#it would be to pick ONE meta (or universally strong) dps. just one. even if i have no interest in them

[rubys-domain]

i'm going through a phase of "i just want x character out all the time and i just wanna run around with them and bask in their glory" with kokomi. so much so that i'm almost scared that she'll surpass chong as my fave of all time. but i went through a similar phase with cyno so logically i know that that won't actually happen.

still kind of annoying that i can never have this much interest in a meta dps tho. like why are all the characters i have any interest in maining either 4 stars, supports, or just not meta units (cyno, yoimiya)???

[threewaysdivided]

How do you feel about the trans Danny headcanon? Not in terms of Deathly Weapons, just in general.

As a headcanon itself? I don’t personally go for it but I can see where it comes from, and I’m glad it brings people joy.

Like I mentioned in my DP & Asexuality meta-post, Danny’s half-ghost status can read as broad allegory for a bunch of potential experiences including various flavours of LGBT+ and neurodiversity. Add to that DP/FOP’s somewhat iffy tendency to use male femininity and emasculation as both punchline and source of character embarrassment for “comedy” such as it is and it’s not really surprising that both shows sometimes go tripping tail-over-teakettle right across the line into accidental-queer-coding.

That’s about as much as I can say on this one, since it isn’t a headcanon I tend to actively seek out. Baby 3WD had the misfortune to stumble into the Phandom at a time when some of the most popular circulating posts on the topic were people insisting that the interpretation “is canon” (with a very loud subtext that anyone who disagreed even slightly was an evil terrible transphobe), heavily cherry-picking the show to “prove” it, and seemingly taking glee in the idea that the headcanon would “ruin cis people’s childhoods” or make them uncomfortable, which just… seemed like a vaguely gatekeep-y, kind of mean, sort of disingenuous attitude towards fandom that I didn’t and still don’t particularly vibe with.

But, as it turns out, that's not representative of the headcanon at all! I’ve since met some really lovely users, seen some great meta-analysis about trans/queer readings of canon, and there some fantastic stories exploring the trans experience and the way being trans would alter Danny’s character and relationships. It’s kind of a universal law of the internet that even the most chill and non-toxic fandoms must be at least 5% tyre-fire by volume... and it’s just unfortunate that I happened to land right in the middle of a tyre-fire whose first impression has left me leery of wading too deep into that particular pool.

As for my own writing… I’m an asexual cis-woman whose interests lean more towards character psychology, self-esteem/self-love, platonic relationships and dealing with loss. I almost never have strong feelings or headcanons about the sexuality or gender identity (or even shipping) of characters - I kind of prefer to just take them at their word based on what they say/ show us in the story. (The only time it gets my back up is when I feel like a paid official creator is being exploitative/ dishonest/ disrespectful with their representation.)

In canon Danny identifies as male and is identified by the rest of the cast as male (even if sometimes he seems to struggle with feeling like he doesn’t live up to the “ideal of manliness” which honestly is a load of toxic bunk anyway) so I write him as a cis-guy.

Would I personally write a trans-headcanon story? Probably not. Like I said, I’m cis and - while I can listen to and sympathise with the experiences of trans people - I don’t feel like that would be my story to tell and (while I would do my best to research and be respectful if handed a canonically trans character) I wouldn’t feel confident enough in my ability to respectfully handle it to voluntarily take on that task. Especially since - when it comes to these kinds of transformative headcanons - I would personally want a story to explore how that change changes the character(s).

If someone else wants to write fic/ meta or otherwise make the case that a particular relationship or a specific queer/ cultural/ religious interpretation or reading of the text would be narratively compelling or offer interesting insights then I’m happy to hear them out. But honestly it’s just not something that I actively go looking for.

Basically, so long as people are being kind and respectful to others and doing what makes them happy then go forth and prosper with my blessing.

[murasaki-murasame]

After all this waiting, we finally know what the new gala is gonna be like, and it wasn’t exactly what I was expecting in a whole bunch of ways, lmao. But I’m still extremely excited for it.

Since i’ve been saving for this ever since the Gala Alex banner ended, I’m currently sitting on a grand total of 600 summons, so let’s just hope I can get what I want with that.

So firstly we now officially know about Gala Leif being a thing, and man was that a roller-coaster of emotions for me. Mostly I’m just happy he’s finally coming out, but I’m still feeling extremely iffy about him being a wind sword, both because Gala Ranzal already exists, and also because I don’t even do eCiella in co-op anymore. But on the other hand, I’m also feeling kinda smug about correctly guessing that he’s be a support unit with two stances, though that probably wasn’t the hardest thing to guess, lol. But even then, his kit just looks . . . kinda strange. I really think I’ll need to hold back on making any judgments about it one way or another until we get his SP costs and damage mods, since that might really make or break him. His abilities also don’t say anything about his stance mechanic, so there might be additional things it does beyond just changing what his skills do.

