#unlike tf2 or half life or whatever else

[soldiertransgender]

i really really like spud! but i dont know what to do about it AUGH

[artoatsblog]

Half-Life/portal/tf2 crossover but it's a 2000's cartoon au

Gordon Freeman is our blank slate protagonist, he's 11 and just moved to town, He's bullied and doesn't have any friends until he finds out he has superpowers and it's his job to save his new town.

Chell is a goth girl who acts as (essentially) Gordon's moral compass.

Wheatley is a Mr crocker type teacher who hates Gordon and helps Caroline take over the town.

Caroline is the principal whose alternate supervillain form (named GLaDOS) main power is summoning "the all powerful nine".

They may or may not be based on the Mercs from tf2

Speeding sound (scout) is a black and white cartoon character put into the modern day, he dresses like a baseball player and in the first episode he appears in the main way of defeating him is not giving him any attention.

Powerful patriot (Soldier) is the most """Noble""" of the nine he has a skewed sense of justice and looks like a 6 ft raccoon wearing teared up army clothes he found in the dumpster probably.

Innocent inferno (Pyro) just wants to make everyone happy, granted this happiness comes from being hypnotized, but it's the thought that counts, he's/she's/they're a unicorn that looks like they're being taken over by dragon DNA, although only the unicorn parts can be seen when they're pals (victims) hypnotized to have a more "friendly" look.

Almighty alpha (demo) is a beach bum because that's the closest I can get to a PG alcoholic, He's also a wolf because... I needed another word that started with a, instead of being just connected to wizards he is one, he mostly uses his powers to hypnotize people to like him because he is very lonely and sad.

Dreaded dyr (Heavy) rarely comes to earth himself because he finds conquering humans child's Play, closest thing to a leader the nine have and looks like whatever a fat/jacked skeletor would look like.

Boastin' bronco (engineer) thinks that all humans are inferior to him, acts "real nice" to them but secretly hates every single one, he's a robot cowboy because why would you expect him to be anything else.

Medical malpractice (medic) is no angel despite his looks, similar to bronco he finds humans weak however unlike bronco he wants to improve humans by taking his favorite parts of the animal kingdom and forcing humans to be just a bit more like them, he has a human body but dove like wings, a eyeball for a head and a doctor's coat design to look like an angel's robe.

Sharp shooter (sniper) is a croc from the down under(world) doesn't talk to people and mainly stays up high to avoid being touched, He's literally just sniper but a crocodile in terms of appearance.

And finally, Shimmering shadow (spy) has the ability to possess anyone with the only downside being that the right arm is all under control of the original person he possessed, he is a pure black shadow in 2D.

[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.

[phoenixfire-thewizardgoddess]

so there we all were, 3v3 match bc life is ridiculous at 3am

i was medic to two spies that were grea the backstabbing

but when the second part of the match rolled around, everyone but myself and an opposing scout left...

i was like, ‘okay, chill, you take the payload to the end and i will dance bc i want to keep my points’

except this dick of a scout just couldn’t do it... mlasagna or however you spell it kept chasing me and shoving my dancing self around, then shooting my poor medic

and it was like??? why??? there’s no reason, this  is the most passive i can be dude??? 

and tbfair, i shot the fucker once when cornered, but nothing else... i could have destroyed them tho... but i just wanted to dance the payload track from one end of the map to the other...

so there’s the scout, riding the payload, occasionally firing off shots at me from up there on the pedestal, or hopping off to track me down and shoot me... the ultimate dick move, it’s like when new free-to-players start shooting up pre-match dance parties... 

but it was like, fine, whatevs, they’re three feet from the second last point... then they killed me for no reason...

i respawn, there’s 8mins on the clock, the alarm is sounding, the payload is almost there... i am somewhat pointing out in the chat that i’m getting tired of them being a dick bc i was letting them win what more did they want? (and they were scoffing about it as if i wasn’t)

...and they disconnect

welp, not giving up the points, tbh, fuck it...

i hop my medic ass off the ledge, onto the payload, and ride it majestically slowly back to-... the second last point, where it gets stuck.

i think the game would be more fun if the payloads could be forced back over the points and reclaimed by red? imagine that, it would be far more exhilarating to force the blus back to spawn or fight the reds to continue on...

but anyway, i mostly made smiley faces on buildings as i passed, with my crossbow... messed with my taunts (mannrobics and MEDIC!), and read the irl book i was reading while waiting to shuffle into that match... 

so that was interesting

-

not unlike the time i scored hella wella on a thundermountain map only to lose everyone before our turn on the payload (part 2)... so i rode it all the way to victory, and danced outside empty blu hq for like five minutes when i was switched to red...

-

good news was that i was engie in a match before that and this dude (he was drunk) was hella adamant that i was mvp bc of how well i’d placed my dispenser and other things during a gold rush map...

it was hard keeping anything up, bc of all the spies and demos tbh... like, wow, so many, very espionage, much sneaky sappy.

there was a badwater match before that that was just awful tbh.

they spawncamped us pretty hard but we got out... for like 0.003 secs before one of the sentries or the heavy or a soldier or a pyro killed us... so many... 

which was followed by a worse match at frontier... we couldn’t get out of spawn, heavies and pyros poked in the doors, soldiers blasted us to hell and back, there was like a 1:1 ratio of medics to other classes and there as always an uber - it was chaos. interesting fight tbh

the i sucked at everything at harvest the team was like half sniper vs a half soldeir team with a spy that would not quit, like damn, he was everywhere, i could make the decloaking sound my morning alarm and wake up ready to fight every day... he was everywhere

late night tf2 matches in aus...