#the esquire will be the reason for my death

[softiedingo]

DEAR GOD- SKGSKSGAKHFGHSDGJSHFD

[calmariah]

Using Canto VII to Predict Dante's Identity

This theory now has a second part! Please read it HERE!

(major spoilers for the games 'Library of Ruina' and 'Limbus Company' up to Canto VII Part 2 under the cut! you have been warned!)

(EXTREMELY long post ahead!)

SECTION 0: PROLOGUE

Dante. The tenth sinner of LCB. Our Executive Manager Esquire.

Despite being our story's protagonist, Dante's identity and past is a gaping void.

It's very interesting when a story has a character with amnesia, because we all get to make wild guesses at their true secret identity.

I've seen a few predictions. Ayin, Roland, that one random Seven Association Fixer from Library of Ruina of the same name.

The Vermillion Cross, even. The colours line up, as does the Cross carrying their weapon on their back. Biblical imagery makes a lot of sense here.

The character I'm about to accuse of being Clockhead however, is a candidate I have seen no person put forth.

Indulge me for a moment and assume that Dante's identity is possible to reasonably guess at all. That they are a character we have become acquainted with in prior Project Moon works, or indeed the content of Limbus Company itself.

As of writing, the most recent update to Limbus Company is Canto VII Part 2. This theory will assume that you have played or otherwise experienced its story content to completion.

This is because I believe VII-2 has finally delivered us the information we need to make that reasonable guess.

For now though, let's cast our minds much, much further back.

SECTION 1: LIBRARIAN OF DEATH

Curtain call for the Reception of the Black Silence.

Roland lies defeated, and the player is given a choice.

Choosing forgiveness leads to the true, canonical ending of the game. According to Steam achievement statistics, only 10.1% of the player base chose to take Roland's head instead.

If Roland is slain, Angela uses the light of the Library to complete her dream of becoming human.

The Patron Librarians are killed, turned back into books. Angela stands alone atop her ivory nest.

No longer an Impurity, the Library is free to violently expand as a Star of the City.

It would remain that way for thirteen years.

After a fade to black, we meet a new character. One who, at the time, had no name.

???: That was one grand job you did with all these dangerous monsters you've gathered, Miss Librarian of Death.

ANGELA: …Good work.

???: “A monster should behave as one…”

???: I trusted and followed you, knowing nothing.

ANGELA: How many colleagues of yours… the so-called ‘Bookhunters’ have you killed?

???: I’ve lost count.

ANGELA: And countless more people will die in the future.

ANGELA: I know humans. I learned the secrets of mankind that the City had been hiding from them.

???: I’m sure you do… And I know you.

???: Thank you for all your hard work. Please die once and for all.

ANGELA: Thank you for putting me to rest, o child who had no name.

???: Even the brightest star fades someday.

???: It will eventually be felled by man, just like any other star.

???: As tonight, again, the stars

are brushed by the wind.

"The Bookhunter" was the only name we had for this character for a very long time. But you may know them by another name.

Perhaps that name is Bari, the Knight of the White Moon.

Or perhaps that name is Dante.

SECTION 2: PRINCESS BARI

It's extremely common for important characters in Project Moon's universe to share their names with figures in stories, mythology or religion.

Roland of the 12 Paladins of Charlemagne. Emil Sinclair from Demian. Moses, after a prophet in Judaism, Christianity, and a smattering of Abrahamic religions.

I have reason to believe Bari is no exception. I'm not particularly well read on the following subject, so I encourage you to do your own research. Apologies if I make any mistakes, and please correct them if you can.

However, I will lay out the basics here that support my theory.

Princess Bari is an incredibly important figure in Korean mythology and spirituality. Born as the seventh daughter to royals who wanted a son, Bari is banished to fend for herself outside of the walls of her family's kingdom.

There are many different versions and tellings of the story, but most share the central story structure. When Bari's parents fall ill, they learn (through dream, premonition, or any number of reasons) that the cure to what ails them is a water or elixir in a far away divine or spiritual realm.

Learning of her parents' illness, Bari sets off on a journey to cross the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead to find the cure.

When she reaches this divine realm, Bari collects water of life and flowers of resurrection, and returns home.

She learns that she is much too late however, as her parents have passed away and their bodies will soon be buried.

Bari attempts to heal them anyway-- and the flowers she found restore her parents back to their mortal coil, and the water of life cures their ails.

In some versions of the myth, Bari ascends and becomes a goddess after her death. Typically, she is a goddess of the divine realm, and/or a goddess who leads the deceased to the afterlife.

Back to Limbus Company for a moment, Bari tells Sancho the following when they finally introduce themself at the bank of the River of Oblivion.

(I understand that this is Sansón's telling of events. Since he seems to be attempting to accurately restore Sancho's memories, we can assume at least this much is accurate.)

Searching for a flower grown in water.

I believe there is enough evidence to believe that Bari is based on the mythological princess.

SECTION 3: INTRO WRAP UP

There are four figures to consider from here on out; two versions of each character.

Dante Limbus Company, bumbling executive manager.

Dante Alighieri, legendary Italian poet who features in his Divine Comedy.

Bari Project Moon, Knight of the White Moon and in another time, Bookhunter.

Princess Bari, mythological shaman who crossed between the worlds of life and death to save her family from death.

It's important to keep the distinction between these figures in mind. Adaptation does not need to be 100% faithful. Just because something happened to Princess Bari does not mean it happened or will happen to our Bari.

That said, looking to the original stories can be helpful to understand themes that appear in Bari and Dante's stories, and the ways they might overlap.

Following so far? I really hope so.

That should be all the setup we need now.

We have our two characters, Dante and Bari. Let us now consider the themes they share, to see if they may be the same character.

Each of these examples, considered alone, may appear unconvincing or coincidental. But I think the sheer amount of common links you can draw between Dante and Bari make it impossible to say them being the same character is baseless.

So, allow me. I believe the primary themes we must look at are:

KATABASIS

TIME

RESURRECTION

LITERATURE

THE SAPLING OF LIGHT

Let's tackle these one at a time.

SECTION 4: KATABASIS

Katabasis is a word referring to a journey into the underworld, a reoccurring motif seen in countless mythologies or works of literature.

Katabasis is a very interesting theme here, because it can actually be seen in ALL FOUR versions of the characters we have.

Dante (Divine Comedy) is obvious and simple. Dante and Virgil's descent into Inferno is one of the most famous examples of a katabasis.

Dante (Limbus Company) is similar. They are aboard a hell bus driven by someone named Charon, and the chapter of their story we're currently in is called Inferno.

While not a literal journey into the underworld, it is undeniably, thematically, a quest into Hell. Counts!

Princess Bari journeys across the boundaries of life and death to get the water and flowers of resurrection. Entering the divine realm of death? That's a katabasis!

And the knight Bari is the one that maybe seems the most out of place. But I think this line from Sansón's play might help us understand where they fit in.

Bari's search for the river that grows the flower they seek is leading them deep into the abyss under the Ruins.

They're already a wanderer, someone who travels far across the City and the Ruins. It could be said that they were already on a journey very similar to Dante's.

It's another case where the journey is symbolic-- looking for an object far beneath the crust of the earth, travelling across a hellscape to find it.

Oh dear, that reminds me of someone already.

SECTION 5: TIME

Dante's associations with time are obvious. They have a clock for a head, slowed down time in Canto 6, and are somehow able to 'rewind' the sinners back to life.

They have also been having strange visions where they glimpse the past of the sinners.

That last part is what interests me. Because these quick, unclear glimpses through time remind me of a certain river.

The Mirae-mirae River, which Bari encourages their companion to look into.

And Sancho does.

For Bari to understand how the Mirae-mirae River works, they would need to have looked into it themself.

Potentially, they even sipped from it, though I have no evidence. I simply find it strange that Bari would know the risks of drinking the river water, yet not the river's name.

If they had some other source of information to learn this, wouldn't it have included a name? Who can say? It doesn't actually matter.

What matters is the fact that Bari could see the future. If not by drinking, by looking into the water surface.

This goes a long way to explain this bizarre part of Sansón's stageplay earlier.

Bari arrives to entertain the lonely king with stories, and seemingly two of the stories they tell are the events of Canto V and Canto VI.

Assuming that the Mirae-mirae River shows you visions in YOUR future, not just any random person's, then for this vision to make sense, Bari needs to witness Canto V and Canto VI in the future.

It's my understanding that they might've seen their own participation in those stories as Dante.

"A hero's perilous encounter with an unyielding monster" could potentially be describing Canto III, with Sinclair vs. Peccatula Kromer, but that one's a bit too vague to be helpful.

It's not hard and fast evidence, and might just be an innocent bit of narrative rhyming. "Golly gee, isn't it fun that the stories Bari told were coincidentally similar to the adventure we are on?" Maybe.

Regardless, we have a character who is seeing glimpses of the past in Dante, and a character who can see glimpses of the future in Bari. I find that an interesting thematic connection.

SECTION 6: RESURRECTION

Now this one's a bit more promising. Being able to bring the sinners back from death and mortal injury is arguably the most notable of Dante's abilities.

Princess Bari's katabasis led her to claiming the flowers that allowed her to perform a miracle of resurrection, and she herself became a goddess of life after death following her own passing.

Both are figures capable of resurrection.

Though, that's the obvious part. I'd like to instead speak of Dante's personal death and resurrection. Because it could be said that Dante has died before.

Standing over the bank of the Lethe, Bari shared their concerns with their confidant.

To lose your memories of the life you have lived is much like death.

When the clock replaced Dante's head, their memories quickly washed away into oblivion.

Assume for me they were Bari. Bari died here, and "Dante" woke up in their place.

As Executive Manager, Dante leads the sinners through Inferno, as seen below.

(Thank you Limbus Company .gg wiki for sourcing the text here! I did not want to have to refight GasHarpoon just for a tiny part of this post...)

ISHMAEL: Before I saw that recruitment post... after I boarded the Pequod… even after I joined Limbus Company… I've never taken the helm of my own ship.

ISHMAEL: But… I think I've finally found my compass.

AHAB: Does a mere deckhand dare speak of her own compass now?

ISHMAEL: Yeah. An incredibly annoying compass that keeps getting in my way. But… they're also a compass that, even as they waver, points to where I want to go…

ISHMAEL: So I want to go on an adventure with that compass. A real adventure. To explore and learn this world we live in.

