meta: "I've worked for the administrator my entire life."

[bonnefois]

"I've worked for the Administrator my whole life."



That means that Miss Pauling is either very likely related to, or was raised by the Administrator. She's likely been killing people since she was a child, and was raised with bloodshed and constant war over gravel being part of her life. It puts the interaction with Administrator in a new light. She must have rarely, if ever got to play with children her own age, had breaks, and never experienced a childhood at all.

In WAR, the Administrator was disapproving of friendship and hobbies. She's shown as being fond of, yet visibly scared of the Administrator, and she does say that she worries about being killed for not doing her job. Miss Pauling is all too aware that her loyalty is not shared, that her only maternal figure in her life views her as useful, but ultimately disposable.

Miss Pauling lives every single day of her life knowing very well that if she doesn't do enough, she'll end up in the same graves she's burying people in. Considering the one time we see her referencing vacations, it's being superseded by work, it's very likely that Miss Pauling hasn't known much fun in her life at all.

It also puts a different spin on "This was so much fun!" line in Expiration Date. It's very likely that she hasn't had much fun in her life at all, if she's been working for the Administrator since she was a child. Given that in Expiration Date her vacation day was taken away, and it very well could've been a very common occurrence. With hours like these, she doesn't have time for friendship, she has "allotted small talk" with coworkers. Coworkers that she will likely have to kill later on, who she ultimately cannot trust or truly connect with.



And again, her scenes with Scout in Expiration Date are telling. She's utterly thrilled to have a moment of fighting against monsters, and is all too happy to spend as much possible time with him, fitting him in between her work.

She's disappointed when he's less enthusiastic about things like belt-sanding the fingerprints off of corpses, and tries again and again to get him to go along with her as much as possible. In those scenes she looks happier than we've seen her, still riding high on adrenaline, and completely excited about spending as much of her future time with him as possible.

And with Introducing the Steam Link, we see she finally got that happiness again, and finally found someone who cares about her, without the constant threat of death hanging over her head.