lore-discussion

[dry pebble]

The Overwatch Rush Doomfist has significantly different nose skull shape than Akande 😨

[shrewd pivot]

So does Reinhardt! And Brigitte. I think it's just Rush's stylization.

[dry pebble]

Oh true Overwatch Rush designs fucking sucks

Why they all have big eyes bruh

[shrewd pivot]

Yeah 😭 the shape use feels like generic mobile game designs... you can't really recognize characters by faces well

[dry pebble]

Ultra can you send the roster's image

[dry pebble]

Overwatch and Generic in same sentence

[dry pebble]

Ahh Hell Naw not my Mercy

Do you think these designs made by the same artist who conceptuelized the Vendetta

[shrewd pivot]

It's the Rush's art style, unfortunately.

[shrewd pivot]

Nah, different team

[dry pebble]

I don't really like Rush's art style it reminds me of that one Pokemon Moba

Anyways i think Mobile Mobas sucks in graphic

[shrewd pivot]

the gameplay kinda looks like Pokémon Unite in a way

[dry pebble]

True

[shrewd pivot]

If they did an overwatchy style it wouldn't suck... or maybe a cute/fun action figure style. OWRush looks cheap mobile-gamey.

It's weird because Paladins had a mobile game, and the characters retained thier style.

I don't mind exploring different artstyles ofc, I just think Overwatch Rush's artstyle doesn't really fit well

[wise grotto]

I think what helped paladins was its models where already old and well optimized

[shrewd pivot]

These Paladin Rush models aren't reused from the main Paladins game tho, it's not that they reused models or that model fidelity mattered, they just had similar proportions in the mobile game.

Heroes of the storm style with more expressive faces would have fit OWRush better imo

[wise grotto]

Honestly this game doesn’t at all interest me anyway so I’ll prolly never remember it after this point

[dry pebble]

I honestly expect Doomfist's return to be like the ending from Saw where all turns out to be his plan all along

[civic lynx]

This is near identical to the doom we know and love today 😭

They just gave him a beard to have the same features as his upcoming lore and a slightly more cartoony style to fit in with rush

[dry pebble]

Me after i fall through the cliff that makes me grow beard incredibly fast

[civic lynx]

😭

Mf applied hair growth cream to his face instead of that shiny ass head

[buoyant falcon]

The look is kind of tough though

[civic lynx]

True

[upbeat sable]

brig is gonna be in rush???

thank GOD

[shrewd pivot]

I saw people making identity/relationships charts lately, and this is what I have for canon ig lol

Lúcio x Iggy voice line, Tracer teased Brigitte about an unspecified love interest, and Sojourn refers to "he" in a love life voiceline

[spare fox]

In Deadlock Rebels, Cass blink-and-you-miss-it soft propositions Ashe, she considers it but then brushes him off

[acoustic ice]

are mercy and genji not in a relationship anymore?

[shrewd pivot]

Nope! They are not dating anymore

[buoyant falcon]

I'm Brigitte's unspecified love interest

[brittle sky]

It's kinda unclear how far their relationship ever went, but whatever it was broke off.

[spare fox]

Yeah I think it's left nebulous bc they don't want the "controversy" from shippers

Back when the lore was slower than slow and pharmercy shippers took over and shouted the loudest

[shrewd pivot]

Yeah lol

I would say voice lines indicated atleast a date offer in ow1 between Mercy and Genji? Not too controversial to say Mercy x Genji was canon in ow1.

I am thankful that Mercy is single atm, as you know I don't like either ships for Mercy canon.

[brittle sky]

The notion that pharmacy shippers somehow bullied the writers out of gency is such a bizzare take

[shrewd pivot]

More so it was the last writer shipping it (dramatically so) that caused Pharah x Mercy to be written into canon (seemily one sided) with Pharah expressing interest in Mercy in "As you are"

I hate it tbh. Genji x Mercy and Pharah x Mercy are best left as non canon ships imo... (aka, not actively a thing in canon thankfully, but ideally never written to be canon in the first place)

[brittle sky]

I mean, trying to trace any one ship to a single writer's hobby horse seems an effort in futility and narrative finger pointing

[shrewd pivot]

The writer was an open Pharah x Mercy shipper, interacted with some toxic PharahxMercy shippers in the fandom iirc.

Less finger pointing more so, yeah this writer wrote in shipping stuff into canon.

It was very dramatic, all that

Hopefully overwatch can avoid any more Mercy relationship arc blunders going forward lol

(I personally think shipping is fun and fine in au, but I think writing self indulgent ships instead of writing relationships that facilitate arcs for characters is detrimental to storytelling)

[brittle sky]

Idk, given the writer of that story is still on staff...

[shrewd pivot]

I thought that writer left?

Welp. If they ever make Mercy canonically interested in Pharah im taking a shot of ouzo lmafo i hope it doesn't become canon

[brittle sky]

Nah, they've been in a buncha spotlights

I just think they go by a slightly different name.

[shrewd pivot]

One sided romance to a superior in an iffy dynamic... hm where have I heard that before... (stares tiredly at Freja)

Hopefully overwatch can get an actual healthy dynamic roster x roster romance one day lmafo 😭

[brittle sky]

Eh, I think the value of relationships in media is how they can express things about character or create interesting dynamics. The pressure for media to be without flaws or bad stuff is how we end up with anodyne media.

[shrewd pivot]

Well yeah! My issue isn't with depicting unhealthy relationships, it's with portraying unhealthy dynamics as healthy/normal in a T rated game 😅

Like Baptiste and Mauga are soft canon bc the writer wrote them as "bad exes", and the tone makes it clear it's bad unhealthy dynamic. The relationship supplemented Baptiste's arc as well, so no issues there imo

I think maybe two old farts being silly-obnoxious flirting with eachother would be fun to have on the roster IF they plan to do a roster x roster romance. Something light and fun that people can get behind.

[shrewd pivot]

My memory is so bad.
Ok Frankie does actually use drones in the story mbmb

It's not just hacker = drones, Frankie did indeed use drones

Pardon forgetting the drone part btw, my memory recall is bad 🥀
But yes, Frankie does indeed use drones in canon

[crisp canyon]

Yes and it’s described as flying/insect like which further adds to it being her

[brittle sky]

So running with frankie, is the logic of the helix datapad just something they won't get around to before they heist the location? That all that was building up to an npc?

[shrewd pivot]

Maybe yeah. Or possibly Frankie is Helix now. That is, if this drone hero is Frankie.

I'll have to go through the novel for futher descriptions, but from that screenshot of the page, it reads as Frankie's hairstyle being twists (2 strand twist protective hairstyle), not like... curly hair if that makes sense.

This drone hero has straight hair and I would actually hate it if this was Frankie and they straightened her hair

[crisp canyon]

Keep in mind Frankie is 17 not 41 in that novel hair changes lol

[shrewd pivot]

It's not the hairstyle, it's the hair texture.

[crisp canyon]

What ab the image implies her texture isn’t that?

We can’t even see it

[shrewd pivot]

This end is straught hair

And the bang strand she has is wavy, not curly nor a texture that would have twists(the protective hairstyle)

[crisp canyon]

I fear it’s entirely possible to still have that hair texture and hairstyle without contradiction

[dry pebble]

Who is Frankie, im hearing the name for the first time

[crisp canyon]

Most likely hero 51 she was formerly running with Ashe and Cassidy back in their gang time, before she fell out with Ashe and left

[shrewd pivot]

Texturism part 2.
First was Vendetta's curls bejng nerfed

If this is Frankie, her hair here is wavy not even curly at best.

[dry pebble]

Isnt there is a leaked image of this silhouette presenting a millitarian woman

Unless its fake

[shrewd pivot]

Frankie is a hacker that worked for Ashe / Deadlock gang, from the Ashe novel

[dry pebble]

I don't know how usually it happens

[crisp canyon]

This is like comparing sojourn now to her young design

[dry pebble]

Wait Ultra i can send it to you i think

As far as im concerned, its not Frankie judging by the leaks shown by the community if its true

[crisp canyon]

How would u know its not her if u have never heard of her until now

[shrewd pivot]

? Sojourn has afro texture hair in both base skin and past overwatch agent skin tho

Unless you mean the pharah bio pic, then that's Sojourn with straightened hair, most likely bc it was early ideation. But Sojourn canonically has afro texture hair

Frankie's design was solidified in a prior novel and idk it would be a bummer if they gave a dark skinned woman straight hair for no reason when prior depictions had her with twists (or at minimum curls) -- texturism in art sucks so I hope it's not the case!

[shrewd pivot]

Any images are genai slop or photoshops unfortunately, different silhouette of the weapons on those images

[crisp canyon]

Things change conceptually all the time, it’s still entirely possible for her to have curly hair texture and have that hairstyle

[shrewd pivot]

Yeah, they straightened her hair then for a base design (which would be texturism)

Idk i will have to look through the novel to find any other descriptions of Frankie, then I can make my statements proper on what hair texture she has in the novel. My memory recall of the novel is bad, so let me refresh

[dry pebble]

Oh i have mistaken

[dry pebble]

I just done a qucick search

But it is most likely Ai generated image i have encountered with

[crisp canyon]

I’d send a pice if I could, but it’s still entirely possible too have curly hair texture and have ends of the braids look like that

[shrewd pivot]

I personally didn't read this page as curly hair, rather coily or afrotexture hair put into twists that look like "twisted curls"

I could be wrong tho, so I need to reread the novel and i will screenshot and return when I have.

Also, the character has a wavy bang strand, not a curly

Curly would be like, actual loops. Wavy creates swoops like this

[crisp canyon]

I agree on Afro texture, ig in my head the best I can say to describe it would be similar to like Nara Smith (who does have Afro texture hair but i believe straightens) sort of bang style with knotless braids but that’s just me ig

[shrewd pivot]

One can use chemicals to 'relax' afro texture hair or use a flat iron to straighten hair. Chemicals are very unhealthy to do, but unfortunately it's a common pressure :(

Flat iron can flatten coily hair, and Nara Smith seems to have naturally coily hair texture.

There's nothing inherently wrong with afro texture hair or coily hair women irl wearing different styles ofc! My point is texturism in the media industry where character design pipelines lean towards making hair more and more straight over iterations.

Happened with Vendetta already, her curls were nerfed. I would hope Frankie gets to preserve her og hair texture if she is coming to the roster.

[crisp canyon]

I’m not the best person to speak on this Ik but I’m not sure I would see the issue with a new black character not having coily texture, considering how diverse black hair is and what you can do with it I wouldn’t mind seeing that considering sojourn and Lucio both sport locs with similar texture

I def do see what ur getting at ab texturism but im not quite that’s what’s actually happening if this is Frankie

[shrewd pivot]

Ye! there's absolutely no issue with having black women or dark skinned women with naturally straight hair even, many groups have those features. like Symmetra for example, and some areas in Africa like Ethiopia have groups with dark skin and wavy hair even

It's just that Frankie was described prior with curly hair minimum/afro texture hair maximum(based on that 1 page screencap, i need to reread the novel to be sure), so idk.

imo IF that drone hero is Frankie, her base design should keep that preestablished texture. It's that the texture was pre established, so backtracking feels a bit odd imo (aka that media industry trend i mentioned prior).

[brittle sky]

so why are people so keen on frankie? Like what's the appeal of pulling in a side character from a novel to be another minion for ashe as opposed to a helix security person, who could actually provide opposition to the grand mesa heist? Like it feels like the frankie train doesn't meaninfully address alternatives, it just hyperfixates on a name drop.

[shrewd pivot]

I agree

I think the fact Frankie actively used drones, + map, is what makes it plausible tho. (Prior, I had not remembered the drone use, and thought ppl just thought hacker=drone)

It could very well be Helix instead, imo the character looks military-like bc of the hat

[brittle sky]

again, whole hackable tablet preview

[shrewd pivot]

Yeah exactly, I agree

[peak escarp]

Frankie's drones were the size of a fly

something to remember about very curly hair - it can be difficult to replicate accurately on 3D models

[spare fox]

while I agree that S2 hero is very likely not Frankie - I think a lot of people are getting way too hung up on the hair

[peak escarp]

agreed

[spare fox]

I am scouring that datapad and the info on Powderkeg

it looks like 6 people are mentioned on the data pad

[peak escarp]

I think Frankie has too much design overlap with Sombra

[spare fox]

the one agent who is transferring to become Chief of Security, the 3 trainees the transferring agent trained, the agent who will provide clearance and hte handoff (who will also be the honoree at the sendoff party), and then the chief of staff who wrote the memo

one of the silly bits is how two of the three cakes are classified, I wonder if the black forest cake being left in there is a clue that the departing agent is German?

