#there is no going back from the TF2 fandom

[calytatif]

Behold

The bunny scout

Second plushie in the collection of tf2 mercs in amigurumi.

Istg I spent more time than I'd like to admit on his cap 🥲

[gingerale13]

Rendering!! Look mom I'm rendering!!

source + other versions + speedpaint under cut

The original SFM:

Honestly such a classic SFM that I am deeply in love with..

Procreate Speedpaint:

[personal-person1]

my hands hurt i should've worked in shorter sessions

closeups and rambling under the cut

-game night initially started with a standard deck of playing cards but they kept losing them inbetween sessions and having to supplement with other things, and now the deck is an absolute abomination of playing cards, uno, yu-gi-oh, pokemon and MTG

-sniper keeps looking at spy's cards, which has made spy So determined to stop sniper from winning that they both end up losing miserably

-demo showed up midgame and only saw uno cards on the table so he figured they were playing uno, and he has yet to figure out that they aren't

-if archimedes coos at the card you played, you have to take it back and play a different card

-scout collects pokemon cards and he added the shit cards he owns to the deck

-the rules change basically every time they try to play this thing so engie stopped caring about winning and is just here for the show

-pyro usually plays too, but currently they're coloring instead

-scout won't stop rocking his chair and he Will fall over during the game

-heavy and medic were meaning to play chess tonight but they were coerced by scout to join, and they're borderline ignoring the game in favor of discussing medic's latest project

-heavy's shirt says "a woman without a penis is like an angel without wings"

i do usually consider tf2 as taking place in the 60s and use the time accordingly but i drew this over a minecraft screenshot LOL i decided to ignore that for the purposes of this

note, i have only started playing this game and engaging with this fandom for a few weeks - ive been meaning to get into it for years but i knew i would go insane when i did, and i was right! i am!

[healpimp]

#FixTF2 Masterpost: Important Information Regarding the Movement

As promised, here is a comprehensive post about the #FixTF2 movement, the issues it tries to bring up and where to find more information and follow developments.

It is now day 7 of the protest with no response form Valve. Either this is them trying to wait for this to blow over or waiting for the signatures of the petition to be printed out and brought to their office, or they are still preparing a proper response to the movement. Regardless, this protest is still ongoing.

❓What's going on with TF2?❓

I'm sure everyone and their grandma knows by now, but TF2's most popular game mode, Casual, has been plagued by bots for several years by now. This is in fact not the first attempted protest and you may have heard of the one conducted two years ago named #SaveTF2. The movement wrested a response from Valve, which since the first protest has earned infamy and a status as a blatant lie among the game's players.

However, this task has seemingly been abandoned entirely. The last time in recent memory with no bots was when the game upgraded from 32-bit to 64-bit, which seemed to break the bots for a while. This was something the bothosters remedied a few days later, and no steps to remove them from the game has been made ever since.

It is worth mentioning that TF2 has had updates to battle the bot issue many times after #SaveTF2. They did indeed move to make TF2 a bot-free game for a while.

❓Why is this even bad?❓

Now, this might seem like a non-problem; TF2 is a video game and no more than that. People could simply move on and play similar games, like Overwatch, Paladins, Splatoon, etc. This would certainly be an easy solution but this has roots much deeper than simply playing a game.

For one, this game has been around for about 17 years by now. Ancient by FPS standards, but that the game is still played and talked about to this day stands as a testament to the love and passion the playerbase and general fandom has for it. The playerbase is loyal, the potential for content is seemingly endless and many are willing to pay money for the game. And therein lies some issues.

TF2 has millions of dollars invested in it by the playerbase. Loot boxes, MvM tickets and any sale made in the community market all gives Valve a steady and reliable revenue stream. This is significant, because you will have to make the assumption that this money will come back to sustain the game from imploding in on itself and remain functional. In the case with MvM, the PvE mode (that has not been updated in QUITE a while), the chances of receiving valuable loot from the missions is actually so small that there is no way to feasibly make any of your money back.

Additionally, any content updates added to the game every event (Summer Update, Scream Fortress and Smissmass) is community made. This means Valve picks and chooses cosmetics, emotes, unusual effects, warpaints and maps made by fans in the workshop.

While the creators of these items are compensated for their work, Valve naturally profits from these content updates.

In shorter terms: Valve profits off a game that has been in a near-unplayable state for more than 5 years by doing next to nothing.

And that isn't even the end of it. This is just the general negligence of Valve. It gets a lot uglier when delving into the punishable crimes conducted by the bothosters.

This video by TheWhat Show talks about this in depth, focusing on a particularly important case that involves MegaScatterBomb, who was harassed, doxxed, impersonated and swatted for trying to develop a working anti-cheat for casual.

This video is also in a document form for those who would rather read.

A more recent development with the bots has been their blatant advertising and promotion of CSAM, which you may better know as CP.

After #FixTF2 started, bots have been found spamming links in text chat that they claim is CSAM, while micspamming disturbing audio into the voice chat that is either edited to sound like or is legitimately CSAM. Valve has yet to respond to these reports, but good amount of players on Twitter/X have already started notifying FBI about this situation.

Another thing worth noting is that the bothosters have actively attempted to take down the petition website by DDoSing it and by filing a fake DMCA claim, both which are punishable crimes.

So to summarize:

It is wholly unsafe to play the game due to the bothosters and their willingness to commit crimes in the name of ruining the game experience.

Valve is profiting from keeping this broken product running, yet refuses to put any meaningful effort into fixing the bot problem.

The community actively contributes to the game by designing cosmetics and maps, and while they are compensated for their work, Valve are the ones who profit the most from their contributions.

Real people have been and are being harmed by the bot problem, and as far as we are aware, no one has been held accountable.

This is wholly unacceptable, both from a professional and unprofessional standpoint. If Valve fancies themselves a corporation worth using money on, their choice to simply ignore the problem speaks volumes of their priorities.

As Valve is releasing their new game Deadlock, there are serious concerns about the security of this game. TF2 is far from the only game that has bot/cheater problems. CS2 has had a similar problem for a long while as well and there is a clip of a Chinese bot farm that has been going around and which has even breached into the #FixTF2 movement.

❓What should we do?❓

Sign the petition while it is still up. At the time of this post, the petition has reached 270k+ signatures. The website has more general information as well.

Add to the #FixTF2 tag on mainly Twitter/X. Tag your posts with it, retweet and like posts in the tag and put the focus on the bots and ONLY the bots. One of the issues of the last movement, #SaveTF2, was that it wasn't focused enough on any particular problem and Valve could get away with making no promises. So, post clips, fanart and rants to your heart's content, so long it is specifically about the bots.

Watch youtube videos with #FixTF2 as the subject. Here are some good places to start:

4. Boycott any transactions in TF2. While Weezy was against this method in his video above, he has since changed his opinion. It has been established that Valve is very unlikely to shut down TF2, since the TF2 community market has millions of dollars invested in it and shutting down TF2 would render all items useless, thereby fully taking away any and all investments any players have put into the game. This would not just be devastating to the general economy of Valve's marketplaces, but a huge blow to their reputation if they want to remain reliable in the eyes of consumers.

5. Don't interact directly with bothosters. This includes harassment and any attempts at doxxing/swatting. These individuals are bigoted and some are even criminals. They have no remorse for their actions and talking to them would be a fruitless endeavor. Refrain from mentioning their names/aliases, as they are fond of attention and are getting just about enough of it since #FixTF2 started.

6. Don't give up.

❓Where can I keep up with any news?❓

Here are accounts to start with if you want to follow any important proceedings regarding #FixTF2:

Weezy (One of the biggest voices for #FixTF2 and spearhead of the protest):

Weezy's Youtube Channel

Weezy's Twitter

TheWhat Show (Similar to Weezy, outspoken supporter and spearhead):

TheWhat's Youtube Channel

TheWhat's Twitter

Shork (Outspoken supporter and generally active in the fandom)

Shork's Twitter

MegaScatterBomb (Creator of the TF2 cheater database and attempting to make a working anti-cheat for casual)

Mega's Youtube

If you discover new information, inconsistencies, broken/repeated/wrong links, etc., please speak up! Use the comments section, reblog with a comment or DM me!

[zarla-s]

Please don't take this as me being angry or trying to be rude or anything, but this ask is... baffling to me?? For a variety of reasons, haha.

Like, I don't set out to create a "fandom" around my stuff when I do things, I just do them cause I feel like it and sometimes I get lucky enough that people enjoy it and feel inspired to create or talk about it! I'm not really trying to fill a void left by one of these "fandoms" by making a new "fandom" around things I make, I'm just doing stuff.

The idea of a stockpile of interests getting too big is also bizarre to me? Like... for an example of both things, you can watch Stamp on the Ground, it's chock full of all kinds of weird obscure interests of mine I just put in there because I liked them, and I since have many many more. There isn't really a limit to how many interests you can have!

Mentioning abandoning TF2 is also very funny to me because I kind of already did that once?? When I started drawing it again in 2023 I was coming back to it, the last time I drew anything for it was 2009. Twelve years where I didn't even touch it! Starting up again was the last thing I expected and yet here I am!

Which relates to the greater point I guess which is that my interests and inspiration don't just die and disappear, they just go dormant. They're always waiting there for the right cue to wake them up, and I can never predict when it happens. TF2 is the most recent example! But Vargas is a long-running one, I take huge hiatuses from it where I don't write or draw or think about it for a long time, but it's always there in the back of my mind. I went absolutely nuts for it around 2020 and then it went back to sleep for the most part, but I still get ideas every now and then. It's not gone. It's just taking a break.

All the things I like and make stuff for are like that. There are a few I don't see myself coming back to any time soon, but then again I thought that about TF2 and now I've made the most elaborate site I've ever made for it. I can't predict these things. What'll be next? I have no idea. MGS again? StarCon2? Ace Attorney? Or maybe it'll be something new? Who knows!

And I think describing one of those "fandoms" as crumbling and dying is a bit unfair... I don't think of it like that. I mean, I started Vargas in 2003 and I last updated it in 2021 and I'm still hearing from new people that just got into it! All the stuff I've made is still "alive" in that way. I do feel guilty in that transition period between one interest and another because I feel like I'm disappointing people who followed me for that one thing though, haha. But what can you do? Gotta do my thing! Follow where my heart leads me! Not everyone's going to be along for the ride, and that's fine.

(Those of you have stuck around through all my different interests, I appreciate you deeply <3)

[can-i-see-your-passport-please]

Okay so here's everything I know about TF2. Please no one elaborate on anything I know about, because I think it's so much funnier if I have no context to anything. I have absorbed all of this through Tumblr osmosis

Emesis Blue is an excellent film

Soldier apparently was never an actual soldier, he just loves America and really wanted to kill Nazis (the second one i respect greatly)

Medic would probably give you a lobotomy for fun (i don't think this guy's even a doctor)

Two really old guys are fighting bloody wars over gravel I think and their father is named Grey Mann which was most definitely meant to make Gman enjoyers lose it but to be fair his name could also be Gary Man.

What am I on

Heavy and Medic are apparently gay but idk if this is a fandom seeing two men next to each other and going "gay" thing or a "all but confirmed gay" thing but TVTropes referred to them as "Heterosexual Life Partners" which is very funny

emesis blue is so fucking good oh my godddddd the respawn machine is horrifying just from the concept it turned scout into soup

Scout is half French and loves his mother (who is not french) and does not love his father (spy i think)

Medic presumably died went to hell and told the devil "oh I'm like a cat I have nine souls actually. So I should get to go back to being alive" and it fucking worked??????

THE FUCKING SCENE IN?? IN EMESIS BLUE??? WHERE. WHERE SOLDIER TELLS MEDIC "YOU'RE GONNA MAKE IT OUT" AND MEDIC SAYS "i KNOW" BEFORE HE JUST FUCKING DIES AND HE'S THE PROTAGONIST SO YOU'D EXPECT HIM TO LIVE RIGHT??? AND THEN HE JUST DIES AND DOESN'T APPEAR AGAIN FOR SO SO LONG

Pyro is an any pronouns warrior and it commits great atrocities while also having so much sillyness in his heart. I love her

I think Engineer blowed up his arm. I think

Spy is a cunt and also French. I do not think this I know this. I look at him and I sense his cuntery. It radiates off him. I can feel it.

