#milton fleit sr

[midstpodcast]

Like, where are Milton Fleit Jr.'s parents? What is that whole generation of the Fleit family between Senior Notary Sr. and Jr. up to?

🔮: Huh, that IS weird, right? If there was ever going to be information about such a topic, it would probably be found in Season 3.

[elfietheespeon]

I'm curious to see where the Midst community's heads are at regarding this overarching mystery!

We do not have all the pieces yet, but it's safe to assume that a significant amount of the clues were present in seasons 1 and 2. It goes without saying that this is the mystery at the heart of this storyline, and there are no shortage of suspects to choose from.

(Excluding the final entry, this list has been set in alphabetical order so as to avoid personal biases)

[drinkingdeadpeopletea]

it sort of got lost in all the everything that was happening but a line from this episode that i really really loved was when milton fleit sr. said "the Breach destroyed my daughter." this man's daughter and son-in-law were killed in cold blood by the Prime Consector of the Trust but of-fucking-course this is how he thinks about it. he's continued to hobnob at the same parties as olga costigan in the years following, after all! "the breach destroyed my daughter", indeed. like it wasn't even her own choice! that's a truth he just can't face!

[captainofthetidesbreath]

I LOVE accusing every single character of being a Breach collaborator without ANY regard for whether it makes sense or whether it's likely. Hell, it's almost better if it makes absolutely no sense and isn't all that likely, since this is entirely for my own amusement. But, some of them do make at least a bit of sense, and that's also so fun to think about. Ever since the Hieronymous drop, I've just been randomly pointing fingers at any character we don't yet know either way, and coming up with reasons that would be interesting or funny or how it might work, for funsies.

Jedediah Pom? He's extremely well-placed as a member of the media, and I'm constantly suspicious of how closely he watches everything, even with considering his job. Backpack? She always seems to be in the oddest places, and I would not be surprised if information was coming through her—knowingly or unknowingly. Kozma? Would fit in with her (horrifying) propensity to "collect" people and could function as a kind of first-look deal (awful).

Agatha Ledge? I feel like the gap between her Incendiary Imaging Device and Breach stuff can be very small if you lay the cards down right, no, I cannot explain (but a mad scientist-type who changes sides because they're unhappy with their pay or access is always great). One of Imelda's brunch group (Penny, Gert, Lucille, Desiree, Maeve)? The BETRAYAL! Olga Costigan? Extremely unlikely, but it would make Spahr's life worse in a specific way that is funny to only me. Gretel? Actually, this would be pretty great because she worked directly under Spahr, and also this would make Spahr handing off Hieronymous to her at the hotel really funny.

Arno Delagny? Maybe we should be questioning why so many former employees of the Delagney Hotel at the Vantage have Breached. Imogen Loxlee, Milton Fleit Sr.? Just imagine the chaos of that for a second. The Miravette twins? They clearly need something better to do with their time and sedition might be it. Melinda Crowne? She IS a friend of Sherman's and Emmet's mother. Spahr's parents that I assume he has? Again, would stress him out so much in a way that is funny to me specifically. Speaker Corsovia, Ambassador Isadore Riley? We don't know anything about either of them for this to mean anything, so why not.

It's genuinely so fun for me to just be constantly like: today's Breach collaborator is [spins wheel]

[kerosene-in-a-blender]

Milton Fleit Sr.: Now Baron Lazlo I know you're accustomed to taking matters of state to either myself, Mrs. Loxlee, or *checks smudged writing on hand* ...Juice Bar, but we've so restructured our government that you really need to take your threats to not fuck with you to the Tripotentiary

[elfietheespeon]

"Making Moves" (1/2)

[elfietheespeon]

My old Trust character design line-up. Both the designs for Jedediah Pom and Backpack are outdated, but I'd like to imagine that this design is what Jedediah looked like back when he first became a broadcaster.

From left to right: Imogen Loxlee, Hieronymus Loxlee, Jedediah Pom, Backpack, The Miravette Twins, Milton Fleit Sr., Milton Fleit Jr., Mr. Meshkala, Ms. Ledge, Demarin Ginsberg

[elfietheespeon]

First half of the storyboard for the Midst animatic I am working on. Due to real life difficulties, accomplishing this much has taken several months. I hope to finish the storyboard before the series is over, if not the animatic itself.

[captainofthetidesbreath]

I've been thinking about why Ginsberg was asked to kidnap Milton Fleit Sr. specifically, and I think, to put it the way @utilitycaster put it to me back in February, that the plan is Fight Club.

If you're unfamiliar with Fight Club, the film adaptation: the third act revolves around a plan to wipe debt records by blowing up the headquarters of various credit card companies and of a credit reporting agency, setting everyone back to zero.

The Breach doesn't need as many explosives. The Trust keeps their records of every account in the one place (per 1.15): the Central Vault, the precise location of which within the geography of the Highest Light has been pointed out at every opportunity this season.

There isn't a whole lot that kidnapping Fleit offers to the Breach other than vacating his office temporarily (dubious, unless they want to replace him with their own person) or to get information about how the Bank of Valor works as an institution and how the Vault is laid out (also shaky, but potentially possible). Kozma claims (in 3.07): "The Breach isn't just out there. It's in here: inside the Trust, inside the Company, inside this city." The fact that the Company is mentioned* but not the Bank makes me wonder if they don't actually have a meaningfully significant enough foothold inside the Bank. Thus, they needed a way to get inside of it, understand it, or both.

* Tangent, since the Company is specifically mentioned, there must be someone we know there who is with the Breach. It's gotta be Gretel; we have only two named current members of the Company, and the other one is Spahr. It has to be Gretel just by process of elimination. This is not actually relevant to this point but—

That also leads me to wonder if this is why there's this sense of hovering over Phineas early on. (Hieronymous is in the Breach, Kozma already knew a lot about Phineas, so many seem to be keeping tabs on him, etc.) I wonder if it's like... after the Fleit plot failed, the Breach needed someone who had or could acquire security clearance to move freely through the Vault, a familiarity of off-limits areas, or both. As the new Prime Adsecla, and an apparently contentious pick for it (as suggested in appendices for 1.06), Phineas both holds a valuable position and is potentially ideologically vulnerable, making him a prime [ba dum tsh] candidate to target for a flip attempt. So, perhaps they've been working on Phineas since the Fleit plot failed. But, that's also a bit of a tangent.

Point is here: they seem to have needed Fleit for something. Kozma had ideas for what to do with Phineas, and whatever they needed Fleit for must be a gap in their logistics, but there is not a whole lot that Fleit and Phineas have in common, other than familiarity with various high-security spaces. So, I do wonder if the thing they needed was Vault access, because the specific plan is to blow up the TRW building Vault and zero out the entire debt record.