#tf2chan

I might try doing this with other fics for my own enjoyment, but I want to tell others how to do it too, especially for archival.

before:

and after:

I feel like that was the most popular I’ve ever been online and I think that being my legacy wouldn’t be so bad, even long after I’ve moved on from the fandom. There are certainly far worse things that I could be known for online, and a lot of those are things I regret.

The ripples left just by my presence are larger than I ever could have pre-internet and they’re still quite small. I still get regular alerts of people leaving kudos on my TF2 fic that I put onto AO3, where I had to post everything before Dotchan’s site went down. For the longest time, there were so many fics that you could only read on TF2chan, including mine. And it’s so weird how much of an impact my fic left not just on the fanfic side of the TF2 fandom, but beyond that, going so far as to get copy-pasta’d on /v/ in a thread that had hundreds of responses.

It’s nuts to think about. I am certainly fine with less people talking shit about me directly to me, though, but that feeling of strangers just drawing stuff because they were inspired by my work and then we became friends... I miss that. I miss those connections. It was kind of beautiful, really.

I hope everybody that was on TF2chan is doing well, even the ones that I left on... not very good terms and maybe they still don’t like me. I’m trying my best to do better for myself and others every day and I hope that other people are doing the same so I guess it doesn’t matter if they still don’t like me; I know I’m trying my best to do better. There were so many talented artists, writers, animators, modelers, cosplayers, even musicians that I got to meet through the fandom, even without really stepping into the competitive scene.

It’s weird how a game I haven’t played in years still has become the foundation for many decade-long friendships that I’ve had and I still talk to these people all the time and we hang out... because we met through an image board. Not the most friendly environment, and certainly not the most sensitive because the board was very much steeped in /v/ culture, but it was kind of neat for me at the time where I could find a place that embraced the image board culture I’d been in for two years prior to joining and also just into fanfic and fanart and just a ton of amazing porn. And oh, there was so much porn.

I miss it, but also I think the fact that it was a thing that only lasted for a few years kind of makes it all the more precious. Shout out to all the people who are still plugging away, still playing, still making fanart, still writing and reading fanfic, still modeling items and still doing SFM animations or hell, even GMOD videos. I’m proud to have been a part of that community. They genuinely helped me become a better artist and writer and I met so many lifelong friends through it and had so much fun in servers with incessant micspam and obnoxious sprays and conga lines and actual fun just playing the game as intended... and it was neat that people liked my contributions enough to recommend my work to other people, and keep doing it to this day. Really, I think a lot of that just had to do with being in the right place at the right time and writing the right stories.

Earlier this year, Respawn of the Dead was selected in AO3′s Classic Fic Recs collection for International Fanworks Day. There was only one other TF2 fic nominated and it’s one I’d never even heard of. I started writing Respawn of the Dead in February of 2009 and people still remember it. It’s just... it’s nuts to me.

I miss that community but I feel like it’s dissipated over the years. I moved on. A lot of people moved on. But for those couple of years... it was amazing to be a part of... even when there was fucking dumb bullshit drama happening for no good reason or I made an ass of myself.

Interview I conducted with Lakidaa (known as Engineer on the chan) about the origins of Tentaspy, and other old TF2chan stuff.  Interview conducted March 29th, 2020.  Content warning for discussions of Scout x Spy shipping (pre comics, no incest you sillies!) and racism on the chan.

If you were ever curious about where the Tentaspy meme came from, here ya go!  It’s also a nice lil documentation of some older fandom stuff, before it all moved to Tumblr (then combusted).

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scumsuck: About Tentaspy.  I was on TF2chan in the pre-2009 days, and I recall it being part of a little mermaid AU?  With Scout as the little mermaid and Spy as Ursula?  Is my recollection true?

Lakidaa: Ah yes.  Yes!  I was Engineer [on TF2chan].  It was because we were on a kick of watching Disney movie songs in their native language & Beauty And The Beast is a French story.  

scumsuck: So Tentaspy started as a SpyScout thing, then it got into Teufort monster territory.

Lakidaa: Right.

scumsuck: When you say 'we were on a kick of watching disney', you mean you and other people on the chan?

Lakidaa: Yes! There was a steam chat we hung out in.

scumsuck: Do you remember who else was there on the disney movie thing?

Lakidaa: Uhhh me? Jones. Khorosho, the mod who was an Aussie, Dr.Tanner, oh! Yeah uhh Kilomonster.  Idk the exacts because it was 10 years ago.

scumsuck: The vagues are fine too!  10 years dang...

Lakidaa: A big problem was that the mod was Aussie and kinda oblivious to racism lmao.  It’s why I quit.

scumsuck: oh boy I remember a LOT of casual racism on the chan.  like the 'nickname' for demoman.

Lakidaa: Yyyyyeah. It’s why kilo bounced and why I eventually bounced.

scumsuck: bounced off the chan, or out the TF2 fandom in general?