SOMETHING ABOUT THE LETTER M BEING BRANDED ONTO MEDIC'S FACE BEING A REFERENCE TO THE MOVIE SCOUT WAS WATCHING WHERE THE LETTER M IS USED TO MARK A MURDERER. HE'S LITERALLY MARKED AS A MURDERER BY PYRO. SOMETHING ABOUT THE SCENE WITH DEMOMAN AND DELL'S BAR BEING A REFERENCE TO A SCENE IN THE SHINING WHERE THE MAIN CHARACTER IS LITERALLY TALKING TO A GHOST. SOMETHING ABOUT SCOUT'S MOTHER'S HEAD BEING HELD AROUND A CORNER AND DROPPED PARALLELING PYRO'S HEAD BEING HELD AROUND A CORNER AND DROPPED. SOMETHING ABOUT SCOUT'S "IF THEY EVER HIT YOU WITH SOMETHING, YOU HIT BACK TWICE AS HARD" WITH MEDIC SHOOTING SPY TWICE IN THE HEAD AFTER BEING SHOT ONCE IN THE GAME OF RUSSIAN ROULETTE WHY IS EMESIS BLUE SO GOOD

TF2 is in an eternal war with Overwatch for some reason

I was doing a poll a few days ago and the tags psychic blasted me with the information of "by the way people pay like fifty dollars to see medic's tiddies in game." I have gotten varying answers between ninety dollars to three hundred fucking dollars but the constant remains that people will pay Valve comically high amounts of money to see Medic's boobs. What

Scout almost got Earth exploded because he died a virgin???? But then God was like "Okay go back down to earth I'm giving them one last chance to all have sex with you" I'm so confused what does any of this mean none of this makes any sense but it's hilarious

Scout might be legitimately named after Jerma and bears a frightening resemblance to him (though to be fair scout is every white boy in one)

You should watch Emesis Blue it's free on youtube

Demoman's eye is sentient even though he doesn't have it????

I can't decide who's my favorite the white boy the unethical scientist or the silly nonbiney war criminal

Conclusion: What the fuck is team fortress the second one about

[marksbear2]

HELLO MALE READERS

I’m back from my break, my old account was @marksbear/ so it’s a redo of my intro. So I can change things.

I’m officially gonna start writing here! So imma just gonna make a quick run down of who am I and how this is gonna work! 

My name is Mark! I’m 23 he/him and Pansexaul! Half Scottish and Brazilian 🇧🇷 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿!  English is not my first language!

 My favorite animal are Bears so don’t be surprised if you see alot of Bear related things on the blog. 

I’m going to write for a male/ gn/ Ftm(trans) readers, so anyone that goes by She/her She/they can go ahead and get out of here. So it won’t have any issues in the future.

I’m in a lot of fandoms like fox 9-1-1, interview with the vampire, Hannibal, Top gun, ANY SLASHER, The boys, Marvel, DC, Supernatural, Euphoria, What we do in the shadows and Our flag means Death. The walking dead, the last of us. And all of those are from shows and TV.  

BUT Thats not all I do write for video games like Overwatch, Tf2, Genshin impact, Call of duty, DBD,.

I can basically write for almost any fandom. DON’T BE AFRAID TO REQUEST SMUT 

Rule link- Here.

Fandom link- Here.

                                        JOIN THE BEAR CLUB

All of the claimed Anon emojis! 🦉 💤 ♌ 🦊 🧛  🐼 🐍 🐻‍❄  💀  ⚰ 🍀 🗝 🦝🐉🐇🫧 🐰💣🤡🦈🪲🍓🦎♐️🐙🐡

[feathernotes]

Hello! My name is Krispy, and I’m the co-creator of the webcomic Ghost Junk Sickness (along with @spacerocketbunny​) It's story time!

GJS is a webcomic published by Hiveworks and features two bounty hunters with an unstable dynamic who are pushed to pursue the deadly bounty dubbed the Ghost The current iteration of GJS is about 9 years old (and wrapping up next year!) It’s been an incredible journey full of ups and downs. We’ve learned SO MUCH creating this comic, and I wanted to share some of it’s origins with you all in hopes of inspiring more folks to take chances, make mistakes, and get messy- and make that comic!

The origin of Ghost Junk Sickness came from our love for Magic Knight Rayearth and Final Fantasy 7. Vahn, the protagonist of GJS, was basically a mash up of Hikaru and Cloud from those two series. The very first version of this story has unfortunately been destroyed, and this map is the only piece I have left of that world. Character art still exists though, and it was pretty funny to see how obvious we were with our inspirations at the time.

The original attempt at the story was called Crew, and my sister Space and I worked on it in 2002-2004. We sort of got lost in our own ideas after that, and weren’t as focus on making the comic (now lost). A few years later, I decided to try my hand at it and it looked like this:

This was all done on low quality paper, whichever I could find at the time and some pencil crayons. This attempt was over 600 pages long and had a pretty random story plot, much like the first version. I could not tell you what it was about haha 😅

My second attempt (then called Divine Ace) I wanted to look more 'traditional manga' and kept with just inks and tried my darndest to tone on the computer (it never worked out). This one lasted over 400 pages, and was more allinged with my liking to edgy action anime and games at the time. It was also Trigger's first appearance!

After experimenting and eventually wanting to change- I started to work with Space again, and we collaborated in full on our first fancomic for TF2 called "Be Efficient, Be Polite." It was a good lesson on how we could coordinate our shared skill sets and plan out who did what as far as the whole process of comics go.

All of these comics (save for the very first lost version) were hosted on DA the day we got our hands on a scanner. It was our first taste on being 'webcomic creators' back in the day, and it was very fun! We didn't much care for readers, only the process of completion at the time, so a page done was always a victory worthy to be celebrated (and back then, we had more time to make pages!)

And so, as the years went by and we decided to move on from our fandom roots, Space and I went back to the Crew/Divine Ace project and redesigned and overhauled the entirety of it. (You can see the full evolution here) We wanted to re-asses what the story, comic, and characters meant to us, and how we could convey some pretty important ideas and concepts to our potential readers. From that, Ghost Junk Sickness was born, and began pre-production in 2013.

Years after, we find ourselves reflecting on how much we've learned from the process of going ahead and diving in head first. There were certainly many iterations and years it took to get where we are today, but realising that it all began that day Space and I decided to scribble some pretty mediocire comics in our homework books and papers. Because that is the beauty of comics- The many skill sets, the hats, and challenges that come along with creating them. And how much we've become better at so many things along the way. So if you read this and feel nervous about diving head first into your first comic, I'm here to re-assure you that things will feel tough, but exciting. Things will feel really hard but amazing when you're getting your story out in front of you with such an incredible medium. Webcomics will always be my favourite because of how accessible it is to any skill set. And know in your heart of hearts that there ARE people out that that LOVE to see growth, they love to see the progression of your journey. So get out there and start creating that comic that's occupied your brain for so long, and start breathing that life into your OCs and your world. The only way is up with webcomics, and the only way to start is just by creating now.

[jamisonwritestf2trash]

HEYYY love the scenarios you qrite!!! if you do angst, could you do how every merc would react if a teammate they're close with (platonically) died in battle?

How Would the TF2 Mercs React to a Close Teammate Dying In Battle? (Angst!)

————————————————————

Hi, I'm so glad to hear you like my writing 😭 also thank you so much for your ask! I do write angst, but most of the time, I tend to add a little bit of comfort just to keep things from getting too dark. I hope that isn't too big of an issue! But enough rambling, here we go :)

————————————————————

ALSO, I don't know how to explain this, but some of the characters I associate with each other are ones I ship together or are well known ships in the fandom but, I think regardless of shipping, these characters have a close bond as friends and that's how I'm going to write them or at least try! (I hope that makes sense :D)

————————————————————

TW: DEATH, VIOLENCE, LOSS OF A FRIEND(?), GENERAL ANGST BASICALLY!

————————————————————

The mercs had an off feeling from the start. The battle had only begun but the other team we're fighting it was their last battle. All the mercs had at least one wound that would require stitches after the match. Then as the two mercs (whoever's in the head canon) cross paths, and a shot rings out, wounding them fatally.

————————————————————

Demo- If Solider Died:

If he had been drunk when he stepped on the battlefield, he was sure as hell sober now. He immediately runs over to Soldier, fucking panicking like you wouldn't believe. He keeps trying to tell Solider that it's not so bad, that he can pull through, that it'll be okay, all well screaming for Medic to come and help. Soldier just takes his hand away from his wound. Demo tries to fight against him, but Soldier only tells him,

"It was an honor to fight by your side. See you in hell, Tavish." as he goes limp on the ground. Medic eventually makes his way to where the two lay, looking rather battered himself, and is immediately cornered by an enraged Demo.

"Can you fix this? Can you bring him back?" He says, trying his hardest not to break. Medic says he can, "Then fucking do it." is the only reply from Demo as he walks onto the field, forgoing his weapons. Fully intent on ripping the other team apart, limb from limb, with only his bare hands.

————————————————————

Engie- If Pyro died

Engie never thought that you could see the light leave from someone's spirit, he thought you could only see it in their eyes, which was why he was half thankful Pyro wore the gas mask, he didn't want to think about Pyro dying, but it crossed his mind on more than one occasion, and he just kept thinking that maybe, if he didn't see the light leave their eyes, that it wouldn't hurt as much in the event that something tragic happened. He couldn't have been more fucking wrong. Pyro crumpled to the floor, blood staining the ground under them, taking shallow breaths, Engie swears that even though the bullet hit and killed Pyro that day, it also killed him. He immediately ran over, trying to find the wound to see how bad it was, hoping somehow it wouldn't be as bad as he thought. He received no such comfort. Pyro just reached for his hand, sqeezing it tightly, before moving a hand to their mask, pulling it off their face slightly, just enough to mutter the words,

"I'll miss you. You were my best friend." Engie would fix their mask out of respect before carrying them to Medic. The ground was coated in blood by the end of the match. You couldn't step in any corner without feeling the ground squish beneath your feet. And yet, still sitting on the battlefield, even after all the blood shed, Engie sat in the spot where Pyro died, trying to look for the light that had been lost.

————————————————————

Heavy- If Medic died

Instant rage. Like flipping a switch, all hell breaks loose. With no Medic to heal, well, Medic, Heavy makes quick work of killing the enemy team, not worrying about the multiple wounds he was receiving while doing so. He only spares the other teams Medic, spewing every threat imaginable at him if he doesn't heal his teams Medic. The other team's Medic, for his part, is trying his hardest. Knowing full well that Heavy will uphold the threats, he tries and fails. The damage is too severe, the blood is gone, soaked into the ground, and he can't undo what's been done. (He's nowhere near as good of a doctor as Medic) Heavy doesn't kill him. He sees no need anymore. His death won't fix what happened, and he tried, he held up his end of their "deal," so to speak. He sits next to Medic's body, apologies slipping out every now and then, apologies for not doing his job, for not protecting him. It was his fault his friend died, and he has to live with that forever.

————————————————————

Medic- If Heavy died

He knows, in his mind, that death isn't permanent, so he reasonably shouldn't be worried, but he is. He's worried, devastated, angry, and he's feeling more emotions than he ever thought a person could feel. He runs to Heavy's side, comforting him, knowing already that the wounds are too grave to be healed. He can only just be with him now. He's speaking a mile a minute, assuring Heavy that this isn't the end. He can and will bring him back, apologizing in between reassurance for not being able to heal him, not being able to stop the pain, apologizing for anything and everything. Heavy cuts him off,

"I trust you, Doktor. I believe in you, I will see you again, my friend. Goodbye for now." Medic didn't even realize he was crying until he felt his tears on his pants. Medic could and would have killed the other team, but he ordered his teammates to keep them alive, just make it so they can't escape. Screaming, begging, and cries to God would be heard from the medbay for months.

————————————————————

Scout- If Sniper died

Sniper wasn't even supposed to be there. He was supposed to be anywhere else. But he was there, and he was dying. Scout ran to his side, trying to find the wound, his basic first aid skills kicking in as he applied pressure wherever the blood was coming from, while yelling for Medic like he's never yelled before. Sniper just chuckled,

"What are you laughing at, I'm trying to help!" Sniper just pulls Scout's hand away and shows him the blood staining his hand and tape, and pointing to the blood pooling around the wound.

"It's no use." Scout just kept murmuring the word no. Sniper pulled out his keys with great struggle and placed them in Scout's hand, "Take care of the van for me, would ya?" Giving him a weary smile before letting out one last breath. His bat looked painted by the end of the day. Washed off his bat and then just sat in the van after picking up Snipers rifle and hat, putting them back in their rightful place. The van had never felt so empty and cold.

————————————————————

Scout- If Spy died (Scout thinks Spy is his dad but has no proof)

Scout felt a deep pain seeing Spy be shot down in front of his eyes, an unexplainable pain. He'd seen everyone on his team get hurt at least once, but somewhere deep in his gut, he knew that nothing about this was normal. He ran over to Spy, pulling off his coat and trying to find the wound, Spy just tried to shoo him off.

"Just let me die alone, Scout. I don't deserve to die in company, let alone yours." Scout is taken aback, utterly confused, and angry.

"Spy, I ain't letting you die alone. I'm not letting you die, period. I know we don't always get along, but I care about you, so I'm not leaving." He goes back to trying to find the wound, yelling for Medic to come and help. Spy just looks at Scout, flashes of all the things he never got to have or ever will have haunt him in his final moments, but Scout's willingness to get him help, or even just stay with him, heals something inside Spy. He reaches out, grabbing hold of Scout's arm, saying one final goodbye to the boy he wish he would have raised,

"I've always been proud of you, Scout. je t'aime mon fils, au revoir." (I love you, my son, goodbye)

The words hit Scout deeper than Spy could ever know. Assuming he was saying something to Scout, that would make no sense, but Scout understood French well enough to reply to the dead man.

