#LoL and Overwatch did things to my brain that i try to reverse :)

[liberty-spiked]

i have to stop thinking that everyone who plays mmorpgs has that toxic LoL-mindset. in maple story just now someone passed me, said hi, i replied obv and they just said they're passing and that i should have fun qwq

[wainwrightjakobshammerlock]

finally. i decided to do this. anyways hello there, i am jake and today i want to talk about something; you see, if you are in the tf2 fandom, you probably know about heavymedic. Wherther you are a hardcore gamer who resents f2p’s or a person that never played the game but has trillions of notes on their art- you know heavymedic exists and most of all you probably ship it.

And I find that weird. In the few fandoms in my life I have been in I had never seen a single ship be so widely if not shipped, then accepted. Sure, maybe everyone in the GF fandom knows what Billdip is - for better or for worse. Sure, maybe the HS fandom is 70% shipping.

But I have never ever seen such a phenomenon in a prominent multiplayer game fandom. A fandom, sadly, oftentimes filled with toxicity. Overwatch is very similar here - yet ships are either a hot topic of discussion or straight up ignored. But TF2? In here for whatever reason we ship these two mercenaries. And in this essay I will try and find a reason or two why is that.

Apologies for any mistakes or incoherency. English is not my first language, I need to ramble, and my vocabulary is all over the place.

Content warning: mentions of homophobia, blood, death, mentions of WLW fetishization, nsfw mention. Also MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR THE TF2 COMICS.

Part 1: Canonical Evidence and Interactions

Let’s be honest: I could ramble about this one for days on end. But I’ll try and keep it short.

First and foremost we have the official videos. And of course the first thing that comes to mind is Meet the Medic.

At the very start of the part where Medic himself appears, we see him telling a joke about a particularly gruesome situation to Heavy.

He laughs along with him, visibly enjoying his company. He even smiles as he waits for another joke. Heavy only shows genuine fear a lot later.

And of course this damn scene always cracks me up. Medic slightly pinches Heavy’s cheek and strokes his lip gently (the other part is almost not noticeable unless you play the video at slow speed).

Of course we all know about the Hand Hold that happens somewhere halfway in the vid. I don’t think I have to explain the gayness in that. The fact their hands stay interlocked even after Medic helps Heavy up. The deep breath Medic takes because even he cannot handle the emotions. That few seconds is unresolved sexual tension manifest.

Overall the short shows a strong feeling of trust between these two. Medic confides in Heavy and reverse. Yeah he puts a baboon heart into his friend’s chest cavity but the fact (as proven at the end of the video) that Heavy was the first one to have an Ubercharge implanted into him shows that Medic at the very least considers him a lab rat.

I treat End of the Line as non-canonical, as do many others, and as such won’t discuss it here. But it will forever crack me up that Valve endorsed such levels of homoerotic subtext.

These two have some short moments in other videos, like for example in Invasion Heavy helps Medic up (CINEMATIC PARALLELS) but it’s nothing major so I guess I’ll skip forward.

Second is their interactions ingame. You might call me a weirdo for trying to find stuff in there but holy shit I have things to say and I’m going to say them.

You thought I was going to fanboy over the “i love this doktor” voiceline huh? Well not really. I wish these two had unique lines if they assist one another.

Heavy is literally listed on the official wiki as the “ideal medic buddy” and multiple pages on that exact wiki say some pretty interesting things.

I have to say something about the Gentleman’s Ushanka and/or Pocket Medic. They are both community cosmetics - but the fact they both got accepted by Valve says a lot. Above is text snipped from the actual wiki.

Last but not least: The Comics. Darned comics. The pair of mercenaries has basically no interaction - unless you count issue 6.

Heavy getting absolutely PISSED when Medic is killed by Ch*avy. Their reunion. Medic referring to Heavy by “my friend” in a totally straight way. Kind of sad Valve wasted an opportunity for them to hug. Maybe they knew their comic artist ships them and wanted to avoid having to answer the Question™.

Part 2: Dynamics

This part’s a bit trickier, mostly due to the reason that I’m new to this whole dynamic analysis thing. Yeah I’m good at spotting canonical evidence but very specific shipping dynamics often escape my gaze.

