#overwatch meta

[jay-the-angst-king]

Hero Info Pages Part 2

Something I’ve always found interesting are the hero info pages for Overwatch characters. There’s a lot of details in these clips that either set up a trend that follows the hero’s character, a trend about the overarching struggles in Overwatch, or seemingly have no foundation in the lore but most certainly can be entertaining to think about how it could fit in the lore. 

Part 1 can be found here.

Soldier is very straight forward, and we can see that in his Ultimate.

Tac Visor shows Soldier attacking Reaper first, then Widowmaker, then Hanzo. What I take from this is that Soldier prioritizes Talon above other criminals, and prioritizes Reaper above other members of Talon. I actually really like the composition of Reaper in front, Widow just outside of the circle, and Hanzo way off to the side, because this composition is half of why the clip is important.

For both the primary fire and the Helix Rockets, Reaper is the target. Soldier’s entire story and motivation is hunting Reaper down.

The clip for Soldier’s Biotic Field also confirms that he still has a sense of helping others and allies as he heals Tracer, Winston, and McCree. The location for all the clips is Dorado, which refers back to his cinematic, Hero, where he helped the little girl. Both of these things reinforces that Soldier is still a hero at heart even if he’s a “man on a mission” and that mission is Reyes.

Mercy’s hero info page is incomplete. That’s something to note. The clips are old clips and don’t change with updates to the game. Some abilities are not visually shown how they work. You just get a description and that’s it. For Mercy, there are no clips for her Ultimate Valkyrie, or her Resurrect ability.

With that in mind, there are still clips for her staff, blaster, and Guardian Angel which showcase other heroes.

Mercy uses Guardian Angel to fly up to Tracer, and she heals Tracer with her Caduceus Staff. When she uses left click, Tracer is attacking Reinhardt.

Now, I don’t particularly think that Angela has anything against Rein. I think this can be explained away as training or testing out new equipment because they are on Gibraltar.

However, I think that showing Roadhog rather than Reinhardt would have fit better for these clips considering that Mercy uses her Caduceus Blaster to shoot down Junkrat, a criminal.

Echo is the newest character in the game, and her hero info shows some interesting things.

Firstly, her Tri-Shot primary fire shows her attacking Tracer and Reaper. I can’t explain this as training since it’s in the same clip. Echo is not training with Reaper anytime soon.

So why is Echo attacking Tracer in this clip? Maybe it’s to show that Echo can lean one way or another depending on how she grows as a character. She is a constantly learning AI program. It can also be yet another metaphor for AI programs going rogue. Mina Liao, the scientist who made Echo, infused some of herself into Echo’s creation. Dr. Liao was also the one who created the omnics in the first place, and the omnics had gone rogue after years of mistreatment which started the Omnic Crisis.

Echo attacking both Tracer and Reaper could hint at more omnic uprising, or just another memory of the first Omnic Crisis and subsequent Omnic Uprising as seen in King’s Row.

Her Ultimate Duplicate is fascinating. From left to right, Echo is against Sigma, Doomfist, Tracer, Moira, and Roadhog.

Echo Duplicates Tracer, then shoots Roadhog for ult charge, and sticks Tracer to kill the other four. I’m not about to say that Echo dislikes Tracer. That’s just not what’s up here. Tracer is being used here because the community is very comfortable with Tracer, and Echo was new. They wanted to display this ult with someone they knew the community would understand.

That being said… What could this mean?

I think that we could read this clip as Echo accidentally killing or hurting a teammate. That would be awful and sad, but better than the second idea that Echo would sacrifice a teammate just to catch the criminals.

Her Sticky Bombs kill Sombra and Hanzo, and her Focusing Beam finishes Roadhog. This all takes place on Gibraltar, which I think helps accentuate that she’s new and learning. Route 66, where we first met her in the Reunion Cinematic, would have been a nice map to showcase her abilities, too, but they choose Gibraltar, probably to reinforce the fact that she is apart of the new Overwatch team thanks to the Recall.