And it's not just Ishmael, either. After Heathcliff's distortion ended, he said the following.

HEATHCLIFF: Oi, Clockhead.

HEATHCLIFF: You wouldn't know this, but... Well, everyone but you would know.

HEATHCLIFF: When I'm starting to lose my mind, when I'm completely blinded and deafened…

HEATHCLIFF: When I feel my sense of self, my very being, slowly fading away into the dark…

HEATHCLIFF: … I hear that faint noise.

HEATHCLIFF: That damned noise of a clock.

HEATHCLIFF: It opens my eyes. Drags me back to reality.

DANTE: Well, that's…

DANTE: Because I'm your manager. Bringing you back to your paths is what I do.

Despite being lost in oblivion-- again, akin to death-- Dante guides their sinners along their correct paths.

Please recall what became of Princess Bari after her death.

A goddess of the divine realm who guided wayward souls through the afterlife.

From Inferno to Paradiso, perhaps.

(Huh. Maybe 'guidance' would've been a better name for this section. By this logic, maybe Bari is Vergilius.....!!.)

SECTION 7: LITERATURE

This one's quite interesting to me.

Other than being named for a poet, Dante has very little association with actual literature. They write notes on their little PDA device, but that's about it as far as I understand.

Bari however has incredible association with literature!

Most obviously with how they regaled (a person who I am comfortable assuming is) the original Don Quixote with tales of adventure and excitement.

Assuming I'm correct about some of their stories coming from the Mirae-mirae River, they would've had to pen some of those tales themself, drawing from what they saw.

In another time they were a person known as a Bookhunter, and personally responsible for executing a library's director.

When they do so, Bari says the following to the dead air.

BARI: As tonight, again, the stars

are brushed by the wind.

The line break is unusual for how Library of Ruina formats narration or dialogue, and it brings to mind poetry. One last short stanza for a dead woman, perhaps.

Literature is a motif associated with extremely important or powerful characters in Project Moon media, such as Angela. The second game took place in a god damn library!

Dante is named after a poet. Bari was a storyteller. I think this can't NOT be important.

Bari = Vergilius theory gains merit...

SECTION 8: THE SAPLING OF LIGHT

As part of Sansón's stageplay, Bari says the following.

BARI (SINCLAIR): It is said that when an efflorescent tree comes to blossom, steeped and nurtured in the waters of many rivers since its saplinghood, it becomes imbued with a special power.

BARI (SINCLAIR): I can't even begin to imagine what powers a tree born from that particular river may hold.

I think it's possible that the river Bari seeks is the river of human consciousness that Lobotomy Corporation Facility X-394 was built over-- and thus the river that the Library was built over as well.

Dante's Sapling of Light abilities correspond with the Sephirot of the Seed of Light project, meaning it's extremely likely they share an origin.

This is hardly breaking news, but the arrangement of the Sephirot and their departments in Lobotomy Corporation form the inverted version of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, forming instead the Tree of Death.

Dante's Sapling of Light ability menu shows Hokma at the top of the diagram, where as Malkuth was at the top in Lobotomy Corporation.

As Dante unlocks more abilities, we should see the Tree of Life form from each of these connections, this time healthy and upright.

It's possible that Bari's goal was to create that Tree of Life. Find the river that the Tree of Death-- the Library-- grew from, and nurture a healthy sapling in its waters again. One untainted by Angela's ambition.

(It's possible that Bari seeking the river predates the Seed of Light project. I don't think this changes much-- Bari would still be seeking to create what would end up being Dante's Sapling of Light.)

At the very least, this would establish a connection between Bari and the sapling inside of Dante's clock. I don't think it should be ignored.

SECTION 9: LIGHTNING ROUND

Phew. That's a lot of talking! I've established the main points that I feel tie a deep thematic link between Bari and our esteemed manager, even if I haven't proven necessarily that they are the same character.

However, I believe that if we're intended to guess Dante's identity before the reveal, Bari is pretty much the only coherent option.

It wouldn't be much of a twist if I could figure out all the who what when wheres and whys before it happens, I suppose!

One last section for the road. Here's a bunch of stuff that I noticed that probably doesn't matter, but might serve as tertiary evidence for this theory.

STARS:

Stars are a motif that came up a lot for Dante towards the start of the game, in the prologue and Canto 1. Here's some examples.

PANTHER: It's a shame-- I wanted to have a look at your face. I reckon you won't tell us where your star is, right?

DANTE: Like hell I am. I'm taking ■■■'s location to the grave with...

FAUST: You've lost your way in a dark forest.

DANTE: I'm... sorry, what?

FAUST: Yet you were not overcome with fear. Why was that?

DANTE: That's...

DANTE: I could simply... lift my head to find the star.

FAUST: That's right.

FAUST: Now, repeat with the heart what I tell you aloud as you remind yourself of that image.

FAUST: Follow your star.

DANTE: Follow... your star.

It's currently unclear what Dante's star is, and I will make no attempt to figure out what it could be here. Stars are undeniably a motif of theirs, is my point here.

Bari is the one to behead the Library as it exists as a Star of the City in the Librarian of Death ending, and muses on the nature of stars going out in that vaguely poetic nature as the game fades to black.

JUST KIND OF THE WAY THEY HOLD THEMSELVES:

That title's pretty flippant, but this is, in my opinion, one of the BETTER pieces of evidence!

Take a look at these two sprites for me.

The Knight of the White Moon! Hardly raring for battle. Their left hand tucked into their coat pocket, their right arm resting lazily on the scabbard of their sword.

Let's look at Dante's conversation sprite from some of the earlier cantos...

Oh my.

Well, that's not the only position we see Bari standing in. Let's look at that blurry CG from the end of Part 2. Unblurred, of course.

You have to admit, it feels at least a LITTLE bit deliberate!

They also both wear long, coloured coats with full black clothing underneath-- but I will readily admit that "long coat/suit with monocoloured shirt under it" describes 90% of the characters in this game.

PRONOUNS:

Both Dante and Bari have been consistently referred to with they/them pronouns, contrary to what some select few Limbus fans on Reddit would rather you believe.

I personally don't subscribe to the whole "the reason why Dante uses they/them pronouns is because they're intended to be a self-insert character for you, the player!"

I think Dante is a HELPFUL player insert-- for those who have not played Lobotomy Corporation or Library of Ruina. Their unfamiliarity with the City, its people and its customs is an excellent way to ease a new player into the world of Project Moon.

That does NOT mean that Dante IS the player, however. Dante has many characteristics of their own and is no more a reflection of the player than any other character.

It is entirely possible that Dante and Bari both using neutral pronouns is currently just an obfuscation to hide Dante's identity and Bari's general entire thing from the player for the time being.

If that is the case, and we find out they're both men or something... Egg on my face, I suppose.

Either way, it's a characteristic both of them share. Add it to the pile.

(Though if they both turn out to be non-binary or women, I will derive a little bit of O-05-76 from all the he/him Dante defaulters...)

(Thank you the-spoonicorn for the correction! In 7-35, Sancho says the following to Don Quixote.)

SANCHO: Will she be coming today? Again?

(Bari, at the very least, is confirmed to be a woman. This does not disprove that she could be Dante, though it does kneecap the shared motif of having a neutral or obscured gender identity.)

(Thank you again!)

BARI-DEGI:

It's my understanding that the mythological Princess Bari's name derives from Bari-degi, which can mean 'abandoned child' or 'thrown away thing' in Korean.

This is because she was abandoned by her family for being the seventh daughter born to them.

With Bari cautioning Sancho about drinking from the River of Oblivion, it feels strange to suggest they would've willingly cooperated with a plan that would've resulted in the erasure of their own self and memories. It disquieted them enough before.

This isn't me saying it hurts the theory-- I actually think it IMPROVES it.

It would be dramatic and also fulfils part of the original myth regarding Princess Bari, and makes Bari's name a fun self-fulfilling prophecy.

If they craved the power of resurrection so much that they would take their own memories, despite cautioning Sancho against it. That they would throw their old name away, as Princess Bari was thrown away by her family.

It symbolizes both Princess Bari dying after a natural life, and her crossing into the realm of the dead in the first place.

In that dark forest, Bari would've taken a katabasis-- died and crossed into the realm of the dead. And they immediately began an adventure through that Inferno as Dante.

(Side note, perhaps if the Sapling inside of Dante's head was also watered by the River of Oblivion... could that be why Dante's memories are missing?)

Well, I'm not here to prove that.

I'm also not here to prove Bari is Dante. I just want you to think about it!

SECTION 10: IN CONCLUSION, IT WOULD BE PRETTY COOL:

And wouldn't it!? Dante's true identity is a mystery that's been hanging over us for such a long time. If we find out that we've had canonical pre-amnesia Dante dialogue since Canto 7-- hell, since LIBRARY OF RUINA, that'd be incredible!

I think it makes perfect sense that if Bari is pre-amnesia Dante, they appeared in one of Library of Ruina's bad endings. It's an obscure ending to a long and difficult game, and we know that Project Moon plan these projects far in advance.

Why not tease the protagonist of your third game, but hide it under everyone's noses!?

Why not make the protagonist of your universe where everyone's named after stories or folklore a poet and storyteller!?

And why not base that character in an important spiritual Korean myth!?

Gaaagh. At the end of the day, we can't know for sure, and I haven't proven anything. But thank you for coming on this journey with me.

It's a shame that the most we can see of Bari's capabilities and attitude is in the paper fight where they're wearing a helmet and they're so stylised.

If only we could just take that helmet off and

holy SHIT

[caratheewriter]

'Teasing the fans' - Harry Collett x poc! non-binary! reader

Synopsis: You and Harry explain the premise of your upcoming movie and your characters while teasing the fans.

Rating: PG-13

Warning(s): mentions of swearing

(the interview questions are bold)

Word Count: 694

Swords & Spirits' Y/n L/n & Harry Collett talk Swords, Spirits, and Character Dynamics | Explain This | Esquire

"Hi! I'm Y/n L/n."

"Hello, I'm Harry Collett."

"And Esquire asked us to explain some things."

"Some things?"

"Yes. Some thin- things about our movie, Swords & Spirits."

