Web Animation / Cult of Personality

"We're only a crack in this valley of glass..."

Cult of Personality is a Team Fortress 2 Machinima created by LoneWolfHBS using Source Filmmaker. It is a Sequel Series to his FYI I am a Robot video.

After a failure involving an intelligence-capturing mission, a BLU Medic from Turbine was fired and forced to return back to his hospital. After finding more outcasts abandoned by RED and BLU, the Medic swore to destroy both organizations and founded a cult of personality, the o.W.n (Our World Now). Their primary objective is to invade as many RED and BLU territories as possible and free the mercenaries of both teams from the stalemate war, either through forceful assimilation or being kept prisoner. As the o.W.n invades, taking out their enemies and recruiting more RED and BLU mercenaries to their cause, a few remaining mercenaries banded together to stop the tide crashing down on them.

The series has five chapters, plus two shorts, and a comic adding more depth to the story. The series had its own fan base in the Steam Community here, as well as an in-game mod by Lone Wolf for players to play as oWn (taking place of the BLU team) and a mix of RED and BLU (as the RED replacement).

Sadly, although Lone Wolf had intended the series to run for ten chapters, he cancelled it after only five for various reasons, ending the series on a cliffhanger. He later uploaded a video explaining how the story would have ended. [1].

Not to be confused with the Trope Cult of Personality.

Tropes Associated with Cult of Personality.

