west

BACK IN BUSINESS!

[westcoastsmoked]

“A year after the events of the official comics, nuclear war breaks out, forcing the ten members of Fortress underground while they wait out the radiation on the surface. With nothing to do and nowhere to go, they are forced to work out their personal problems.

It is the fight to survive, and the fight to find solace.”

read here on ao3

[westcoastsmoked]

So I Retired (and lessons from SKOF)

the most important thing i can say is thank you, thank you all for having been so kind to me when i was young. for all the love you all gave me. i wish i had listened to you guys a little more.

I made this account around freshman year of high school (2019ish), when I was writing my first full length screenplay. you never saw it. i had a sfm indie deal that fell through unceremoniously (LOL) you instead read it as the fic Some Kind Of Fallout, and got a pile of SFM posters to go along with it. you all knew and nobody irl did because i was a kid embarrassed about the art I made. my own parents had no clue

around seventeen i disappeared. (the retirement i speak of) i had finished skof, i was working through across the ashes... and then real life came around. things in my life destroyed me and my passion. i let go of my dreams. the story i wanted to tell. the time between that loss of heart and the return i like to treat as an empty space/forget. just before nineteen, i got out. i told my mother i wanted to make movies (imagine her surprise at that one...) and i went away to school to do so.

i wrote a story called Contract when i got to school. it had been so long since i had written a real screenplay, and I went home to the characters i had known best. i brought it in to a club to be evaluated. they liked it. the same club then put a cinema camera in my hand and gave me the ability to help others better their screenplays. when i help others tell their stories, i feel a certain way. like this is the thing i was always meant to do. i can feel it in my bones - its the closest to a religious feeling i have ever felt.

i still dragged my feet about the art in my past. i forgot, for a while, until i came across the SFM folder on my desktop a couple months ago. i realized that the way i feel about film is the way i felt as a teenager about the art I made. and i could see it. everything i do now, the way I frame things and the way I ask for my lights to be placed is all the shit i learned spending 6 hours a SFM poster.

today i am twenty and almost a half years old! i will not say that i am going to make a 'comeback.' I was so active as a teenager because I had the time. I have movies to make now, for better or worse. But my SFM art, the stuff that used to embarrass me, is a part of my professional portfolio, right next to all of my indie and student stills.

on a more personal note, I can see now as an adult why I made the character of JJD the way he was. The things I went through make me a little like him. My memory is notoriously horrible, I used to have a bad habit of avoiding my problems, I didn't want the future my parents wanted for me, I wanted to be unconditionally loved, and I wanted a life of my own choosing. I wanted to save my friends and I hated myself when I failed at it. I tend to be irrational but also tend to captivate.

i don't think i'd change very much about the story if i went back. maybe some of the prose itself. but not the message. the message was always that we suffer and we overcome but we must let love in to do so. what i have learned in adulthood is that there is suffering and that i could not overcome it alone. i wish i had turned to my own story in my darkest times.

thanks again. i'll always love team fortress two, but most importantly i'll always love the fans who made it what it was to me

oh and maybe i'll put Contract as a fic on ao3. it lost at BEA </3

[kpd-zero]

I must admit that I barely understand sniper's hair. On the original model, it's just a blob. On the most official art, it's slicked back, but then on some of it's not??? Also, making short hair look good is a challenge in itself. I was tempted to give him a mullet because at least I understand how mullets work. I managed to make something half decent on a third attempt, but it's still a work in progress. Can wait to be finished with the hair, so I can move on to more fun parts. Also his face might be a subject to change, but we'll see.

[westcoastsmoked]

clocking in.

[greelin]

something genuinely insane about going somewhere and getting to feel “i had some of the worst years of my life here” and “i was loved here, once” simultaneously.

[greelin]

the structure rots and the plants reclaim. But i remember

[caylakluver]

[rpfofficial]

[Image text: The protagonists of the last three things you read/watched/ played are the members of your zombie apocalypse team.

How screwed are you? /end ID.]

[beadydroid]

I got all the way through drawing this and realized it isn’t really even that much of an exaggeration of what actually happened in the book.