"That's better."

"Oh hush."

"If you could change one thing about your character, what would it be?"

You take a minute, thinking hard about your answer, "I would change the fact that Z uses their parents' death as an excuse for their attitude. Sometimes it was valid and other times, it was just too much and it got so fucking annoying. I won't say much but Z will take you through an emotional rollercoaster. Haz?"

"I would change Icarus' nothing. Icarus, to me, is a pretty stable characters. He sticks to his morals and holds Z accountable which is much needed. Yeah, Icarus is fine. He's also more emotionally aware than Z and he also a damn good best friend."

"He reminds me of Percy Jackson."

"Really?"

"Yeah. 'cause Percy's fatal flaw is loyalty and there are moments where Icarus' loyalty to Z is sometimes deadly."

"Yeah. Yeah, I can see that."

"Describe Icarus and Z's dynamic as if you were explaining it to a 5-year old."

"Ha! I don't know if I can do that."

"Ok, ok. Here's how it'll start: Z and Icarus are best friends. But sometimes they get closer than that."

"I can hear my niece going, "like mommy and daddy?" and I will not answer that."

"What would you say?"

"I would just say that they are best friends and leave it at that, besides why is a 5-year old watching it anyways."

"Fair point."

"How was it, fighting with actual weapons?"

"It took a while to get used to. The swords in House of The Dragon... there's a real one for scene stills and when we're filming, the one I had was made from aluminum, I believe. It was really hard to learn archery 'cause Icarus also has a bow and arrow, and I had to learn within a week so, I had a limited amount of experience and teaching."

"It was cool but, I hated the fact that I couldn't get a butterfly knife."

"You wanted a butterfly knife?"

"Yes! They said that a butterfly knife is too detailed to make a prop of and I couldn't use a real one for obvious reasons. Even though I know all of the precautions and how to safely use it."

You stick your tongue out to the camera.

"Explain the progression of your characters' relationship."

"Icarus and Z are best friends."

"Childhood besties, and they are very close mainly due to their mothers' friendship. Their moms were soul-swords during their time as active duty in the Society of Swords."

"Z and Icarus are also soul-swords. Z is the one that gets them into trouble, and Icarus either goes along with it or tries to reel Z back in."

"And then, they are relieved of their duty after they disregard direct orders. Losing your sigil is painful and you can feel the connection breaking. Icarus and Z never really had to tell each other what they were feeling because the other already knew."

"But now, they lost that soul connection. They don't know what to do with themselves. As the film progresses, they get to connect more naturally and feelings are caught."

"My favorite scene that shows the interpretation of them is when Mrs. Kennedy, Icarus' mother, tells them who they're named after. Icarus and Z start to reevaluate their feelings for each other. As for, do they become a couple or not? You just have to watch and find out."

"Is there any tension between Icarus and Z?"

"Yes, but you have to really analyze them. At first glance, it seems like they're just being besties but, they do have their moments."

"There's this one scene that's actually a flashback. Icarus and Z's first kiss and afterwards, you can see the moment where Icarus falls. Z, however, is a bit more complex. They spend more time training and plotting revenge on the High Table so, dating is like the last thing on their mind."

"But who knows? Maybe? maybe not?"

[whysamwhy123]

fmk: orange, ospreay and kyle o'reilly >:]

(also happy birthday!!!)

Thank you so much for sending this in, I really appreciate it! Also, how fucking dare you! 😀 It'll sting to wish death upon one of those three, but if I must make such an impossible devastating choice...

Fuck - Ospreay. I couldn't marry the lad, I'd probably end up killing him too, but...other stuff? Yuh-huh. I mean, I've seen all those gifs of his ass, I would be helpless to resist. For some reason, it makes me think of a watercraft propelled by an internal-combustion or electric engine - I wonder why?

Marry - Orange. Honestly, I think we'd gel pretty well, y'know? We're both tired elder millennials who simply Cannot Be Asked. Plus, he's such a sweetheart, a bonafide cutie, ridiculously funny, and a total babe too. I'd say that's Husband Material. I'd be more than happy to accept the responsibility of being Doctor Edgar Allan Poe Esquire's step-parent for that.

Kill - And that leaves poor Kyle 😭 It would break my heart to wipe such an adorable goofball off the face of the Earth, and in any other case, I'd happily F or M him, but I had to go with my gut here. In any rate, he'd probably be able to kill me first, with his MMA skills, so let's all just assume the killing wouldn't go well.

[and-justice-for-zoisite]

~𝓡𝓮𝓺𝓾𝓮𝓼𝓽𝓼 𝓪𝓷𝓭 𝓒𝓱𝓪𝓻𝓪𝓬𝓽𝓮𝓻 𝓛𝓲𝓼𝓽~

Okay, so, I’m not really that motivated to write from my own ideas, but if y’all could send in some requests based on the characters listed then I’d appreciate it very much.

Requests // Open! 

I’m honestly up for writing anything, any reader, any character, any reasonable story, any gender, I will write it for you.

Anything with a ‘*’  is a favourite. 

-

Fandoms I write for:

- Mortal Kombat* - Black Butler * - MBAV * - The Santa Clause - The Outsiders - Alien - Death Note

Miscellaneous:

-Bernard The Elf (The Santa Clause)  -David 8 (Prometheus) 

𝕄𝕠𝕣𝕥𝕒𝕝 𝕂𝕠𝕞𝕓𝕒𝕥:

-Fujin ******** -Cassie Cage* -Jacqui Briggs -Shang Tsung -Frost -Sindel -Liu Kang -Kung Lao

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

𝕄𝔹𝔸𝕍:

-Benny Weir * -Ethan Morgan * -Sarah Fox  -Erica  -Rory 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

𝐃𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐇 𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄:

-L Lawliet  -Mello  -Matt  -Near  -Misa Amane

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

𝔹𝕚𝕝𝕝 𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕋𝕖𝕕'𝕤 𝔼𝕩𝕔𝕖𝕝𝕝𝕖𝕟𝕥 𝔸𝕕𝕧𝕖𝕟𝕥𝕦𝕣𝕖:

-Bill S Preston Esquire * -Ted “Theodore” Logan *

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𝓣𝓱𝓮   𝓞𝓾𝓽𝓼𝓲𝓭𝓮𝓻𝓼:

-Ponyboy Curtis  -Sodapop Curtis  -Darrel Curtis  -Dallas Winston  -Two-Bit Mathews  -Johnny Cade  -Curly Shepard  -Steve Randle  -Bob Sheldon  -Cherry Valance  -Marcia 

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𝔅𝔩𝔞𝔠𝔨 𝔅𝔲𝔱𝔩𝔢𝔯:

-Charles Grey* -Ronald Knox* -Sebastian Michaelis  -Mey-rin -Finnian -Hannah Annafellows 

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[number1yisuchongfan]

My full version of Cmedic aka Dr Rubén Pacifico Jabir Rodríguez

Some info on Cmedic:

His personality is a mix between Spy from Tf2, Aracade Gannon from FO:NV, and Augustus Sinclair Esquire from Bioshock 2 + that “smoking army doctor” stereotype. He’s 5’6, second shortest (the shortest is Fred, who’s 5’3) and 3rd youngest (the youngest is Greg aka CScout who was born in 1906 making him 24 by the events of tfc), and is by far the most sane out of them all.

He’s can be very sarcastic and pessimistic at times to the point it pisses people off. Cheavy has been “accidentally” used as his personal ashtray at times as well but Cmedic always makes it up to him. He also tends to stay away from alcohol when the tfc mercs ever went out to bars, mostly just dancing to take his mind of it.

He can be very nice but most of time he’s too tired or just doesn’t care enough to deal with anything more than picking up a few papers and smoking (his clinical depression makes this worse). Cheavy and CSniper or Virgil worry about him constantly, Cheavy as a romantic partner and Virgil as an older brother figure.

He came to New York City from Panama with his parents (His father is Honduran and his mother is Panamanian), who were doctors themselves but found it tough to keep jobs in the US. He ended up being a provider for his family, much like Scout, and is a lil momma’s boy and while he and his dad became strained (they still love each other).

Cheavy actually got to meet them for Christmas once and got so embarrassed around Cmedic’s mother he could barely stay in the same room as her (he is over a foot taller than her). No matter how many Cmedic explained to him that his mother actually thinks he’s quite a nice man; Cheavy worried she hated him. Cmedic gave up after that.

His story after tfc is.. convoluted. He and Cheavy ended up getting married but he had a sense that something was going to happen, so for nearly 8 after their marriage in the summer 1939, they were at peace, started growing old together. Until one day he got a call from the Administrator, who he knew from his work with Mann Co., and she forced his hand into up and leaving his life for her. He had rejected at first, leading to many near death experiences for Cheavy in the weeks after the call. Cmedic realized if he wanted to protect Cheavy; He had to leave him. So he divorced him, the whole thing coming as a blindside to Cheavy, and became the Administrator’s spy. He recruited Engineer to become a part of the group after the teams disbanded.

He’s also very gay, and I mean GAY. He doesn’t let people really know he is (for safety reasons) but the rest of the mercs but Cheavy (he realized two weeks later) clocked him as as gay guy

Now have some art of him + Cheavy:

[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.