Hey, Tracer, why are you shooting Zenyatta?

There’s two reasons I can place for Zenyatta being Tracer’s opponent when showcasing Tracer’s abilities. The first is the overarching theme of omnics versus humans, and that theme really permeates when shown repeatedly on King’s Row where we know Mondatta was assassinated and an Omnic Uprising occurred.

Her Ultimate only calls back to the Mondatta assassination as Tracer attaches a Pulse Bomb to Zenyatta, and it kills Widowmaker and Hanzo as well.

Widowmaker and Hanzo, you say? Widowmaker, the one who killed Mondatta, and Hanzo, another known sniper and assassin?

It seems to me that these clips are not meant to show Tracer’s allegiances, but more to continue the themes we see throughout Overwatch. These clips only hammer home the stories we already knew. A sniper killed Mondatta, a prominent speaker and activist, and King’s Row is home to omnic and human tensions.

Lucio has a whole info page about helping Overwatch, who will become his new friends. To start, Lucio uses Sound Barrier to gives shields to Tracer and Soldier.

There’s not much to say about that on its own, so let’s continue on.

Lucio uses both Crossfade and Amp It Up to heal and speed up Tracer, but he uses his Sonic Amplifier and Soundwave against Winston.

I think this is Lucio showing the Overwatch team his gear and how he can be helpful on missions with them. That would explain the full Overwatch hero cast in his clips. Lucio himself is a hero of his hometown, and we know with the upcoming Overwatch 2 that Lucio and the recalled team are buddies and working together. It makes sense that Lucio would take some time to show his new friends how his gear works.

Reinhardt is, thankfully, relatively quick to talk about.

His primary target in his clips? It’s Hanzo. Hanzo is a mercenary, an assassin, a criminal, but he’s not apart of Talon. The reason I say this is because Reinhardt is specifically attacking a criminal with no interest in Talon because Reinhardt was still working after leaving Overwatch. His work switched from fighting rogue AI and Talon to fighting regular criminals like Hanzo.

That’s doesn’t mean that he’s not going to attack Talon.

Reinhardt uses his Earth Shatter to stun Reaper, Hanzo, and Widowmaker, so he obviously will still attack Talon even if he’s no longer an Overwatch member.

Hardest thing to explain in these clips is the setting of King’s Row. Really, I think the only reason Reinhardt wasn’t placed on, say, Eichenwalde, was because Eichenwalde came out after the game’s release. So there just wasn’t a better map for Reinhardt at the time. Still, King’s Row isn’t a bad place considering that there was an omnic uprising there and Reinhardt was one of the heroes who went on that mission.

Ana... I love you, Ana, but what’s happening here? Ana’s clips are buck wild. I don’t know where to begin. I’ll add a Read More, since this is so long already.

I guess we start with Biotic Rifle. Firstly, she heals Reinhardt, and then she kills Soldier. When zoomed in, she heals Tracer, and only shoots Pharah twice, not enough to kill.

What a lot to unpack.

I think this shows that she’s good friends with Reinhardt, just as they have been for years. She is the only one of Reinhardt’s friends to apologize to him about faking her death after all. Attacking Soldier and killing him could be a sign that Ana and Soldier, though friends, do not share the same thoughts about something. My guess is that Ana thinks Soldier’s mission is too much for him, that she thinks he needs to stop before he gets himself killed. That does align with more recent releases where Ana is helping him but also checking him when Solder pushes too hard. Healing Tracer seems obvious since Ana is still a healer and Tracer is a well respected hero, but attacking Pharah is interesting. I think Ana attacking her daughter is actually a figurative way of saying that the two don’t get along. Ana doesn’t kill Pharah, just injures her, and I think this is there to show their strained relationship even though Ana still cherishes her daughter.

Much of everything after this is speculation. Like I said, Ana’s clips are wild.

