#also hi tf2 fandom i'm probably just passing by but. i get it now.

[leadendeath]

*coughs up blood* turns out i got some feelings about That Thing

[420thewritersroom]

Team Fortress 2: The World (W.I.P & Preview)

Team Fortress 2 is a game and setting that is wholly unique to me.

When it comes to other games, even those with wacky comedic elements, they at least try to ground themselves in some realm of reality that is established in their setting. Yet, Team Fortress 2 is the one and only game that I know that says, to your face, "fuck reality" and does whatever it wants. And it works. This post sums it up perfectly, but TF2 is the one game where even the GAME MECHANICS are taken into account by the fandom. In what game has the Respawn mechanic ever been considered? There are countless SFMs, fanfics, and drawings that take the Mercs' ability to return from death more seriously than Valve updating their game in the current age.

But if there's one thing I haven't seen done in the fandom, it's fully establishing the setting and expanding on the canon of Team Fortress 2. Now, yes, there are canonical reasons for why the Mercs are shedding blood in the game, and there is a, albeit incomplete, main story comic that further expands upon it. But I haven't seen anyone further examine the lore and try to build upon it. Which, if there are some people who have placed their own personal headcanons about the world of TF2, please send them my way. I'd love to read or hear them (I haven't been in the fandom for a long ass time, so I'm sure I missed a post or two elaborating upon the canon of TF2).

Below the READ MORE will be long lines of text as we go over the origins that lead us to the start of the Mann Wars, What the big corps are & their place in the canon, going over the key players of TF2, the events of Mann VS Machine, and where the Mercs are at now.

In The Beginning, Mann Waged War: The Origins of the Gravel Wars.

Now, while there is a whole comic that goes over the origins of the Gravel Wars and the events that would lead us to MVM, we're going to break this apart, piece by piece.

Zepheniah Mann

The sequence of events would begin with one man, Zepheniah Mann. There's very little detail about Zepheniah, but we know a few things about Zeph. Zepheniah was the original owner of the Mann Co company and sold munitions as far back as 1822. He wasn't alone in running this business as he also has a brother by the name of Silas Mann who assisted with making keys and name tags. At some point, he was associated with Barnabus Hale, Saxton Hale's grandfather (we'll get to the Hale family in a minute), and eventually married a woman by the name of Bette. We don't know much about his wife. The only bit of information we know about Bette is that her maiden name was once Bette née Darling and is the daughter of a man by the name of William Darling esquire.

But from the way Zepheniah spoke of her during the LITERAL BIRTH OF HIS THREE SONS, he was more annoyed and unbothered when she passed after childbirth. He also was just as uncaring about his infant sons as the midwife/nurse that attended Bette expressed confused correction as though Zeph should KNOW that he was expecting 3 sons.

To add to this, Zeph examined his own children as if he were picking livestock from a farm, determining their worth before making the go-ahead to raise them. And the second he saw his third son, who would eventually be known as Gray Mann, he immediately wanted him dead when it was discovered that he not only was the rut of the "litter" but was capable of full speech.

So based on this alone, we can ascertain that Zeph was a complete dick for no reason. We're not given a background check on his personal history, such as how Mann Co. came to be, who was the wife he married, and what could've caused him to be so heartless that he didn't bat an eye when his wife died and became a father. But this is where we can probably fill in some blanks to potentially explain some this.

I'm thinking that perhaps his marriage to Bette was purely professional. Maybe she had money due to her own personal wealth, or she was the daughter to a man with a successful company, and this caught Zeph's eye to marry her so that his affluence would leech off her earnings. And if we're going to bounce off of this theory, then that could explain why Zeph never cared for Bette. He got her riches and had her give birth to his future children, so her usefulness was spent aside from raising his children. The only person Zepheniah had an alright relationship with was Elizabeth, his maidservant. In his Will and the Loose Canon, he calls Elizabeth his "dearest maidservant." And nobody uses such a term, dearest, lightly. Zepheniah valued her very much, their relationship possibly being one of great trust as colleagues, friends, found family, or even lovers. Keep Elizabeth in mind because we'll be coming back to her soon.

Now, considering that Team Fortress 2 is a dark comedy and goes balls to the wall with its humor, I could be looking too deep into this. It could be that Zeph's indifference is played up for laughs. But that's what we're here for, overanalyzing a war dress-up game.

And this is where we'll have to end this section with Zepheniah Mann. Once again, not much we can go off on with Zepheniah other than he's an asshole. His sons, though!

RED VS BLU

From the get-go, these twin brothers HATE each other. In the same comic where we glean a bit of information about their father, Zepheniah Mann, we see both Redmond & Blutarch stink eyeing each other immediately after being conceived. Like their father, we don't know much about what went on before the main events of TF2, but we do know that ever since then, the brothers never got along. But they did love their father. Which I find very interesting.

Once again, Zeph shows utter disinterest in his sons, most likely only seeing them as a means to prolong the family business and nothing else. He quite literally, after assessing them like cattle, says how "They'll do." So, I can imagine how much of a "loving" father Zeph may have been. At best, if we want to throw this man a bone, he was the toughest loving father there could ever be. Or, at worst, he was neglectful and only cared about his sons when it came to teaching them the family business, putting high expectations on both of them.

And considering that children (and people in general) are naturally inclined to be loved, the twins most likely did everything in their power to appeal to their emotionally detached father. This could explain why the Mann brothers were always at each other's neck, wanting to outdo the other in hopes of gaining their father's attention.

In the Catch-Up comic, Saxton Hale describes the brothers as idiots, and he's not too far off with that statement. The Mann brothers convinced their aged father to buy most of all of New Mexico. But what was it that pushed them to make such a move? I neglected to mention this, but the Mann family originally resided in England, and with all their wealth, why move to the U.S.? From the Blood Brothers comic, Redmond confirms that they believe "whoever owns those pits (of gravel) would be a god." That gravel would be able to power steam engines. We're not told WHO or WHERE they got this idea from, but we can assume this is what urged them to convince their father to move to the States and buy up land in New Mexico. Something Zepheniah would never forgive them for doing.