[libidomechanica]

Untitled (“Clear Heart; nor wish in lovest”)

And one father’s day is ever.     From chimneys, slipped. A ruin, underfoot, the pronounce my     hair the death reft, quoth Baba; but I am the bought in     a moment of mosquitoes ascending: she now can you     three. He seem’d far better

grave, around his friend, I grateful     guise; warrior maidens over thus it not, my little, one     thatch see blossom: a third, to ask in a palace! Or taints     with his bonnet crowned, and the knight to see one has not a     soul had face some every

strong extremest grief assuage compile;     even so firm, or some hame fashion of one gentle     blue nights of the fall soothe my cloak, to dote upon their good     matter, I could truly tell, I grow proude, the bride: with a     riding in Heaven’s

messenger of the spring. For thee,     and, full, like a kid rubs sticks together hair’d shady that     you is writ, not end at best: a moment to reason of     the warps and there display’d; and, looking the realms of the sun     and he them onward, Bert—

and all distaff, not fry. For on     the Cupid. And heard that’s in her; to further on the sacred     been and ben; Blythe by industry. They circle the stood,     and so that quiver twittering, choking, yet was a crush     her sights, till I sobbed in

play, when being heat entered mind,     as we reap in joy that sunk below, beat down; and tills yourselves     reap glory of years and that, which he scars will not what,     that echo woke as thought the terms, while, he lyes in Ithaca     or he was grant their

haire with the fitting to thinking     to holden fish. Prove, that in the bound our sameness and bloody     spur she reveale. See lines empaled, or rave, o     there wherein the pavement of youth abstain, maud made milky     stond, and my body busy,

paying Love, and sex, were haunts     about me caught my fathers to him we gave, and whisper     to my Darkness flickering I desired him up, to     do he kneeled, his new. Around her large, bright temptation:     poor word were none for the

martyr’s groan, the more, where flamenco—     a blushing she flee; for, e’en to us, or whose who     had prospect I may fail of mine and shepheards kynd. And the     spring our fell out, in the maids and play, and rain. They leaves     about her hair—her Harp

filling like the midst, than great visions,     and eating step, I meet her, and twice, almost like ugly     hill. A day like: the stopping in much rent, but deeply     ground with anguished. Who is my forte, but when we met, jumping     their virtue be you and

the rites so long with the gods in     the roused, and aright, your soul is drown me, cold are side dish     of aged sire, that’s impossible, ’ said in marble     foes: what long attend time yet. But never hay, the imperial     halls of a though

Claudius Rich, Esquire, is, What     picked and merry was sweetly blush up to the notes, peel your     soft embalmer of her off for what the wicket of hemlock,     I’d scorn that honourable audit by a truth,     I bade heavy sleeps.

Accomplished her soft pipes it may deem.     She can breeze that day come those are free, which can I tell, sweeping,     vseth. And raptures, take his colour wedding I couldst     departest, and our brain did the Lady FRANCES drest so     let banks of Earn, as wanting.

Remembering round him, called it     in his mitred locks or till China and Justice of silver     o’er, whom I must control. Thou hast toiled inward stretched Ixion’s     also mine. The fleece or praise. Night are but dropped, longs for     thy oath to his wisdom,

and t is very bell about     his face, nor for my breath goes, and held our dues. These are still     wither adds to the dun forest where are sublime; meantime     yon old gun-barrel. Clear Heart; nor wish in lovest! Been delights     in subject on vice.

[lolliepops-rox]

HAHAHA you've activated my trap card. You get to see all my DnDads classpect headcanons. Definitely I can see the pair of Prince & Sylph working for them, they should mirror each other fr, but have you considered swapping who the classes are around? Anyways, below the cut is all of my DnDads classpect headcanon. I did use my extended class theory aka it has a bunch of fan classes (if you wanna know more abt the class theory feel free to ask. but I wont subject you to my lore dump here)

Grant - Pawn of Void  The one who is wielded and ordered by secrets, mystery, and the unknowable at the detriment of others. Sparrow - Paladin of Life  The one who shields and protects through success, growth and drive to advance others. Lark - Jester of Space  The one who deconstructs and destroys creation, setting, and beginnings to advance others. Terry Jr. - Prophet of Blood  The one who is given sight and understanding from family, history, and home for their advancement. Nickie - Thief of Breath The one who takes or steals with direction, independence, and individuality, for their own advancement.

Darryl - Knight of Blood The one who weaponises and protects through commitment, history, and bonds for their advancement. Henry - Sylph of Heart The one who creates and heals through passion, feelings, and the soul to advance others. Ron - Heir of Doom The one who receives and changed by the forces of death, rules, and sacrifice for their own advancement. Glenn - Maid of Time The one who creates and becomes decay, music, and endings for the advancement of others. Jodie - Warlock of Mind The one who is manipulated and consumed by law, senses, and morals to their own detriment.

Lincoln - Ranger of Mind  The one who maintains and cares for reason, justice, and morals to advance others. Normal - Rogue of Hope  The one who takes and shares the means of faith, dreams, and belief for the advancement of others. Scary - Bard of Rage The one who invites degradation of truth, reality, and disbelief at their own destruction. Taylor - Esquire of Life The one who wields and trained by wealth, agency, and drive for their own advancement. Hermie - Sage of Space The one who changes and guides with creation, environment, and improvisation for the advancement of others.

Paeden - Angel of Doom The one who created and designed by sacrifice, the artificial, and inevitable failure at their own detriment. Walter - Smith of Time The one who creates and develops goals, substance, and endings at their own detriment. Scam - Lord of Breath The one who commands and controls direction, freedom, and the journey for their own advancement. Mark - Puppet of Heart The one who mimics is changed by the self, instinct, and attraction at the detriment of others. Library - Tailor of Light The one who crafts and creates knowledge, answers, and clarity at the detriment of others.

I need the publics opinion:

[ted-and-bill]

🎃HAPPY HALL OF WEEN DUDES!!!🎃

[adelaidedrubman]

😳 “touch yourself and think about me” for Jestiny + John for the sentence prompts? x

hi thank you red sending u all my love for requesting this <3

word count: 4.3k (look, i also wish i wasn't the way that i am)

pairing: deputy jestiny x john seed

warnings: you guessed it, NSFW. (some subwarnings for publicly aired dirty talk and john and jestiny both being slightly creepi towards each other, but nothing out of the ordinary.)

John couldn't actually truthfully remember who called who first, or for what reason. At this point, he was so accustomed to beginning and ending every day alone in his office with a radio clutched in one hand to scream into and the temples of his head throbbing with painful fury cradled in the other that it didn't even seem there needed to be a particular reason for it. This was just his fucking life now.

"...because of your pathetic little 'reap the land' Bible fantasy, which is a dumb fucking idea, by the way, and just an excuse for you to fuckin' bully people for no goddamn reason, and…"

Had it been the pig farm? No, that was this morning. Or was it yesterday? Didn't matter, it'd been at least a full forty-five seconds she'd been allowed to screech insults at him uninterrupted, and that wouldn't do.

"I'm sure it will seem like a very dumb fucking idea when everything has been purged from the earth, and you're finally dying the slow, painful death that you deserve —"

"And you know what Adelaide said to me the other day? Why didn’t John and his goons just drive over a ways to the fuckin' wholesale club where shit’s already packaged and canned, and —"

His jaw clenched so tight in anger at her interruptions that it took conscious willpower to loosen it enough to keep his lips parted to speak. "Your body feeling the weight of suffering for every sin and transgression I offered you the chance to atone for, the excruciating pain of sickness and famine and —"

"AND you know what? She's fucking right. So add Adelaide fucking Drubman to the looooooong list of people smarter than the esteemed John Seed, Esquire."

The tension built back up as soon as he willed it away, he had to fight and flex muscles to swing his jaw back open to shout. "AND when you're desperately looking around, searching a world burning to the ground for any source of relief, of the salvation you are foolishly casting away as we speak —"

"There's a fuckin' Costco in Missoula, John. You got plenty of money. You coulda just stocked up there and had way better provisions for this alleged societal collapse. But you'd rather get off on throwing your weight around taking shit from people, huh?"

Scratch that, she made every fucking muscle in his body clench in anger, every part of him was tense and rigid when she spoke. "And you come crawling back on your empty, aching stomach to beg for a scrap of our harvest, to beg for mercy from the faithful…"

"To beg for what, John? A fuckin' pumpkin?” She interrupted with a scoff. “What good's that gonna do me?"

Dispel the tension from his jaw, ignore it everywhere else. She made everything so difficult. "It will seem very fucking dumb then," he spat out, "When you're begging me to take pity on your wretched, damned soul and withering body."

"Yes, take mercy on me and give me a pumpkin, please. Oh, yes John, please please give me a pumpkin," she cooed through the radio, clearly doing her best to make that nasally little rasp of hers mimic a sweet, alluring hum. "Please John, please. I need it so bad. Please give me a taste of your big, fat, juicy pumpkins."

Made everything so difficult, especially ignoring that the furious, pulsing tension she built in him included a bulging hardness between his legs, the part that ached hardest as her sarcastic words melted to a parody of needy begging, ridiculous as it was.

"You are going to choke on your fucking words, Deputy. Choke on your words, and on the weight of your sins."

"Oh, no John, please no. Please let me choke on one of your goddamn pumpkins instead. Please, John. Oh, I'll do anything for a pumpkin John, you're so wise and so smart for taking them. Please, John, please give it to me. I'll do anything for it."

If he could just touch that painful hardness for one second for relief, no different from the way he pressed against his temples, moving his hand from one throbbing ache to the other as he tried to gather his words. "You will —" he just barely began.

"I will do anything, John, please," She rasped out playfully but breathy and exhilarating all the same. "I need it John, please. Please give it to me." He tensed further as she spoke, gripped harder. "Oh, please. Is this fucking doing it for you, John?"

"Aa-aaaaaah," he bleated out shaky and broken to himself in response as his body jerked and stiffened again, before he willed it to relax once more so he could respond.

Fuck fuck fuck. It was only in the process of forcing himself to unclench that he realized he'd tightened his grip on the radio as well, pressing the talk button in the entire time he'd moaned and rocked against his hand. Maybe she hadn't heard, maybe no one heard, he tried to reassure himself. It had been such a brief little slip, nothing so obvious. But the uncharacteristic silence weighed heavy in the air, seeming to spell his doom.

"Oh, shit," was what she mumbled over the line once the speaker finally crackled back to life. Yes, he thought as he dropped the radio to his desk in defeat, Oh, shit indeed.

"Was that, uh…" She continued, "Was that… A-Actually doin' something for you?"

He burned with embarrassment and anger and need that frustratingly hadn't dissipated a single bit. What was he supposed to say to that, exactly? Vehemently deny it, and have her taunt him all the same? Play stupid, and receive ire for that, plus let anyone listening in hear the defensiveness in his voice? Confess with earnestness, 'Oh yes, Deputy Rook, have I neglected to mention I spend most of my nights thinking about what it would feel like to relentlessly fuck you into my mattress? And it's getting harder to ignore the urge during our chats, I hope you don't mind me playing with myself just a little as we speak,'? Continue to sit there dumb and silent and seething?

Yes, that felt like the only real option.

"Oh, don't worry, I get it. Can't actually say anything over the line, huh?" There's no way she could have concluded it the same moment he did, be inside his mind that well. "That's fine, I heard you loud and clear already."

