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I feel like the tf2 fandom is currently split between literally everybody else who enjoyed the comic and us 5 dipshits who are completely disillusioned with it

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my cool font 😈

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Damn so u removed all of that to make room for what exactly? Oh yeah the hilarious jokes that wore their welcome out before they had even finished being introduced? Lmao. Glad we got extra extra time for soldier tf2 gallivanting about doing absolutely fucking nothing worthwhile

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It just hit me. In canon its very likely that Zepheniah had NO IDEA that Gray is still alive untill he revealed himself in the 1970's, as from what Helen said it seems that everybody assumed he was eaten by eagles right after birth.

With that in mind, can you imagine what he must have felt when he finally learned that Gray is alive, as he must have learned eventually?

By that point he's been in Helens captivity for so excruciatingly long. She literally ressurected him just to keep him restrained in a tiny cellar and torture him for all eternity, hooked up to some grotesque life support system like animal on a hook. He spent more time being tortured like this than he spent living normally.

And yet, despite living this agony for over 100 years non stop, it turns out there is still hope. Gray, who everyone assumed was dead since birth, shows up and he's almost everything Zepheniah ever wanted in a son. Its a miracle - his son is alive, he is a genius with an army of robots, a businness tycoon, he has a daughter and he even carried on the morally dubious family tradition of fratricide. And on top of that his tormentor is also his arch-enemy.

Despite almost literally being in hell, suddenly Zepheniah receives a glimmer of hope. Perhaps there is still a chance that his son will manage to save him, and let him rest, knowing that in the end the family name will live on.

Honestly this is fanfic worthy material. I think ill try.

(I am fully aware that Zepheniah was an asshole at life, but i doubt that he'd be THIS kind of asshole to deserve such treatment)

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Now that the saga of TF2 comics is over and theres no more predictions to be made or hopes for the future to have, i may now get it out of my system:

TF2 official lore was so insanely underdeveloped, despite the great potential that shined through the comics even when authors clearly never took it seriously, and watered it down with humor or just took the lazy route. This almost complete lack of faith i sensed was constantly filling me both with sympathy and contempt, it was like watching a very talented yet insecure person constantly make self-deprecating jokes, not letting themselves be genuine and upfront.

Did we really need to see so much soldier talking with ghost hotdogs while on the toilet and covered in honey? Were there no better things to show us with so many characters? Humor is a strongly subjective thing, but when you want to make a functional story i doubt its the right choice to bet so much on this kind of comedy.

For me, in many instances it clashed with the story and distracted the authors from stirring up something super interesting and complex; if, they wanted to do that. And honestly, i dont think they did.

I think the part where engie says to pauling that the administrator has not expected team fortress to make it is to some degree meta-commentary. Valve did not expect us to last this long, but somehow, against all odds, we found more life in us as a community and now they dont really know what to do with us

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7th comic infodump post because i dont wanna spam. Enjoy my random thoughts neatly separated with ='s, which neatly symbolize the equal absurdity of each one. Fair warning - I have my favourites.

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The comic began with 3 different covers, each in a different tone, but all showing the same scene, a girl sitting before her dead parents. First cover is a burning mansion (red), second is a frozen lake (blue). The third one is weird - it looks like some factory and there are blueprints on the ground. Id say it looks Grayish.

I believe those 3 are supposed to represent the Mann brothers and their relationship with their family, mostly their father.

Redmond was probably physically abused by his father, hence the burning mansion

Blutarch was emotionally neglected, thus the blue lake

Gray never had a family at all and was left to fruitlessly make plans and scheme

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Wait hasnt the Helen like ultimately failed in torturing Zepheniah halfway, because in the end the Mann family had a heir - first Gray, then Olivia?

