∙. ❛ Don’t Drift Too Far, They Said

If you’re trans, you may need to put in more effort to convince Engie’s family about you, at least to a point of acceptance.

Fred wouldn’t understand at first. He grew up in a conservative, southern household during the early 1900’s, mind you. He was used to being surrounded by people who shared the same values and beliefs. All this to say he’s never actually been around a trans person before, at least knowingly.

TFC Engie, usually blunt about his opinions, would be extra dodgy with the way he talks to you two. It’s clear that he doesn’t approve.

Dell would be appalled of course, but wouldn’t always stand up for you. Though he loves you to death regardless of your gender, he’s deathly afraid of letting down his family.

I hope your someone who’s strong enough to take the heat, because you’ll have to put up with it for a while until they can all come to their senses.

On the bright side, Engie will always be there to comfort you if your upset. He’ll reassure you that his opinion hasn’t wavered because of his dad. He’ll pull you into his arms and call you the most handsomest man that’s ever walked the damn planet. He hates seeing you upset over this.

Best case scenario, Fred’s opinion of you will change the more he gets to know you, and the rest of the family will follow suit. Once you’ve gained their respect, your identity won’t matter to them, and they’ll refer to you the correct way.

Fred is a family man with a nurturing side. Once he starts to see you as part of his family, he’ll treat you as his own child. He’ll take you on excursions, just the two of you, to spend some time together.

Although it would take a really long time for him to accept you, and an eternity to start to see you as more than an asset to the family, he’ll gain more insight from your conversations. He’ll start to empathize with your experiences, and his undying loyalty to his family will eventually extend to you too.

Fred’s demeanor towards you will be noticeably more relaxed and sincere, he’ll stop making subtle comments about his doubt. He’ll call you “son” and ask you to help around the workshop. Maybe one day he’ll even grow to love you as a family member.

Anyone who wants to marry into the Conagher family will have to gain their approval first. No matter your gender, this will be a long and grueling process. They’ll be watching your every move, judging you behind closed doors.

They want you to prove your worth. If you can’t handle the pressure, then you can kiss their blessings goodbye. You’ll have to adapt to a life of lies, hard work, and crime. They all may put up a charming, hospitable front, sure, but only to conceal their secrets.

If this proves too difficult for you, then Dell will gladly take you away from that environment. He understands completely, although you’ll probably still be forced to see the family sometimes. Dell is more chained to them than he cares to admit. It would be very hard to escape his mercenary family.

If he finds a way however, he wouldn’t mind running away and starting a new kind of life with you. Dell only wants to see you happy.

He strikes me as the kind of person who acts differently depending on who’s around, which you wouldn’t typically expect from someone as reckless and defiant as he is.

In front of acquaintances or strangers, he sort of puts up an act. He’s all polite but straightforward, only really saying anything when prompted, clearly out of distrust. If you prove that your undeserving of his courtesy, he won’t take shit from you.

He’s always alert when meeting someone new, treating them as potential adversaries. He doesn’t want to divulge information that can be used against him, and he also feels like he can’t be himself around people he barely knows.

That’s not to say he isn’t a sociable person, however. Greg’s very outgoing when you get to know him, and his true personality really starts to shine through the more time you spend with him. As long as you don’t do anything to betray his trust, you’ll get along just fine.

In his line of work you can never be too careful, a sentiment that is always plaguing the back of his mind. He borders the line between wanting to see the good in other people, and wanting to close himself off from everyone.

This pretty much goes without saying, but Greg loves blowing stuff up. Anything he can destroy within reason, he will. It’s his way of dealing with pent up frustration and anger, a stress relieving activity if you will. He’s really into demolition derbies.

As his explosives don’t require accuracy to be effective, his aim is decent at best.

He’s adventurous in most of his pursuits, willing to try anything at least once. He isn’t the type to think rationally before he does something, jumping into action on a whim.

This, combined with the fact that he is a difficult person to read, makes him dangerously unpredictable.

Greg is someone who doesn’t like to be tied down by a set of restrictions, forced to abide by the rules, though he’s good at hiding his disdain.

I imagine he had a very rocky childhood, always moving from place to place, his parents absent for the most part. His upbringing did a number on him.

Born in New Haven, Connecticut. He has a general American accent, with a slight New York influence as a result of his family moving around up North.

His previous job was at a construction company, helping demolish old buildings and stuff, but that quickly grew old for him. His mercenary career, on the other hand, gave him the satisfaction and thrill he so desperately craved.

He’s definitely the type of guy who loves to party. Staying up late at night, playing drinking games with his friends while the music blares from the radio. Completely his vibe.

He views his teammates as his friends, though he knows that for the most part it’s a one-sided sentiment.

He really likes spicy food. Puts hot sauce on everything.

Has a very good sense of humor without even meaning to. He could say something he’s wholeheartedly serious about, and for some reason it sets off a chain reaction of chuckles from other people, which makes him laugh too. His laughter is incredibly contagious.

He almost always has a cheeky smile on his face. Whether or not it is genuine is hard to tell at times.

To start off, this guy is very different than TF2 Medic, despite the possibility of them being related. The only similarity between the two is their occasional streaks of arrogance.

Milo doesn’t let anyone tell him how to do his job. On top of that, he has difficulty admitting when he’s wrong. He’s not openly aggressive about it, like you would imagine C.Heavy would be. He’s more so the fuming-on-the-inside, too-stubborn-to-say you-were-right-all-along kind of guy.

He rarely ever lets his frustration show. He prides himself in being calm and collected, especially when dealing with his team.

He has a hard time letting his guard down and expressing genuine emotions around people, which makes him come across as distant and unfriendly. It takes him a very long time to warm up to somebody. 

