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use-your-imagination98 · 8 months

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How to save GH

This is a tiny project that I've been working on. GH is in a bad place. It's stale. No romance. No intriguing stories. No heart. The focus is on characters no one cares about. So, I let my creativity run wild and create stories that use vets, legacy characters, and built on history.

This is pretty, pretty long. But this show has one million characters and needs a lot to fix it. If you take the time to read it, god bless you 😂

"TOXIC" CAST CULL

“Pikeman” decides to target all of Port Charles with a deadly toxin. TJ, Portia, Finn, Terry, and Elizabeth all work to create an antidote with help from Patrick and Robin via telephone.

It is revealed that Pikeman is revealed to be an alive Lorenzo Alcazar who is intent on finally ending Sonny’s reign once and for all.

We see Gladys, Dex, Cody (who is revealed to not be Mac’s son), Willow, Sasha, Mason, Austin, Finn, Gregory, Diane, and Olivia each die from the toxin. After the 11 deaths, the hospital crew was finally able to create an antidote. The rest of the town is saved.

Gladys, Dex, Cody, Sasha, Gregory, Finn, Austin, and Diane’s funerals are off screen. The Quartermaine’s decide to have a double funeral for Willow and Olivia.

Immediate aftermaths:

Stella and Marshall move to Arizona because Port Charles is too much for them

Hayden comes to collect Violet and move her immediately out of Port Charles

After losing her dear friend, Alexis is spurred to get her law license back.

ANNA, VALENTIN, AND A GROWN UP EMMA

Anna discovers that Valentin was responsible for setting fire to her house. She isn’t fully blindsided because she suspected her Cassadine lover was keeping secrets from her, but it didn’t stop her from being gutted. Robin and Patrick agree to allow Emma to finish college back in Port Charles to support Anna. Emma, desperate to discover why Valentin would destroy her grandmother’s house, starts investigating.

During her investigation, Annie Donely returns to assist. They track Valentin to a secret meeting with Lorenzo. They discover that Lorenzo was threatening to kill Charlotte because Valentin was going to quit being his right hand man. Lorenzo did not want to reveal himself until he was certain he could take Sonny down for good, but Valentin’s closeness with Anna, who is close to Sonny, was becoming a problem.

Emma and Annie reveal to Anna their findings. Anna confronts Valentin with the discovered facts. He reminds her that they both agreed to kill one another if their children were threatened. She asks how he came to be Lorenzo’s partner. Valentin explains that it was motivated by just wanting money and power. But when he heard that Lorenzo was planning to attack Port Charles, Valentin wanted out.

Anna declares that she will help take Lorenzo down for good, but they can’t tell Sonny because Sonny will have Valentin killed for his involvement with Lorenzo. Anna and Valentin, with some help from Annie and Emma, work to rid Port Charles of Lorenzo Alcazar.

However, their plans are spurred when Emma’s best friend from college, Lila Rae comes to visit Emma. It is revealed to Emma that Lila Rae is Alcazar’s daughter, which puts Emma in a tough spot: Does she stand by her friend or help bring down a mob boss criminal?

Cameron Webber also returns home after tearing his ACL. He enters into a love triangle with Emma and Lila Rae. Does he choose his old friend or the girl he was attracted to at school?

LULU RETURNS WHILE DANTE SPIRALS

Lulu wakes up from her coma around Christmas 2023. Laura rushes to the care facility with Kevin and Nikolas by her side. When Lulu is questioned about herself, it is discovered that she woke up thinking it is August 2006. She believes that she just turned 18, her mother is catatonic, and that she was never wanted. She is shocked to see her mother awake. Laura gently explains to her that it is 2023 and that Lulu is a 35 year old mother of 2. Lulu is shocked and scared that she can’t remember anything.

She is quickly released from the care facility and back home in Port Charles on New Year’s Eve where a clearly drunk Dante shows up to drop off Charlotte and Rocco at Laura’s.

Lulu has no recollection of Dante, the kids, or becoming friends with Maxie. She clings to her mom, Kevin, and Nikolas. Rocco and Charlotte are desperate to reconnect with their mother, but Lulu is very hesitant. WIth some advice from Laura and Maxie, Lulu begins to make inroads with her preteen kids.

Dante, already messed up due to his mother’s death, goes into a deeper spiral at the return of Lulu. Sam is Dante’s voice of reason and after months of drinking him into a stupor and going on probation at work, she is able to get him to see that his drinking is becoming a problem and seek help. Once Dante gets clean, Dante proposes to Sam.

Sam, worried to go down the marriage path again, especially after the failed engagement to Patrick, initially says no. She is happy with the way things are with their family. Dante promises not to push but saves the ring in case she ever changes her mind.

THE END OF ESME:

Esme is curious about her past. Thus, she continues visiting her mom, Heather, who spoon feeds Esme about her past with her adopted family. Heather reveals the truth: Esme killed her adoptive parents in a rage. The reveal sparks Esme’s memories before the second jump off the parapet to return.

Laura and Kevin were able to find where Mason, Austin, and Cyrus were hiding Nikolas. Nikolas woke up shortly after they found him and he revealed that Ava was the one who struck him. The trio return to Port Charles with Laura vowing to never allow Ava anywhere near her family again. Nikolas agrees to not report Ava for the blow to the head if she returns Wyndamere to him. Ava agrees.

A returned Nikolas begins making amends with Spencer and Elizabeth for his actions. Spencer is wary of letting Nikolas in his and Ace’s life, but Trina is able to convince Spencer to give his father one last chance. Spencer moves out of Wyndamere and into his own apartment, but continues to have a large presence in Ace’s life to Esme’s chagrin. Ace’s time is split between Esme at Laura/Kevin’s house and Wyndamere with Nikolas.

Esme is angry with the overlooming presence that Nikolas and Spencer have over her son. She overhears Nikolas discussing getting full custody with Kevin, Spencer, and Martin. She hears Spencer reveal to the three men all the evidence of her crimes against Ava, Cam, Joss, and Trina to use against her in court. Esme rushes to Pentonville and vents to Heather. Heather conspires with Esme a plan of revenge against Spencer.

Esme and Heather’s plan includes framing Spencer for small to large crimes. At first, it's a break in at Wyndamere where she steals a family necklace which ends up in Spencer suit jacket. She trashes Ava’s gallery and splatters paintings with fake blood, similar to Spencer’s first run in with Trina at the gallery. Spencer keeps getting arrested or questioned by the police, but Martin is able to defend him from charges being made.

Esme is furious. The night before the custody hearing she picks a massive fight with Spencer on the docks. Spencer gets angry enough that he raises a hand to her, but never follows through. However, Spencer is caught raising his hand by Esme’s uncle, Kevin. She asks to speak to Spencer alone and Kevin takes the launch to Wyndamere to join Nikolas, Ace, and the rest of the family for dinner. When they are alone, Esme “apologizes” for picking a fight and gives Spencer a hug. He pushes her off and gets on the launch.

Esme returns to Laura and Kevin’s and gets busy bruising herself all over her body and rips her clothes (all with gloves on). When Laura and Kevin return home, they see a battered Esme with torn clothes. She cries that Spencer r*ped her and she wants to report it to the police. A piece of Spencer’s hair is found on Esme’s shirt and he is arrested and charged. Due to the charges against Spencer, the custody hearing is delayed and the normal custody schedule remains.

Martin is unable to procure Spencer’s bail and release. So, Spencer is in prison until the trial. He gets visits from Nikolas, Laura, and Trina. He proclaims his innocence and they all believe him immediately. He wouldn’t touch Esme, let alone r*pe her.

Trina begs Taggert for help in proving Spencer’s innocence. They get Spencer to tell them his every step on the day Esme says she was r*ped. Meanwhile, Laura, Nikolas, and Elizabeth put their heads together and watch Esme’s every move. Kevin is torn. He wants to believe his niece, but knows Spencer wouldn’t do anything like that to anyone.

Trina discovers that Esme never had a r*pe kit performed on her. All the police have is Spencer’s hair on her shirt. There is no proof that Spencer violated Esme. And Esme can not account for the time from the docks to when Laura and Kevin returned home. Laura is able to get Trina a private meeting with DA Robert Scorpio. Trina explains her theory: Spencer and Esme got in a verbal fight. Esme was either close enough to Spencer that a piece of hair fell on her shirt or she purposefully embraced him. Then, went somewhere private and bruised herself. She set him up. Laura is impressed and Robert agrees. He suggests that Trina forget art history and become an attorney.

Robert questions Esme, who slips up when trying to retell her original story. She originally claims that Spencer r*ped her behind Laura/Kevin’s townhouse, but instead says he r*ped her in their townhouse. Robert arrests her for her false story of r*pe, as well as all the other crimes she framed Spencer for. She is sent to jail for 3 years. Spencer is freed.

Soon afterwards, Trina visits Esme in Pentonville. Trina finally unleashes all her anger at Esme. Trina explains that she was sick of playing the nice guy to Esme just for a baby. But that time is over and Esme can rot in jail.

Spencer’s third stint in jail made him realize it is time to act on his feelings. He sets up a romantic evening at the gallery and finally proposes to Trina. Because of Portia's meddling, they elope with a returning Cam and Ava as their only witnesses. They get a romantic honeymoon.

Kevin, guilty that he could never save his brother, works on trying to save Esme through prison visits. However, when she asks him to help her remove Ace from Nik and Spencer's clutches by lying to a judge, Kevin refuses.

Esme is furious. She really believed that her uncle Kevin would help her no matter what, especially over helping Nikolas and Spencer, who are not his blood. Esme breaks out of jail and attacks Kevin at his GH office (similar to Carter and Lucy's attack on ER). Kevin is stabbed multiple times, but his biggest injury is Esme basically stabbing his throat.

Liz finds Kevin bleeding out and screams out for a doctor. While Deanna is prepping Kevin for surgery, Liz calls Laura. Laura, a returned Lulu, Martin, Lucy, Mac and Felicia wait for TJ to finish operating. Nik calls Spencer, who is on his honeymoon, to tell him about Esme's latest crime and Kevin's condition. Spencer and Trina rush home to be at Laura's side.

Kevin survives, but he will never be able to speak again. Dante and Jordan find Esme hiding out at an abandoned carnival and arrest her. After hearing from Martin that Esme has been arrested, Laura rushes to the PCPD to confront Esme. Laura finally tells Esme off (no more sweetheart here). Esme is jailed for life, but shows no remorse because she was able to take away something precious from Kevin like Ace was taken from her.

KEVIN’S SILENCE

This story spurs from the end of Esme. Waking up after his stabbing, Kevin discovers that he can’t talk. He, along with his friends and family, are told that the stab wound to the throat was deep. They had to remove his voice box. Kevin slips into a depression while dealing with the fact that he can never speak again. Laura and LuLu, specifically, start attending ASL classes with a disgruntled Kevin, so that they are able to communicate.

Kevin’s thoughts get darker and darker. He then decides to take his own life. He rationalizes that without his voice, he can’t do his job or be the man that his wife, family, and friends need. There will be an entire special episode centered around Kevin writing his s**cide letter. Everyone else is silent. The only voice we hear is Kevin reading out his letter during his last interactions with those he mentions in the letter: Mac, Felicia, Lucy, his step kids/grandkids, hospital staff, and finally Laura. Laura finds him at home with empty pill bottles all around him and calls an ambulance.

Kevin survives but continues to be very dark and depressed, specifically towards Laura. Laura’s attitude that love can conquer anything angers him. The married couple have a harsh argument in the hospital room where difficult things are said. Lulu intervenes and is able to relate to Kevin: he lost his voice for good and she lost her memory for good. She convinces Kevin to give her mom a second chance once he gets to Shadybrooke for rehab.

After a month apart, Kevin asks Laura to visit him in Shadybrooke. They discuss his depression over losing his voice. She admits that she will miss his voice, but it's the person behind the voice that matters. They reconcile.

Kevin’s ASL teacher bonds with Lulu and they strike up a romance. We later learn that he is Kevin’s son from a one night stand before Kevin showed up in Port Charles.

NIZ REVIVAL AND LUCKY RETURNS

When Nikolas returns to town, he is set on making amends with the people he hurt, specifically Spencer and Elizabeth. Spencer is cautious to forgive Nik and allow him back in his life. Trina helps Spencer with his conflicting feelings over his father. Elizabeth reads Nik the riot act for leaving her high and dry. She explains that she almost lost her job for helping him keep Esme locked away. He apologizes and sends her an apology note everyday attached to her favorite flower.

Elizabeth is touched and warns him that if he ever embraces his full Cassadine side again, she is done helping and protecting him. Nikolas, free from Victor’s grasp, free from Spencer’s rightful anger, and free from the blackmail Ava relationship, realizes that he still loves Elizabeth. He decides to embrace this new and improved version of himself and asks her out on a date. Elizabeth says no. Every time they get intertwined, they get in trouble. Nikolas argues that they were young and high on emotions. Nothing is holding them back. He will go as slow as she would like. But if he doesn’t try, his life would have a missing piece and be filled with regrets.

