#tf2 zephaniah mann

[hop-a-lot]

thinking a quite about them

[tf2incorrectquotes]

Scout: *staring at a portrait of Zephaniah Mann* How come paintings of people centeries ago never have pimples?! You're telling me these people who drank shit water and took baths twice a decade had clear skin?!

Spy: They had a skin routine called, "I am asking you to paint me."

[beepartcollection]

two more given the events in comic 7!

Yesterday I had the idea that Australians and Australium users have small flecks of gold in their eyes

[pascalishere]

I think they ended the TF2 comics perfectly. There was no master plan, no world-ending threats. Just petty grudges and an inescapable hunger. For as bonkers as this game is, the message is legit touching. Nothing lasts forever. All the Australium in the world won’t sustain you, nothing perfect can last. Even if Ms. Pauling gave the Administrator the rest of the cache, how long would that stay? It’s a finite resource. Just to keep two people who don’t know why they hate each other alive. To have the strength to end that, and to end all the suffering the material caused…

I’m really glad the writers made that choice. Because it kind of echoes this being the last issue of the comic. The story’s over. Nothing lasts forever. Not even the grudges and meaningless conflict. The Gravel Wars are over. The mercs can rest.

Idk, just feeling satisfied with an ending is a weird emotion. I think part of it is the meta aspect of things. Despite all odds, the TF2 community is still kicking, for better or worse. It’s funny to say nothing can kill this damn game, but it’s not true. One day, TF2 will be well and truly dead.

And people will move on. The millions of hours people have invested into this game will inch further away. And that’s fine. Nothing can last forever.

It’s a beautiful farewell to the community. And maybe a greeting to whatever comes next.

[the-mercurial-star-o-vesper]

TF2 COMIC THEORY (and Spoilers)

What, did Zephaniah Mann do?

Look, if there's one thing I know about Valve Lore, is that its really hidden, really coded, and TF2 has been fucking TEASING for decades now.

And as far as I'm concerned...

We know who the mystery man in the rip is... That's Gray Mann, the missing brother. Gods knows he's been teased enough over the years.

But here, I'm interested in...

[ Spoilers below ]

... Where the stinger occurs.

Zephy is not an only child.

Because his brother is Silas Mann, the Headless Horseless Mann. Owner of a mansion, haunting that very mansion. Shown in the first picture posted. They ran "Zephaniah Mann and Sons, Quarterly Munitions" Together.

Its a tradition for Mann sons to kill the other siblings. Its why there was such a rivalry between the Mann twins (erm, Triplets).

Our Admin apparently knew already, was already observing the situation...

She was waiting.

What, did Zephaniah Mann do?

Why does the administrator hate him so much?

Does it have something to do with a little girl...

... Who can't remember how her parents died.

The man in the picture wears a Towering Pillar of Hats. While that's just the TF2 Timeline Aesthetic... there is another significant element.

Its in Coal Town, surrounded by Hales. While its the "Booths" hat, it was around, clearly, before Bilious was a baby--in Barnabas Time.

Zephaniah and Sons would become Mann Co, after being given to Barnabas.

What, did Zephaniah Mann do?

Easy.

He murdered the Administrator's father, Silas Mann, and her mother, out of "Tradition", and then claimed that HE was an ONLY CHILD like the selfish self-centered bastard he is.

And Our Administrator ensured, even through vengeance that lasted centuries, to a point where she didn't even remember why she started, that it would Never Continue.

Vengeance of a little girl who lost her parents.

Arguably, in comic lore, the torn picture isn't exactly accurate anymore.

Because that Gray Mann in the center, and our Mann Twins didn't even know there was a Gray Mann, and in fact, most of the people in the picture didn't even know about him. And if they took a picture, then clearly, someone would've known.

So its more than likely, a portrait or lore symbollic only. Only meant for the fans, to know what we're looking for and Who, about the time of the first Halloween Events.

( Look it took decades to get all the comics, mate, its not gonna be a craft masterpiece. We get what we get. )

[cultofmalcolm]

BY JOVE THAT IS WHAT I MEAN

also I'm shit at explaining things be warned if nothing makes sense

I introduce to you...

Why I think Gray Mann is Barnabus Hale's son

RIGHT, so we start with australium. It's heavily implied that it lies in a person blood stream, from the injector thingy the Mann brothers and the admin use to even the robots that Gray made to "suck the australium right outta their blood streams."

Another thing that I have that backs up the 'It works through simply being in contact with your blood stream is when C!Heavy just shoves it into his OPEN WOUND during his fight with Heavy.

In addition, we know from when Elizabeth was talking to Radigan Conagher that Australium can majorly increase a person's intelligence, as seen with Australians in the 1800s.

Now, imagine Australium is like a blood disease for a moment. This means it can be easily passed on through to your offspring, and since Gray was extremely smart at birth (for a newborn), we can infer that something in there wasn't natural, almost pointing at him having australium (something not natural) in his body at birth.

