#and ovw 2 is free. so basically. play it with me

[milfgwen]

being autistic with an autistic sibling is fun because i can be like "im going to infodump about this thing to you until you like it" and hes like "no i will never like it" and then i infodump enough and suddenly hes asking me to explain each of the overwatch tanks and healers to him

[reformedmercymain]

officially started my pc journey. immediately lost my first qp game but we won a few team fights against broken heroes so that counts for something, right? 😭😭

Congrats! Welcome to the world of KB/M <3

[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.

[tbhstudying1]

hi seo!! i kno this ain't a gaming blog and it's probably asked before, but do you have any tips for a complete beginner in ow? i played before but was kind of just thrown into it and randomly chose a character so i didn't kno what was going on. everything seems super overwhelming, so i don't kno what to kno before playing lmao :') thank you in advance!

issok!!!! i LOVE talking abt games and ppl don’t talk to me enough abt games!!!!!!! and now i get to talk abt jeff kaplan’s ballpit hella

this is gonna be LONG so i’m gonna put it under the cut! also, i’m so sorry to all the mobile users out there bc the cut may not work. these are my own opinions + other players might have different feedback? if so, feel free to reblog / reply with your own tidbits!! hope this helps, anon!! lmk if u ever wanna play overwatch w/ me!! u can join my discord and give me ur battle tag in our video games channel :)

classes

OKAY so there are three classes: dps, tank, and support. dps focuses on damaging the enemy, tanks can put up shields / have greater health to allow their team to fight longer, and supports heal ppl on their team. jeff and the rest of the overwatch team ™ have kindly divided up all the heroes up into the categories that you see on the bottom of the screen during the “hero select” part before a match starts.

generally, you want to have at least one from each class on a team to make it a balanced team. unfortunately, you might not see that as often in arcade modes / quickplay, but it’s ok!! 

abilities

each hero has different mechanics and skills, so i highly suggest going in the practice range + vs ai to test out the different abilities and things like that. you have your weapon, 2 “special” abilities with cooldowns, and 1 ultimate ability that you can charge up. by practicing w/ the hero against other ppl, you can figure out what times are best to use each ability and stuff like that. 

now, it’s time for Seo’s Hot Take On (almost) All The Heroes:

(click the link, it filters thru the heroes by category for u)

dps

oh,,, the dps,,,,,, players,,,,,,, as a support main, i can be tired ™ of dps players who overextend and then demand “i need healing” constantly,,,, but ur not gonna be one of those players!!! dw dw

essentially, you gotta be Good at Aiming to be a Good DPS (but that’s ok, there are some heroes that do not have a high skill cap)

soldier 76 is a good “beginner” hero to start off on bc 1. you play him during the tutorial and 2. he’s the most traditional fps character you can play in the game. he’s got sprint so you can get to places faster, a little biotic field to heal yourself with, and a nice rocket so you can blast someone in the face. the ultimate is also auto-aim so that’s even more helpful for beginner players.

junkrat is another dps that’s relatively easy to play for ppl bc his little bomb things go off and have an explosion radius damage. bastion, mei, and symmetra all have sorta self-heal-ish abilities / passives that might make them easier for you to pick up. symmetra and torbjorn have turrets that auto-aim, so they can be easier heroes to pick up too. just know that ur gonna get smacked later on in higher levels bc No One Likes Playing Against These Two DSJKSDKDSJKKJ

genji, hanzo, and widowmaker tend to be the most popular dps that i see ppl choose in games? idk why tho

my dps favs are soldier 76, mccree, and pharah

tanks

the unsung heroes of overwatch,,,,, no one bothers to play tank in quick play and it’s truly a tragedy bc u never realize how much u need a tank until u need a tank

your job as a tank is to 1. be that big distraction that the enemy team wants to go after, 2. make space for your team to work in, and 3. protect your team. this is why they have high health and shield abilities. 

there are 2 different types of tanks: main tanks and off-tanks. off-tanks are generally more mobile, have less health, their defense abilities are shorter, and have “more offensive” capabilities than main tanks (so kinda like a dps / tank hybrid?). they go zooming around more often to protect teammates that are farther away from the objective. main tanks are solid, thicc, rock-hard bastions of protection that get on the payload / control point and do their damn bestest to keep the objectives going + protect their teams with their blessed shields.

some ppl are picky on how to categorize them, but here’s my categorization: off-tanks: dva, zarya, wrecking ball, roadhog main tanks: orisa, reinhardt, winston (winston’s on thin ice tho)

i’d say dva is the most popular tank + it’s nice to pick up as a beginner bc she’s got good mobility, infinite ammo, and a “second life” with the mech and baby dva (you’ll see when u play her). in terms of main tank, i’ve heard ppl say that reinhardt is the easiest main tank to pick up ???? but i personally prefer orisa over him bc her shields are easier to deploy and you can kill things from afar. her reload time is very slow compared to other heroes.