Elizabeth is touched and eventually agrees to a date. While she was expecting to be wine and dined, he took her to an art class and had pizza afterwards. Elizabeth was touched at his simplicity. He reveals that he has always loved her since they were teenagers and never wants her to change who she is for him. He would rather change to fit into her world than her changing to fit into his. They go back to Wyndamere and sleep together.

When Laura gets re-elected as Mayor, a big inauguration party is thrown by Nikolas. Lulu decides to invite Lucky without anyone knowing, assuming that he would not show up. During the party, Lucky shockingly arrives. Elizabeth is stunned. Cam, Jake, and Aiden are angry. Nikolas and Laura are surprised. Before Lucky makes his way into the depths of the party, Laura pulls him aside outside. She tells him she loves him and is so happy he is here, but if he doesn’t plan on sticking around for his sons, he needs to leave now. She explains that the boys have gone through rough times and he never showed up, but he returns for a party. So he either leaves for good or joins the party with the intent on sticking around for his sons.

Lucky takes a few minutes, but he decides to return to the party. Cam confronts him and advises him to stay away from their mother and her boys. He reveals that Liz is happy with Nik and doesn’t want Lucky screwing it up. Lucky congratulates Niz on their relationship and gives them his blessing. Niz are surprised.

A few weeks pass and Laura encourages Lucky to at least try to make inroads with the boys. She bluntly tells Lucky that her grandsons don’t need a father because they have a wonderful mother who raised them on their own, but those boys deserve a good dad. Lucky visits Elizabeth at work. He asks her how he can not only attempt to fix his relationship with the boys, but with her as well. She recommends family therapy, but only if the boys are up to it.

Lucky attends solo sessions and Elizabeth shares that the boys will try family therapy. Aiden thaws the quickest to Lucky, while Cam remains cold for a while. During Lucky’s solo sessions, we get insight into why he has stayed away so long: In fear of becoming a drunken, absent husband and father like Luke, he thought staying away was the best option. But by doing so, he became an absent partner and father in the process.

Lucky apologizes to Elizabeth for all the infidelities and hurtful words he has said to her in the past. They agree to be best friends and co-parents. Lucky gets his life back on track in Port Charles. When Carly gets the Metro Court back after Olivia’s death, she sells Kelly’s to Lucky for a dollar.

SCOTT’S DAUGHTER FALLS FOR LUKE’S SON

Serena returns to town a lawyer, like her father. She reunites with her parents, Scotty and Lucy. They are so excited to see her and she reveals that a position in the DA’s office opened and she decided that it was time to come home. Lucy is so excited to introduce her to Martin.

One day, she goes for lunch at Kelly’s and actually bumps into Lucky. He accidentally spills water and lemonade over her. He apologizes profusely. She agrees to accept his apology and not charge him for dry cleaning if she can get a free lunch. Lucky agrees. They strike up a flirtation and she ends up going to lunch at Kelly’s everyday, but they never give each other their first names.

Lucky, with encouragement from his brother, asks Serena out. She agrees. They decide to catch dinner and a movie. While having dinner at the Metro Court, they bump into Scotty who freaks out at the prospect of his daughter dating Luke Spencer’s son. Lucky and Serena are shocked at the other’s parentage, but agree to continue on their date. The chemistry is palpable and they sleep together.

Scotty is vehemently opposed to the relationship, but Lucy is excited as she sees this as another way to become even closer to the supercouple Luke and Laura. He eventually becomes less vocal as he sees how happy Serena is.

Lucky and Serena’s happiness comes to a bump when Serena falls pregnant. Serena wants the baby, but Lucky is against it. He was already a terrible father to the boys. He’s scared he will abandon this child as well. BUT he doesn’t say this to Serena and breaks up with her. Serena does not wallow. She’s a strong independent woman and decides to keep the child.

Lucky is lost without Serena. Elizabeth, Lulu, Laura, and eventually the boys convince him to get her back and be a partner and dad to the baby. Serena does accept his apology but does not take him back. She experiences some difficulties and is put on bed rest, she is scared she is going to lose the baby. Lucky rushes to her side and declares his love. She realizes that her birth mother never got a second chance at life and love. Serena forgives Lucky. She gives birth to a preemie baby girl, who they name Ruby Dominique.

MAXIE/SPINELLI REUNITE AS GEORGIE SHOCKS THEM

As Maxie and Spinelli realize that they belong together, their lives are thrown for a loop when Georgie suddenly gets ill and ends up fainting in the middle of dinner at the Metro Court. They rush her to GH where doctors run many tests on her. While Maxie and Spinelli are waiting to see Georgie, Terry approaches them. They automatically think it is cancer, due to Terry’s concentration. She asks to speak with them privately. Terry initially calms their nerves by saying that Georgie does not have cancer. She is, however, pregnant at 13.

Maxie and Spinelli are in shock. Maxie calls Felicia and Mac to the hospital and reveals what Terry has just told them. Felicia can’t speak and Mac questions whether Georgie has been sexually abused by an older man. He takes it upon himself to background check and investigate every male teacher and adult in Georgie’s life. Maxie and Spinelli are able to see Georgie and they reveal her impending motherhood. Georgie is shocked. They start asking her millions of questions, but Georgie panics and kicks them out.

A few days later, Georgie is still giving her parents the silent treatment. Felicia comes over with ice cream and cookies in an attempt to get her granddaughter to open up. Georgie makes Felicia swear not to reveal to anyone who the father is until Georgie plucks up the courage to tell him. Felicia agrees and Georgie reveals the father, but the audience does not hear the name.

Felicia tries to calm Maxie, Spinelli, and Mac’s worries and concerns. They deduce that she knows the father and attempt to pull it out of her. But Felicia stays loyal to Georgie. We see Georgie text an unknown number and ask to come over to Maxie’s house (Maxie and family moved into Lulu’s house before Lulu woke up). A knock is heard at the door and when Georgie opens the door, the camera pans up from the bottom and it is revealed that the baby daddy is Jake Webber.

Georgie reveals to Jake that after their two time romp, she is pregnant. Jake goes into a panic. But Georgie reveals that she is getting an abortion. She can’t be a mom at 13. As she reveals her intentions, Maxie and Spinelli come home and hear her. Jake agrees to whatever Georgie wants to do, because it is her body.

Maxie and Felicia accompany Georgie to the clinic to get an abortion.

JOSS/CARLY MIRROR CARLY/BOBBIE

After Dex’s death, Joss learns that Jax has unexpectedly passed away as well. Josslyn begins sleeping around with any man just to numb the pain. Soon, Josslyn discovers Carly having a flirtation with Lorenzo. She notices Carly is enjoying the flirting and ignoring Drew more and more. Josslyn became close to Drew during the Crew relationship and respected him for taking the fall for the SEC mess.

She finds Drew drunk at Charlies and cozies up to him. She gets a tipsy Drew to open up about her mom. He reveals he knows Carly in entertaining Lorenzo’s advances. He is angry because he put Carly above Scout and his other family. They end up falling in bed together. When Drew wakes up more sober, he is shocked that he slept with Josslyn and has her promise to keep this a secret. Josslyn agrees. However, she plans on seducing him again.

After Drew catches Carly and Lorenzo making out, Drew runs into Josslyn. They talk and end up in bed again. They continue this secret affair for months. However, when Carly goes to tell Josslyn the news about Bobbie, she discovers Joss in bed with Drew.

Carly is FURIOUS. She orders Drew out to have a word with her daughter. Carly and Josslyn get into a huge argument. Terrible words are said. Josslyn reminds her mother that she learned everything from her mother, even sleeping with her mom’s partner. Carly scoffs and goes to exit, but turns around to reveal the news about Bobbie. Will the death of Bobbie bring mother and daughter back together after a huge rift?

TJ/KRISTINA ONE NIGHT STAND

After things fall through with the surrogate, Molly’s (with a more age appropriate recast) baby rabies gets even worse. She even decides to quit her job at the DA’s office to focus on becoming a mom. TJ is upset that she didn't discuss her plans to quit with him or her increasing attempts to adopt a baby. Molly and TJ get in a huge fight. He declares that she isn’t even thinking of him anymore and she is letting her obsession with having a child take over her life. He leaves their apartment in a huff.

He goes to Charlie’s to drink away his anger. He vents to Kristina about her sister and she eventually gets drunk along with him while venting about Molly. They sleep together and immediately regret it. TJ tells Kristina that he is going to tell Molly the truth about what happened. Kristina begs him not to. Molly will never forgive them, but TJ says he doesn’t keep secrets.

TJ returns home and admits to Molly about his tryst with Kristina. Molly is enraged. She breaks up with TJ and heads directly to Kristina’s. She accuses Kristina of setting out to ruin her life. Kristina throws back into Molly’s face that Molly is ruining her own life with her baby rabies. They keep trading barbs back and forth. Alexis arrives after getting a call from TJ and intervenes. Molly admits that she can’t stay here anymore and Alexis assumes she means in the room. But Molly clarifies that she means Port Charles. She decides to leave town and go stay with Ric.

Roughly 6-8 weeks later, Kristina realizes that her period is late. She takes a test and it is positive. She contemplates not telling anyone and getting an abortion, but she hears Molly’s voice in her head telling her she can never complete a task and won’t ever accomplish anything. Kristina decides to have the baby and breaks the news to TJ. They decide to co-parent amicably and once she hits 12 weeks, they break the news to their shocked families.

SONNY’S FRUITY KIDS

After Willow’s death, Michael is beside himself. He is raising two kids alone and is not sure if he can cope. He didn’t really have the best examples of parents growing up. A few months following Willow’s death, a smile returns to Michael’s face and there is a pep in his step. Ned, Brook Lynn, Joss, Carly, and Sonny all question this happy glow he has. All Michael reveals is that he has found someone, but is keeping it private because of the kids.

Brook Lynn goes to visit Michael at ELQ one day and stumbles in upon Michael, shirtless and pants undone, kissing Paul Wu (Selina Wu’s nephew). Michael is embarrassed and orders Paul to leave. Brook Lynn tries to calm down a clearly panicking Michael. Michael swears her to secrecy. Brook Lynn questions why he doesn’t want anyone to know. Is it because he is related to Selina Wu? Michael replies that Paul’s relationship with Selina may complicate things in Sonny’s mob world, but it’s not his biggest concern. He reveals that Paul is a man and he is scared of what Carly, Sonny, hell even Monica would think of him.

Brook Lynn promises her silence, but tells Michael she loves him for exactly who he is. It doesn’t matter who he loves. Michael meets with Paul and apologizes for his outburst. Paul agrees to keep their relationship private for now, but not forever. Michael has an inner battle on revealing his true self and relationship to his parents and family.

A pregnant Kristina meets Annie Donely at Charlie’s after Annie comes in for a drink. They strike up a conversation and are clearly flirting. Their flirtation continues for a few weeks before Kristina takes her upstairs after a shift. Kristina tells Annie about her predicament with TJ and Annie surprises her by telling her she’ll stay by Kristina’s side. A pregnancy doesn’t scare her. Kristina is touched, but soon becomes worried for her dad when she discovers that Annie works for the WSB and is looking into stopping mob activity in Port Charles.

When Kristina is six months along, she suffers a miscarriage and is devastated. Molly’s words haunt her again. Kristina thinks Molly was right and she can’t accomplish anything. Annie tries to help Kristina through the aftermath of losing her and TJ’s baby boy: Thomas Stefan.

FAREWELL BOBBIE

Bobbie left town to go visit Lucas. A week later, Carly gets a call from Lucas. He went to wake up Bobbie for breakfast, only to find that she passed in her sleep. Carly spreads the word. The town is shocked.

Carly, a visiting Lucas, Michael, and Josslyn plan the funeral. The entire town attends. Lesley Webber and Noah Drake visit to pay their respects. The funeral goes on for 3 show days. We get eulogies from Carly, Lucas, Scott, Laura, Noah, Elizabeth, and Lucy. Flashbacks are intertwined with the eulogies. Bobbie’s portrait gets hung on the GH wall next to Amy’s.

Josslyn and Carly agree to allow some time to pass for the anger between them to mellow. Carly admits that she was not a good daughter to her mom in the beginning and she lost some years with her that she can’t get back. She doesn’t want to lose any time with her daughter.

Also at the funeral, Lucas stumbles upon Michael’s secret and gives him advice and a listening ear.

TAGGERT IS THE FATHER

Selina Wu is revealed to have switched the results of the paternity test to keep Curtis in her clutches. She learned that he was contemplating working with the WSB to take down the mob underworld. So, to keep him in line, she changes the results and begins threatening his “daughter” Trina when she needs him to do her dirty work.