Ana sleeps Zarya. Perhaps this is to show that Ana, an old soldier, is tired herself. I think targeting a younger soldier like Zarya implies that Ana thinks the fighting and wars are exhausting. Maybe this is Ana not so subtly telling the younger soldier that they need to take care of themselves, too, much like she gets on Soldier about him talking care of himself.

The Biotic Grenade is wild. She smashes the grenade at Lucio, Winston, and Roadhog to show the healing properties, but then uses it offensively against D.Va to show that Mercy can’t heal the mech. This entire clip has thrown me for a loop. I can’t particularly explain it.

Perhaps she heals Roadhog because Roadie was once a soldier in ALF, and she can not blame him or others like him who attacked omnics to defend themselves back in the day. Perhaps they might have met back then, which I think would have been interesting to explore. But then why hinder D.Va’s healing? Maybe she thinks D.Va, a 19 year old, shouldn’t be fighting on the front lines. Ana views her as a child, just like Soldier and Reaper do, and thinks that Hana shouldn’t have to fight wars for adults.

I think Mercy being the one healing D.Va is a reference to Mercy disliking how Ana uses Mercy’s research in a weapon like the Biotic Rifle. This puts them at odds with one another. On the other side, Lucio is likely there to show the amplified healing from the grenade, but maybe this also shows that Ana respects Lucio as a hero. Finally, Winston was an old friend.

Lastly, her Ultimate, Nano Boost. She Boosts Reinhardt, and Reinhardt kills McCree, Zenyatta, Tracer, and Soldier.

Ana deserves her own post at this point. Why are they attacking these four people? Ana just healed Tracer with her rifle not too long ago.  For this bizarre clip, I have no reasoning, so lets see what this COULD mean.

I could explain this as Overwatch tearing itself apart. In this case, four of the five people in this fight are Overwatch members, and that only leaves Zenyatta. Maybe killing Zenyatta here is the representation of harmony and diplomacy being broken.

Perhaps this is more about Ana and Rein than it is about the opponents. Maybe Ana’s faked death made Rein incredibly upset. Maybe this clip represents Rein never letting it go. Maybe Rein, for a while, blamed Overwatch (represented by Soldier and Tracer) and Blackwatch (represented by McCree) for her death. Again, Zen’s death would represent a lack of harmony.

Overall, these are my thoughts on this set of characters. There are still over half of the cast left, and I think the remaining Talon members are next.

[sorin-sunchild]

So I'm trying to figure out where an omnic sees from and well, Luna has no spots at all and Maximilien glows from the slits as if something is back there and most omnics have some kind of line on their face, however small so they see from there, right?

Some Like It Bot poster:

NVM

[rooksandravens]

Oh shit. It just occurred to me that Moira is likely responsible for Sigma's treatment if she was still with Talon while he was there.

[owldesk]

pro gamers absolutely weren’t the military’s first choice to pilot their elite MEKAs right?? Right??? 

like, Korea’s incredibly expensive, state of the art drone system is taken down by the omnic which it was supposed to stop bc the omnic has started adapting. so they immediately need some sort of protection. but after some testing, the military decides that drones are no longer feasible, and the former drones are going to need pilots. there’s no way that they went to some teenage esports pros and were like “please help us”

(side note: i believe the MEKA that are used now are the same MEKA that were once drones that were modified. why scrap very expensive equipment just bc they don’t work in the intended way? the better idea would be modification. that would also explain why the MEKA pilot set up is so stupid, bc pilots weren’t meant to be there in the first place)

but anyways, the military has modified the MEKA, and now they need pilots. so, of course, they go to the professionals: the pilots. but the thing is, in order to compare to the drones, they need incredible hand-eye coordination and reflexes. so while the pilots are good, they’re not good enough. poor pilots. who do they turn to now? answer: anyone they can. so they test and they test and finally they find someone who can at least begin to rival the dexterity of the drones.

“holy shit dude” the military says, “how?”