"J'aurais aimé que tu puisses dire ça avant, au revoir papa." (I wish you could have said that before, goodbye dad.) Scout let his pain be known through the slaughter on the battlefield that day.

————————————————————

Sniper- if Scout died

Instantly concerned at Scout's expression when he's hit. His face goes from his normal smiling and joking (albeit with a concerned look shining through from time to time) to a face of pure shock and terror. He runs over to Scout as quickly as he can, asking him questions to try and figure out how best to help him.

"Snipes, it's no good," He's coughing when he speaks, and his sentences are getting softer, "I think this is it for me." Sniper can't say anything. He just holds Scout's hand. Wishing he could find the words to express his fear of losing the bond he and Scout had built over the years. Expressing anything other than pained silence. Scout seemed to pick up on this, letting out one last quip, "Don't beat yourself up for not having any words, I don't think anyone could describe me. I'll miss you Snipes, make everyone else's lives hell for me, okay?" Sniper went cold, picking up his rifle, storming off to the best point he could find, and littered the battlefield with bits of brains and skull.

————————————————————

Spy- if Scout died (Scout knows that Spy is his dad)

Guilt riddled the second he saw Scout fall to the ground. Spy had gotten into a natural habit of protecting Scout from most dangers, claiming each time that Scout was just lucky he happened to be around. But to see Scout be struck down because Spy was unable to protect him and made feelings well up in him that he had tried to bury. He ran to Scout's aid, attempting to help in any way he could, taking off his coat to soak up blood as well as using it to partially pact the wound, Scout let out a soft laugh,

"You'd really ruin your fancy coat for me?" Meant in jest, the joke hit Spy harder than it should have. Wondering if Scout really had doubts on if Spy would sacrifice his life for something as trivial as clothes. Scout saw the look cross Spy's face but didn't have the words to answer the questions floating around in Spy's mind. Scout just reached a hand out to Spy,

"It'll be alright, just uh," his voice breaks a little bit as he asks. "Tell Ma, I love her. She'll love to hear from you again and give here these. He says, handing over his dog tags. Spy looks shocked, wanting to ask when he found out, but Scout was gone before the words left his mouth. The battlefield will never be the same again, stained with corpses and blood. His butterfly knife will never be the same again.

———————————————————

Solider- if Demo died

Soldier never thought he'd see the day where Demoman would fall to the ground. His friend was so strong, so powerful, nothing could stop him. But there he was, on the ground, blood staining the dirt, and Soldier found himself being truly scared for the first time. He runs faster than he's ever ran before, getting to his side in an instant. He doesn't know what to say. He doesn't know what to do. He calls for Medic. Trying to somehow comfort Demo. He's never been good with words, wants to express. He knows how much this friendship means to both of them, how deeply they care for each other, he wants to explain this all, to make it known, but all he can say is,

"You're a strong man Demo, this little bullet wound won't take you down!" Demo just gives him a small smile.

"I don't think I'm coming back from this one, lad."

"Don't say that. It won't take you down. This can't take you down!" Demo just extends a hand, hugging Soldier before going limp in his arms. The battle wasn't the same after that. Men wept out of fear, seeing the carnage, knowing they were next to be slaughtered. The battlefield was covered in flesh and bone by nightfall, and he still wasn't done inflicting damage on the ones who took his friend from him.

————————————————————

Pyro- if Engie died

They go numb. All the color drains from the world around them as they find themselves by Engie's side, heartbroken. Their friend, someone they've come to trust, and have a deep bond with, the only person that they believe can truly understand them is ripped away from them. Engie only looks up at Pyro with a sad face,

"I'll miss you partner, you were the best friend a guy coulda asked for. I was lucky to have you in my life." Tears well up in Pyro's mask, dropping out when they pull the mask off, just enough to be able to speak.

"Please don't leave." Engie raises a hand to their face, wiping away some of the tears.

"I don't think I have much of a choice in the matter. Don't worry though, we'll meet again one day, I'll make sure of it."

The body goes limp in Pyro's arms. The battlefield was scorched. Nothing was left by the time Pyro was finished with it. Only the other nine mercs, the ones who killed Pyro's friend, failing to find a place amidst the fire and ash. Finding themselves at the end of Pyro's flame thrower, pleading for anyone else to come kill them. No one listened. Scorched earth and nine piles of ashes were all that was left as night fell.

————————————————————

Aftermath! (Short Happy Ending)

Medic managed to revive each merc after hours of tinkering with their corpses, trying every imaginable (and unimaginable) way to resurrect them. He won't tell anyone how he did it, but no one really cares too much. Tears and hugs are shed from many grown people that day <3

(Uh, if you're wondering how Medic came back, the Devil probably just didn't feel like dealing with him and sent him back lmao)

————————————————————

Hell, hath no fury like a man who just lost his best friend.

Oops, I had to give Scout two because I originally had no one who cared that Spy died lmao. Anyways, I hope you like this Anon, sorry it took way too long to write. I uh didn't think it would be this long 😭

Silly little word count just for funsies: 2337 words, and it clocks in at nine pages in times new roman 12pt font double spaced, just incase you were wondering.

I. Am. Exhausted.

This took at least 4 hours. I'm not complaining, but like Goddamn. New post tomorrow, hopefully.

[bcdrawsandwrites]

[ID: A Team Fortress 2 fic banner featuring a silhouette of Pyro using the stock flamethrower and setting things on fire. Pyro is light gray with darker outlines, with its class symbol and canister markings in orange, and its lenses yellow-white. They are on a dark gray background with faint gray text behind them reading numbers from 999,996 to 999,999. The title is in the top right in yellow-white text on a darker background reading, "CHAPTER ONE: PYROMANCY." /end ID]

Flickering

Fandom: Team Fortress 2 Rating: K+ Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Friendship Characters: Spy, Pyro, Engineer, Medic, Sniper Warnings: General references to trauma, TF2-typical violence Fic Description: After the events of the comics, the mercs try to go back to how things were, but it’s never that easy.

Spy can see his teammates going through their own struggles… but something seems to be very, very wrong with Pyro in particular.

And since no one else seems to be doing anything about this, Spy makes it his mission to get to the bottom of what is troubling Pyro. For no particular reason. Beta Readers: @mechmolar, @gonturan0, @junuve Notes: I have no idea what was supposed to happen in the final comic, so for the sake of my sanity I'm going to have the mercs go back to business as usual, somehow.

---

Chapter 1: Pyromancy Summary: In which Spy takes on a new mission.

---

After everything was said and done, the scars they endured were more than physical.

Sniper had been the first to admit it, quietly mentioning during the chaos between rounds the fact that he sometimes still felt the pain of bullets long-gone, and not the ones they endured from their usual matches.

(The matches had resumed, even after the death of all three Mann brothers. It was a touch of normalcy that they all needed.)

Heavy made frequent trips to Medic's office, not for any treatment, but just in case there was still some Australium left in that brute's veins and he came after them again.

Spy, meanwhile, had escaped unscathed and had absolutely nothing to hide from anyone.

But as for the others, this was, of course, all very normal. They'd all been through a lot of strange events—or stranger than usual—and a bit of lingering trauma was to be expected. Nothing to be concerned over.

Except for one thing.

Spy had noticed it during a match. An enemy merc had been preparing to sneak up on Pyro, who was removing a sapper from a sentry. But the second they got too close, Pyro swung around with its homewrecker, striking the merc again and again until they despawned. On the surface it had seemed little different from how Pyro usually handled things. Even so, something about the incident felt... off to Spy.

So he decided to keep an eye on things. During matches, whenever he could, he would take a moment to observe Pyro. He observed it charging into battle, firing its flare gun with impressive precision. Efficient, and yet...

Another moment he caught was when it had a brush with an enemy spy. The spy had just attempted to backstab Pyro when it swung around, striking with its ax and slashing, again and again. When the bloody remains disappeared, Pyro stared blankly at the red stain they’d left behind for a few uncomfortable moments before moving on.

At this point, Spy wasn't even sure what he was looking for, or why he cared, beyond the fact that it was his part of his job to study people's behavior should he need to imitate it later. No one else had taken notice of any of this—or if they had, they said nothing of it. If he just dropped the matter, likely no one would care, and they could continue to move past the mess from the past six months.

...But a little poking around wouldn't hurt. It wasn't like the Administrator was sending him off on any high-profile missions right now.

Engineer's workshop was meticulously organized, and a place Spy did not typically set foot in, for good reason. Instinctively he cloaked the second he heard the beep. The sentry's gun was trained on him anyway, but, recognizing a friendly merc, did not shoot.

"I'd say it's funny seein' you here, if I could see you," Engineer said, following his sentry's eyeless gaze.

With a snort, Spy de-cloaked.

Engineer's gaze darkened as he rested the Gunslinger over the top of the machine. "You ain't here to practice with those sappers of yours, are ya?"

"What? No. I have no need for that."

"Huh." Withdrawing his prosthesis, he relaxed slightly. "What can I do ya for?"

"I seek... information." Spy strode closer, idly lighting a cigarette. "You often work with Pyro, no?"

Engineer shrugged. "Well, sure. Don't need to explain to you how we collaborate on the battlefield. Sometimes collaborate here in the workshop, too. That fella's got a knack for makin' new flamethrowers, and it'll sometimes ask for my input." He tilted his head. "Why? You lookin' to partner with it for something?"

"Ugh, no." Spy shuddered. "No. I was wondering if you had... noticed its behavior on the battlefield as of late."

At that, Engineer leaned forward, rubbing a finger against his chin. "Lately? Mumbles's been doing pretty well on the battlefield. Better than I can remember, even." Shrugging, he sat back. "Guess it's been missin' the usual matches, pointless as they are, same as the rest of us."

Exhaling a stream of smoke through his nose, Spy looked the Engineer in the goggles. "And outside of battle?"

"Dunno. Haven't seen it much."

"Do you find this... concerning?"

"Nope." Engineer looked away. "I know I was pretty much out of the fray for all of that, but it sounds like all y'all had it pretty rough. Don't blame anyone for wantin' to take a bit of time to themselves. I'm sure it'll come around."

"Perhaps." Sighing, Spy turned, heading back toward the door. "I'll leave you to... whatever sort of contraptions you have here."

"What are you worried about?"

Spy stopped in the doorway. "What?"

"You ain't the type to come in to ask about someone for no reason."

Spy glared over his shoulder. "I worry about nothing."

"All right," Engineer replied, and resumed tinkering with the sentry. When the fellow merc said nothing more, Spy went on his way.

No, he was not worried. But as his mind wandered back to their short time imprisoned in Gray Mann's base, he was wondering. And there was someone else who might be able to satisfy his curiosity.

Medic's lab, in contrast to Engineer's space, was cluttered and chaotic, not helped by the doves nesting and perching wherever they could find space, nor the young baboon scampering around the floor. The sight of Heavy sitting on a chair made Spy pause, wondering if he was interrupting something, only to realize that the Heavy was only reading a book. He did not look up when Spy entered. The baboon, meanwhile, scampered up to Medic (who was studying something at his desk) and tugged on the hem of his coat.

"Ah, Aristotle. Did you find it?" Medic asked, bending down to accept a small red vial from the baboon's paw. "Let's see..." Adjusting his glasses, he peered at the vial's label, only to frown and toss the vial aside, where it shattered on the floor. "Aristotle! I told you I needed an O-positive blood sample, not another B-positive!"

The monkey, evidently named Aristotle, gave a sad chirp.

"Now, now, try again," he said, and shoo'd the monkey off. "Unless you want this experiment to fail, anyway." He watched the monkey scurry back across the room and run past Spy, and did a double-take. "Ah, Spy! I didn't hear you come in."

"I should hope not, or else I'd be doing my job poorly." He sidestepped the broken glass as he approached.

"Are you recovering well from your emergency blood transfusion?" Medic asked, flipping through some papers at his desk.

"Actually, I had a question about that."

The Medic's face lit up. "Ah! You're in luck!" Setting the papers down, he gestured excitedly toward a series of vials lined up in front of him. "I'm currently working on a method of separating different blood types that may have gotten—hmm—mixed together, by some means, and I needed a human test subject to—"

"No."

Medic's expression immediately soured. "Oh." He turned away, flipping through the papers again. "Well what do you want? I'm very busy."

"You also performed an emergency transfusion on the Pyro, did you not?"

"Oh, yes!" Medic smiled as he held up a paper; Spy was able to spot the Pyro's class symbol on it. "Yes, it's always fascinating working with that one."

Spy didn't have to ask what was fascinating about the only non-human mercenary on their team. "Did you notice anything... unusual when you performed the operation?"

At that, Medic scratched his head. "Well now... I was quite busy at the time, trying to prevent everyone, including you, from dying from blood loss, you know. I didn't have time to focus on the details."

"But you did open Pyro's suit to slice it open and fill its chest cavity with blood."

"Yes, yes. Your point?"

"And you didn't see anything strange when you did this?"