• Abhorrent Admirer: The oWn Pyro to the oWn Fem!Scout.
• Anti-Villain: Most of oWn are no less moral than other characters in RED and BLU, mostly because the mercenaries who joined oWn have their personalities largely intact despite their changed loyalties.
• Artificial Limbs: In Chapter 2, the former RED Turbine Engineer is given a robotic replacement (the Gunslinger) by the former BLU Turbine Medic.
• Assimilation Plot: oWn's plan is to either recruit all the mercenaries, or capture and imprison them.
• Author Appeal: Lone Wolf is a big wrestling and many of his works feature references to wrestling with this series being no exception. Specific examples are shown under Shout-Out.
• Bear Hug: The BLU Demoman the oWn Medic one once he realizes that he used to be on their team.
• Big Damn Heroes: Rescues happen here and there throughout the series. One example coming to mind is a RED Sniper saving an Engineer from a BLU Spy during Chapter 3.
  "I was never on your side either! Wanker!"
• The Cameo
  • Coach's head appears briefly at the beginning of Chapter 2
  • Also at the beginning of Chapter 2, Samus Aran makes a brief appereance
• Cheaters Never Prosper: The BLU Demoman gets in a kill on the RED Soldier he was dueling while he was distracted. The Demo's shortly shot in the head by the RED Sniper for it.
• Cloud Cuckoo Lander: The oWn Pyro
• Continuity Nod: In FYI I am a Robot, the BLU Medic knocks out the RED Fem!Scout in the back of the head while a brief snippet of "MEDIC!" plays. In Chapter 1 of Cult of Personality, the reverse happens with Fem!Scout knocking out Medic in the back of the head while that same snippet plays.
• Crazy-Prepared: oWn Medic expected someone to assassinate him and had an invisible oWn Spy in front him when the Fem!Medic tried to shoot him during the Cold Open of Chapter 4.
• Cult of Personality: It's... in the title.
• Darker and Edgier: The entire series, while maintaining Team Fortress 2's lightheartedness and Dark Comedy, is noticeably more serious and somewhat more mature in tone. Because Death Is a Slap on the Wrist in the original universe, oWn resorts to assimilating or capturing rather than killing to make sure the rebellion doesn't become another stalemate. The oWn Medic, in particular, isn't against torturing his prisoners, as shown when he tortures a captured BLU Fem!Medic with his own modified Medigun. Drama and relationship conflicts is also very common throughout the series, especially the relationship between former Fire-Forged Friends, the RED Turbine Fem!Scout and the oWn/former BLU Turbine Medic.
  • The Legion's first appearance involves a sudden and horrifying vision in which a few of their masked members (except the Demoman) staring blankly at the camera within a dark room. The Demoman was instead making creepy smiles alongside a masked Medic. Screams can be heard, along with voice clips asking about insanity. After the vision's similarly abrupt end, a nearby robot Pyro goes berserk and almost killed the oWn Fem!Scout, arguably the nicest oWn member in the series.
• Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: Anyone who dies will respawn, feeling the pain from what killed them but shake it off before long.
• Delayed "Oh, Crap!": During Chapter 1, the BLU Pyro sets the RED Fem!Scout, RED Soldier, and RED Spy on fire. Fem!Scout and Soldier react immediately and appropriately and while Spy notices he's on fire real quickly, it takes him a moment to react appropriately.
  • A similar thing happens during the Cold Open of Chapter 3 where the RED 2Fort Spy gets set on fire but it takes him a minute to realize that he is and then screams appropriately.
• Drill Sergeant Nasty: The BLU Soldier. His bio even says his nickname is "Drill Nasty".
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: Even though the RED Scout was the one who got the Intelligence in Chapter 1, he's given no credit by his former team.
• Enemy Mine:
  • In FYI I am a Robot, the BLU Medic and RED Fem!Scout team up to stop the Robot Soldier's attack on Turbine. The two become friends after this.
  • The RED and BLU teams in Turbine, after losing some members to the oWn, banded together to try and bring them down not once but twice so far.
  • The oWn faction as a whole can be this as the whole group comprised of members from both RED and BLU united under one common cause despite prior conflict between members. Even the group founders, a former BLU Medic and a former RED Engineer, were both from different teams and tried to kill each other before realizing their similar situations and becoming allies as a result. With the former helping the latter in replacing a missing limb, they have since then became close friends.
• Evil Costume Switch: Anyone who joins oWn gets a black uniform, but the lieutenants and the leader himself have more unique outfits after defecting.
• Evil Weapon: Attention is being drawn to a specific Eyelander in the oWn's possession, which has voices from within it speaking to its user and sometimes directly controlling them to do its bidding. The oWn Demoknight, who is the current wielder, was almost charmed into attacking his former friends from Turbine if it wasn't for an oWn Spy snapping him back into reality.
• Expy: The Deviantart character bios state that Cult of Personality was modified from an original story Lone Wolf was making, tweaked to better fit with the TF2 setting. Every major and secondary character is partly based on one of that story's characters.
• Family-Unfriendly Death: During the invasion of Turbine, the RED Fem!Scout is ripped in half by an oWn Heavy with his bare hands. Most of the gore was not shown, though a spew of blood can be briefly seen.