On paper I think he just looks odd because the strength and defense debuffs don’t really seem that potent, and his S1 defense buff is self-only, which seems like it wouldn’t really be that great in eCiella anyway, and it wouldn’t be able to trigger doublebuff on everyone. Which is weird since he also has a strength doublebuff chain co-ab, with no apparent way to trigger it for the entire team by himself.

And since he doesn’t seem to give team-wide defense buffs, I’m honestly not sure if he’d actually be able to replace T-Hope’s role in eCiella, but for manual play that might not be a huge deal. He also doesn’t seem to have any heals or buff dispel, so he probably won’t also be replacing Lowen or OG Ranzal. And Sylas provides more potent buffs and debuffs. So I’m worried that Gala Leif might just not be able to find a place in the meta, but we’ll see how it goes. Since he has two attacking skills depending on what stance he’s in, he might be a good DPS unit, if nothing else. Which might also go with his Flurry Strength passive, which seems like a really weird ability to give to what seems like a support unit.

His unique debuff punisher co-ab and his debuff skill time ability are also really interesting, but I’m not sure how that’ll work out.

I just think there’s a big possibility that there’s additional mechanics to his kit that aren’t clear just from reading his skills and abilities, so we’ll have towait and see how he goes in practice. It’s entirely possible that he’s like Tobias, and being in his shielding stance lets him attack from range.

I’m still gonna immediately summon for him anyway and if I end up regretting that then that’ll by my problem, lmao. I’ve waited too long for this dude not to chase him.

They’re also putting the upcoming banner units on the gala, which is . . . extremely weird but also really cool. Considering that stuff like this doesn’t lead to anyone having lower than normal appearance rates, this just means that when I chase after Gala Leif I’ll have a good chance at getting some of these units too. Which would be nice, since I was already thinking that they might really tempt me.

It’s also just kinda funny that after finding out about the Xuan Zang alt I got worried that she’d be the new gala unit, which I knew wasn’t gonna happen, but then she ended up actually being on the gala banner anyway even if she’s not the gala unit, lol.

I hope this becomes a trend going forward, since it’d be a great way to give me a shot at non-limited banner units even if I just save for galas exclusively.

Anyway, these new units are the new batch of non-limited light units we’ve been desperately needing, and they look really nice. They still suffer from the fact that there’s no important fights to actually use them in until the shadow Agito boss comes out in like three months, but at least we can use them in this event.

I honestly couldn’t tell what weapon type the Xuan Zang alt was meant to be since she uses a unique weapon model in her boss battle, and she also dies way too fast for me to see her animations, so it’s nice to get confirmation that she’s a wand unit.

In general, Radiant Xuan Zang basically looks like a more tanky version of Peony, which is really interesting. I wonder if anyone will feel bad for summoning for Peony, lol. I think they’re different enough that it doesn’t matter, but they’re still really similar in a lot of ways.

Even though her DPS might not be as high as Peony’s, I do really like how Xuan Zang’s new kit looks. Her S1 strength debuff reminds me a lot of Sylas’, and she also has a shadow resistance buff on her S2. So if that sort of damage mitigation is good in the shadow Agito fight, that’d be really nice. She can also inspire the entire team with her enhanced S2, which seems to effect the entire team and not just people she’s near, so that might have a surprisingly big impact on her team DPS contribution. I think this also makes her the first light unit with inspiration, which is cool.

She also gets the new debuff skill time ability like Gala Leif does, which is cool. I guess that’ll probably be given to new units every once in a while now. The fact that it also covers bleed is really interesting, especially since there’s currently no way to have it apply to anyone who actually inflicts bleed, so maybe they’re laying the foundation for that to happen later. And since we have buff time prints, maybe we’ll get debuff time prints, which could be really useful on certain characters.

One thing that I think is really interesting is that when she maxes her charge gauge, she can lower an enemy’s paralysis resistance level. It sounds like a one-time, permanent effect, but it might have a real impact on team DPS if you rely on paralysis punishing, since this should effectively prolong the amount of uptime you can have on paralysis. It also opens up the possibility of other characters in other elements getting this sort of ability for other status effects, which could really increase the viability of certain units, especially if we get someone who can do this sort of thing for something like bog or blind resistance.

Other than how much she seems to be competing with Peony, my main worry with her is probably that her charge gauge mechanic might hold her back, and lead to her having low uptime on stuff like the strength buff it lets her give the team. Not to mention the fact that it’s an AoE buff effect, not a universal team one, so you might not be able to give it to everyone. It sounds like the amount her charge gauge gets boosted depends on how many teammates are within her AoE field when she uses her S2, so her potential seems to really depend on whether or not everyone’s grouped close to each other.

I honestly wasn’t super interested in her when we first saw her, but the fact that she’ll be on the same banner as Gala Leif makes me a lot more interested in picking her up, and I do really like how her kit looks. I already have Chitose, but I didn’t get Peony, so Xuan Zang might be worth getting. I also just appreciate that she’s effectively a non-limited light strength buff unit, which the element’s really needed for a long time now. It’s not quite as straight-forward as how Chitose’s buffs work, but it’s something.

