tf2strategist

Latest Posts by tf2strategist

Oh my god I’ll keep an eye out for fundraisers but my hometown is in flames.. they think it might all be gone.

Grantscentralstation

Organizations | Grantscentralstation

^They're currently taking donations for Maui mutual aid

I must make the Kalteshulter.

The deadline is coming.

If there is any time to debut my work, it is now.

Maaaybe I just interpret too much in this because I love Demo so much, but I really had the feeling that Demoman has taken care of Engie until he had build his level 3 sentry because you see him standing here with engie shooting bombs

and first leaves after Engie is done and gives him the sign to go

and I just really love that kind of teamwork

Oh I am in LOVE with these headcanons! I found the mention of wondering how much of his personality at the base is an act as well an incredibly intriguing idea, and a fun one at that.

That, and the description near the end of him being “the friendly face on the other side of the street” or “the guy you run into at the grocery store that turns towards you and tells a bunch of jokes in a row and it’s so weirdly pathetic and charming at the same time you can’t help but laugh” puts him in such a familiar but different light that I had never really thought of him in, but that makes PERFECT sense to his character.

While in the comics he’s portrayed as a bit of an annoying loudmouth before getting a more genuine characterization near the end (or the issue before the end, anyway), the characterization you wrote sort of fits that more developed personality in the later comics alongside him in the games.

I just. Hgh. The idea of him being that good at manipulating people in his most comfortable environment (or is it even manipulating people? More-so himself) is SUPER cool and fitting to me, and also fits the autism headcanon where he’s just learned to mask incredibly well while remaining unfazed by deeper attempts to fit in with his peers since he’s just not interested in it—keeping him genuine and earnest, if that makes sense?

Having written that, it gave me the idea that maybe the longer he spends with the mercs as their unusual mercenary found family, the easier it becomes for him to manipulate on the field.

Thinking about how that’d translate, I imagine that he’s learned how to speak to enemy team members the same way he’s been spoken to for months or even years. He’ll ask questions with a more cutting tone towards the enemy Engineer using vocabulary he picked up from his own. He doesn’t always get it right, but more often than not he can waltz into enemy territory and as long as he’s not posing a threat during an active battle, he can end up making (tense) conversation with the opposite team.

Additionally, my initial idea was that the other mercenaries notice that he’s a little more careful in the enemy base, knowing better what turf is closest guarded, especially since he’s a predominantly flanking class.

Will reblog with more ideas about the above topic.

Scout has incredible street smarts! While it seems irrelevant in the base dropped in the middle of nowhere, he is invaluable during contract missions located within urban areas.

He can notice an undercover cop in a second, distinguish accents, recognize a scam happening, pinpoint a drug dealer who looks like a sweet old granny and see the signs of some group's terf markings. The team is looking for some local hotshot and they have no leads? Scout runs to the downtown and locates the first bodega/laundromat/bar/gas station/pizza parlor, blends in and befriends some entry-position-apprentice who gives him all the info he needs.

South Boston is the top school in the world for the street-smarts and Scout graduated it with honors.

yep! while scout has resigned himself to the position of “the stupid one” alongside a crowd of extremely talented, socially awkward PhD owners, once somebody finally has the idea that he seems good at talking and drags him along on a mission they figure out pretty quick that holy shit this kid is good at talking.

Engie’s usually the negotiator if they need one at all, mostly because he knows how to say please and thank you when it seems necessary, but he still has sort of a… distrustful aura around him. the accent’s disarming, sure, and does a great job pushing through a crowd of white middle-aged church moms, but it turns out there are a lot of parts where a moderately-wealthy-looking fourty-year-old white man with a little bit of a weird glint in his eyes ain’t really that welcome. so they might send scout in, since he really, really wants to go in and they’re all out of options (unless they want to send sniper, and he’d probably leave the building having bitten at least four people on reflex)—and when he comes back out he’s got everything they need to know, plus some free snacks, plus an invite to some teenage boy’s birthday party.

it turns out that little air of authenticity goes a long way—and the team watches him flip from polite upstanding church-boy cashier to poor sad orphan boy on the streets to egregiously annoying emotional armor-shredding “class clown” in what seems like seconds, and I guess it should occur to someone at some point that he’s spent his entire life figuring out how to blend in places like that and get what he wants.