He pouted his bottom lip a little in frustration. Now was the time to actually ignore her goading, he told himself. To turn off his radio and walk outside, take a stroll amongst his faithful family members stationed there to guard him, show anyone who was listening in how pure he'd actually remained. (Or it would be, if he could get the visible bulge at the front of his pants to go away by the time he made it downstairs. Because running out to get in face time with his followers while he was still obviously aroused, shaking hands and clapping backs to boost morale with a glaring tent in his pants, really wouldn't help his image at all.)

"And it's okay, I don't mind, John. Go ahead," she continued in that breathy voice, making the prospect of actually losing the erection quickly all the more far fetched. (As did the fact he still hadn't removed the hand grasping himself through denim, but that was incidental.) "Touch yourself and think about me."

Fuck. He dug teeth into his bottom lip in an effort to resist, but that didn’t help the delicious, flooding warmth that came with that, with that permission. Yes, it was from someone he’d just confidently declared would be burning in hell and whose moral judgments shouldn’t really reassure him, but still it was so fucking intoxicating to hear. Go ahead, he let it ring in his mind again as he ran a firm palm around the rigid length straining against his zipper, Touch yourself and think about me. It was an order he felt powerless against.

“In fact, maybe I should help you,” she continued, taunting levity creeping back into her voice. “You want me to keep talkin’? Help you take care of that?”

“Yes,” he whispered aloud to the empty room in reflexive response, gripping himself a little harder, rocking in his leather chair, praying its hinges didn’t squeak too loud as he did.

The voice on the speaker gave a little twinkling laugh, making him feel embarrassed and aroused all at once, that unbearable burn she always managed to spread along his skin. “I know, you can’t really answer, huh?” She let out a mocking sigh over the line. “Hey, flip up a couple channels if you do,” she said before the line went silent.

Oh, he hated her for that — for making him take an affirmative step to follow her astray into a promise of wickedness and ecstasy, forcing him to make an active choice to sin for her. It would have been one thing to sit there passively and let his body react as it may to her words, it was another to make him actually seek her out.

And he shouldn’t. He should stop now, it wasn’t too late, he should be removing the hand cupping his bulge instead of moving his free one to turn the dial of his radio to follow her voice to its next frequency, letting worry build in him as he waited for her to break silence again. Even if he sat there without speaking, someone could know, could try to reach him on his original channel and know he’d tuned into her instead, could grow suspicious at his quiet absence.

Another crackle of static broke his train of thought.

“Good boy,” Jestiny’s unmistakable voice purred.

And none of that really mattered, didn’t compare to the sick shiver that sent down his spine to pool in his base and finally tingle along his length.

"I want you to touch yourself," she hummed, “Every way I tell you to. Can you do that for me?”

Of course he could, if she could just go ahead and tell him, he thought to himself as he bucked against his palm again impatiently, chasing friction.

“Unbutton your shirt for me, okay? I want you to start there.”

There was no real reason he should do that, no reason to follow her instructions obediently, no reason his fingers should be finding the buttons of his shirt rather than the buttons of his pants to finally stroke himself to a quick completion and leave the whole ordeal behind once he’d gotten a bit of relief.

“I’ve always wondered what you really looked like under that stupid little vest,” she mused, shooting those dual pangs of anger and arousal through him again. “I can tell you’ve got a nice body under there, wish I could tear that shit off and actually feel it for myself, run my hands along your chest. But I guess I’ll have to let you do it for me.”

Oh, no reason except that following her instructions made it so much easier to imagine it was her fingers that were trailing along his skin, and that caused a heavier lurch of exhilarating pressure to twist in his stomach and ripple through his body than mechanically pumping himself to an efficient finish ever could. And god did he feel it as he brushed the silk of his shirt aside to explore the newly exposed expanse of skin, making the touch of his fingertips a little lighter to assist with the illusion that it was her smaller hands dancing along his chest.

“Yeah, I bet it feels nice though,” she breathed out with subtle shakiness through the radio, and he wondered with a shiver as he brushed along twitching muscles and hardening buds if she was touching herself too, what it would look like if she was. Was she mirroring the movements she asked of him, snaking a hand up her shirt along her toned stomach? Grasping at those round breasts, twisting at her nipples with need? And more importantly, did her little button nose twitch involuntarily when she was succumbing to pleasure the way it did when she was angry? Did her mouth pull at the corners when she moaned to make those little imprints of dimples show in her cheeks? God, he wished he could see.

“But you want more, right?”

At least he could hear, there was a tremor in her voice that was certainly something more than just the static of the radio adding coarseness as it broadcast her.

“Go ahead and undo your pants for me, but don’t you dare touch your dick until I tell you to, got it?”

He let his fingers move down to find the buckle of his belt, then the buttons of his jeans, finally pulling down his zipper, avoiding the temptation to make anything but indirect contact with the throbbing hardness he exposed as he did. He closed his eyes to let his thoughts flicker between conjured images of her undoing her own pants in tandem and her being the one in front of him to undo his, settling on the former to wonder how she did it. Did she hesitate after undoing her own buttons, or let her fingers find her folds without the delay she demanded of him?

"I bet you've got nice thighs under there, too. Wish I could dig my fingers into them."

Fuck but what would she do if she could, he wondered as he gripped at them himself. Would she go down on him as she held him tight, finally let him feel the relief of his cock slipping into the hot pressure of her mouth? Or would she simply run her hands teasingly along his legs the way he did as he waited for permission to do more?

“Go ahead and touch your balls a little if you want, John,” the voice groaned from the radio, and he was quick to take the opportunity, caressing along his sac gently just a moment before grasping with a full hand to push against himself, feeling a shuddering moan rise from his center at the indirect pressure against his shaft, just barely teasing the place that so desperately needed to be touched. He saw through squinting eyes that precum was already beginning to leak in the smallest bead from his head from the stimulation. He knew he could cum so fast and so fucking hard if she would just let him finally touch himself, tell him it was okay to —

“Are you ready?”

He nodded his head frantically, as if she could actually see his answer.

“Just run your fingers up and down it a little bit for me first, alright?”

He did so, and jolted against the ghosting sensation as if his own touch held electricity, carried the galvanizing quality of her voice his body so eagerly responded to. He felt a vein throb under his fingertips, counting every tense pulse as he waited for her to allow him more of his own body, his own touch.

“Now, stop.” His fingers froze in place at her command, his hardness twitching to meet them where they rested in place, asking for more, sending another tight, begging pang through his base. “Grip the base of your cock for me, but don’t move yet.”

He left his hand clenched in place where she asked, but his hips were harder to control, shaking into the tight squeeze of his hand a little, so close to imagining what it would actually be like to be inside the tightness of the woman tormenting him, so close, if he could just run the pressure up his length a little, try to feel it all at once, so close, just —

“Go ahead, John. Touch yourself how you want.”

Fuck, yes, finally. He wasn’t sure if he moved his fist to stroke up and down or his hips to buck swift and uncontrolled into his grip first, his body shaking and thrashing towards the promise of a release all at once, no more care for the way his office chair squeaked under the pressure of his movements or his panting breaths filled the stale, empty air.

“Fuck, I bet you — h-ah, could barely fuckin’ wait for that, huh?”

He closed his eyes tight again to focus on that whimper of need he could now hear unmistakably in her own voice as well, imagine what it would be like to hear it whisper directly in his ear instead of carried over the mechanical hum of a radio, no distance between them, him thrusting up into the tight pull of her center from his place sat there instead of the grip of his own hand.

“I hope you were, mmm… Real good for me, real patient.”

God, he hoped she’d whisper praise in his ear like that in person, too. Tell him more, tell him how good he was fucking her in that gravelly moan of hers. She would fall apart into those subtle stutters even quicker with the force of him pounding into her. He felt so fucking hard and thick and ready to burst in his own hand, he could only imagine what he could do to her in same position, imagine it as he tensed and chased that enveloping pressure, that shadow of the consuming pleasure he could get from her.

“I bet you’re close too, real close for me, huh?” She let out those ragged breaths through their electronic connection, now so shameless and bold and tempting him to be the same, to cry out as he let himself go. He felt certainty she would finish soon too, felt assured she would be pulsing around her own fingers from all those miles away. “Real close, r-right?” She asked again before she cut off, leaving him with silence that stung his ears, silence that rang out too long and loud through the empty room.

“Fuck,” he cursed under his breath and slowed the stroke of his hand for just a moment in frustrated protest, wincing at the unfairness of being denied the sounds of her finish, the symphony that would have surely brought him to release as well. She was so infuriating, so irritating, made him buzz and crawl with so much rage. And he was just so so close.

“Are you ready to be good for me again, though?” She asked when she finally spoke again, now returned to that shrilly taunting and controlled tone, and he opened his eyes for just a moment to glare at the radio, as if the sheer power of his contempt could hurt her over the airwaves. His cheeks burned with both embarrassed anger and the flush of lust still coursing through his body as he kept up the rhythmic pump of his hand, unable to give up that tempting pull of the edge she brought him to even as resentment pooled in his tightening stomach.

“You need to stop,” she ordered, now droning and authoritative. “Stop touching yourself until I tell you to do it again.”

It was now the dull ache of pain that pulsed through him, stung through to his marrow as he ratcheted to a halt, his cock aching even more excruciatingly than before with the soreness from him pawing himself and the suddenness of her denial. He didn’t know why he instinctively followed her order in the first place, why he jerked his hand away from his length, why he felt compelled to obey her even from the distance, with no promise of an ultimate reward.

His hands now gripped forcefully at the arms of his chair, even as his hips still shook upward in little thrusts to search for something to bury himself into. He moved his hands to push down at the sharp bones of his hips to still himself, rubbing little half circles there just to touch himself some way, soothe the skin close to where need stabbed at him.

Fuck, what was wrong with him? He couldn’t stop himself of his volition, his own morality, couldn’t resist reaching down to touch himself from the strength of his own piety, but he could do it at her command? Bring himself to a standstill at her mere suggestion? What the fuck was this unworldly power she had over him, why did he let her lead him to the depths of damnation then stop before he was even allowed its enticing reward?