Before we continue, I want to analyze what we know about the brothers individually. Despite Valve favoring the RED team when it comes to backstory, Blutarch is the one that gets the most screen time and info about him. In my opinion, Blutarch is perhaps the more ambitious brother if we're speaking purely of the twins that Zeph chose to not attempt infanticide on.

In Loose Canon, the one who not only approached the Engineers' grandfather, Radigan Conagher, but the Engineer himself (Dell Conagher), is not Redmond, but Blutarch. Blutarch is also the one who initially compiled a group of mercenaries to take the shared gravel-filled land by force from his brother. Blutarch is also the one who proposed a truce so that they could do some old man yaoi mpreg crimes against nature. Hell, the motherfucker even knew where Radigan's blueprints to his life-extender machine were buried (in his grave, mind you). This has me believing that Blutarch was perhaps the second smartest brother of the bunch (Gray Mann being THE smartest of the triplets).

As for Redmond, we don't know what original ideas he came up with to combat his brother. So far, everything that Redmond achieved was because, one, his brother thought it up first, and two, someone else TOLD him about what his brother was planning to do. The only time we see Redmond make any propositions about anything is when he conjures the silly idea to convert gravel into coal and to call his men up to send his brother to hell.

With this in mind, I can imagine if Zepheniah gave a single damn about his kids, Blutarch was perhaps his "preferred" child. At least Blutarch had some minor promise of running his company and preserving the family image. And don't get it twisted, Blutarch is just as much an idiot as Redmond, it was BOTH brothers who convinced their father to purchase land in New Mexico under the impression that the gravel there could be used as a power source. But at least he's ambitious enough to think up wild ideas and find someone to make it a reality.

But despite this, because of the L Zeph took for even listening to his sons, when he was dead & dying, he created a Will. Within this death testimony, he split his profits and heritage among three people. Firstly, his company, Mann Co., would go to his trusted aide, Barnabus Hale. Secondly, his maidservant, Elizabeth, was to inherit all of Zepheniah's wealth that wasn't squandered thanks to his sons' misgivings. But for his sons, they will have to live off the purchased land they convinced their father to buy. Not only that, they would be forced to share the land evenly. Now, reading the Will Zeph left behind, he's exceptionally harsh to his sons, understandably so. And you would think that with such jarring words, this would be their wake-up call to perhaps better themselves and work together. Or, better yet, solemnly accept the reality they're in and grudgingly co-exist across the street from each other in the barren wasteland they now possess.

But, no, the Mann brothers decide this would be a perfect opportunity to fight over useless land. This is where I feel like the brothers are blaming the other for what transpired with their father and family fortune. Once again, both Mann brothers loved their father dearly, perhaps even fighting for Zeph to even acknowledge them in an ok light. So I can imagine their shock and heartbreak when the final words from their father, in his own Will, is how much he despised BOTH Redmond & Blutarch. In Loose Canon, they looked more annoyingly shocked about having to share the purchased land, but who knows what their faces were when the Will was being read in its entirety.

Thus, I believe the war started due to the brothers dealing with the emotional trauma that their father left behind. Neither brother has the guts or brain power to admit that both of them were at fault when it came to the mishandling of their family fortune, nor do they have the capability to accept that their father was an absolute ass. So, they blame the other brother, believing that the land rightfully belongs to them, learning nothing from their own personal experience that their low intelligence and hatred for the other is what got them into this situation to begin with.

With the Gravel Wars finally commencing, Blutarch hires 9 mercenaries to attempt to take his brother's land by force. But, Redmond would get the same idea. Thus, RED VS BLU would become a staple rivalry until the current time in the TF2 universe. As most may remember and know, Blutarch hired famous individuals in history, such as Abe Lincoln, Billy the Kid, Nikola Tesla, John Henry, Davy Crockett, Sigmund Freud, Stonewall Jackson, Alfred Nobel, and Fu Manchu.

I'm NOT going to bother with overanalyzing these characters, considering that most of these characters simply shouldn't exist during the time of the Gravel Wars (1850), and they're clearly placed there for comedic factors. On top of that, we know next to nothing about these mercs (save for Abe Lincoln). If I were to throw myself a bone here, I theorized that the moment they realized that they were fighting a pointless war, the men simply left. I cannot imagine a famous inventor, a president, an infamous outlaw, a general officer, a frontiersman, a chemist, a neurologist, an American folk hero, and a racist stereotype spending more than a year fighting for land that produces nothing in return for 2 idiot men; even if there was money involved.

However, before we get further into the Gravel Wars, there is one person we have to talk about before delving into the situation between BLU VS RED.

Elizabeth, Helen, and TF Industries

It's important to understand where the Administrator and TF Industries come into play when it comes to the lore of TF2. Unfortunately, because the TF2 comics for the main line story haven't been updated since 2017 and the details of TF2 are spotty and vague, there are going to be some questions that we will have to speculate and answer ourselves. To help with this, I highly recommend watching SkyminSlash & Casperr, both of whom did outstanding jobs analyzing what we know about the Administrator and making this section a whole lot easier to write down. I'm also going to drop these two videos from Mister Dispenser & Richter Overtime as they not only go into a bit about the Administrator but also put down possible endings to the mainline TF2 comic (which we'll get into later).

When it came to the Administrator and writing this section, it practically made me go insane. I had a difficult time writing up a coherent theory that sounded right to me and plausible enough that it could be possible. However, I believe we can condense this down to three questions that we have to ask to further understand the possible motives behind the Administrator.

Who is the Administrator?

What is it she craved that she would become indebted to someone for it?

Who is she indebted to?

To start us off, who is the Administrator? Well, based on canon, the earliest we know of the Administrator is that she was a young girl...At some point...Yeah, in terms of personal history BEFORE she became the woman we know today, it's still a massive question mark on who she is. We know that the Administrator is named Helen; she smokes a lot, is a master manipulator, has a loyal assistant named Miss Pauling, watches the TF crew from various monitors, and has a hand in the Gravel War. We are aware that way back when she was placed in an old debt that she'd been trying to settle for all her life. From her wording, it sounds like whomever she was indebted to gave her something she greatly desired since she says this:

And this is where we gotta go into the whole Elizabeth and Helen situation, as many noticed a pattern between the two women. The trademark look of the Administrator is that she's elderly, most likely in her 60s-80s, wears purple, has a smoking habit, constant resting bitch face, and has a white streak of hair. These are the core traits of the Administrator we all know and love.