(everybody would joke he got the ‘good actor’ gene from spy, if it didn’t just make them sad. also, a few people see him effortlessly skating his way person-to-person, molding his conversational targets like putty, and wonder exactly how much of an act he might be putting on back at the base, too.)

addendum: of all the characters he is able to axt in, “suave” or “ladykiller” or anything along those lines is not one of them. please don’t get me wrong. he’s the friendly face you see on the other end of the sidewalk, or the guy you run into at the grocery store that turns towards you and awkwardly tells a whole bunch of jokes in a row and it’s so weirdly pathetic and charming at the same time you can’t help but laugh, but he’s still terrible at romance, and as a matter of fact most things Involving charisma in general. he just takes advantage of that sad wet kitten energy, you know? it works out

Follow the bouncing flames

With the release of the Jungle Inferno update, Valve left many test attributes in the game code. Some of these were designed to make the Pyro’s flames reflect off of surfaces. A few years later, two very humble geniuses named Gamemaster and Gray found the attributes and implemented them in a plugin called Alternative Fortress, giving the Backburner the ability to bounce flames off walls.

For the record, I actually had nothing to do with this. It’s solely GM’s work, and he deserves full credit. (This does nothing to reduce my genius and/or humility.)

Anyway, this is what I’ll be talking about today: reflecting flames.

Keep reading

...that your audience won't hate.

This is a method I started using when NFTs were on the rise - thieves would have to put actual work into getting rid of the mark - and one that I am now grateful for with the arrival of AI. Why? Because anyone who tries to train an AI on my work will end up with random, disruptive color blobs.

I can't say for sure it'll stop theft entirely, but it WILL make your images annoying for databases to incorporate, and add an extra layer of inconvenience for thieves. So as far as I'm concerned, that's a win/win.

I'll be showing the steps in CSP, but it should all be pretty easy to replicate in Photoshop.

Now: let's use the above image as our new signature file. I set mine to be 2500 x 1000 pixels when I'm just starting out.

Note that your text should not have a lot of anti-aliasing, so using a paint brush to start isn't going to work well with this method. Just use the standard G-Pen if you're doing this by hand, or, just use the text tool and whichever font you prefer.

Once that's done, take your magic wand tool, and select all the black. Here are the magic wand settings I'm using to make the selections:

All selected?

Good.

Now, find a brush with a scattering/tone scraping effect. I use one like this.

You can theoretically use any colors you want for this next part, but I'd recommend pastels as they tend to blend better.

Either way, let's add some color to the text.

Once that's finished,

You're going to want to go to Layer Property, and Border Effect

You'll be given an option of choosing color and thickness. Choose black, and go for at least a 5 in thickness. Adjust per your own preferences.

Now create a layer beneath your sig layer, and merge the sig down onto the blank layer.

This effectively 'locks in' the border effect, which is exactly what we want.

Hooray, you've finished your watermark!

Now let's place that bad boy into your finished piece.

You'll get the best mileage out of a mark if you can place it over a spot that isn't black of white, since you'll get better blending options that way. My preference is for Overlay.

From here, I'll adjust the opacity to around 20-25, depending on the image.

If you don't have a spot to use overlay, however, there's a couple other options. For white, there's Linear Burn, which imho doesn't look as good, but it still works in a pinch.

And for lots of black, you have Linear Light

Either way, you're in business!

EDIT since this has escaped my usual circles, and folks aren't as familiar with my personal usage:

An example of one of my own finished pieces, with watermark, so you can see what I mean about 'relatively unobtrusive'-- I try to at least use them as framing devices, or let them work with the image somehow (or, at the very least, not actively against it).

I know it's a bummer for some people to "ruin" their work with watermarks, which is part of the reason I developed this mark in particular. Its disruption is about as minimal as I can make it while still letting it serve its intended purpose.

There's other methods, too, of course! But this is the one I use, and the one I can speak on. Hope it helps some of you!

Alright, I'm doing it.

