What did/do you like about Pharah?
Uh, gameplay-wise, I really love characters in shooters who rely on three-dimensional movement techs. Chaining together hover and jump to stay in the air for as long as possible and keep momentum is so satisfying, and picking enemies off from the sky made me feel like a bird of prey. I was a good Pharah main.
Story-wise, there unfortunately isn't much to canonically go off because Pharah is so underutilized and neglected. Her personality's pretty boilerplate "heroic hero" (she's literally inspired by Captain America).
But it's the crumbs/bits and pieces that I really latched onto. Pharah's a confirmed lesbian; her short story with Baptiste implies she harbors a crush on Mercy (fucking thank you.). She's biracial Egyptian/First Nations. She has major mommy issues, having grown up both admiring and resenting Ana. She's the bridge between Old Overwatch, inspired by the idealized heroes who surrounded her childhood, and New Overwatch. She's one of the only inter-generational characters in the cast; someone whose experiences span the gap, which is why I seriously believe Pharah would make a great main character.
There isn't much to go off of, though; she's a very uncomplicated character (she's a soldier for a private military corporation, lol.). But that just means she's a blank slate character, so I've seen fanfic writers run wild and create some really interesting takes on her. My favorite interpretation of her's a dense, herbo gym-bro type (a lot of her liens are about work outs, exercising, and playing sports) who's easily excitable under her seemingly self-serious, armored visage. We see how she tends to gloat and hype herself up when she's on a streak too, so Pharah definitely has a competitive and boastful side under her more professional and militant performance.
Now Mercy? Mercy is a real complex character.
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I don't know if anyone else in the whump community has read 'A Constellation of Vital Phenomena' by Anthony Marra but it is genuinely a really good book and also has some of the best depictions of torture and its aftermath that I have read in fiction.
I wanted to share some of my favourite quotes, hopefully without too many spoilers as it is out of context, but maybe skip this post if you don't want to know anything at all going in.
To give a brief summary, the book centres around the lives of people in Chechnya during the first and second war between the Russian government (Feds) and the separatist rebels. The main story focuses on a man (Akhmed) who is trying to save his neighbour's daughter from being killed by the Feds after her father is taken away in the middle of the night. He does this by taking her to a hospital where he then volunteers. One of the people in his village (Ramzan) becomes an informer for the Feds after being tortured, and this is explored in the excerpts below.
‘Information the Feds would torture them for was written here on the walls for all to see. It was well understood among the men that the Feds had as much sense as two bricks smashed together. It was also understood that pain, rather than information, was the true purpose of interrogation.'
'During his first detention in the landfill, in 1995, in the first war, he had refused to inform. They had wrestled down his trousers, shown him the bolt cutters, and still he had said no. Screaming, thrashing, with his manhood half severed, he had said no. He had done that, and now he was ready to start saying yes.'
'He would have confessed everything, but they didn't ask, weren't interested, threatened to cut out his tongue and put pliers to his teeth if he spoke one more fucking word. Electric wires were wound around his fingers. A car battery was drained into his bones. God might have been watching, but it wasn't God's finger on the battery switch. The interrogating officers didn't speak. Instead he was an instrument they played, performing a duet, and in their own way they conversed through his sobs. They both wore very shiny shoes. That was all he would remember.'
'He had trouble walking, He had forgotten torture could be so exhausting. The new interrogator, the one with less shiny shoes, held him upright, using his whole body as a crutch, and helped him walk. He carefully wiped Ramzan's forehead with a handkerchief before opening the door to the next room.'
'The interrogator with less shiny shoes crouched behind him. His hands were wet. Ramzan promised everything, and the interrogator, like the parent of a child too old to believe in ghosts, watched him with disappointment, his clear eyes saddened by Ramzan's sincerity. The interrogator took off his jacket, rolled up his sleeves, laid the live wires on Ramzan's chest and mapped the border of their shared humanity. Ramzan offered his soul. He begged to be enslaved. The known universe contracted to the limits of the cement floor, and on it, the interrogator was both man and deity, prophet and god. By ten o'clock the interrogator with less shiny shoes asked his first question. By eleven the electrical wires were unwound from Ramzan's fingers. By noon he was allowed to dress. By one he was on the FSB payroll. He kept thanking the interrogator with less shiny shoes.'
‘Greed didn’t motivate his informing, at least not primarily; primarily he informed by necessity, to survive, for his love and hate and above all awe of the power wielded by the interrogating officer with less shiny shoes.'