Medic clicked his tongue. "I told you, I had no time to focus on the details!" Sighing, he turned back to his desk. "Besides, it's hard to notice anything past all that soot."

Spy paused. "Soot?"

"Yes, it gets everywhere," Medic replied, as though that had answered the question. "Anyway, why do you ask?"

Tempted as he was to ask about what on earth lied beneath that suit, he held himself back, and very nearly shot back a "classified" at the doctor. However, something else struck him, and he hummed. "You worked with those other mercenaries for a time. Were you familiar with their pyro?"

"Oh, Beatrice?" Medic chuckled. "Yes, she was an interesting one. Quite sadistic, I would say. But what does this have to do with—?"

"She interrogated our Pyro for an extended period of time, and I am wondering if this may account for its strange behavior."

"Strange behavior?" Medic echoed, then laughed, the noise grating on Spy's ears. "No, our pyromaniac is just as crazy as it ever was, in case you haven't noticed! Perhaps you could do with a head examination." In one swift motion he retrieved a clipboard. "I could put you in for next Tuesday—"

"No, thank you." And with that, Spy strode out of the lab, nearly stepping on Aristotle's tail on the way out.

As he crossed the base, he tossed his cigarette to the ground and stomped on it as he passed.

This was ridiculous. Was it not obvious to anyone else? Or was he really just looking for something that wasn't there?

He found himself glaring out a window, staring out at the desert. It was growing dark, now, and he had no reason to be hanging around here—several of the other mercs had already gone home, or to whatever hole they slept in.

The hair stood on the back of Spy's neck, and he whipped around to see someone staring at him from the other end of the hall. He shuddered. "Don't do that."

"Am I not allowed to look at people without a scope up to my eye?" Sniper asked, approaching Spy. He held a cup of coffee in his hand that fogged up his glasses as he brought it to his mouth. Nonetheless, he joined Spy in looking out the window. "You're here late."

"As are you." Spy glared out into the darkening twilight. "Don't you have a van to sleep in?"

"Don't much feel like sleeping," Sniper answered, taking another swig of coffee.

"Then go somewhere else to produce your jarate."

The Sniper only heaved a sigh. "Went to the phone again."

"Yes, very exciting." Spy continued to glare out the window before it struck him what the man was talking about. His annoyance quickly melted. "...Oh." He hesitated for a moment before glancing at Sniper. "My apologies."

"Been a minute since I've done that," he said, and shook his head.

The two stood in awkward silence for a moment.

"...Since you're here," Spy said, "perhaps you could help me with something."

With a lifeless shrug, Sniper did not look away from the window. "Shoot."

"Tempting as it would be to kill you right now, I must decline," Spy said, eliciting a chuckle from the other merc. "Have you paid any attention to Pyro on the battlefield?"

"Some. It watches my back sometimes. Why?"

"Have you noticed anything... strange about it?"

"Hmmm." Sniper turned to face him, and Spy nearly got his hopes up. "Why, have you?"

Spy grit his teeth. "At this point, I'm starting to wonder. Its behavior seems unusual to me for some reason, but no one else in this stupid base seems to think so."

"Everyone's been actin' different, mate. Including you."

Something snapped, and Spy pounded a fist against the windowsill. "Can you answer the question or not?"

Sniper was silent for a moment before he tipped his head back, draining the rest of his coffee. "If somethin's up with Pyro, it hasn't said anything to me about it."

"You—!" Spy sputtered, but Sniper was already leaving. He glared after him, fuming, before spinning around and storming toward the base's entrance.

But as he neared the door, he froze.

It hasn't said anything to me about it.

That was it.

The next day, during their match, Spy kept a closer eye on Pyro than before.

The merc was charging through the map, blasting its flamethrower at anyone and everyone who came near it. If a fellow merc was ever on fire, it quickly put them out before going straight back to setting everything else on fire.

Months ago, when committing such atrocities, it would typically be giggling and laughing and whooping in glee as it stormed through the burning destruction.

Now, it was dead silent, its movements sharp and hurried as it set every enemy in sight ablaze.

Spy, who was cloaked, nearly gave himself away, laughing as his suspicions were confirmed. Yes, something was for sure wrong with Pyro, and he was not going crazy. Satisfied, he resumed his role in the match as normal, decloaking and backstabbing a soldier that the Pyro had missed.

But as the match came to an end and the team returned to their base, it dawned on him: Yes, he'd confirmed that something was wrong with Pyro.

But he still didn't know why.

[blubushie]

ngl, sometimes i look back on tf2 blogs that were active ten years ago and it really seems like the fandom was more fun and less stressful back then. nobody cared about characters' sexualities as much as they do now and they just shipped whatever! now people will give you a side eye if you ship anything that isn't the top most popular ship on ao3.

This is a general fandom problem. Fandom climate has massively shifted from what it used to be a decade ago and fandom police are much more strict. They used to just be the loremasters—someone who'd (sometimes aggressively) check other people on lore and such when they'd promote something noncanon as canon. But now it seems like most people in a fandom appoint themselves fandom police. You get fans of popular ships harassing people who don't ship their ship, you get wars between who can ship what characters even when it's not a case of extreme proship (you know what I mean). I've seen people refer to MedicScout as borderline paedophilia despite Scout being twenty-seven years old.

Everything has to be looked through a lens of "is this problematic or not", everything has to be consumable and marketable, and we wonder why fandom is dying. People treat fandom like they're selling something. You can't tell a story anymore without someone getting up your arse taking issue with it. What ever happened to Live And Let Ship?

Again, this isn't even restricted to TF2. This is unfortunately just the general climate of all fandoms now. In my experience, it gets worse as fandoms get bigger and new media for that fandom stops being made. People have nothing to consume so they start going a little stir crazy. Unfortunately policing other people is how some people feel they Do Their Part.

[homkamiro]

I LOVE THE TF2 MLP AU SM. it gives me sm nostalgia to when i was a kid and i and everyone in the fandom made pony aus of franchises we liked- im so happy cringe is dead and tradition is alive 🥹

ALSO THE INFECTION AU POST. GOOD SHIT;!;!!!!!!!!!! gore and body horror are inseparable from (hopefully only the mature part of) the mlp fandom and i felt so giddy jumping for joy kicking my feet up seeing that it had a resurgence!! Your post of this au with your tf2 ponies was my introduction to it!!! Nature is healinggggg

That post is BOMB. WE GOT: 1) HEAVYMEDIC ANGST. 2) PYRO & ENGIE ANGST. 3) BOOTS & BOMBS ANGST. 4) DADSPY ANGST. 5) SNIPER ANGST. ITS GIVING💅🏽💅🏽💅🏽 and the way the disease spreads differently for all of them is so creative!!!!!! Engie wants to sever the infected body part but cant cus its on his back and he needs medics help for that (and med is way too far gone to do any operation), and scout doesn't want his wings severed even tho that would save him cus he still wants to fly!!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

also soldier misinterpreting the request is so good. And pyro wanting to help but not being allowed to cus they'd try to burn engie. Demo drinking himself to death cus he cant handle seeing his friend in the state that he's in. Sniper disappearing cus he wants to be with his parents during this horrible time even tho they have a strained relationship. Spy wanting his son to live through this so much that he's planning to sever his wings himself. And heavyyyyyy. Heavy breaking his heart everyday still taking care of medic knowing he's going to have to kill the love of his life soon. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Anyways sorry for fuckin. Screaming in your asks and basically just repeating what you wrote sgjdjd. I just really love this au (and especially that comic with scout, medic and engie!!!) and the infection au post made me so nostalgic to the early days of the mlp fandom that the adhd went mental and i had to shout about it lol- feel free to not respond to this! Youre awesome! Keep doing you!!!!!!

(also youre really good at drawing gore????? Hello teach me pls)

WHAT A BIG FEEDBACK OHMYGODヽ⁠(⁠(⁠◎⁠д⁠◎⁠)⁠)⁠ゝ

Anyway I'm really super puper glad you liked my au!! I was a little hesitant to post it, since AU in AU sounds weird but I'm glad I thought otherwise - cringe culture should be dead!! Mix your hyperfixations it's good for your health!!!

AND AHHHHGGGGGH You noticed so many details thankyouuu🥺💗💗💗The best thing about this AU is that every ship and brotp can work so well in this story. Engie first helping Medic but then ending up being also infected??? Spy checking up on Engie and making him eat since he's too stressed to take a break??? Demo, Heavy and Pyro comforting each other after loosing their friends??? Spy and Scout both raging on Sniper for leaving like a coward??? Or maybe Heavy, as an earth pony, comforts Scout after he just got his wings amputated??? So many possibilities!!

Don't worry, I love when people are noticing all the details and just get,, really invested into my stuff, it really brings me joy and you made my day so much better!!🥺🥺I feel honestly a little insecure, since my pony designs and thoughts may not be the best, but I'm glad that so many people still like my mlp×tf2 stuff!! It's really endearing to know that finally something I like making is also likable to you!

About gore -- I have no idea😭I love gore but it's a pain to draw properly and scary, you'd need practice and references (I mostly use art references since yknow,,,real photos can make me sick)

[donethatbeforelong]

Chapter 1: Love blooms on the battlefield

Fandom: Team Fortress 2 (TF2)

Pairing: Soldier/Engineer; Helmet party

Apologies for not having a good grasp of TF2 lore as well as characters. There will be some OOC here and there, but I'll try my best to stick as close to the character's personality as possible.

(Main centre: RED Soldier)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The air lingered with smoke and gunpowder, made heavier with the heat from the sun. To a weaker man, he would suffer from a heat wave. To Soldier, it was like a sweet kind of smell from fresh morning coffee or freshly mowed grass. The battle field had been his home and remained that way for a while now.

As the announcement from the Administrator blasts through speakers around the field, erupted cheers and applause can be heard from one side of the main ground. The RED team has once again secured a well-deserved victory for themselves.

Compliments being passed around the group were not a rare thing to hear, especially for team members who contributed most in battle. Soldier smiled to himself as he watched their opposing team from the other side, groaning and blaming each other for the loss.

"That's what ya get for messin' with us, ya bozos!" Scout shouted, gesturing to the BLU team across the field. Sniper chuckled next to him, throwing an arm around the shorter man and ushering him inside to hide away from the heat. "Olright, ya little wanker, toime to get back inside."

The BLU Medic didn't try to restrain himself from throwing back similar insults, seemingly shouting at the top of his lungs. The only reason Soldier didn't give mind to it was because half of the things he said were in his native tongue. However, their Medic did scrunch his face up to what he could only describe as disgust.

Soon, the Austrian quieted down and stormed past his team and entered their base. BLU Spy sighed and flicked his cigarette to one side as the BLU Heavy and Engineer followed Medic back inside. In earlier days when both teams first assembled, Soldier had mentally noted that they - the BLU opposing team - were often on the losing end.

"Mighty fine work out there, fellas!" Engineer said, dropping his toolbox and wiping sweat off his brow. Pyro replied with a muffled cheer before walking away with a little spring in their step.

Debriefing was excused for today as everyone went to their respective quarters or scrambled into the showers for some relief from the heat. Pyro was an exception among them, happily sitting on the couch in the living area. Their knees were pulled up and tucked under their chin - or, at least, that's where the chin is supposed to be - as they flipped through countless channels until something interesting came up.

Soldier waited outside the showers patiently for his turn. During those moments of waiting, Soldier occupied himself with polishing his boots or straightening out his coat. As he watched his team members enter and leave the showers, he took notice of Demoman's strange behaviour ever since the battle ended. He didn't act too much out of character, but more often than not he would look behind his back and check the time constantly as if he was waiting for someone to come.

Considering both teams' history with each other, Soldier often finds Demoman whispering something to his BLU counterpart every time he managed to dominate him. The creeping suspicion that Demoman might be fraternizing with the enemy team kept Soldier up at night. He never did bother finding out whether it was true or not, but it had gone on long enough that it made Soldier frustrated at times for no reason.

Today is the day he would prove that for himself. For the sake of his team and their paychecks.

The soldier was so caught up in his thoughts that he didn't feel Scout poking his face multiple times. When he did feel it, the soldier grabbed the boy's wrist and held it there. His grip wasn't all that tight, but Scout yelped in surprise and pain.

"Geez man, lemme go!" Scout started pulling back, desperately trying to get his hand back. "I was just gonna tell ya that the showers are available now, dangit!"

The release was unexpected and it caused Scout to tumble backwards, nearly slip and hit his head. Soldier let a dry chuckle escape his lips before grabbing a towel and entering the showers alone. The stringbean of a man huffed out a frustrated sigh and left the locker room with muffled curses.

When the water from the shower hit him, it felt like several knots had loosened. It didn't water down the adrenaline that was still pumping through his body. His shoulders didn't relax, his legs and arms ached from rocket jumping all day. A scratchy feeling presented itself at the back of his throat from screaming all day, but he couldn't care less.

After the not-so-relaxing shower, Soldier dried himself and went through his usual routine of shaving and making sure he was in tip-top condition for fighting.