[peak escarp]

one of the redacted ones is probably some other very specific regional flavour that would give away the nationality

[spare fox]

right? I'm trying to think of cake flavors that are region specific but I can only think of chocolate lol

[peak escarp]

Tres Leches cake? Pavlova?

[spare fox]

the trainees that are mentioned, the third one appears to have a two-parter surname, but the first part is very short, I'm thinking it might be an arabic name or a name from that region that begins with Al
But it very well could be a Le, El, O'

idk, they're probably not important

it's also notable that the agent leaving has two blocked out texts for their name. It could be a first name and surname, but given that all the other agents have one block (except for the one with the very short two-character block), methinks they have a double-barrel surname

[peak escarp]

think of all the other throwaway names we've gotten from various teasers... Mazzei, Doubleday and Pacanowski from Baptiste's teaser, Security Chief Gonzalo Flores of Lumerico from the Sombra ARG...

-# Emre Sarioglu from Brigitte's teaser...

[spare fox]

yeah I think there's just so much blanked out on the datapad that really, the only thing we're supposed to learn from it is that Grand Mesa is getting a new, but experienced, Helix agent as Chief of Security

with maybe Agent Double-Barrel being of secondary importance in that they will be fresh off a deployment and are possibly German

I do wonder if maybe the departing agent is S2 hero, possibly making them a free agent to join OW? or Talon? idk, just theorizing

[wintry cave]

winton

[brittle sky]

that bit of non-redaction made me scour the black forest map like twice

[spare fox]

I can get that lol

[halcyon nest]

Vendetta beat him so hard he grew a beard

[vernal wagon]

Lmao

[vernal wagon]

If he grew å beard after doesnt that mean he’s still alive (#yearning)

[silk mango]

he looks like kanye west

[past copper]

He looks like LeBron now

[civic lynx]

I now can’t unsee this

[cunning copper]

how did zenyatta find out talon killed mondatta

aka widow

[silk mango]

Ramdva mentioned in pfp???

[cunning copper]

add me right fucking NOW

[silk mango]

YES OMG I LOVE THAT SHIP

I gotta learn more of them

[cunning copper]

sorry we went off topic

so

uh YEAH

so

fuck i got distracted

[vernal wagon]

I’m coming for u

[keen summit]

I predict next years lore arc will be dooms war

Vendetta is basically destined to fail and doom is the rep in fall for blizzcon, they said in a post with doom falling
"See you next fall"

So vendetta gets fhe war going then doom appears, takes over again maybe puts her as second in command by well winning against her and then thewar arc

[silk mango]

wtf is that sticker

why is he white

[cunning copper]

THAT'S WHAT J WANTED TO SAY

[cunning copper]

biggest fumble in story writing ever btw

why like how and what and huh vendetta is debatably the strongest in the verse this is actually dookie

like yeah plot twist but to a POINT BRUH PRESUMABLY KILLING DOOM WAS NOT NECESSARY WTH

[keen summit]

I mean, cuz doom wants her to feel ontop of the world

[keen summit]

But this shouldnt be a surprise, vendetta was alwwys shown as mad strong

[cunning copper]

maybe diffing the strongest character in the verse two seconds after her first appearance was a bit too much

[keen summit]

Doom aint the strongest

Never was

Winton and orisa both beat him

Not to mention doon was clearly not really trying

Vendetta v doom is basically "who hits first"
If vendetta wanted to kill him instantly she'd need one hit and same for doom

[cunning copper]

i get that

[brittle sky]

Honestly the most interesting angle on vendetta's rise is that it was enabled by max from the start as a way to get doom off his back, and now he's immediately ruing it because new boss immediately threw herself into a costly war for he own ego. In trying to eschew Doom's drive towards chaos, he ended up with an outright warmonger.

[keen summit]

The issue is more that vendetta doesnt really have a goal

[brittle sky]

She's basically cobra commander without the amusing hiss.

To be fair a sojourn interaction implies she's got some sort of game plan, but rn it just seems vague Territorial belligerence.

[keen summit]

I think its her taking "you deserve the world" literally

[grave saddle]

Tbf at a certain point he didn’t really have much choice

[turbid plaza]

Irish lucio

Blasting the sickest beats to you from the downtown pub

[pseudo iron]

what is vendatta's goal, exactly? l

her plan seems to be

1. go to war
2. ???
3. profit

[tame coyote]

I thought take over the world

Also is doom alive?

And where is venture from

Im making a school project about Overwatch who wanna help me out

[gusty cloak]

saw someone saw that junkrat was a reporter then some explosion happened and he went crazy? can someone explain his lore?

[tame coyote]

There was a war in Australia and junkrat was normal then a big boom happens and he went crazy

I think

Australia was very tech but after the explosion everything was gone so Thats way junker toen and new junk city are made of scraps en junk

[gusty cloak]

is it confirmed that he was a reporter before?

[restive swallow]

what is pharahs lore

[tame coyote]

Idk

Ik look it up

Yes hé is a reporter

Was a reporter

[civic lynx]

Heavily implied

[tame coyote]

Oh thx

Hé better kick Martzias ass

I have an idea for a Marvel collab

Phara= iorn man

Hanzo= hawk eye

Widow =black widow

Thor= Rein yes two Thor skins

And rivels Dicks

[civic lynx]

If rivals didn’t exist we’d actually have a pretty good chance at this 🫩

[tame coyote]

Yea

Any more ideas

[civic lynx]

Disney love collabing with anything under the sun so I guess it could still happen

[tame coyote]

Who do you think is the new mech character

[civic lynx]

D.mon

[tame coyote]

Oh good chace

[civic lynx]

The design is near identical they just made the mech look less like it’s squatting to take a shit

[tame coyote]

Yo I hope there a dps

But prob a tank

[civic lynx]

S2 is a confirmed dps

[tame coyote]

Nice

[civic lynx]

S3, 5 and 6 could be dps or supports since their silhouettes don’t give hints at exactly 1 or the other

[tame coyote]

Yea true

[wise grotto]

We know the big mf is our other tank I’m guessing they’re gonna evenly distribute

[tame coyote]

Wanna get in a call

[civic lynx]

S2 is dps so ig the order could be like drone dps s2, support (hashimoto character), d.mon clearly tank, omnic detective guy… support ?, skinny waisted queen dps

[tame coyote]

Yea

Wanna play rn I’m bored

[civic lynx]

I can’t play currently 😔

[tame coyote]

Why😕

[wise grotto]

I think the hashimoto would end up a dps

Personally

[tame coyote]

I want no more Japanse characters

[wise grotto]

The stuff they’re holding seems too “fuck you im doing damage” and makinf two hashimoto connected supports is boring.

[tame coyote]

It’s too much

[brittle sky]

would indicate either they aren't going an even split (and I think alec dawson said they were doing a 1-2-2), and would make dps all crowded on the front half of the year, all the support on the end

[brittle sky]

3 junker tanks

[civic lynx]

I think the s3 hero could be a dps if the detective and skinny waist are supports so they don’t overload us with new dps and leave the other 2 roles to rot

Or they dgaf and they’re doin more dps than the other roles

[tame coyote]

Im a support main so more support would be nice

[wise grotto]

True but these heroes didn’t release in quick succession

[tame coyote]

And I played the new one and hé sucks

[civic lynx]

Mizuki’s pretty good 😭

[tame coyote]

Nah his ult is fine but there is no damige

[civic lynx]

He’s just meant to be more of a damage dealing support rather than primarily focused on heals from what I’ve seen

[tame coyote]

For refrence I main zen

[civic lynx]

He can be really helpful with getting kills alongside dps or stopping dive heroes

[tame coyote]

In stadium

[wise grotto]

Yea no evrry support does no damage in comparison to stadium zem

[tame coyote]

Outside of stadium I’m a dos

[wise grotto]

Hell even some dps don’t deal damage compared to stadium zen

[tame coyote]

Dps

True

Wanna get in a call

[crisp canyon]

Stadium sucks tho

[flint thicket]

My prediction is season 3 will be a loyal hashimoto member that will hunt Mizuki down once he betrays the hashimoto and commits full time to the yokai and maybe overwatch.

[restive swallow]

what is pharah lore

[gusty cloak]

the mobile game yassifies every character but doom does look good in a beard

[shrewd pivot]

Just saying, this is untrue. overwatch has done curly hair before as seen with Barista Sojourn skin, fortnite has done a variety of hair textures too. Overwatch does afrotexture hair well too.

The pipeline might make it more "difficult" but only bc the industry prioritizes straight hair designs. It's not any harder than the various textures they already do for ribbons, flowy fabrics, etc.

[brittle sky]

Daughter of one of the original strike team members, stonewalled from joining overwatch by her mother, joined an international security force instead, got some exp with a flight corps therein, recently joined the new overwatch with her mother's blessing. Real gay, heavily implied to be crushing on mercy.

[restive swallow]

mercys mine bruh dont she know this

[crisp canyon]

Lesbian Sky cop with bird fursona

[spare fox]

I like the idea of Brig crushing on Pharah but Pharah being oblivious of it

[brittle sky]

Then the trifecta gets completed by mercy crushing on brig (surely that doesn't have any bad optics or vibes), for a proper unidirectional triangle.

[peak escarp]

that would definitely be weird

[dry pebble]

I thought Mercy was way older than Pharah?

Same thing applies to brigitte

[spare fox]

Mercy is 5 years older than pharah

Brig is 25, Pharah is 34

[wise grotto]

Pfff yea no the pharah mercy thing really isn’t weird
Brig
The brig one is a bit weird

[spare fox]

Based on age I'm assuming?

🙄

[dry pebble]

What else it could be and what does the emoji supposed to imply

Ow was always uncertain for the ages of its characters

[brittle sky]

I mean she was like. lifelong friends with brig's dad. So it would mean at some point mercy leans over to torb and goes 'btw your daughter is hot'.

[spare fox]

Oh you're talking Brig/Mercy ?

I mean, I personally don't see it

I think Brig/Pharah have a lot of compatibility

[brittle sky]

I don't think anyone sees brig/mercy. It was a joke springing off from the speculation or imagining that brig's crush was on pharah, and one way.

[spare fox]

The eyerolling was abt me thinking it was about age gaps. This fandom is so weird about age gaps in adult characters that are just... normal irl

Acting like an adult that is younger by 3 years than another adult is somehow a victim and it's "weird" and "predatory," forget about if that age gap is larger

[crisp canyon]

Pharah mercy is weird tho

[spare fox]

I mean if you don't ship it, don't ship it. No need to make it like their ages are problematic

[crisp canyon]

It’s problematic because mercy knew Pharah at 11/12 while being 17/18 and hanging around grown adults that raised Pharah

It’s not just mercy is 5 years older so it’s wrong

[brittle sky]

Don't you know it's immoral to have any kind of good relationship with your in laws.

Like, Mercy did a visit to Overwatch HQ while being a child prodigy medical student, and would build a pretty good relationship with some of the ow old guard.

But I find the notion that a single encounter meant she did anything untowards at the time, or that she is more aligned with the generation 20+ years older than her than someone 5 years younger than her a bit of a stretch.

[peak escarp]

Fareeha was a child, they probably didn't hang out or become friends at that age

she was just the child of one of Torbjorn's coworkers

[sacred kiln]

wait i thought brig was torb's kid

🥹💔

waitt

im misunderstanding

[crisp canyon]

I think no matter how you want to frame it, 12 and 17 is frowned upon by anyone

Mercy was a lot more involved in Overwatch that just a one time appearance at some work party, the ship thing is kinda predatory given the circumstances of it all js

And the implications of pharahs feelings are problematic because of it, it’s like her having a crush on her moms friend she’s known for so long

Ppl call it groomercy ship for a reason because of the dynamics

[brittle sky]

It's going off a single image, taken well before Mercy's primary hiring at Overwatch. It's imagining without any further basis that the foundations of any relationship or crush started then, when again we have 0 evidence they had significant interactions when Pharah was a child and Mercy was a somewhat older child.