Ignore that, for now. Now, if we look at Bette Mann. We can't. She has no canon design. However, if we look at how Zephaniah Mann, her husband, and Barnabus Hale, her husband's business partner

As seen in the images above, Zephaniah couldn't give less of a shit about her death. From this, we can infer that their marriage was loveless and even possibly arranged. However, Barnabus is absolutely broken at this news, suggesting that they had something going on on the side, which would line up with Gray having Australium in his body at birth, and being able to talk at birth.

But I hear you asking (probaby), "but Colin, how did Bette have Gray, and Redmond and Blutarch at the same time?!!" It is possible to have two twins from different fathers, and since Redmond and Blutarch are identical, we know that at one point they were the same person.

I really hope this made sense, honestly it doesn't read like it does

Ask if you don't understand anythjng, please

I don't think Gray Mann is related to Zephieniah Mann. I might elaborate.

[artbyblastweave]

More TF comics spoilers:

Funniest thing about the reveal on the whole is that with the whole picture of what the Administrator was up to, Grey Mann actually was probably the most dangerous person in the TF2 setting and preventing him from getting control of Mann Co probably was the morally correct thing for someone, somewhere to be working on. He was planning to suck the blood out of everyone in Australia. But that's not at all why the Admin was doing it. She was doing it because preventing the last living Mann Brother- the intended successor under Zephaniah's original battle royale scheme- from inheriting his birthright is the fallback revenge scheme. Everything Team Fortress accomplishes that's remotely productive they accomplish at the margins or when they're off the clock entirely

[inbarfink]

In regards to Silias Mann, I'm not comprehensively versed in tf2 lore. But in this comic, zephaniah tells Elizabeth to care for his son, which she asks "don't you mean sons?". He clarifies only one brother will be the champion and the other one basically forgotten in a grave outside. So if he considers himself an only son, that tracks with the Mann family's fratricide tradition. Silas might be his brother, who lost.

I mean, I've heard a few variants of the "Silas Mann is Zepheniah's brother who he 'disposed' of already and therefore refuses to acknowledge his existence' theory but they don't click right with me for two reasons:

Silas' only canonical not-Horsemann appearance is at the rightmost portion in the Mann Family Photograph

A photograph which is apparently a Real Physical Canonical Object as of "The Days Have Worn Away"

(We know/assume this is Silas because that rightmost part of the picture was first revealed during the Scream Fortress Horsemann update, when you press on Silas' name on the gravestone)

This picture depicts Silas as a living aged man (or Mann, as the case may be) during Zepheniah's twilight years (with the Administrator already in his service and the twins already adults). So Silas having been killed before the First Administrator Flashback Scene really doesn't make any sense as, like, a basic timeline thing.

(And if we're to assume that this is a ghostly apparition rather than a confirmation Silas was still alive during the mid 1800's... why would he appear so old? If he was Zepheniah's brother that he killed before even meeting the Administrator, he should be a young man?)

2. But more importantly....Sure, Zepheniah will only acknowledge the Mann who will dispose of his brother as his true son but... he does also acknowledge the existence of the 'unworthy' siblings his father and grandfather got rid of on their way to the top. They are not totally forgotten, at least as achievements of the 'True Heirs'

Zepheniah clearly sees the concept of killing your own sibling to farther yourself in life as an inherently noble one, something to brag about and remember. After all, that's why he says it's 'sad' that he was an only son. He wishes he had a sibling to kill as a way to prove himself.

So the idea that he did have a brother and that he had already 'disposed' of him by the time of this scene, and instead of bragging about it in legally non-incriminating terms he decided to outright wipe all traces of this event from living memory.... Well, to me that just feels flat-out Out of Character with the way Zepheniah is characterized in "The Days Have Worn Away"

And, well, something being OOC is a lot more damning to a theory than just lore/timeline inconsistencies in a story whose whole point is "The Lore and Overarching Plot were ultimately meaningless, what truly matters are the characters"

I thought about it for a bit, I think the only explanation that makes sense to me right now is that Silas Mann was not Zepheniah's brother, but instead a distant cousin. The surviving son or grandson of the one of the siblings of Ebenezer or Ezekiel (or maybe even related from someone farther up the family tree?). Since he's more distantly related, he had much less claim over the Mann fortune and Zepheniah might have not been initially aware of him and/or acknowledged him as a threat.... well, at least at first.

(Since he did get buried in the Traditional 'Loser' Mann style according to the Halloween Update and he is the Horseless Headless Horsemann I assume he did not die of natural causes and Zepheniah was probably to blame. It just happened later.)

[spooky-momth]

TF2 SPOILERS

I don't want Lila to have killed Skiddad because I want to see her do it onscreen, not in a flashback

I hope that Lila gets to land a final blow on Skiddad after his inevitable revival, and when she does I think we should all draw her like this

[ID: A panel from the 7th issue of the Team Fortress 2 comics. A young Administrator wakes up contentedly in a comfortable 4-poster bed in a gentle morning glow. Behind her is a painting depicting herself in a blue gown with a red shawl flowing behind her, stepping on a protesting Zephaniah Mann's face and preparing to stab him with a sword. /end ID]

[darrowfire15]

More characters!

