As you all probably know already, I have a huge issue with Overwatch, their newest character and the community. But in order to understand how much of a problem it is to me, and how much it affected me and even still affects me, I think it’s necessary to repeat once again, what exactly was the problem for me, even though we heard it enough and everyone is already tired of me repeating myself over and over.
So, back to the start. Back to the day Moira was revealed, on Friday, 3rd November.
I still remember that day vividly. I was checking tumblr, and didn’t expect anything. And suddenly, she was everywhere, and pretty much everyone shared her video and her reveal. No big deal, one might think, but for me, this was the biggest deal and the biggest blow. I saw the similarities at first glance. The best word, that would describe the similarities would be “uncanny”. The pointy longish face, pointy chin, the prominent cheekbones, red hair, the powerful and terrifying appearance and scary attitude.
These were the similarities I saw at first glance. I wasn’t the only one. I got messages from mutuals, saying something like “I am not saying that your OC is as good as a canon character, but” followed with a link of Moira. I was tagged in Moira stuff. I was told that people saw the uncanny similarities even before I made my post listing everything that is similar or straight up the same.
The similarities go further. I took a good look at Moira, and a look at her background story. They are around the same age, with a difference of 6 years. They are both scientist. While I admit that I never stated Joe being a geneticist in any way, I stated in more than enough headcanon posts, that Joe works on genetics with the goal to alter and improve the human DNA, to better humanity. I stated in her biography, that she pushes on to bring humanity to the next step of evolution, by force if necessary. Therefore, both even work and research in exact the same science field. Both work towards the same goals, and they have the same motivation to do that.
Let’s go further and take a look back at both their background stories. Note that I can only analyze what Blizzard has officially released. So, we have two brilliant scientists here. Both had an ethically questionable approach and got dismissed for their ideas. Both are now working for Talon and working towards Talon’s goals, while pursuing their own. Both are known as incredibly intelligent and dangerous. Both are about to change the world.
The only difference in their backgrounds is, that Moira was offered to work for Blackwatch, since she was incredibly talented. Joe went to prison and spent 10 years there, secretly working for the government. But even here are similarities. Moira’s work was kept a secret. And once Overwatch broke down and disbanded, they denied having ever worked with her.
Joe was known as officially having received her death sentence, and therefore dead. The government had her in their hands, but officially, they would even deny her existence, therefore also denying having ever worked with her.
So, in conclusion, they are too similar. For my tastes, at least.
I can go even further. Observing Moira and seeing her hitting PTR, then the live servers, I skimmed through her wiki page, and read her voice lines. Based on these, I can even conclude that Moira and Joe even have a similar character. Both are arrogant and condescending towards others. Both lack empathy towards others and only get really excited when it comes down to scientific progress and results. Both are intelligent, and they are both aware of it, they act like it.
That is the base problem. But sadly, that’s not it.
The problem goes even further. Not only being incredibly similar to Joe, Moira even defies the core on which Joe was based and made in first place. I am talking about Widowmaker and her creation.
One day I sat down and thought about a simple question. Who could the person behind Widowmaker be? Someone had to do it after all. And that’s when I made Joe. That was around 8 months ago. Joe got her own blog in April 2017. However, Moira defies Joe’s base with a simple voice line interaction between her and Widowmaker. The interaction indicates, that Moira had to do something with her making. Later I was told that it was canonically confirmed that she has to do something with her genes, with her being blue and her body alterations. The fact that it’s getting a real popular fanon that Moira was even behind the brainwashing doesn’t help me. It makes the whole thing even harder for me, because I get the feeling that all these facts and popular opinions erase Joe.
Or, to word it differently, so you might understand it better. Imagine you have a canon muse. And everything is going fine. But you know one day other canon muses, so called duplicates, will appear. It is difficult. You fear they do a better job. You might even feel robbed off your ideas and headcanons if you find similarities between your interpretation and their interpretation.
This here is not a problem of having a duplicate. It goes deeper. It feels more like having your ideas taken away. Like having your character taken away and replaced. It feels like having the “originality” taken away from your “original character”.
I was told, during one of my vents, that it doesn’t have to be a competition. Maybe the person was right. Nothing has to be a competition and I saw more than enough posts going around where people discourage any competitiveness within the roleplay community. However, for me, it does feel like a competition. It does feel like I have to compete against canon now. Even more so since it is confirmed that Joe is in fact canon divergent.
In short, it is a competition between a canon character and an oc. And taking into account how the tumblr mentality is, from my view point after writing ocs for over a year, I don’t have a chance. Considering how strong and immense the hype in the community was and even still is, I feel like I lost already. That it’s over. That it was a fight I was never meant to go out of it even.
While I still want to state that I do not have any problem with Blizzard revealing another character to the roster, and expanding their universe and giving us a bit of lore, and while I want to stress out that I do not accuse them of stealing or ripping me off in any way, as I am aware how long a design process takes and that they probably were working on her for months, perhaps even years, I still want to express that I am hurt by that coincidence. That, while it is not a rip off, it still feels like a rip off.
This is my problem. And it hurts. Deeply.
