of hiccups in the timestream forced our heroes to travel through history, ensuring that certain events happened, and making a few extra stops along the way.
 * Shout Out: All over the place, mostly to comic book series, cancelled FOX shows, and ancient Game FAQs users and memes. Sometimes, they blend:


 * Stupid Jetpack Hitler: Stupid Hitler fused with Dragonball Z's Frieza forming an eternally respawning Hitzer!
 * Telepathy and Mind Over Matter: Just some of the many powers possessed by Truthkeeper.
 * Turn in Your Badge: The start of "Little Continuity Busters" finds our heroes inexplicably being chastised as a squad of Cowboy Cops. Not that it's too different from standard procedure.
 * Unexpected Genre Change: The first story after "When Worlds Collide... More So" is Inferno, Phoenix, and Bryllin running tryouts to, offered in the form of a reality show.
 * Villain Decay: Lampshaded by Hitzer near the end of When Worlds Collide: "I haven't showed up in eight episodes. I thought the audience might have forgotten about me. I thought you'd replaced me. I mean, you haven't killed me in a while..."
 * Who Shot JFK: During "Little Continuity Busters", our heroes rent rifles and sniping perches in Dallas just before Kennedy arrives.