Cute Little Pets

Pets are great, they really are. They can change you and make you soft as, well, soft things. They’re also good stress relievers, and the purrs of a cat are believed by some to have genuine healing properties – they don’t sit there and purr for no reason, you know! After the shitstorm that happened yesterday, I feel this needed to be pointed out. My beloved little Colin, who arrived on our doorstep last year, disappeared for 36 hours, something he’s never done before, but thanks to our calls and my lucky blue straw hat, he turned up again on our doorstep this morning, happy but exhausted. We still have no idea where he went.

What does this have to do with TF2? Absolutely nothing. But being the magic person that I am, I’ll make it so it DOES relate to Team Fortress 2. After all, the person I have spent the last 4 years pretending to be has a beloved pet. Little Archimedes, who was stolen from a catering van from the president’s wedding and has accompanied Medic ever since. He’s even survived death, after Classic Heavy squeezed him to death and threw him on the floor like the evil bastard that he is. Don’t know what happened to the rest of Medic’s doves (which I always assumed were named after other Greek geniuses), but I’m sure they’re fine.

Thing is though, Archimedes just kinda sits on your shoulder doing nothing. He just limply sits there, not even flinching at the chaos around him. Which kinda makes sense, since Medic has dragged him to hell and back and Archimedes is well known for hiding in people’s chest cavities. Scout and Heavy can both confirm that. Even when you die, he just sits there, that cold, dead look in his eyes. Even when Medic goes all The Fly on everyone and ends up with a bird head, Archimedes just sits there. You have to ZOMBIFY Archimedes for anything to happen.

It’s the same with everyone’s pets. Engineer can keep a cat in his pocket, and that cat will go through hell and high water and not move. Exceptions exist though, like Guano, a bat, but you can see the flaws so easily if you taunt, since a lot of these floating companions are attached to an invisible point on your shoulder. Alright for a robot, rather silly for a supposedly living being. Guano is alright, but Quoth looks even more heinous.

I am actually surprised that more animated pets haven’t been accepted. I suppose the main reason would be that Valve doesn’t want any animal cruelty nonsense. I mean, as cute as Fido the Fire Dog is, how guilty would Spy players feel if that was accepted and they’d have to backstab it. But there are alternatives to death. Just because Pyro died, doesn’t mean we can’t have a death animation of his pet running off. A dove flying animation for Medic already exists, so Archimedes and other birds could use that.

Fully animated pets could easily be a thing. TF2’s community modellers could so easily pull it off, but perhaps it’s simply too much visual clutter.

Ah, whatever. I got my dog back, that’s all I care about.

Woof!