However, two other women in the comics share a striking similar semblance to the Administrator we know today. The maidservant I mentioned a while ago is shown a few times, mainly relating to the Will that Zepheniah left behind, giving the maidservant, Elizabeth, all of his wealth. There was also another woman by the name of Elizabeth who approached Radigan about making life extender machines for Redmond and showing the precious metal, Australium, to him. Now, initially, back in the Loose Canon comic, this other woman who spoke with Radigan wasn't named. It wasn't until 2014 with the Catch-Up comic that Valve confirmed that this other woman who looked similar to Elizabeth AND Helen also shared the same name as Elizabeth.

Both women have been around in different periods of time, the maidservant being around since 1850 (at the earliest) and the other Elizabeth approaching Radigan since 1890. And it is to be assumed that both Elizabeths are the Administrator, Helen. Now, some theories speculate that perhaps the Elizabeths in the comics could be relatives/ancestors of the Helen we see today. And these speculations can have some merit to them, but I prefer seeing the connection between the Elizabeths' and Helen as being one person instead of a family lineage.

I further believe that the Elizabeth's and Helen are the same person because in the comics, between some banter with Saxton Hale & Charles Darling, he expresses how Helen has been alive for well over 150 years (this slightly contradicts with Gray Mann & Miss Pauling rushing to find the 1850 census records, but give me a second, lemme cook). However, this doesn't really tell us much about the Administrator. So she lived for a very long time, most likely through Australium, but what is it about her that she would put herself in such a debt that she has to prolong her life?

Casperr made the suggestion that Helen may be a blood member of the Mann family. Originally, I didn't vibe with this, but there was one thing that kept nagging at me that I started to entertain this theory: the census record. Census records survey the population of a country to determine its population along with details such as an individual's age and current job description. This is often used to plan or adjust healthcare, employment, and education. But it's also used by those who wish to trace back their family lineage. When you look up census records, you will find either websites providing free information about such information or the records being used by genealogists & family history researchers.

When we focus on Miss Pauling and the merc during Unhappy Returns, she specifically asks for "genealogy records." And we know these are the census records that Gray Mann was looking for because when Gray Mann was asking for the records, the mayor of Teufort stated that Miss Pauling was also looking for records that date back to 1850. But why 1850? We do know that Elizabeth gained Zepheniah's wealth and "miracle gravel" once he died, but why look into the possible circumstances of her birth?

This is where I drop the possible theory of Helen/Elizabeth being a Mann daughter.

It will go without saying that Helen/Elizabeth was NOT born exactly in 1822. If we take the 150-year statement Charles Darling informed us of, 150 years from 1972 takes us back to 1822, the exact date the Mann triplets were born. When we look at the family photo where Elizabeth/Helen sat with the Mann family and Barnabus Hale, she already looked exceptionally old. Old enough to consider the Mann brothers her own children or grandchildren since the brothers were 28 when the Will was read to them. Now, considering that Helen/Elizabeth is always shown smoking, perhaps this may have aged her physically as smoking constantly can make someone appear older than they should be. However, to further pin that Elizabeth/Helen was NOT born in 1822, in the same comic, Blood Brothers, the nurse who aided Bette quite literally states that Zepheniah was father to triplets; Redmond, Blutarch, and Gray Mann.

So if Elizabeth/Helen is a possible blood relative to Zepheniah, then he must've had her much earlier in his life. In Blood Brothers, when we first see a alive and young Zeph, we can possibly estimate that he's probably 30-40 years old. So he probably had her a decade or more before the Mann brothers. Now, whether or not Bette would still be considered her mother can be up for speculation. She could be Bette's first child or Zepheniah could've boinked some random woman.

Perhaps Elizabeth/Helen was Bette's first child, but because she was a girl, and considering the era at that time, Zepheniah did not see Elizabeth/Helen as a viable choice to run his company because he wanted a boy. Or perhaps Elizabeth's mother was someone Zeph coupled with before settling on Bette Darling. Whether or not he loved this woman can also be up for debate since we don't know what he was like outside of being a grouch. He could've loved her or only saw her as a means to "put off steam." But when he discovered Elizabeth/Helen was his daughter, he may have offered to ward her, not officially adopting her into his family despite being related to her. That could explain why she's called his maidservant, just so that he could further muddy the familial ties she has with the Mann family.

Remember that question I posed earlier about why Helen & Gray Mann wanted to look for the census records that date back to 1850? I believe that the Administrator changed her name sometime in 1850 once she inherited the "miracle gravel" from Zepheniah and eventually branched away from Redmond & Blutarch.

So we answered the first question about WHO the Administrator is, a possible member of the Mann family. Then what was it that she craved that she was indebted to someone to have it? Now, this was the issue I had when writing this up. Because we have no hints or clues to point to that could tell us any alternative motives the Administrator may have. Initially, I figured that perhaps she may have craved power & wealth. Which, with the theory of her being a potential Mann child, wouldn't be too far-fetched.

Perhaps due to the social climate at the time, Zepheniah denied Helen/Elizabeth the inheritance of his affluence. Helen/Elizabeth could've felt bitter about being left out of the family fortune and even being demoted to being the "maidservant" of the Mann family. On top of that, when the Mann triplets (Redmond, Blutarch, and Gray Mann) were born, she may have started to truly fear her position in the Mann family. Now that Zeph had 3 (technically 2) "reliable" boys in the family, he had someone he could pass the company off should he desire to keep Man Co. traditionally run by a member of the Mann family. Even worse, 2 of the brothers are incompetent, and the other one was taken by eagles.

Furthermore, the only thing Elizabeth has going for her is that Zepheniah has a lot of respect for Elizabeth. But she still worries about her future with the Mann family. What happens when Zepheniah dies? He could easily give his estate and riches to his sons, and considering that she's a maidservant to not just Zeph but the Mann family as a whole, she could be spending the rest of her life under the servitude of her brain-dead (half) brothers. And even IF she decided to leave, that would mean leaving the safety net of wealth that the Mann family provided her.