Even while in her torture chamber he must have known that Gray followed exactly the path he wanted him to follow by killing Blutarch and Redmond and that the line has a heir with Olivia

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I wish that the general premise of the story was more about Helens and Gray rivalry, instead of her just wanting to torture Zepheniah with Gray being just a distraction to her. She and Gray would make such a cool pair of enemies, and generally TF2 franchise could be SO MUCH if it took itself seriously for once

Like it could be an exemplary, juicy, 1960s retrofuturistic spy movie pastige touching the themes like greed, war, capitalism

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As much as i enjoyed the whole comic i didnt really like that Gray just "told" Helen about australium immortality. It doesnt make sense, however i understand that he found her in a moment where it seemed likely that she wouldnt care.

But still, its incredibly stupid to just go meet some random person, ask them for all their immortality ingots and genuinely expect to receive them after a week.

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That ^ makes Grays death a tad more ironic. I think he told her because he wanted to impress somebody with his knowledge, because he just has an ego and wanted to flex how smart he is, and he really did assume shes not gonna care.

Such carelessness was obviously a mistake as she probably packed it up and fled the second he left. Almost 150 years later when TFC heavy asked Gray what are the rocks he refused to answer knowing it could end badly, but again his ego got the better of him because he mentioned that hes almost 150 years old

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If Helen was able to revive Zepheniah like 10+ years after his death with australium then its 100% possible that Gray was revived too. He did not turn into dust for more than 3 minutes after he died, while Helen disintegrated almost instantly, so its very much possible that he was revived!!!

(Also TFC heavy also has not disintegrared upon dying!)

(Cope of the year award is mine!)

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I like what happened with Olivia, but its a bit obvious that in canon she probably doesnt think of the time she spent with Gray most fondly.

Still i think that by all standards Gray was a decent dad. Not perfect, he had some Zepheniah in him, but all in all he was good

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The general tone of the comic is so nostalgic. Its as if valve was trying to tell us something. I sersiously wonder whats in store for TF2 in the future.

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Honestly i really did like the comic, but the Zepheniah bit was so... macabre. Like damn that panel where hes a fucking god emperor corpse hooked up to a million cables is just straight up bodyborror. Its so twisted and grotesque. Brrr.

Also, i noticed that the cables he had hooked to him had traces of australium in them. They were really big, so perhaps keeping Zepheniah alive was eating like 90% of her supply

In the panel where Zepheniah and Helen disintegrate heavy is holding medic back, almost as if medic wanted to move and do something

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Why tf did Maggie just leave Saxton lmao

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Im sorry but if medic did not speak a SINGLE LINE in the comic then we cannot say that background characters like Olivia or Gray didnt get to be more important because the focus was elsewhere. So far the most focus was on fucking soldier lmao

Also im sorry but seriously - why has medic not said anything!! Sfhtgfddd

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I wonder whars up with Engies dad

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Honestly it makes sense, he probably was a very sickly person

Guys...Grey Mann was a very weak baby, it wouldn't be strange if he used Australium to stay healthy from an early age.

I say this because I see that many do not understand why being so young he uses Australium.

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THE 7TH COMIC IS FJCKING OUT CHECK GHE WEBSITE ITS ACTIALLY THERE OH MY FICKING GOD

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KHITY

Gray and Olivia Meoww!

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In some other post i said that i imagine robotnik to be the supreme leader of a remote human civillization. Well, going down this line, think hes an austrian painter type figure in this world. Yeah, he is the de facto supreme leader, but the thing is he did not rose to power by violence. He was chosen by willing people, and he in a sense reflects all the issues with them.

Before he came to power, I think he was pretty open about what his plan was from the start, and whatever population elevated him to rule simply didnt bother to stop and think what the consequences of his plan may be. Because whenever criticised, he always managed to rationalize or water it down, sugarcoating it with only doing whats best for his people. And after all just look at him, an elderly, eccentric fat man with a moustache. Let him run things for some time, how bad could he be?

