Ross

The following article is about the in-series character. For the similarly-named actor that portrayed him, see Ross Fretten.
Ross is a teen living in the Emoverse version of Chelmsford, where he inexplicably has his own apartment (in spite never being shown having a day job.) He is chosen by Captain Emohead to become the Introspective Emo Ranger in order to thwart the Evil Empress and her minion Colonel Crusher. He is made the de-facto leader of the Emo Rangers, though he is hardly the strongest member physically. While his last name is presumably "Fretten," the same as the actor portraying the character, his last name is never stated in the series proper.
==Character series history==
===Season 1===
Ross was first chosen from one of five random depressed teens to lead Captain Emohead's team of Rangers against his old nemesis: the Evil Empress.Short film His extensive thinking about his own mind earned him the title of "Introspective Emo Ranger." For some reason, his mental clarity over that of his teammates led to Emohead believing that Ross should be the de-facto team field leader. He was issued a Wristband Communicator / Morpher, and his introspection helps fuel his power further - somehow. If his concentration isn't broken too greatly, he can overcome a single monster almost single-handedly on most occasions in hand-to-hand combat - especially if it is one of the Empress' weaker monsters."Beware the Funky Monkey"
In spite being declared the team's "leader," he is seldom shown leading them regarding anything other than giant fights. Even then, he usually defers to Captain Emohead for advice on what to do next. "A Fashionable Choice" However slowly, he does gradually become smarter and better at fighting. This is demonstrated when he relies slightly less on Captain Emohead after the show host turns into an evil Santa clone and sends a Santa bot to destroy Christmas. "Emo Rangers vs. Santa" Here, Ross tries making more team decisions on his own. But when he and Fai's bot are still not enough to take down the Santa Bot, Captain Emohead realizes that the secret to the Santa Bot's strength is a machine that the show host foolishly left behind at the studio. With the Rangers too preoccupied to split up and have one destroy it, Captain Emohead has Panic! at the Disco destroy the machine. Ross does not seem particularly bothered that Emohead gives none of the Rangers credit for saving Christmas, giving it all to Panic! at the Disco instead.
===Season 2===
As with the other Rangers, Ross went through many other adventures not recorded to video and not featured on the show. However, after being a Ranger for five years, he began to update his personal style a tiny bit. "Weed Better Sober Up". This change in personal style also included some upgrades to his suit, which included a white-trimmed collar and some shoulder trims. His helmet's emo hair changed shape slightly too. His Emo Fight Bot was also upgraded in shape and power level, allowing him to be a (slightly) more capable fighter regardless of whether the Emo Fight Bots combined or not. The only downside to the upgrade is that the Mega Emo Fight Bot lost the ability to merge with Fai's also-modified Stylist Bot. His fighting skills are shown to have improved slightly when Mr. Fluffy is brought to life by the Evil Empress, and Ross must help the other Rangers fight off an army of evil teddy bear automatons. "Bearly Legal / Scare Bear". 
With most of her expendable evil energies exhausted by the Evil Teddy Bot's defeat at the hands of the Mega Emo Fight Bot and FashionxCore Uber Bot, Evil Empress makes one final bid for Earth before retreating to wherever she came from. She sends Sold Ya Boy to hypnotize teens into buying terrible music that she has her minion compose - using the ruse to get their parents' credit cards and commit massive credit card fraud. "Top of the Flops" Ross may have improved as a fighter physically, but is shown to still be sometimes lacking in common sense. Captain Emohead intercepts him and talks sense into him before he gets sucked into the ruse. He attempts to break the other kids from Sold Ya Boy's influence, but soon discovers them to be acting like a more-efficient and more-lethal version of the Hoodie Patrol. He has to morph to ward off the brainwashed teens, but soon finds himself double-teamed when the Evil Empress creates an evil robot doppelganger of Avril Lavinge to aid Sold Ya Boy. Sold Ya Boy and Avril Bot merge to become the Pop-Rap Collaboration Monster. Before the Empress can grow this monster, Ross gets Emohead's help to summon the other Rangers. They combine their weapons to form the Emo Blaster, which kills the monster.
Ross reveals that inventing and repairing machines is a new hobby he acquired in his spare time, when he rebuilds the Avril Bot. He also appears to have learned software and advanced AI engineering at some point, as he reprograms her to be a sex bot. Somehow, this robot is even smart enough to know when it would find a particular act with a particular partner (or partners) desirable or not, as it objects that being asked to please both Ross and Emohead's desires would be "rape."
Another time that Ross' judgment is thrown into question is when he begins dialing up sex lines in his spare time out of desperation to find a woman who will sleep with him. The bills he acquires prove so expensive, that Captain Emohead has to auction off Emo 5 on E-Bay just to pay them. "Rave New World" From then on, Ross is barred from using his communicator for anything other than Ranger-related emergencies. Because of this, Emohead begins cracking down on the other Rangers for literally any misuse of their communicators, such as when Luke and Fai attempt to use theirs to arrange a one night stand with each other. 
