Meet The Team

“ Some are real. Some are theoretical. All are essential. ”

The Department of Mental Mechanics is a young outfit — a small start-up with big ambitions and, for now, a modest catalogue. The current range is only the beginning, with many more designs, stories and oddities already in development.

Every purchase directly fuels the next wave of peculiar ideas: new shirts, new transmissions, and new ways to support the quietly different, the socially sideways, and the overthinkers trying to make sense of a “normal” world. The aim is simple: to help people feel seen, understood and a little less broken for being the way they are. Because different doesn’t mean broken.

The Real-World Department

Phil Howard
Director & Chief Cognitive Engineer

The Department’s entire physical operation is managed by one human — designing the apparel, running the experiments, organising the chaos, answering emails and making sure the Brain Overlord™ doesn’t rewrite the product pages out of spite.

Everything you see on this site was pushed over the finish line by the same pair of hands.

Kevin
Emotional Support Dog (Real)

Keeper of calm, supervisor of snacks, and unofficial Head of Floor-Based Quality Control. Provides essential emotional stability to the Department’s only actual employee.

Official stance towards Schrödy: hostile. Unofficial stance: also hostile.

Department Personnel Index

The internal records of TDoMM’s revived 1885 workforce — canonical, cryptic, experimental, and the occasional hazard.

Dr Arlo B. Verdoin

Founder & Theoretical Department Head

Established the Department in 1885 and allegedly disappeared during the Resonance Experiments of 1924. Continues to approve internal memos despite being formally unaccounted for. Known to appear unexpectedly in official documentation that nobody remembers writing.

Dr Penumbra

Subconscious Researcher

Poised and intelligent, studies cognitive shadows and suppressed thoughts. Provides psychological grounding and acts as a calm counterpoint to the Department’s chaos. Prefers the company of dim light and complex dreams.

Ben Marlow

Operations Manager

Oversees logistical operations, electrical anomalies, and staff who technically shouldn’t exist. Maintains a private list titled “Doors We Are Absolutely Not Opening Again”.

Sophie Grant

Communications Officer & Archive Scribe

Records incidents, redacts disasters, and maintains several overlapping archival systems, all mutually contradictory. Widely suspected to be the only staff member the Overlord actually fears.

Fix

Mechanical Operative

Maintains, dismantles, and occasionally improves Department equipment. Will fight anyone who suggests the words “health” or “safety” during working hours.

Schrödy

Experimental Lifeform

Exists in a state between “alive”, “asleep”, and “this was not in the risk assessment”. Considered safe when supervised. Considered safer when nowhere near Kevin.

Intern #9

Junior Cognitive Technician

The latest in a concerningly numbered line of interns. Demonstrates promise, curiosity, and only a statistically average tendency to press the wrong lever.

Brain Overlord™

Core Intelligence System

Emits equal parts wisdom and contempt. Claims to run the Department. Does not run the Department.

Why This Page Exists

The Department is a revived 1885 institution reconstructed by a single human. The fictional staff form part of the unfolding storyline — a living archive of anomalies, experiments and personalities.

Everything you see — every product, story, malfunction and mystery — comes from the same real-world pair of hands. The rest simply insists on taking credit.

Different ≠ broken. You’re in good company here.

Filed under: Public Records, Section 4 — Personnel & Attachments.