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mercenarypark · 7 years

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medic hcs

Em made a big hc post for heavy a few days ago [here] and ive been meaning 2 finally do the same w/ medic bcause im gay

note: while i try to be brief about the details, this post is about a gay jewish man in Germany during wwii. to set aside any initial worries, no, he is never kept in the camps- as a jewish person myself it sickens me deep in my stomach to even think of that possibility. but there’s still mentions of n/zism and antisemitism, as one would expect.

also, a fair amount of the details of my medic hcs for his childhood are based on the german side of my family, primarily my grandfather and his father. while i still only know a little about my family history[tm], details like medic’s last name, how his family were able to lay low, etc, are based on the little bits and pieces ive heard from my grandmother #antisemitism #nazism #homophobia #transphobia #satanism #long post #text heavy #tf2 #gore text #medical abuse #malpractice #experimentation mention

-Medic was born roughly around 1925- he’s in his early 40s around when the game takes place- to the name [redacted] Reichstein. the Reichsteins were reviled in their little town as mad doctors, which was at least somewhat true- they certainly weren’t shy to experimentation on body parts and [willing] subjects. but a good part of the hatred for them stemmed from Good Old Antisemitism, focusing their hate on the fact that they were an openly jewish family and saying that that must be influencing their occasionally morally dubious behavior

-for the longest time, though, people tolerated them- they were the only doctors around, after all. but as time went on, the disgusted glances turned to hate speech, turned to violent threats, and eventually, to violent actions.

-medic’s father, who had long since been debating on moving, finally packed the family up[against his wife’s wishes], and within a night, their home and lab were deserted.

-his father could tell that something terrible was coming. he brought down an ultimatum- they would have to abandon everything jewish about themselves in order to survive. medic was young, still, and didn’t fully understand the severity of why his father seemed so adamant that they never mention holidays they once celebrated, why their old family photos were torn and burned, why his mother was constantly reprimanded when her Yiddish roots showed through her accent

-medic’s father pulled a few favors, and before they moved into a new city, the family name was changed to Reich- a more acceptable, more German name. Reichstein could raise eyebrows, lead to questioning about jewish roots, but there have always been many Reichs in Germany.

-that’s also when Medic got his birthname changed to Ludwig, and he and his mother had to fight like hell for that. his father argued that the last thing they needed was another target on their back- if anyone found out that his son “wasn’t really a boy”, then that would bring the entire family under scrutiny and into danger.

-ludwig refused to take no for an answer. ludwig had always been someone who would rather die than pretend that he’s something he’s not, and this was one of the first signs of that. while he didnt fully understand his connection to judaism, yet, and thus didnt fight to keep it at the time; he DID understand that he wasn’t a girl, and by God did he refuse to pretend otherwise.

-eventually his father relented, though he never once forgot and throughout medic’s childhood, he would bring up how risky it was, how medic was potentially endangering them all.

-to clarify: his father DID technically accept his son being transgender, but he wanted him to repress it, ignore it, force it down and never bring it up, much like their jewish heritage. ludwig refused, and his father never liked that. [when ludwig grew older and became both openly gay AND became a practicing jew again, his father nearly had a fucking heart attack]

-ludwig was heavily isolated for most of his childhood after they moved, partially due to the war’s beginning, partially because his father was afraid of his son giving something away. he was homeschooled by his mother, and rarely left the house, instead spending most of his time playing with the family’s cockatoo, or in his father’s operating room, learning human anatomy

-this isolation[alongside his autism, and veritable cocktail of mental illnesses] helped contribute to medic’s general inability to understand how to interact with people- he is oblivious at the best of times, has no concept of personal space, rarely catches social cues, and has Awful attachment issues. he is overly affectionate with anyone he is even vaguely friendly with, he tends to ramble and talk about uncomfortably personal things without realizing its a bad thing, etc, etc, he is a mess and a half

-he does understand bits and pieces- for example, if he’s physically affectionate with someone, they tend to tense up, and try to get away from him, which means he’s doing something wrong. the problem is that he doesnt understand WHAT he’s doing wrong, or why it’s wrong[answer: he’s covered in blood and bird shit and holding at least one[1] human liver]

-speaking of physical affection, the first time engineer affectionately puts a hand on medic’s shoulder medic fucking freaks out because aside from his parents, NO ONE. no one has ever initiated Friendly Physical Contact with him. usually because theyre freaked out by him in some way. he has no idea how to cope with the fact that someone might actually think of him in a friendly manner to the point of expressing that physically [aside from sexually, which is a whole other story and a half]

-but im getting ahead of myself. the first time ludwig killed a man was when he was 17. a nazi soldier paid an unexpected visit to the Reichs. ludwig, scared for his family’s sake and overwhelmed with a boiling hatred for nazis that had simmered for all of his childhood, killed the man

-his father reacted violently, ranting that now they were doomed, but his mother helped ludwig destroy the body and evidence. by the grace of God, no other nazi followed up that visit- the soldier hadn’t told anyone where he was going, and there had been no witnesses to his visit. and germany was so chaotic at the time, that eventually the man's death was attributed to a previously unnoticed casualty in battle

-that was the first man ludwig killed, and also the first of many, many nazis. he spent a good stretch of his adult life hunting down nazis who had gone under the radar, trying to hide their past ties while still keeping the same disgusting views.