The most obvious one is Big Guy, Little Guy. Quoting the TVTROPES page:

[…] This trope describes a pair of guys who always fight together, are best friends forever, and quite often have a very obvious hierarchy: The little guy is often in charge […] The little guy is usually listed first, since he’s the leader, and they are always listed together, as if they are one entity. In fact, some episodes may center on the fact that they can’t live without each other. […] If this is a case of Brains and Brawn, the Big Guy is usually the Brawn, and the Little Guy the Brains. It’s almost never the other way around, but in some cases the Big Guy can be rather smart too. […]

A sub-type of this, a common favorite here on Tumblr is known as “small chaotic big calm” and hoo boy if that isn’t these two. I don’t really have much to say here - again I am not an expert.

Part 3: Fandom Impact

So you don’t think Red Oktoberfest (as Heavymedic is sometimes called) is super popular on anywhere else than Tumblr? Wrong.

It’s hard to find TF2 fics on Archive of Our Own not tagged with Heavy/Medic. Of course most of them only contain hints to their relationship but go in the main tf2 tag and I can guarantee you, you’ll gonna see “implied heavy/medic” all the time.

But these two go further than AO3 or Tumblr or Instagram or whatever. They are recognized even within the wider circle of the fanbase. Take this SFM, for example. (I am using the Saxxy Awards version of Secret Lives here mostly due to the fact that the Heavymedic moment is much gayer. In the normal version, the dialogue isn’t changed, but they simply hold hands.)

But it gets deeper. (WARNING: THE GAY MOMENT IN THIS ONE IS NSFW. NOT EXPLICITLY SO BUT JUST A HEADS UP TUMBLR PLEASE DO NOT FLAG ME)

And the best part? The comments are extremely positive. You’d expect hoards upon hoards of homophobes screeching but no, the comments are supportive. Even on places such as Reddit or Youtube, comments like “yeah they’re gay and in love” do not get downvoted/disliked to hell; in fact the opposite.

Part 4: Canon Status

Let’s be real. Most ships are shipped because people want to explore the dynamics in fanfic, fanart or something else. But Heavymedic is shipped because… well, I have no idea.

Actually, I kind of do - but only theories. You see, while the canonical evidence is here, the creators have never said anything about them. No confirmation, no disproval, no hinting, nothing.

But the ship is so prominent! There has to be something causing this!- you say. And to that I present you 2 theories on why Heavy/Medic is so popular.

Theory number 1 states that we simply all choose to interpret their interactions as homoerotic. And this is very easy to disprove - there’s simply no way we just collectively agreed on these matters out of nothing. There has to be something bigger.

And theory 2 states that, well, our interpretation is the desired interpretation. But this is even more ridiculous than theory 1 for a number of reasons. If they are in fact gay, why hasn’t Valve made them canon yet?

A Theoretical Scenario

I am going to ramble big time on this one, so buckle up lads. I’ll discuss a theoretical scenario in which, well, if that was not obvious, Valve confirms Heavymedic as canon. Maybe then we will see why they will probably never do so.

TF2 is considered by typical capital G, alt-right Gamers as a “non-political” game. This means no women (in the game itself, at least, and if even, sexy women only), no queer folk and no minorities (for some reason they accept Demoman but throw a fit if someone draws any other merc as not being pearl white). Team Fortress 2 was around before Gamergate and other things like Gamers Rise Up. It’s a classic and Valve is regarded as the good guy to Epic Game’s bad guy. If Valve did anything to confirm doubts, wherther it be clearing up popular fanon or confirming ships, these people would throw hands. (Although they seemed to ignore when one of the writers confirmed Miss Pauling is a lesbian. Huh.) Even those that don’t play TF2 would come to the aid of their bros.

Let me illustrate with two very similar examples. In both cases these confirmations were the first made by the company as a whole, both are fairly recent and both confirm a character as gay.

First we have the confirmation of Tracer from Overwatch as a lesbian. It was done in one of OVW’s comics. Tracer is the FACE of Overwatch as a whole and while most of the fanbase accepted it (thankfully the Gamers are reluctant to infest ow), some people threw what I can only describe as a hissy fit. At least her girlfriend’s a background character.