When Selina asks Curtis to host a meeting of the 5 families and demands 51% ownership in his club, Curtis freezes. He refuses to be involved in the mob life and she catches him secretly calling the WSB to report a mob meeting. Selina orders her men to kidnap Trina. However, the kidnapping backfires badly and Trina is shot.

Spencer is beside himself, Portia is scared, and Taggert and Curtis rush to GH. TJ declares that Trina has lost a ton of blood and needs family to donate. Curtis jumps at the chance, but when he is asked his blood type, it is not Trina’s match. He doesn’t think anything of it, but when Portia says she can’t donate because they are not a match, Curtis puts two and two together: He is not Trina’s father. Taggert is!

Taggert, torn between being elated at Trina being his but also scared for Trina’s life, rushes off to give his blood, which is confirmed to be Trina’s type. Curtis is furious. He lashes out at Portia, accusing her of changing the results to get him to forgive her for the 20 year lie. However, Portia keeps maintaining her innocence.

Curtis calls Stella, who moved to Arizona with Marshall, and tells her about everything that has happened. She tells him to pull his head out of his ass and be a STEP father. Blood doesn’t make a family, love does.

Curtis returns to GH and sits vigil with Portia, Spencer, and Taggert. He gets a text from Selina asking him to meet in the garage. Curtis excuses himself and meets with Selina. He unleashes his anger about Trina and lets it slip that he assumes Portia changed the results. Selina reveals that she was behind the switch and demands he hand over 51% of his club to her or Trina won’t wake up. Curtis agrees and rushes back into GH.

Spencer sits vigil with Trina and we get flashbacks and even visions of how Spencer sees their future. As Spencer lays his head down on her hand to cry, another hand comes up to pet his head. Spencer looks up and sees Trina is awake.

Once Trina is more alert, Portia and Taggert reveal that Taggert is really her dad. Trina is happy, but also sad for Curtis. Curtis comes to visit and reveals having her as his daughter for the time he did was the happiest time of his life, but the DNA doesn’t change his love for her. He will always, always protect her. Taggert overhears and begins investigating what Curtis is hiding and why Trina needs protecting.

NEXIS RIDE AGAIN

After Olivia’s death, Ned finds himself a single dad to Leo. Brook Lynn and Chase move into the Q mansion to help her dad cope, especially since Monica is getting older. When Ned basically becomes a recluse, Brook Lynn calls in reinforcement: Tracy, Dillon, and Alexis.

Tracy takes the tough love approach, but that gets her nowhere except kicked out and sleeping on Laura’s sofa. Dillon tries to help his brother by comparing how he felt when he heard KiKi was killed. Ned still remains cold. Alexis decides to take matters into her own hands. She literally drags Ned out of the house by his collar and takes him to the park for ice cream at night.

After they finish their cones, Alexis tells Ned to lay with her on the grass to look up at the stars. She tells him Olivia is one of those stars. Ned scoffs and asks when she did she become a lovey dovey person who talks to the stars. She replies that she’s not, but to help him, she will do anything. After that little date, Ned and Alexis start seeing each other more and more, but deny that they are dating.

When Tracy questions Ned and Sam questions Alexis about Nexis’s status, they both respond that they are nervous to take that leap since the last time it ended with Alexis running from the altar.

Ned admits to BLQ that he is scared it is too soon after Olivia, but BLQ tells him life is too short. Take his shot. And if he gets hurt, her, Chase, and Dillon will be there to catch him. Tracy, who now is back working at ELQ, asks Alexis to be ELQ’s legal counsel, hoping it would derail Ned from dating an ELQ employee. Ned, finds a work around in ELQ bylaws, and asks Alexis out on a date, much to Tracy’s chagrin.

Alexis and Ned are back together, but Alexis remains concerned that she can’t do normal and will constantly be pulled towards whatever bad guy bats his eyes at her. We will see Alexis struggle with a “normal” man, but work to fight for the relationship.

BRENDA RETURNS

After Nina is outed as the person who reported Carly and Drew to the SEC, everyone is expecting Sonny to drop Nina. BUT he surprises everyone by standing by her, but decides to postpone the wedding. Sonny explains to Kristina that he’s made MANY mistakes in his life yet a lot of people forgave him and gave him a second chance. He needs to start doing that for others.

When Lorenzo’s attempts at finally destroying Sonny ramp up, Sonny gets a shock when Brenda turns up. Sonny and Nina’s relationship is sent into a tailspin. Brenda is back to visit with Brook Lynn and help her set up LnB records 2.0.

Sonny is immediately drawn back into Brenda’s presence and Nina is worried. Carly was one thing, but Brenda… she is the love of Sonny’s life and the one that always got away.

Nina tries to convince Brenda to leave town and that BLQ will be fine without her crowding her. But Brenda sees right through Nina’s act and warns Nina that Sonny will drop Nina in a hot second if she asks.

We see Brenda reconnect with Ned and get an update on Lois.

Lorenzo gets word that Brenda is in town and realizes that she is his ticket to destroying Sonny. He puts a bomb in Brenda’s car and when she leaves her dinner with Ned, her car explodes. Ned calls 911 and then Sonny.

Sonny, who just ran off with Nina to the courthouse to elope, gets the call that Brenda has been attacked. He leaves Nina and rushes to GH. Brenda’s life hangs in the balance. Sonny sits vigil at her bedside, much to Nina’s chagrin.

Sonny, not knowing that Nina is listening, promises Brenda the world. He promises that if she wakes up, he will quit the mob life. Hand over his empire to Lorenzo and he and Brenda can leave PC. They can have a new life.

Nina is furious and starts to act unhinged. Ava tries to calm down her best friend by explaining that Sonny is just speaking words that would make Brenda wake up.

Brenda wakes up, but what is Sonny really going to do? Will he leave his world, kids, and Nina for Brenda? Or will Brenda always be left standing in the rain for Sonny?

WHO KILLED ESME

After all of Laura’s kids return, the whole Kevin is silent arc, we get a big murder mystery: Who killed Esme?

Leading up to Esme’s death, a group of people visit Pentonville: Laura visits Cyrus, Nikolas visits Esme, Ava visits Olivia Jerome, Spencer visits Esme, Martin visits Cyrus, etc.

When Esme’s body is found in her cell, the police look Cyrus as suspect number one. He is in jail and Esme has hurt his family. He is the perfect target. They question him and some of the wardens. They quickly discover that Cyrus was in his guarded cell for hours before and after Esme’s murder. So, it couldn’t be him.

Nikolas is questioned next because he was the one who visited her. He is questioned by Jordan. He admits to visiting Esme, but only to tell her to stop sending him threatening letters regarding killing him and kidnapping Ace. Nikolas offers picking up Aiden from school as his alibi. Jordan lets him go.

Ava is their next suspect. She hates Esme. They question why she was meeting with her sister. First, she admits she just wanted sister time, but Jordan sees right through that excuse. Ava admits to taking over Olivia’s connections but leaves it vague enough for Jordan not to worry. Jordan asks Ava if she asked Olivia to kill Esme for her, but Ava scoffs at the notion. Ava admits that if she wanted Esme dead she would have done it herself a long time ago. With Ava’s honesty and a watertight alibi, Jordan lets Ava go.

Before Jordan has time to question Spencer, evidence is brought to the station. A scarf that belongs to Laura was found with Esme’s blood on it. Laura is immediately called in for questioning. When presented with the scarf, Laura is shocked. She admits to wearing that scarf, but swears she put it in her purse because she gets heated when she has to yell at Cyrus. Laura’s only alibi was being at her mayor’s office alone, but no one was there to confirm. And coincidentally, the security cameras glitched during the time Laura swears that she was there. Jordan has no other choice but to arrest Laura for Esme’s murder.

The town is shocked, but does not believe Laura did the crime. Martin tries to get Laura out on bail, but the judge denies her bail since she already has 2 murders on her wrap sheet (Theresa Carter and David Hamilton).

Heather angrily confronts Laura in jail with a shank, but Cyrus jumps to Laura’s defense. He defends Laura and insists Laura would NEVER kill the mother of her grandson. Laura pleads with Heather. Heather eventually agrees that killing Esme wasn’t in Laura’s style. The trio form a comedic bond in prison.

The town works to prove Laura’s innocence. Sam, Felicia, and Spinelli use their PI skills to look at every security camera and track down any and every witness to Laura’s moves that day.

Kevin, Martin, Spencer, Cam, Lucky, and Lulu visit Laura and all find it curious that Nikolas hasn’t visited. Cam brings up that fact to his mom. Liz questions Nik on why he isn’t visiting his mom and after an argument he admits that he can’t face her. Liz wonders if Nik thinks she actually did it. He says no, but their lives would be easier if everyone believed she did. Liz becomes very curious at Nik’s stance.

Liz finds out through some snooping done by Spencer and Cam that Nik’s alibi is picking Aiden up from school, but she knows for a fact that Aiden went home with a friend that day. She talks to Aiden who admits that Nik paid him $10,000 for his silence. Liz is furious and confronts Nik. He tries to talk himself out of it, but admits to it. Liz accuses him of being the one to kill Esme. She loves Nik, but he used her kid and she won’t stand for that. She tells Jordan that Nik lied about his alibi.

Nik is questioned again. This time admits that he can’t provide a rock solid alibi. Meanwhile, Felicia was able to find a cleaning lady who admits to seeing Laura at the office during the time of the murder. Kevin can’t thank his friend enough and Laura is freed, only for Nikolas to be locked up.

Nikolas admits to Cyrus that he was meeting with a hired hitman to kill Esme, but didn’t go through it. He couldn’t tell the police that. It would only disappoint his mother, son, and family even more.

Lulu is spending the night with her new boyfriend, Garrett, also Kevin’s ASL teacher. While he is out of the room, he knocks off his wallet from the side table. She picks it and its contents up, only to find a picture of a young Kevin. When Garrett returns, she questions him about the picture.

He admits that Kevin is his father. Lulu wants to rush and tell Kevin. Garrett stops her. Lulu is confused and says that Kevin would be thrilled at a son. Garrett says he can’t ever know because it will make things worse. Lulu says what? Garrett admits to killing Esme after learning that Esme was also sending Kevin letters threatening his life and he wanted to protect his father. Lulu is shocked. Does she keep her boyfriend's secrets or free her brother?

#general hospital #gh #this show needs help #my little passion project #laura webber #kevin collins #spencer cassadine #esme prince #trina robinson #lucky spencer #too many characters to tag

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hypebeast1ife · 6 months

Text

COUNTDOWN: SOCIAL STATUS x NIKE Mac Attack 'Smoke Grey' Release Date: 2023-10-27

#shoegame #sneakerporn #hypebeast #hype #sneakerheads #sneakerhead #nikeswoosh #nikecheck #swoosh #sneakercommunity #nikemacattackcommunity #nikemacattack #macattack #NIKE #SOCIALSTATUS #NIKExSOCIALSTATUS #SOCIALSTATUSxNIKE

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aangelinakii · 10 months

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THE STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE SILVER BRIEFCASE

in which it's discovered that the silver briefcase is gone

chapter : four

character : tangerine

fandom : bullet train

song : the chain , fleetwood mac

date : 19th june 2023

glass pierced the air, and black cat's skin as she collapsed on the floor in a heap of bodies. the man in white was the first to move, pushing himself onto his feet with ease, as if the whole ordeal hadn't phased him in the slightest. his expression pulled into a scowl, he raised his arm to inspect something, and that was when black cat laid eyes on the huge knife in his grip, and the mobile phone pierced on the blade like a shish kebab.

using her double clothing-armoured elbows to push herself up, instead of pressing her hands against the glass-ridden floor, she looked over at the second man, still sprawled out on the floor.

right on the breast of his green zip-up beneath the coat was a vertical slit, where she assumed he'd been stabbed, and the only thing scathed was his phone.

as he pulled himself up, black cat took note of the silver briefcase in his grip. oh? so he was the one who'd taken the decoy from the baggage storage, the decoy the fruits had wrongfully assumed was the real case. so, if he had the decoy...

black cat's eyes searched the bar, taking her stand with the others. but no sign of the real case. she must've dropped it at some point in all the action.

the man in white roared as he raised his knife at the man in green, only to be redirected into the screen of a television with the shield of a silver briefcase.

this wasn't black cat's fight; she needed to find that case and get off the train, while the men were fighting.

if you truly think about it, men always resort to fighting. it was clear there was some unresolved shit between them, which wasn't her business, but the least they could do was talk it out – you know, man to man – instead of fuck up an expensive bar on an even more expensive bullet train just to get a point across with a blade.

as the woman scoured the floor of the bar, around the shards of glass and underneath chairs, the anxiety was rising in her chest. she knew it had been long past a minute, and she would have to wait for shin-yokohama if she wanted to disembark the shinkansen, which only meant her chances of a less-than-successful mission were rising as fast as her anxiety.