'That was his greatest fear. Could he stay silent? Could he withstand what awaited him? He told himself that his love for the girl should fortify him against any torture, but this, like so much of what he told himself, was a lie. After all, he was squeamish at the sight of blood, what would he say when lying in a puddle of his own? But he saw no other way. He would pray for the strength to stay silent, for a quick heart attack, and leave the rest to God.' (This is Akhmed POV)
'When they threatened to beat me, I said nothing, Akhmed. When they threatened to beat me, I said nothing. When they threatened to electrocute me, I said nothing. When they threatened to castrate me, I said nothing. I said nothing, Akhmed. Whatever you think of me, you remember that once I said nothing when a wiser man would have sung. And the interrogators, they couldn't believe it. They called in others to examine me. I was there on the floor, and above their faces were dark ovals silhouetted by the ceiling lights. They had beaten me hard and I couldn't hear right, but I kept saying no, with every breath I had. The main reason they let me go, the only reason they didn't shoot me right there was out of perverse respect, some sort of professional courtesy. But I wish they had shot me, Akhmed, because the good part of me died there, and all this, everything since, has been an afterlife I'm trying to escape.'
‘I knew what was coming. I knew it never stops. They put a shame inside you that goes on like a bridge with no end, the humiliation, the fucking humiliation of knowing that you are not a human being but a bundle of screaming nerve endings, that the torture goes on even when the physical hurt quietens. People treated me differently when I came back the first time.'
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I can't stop thinking about a danganronpa soulmate au in which Komaeda and Hinata end up together but aren't soulmates.
Komaeda thought that part of his luck cycle (or unlucky cycle if you will) was that he didn't have a soulmark. Maybe that's why he thinks he's trash or unworthy of love and care. Because in a world where everybody has a soulmate, whether romantic or not, nobody is destined to love Nagito Komaeda.
Hinata on the other hand has a soulmate. He doesn't really like to talk about it to the other remnants and doesn't show anybody his soulmark. Most of them just assume that Chiaki was his soulmate. Or that his soulmate died during the tragedy. They aren't really wrong that his soulmate is dead, just about who his soulmate was. In reality, poor unfortunate Hajime was unluckier than Nagito in this whole "soulmate" situation. Because who worse for Hajime to be tied to than Junko Enoshima.
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yknow what i think would be a fun timeline of relationship development for the stuttgart boys. like assuming they've been at least a lil bit in love for a while and thorsten's noticed but isn't ever going to say anything unless sebastian does first and sebastian hasn't properly allowed himself to think about it because he's dealing with The Divorce. we get to frage des gewissens and in the scene in sebastian's apartment where he is very much no longer sober after ich habe das für dich getan / ich habe dich nicht darum gebeten instead of watching thorsten storm out sebastian is like. Fuck it. and kisses him. because you know what he's drunk in his miserable little apartment that he won't clean up because he doesn't like himself very much these days and the kids aren't here for him to clean up for and neither is anyone else and he's lonely and he lied in his testimony for his best friend and his best friend doesn't get Why (the Why is that sebastian loves him and doesn't want anything to happen to him. drunk sebastian is a lot less repressed and a lot more honest with himself than sober sebastian ist) and talking isn't helping. so why not get his point across some other way. and thorsten lets it happen for a second or two partially out of sheer shock and partially out of holy shit sebastian kissing me and then remembers 1. sebastian's drunk off his ass and 2. thorsten was kind of trying to be mad at him. but the moment of discombobulation is enough that he can't really manifest the energy to be properly angry at the sad wet lump of drunk pathetic puppy sebastian is right now. so he Does pull away and tell sebastian no we can't do this (not now) and sebastian stares at him with big wet sad eyes as he does and thorsten says Okay idiot. (the My idiot is implied.) you're going to take a shower and go to bed or so help me god. (the i love you too. idiot. is implied) we can finish this discussion when you're sober and i can argue with you properly again. and shoves him in the direction of the shower and then the direction of his bed and leaves a glass of water on the nightstand and locks the door behind him when he goes. and sebastian wakes up in the morning with one hell of a headache and remembers approximately 25% of the previous evening and it's the 25% that involves telling thorsten that he lied and not the 25% that involves then kissing him. so obviously he doesn't bring it up again. which thorsten logically decides must mean either 1. he doesn't remember it (and probably didn't mean it like that anyway he was drunk and lonely and missed his wife that's all) or 2. he does remember it and regrets it. and then (because i've mentally deleted der inder from my personal stuttgart timeline) preis des lebens happens and thorsten is like Right guess i'll just take this to my grave then. ah shit this is just a whole potential fic oh fuck
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Y’know, I just love how, technically, all the exchange students have the underlying thread/theme of social classes onto them.
Simeon is a high class angel (granted, probably not anymore, but he was), while Luke is implied to be a relatively low ranking one. Meanwhile, Solomon reeks of upperclass or inherited wealth, and MC is just. Some dude(tm) who got sent into anime hell without even their prior knowledge or consent.
I refuse to believe this wasn't, to some degree, on purpose. Diavolo went like “yeah, let's make one of each high class and the other low class,” just so the exchange course can have more different points of view or something.
Idk. It’s my personal hc as to why they have to go through so much trouble to “coddle” MC when they could've, like, just summoned another strong human who wouldn’t immediately die.
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