[crisp canyon]

If u had a crush on ur babysitter and carried it over to adulthood ppl would say the same thing irl

[wise grotto]

If you had crush on someone when your an adult who happened to know your parents when you where younger

Like your essentially implying they HAVE to have been close to eachother to a degree during ow
AND that pharah had to have had a crush from that time all the way to the current

[crisp canyon]

I think any relationship that starts when ur child with an adult adult/bordering should remain professional ur whole life esp if ur 12

[tame coyote]

Who wanna hop on a call so I can talk

Without typing

[brittle sky]

we have no evidence of a babysitter like dynamic, though?

[crisp canyon]

Being a friend of ur mom and her co worker is almost there

If not alr

[shrewd pivot]

The main issue with it is, Mercy is supposed to be an ethical doctor. Mercy at 17 in uni meeting pharah at 12/13 means I wouldn't think Mercy would ever date Pharah.

In ow1 Mercy had... idk not much, butif it was rad as familiar, more of an auntie vibe to Pharah imo? Def not romantic at all with Pharah

[bold fern]

how true is this

and also pls tell me wut anubis does

[grand wedge]

responsible of the omnic crisis, killed millions of people, almost no screen time but without Anibis there would have been no Overwatch

[bold fern]

is the rest of the picture accurate

dont know much about lore

besides doom

[grand wedge]

th reste is meme, except Moira, she is straight up evil all right

[bold fern]

i wanna debate normal person

who is actually the most normal

like just there

no plot relevence and just exists

just a normal human

[wise grotto]

Venture

Closest your getting to a normal person

In the entire cast

Is venture

[bold fern]

innocent contruction worker

[shrewd pivot]

Ohhh this explains why you have an issue when people point out unhealthy dynamics.

If you don't have issue with EmrexFreja, ofc you would be fine with ships like BrigxPharah. Pharah in ow1 is 32. Brigitte in ow1 is 23. I think Brigitte was originally written to be older tho? But yeah

Not only do the personalities not really jive, but 'age ÷ 2, +7' is the norm range... not the common limit for a reason. I don't see it happening in canon.

[shrewd pivot]

Hm. Maybe Mei? Venture actively goes mountains climbing, artifact hunting, etc. Mei is an eco scientist and seemingly pretty "normal" in her cinematic, forced into unusual circumstances

[spare fox]

it really isn't why... it's just tired of the stretching to make something problematic when it isn't just to justify why you don't ship something
a 25 and a 34 year old is not problematic
neither is a 34 and 39 year old, that's it

[shrewd pivot]

I didn't say 25x34 nor 34x39 was problematic.

[spare fox]

but that's what I was initially talking about

[shrewd pivot]

So... Brigitte in overwatch 2 developing a crush on Pharah...? I still don't see it happening, the personalities differ. Pharah and Brigitte xould be workout buddies or something tho

[spare fox]

and you said that that's why I get upset when people bring up problematic - and it's not the reason
The reason is because the mental gymnastics are such a tired take

[cosmic crest]

I think they are BFF's

Also, it'd be nice if they didn't make all of the tomboyish girls gay

[shrewd pivot]

Not a tired take, it's context.

Just bc two characters are adults, doesn't mean it's a healthy dynamic. The context matters. For example, Mauga and Baptiste as bad exes are soft canon, but that's absolutely not a healthy relationship and is indeed a problematic dynamic. The story portrays it as such, so it's not an issue imo.

[spare fox]

MaugaxBaptiste is different

[shrewd pivot]

Eh, they said "he" for Sojourn love life voice line, but notably didn't have Brigitte use a pronoun when Tracer teased Brigitte about having a crush on someone. Brigitte isn't confirmed straight so it's fair game imo

[peak escarp]

technically nobody has been confirmed straight

[spare fox]

and just because a 12x17 is most certainly problematic, it doesn't mean a 34x39 year old is, regardless of if they knew each other in the formative. Adults are different people from when they're children and are capable of making decisions

[peak escarp]

not even the heroes who have been in hetero relationships

[spare fox]

Also, bisexual and pansexual people exist

[lavish osprey]

So going back to the Event Screens, the Talon mission screen is glitching out too. So it's both sides.

[shrewd pivot]

Ace and aro people too!

Yeah I meant straight bc the comment was about tomboys being made gay / non straight, atleast that's how I read it. Ig saphic would be the better word.

And very true! No canon confirmed straight yet

[cunning copper]

this can't be right

I'm not an expert

[peak escarp]

Mercy is not as old as people think she is

[cunning copper]

but i recall a picture with kid pharah and mercy

from the lore

[peak escarp]

Mercy was a teenager in that image

[spare fox]

now we're just going in circles lol

[shrewd pivot]

Mercy and Cassidy are the same age.

In ow2, Pharah is 34 and Mercy is 39.

In the pharah bio picture, Mercy is 17 and Pharah is 12/13

[cunning copper]

right

anyway

[shrewd pivot]

Informing new people on lore isn't circles spooky cakes...

[spare fox]

taking my comment out of context but ok

[cunning copper]

i personally think people care too much about what fictional adults other people ship and that if we all simply ignored each other and formed communities for the ships we love without disturbing each other because we don't ship something, as long as it wasn't, you know, illegal, this community would be a better place

[peak escarp]

technically shipping shouldn't be discussed here anyway, since it is by definition noncanon

[cunning copper]

truth nuke

EITHER WAY

is ramattra bad villain writing or not i keep reflecting on this

[peak escarp]

Ramattra is a hypocrite

it's good to give characters flaws

[cunning copper]

i think not but there's a certain perspective : they gave him the worst trope, villain who is right in almost every way shape or form but steps on babies for fun

[peak escarp]

that's what I mean - he's right for wanting equality for omnics, but instead of actually working towards that equality, he just stole them all away to wait for humans to die off

you don't need to fight for equality when your race is the only one left

[cunning copper]

i think he is peak villain writing actually

he's a bad guy, but wait he's good,but wait it's up to personal interpretation

adds a lot of...

i don't know

[shrewd pivot]

What circles could it possibly be referring to? /genuine
you're the last one that made the comment about ages.

And then someone asked about mercy pharah ages. Pardon for the misunderstanding.

[shrewd pivot]

Yeah no issue there, if people actually tag content on social media so ppl can avoid content, everything works fine. I'm just talking about T rated media and what is appropriate for T rated media. And Pharah was written to canonically have interest in Mercy, so it's a discussion about what does and does not work for a T rated series, not if fandom people can or cannot ship.

[spare fox]

the conversation started with discussing their ages, then they (yes another person, but still) brought it up again, thus the circles

[shrewd pivot]

Yeah I feel like they could have handled the violence nullsector inflicted much better, to better reflect Ramattra's philosophy.

Like, if nullsector only fired when fired upon, and did not harm vulnerable groups like animals children etc it would have not only better fit Ramattra's philosophy, it would have set up some very interest psychological warfare which befits a R-7000 tactical robot. Ramattra is supposed to be good at war strategy but he wasn't written really... being all that good at it.

[cunning copper]

i mean, didn't the king's row uprising operate using mostly obsolete units?

[shrewd pivot]

Yes exactly... so someone new asking about lore isn't talking in circles (pointless arguments), it's a new person asking about lore.

[shrewd pivot]

Yes, and Ramattra was written as... hasty? But hasty in a way I would expect an organic human fatigued by sleep deprivation and stress would be hasty, not hasty like a calculating omnic unit created for war and given sapience by Aurora would be 'hasty'

[spare fox]

you are insufferable, it was just a remark on the fact that it was brought up again, thus being "in circles" and followed by an "lol" like... stop being so pedantic

[shrewd pivot]

R-7000s were created by anubis to carry out its will if Anubis ever fell, so long term planning should be a strength of Ramattra's, organic-style-hastyness doesn't really make sense.

Ramattra IS much more active than Zenyatta, but hastyness to the point of ruin doesn't fit Ramattra imo

[shrewd pivot]

That's a bit dramatic /genuine

You are adding unnecessary 'ughhhs' type responses, and "talking in circles" with no actually addition to the conversation.

Adding "lol" makes it passive aggressive, and I think it's rude to tell a new person coming into the convo asking about lore, that they are talking in circles.

Please be kinder.

[cunning copper]

HOLY TRUTH

it's important to understand that

ravagers were nicknamed death squads and were INCREDIBLY notorious and killed down to...well...ramattra, after the omnic crisis

that's how bad these guys were

[spare fox]

YOU'RE THE ONE WHO REPLIED TO IT
You're the one who keeps nitpicking and quibbling over the stupidest things
You could just leave me alone or stop reading the worst possible context of everything I write

[cunning copper]

now now lads

let's not

it's never that serious

you're spiking your cortisol

[shrewd pivot]

I mean, im chilling. I just type bluntly, pardon.

No ill will, I just don't like ignoring passive aggressive behavior and this isn't the first time it's happened unfortunately.

[cunning copper]

either way I'm not taking anyone's side hell j didn't even read what the discussion is about

but like

cmon

[shrewd pivot]

Yeah I am a scifi and robot connoisseur so im picking about robot characters nor being written as having organic human weaknesses, like a human can be tired and make errors, but a robot doesn't really do that.

[cunning copper]

be like the monks from shambali

[cunning copper]

oh that, definitely. i mean... ramattra should by all means be an EXCELLENT strategist

[shrewd pivot]

Sojourn's novel also struggled depicting strategy 😅

I think overwatch has a "look at this hacking!!!(insert ridiculously fake silly hype moment tapping keyboard)" approach but to strategy characters lol

They unironically used chess TWICE, uh...thrice? To indicate a character is "strategic"

Sojourn and Morrison in sojourn novel, and then kid vendetta in her short lol

Like, the game Go fits sojourn better imo. And would be more topical as Deep Blue chess was mentioned, well Go had an ai beat human players too

[cunning copper]

i even read this one fan comic where ramattra is playing battleship, the other player accuses him of cheating because he's flawlessly guessing coordinates

he says and i quote "games of strategy and war... i did not have the heart to tell her that these too were the things i was built for."

||it's dvattra I'm sorry I'm being intentionally vague because i don't want to include ship talk||

it feels like

fans have a more accurate interpretation of

how ramattra SHOULD be

he's a literal machine for killing

[shrewd pivot]

Ramattra should be like 5 steps ahead using psychologal warfare imo. I hope when he eventually gets an arc, it's good strategy shown

[cunning copper]

yet my goat is getting folded like it's nobody's business

[cunning copper]

pssst.... yeah you...

||the good guys always win||

[shrewd pivot]

And notably, Ramattra is an antagonist not an evil villain, according to his writer ☝️ 😎

Joking aside, I want competent strategy shown from both sides, it is much more rewarding to watch good guys beat bad guys with strategy and not 100% pure plot armor

[cunning copper]

i mean they at least could have tried. did ramattra achieve even 1 (one) meaningful victory so far into his story arc before the "your torment will outlast the stars" 7 ft domain expansion omnic goes intohiding and just gives up until humanity kills itself

from what I've read this guy is getting SACKED

EVERYWHERE

i could not bang my head harder on my desk when i say that my goats in any sort of fictional media are always getting owned after being presented as the tuffest characters

[shrewd pivot]

Yeah.

But hey, depite the bad writing wrapping it up by pushing it all under the rug, The fact Ramattra is willing to grant humanity the mercy of living out its natural lifespan, that Ramattra is not willing to save humanity from itself, that "suffer as I have" is applied in a new context: watching as your people squabble into ruin,now applied to humanity, goes kinda hard

[cunning copper]

hm.