“it’s just like a video game,” dude tells the military.

oh my god

so the military goes to the pros, and tells them, hey. your country needs you. come save lives.  i honestly don’t think they could refuse, not without committing social suicide. so they were drafted. gamers answer the call, leaving behind a life of glitz and glamour to serve their country.

and there’s the MEKA program’s beginning. hundreds of eSports pros all shuffled into obscurity in a secret military program. i imagine that the intense training echoed the six, seven hour scrim blocks the players were used to and all were used to constant improvement and picking up new skills quickly. but even through the adjustment was easy, people started to drop out when field tests started.

eventually, i would assume they had their group. the MEKA squad we know was formed, and they had sustained because they were able to treat the field missions like a game (more on this later). they get better and better, sent out to do more and more missions. eventually, they start to get sent into residential areas.

and so they become the face of Korea. they save people. imagine being attacked by omnics, certain you’re going to die and suddenly you’re saved! by... dva, your favorite eSports player. you’re not gonna let that one go. so the MEKA squad become a symbol - unofficial at first, but one that grew. so the government decides to capitalize on it, making them the face of the Korean military success. the originally planned secret unit, cobbled together, made up of what is essentially children, becomes the symbol of hope.

[pickyperkypenguin]

Well, I just realised I am having feelings about how much of an asshole McCree is, and I need to say – he definitely is one! Disclaimer first: this is not an attempt of fandom wank, just me expressing my personal taste that includes headcanoning McCree as a multifaceted, charming asshole; if your interpretation is completely different I have nothing against it, write and let write, etc. So, I really dislike when he's portrayed in fics without any depth whatsoever, as solely this therapeutic personality there to solve all Hanzo's mental problems. That's not how that works.

What I do struggle with is also this – how exactly is he an asshole? What did he do or what does he do (as in, has it inbuilt in his character) to deserve that as a part of his characteristic?

Here I am trying to figure out a morally upsetting thing (warranting the asshole label of the not just-his-personality variety) that would however be somehow redeemable. Like, yeah, it's good to create robin hoods, and so to make McCree do things that are legally crimes though not morally upsetting, but how interesting it would be to make him both (as in personality+life choices kind of asshole)?

I've noticed many writers just leave out what exactly has McCree done in the past, except for a vague 'he dealt in smuggling guns' or something similar (never human trafficking, which says something about us, and shows where as a general rule of thumb are set our borders of what is acceptable to put in fiction, with the intention to make a character regret those choices, and thus be seen as a guy that could be forgiven). It is easier to gloss over that when one doesn't think too much about the details. There is, of course, that unbreakable barrier of crimes I mentioned, that seem heinous enough to never attribute them to characters like that, because this way they might just become irredeemable, and therefore harder to relate to.

So here I am, thinking and thinking of what could be McCree to be redeemed from, that would be bad and asshole-ish, and yet workable through for a reader – by, for example, showing his remorse or feeling of guilt. What would make him flawed enough for it to be interesting, yet forgivable enough for us to not provoke the inner debate as to whether we can allow ourselves to like him. And I still sort of have no idea.

Why is that? Why even when I am close to finding something I remember some other thing, and then just throw my hands in the air and say 'well, fuck it, things don't add up'?

That is because of the other part of that equation – Hanzo. (Even when not considered in the setting of the mchanzo pairing they still can be compared this way, I think those comparisons are one of the basis for the pairing dynamic to even begin to exist, along with the West/East and cowboy/samurai motives they have going on).

Hanzo is a man who had committed a fratricide, and deeply regrets it. He was also probably made to or been highly manipulated into doing that. (He was also generally manipulated by his family, which ups his chances to be redeemable and his ability to commit the act understandable, as in 'possible to find, not out of the blue'). The other thing is, Genji actually lives. It is also highly implied he has either forgiven Hanzo 'unconditionally' (not requiring him to prove himself) or with that condition to to show his attempts of redemption and their quality, and only then judge if they are good enough for the bad blood to dry.

