#i mean. not explicitly but 1. it’s too weird for main tags 2. it’s implied

[snowbunnytrick]

CUPCAKE

[blodreina-noumou]

Final Season Spec Game

I’m out of tag games to speculate on season 7, so here we are! I wanted to keep these questions mostly upbeat (because we all know how this show can be sometimes lol we’re in for angst for sure 😉) and there’s 16 of them, one for each remaining ep! Feel free to play along everybody… Stay safe! 💙

I swiped this from @katersann​ - great questions!

1. Which character are you most excited to learn the endgame of: 

There’s only a handful of characters I truly care about anymore, and there will always be one that rises above the rest -

Obviously next season is going to feature the Anomaly in a big way, and since that whole thing seems deeply connected to Octavia, I think we can safely assume that this will be a big season for her. I hope she makes it out alive, but on some level, I won’t be surprised if she doesn’t. Going out in a blaze of glory was always more her style. I think that’s true even now.

2. Which character are you most excited to learn the backstory of: 

I’m definitely curious about Hope Diyoza. The fact that she and Octavia appeared to know each other in the s6 finale has huge implications. And I’m sure her life has been really fuckin’ interesting - with a mother like Charmaine, how couldn’t it be?

3. One character who deserves a new look: 

Madi!

She’s not a scrappy forest child anymore, nor is she a Baby Warlord. I’d love to see her in anything but leather (or a hospital gown, yikes.) I don’t know how central to the main plot she’ll be, since she no longer has The Flame, but I do hope we get to see something about her trying to become a semi-normal kid.

4. Two locations you want to revisit: 

If I had my druthers, I’d love to see the Dropship again. It was such a central location in the first two seasons, and one of the things that’s been tough for me since the second Praimfaya has been how we lost all those iconic locations. 

I also really loved the look of Shallow Valley aka Eden. A very cute, aesthetically pleasing location, gone too soon.

5. Three brotps you hope get more screentime: 

Octavia and Diyoza!

(Technically a Brot3 but just try and stop me!) Raven, Murphy, and Emori!

Raven and Echo!

6. Who will get the happiest ending: 

Honestly a tough call, because I don’t know if anyone will truly get a “happy” ending. If I had to guess, Raven and Echo are actually pretty high up there. As long as they both survive the season, I think they’ll finally find some peace on the other side.

7. Which minor or new characters you want to see more of: 

Given that Jordan was a series regular last season, we saw a LOT less of him than I expected. I think he’s going to be an unexpected antagonist in the final season, which should be a lot of fun.

8. Who will eventually snap Jordan out of the funk we see him in, at the end of 6x13: 

Agh, I don’t know. He didn’t really get a chance to connect with any of his parents’ old friends, did he? The deepest connection he made was with Delilah, and she’s dead and gone - but I don’t think he believes that, I think he’s fully swallowed the Sanctum juice at this point. I could maybe see Raven snapping him out of it, or Bellamy. If it’s not them, it’ll definitely be some message from Marper somehow. Or, tragically, he won’t make it out of the funk. I’ll be really mad if that happens, given who his namesake was. The Jordan curse.

9. Who will be the first to tell Bellamy he can’t immediately run into the Anomaly after Octavia: 

Oddly enough, my money is on Hope. And I think Bellamy will immediately distrust her and try to go anyway, but Echo will ultimately stop him.

10. To reference Monty’s ‘do better’ mantra: 

I’d like to hear it from Murphy, to be honest, or Emori. I don’t think it was necessarily Clarke’s right to take so much ownership of that one, last season.

11. To say 'go float yourself’: 

I hope I hear it from the mouth of every single (former) Delinquent, lmao. It’d actually be hilarious if someone like Emori or Echo said it, though. Show how it’s left the Ark as slang and entered the general parlance. 