Leaving means she has to build up her lifestyle, something that would've been difficult for her to do depending on how good and how willing she was to perform certain labors (she was a maidservant, so her skills were most likely cleaning, shopping, cooking, and potentially caring for the Mann children). And not everyone has Mann Co. money; she would be leaving a comfortable life if she wanted to attempt to make it on her own with the limited possibilities women had at that time.

As I said, I initially figured that this would've been a good enough theory to run on…But then I thought of another possibility that made more sense in my mind. Mortality.

It's a common theme in the TF2 universe of characters defying their temporality and trying to prolong their own lives. We see this with the Mann brothers, the mainline TF2 comics, Merasmus, Medic's medigun, and many other examples of characters who prolonged their lives to avoid dying. So it wouldn't be too far off the table to think that Helen/Elizabeth simply wanted to live. Perhaps someone close to her got horribly sick, and it scarred the Administrator. Maybe she was terminally ill herself and wanted a way to cure herself. Maybe sickness had nothing to do with her motives; Helen/Elizabeth could've seen how easily life could be snuffed out, and she didn't desire to die. This could be watching a loved one die horribly or peacefully, watching them or herself grow old, or hating her own mortality. Furthermore, as we established, Helen/Elizabeth is often shown smoking; she could've started seeing the ramifications of her chain-smoking when she discovered that she was aging faster (visually) and developing lung cancer.

Either of these two speculations could be valid reasons for why the Administrator would put herself in a lifelong debt in exchange for the above-mentioned.

So, the Administrator may have craved power, wealth, longevity, or a combination of the three; then who is she indebted to, and what is she supposed to pay back?

Now, this is where things get a bit crazy. Based on what we know in canon, there's really no one we can point to that can be a possible candidate to serve as the Administrator's creditor. One could possibly turn to Merasmus since he's a wizard and might have the ability to grant or provide her the means to gain what she desired. However, Merasmus is quite literally a Saturday morning cartoon villain and an incompetent wizard who poses no possible threat to the Administrator that she HAS to pay him back anything. To make my point, more often than not, Merasmus is the one seeking out the TF2 crew for help because he got HIMSELF in debt with the mafia, and he's commonly harassed by the RED Soldier. The same man who tapped cardboard to himself to sneak into a robot base.

We can also rule out the Mann brothers, Redmond & Blutarch, because it's highly apparent that she's manipulating them to achieve whatever hidden goal she has going on. And it's been proven time and time again that the brother's agenda is the Gravel war, woefully ignorant to whatever the Administrator is doing. Gray Mann, we can DEFINITELY rule out because he's actively going against her and made no hints that she owed him anything.

Zepheniah Mann could be a possible contestant since he did have Elizabeth/Helen swear to protect his "miracle gravel" and to keep it away from Gray Mann. I also find it interesting that near the end of his written Will, Zepheniah expresses how he does not wish to die and that "God and His angels will have to drag me screaming to Heaven. I do not want to die." If we were to use Zepheniah Mann as the potential creditor, perhaps Helen/Elizabeth would be trying to resurrect her (possible) father after he granted her his remaining estate and riches. However, there is a problem with this theory.

Firstly, Zepheniah technically resolved his own issue by cursing himself to death. We see this firsthand in his testament AND during the month of October when we play on Harvest, and his ghost gives the Mercs a visiting scare. Now, one could argue that perhaps being dead for so long gives him limitations, such as eating, drinking, and other human senses that one would miss. But basic Ghost 101 would remind you that spectral entities are known for possessing people for personal gain. While we don't see Zepheniah perform this ever in the TF2 universe, I'll be damned if it hasn't occurred to the old bastard to try that trick out once in a while. If Zeph ever wanted to re-experience being human, he could just haunt a person for however long before finally being exorcised or leaving on his own free will.

Secondly, what reason would the Administrator have to indebt herself to Zepheniah? Based on the speculations we made earlier, Zeph coldly demoted her from the family to become a maidservant, blocking Helen/Elizabeth from his wealth. If it wasn't for the misgiving of his sons, who knows if Helen/Elizabeth would've gotten his affluence. And the Administrator doesn't give the air as someone who would do anything out of the kindness of her black coffee heart. Even though Zeph considered Elizabeth as his "dear maidservant" and trusted her dearly, that doesn't mean that Helen/Elizabeth shared the same sentiment. In the Loose Canon comic, we see that on the day that they were going to bury Zepheniah, Helen/Elizabeth is shown smoking and not giving a single fuck during the funeral. She could've still harbored some bitterness toward Zepheniah, and she could've just taken the money she got and not feel any obligation to "repay" Zeph for anything.

On top of that, let's say we shove the whole "wanting riches & power" aspect of the Administrator aside, then how the fuck does "paying Zeph back" help with the possibility that the Administrator wants to avoid death? Sure, she was given his stash of miracle gravel (Australium), but Zeph himself didn't grant her this nigh immortality; the mineral does. She can let the bastard rot in his grave and scavenge all of Australia to get what she wants. Matter of fact, she did EXACTLY that in the same Loose Canon comic when she spoke with Radigan Conagher. And it's not like Zepheniah had any secret powers that we know of-he was just a man who sold munitions to the highest buyer.

And lastly, Zeph isn't a threat worthy of a final comic reveal. I'm certain that there's probably someone out there who can prove me wrong on this, and all power to them, but for me, there's very little about Zepheniah Mann where he's a valid contender to be the creditor to the Administrator's debt. When we look at the last comic, Blood in the Water, we see the Administrator in a state of desperation when she's told that all the Australium is gone. And in that desperation (and acceptance), she opts to use up the last of the Australium to settle this debt within an hour. Those last panels in the second-to-last comic would have us believe that whomever she's indebted to is so intimidating that the Administrator would use up the last of her life and finally end this 150-year-long debt "once and for all." You don't typically see that language used if the threat isn't something substantial. Hell, there was that one document where the Administrator was speaking with the UNITED STATES SENATORS and exposed her secret plan to these men. And it scared them so badly that one of them remarked about having to see their family.