The Administrator - A human who came to the Boiling Isles as leeches off other witches magic. Established the Emperor's coven. Their "Belos", if you will.

Miss Pauling - A witch who works under the Administrator and is in the Emperor's coven. Very amused by Scout's flirting.

Saxton Hale - A big burly Bipedal demon who has a goal to fight every known beast demon. Specializes in Beast Keeping Magic (somehow).

The Mann Family

Zepheniah Mann - A witch who died in the Savage Ages and gifted his sons his land on the Boiling Isles and other titan carcasses. He had a German Shephard palisman named Gravel. Gravel lives with the Bat Queen.

Redmond, Blutarch, and Gray Mann - Three of the most powerful witches who have been alive since the Savage Ages. Redmond and Blutarch created the 9 main covens while Gray secretly backed the support of the Emperor's coven.

Redmond had a cardinal palisman named Carmine. Carmine was taken by the Administrator.

Blutarch had a blue jay palisman named Azure. Azure was taken by the Administrator.

Gray has an eagle palisman named Silver. When he dies, Silver leaves to live with the Bat Queen.

Olivia Mann - A young witch who lives in the Emperor's Castle. Does not have a palisman yet.

TF2 in and TOH Universe

So, I had this idea a few days ago. Lemme lay it out.

Main Mercs

Scout - A half-witch, half-bipedal demon hybrid. Forced into Illusion magic, but wants to do Bard magic. Has a Hare palisman named Knucklehead.

Soldier - A witch. Practices Beast Keeping and Abomination magic, but mostly a Wild Witch (emphasis on "Wild"). Has a raccoon palisman named Lieutenant Bites.

Pyro - A bipedal demon who is a Wild witch. Has a Unicorn palisman called "Hudda hudda" (no one knows what it actually translates to).

Demo - A witch who practices Potion magic and owns the biggest Apple Blood factory. Has a Macaw palisman named Alberdeen.

Heavy - A towering bipedal demon who practices Abomination magic. Has a Bear palisman named Sasha.

Engineer - A Grimwalker who practices Construction and Healing magic. He built an artificial staff and uses artificial magic.

Medic - A witch who practices Healing magic, but is not part of the Healing Coven anymore. Has a Dove palisman named Archimedes.

Sniper - A Titan under the impression he is a Bipedal demon. Practices Oracle and Potions magic, but mostly a Wild Witch. Has an Owl palisman called Sir Hootsalot.

Spy - A bipedal demon who practices Illusions and is working for the Emperor's Coven. Does not have a palisman anymore.

Coven Heads

CHeavy - A bipedal demon. Head of the Abominations Coven.

CMedic - A half-witch, half-bipedal demon hybrid. Head of the Healing Coven.

Bea (CPyro) - A Beast demon. Head of the Bard Coven.

Virgil (CSniper) - A witch. Head of the Oracle Coven.

Fred (CEngineer) - A witch. Head of the Construction Coven.

Greg (CScout) - A witch. Head of the Plants Coven.

Ross (CSoldier) - A bipedal demon. Head of the Beast Keeping Coven.

CSpy - A Basilisk. Head of the Illusions Coven.

CDemo - A bipedal demon. Head of the Potions Coven.

[some-pers0n]

I can't think of anything for the assuming thing that you reblogged, but while I'm here uhhm. I'd like to hear abt tf2 if you're willing to explain.

I don't know a lot abt it but I see the stuff you reblog!! I know the game, but I've never heard any lore or anything abt the characters.

No pressure ofc, you don't have to :]

You're. asking me..to infodump? About TF2!?

Okie okey I can do it. Uh. Keep in mind it's going to be pretty long-winded and incomprehensible. I just really like this game...

Oh! And if you're a follower or mutual, read on as well! I put a lot of effort into this. If you're at all interested in understanding my madness even a little bit, this is for you.

Before we even begin, I HIGHLY recommend first checking out the Meet the Team videos and perhaps Expatriation Date. It will take you roughly half an hour to watch all videos. They are simply fantastic. They are humorous and show off the personalities of these characters in a great and short way. Plus it establishes the tone of this game (which is very silly)

With that being said, let it commence.

Okay, so, I guess we start with the basics. Team Fortress 2 is a sequel to Team Fortress (Classic), which was a mod for a game called Quake using the engine for Half-Life, Source. It was made by a couple of friends who would later on become a part of Valve, a game company known for their own games such as Portal, Half-Life (as previously mentioned), Counter-Strike; Global Offense, and of course, Team Fortress.