Today at 3PM EST on this freshly made Discord server I'll be going through Heavy's voicelines, reading them with my thickest Russian accent, talking about Russian phonetics, and answering any questions you guys might have.

DON'T MISS IT! Here's the DIscord server link again! Join, chat, tell your friends! If a decent number of people shows up, I might make it a regular thing.

hiii im the artist who drew the autistic sniper art and i just wanted to say i love the tags you left!!!! ive never gotten a long string of tags like that on my art before so it was really awesome to see and fun to read 🫂 thank you 🫶

Bahaw hi!!! I’m so glad to hear it :D your art is awesome and I got super excited seeing it, haha.

As a friend on ao3 once said, peace and love on planet autism!!! >:DDD

I love when ppls art gets me going into a spiral of headcanons like that haha, I can’t help but write it down lmao—Next time I should probably keep it in the text and not the tags for the sake of readability though; I just didn’t realize I’d ramble for that long bahahah

But yeah!!! Everyone go check out this cool artist NOW or else <3

Extra stuff in the tags. I’m normal about this image. Totally.

snipertism. sniper autism. :-)

Have a Happy and Safe Halloween Everybody!!! This is from the new Scream Fortress comic. You can read it at: teamfortress.com

somebody's definitely made this joke already but i think scout in all his early 2000's whiteboy swag would definitely fucking smoke DDR. he'd be one of those freaks that are straight up just breakdancing on the arrows. breaking it down transgender style. you guys understand what im aiming at

I think the TF2 mercs take turns giving pep talk to the team before match, and they almost equally suck at it. Soldier is too patriotic, Engie - too strategic, Spy - too pretentious, that sort of thing.

The only person whose speeches the team actually loves is Demo. He makes no sense but he puts his entire soul and pussy into it. He says shit like "Lads... Today ya have'ta ask yerself... are ya a man? Or an imitation of man? D'ya go oot there with fire in yer eye and fight in yer soul, or d'ya yield like a sorry buncha loosers?! A' say today we take all th'bombs and rockets and shove them up the BLU's arses! Thus begins our thousand year reign of blood!" and everyone loses their goddamn mind.

I headcanon that Demo fucking LOVES Halloween and it’s the only time he really pulls out all the stops and gets reeeeeally theatric. So lemme jot down a few hcs :]

He has a list of costume ideas he wants to do in the future

He puts a lotta time and effort into his costumes for sure

He really does love theatrics he just doesn’t get into it much and uses Halloween as an excuse (even though he doesn’t need one)

I think he uses magic because that fucking rules and the whole thing about him hating magic is staged because he just wants to be able to give a reason to hate Merasmus other than the fact that he was mean to Soldier

He uses magic to make his and everyone else’s costumes more realistic

I think he also used a little magic to put on a good show for the rest of the mercs once and scared them all half to death. Maybe even all the way to death for some of them

He is no longer allowed to do that

They tell the BEST scary stories and have the added real lore from their experiences with the paranormal

He helps everyone with their costumes whenever he can because he really does enjoy it a lot

He has been directly responsible for at least one of the Halloween events the team’s dealt with and is not really sorry because it’s really fun to him

Dear goodness I hope I don’t come across as any of these. Same here that I won’t cancel your headcanons but I 100% agree.

For Sniper, I like to see it as he’s not the best with words, but he’s patient and while he may come across as nervous in a situation it’s out of surprise or out of being flustered. I don’t think he’s like that normally, since you can definitely see that he isn’t through his voice lines ingame.

He’s a professional after all!

Such in a shitty fucking mood today. Tell me about your LEAST favorite thing the TF2 fandom does. The worst widely accepted headcanon. Hatred rage violence. I'll probably bite someone.

another post about tf2 scammers

about a week ago i made a post about what types of tf2 specific scams are floating around steam, how to avoid them, and how to identify a scammer. a scammer literally just added me and to a newer player/steam user, their profile could come across as legit so i'd like to go through it and pick apart some of the red flags i look for when people like this add me on steam. hopefully it'll help some people lol idk

this is the profile of the person that added me. it seems normal enough at first, they have a decent steam level and their profile is personalized with artwork and a background. they've also written a bit about their hobbies and favorite tf2 maps in their description. initially, i thought this person knew me from tf2's steam forum and added me from there, but i did some snooping around just to be safe.