[shrewd pivot]

I mean, def could have been better handled ofc, just sifting thru the canon we did get in the end. I hope Ramattra can be handled well in the future for sure

[wise grotto]

Lin the case of rammattra strategy not being sound
They aren’t literal robots anymore they have normal thoughts
So having errors in your strategy makes sense objectively regarding omnics

[pseudo iron]

yeah but it still isnt fun to watch your main villain fuck up so many times and not win even once for very vague reaeons

[wise grotto]

Ramm didn’t really
Fail fully at all

He got most of the omnics subjugated and expects humans to wipe eachother out

Other then very few locations he kinda won for the most part

[brittle sky]

Notably, Ramattra is not the last Ravager left. There is evidence they are subject to particulart discrimination given their origins as an Anubis original creation, but at least one (Revel) is still alive and in Hazard's Phreaks cell, and Phreaks often given Ravagers chassis alterations (presumably to help them blend in with more 'normal' omnics more - Ramattra even points out that this is encouraging assimilation, to which Hazard tries to dunk on him, I don't think super successfully?)

[wise grotto]

Rammattra also doesn’t dunk on the phreaks very well either

Like of all the groups telling THOSE GIYS they’re assimilating is funny

[brittle sky]

One of the issues with Vendetta accusing Doom of squandering things and everyone calling the NS-Talon alliance a disaster is that the way the Null Crisis ended it really seems like both Ram and Doom got 90%+ of what they wanted.

[wise grotto]

Doom just didn’t do shit which rammattra even viewed as a failure of alliance

[brittle sky]

I actually think the poke as assimilation in that particular case may be valid. It's true phreaks in general aren't looking to blend in, but the implication of chassis modifications on Ravagers is that many want to remove distinguishing ravager features for the sake of not being as much of targets. Which does have some parrallels, to be sure.

[brittle sky]

I mean, it's implied in Ramattra reflections that Talon's patronage is what allowed Ram from churning out some old warbots enough to take a single neighborhood hostage to having full production enough to hit many different cities around the world. Unless we just think he scaled production and footed the bill all his own with his approximately 0 resources.

[wise grotto]

At that point if the ohreaks denied the ravagers who ask for that they’d be hypocritical

[brittle sky]

I'm not saying phreaks are bad. Just that in their emphasis on bodily alteration and autonomy they're honoring desires that ultimately seek to surrender to societal pressure and bigotry, so as to assimilate to meet societal standards.

[wise grotto]

I guess both sides are technically right in there judgement there

[brittle sky]

sure. Those are the interesting disagreements in the cast - far more than the 'but you're eeeeeevil' stuff we get

[wise grotto]

Yea
I really really like hazards lore and the phreaks as a group

[brittle sky]

I mean, he and the phreaks are the last holdout of 'critic of overwatch who are entirely really not wrong', given the otherw to immediately rejoined overwatch.

[wise grotto]

Yea
I also think he’s a very realistic character in general

[brittle sky]

Sure. I think they took the pedal off the gas in a few regards, but the fundamental position of him, a lot of hsi executions, and his perspective and effect put him pretty high on the list of the purely ow2 originals additions to the cast.

[shrewd pivot]

Yeah! I agree.
It's just that in Ram's writing, his hastyness reads more like an organic human character, fatigued from like lack of sleep and thus making risky hasty decisions, rather than a robot built for war strategy given free will and trying to be as efficient as possible to save his people, if that makes sense?

Awakened omnics have sapience and free will, but just like with any human-level sapient scifi species, it shouldn't be a one to one human experience. It's just a nitpick really bc robot scifi is something I enjoy

[cunning copper]

i am enjoying watching this discussion

i totally get it

[civic lynx]

Um

We MIGHT have got a leak of S2’s hero

[cunning copper]

i mean, a mistake like this is bound to happen at one point. ramattra is by all means a pretty solidly written character, BUT.

there's just some aspects which you get stuck on that don't really make sense at least to the naked eye ;

in order for the story to continue in the way that the writers deem it to do, ramattra makes choices that don't align with his identity.

i understand the other person's point but that does not make them humans entirely. it makes them super intelligent humans. ramattra would kill me for saying this but they are still machines after all. they can access any information and adapt more efficiently than humans. it comes off as strange for an army of robots that nearly destroyed the world in the omnic crisis to be written off as... yesh.... overwatch came and stomped them. maybe I'm missing something, such as the scale at which the omnic crisis happened compared to null sector, or available technology, i don't know, something.

[civic lynx]

Definitely not Frankie

[brittle sky]

I mean, he very notably is hasty because every day he tarries, omnics are killed and the omnic population shrinks permanently. He's not hasty for lack of sleep or biological factors, he's hasty because he's spent most his life watching things get worse and worse with no sign of abating, and the longer he doesn't act the worse it gets.

and while he's meant to be tactical, he very overtly is not some big picture, necessary sacrifice strategist. Any level of sacrifice of omnics is unacceptable to him. He's not driven by cold-blooded calculus, but a deep, burning care.

[brittle sky]

I mean you're missing the fact that omnics, in their full capacity, never fought humans in mass. The crisis was always anubis using pre-awakened omnics as puppets, and it was such a big picture macroscopic being that its moves were brute force or blunt in its individual moves. It didn't treat omnics as collaborators whose processing power it can use to make more sophisticated battle strategies, but weapons to point and fire. Omnics as soon as they awakened overwhelmingly chose not to fight (that's the tragedy of omnics - humans see them as reminders of the existential threat that almost wiped them out - because their bodies were the tools of that threat - and that drives a lot of fear and bigotry, but the first choice omnics did upon personhood was that they were not going to fight humanity).

Overwatch was key in stemming Anubis' aggression, getting and quarentining Anubis isolated before it could regroup with unawakened warbots, and stamping out the pockets of omnics that stuck to fighting, but it was the awakening far more than raw military might that ended the crisis.

[brittle sky]

Lots of inconsistencies in the model there, I would bet decent money we got someone pulling on an AI model - liek what even is the top part of that gun supposed to be?

[civic lynx]

Tbh the gun looks just as odd in the silhouette

I thought it was a longer version of this fort weapon at first

[brittle sky]

Sure, it looks odd in silhouette, but that design looks a lot like an AI model didn't know what it was actually representing and gave up.

like that feels like one of the tells - it fills in things, but nothing that feels purposeful or novel. It's purely what could already be inferred from the silhouette or what a prompter would know to input.

[spare fox]

the style looks like AI is trying to copy the official artwork from the artbook - that kind of design would not be something that was leaked

I'd suspect something that was leaked would be more like an icon, or a player model. Where would a leaker get concept art?

[warm frost]

So I think I may know what the melody is. Though it's a bit of a stretch

[cunning copper]

speaking of ai. what the hell is coming out of her shoe?

oh.shit

I'm stupid

neeeevermind

[shrewd pivot]

Notably, omnics are barred from gambling, explored in Maximilien's lore, which was interesting! So it's not like the distinct difference between omnics and humans hasn't ever been touched in lore, and yet... how they handled Ramattra is.... ehhhh... I get what they were going for, but I think it could have been done differently to better represent what @brittle sky worded well as Ramattra's motivations being a 'burning care'.

But yeah, it's me nitpicking robot character writing lol

[shrewd pivot]

It's not legit, the silhouette is different on the hair strand end, and sword at the end of the gun. This is either genai slop or a photoshop, not a real leak.

[wise grotto]

Helix for sure

Aaah ok now I see this yea

I still think it’s gonna be helix agent tho

I don’t think it’s genai tho

[wraith ether]

bro

i'm not going insane

did they just leak 2 new heroes in the summer games icon section

there's 2 actual strangers

i don't know anyone who can be them

[brittle sky]

show?

[wraith ether]

dms

no img perms

[crisp canyon]

Nothing is out of the ordinary I see every hero I can recognize

[wraith ether]

let me show

[crisp canyon]

Can u describe them

[wraith ether]

one has an overexaggerated hair vent on one side of them

with their main color scheme being orange

[crisp canyon]

That’s Sombra and venture

[wraith ether]

no shot

[crisp canyon]

Yes

Venture is orange for some reason and the purple is the indicator it’s Sombra and you can tell by her hair

[wraith ether]

that does NOT look like venture

[crisp canyon]

It literally does they even show off ventured teeth so yk it is

It’s venture without a big ass coat lmao

[valid echo]

Yall see the the lore drop "the upper hand"

[crisp canyon]

I wonder if they removed character colors because the roster was getting too big to do indvidual

[brittle sky]

the domina short story? Which is called image of perfection, despite the slot on the menu being named after the earlier tease dom had with venny?

[shrewd pivot]

I'm me? I can post the image here

[crisp canyon]

They’re talking ab the rock climber player icon

[shrewd pivot]

Oh lol

[candid rapids]

While doing talon missions I was reading through them. One said the junkers like to cause chaos. Junkrat can help us with this. Are all the junkers with talon?

[crisp canyon]

Appears so

[shrewd pivot]

Vendetta sent Mauga to negotiate with the Junkers. We don't know how that went yet.

[crisp canyon]

The challenges included Junkrat one day for talon side, I’m sure hog will be included too asp

Queen also has had challenges and her icon appears sometimes for challenges too

It’s safe to say they’re with talon

[shrewd pivot]

Technically Roadhog and Junkrat are "outside" the junkers group, but JunkerQueen and the Junkers will def face Mauga soon

Wouldn't suprise me if junkers side with Talon tho

[valid echo]

No the upper hand how do I post a photo i can show you

The final of the lore drops

[brittle sky]

Yeah I wouldn't overread just having their icon in rotation for Talon. Until we hit s4 we prolly won't see junkers enter the storyline

[brittle sky]

Permissions are weird. You talking on the menu?

[valid echo]

Yee in the last spot

An hour ago it said coming soon

[candid rapids]

Damn, junk got a line where he asks to join ow and they shut him down in game. Bro got his revenge

[dense garnet]

Is Dva's meka canonically larger than Reinhardt?

[brittle sky]

I still got a coming soon beyond that. Also they seem to expand the slots at the mid season, which makes more sense for the pattern of focusing on each of the 5 new characters across the 5 weeks of the event.

[valid echo]

Yeah in my photo there where others I didn't even notice I just wanted the notification to go away. A whole 3rd page

It says coming soon again

[crisp canyon]

Clearly headed in the direction there’s no way Queen sides with Overwatch

[shrewd pivot]

Huh. Just saw news about a collaboration but idk if that's allowed to be discussed here?

LW seems to have his og skintone which is different from the collab character, but vendetta is very pale skintone to match the collab character.

Ig this means Vendetta canonically is very very pale with a tan?
I expected her to be Mediterranean skintype (wide range that tans darker) with a tan ofc, but her being naturally very very pale with a tan is a suprise.
Why doesn't Vendetta's base design have any tanlines then if her natural skintone is so pale? Is Vendetta using a tanning bed to get a perfect tan lmafo??

[peak escarp]

Cassidy doesn't have tan lines either

Vendetta doesn't look very tan

[spare fox]

It's likely just the visual style they're using from Nier where everything looks like it's under its own cool white spotlight

[peak escarp]

also damn that concept art gave her meaty thighs

[shrewd pivot]

Caucasian people aren't all porcelain skintone, thus Cassidy.

the collab image has Vendetta with porcelain pale skin which is different from her ingame.

I just found it notable bc LW had his tone but not Vendetta in the image, idk if i can post the collab image bc it was seemingly released early on accident

[shrewd pivot]

Seems like they went with her concept art tan tho in the end, the 3d model matches this image

[spare fox]

Different artists depict characters differently... sometimes the hexcode is going to be off by a character it's not really uncommon

[shrewd pivot]

Well yeah, I was just curious. Roadhog has a tanline in his base design, and skins have had tanlines, so tanlines are not a stylization choice to not include (like not coloring palms in overwatch is a stylization choice).

Vendetta is tanner than Kiriko for example, so the fact the collab promo had Vendetta the same tone as Kiriko, is probably indicating Vendetta is canonically naturally porcelain skin tone with a tan. So I wonder why Vendetta's base design doesn't have tanlines

[peak escarp]

Cassidy has a much lighter skin tone than people think - his OW classic skin made him weirdly darker

[spare fox]

I doubt it. The lighting and the stylization for the marketing artwork are going to cause differences in how colors appear. Lighting especially

Nier's style is that everything is high- contrast and heavily-washed in cool white light, it'll wash out tones and make contrasts more evident

Which is a theme in the series

That's why the marketing artwork is done in that style. The in-game character models will probably be different and look like they do in the game lighting (OW)

[shrewd pivot]

Eh more like, ow1 was a Clint eastwood ref, and ow2 gave Cassidy less tan and changed his eye color iirc? Not that you can really notice the eye color change since it's still dark. Also, a white guy (USA definition) can have a natural tan tone and still be a white guy (USA definition). Italians and Greeks are currently considered white in the USA for example.