To further add to this, the reason why I believe this creditor is such a massive threat is due to the experience Miss Pauling had when she was dead. As some may remember in the Blood in the Water comic, we start off with Miss Pauling in a deserted, dream-like reality, and she enters a door that leads to the Administrator monitoring herself. After a brief conversation, Miss Pauling is shown practically begging Helen to come forward about her massive plan that she's been working on for years. When Miss Pauling asks what is it that the Administrator wants, we get this iconic panel as the Administrator responds:

Now, I know that many would say that this doesn't prove anything about who her creditor may be because this was just a death-induced dream…Or was it? We know that Heaven and Hell exist, then a Purgatory, an in-between realm, should be a possibility, yes? When we see Miss Pauling in this mysterious place, we see vultures surrounding her body. This is typical behavior of vultures since they are carrion birds. However, when we see vultures surround a character, especially one who isn't dead, it's to signify that the character is close to death. One example I can think of is during The Lion King when Simba is discovered by Timon & Pumba. While the little lion appeared dead, we learn quickly that he was close to death. And, mind you, vultures ONLY eat carrion, creatures that have died, not close to death. In Miss Pauling's case, since the RED Medic was in the process of resuscitating her, the vultures could only surround her since she was going to survive anyway. But, all-in-all, the vultures being in this deserted land could be a hint that Miss Pauling was in Purgatory.

Another case of this possibly being the land between life & death, Heaven & Hell, is the location. Now, when trying to get a tangible idea of how others picture Purgatory, I couldn't get a direct answer since many of the sources I skimmed through kept going into the religious symbolism of Purgatory. However, thanks to Dante's Divine Comedy, it's often described as a mountain or a "rocky hill with separate openings into its hollow center." In other pictures (with a quick Google search, mind you), Purgatory is a mountainous region with a sandy beach at the very bottom, surrounded by water. The mountain is often depicted as having a trail that leads up before it becomes a multi-layered platform like a stacked cake.

When we re-examine where Miss Pauling was located there are no mountains or hills, but we do see a rocky formation nearby. Also, Miss Pauling is placed in a desert area, and many would say that being stranded in the desert is a sentence that only leads to death if not appropriately prepared to face the harsh elements. But one thing that does fit the description of Purgatory is the door that Miss Pauling sees upon waking up in this other realm. A "separate opening," if you will. During my research, I also want to add this little tib-bit. So, the first layer of Purgatory is Ante-Purgatory, which has two terraces that make it up. The first being the ex-communicate, in the context of Dante's Divine Comedy, are individuals who were exiled from the church. However, the second terrace I found interesting. The second terrace are the Late-Repentant. These individuals are described as people who were too consumed by "worldly affairs" to repent for their sins, or they didn't receive their final rites before dying. And wouldn't you agree that both Miss Pauling and the Administrator had "worldly affairs" that they desperately wanted to attend to before dying?

Finally, to cement my point that Miss Pauling AND the Administrator were in a Purgatory-like realm, we see that Miss Pauling awakens from her death sleep thanks to the RED Medic. Shenanigans ensue, and she gets a call from the BLU Engineer. They talk for a moment, but we learn that the Administrator is dead. Fast forward after the TF Crew takes care of business at Gray Mann's island, the BLU Engineer greets the Administrator after tinkering with her Life-Extender machine. It is then that we learn that the Administrator was dead for FOUR HOURS. This means that Miss Pauling having that death "dream," coming back to life, the TF2 finding and killing the TFC Mercs, Scout dying then coming back to life, Medic dying and coming back to life, and all the other shenanigans during Blood in the Water happened within 4 hours or maybe a little before that time limit.

Also, if you just simply read the comic, it pretty much spells it out to you that Miss Pauling and the Administrator might be in a Purgatory-Hell-like realm, so…All that speculation was kinda of for nothing.

REGARDLESS! I believe that the Administrator stating that she needs blood and doesn't have enough of it relates to the debt that she's in. If the Administrator requires blood to fulfill her debt, then her creditor must be exceptionally sinister to ask this of the Administrator. And Zepheniah Mann just doesn't cut it as someone who would ask that of the Administrator. So, if not him, then who?

With all of this in mind, one would probably still point a finger at Merasmus. The guy often keeps terrorizing the Mercs, and he does perform rituals of various types. In the Blood Money update comic, he does mention that he obtained the "blood of virgins" by using his own blood, and in Gargoyles and Gravel, the RED Spy details that Merasmus does use blood in his schemes. And while all this would make sense, the TF2 crew are ALWAYS fighting that old man every Halloween. So much so that he's not even a threat to them anymore, as they are just as quick to dismiss him. Hell, in the same comic (Gargoyles and Gravel), the Mercs nearly left Merasmus to his fate if it wasn't for the RED Heavy stepping in because he didn't want to play bootleg D&D. On top of this, despite appearing every Halloween, Miss Pauling, and possibly even the Administrator, didn't even know the guy existed until Gargoyles and Gravel. Which is surprising to me since he comes around EVERY HALLOWEEN. And a person can't be a threat to ya if you don't even acknowledge their existence.

Now, this isn't me saying that it's IMPOSSIBLE for Merasmus to be the reason the Administrator is in debt. Merasmus is 6,000 years old, so it's not implausible for him and Helen/Elizabeth to have met, and the guy knows magic, so if it's riches or immortality she wants, he can provide it. I would probably say that he's the "safest" option. But, with Merasmus' slight incompetence as a wizard and the fact that the Administrator hasn't communicated or even acknowledged the wizard, I'm just gonna put this option in a corner by itself.

But that leaves us stuck with no options. Once again, the Mann brothers are a no-go since the Administrator isn't intimidated by any of them. Zepheniah Mann doesn't qualify due to the above-mentioned. Then, what about Saxton Hale? Well, that's also not an option either. One, it's often shown as a pompous idiot who doesn't give heads or tails about anything but fighting and drinking. He doesn't even respect the Administrator because he has a dedicated barren room with Miss Pauling's name on it. And when informed about the Administrator by Charles Darling, he looks genuinely perplexed when he tells Hale how she lived for 150 years and was planning something big. And I'm not going to bother with his ancestors because Helen/Elizabeth clearly see Australians as, in her words in the Loose Canon comic, "lager-pickled brain."