The rest of the day was a blur to him. He hung with Scout and Pyro around the television most of the time, only ever getting up for lunch, dinner, or to grab each other a snack. Sniper, Spy, and Engineer devoted themselves to a friendly game of poker that quickly escalated when they realized that Spy was winning way too many hands. Eventually, Sniper did accused Spy of cheating which was quickly debunked by the stressed out engineer.

The medic of the team wouldn't be seen anywhere else other then his infirmary, checking and making sure all the organs that he had collected was in perfect condition. Their heavy weapon specialist had stayed with the crazed doctor to provide him some company and occasionally slips in a story or two about either what happened on the battle field or his family.

The oversized helmet on his head prove useful when he was the only one who noticed their Demoman trying to sneak out of the base. Pyro and Scout was too occupied watching cartoons and comparing characters from the show.

After a few minutes of waiting, Soldier silently took his leave and followed Demo to wherever he's going.

Hiding behind any available walls and barrels, Soldier tried and tailed behind Demo as quiet as possible. On the way to.. wherever he's going, Soldier did encounter the BLU Soldier clumsily leaving his base with a crate of scrumpy under one arm. His helmet swayed a little when he rushed down the steps, a look of worry on his face.

Soldier eventually took his place behind a stack of crate and boxes, waiting for the right moment to strike.

RED Demoman settled down on the ground, knees pulled up and spreaded out. His elbows perched on top of his knees as he looked up to the sky, seemingly still waiting for BLU Soldier to come.

Upon hearing rustling footsteps, RED Demo turned around and a fond smile spread on his lips when BLU Soldier came to his side, gently lowering the crate in his arms.

"Glad ya could make it, lad." RED Demo said, throwing an arm around his best friend's shoulder. The BLU Soldier grunted in return, popping open a bottle and handing it over to the Scotch.

Throughout their quiet exchange, Soldier watched with gritted teeth. How can they possibly be so low on guard in the middle of the war? No less, he's fratenizing with the enemy!

His trains of thoughts were cut short when the sound of a twig snapping could be heard on his right. Looking over cautiously, his eyes landed on the small but visible frame of the BLU Engineer. The always presented yellow hard hat was gone, leaving his bald head exposed. Besides his usual blue button up, BLU Engineer now wore a baby blue hoodie that looked a bit too baggy for his frame. The tinted goggles were still there, but the shock and horrified look on his face was clear as day.

Just as Soldier was about to make a move to advance to the Texan, he had quickly fled back to his base. Figuring that the twig snapping might've alerted the other two, Soldier left as quickly as possible.

Luckily, he arrived back at the base before Demo did and retired to his quarters. Upon entering the privacy that his room provided, Soldier dropped limp on the bed with a single thought swirling inside his mind.

Did that engineer knew about their relationship before he did?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thanks for reading! If you want a little short fanfic of your fav OTP or just something wholesome in general, send it through ask (remember to state what fandom, and add the genre - like hurt/comfort or whatever that's called - if you want!!!).

Might take a while before I update again.

[cobalt-axolotl]

I plan on doing art RQS (request not the remnant queue system)

I would love if you submitted your head cannons and ask me my own.

About me

I am a pansexual cis male

I fictionkin Cassidy

Cassidy is my main blorbo

My prounouns he/him

My name is Austin but I also go by cobalt, charlie (my middle name is charles), and that mother fucker

My favorite fandoms are the following: homestuck, COTL, scp, fnaf, dsaf, Dhmis. Danny phantom, megaman, creepypasta, glitch productions, Minecraft, Ben 10, omori, undertale, sonic, gravity falls, Pokémon, bendy, TcoA&L, analog horror as a whole (especially Mandela catalog, angel hare, and Midwest Angelica), gr3gory88, helluva boss, hazbin hotel, TF2, moral orel, half life, half life VR but the AI is self aware, bioshock, 5YL, Spooky’s Jump-scare Mansion, The owl house, epithet erased, amphibia, Steven universe, Henry stickmin, disc world, AO ONI, pizza tower, and various tokusatsu

My favorite animal is the axolotl

I mainly post incorrect quotes and art but I do run an ask blog for my AU’s

I am a simp for papyrus undertale

Minecraft is my favorite video game

I run an 14+ blog

By the time I am making this edit I am 18 years old.

My OTPs are Evan x Cassidy and marlie

DNI (do not interact)

Transphobes

Racist

Sexist

TERFs

Homophobes

Pedophiles

Trolls

Stupid people (people who refuse to learn)

List of my AUs and they’re connected cannons

Golden children (fnaf)

Shattered souls (fnaf)

Malefactor malfunction (fnaf and Ben 10)

Glam it (fnaf)

Triple M (scp)

Xanthophobia (fnaf)

GMTC (fnaf and undertale)

B&P (fnaf and dnd)

NUCN (fnaf)

SBR (fnaf)

Under void (undertale)

Fazrune (fnaf and deltarune combo)

Like it never even happened (fnaf)

List of oc’s and ther connected AUs

Nick (my fnaf AUs)

Virgil (under void)

List of my AU’s with songs that describe them

Golden children: just gold by Mandi pony (I don’t like the guy I just like his music)

Shattered souls: creepin towards the dirt by griffinila

Malefactor malfunction: the ben 10 theme song (just replace the words Ben 10 with Cassidy)

Glam it: this comes from inside by the living tombstone

Triple M: secure container protect by madame macabre

Xanthophobia: look what you made me do by taylor swift

GMTC (give me the child): collared by vane

Bears and pizzerias: your the key by Kyle Allen music

Nicks ultimate custom night: replay your nightmare by hard ninja

Stuck in the back room (my alive AU): I’m still standing by Elton John

Under void: gasters theme by Toby fox

Characters in my AU’s

Cassidy Noelle Carter (died at 14 in golden child au) (in the golden children AU she becomes Fredbear and in the shattered souls, glam it, xanthophobia ,and malefactor malfunction AU she doesn’t die) (can speak German) (learned German so she can figure out what’s bothering Nick and calm him down) (in xanthophobia nicks death drives her to the point of insanity and causes here to become a serial killer “super edgy I know”) (in shattered souls she marries Evan but doesn’t change her last name due to her hatred for William) (learned Korean from her mother and is fluent it)

Evan afton (crying child) (died at 12 in golden children au but not dead in malefactor malfunction, glam it, xanthophobia, or shattered souls Au) (loses all sense of empathy after the bite of 83 in xanthophobia “a head injury can do that to you right?”) (marry’s cassidy in shattered souls)

Benny afton (Cassidy’s and Evan son biological son in shattered souls) (an analog to golden children Cassie)

Goldie (he’s here he’s there he’s everywhere who you gonna call psychic friend fred-bear)

Gregory afton (Vanessa’s brother in the golden children au) (trans gender FTM)

Cassie Maxie Carter (nick and Elizabeth’s adopted daughter in the golden children AU) (named after her aunt)

Kasey Roxanna Carter (Cassidy’s twin sister) (nicks older sister) (lesbian) (cares for Nick as much as Cassidy but is unable to understand him at times) (neli’s ex girlfriend) (posses Roxanne wolf) (currently dating Susie) (learned Korean from her mother and is fluent in it)

Gaberiel grim (died at 10) (died in 1985) (possesses Freddy)

Jeremy grim (died at 11) (died in 1985) (posses Bonnie)

Fritz smith(died at 3) (died in 1985) (posses foxy)

Susie McCarthy (died at 14) (died in 1985) (posses chica) (Kasey’s current girlfriend)

Adrian smith(died at 5) (died in 1987) (part of the second mci) (posses mangle)

Millie fitzsimmons (died at 18) (died in 1987) (part of the second mci) (possesses toy Bonnie)

Markus Murphy (died at 17) (died in 1987) (part of the second mci) (possesses toy Freddy)

Nelli Twain ( died at 16) (died in 1987) $part of the second mci) (possesses toy chica) (Kasey’s ex girlfriend)

Jake McCarthy (died at 6) (died in 2016) (used to posses stitch wraith along with Andrew)

Andrew Montgomery Emily (died at 16) (died in 1987) (part of the second MCI) (posses Monty in the golden children au) (used to possess stitch wraith along with Jake) (was besties with Cassidy and Evan)

Charlie Emily / Charlie afton (not dead in the golden children or Xanthophobia au) (is dead in shattered souls) (marries Mike in the golden children au)

Mike afton

Vanessa afton (Mike and Charlie’s daughter in golden children au)

Elizabeth Clair Afton / Elizbeth Clair Carter (doesn’t die or posses baby in the golden children au) (died at 8 in the shattered souls & malefactor malfunction AU’s) (is nicks best friend) (dies to circus baby in shattered souls au) (takes Evan’s place in shattered souls au) (born in 1979 in the main 2 AU’s) (married to Nick as an adult in the golden children au) (going to college to become a psychologist in the golden children au)

Malary Emily ( Henry’s wife) (Charlie and Sammy’s mom)

Henry emily (dies at 63) (championed for better treatment of autism in the golden children AU)(mentored Nick in robotics after Edd’s death)

Clair afton (died at 20 due to suicide) (Williams ex)

Loralai afton (Williams current life) (survives in every AU I made) (her name is also a pun on Ballora) (Evan and Elizabeth’s mom)

William Afton (Dies at 36)

Dave miller (nicks therapist) (named after book and DSAF Dave)

Nikki Carter (Nick, Kasey, and Cassidy’s mom) (Korean immigrant) (left while Nick was too young to remember) (may or may not have indirectly been the cause of David’s abuse to towards Nick)

Malcom faraday zanaflex (main protagonist of my scp au)

Dr Elias Munro (died at 79 on the year 1981) (original owner of fredbear’s sing’n show) (was a father figure to Henry and William) (was their boss before he retired in 1955)

Zachary Munro/nightmarionne (not dead) (became a mutant after a remnant injection) (immortal) (grandson of Elias)

Garret schmit (basically Garret from the movie combined with Mike from the movie)

Abby schmit (just Abby from the movie)

Jeremy Fitzgerald

Sammy Lewis emily (is younger than Charlie in these AU’s) (like around nicks age) (non verbal until his twelfth birthday) (good with Rubik’s cubes) (dies in xanthophobia and takes charlottes place as the puppet)

Billy (AI created by William afton to watch after evan while he worked on his projects)

Jack Kennedy (named after the one from DSAF just nota corpse) (Bonnie mask Bully) (gave Nick the spring Bonnie mask) (was much less willing than mikes other friends during the bite of 83) (mikes right hand man)

Maddison Simmons (jacks girlfriend) (chica mask Bully) (was much more willing than her boyfriend)

Jerry Mann (Freddy mask bully) (just as willing as Mike & Emilia)

Vinny (literally just exist to be Sammy’s boyfriend because I don’t like Sammy being forever alone)

Nickolas Alastair Carter (Kasey and Cassidy’s younger brother) (has a red Bonnie plushi named mr Marvo) (is a paranoid schizophrenic) (was raised by his sisters due to them having bad parents) (takes Cassidy’s place in shattered souls au) (works at the pizzaplex in the glam it au) (born in 1983 in the main 2 AU’s) (has a slightly un healthy obsession with Bonnie the bunny) (was hired on by Henry during the events of fnaf 1 in golden children AU) (often wore a Red Bonnie halloeeen mask as a child) (can speak German but only does it when he’s extremely angry or when he finds a certain word to be extremely funny) (autistic “like me”) (he’s also really defensive about his intellect) (died in a ball pit in shattered souls au) (acespec panromantic) (post ffps his soul transfers into eclipse in the SS Au)

Edwin Alastair Carter (Aka. Grandpa eddy) (Nick and Cassidy’s grand father) (their only parrental figure that isn’t abusive to Nick) (was hired by Henry and William to design the springlock suits) (built the mimic as a friend for Nick) (also made the old man consequences AI)

David mobi carter (Nick, Kasey, and Cassidy’s father) (abusive towards Nick in specific) (Cassidy is his favorite) (ignores Kasey) (is manipulative towards Nick)

Old man consequences (an AI that acts as a sorta therapist to Nick in my AU’s)

Nightmare (before being possessed by half of nicks soul it was the first working springlock suit known as proto lefty) (not one of the nightmare animatronics) (half of nicks soul)

Marvo Marvelous (half of nicks soul in the shattered souls au) (a red magician hare)

NYX

Glitchtrap (separate from mimic) (had his consciousness put into a roomba)

Captain poncho (nicks imaginary friend) (scares Gagleon)

Stitch wraith (possessed by Andrew and Jake)

Fredbear (possessed by Cassidy and Evan in golden children au)

Plush trap (in the golden child au he is a little drone sent out by null trap)

Null (second spring Bonnie suit that William place Evans body in after he died) (possessed by Evan in the both AU’s)

Mxes the hare (in the au he is named after mr mxes) (the au version of him looks more human in the AUs) (in golden children au he was first an animatronic for the fnaf 1 location that filled the same role as the then defunct security puppet) (created my nick)

RWQFSFASXC (all of nicks insecurities in physical form) (main antagonist of the GMTC AU) (shadow Bonnie)