[valid jolt]

I have question. What is the origin of moira, what started her journey of someday inventing immortality.

[valid echo]

Depression prob

[valid jolt]

Does moira have family?

[past copper]

Remind me, wasn't Eastwood and everyone who filmed, the ones who got cancer from filming on what they didn't know was a US nuclear site?

[digital linden]

we don’t really know anything about her early life

[valid jolt]

🤔

[shrewd pivot]

I don't think in canon we have any specifics on what started Moira's journey...? But yeah she is doing experiments regardless of ethics to pursue cures for diseases and to fight off death, so yeah ig that is pursuing aspects of immortality in a way.

[digital linden]

which is sad bc she’s my favourite character and i’d love to know about her childhood and what led her to her fascination of artificial decay and immortality

[valid jolt]

[shrewd pivot]

That would be interesting lore to explore!

[valid jolt]

Who is father of pharah

[crisp canyon]

A khia

[shrewd pivot]

Hm from what I can find, no. That seems to be the movie "The Conqueror (1956)" with John Wayne. Clint Eastwood was not involved

(Edit: The entire crew were exposed to radiation and many got cancer) That's very tragic though :(

[crisp canyon]

John Wayne was a violent racist tho

[shrewd pivot]

Sam English, who is Coast Salish First Nations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coast_Salish_peoples

[shrewd pivot]

Talking about the whole crew from the movie that got high rates of cancer, I mean. Pardon for my wording not being clear.

The movie was rather racist too im pretty sure...

[crisp canyon]

I wouldn’t expect any less from him

[valid jolt]

Can efi make more orisa? Orisa 2.0

A support and dps variant I mean

[shrewd pivot]

If Efi got the right tech components, Efi could in theory make a seperate Orisa of sorts, yes.

[valid jolt]

Oh she does not have funds... Ok ok

[crisp canyon]

The irony of Overwatch introducing a native character then giving him a white name and sideling

[shrewd pivot]

More so, it's hard to find another OR-15 unit that can reworked into a new "Orisa" like creation. Orisa was created from a OR-15 unit Doomfist wrecked.

[valid jolt]

junkertown plot where hog and junkrat were exiled and they came back with explosive loot for the queen, and then failed, Has that plot moved forward. Are they still exile?

[peak escarp]

Sam's white name represents the unfortunate history of many First Nations people losing their names and identities in the residential school system

[shrewd pivot]

Ironically enough, the writer actually did research and after talking with the Coast Salish community, "English" was the name that was landed on by the writer.

[crisp canyon]

Terrible decision

[crisp canyon]

They had the opportunity to just not do that too

[peak escarp]

would you rather they co-opt some tribe's family names without the proper research or respect?

[crisp canyon]

Overwatch needs to step up their team with indigenous inclusion, Mauga is practically the only character they care to recognize that from

[valid jolt]

[spare fox]

I mean, it's a damned if they do, damned if they don't situation

[crisp canyon]

It’s literal, fiction. He only exists because of the team giving Pharah that fuck ass thunder bird skin and then deciding later on it wasn’t a good look to have done that, so they just made him up to be Native American instead

[crisp canyon]

It’s really not lmao

[peak escarp]

if you think so

[crisp canyon]

I do lmao

[spare fox]

look at literally what just happened "ironic that they gave him the last name English" "actually, they did their research and that's the name that fit" "no that's awful"

[crisp canyon]

Because it is

[valid jolt]

I will name my child E54

[shrewd pivot]

Honestly, I agree...

Pharah's regalia skin was noted as being indicative of her First Nations heritage in art books.
Her Bedouin skin (if it follows the same logic), implied Ana is Bedouin. And i have. Feelings about that.

The only way I can put this: I am shocked that Overwatch is as culturally mindful as it is, when Blizzard has the likes of World of Warcraft in its game list lmafo

[spare fox]

and you have earlier where someone was complaining about whitewashing a white character - they literally can't win

[shrewd pivot]

Technically not apart of Junkers. Queen seems chill with Roadhog, but dunks on Junkrat a lot.

[peak escarp]

I guess Genji is one too

[crisp canyon]

What?

[peak escarp]

since he's got Bedouin style skins

[valid jolt]

Cassidy has that China guard army skin

With hat that is like mizuki

[crisp canyon]

I fear there is a difference in how China perceived culture shared vs Native Americans

[shrewd pivot]

Nope, that Genji skin is 100% orientalism stereotype btw bc the REASON they made it was to represent Genji’s 'journey' i need to grab a screencap of the bs reason they gave lol

I only brought up Bedouin Pharah bc they said the regalia skin was indicative of Pharah's heritage, and Ana is Egyptian (where Bedouin live)

[shrewd pivot]

Care to explain what you mean, bc I am lost.
I will not assume you meant this passive aggressive towards me but idk how else this could read @spare fox

For reference, Colorism isn't the same as Whitewashing.

[peak escarp]

Pharah must also be part Hawaiian then, because of her Sunset skin

a statement made about one skin does not apply to all other skins

[crisp canyon]

Stereotypical Hawaiian tourists themed skin vs cultural regalia btw

[valid jolt]

I like the Japanese reaper skin

[shrewd pivot]

Even then, my Samoan friend says Mauga's Samoan is botched pronunciation (not uncommon for OW, Zarya has botched Russian)

[crisp canyon]

Mauga is also supposed to be way darker, a Samoan man who loves not wearing clothes wouldn’t be that pale

[shrewd pivot]

Yeah Mauga was notably lightened from his 2d design to base game 3d model

[crisp canyon]

I miss pre game Mauga where he was menacing, now he’s he’s brain dead why not kind of guy

[valid jolt]

I feel like lore has nothing to do with cosmetics guys.

[crisp canyon]

the Pharah skin changed the lore, so this one topic

[peak escarp]

or the Pharah skin was reflecting the lore they already wrote

[crisp canyon]

There was literally no lore on that for like 3 years

They didn’t even acknowledge it until more ppl pointed out how weird it was they gave her that skin

[peak escarp]

so you assume that because they didn't say anything, the skin must have come first

[crisp canyon]

Yes? Lmao

[shrewd pivot]

They did a piss poor job of representing it mindfully imo just from context.

Many First Nations people have expressed discomfort with Pharah's portrayal (Edit: many posts on social medias over the years), so I will trust the represented group to decide if they feel a representation is good or not.

[crisp canyon]

Why would I assume anything different if they don’t lead me to believe there will be?

[peak escarp]

this is the first I've heard of any discomfort around her portrayal

[spare fox]

this is what I meant with the "damned if they do, damned if they don't"...

[valid jolt]

I come back after few hours, I have question about zarya.

[peak escarp]

I've only heard criticism about Symmetra's Deva skins

[crisp canyon]

I wouldn’t be suprised since you were downplaying the stuff we were talk ab

[crisp canyon]

Literally no

”Overwatch can’t do anything better ab indigenous inclusion or ppl will fight no matter what”

[valid jolt]

I have a bronze statue of that Devi in my home.

It's accurate enough

I am from India

[crisp canyon]

The controversy was about her being able to killed while dressed like that not ab acc im pretty sure

[shrewd pivot]

Nah it's called, respectfully portray a culture by doing research. And if you mess up, do updates to fix the issues. No one is upset with Symmetra's kathak dances, in fact it's a really lovely rep.

They are upset with skins like the Kali skin, which has official condemnation from Hindu temples, yet overwatch still kept it in.

It's not like they gave Reinhardt a Jesus skin, so idk why Kali skin was deemed appropriate for Symmetra.

[valid jolt]

🤔 she is portrayed in similar outfits.

[shrewd pivot]

This is why I unironically hope Overwatch never touches Romani rep bc if it's anything near what marvel rivals has done... 🥀

It /seems/ like they have moved away from making orientalist skins like ow1 had, but I can't be certain, I just hope they do better research so future skins are a fun thing for people and not a punch down thing for people going forwards.

[crisp canyon]

Pharah not having even a tribal affiliation for her or her father is pretty telling how much they act care ab that aspect of her and why she’s consistently recognized as Egyptian and not the other, it’s almost like she was only supposed to be 1 thing ….

And let me not forget when at blizzcon Aaron referred to her as ”part Canadian”

[valid jolt]

... you guys gonna keep talking about who belongs in what country and culture for the next few hours ?

[shrewd pivot]

It's about representing irl Hindu gods as a skin, not if its outfits. Again, no character has had straight up Buddha skins or Jesus skins etc. Greek gods were ancient dead religions, and Kiriko’s mythic is a kabuki actor skin not actually the goddess.

It's okay to say overwatch makes mistakes. It does, it has, and will continue too. Humans make the game, nothing is perfect.

[crisp canyon]

Yep

[shrewd pivot]

Character lore, yep.

[peak escarp]

you're going to believe what you want to believe so there's no point in trying to convince you otherwise

[crisp canyon]

Convince me of what exactly?

[peak escarp]

anything

[crisp canyon]

What does that even mean

What would you specifically need to convince me of rn?

[peak escarp]

I mean that you've made up your mind and no amount of proof is going to change it, so im not going to bother

[shrewd pivot]

Doctor that's an incredibly vague statement. That isn't answering the question @crisp canyon asked.

[crisp canyon]

I literally asked you earlier nothing pointed to Pharah being Native American so why would I assume she was, of blizzards themselves wouldn’t speak on it until more ppl did

[peak escarp]

what are you, the discourse police?

[crisp canyon]

I don’t understand how you came in the conversation ab how Sam English is unfortunately the reality native Americans have to live with white names to switching up and trying to say blizzard couldn’t be better ab indigenous rep which is what I’ve been criticizing

[peak escarp]

the devs claim that they gave her the skin because of her heritage, you claim that they gave her the heritage because of the skin

it's your word against theirs

[crisp canyon]

They claimed well after which is what I said lmao

[peak escarp]

doesn't make it not true

[crisp canyon]

It kinda does yeah 😭

Guys let’s put this skin out and not saying anything ab it for awhile

[shrewd pivot]

No, it's that you and @spare fox are often very passive aggressive and it's not actually helpful, it causes conflict, and you end up bullying people. Please both of you just say what you mean instead of being passive aggressive.

[spare fox]

Doc, there's no arguing with these two. See, they're dragging me in to it again for some reason

[peak escarp]

I'm not being passive aggressive

[crisp canyon]

You said earlier I was involved in some white washing a white character argument and then never responded to me ab it like what

[shrewd pivot]

Because you vagued me while missing my point by saying I complained about "whitewashing a white character" and then never responded to either of us. Yes, you are in this situation.

[valid jolt]

.... I will be honest, the way I see it and I assume most Indian people would is that symettra is just cosplaying ma kali, not becoming ma kali.

We dress up as the gods in some festivals

[crisp canyon]

Ntm I think it’s really weird you framed blizzard being better ab indigenous rep as being ”damned if they do”

[spare fox]

yeah bc you're literally complaining about it even tho they did their research

[crisp canyon]

Im allowed to criticize a character being Native American and being given a white name when they didn’t have to do that is what I said and ur acting like I sent a bomb to the company ab it, saying they did their research is subjective given to this day Pharah doesn’t even have a tribal affiliation

[spare fox]

huh? what are you even talking about

[shrewd pivot]

The skins have gotten official condemnation from Hindu temples, is the main concern.

Imo, if irl gods aren't skins for other characters, Symmetra as a kathak dancer character probably didn't need that skin.

(As for gods: Ancient Norse, Ancient Egyptian, ancient Greek gods are ancient dead religion, etc)

it's less about it being in line with cultures/religions, more about just being mindful with certain topics and depictions.

If overwatch had a jesus skin for Cassidy (it's a meme lol), I wouldn't see an issue with the Kali skin.

[crisp canyon]

What were u talking ab when i apparently had a conversation about white washing white characters

[spare fox]

I never said that?