12. Random object or prop you would bring back for Season 7 if you could: 

Lexa’s throne/Clarke’s walking stick. I really fuckin’ loved that little callback, y’all. Clarke leaning on a piece of Lexa to make it through her time in isolation - ugh, murder me. Even if it isn’t a major plot point, I’d like to see it in the background somewhere. I don’t think it made it off Earth, though.

13. Book One storyline/reference you want to see back for Season 7: 

We’ve got 16 episodes, right? Bring back my funny fillers! I know they weren’t common, and weren’t 100% funny, but I’d love to see an episode like “Day Trip” again.

14. Dead character you would like mentioned: 

Lincoln, Anya, and Nyko. Pay respect to the OG grounders. Even if it’s just in passing.

15. How do you think Hope and Octavia know each other (from season 6): 

There’s been a lot of speculation about what this face was meant to imply -

Personally, when I look at Octavia’s face, I see an entire goddamn story. It’s a story I might fully be projecting, but I’m going with my gut until proven otherwise. Octavia helped raise Hope. When she sees her, she looks at her the way one might a kid they haven’t seen in a long time - there’s surprise, tenderness, pride. A moment of almost not recognizing her, then realization that’s she’s the a kid she loves, all-grown-up now, and that’s what makes her emotional.

My other theory is that Octavia didn’t remember Hope at all until she saw her, which is why she looks confused, then surprised, then happy. She’s suddenly remembering a person who is very important to her, who she had forgotten (likely due to the timey-wimey/doorway weirdness of the Anomaly) and all of her memories coming back is what causes this reaction.

I’m reasonably certain that there won’t be any romantic attachment between them. As much as I’d love it, I just don’t see the show making Octavia explicitly sapphic so late in the game. One of the consequences of trying to create a world where sexual orientation doesn’t matter is that the writers tend to beat us over the head with what type of person each character is attracted to - that’s why we see Clarke and Niylah together multiple times, and why Clarke and Cillian got together. The writers want us to remember, always, without subtlety, that Clarke likes both men and women.

We just haven’t seen any real clues that Octavia is attracted to women. As much as I’m pulling for it, it’s clear that the writers intend her relationship with Niylah to be platonic. 

So, given all of that, I just don’t think Hope and Octavia will be a romantic couple.

That only leaves us with so many options - either they were friends or like family. Given the weirdness of Diyoza going into the Anomaly pregnant and her fully grown daughter stepping out of it three days later, my money is on like family. I think Octavia and Diyoza raised Hope together in the Anomaly, somehow, and that’s how they know each other.

16. How do you think it all will end?: 

I think it will have a lot to do with the backdoor pilot, how much that retcons, and how committed they are to giving this show a satisfying ending when they’ve already creatively moved on to a new world.

If I pretend I don’t know about the backdoor pilot, I’m even less sure. I’m hoping for a satisyfing ending. Not a happy one. I don’t think that would be true to the series.

I’m betting either Clarke or Bellamy dies, and my money has been on Bellamy for awhile. Call it a gut feeling. 

I think almost everyone else will survive. We’ve lost a lot of people along the way in this show, and I think they’ll give us one Big Death of the season, so that death has the greatest impact. And since I’m betting on it being Bellamy, well... that means I’m pretty sure everyone else will make it.

There’s been a lot of little background info dropped about how impossible life on Sanctum is without constant maintenance, and most if not all of that maintenance came from the more-or-less free labor of the people serving the Primes. It’s impossible to know how things will go in terms of Emori and Murphy being Primes now, and how long that will last. Because of that, and because of the “doorway” to another world that the Anomaly allegedly is, I’m betting Sanctum is not our final destination. I’m thinking we’ll end up on Earth again, somehow.

I hope it ends with everyone who survives together, and happy, and with a plan for a sustainable society that doesn’t murder each other every two months.

Tagging: @boomheda​ @awesomenell65​ @captainwilldameron​ @blodkru​ @dylanobrienisbatman​ @teeandsnowflakes​ and anyone else who I normally tag, I’m honestly drawing a blank rn. The usual “please steal this” rules apply!

[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.