Shadow Freddy

Mr mxes (has half of Cassidy’s soul inside of it in golden child au) (is choc full of agony from Nick)

Mimic (nick and Cassidy pretend he’s their older brother as in all three AU’s he just lives with the two)

Nickolai (animatronic human built by Henry as a third entertainer at fredbear’s family diner) (starts wearing a Fredbear Halloween mask after the mci for… “reasons”)

Void Bonnie (shattered souls spring Bonnie) (has a shadow variant name dark trap) (this Springbonnie is possessed by Nick not William afton as he simply feeds off of William’s agony) (heroic counterpart to Springtrap) (takes golden Freddy’s place in shattered souls AU) (born from Nick’s corpse being put into a certain ball pit) (name after the void between the physical and spiritual plains)

Mangle

Miketrap (the pit creature before metamorphosing into pit Bonnie) (a Monroe experiment)

Salvage (an old springlock suit given life through mysterious means) (a Monroe experiment)

Nightmarionne (a nightmare version of the puppet) (a Monroe experiment)

Remnant Queue System (the shadow’s child)

Night-watch (machine built by Mike to hunt down what’s left of Fazbear entertainment and destroy William once and for all) (-the rebuilt endo of Fredbear)

The classics

The toy animatronics

The withered animatronic

Springtrap (not darktrap) (in shattered souls darktrap used the spring locks to curve his violent tendencies and forget about him being a killer) (in shatttered souls his charge goes from being a humanized billcipher as William to a dsaf Dave miller and gruncle stan combo as Springtrap)

The nightmares (evil versions of the twisted ones in the golden children au)

The fun times

Ennard the clown (the in between of the fun times and glamrocks with his blood lust being replaced by a humanoid level of sapience) (has a shape sifting gimmick which he uses to entertain kids)

The Glamrocks

The twisted ones (in the my AU’s they’re good guys and built by Mike along with night-watch)

The hellfire animatronics (upgraded versions of the twisted ones)

The night terror animatronics (scrap’s, night terror Freddy, night terror Bonnie, night terror foxy, and night terror chica,)

The salvage animatronics (salvage Monty, salvage freddy, salvage ennard, and darktrap) (constructed from broken animatronics) (end is are exposed) (partially inspired by the ignited animatronics)

And the omori charecters are cannon to the malefactor malfunction au cuz why the fuck not

The springlock animatronics (fredbear, spring Bonnie, and Alastair)

Villains for malefactor malfunction can be found here

How the AU’s work

Each au has four version (book style in which it falls into silver eye’s continuity, game style in which it falls into game continuity, movie style in which it falls into movie continuity, and amalgam style in which it combines all three continuity’s into one)

In xanthophobia Cassidy is the villain (William afton die’s extremely soon in the AU and for once in his life never comes back)

So in my most of my AU’s the souls are able to grow old despit not being alive which explains any shipping you might see. Most of it isn’t my doing though

Elizabeth x Nick is only cannon in golden children

Unless its Evan x Cassidy or Mike x Charlie

TF2 is cannon in the golden children au (i mostly just wanted to make fnaf 2 Jeremy TF2 Jeremy)

The golden children au takes place in the late 80s to early 90s with flash forwards towards the pizzaplex era while the shattered souls au takes place in 1991 and the malefactor malfunction shifts the entire time line to start in 2000 GMTC takes place around 1999 to 2018 xanthophobia takes place in in the 2000s and 2010s

In shattered souls Springtrap is much nicer due to him losing his murdeous tendencies after getting spring locked

malefactor malfunction is a Ben 10 fnaf crossover with Cassidy having a version of the omnitrix called kaizotrix

The blog itself is cannon in all AU’s

This is a link to the malefactor malfunction aliens list for all of Cassidy’s kaizotrix transformations

As well as facts about the malefactors

Also a timeline for my main AU

*Warning*

Some times I can be very cringe

Check these people out too

@sparkledogzvomit

@sotogalmo

@asksamanthalawrence324

@hearts4ggy

@therealprismcat

@afton-family-askblog

@midnight--motorist

@corpserabbit

@sassysoulstranger

@harley-angel

@simply-icarus

@fredbearcassidy

@wind-the-music-box

@kriemhild-kafka

@dommarhooober

@sea-menace

@ask-basil-omori

@amilotta

@apocalypticjay

@shywizardflower

@beardedstrangerdreamland

@ilovelawrencee

@kaycrowley

@lizzie-get-in-the-robot

@vinyl-lol

@viarayy01-blog

@ghosts-cant-die-twice

@it-came-from-mount-ebott

@idsfantasy

@childo0p

@thecryptidart1st

@the-smiley-blue-axolotl

@museumoftinyhens

@i-live-in-your-basement

@serpentdragon777

@ramunehana (if you 18+)

@artistmediocore

Also check my alts

@cobal-axolotl-undertale

@tokucross-fanproject

@red-documents-redo

@nick-and-cass

@nightmare-from-fnaf4

I also put Nick official design down here

Here is my creepypasta and uncharacteristically ask blog

An here at my character designs so far https://www.tumblr.com/random-world-64/735868089007259648/all-my-major-chararacters-so-far

And here’s some fanfics I’m working on

her is my sona AXOL

Lore alarm

The blog itself is also a cross over point for my AU’s and in multiverse it’s ran by the characters

[cupidsdescendant]

"Under My Umbrella" Sebastian X Y/N (AFAB)

hey yall so this is out of the ordinary (sorry tf2 fans) but I wanted to write a little fic for my beloved cousin @nerdiifan ! I love her very much and this is a tribute to her (and mine) fav stardew character <33 I would really love to branch out and create more fics about other fandoms so pls tell me if you'd love more.

Around 9:30 in the evening, the rain stopped pouring down from the sky. As a result, Y/N's crops were left covered in a layer of dew, and the soil was left damp. Slowly opening the door, she couldn't resist the urge to gaze outside and appreciate the stunning beauty of the moon. Its bright and radiant light illuminated the surroundings, creating a peaceful ambiance that was soothing to the soul. It was a moment worth cherishing. With each step she took, the floorboards creaked. She stepped her foot onto the dirt, her shoes sinking in slightly. As Y/N strolled through the town, the gentle hum of the street lamp and the rhythmic "sploosh" of her feet splashing through puddles provided an audible company to her walk. She soon found herself walking over to the dock, Y/N had always loved it for the peaceful sounds of the waves, she knew it was the best way to experience a full moon. Walking into the entrance of the beach she smelled something, the scent of nicotine. "Someone else is out here at this time...?" pondering to herself for a moment.

As she strolled along the sandy shore, her attention was abruptly drawn to a distant figure. Her eyes adjusted to find a familiar man smoking, his face being shown by the glow of his cigarette.

Sebastian.

Her heart fluttered, her stomach was in knots and nervousness took hold of her. Y/N had always prayed for this day to come but she never thought her prayers would be answered. Anxiety struck caused by thoughts of embarrassing herself or being obnoxious.

"This is your chance, Y/N! You've been waiting for this day ever since he introduced himself. You can't back out now, you just can't!" She felt sick. "You can do this, Y/N! Don't be afraid to take a chance!" "He probably won't mind either way." "It's not a big deal, just go for it!" As she approached him, her mind stated a firm rule. "Don't. Screw. It. Up."

Y/N was behind Sebastian's shoulder "H-Hi Sebastian." With her face turning red, she asked, "Why are you out here so late?" Sebastian remained silent for a few seconds before asking, "Why are you out so late?" puffing the smoke from his cigarette and looking over at her. Y/N was taken aback. "W-well. Uhm...I always enjoyed this type of weather and the moon is full. I wanted to enjoy it before I couldn't." Sebastian's face broke into a small grin, the kind that appears when you're appreciating something.

"Nice." Y/N broke into a smile. They both faced the sky and listened to the waves crash against the dock.

"But you didn't answer my question," Y/N said. "Why are you here?" Sebastian maintained his silence, taking the final draw from his cigarette before putting it out and crushing it beneath his foot on the ground. "Smoke break." He said softly. "Mom doesn't like the smell and she doesn't want it in the house." "But why so late?"

"I like the weather. Makes everyone disappear." Y/N stayed quiet. Although he provided an answer, she remained dissatisfied and longed for deeper engagement with him. She had an intense craving to genuinely understand him. "Disappear? So you're..more reserved to yourself?" "You can say that, I guess. I just don't like the engagement." Before Y/N could respond he continued his rant "Needless conversations, repetitive talk it's all numbing.. that's why I spend most of my time with only Sam and Abigail. Everyone can just be so..overwhelming." She faced Sebastian "I understand that. That's why I spend so much time alone on my farm." Sebastian's demeanor warmed up as he felt a connection with Y/N. His facial expression softened and his eyes looked at her empathetically. "We must have a lot in common."

Y/N felt accomplished. Finally, the conversation is moved beyond just small talk. "Well..I would love to know more sometime. If that's okay..you know with the 'Don't like engagement' thing." As Sebastian gazed at her, he let out a gentle chuckle. "there can be exceptions."

As Y/N opened her mouth to speak, a drop of water rolled down her cheek followed by several others, dripping onto her hair. She gazed up at the dark, thundering clouds above. As the rain began to pour heavily, Y/N couldn't help but feel anxious. "Oh no," she uttered, placing her hands on her head. "It's probably best that I head back home."

And then...It stopped. Although the rain didn't continue to pour onto her she still heard it surround her. She opened her eyes and looked back at Sebastian who was holding an umbrella over the both of them. His smile was sweet and his eyes reassured comfort and safety. The way he looked at her was comforting, like a cozy blanket shielding her from the cold.

"I can walk you back."

[seventeendeer]

TF2 analysis - on cultural references, context as characterization, and how to analyze comedy

-taps mic- HELLO, TEAM FORTRESS 2 COMMUNITY !

A while back, I received an ask requesting analysis of one of my favorite video games of all time and special interest of 12+ years, and you know I just had to go and turn that into a several thousand word essay for the reading pleasure of the people.

Because that shit got way too long, I’ve decided to put it into a post of its own. Hopefully a big title and no previous context being necessary will give more people an incentive to read it. I spent a long time on it and I think it’s pretty cool, and I would love some nice attention for my effort. ;w;

The ask I received went a little something like this:

Below the cut, I will be replying to these questions individually. It touches on everything from Cold War propaganda to the media landscape at the game’s launch in 2007 to first-person shooters as a genre - all to gain a better understanding of author intent, expected audience reaction, characterization and themes.

Anon previously requested help writing more accurate fanfiction, and damn it, that is what they are going to get!! and MORE

Introductory disclaimer:

First of all, for clarity's sake: this analysis is going to specifically talk about TF2 as seen through a fandom lens. I'm going to be talking about the game as a piece of media, creator intention, and the fandom's reactions to the game and extended canon - that is, the slice of the TF2 fandom that is interested in the characters, in the world and in doing at least semi-faithful fanworks.

I will not be touching on TF2's wider playerbase or meme culture. I greatly enjoy both, but they are not relevant to the post I made that sparked this anon's questions (I will link this post in the replies, in case anyone is curious).

I also have to disclaim that any references I make to real world history in this post have to be taken with a hard grain of salt. I've done my best to fact-check everything, but I am not infallible! For a better understanding of the historical elements I talk about here, please do your own research, and approach my claims with a healthy amount of scepticism, same as you would any unsourced social media post. (Readers may notice examples I give below primarily feature Soldier, Spy and Scout. This is because I feel I have the most solid grasp on the historical events and media that informs their characters, compared to the other classes. All the classes contain these contexts and meta complexities, but in an effort to not talk out of my ass too much, I have decided to focus on the characters I feel the most confident dissecting.)

>1) What tropes was the game parodying/what cultural contexts would you say are essential to understand, in order to better understand the game?

The characters of TF2 were specifically designed as satiric takes on national stereotypes depicted in American propaganda media during the Cold War. Two easy-to-explain examples to illustrate:

- Soldier embodies the ideal of a "red-blooded American" who is strong, brave, hyper-masculine, hates foreign superpowers, loves the vague ideal of "freedom" and firmly believes America is the greatest nation in the world. He prides himself on having personally murdered nazis in the past, despite actually having accomplished no such thing (comparable to the US taking a disproportionate amount of credit for defeating Nazi Germany in World War 2; at the time, WW2 was a very recent cultural memory that made for good propaganda fodder). He fears, hates and dehumanizes communists (as Soviet Russia was the US's highly-villified opponent during the Cold War). The satiric angle: he is depicted as so brainwashed by propaganda that he has become immune to facts and logic. He is horribly sadistic, brutal, paranoid and xenophobic. The ideal he is based on is portrayed as shockingly and disproportionally violent and illogical to the point of being laughable.