she made her moves to behind the actual bar. maybe it had slid back there upon impact? in the heat of retaliation, black cat had no recollection of ever letting go of the briefcase. maybe her head hitting the wall also had something to do with that.

but the only thing she found behind the bar was pain. pain as a grown man toppled over the counter top, landing on the woman, which was probably more fun for him than it was for her, whoever he was.

with a groan, black cat pushed the man off of her and placed her hand on the counter to pull herself up, but as she emerged from behind the bar, a certain man in white had other ideas.

blade glinting in the neon lights above his head, he grabbed the woman's wrist to hold her in place, and stabbed down with all his power, probably so blinded by rage that he hadn't even realised she wasn't his true opponent.

her survival reflexes kicked in, and she spun out of the murderous stream of the man's blade, only catching the material of her coat and pinning it to the counter. god, she liked that coat, but everything is replaceable.

black cat pulled her arms out of the sleeves, providing her with movement again as her brown coat sat damaged under a blade. without taking as long as she did to choose japanese snacks, the woman tore an alcohol bottle from the shelf and drove it into the head of the man attacking her.

glass and expensive-smelling alcohol ripped through the air, and the man in white crumbled to the floor. black cat swore she saw blood erupt from a newly-formed gash in the side of his head.

the second man, the one in green, rolled out from behind the bar to take hold of the case. he set himself up, seated against the wall, the decoy case positioned in front of him like a shield. and then the man in blood-stained white, rose from the dead again, head dripping with and drenched in deep, dark blood.

his knife glinted in the light once again as he held it high, taking it by the blade between his thumb and middle and index fingers. he drew his arm back, and launched it forwards.

in her time, black cat had seen many flying blades – shurikens, switchblades, meat cleavers, butter knives – all of which were flying at her, and only a few had managed to hit. but never before had she seen an act of throwing a blade end so... badly.

as the blade went somersaulting towards his face, the man in green, who'd by now lost his trench coat and bucket hat, brought the silver case up to protect his face, his whole body tensing, bracing for impact. and the knife let out a cling as it ricocheted off the case, sparks flying upon the impact of silver on silver.

everything seemed to move in slow motion as the knife spun in the air, inverting its previous stream from man in white to man in green, to from man in green to man in white. black cat saw the cocoa bean eyes of the curly-haired man widen in the glare of the flying blade.

his whole body stumbled backwards as the knife plunged heavily into his heart. crimson began to spill from the crevices of the wound, staining the white jacket even more. black cat certainly wouldn't want to be the one taking that suit to the dry cleaners. eyebrows furrowed, the man brought a shaking hand to ghost over the handle of the knife. he knew he'd met his fate, and there was nothing left to undo what had been so brutally done.

"mi corazon," he managed to choke out, his knees beginning to buckle beneath him. as his body went limb, swivelling as he fell back-first onto the man in green, death rattled from his diaphragm, the life draining from him as he fell with the hard click of his neck breaking upon impact with the stood-up briefcase.

both black cat and the man in green let out a gasp, both frozen in astonishment. their eyes lingered on the body in front of them, before rolling over to meet. jaws slack in shock, hands hovering in the air, unsure what to even do now.

the man reluctantly moved his fingers to press against the corpse's neck. he shook his head, staring wide-eyed at the body. "i— he— what the fuck..." he muttered.

a long sigh exhaled from between his lips as he leaned back against the wall, head lightly hitting the wood. "let this be a lesson in the toxicity of anger..." he breathed, shaking his head softly.

and he looked up at black cat.

"what's your name, girl?" he asked, finally addressing her after the tiring ordeal.

black cat let out a soft, awkward laugh, crossing her arms. "it's estela," she stated, giving out her real name as opposed to her codename. giving out the codename breached her anonymity policy, in which she kept the name "black cat" fully separate from her true identity: estela guerrero. "and yours?"

the man shrugged, furrowing his brows as his stare trailed back down to the body between his legs. "just call me ladybug."

black cat nodded, staring just as hard at the corpse as ladybug, blood still spilling from where the knife had hit.

she looked back down at the counter top, where her coat lay, slightly knifed-up. she was no longer interested in wearing it, but realised this mission was going to be a lot more difficult than she was once led to believe.

she reached inside the coat, into an inner pocket, and pulled out her silver beretta 92x. it was apparent to her that the people on this train were dangerous, and extra reinforcement was going to be vital. she tucked it into the inner breast pocket of her black blazer and straightened herself out.

ladybug studied her with narrowed eyes. "aren't you gonna help me?" he asked expectantly.

black cat stared over at him, somewhat cluelessly, eyes moving between his black-framed glasses and the bleeding-out corpse.

the woman let out an airy chuckle. "that was your fight, i'm sorry," she spoke, a soft spanish tinge to her british accent. "i didn't mean to get involved."

in reaction, ladybug let out a heavy sigh, as if trying to guilt her into helping him, but didn't shout for her when she stepped out of the torn-up bar carriage. condolences for whoever had to clean up.

heart pumping, anxiety increasing, black cat stepped out into the compartment between carriages. her eyes searched the space, only for no briefcase to appear or start to glow to let her know she'd found it.

fuck.

#smooth operator bullet train #smooth operator tangerine #bullet train #bullet train imagines #bullet train tangerine #tangerine #tangerine imagines #tangerine x reader #tangerine bullet train

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snkrbonbon · 5 months

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Nike Mac Attack “Lemon Venom”

#Nike Mac Attack #Nike #Mac Attack #FB8938-102 #2023 #December 7 #$130 #Sneaker #Yellow #Sneakers #Nike Sneaker

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religion-is-a-mental-illness · 4 months

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By: Heather Mac Donald

Published: Dec 15, 2023

University of Pennsylvania president Liz Magill would not have been forced to resign last weekend had Penn’s donors and alumni not been organizing against her for two months.

The Penn rebels have now upped the ante. They have drafted a new constitution for the school that makes merit the sole criterion for student admissions and faculty hiring. The new charter requires the university to embrace institutional neutrality with regard to politics and faculty research. The rebels want candidates for Penn’s presidency to embrace the new charter as a precondition for employment.

With this latest twist in the battle over university leadership, the academy stands at a crossroads. For decades, Wall Street titans funneled billions of dollars into their alma maters, even as those universities promoted ideas inimical to civilizational excellence and economic success. When students started celebrating the October 7 Hamas attacks, however, the mega-donors took note. They did not recognize their campuses, they said, though the pro-Hamas rhetoric came straight from the ethnic- and postcolonial-studies courses that had been a staple of university curricula since the 1980s. Some donors, at Penn and elsewhere, initiated funding boycotts and sought board shake-ups, hoping to pressure their alma maters to correct the anti-Semitism that they deemed responsible for the terror celebrations.

The pro-Hamas protests have exposed the anti-Western ideology that is the sole unifying belief system on college campuses. The question now is whether disgruntled donors and alumni can overcome decades of intellectual misdirection. To do so, they first must define the problem correctly—and avoid the temptation to adopt, for their own purposes, the intersectional Left’s rhetoric about “safety” and “protection” from speech. The proposed new Penn charter is a promising start.

The donor revolt could have broken out at any number of campuses, all of which featured ignorant students cheering on the deliberate massacre of civilians, those students’ faculty enablers and bureaucratic fellow travelers, and feckless presidents. But it first erupted at the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard, perhaps because of the organization and self-confidence of their alumni.

Penn’s most generous donors were already on edge at the time of the October 7 massacre. Two weeks earlier, the university had hosted a conference on Palestinian culture, called the Palestine Writes Literature Festival. The conference speakers were predominantly anti-Zionist; some had long been accused of anti-Semitism. Prominent Jewish alumni, such as Ronald Lauder, demanded that Penn president Magill preemptively cancel the conference. Marc Rowan, chairman of the Wharton School’s Board of Advisors and a $50 million donor to the school, circulated an open letter asking Magill to denounce the conference’s invitations to “known antisemitic speakers,” remove the Penn logo from conference materials, and implement mandatory anti-Semitism training. By September 21, more than 2,000 alumni, including several current members of Penn’s board, had signed the letter.

Conference organizer Susan Abulhawa, a firebrand Palestinian novelist, criticized “the hysterical racist conversations and panic” over the festival. “We remain proud, unbroken, defiant, honoring our ancestors, even though we are battered, colonized, exiled, raw, terrorized and demeaned wholesale,” she announced in typically florid rhetoric. The university tried to split the difference between the festival’s critics and advocates. On September 12, it put out a statement noting “deep concerns about several speakers” and “unequivocally—and emphatically—condemning antisemitism as antithetical” to Penn’s values. The university claimed to “also fiercely support the free exchange of ideas” as central to its educational mission, even ideas “incompatible with [its] institutional values.” The conference went forward without incident, despite the occasional anti-Zionist trope such as might be found on any given day in a Penn class on “settler colonialism.”

Nevertheless, the fuse was ready to be lit. Following the October 7 massacre, Magill made the blunders that would bedevil other college presidents: she did not respond to the attacks with sufficient alacrity to satisfy her critics, and she failed to use the words “I condemn” and “terrorism” when she did respond. By the time she put out a correction on October 15, it was too late; the donor revolt was already spreading. On October 10, Rowan, said to be Penn’s wealthiest alumnus, initiated a second mass movement: a close-the-checkbooks campaign. He urged alumni to send in one dollar to Penn and explain that their ordinary contributions would be suspended until Magill and the chair of Penn’s board, investment bank CEO Scott Bok, resigned. Rowan began emailing a letter to the trustees every day, selecting from among the thousands of such letters from major donors who were closing their checkbooks.

Despite a flurry of big-name and big-dollar defections, including Jon Huntsman (former governor of Utah and ambassador to Russia, China, and Singapore) and David Magerman (a major donor and former overseer of the engineering school), Penn’s power structure was reinforcing its defenses. Throughout October, Penn’s board of trustees put out various statements in support of Magill and Bok; the president of Penn alumni weighed in as well in favor of the status quo.

Behind the scenes, Bok asked the three trustees who had criticized him to resign and suggested that Rowan reconsider his chairmanship of the Wharton board. Leaders of the faculty senate put out a statement on October 19 denouncing “individuals outside of the University who are surveilling both faculty and students in an effort to intimidate them and inhibit their academic freedom.” The senate “tri-chairs” played the wealth card against the recalcitrant donors: academic freedom was “not a commodity that can be bought or sold by those who seek to use their pocketbooks to shape our mission.”

The hypocrisy had reached gargantuan proportions. Even as Penn’s leadership and faculty proclaimed their devotion to free speech, law professor Amy Wax was in the dock for statements criticizing racial preferences and U.S. immigration policy. Since publishing an op-ed in the Philadelphia Inquirer in 2017 advocating the embrace of bourgeois values as a means of economic and social advancement, Wax had been under relentless attack from the law school’s leadership and faculty. The leadership had banned her from teaching first-year law courses. In 2022, Penn initiated a formal investigation to determine whether her “intentional and incessant racist, sexist, xenophobic, and homophobic actions and statements” were serious enough to require a “major sanction” that could include stripping her of tenure and firing her.

No leader of Penn’s faculty senate and no representative from its chapter of the American Association of University Professors objected to the hounding of Wax for protected speech. The board looked the other way. Yet here they all were, declaring Penn a lighthouse of free expression. In fact, the campus Left and its administrative enablers accused their opponents of double standards, since some donors were calling for bans on anti-Israel speech. After the Penn trustees voted to express their confidence in Magill and Bok on October 16, trustee Andy Rachleff, co-founder of Benchmark Capital, scoffed: “There are a lot of people who want free speech—except when it affects them.”

As December began, Magill was acting like a president confident in her staying power—namely, one given to announcing hollow new initiatives couched in vapid bureaucratic prose. On November 30, she released “In Principle and Practice,” a “strategic framework that emphasizes strengthening community, deepening connections, cultivating service-minded leadership, and collaborating across divisions and divides.”

The rebels were in a self-reflective mood. The damage will take generations to undo, one told me. “I hope we have the staying power.” Another said: “I’m mad at all of us. We all kind of knew [how bad things were]. But I’ll be brutally honest: we all wanted the option of having our children and grandchildren go to Penn. If donors say that that is not part of why they donate, they are not telling the truth. We should’ve stopped years ago because we were giving them the rope to hang us with.”

This donor was under no illusion about the ruling ideology on campuses: “If you’re successful and white, you’re evil; if you’re unsuccessful and brown, you must be right.” Yet despite such knowledge, he admits that he was on contribution “autopilot.”

Then Magill and the presidents of Harvard and MIT were called to testify on campus anti-Semitism before a House committee on December 5. That hearing was itself the result of discussions between the Penn donors and committee members. All three presidents came in for a drubbing, above all for their unwillingness to agree that campuses should punish calls for the genocide of Jews. (The question itself was hypothetical; the committee’s lead prosecutor, New York representative Elise Stefanik, extrapolated from actual student chants of “intifada” to a hypothetical call for Jewish genocide.) The resulting uproar was bipartisan. Though it was the genocide question that garnered the most attention, the presidents’ shameless untruths about their campuses’ free-wheeling intellectual environments should have been the most damning.