As his skills with being a Ranger improve, Ross discovers he can take his Introspective Emo Shield and produce a larger version of it (of a different shape) that can fly out of his Fight Bot. "You Want Cries With That?" His improved confidence levels also allow him to go through battles with less swearing and more cracking of bad puns. That being said, he does get perturbed when Stef's lack of dating discretion ruins a session of him focusing on his own vanity. "Uncle Kuddles and Fiddles the Kid".
===2015 Special Anniversary===
Main article: Emo Rangers 2015 Anniversary Special
After a few more adventures of saving Chelmsford as the Introspective Ranger, Ross finds that the aliens begin warning each other to avoid Earth. Only one, who takes over Happy Valley High School and turns it into his evil lair while masquerading as a principal to fool emo kids' parents, dares to ignore that warning. Otherwise, the aliens decide to leave Earth alone. The Evil Principal is able to hide his ruse for quite some time, resulting in Captain Emohead's emo sensors failing to trip. 
By 2011, Ross has decided to put his Emo Wristband Morpher in storage while he attempts to carry on with his life. He is shown to have begun conforming more with societal norms, and his teenage depression appears to be gone. He grows a beard, and begins wearing more down-to-earth clothing fashions. 
However, Mary Jane's sharp-witted sensing of something being off about Happy Valley High in 2015 results in the Principal feeling threatened that she will expose all of his other evil plans. This leads to him going to some lengths to antagonize her, even forcing her onto prescription drugs he modified in order to eventually turn her into one of his evil minions. Mary Jane is encouraged by the Mysterious Vagrant to reject the Principal's plan, and he gives her a key to the secret locker that Captain Emohead used for storing the old Chronic Stoner powers. 
This leads to Mary Jane throwing her remaining prescription pills down a toilet, and heading for the secret locker. As her quest to save the world from the increasingly-unraveling Principal heats up, she triggers the emo sensors and awakens Captain Emohead - who is revealed to have somehow bought back Emo 5 and upgraded him. Emohead also upgrades the Chronic Stoner morpher, allowing Mary Jane to become the much more powerful Neo-Chronic Stoner. However, her upgrade angers the Principal into activating his own giant murder bot - as did her surviving his attempt to murder her via his upgraded Hoodie Patrollers. 
Fearing Mary Jane cannot handle the menace alone, Emohead calls Ross out of retirement - along with his other five former teammates. Alas, the Rangers don't last very long in battle before the Principal uses a one-time-only option on his robot to generate a time warp. With this, the Principal sends Ross and the others to the year 2025 - place unspecified. Mary Jane is forced to land a lucky shot and defeat the Principal on her own.
As of the end credits, it is still unknown how Emohead will be able to save the veteran Rangers. Ross' fate remains an uncertainty. Emo 5, suddenly bored with everything, looks forward to the displacement as an opportunity to witness the Rangers again in the future and use their predicament for his amusement. He jokes of "unending adventures" with them. However, Emohead shoots this down as a "dickheaded idea."
==In other media==
===Mighty Moshin' Emo Rangers: The Video Game===
Main article: Mighty Moshin' Emo Rangers: The Video Game
The game by StormVideoGames.com features a highly-simplified version of Ross, basing his appearance in the game off of his debut in the 2005 short film. This is in keeping with the fact that the game also reiterates the short film's plot. Ross's Depression Ray remains intact as part of the side-scroller's mechanics system. While a single blast is very effective at killing one enemy (much more so than any of Ross' punches,) it is of little use against more than one enemy at a time. It also tends to drain Ross' stamina fairly quickly, requiring him time to recharge. Ross is the first Emo Ranger to be playable, with Luke the next one that is unlocked after so much progress. With numeric keys, Rangers can be selected amongst. The final levels require unlocking Stef, though Ross can still be played at any time by pressing "1."
===The Sims 4===
On April 24th of 2017, DzMD of Dozerfleet Labs uploaded to DeviantArt and MediaFire a listing of several mods in a few folders which would allow players of The Sims 4 to import Emo Ranger suits into their PC games. The mods base the Rangers' appearances on a mixture of their first and second season looks, with primary emphasis on the first season. (Hence, no collar trims.) The helmets are not 100% show-accurate, but are as close as the custom mesh employed by Grilled-Cheese-Aspiration at Tumblr would allow. While John's Chronic Stoner form is included, the marketing images make very little mention of it. Mary Jane's Neo-Chronic Stoner outfit is nowhere to be found, and neither is the Evil Chronic Stoner variant suit.
Under the EA website and Origin username of "DozerfleetProd," that same brand also uploaded Sims 4-compatible re-creations of the Rangers to the Sims 4 Gallery on TheSims.com. That particular Gallery upload includes the six main series Rangers as a single household, though players who import the Rangers into Create-A-Sim can still choose to delete the other Rangers from the household if they only wish to play with Ross. Mary Jane was not included with that package.