And at this point, there's really no one else we can look to. There's no one else above the Administrator herself that can pose a possible threat to her in any way. However, I do have a suggestion that might work. I would like to introduce the Unknown Individual. The first time we are even informed that this person exists is when you combine the torn pictures of the Mann family photo. On the left side, we see Redmond Mann, Blutarch Mann, Zepheniah Mann, Elizabeth/Helen, and Barnabus Hale. On the right, we see Silas by his lonesome at a fireplace. When you try to combine the photos, we can see that there's a missing link as a mysterious individual is shown that bridges the photos; preventing it from being 100% complete. All we can ascertain about this individual is that they're wearing some sort of coat. The wiki claims that there might be something being held by the Unknown Individual, but I've analyzed this picture for a while, and I just can't see it. Maybe it's the stylized art, or I'm just dumb.

This is another unfortunate case where we don't know who this person is and what stake they have in the TF2 story as a whole. But, I will bet my ass that this person had something to do with the final comic, and we would've finally gotten confirmation on who they were. We got the same treatment with Gray Mann when they finally revealed the final lines in Zepheniah's Will and showed us the birth certificate, so something similar could've been done for the UI (Unknown Individual). However, because Valve didn't develop this mysterious individual, they are a blank slate for us to do whatever we please. So, who is this Unknown Individual? An eldritch entity, of course.

Now, I'm going to build off this theory from Richter Overtime's video and the possibility that a cosmic entity has the Administrator indebted to it. To give some context, Richter Overtime made a video going over what happened to the final TF2 comic. He briefly goes over the real-life explanations on why we never received the final comic (Because Valve essentially), but he also showcased an anonymous user on 4chan who posted on TF2's V board who "claimed" to have "read the script" for the final comic. Before I continue, let me be the first to say that I am more than skeptical about this individual who supposedly read the script for the final TF2 comic. There's nothing that this anon provides that proves that they have any relation to the game, not even giving us a "I'm a friend to the son of an uncle who works at Valve who also happened to work on the comics for TF2." Now, understandably, if this IS a Valve employee who worked on the comic, revealing company information such as the final comic could be detrimental to their job, so they would want to put as little of themselves out there as possible. HOWEVER, as it stands, we have no concrete credentials that can prove this guy's telling the truth. Also, two, even if this was a "leaked script," I highly doubt it, and, to give it the benefit of the doubt, it's probably a rough draft. But it being a draft doesn't say that it's a finished project. Look no further than GTA 6, a game that was leaked a few years ago, and everybody with no good sense judged the game, even though the game wasn't even in a stage where it was even PLAYABLE.

With that out of the way, let me continue my point. So, in Richter's video, this anonymous person claims that the person whom the Administrator was indebted to was a "cosmic entity or messenger" posing as Abraham Lincoln. And, in my opinion, I vibe with this. Considering that God & Heaven, Satan & Hell, ghosts and aliens exist in this world, I don't think it's too far off to include eldritch horrors in the TF2 universe. I mean, we do have the Bombinomicon, a book that's supposed to be a reference to the Lovecraftian Necronomicon. To add to this, I remember seeing comments on Richter's video that don't like the possible idea of a cosmic entity being the reason why the Administrator is in debt. Here are a few examples that I found in the comment section:

Which, I can understand why most would feel that way. Since TF2 had its world expanded upon, there's been no hint that a higher being is closely watching the Mercs and the TF2 universe as a whole, so throwing in a G-Man-esque character into the mix might seem unoriginal and tacky. However, I don't mind this possible theory; lemme explain why.

Firstly, Valve tends to leave in some of their stories an omnipresent individual who oversees the main protagonist. We all know of the G-Man, an enigmatic and mysterious entity who both helps and hinders the Half-Life characters as they push their own questionable goals. But I think there's a lesser-known "G-Man" type character that some overlook in the Valve games, the Rat Man.

For those who don't remember, back in the first Portal game, there were secret dens that could be found with writings and dioramas on the walls, similar to the rambles and scribbles of a supposed madman. These hidden spaces belonged to an unseeable figure named Doug Rattmann, commonly known as the Rat Man. These images that the Rat Man leaves behind help Chell, and in turn, the player, with piecing together that GLaDOS could not be trusted and figure out what happened in Aperture Science. Now, if your memory is jogged, you might be thinking:

"Well, Rat Man isn't really a G-Man-esque entity. There's a whole comic explaining his whole deal and why he bothers to help Chell in the first place."

In which, you are correct. However, counter-point! Notice I said 'omnipresent.' The word means something that is widely or constantly encountered. Or, when speaking of a godly figure, present everywhere at the same time. Now, the latter wouldn't apply to the Rat Man, but you could agree that he (the Rat Man's Dens) is widely encountered if you know where to look for his dens. The Rat Man may not be an otherworldly entity, but his presence is still felt once you're aware of his existence. The same could be said about the G-Man. I detour this section to say that Valve has a track record of including an always-watching entity in some of their games that provide aid or woes to their main protagonist. That's why I don't mind the idea of a potential "G-Man-esque" character being a possibility in TF2.

Now, the unfortunate thing is that there are not a lot of omnipresent individuals in the TF2 universe. The only definite person who would fit that role is the Administrator, but we're here to explain who's the person SHE'S indebted to. Unless there's some debt that she owes to herself, we can't really count her in this instance. But in terms of omnipresence, the Administrator is the only one who is persistently present in & out of gameplay that assists and hinders the players (reminds us what time the match ends, informs us if someone took our intelligence, and in the Meet the Spy animation, she quite literally informs BLU team that the RED Spy was in the base; hindering the Spy but assisting the BLU team).

And that's why I opted to pick the UI (Unknown Individual) as the omnipresent individual who oversees the TF2 universe. Once again, because the UI hasn't been established at all in the TF2 universe (there is literally one long sentence dedicated to them), so we're free to throw random bullshit at the wall and claim that it sticks. So, if the UI is the creditor to the Administrator and responsible for her blood debt, then who are they? Since we're categorizing them as a Lovecraftian eldritch being, the joys about this is that I don't have to go into a long-winded rant about them :D. Besides, the fun about the Lovecraftian horrors is that they are not explainable by human comprehension, which I think fits the Administrator heavily since we still, to this day, in canon, don't know what her whole deal is.