[shrewd pivot]

It's almost like being passive aggressive creates confusion @spare fox and "ignoring" passive aggressive comments like you said I should do, doesn't actually help.

Who were you talking about here. Me or @crisp canyon?

Edit: you never answered btw. You ignore points like this and can't take criticism, and then project by saying we are the ones who can't take criticism. Your criticism is 'you are annoying (for doing lore analysis and lore critique in the lore channel).' my criticism is 'being passive aggressive is not helpful (it's bullying)'. Please be kinder.

[crisp canyon]

I feel it’s act very weird you came in right away to say something ab a conversation I wasn’t even apart to justify and say why what I was criticizing wasn’t worth listening to, and then trying to downplay it as lose lose scenario

[crisp canyon]

U replied to directly me and said I was in some white washing conversation earlier

[valid jolt]

Oh.... from people who don't really understand videogames that much. I guess that's understandable. They are a bit overprotective...

PC gaming is not common here.

Mobile is

But mobile gaming is condemned too

So uh

[grave saddle]

What a thrilling conversation evolution

[shrewd pivot]

Yeah lol, I bet a Jesus skin in overwatch would have Christian churches pearl clutching lol, but that's exactly the point of why avoiding certain figures is probably best when making skins. Plus, there's a fine line between "camp" and "distasteful" which can be hard to balance with polarizing religious figure depictions

[grave saddle]

I too love my overwatch lore with a splash needlessly semantic debates

[shrewd pivot]

Fandom is funny that way, not that different from religious text debate in that way lmao. Explicit canon vs implied canon etc etc lol, a human tale as old as time

[grave saddle]

What question?

[crisp canyon]

all I did was criticize how indigenous identity has been represented and ppl acted like it was completely ridiculous to even suggest the billon dollar corporate machine could be tone deaf and not act being representative

[valid jolt]

We do dress up as god's tho. And nobody cares how inaccurate it is, as long as the silhouette is there is fine

[shrewd pivot]

They do that to me too, not your fault, you're not wrong for your statements

[grave saddle]

Yeah it’s just something that’s gonna happen but as long as there’s nothing malicious going on

[peak escarp]

that's not what I said at all, but sure

[grave saddle]

I thought they were saying that blizzard asked the group the character was representing and were given this name by said group?

[valid jolt]

Is zarya in overwatch or is she a judge in russia, or private security of volkskaya industries

[crisp canyon]

U very much downplayed anything that was said and the. Went back and fourth ab how skins don’t mean anything well act they do if blizzard says they do long after. then said there was no convincing me whatsoever (odd thing to say if u feel otherwise)

[grave saddle]

She is in overwatch. But we haven’t seen much of her recently. She joined at the same time as Dva

[valid jolt]

Oooooo

[peak escarp]

I didn't intend to downplay your criticisms

I was just stating facts

I said there was no convincing you because you were certain Blizzard was just covering themselves

[crisp canyon]

”Pharah has a Hawaiian skin so ig she must be Hawaiian then huh?, did you know that skin didn’t mean anything or did you assume it didn’t” these don’t add up together for someone trying to be genuine and stating facts

[shrewd pivot]

Yeah... I think a certain festival skin would have worked better for Symmetra tbh, it would have avoided the issue entirely.

Optics are a big part of game design, so it's fair to say it could have been implemented better.

[valid jolt]

Wait does this mean sombra has no ties with volkskaya now, cz zarya left

[peak escarp]

that was a response to Vio claiming that Pharah's Bedouin skin implied that she had Bedouin heritage

[shrewd pivot]

I said IF, IF that skin follows the same logic. (Bc Bedouin live in Egypt and Ana is Egyptian.)

[grave saddle]

Well she still has the blackmail on them. It’s not entirely clear if Zarya has left working for volskaya completely either I think either tho

[peak escarp]

I have to admit it's very hard to keep up with this conversation while I'm cooking dinner

[grave saddle]

Likely we will see sombra use the blackmail she has on volskaya somewhere down the line

[crisp canyon]

U didn’t have to say anything and yet u did tho

[valid jolt]

[peak escarp]

yes I did

[shrewd pivot]

Sombra's cinematic implies Sombra has active blackmail on Volskaya, so the blackmail would count as a tie ig? :o

[valid jolt]

Zarya caught sombra in a comic don't remember the details now ...

[past copper]

Not jumping in here but someone has to say it. YOU didn't have to say anything either 🤷‍♂️

[peak escarp]

and I regret it

[crisp canyon]

I am allowed to criticize it I’m not doing anything to now say I couldn’t follow context because I was act doing something else the entire time

[past copper]

Just saying. Don't say something and not expect to get into a debate

[crisp canyon]

It wasn’t a debate really

[valid jolt]

is it over now

[peak escarp]

I have to realize that my facetious manner of commenting isn't well received by neurodivergent people

it's something I'm working on

[grave saddle]

Omnic crisis 3.0 in lore discussion

[shrewd pivot]

Yes, because facetious comments are passive aggressive comments, which are very hard to understand through text.

[past copper]

Welcome to the internet 🤷‍♂️

[peak escarp]

I don't intend them as passive aggressive

I intend them as humor

guess I'm just not that funny

[crisp canyon]

Tbh it seemed kinda micro aggressive that when I brought up the topic u and spooky both acted like it was unreasonable to criticize it

[peak escarp]

that wasn't my intent

[past copper]

I mean. Most skins don't mean much more than to give a hero a skin

[grave saddle]

Butttt all skins should have lore entries and I will eat a skateboard every day till they do

[past copper]

Blizzard at least does better research on a character then a certain mouse empire does for one of its cartoon shows. Take some satisfaction in that

[shrewd pivot]

When discussing serious topics like if cultural rep is bad or not, it's a good idea not to be facetious towards the other in debate. It can be misread very easily.

[crisp canyon]

I can acknowledge that and also not want to settle for representation of my ppl

[valid jolt]

hamptr

[grave saddle]

winton

[spare fox]

yet the two of you can't take criticism that your nitpicking and pedantic complaining - "pointing out the flaws" - is annoying to see constantly in here

[crisp canyon]

What did you meaningfully criticize ab what I said

[spare fox]

it's not a discussion, it's seeing who can find the next thing that isn't perfect

[crisp canyon]

It was a discussion you didn’t want it to be

[shrewd pivot]

I stated this before, the fact WoW exists as it does, and then seeing the level of mindfulness overwatch actually has, is suprising lol

I don't think it's bad to wish for overwatch to do better tho

Like, I think Illari preserving parts of Quechua languages in overwatch is really awesome, for example.

[valid jolt]

Is vishkar the only place to get hard light tech, domina is talon. What if overwatch need hard light stuff?

[shrewd pivot]

No, it's media analysis of lore, in the lore channel.

[peak escarp]

there are hard light sources outside of Vishkar

[crisp canyon]

I believe so, but weaver made his own hard light

[peak escarp]

for example, Lucio's skates are hard light but are not made by Vishkar

[valid jolt]

Oo nice ook

[shrewd pivot]

Hard light technology is patented by Vishkar. They own it, but others can use it by 'breaking patent'. The og founder of vishkar wanted hard light tech to be accessible, but after the founders death, Vishkar became corpo greedy.

Lúcio’s tech for example is patent breaking. Lifeweaver too.

[crisp canyon]

Tbh idek Lucio used hard light

But that makes sense

I’ve never actually given thought to his skates or how his amp works

[carmine iris]

does mizuki have like no interactions with Genji and Hanzo or am i missing the lines?

[crisp canyon]

Just kinda one of those tjis us the character and ig that just happens here

[shrewd pivot]

Yeah his dad invented the sonic hard light tech. Vishkar then used it against his people, and then Lúcio reclaimed it to fight Vishkar

[grave saddle]

Vishkar also still use it as a weapon right? Like in London

[crisp canyon]

Could hard light in theory be nuclear?

[valid jolt]

I think when hanzo elims mizuki there is one.

[carmine iris]

that’s crazy that there’s so few

[crisp canyon]

Like if weaver can develop it to make life, it can be used to also make something really devastating

[peak escarp]

Vishkar doesn't own the patent for all hard light technology, just the method for creating physical objects with hard light construction

[shrewd pivot]

I think it's described as involving carbon fiber.

iirc, hard light is basically a hologram that creates the base for carbon to stick too.

I don't think it's inherently nuclear, but it is scifi "beam energy" hurtful if Symmetra's weapon lazer beam is anything to go by.

[peak escarp]

the photonic structures attract carbon molecules in the air, which harden into a shell around it

[grave saddle]

I know it’s a popular theory that the detective omnic will be looking into null sector stuff and lead onto that next arc. I was just thinking after the shroomie video tho, what if Domina is going to hire the detective to look into her grandfathers death. Next arc is either going to be conspiracy or null sector and this could be a great way to lead into the former

[peak escarp]

it was sold to the public as a solution to carbon emissions, even though the amount it used was minimal

[crisp canyon]

I would love for domina to be a mc

[valid jolt]

what happens if winton plans of tracer's harness gets leaked, sombra stole it for her kit. What if the conspiracy gets it 0_0.

[crisp canyon]

Sombra has the plans

[grave saddle]

Don’t think it would do much without the unique situation tracer is in

[valid jolt]

If tracer speeds up her own time and goes back. How old is she now in her time

Is tracer immortal through time

[peak escarp]

Tracer is 28, but she didn't age for the 2 years she was unanchored from the timeline

so she has the body of a 26-year-old

[valid jolt]

She goes in her past but is always in our present

[crisp canyon]

What if Overwatch loses and sends tracer back in time resetting everything

[grave saddle]

Could be a cool story (and skin range)

[valid jolt]

Tracer only has control of her own time. Not anything else

[shrewd pivot]

Oh wait fr? I thought hard-light and thus hard-light tech was invented by Vishkar's founder? Thus Vishkar owned patents on the hard-light invention and hard-light tech inventions created under thier direction like with Lúcio and Lifeweaver?

Pardon my bad memory. /genuine

So all the founder created was the photon projectors?

Who invented "hard-light" then?

Not meaning this in a mean way or anything /genuine, im just confused.

[grave saddle]

A tracer from the future appears in the present. Tells overwatch sigma causes a cataclysmic event

And the skin range is the leftover overwatch characters in this dystopian future

[crisp canyon]

”Dont let the Italians win” she screams

[grave saddle]

Lol

Call it futurewatch

[peak escarp]

idk who invented hard light, Declassified talks about it like it's a technology that just exists

[valid jolt]

She does not time travel reality. Still stuck in present.

[grave saddle]

Yeah ofc rn I doubt she could. But give Winston no alternative and 20 years in a wasteland I’m sure he can cook something up

[valid jolt]

Kekw

Are the flying cars in overwatch electric or ice

Like rocket fuel

I don't think petrol can make something fly on a daily basis

Wait, ashe bike, it has exhaust

[shrewd pivot]

Actually now that I think about it.
So photons are the particle-wave duality with Electromagnetic waves, right.
so... hard-light(photons) on its own isn't nuclear, but using hard-light tech to shoot gamma rays at certain materials, could in theory cause nuclear reactions. Gamma rays can induce nuclear reactions.

Does that make sense? It's like... hard-light tech is the 'heating pad', nuclear is 'tnt explosion', and you COULD cause an explosion if you put tnt on the heating pad and crank up the heating pad to 200% lol.

[shrewd pivot]

I'm not sure if its ever explained how grav tech (the hover tech used in hover cars, etc) is fueled?

Irl superconductors are put to near absolute zero to float.

Notably, the antarctic base uses tredded tank vehicles. It seems grav tech may not be effective in extremely cold temps...? Or maybe it's just rule of cool lol and the tredded tanks don't imply anything

But IF temperature has a play in grav tech, that might rule out certain kinds of power sources.

For all we know, grav tech is powered by hard-light tech or something

[brittle sky]

What was the hard source for that?

[shrewd pivot]

Yeah I think it's unclear if in ow2 Tracer was:
born 30 years ago with 28 + 2 years time lost thus "28",

or if Tracer was born 28 years ago with 26 + 2 years time lost thus "28"

This is the hard source quote on not aging for 2 years @brittle sky "Studies showed that Oxton did not age during the 2 years she was chorally disassociated."

