Appreciation for my favorite men from Overwatch. Might post headcanons/imagines/reader-inserts, but don't expect regularity with that. I am a Soldier 76 stan first and a human second. Still under construction. (Blog owner is 25)
Thinking about the fact that Jack has been trying for years to get Reaper to leave Talon and all he got for it was bullets in the back, and then Reaper left Talon offscreen because of a management shake-up. Somebody play the Curb Your Enthusiasm music.
Hi my name is Gabriel Dark'ness Dementia Reaper Reyes and I have a scary costume with a skull mask and two shotguns and hot red eyes like limpid lava and a lot of people tell me I look like the Grim Reaper (AN: if u don't know who he is get da hell out of here!) I'm not related to him but I wish I was because he's a major fucking hottie. I'm a goth (in case you couldn't tell) and I wear mostly black. I love Hot Topic and get all of my clothes from there. For example today I was wearing a long black cloak and big loud boots. I was walking outside Talon's base. It was snowing and raining so there was no sun, which I was very happy about. A lot of Overwatch agents stared at me. I put up my middle finger at them.
These thoughts are slightly unserious, but here you go.
After all of the emphasis on Reaper's eventual journey to Talon, him leaving off-screen is very funny
This would be suchhhhhh a good time for a Jack and Reaper meetup and consolation and slow burn romance but I have a feeling that Blizzard isn't brave enough to do that for me
On that note, please give me the 'Sombra pushes Jack (and Illari if she's still with him) into saving Sigma' arc that we deserve. Thanks.
Even though it is a little ridiculous that it happened off-screen, I do think the 'Reaper, Sombra, and Widow are on the run' is a strong plot development that could be taken a lot of really interesting places.
I'm excited to see more content for Tracer, Brig, Winston, Reinhardt, Genji, Cassidy, and especially Baptiste soon. I really like Baptiste. Every time he shows up, it brings me a little joy. (I really am the type of person who loves the Good Guy characters. I'm not good at being edgy.)
Speaking of that, I'd love to see the interactions between the defected Talon members and Baptiste, and hear how he feels about all of this, including the fact that Mauga stayed.
I love that Moira is such a menace for no reason. She's so mean to everyone. I have no idea what her deal is, but it's really fun.
This is kind of a nitpick, but I thought it was really stupid in the cinematic that Sombra was the one who was worried about Vendetta messing things up in Talon. She actively betrays Talon like every 5 minutes. I don't believe that she cares. Also, if Sombra was keeping watch on Vendetta, how did she ambush so many of the council members? It doesn't make any sense.
I'm sorry but Freja is such a flop. Not much else to say about that.
I'm of two minds about Vendetta. I like that we're getting story progression, and that a new hero is actually significant to the plot, but I don't like how they nerfed every other villain so much for her to get into power quickly. I get why they did it, but it's clunky writing.
Ultimately though, I'm glad that we've breathed life back into the story, and I'll be watching where it goes next. Needs more Jack tho
Jack is honestly a better man than me, because if I saw my love interest walking around in that Reaper mask and costume, I'd be like "absolutely not. There is way too much going on here. I cannot fix you"
The way Jack actively tries to convince himself to be uncaring but physically can't stop himself from trying to help anytime he sees someone struggling always gets me. He's so bad at being edgy. Jack Morrison you are so loved
Thoughts on the new Jack story? I loved the ending, it was so touching.
Now that Jack let go of the memory of Vincent, who among the Overwatch cast do you see as potential love interests for him?
It was great. I loved it dearly. It's what I've wanted for so long, to the point that it honestly feels too good to be true. Especially because I've always wanted a recovery arc for Jack, so this has me stoked.
Gabriel is the most obvious answer. Besides that, Reinhardt would be a really good one, too. I also have a soft spot for the concept of him with Baptiste, although the age difference is offputting to some people. (I really don't want to get into age gap discourse, so I'll leave it at that)
Honestly, though, I'm open to a lot of possibilities, if it's developed properly. We'll see what the future holds.
Oh my god, guys, Jack gayness mention in-game!! WE ARE SO BACK
(thanks to creo.ow on tiktok for the video!)
Transcript:
Baptiste: So, has anyone captured the heart of Commander Morrison?
Soldier 76: There was someone, once. But I haven't seen him (!!!) in a long time.
Baptiste: Ah. Sorry to bring up painful memories.
Soldier 76: These days, that's all I've got.
Long Post: How Reaper76 was fumbled and Jack has been done so dirty, and why I still care
Alright, so I've alluded to this so many times by now, and I feel like I should finally fully explain why I'm so disappointed with how Blizzard has written Jack and Gabriel's relationship for years now, as someone who's been into the ship for a long time (and still loves it, for the record; I'll always be in the trenches for Reaper76), especially because of how badly Jack has been treated by the narrative, and why I even care so much. To make this complete, I'll be re-iterating some things I've said in the past.
