Your friendly local Coyleologist

I've got to say 30s/40s Blackwell was not at all what I was expecting. I knew their industry was built mostly around oil and agriculture, and I hadn't really given much thought to what people did for fun outside of going to the movies or picnicking in the park. I suppose in my ignorance, I was expecting... well, rural stereotypes. After all, that's what the game keeps trying to have us believe about Coyle.

But guys. Blackwell had speedboats. And multiple nearby water parks. That's just wild to me.

I'm not going to post a bunch of pictures, because I want people to go and watch the video for themselves, but here are some things that stood out as important

Blackwell PD and fire department still share the same building in the present day, though city hall has moved to premises on the opposite side of the road. I don't want to post a bunch of Google Maps screenshots, but I wholeheartedly recommend taking a virtual wander around the buildings exterior to get a feel for the place

So just looking at those uniforms shows that Coyle would not have been wearing the black, military inspired police uniform we see him wearing in his comic appearances. Even in the 30s/40s they'd moved onto wearing shirts and ties.

This image depicts the founding lineup of the Blackwell Police Department in 1923, and as you can see, even then, they weren't wearing military-inspired uniforms. I haven't been able to find anything similar to what Coyle wears throughout the BPD's history. But what is cool to note is that they've always had a motorcycle, so that's fun. Nothing relevant there, I just thought I'd mention it because I've seen people draw Coyle as a motorcycle cop, and it's completely plausible that he was!

One thing that sticks out to me, is how tiny the BPD force is? In the 1930s census, 9,521 people were living in Blackwell, but fewer than 10 police officers by the look of it. Coyle must feel downright spoiled in his trial environments, having such a big precinct and so many staff on hand, useless as they are, standing around like a bunch of mannequins.

Though truth be told, I would have expected Coyle to be freaking out at the amount of female police officer mannequins in his trials. I've no idea when women were first initiated into the BPD, I can't find any information on it, but the first women to join the Oklahoma City police force did so in August 1955. Coyle was scooped up by Murkoff post-February 1956, so he would know about "lady policemen", but I can't for one second imagine him approving of the concept.

Comic Coyle and the New Mexico State Police uniform that they slapped onto him for reference.

I like to think that Toy Story was right, and that if Coyle moves or says something unkid-friendly they springlock his ass

When I get my Spamton and Tenna plushies (hopefully in time for Christmas) they can all hold hands and stand guard. Because I think having to sit next to Spamton would be a special kind of hell for Coyle, and that man doesn't deserve to know peace

In retrospect, I get why Red Barrels never specified which police agency Coyle worked for, instead giving him a mishmash uniform and a generic sheriff’s car. I hadn’t factored in copyright law. You can’t copyright a town, sure. But logos and uniforms? Absolutely. If Red Barrels showed a real department in a bad light, tied to a fictional character like Coyle, that’d be… well, legally dicey at best.

So while I usually prefer stories that lean more toward historical accuracy, I can see why they kept things vague. They don’t want to get sued. Mystery solved (though honestly, it probably wasn’t a mystery, I just don’t have lawyer brain).

On another note, my Coyle uniform posts have been getting likes and reblogs again, which I’m super grateful for! But I’d love it if people could check out my latest post instead of the old ones. I should probably go back and mark the early posts as outdated… oh well 😂

I love hearing about other people’s Outlast OCs. Reagents, ex-pops, Prime Assets, doctors, it doesn’t matter, I eat that shit up. But I’m also a man of many AUs, and that got me wondering:

What would your Outlast OC be doing if they never got tangled up in Sinyala? Or if they never met the canon character you pair them with?

In my OC Cash’s story, if he had never met Coyle, he would never have made some of his worst choices, and he certainly wouldn't have ended up in Sinyala. But he’d still be a small-town cop. He’d still be dealing with the reality of being closeted in the 1950s. He’d still have a full story even without Coyle or Sinyala. Without Coyle, a whole different set of paths opens up. Would he buckle under heteronormative pressure? Would he still have his four kids? Would his wife Luanne have left him? While Coyle's corrupting presence may be gone, he'd still be facing life-altering challenges. There are a lot of things I'd just never considered because his story with Coyle feels so set in stone, and wandering down this path of "what ifs" has expanded my understanding of Cash as a character and his agency within his own narrative.

This whole line of thought actually started while I was chatting with @misa-bun about her OC Molly. We ended up having a great back-and-forth about where our characters might be without Coyle in their lives.

The delivery person put him in my outside bin, so I had to fish him out with my grabber. Why the fuck would someone put a parcel into a bin with cat litter in it? 🤢

Anyway he's fine, he arrived in pretty good shape considering the journey he's had. I imagine he'd have plenty to say about being shipped from China to Britain. But he's going to have more to say when he finds out he's going to be living next to my plushie of Grelle Sutcliffe 😁

I'm really sorry, but I just don't think we know enough about Prescott for me to dissect him the way I do with Coyle. I genuinely thought The Minotaur was going to be a revamped version of Whitehorn, because of the bull imagery. Personally, I would have gone with Chimaera imagery for the Kress twins rather than the Minotaur. But since they're from Buffalo, it still kind of works, I guess.

The fact that Whitehorn-branded products are still scattered throughout the trials makes me think we’re not supposed to forget about him entirely, which gives me a little hope that he might return.

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They made us look at Otto's penis.