[brittle sky]

Right, I was asking more your point above

[shrewd pivot]

Maybe we can use Mei logic on Tracer's age to make an educated guess? Idk tho
It's messy bc omnics have different build dates and Orisa stayed 1 in ow1, and is still 1 in ow2.

[brittle sky]

But the play overwatch website lists Mei's age as 33, which is her biological not chronological age. Presumably they would be consistent with that when they say Tracer is 28, rather than do the opposite with no indication. Which means she is 28, but was born 30 years ago

[shrewd pivot]

I agree, but there's no word-of-god atm and Orisa's weirdness exists along with other oddities in age.

My guess is born 30 years ago tho, yeah

[peak escarp]

it's unknown which way it goes

I took a guess

[peak escarp]

Orisa's weirdness?

[shrewd pivot]

Overwatch 1 and Overwatch 2 take place 2 years apart. Despite this, Orisa remains 1 year old.

I presume this means she was rebuilt

[wise grotto]

Orisas weird cause she was rebuilt

It’s a new model of the same robot

[brittle sky]

awfully convenient that these chronal oddities seem to make the women consistently biologically younger. We've been deprived of prematurely granny tracer.

[shrewd pivot]

Yeah!

and following that logic, Bastion should be younger then, bc Torbjörn did some upgrades too technically.

I personally read it as Orisa being rebuilt tho

[shrewd pivot]

Yeah. Tracer, Mercy, Mei, Kiriko, all very youthful due to powers/circumstances. Lol

[peak escarp]

Orisa was built after the OW1 plot started

[brittle sky]

I mean kiriko is just a bit of a filing error, and mercy we just presume is aging well (because she's hoarding the secrets of immortality /s)

[peak escarp]

if OW1's present day is Recall, then Orisa wasn't built until about a year after that

which is how she is 1 in OW2

here's an approximate visual timeline I made up to explain the 2 year gap

[shrewd pivot]

Ah, so Orisa in ow1 was technically a "yet to exist" hero playable in game? /genuine

[peak escarp]

yes

her age in OW1 was "1 month" iirc

the timeline I came up with isn't perfect... there are still some unexplainable weirdness

like why it took 2 years for Baptiste to go looking for Mercy

[brittle sky]

presumably some amount of events represent developments further into those two years

I don't think doom got out the same day as the recall

[shrewd pivot]

I wish overwatch just had an official timeline on the website... No specific years needed, just events in order, including hero birthdays.

[brittle sky]

how many characters have been in prison? Like presumably both the deadlockers went to jail, but did iether of them serve hard time?

[wise grotto]

Bastion isn’t really a new model
Just upgraded
Orisa is taken as being more of a fully new chasis with the same ai

[peak escarp]

I believe Cassidy got busted so Ashe could escape and not get caught

then he was given the option of Blackwatch in lieu of jail time

[brittle sky]

sure and he got a plea deal to go into the superCIA

[peak escarp]

I'd take that deal

in his situation

[shrewd pivot]

Ashe was arrested a bunch iirc (bailed out often), Cassidy was sentenced a long time in prison if he didn't join Blackwatch.

[brittle sky]

In which case only 1 character has gotten hard time? Like prison time, not just jail for the night.

[shrewd pivot]

Hm ig? I can't think of anyone beyond Akande, maybe Sigma if you count that containment as being in jail.

[brittle sky]

nah that's just involuntary commitment.

So yeah, only one overwatch playable character has served some amount of a prison sentence.

[shrewd pivot]

JunkerQueen ig was served hardtime punishment in the outback but that's not really jail.

[brittle sky]

Was she? Her family got exiled, but that's it.

[shrewd pivot]

Exile to the outback as a form of punishment by the king, closest I can think of being akin to be "sentenced to..." governed punishment kinda thing

Essentially a left for dead situation tho, not jailtime

[brittle sky]

Sure, but 'punished by some authority' is a much broader category than 'subject to the carceral state'

[shrewd pivot]

Yeah I was trying to think of "sentenced punishment" situations

And hm ig Sigma is being imprisoned now by Vendetta, but that's not 'subject to carceral state' either

Honestly says a lot if the roster is filled with 'technically defined as terrorists' but only one roster hero was serving a prison sentence lmafo and even then Akande broke out eventually.

Roadhog and Junkrat do have mugshots, but I don't think they ever served longterm jailtime perse

[brittle sky]

I'm sure there's not any distinguishing characteristics of that guy that make that coincidence very unfortunate.

[shrewd pivot]

Yeah.....

you could argue Sigma was a similar set up of 'character confinement due to potential danger', but that doesn't exactly feel great either.

[viral pilot]

But yet Ashe is angry at him for "betraying deadlock" because he chose the clearly best option?

She probably would've done the same

[brittle sky]

ehhhhh probably not. Her entire personality is a series of neglects that shape her to 'ride or die, fuck the police, I will unironically call myself a 'rebel' in the american south while wearing styles from the 1800s'

[shrewd pivot]

The deadlock gang got members out of jail before, so ig it was Ashe taking a 'if you leave deadlock, it's forever' motto seriously + Ashe might have been offended Cassidy didn't wait for the deadlock gang to break him out and saw that as betrayal?

[viral pilot]

Fair enough lol

[viral pilot]

Seems pretty lame on her end then

[shrewd pivot]

Yeah, she's a "there's no wrath like a woman scorned" spaghetti western cowboy movie ref.

Her novel's lore, kinda recontextualized Cassidy's lore of joining blackwatch from "Reyes says you join blackwatch or you rot in jail" to "Reyes offers to let you do better by joining Blackwatch, or stay waiting for deadlock to break you out of jail...if that ever even happens."

It's less dire.

They did the same for Genji and Reyes too. Declassified clarified Reyes didn't offer while Genji was dying, Genji chose to join Blackwatch while recovering in the hospital. Made the lore circumstance less dire.

[viral pilot]

Oh I didn't know they also did the same with Genji and Reyes

Little bit of backpedaling there

[shrewd pivot]

Yeah. I found it much more engaging plotwise if Genji had the choice to 'die here or join blackwatch' which would explain Genji’s discomfort with his body a lot more.

But declassified confirmed Genji agreed to join Blackwatch and cyborg-upgrade himself to help blackwatch dismantle the remaining Shimada clan. (Genji was still mentally unwell when he agreed ofc, only found peace when Zenyatta helped Genji)

[viral pilot]

Ah I see

Back on Deadlock tho, do you think that Deadlock will play a big part story-wise now they're cohooted with Talon or is it just more "hey, let's give this character something to do" type of deal?

I guess if one of the upcoming characters is a deadlock member like people speculate that could better highlight the gang more in the story somehow

[shrewd pivot]

Depends how involved the deadlock gang is in the arc.

If it's something like... just Ashe wanting to humiliate her parents and ruin her parent's company's business reputation by stealing something that belongs to her parent's company from Grand Mesa, that's about it.

If a new deadlock gang member gets introduced as a roster hero, then it gets more involved for sure

[viral pilot]

Yeah that's kind of what I was thinking. That Ashe and the gang would do something that's just kind of one-note, at least for the time being

Tho I do think Mauga and Junkertown will be much more exciting

And eventful overall

[shrewd pivot]

Yeah im hype to see where that goes

[edgy meadow]

so im realising that the current event only lasts until the mid season

now i wonder if we're gonna get something in the midseason

realistically im expecting season 2 to just detail the outcome of the attack on overwatch hq

[brittle sky]

Slightly past mid season, but yeah.

[round bramble]

Where was Overwatch during Hurricane Katrina

[bold fern]

what if doomfist was away and also used discord group vc, does vendetta just fight nothing

[wise grotto]

Nonexistent since hurricane katrina happened before most ow characters where born and long before he omnic crisis

[grave saddle]

Do we think the null sector warships have cloaking tech?

[broken heath]

Probably not. Null Sector was never the secretive type until the retreat. So....maybe now they do.

[regal heath]

Have you guys seen Doomfist in Overwatch Rush? He has facial hair now... and is classified as Fighter, the same classification as Soldier 76 in Rush. DPSFIST COMEBACK IS REAL.

[grave saddle]

Just thinking about junk rats treasure. He tells junkerqueen it’s something she will “never see coming” and then laughs. Ofc that’s a common phrase for something being a surprise but it feels like more in that context. So wondered if there was anything omnium related with cloaking / invisibility

[broken heath]

Maybe its some sort of ship or rocket engine, since Junker queen asked if hammond can get it flying.

[ocean pilot]

I wish they release another cinematic showing Doomfist after the fall

[regal heath]

It's too soon, but I hope that will be Season 2's story line. Talon succeeds in crushing Overwatch, and now the Overwatch members have to team up with Doomfist and the others who left Talon to defeat Vendetta.

[grave saddle]

It’s definitely something like that, but that’s why I was wondering if null sector had cloaking and thus that line supported it

Or if anything else has cloaking

Tryna also think why Dva and Dmon might be involved. If it’s something similar to what they are dealing with in Korea, maybe that’s why

[civic lynx]

I think we’re getting this at BlizzCon

Doom is the OW rep for the artwork and they captioned a post after spotlight “have a nice trip, see you next fall” (BlizzCon is in September)

[shrewd pivot]

Interesting idea!

[spare fox]

I think that might be a future whole storyarc, not just a season. But yeah, Doomfist coming back is definitely going to happen

[viral pilot]

I hope he does so Winston kicks his butt again

[shrewd pivot]

I'm hoping for some star-wars esque camp (being that he got the Darth Maul pit treatment prior lol) of dramatic return

[viral pilot]

I can dig that

[glad fox]

why r both zenyatta and mondata called tekhartha?

Is that a title?

[spare fox]

Yes, it's kind of the equivalent of "brother"

[stark folio]

Are we just going to talk about rush showing doomfist with a beard?

[crisp canyon]

Not born

[crisp canyon]

And when doom moves back to dps and we have world peace

[civic lynx]

True

[stark folio]

I think they're just buffing him when they bring him back

[civic lynx]

Probably teasing his new look for the cinematic revealing he’s alive

Ow rush ain’t anywhere near done so they can easily justify doom staying as “coming soon!” until September

[stark folio]

Yeah but that beard is interesting

[civic lynx]

I mean a rework is quite possible imo

[crisp canyon]

Imagining this cinematic will have an established time jump

[civic lynx]

They said at spotlight multiple classic (meaning OW1) heroes will undergo reworks later this year

[stark folio]

Reinhardt be like

[civic lynx]

Doom could finally go back to dps and d.mon replaces him has the hyper mobile tank

[twilit patrol]

They're mostly going to rework 2016 heroes

[stark folio]

Lucio doesn't need a rework

He is actually good

[crisp canyon]

I foresee doom rework/lore going one of two ways he’s either given up on his previous goals and embraced some sort of monkhood pr he’s gonna comeback as like a moira experiment

[twilit patrol]

Did I say he needs a rework

[stark folio]

Nope

Mercy does

[twilit patrol]

They said "some of the classic heroes"

Not all of them

But yeah Lucio is in a great spot he doesn't need any rework

[stark folio]

New ana lore drop

[crisp canyon]

Quite a bit of 2016 heroes have had reworks alr

[twilit patrol]

Yeah Reinhardt had a small rework for OW2

But honestly another rework for Rein isn't impossible

[stark folio]

Sigma new lore drops might make him in control

[twilit patrol]

(I won't be talking more about it since it's lore channel)

[glad fox]

Has zenyatta met torbjorn? I haven't seen any comic mentioning that but he has a line telling bastion that torbs behavior has rubbed on him

[twilit patrol]

I don't think so

[crisp canyon]

A lot of heroes haven’t met canonically

[twilit patrol]

Most of VLs are hypothetical

[crisp canyon]

I wonder if there will be 10 reworks since they’re focused so much on the 10 part

[stark folio]

Rammatra and Zenyatta stories need to continue

[twilit patrol]

10 reworks would be insane ngl

[stark folio]

Huh

[twilit patrol]

Fr

[crisp canyon]

10 heroes was 2

[twilit patrol]

Huh

[civic lynx]

I think 4 or 5 is a bit more reasonable 😭

Maybe more throughout 2027

[crisp canyon]

Maybe

[glad fox]

Yeah, like those about Hammond eating Ganymedes feed

[brittle sky]

Someone ping a mod

@peak escarp you got mod powers?