my favorites are orisa and dva.

supports

oh, my favorite class :”) i lov playing support SDKJSDKJSDJK

basically, these are your healers!! they keep your team in tip-top shape + make sure that no one dies. (ppl still die.)

mercy is the easiest support to play imo. your healing beam can lock onto a person + you have high mobility + i genuinely love mercy’s gun even tho i should be focusing on healing. mercy does get a bad rep for being “every e-girl’s main” and ppl might be rude to u if ur a mercy main ;; anyhow, the most important thing to focus on as mercy is your positioning. do not get urself into a position where you cannot easily get out and please don’t die ;;

lucio is another hero that has high mobility and requires positioning bc you have aoe heal but u need to make sure your team is within your radius. wall-riding is very fun too and booping ppl off cliffs is highly entertaining.

brigitte, moira, and zenyatta are supports, but it’s very easy to be a pseudo-dps with them if you’re interested in taking down ur enemies too. 

ana is probably the hardest hero bc she has little mobility and requires good aim to heal and to kill. on that note, zen and ana are the supports that require you to be good at aiming.

my favs are zen and mercy :”)

tips

practice practice practice

it’s overwhelming at first but you’ll get to know all the abilities relatively well 

turn your sound up

each hero has their own unique “sound” whether that be footsteps or ultimate voice lines. the ult voice lines change depending on if they’re on your team or the enemy team + it can be very helpful to know them. 

footstep sounds from the enemy team tend to be louder, and the more dangerous the hero, the louder their footstep (ex: reaper, mccree). hearing footsteps has helped me escape from a flanking reaper out to kill me dsjsdjkksdj

watch overwatch esports

pro ovw esports are casted by ppl who explain how the players are moving and reacting + this can help you get a better understanding of the gameplay and abilities

overwatch league is finished, but you can go back and watch their videos + blizzard has been pretty good abt making sure that owl is appealing to newcomers. i’d recommend matches casted by uber and mr. x

don’t get discouraged by toxic ppl and be a positive person in-game!

toxic ppl suck,,,,, don’t be one of them,,,

play with friends!

ovw is a lot more fun when u play with friends and chat in vc while playing! also the joy of playing with friends can help u feel a lot more comfy with the game too

hope you have fun playing overwatch, anon!!

from for the dreams i want to catch https://ift.tt/2mRjwRk See More

[tbhstudying]

hi seo!! i kno this ain't a gaming blog and it's probably asked before, but do you have any tips for a complete beginner in ow? i played before but was kind of just thrown into it and randomly chose a character so i didn't kno what was going on. everything seems super overwhelming, so i don't kno what to kno before playing lmao :') thank you in advance!

issok!!!! i LOVE talking abt games and ppl don’t talk to me enough abt games!!!!!!! and now i get to talk abt jeff kaplan’s ballpit hella

this is gonna be LONG so i’m gonna put it under the cut! also, i’m so sorry to all the mobile users out there bc the cut may not work. these are my own opinions + other players might have different feedback? if so, feel free to reblog / reply with your own tidbits!! hope this helps, anon!! lmk if u ever wanna play overwatch w/ me!! u can join my discord and give me ur battle tag in our video games channel :)

classes

OKAY so there are three classes: dps, tank, and support. dps focuses on damaging the enemy, tanks can put up shields / have greater health to allow their team to fight longer, and supports heal ppl on their team. jeff and the rest of the overwatch team (tm) have kindly divided up all the heroes up into the categories that you see on the bottom of the screen during the “hero select” part before a match starts.

generally, you want to have at least one from each class on a team to make it a balanced team. unfortunately, you might not see that as often in arcade modes / quickplay, but it’s ok!! 

abilities

each hero has different mechanics and skills, so i highly suggest going in the practice range + vs ai to test out the different abilities and things like that. you have your weapon, 2 “special” abilities with cooldowns, and 1 ultimate ability that you can charge up. by practicing w/ the hero against other ppl, you can figure out what times are best to use each ability and stuff like that. 

now, it’s time for Seo’s Hot Take On (almost) All The Heroes:

(click the link, it filters thru the heroes by category for u)

dps

oh,,, the dps,,,,,, players,,,,,,, as a support main, i can be tired (tm) of dps players who overextend and then demand “i need healing” constantly,,,, but ur not gonna be one of those players!!! dw dw

essentially, you gotta be Good at Aiming to be a Good DPS (but that’s ok, there are some heroes that do not have a high skill cap)

soldier 76 is a good “beginner” hero to start off on bc 1. you play him during the tutorial and 2. he’s the most traditional fps character you can play in the game. he’s got sprint so you can get to places faster, a little biotic field to heal yourself with, and a nice rocket so you can blast someone in the face. the ultimate is also auto-aim so that’s even more helpful for beginner players.

junkrat is another dps that’s relatively easy to play for ppl bc his little bomb things go off and have an explosion radius damage. bastion, mei, and symmetra all have sorta self-heal-ish abilities / passives that might make them easier for you to pick up. symmetra and torbjorn have turrets that auto-aim, so they can be easier heroes to pick up too. just know that ur gonna get smacked later on in higher levels bc No One Likes Playing Against These Two DSJKSDKDSJKKJ

genji, hanzo, and widowmaker tend to be the most popular dps that i see ppl choose in games? idk why tho

my dps favs are soldier 76, mccree, and pharah

tanks

the unsung heroes of overwatch,,,,, no one bothers to play tank in quick play and it’s truly a tragedy bc u never realize how much u need a tank until u need a tank

your job as a tank is to 1. be that big distraction that the enemy team wants to go after, 2. make space for your team to work in, and 3. protect your team. this is why they have high health and shield abilities. 

there are 2 different types of tanks: main tanks and off-tanks. off-tanks are generally more mobile, have less health, their defense abilities are shorter, and have “more offensive” capabilities than main tanks (so kinda like a dps / tank hybrid?). they go zooming around more often to protect teammates that are farther away from the objective. main tanks are solid, thicc, rock-hard bastions of protection that get on the payload / control point and do their damn bestest to keep the objectives going + protect their teams with their blessed shields.

some ppl are picky on how to categorize them, but here’s my categorization:off-tanks: dva, zarya, wrecking ball, roadhogmain tanks: orisa, reinhardt, winston (winston’s on thin ice tho)

i’d say dva is the most popular tank + it’s nice to pick up as a beginner bc she’s got good mobility, infinite ammo, and a “second life” with the mech and baby dva (you’ll see when u play her). in terms of main tank, i’ve heard ppl say that reinhardt is the easiest main tank to pick up ???? but i personally prefer orisa over him bc her shields are easier to deploy and you can kill things from afar. her reload time is very slow compared to other heroes.

my favorites are orisa and dva.

supports

oh, my favorite class :”) i lov playing support SDKJSDKJSDJK

basically, these are your healers!! they keep your team in tip-top shape + make sure that no one dies. (ppl still die.)

mercy is the easiest support to play imo. your healing beam can lock onto a person + you have high mobility + i genuinely love mercy’s gun even tho i should be focusing on healing. mercy does get a bad rep for being “every e-girl’s main” and ppl might be rude to u if ur a mercy main ;; anyhow, the most important thing to focus on as mercy is your positioning. do not get urself into a position where you cannot easily get out and please don’t die ;;

lucio is another hero that has high mobility and requires positioning bc you have aoe heal but u need to make sure your team is within your radius. wall-riding is very fun too and booping ppl off cliffs is highly entertaining.

brigitte, moira, and zenyatta are supports, but it’s very easy to be a pseudo-dps with them if you’re interested in taking down ur enemies too. 

ana is probably the hardest hero bc she has little mobility and requires good aim to heal and to kill. on that note, zen and ana are the supports that require you to be good at aiming.

my favs are zen and mercy :”)

tips

practice practice practice

it’s overwhelming at first but you’ll get to know all the abilities relatively well 

turn your sound up

each hero has their own unique “sound” whether that be footsteps or ultimate voice lines. the ult voice lines change depending on if they’re on your team or the enemy team + it can be very helpful to know them. 

footstep sounds from the enemy team tend to be louder, and the more dangerous the hero, the louder their footstep (ex: reaper, mccree). hearing footsteps has helped me escape from a flanking reaper out to kill me dsjsdjkksdj

watch overwatch esports

pro ovw esports are casted by ppl who explain how the players are moving and reacting + this can help you get a better understanding of the gameplay and abilities

overwatch league is finished, but you can go back and watch their videos + blizzard has been pretty good abt making sure that owl is appealing to newcomers. i’d recommend matches casted by uber and mr. x

don’t get discouraged by toxic ppl and be a positive person in-game!

toxic ppl suck,,,,, don’t be one of them,,,

play with friends!

ovw is a lot more fun when u play with friends and chat in vc while playing! also the joy of playing with friends can help u feel a lot more comfy with the game too

hope you have fun playing overwatch, anon!!