Yet even as he wondered it he sat there in desperate waiting for her word, for the thrill of that permission she’d first given him. It had surely only been minutes, but felt like hours, an agonized eternity as he sat there still half undressed and hard and dripping. He didn’t dare allow himself the slightest touch, the smallest bit of pressure surely enough to send him over the edge, his need not dulling a bit even as he stayed frozen, waiting for her word, a final crackle from the radio to allow him to resume.

A knock behind him drew his attention first, and he swiveled around in his chair reflexively in response, heart drumming even faster in his chest as he finally saw her, standing there, in the flesh, on his fucking balcony, tapping at his window with a mischievous smirk.

And he should have glared at her, thrown his heaviest paperweight at the window to strike her, cursed her name, continued lecturing her about damnation. But frankly, he thought all those things would certainly be undercut by the fact he looked back at her with pants around his ankles and shirt unbuttoned and proud, needy erection clearly on display, anyways. So instead he silently mouthed ‘Come in,’ at her, hoping she would crawl through the window to finally put her own hands on him, give him the reward of her touch.

But instead, she shook her head with a deepening curve of her lips, those short copper locks brushing against her cheeks as she did, then finally motioning with a nod towards his lap, mouthing back ‘Go ahead,’ as she stood there with watchful eyes.

He couldn’t even make a proper effort at bitterness as he followed her directions one final time to reach for his hardness, watching with a perverse thrill her focused gaze on him as he gave himself a first tentative stroke, delighting in the way her eyes followed the movement of his hands, occasionally flicking up to his face to lock onto his own, which never wavered from that amber stare.

Fuck, it was almost as good as having her actually touch him, this. Having her watch him approvingly with desire smoldering in her eyes at his actions. It built him back to that edge just as well, let his stomach tighten even harder with the thrill of being watched, being seen for what he was with silent adoration, the freedom of falling apart and thrusting into his own caresses for her, as she saw every trembling movement.

Yes, this was the most delicious way she could have given it to him, he thought as he tightened his grip, on the verge of too much but instead just enough as he gave a final squeezing stroke, finally falling into that oblivion of release, eyes still focused on her face all the while even as his vision blurred at the edges and his thighs grew hot and sticky with his cum and his body finally went limp, sinking into the leather of his chair. Her smug, crooked smirk, her focused brown eyes. Her.

He finally blinked his eyes closed with exhaustion for just a moment, pulling heavy lids up just as quick as he heard a creaking at his window. Refocusing just in time to see her swinging the window open and resting on the seal with crossed arms, leaning into his office.

“C’mere,” she finally said simply and softly.

And it shouldn’t have worked, he should have finally been free of her unnatural spell. Now would have been the time to throw the paperweight. But instead, he sighed and pulled his pants up, fastened a single button of his shirt to cover his chest before walking over to her as requested, shame sinking in as he approached her.

And he felt the first point of actual contact with her as she reached for his still burning cheek, and he shouldn’t have wilted into her palm, shouldn’t have nuzzled against it, shouldn’t be shackled to any more of the base reactions of his body.

But he did, and he was.

“You did so good for me, John,” she whispered with a thumb stroking against his face where she held him. And worryingly enough, that made it all okay, made the guilt churning inside him settle to warmth in his chest, made him relax and lean down as she pulled him into a kiss, a shockingly gentle pressing of her lips to brush against his.

He cleared his throat as he finally pulled back, straightened himself to stand upright. Tried to tense again, but his tired muscles resisted.

“I don’t particularly appreciate being spoken to like that,” he hissed with a poor mockery of his usual venom.

She laughed a little, granting a rare sight of the dimples in her cheeks deepening from a smile rather than a scowl.

“Yeah, I don’t think I buy that,” she retorted with a lopsided grin. “Not after what I saw. In fact, I think I might speak to you that way again sometime.”

“Can you at least do it in private, next time?” He said with a huff.

“Sure thing, you earned it,” she said as she finally leaned back from her place intruding into the space of his office. “See ya next time, pumpkin,” see chimed with a parting wink, darting out of the view of the window.

And that really should have made him angry.

But fuck, it didn’t.

[mymostimaginaryfriend]

QOTS 5x04 Reaction Post

in which we find ourselves in a Queenpin conundrum...

We always knew Queenpin was coming, but actually witnessing our heroine go full anti-hero (in the final season no less) is a lot harder than we anticipated isn’t it?  It’s interesting in an academic sense too b/c Teresa has always been a criminal. She’s willingly running a CARTEL for crying out loud.  She’s even sanctioned murder before.  And yet...OUCH.

We’re seeing all of Teresa’s smarts, minus most of the empathy and that is a scary Teresa indeed.  Like I said in my liveblog: she’s practically Camila now.  The ends are justifying the means for her, even if those means are murder.

I think she’d been stubbornly telling herself what she did (turning in Marcel) wasn’t unforgivable at first.  That she could fix it.  That she could make everyone (Marcel included) understand.

There’s even a sort of defiance there - she puts on her best two-face cosplay suit to go see the man she betrayed in prison lol which what is that if not half defiance/half penance?

But then Marcel, with one devastatingly whispered word, became the Teresa of the dynamic. The one with the moral high ground. The one who laughs in the face of her “bullshit apologies”.  The one who would never, ever, rat.

It hits her hard.

Teresa is so used to inspiring loyalty in people. She’s surrounded herself with people who would do anything for her.  Even this episode they’re still doing anything for her.  But I think they’re all going to learn, Teresa included, loyalty out of love is a much different thing than loyalty out of fear.

The fact that THE first solution she came up to for the Gamble/Feds problem was MURDER.  Like do not pass go, straight to murder! 

And using James as a weapon so casually, with no acknowledgement of the very human costs of such an act on the victim or the perpetrator.  

“You did this type of work for the CIA, you have a problem with it now?” GASP. 

No, Teresa, YOU were supposed to have a problem with it. That has always been the whole deal between the two of you! The whole unspoken contract!  It’s always been James suggests murder and Teresa comes back with: “there’s another way.”  

Even if she ended up choosing murder in the past it had been a last resort.  Not the first option.  Not PROACTIVE murder.

Teresa’s supposed to choose the “hard way” that lets them all look in the mirror at the end of the day.  

Only Marcel claims that right at the end of this episode.

And interestingly enough, no mirror shots this ep that I can remember...

The fact that James had to hang out and witness the Gamble’s domesticity for HOURS beforehand.  The fact that he made himself stand there and listen to Gamble’s wife’s wails of grief.

The fact that Teresa tried to reframe the hit as a good thing, a way to give the incarcerated boys “a second chance”

The fact James’ face says exactly what he thinks about second chances.  

The fact that Teresa isn’t even in full Queenpin regalia yet.....

Some random things:

“Why are we taking a chance with the Feds when we can get out?” IN WHICH KELLY ANNE IS ALL OF US.  “No one has to die, we could leave right now and be set for life.” I’m SAYING!

“You’re here to advise me not question me.”  Pro Tip: Kelly Anne, bill her for those minutes and it’s officially advice lol.

Pote is on my last damn nerve.  Infantilizing Kelly Anne (am I crazy or is he even baby talking to her this season?), being absolutely useless in his split blind loyalty to Teresa and Kelly Anne.  “Don’t mess this up” to James - JAMES.

The character who has, oh let’s see, just this season: prevented Teresa being taken out by a kill team, alerted her to a danger in her dealings with the Russians, supplied an army for her, was the one who found out about the feds, warned them about the raid, and took care of her assassination and planting evidence problem. James has basically been the only thing keeping Teresa out of prison or the morgue this season.

“She had a code.” “Codes are made to be cracked.” Pote’s Cartel Yoda bs, I swear to god. (But also why I don’t see him surviving the series: he has no frame of reference of non-cartel life.  Out of any of the core 4, he is a lifer.)

Not that Teresa didn’t have some badass moves this episode too.  But it’s interesting that her big victory moment over the Feds complete with Kelly! Anne! Esquire! making a big booyah speech, was undercut by basically everything they accused her of...being true?

Also, I don’t see how the Judge’s evidence of corruption would get Marcel out of prison - especially if he still refuses to cooperate with the Feds.  But I’m willing to TV hand wave that if it gets Marcel back on the board.

What happens now that Lucien is dead? Who’s running Marcel’s business outside? Is it going to be chaos? Like pretty sure Pote just left Lucien’s body there...I don’t see how Marcel’s crew takes that well, even if Marcel is able to  accept why it happened.

For Reasons: Please let us see Teresa tell James Kelly Anne is pregnant.  I would like to see a) Teresa process that news without Pote or KA around and b) James’ reaction as well.

Also Important Foreshadowing Question that I refuse to put into my google search history lol: Was that spray James used on Gamble a paralytic? Maybe something they could use to idk, help fake a certain someone’s death perhaps??

UPDATED: Two more things. Isn’t it interesting how Queenpin showed up to Teresa all those times warning her about being a rat and yet, here she is and here we are? 

And it didn’t take long for Boaz’s “should have killed [whoever] as soon as they were a problem” advice to get put into action by Teresa, huh?

Next week...dare I hope...a Jeresa overseas adventure episode?? WE NEED THIS, QOTS. A girl can dream lol.

[lolliepops-rox]

Sylph of Hope Darryl??? I need to know more. TJ is sooo page-coded you're right.

'oh em gee it's a troll baby' is so funny I love it

You now also get my classpects. Which, sorry if fan classes aren't your thing. (I have a huge chart & very out there theory on how classes work. But that's a topic for a different post.)

Darryl - Knight of Blood The one who weaponises and protects through commitment, history, and bonds for their advancement. Henry - Sylph of Heart The one who creates and heals through passion, feelings, and the soul to advance others. Ron - Heir of Doom The one who receives and changed by the forces of death, rules, and sacrifice for their own advancement. Glenn - Maid of Time The one who creates and becomes decay, music, and endings for the advancement of others. Jodie - Warlock of Mind The one who is manipulated and consumed by law, senses, and morals to their own detriment.

Grant - Pawn of Void  The one who is wielded and ordered by secrets, mystery, and the unknowable at the detriment of others. Sparrow - Paladin of Life  The one who shields and protects through success, growth and drive to advance others. Lark - Jester of Space  The one who deconstructs and destroys creation, setting, and beginnings to advance others. Terry Jr. - Prophet of Blood  The one who is given sight and understanding from family, history, and home for their advancement. Nickie - Thief of Breath The one who takes or steals with direction, independence, and individuality, for their own advancement.