[wise grotto]

Dude waited that long just to be a loser lol

June 2025

[median orchid]

Thats a new first for me, why am I surprised?

[past copper]

Another one bites the dust. You're welcome

[solemn sapphire]

hey guys' ive got a question regarding talon & blackwatch

so if blackwatch were the ones to kill vendettas dad, whats her problem with talon? is it just because its got a lot of the key players from blackwatch in it?

[edgy meadow]

her problem was that, upon Antonio's death, Talon basically dismantled his family's corporation and assets and basically left vendetta with nothing

when she wanted to be the one to inherit everything

[peak escarp]

sorry I'm at work

[solemn sapphire]

ahhh okay, and how did genji end up getting involved with blackwatch?

[peak escarp]

Overwatch saved his life, then made him a deal - work with Blackwatch to take down your family, and we'll give you a sick cyborg body

Genji was left unable to walk after his fight with Hanzo, so it was an easy choice

[solemn sapphire]

ahh okay that makes sense, so blackwatch and talon have no direct correlation?

[icy trail]

Random ahh question...does sombra already know about mizuki working with hashimoto?

[peak escarp]

not directly

[edgy meadow]

blackwatch was a part of overwatch ultimately

[peak escarp]

but some Talon members are former Blackwatch

[edgy meadow]

which is why overwatch suffered the brute of the people and not talon when it went public

[brittle sky]

A decent amount of ex black watch, including reaper and Moira, would go on to join talon

[edgy meadow]

theres a non-canon interaction between the two that confirms this, but we dont know if she does in canon

[icy trail]

Damn ok

[edgy meadow]

we're supposed to get the mizuki comic on tuesday but i doubt its going to have that information

if she does it'll only come up later on

[icy trail]

I thought since sombra already sees and knows all the BS she'd already know about his eboy looking ass lol

[solemn sapphire]

i see i see, how did moira and reaper end up joining talon? werent reyes and morrison best buddies or somethin?

[brittle sky]

Despite her dad not wanting that. So like her sense of entitlement is purely some sense of "you should own a thing because your family owned it"

[peak escarp]

I hate that these recent lore drops are being labeled as comics when they're really short stories with 1-2 illustrations

[peak escarp]

Moira joined Talon because they gave her funds and test subjects without question; Reaper joined Talon because Moira saved his life and he needed her to keep treating him

[brittle sky]

Reaper grew disillusioned with ow as a way to bring justice and doom seems to have convinced him talon would be a better vector of global change, and he has some chronic pain and rage issues that likely didn't help. Moira is just looking for whatever org enables her research .

[peak escarp]

that too

[solemn sapphire]

so is moira responsible for turning reyes into reaper? I never really got the whole no magic thing but this guy can turn intangible thing

[shrewd pivot]

Yes, Moira gave reyes some genetics treatment that gave Reyes powers in blackwatch, and after the Swiss HQ explosion, Moira saved Reyes with more of that genetics treatment, but it turned Reyes into Reaper.

It's "scifi superpowers" akin to like, captain America being a scientifically changed superhero. Not hard science, but explained with science, like Sigma having superhero gravity powers from a black hole experiment accident.

[brittle sky]

They seem to have messed with the accelerated healing he got from the soldier enhancement program, causing his cells to be in an equilibrium of rapid decay and regeneration, with some level of control. Him going intangible is just him decaying to particles and then reconstituting. It is by all accounts incredibly painful.

[solemn sapphire]

ahh that makes a lot more sense, thank you guys

[dense juniper]

I know this is random but I HAVE to know like Emre fans what's going through your heads this season I know I was an Emre fan WAYYY before he came out but when I found out everything he went through and what happened I just felt SAD like SAD SAD SAD like bro has never had a day of peace in his life and is still going through it 😭

LIKE EVEN HIS GUN IS SPIKED AND GOES STRAIGHT INTO HIS PALMS AND EVEN HIS FINGERS LIKE BRO HAS NO PEACE NO HAPPINESS NO NOTHING AND HE HAS TO FORCIBLY WORK AGAINST HIS FRIENDS AND HE CANT TELL ANYONE ABOUT IT

anyways what do you guys think 😭 I just hope everything works out for him and his family or maybe I'm just overattached to yet another character

[digital linden]

i rlly wanna know WHY the conspiracy/chernobog (whatever) chose emre of all people

excited to see where his story leads

[brittle sky]

Because emre had the skill set and showed up for the job

[azure flint]

wat story are we getting next week

mizuki?

[shrewd pivot]

Yes, Mizuki

[shrewd pivot]

I hope that his story arc can be good. His whole writing and trope gives me... "heroic sacrifice" vibes but maybe he could pull through. We will have to wait and see!

I think it will be interesting to explore the security systems side of thing, and my guess is Emre's lore might be a "bad end" version of Sombra, someone who stumbled into the eye conspiracy, tried to escape, but unlike Sombra, Emre was caught.

I wonder if the cybernetics were forced on Emre, or if Emre chose to get cybernetics.

[modern elbow]

Does anyone know where the PvE missions fit into the lore/timeline?

[shrewd pivot]

PVE is Nullsector's invasion arc essentially, but since PVE got cut short we got it kind of pushed aside (wrapped up in Reconciliation comic) to focus on Vendetta's arc for this year.

Sojourn's cinematic is set near PVE's time, as it's the initial nullsector invasion in Toronto

[digital linden]

i would assume the null sector storyline wrapped up a couple months prior to the whole new empire arc

soj saying smth like when a problem resolves a new one rises

[shrewd pivot]

Yeah atleast a month or so I assume, because of the press interview Sojourn had done in one of the lore audio panel videoes

Wuyang and Anran were recruited to overwatch after Null sector global invasion it seems

[digital linden]

yup

wonder if any of the upcoming heroes will be new recruits for talon/overwatch

[shrewd pivot]

Also this is a silly thing post but lol:

Reyes: (leaves overwatch, ow outfits get worse)

Reaper: (leaves Talon, Talon outfits get worse)

Reyes is the fella holding together the team aesthetics 😔 🙏 /j

[shrewd pivot]

Most likely! I think maybe D.MON (tank hero) might work alongside overwatch if not join.
Mizuki will probably defect soon to join Yōkai gang (Kiriko’s gang) or Overwatch

The horned hero might be Hashimoto and thus Talon aligned?

[fathom grove]

Wdym they got better

[shrewd pivot]

Moira does not look good in that crop top

I'm just joking around bc Reyes apparently made Halloween costumes according to the Halloween comic

[fathom grove]

Ok wait thats kinda sick didn't know that

Also how dare u belly button moira is fyne...

[crystal saffron]

can echo become talon?

[civic lynx]

If the conquest skins are meant to be canon yeah it seems so

Idk how they’d do it

[crystal saffron]

so will the story and echo's faction change depending on event result?

[civic lynx]

I think so

There was a blog thing I remember seeing but I now cannot find it for the life of me where they say players will help decide the future of the story (I may be misremembering plz correct me if I am)

[civic lynx]

I can’t find the blog post thing but the way they describe the event does somewhat imply our choices matter

[crisp canyon]

Echo probably not, but story yeah probably

[crystal saffron]

but echo is getting talon skin?

[crisp canyon]

I don’t think that’s gonna be canon

[civic lynx]

She has an Overwatch one as well so it could be only the faction that wins is canon (or neither of them)

[rugged drift]

Is it just me or does anyone else wanna see the eventual mauga/jq negotiations as an animated short instead of a motion comic/lore drop?

And we need Hammond there too idk how but it needs to happen

[civic lynx]

It would be cool but I just don’t see them thinking it’s necessary

I think the only other cinematic we’re getting this year is the reveal of doomfist being alive and creating a plan of what he’s gonna do next

[rugged drift]

Idk I feel like this whole echo business would be important enough to make a short abt

Maybe they’ll do one every season? That might be cool

Idk if the animators would do that tho that would be kinda crazy

[mellow igloo]

what does talon even do 💔💔

[pure solar]

Sombra needs to stop being ridiculous and join overwatch

As if she'd be the worst person overwatch has ever hired

They hired Kiriko afterall

[civic lynx]

I forgot about the Gibraltar one they repeatedly keep teasing as well

If echo’s conquest skins are meant to be canon the cinematic probably has 2 endings depending on which faction wins the event

[mellow igloo]

[shrewd pivot]

Sombra is interested in aligning herself with whatever group can help her uncover the eye conspiracy. Sombra wants to know who is pulling the strings so SHE can pull the strings. I don't think Overwatch would outright make Sombra an agent because of that, unless Sombra gets some character arc that fundamentally softens her character's edge.

Sombra isn't really a white hat hacker, she's a hacker aiming to be in control while uncovering the eye conspiracy that forced her into hiding. I prefer her not being a straight up good guy bc it lets her character poke around in all kinds of blackmail and fun writing moments, while still letting her be sympathetic like with Sigma and Illari.
I don't think Sombra needs a 'redemption arc' like how Cassidy got tbh, Sombra stands very well were she is currently.

[shrewd pivot]

Honestly I would be suprised if the echo skin lore is actually related to player voting?(would be awesome though!)

It seems it will be possible to get both skins eventually, so I don't think it is indicating Echo joining Talon is up to the player base's voting.

[pure solar]

100% agree, i just wish she was a closer ally to ow

[shrewd pivot]

Yeah that's fair
Even if voicelines aren't true exact canon, imo we can still guess Sombra still has a contact option with Baptiste atleast?

[peak escarp]

Kiriko isn't part of Overwatch

[brittle sky]

Inversely, I hope she actively misuses or double crosses one of her good aligned pawns (illari, venture, 76) to articulate how while willing to use good guys, it is using, and her ends aren't noble or entirely aligned with the good guys

[clever crown]

What happened to null sector? Obviously they lost since everyone is obviously still alive but like where are they now?

[shrewd pivot]

I could see Sombra betraying Venture by wanting to keep an conspiracy related artifact for persinal gain? And Venture then acts to keep the artifacts safe from Sombra.

Illari has been thru too much 😭 it could happen but oof

Soldier76 said he already doesn't trust Sombra, so that's possible too

[wise grotto]

He didn’t really lose
He got most of the omnics subjugated and planned to wait out humanity killing eachother afterwards

[clever crown]

So he’s basically just playing the long game now?

[shrewd pivot]

Ramattra's Null sector invasion was to stop omnic extinction/oppression by preserving omnic minds in subjugation helmets, not to kill humanity. Ramattra used Null sector to collect subjugator helmeted omnics, and has now retreated with the preserved omnic minds to the antarctic(?) to do 'phase 2'(currently unknown what phase 2 is) and wait out humanity in the mean time. Ramattra plans to wait out humanity, thinking humanity will war itself into extinction.

https://youtu.be/kQ_y0QcorJ8?si=fonO7pC4_ag6gmld

[clever crown]

Cool

I believe that jetpack cat is actually ramattra in a disguise

[peak escarp]

[clever crown]

Jetpack cat doesn’t appear as she seems

[bold fern]

did we win

[civic lynx]

If the show is written well then yes

[twilit patrol]

Holy fck

Announcement at BlizzCon

[bold fern]

does this mean i have to see doom get whooped again

[twilit patrol]

I hope

[bold fern]

or will it be a different storyline

[peak escarp]

they've been saying this for ages, it doesn't mean anything solid

[civic lynx]

I assume it will be complimenting whatever the story is in game atm

[peak escarp]

also you need to share the full context

[civic lynx]

Maybe a prequel episode here and there if they’re introducing new characters that have major events in their past linked to the current plot

[peak escarp]

https://x.com/OWCavalry/status/2028178621068714331

Overwatch Cavalry (@OWCavalry)

Potential #Overwatch TV Series Update 📺

Johana Faries says Blizzard is looking to expand into film and TV, adding that "every one of our IPs could be some of the greatest linear media experiences that the world could experience."

👀 Near-term discussions are already underway.

X · Mar 1, 2026, 6:40 PM