• Fire-Forged Friends: During FYI I am a Robot, the BLU Medic and the RED Fem!Scout team up stop the robot Soldier and following that, the two become friends.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: The oWn Medic started out as a simple, garden-variety medic.
• Green-Eyed Monster: The oWn Scout was very envious of the RED Fem!Scout getting all the attention.
• The Guards Must Be Crazy: In FYI I am a Robot, the titular Robot Soldier is disguised as flesh and blood, but makes no effort to hide what he is, constantly spouting out robot nonsense. The lead BLU Soldier only sneers whenever he speaks up and walks on.
• Heavy Sleeper
  • In FYI I am a Robot, the BLU Scout and BLU Heavy are constantly asleep and the explosions in the next room are not even enough to awaken them.
  • Later on at the end of that same video, the BLU Medic and the RED Fem!Scout fall asleep together in the middle of Turbine during a battle and none of gunshots and explosions wake them up.
• In the Hood: Pyro and Spy gain one when after they join oWn.
• Jerkass: The BLU Soldier and the oWn Scout
• The Lady's Favour: A platonic example. After surviving the robot invasion in FYI I am a Robot, the RED Turbine Fem!Scout gave the Turbine BLU Medic a thorny rose as a sign of truce. After he's fired, he leaves the rose behind, making it the Fem!Scout's Tragic Keepsake.
  • Upon his return more than a year later as the leader of oWn, he retrieved the rose after the RED Turbine Fem!Scout was captured by his followers. It was this retrieval that becomes The Reveal to the Fem!Scout as she finally realized who he truly was.
• Man Behind the Man: Since this takes place before Mann Vs. Machine, the then unknown Gray Mann is supporting oWn with funding, weapons, and prototypes of his robots in exchange for combat footage to better said robots.
• Man in a Kilt: The oWn Demoknight
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: The RED Turbine Scout is given one by the RED Soldier for sabotaging the Fem!Scout's gear. Upon defecting, the Scout repeatedly beats the Fem!Scout with his bat.
• Nemean Skinning: The oWn Demoknight trades his crown for a wolf pelt after being corrupted by the Legion.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni:
  • The oWn Medic is the blue to the BLU Turbine Soldier's red. While the Medic is generally calm, collected and stoic, the Soldier is very prone to getting angry and often employs aggressive tactics.
  • The RED Turbine Fem!Scout is the red to the oWn Medic's blue. Unlike the Medic, the Fem!Scout is, like most Scouts, cocky and very sure of herself. She's also highly energetic and very cheerful. She's also extremely aggressive, often charging into combat with little regard for her own safety.
• The Reveal:
  • Any time a merc from Turbine learns that the leader of oWn used to be one of them.
  • The BLU Medic that attempted to assassinated the oWn Medic is a Fem!Medic
• Sealed Evil in a Can: Shades of this are being shown in the form of the Legion, a group who are supposedly stuck inside an Eyelander discovered by the oWn Fem!Scout.
• Shout-Out: As stated above, Lone Wolf is a wrestling fan, and it reflects. oWn is based on the New World Order and its lieutenants have personality traits based on some of the members. For example, the oWn Scout has some of Scott Hall's "Bad Guy" traits and the oWn Heavy and Soldier both being in the Co-Dragons role like Kevin Nash and Scott Hall did.
  • At the beginning of Chapter 2, both Samus Aran and the head of Coach make a cameo
  • During Chapter 5, a BLU Heavy winds up with a bucket on his head and dancing to a catchy song. The end result is taken directly from the 2013 Saxxy Award Comedy Winner's entry: Disruption.
• Small Name, Big Ego: The oWn Scout is very full of himself, but has none of the skill to back up his boasting.
• The Smurfette Principle: Averted for the series overall, but usually each for team, their respective Fem!Scout is their only female member
• Start of Darkness: Chapters 1 and 2 show how the Turbine BLU Medic ended up where he was, and why he swore vengence on RED and BLU.
• Talkative Loon: The Robot Soldier never stops rambling about being a robot or making robot noises.
• Taking the Bullet: At the end of Cold Open of Chapter 2, the RED Turbine Engineer took a Sniper shot to protect his Pyro buddy. This ends up permanently costing him his arm and his job with RED.
• Those Two Guys: The RED 2Fort Sniper and Spy, even after they joined oWn.
• Through the Eyes of Madness: Naturally you're going to see Pyro's colorful view of things on occasions. Arguably the instances with the Legion could be considered this as the Legion's very presence tend to cause a bunch of colorful effects on the screen.
• Time Skip: One year passes between chapters 2 and 3.
• Villain Protagonist: Chapter 3 focuses almost entirely on the perspective of a RED 2fort Spy who willingly joins oWn alongside a fellow RED Sniper, betraying their team in the process.
• We Used to Be Friends: The BLU Soldier and oWn Medic were actually close at one point, Soldier even got Medic hired onto his team. But a long string of loses against RED turned him Jaded.
• Walking the Earth: The first half of Chapter 2 involves the former BLU Turbine Medic traveling several TF 2 maps before running into the former RED Turbine Enginner and Pyro.
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit: The oWn Fem!Scout tricks one of Turbine's BLUs into opening the gate with their Fem!Scout calling for help.

---