here is their full description. i know this might seem pretty normal, but for me personally descriptions like this are a red flag in my mind. the first part would be fine if they had any workshop submissions or had posted their work anywhere, but they haven't so it looks more like they just added some random hobbies specific to tf2 to make them look more legit. i've also never seen anybody list their favorite maps on their profile and in combination with everything else it just seems like they're trying to come across as more knowledgeable about the game than they actually are. this isn't enough to get me to block or report somebody immediately, but it does make me raise an eyebrow at least.

next, i scroll down and i see what games they play/own. 7k hours in tf2 is mighty impressive, but there's another red flag here: these are the only games this person owns and has played, and they're both free to play. for someone who has been on steam since 2015 at the very least, you'd think they'd play more than just tf2 and csgo.

another red flag is their friends list: there's only 8 people here. again, if they've been playing tf2 since 2015 as they claim, it means they'd have been on steam since then as well and most people would have a lot of people added in that time. (i've been on steam since 2014 and have 342 people added.) i know some people only like to add close friends or people they trust, but if this person added me out of nowhere and i've never spoken to them prior.

with all this in mind their profile is extremely suspicious, so at this point i've got a good hunch that they're a scammer. let's dig a bit deeper.

private inventories are another red flag as i mentioned in my previous post about scams. you can see the trade history of some items using websites like backpack.tf, and because of this a lot of scammers will keep their inventories private to prevent people from seeing if their items were stolen from someone else. it also prevents you from seeing what they have if they're chatting to you about trading.

this is an absolute dead giveaway. despite having 7k hours in tf2, they have absolutely no playtime on any of the classes. not only that, but every single one of their achievements were unlocked on the exact same day at the exact same time, which is impossible to do unless you're using an external program. it seems like this person used the program to unlock some achievements, then idled on the menu to inflate their hours on their profile. this is also why a lot of scammers won't have their stats visible; it's to prevent you from seeing if they actually play the game or not.

so yeah after seeing all this, i was 100% sure this was a scammer. here's them proving me right by doing the "we need you to play on/vote for our team there's money involved and we'll give you items" scam.

when i'm talking to a scammer i like to pretend to be engaged in order to keep them engaged as well and waste their time a bit, and because of this there's another red flag to add to the heaps of them this guy already has: why would you add a heavy/sniper main and ask them to play soldier or scout, especially when soldier is their least played class? surely someone who is looking for teammates for a tournament where money is involved would also check the stats of the people they're supposed to be playing with.

i sent them a couple more messages and they unfriended me shortly after. i've since blocked + reported them for scamming/phishing.

I’m not one to try and spread negativity, but if there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s the constant drawing of (canon) Demo, Soldier, Heavy, and Medic as stick-thin.

I struggled to draw their body types at first, but getting into tf2 actually helped my art style a LOT as I was forced to branch out of what I was used to drawing.

I just wish more people would do the same.

Such in a shitty fucking mood today. Tell me about your LEAST favorite thing the TF2 fandom does. The worst widely accepted headcanon. Hatred rage violence. I'll probably bite someone.

Can you write how support class confess their feeling/ask out their s/o. :))) (gender neutral by the way)

I’ve been getting back into TF2 recently and have so many good asks in here, AGH—

Sorry for how long it takes me to get to these, it entirely depends on motivation and how I’m feeling on a given day, haha.

SUPPORT CLASSES & THEIR CONFESSIONS:

Sniper:

Sniper has a lot harder of a time sorting out his emotions than the others.

Seeing his S/O is one of the few things that gets the battle-hardened mercenary’s guard to slip, and he knows it. He finds it hard to come to terms with it, especially with the fear that those feelings might not be reciprocated.

For a long time, he stays silent on it. He’s always tried to keep himself levelheaded, but whenever his thoughts come around to the idea of confessing he feels like he just can’t keep his head on straight.

He eventually manages to figure out a vague plan for what to do, and it immediately flies out of the window when a much better opportunity presents itself.