Past his cold exterior and stiff demeanor is a man who truly cares about the people he assists, though it may be hard to tell at first glance. He holds a level of empathy lost on many of the other mercenaries.

Militaristic and strait-laced, he has his own moral code he abides by and does his job as a combat medic effectively.

He is very averse to unnecessarily risking the lives of his teammates, or anybody for that matter, unlike his TF2 counterpart. To some degree, he values human life. He has never experimented on his coworkers. Milo has a personal obligation to help people, whereas Ludwig only does so to benefit his own twisted interests.

Cautious, disciplined. He’s skilled in fighting and quick on his feet, second fastest out of the team behind TFC Scout.

He’s originally from Germany, but came to the United States for his mercenary job in the 1930’s.

Due to aggression and anti-German sentiments in the U.S. after World War 1, Milo made an effort to hide his origins. (It’s debatable whether the Team Fortress universe overlaps with real world history in this way, but I digress.)

His English is almost perfect, but there are still hints of an accent in some of his pronunciation, vague enough to brush off. Sometimes he struggles to translate a word from one language to the next, leaving the gears in his head turning.

With the help of his medkit, Milo is able to infect the enemy team with a contagious virus that slowly drains health. As he doesn’t strike me as the mad scientist type of person, he probably obtains the weaponized virus from Mann Co., and is the only person from his team that has the cure.

He’s pretty much always suited up, as his mask helps prevent him from getting infected.

He prefers to keep his distance from his teammates outside of matches. He’s not close to anyone in particular, but I can see him spending some time with Fred Conagher in his workshop on rare occasions. The others personalities don’t mesh well with his.

Milo takes on sort of a leadership role within in the team without being front and center. They all turn to him for their injuries, inevitable to his scrutiny. He has no problem keeping them in check and calling them out on their bluffs, yet his words usually fall on deaf ears.

He has many subconscious habits stemming primarily from his job, such as fidgeting with his mask, cracking his knuckles, and addressing people by sir/ma’am/comrade.

He always has things planned out in advance. Packs med kits days before a match, double checks his weapons, thinks up of strategies long before combat. Basically one of those people that has an emergency plan for an emergency plan. And if all else fails, then he says fuck it.

Though the classic mercenaries respect him for the work that he does, they don’t respect him as an individual. They see him as more of an advantage to their team if anything.

They only truly realize his worth after he decides to leave and they are forced to hire Ludwig.

Pertaining to the comics, I believe he probably left of his own volition, not wanting to be involved with the classic mercenaries plans. I like the idea that he’s working with the RED TF2 Engie behind the scenes, as neither of them make an appearance in the comics.

Oh, you poor, poor soul. How did you even get in this situation?

Even as a yandere, the hero would still display an amiable and determined attitude, always ready to help, kind to people who deserve it.

It’s only when you peel back those layers and pay close attention do his actions start to become uncomfortable.

You’ll notice that he’s sticking around more often, always conveniently around the corner to greet you with a smile.

He’ll spend less time with his brother and the princess and instead focus all his attention on you. He wants to know everything about you.

What’s your favorite color? Favorite food? Where are you from? It drives him crazy when he doesn’t know the answers. It keeps him up at night.

You might brush him off as just being friendly, it’s hard to tell at first. He only breaks down when your not around.

He’ll take your guys’s relationship slow, building trust the more you hang out. He’ll bring you along on his adventures, visiting places across the world, although it will always be just the two of you.

He’ll get you whatever you want within reason, he has plenty of coins to spend. He wants to see his S/O happy, he really does!

He’ll rush to your aide whenever you need it, he’ll put your needs above all else. He’ll protect you. You’ve become the most important thing in his life and he won’t stand to see you get hurt!

Because his minor tendencies get suppressed early on in your relationship, you might find yourself genuinely falling for him. After a while though, you may see his companionship grow to be oppressive.

I don’t think he’s a very violent yandere, as it’s just not in his nature to hurt people he cares about. I don’t think he would ever resort to kidnapping, either. For one, he would never stoop as low as Bowser, and two, it would be hard to keep you captive at his place, as he shares a house with his brother.

That’s not to say he won’t resort to other means to keep you in his grasp.

He will make you feel bad for turning away from him, and he’ll even drag other people into it if he has to, all done in a way so subtlety that you start to question overtime whether your the problem.

He’ll definitely gaslight you. He’ll nonverbally communicate to you that the little things he does to make you upset had good intentions behind them. He’ll push aside the reasons why your upset and fail to address the issue, and offer physical comfort instead. Or he’ll silently leave and you won’t see him for a while. He’ll make you feel bad, like you were in the wrong for treating him poorly, and you’ll succumb to his wishes with an apology.

I personally headcanon that he can’t really speak, like in the RPG games. This works well in his favor. He communicates through hand signals, which focuses more attention on him when he has something to tell. Plus, he can’t really say anything stupid when he can’t talk at all.

You might think he’s only trying to talk to you more because other people struggle to understand his nonverbal communication, which translates into pity. He’ll make you feel guilty for walking away from him, when he punishes you by doing the same.

Since he’s the hero of the Mushroom Kingdom, everybody assumes he means well with his actions, and you probably believe it to. He uses his status to his advantage and guilt trips you into thinking his actions were only out of concern for your safety.

He’s a fairly tame yandere, and will allow you to maintain friendships with people he trusts, but if anybody dares to get close…

He certainly knows how to play the hero. It’s his job, after all. Anybody who tries to get in the way of his obsession will be promptly eliminated, and the good-willed plumber will come up with any excuse to justify his actions. The people won’t question him, in fact, they might even commend him for getting rid of such an evil person!

Being his S/O would begin to feel really isolating, and you’ll eventually start to question your own sanity. You’ll be stuck in a world where nobody would believe you if you tried to expose him for what he really was.

Just give up already, Y/N. Respawning won’t save you.