I’m sort of wondering, how would we treat him, how would we frame all that, if Genji was dead-dead? If he was not there to forgive Hanzo, no matter in what kind of way, not there to provide him the incentive to take on a new life path (or that life path to come to him from some other source) – just plain dead, buried and not ever back. Would it change anything? I do think it would, but I wonder how would we try to make his death by Hanzo’s hand redeemable. Would it be emphasising Hanzo’s guilt and desperate attempts of atonement? By emphasising how manipulative the clan was and how much Hanzo was not fully responsible for what had happened? He was not of sound – well, not mind, but not of sound will, if you catch what I’m trying to express here – he was under the influence of the combined manipulation of the clan and its politics, the pressure to be absolutely subordinate, submissive and deferential to it, and the resentment towards Genji that has accumulated in him over the years (not only his behaviour, but also what one was allowed that the other never could and their drastically different methods of coping, that in normal circumstances would be certainly a spark for quarrels, but in those circumstances they grew to gargantuan size and caused disastrous results). I do headcanon that all those factors had anyway had been the key forces that put Hanzo in those circumstances. The question also is, was fratricide withing Hanzo's morality back then, when he decided to commit it? Was it a crime of passion, a blind rage and sudden sobering after? Was it something that was desperately against everything that he held in his heart and yet he was trapped, and so he had no choice? Or was it all of that and his growing resentment towards Genji combined?

(I like to think it was all of the above at once. Yes, all contradictions too. My opinion is that we people, the human race, make nothing of those pesky things called contradictions and we just hold them all in our heads at once.)

So, would that all – the causes of it, and the ways of how he attempts to redeem himself – be enough if Genji has not come back from the dead? I really am curious.

And while I can point out what makes Hanzo redeemable (and also incredibly interesting plus awesome to explore, considering his background is a golden mine of mental struggle), I cannot do the same with pointing the circumstances from which McCree would have to be redeemed from. I just don't know them.

So, ah, my dudes, once I’ll figure out what McCree’s struggles in specific could be, what crimes he had committed, I am going to have one hell of a joyride of figuring how to make that into a thing, upon which a line of understanding between him and Hanzo can be built.

[immortalheart]

Attempted Lore Roundup – Bastet Short Story

Ana’s thoughts suggest that Jack *knew* Gabriel was alive pre-Old Soldiers comic. However, I personally don’t think Jack is working with Gabe in any way. “He was uneasy now. Staying in one place for too long was risky, especially now that Gabe would be looking for him. He  had to move on.” These are Jack’s thoughts. If he was working with Gabriel, he wouldn’t be worried about Gabe finding him. HOWEVER, I DO still think that Gabriel is a double agent/working to take down Talon. I just don’t think Jack’s part of/aware he’s part of the plan. Go check out Segadores-Y-Soldado’s post about this theory to learn more about wtf I’m talking about.

Dr. Faisal is likely the argeologisist character that has been speculated throughout the fandom and connected to Illios, Oasis, and Temple of Anubis.

Ana lost her memories post-fight with Widowmaker, just as many in the fandom have suggested.

Jack already knew that Amelie was Widowmaker and is apparently a fountain of knowledge that is untouched as of now.

References to the spider-web of connections seen in Sombra’s origins video, as well as the Reaper sightings map seen on the Temple of Anubis map. This basically confirms that Jack is getting his information from Sombra

Jack looked for Ana after her ‘death’. Gabriel sent McCree to try to find her as well.

Jack (as well as Sombra) are still the only people to refer to Gabriel as “Gabe” (originally pointed out by Segadores-Y-Soldado, an amazing lorist who is just amazing. Ana has multiple instances to refer to him as ‘Gabe’ but continuously calls him Gabriel. Alas, I missed that Ana DID call him Gabe at the end RIP

Overwatch did something, likely connected to the Anubis God AI, to destabilize Egypt and it never completely recovered. Considering Ana says “a decade after”, this suggests that Overwatch’s intervention was after the Omnic Crisis, suggesting that something happened to the God AI both during AND after the Crisis. This allows Hakim and his organization (never named) to take control of the country.