Team Fortress 2's development is pretty interesting and cool in of itself. I could go on for a bit, but just know that TF2 was announced back in 1998. Over this time, it went by the name of Invasion, following an art style similar to TFC and Half-Life with them now being on some alien planet thing. However that sort of style became outdated, so they then went under a major art style shift. After nine years in development, they final released it in 2007 as a package called the Orange Box. It released alongside Portal and Half-Life 2, Episode 2.

Since then, Team Fortress 2, or simply just TF2, has become a cornerstone of the internet and general team-based shooter games. Its influences can be seen all over, with the most prominent example being games like Overwatch being a spiritual successor to it.

You don't want to hear me ramble about the actual gameplay and such though, I assume. I really like watching people play the game, but I would be lying if I didn't find a smidge more enjoyment from the characters, hm? I mean, how could I not? They're one of, if not the best parts of the entire game.

But before we get to that, even more ground work. Here's the basic lore you need.

In the 1800s, a man called Zephaniah Mann owns a company. He's your generic richy-rich upperclassman guy. His business partner, Barnabus Hale, co-owns this. This will be slightly important later. He has three children, Redmond, Blutarch, and Gray Mann. Redmond and Blutarch practically come out of the womb hating each other, while Gray Mann? Well, he's. special. He's incredibly intelligent for his newborn nature, being able to speak fluent English as well as supposedly inventing a new kind of algebra.

Zephaniah Mann freaks out. He tries to kill the child, however he is, and I quote, "absconded by the Eagle". This is a random eagle that's been apparently terrorizing the small town that Zephaniah Mann lives in. It breaks through the windows and literally steals Gray Mann, saving him from an untimely death.

So that happened.

Years later, Zephaniah grows old. Blutarch and Redmond are the only real heirs of his company, but the both of them won't come to a single agreement on anything. Pissed off about it, Zephaniah writes in his will that he's giving his company to Barnabus Hale, leaving his servant, Elizabeth, with all of his "gold", and jack-shit for Redmond and Blutarch.

Well...not nothing. Redmond and Blutarch convinced Zephaniah to buy up a bunch of land in New Mexico. Gravel pits and dustbowls. When Zephaniah died, the two of them tried claiming the land for themselves. This sparked the main event: the Gravel Wars.

Blutarch and Redmond hired a bunch of mercenaries to fight for each other. This was the original team. Yes, that is Abraham Lincoln you see there. Get used to it.

The mercenaries fought and fought, yet there was no clear victor. In the end, Blutarch and Redmond were growing old. By 1890s, it was becoming obvious that the two would die before they saw the end of this fight.

Or...until a certain other party emerged. Radigan Conagher. A brilliant inventor that catches the attention of Blutarch Mann. He brings Radigan to him and asks something so simple of him.

Build him a machine to make him immortal.

Radigan agrees to the task.

However, this also gets the attention of another person. Remember that servant I mentioned? The one who inherited Zephaniah Mann's gold? Well, it turns out that it isn't gold, but actually an incredibly powerful material called Australium.

Australium is native to Australia. It is a precious mineral that is capable of incredible power. Among giving the people around it super-strength, heightened intelligence, and generally being very Australian, it can also be used to make a person immortal through extending their life.

Elizabeth knows about this, and for some reason that we still don't quite know, she wants to continue on this war. So, she approaches Radigan and asks him to build another life extender machine for Redmond. Also for her probably.

So now the old men (and also this chick) are immortal. Cool!!

The 1930s roll around and there's another group of mercenaries. We don't care about these ones that much. Just know that they are the same mercs from Team Fortress Classic and they'll be somewhat important later. Understand also that Barnabus Hale's company is now called MannCo. and is the main supplier of weapons to this war.

NOW IT'S THE 1960S YAYYY IT'S TIME FOR THEM!!! THE SILLIES!!

Something to also know is that there's somebody pulling the strings. The Administrator. For some reason, she wants to continue this war between Redmond and Blutarch. She's not Elizabeth though!! Definitely not. Totally not. Definitely not a plot twist that WOULD'VE HAPPENED IN THE FINAL COMIC HAD IT RELEASED- but it's fine.

Anyways, I digress. Elizabeth and the Administrator (also known as Helen) are pretty much the same person. Working as her assistant is Miss Pauling, who (among other things) hides bodies, gives contracts to the mercs, and generally does whatever the Admin wants her to.

Whew!! There you go. That's the general gist of the lore. Back in the 1800s there was a guy who had two kids who hated each other. They hated each other so much they went to war over a bunch of useless land. Over 100 years later now we've got the mercs.

Finally!! We can start talking about them.

Scout, aka Jerma985

The Scout, real name Jeremy, is a loud-mouth, obnoxious 20 something year old from Boston. He fights using a shotgun, baseball bat, and a pistol. He's got 7 older brothers (he's the youngest of them all) and has an affinity for baseball, Tom Jones, and a soda drink named Bonk! that is apparently radioactive. He's what I'd argue to be the most ""normal"" merc, since he's just kind of an asshole who likes killing people. He talks and acts like an obnoxious guy, but he's overall not that bad.