Another petition against Magill was launched, this time on Change.org. It quickly garnered more than 12,000 signatories. On December 7, Ross Stevens, CEO of Stone Ridge Asset Management, withdrew a $100 million gift that had funded a center for finance at the Wharton School. He would consider restoring the funding only if Magill was replaced.

Penn’s board held an emergency meeting the next day, but it once again declined to oust Magill or Bok. Magill tried to stanch the bleeding by declaring on video that she now understood that some forms of anti-Israel speech must be prohibited on campus.

Magill did not survive the storm. She offered her resignation on December 9. Most surprisingly, Bok tendered his resignation as well. The rebellious donors were jubilant, since they understood that the critical lever for institutional change was boards of trustees, known heretofore only for their hands-off, see-no-evil rubberstamping of whatever direction a university might choose.

Meantime, Harvard’s president Claudine Gay was facing her own crisis, albeit without the same level of organizing behind it as the crisis that had brought down Magill. Some of Harvard’s wealthiest donors had also been closing their checkbooks since October 7, due to Gay’s perceived foot-dragging when it came to condemning the terror attacks. Billionaire investor Bill Ackman had called for the release of the names of student signatories to an early pro-Hamas letter so that firms could avoid hiring those students. The Kennedy School lost millions of dollars in donations. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, investor Seth Klarman, and three other Harvard Business School graduates responded to the spreading campus militancy on October 23 in an “Open Letter to Harvard Leadership Regarding Antisemitism on Campus.” The letter attracted more than 2,300 alumni signatures in two weeks.

Ackman, who has taken the lead in the campaign against Harvard, had been going through a very public education about the diversity, equity, and inclusion complex. On November 6, he admitted on CNBC that until recently he had never read Harvard’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion statement. When he did, he was surprised to learn that the school’s DEI mandate did not cover “all marginalized groups,” as he put it, such as Asians and Jews. The solution, in Ackman’s view, was to expand the diversity bureaucracy’s client base to include the full panoply of students and faculty who were “at risk of being taken advantage of, of being harmed, of being emotionally harmed,” in his words, by the “majority.” This recommendation showed that Ackman, a liberal Democrat, remained naive about the university. The alleged “marginalized groups” at Harvard and elsewhere are at zero risk of being harmed by the majority; they are petted and fêted at every possible opportunity by an ever-diminishing white subset of the campus population that either embraces its fictional role of oppressor or is dragooned into playing one. A month later, Ackman was calling for the elimination of DEI, though he rushed to deny that he meant to “suggest whatsoever that the goal of a diverse university that is welcoming for all should be abandoned.” But Harvard is already welcoming to all; its only goal should be to provide the most rigorous possible intellectual training for its students.

Harvard had lost billions of dollars in donations since October 7, according to another Ackman missive. Harvard’s overseers met over the weekend of December 9 to consider Gay’s tenure. On December 12, the fellows of the Harvard Corporation announced that Gay retained their ongoing support as the “right leader to help our community heal and to address the very serious societal issues we are facing.” Harvard’s mission, the fellows reiterated at the end of their letter, was addressing “deep societal issues.” What those deep societal issues were, the corporation failed to say—possibly anti-Semitism, but the chances were great that they meant the usual deep issue: racism.

Gay had a supreme advantage that Magill lacked: the magic amulet of race. Magill could check off just one box in the victim sweepstakes: being female. Gay was not only female but the “first black president” of Harvard, as her supporters in the media never tired of reminding us. (MIT president Sally Kornbluth also survived the House anti-Semitism hearing. But MIT’s alumni were only starting to organize against the school’s leadership and had yet to bring significant financial pressure to bear against the school.) The Harvard Corporation is itself 27 percent black (twice the percentage of blacks in the national population) and 36 percent URM (underrepresented minorities, when its Hispanic member is included).

Almost all of Harvard’s black professors wrote a letter as “Black members of the Harvard university faculty” urging Gay’s retention. Any suggestion that Gay was elevated “based on considerations of race and gender are specious and politically motivated,” the professors wrote. Never mind that the chair of the presidential search committee, senior corporation fellow Penny Pritzker, had lauded Gay’s “inclusiveness” and deep appreciation for “diverse voices” upon announcing Gay’s selection. (That the signatories to the current letter of support were themselves all black was apparently another coincidence.) While serving as dean of the faculty of arts and sciences, Gay had released an eight-page template for upping Harvard’s anti-racism work in the aftermath of the 2020 George Floyd race riots. The document, promising an orgy of race-based hiring and curriculum changes, was an early pitch for the presidency. Gay sought, she wrote, to “challenge a status quo that is comfortable and convenient for many.” Read: for Harvard’s whites, who are presumably responsible for the university’s failure to be “truly inclusive,” and who perpetuate the “devastating legacies of slavery and white supremacy.”

Notwithstanding the black faculty’s claim that Gay’s race was irrelevant to her presidency, Harvard’s black alumni also felt called upon to write the fellows in support for Gay’s efforts to build, as they put it, a more “inclusive community.” Her “leadership at Harvard as a Black woman” was “critical and deserving of the opportunity to coalesce and take shape,” the alumni wrote. Gay’s status as the daughter of Haitian immigrants allows her to understand better than anyone else the need for Harvard to “stand against hate,” the black alumni argued. Gay’s rapid ascent up the academic hierarchy—as an undistinguished scholar, at best—represented a triumph over the hate directed at immigrant daughters, we are to believe, however invisible such hate might be to the untrained eye.

This is the first of a two-part article. Tomorrow: Penn 2.0 and the traps awaiting reformist alumni.

#Heather Mac Donald #pro hamas #academic corruption #antisemitism #pro palestine #islam #islamic terrorism #terrorism supporters #islam apologists #religion #hamas terrorism #University of Pennsylvania #Liz Magill #diversity hire #DEI bureaucracy #defund DEI #religion is a mental illness

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milfjagger · 1 year

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my record collection 2023 :)

Vinyl

Scary Monsters & Super Creeps - David Bowie The Dreaming - Kate Bush Never For Ever - Kate Bush The Songs of Leonard Cohen - Leonard Cohen Wind on the Water - Crosby & Nash Crosby, Stills & Nash - CSN Songs of the Sea - Pete Dawson Ultraviolence - Lana del Rey Lust for Life - Lana del Rey Norman Fucking Rockwell - Lana del Rey Romance in 1600 - Sheila E. Liege & Lief - Fairport Convention Tusk - Fleetwood Mac Close up the Honky-Tonks - The Flying Burrito Bros Transangelic Exodus - Ezra Furman A Trick of the Tail - Genesis Godspell (original cast recording) Dookie - Green Day Hair (original cast recording) Live Through This - Hole Celebrity Skin - Hole Living In the Past - Jethro Tull Jesus Christ Superstar (1973 motion picture soundtrack) Greatest Hits (1974) - Elton John Joanne - Lady Gaga Court & Spark - Joni Mitchell On The Threshold Of A Dream - The Moody Blues The Black Parade/Living with Ghosts - My Chemical Romance Bella Donna - Stevie Nicks Songs for our Times - John O'Connor GP - Gram Parsons Raising Sand - Robert Plant & Alison Krauss Queen - Queen Queen II - Queen Sheer Heart Attack - Queen A Night at the Opera - Queen A Day at the Races - Queen News of the World - Queen Jazz - Queen The Works - Queen Live at the Rainbow 1973 - Queen New Again - Taking Back Sunday Man on Fire - Roger Taylor Goats Head Soup - The Rolling Stones Through the Past, Darkly - The Rolling Stones Metamorphosis - The Rolling Stones Get Yer Ya-Yas Out! - The Rolling Stones Linda Rondstadt - Linda Rondstadt It’s My Way! - Buffy Sainte-Marie Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme - Simon & Garfunkel The Sound of Music (motion picture soundtrack) Nebraska - Bruce Springsteen The River - Bruce Springsteen Below the Salt - Steeleye Span Stephen Stills - Stephen Stills Under Soil & Dirt - The Story So Far Grave New World - Strawbs Crime of the Century - Supertramp GLA - Twin Atlantic Hesitant Alien - Gerard Way Blunderbuss - Jack White _

Almost Famous (motion picture soundtrack) Little Earthquakes - Tori Amos Odelay - Beck Daisy - Brand New Grace - Jeff Buckley Hounds of Love - Kate Bush Let Love In - Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds Push The Sky Away - Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds Everybody Else Is Doing It… - The Cranberries Blue Bannisters - Lana del Rey Flowers of Flesh & Blood - Nicole Dollanganger Observatory Mansions - Nicole Dollanganger Ode to Dawn Weiner - Nicole Dollanganger I Told You I Was Freaky - Flight of the Conchords Ceremonials - Florence + the Machine High As Hope - Florence + the Machine Born This Way - Lady Gaga Wolfways - Michael Hurley A Creature I Don’t Know - Laura Marling The Mask & Mirror - Loreena McKennitt Elemental - Loreena McKennitt The Book Of Secrets - Loreena McKennitt The Visit - Loreena McKennitt Blue - Joni Mitchell Clouds - Joni Mitchell Jagged Little Pill - Alanis Morissette Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge - My Chemical Romance Danger Days - My Chemical Romance GP/Grievous Angel - Gram Parsons Trio - Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt & Emmylou Harris Meds - Placebo Band of Joy - Robert Plant The Bends - Radiohead OK Computer - Radiohead The King of Limbs - Radiohead Transformer - Lou Reed Darkness on the Edge of Town - Bruce Springsteen The Promise - Bruce Springsteen Western Stars - Bruce Springsteen Carrie & Lowell - Sufjan Stevens Suede - Suede Dog Man Star - Suede Dead & Born & Grown - The Staves Velvet Goldmine (motion picture soundtrack) Want Two - Rufus Wainwright Harvest - Neil Young

#posting so I can link to it on my nav!!!

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blu-engineer · 9 months

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cool dice [heart]

ok here i go!

Team Fortress 2 is a 2007 multiplayer first-person shooter game developed and published by Valve Corporation. It is the sequel to the 1996 Team Fortress mod for Quake and its 1999 remake, Team Fortress Classic. The game was released in October 2007 as part of The Orange Box for Windows and the Xbox 360, and ported to the PlayStation 3 in December 2007. It was released as a standalone game for Windows in April 2008, and updated to support Mac OS X in June 2010 and Linux in February 2013. It is distributed online through Valve's digital retailer Steam, with Electronic Arts managing retail and console editions.

Players join one of two teams—RED or BLU—and choose one of nine character classes to play as, with game modes including capture the flag and king of the hill. Development was led by John Cook and Robin Walker, the developers of the original Team Fortress mod. Team Fortress 2 was announced in 1998 under the name Team Fortress 2: Brotherhood of Arms. Initially, the game had more realistic, militaristic visuals and gameplay, but this changed over the protracted nine years of development. After Valve released no information for six years, Team Fortress 2 regularly featured in Wired News' annual vaporware list among other entries. Finally released on the Source game engine in 2007, Team Fortress 2 would preserve much of the core class-based gameplay of its predecessors while featuring an overhauled, cartoon-like visual style influenced by the works of J. C. Leyendecker, Dean Cornwell, and Norman Rockwell, alongside an increased focus on the visual and verbal characterization of its playable classes and what the developers have described as a 1960s spy movie aesthetic.

Team Fortress 2 has received critical acclaim for its art direction, gameplay, humor, and use of character in a wholly multiplayer game, and since its release has been referred to as one of the greatest video games ever created. The game continues to receive official Valve server support as of January 2023, in addition to new content being released on a seasonal basis in the form of submissions made through the Steam Workshop. In June 2011, the game became free-to-play, supported by microtransactions for in-game cosmetics. A 'drop system' was also added and refined, allowing free-to-play users to periodically receive in-game equipment and items. Though the game has had an unofficial competitive scene since its release, both support for official competitive play through ranked matchmaking and an overhauled casual experience were added in July 2016. Since early 2020, the official Valve servers have seen an influx of bot accounts using cheat software, often inhibiting legitimate gameplay.

Gameplay

A group of RED players attack a BLU base on the map "Well".

In most game modes, BLU and RED compete for a combat-based objective. Players can choose to play as one of nine character classes in these teams, each with their own unique strengths, weaknesses, and weapon sets. In order to accomplish objectives efficiently, a balance of these classes is required due to how these strengths and weaknesses interact with each other in a team-based environment. Although the abilities of a number of classes have changed from earlier Team Fortress incarnations, the basic elements of each class have remained, that being one primary weapon, one secondary weapon, and one melee weapon. The game was released with six official maps, although over one hundred maps have since been included in subsequent updates, including community-created maps. When players choose a gamemode for the first time, an introductory video is played, showing how to complete its objectives. During matches, the Administrator, voiced by Ellen McLain, announces events over loudspeakers. The player limit for one match is 16 on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, and 24 on the Windows edition. However, in 2008, the Windows edition was updated to include a server variable that allows for up to 32 players.