Jack’s healing is slowing down and it’s officially confirmed that healing is part of his SEP enhancements. Segadores-Y-Soldado called this too btw.

An Overwatch mission happened in Prague at some point during Overwatch’s reign. Ana ended up carrying Jack for some reason and Reinhardt failed to be sneaky (duh). Considering that Ana calls Prague Jack’s fault and suggests that he assigned Reinhardt to the mission suggests that the mission took place post-Omnic Crisis when Jack was Strike Commander.

Jack really doesn’t want to see Angela. Feel free to speculate reasons as to why. I am too tired to do so rn, maybe except a future post.

The Ana vs Widowmaker fight takes place in Poland and Ana was taken care of by a Dr. Lee (woman).

Jack says something interesting. He says ““Don’t let this go. Don’t be like the others. They dismantled everything we spent our lives building, and then they made us into villains.”” Now I’m wondering who the US is. Is the the UN? Is it referring to other members of Overwatch? I can’t help by think of Angela’s quote in Fading Glory (despite the fact that more than half of that article is currently unreliable): “"After Morrison's promotion to strike commander, his relationship with Reyes changed," Dr. Angela Ziegler, medical director of Overwatch, stated during a UN committee hearing. "The tension became more pronounced as time went on. I tried to mend things. We all did. Sometimes when the closest bonds break, all you can do is pray you stay out of the cross fire."”

This quote by Angela is even more proven wrong by this short story. Jack claims that he told Gabe that someone else should have been chosen as Strike Commander. Ana suggests that Jack meant Gabriel. Jack sighed, relenting. “You know, I told Gabe they picked the wrong person for Strike-Commander.” “Yes, but you meant him, not me,” Ana replied.

Ana is a bad cook apparently.

Jack believes that everyone else, I’m assuming including other Overwatch/Blackwatch agents gave up on fighting. ““Everyone else gave up, but not me.””

Jack way of thinking has changed since he was the Strike Commander of Overwatch. Segadores-Y-Soldado talks about this to some extent on their Twitter. I might talk more about this when I’m not on 3 hours of sleep and have work in the morning.

Ana also disliked Moria.

The room where Ana and Jack are seen in the Reflections comic is an apartment the two rented in order to take down Hakim’s criminal empire.

Jack broke into LumériCo’s fusion plant before the ‘Hero’ short.

Ana and Jack are going to take down Hakim’s empire then Ana will apparently help Jack get revenge on those who took down Overwatch, ie Talon. That explains what the two are doing most recently in terms of the Overwatch Timeline (lol Timeline)

Jack is very focused on Gabriel and continues to call him Gabe even after Gabriel shoots him. Ana notices Jack’s focus towards the end of the short story:

Jack had a relationship with a man named Vincent and is queer. Michael Chu confirmed they are both gay. I am going to make a whooooole post about this. One thing I will say here is that I do not agree that this is on the same level as the debacle surrounding Shiro coming out as gay. I definitely understand that this isn’t perfect, but I, as a queer person myself, do not think Blizzard fucked up like Dreamworks did and I think they handled this pretty well.  

Jack longed (and likely longs) for a ‘normal’ life. “In the early days, Jack talked about him often, floating a dream that the war would end quickly, and maybe he’d have a chance to return to a normal life.”

Ana was, in fact, married to Fareeha’s father, Sam.

Both Ana and Gabe had families of some sort. I’m literally gonna make an entire post about this so hold your horses. I will say I *don’t* necessarily think family has to refer to a spouse and children though.

Alright so I *tried* to include everything, but there’s always a chance I missed things. Feel free to add anything that I missed or that yall found interesting. I’m hoping to touch more on some of these points in the next few days or so

[vohalika]

I don’t even go here. I know, like, broad strokes over overwatch lore, have been playing the game for... three months or so, am very bad at everything, but something bothered me so much yesterday that I’m... meta’ing. Do you even do that around here?