Oh I forgot to mention he's canonically God's gift to women.

Here's a snipbit of the scene where Scout dies and goes to Heaven where he meets God Himself and tells Scout that he was intended to have sex with as many women as possible.

Scout is also illiterate and can't read. He's actually a pretty good artist though. He's got a Tom Jones memorabilia collection that he once used to try and impress Miss Pauling. Oh right! He's also got a massive crush on Miss Pauling. The Expiration Date short is all about it, with him trying to get a date with her before he dies of cancer.

Soldier, the American Idiot

The Soldier, real name Jane Doe, is a red-blooded American patriot from somewhere in the mid-west USA. He fights using a rocket launcher, a shotgun, and a shovel. He is not a real solider. In fact, he was turned away from WWII because of his mental instability. That didn't stop him from buying a ticket and going to Germany himself, beating the crap out of all of them Nazis. He only stopped when he was told that the current year was 1949 and the war had ended four years ago.

Soldier is what I'd argue to be the character the narrative focuses on the most. You'd be pressed to find a comic that doesn't feature him a lot. He's the second half of the WAR! update, the first merc that Miss Pauling recruits when the actual main comics happen, generally pops up a lot in bits and pieces of the lore, and is one of the stars of Expiration Date.

Soldier was roommates with a 6,000 year old wizard named Meramus. Meramus is a character from TF2's annual Halloween event, Scream Fortress, and is a silly wizard who attacks them once every year. Despite this, the two of them lived together. Past tense because Meramus was kicked out. Here's a panel from a comic about this that I find funny.

Soldier also drinks lead water. The water in the base is the same water that the people from a nearby town, Teufort, which is all full of idiots from the water situation. We don't know if he's like this because of the water. It's probably not the only reason.

Pyro, the Silly!!

The Pyro has no identity, no backstory, nothing. Anything we know about them is pretty much nothing. They, along with the Spy, are the most unknown of the mercs, but even then we still know more about Spy and generally what he's like. Pyro? Nothing. We don't even know their gender.

Pyro fights with a flamethrower, shotgun, and fire axe, however they see these items as a cute and wholesome version. In Meet the Pyro, it's revealed that Pyro sees the world through a oddly sweet lens, full of lolipops and rainbows and whatever. This isn't reality, obviously, and what Pyro sees as them petting a dog is probably them gutting it.

Pyro and the Engineer have some sort of bond and connection, most likely stemming from how Pyro's in-game help out Engineers by keeping away spies and whatnot, as flamethrowers are the best ways to get rid of them.

Anywho, that's Pyro. The silly!!

Demoman, Man I Love Being Drunk

The Demoman, real name Travis Finnegan DeGroot, is a self-proclaimed "black Scottish cyclops". He fights with a stickybomb launcher, a grenade launcher, and a bottle of his beloved whiskey: scrumpy. Demoman is a full-blooded Scotsman hailing from Ullapool and has a long, long lineage of fellow bombmakers and general stuff.

Demoman is actually one of the more intelligent members of the team, being knowledgeable of chemicals and bomb making. This is however not exactly known as 90% of the time he's black-out drunk. He gets drunk so often that his liver actually changed to adapt to this sort of environment, now drawing minerals from booze as if it were water. Now Demo basically gets poisoned by drinking water.

Demo's eye is actually cursed, by the way. No, he didn't lose it during some fight or some accident. Well, I mean, it technically was an accident. He opened up a cursed book, the Bombinomicon, and now his eye is just. fucked.

In fact, the Medic tried giving him a new eye. Several times in fact! Why doesn't he have it still? Well, uh, this.

He's so silly.

Heavy, The TF2 Guy

The Heavy Weapons Guy, real name Mikhail (or Misha), is a Russian man hailing from Siberia. He fights with his miniguns, a shotgun, and his fists. He's rather fond of his guns, in particular his main one, Sasha.

Heavy is a family man and generally a lot different than how a ton of the internet characterizes him. He's intelligent, having a PhD in Russian Literature, and a lot more soft-spoken. When he was young, his father, a counter revolutionist, was taken by the KGB. Soon enough, his entire family were imprisoned in a gulag. They escaped and found refuge, but Heavy became protective over his sisters and mother.

TF2 goes hard, like if you agree. Every time I think about Heavy I just get increasingly sad.

Heavy likes sandwiches. A lot. In fact, you can swap out his shotgun in the game for a sandwich (or some other food item). Apparently in TF2 canon, Heavy just hunkers down in some corner after taking a good amount of damage and starts eating this ham sandwich to suddenly have his bullet wounds be healed.

Engineer, YEEEEHAWWW!!!

The Engineer, real name Dell Conagher, is a hardworking man who's come round from Bee Cave, Texas. He fights using a shotgun, a pistol, his trusty wrench, and a little tiny box called the PDA. That lil' box gives the Engineer a major advantage, being able to now make buildings. Dispensers that give ammo and medkits. Teleporters that make traversing the maps easier. Lets not forget the sentries now either, stationary automatic guns that fire upon any enemy that gets too close.