-as ive mentioned, in medical school, ludwig not only became openly gay, but returned to his jewish roots. no longer under his father's roof, and now that the war was over, medic saw no reason to hide aspects of himself any longer. and God help everyone who felt otherwise. especially once the most violently hateful dissenters, began to mysteriously disappear.

-throughout his adult life medic has had Multiple short term, non-serious relationships [including more than his fair share of one night stands], and maybe two serious relationships prior to heavy. neither of those ended well, citing ludwigs mental Fuckery as a big issue. speaking of, his mental fuckery has helped him get into at least a couple abusive relationships, which i wont detail beyond "he survived and healed".

-while he is Jewish, he is the kind of jew who criticizes god every step of the way. at least part of this is due to having to survive during the Shoah.

-the Shoah definitely fucked his mind up. the constant fear for his parents and himself, and the burning hatred for the nazis and everyone who agreed with them or stood back and let them take over, and just overall a horrible sense of helplessness, definitely contributed to a lot of his future mental fuckery, and to his feelings about God. as an adult, and as a doctor, he took the feeling of helplessness he had as a teenager, and flipped it around dramatically- if god didnt help him then, he’d have to become better than god. he would bring retribution where others didnt, and bring power and life to those god would not help.

-he sold his soul to satan sometime around his mid-30s. [this is a sentence that sounds really fucking weird if u dont know much about tf2.] there are a few reasons behind that, but im only gonna talk about one:

-as i've said, medic spent a lot of time murdering nazis who had tried to go into hiding. that's difficult when theyre trying very, very hard to cover up their past. medic struck a deal with satan- in exchange for the names, aliases, and locations of ex-nazis in hiding, he would kill them and send them straight to hell. his soul was just to sweeten the deal.

-ludwig does a Lot of experiments on captured and dead nazis, especially the painful ones. the ol' "removing a patient's skeleton" story was of a nazi officer medic had caught, and medical licence or not, ludwig would do it again in an instant

-medic's flock of homing pigeons, stolen from a wedding van, are like family to him. the original, stolen generation had more pretentious names, as named by their previous owner- mostly well known scientists and philosophers[Archimedes, Newton, Nietzsche, etc]. most of the pigeons he named himself have biblical, jewish names [Mordecai, Elijah, Rebecca, etc]

-ludwig is absolutely never prim, proper, or orderly. if he is wearing a coat that DOESNT have blood and bird shit on it, wait 5 minutes and check again

-he has a tendency to hyperfocus on something and forget things like "humans need food and water to live". heavy usually helps him remember

-medic snores. loudly. and it sounds fucking awful. heavy is, sadly, a very light sleeper. it takes a loooong time for him to finally be able to sleep through medic's snoring, and it winds up being one of the only things he actually CAN sleep through. god help you if you step on a creaky board halfway down the hall, though, because heavy will wake up in an Instant

-if tf2 were in modern times, ludwig's music taste would include a Lot of kesha, klezmer music, black metal, and so on. its varied, is what im saying

-medic, pyro, and soldier all get along surprisingly well together, because they all have a case of "same brain? same brain!", all of them have issues dealing with other people and have problems with processing/understanding things, have trouble w/ psychotic episodes and the like, overall their minds are all wired oddly but somehow they can understand /each other/

-scout accidentally becomes medic's unofficial adopted daughter and thats a whole post and a half on its own. suffice to say medic would do anything for her

-engie, demo, and medic are all Science Gays

-medic also does his best to help demo with his Absolutely Massive Amounts of Trauma and Self Loathing, by at least being a supportive shoulder to lean on when demo tries to drink himself unconscious to forget it all. hes absolutely terrible most of the time at actually saying anything to help, but he can be a good presence, and he has birds. birds help anything

-he has a very casual fling going with spy, since early on in their time at the base. its usually in a state of "on-again off-again", with the latter usually having something to do with how spy acts with scout.

-obviously theres a lot i could say about heavy and medic's relationship, but to put it briefly- theres a loooong time where both of them are "i dont understand social interaction" gays.

-medic is the "i literally dont understand how to act around people im attracted to or that me being extremely overaffectionate around you is due to the fact that im falling in love with you, i dont catch your vague hints towards the fact that you feel the same about me because you literally need to hit me over the head with something in order to get me to catch onto it" gay

-heavy is the "i have spent so many years repressing so much of myself and keeping quiet and not drawing attention to myself, that i physically cannot bring myself to be up front about the fact that im attracted to you. im also afraid of misintepreting signals and i am instead going to assume your over-affectionate attitude is platonic and i am misreading things" gay

-eventually they figure things out and its good and soft and gay

ok its 3 AM and ive been writing on this for at least an hour and a half and i told Em i would go to bed by now dhgfkhhj

#captain's log #ask to tag /#reblog if u want idc /#im tired hfglghjkhjh #tf2 posts

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