With the combined character downloads and mods, playing as Ross in The Sims 4 should not be difficult. Also uploaded to the Gallery under the DozerfleetProd account was an estimated re-creation of Emo Road, allowing players to place Ross or any other Ranger in bedrooms based on the one used for their bedroom scenes in the show. That same lot includes a shed that is a secret passageway to a crude re-creation of the Emo Command Center, though Captain Emohead and Emo 5 are nowhere to be found.
===Known fanfiction===
While it is a given that fanfics exist of Emo Rangers, most of these consist of artists theorizing new Rangers, rather than doing anything with existing ones. KittyTheGrimm from Australia, for example, proposed an Orange Ranger dubbed the "Sadistic Torture Blood Lust Ranger," though some in her comments have suggested shorter names, including "Citrus Torture Ranger."
The most prominent fanfic online as of 2017 regarding the Emo Rangers is Dozerfleet Comics' Volkonir Meets the Power Rangers. This Sims 4 fanfic comic sees Ross teaming up with 2017 movie Zack to save the 1993 Power Rangers' world from a monster originating from the world of Volkonir. Zack and Ross mostly focus on fighting highly-modified Putties that prove extra-homicidal. In that same story, Fai teams up with Volkonir and Tommy to take on the main monster. Luke teams up with 2017 Jason to fight the secondary monster. Vicken teams up with 2017 Trini on cleanup detail, so they can rescue 1993 Trini. Stef teams up with 1993 Kimberly. John teams up with 1993 Billy. 
One major note about this is the slight alternate timeline for the Emo Rangers places the events in "Weed Better Sober Up" in late November of 2005, meaning that John is already the StraightxEdge Ranger before the Christmas Special in that timeline. Part of this was to avoid the moral dilemma that the 1993 Rangers would otherwise face with having a fellow Ranger be on drugs. Even though Ross is described as the field leader for the Emo Rangers here, he is seldom shown leading anyone. Instead, he defers to Tommy and Volkonir for leadership.
===Merchandise===
In addition to merchandise that was once sold through EmoRangers.com, various fans (especially in the UK) began finding their own ways to cash in on the phenomenon. Ztenzila even went so far as to make custom action figures back in 2008, and spray cans.
==Personality==
Ross loves tight jeans and his hair. He is constantly having deep inner thoughts about his own mind and the world around him, which seems to further fuel his emo powers. He also likes writing on himself with a permanent marker. He tends to get bored easily, and will gladly assume Ranger responsibilities just to cure his boredom. He's been shown throughout the series to be a bit of a pervert as well, racking up huge bills by dialing sex lines constantly and reprogramming a robot designed to look like Avril Lavinge so he can turn it into a sex slave. 
His eagerness to reprogram the robot, however, suggests that he has some talent with engineering. This is a possible nod to the real-life design skills of the actor portraying him, as said actor is a noted prodigy with electronic products and a renowned salesman and teaching assistant associated with Ogilvy One - UK.
==Ranger form==
<tabber>
|-|Introspective Ranger=
Abilities
* Mind gaze: Can stare into your soul, and start getting a good read on you.
* Depression Ray: Can induce depressing thought patterns in enemies for a brief period of time, providing them with a diversion. Power appears to be mid-range.
Arsenal
* Emo wristband morpher
* Introspective Emo Shield
Zords
* Saddened Mind Emo Zord
* Hustling Mind Emo Fight Bot	
Ranger suit variation from the Dozerfleet Labs mods for The Sims 4.
</tabber>
==Notes==
* Slight variations in the appearance of Ross' suit are the result of gradual improvements in suit design technique being developed by the design crew as their personal skills improved. Improvements in combat came with improved stunt choreography and with improvements to visual slits, giving the actor (very slightly) improved vision through the helmet. The original helmet left the actor almost completely blind while wearing it, hence why the Ranger suits in season 1 were mostly meant as armor for wielding the Fight Bots with, rather than proper armor for a ground battle.
* Ross' muscular appearance in the 2015 special is due to his armored form being completely CGI. The actor no longer fit in the traditional garb required for his old Ranger form, and other Ranger actors had also outgrown their roles. Therefore, all members of the original team were added in with CGI.
==See also==
* Luke
* John
* "Beware the Funky Monkey" - an episode that focuses on Ross
* "Top of the Flops" - another episode that focuses on Ross
* Ross Fretten - the actor portraying the character
===Inspirations===
* Tommy, the Green / White Power Ranger that inspired Ross being white in theme color.
* Jason, the Red Power Ranger that was the initial leader of his team, inspiring Ross as a leader.
* Zack, the Black Power Ranger whose color scheme most matches Ross' color scheme.
Category: Rangers