#the administration series

[mannafrancis]

Books out of print

Just to update everyone, following the closure of Casperian Books the Administration paperback and ebooks are no longer available for sale.

I'm exploring future options for them, and I'll let you know if there's any further news. In the mean time, thanks to everyone who bought a copy of any of the books.

[paramorin]

hi! I stumbled upon Mind Fuck by a friend's recommendation, but after checking out the author's website I couldn't tell if the series was overall finished or not. I don't like starting a series when I don't know if there will be a resolution for the main couple at the end or not. could you maybe help out? :)

Hi! Short answer is, it's finished enough to read. That is, there may be additional books written in the future, who knows, but there are no plot bits that remain unresolved. If there are any additional books written at any point, it would mean a new plot, probably. Unlike a lot of book series, in this series each book is self-contained. There are developments, so reading in order is advised, but you can stop at any point. Which also means that if you finish the first book (or the second, or the third) and decide you don't want to read further, there are no cliff hangers and you don't have to go looking for spoilers.

So, I recommend reading the first one, and if you enjoy it enough that you want to spend more time in this world, with these characters, read more. On a side note, a lot of things that were scifi during the writing of the first book no longer are (like touchscreen gadgets, "screens" in the books, or automated voice-to-text transcribing). I suspect that the more retro-futuristic the series becomes, the less likely additional sequels become.

if you choose to read it, I hope you like it!

[pancake-cookies-acorn-jelly]

Reading The Administration 1:

Oh, God, are you stupid or what? He's not going to change! He's dangerous, Warrick, you need to leave.

Reading The Administration 9:

Oh, God, are you stupid or what? He's not going to change! He's dangerous, Toreth, you need to leave.

[darksidedivas]

Like all good scifi, Star Wars has been trying to warn us since 1977. Andor just dropped the space wizards and started spelling the warning out explicitly.

Like here, where Nemik describes exactly what the Trump administration is doing right now:

[bembwashere]

THIS IS NOT A DRILL. I REPEAT. THIS IS NOT A DRILL

THE LAST TF2 COMIC IS OUT. I REPEAT, THE LAST TEAM FORTRESS 2 COMIC HAS BEEN RELEASED INTO THE WEBSITE.

[critzkrieg]

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

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

[clonebrainrot]

While the economy slowly and sometimes not that slowly falls apart around me at least I will have

*checks notes*

Andor to Cheer me up. Cause Andor isn’t depressing at all (I like angst and trauma in fictional characters)

[nando161mando]

[rpgmaking]

some more time skip pauling

[mannafrancis]

Are you still writing? And if so, what could we expect to see in the future? Plus I noted that you don't plan to write any more Administration books - what was your thinking on that? Not trying to convince you differently (although I loved them so!), just curious as to your perspective.

Hi!

I'm not writing at the moment, I'm afraid.

I won't say never to writing any more Administration books. I'd just need to have a new idea for a book that excited me enough to want to write it. So, you never know!

[deadpresidents]

As a follow-up to the previous post, here is Nathaniel Hawthorne's dedication of his 1863 book Our Old Home: A Series of English Sketches to his former classmate, longtime friend, and former President Franklin Pierce, which Hawthorne insisted upon including in the book against the wishes of his publisher and adamant opposition from Hawthorne's friends and colleagues.

[avaisnerdytoo]

"You're sitting here defending a system that's ready to set the world on fire, maybe you're the one in a cult."

Been thinking about this scene a lot lately... With everything and all, but especially with the recent plane crashes...

[blconnoisseur]

I want to eat glass

[gophergal]

ok so a doodle with a target audience of one before I go to bed

Just some team fort characters cast as characters in the Seven Deadly Sins vocaloid series by MOTHY. Here we have the Administrator in Judgement of Corruption (Greed), Demoman in The Muzzle Of Nemesis (Wrath), and Medic in Gift From the Princess Who Brings Sleep (Sloth)

ok night

[not-poignant]

The latest UtR update on AO3 got me hooked and I could no longer constrain myself and had to read the other chapters on Patreon. Now I need to know: does Lucien have any redeeming character traits in the series or can I add him straight to the list of characters that deserve the worst? That attitude of his towards Faber made me so mad lmao

Hi anon!

This actually reminds me of the ask I got recently about how awful Augus is as a character and how it's impossible to consider him through a positive light after reading Falling Falling Stars. Because that's how he seems if you've never read him in anything else of mine!

My narrators are unreliable, anon. We only ever see Lucien very briefly through the jealous eyes of an insecure man.

(Spoilers for a future brief verbal encounter between Lucien and Faber in Underline the Red).

Lucien is an extremely vulnerable omega who is in an institution that has temporary custody of him. They control what he eats, what he does, whether he leaves or not (i.e. he's functionally imprisoned), who fucks him, if he gets to see anyone else, if he can talk to his partner and family back home and how often. He has significant psychiatric issues around his own insecurities re: jealously and his partner, and he clocks Faber as being in love with Caleb, and he's right.