And thats exactly the thing. He looks harmless, and in short term he is probably delivering amazing results. The technology is taking a leap and the economy is booming. Suddenly there is a large surplus of everything and life becomes so comfortable that you start getting used to it, and dont really bother to ask where is all this stuff coming from. You buy more shiny stuff, Robotnik distracts you with even crazier tech. Before you know it this becomes your everyday, and you stop caring what the price for keeping this status quo is. There is always a good, moral justification for this state of things anyway. Whats one more forest? Or a polluted ocean there and there. Or an atmosphere so thick you can barely see the sky.

Ans in the end, Robotnik didnt really enslave anyone. He exploited the destructive tendencies and indifference of the people to estabilish his domination. The people who fell into a consumerist agony allowed him to create a social system that allows no other way of life and makes them dependent on him. In this sense, i think that Sonic rebels not only against having his world be ground down for resources by Robotnik, but against a lifestyle that is essentially slavery.

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Gem

i think the Conhagers LOVE trains, bringing a new Conhager to look at trains is a rite of passage

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I never really bought the canon explanation why robotnik puts animals into robots, so ofcourse i headcanon'd my own.

I think he cyborgizes animals because using them as semi-autonomous pilots drastically decreases AI training time and cost. He hooks the animal brains into robots and outsources certain aspects of steering the machine to them as organic brains are apparently better at certain things like pathfinding or pattern recognition, which lets him save plenty of time and resources which he'd normally spend training a standard AI from scratch.

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I've had this thought for a while but only just realized I have a tumblr now so I can actually get that thought to reach ppl who'll share my level of madness.

So Sonic yeah? Pretty much the entire main cast are all anthropomorphic animals, excluding Eggman and his family tree. Across adaptations of Sonic, there's not a lot of consistency on what the general population outside of Sonic and the Gang are composed of. In shows like Boom, Prime, and the IDW comics, it's almost entirely animals, and Eggman's the odd one out:

But in other versions, where there are humans, Eggman still sticks out like a sore thumb:

It's also worth noting that in some Sonic games, there are regular, non-anthropomorphic animals in addition to anthropomorphic versions

(Yes, Vector is a crocodile not an alligator, but they're close enough taxonomically to be significant. You can't convince me that the difference between alligators and crocodiles in this universe is that one swims in freshwater and the other has bills to pay)

So here's my theory: there's cartoonish, anthropomorphic versions and realistic, non-anthropomorphic versions of the animals, right? So why wouldn't this extend to humans? After all, they're mammals just like hedgehogs and foxes are. AND THAT'S WHAT EGGMAN IS. He's an anthropomorphic animal like Sonic, it just happens to be that the animal he's based on is a human.

Eggman is an anthropomorphic human. He's human squared.

Thank you

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How the fuck do i read reddit rules on mobile

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empowered by that one post i saw on the main page today i just wanna say how much i LOVE to reunite and interface with the primate, animalistic side of me as a human. And not in a sexual way, the whole idea is to try and make contact with yourself as a natural being; an animal, with its needs, physiology and instincts! To try and get a grasp of whats going on in your mind, beneath the mundane, modern cityman consciousness.

This kind of thinking has been with me for years now, and there are so many things you can see differently through those lenses. For example: food.

Preparing meals is not just a mechanical task of absorbing matter. When I make something good to eat, I feel that im a good hunter. I know where to find caloric food that is safe to eat, and i know how to prepare it. If I wish i can share my surplus with other animals to build bonds and make sure they survive too. I am doing a good job and am sure to survive!

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The recent influx of TF2 fanwork related to the Mann family is so satisfying to me because ive literally been waiting years for that to boom, I remember somewhere in like 2016? I was googling shit like ""gray mann tf2 fanart"" and stared obsessed at the grand total of 3 fanarts he had at the time. We've come such a long way chat 😭

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Crown jewels of tf2 fandom right here

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last 3 pages! thank you for reading!

it occurs to me I haven't officially titled this comic, I've been calling it "Unwanted". I might at some point compile everything with a proper cover too. More just wanted to get it done. 🎉