If the name "Conagher" seems familiar, that would be because Engie is the grandson of Radigan Conagher from all the way back. Also Fred Conagher, who was the Engineer for TFC. Here's the both of them when Engie was a kid.

Engie is commonly mischaracterized as being normal. This is because he seems smart and okay. He is not. I need you to understand that his Meet the Team video has him using a BLU Sniper's body as his campfire and he shows little to no reaction to bullets being mere inches away from his face. He just sits there and plays his guitar while his sentry guns mow down anybody nearby. Also the whole being a mercenary and his job being to kill people.

Unfortunately for Engie there's not too much Funny comic book stuff about him. His big break was mostly with the Loose Cannon comic. In other ones he's usually a supplemental character to the others. In the main comics he's the sort of caregiver to the Administrator, just sort of standing around her while she says stuff.

That doesn't make me any less terminally ill about him in this one comic though. They make me SICK!! I love them,,

And, well, speaking of these two...I suppose it was only a matter of time before we got to him.

Medic, You Already Know Who This Is

The Medic, real name maybe Ludwig Humbolt? I dunno. It's unclear. All that's really confirmed is that his last name is probably most likely Ludwig. Some people like Ludwig Humbolt. Others like Fritz Ludwig. I like calling him Ludwig Ludwig.

Anyways, this is Medic! He hails from Stuttgart/Rottenburg, Germany (it's not very clear where he's from) and he is a bit of a silly little fellow. He fights using his trusty bonesaw, a syringe gun of sorts, and a unique device of his own creation: the medi-gun. With this machine, he's able to heal people as well as deploy an übercharge, which makes both the Medic and whomever his medi-gun's healing beam is connected with invincible for eight seconds.

The Medic is a silly little fellow. One fascinating thing you can see about him is how his character has been shifted since the launch of the game. His voice lines in-game are a lot more...er, how should I say this...Nazi German stereotype-ish? Hehh, uh... So not particularly great. He's barking orders and generally seen kind of like that.

However, as time goes on and more and more updates come out, his character shifts. The Pyro goes under similar changes in presentation, going from a mysterious and scary character to more friendly and cutesy. With Medic? He forgos that previous stereotype and more or less just becomes a mad scientist archetype. He's got a silliness to him that wasn't present when the game first launched.

My favourite example of this shift in character is the change in how the Meet the Medic videos would've been. Did you know there was a scrapped Meet the Medic video? It was a lot more like the earlier ones, styled like an interview he was giving. He's doing it on a train(?) and it shows how he created the medi-gun. There's a noticeable lack of silliness, aside from when the Spy head begins talking. The Medic is a lot more stern and serious, mentioning more how he's proud of being able to make gods out of men.

Then, of course, we see the actual Meet the Medic. Medic is preforming surgery on the Heavy, and it's all fairly silly and wacky. Medic explodes Heavy's heart, his birds are just straight up inside Heavy's organs, he basically tells the Spy head (which is actually a reference to the OG Meet the Medic video) to shut up, and laughs away like what he's doing is no big deal. He's got a manic twitch to him. He's a brilliant scientist, though a mad one at that.

I have a lot to say about Medic if you can't already tell. He's my silly!! He's the guy giving me all of this brainrot over this game. I just go into detail about his characterization because it's a major pet peeve of mine when people label him as a uncaring sadist who hates his team and wants to experiment on them all. He IS an uncaring sadist, but he's sill and I will go down swinging on this hill that he, at the bare minimum, cares about his team. I rationalize his in-game voice lines by saying it's from him a) dying a lot and getting pissed off at how his teammates just let it happen and b) he's having a manic episode every day at work and has zero filter. All of them have zero filter when battling. If they all acted the way they did in the game, then characters like Scout should be GO GO GO GO!!!! 24/7 without rest, something that's certainly not the case in Expiration Date. On a similar note, let's not forget that Medic and Engie decided to spend their last few days trying to develop some kind of cure for their tumors.

Anyways, deranged EngieMedic fangirling aside (these two make me violently ill and they are the only characters I could even dare to say I "ship")(even then it's as a QPR because I'm diseased and hit Medic with my aroace-ification ray)(you cannot convince me that this man in alloro in any way shape or form he does not even know what an emotion besides mania and blistering rage is), Medic is a fascinating character who I feel not too many people really get. He's either written as a pencil-pushing busy-body vaguely Nazi stereotype or as a soft uwu twink cinnamon roll who wants to help his team and only has a small sadistic streak and only wants to be railed by Heavy. You guys don't get it. He's silly :)

Oh, yeah, right, Heavy. Heavy and Medic definitely do have a connection established. I left it out in Heavy's section, mostly because I want to give focus onto Heavy as a character and leave Medic out of it. Heavy already gets piss pour treatment by the fandom, where he's just reduced to "the other guy" in every ship. He doesn't deserve that...