Anyway, so, that D.Va animated short finally happened. And I loved it. But the youtube comment section sure didn’t. Which, you know, is normal, and to be expected, because I guess gamer bros are everywhere and they don’t get any more pleasant. So yeah, the short mostly showed us D.Va’s job as established so far, and yes, the guy got a bit too much spotlight for my taste. So the roughly 50% comments focusing on the guy and how we all lost another brother to the friendzone were to be expected and just worthy of rolling your eyes at, maybe.

But then people tried to rationalize their dislike. There’s nothing new in the short, D.Va has no depth or development, is a total Mary Sue because she can fix her own mech, the writing was bad and everything was sooo clichéd.

Which. I mean. You can think that. But then, when someone asked OP to name a short that ISN’T clichéd or badly written, OP named... Dragons. And. Whaaaaat.

So maybe it’s my anime background, or the above average amount of other Japanese media I have consumed over my life, but like. No. There is nothing not clichéd about two yakuza ninja brothers feuding, trying to kill each other, and one being burdened by the guilt over it and the other finding spiritual enlightenment. Well, okay, the fact that Genji was turned into a cyborg is somewhat unique to the franchise, and maybe this combination of tropes hasn’t been done quiiiite the same way before. But individually, all of these elements are... The most stereotypical kind of Japanese story you could tell a Western audience without getting into NSFW territory, and slapping a cool story about brother dragons on top of it doesn’t exactly help.

Also, I got every bit of information contained in dragons - sans the wallscroll brother dragons legend, maybe - from the game itself, too. Was the background of the Shimada brothers just not revealed when the short premiered? Remember, I’ve been in this for like 3 months. I know the basics. That’s it. But that short in particular didn’t feel like it told me anything that wasn’t available in in-game dialogue and the small blurps next to the skins in the hero gallery.

So compared to that, I feel like Shooting Star told and showed us A LOT that was not available in the game before. The MEKA squad and D.Va’s friend notwithstanding. Is D.Mon her sister, or is that just a thing they do?

Anyway, the short also established that D.Va has friends, a background with racing futuristic tech before getting her mecha, what the MEKA organization actually looks like, how current-day (...I think?) omnic attacks look, and, oh, yeah, that the MEKA squad is as much a combat unit as it is a propaganda tool to keep the public calm and that D.Va has PTSD from her work, and that her entire attitude? “Are you sure life is not a game” and so on? An act. She actually has more depth to her than being a gimmicky hot girl in a mech to appeal to the Korean fanbase.

(Someone in the comment section argued that one flashback doesn’t mean she has PTSD but like. Dude. 7 minute short. Visual shorthand. Every frame put in there on purpose. Things mean things.)

Like, this short kind of turned everything we knew about her upside down, didn’t it? Pretty much every quip she makes in game? Holy coping mechanisms batman. Assuming, of course, there is some sort of consistent long game going on and her dialogue was written with these motivations on the writers’ minds. And again, I am too new around here to know whether that’s how this entire shebang works or not. From what I hear, consistency is not exactly a thing between shorts and heroes and in-game information, and a lot of people are upset about that time everyone thought Mercy turned Reaper into Reaper and that it turned out to actually have been Moira and oh no how can they. So maybe this is one of those cases, maybe it isn’t.

(For the record, from what I got out of the voice lines and stuff, my take-away was that Mercy probably tried to save him after he blew up but didn’t make it/didn’t want to go there, and then Moira was like “fine, then I’ll just finish what you started” and, like, finished the job.)

(I mean can we talk about how Mercy’s and Reaper’s halloween skins reference each other?)

I mean, as mentioned before, gamer bros are everywhere and will always be rather unpleasant about these things. I’m sure the comment section on Mei’s animated short looks even worse. This just for some reason really bothered me, so yay, venting.

[sirsparklepants]

Since most of Overwatch (both the original and 2.0) is non-American, what do y'all wanna bet that the bases all descend into outright war every World Cup?