- Spy is based on how the US viewed France during the Cold War: as a weak, cowardly, “unmanly” nation. At the time, France was depicted this way because they were perceived to have surrendered to Nazi Germany early on in World War 2 out of cowardice. Spy is one of the least macho of the mercs, he is ineffective when fighting enemies head on, and his main method of attack is reliant on trickery and “not fighting fair.” The satiric angle: Spy isn't actually much of a coward - he is more intelligent, more tactical and more resourceful than many of the others, and simply doesn’t feel the need to risk his neck when he could be working smarter, not harder. The other characters are portrayed as a bunch of meatheads for picking on him. The negative stereotype he is based on is portrayed as largely unearned and ridiculous. (Though note that Spy is also depicted as an upperclass prick to contrast with Engineer being working class; in that dynamic, Spy is depicted as a pompous asshole, while Engie is depicted in a more favorable light. The characters are multi-faceted and no class is universally “better” or “worse” than the others, but right now I'm specifically focusing on the "Cold War stereotype" aspect.)

Notice how, while these two characters have different nationalities in-universe, they are both based on stereotypes seen through an American lens. Notice the way the American character is based on a comedically deconstructed ideal, while the character from a nation the US did not view favorably at the time is depicted as falsely judged by an unfair and ridiculous metric.

The entire TF2 cast and universe revolves on this axis! It takes old American ideals and prejudices and uses them for comedy, adding exaggeration and caveats to make those ideals look absurd.

It’s a parody of media produced in the US during the Cold War, which contained massive amounts of propaganda. It satirizes the political ideals that were glorified in said propaganda media.

Very important extra cultural context: this satiric depiction of old war propaganda was specifically designed to be instantly recognizable to TF2's central demographic at the time of release in 2007.

Older Valve games like TF2 were very specifically made to appeal to pop culture-savvy, nerdy young adult gamers. This demographic was expected to see the characters and think "oh hey, it's like a funny version of X character type I've seen in movies!"

Because those kinds of movies were still everywhere at the time. The Cold War ended in 1991. TF2 was released only 16 years later. To put this into perspective: the Legally Blonde movie came out 22 years ago, in 2001. Think about how many Legally Blonde memes are still floating around the web today, how fondly remembered this one movie is and how often it’s still referenced in contemporary media. Now consider that media produced during the Cold War was fresher in the cultural memory at the time of TF2′s release than Legally Blonde is for us today.

TF2 was never meant to be seen in a vacuum. It was always meant to be in conversation with old media that it expected everyone playing to be extremely familiar with.

I'll say that again: the cast of TF2 are based on Cold War stereotypes - comedically exaggerated - so they would clearly read as parodies to people in 2007.

Those are 3 different overlapping lenses to consider when approaching the characters.

The characters are more than just funny cartoon men with guns and an unusual amount of differing accents. They are commentary on older media trends.

Now, someone might ask - why did the developers choose this specific aesthetic and tone for their online shooter video game?

The developers have stated multiple reasons, including wanting the characters to be immediately recognizable both physically (they generally look like the stereotypical depictions they're based on) and audibly (the differing accents and regional dialects make it easy to identify which class is yelling in your ear mid-combat during gameplay).

However, I also have another theory:

It's been confirmed TF2's comedic tone was designed to combat a lot of negative aspects of shooters in the genre at the time of its creation. I have seen developers discuss that they were going for a lighthearted atmosphere to discourage player hostility.

I, personally, also think it is extremely likely the developers opted for satirizing old war propaganda partially in order to combat the tendency of other shooters often being war propaganda. Valve has always been a politically left-leaning company, with a history of depicting military-like forces and unchecked capitalism in a negative light (see the Half-Life and Portal series, respectively).

By depicting the cast of TF2 as generally unhinged, illogical and clownish, they were able to communicate to players: "War is dumb, nationalism is dumb, whatever Call of Duty has been telling you is cool is actually illogical and copying it makes you look like like an idiot. That being said, we all sometimes wish we could beat the shit out of other people in the desert with a shovel, so let's get our aggressions out in a safe, non-serious environment with no consequences. Come play pretend you're a murderous sadist blowing up equally unhinged people with us, it's silly, but it's so fun."

I believe everything from the cartoonishly over-the-top, non-permanent deaths to the deserted, remote environments, to the lack of any truly innocent or defenseless characters was all a carefully crafted foundation made to encourage players to make the informed decision to leave their inhibitions and moral hangups at the door. They wanted players to have fun and go nuts engaging in military-like violence, without encouraging pro-military attitudes in their playerbase.

For an example of a game that royally screwed up doing the same thing, just look at Overwatch - it tried to preach a "wholesome" vibe that was completely mismatched with its gameplay. Overwatch tries to justify extreme violence as Okay When Good Guys Do It To Bad Guys, which ... yeah, again, that is straight up modern military propaganda, on purpose or not (and knowing the US military’s tendency to pour money into video games that glorify war, “on purpose” isn’t as much of a stretch as one might think). Paradoxically, TF2 comes out both looking and feeling better to play, because it handles aligning player emotions VS in-game actions much more elegantly. It accounts for common pitfalls in its genre. OW jumps into those pitfalls with both legs and instead ends up looking shallow and nauseatingly twee.

Of course, all of this is personal speculation. Whether or not this was the reading that Valve intended, I do believe it's a big reason why TF2 has remained so profoundly loveable over the years - it uses its writing and art direction to put the player in the perfect mindspace to Fuck Shit Up.

It's a fantastic example of how to carefully and artfully craft something extremely stupid for maximum intended effect. It uses the strengths of comedy as a genre to its absolute fullest.

Unfortunately, because of cultural shifts since the game's release, newer fans do end up missing out on a lot of what makes this game so expertly done. Many newer fans don't come into the game with the base cultural knowledge it expected of its original audience. To gain a better grasp on the characters and enjoy this piece of media as it was intended, I think it will be extremely helpful to familiarize yourself with the material it is referencing.

For an introduction to media produced and influenced by the Cold War, I would recommend the Wikipedia article Culture during the Cold War as a starting point.

(I have skimmed, but not read, the full article; I encourage readers to be especially source-critical when engaging with pages like this that detail themes of history and propaganda - it's a starting point, not a finish line!)

>2) What themes/layers do you feel the fandom has lost sight of, over time? (or never really managed to acknowledge to begin with?)

Some of this is covered in the previous section, but I'll use this question as an opportunity to talk about another thing I feel is overlooked by fans (and, frankly, the writers of the newer comics too), especially when creating fanworks:

The fact that the characters are extremely dependent on their setup and narrative context to be likeable.

Something I think fandom culture struggles with in general is interpreting and handling fictional characters not as real, independent people who exist in a vacuum, but as the sum total of countless moving parts inside a narrative all working together to create the impression of a real person.

In a comedy, characters are especially dependent on presentation to feel like themselves. It is not enough to loyally recreate an arbitrary list of personality traits in order to create accurate fanworks - recreating the sorts of situations they get into, the kinds of people they interact with, and cherry-picking the information they have access to is neccessary for bringing out what makes the characters so charming!

This is especially important when interpreting and handling a cast made up exclusively of characters who are mean people with bad intentions, bad opinions and a complete lack of adequate self-reflection across the board.

Canon makes them all come off amazingly likeable, but this is because the writers were manipulating tone, relationship dynamics, setting, and much more to show off the characters at their most distinct, least detestable and absolute funniest.

Overlooking this aspect of writing comedy characters often leads to a very common pitfall in many, many fandoms out there - following the logic of a character's canon personality to a place they don't like, and getting rid of those personality traits to combat their own discomfort.

Making characters too kind, too understanding, too progressive, etc., is an endless source of micharacterization in fandoms in general, but especially in fandoms of media where the characters are a bunch of dicks in canon.

To be clear, I fully understand where this is coming from. Fans get attached to characters like these because they're funny (and intended to be loved!) - realizing that a character you really like would logically react in an unlikeable way if you put them into certain situations feels bad. No one wants to turn a character they love into something they find they don't love anymore.

But this is where carefully engineering your setup and narrative comes into play.

Example:

A lot of TF2 fans are queer. Queers flock to TF2 because let’s face it, the campy vibes and silly fun masculinity and weird women are like catnip to us.

But a lot of queer fans go into the fandom aspect of the game and find that ... wait, shit, these characters are not exactly pillars of progressiveness. Reconciling some of the extremist political views of the characters with queer narratives, with queer values, seems a daunting task to some. Because what’s a queer fan to do? Portray a character they love in a way that makes them unloveable? Painstakingly depict shitty, uncomfortable characterization in the name of “realism” that ultimately detracts from their own and other people’s enjoyment of the story? That’s not fun. Fandom is supposed to be fun. So, what, do they just portray the characters as miraculously having perfectly amicable social politics by the standards of the larger queer community in 2023?

Some do, of course, for their own comfort, and it’s understandable, but it’s not good storytelling. It’s an excessively shallow way of interacting with media - the fanfiction equivalent of confidently sitting down to write an in-depth, flowery review of a horror movie you watched with your hands over your eyes during all the scary parts. You cannot create fanworks that are even remotely faithful to the spirit of the canon while deliberately ignoring the core themes and author intention of the canon you’re working with. These things are, unfortunately, mutually exclusive. TF2 characters are meant to be wrong about most things politically. Hopefully my reply to the first question in this post adequately illustrates why that’s so important.

But the good news is that bastardizing canon in order to avoid making characters unlikeable also isn’t necessary.

There’s a reason Soldier, in canon mocks his enemies for everything from failing at masculinity to being disabled, yet doesn’t have a single homophobic line:

The people writing his lines figured it would detract from the character. It would hurt real people’s feelings and make the character less fun to play as, so they didn’t include it. No excuses, no explanation; it is simply omitted for the sake of likeability.

(For contrast, notice that the writers did not extend the same kindness to certain other minorities, like fat people - playing as Heavy fucking sucks when you’re fat, because every other class hurls fatphobic abuse at him. This is a fuck-up on the writers’ side; they failed to identify this type of humor as meaningfully detracting from the experience for a significant amount of players, and so ignorantly decided to include it.)

This is what I mean by “setup and narrative context.” I also like to call this “maneuvering”, because it involves selectively portraying a character in contexts and situations where they shine and instill the intended audience reaction, while steering them away from situations where they would logically act in ways that counteract how the audience is intended to feel about them.

Fanworks can absolutely do the same thing! Fanworks can even take the technique further, because they’re not bound by limited time and focus, the way the original work is!

Sticking with the above example of wondering What The Hell To Do when portraying a character who, due to the ideal he’s satirizing, should by all rights be on the wrong side of history in relation to queer rights, let me make a bold statement:

Soldier TF2 is not homophobic. He's a nationalist, a right-winger, a sexist, a xenophobe - but he's not homophobic.

Why? Because he just so happens to never encounter any gay people in canon. They happen to never cross his mind. He's thinking about other shit. If there's a Pride riot in Teufort, he just so happens to be looking the other way.

Soldier TF2 is not homophobic, because he can't think for himself. He's an idea, a fraction of a bigger narrative that he does not exist outside of.

And if he needs to encounter gay people in a fanfiction, don’t just passively follow the logic of his character to that uncomfortable place none of us enjoy going to - use that maneuvering! Make him misinformed, make him misunderstand, give him incomplete information - the character is not only a face with personality traits attached, his soul is also in the context of the story!

Make him homophobic, but he's pretty sure only Europeans can be gay (just look at them!), and it's already so damn sad that they weren't born in beautiful, paradisical AMERICA, so he pities them instead of hating them. Make him think he's successfully being homophobic, but he has misunderstood what a gay person is and thinks it's a particularly venomous type of snake (men who kiss other men are fine, why would he care about that when there are HORRIBLE HOMOSEXUALS slithering around in the desert that he needs to go blow up right now before they bring this glorious nation to ruin). Make him homophobic, but literally "phobic" - he's shaking and crying hiding inside a cupboard, and his newly-outed gay friends have to lure him out with canned meat and a trail of small American flags, treating him like a feral cat that needs a little time and space to get used to people.

That's funny. It's likeable, it's charming. He isn't portrayed as a good person, or woke in a way that clashes with the themes of his character, but with a little maneuvering, he is faithful to what makes him such a legendary character in canon - being a silly caricature that brings us joy.

If Soldier himself needs to be gay? There are ways to make it happen. Same approach. Get creative. Make it silly. Go for thematically appropriate comedic explanations, not cop-outs or realism*.

That is what I think the TF2 fandom is lacking - understanding of how to manipulate context to make a character feel like their own unique, lovable selves.

Characters are not just visuals and personality traits. They are also what happens to them, what they conveniently find out, what they happen to miss.

This is the same for every story, but it is especially important to understand in a comedy. Doubly so in a whimsical, hyper-violent, morbid comedy like TF2.

It's one of the most important layers to be able to recognize, and an even more important one to be willing to try to recreate.

*Unless you feel like doing a deliberate deconstruction, in which case, go ham, sometimes actively engaging with canon means doing some real weird stuff to it to make a certain point on a meta level. This is obviously different from the issues I described above.

>3) "even the newer official comics don't even seem to really "get" the original game" … I've had a nagging sense for years now that the TF2 comics don't really match the game, tonally -- which has admittedly soured my enjoyment of them -- but I've never been able to put two and two together and fully determine why that is. What would you say they've failed to "get" about the work they're based off of?