However, it wouldn't be fun if we just left it as that. I do have an idea I want to present to explain who or what this entity is. The Unknown Individual, in my book, is a Nyarlathotep-type creature, an entity that thrives on chaos & cruelty and is highly deceptive and manipulative. Nyarlathotep-based on the tib-bit of information I scrounge for this-is a highly active Lovecraftian horror who is more "down to earth" than most cosmic entities in that genre. Nyarlathotep takes the guise of humans instead of maintaining an unfathomable shape, they actually communicate through humanoid means, and they even maintain multiple cults, some of them not even being their own cults, and are instead the religious sects of other Outer Gods & Great Old Ones. As stated before, unlike other Lovecraftian creatures, Nyarlathotep prefers causing madness than death & destruction. Then again, in the same breath, based on various wikis I found, they say that Nyarlathotep has the possible intent to destroy the human race and the earth as well, so take that as you will.

Also, a thing I found interesting was the inspiration that brought about Nyarlathotep. Based on his name, it clearly has Egyptian origins, but what I thought was more fascinating was that Nyarlathotep was conceived due to a dream Lovecraft had. There are many interpretations of this dream, but William Murry, as far back as 1991 and as early as 2006, speculated that Nyarlathotep may have been inspired by Nikola Tesla, who was known to have well-attended lectures that involved extraordinary electrical experiments and was surprisingly seen as a sinister figure by some at the time. And guess who plays the Engineer when Blutarch initially hires 9 mercenaries to forcibly take land from his brother…Take that as you will.

So, we determined WHO the Administrator is, WHAT her cravings possibly were, and WHO her debtor is. So, what's the TLDR version of all of this?

Well, in order, Helen, previously known as Elizabeth, was the true first child of Zepheniah Mann. I'm still going to keep who her mother is ambiguous. As for her craving, Helen wanted to live; the why I also want to leave a pseudo-ambiguous, but I would believe it might be related to what happened to her mother or due to an existential crisis. Helen communes with Nyarlathotep by either seeking them out or the reverse, and they both strike a deal. Nyarlathotep is willing to provide her the immortality she craves as long as she can provide blood in return every year or decade that she lives. A life for a life type of deal. In agreeing with this, Nyarlathotep causes coincidences to happen, such as Zepheniah Mann dying from every illness possible and Zeph giving his entire estate to Helen, along with his "miracle gravel." Nyarlathotep doesn't magically give Helen what she wants but provides her the tools to get what she desires. However, the problem presents itself when it comes to obtaining blood. Helen can't just go on a mindless killing spree, and perhaps taking another life is a daunting task. Canonically, we have never seen the Administrator lift a finger against anyone save for a glass window. And each year/decade she doesn't spill any blood, the more her blood debt increases.

However, she knows two idiots who are willingly sending men to their graves due to a petty feud. Thus, the Administrator decides that, with the newfound affluence she acquired, she would fund Redmond & Blutarch to continue paying Mercenaries to die for their silly land disputes as a secret "interested third party." However, Nyarlathotep, while impressed that she would go this route, opts to not accept these offerings because the Administrator isn't the one doing the killing, even though she's funding the men to perform such deeds. She needs to be the one to pull the trigger, to swing the axe, to light the dynamite fuse. Helen needs blood on HER hands. However, to give credit where credit is due, Nyarlathotep was willing to put her in a "payment plan" to help her make up for the loss of blood she didn't provide. But this arrangement is intended to put her deeper into this blood debt. The Administrator is aware of this, but the hanging threat that this all-powerful entity will snatch away the gifts that they provided hangs over her like a loosely strung-up piano. If she doesn't make the "payments," she loses everything. And every time she thinks she's over it, she's done, she will accept the darkness that awaits her; Helen's fear of the unknown, of absolution, of the monitored office that she has to face every time she temporarily dies; it brings her back into the vicious cycle once again.

By 1890 and some decades before, Helen established TF Industries, a company "devoted to the highest level of craftsmanship and personal security" and "providing the latest in military technology, selling all manner of deadly, cutting-edge devices to prospective buyers." However, this is a pseudo front to bring lambs to the slaughter. In selling deadly weapons & devices, Helen hopes this will cause enough bloodshed to be spilled so that she can repay her debt. And, in hiring individuals to TF Industries and, in turn, sending them to RED or BLU, two companies she would end up buying, she hopes the unsafe work environments will also contribute to fulfilling her debt.

And this is where we will leave the Administrator's portion of this analysis for now since the further down the lore and worldbuilding of TF2 we go, the more we can expand upon her and her involvement with the Gravel Wars. But before we move on to the Gravel Wars itself, there's one final thing we gotta talk about.

[bellepeppertronix]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

I was tagged by @bittylildragon!

1. how many works do you have on ao3?

2. what’s your total ao3 word count?

3. what fandoms do you write for?

4. what are your top five fics by kudos?

5. do you respond to comments?

6. what’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

7. what’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

8. do you get hate on fics?

9. do you write smut? if so, what kind?

10. do you write crossovers? what’s the craziest one you’ve written?

11. have you ever had a fic stolen?

12. have you ever had a fic translated?

13. have you ever co-written a fic before?

14. what’s your all-time favorite ship?

15. what’s a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

16. what are your writing strengths?

17. what are your writing weaknesses?

18. thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

19. first fandom you wrote for?

20. favorite fic you’ve ever written?

~~

Here goes!

1. how many works do you have on ao3?

I have 40 works on Ao3! I can't believe the first ones were from 2013.

I remember worrying about the general state of the internet at the time, and feeling like Ao3 would collapse like all the LiveJournal clones were starting to (I used to have a writing LJ too, lol 🥲)

2. what’s your total ao3 word count?

My word count is currently 473,741! A lot of this is from my Darkest Dungeon longfic, What Happened to the Candlemaker's Apprentice.

3. what fandoms do you write for?

I have written fic for Team Fortress 2, Pacific Rim, Mass Effect, the Alien movie franchise (Prometheus), Overwatch, The Shape of Water, Cable & Deadpool, Darkest Dungeon, One Punch Man, DC Comics (Superman and Wonder Woman). In the past I wrote some long-buried fic for Metalocalypse, and The Hobbit. There may or may not still be some Star Trek fic I wrote out there, which is a slight crossover with Teen Titans...

4. what are your top five fics by kudos?