[moonshynecybin]

i bet thrawn was such a weird kid do you think he got in trouble for analyzing the other kids crayon drawings so he could defeat them in duck duck goose

[presidentbungus]

“Can I ask ya something?”

Dell’s hand moves up to fidget with the collar of Spy’s argyle blazer—suddenly his heart jumps to his throat, following the motion, and doesn’t go back down after a good few seconds of blinking, so Spy tentatively hums: “Yes, Dell?”

And then his eyes shift and his hand moves to sit on Spy’s shoulder instead. “Are you physically incapable of feeling overdressed?”

Spy doesn’t want to know why he has to calm himself for a little bit to squeeze out: “I have not seen a pair of slacks since I landed in this city that weren’t pulled directly from my suitcase. Perhaps the rest of you are classless, fashionably-bankrupt orangutans.”

“Aw. Look, this is a nice shirt, right?” Dell steps back (oh thank god) to do a few swivels and show off a salmon button-up that’s a little too small, considering how the fabric between the buttons is stretching almost enough to reveal a little skin.

There are slightly more pressing matters. “The fact that you squeezed into anything other than a pair of overalls this morning doesn’t change the fact that you’re wearing cargo shorts and…” His nose wrinkles, only a little voluntarily. “Boat shoes.”

Dell looks at him for a few seconds, then scoffs, obviously exaggerating a little for comedic effect, crossing his arms. “Well I never!”

“You obviously have, considering your current fashion statement.”

Dell’s expression shifts to confusion for a moment, then he says: “That is a blatant misinterpretation of a relatively common turn of phrase.”

“According to you.” Deep breath in, out. “If you theoretically wanted to improve the abysmal status of your wardrobe, I could take you shopping.” He thinks better of it and tacks on an “If you so desired,” even though it’s a tad redundant

“You,” he levels an accusing finger at Spy, “would make fun of everything I wanted to buy.”

“And, Dell, that’s precisely why I’ll pick everything out for you. And I’ll put it on my bill. You only need to sit back and try on whatever I throw at you. You know I have a moderately proficient eye.”

Dell’s about to say something, but he falters, and then he fidgets with the top button of his shirt and thinks for a while.

“As hesitant as I am to allow you to curate any portion of my wardrobe,” he eventually says—“I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to try.”

Internally, the celebration might involve backflips and cartwheels and a looming sense of existential dread—externally Spy allows himself to smile, just enough to make his pleasure clear, and he holds out his hand. “Tomorrow, laborer?”

Dell shakes on it. “It’s a date.”

Horrible choice of words.

[transurgender]

i think objectively the tf2 wiki is the best wiki out there. u can literally spin the character models around what fucking else do u need. the lore? uhmmm only nerds wanna know that. now start SPINNIN THAT BEAST!!!!!

[sadclowncentral]

2023

1. COMMIT TO THE BIT

2. PARTAKE IN THE DIVINE ACT OF CREATION

3. LET THE SOFT ANIMAL THAT IS YOUR BODY LOVE WHAT IT LOVES

[nachosforfree]

Me

[mrspider-deactivated20221213]

femme fatale as a guy

[mrspider-deactivated20221213]

hes gorgeous hes a disaster hes put together his male foil/counterpart is in love with him despite that obviously not being a good idea for either of them and most importantly he is occasionally covered in blood

[mrspider-deactivated20221213]

this post exists like a wildlife research tagging team because i see some people putting familiar names of characters like this who ive already documented but then every time i see a new name my pool grows

[antiquestorewhore-deactivated20]

i’m just curious, is there any artist(s) that you know their entire discography… like everything they ever made is just imprinted in the back of your mind

[mihai-florescu]

Girls will be like "awww my skrunkly, my blorbo, my little meow meow" and then draw that poor guy in a reenactment of a biblical scene

[presidentalpaca]

breaking bad, jerma, and american psycho are the new superwholock

[westcoastsmoked]

he’s going to kill you, and he’s going to die too

(someone loves him too much to let him burn to death)