Team Fortress 2 is the first of Valve's multiplayer games to provide detailed statistics for individual players, such as the total amount of time spent playing as each class, most points obtained, and most objectives completed in a single life. Persistent statistics tell the player how they are performing in relation to these statistics, such as if a player comes close to their record for the damage inflicted in a round. Team Fortress 2 also features numerous achievements for carrying out certain tasks, such as achieving a certain number of kills or completing a round within a certain time. Sets of class-specific achievements have been added in updates, which can award weapons to the player upon completion. This unlockable system has since been expanded into a random drop system, whereby players can also obtain items simply by playing the game.

Game modes

Core game modes

Team Fortress 2 contains five core game modes.

Attack/Defend (A/D) is a timed game mode in which the BLU team's goal is to capture RED control points. The number of control points varies between maps, and the points must be captured by the BLU team in respective order. To capture a control point, a player must stand on it for a certain amount of time. This process can be sped up by more players on one team capturing a single point. Once a control point is captured by the BLU team, it cannot be re-captured by the RED team. The RED team's job is to prevent the BLU team from capturing all the control points before the time limit ends. Once a point is captured, the time limit will extend.

Capture the Flag (CtF) is a mode which revolves around the BLU and RED teams attempting to steal and capture the opposing team's flag, represented in-game as an intelligence briefcase. At the same time, both teams must defend their own intelligence. When the intelligence is dropped by the carrier – either by dying or dropping it manually, it will stay on the ground for 1 minute before returning to its original location if it is not picked up again. A team's intelligence can only be carried by the opposing team. The first team to capture the enemy's intelligence three times wins.

Control Points (CP) is a timed game mode where there are several control points placed around the map, with 3 or 5 control points in total depending on the map. These are referred to as "3CP" and "5CP," respectively. The game will start off with only the middle control point being available for capture, with the other control points split equally among both teams. Once this middle control point is captured, a team can begin capturing the enemy team's points in respective order. The time limit is extended on the capture of a control point by either team. For a team to win, they must capture all the control points within the time limit.

King of the Hill (KOTH) is a timed game mode that contains a single control point at the middle of the map that can be captured by both the RED and BLU teams. Upon capturing the control point, a team-specific timer starts counting down but stops upon the point being captured by the opposing team. The first team to have their timer count down to 0 wins.

Payload (PL) is a timed game mode where the BLU team must push an explosive cart along a track, while the RED team must prevent the cart from reaching their base. To push the cart, at least one BLU player must stay within the range of the cart, which will dispense health and ammo every few seconds. The cart's speed will increase as more BLU players attempt to push it. Payload maps have multiple "checkpoints" along the track. Once these checkpoints are captured, they may adjust the spawn locations of both teams. Capturing a checkpoint will also increase the time limit. If the cart is not pushed by the BLU team for 20 seconds, it will begin to move back to the last captured checkpoint, where it will stop. The RED team can stop the cart from being pushed by being within range of it. The RED team wins by preventing the cart from reaching the final checkpoint before time runs out.

Alternative game modes

There are several alternative game modes in Team Fortress 2. These modes consist of a small number of maps and detach from the core game modes in some way.

Arena is a special game mode in which players do not respawn upon death. A team can win either by eliminating all opposing players, or by claiming a single capture point that opens after a certain time has elapsed. This mode is currently unavailable through matchmaking, but is still accessible through community servers.

Mannpower is a mode in which players have access to a grappling hook and assorted power-ups laid around the map that grant unique abilities. While not bound to any specific mode, all current official Mannpower maps use a variation of Capture the Flag. In Mannpower's variation of Capture the Flag, both teams have an intelligence flag, and the first team to capture the enemy's intelligence ten times wins. The mode is heavily inspired by the Quake mod, Threewave CTF, a mod created by former Valve employee David Kirsch.

Medieval Mode is a mode in which players are restricted to using melee and support weapons, with certain exceptions for medieval-themed projectile weapons. While not bound to any specific mode, the only official Medieval Mode map uses a 3CP variation of Attack/Defend. If Medieval Mode is enabled on a map, select phrases spoken by players in the in-game text chat will be replaced with more thematic variants, such as "hello" being replaced with "well meteth".

PASS Time is a unique timed game mode inspired by rugby, developed by Valve, Bad Robot Interactive, and Escalation Studios. Three unique goals (the Run-In, Throw-In, and Bonus Goals) are placed on each team's side of the map. A single ball called the JACK will spawn at the center of the map, and players must pick it up and carry it to the opposing team's side. Players can score a goal by either carrying the JACK to a Run-In Goal or by throwing the JACK through the Throw-In Goal. Three goals can be scored by throwing the JACK through the Bonus Goal, which is much more difficult to score. To win, a team must either score five goals, or have the most goals when the timer runs out.

Payload Race, like Payload, has the main objective being to push a cart to a final checkpoint. Unlike Payload, both the RED and BLU teams are fighting to push their cart to the final checkpoint. There is only one checkpoint for each track, and there is no time limit. The team to reach their checkpoint first wins.

Player Destruction is a community-made game mode in which a player's death causes a pickup to appear. The first team to collect a set number of pickups and deliver them to a drop-off point wins the game. The players on each team with the most pickups are highlighted for everyone to see, and gain a passive healing effect for themselves and any nearby teammates.

Special Delivery is a mode similar to Capture the Flag, but there is only one neutral briefcase that can be picked up both the RED and BLU teams. Upon a team picking up the briefcase, the opposing team will be unable to pick up the briefcase until it has been dropped for 45 seconds and respawns as a neutral briefcase. A team wins by carrying the briefcase onto a loading platform, which will gradually rise until the platform reaches its peak.

Territorial Control consists of several control points spread out across a single map. Like Control Points, each point can be captured by either the RED or BLU teams. Unlike Control Points, only two points are accessible at a single time. Upon a team's successful capture of a point, the "stage" ends and the accessible capture points change. When a team only has control of a single control point, they are blocked from capturing the opposing team's control point and the team must wait until the time limit is up and the accessible capture points change. A team wins by capturing all the control points.

Other game modes

These modes are not categorized with the other modes, and instead have their own separate sections in the game.

Halloween Mode is a special mode that is enabled during the Halloween season, and allows the players access to more than 20 maps, Halloween-exclusive cosmetics, and challenges. For example, Halloween 2012 included a difficult Mann vs. Machine mission involving destroying more than 800 enemy forces. Owing to popular demand of the Halloween events, Valve later added the Full Moon event, an event that triggers around every full moon phase throughout the year, which allows players to equip Halloween-exclusive cosmetics. In 2013, Valve introduced an item called Eternaween, and upon use, allows players of a specific server to use Halloween-exclusive cosmetics for 2 hours.

Mann vs Machine, also known as MvM, is a cooperative game mode where players must defend their base from waves of robots modeled after all nine playable classes, and slow-moving tanks carrying bombs. Robots and tanks drop a currency referred to as Credits upon their death, which players can use to buy upgrades for themselves or their weapons. The players win upon successfully defending their base from the bomb until the last wave. A paid version of this game mode called "Mann Up" is also available, where players buy tickets to play "Tours of Duty", a collection of missions with the chance to win unique cosmetics and weapon skins upon completion.

Offline Practice Mode is just like any other multiplayer match, but it only consists of the player and bots. The number of bots, their difficulty, and the map can all be adjusted to a player's preference, though only a select amount of maps are available to play.

Training Mode exists to help new players get acquainted with basic controls, and teaches them the basics of four of the nine classes. It uses wooden dummies and bots to teach players the basic mechanics of classes and the game.

Competitive play

Team Fortress 2 is played competitively, through multiple leagues. The North American league, ESEA, supports a paid Team Fortress 2 league, with $42,000 in prizes for the top teams in 2017. While formalized competitive gameplay is very different from normal Team Fortress 2, it offers an environment with a much higher level of teamwork than in public servers. Most teams use voice chat to communicate, and use a combination of strategy, communication, and mechanical skill to win against other teams. Community-run competitive leagues also tend to feature restrictions such as item bans and class limits. These leagues are often supported by Valve via in-game medals (which are submitted via the Steam Workshop) and announcements on the official blog.

In April 2015, Valve announced that a dedicated competitive mode would be added to Team Fortress 2, utilizing skill-based matchmaking; closed beta testing began in the following year. The competitive mode was added in the "Meet Your Match" update, released on July 7, 2016. Ranked matches are played six-vs-six, with players ranked in thirteen tiers based on win/losses and an assessment of their skills. Ranked matchmaking will balance players based on their tiers and rating. A similar matchmaking approach has been added for casual games for matches of 12-vs-12 players. In order to join competitive matchmaking, players must have associated their Steam account with the Steam Guard Mobile Authenticator, as well as having a Team Fortress 2 "premium account", which is unlocked by either having bought the game before it went free-to-play or by having made an in-game item purchase since.

Formats

Team Fortress 2 is played in a variety of different formats, which dictate the maximum size and composition of a team and can drastically change the impact of a single player's gameplay or choice of class. The two most basic formats consist of 12v12 and 6v6 ("Sixes"), the two being used on official Valve servers for casual and competitive modes respectively with no additional limitations. Most competitive leagues host Sixes but include limits on certain classes and weapons to preserve traditional, skill-based playstyles, for example limiting the allowed amount of medics or demomen to one on either team or banning certain movement-enhancing weapons from use. Other popular formats include "Highlander", a 9v9 format with a limit of one player per each of the nine classes, as well as a Sixes-inspired 7v7 variant thereof known as "Prolander" to allow for strategically switching classes during a competitive game.

Characters and setting

From left to right: Pyro, Engineer, Spy, Heavy, Sniper, Scout, Soldier, Demoman, and Medic

Team Fortress 2 features nine playable classes, evenly split and categorized into "Offense", "Defense", and "Support". Each class has strengths and weaknesses and must work with other classes to be efficient, encouraging strategy and teamwork. Each class has at least three default weapons: a primary weapon, secondary weapon, and melee weapon. Some classes have additional slots for PDAs.

Offense

The Scout (Nathan Vetterlein) is an American baseball fan and street runner from Boston, Massachusetts who practiced running to "beat his mad dog siblings to the fray." He is a fast, agile character, who is armed by default with a scattergun, a pistol, and an aluminum baseball bat. The Scout can double jump, and counts as two people when capturing control points, thus doubling the capture speed, and when pushing the Payload cart.

The Soldier (Rick May) is an American jingoistic patriot from the Midwest who stylizes himself as a military man despite having never served in any branch of the Armed Forces. The Soldier is armed by default with a rocket launcher, a shotgun, and a folding shovel. He is both the second-slowest class in the game and the class with the second-highest health, after the Heavy Weapons Guy. The Soldier can use his rocket launcher to rocket jump to other locations at the cost of some health.

The Pyro (Dennis Bateman) is a pyromaniac of unknown gender and origin who wears a fire-retardant suit and a voice-muffling gas mask. By default, the Pyro is armed with a flamethrower, a shotgun, and a fire axe. In addition to simply flames, the Pyro's flamethrower can also produce a blast of compressed air that repels any nearby enemies and projectiles, and extinguishes burning teammates. The Pyro is deluded and believes they are living in a utopian fantasy world referred to as "Pyroland".

Defense

The Demoman (Gary Schwartz) is a Black Scottish, one-eyed, alcoholic demolitions expert from Ullapool, Scotland. Armed by default with a timed-fuse grenade launcher, a remotely-detonated "stickybomb" launcher, and a glass bottle of scrumpy, the Demoman can use his explosives to provide indirect fire and set traps. Similar to the Soldier's rocket jump, the Demoman can use his stickybomb launcher to "sticky jump" at the cost of some health.

The Heavy Weapons Guy, or simply the Heavy (Gary Schwartz), is a large Russian man from the Dzhugdzhur Mountains of the USSR. He is heavy in stature and accent, and is obsessed with firepower. He is the slowest class, and can both sustain and deal substantial amounts of damage. His default weapons consist of a minigun that he affectionately refers to as "Sasha", a shotgun, and his fists.

The Engineer (Grant Goodeve) is an American inventor, engineer, intellectual, and "good ol' boy" from Bee Cave, Texas. The Engineer can build structures to support his team: a sentry gun for defending key points, a health and ammunition dispenser, and a pair of teleporter modules (one entrance and one exit). The Engineer is armed by default with a shotgun, a pistol, a wrench that functions as both a melee weapon and to repair and upgrade his buildings, and two separate PDAs; one to erect his buildings and one to remotely destroy them.