And that's incredibly unethical of Faber, honestly, to not have disclosed any of this to Dr Gary (like Dr Gary will be right to consider firing him over this in the future). It puts Lucien's mental health in direct and severe jeopardy, and is ironically likely what causes his relapse that causes Caleb to suggest domestic discipline in the first place (oh, Faber, the irony).

Because Lucien's there to learn that actually a lot of his jealousy and insecurity is unfounded. Instead, he learns the opposite, that no matter who he bonds with, someone else is there loving his potential partner while he perceives himself as having very little control (and in the case of Hillview - this is true, all he has are his words).

He's a chronically disabled omega who needs a disability aid (walking stick) to get around, he's a second class citizen, he's agreed with his partner to stay at Hillview because they both recognise how sick he's getting.

Faber is not a mental health patient/omega like Lucien is. He's a staff member who is nursing unrequited loved to an alpha companion, that he's refused to disclose, while still interacting with Caleb and his omegas. Imho, while Lucien is very good at lashing out, he's not wrong to, and that's why Faber fully acknowledges what Lucien is saying and listens to him, and basically never interacts with him again, and avoids Caleb where possible.

Lucien's mean about it, but Lucien is right re: Faber trying to hide his feelings because he knows what will happen if people find out, and that it's also wrong/unfair to put Lucien in that position.

And Faber knows that.

So yeah. The reader is meant to hate Lucien on a surface level, in the same way that Faber does.

But consider that Faber also sometimes seems to hate all omegas. He finds the smell of their heats disgusting. It's actually pretty normal for people to go through a phase of rejecting the thing that they are, if that's something hated in society. Faber's oscillating mixed feelings of bitterness, resentment and cutting attitude is actually mirrored in Lucien.

Faber has thought extremely savage, scathing and unforgiving things himself to the people around him (and himself). Lucien responds to Faber like Faber is an omega (something Faber doesn't recognise yet), because Faber...kind of acts like one in moments like that. (Efnisien also picks up on this, Faber is not great to him in the beginning of Underline the Black, in a very specific way designed for Efnisien to pick up on, and for Gary to miss. Faber behaves jealously, and constantly suggests to Gary that he should get rid of Efnisien, before he finally adjusts to the absence of Gary in his life. Faber is possessive and manipulative!)

Lucien ultimately doesn't need any redeeming characteristics because he's a victim who is at Hillview to heal and Faber is jeopardising that. We can hate him, but that's just the fact. He didn't try to kill Kadek when he arrived at Hillview, he hasn't tried to destroy memories of James, things Efnisien has done even though we love him all the same (ideally). Lucien felt understandably jealous/insecure (literally the thing he's at Hillview to be treated for, safe from people who will be in love with his lover until Faber) and he lashed out meanly.

If a staff member of Hillview can't handle some rude words, they shouldn't work there.

But yeah, I like the Lucien and Faber encounter because they are both extremely similar people in some ways. They are both bitter, jealous, resentful people capable of very scathing thoughts (and words). The only difference is that in that moment, Faber is the recipient and we feel bad for him. I mean, I do feel bad for him. Faber is in a bad place psychologically, it's a horrible thing for him to experience.

If we were getting Lucien's story from his perspective, and saw the panic attacks he had afterwards, and the regression he went through, etc. it might be different. But it doesn't have to be! Lucien in that moment functions as a reality check for Faber, and a very effective one at that. We're meant to hate him, but also meant to understand that Faber's love for Caleb is not as subtle as he thinks it is in the sense that - omegas can see it for what it is.

I personally like the one moment where we see that Lucien might have a heart when Faber admits his parents are dead, and we can see that he doesn't react with savage satisfaction, but like Faber broke the narrative he'd built for himself in his own insecure, jealous, scared mind.

[iguessitsjustme]

I love Wandee Goodday a whole lot but I cannot handle this fucking scholarship competition. I beg your everlovin pardon? The employees and the patients at the hospital will vote on the winner???? The patients???? Dear god I hope it's an anonymous vote. Do the patients have the opportunity to opt out? What exactly are the voting on? What is the criteria? Why is part of the scholarship to best market the hospital? They're doctors. In what world does this showcase which doctor is most deserving of the scholarship for doctors?

Their fellow doctors also vote? Again I hope the vote is anonymous. I'd be scared of potential retaliation if I were a patient or a coworker. What is the point of the written test if 70% of the total score is based in something that neither of them are professionally trained to do?

What is the criteria?? What are the rules and requirements? What instructions have they been given to follow? They have four months to come up with a campaign? Do they have any other deadlines?

Why is this a part of the scholarship for DOCTORS???????

I love this show but I am bamboozled.