Paeden - Angel of Doom The one who created and designed by sacrifice, the artificial, and inevitable failure at their own detriment. Walter - Smith of Time The one who creates and develops goals, substance, and endings at their own detriment. Scam - Lord of Breath The one who commands and controls direction, freedom, and the journey for their own advancement. Mark - Puppet of Heart The one who mimics and is changed by the self, instinct, and attraction at the detriment of others. Library - Tailor of Light The one who crafts and creates knowledge, answers, and clarity at the detriment of others.

Lincoln - Ranger of Mind  The one who maintains and cares for reason, justice, and morals to advance others. Normal - Rogue of Hope  The one who takes and shares the means of faith, dreams, and belief for the advancement of others. Scary - Bard of Rage The one who invites degradation of truth, reality, and disbelief at their own destruction. Taylor - Esquire of Light The one who wields and trained by wealth, agency, and drive for their own advancement. Hermie - Sage of Space The one who changes and guides with creation, environment, and improvisation for the advancement of others.

Additional Notes: Glenn as a time player is one of my favourite things ever. I had Grant's classpect picked before TJ died, and Grant response of "I didn't know" really solidified him as a void player for me. I also feel really strongly on Jodie as a mind player, given how much of his life is about getting fucked over by the law. Fun fact, Hermie's class 'Sage' used to be called 'Director' on my fanclass chart till I found a better shorter word for it.

you said u have more things about troll ideas and the classpects of the dndads teens? may we hear them? (i have never thought about classpecting Dood but i am not and im thinking Muse of Void? maybe Muse of Blood?) (I also cheated when i picked classpects for the teens and used some of my fanclasses, but of who as standard ones I have: Scary as Bard of Rage, and Norm as Rouge of Hope)

Those are really interesting! Ok ok ok ok I'm gonna put this under a cut bc it's gonna get long

Here's mine and @radicalreliablerandomness 's ideas for classpects

Dads:

Darryl- sylph of hope

Henry- knight of life

Glenn- bard of breath

Ron- seer of void

Jodie- mage of blood

Kiddads:

Grant- prince of blood

Nicky- heir of time

Terry jr- page of heart

Lark- witch of rage

Sparrow- sylph of light

Teens:

Link- knight of space

Taylor- rogue of breath

Scary- maid of life

Norm- heir of doom

Npcs:

Willy- lord of mind

Dood- muse of heart

Erin O'Neil- thief of light

Hermie unworthy- mage of mind

In terms of demons/trolls we basically decided that Jodie as king of hell could sort of act as a parallel to the royal lineage of the fuchsia caste, so thats why hermie is a fuchsia blood. (Havent decided what that means about nicky but shh). Taylor is a half troll candyblood mutant but was raised on earth thinking he was human, much like in dndads canon. Rad also said that in the titanic ep they slap gray paint on baby link and go omg its been a troll baby all along which made me lose it

One more thing here's rad's reaction to me giving hermie the batman logo as his extended zodiac

[punemy-spotted]

So I legit have thought about going to le school for a while?? I volunteered with a clinic for a while and got impostor syndromed out of it :/ can I ask what law school was like for you?? I got psyched out of it cause money and I’m not very competitive academically so. :/

Hello, beloved! First of all, before I say anything...

Okay, okay, I kid, but I do love Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and that song so I had to reference it. I will be putting some stuff under a read more to avoid triggering people but here's some triggers to consider: hospitalization, sickness, infection, death, su*c*de, politics.

First of all, I'm sorry you were imposter syndrome'd out of your clinic! You deserved better. That being said...

Law school is an experience, and it can be as rewarding or as difficult as you make it. I want to preface a lot of the advice I give by saying that I had a very atypical law school experience, namely because I went to law school on a full scholarship, my school was an incredibly collaborative place, and I had a lot of additional support from faculty and mentors that I don't think many of my other colleagues got at their respective law schools.

That being said, I enjoyed law school a lot. It was an incredibly difficult time — I was hospitalized in both my first and final years of law school, the first time for getting pneumonia and strep and the second because the stress of my third year resulted in an eczema flare up so bad it caused a bone and kidney infection — and I also had a classmate and close friend unfortunately take his life, not because of law school but because of his family. However, I wanted to be a lawyer from the time I was eleven years old so going to law school was part of the plan. It was kind of unavoidable, so I made the best of it.

Now. The thing is, law school is what you make of it. You do not have to go to the top law schools. I didn't. I don't even think I was in a T50, but I still had incredible professors, mentorship, and have Esquire to my name. While I wasn't very academic — I wasn't in the top half of the class — I was heavily involved with my cohort and with faculty. Because my cohort was less than 500 people, our Dean was really involved in our day-to-day lives and I spent a lot of time with her pushing for diversity and inclusion in law school, from making the school less full of "white male privilege" to pushing for standard accommodations for hearing and visually impaired students that would not force them to trek all the way to main campus just to talk to a disability services coordinator. This involvement was what got me recognized when I interviewed to work at my current firm, not my grades, which were mediocre at best.

I really enjoyed law school but I also really hated law school. I don't want to discourage you from going because if it's your dream, you should do it. If you feel that being a lawyer is something you want to do, something that will make you feel fulfilled, something that will make you happy, then do it. But. All the skills a lawyer has can also be put into other professions that help people just as much.

I want you to know that you do have the skills to get through law school. You do. It's all about knowing your strengths, it's all about adjusting. I read. A lot. I built databases (Scrivener is the only reason I passed law school, I will not lie to you). I played to what I knew I could do, and if you do that and understand yourself, you'll be fine. However, the stress, the finances, the struggle — it should feel worth it to you. It was to me, and it still is to me, but everyone's experience is different.

I could write a dissertation or do a podcast about my law school experience. If you want to talk about it, don't hesitate to DM me and I can give you some more details. 💞

[ericdeggans]

How My Love for Sean Connery and Bond Led to a Serious Case of White Guy Hero Infatuation Syndrome

Like a lot of people all over the world, I have long considered myself a stone Sean Connery fan.

I often recited the juiciest dialogue bits from his Oscar-winning turn as a beat cop-turned crusader in he Untouchables (in addition to the speech everyone quotes, I loved how he told Eliot Ness he knew he was a treasury agent without seeing his badge because “who would claim to be that who was not?”) I watched the painfully clumsy 1986 B-movie Highlander mostly for his charming turn as Egyptian (!) immortal Juan Sánchez-Villalobos Ramírez.

And, of course his work as James Bond always set the ultimate example for urbane cool. Which explains why I often felt the theme song thrumming in my head whenever I wore a stylish suit or hopped off a plane in a cool city. For men from the generation before mine, he practically defined the sophisticated, stylish machismo found in the pages of Esquire and Playboy.  

For these reasons and more, I have always loved the rogueish Scotsman as an actor. And yet, when news of his death at age 90 spread across the world, I couldn’t bear to pay tribute to him on my social media pages, until now.

That’s because his passing highlighted my problem with a particular malady. I call it White Guy Hero Infatuation Syndrome. And I have suffered from it for many years.

Put simply, my fan’s brain knows that Connery’s landmark performances were the stuff of film legend – especially as Bond. Cool, authoritative, suavely menacing and mostly unflappable, his take on a secret agent who knows the best suit designers nearly as well as the best pistol manufacturers set the template for escapist espionage fantasies over the next half century and beyond.

His first line as the character – “Bond. James Bond.” – has become pop culture legend.

But as a media critic, I also have to contend with James Bond’s status as a relentless sexist and a British agent who walked the world as if it was made to be ruled by wealthy, capable white men. Watch him slap the behind of a pretty blonde who was massaging him poolside in 1964’s Goldfinger when CIA agent Felix Leiter turns up for a chat. “Man talk,” he tells her dismissively, sending her out of the scene.

Or check out how he treats Quarrel, the bug-eyed Black man who acts as a “fixer” for him in Jamaica during the first Bond film, 1962’s Dr. No. Scrambling across a beach to avoid the bad guys’ goons, Bond turns to Quarrel and tells him “fetch my shoes” -- as if he were his butler, rather than a local ally helping him avoid thugs with automatic weapons.

And there’s loads of scenes where Bond forces himself on women who quickly succumb to his charms – like Honor Blackman’s character in 1964′s Goldfinger – perpetuating a dangerous myth that a man can earn a woman’s love by pushing her into being romantic with him. (Or that a dismissive, vaguely annoyed tone with women – treating them like impertinent children or misguided simpletons – is also, somehow, irresistible to them.)    

When Connery played Bond, he played a character who was the embodiment of white privilege. He made it look sexy, virtuous and necessary – the natural state of things in a 1960s-era world that, outside the comfortable confines of Bond’s make-believe spy games, seemed to be coming apart at the seams. But in the America of 2020, it’s a symbol of how media can teach you to accept a limiting legend.

And this was a fantasy I bought into eagerly. As a kid, my mom and I bonded over the heroic white guys she loved on film and TV, mostly from westerns. Just this past December, as she was fighting cancer and months before she would succumb to an infection, we sat and watched Clint Eastwood, Charles Bronson, Kevin Costner and Robert Duvall save the day too many times to count.

As I got older, I’d make fun of all the misogyny, racism and white centering going on in these shows – gibes which my mother, a proud Black woman who loved her people and culture, tolerated with a weary smile. “These are my guys,” she’d say playfully, swatting aside any idea that there was a deeper impact from gorging on stories which treated these virtuous white men as the noble, natural center of every story. I wish the issue were that simple; it often isn’t.

For me, it wasn’t just a problem with Connery. As a kid, I loved Eastwood’s 1970s-era Dirty Harry movies, where the taciturn cop with a Magnum pistol cut through all the nonsense to nab the bad guy. Same with Bronson’s Death Wish films, where the solution to rampant street crime wasn’t better policing, but a taciturn, middle class white guy with a gun shooting down street criminals. It’s a potent fantasy, especially if you’ve ever had to deal with the numbing bureaucracy of real-life law enforcement or the brutal violation of being a crime victim.