But, yeah, Medic and Heavy certainly is kinda pushed. Medic and Heavy duos in the game aren't that uncommon, as Heavy is a good tank and Medic can hide behind him, leading to Heavy more or less becoming a stream of bullets to mow down anybody nearby. In Meet the Medic, Medic experiments on Heavy's heart and the big climactic end has him activating the übercharge on Heavy. In the comics themselves, Classic Heavy, the inverse of our normal Heavy, is antagonistic and extremely rude towards Medic. The complete and utter opposite of what Heavy and Medic had back in the day. Then finally he shows up when Medic is literally About To Die.

Blah blah blah, there's a lot of stuff relating back to Heavy and Medic at the VERY LEAST having some sort of ties and liking to each other. That's the reason why there's like 1100+ fics on Ao3 tagged with them.

Medic is a silly goober as previously mentioned. As shown in the Engineer section, he experiments on random civilians. I like to imagine that he doesn't particularly do random fucked up experiments on the RED team, but rather he more or less does everything on civilians. He enjoys putting somebody through pain and suffering, but he wants it to mean something. He doesn't want to just mess with people. He tests out the bounds of which a person can go to, which he does on random people he plucks off the street because there's replaceable to him. His teammates? Not so much.

Oh, and also the Classic Team. He doesn't care about these people. They suck! They aren't his friends. So he just does. this sort of stuff.

He's a bit special. Love him dearly for it.

Sniper, Aww Piss

The Sniper, real name Mick Mundy (real birth name being Mun-Dee), is an young Aussie from the outback. Yes. Young. This man is roughly 30 in 1972 (when the comics take place). Can't you tell by how stereotypically young he looks? Sniper fights using a sniper rifle (duh), an SMG (or other items), and a kukri (big knife).

He's one of the most level-headed of the mercs. Not sane, but rather a man who sticks to being professional and a set of rules. Despite this more refined sense of mercenary work, his parents don't exactly support him being a crazed gunman. Also his parents aren't his biological ones.

That's right, Sniper is adopted. Why do we care? Because he's not Australian, but rather from New Zealand. New Zealand is at the bottom of the ocean, by the way. In 1932 they sunk their entire country because Bill-Bel, Sniper's dad, convinced everyone that the world was going to become an uninhabitable wasteland if they didn't otherwise do this. Ten years later, and when little baby Mun-Dee was born, Bill-Bel and his wife began working on a rocket to escape to space because now they were convinced that earth was going to explode or something. They only built the rocket big enough for one person though, so they fought over who would survive. While fighting, Mun-Dee crawled into it, was shot up into the sky, and then crash landed immediately onto Australia.

So Sniper is Superman.

Also, remember how I said that Sniper sticks to rules and such? Yeah, apparently being a professional also means throwing jars of piss at people. Jarate, a form of jar-based karate invented by Saxton Hale, owner of MannCo.

Sniper's just like that.

Spy, Fr*ch

The Spy, real name unknown, is the second most mysterious character. He's from France (no idea where particularly) and he's just kinda. yeah. There. He fights using his butterfly knife, which he can instantly kill anybody he backstabs, a revolver, and a sapper so he can destroy the Engineer's buildings. Also, an invisibility watch, where he's able to cloak himself and become invisible, and the ability to disguise himself as the enemy team.

The Spy is a richy-rich upperclassman. He likes the finer things in life. Smoking, wine, expensive suits, all that. He's a lot more refined and generally snobbish than the other mercs. However, I don't think of him as exactly mean or rude. Definitely stuck-up, but he cares about his teammates. In Expiration Date, he takes the time to ask everyone what their final wish is. When that's a bust, he then happily spends time with Scout and teaching him how to get ladies.

Ah, yes, right. Scout and Spy. Spy is actually the Scout's father. It's a theory that has been around since the release of Meet the Spy, with the RED Spy being in pornography staring Scout's mother. It's been tossed around and hinted at, with their dynamic and Expiration Date as well as a couple references to Spy and DNA tests. Then, in The Naked and the Dead comic, it's pretty much outright confirmed. While Scout is bleeding out and on the verge of death, Spy takes a moment to finally give Scout some peace.

...while disguised as Tom Jones, of course.

I could go on and on about this scene and how I feel about Spy's characterization and his dynamic with Scout, but blah blah blah...yeah. Spy TF2.

Annnddd that's it for now! Basic summary of it all. The characters, the lore, all of it. I've reached the image limit and have been sort of dancing around it for a while now. Hope this was informative. Toodles!!

[tf2incorrectquotes]

Handmaiden: After 24 hours of hard labor, your three sons are here!

Zepheniah Mann: Want to know what was hard? The hundred year war.