Support

The Medic (Robin Atkin Downes) is a German doctor from Stuttgart with little regard for the Hippocratic Oath. He is equipped with a "Medi Gun" that can restore health to injured teammates. When healing teammates, the Medi Gun progressively builds an "ÜberCharge" meter, which, when fully charged, can be activated to provide the Medic and his patient with temporary invulnerability. The Medic is also equipped with a syringe gun and a bonesaw for situations in which he must fight without his teammates' protection. He keeps doves as pets, one of which is named Archimedes.

The Sniper (John Patrick Lowrie) is an ocker assassin born in New Zealand and raised in the Australian outback, equipped by default with a laser-sighted sniper rifle to shoot enemies from afar. Depending on how the player aims and fires, he can cause severe damage or an instant kill with a headshot. By default, he also carries a submachine gun and a kukri for close combat.

The Spy (Dennis Bateman) is a French covert operative whose equipment is designed for stealth and infiltration, including a cloaking device disguised as a wristwatch, an electronic sapper used to disable and destroy enemy Engineers' buildings, and a device hidden in his cigarette case that enables him to disguise himself as any player on either team. He is armed with a revolver and a butterfly knife, able to use the latter to instantly kill enemies by stabbing them in the back. He is the only character who does not wear any clothing in his team's bright color or a patch denoting his specialty, instead preferring a balaclava, business suit, necktie, and gloves in muted team-color hues. In the extended media it is revealed that the Spy is the father of the Scout.

Non-playable characters

Other characters include the Administrator (voiced by Ellen McLain), an unseen announcer who provides information about time limits and objectives to players, and her assistant Miss Pauling (Ashly Burch). The cast has expanded with Halloween updates, including the characters of the "Horseless Headless Horsemann" and Monoculus (Gary Schwartz). 2012 and 2013 saw the addition of Merasmus, the Bombinomicon, and Redmond, Blutarch, Zepheniah, and Gray Mann (the first three all played by Nolan North). Previous unused voicelines recorded by North were later used for Horseless Headless Horsemann seen in the 2019 map "Laughter" and a jack-o'-lantern resting atop the Payload cart in the 2020 map "Bloodwater". The character Davy Jones (voiced by Calvin Kipperman) made an appearance in the 2018 map "Cursed Cove".

In the video announcement for the "Jungle Inferno" update, Mann Co. CEO Saxton Hale, a hypermasculine Australian adventurer, is voiced by JB Blanc.

Setting

Logo and motto of the fictional Mann Co.

Although Team Fortress 2 is designed as an open-ended multiplayer experience without an active storyline, the game and additional material nonetheless feature a wider narrative centered around the fictional Mann Co., a large shipping and manufacturing company led by CEO Saxton Hale. The main PvP gamemodes are set during the "Gravel Wars", a conflict between the rival heirs Redmond "Red" and Blutarch "Blu" Mann for which the nine playable characters were hired out as mercenaries. Gray Mann later emerges as the third competitor, killing the other two brothers and forcing Hale to rehire the mercenaries to protect Mann Co. from Gray's robot army in the Mann vs Machine cooperative horde shooter mode.

Development

Origins

The original Team Fortress was developed by the Australian team TF Software, comprising Robin Walker and John Cook, as a free mod for the 1996 PC game Quake. In 1998, Walker and Cook were employed by Valve, which had just released its first game, Half-Life. Valve began developing Team Fortress 2 as an expansion pack for Half-Life using Valve's GoldSrc engine, and gave a release date for the end of the year. In 1999, Valve released Team Fortress Classic, a port of the original Team Fortress, as a free Half-Life mod. Team Fortress Classic was developed using the publicly available Half-Life software development kit as an example to the community and industry of its flexibility. Team Fortress 2 originally featured a realistic visual style.

Unlike Team Fortress, Valve originally planned Team Fortress 2 to have a modern war aesthetic. It would feature innovations including a command hierarchy with a Commander class, parachute drops over enemy territory, and networked voice communication. The Commander class played similarly to a real-time strategy game, with the player viewing the game from a bird's-eye perspective and issuing orders to players and AI-controlled soldiers.

Team Fortress 2 was first shown at E3 1999 as Team Fortress 2 Brotherhood of Arms, where Valve showcased new technologies including parametric animation, which blended animations for smoother, more lifelike movement, and Intel's multi-resolution mesh technology, which dynamically reduced the detail of distant on-screen elements to improve performance. The game earned several awards including Best Online Game and Best Action Game.

In mid-2000, Valve announced that Team Fortress 2 had been delayed for a second time. They attributed the delay to development switching to its new in-house engine, Source. Following the announcement, Valve released no news on the game for six years. Walker and Cook worked on various other Valve projects; Walker was project lead on Half-Life 2: Episode One and Cook worked on Valve's content distribution platform Steam. Team Fortress 2 became a prominent example of vaporware, a long-anticipated game that had seen years of development, and was often mentioned alongside another much-delayed game, Duke Nukem Forever. Walker said that Valve built three or four different versions of Team Fortress 2 before settling on their final design. Shortly before the release of Half-Life 2 in 2004, Valve's marketing director Doug Lombardi confirmed that Team Fortress 2 was still in development.

Final design and release

Valve reintroduced Team Fortress 2 at the July 2006 EA Summer Showcase event. Departing from the realistic visual design of other Valve games, Team Fortress 2 features a cartoon-like visual style influenced by 20th-century commercial illustrations and the artwork of J. C. Leyendecker, Dean Cornwell, and Norman Rockwell, achieved through Gooch shading. The game debuted with the Source engine's new dynamic lighting, shadowing and soft particle technologies alongside Half-Life 2: Episode Two. It was the first game to implement the Source engine's new Facial Animation 3 features.

Valve abandoned the realistic style when it became impossible to reconcile it with the unrealistic gameplay, with opposing armies having constructed elaborate bases directly next to each other. The Commander class was abandoned as other players would simply refuse to follow their orders.

Valve designed each character, team, and equipped weapon to be visually distinct, even at range; for example, the coloring draws attention to the chest area, bringing focus on the equipped weapon. The voices for each of the classes were based on imagining what people from the 1960s would expect the classes to have sounded like, according to writer Chet Faliszek.

The map design has an "evil genius" theme with archetypical spy fortresses, concealed within inconspicuous buildings such as industrial warehouses and farms to give plausibility to their close proximities; these bases are usually separated by a neutrally themed space. The bases hide exaggerated super weapons such as laser cannons, nuclear warheads, and missile launch facilities, taking the role of objectives. The maps have little visual clutter and stylized, almost impressionistic modeling, to allow enemies to be spotted more easily. The impressionistic design approach also affects textures, which are based on photos that are filtered and improved by hand, giving them a tactile quality and giving Team Fortress 2 its distinct look. The bases are designed to let players immediately know where they are. RED bases use warm colors, natural materials, and angular shapes, while BLU bases use cool colors, industrial materials, and orthogonal shapes.

During the July 2006 Electronic Arts press conference, Valve revealed that Team Fortress 2 would ship as the multiplayer component of The Orange Box. A conference trailer showcasing all nine of the classes demonstrated for the first time the game's whimsical new visual style. Valve's president, Gabe Newell, said that the team's goal was to create "the best-looking and best-playing class-based multiplayer game". A beta release of the entire game was made on Steam on September 17, 2007, for customers who had pre-purchased The Orange Box, who had activated their Black Box coupon, which was included with the ATI HD 2900XT Graphics cards, and for members of Valve's Cyber Café Program.

Team Fortress 2 was released on October 10, 2007, both as a standalone product via Steam and at retail stores as part of The Orange Box compilation pack, priced at each gaming platform's recommended retail price. The Orange Box also contains Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode One, Half-Life 2: Episode Two, and Portal. Valve offered The Orange Box at a ten percent discount for those who pre-purchased it via Steam before the October 10 release, as well as the opportunity to participate in the beta test.

Post-release

Since the release of Team Fortress 2, Valve has continually released free updates and patches through Steam for Windows, OS X, and Linux users; though most patches are used for improving the reliability of the software or to tweak gameplay changes, several patches have been used to introduce new features and gameplay modes, and are often associated with marketing materials such as comics or videos offered on the Team Fortress 2 website; this blog is also used to keep players up to date with the ongoing developments in Team Fortress 2. As of July 2012, each class has been given a dedicated patch that provides new weapons, items, and other gameplay changes; these class patches typically included the release of the class's "Meet the Team" video. Other major patches have included new gameplay modes including the Payload, Payload Race, Training, Highlander, Medieval, and Mann vs. Machine modes. Themed patches have also been released, such as a yearly Halloween-themed event called "Scream Fortress", where players may obtain unique items available only during a set period around the holiday. Other new features have given players the ability to craft items within the game from other items, trade items with other players, purchase in-game items through funds in Steam, and save and edit replay videos that can be posted to YouTube.

Valve has released tools to allow users to create maps, weapons, and cosmetic items through a contribution site; the most popular are added as official content for the game. This approach has subsequently created the basis for the Steam Workshop functionality of the software client. In one case, more than fifty users from the content-creation community worked with Valve to release an official content update in May 2013, with all of the content generated by these players. Valve reported that as of June 2013, over $10 million has been paid back to over 400 community members that have helped to contribute content to the game, including a total of $250,000 for the participants in the May 2013 patch. To help promote community-made features, Valve has released limited-time events, such as the "Gun Mettle" or "Invasion" events in the second half of 2015, also including the "Tough Break" update in December 2015, in which players can spend a small amount of money which is paid back to the community developers for the ability to gain unique items offered while playing on community-made maps during the event.

Development of the new content had been confirmed for the Xbox 360, while development for the PlayStation 3 was deemed "uncertain" by Valve. However, the PlayStation 3 version of Team Fortress 2 received an update that repaired some of the issues found within the game, ranging from graphical issues to online connectivity problems; this update was included in a patch that also repaired issues found in the other games within The Orange Box. The updates released on PC and planned for later release on Xbox 360 include new official maps and game modes, as well as tweaks to classes and new weapons that can be unlocked through the game's achievement system. The developers attempted to negotiate with Xbox 360 developer Microsoft to keep the Xbox 360 releases of these updates free, but Microsoft refused and Valve announced that they would release bundles of several updates together to justify the price. Because of the cost of patching during the seventh generation of video game consoles, Valve has been unable to provide additional patches to the Xbox 360 version since 2009, effectively cancelling development of the console versions. On March 29, 2023, the servers for the PlayStation 3 version of Team Fortress 2 went offline.

On June 10, 2010, Team Fortress 2 was released for OS X, shortly after the release of Steam for OS X. The release was teased by way of an image similar to early iPod advertising, showing a dark silhouette of the Heavy on a bright green background, his Sandvich highlighted in his hand. Virtual earbuds, which can be worn when playing on either OS X or Windows once acquired, were given to players playing the game on OS X before June 14, though the giveaway period was later extended to August 16.

On November 6, 2012, Valve announced the release of Team Fortress 2 for Linux as part of a restricted beta launch of Steam on the platform. This initial release of Steam and Team Fortress 2 was targeted at Ubuntu with support for other distributions planned for the future. Later, on December 20, 2012, Valve opened up access to the beta, including Team Fortress 2, to all Steam users without the need to wait for an invitation. On February 14, 2013, Valve announced the full release of Team Fortress 2 for Linux. From then to March 1, anyone who played the game on Linux would receive a free Tux penguin, which can be equipped in-game.

Team Fortress 2 was announced in March 2013 to be the first game to officially support the Oculus Rift, a consumer-grade virtual reality headset. A patch will be made to the client to include a "VR Mode" that can be used with the headset on any public server.

In April 2020, source code for 2018 versions Team Fortress 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive leaked online. This created fears that malicious users would use the code to make remote code execution software and attack servers or players' computers. Several fan projects halted development until the impact of the leak could be determined. Valve confirmed the legitimacy of the code leaks, but stated they do not believe it affects servers and clients running the latest official builds of either game.

On May 1, 2020, shortly following the death of the voice actor of the Soldier, Rick May, Valve released an update to Team Fortress 2, adding a tribute to his voicework as the Soldier in the form of a new main menu theme (a rendition of Taps), as well as statues of the Soldier saluting, added to most of the official in-game maps. These statues all featured a commemorative plaque dedicated to May and lasted through the end of the month. One of these statues, appearing on the map "cp_granary", the setting of the "Meet the Soldier" short video, was made permanent in an August 21 update.

Free-to-play

On June 23, 2011, Valve announced that Team Fortress 2 would become free to play. Unique equipment including weapons and outfits would be available as microtransactions through the in-game store, tied through Steam. Walker stated that Valve would continue to provide new features and items free. Walker stated that Valve had learned that the more players Team Fortress 2 had, the more value it had for each player.

The move came a week after Valve introduced several third-party free-to-play games to Steam and stated they were working on a new free-to-play game. Within nine months of becoming free to play, Valve reported that revenue from Team Fortress 2 had increased by a factor of twelve.