Lakidaa: Both?  I was an actual administrator; I had full powers on the Chan itself.  And I got sick of Tanner’s racism and then Mog (that was her name)’s defense of it claiming the usual ‘oh we’re not Americans we do t Do that tee hee’ defending.  And it was the fandom.  This was before tumblr, really. I was doing LJrp at the time.  So if you weren’t posting on the chan there wasn’t really anywhere to get your fix.

scumsuck: I guess there were a lot of people sick of the racism back then, but the chan culture was too much.

Lakidaa: Yeah. We hadn’t realized that it didn’t have to be that way :V

scumsuck: I think I remember that the chan was made cuz everyone else on 4chan's /v/ was sick of the 'ironic' gay porn posting?

Lakidaa: Right.

scumsuck: So besides TF2chan , there wasn't the mass exodus to Tumblr yet.

Lakidaa: Because [LiveJournal] didn’t suck enough yet.

scumsuck: Curiously I don't remember that much of a TF2 community on LiveJournal.

Lakidaa: There wasn’t.

scumsuck: I remember ones for other shows like Metalocalypse and Venture Bros and so forth, but I guess TF2 never stuck on LJ.

Lakidaa: I was very LJ at the time.  Those shows were shows and like. I don’t think fandom had developed enough to take these characters which were, at the time, broad sketches, and do stuff with them.  All the meet-the videos weren’t out by then.

scumsuck: Now we can take vague-as-hell characters, like the ones from Overwatch, and mash em into something workable.  I wonder if the OW fandom could have thrived pre-tumblr.

Lakidaa: I don't think so. OW itself is the descendent of TF2’s character-based shooty.  I also admittedly have no fucking clue what’s up with the gator Sniper. (in reference to me asking if they knew the origins of Tentaspy's counterpart, the gator Sniper.) That was way later when I was in 40k

scumsuck: I love this stuff, and I'm trying to get together more memories of the chan and it's culture.   Do you remember Teratomarty?

Lakidaa: Yes!  And makani!  She famously did the administrator as a fan thing and got scooped by Valve.

scumsuck: Heck yeah!  Makani what a legend.  There were a lot of -isms and -phobias in TF2chan, as a part of the awful chan culture, but a lot of great art was made there too.

Lakidaa: Oh yeah.  I still have some documents too.

scumsuck: Oooh what sorts of documents?  I know the chan's been like... deleted and reformatted a couple times since I was on there so a lot was lost.

Lakidaa: Old fiction!

scumsuck: Do you recall who drew some of the first pieces of visual art for Tentaspy when it was created?  And who did the first fics?

Lakidaa: Me for fics lmao.  But for art I don’t remember.  There used to be a pictochat. (a site for multiple people to draw on the same canvas at once)

scumsuck: Do you still have your Tentaspy fics?

Lakidaa: Maybe!  I’m on phone and it’s all on the desktop lmao

scumsuck: They're important historical documents!

Lakidaa: Bro I read the post on tumblr about the 70s spirk fic in A&M University.

scumsuck: Ye Olde Yaoiz.  This stuff is honestly important!!!  I know I wouldn't have developed as an artist without all the slash I was reading back in my youth.

Lakidaa: Same.

scumsuck: Does Tentaspy predate 2010?

Lakidaa: I believe so.  Aha 2008 stuff.  I do have some [writing] that's Tentaspy, but it's chat; I'd have to find Jones and ask them if they're down

scumsuck: 12 years... Good timeframe though, that's when I was actively browsing the chan.

Lakidaa: It does have some nsfw on it which is double why I'm asking. This doesn't look like it's a chat chat tho it looks like our old DMs

scumsuck: Did Tentaspy originate as a NSFW concept from the getgo?

Lakidaa: For about 10 minutes it wasn't NSFW and was just us ragging about.

scumsuck: How do you feel about fanworks of tentaspy?  I'm working on a doujin of Tentaspy, and this is one of the reasons I wanted to contact whoever created the concept.  If I were to print comics of this concept you and your friends created, would they feel odd to you?

Lakidaa: Not really!  It's perfectly fine. It's a concept that's left my hands.  I'm not in TF2 anymore (Overwatch and 40k and my OCs honestly) so I'm like, 'at least someone's enjoying it'

scumsuck: Oh yeah, the fandom ghost that will never leave.

Lakidaa: yes :p

scumsuck: I haven't been into TF2 since like... 2009-2010, but I got back in the last couple years and have had a blast figuring out where the fandom went post-Tumblr.  I love this like.. metacontextual historical stuff

Lakidaa: Yeah! I'm glad someone's on it.

scumsuck: I think that's all I have to ask you for now, I'll wait and see if Jones responds!

basically he was fuckin antsy as hell and his whole team hated him so he switched sides? there was a drabble about how sniper would fix his gloves bc he chewed holes in them as a nervous tick?