While I very much love the newer comics on their own merits, I do think they are wildly removed from the game, and lack a lot of depth by comparison.

I believe the greatest failing of the comics, especially the long-form comic, is that the writers do not seem to be aware of either of the subjects I covered above.

They do not handle the satirical aspect well. The newer comic writers don't even really seem to be aware that there is a satirical aspect - they treat the world as just a silly version of mid-1900′s media, with a narrow focus on silver age comics (which were primarily superhero comics, not an easy genre to match with TF2′s more grounded setting - see the comic’s limp attempt at doing a Superman parody with Sniper) + a dash of the Man’s Life magazines (would have been a good match, if not for the fact that it’s primarily used as aesthetics, with no attention given to themes the way the game does with its own media references). They attempt to write parody only, and even the parody aspect is a hollow effort. Crucially, the writers don't seem to have much of an opinion of the old media properties they're parodying, and without opinions to guide a parody, it becomes shallow and lifeless. "Mid-1900′s media was a bit silly, right?" isn't enough of a hot take to justify its existence. It needs an axis on which to spin to feel complete.

Reiterating the point I made in my answer to question 1: the game's satirical aspect circled the point that was "American media made during the Cold War pushed a narrative that was illogical and ridiculously misaligned with reality."

Its absurd humor is grounded in reality and follows a thematic red thread that the comic does not. As a result, the comic (again, primarily later entries) loses a lot of the sting and edge of the game.

Even though the comic attempts to be more serious and "dark" at certain points, the much more silly and easy-going game (and Meet the Team videos, not to mention) comes out looking more mature, interesting and layered, even though many of the layers remain subtextual. The game is fully married to comedy and has no intention of "getting real", but it is loyal to the spirit of satire. It has opinions. It has bite.

In the game and early supplementary material, there is a dread and horror in the subtext that the comics tried to bring to light later on, but the comic writers didn't know what the scary thing behind the curtain was.

The scary thing was - is - the Cold War.

The scary thing is the dread injected into the genre it's satirizing by people who wanted American readers and movie-goers to be afraid. Scaring people into compliance, into finding a sense of safety and comfort in their national identity, was the entire purpose of many, many pieces of media released at the time.

The comic writers didn't notice the subtext and figured they had to make up their own reasons for why the world of TF2 is so utterly fucked.

They didn't understand the cultural context, and they missed the mark entirely.

This also hindered the comic writers' ability to reproduce the game's humor and characterization. Without understanding where exactly the game's humor was coming from or why the characters were so likeable despite being horrible people, they lacked direction. They made the characters at the same time too impassionate, too stupid, too uncaring, and too nice. All together, the characters became less interesting, less likeable.

Example:

- In the game, Spy was not intended to be Scout's father. Spy having a relationship with Scout's mother emphasized Spy's craftiness and intelligence (undermining the enemy team not only through brute force, but through infiltrating their personal lives), and showed off the strengths of his aforementioned "softness" and sentimentality (he's the only mercenary shown to have consistent luck with women). It also emphasized the flaws in Scout's worldview, and his status as the team underdog, and showed a clear contrast to Scout's non-existent love life. Spy came out of the situation funny and likeable because he 1. was portrayed as cool and capable in a way the other mercs aren't, and 2. his softer side is simultaneously humorously endearing, consistent with the rest of his characterization, and highly informed by the satirical aspect of his character in a way that clicks perfectly thematically. Scout comes out of the situation likeable because his ego is balanced out by his bad luck - you can simultaneously see that he's trying too hard and why he's trying too hard. Spy and Scout's dynamic in-game is also fun and interesting, because you have a tough, hyper-violent, wannabe-macho young man who is desperate to gain the respect of both his team and his enemies getting freaking owned by a guy who is nowhere near the impressive-tough-guy ideal Scout strives to embody. The game's satirical points inform the characters and their actions, which gives the comedy depth and nuance, which in turn makes all characters involved fun to watch and easy to get invested in. It is the establishing of and subsequent pointing-and-laughing-at an ideal that produces engaging, character-driven comedy in this situation.

- By contrast, the comics decided that Spy was Scout's father. Spy's motives for getting involved with Scout's mother is no longer about gaining intel on his enemies. In this version of events, his motives are reduced to merely wanting to reconnect with an old flame. This completely undermines the dynamic described above, for multiple reasons: the situation no longer shows Spy as having a particular skillset that sets him apart from the other mercs, he is no longer portrayed as emotionally "softer" than the others (in fact, having left a poor woman to raise and feed 8 kids on her own while he was off enjoying his upperclass life makes him look incredibly cold in a way that is distinctly unfunny; I don’t think the writers thought this part through), Scout's comedic poor luck is no longer on display, and the "macho character is humiliated by the type of guy he respects the least" satirical aspect no longer works. There is an attempt to replace it with a mutual "ugh, I'm related to this guy?" running gag, but it's a very pale substitute for the layered, strongly characterized, thematically appropriate dynamic present in the original game. Spy comes out of it looking like more of a cowardly, cold-hearted fuck-up than a hilariously brilliant tactician with a heart. Scout comes off way too pitiable, because he is not responsible for his own misery here, and the person horribly bullying him and picking apart his self-esteem on the battlefield is his absent father who abandoned him as a child. He's not an objectively badass character who nonetheless fucks himself over in humorous ways trying to chase an ideal that objectively sucks - he's just a regular shitty guy who ended up in bad circumstances because of things outside of his control.

The comic writers didn't understand what Spy and Scout respectively represented in the game, and because of this, they didn't realize they were taking the characters off the rails and making them much less interesting as a result. They didn't realize they were killing off an endless source of comedy that supported the game's satirical angle in a fun, unique, dynamic way.

It resulted in a flat, flavorless subplot. It had some superficial attempts at "heartwarming" moments ...

... but here's my take: if the writers wanted to include more warmth and sincerity in the comics, wouldn't it have been way more heartwarming if Spy started treating Scout as his son even though he wasn't?

Would it not have been way more endearing to see him look out for his girlfriend's child, not because he has any personal ties to him himself, but because he knew if anything happened to Scout, his mother would be devastated?

Why not build from there? Why not make it an active choice? Why not preserve the existing dynamic and themes, and just follow that narrative thread to its logical conclusion?

Spy has an established sentimental side. Scout is desperate for approval. The reluctant surrogate father/son development practically writes itself. It would have been such a good way to explore TF2's themes more explicitly, too!

But again, the comic writers did not seem to realize the game even had themes.

I do like the newer comics. I do think they're really fun, and I did even enjoy the "Spy is Scout's father" subplot in its own way. But this complete inability to identify the game's themes, and thus the source of all its comedy, and thus the red thread defining characterization - it resulted in supplemental material that was lackluster, directionless and unable to scratch the same itch the game does.

They're good comics, but they're hardly TF2 comics.

>4a) … Sheerly out of curiosity, how do you feel Expiration Date holds up, in comparison?

Similar to the way I dislike Spy being revealed to be Scout’s biological father for coming off as a stilted, superficial attempt at being “heartwarming,” I also immensely dislike later supplementary material trying to promote Ms. Pauling to Scout’s recurring love interest for the exact same reason. Expiration Date pushes this subplot way past its breaking point and shows off extremely well why the “jerk characters are secretly a bunch of softies” treatment is so deeply, deeply out of place in TF2.

Back in the early comics, Scout hitting on Miss Pauling was played as a joke at his expense. He was an idiotic, sexist guy incapable of talking to a pretty woman without trying to fuck - she was a highly skilled and deviously manipulative minor character who mostly existed to show off how dangerously competent the Administrator and her people were. Scout acting like an utter dumbass too entrenched in his own limited worldview to notice what was happening right in front of him was important characterization for him, Miss Pauling’s quiet, calculating efficiency was important characterization for her boss, and their clashing personalities set the tone for the dynamic between the entire team of mercenaries and the conspiracy going on right under their noses.

Expiration Date chose to eliminate these layers and invent a completely new conflict for these two specific characters to go play with in a corner, which had nothing to do with their original characterization or the larger plot. Scout is now portrayed as being genuinely in love with Pauling, even noticing small details about her mannerisms and knowing about some of her interests, even though the entire point of their original interactions were that Scout was so busy trying to live his tough-guy-with-a-pretty-girl-on-his-arm fantasy he did not bother to listen to or learn anything about the women unfortunate enough to cross his path, allowing Pauling to carry out her job without causing suspicion.

Instead, Scout’s sexist approach to interacting with women is played for sympathy (”he’s actually a romantic underdog because the lady he likes accurately clocked him as an idiot!”) and inadvertently validated (”once she gave him a chance, she found out he’s actually a pretty okay guy!”).

In the process, Miss Pauling loses far too much of her usual competence, being visibly freaked out over having to perform a job she’s been shown to handle with grace in the past, and being taken aback by what should by all rights be routine weirdness in this world, all so she can have an eye-roll-worthy forced positive reaction to the entire experience at the end of the short, in a weak attempt to justify why she comes to like Scout more despite all the trouble he’s caused for her and wants to spend more time with him in the future.

The romance subplot is only made possible because the characters are heavily edited compared to their past portrayals, is only able to develop in the direction it does by aligning itself with the values of a character who existed to be a laughable, obviously-mistaken caricature, and is only able to distill a happy ending to the whole mess by stripping the other character of personal standards and agency.

Scout and Pauling are frankly two halves of a whole shitshow in Expiration Date, because the writers either didn’t notice or didn’t care about what older works were gunning for - all they saw was that Boy Liked Girl, Girl Did Not Like Boy, and that just wouldn’t stand! After all, everyone likes romance, right?

Scout, as he is portrayed in the game and in the early supplementary material, is one of my absolute favorites of the mercs. I find him incredibly funny, and the way his hyperactive, fun-loving, jokey traits overlap with his intense bloodlust (literally - he’s the class with the most weapons available that cause bleed damage!) and barely-suppressed rage makes him fun and fascinating. The little man has so much unchecked ADHD and cultural trauma he just has to go and kill people about it, which is just so intensely relatable in the “forbidden mood” way TF2 handles so well.

Unfortunately, I get the impression he has in later years fallen victim to the curse of being a skinny young white guy character, making him a target for writers who think every series needs a relatable everyman protagonist for either themselves or the audience to project onto (and who think skinny young white guys are the most relatable people around, for reasons you can probably imagine I’m not personally very fond of).

TF2 absolutely does not need a character like that, and butchering Scout’s established personality in the name of “relatable” and “wholesome” is first of all Some Bullshit, and second of all a lost cause. The character simply has too much baggage as an over-the-top caricature to be comfortably rewired into an author- or audience-surrogate. He’s always going to come out looking like an asshole - whether this aspect of his character turns out likeable or unlikeable is entirely controlled by whether the story itself acknowledges it.

I did find Scout and Spy's dynamic to be quite well done, though, especially if you ignore the "Spy is Scout's father" reveal from the later comics.

The idea that Spy didn't have to go and do all that, but has grown a soft spot for Scout purely because his girlfriend clearly loves her incredibly annoying boy and her happiness is his happiness, is perfectly in-character. Scout has also long been established to desperately crave approval from his teammates, and on paper, the idea of putting him in a situation where he had to let go of some of his macho man dignity, imitate Spy more closely and ultimately win a tiny bit of that approval he's been looking for is interesting and plays well with the game's existing themes.

It's just a shame Scout's motivations ended up being conjured out of thin air, in direct conflict with past characterization, for the purpose of enabling a schmaltzy, tonally dissonant romantic subplot.

tl;dr, I'm conflicted on the subject of Expiration Date. It's funny, it's cute when it's not trying too hard, and seeing the mercs dick around off the clock getting into stupid shenanigans together is something I've always wanted to see in a longer animated format. It’s largely a good time and a fun watch, despite its questionable gender politics and trope-y execution.

However, like the newer comics, it suffers immensely from writers who are simply unable to identify the themes, characterization and comedy style of older material, and thus, in my opinion, falls way, way short of its potential.

>4b) I'd be very curious to hear your thoughts on Emesis Blue, should you end up watching it.

I'll be sure to share my opinions if I ever get around to watching it!! I'm super curious about it. As I mentioned in another post, what little I've heard of it seems much more on-point thematically, and even with the characters being so far removed from their official characterization, I really get the impression this is a deliberate, informed choice, in stark contrast to the newer official supplementary material. I’ll be sure to drop some words on it if I ever get around to watching the full thing!

Anyway, that about wraps up my thoughts! If you’ve read this far, thank you for sticking with it, and please do consider reblogging - I’ve spent an insane amount of time writing and re-writing and fact-checking this, and I would love for it to reach just half of all the people who were curious about my initial posts on the subject. :’)

Follow-up questions are very welcome, though to be clear: I’m not really interested in “debating” the subjects I’ve talked about here. I know I posit a lot of hard opinions in this post and not everyone is going to agree with me and that’s fine - if you feel differently, I invite you to simply ignore me and write your own take on your own blog. No hard feelings, I just don’t enjoy those kinds of discussions. (Corrections on any factual mistakes I’ve made are of course encouraged).