Second is Neeko from League of Legends. Unlike Tracer she was added a while before it was confirmed she was gay. LOL is much more toxic and filled with Gamers than OW and holy shit people smeared LOL so much.

Of course these are not accurate to Heavy/Medic. In both of the cases I listed it was girls being wlw and we all know how much cisgender heterosexual gamers LOVE yuri porn. Apparently only girls can be gay because they can jack off to it - if it’s two guys then it’s disgusting. Nevertheless I think these are good approximations - in every case the company gets “shat on” on social media and other sites. With the community that Valve has, I think even if they wanted them to be gay, they would never ever confirm it.

Conclusion

I’m sorry for that ending. I had to theorize a bit. Regardless I’d love if you shared this on other sites, reblogged or whatever - I wasted at least 1 and a half hours of my life on it. Feel free to cite this as a source if someone asks you why you ship the big heavy weapons expert and the feral battle medic.

[kffandom]

Do you have any Widowmaker & Mercy thoughts or any Widowmaker & Reaper thoughts you've had on your mind that you'd like to share?

sorry this has taken so long to answer! i really hadn’t thought too much about widowmaker and mercy interacting so i’ve been taking my sweet time on this lol (also sorry for the bulleted list instead of any actual narrative, i couldn’t really think of anything cohesive for both types of interactions but i had plenty for each and blech. blech i’m sorry i hope it’s alright)  

reaper is the one who decides to cut ties with talon, and half as a ‘fuck u guys’ and half as a ‘ok i’m a LITTLE fond of this one’ he basically kidnapped widowmaker since they had invested a lot of resources into her development/programming 

widowmaker, when he had the help of one of her “programmers” (who was a weird boy-man reaper doesn’t really know who ‘fell in love with her’ and ‘wanted her to be free so they could be together for REAL’ #creepy), was easy enough to knock out with one of her ‘trigger phrases’ (which reaper made sure to receive a comprehensive list of before making any moves to take her). creepy boy-man tried to tag along but reaper kicked him out of the van and locked the doors before they even got moving 

(i don’t know why anytime i talk about talon agents going anywhere they use vans but. there ya go.) 

she wakes up halfway through the van ride and sorta just. goes with it. reaper has no idea if this is still an effect of using one of her triggers or what, but. it makes the drive easier 

reaper says, shortly before they arrive, “i know they’re annoying. but they’ll help you.” 

“i don’t need help.” 

“whatever. they’ll be better bosses than talon at least.” 

(in the past, when i’ve written widowmaker, i’ve gone the “oh she’s loyal to talon and that’s what overwatch needs to overcome, but here, since seeing the comic where she remembered and appeared to still give somewhat of a shit about gerard, here’s what i’m thinking: 

we have amelie. nice enough amelie, who’s caught up in the mess that is #overwatch. who talon is spending a lot of money on, but who won’t. stop. crying. 

they don’t have complete brainwashing, you know. like they can do a lot, but if they want her to still be useful, they can’t do what they normally would. 

so they do some #BadMedicine. they go into her brain and they start chopping. 

what if widowmaker wasn’t created with programming (though it had a hand in them using her, later, in controlling her) but with them just. cutting out any parts that made her care. 

she still has all of her memories, but they took away her will and ability to give a shit. they didn’t even really change her personality--amelie was a sarcastic and harsh woman, but she had a huge heart and while her advice was gruff and along the lines of “you fucked up, now you have to fix it” she was genuinely invested in people’s problems and cared a lot 

but after they mutilated her brain, she just. basically did what she was told. she wouldn’t even eat without someone telling her she should once they messed with her biology enough to not recognize hunger or discomfort. 