Bot accounts and "#SaveTF2"

Since early 2020, Team Fortress 2 has endured large amounts of bot accounts entering Valve casual matchmaking servers. Though bot accounts had been an issue in Team Fortress 2 for some time prior to this, multiple sources began to report a spike in activity for these bot accounts. The activities of these bots have included forcibly crashing servers, spamming copypastas in the text chats of matches, assuming other players' usernames, and the usage of aimbots. Additionally, some bots were programmed taking advantage of a TF2 source code leak that Valve had confirmed in April 2020. A common bot that exploited this leak used the Sniper class, allowing them to exploit the "headshot" mechanic to instantly kill enemy players from across the map regardless of direction they were aiming.

On June 16, 2020, Valve responded to this by restricting accounts that have not paid for Mann Co. Store items or purchased Team Fortress 2 prior to the game becoming free-to-play from the use of both voice and text chat in game. On June 24, all players were restricted from changing their Steam username while connected to any Valve matchmaking server or any server with display name updates disabled.The change was implemented to prevent bots from changing their display name to impersonate legitimate players, which allowed the bots to avoid being kicked due to the confusion caused by their duplicate name. On voting, changes were also introduced to prevent bots from spamming this functionality in an attempt to prevent real players from using kicking bots.

Approximately one year later, on June 22, 2021, additional changes were implemented to discourage bot activity. Another YouTuber, Toofty, posted a video that provided input from several of those that were behind the bot problem; reasons given ranged from grieving against Valve developers to simply finding the disruption fun to watch. These are issues normally dealt with by a game's developer but Valve's lack of response allowed their activities to go unchecked for two years.

These issues remained ongoing as of May 2022, prompting YouTuber SquimJim to uploaded a video to his YouTube channel encouraging his viewers to express their grievances to Valve and news outlets through letters. After receiving over a hundred news tips, IGN journalist Rebekah Valentine wrote of her experience with trying to play the game. She remarked that the game was "literally unplayable" on official Valve servers, forcing many players to join unofficial community servers instead. She also said that some bots would "...spam chat with homophobic or racist remarks, outside links, or just plain rude or obnoxious messages". In response to these issues, Robin Atkin Downes, voice actor for the Medic, also reached out to his contacts at Valve for a response, and encouraged fans to continue making their voices heard in a "peaceful, passionate manner".

On May 26, 2022, members of the TF2 community held a "peaceful protest" on Twitter using the hashtag #savetf2 with the goal of getting a response from Valve regarding the issues. With the hashtag trending on Twitter, Valve responded, saying "TF2 community, we hear you! We love this game and know you do, too. We see how large this issue has become and are working to improve things."

Across June and July 2022, Valve released a number of patches to help players deal with the bot issue, such as improving the game's vote kicking system so that both teams can vote to kick players accused of abusive behavior at the same time. Valve took down the servers for five minutes in August 2022, during which a number of bans were issued via Valve Anti-Cheat to players that were known to be running these bots, effectively ending the problem. Valve's efforts helped to increase the player count in the months that followed.

On February 9, 2023, a blog post was shared on the official website, saying that a new "update-sized" update was coming to the game. The update will be released sometime around summer and will use community-made content submitted before May 1st. However, shortly after the post was made, Valve silently changed the message to say "holiday-sized update" instead. The update was released on July 13, 2023.

Tie-in materials

Beginning in May 2007, to promote the game, Valve began a ten-video advertisement series referred to as "Meet the Team". Constructed using Source Filmmaker and using more detailed character models, the series consists of short videos introducing each class and displaying their personalities and abilities. The videos are usually interspersed with simulated gameplay footage. The format of the videos varies greatly; the first installment, "Meet the Heavy", depicts him being interviewed, while "Meet the Soldier" shows the Soldier giving a misinformed lecture on Sun Tzu to a row of severed BLU heads as if they were raw recruits. He claims Sun Tzu "invented" fighting, then further confuses this claim with the story of Noah and his Ark. The videos were generally released through Valve's official YouTube channels, though in one notable exception, the "Meet the Spy" video was leaked onto YouTube, several days before its intended release.

Early "Meet the Team" videos were based on the audition scripts used for the voice actors for each of the classes; the "Meet the Heavy" script is nearly word-for-word a copy of the Heavy's script. Later videos, such as "Meet the Sniper", contain more original material. The videos have been used by Valve to help improve the technology for the game, specifically improving the facial animations, as well as a source of new gameplay elements, such as the Heavy's "Sandvich" or the Sniper's "Jarate". The final video in the Meet the Team series, "Meet the Pyro", was released on June 27, 2012. Gabe Newell has stated that Valve used the "Meet the Team" series as a means of exploring the possibilities of making feature film movies themselves. He believes that only game developers themselves have the ability to bring the interesting parts of a game to a film, and suggested that this would be the only manner through which a Half-Life-based movie would be made. A fifteen-minute short, "Expiration Date", was released on June 17, 2014. The shorts were made using Source Filmmaker, which was officially released and has been in open beta as of July 11, 2012.

In more recent major updates to the game, Valve has presented teaser images and online comic books that expand the fictional continuity and characters of Team Fortress 2, as part of the expansion of the "cross-media property", according to Newell. In August 2009, Valve brought aboard American comic writer Michael Avon Oeming to teach Valve "about what it means to have a character and do character development in a comic format, how you do storytelling". "Loose Canon", a comic associated with the Engineer Update, establishes the history of RED versus BLU as a result of the last will and testament of Zepheniah Mann in 1890, forcing his two bickering sons Blutarch and Redmond to vie for control of Zepheniah's lands between them; both have engineered ways of maintaining their mortality to the present, waiting to outlast the other while employing separate forces to try to wrest control of the land. This and other comics also establish other background characters such as Saxton Hale, the CEO of Mann Co., the company that provides the weapons for the two sides and was bequeathed to one of Hale's ancestors by Zepheniah, and the Administrator, the game's announcer, that watches over, encourages the RED/BLU conflict, and keeps each side from winning. The collected comics were published by Dark Horse Comics in Valve Presents: The Sacrifice and Other Steam-Powered Stories, a volume along with other comics created by Valve for Portal 2 and Left 4 Dead, and released in November 2011. Cumulative details in updates both in-game and on Valve's sites from 2010 through 2012 were part of a larger alternate reality game preceding the reveal of the Mann vs. Machine mode, which was revealed as a co-op mode on August 15, 2012.

Marketing and microtransactions

Valve had provided other promotions to draw players into the game. Valve has held weekends of free play for Team Fortress 2 before the game was made free-to-play. Through various updates, hats and accessories can be worn by any of the classes, giving players an ability to customize the look of their character, and extremely rare hats named "Unusuals" have particle effects attached to it and are only obtainable through opening "crates" or trading with other players. New weapons were added in updates to allow the player to choose a loadout and play style that best suits them.

Hats and weapons can be gained as a random drop, through the crafting/trading systems, or via cross-promotion: Limited-edition hats and weapons have been awarded for pre-ordering or gaining Achievements in other content from Steam, both from Valve or other third-party games such as Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse, Worms Reloaded, Killing Floor, or Poker Night at the Inventory (which features the Heavy class as a character). According to Robin Walker, Valve introduced these additional hats as an indirect means for players to show status within the game or their affiliation with another game series simply by visual appearance.

The Pyro, Heavy, and Spy all function as a single playable character in the PC release of Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed. The Pyro, Medic, Engineer, and Heavy appear as playable characters in Dungeon of the Endless. The Pyro was added as a playable character to Killing Floor in 2010, along with appearing as a henchman in the 2021 game Evil Genius 2.

The game's first television commercial premiered during the first episode of the fifth season of The Venture Bros. in June 2013, featuring in-game accessories that were created with the help of Adult Swim.

Items and economy

In Team Fortress 2, players can trade with others for items such as weapons and cosmetics. This functionality was added in the 2010 Mann-Conomy Update, alongside being able to purchase items through an in-game store with real money. Operating largely through informal gray markets before the introduction of the official Steam Community Market, trading items made players susceptible to fraud.

Team Fortress 2 features an in-built item valuing system known as an item quality, assigned to a given instance of an item through a variety of different means and ranging from "Normal" items used as the stock weapons of each class, to "Unique" items used as the base obtainable items from the item drop or achievement systems, to far rarer qualities such as "Strange", "Unusual" or "Decorated" which feature special cosmetic effects that can immensely increase the market value of a given item; Strange items keep track of kills or other objectives achieved while equipped in-game while Unusual items feature item-specific particle effects, with both Strange and Unusual items being obtainable through rare crafting items or randomly obtained in place of the far more common Unique items. Decorated items are instead redeemed from rare items known as "war paints", awarding the player a weapon retextured with a pseudo-random cosmetic skin. Other qualities include "Vintage", awarded to older items to compensate for changes in obtainability, and "Collector's", created through combining 200 Unique instances of a single item.

Cosmetics and war paints are typically released through seasonal "cases" that award a random item from an associated collection unique to the given season of a specific year. Such items are additionally assigned a "grade" from "Civilian" to "Mercenary" to track their relative rarity within a collection.

Third-party websites such as the crowd-sourced backpack.tf have been created to aid users in trading, as well as track the value of in-game items. Crate keys, crafting metal, and in-game items such as an "earbuds" cosmetic (also referred to as "buds") are all used as currency due to their value.

The economy of Team Fortress 2 has received significant attention from economists, journalists, and users, due to its relative sophistication and the value of many of its in-game items. It has often been the subject of study. It operates on a system of supply and demand, barter, and scarcity value, akin to many real-world economies such as that of the United States. In 2011, it was reported that the economy of Team Fortress 2 was worth over US$50 million.

2019 Crate bug

On July 25, 2019, a bug was mistakenly included in an update - if players unboxed certain older series of Crates, they would be guaranteed to receive an Unusual-grade cosmetic item, compared to the usual 1% chance of obtaining an Unusual-grade cosmetic item from a Crate. This damaged the in-game economy, causing Unusual-grade cosmetic items able to be unboxed from these Crates to drop substantially in value. The incident has been nicknamed "The Crate Depression" (a pun on "Crate" and "The Great Depression") by fans. On July 26, 2019, this bug was fixed. Users who received any Unusual-grade cosmetic items from the bug were restricted from trading them, with Valve later announcing in an official statement on August 2, 2019 that the first Unusual-grade item any player received from the bug is tradable, with any subsequent Unusual-grade items being permanently untradeable and only usable by the player who received them.

Reception and legacy

See also: Critical reception of The Orange Box

Best Action Game (1999)

Best Online Multiplayer (1999)

IGN

Best Artistic Design (2007)

1UP.com

Best Multiplayer Experience (2007)

Best Artistic Direction (2007)

GameSpy

Best Multiplayer Game of the Year (2007)

Most Unique Art Style (2007)

Team Fortress 2 received widespread critical acclaim, with overall scores of 92/100 "universal acclaim" on Metacritic. Many reviewers praised the cartoon-styled graphics, and the resulting light-hearted gameplay, and the use of distinct personalities and appearances for the classes impressed a number of critics, with PC Gamer UK stating that "until now multiplayer games just haven't had it". Similarly, the game modes were received well, GamePro described the settings as focusing "on just simple fun", while several reviewers praised Valve for the map "Hydro" and its attempts to create a game mode with variety in each map. Additional praise was bestowed on the game's level design, game balance and teamwork promotion. Team Fortress 2 has received several awards individually for its multiplayer gameplay and its graphical style, as well as having received a number of "game of the year" awards as part of The Orange Box.

Although Team Fortress 2 was well received, its removal of class-specific grenades, a feature of previous Team Fortress incarnations, was controversial amongst reviewers. IGN expressed some disappointment over this, while conversely, PC Gamer UK approved, stating "grenades have been removed entirely—thank God". Some further criticism came over a variety of issues, such as the lack of extra content such as bots (although Valve has since added bots in an update), problems of players finding their way around maps due to the lack of a minimap, and some criticism of the Medic class being too passive and repetitive in his nature. The Medic class has since been re-tooled by Valve, giving it new unlockable weapons and abilities.

With the "Gold Rush Update" in April 2008, Valve had started to add fundamentals of character customization through unlockable weapons for each class, which continued in subsequent updates, most notably the "Sniper vs. Spy Update" in April 2009, which introduced unlockable cosmetic items into the game. Further updates expanded the number of weapons and cosmetics available, but also introduced monetization options, eventually allowing it to go free-to-play. To this end, Team Fortress 2 is considered one of the first games to offer games as a service, a feature which would become more prevalent in the 2010s.

Fans of Team Fortress Classic have made a total conversion mod of Team Fortress 2 titled Team Fortress 2 Classic, which seeks to marry gameplay elements and concepts from both entries alongside scrapped ideas from the sequel's development cycle and several entirely original additions.

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