[pyroclastic-bro]

Im pretty sure that if the tf2 comics its implied that either saxton hale's father or grandfather (i forgot the exact timeline) was fucking zephaniah mann's wife

[anonymouscentral]

Okay so basically

There was an old rich dude who owned a company named Zephaniah Mann. He had two sons who hated eachother, and they convinced him to buy New Mexico because they heard rumors of gravel being there. When they arrived, there was nothing but sand, and Zephaniah got every disease known to man. He gave his company to some dude named Barnabus Hale, and the entirety of New Mexico to his sons to share before promptly dying.

They, of course, immediately hired mercenaries to kill eachother. This team included Abraham Lincoln, inventor of Stairs, and Nikolai Tesla. This didn’t work, because they both had hired mercenaries, and thus kicked off the gravel war. They paid this dude who isn’t super important whose last name is Conagher to build immortality machines, and gave him a miracle rock called Australium that’s from outer space to do it.

Fast-forward a long time, and the gravel wars are still going on. Dell Conagher, AKA the Engineer, is hired to make new immortality machines and does so. Suddenly, both brothers are invited to meet at the Alamo, which they had rented and flown out to New Mexico. They met, put aside their differences, began hatching a plan to create a machine to get one of them pregnant so that the Mann family would have an heir to inherent their companies(Reliable Excavation and Demolition[RED] and Builder’s League United[BLU]), before promptly being killed by their secret third brother who’s name is Gray Mann and he was raised by hawks. The Gravel War ends, and Saxton Hale(current owner of Mann Co.) hires the playable mercs to fight off his robots which run on money. They do this for a while before Gray Mann confronts Saxton directly and has his daughter fight him for Mann Co. His daughter wins because Saxton doesn’t want to fight a child, and the mercs are fired.

A while passes, and the secret person behind the Gravel War(the administrator) messages her assistant(Miss Pauling) to find the mercs. She does this(except Dell, because he’s building another immortality machine for The Administrator) and they go to kill Gray Mann. Gray Mann hires the TFC(Team Fortress Classic) mercs to fight them off, and is eventually killed for his immortality machine. Meanwhile, the playable TF2 mercs are fighting the other eight TFC mercs off(killing them) as well as a giant army of robots that’s drunk from the demoman(Tavish Finnegan Degroot)’s blood, eventually doing so and killing the TFC heavy. That’s where it ends for now because the last comic isn’t out yet.

Oh, also, three of the TF2 mercs die. The Sniper is killed by the TFC mercs and brought back by the Medic, the Medic is killed by the TFC heavy and brought back by trading someone(unclear if it’s one of the TF2 or TFC merc’s)’s soul for a pen in a deal with the devil, and the Scout is killed by a bunch of robots and promptly brought back because he’s god’s gift to women(they have three foosball tables in heaven). Also, Tom Jones has his neck snapped by the Soldier, and then again in heaven by a cherub because the Scout was tricked into believing Tom Jones was his father by the Spy in a heartbreaking moment where the Spy reveals he’s the Scout’s father and says he’s proud of him before he dies.

Oh, and Shakespearicles invented Rocket Jumping.

Any questions?

-Mod Olivo

oh my this is interesting, i may not quite know who any of these people are due to my virus tendencies but this was a good read! thank you mod olivo:)

[cultofmalcolm]

Refs for TF2 characters you never wanted!!

Redmond and Blutard Mann

Gray and Olivia Mann

Tom Jones!!

Bidwell and Reddy

Bill-Bell and Lar-Nah!

Im gonna make a Zephaniah Mann and Barnibus Hale one, tmrw too

[hop-a-lot]

HC: Bidwell created a checkbox system for Saxton so he could put himself at ease when sorting out his paperworks , also it'd be funny if the mayonnaise man might refer to Soldier who stored his sour creams in one of Mann Co's warehouses, later on it was infested with raccoons and leading to the disposal of some classic hat cosmetics. (You can read it full on here)

I remember there even was an ARG during the early 'meet the pyro' update, which reveal the 'Poopy Joe' lore that ties with Administrator's secret plan, all of these happened during TF2 golden era where you get official contents and the enjoyable gameplay experience

Judging by Valve's current management toward TF2, it's possible that we won't be getting more of these henceforth :( if yes that'd be a miracle...

also more lore related additions I found it interesting:

A few pages illustrating Homeless Soldier harassing Spy after being kicked out from Merasmus's castle, with the layout resembling pages from a children's storybook.

Two photos of Administrator and Saxton Hale, along with the assistants were in a court for the company's Australium substitute scandal/ Poppy Joe incident during the Pyromania update, behind the photo is their recorded speech, parts of Administrator's statement had been censored.

Zephaniah's will and testament. Zephaniah leaves all of his property to Barnabus and Elizabeth, giving absolutely nothing except a piece of land to his sons, and the way he writes truly shows that he felt disgruntled towards them even in the last moments before he died. Also I find the relationship between Barnabus and Zephaniah is quite endearing..!

I'd like to obtain his garbage...

I truly missed the time when Valve would insert Saxton and co mini lore and interactions in some update pages, also they made Saxton and Bidwell almost sound like couple banter through notes and paper is so silly to me