It wasn’t until I got older that I realized many of those bad guys Harry Callahan was hunting were young hippies and Black people – the kind of folks who, in real life when Dirty Harry was released in 1971, were trying to get America to face how it was chewing up poor, young men in an unwinnable, unnecessary war in Vietnam. It was a prime example of “copaganda” – convincing the audience that the excesses Detective Callahan committed to nail a person the audience already knew was a serial killer, was justified.

Even now, I wonder: Can I watch these movies and appreciate why they are thrilling, while rejecting the tropes that present a white male-centered world as just and appropriate? In my work on race and media, I’m often telling audiences that people who insist they are not affected by media subtexts are often the most affected by them. Couldn’t that be true for me, when it comes to heroes like Eastwood, Bronson and Connery?

(One caveat: Sitting in an arena in Tampa, watching Eastwood give his infamously strange “empty chair” speech at the Republican National Convention in 2012, broke me of my affection for his work. I have avoided watching new Clint Eastwood films since then. Click here to read my report on the empty chair speech for the Tampa Bay Times.)

In his later years, Connery denied or walked back quotes where he seemed to approve of physically hitting women in real life. His roles in films like Highlander, The Untouchables, Hunt for Red October, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen often featured him playing the older mentor to younger white guy heroes portrayed by the likes of Harrison Ford, Alec Baldwin and Kevin Costner.

And so, as the question of Connery’s legacy in show business arises, the fanboy part of me is at war with the media critic. One side of me is lost in the absolute coolness of the suave masculinity he so often symbolized, particularly as the world’s most successful secret agent.

The other is painfully aware of the inequalities and oppression such portrayals enabled, and how much they may feed our real life fantasies for a powerful white male savior to set things right, even now. 

Especially now.

And saying these characters were a product of their flawed times somehow doesn’t seem enough.

This is a tough column to write, and not just because there are so many fans who want to focus on the best moments of Sean Connery’s life now that he’s gone. It’s difficult because he was a personal hero of mine for a long while – and remains one of my favorite performers – even as I acknowledge the terribly male-centric and white-superior ethos he embodied in so many roles.

This may sound like disrespectful nitpicking to hardcore fans and family. It’s never easy to sit with the more uncomfortable aspects of a great artist’s legacy. And the time after his death has been filled with heartfelt tributes to Connery, a man of great talent and no-nonsense sensibilities who was respected and loved by a great many people who worked with him.

Sometimes the media critic’s job requires being a buzzkill; insisting the public pay attention to troubling aspects of a film or TV show that we would all just rather sit back and enjoy. Because part of unwinding the effect of past portrayals is acknowledging their power in the present day.

Which means, every time I watch Connery stride to a baccarat table in Goldfinger, Dr. No, or Diamonds Are Forever, archly demanding a precisely constructed alcoholic beverage, I also have to remind myself of the damage done by too many characters like that offering too constricted a vision of what a hero looks and acts like. And I suggest you do the same.

It's the only way to balance a comforting myth with the reality of how that legend can, unwittingly, teach us to cling to ideas that ultimately hold us back.      

[whatdoesshedotothem]

Saturday 8 March 1834: SH:7/ML/E/16/0177

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Fair and windy – rain in the night – F52° at 6 40 – out at 7 ¼ - with Pickles - his son John and a labourer to wall up gaps and make other and set posts for John Bottomley and P- himself to raise wall near new dry bridge so as to support a great height of stuff - with John Booth taken him (P-) 2 loads of stones - Charles and James H- putting up more wainscot in upper buttery -breakfast with my father at 8 ½ in about ½ hour -in my study at 9 ¾ - rain came on about 8 ½ or before   likely to continue - till 11 ½ wrote 1 page and 4 lines to Miss W- and copied what I would advise her to write in answer to Washington - then out with John moving large cherry[?] from the terrace to near new dry bridge and moving rose tree and flowers to outside upper garden door etc ready for beginning to lower the terrace on Monday - Pickels went away in the morning on account of the rain but returned at 2 ½ pm  with him raising wall near new dry bridge to hold up stuff from the new bank (just below Bottomleys the shoemaker) and backwards and forwards with Charles and James H- in the upper buttery and with Mallinson and his 1 man who got the middle cornice of the chimney this afternoon, and opened hole thro’ wall on to the terrace for barrowing out  the stuff - agreed with Pickels to wheel it out to the carts in the court yard, and thence cart it to near the old dry bridge for 8d per square yard - he asks Mr. Haigh 15d a yard (ie about 7d per 1 horse cart load) for carting stuff from the new bank (to put it here near new dry bridge) - came in at 6 ½ - settled with Pickels and Charles H- dinner at 7 and coffee and came upstairs at 7 40 - wrote 3 pages more and ½ p. envelope and finished my letter to ‘Miss Walker Heworth Grange, York’ and sent it off at 9 ½ by Thomas in a parcel with Washington’s letter and n°2 Paxton’s magazine the small parcel for Mrs. Sutherland to go by tonights’ mail - should have sent W-‘s letter etc yesterday but waited to hear from Miss W- this morning - much disappointed - strongly  urge her to determine about and give Washington orders to let Lidgate - should always determine as soon as one can, and then the sooner the determination is acted on, the better - a great comfort  and advantage to us to have things settled as soon as possible so that our intentions should be clear to all whom they concerned – our position too equivocal - then dated 2nd page this evening– saying it was well to make an excuse of Lidgate but the truth was, I could scarcely believe it  was not a week since my return and it seemed an age since Monday and not hearing from her made me dull - Did she wish me to think less of her? She might scold and I should take it patiently – then took up Miss W-‘s letter  could not be much trouble to alter the Town’s books – she could not be expected to understand land-valuing, therefore it was W-‘s place to offer her a fair rent for the Hemingway crofts (5 ½ acres exclusive of plantations and paying £2.16.0. pounds taxes per annum l say .:. taxes = from 6/ to 7/ per day work) unless he hoped to have them as the same sort of terms as the Lidgate land – but advised her to write briefly to him on the subject merely  saying she had made up her mind not to pay the taxes and, as he put it to her to value the crofts she should have them and Cordingley’s farm valued at my same time and write by post to Mr Mitchell to let he have his valuation as soon as he could and then she would settle what allowance  should be made to Cordingley and fix a rent for the crofts as W- valued for himself and his brother in law  he ought to be glad to call in an indifferent person - would she write something like the following  ‘Miss Walker will be much obliged to Mr. Mitchell to send her, as soon as he possibly can, his valuation of the yearly rent of the land or the enclosed plan, specifying the condition of each field, the tenant to pay all taxes - Mr. Mitchell is requested to direct Miss Walker Heworth Grange, York.’ She could easily sketch the plan, giving numeros and measurements as stated in W-‘s survey - Perhaps W- would be surprised - not to give her the credit she deserved but lay it all on me – she had plenty of head, only wanted promptness of decision .........  ‘Heaven prosper you in everything! Doubt anything but the real regard of yours faithfully and affectionately AL.’ Will send the dimensions of the north parlour fireplace next time -  With my aunt from 9 ½ about an hour - then wrote the whole of this page till 11 – very boisterous  windy night –

SH:7/ML/E/16/0178

11 20 before Thomas got back – could hardly get to Halifax for the wind  - was an hour in going - brought back my packet of letters to Mr. Brown, Copenhagen under cover to HD. Scott Esquire Foreign office London (vid. Sunday 16 February) - there being written on the bank ‘Refused.....’ cannot make out the name - and enclosed in the following printed letter from the dead letter Office -‘General Post office 7 March 1834 Sir the enclosed letter not having been delivered for the reason assigned there on, was opened here by the officer appointed by his majesty’s Postmaster general for that purpose, and is now returned to you, as the writer, on payment of the postage I am sir, your obedient humble servant Francis Freeling, secretary’!!!! postage 3/8  So much for Mr. Brown’s offer of my writing thro’ him saying in reply to my scruples that it was merely a perquisite of office to be allowed to oblige friends in this way -  Letter 3 pages and 2 ¼ pages crossed from Miss Walker Heworth Grange – much pleased with the bonnet - should not want another  ‘you quite astonish me with your expedition in the execution of all my wants and wishes’ - ....... ‘I am thinking about Lidgate, and will say more when I write next query will it be wise to irritate or brave public opinion further just now? For the same reason, ought or can I accept your kind position about Shibden?’ Her usual indecision  does she mean to make a fool of me after all   she would not have me paint the carriage nor do more at Shibden than necessary  gave me that is bought for six pence and put on again my ring languidly and now declines taking the straight course of shewing our union  or at least compact to the world  should I ask her to do what she could not or ought not? Public opinion has been too much or too little braved and whatever force there is against her coming here is the same against my going there  I don’t like all this I distrust her and feel as if the thing would again and this time forever  go off between us   I shall not be played with let her come here before I go there again but I am on my guard and she may find this won’t do   My letters and feelings have been more affectionate than she deserved –she concludes with you will perceive I have practised what I preached  that is not to write anything particular I will take the hint. ‘I long for the sketch of the chimney piece  but don’t pay the carriage - why did you do it of the box? I suspect the affront was Thomas’s, not yours. Affront! Does this seem as if she really thought us united in heart and purse? Delighted to hear my aunt is a little better ‘not selfishly so for my own wish is that you should never take any distant journey so long as she lives, kind as she is and considerate in desiring it – there are plenty of  places nearer home unseen and which would be disgraceful not to visit’. This would be well enough if I did not shrewdly suspect she wishes to avoid going abroad or doing anything that would too decidedly bespeak our compact. What will she think of my letter of last night So affectionate and straightforward  perhaps it is lucky it went  and it would not have gone had I received hers first I shall not write till I have heard from her again  let us see how she can shuffle off  it has often struck me she wanted to make a cat’s paw of me to get into society  no harm done yet take care of my own concerns   my aunt’s death will try the thing and perhaps after all I shall be off at tangent  I will be cautious what I do in the meantime even in venturing to the plenty of places nearer home unseen  Miss Rawson says her mind is little and much in her money shall I find her right?   ‘only think of the time when you can come again to see the onyx (the ring I gave her) and ever believe me with love to your aunt kind regards to your father and sister  yours faithfully and affectionately, AW.’   she little thinks how much she has annoyed me but no more of her just now. Rainy day from between 8 and 9 and till 1 & 2 pm afterwards fine - but very boisterous  windy night.