Edit: This isn’t to say the term ‘Normal Love’ to refer to het relationships is right ⚠️ terms like HL (het love) exist to combat the implications of the term NL.

If you don’t understand a term or what it means - don’t use it, if there’s an english widely used equivalent of the term that’s existed for longer and all sources show it means what you think it means ; use it instead.

I don’t mean to get into too much of the yume versus selfship discourse but imo I have just. never seen any Japanese person directly say anything about it or use it.

I feel like the answer should be kind of obvious considering the fact ‘yumeship’ is already using english and isn’t a fully Japanese term. I’ve also heard it was formed by English speaking audiences as well. As least terms like oshikatsu and gyaru are in full Japanese - thus there are a large number of Japanese people informing non Japanese people about what it is and blablabla. It made me realise maybe I shouldn’t be using the term.

Just use the term selfship, easily avoid being unintentionally orientalist, its the fully English term which fits its mostly English speaking audience. They’re used to mean fundamentally the same thing, they’re used interchangably and as synonyms. One isn’t more serious than the other. Majority of us don’t exactly even know the whole thing behind yumejoshi/danshi culture. If there’s anyone who’d like to add a first person perspective I will edit this post to add a link to your post - or add the info.

And any of the other mercs besides Demo, Pyro, Heavy, and Scout

Just because Engie has so much doctorates doesn’t mean he can’t be dumb in other areas

I want to see Engie fall for a tourist trap and get pickpocketed or something or Medic trip on air because he’s so focused on his work

I want to see Sniper miss a shot a few times

Chicken girl x Pauling,

The ships including Heavy's sisters at all, like bronislava x sniper,

Zhanna x Pauling,

saying this because I once met a group of fans who just hated Bloberta and overly defended Clay

more Scout as Spy's son talk guh but we're talking about how the other mercs handle it, mostly Heavy and Sniper in specific and then just talking about all of them in general

Has anyone else noticed how most of the mercs lines in dominating a Scout, whatever nickname they give him a lot of times somewhat highlights the fact he's younger in one way or another?

This isn't to say 'Scout's a kid' or anything like that, this is saying 'lets take a looks at what the others think of him' which 9 times out of 10 is far from the truth, especially if you look at Spy's voicelines about Scout which some people have taken seriously.

I personally think this has something to do with the implication that all the mercs knew about him being Spy's son early on, and it majorly changed their view of him and how they treat him. Which explains why Scout kind of struggles to be taken seriously by the other mercs because now the already existing age gap where they're all older him is emboldened by "Oh my gosh he's the Spy's son".

I think that Scout might know Spy is his father later on, but he doesn't know at all that the others knew as well.

I think I've mentioned this before but I feel like Heavy and Sniper care about that fact the most out of all of the mercs since they have a heavy emphasis on their family life and how its important to them. Heavy being the oldest of his sisters, he might have the same feelings when it comes to Scout in a way. It makes sense why he brings up Scout's Dad in the comics.

Sniper found it important to find his biological parents, so he wishes for Scout to know the truth in his situation, but instead of intervening and telling Scout, he advocated by confrontation Spy himself, which is implied to have happened multiple times before when we see it in the comics again. I could imagine this as one of the reasons why Sniper takes it upon himself to spend time with Scout at first due to a kind of similar struggle. Though, I think if Scout knew that this was partly why Sniper hangs out with him he wouldn't like it very much.

If there's one thing about Scout I can say for sure it's that he doesn't like people feeling sorry for him. I think it's why he works harder in response to disappointment instead of mopping round. It's also why he reacted a little more irritably at Heavy's 'Your father disappears often.'

I think Scout might suspect the others knew something was off at the time where they learned about Spy being his Dad, but ignored/ or brushed off the feeling.

I think Engie and Medic could care less about the whole thing, they're likely too focused on whatever they're doing to care about little things like that, though it's pretty clear they see him as a youngster.

Soldier doesn't really gaf but again considering he says 'kids nowadays' and also refers to him as a boy in voice lines in dominating a Scout he also probably sees him as a kid.

Demoman would be thoughtful about it, and probably respectfully acknowledge it, I think he cares about Scout as a teammate and as a friend. But on terms of the voice line thing I mentioned in the beginning, he also calls Scout 'tiny man', so I think he might've just seen Scout as kind of a kid from the beginning 😭

It isn't too surprising I see my friends who are only 2-3 years younger than me as little babies too sometimes