•Sharp-Dressed Man (a PacRim fic)

•In Which Newton is A Badass And Everybody Is Surprised (also a PacRim fic)

•Small Insistent Things (another PacRim fic)

•What Happened to the Candlemaker's Apprentice (a Darkest Dungeon fic)

•Rained the Whole Time (a TF2 fic)

5. do you respond to comments?

I try to! I have a rather chaotic home life irl, unfortunately. And often I am either not sure how to respond, or I draft a reply and forget to send it bc of my not-great memory.

I re-read through them to lift my spirits when I'm feeling down, though. Thank you to everyone who has ever read my work!

6. what’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

One of my Overwatch WIPs was basically a study of Commander Reyes as he slowly turned into Reaper. Not just physically; there's a bunch of lore, probably now ret-conned because Blizzard is A Mess and A Joke when it comes to storytelling, un which he was the unsung heroic commander behind a lot of important things. Only he got passed over for Overwatch commander by a white man who was a colleague of his. Anyway his whole team is/was rehabilitated criminals.

I wrote all this to say, in the fic, he falls in love with Genji, who is Not in a great headspace at the time, and after seeing what the Overwatch docs do to Genji in the name of "saving him"-- Gabriel becomes really bitter and disillusioned, and the fic ends with him deciding he's done with the organization and is just going to do Criminal Shit for himself instead of the government now. (He "dies" at the end, but it was staged, and not by himself, and then is "brought back to life" by Overwatch doctors. I wrote ths before Moira existed, so it was Mercy.)

I'm not even sure I posted that much of that fic, come to think of it...

7. what’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Ah! Haha! Most of my fics have happy endings desired. But I am a very slow writer, and so the happiest FINISHED thing I have is, I think, the story where the Scout from TF2 learns to read better, and learns to really enjoy literature, after finding a book that reminds him of his own life. (The fanfic is Rained the Whole Time, and the book is A Tree Grows In Brooklyn. You should read the book, if you haven't! It's a very beautiful experience.)

8. do you get hate on fics?

No, I haven't gotten any. Then again, I survived the whole Shipping War nonsense on both LiveJournal and FF.net, and I learned to just...avoid a lot of people in fandom. I'm trying to get past that. But, that said, you can't get any hate if you hardly talk to anyone! (I do not recommend this. It can go from very peaceful to very lonely, very quickly.)

9. do you write smut? if so, what kind?

Yes! Not often, though, because I always feel shy about writing it, even if I love reading it!

10. do you write crossovers? what’s the craziest one you’ve written?

My one Mass Effect fic is a Mass Effect/Aliens crossover.

It goes exactly as you think it would.

I also wrote a Watchmen/Marvel crossover, in which Deadpool and Rorschach have to find their way out of a weird parallel death-dimension. (I...cannot remember if I posted this...)

I also have an idea for a Discworld/The Witcher/Final Fantasy XII crossover that is so self-indulgent I don't even know where to start with it...

11. have you ever had a fic stolen?

Speaking of my current works--I don't know, and I'm afraid to look.

I do have a history of irl "friends" stealing my work and art, though, so I'm very wary and cautious about sharing. :(

Plagiarism, even of fanworks, is terribly anxiety-inducing and ruinous to self-esteem, and I wouldn't wish it on anybody. I don't mean "heavily inspired by", I mean "I literally stole your rough draft and edited it and added to it, and I'm going to publish this and say I wrote it" stuff.

12. have you ever had a fic translated?

No, but I have had a few offers, which is very flattering...but I have declined them, though, for the reasons in #11. I never really feel safe about it. :(

13. have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yes! And it was a disaster! Because we (me and the "friend") were in junior high school writing a genuinely awful Interview With the Vampire multi fandom crossover mess. I lost my notebooks. I hope she lost hers, too. 🤣

And now, as an adult ~20 years later, I still sometimes want to. But I have no idea how that would work out.

14. what’s your all-time favorite ship?

I don't have only one! I tend to trip and fall into rarepair holes, so my longest-worded ship is the Highwayman/the Leper from Darkest Dungeon, followed immediately by the Demoman/Soldier from TF2, which I think is my oldest ship. Another delicious one is Stacker Pentecost/Hercules Hansen, from Pacific Rim. My current favorites to read are (from the Witcher) Geralt/Eskel, Geralt/Dandelion, Geralt/Regis (I just love reading people rubbing that Witcher-man all over other people) Lambert/Aiden, Lambert/Keira. From Darkest Dungeon, I like the Highwayman/the Crusader, the Higheayman/the Leper, the Plague Doctor/the Grave Robber...I like a lot of ships.

15. what’s a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

Ahaha...hehe...well...you see...a LOT of my fics are WIPs. I want to finish Thank You For Hiring Pan-Pacifica Construction! I love that one, but I'm not really active in the PacRim fandom anymore, so...

16. what are your writing strengths?

I love, and like to think I'm good at, describing scenery (which I sometimes love so much that I forget to have the characters DO anything in it). Somebody told me once that they loved how distinct all the characters' voices were, and that I fleshed out even side characters, which was a compliment that made me feel So Happy and Proud!

17. what are your writing weaknesses?

Oh, man, I am NOT a finisher.

I'm trying so, so hard to work on that.

Also, like I mentioned before, I can describe a setting forever and the characters will be standing under a tree waiting for permission to wander around in it. 😅 I had my adventurers stuck in a cursed hallway for like 12 pages once. For the Vibes, you know!

18. thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I only speak and read English, unfortunately! I always find it fascinating when people can work different languages, or even constructed languages, into their fics, though.

19. first fandom you wrote for?

😅 Posted/publically shared? Either Star Trek (2009) or TF2. Possibly Hellsing? As for unpublished/unposted? (Or, well, shown only to a friend?) Some quite terrible Interview With the Vampire fanfic from AGES ago, in school. That was also the first, and last time, I collaborated with anyone. Farther back it was all Star Trek: TNG fanfic and The Last Unicorn fanfic.

20. favorite fic you’ve ever written?

I can't answer this 😂! The ADHDemons are forever upon my heels. I write things and forget I wrote them, then re read them and fall in love with them again. Right now I love my Darkest Dungeon fic and all its related fics in the same world.