On a full moon night, the two of you are sitting on top of his camper, stargazing. Without even thinking, he slowly sits up and watches as you follow the movement.

Taking his S/O’s hand, he delivers a frankly wholesome and profound confession. They have to catch it through the amount of pauses and stutters and backtracks, but he cares so much that he becomes overwhelmed.

The two make it official that night.

Medic:

He’s either shockingly closed off about it, or overwhelmingly open before he even confessed it outright.

Communication is important, and the doctor tends to be pretty blunt about how he feels most of the time unless he recognizes that he shouldn’t be in a given situation.

That being said, regardless of how he acts beforehand; the confession itself definitely happens during a surgery or an equally inopportune time for anyone but Medic himself.

He probably doesn’t give his S/O his heart, but he might give them somebody else’s! Or he talks about them much more highly and much more frequently than usual while they work together or one is in the room.

Unless his S/O is completely clueless or oblivious to his cues, chances are they knew far beforehand and he’s just using this opportunity to be absolutely clear about how he feels about them. His doting leads to a true confession, but it’s very brief and to the point—no skirting around the edges.

Spy:

Spy knows himself. He’s had many lovers in his time, he knows how it feels, and he knows how it ends.

Or, at least, he thinks he does.

Having resigned to the fact that he likes his S/O, maybe even loves them, he begins to stay around them a lot more often than before.

Spy doesn’t enjoy being open, especially as someone who can’t always trust another—no matter how blinded by feelings either party is. So while he’s resigned to it, he’s still quite wary.

Instead of confessing with words, he confesses with actions. Gifts, dates, kisses, subtle moves like brushing hands as he moves past or discreetly whispering a compliment while others are nearby—he’s content to do it that way, but if his S/O is still stumped, he may just have to bite the bullet and say it outright.

It takes him a lot of courage to do it, but eventually he brings his S/O into another room, probably his smoking lounge as it provides the most privacy and sits them down.

His speech is slow at first, almost methodical as he tries to keep himself from spilling any details that might be used against him in the future.

It doesn’t work.

Once the floodgates open, there’s no holding it back. He pours his emotions, his love, his thoughts, his compliments out in front of them. His desire to be with his S/O far surpasses anyone else he’s been with before, and it shows in everything he does from that point on.

Around other people, he’s far more subtle about it. But the second they’re not being watched, the second it’s official, they’re both uncharacteristically open with each other. It’s quite wholesome, actually.

time to play my favorite dress up game ^-^ (opens loadout.tf) 

Team Fortress 2: Superior Engineering [SFM]

by Anomidae

[VIDEO LINK]

no longer normal I need his hand in marriage

mom said its my turn to make the silly tf2 comic

Saw this post and got super inspired! Made me want to jot down my own ideas. Go read op’s version tho, it’s really fun

Mercs with a s/o that loves to play fight

Scout:

When it first comes up, he puts on this usual confident facade and says he’s totally down to wrestle, but he’s actually a little hesitant. He was the baby in his house as a kid and always lost to his brothers no matter what, so it’s a bit of a sore spot for him. Rough-housing used to be a little too rough for lil Scout. However, once he tries it with his s/o for the first time, he realizes its actually supposed to be fun when one person isn’t crazy overpowered. Then his playful nature takes hold and he just can’t get enough of it, he loves sneak attacks and random tussles.

Soldier:

He sees it as the perfect opportunity for some training, and fully believes it will have benefits for both of him and his partner. He will hold nothing back and isn’t afraid to fight rough, but won’t go as far as to actively try to hurt his s/o. That said, he is still very likely to do so accidentally, and it’s isn’t uncommon for both of them to come out injured but grinning. There is always a winner declared at the end of the fight, unlike some of the other mercs who just tussle for fun.

Pyro:

They love pretty much anything that can be described as a game, so as long as no one is taking it too seriously they are down for some horseplay. Honestly they like chasing games more than they like rough housing, but attack hugs and tackles are all welcome. Sometimes it’s more like aggressive cuddling than actual play fighting, but it’s still fun.

