as8bakwthesage

[as8bakwthesage]

based on that one non canon picture of teen mystery twins

[as8bakwthesage]

These Business Cards Were the Only Logical Choice

[as8bakwthesage]

maybe i shouldn’t respond to wrong number texts any more

[as8bakwthesage]

[as8bakwthesage]

"The T-Men Photo Gallery" on thetransitionalmale.com (2007)

[as8bakwthesage]

the dust has settled and I had a personal grievance

[as8bakwthesage]

fixed it

[as8bakwthesage]

TEEN FORTRESS!!

I had the idea of designing what each merc looked like at 18, so heres my take on it! this was such a fun project, im thinking of making a comic based off of it...

[as8bakwthesage]

do you have no joy in your heart? do you know what series this is? my friend, you are taking this way too seriously

It's me the timeline guy. Here are my many lore related grievances with the comic:

SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT tho most people have probably read it by now lol

FIRST OF ALL, the Administrator's plan. What happened to "plan so disturbing that several US senators pardoned her for the Poopy Joe incident?" What even was her plan actually was it just to keep the fighting going forever? Then what was the point of Australiummaxxing after Redmond and Blutarch died?

What's up with Zepheniah’s hooked up corpse. Isn't his ghost still around? He certainly is by the seventh scream fortress comic, which takes place during MvM. His will says he won't rest until he's done being mad at the world idk how that relates to anything.

OH HORSEMANN MY HORSEMANN. Why is Zepheniah claiming to be an only child? And it's not a retcon bc later on Soldier pulls up the family photo WITH SILAS IN IT. Where did he even get that. Anyways. The only explanation is either 1) some in-universe attempt by Zepheniah to write Silas out of history (implied by the two copies of the quarterly concern, one seen in a hidden page in the classless update and the other in the background of the Engineer update), or 2) ...i was going to say Silas was actually his cousin or something but that wouldn't make sense if the siblings of Zepheniah’s dad all died young. Urgh. I hoped the Horsemann would return and put to rest the implications dragged up by scream fortress two but alas twas not to be.

What's with the 3 different covers of a young Administrator? My theory is they're supposed to represent three possible backstories the writers were cooking and wouldn't commit to. Who knows.

CHARLES DARLING. The triplets' birth certificate claimed that their mother was a Darling (save me Bette Mann etc etc), and that had me convinced Charles was going to be at least RELEVANT. Why else would he, a joke antagonist introduced in the War! Comic, show up at all? Looking for Australium, no less? I tell you that flashback of him and Maxton had me CONVINCED something would happen. Especially with the two of them lowkey treating him like shit.

So so so much Admin stuff left unexplained. Seeing her child self in the Australium. The census dated back to 1850 with "HELEN" on it. Telling Engie "your family has already done so much for me". By that she could have just meanth Radigan making an immortality machine for Redmond as well as Blutarch I guess, but ??? I liked the Emily reference tho that was something one of the artists reffered to her as for the Engie Update Comic by mistake and later took back so neat callback lmao.

SPEAKING OF RADIGAN. Nothing on who the third Australium machine went to. Presumably Admin I guess? Not explained, never will be probably.

Who was the person in the torn Mann Family portrait? My main theory was always either an earlier version/design of Grey or a Darling, but in the picture Soldier shows (SERIOUSLY WHERE DID HE GET THAT) we can't even see the outline of a person around his thumb. It almost looks like they just made a version of the picture without anyone in the middle and called it a day.

TFI having other mercenary groups came out of fucking nowhere, even in comic six. The T and F presumably stand for "Team Fortress", fuck you mean "Team Citadel", "Team Vanguard", giant fucking statue of random epic looking mercs??? What is happening. They did NOT explain that shit at all. Multiple, seemingly incredibly competent teams are NOT "eighteen perfect idiots". Did Poopy Joe die for nothing.

One of the top posts I've ever made is the one where I point out the date Spy and Scout got arrested on that newspaper: September 7th, 1972. This means the rest of the comics should take place 5½ months later i.e. February/March 1973. Ergo, 1979 could not be "seven years later". The comics seem to think themselves that they're set in 1972 already, there's a few lines about it but for the life of me I can't remember. Something something however many years since Zepheniah died blah blah year the triplets were born. Whatever. It's on my timeline probably.

Smaller thing, but embarrassing lack of a full name reveal for Heavy and Medic. Spy also, but I wasn't really expecting that. They shall remain Mikhail "Mischa" Weponzgy and Fritz Ludwig (alias, he's a wanted man) in my heart.

SO IN CONCLUSION: the writers went in with no clue how to end the story, something made evident by the possibility of the 4chan leaks being an early script and also entirely fucking different.

Still, there were a lot of lore unrelated things I did enjoy: the fact that the mercs actually got a happy ending, for one thing. Sniper stealing a plane, Scout maturing and moving on from Pauling, Pyro literally just being overjoyed to see Engie again, babies!!! The fact we even got a comic! How crazy is that? At least we didn't have to wait another seven years.

I might draft a script for an alternate ending that tries to answer lore stuff more, but knowing me I wouldn't finish it. Still, I am working on making a website for my timeline and I'll upload the link here once I'm done with it. Oh and I'll update the doc version soon. Bitterly.

[as8bakwthesage]

i know for sure that the last comic was purposely vague on some things because

1) they might want to explore more later

2) it's up to us to make headcanons and theories for the rest of time like gravity falls

either way, i'll give ao3 writers a week

[as8bakwthesage]

I'm kinda mad they forgot Olivia supposed to have "Golden" eyes.

But maybe that out of dropped plot point or change of art style

Nonetheless, my Theory is she have Australium in her blood, no chance Grey didn't wanted to make his kid Evolved/Powerful.

And there is a chance she might be as strong as Saxton in the future. 

[as8bakwthesage]

She mails on my Willis till we divorce

[as8bakwthesage]

it's 2:30am and I haven't drawn TF2 content in years let alone Alchemist herself but yeah sure why not here you go

[as8bakwthesage]

[as8bakwthesage]

— DR. FRITZ LUDWIG

[as8bakwthesage]

this panel and the subsequent ones were so powerful. firstly because medic, the guy who always leaps at the chance to gleefully kill people and then meddle with their corpses, seemed like he was ready to genuinely try to save the administrator's life. heavy has to stop him. secondly, these people who take thrill in crassly murdering people every day were completely stunned by the gravity of their powerful and mysterious employer, who they knew next to nothing about until 3 seconds ago, dying in front of them so filled with rage and spite.

there's something wrong with all of the mercs but they haven't seen ANYTHING like this. keeping someone BARELY alive, hooking his eyes open, for 100 years just to rub his failures in his face every day, only to finally both die unfulfilled and angry. it's like they also sensed the tone of the first 6 comics drastically shifted to something none of us could have predicted. they have even less context than the reader as to why the administrator went through all of this trouble and i think they all have some kind of sad pity for her, watching her die in this sorry state.

[as8bakwthesage]

Uhjhhghhhhhh My beautiful wife named miss Flo Pauling,,,,,,,,