(Yes, I'm going to talk about homophobia here. Fair warning.)
Like I've said before, as time has gone on, I've become more sure that Jack doesn't really hate Gabriel, and that his feelings about him are more complicated than just raw anger.
Lucky Man makes this especially clear: you can see that Jack is tormented by guilt the entire time. He directs a lot of insults at himself, but not really any at Reyes, and this is after Reaper shot him.
And Jack never even believed that Reyes caused the explosion. The phrase 'didn't feel right' implies to me that he didn't want to believe that.
Also, remember that Jack basically ruined his own reputation through defending Gabe.
Now, let's look at the other side. In Code of Violence (I promise this won't be another rant about that story, this is just one detail), Reyes seems pretty open to believing bad things about Overwatch.
And he apparently blames Jack for his 'Reaper' condition, which doesn't even really make sense?
Also, remember that Reaper shot Jack:
My point here isn't to roast Gabe. This isn't a "Your Fave Is Problematic: Reaper" post. It's to show that this rivalry is pretty unbalanced. Gabe will see the worst in Jack with no hesitation, while Jack is very forgiving (probably too forgiving) and puts himself on the line for him plenty of times.
So, I actually love this as character development for Jack. It's great. Even though he's being so unreasonable, I do feel for the guy. He's someone that's been cratered by his own martyr complex. He can never live up to the standards he's set for himself, but can't let them go, either. And you can really feel just how much he genuinely cared for Gabe, even with all of his mistakes and the fallout.
But...all of this paints a pretty nasty picture of their relationship, right? It's really hard not to read this as Gabe taking advantage of Jack's trust and forgiveness over and over for the entire time they know each other, then discarding him.
And I won't lie, it really bothers me that the canon gay man (and for the record, Jack was the only queer man on the cast for over 3 years, including when Code of Violence was released) shows so much loyalty and effort to a man that treats him badly and is obsessed with his idealized ex-wife. We've seen this story 1000 times. Desperate, lonely gay man chases apparently-straight best friend that doesn't care about him. It's a homophobic trope. No, Jack didn't literally say the word 'love', but the similarity is pretty obvious. Even if I was completely wrong about his motives and Jack just wanted Reaper dead, it would still be a lonely gay man obsessed with his male best friend that is occupied with a woman. There's no getting around it.
Also, remember the fact that Jack canonically didn't have a lot of personal connections in his life, including romantic ones:
How do you ignore the looming image of "lonely and sad gay man is taken advantage of because he's so desperate for love"?
It also makes me really mad how the narrative seems to implicitly agree that Jack should suffer and grovel for forgiveness. People show sympathy for Reaper (including Angela's "I'm not giving up on you, Reyes"), but Jack gets trashed by people in-universe all the time. According to this narrative, Jack is right to blame himself and needs to make amends, and Reaper was just a victim of circumstance. I already wouldn't like that, but the fact that they do it to a gay man specifically just makes it so much worse. Also, Jack clearly suffers from survivor's guilt and PTSD, and this implicitly sends the message that his survivor's guilt is correct and he should feel bad about living, which I also hate.
That's the real issue for me. If Gabe was a bad guy, or the relationship is toxic, that's not inherently bad (in a narrative sense). But both the in-story characters and the narrative itself condemn Jack, and I think that sends a really bad message. I'm just really not cool with yet another story of a gay man suffering over and over and everyone else harshly judging them.
That's what happens when you're a Tragic Gay, I guess.
It's probably still possible to salvage the writing of this relationship. I would love it if they did. But it feels clear to me that Blizzard isn't interested in doing that. I don't have faith in them anymore. They've shown me that they'd rather make a homophobic narrative than write a gay relationship, at least in this franchise.
The fact that we've known Reaper has a son for 3 years and he still hasn't gotten a name has gotten so absurd that it's become funny to me. I kind of want them to start leaning into it.
His son appears in a cinematic, and when someone asks him for his name, a truck zooms by and the audience doesn't hear what he says. He writes his name on a piece of paper that gets blown away by the wind. Sombra pulls up his file on her computer, and it crashes, and the scene ends right before she finishes fixing it
If you want an example of why I think the "straight/mf relationships are stigmatized in fandom" complaint is so ridiculous: a lot of Reaper76 art gets at least one annoying comment along the lines of "Reaper had a wife lol", but Ana had a husband that she was still married to when she faked her death, and I've never seen a single person on Earth complain about that when she's shipped with Reinhardt.
You might notice one specific difference between the two pairings...
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