Heavy:

Heavy is very patient and has no problem letting his s/o to try and fight him. In fact, he is very amused by how hard they try to win and will happily sit to watch them struggle. Even if he’s busy it doesn’t bother him very much, he can be totally absorbed in a novel while his s/o tries and fails to put him in a headlock. If asked nicely, he will politely pretend to fight back, but in reality he just gently pins them down until they give up since they absolutely cannot win. He has full confidence that they aren’t capable of hurting him, and has full trust in his own precision so he know he won’t hurt them. It’s like a puppy chewing on the tail of a Great Dane.

Engie:

Engie is relatively sure he likes the idea in theory, but in practice he’s really awkward about it. He hasn’t play fought with anyone before, and he isn’t sure how to be fun or affectionate about it. He pretty much resorts to always letting his partner win with very little push back, because he really is afraid of hurting them. He does like hooking their head and ruffling up their hair though.

Demo:

Demo is probably the most fun to play fight with. He fucking loves horsin around, he is super affectionate about it but also has enough ambition to legitimately want to win. He doesn’t go easy on his s/o, but he has enough self control to keep from hurting them too. He’s a very tactile person and it makes him feel closer to them. It’s always fun, and they end up tussling a lot.

Medic:

Medic is very particular, so his s/o has to catch him in a silly mood. If he is being serious he shuts them down fast. But sometimes he is feeling cheery and goofy, and his s/o can manage to sneak up and nab him. He has a playful side and will chase them around gleefully until he inevitably catches up. It can be almost scary (in a fun way) because he is deceptively strong and can win very easily. He knows it too, which is why he usually turns them down. It doesn’t happen often, but he isn’t completely opposed to the idea of rough housing.

Sniper:

A little unexpectedly, Sniper loves rough housing, but only in private. As long as he is super comfortable with his s/o and knows it’s something they’d be okay with, he might even be the one to initiate it provided they’re alone. If they’re shorter than him, he loves scooping them up from behind and just tossing them around in general. A shorter s/o could also absolutely climb him like a beanpole. He’s got strong arms, but other than that he’s a bit of a stick so he’s definitely not impossible to beat, so the end result of the fight is anyones game. All in all, he has a lot of fun with it and makes sure neither of him nor his partner actually gets hurt. Around other people though, he gets super shy.

Spy:

If asked outright, Spy will refuse because it sounds childish, and also because he’s SUPER competitive and he doesn’t want to lose. If his partner does decide to tackle him, he knows he could escape with ease, but the problem is his escape maneuvers tend to be very…. deadly. So while he could, he isn’t willing to use those tactics, and his s/o beats him when it comes to brute strength because he has noodle arms. They can absolutely jump him and pin him down with little effort, and he acts all pouty and mean about it until his partner catches him hiding a smile. Once his secret is out, it’s possible to get a laugh out of him. As long as they go easy on him and don’t damage his suit, he will tolerate it and maybe even humor them for a little bit.

These are just my own interpretations, I legit love op’s headcannons so pls don’t see this as me trying to correct them or anything ❤️

happy sniper sunday

hate when people don't draw heavy tf2 with fat and muscle. bitch that's not a heavy that's a light

hello popular tf2 fanfic author. in front of you is an idea for an ensamble fic. your challenge is to write demoman like an actual person and not a one dimensional stereotype. if you make being drunk and having one eye his entire personality , i will detonate the sticky trap laid below you you.

Equinox Industries™ sincerely apologizes for the wave of disconnections from our Customers™.

As you may know, a highly respected member of the Equinox Family™ has broken our Trust™.

Our™ hard work was vandalized by an employee we used to hold in the highest regard! Her horrible actions have led to you, the customer, experiencing these delays in service and even full blackouts from our company list.

She has been booted from our Family™, and we are working to fix these issues with haste.

MANN CO MANN CO MANN CO MANN CO MANN CO MANN CO

- EQNX

little guys + marketable shirts

Medic yelling “I love you Heavy!” during a match of Dustbowl   😳

(From Downes’s signing stream day 1)

"What if the tf2 men used modern slang" lame. You're all too afraid to learn period-accurate 60s/70s slang. You don't want Sniper tf2 to call things "groovy" and "far out" because you are a coward