so aka: that’s how you get someone fundamentally twisted from their origin with the least amount of effort and the least amount of actual change but with absolutely detrimental effects with my ~fake science~ nonsense lol. (listen they still have BS reasons for her being blue so i can ~fake science~ my way outta her backstory if i fucking want to) ) 

so anyway. reaper basically spends about a week figuring out which base mercy is at, and drops widowmaker off (kicks her out of the still-moving van) with the information he has on how talon “made” her, and gets the fuck out of there. just because he hates talon now too doesn’t mean he wants to be all buddy-buddy with overwatch now

they’re all unnerved by how widowmaker just. doesn’t do anything. like she snarks at them, and flirt-mocks lena, but otherwise, she’s very amenable. mercy asks her to join her in the infirmary, and she follows. mercy asks her to disrobe and put on a patient gown, and she does. mercy runs a barrage of tests, and she sits through them. 

at the end of it, mercy says, “well, i won’t be able to do much until i look at those documents you brought with you, but the baseline was needed before i was biased by anything i saw. is there anything bothering you that you’d like me to address? any injuries or hurts?” 

widowmaker snorts and doesn’t deign to answer her. 

“well, you will be staying here tonight. i’m sure someone will be around to keep an eye on you, but feel free to get some rest.” 

mercy then spends a long evening in her office-ish area (it’s a corner of the infirmary with a curtain around it and a rickety desk winston carried in for her, but it does its job well enough) going through these files. trying to fill in the blanks and create a map of what exactly they fucked up with her 

and around 5AM, she leans back and has to do some thinking. because amelie didn’t agree to these surgeries (obviously) and now she could be trying to undo what they’ve done, through multiple surgeries, without widowmaker’s permission. she thinks and thinks and tries to figure out if she should even bring it up with widowmaker if there’s a chance of her refusing 

because it’s barbaric, what they’ve done to her, but widowmaker might prefer not caring, or she might not view it as poorly as mercy does. or she might not be able to give an answer at all, because she can’t care about anything. 

it’s very, very tempting to just. do it. to just knock her out the minute she wakes up and go and /fix/ it

 (ignoring the fact that she isn’t 100% sure she can fix everything, that talon’s done some horrible, horrible things that even with her nanotech and her skills might not be reversible--she doesn’t think she could possibly make it worse, but. it’s been long enough that her brain has adapted and has learned how to function without the parts it had had, it has a level of plasticity that is normally only found in children, which on one hand means it could be easier to fix the damage, or it could be easier to ruin it more.) 

(she thinks and thinks and thinks and eventually, she carefully puts the files away and goes back to her room where she starts digging through her own old files. 

the one for shimada, genji, still haunts her. he has never said anything, has always seemed grateful, but it’s the patient that later made her realize how disconnected she became from the people she was helping. she feels tremendous guilt, and shame, and horror over the choices she made in regards to shimada, genji.  

it’s a reminder she needed, and she takes a deep breath, and she returns to the infirmary.) 

“widowmaker, let me talk to you about what the files you brought with me mean,” she says carefully. widowmaker is propped up in one of the infirmary cots and looking at her, unimpressed. mercy spreads out the files carefully and starts pointing out pictures and how things tie together

“you’re basically saying that they have mutilated my brain and you wish to fix it, correct?” she asks slowly. “will.... ‘fixing’ it make me more efficient?” 

mercy says, honestly, “i don’t know. it depends on how you define efficient.” 

“efficient for this organization’s purposes.” 

“for our purposes?” mercy asks, surprised. “on one hand, no, it won’t make you more efficient. you’ll probably question us and question what missions we want you to take, and you’ll most likely doubt yourself. 

“on the other hand, you’ll fit into our team better and begin to heal, and it would be a morale boost, which would, in turn cause the others to improve their abilities, i imagine.” 

“you’ll do as you wish, regardless,” widowmaker says blandly. 

“i want to know what you think,” she persists. “do you think this is a course of action that will be beneficial to you? as an individual?” 

“for your morals? most likely. for the purposes and uses i’ve been created for? no.” 

they go around in circles for much longer, but eventually mercy says, loudly, “if we are asking me as a doctor, i believe these surgeries attempting to reconstruct the parts of your brain that have been harmed would be the best course of action. do you or do you not consent to the treatment?” 

widowmaker stares at her for a long moment. tilts her head and stares a little longer. eventually shrugs and says, “i do.” 

(and that’s the beginning of widowmaker becoming something more than just an assassin.)