I also just honestly really like her as a character, and like with Wu Kong I have a lot of nostalgia toward her because her event was the first one I actually got into when I started playing the game. I never really use her welfare version, so it’d be great to be able to use her alt.

Though even more than her, as soon as I saw Zhu Bajie and it became obvious he was gonna be a banner unit, I got really tempted to chase him, lol. Which is another reason why i’m glad that these units are getting bundled into the same banner as Leif. I don’t really need any light units any time soon in general, but I still really want him, and it’d be nice to not have to dream summon him.

In terms of his kit, I don’t really like enmity units in general, but he does look really strong on paper. We’ll have to see his exact damage mods, but the fact that he can manually lower his health while also having Resilient Offense seems like a really good combo. Sadly the shield he gets is just a regular shield like Natalie’s, but it does it’s job. It’s interesting that his S2 also makes it so that he can’t be healed for ten seconds. I’m not sure if that actually works well with his kit or not, since on the one hand he wants to stay at low health as much as possible, but he also needs to dip in and out of low HP to trigger Resilient Offense. He also has a unique force-strike via his ability that has a multi-step charge like the MH units, which gives him knockback res and has paralysis punisher mods. 

Light doesn’t really have the sort of support for enmity kits that shadow does via Grace’s shield utility, but I think he has a lot of potential to be a really good DPS unit, and honestly light really needs more of that, in terms of non-limited units. It’s also nice that he’s an axe, since I didn’t get DY-Malora, and I don’t use S-Luca anymore now that I have G-Luca.

It’s probably worth noting that even though there’s not currently someone like Grace for light, Xuan Zang has her strength debuffs and her team shadow res buffs that should help make Zhu Bajie a lot more tanky if you use them together.

And then there’s the wildcard in the form of Sha Wujing, who isn’t actually described in the blog post they put out because he’s a 4-star. Which is kinda lame, but considering that they’re bundling this with Gala Leif AND also including a new 5-star dragon, I get why they relegated him to being a 4-star.

But either way, he might be a really interesting unit. There’s nothing to go on, but him being a 4-star isn’t an automatic strike against the idea of him being really good. There’s just lots of different things they could do with him.

Basically my main two options I’m thinking about at the moment are in effectively being a light version of Emma, or a light version of Heinwald. It’d be great to get a dedicated, non-limited light strength buffer, but Xuan Zang can kinda do that too, and I’m not really sure if him being a lance unit or something with strength buffs really ‘fits’ his whole vibe. But on the other hand, I really like the idea of him being sort of like Heinwald but for light. It’s been over a year since our last light healer came out, so it’d be really nice to get another one. And tbh as a character he really reminds me of Heinwald, so it’d make sense if they end up being similar units. But who knows.

And finally we’re also getting a new light dragon for this banner, who seems to basically just be light Freyja, except her dragon skill only energizes the team instead of also healing them. Which is a bit lame, but light already has Cupid who can heal everyone, so it’s not a big deal. Either way I’d really like to get a copy of her to use on my light support/healer units.

Interestingly it seems like they’re all still gonna appear on the next banner once the gala ends, but I think this is by far going to be the best time to get them, unless they intentionally increase their appearance rates for their banner or something. Being able to get all of them AND Gala Leif from the same banner is way too good of a deal to pass up.

Also this means that we’re not getting a split banner for this event [at least not in the same way we’ve had with recent events], so that’s great. We’re still probably gonna get more split banners in the future, but it’s nice to have all these units on one banner.

I should probably hold off on my summoning spree until we know how good the new units are [especially since Gala Leif looks like he might be underwhelming in practice], but I’ve been saving for two months for this, so I don’t think I’m gonna be able to restrain myself, lol. Depending on how long I summon for, I might have to actually keep notes of what I get so I can remember it all.

Realistically it might be best for me to just stop if/when I get Gala Leif and then save for the next gala, but with the event units being on the gala banner as well, they might tempt me to keep pulling. We’ll just see how it goes, I guess.

[rascal27]

everything to know about nyxl 

first of all they have only 7 players (8 if you count fl0w3r) but they still manage to be the most flexible team. 

sbb can play dps/off tank,

 libero - dps/support/tank

 mano - tank/support/dps

 janus - tank/support

 ark - support/main tank

 jjonak - support/off tank

SABYEOLBE - jong-yeol park 

meaning of the battle tag: star shower at dawn 

age, date of birth:  december 23, 1995 / 22 years old

family life: has one sister and mother, his father left them when he was very young 

 before overwatch: he wasnt a good student an his mom didnt want him to become a bad kid so she forced him to join something, anything, and he chose bowling 

saebyeolbe and bowling: he was a a professional bowler for 4 years. during those 4 years his coach abused him mentally and physically all the time. during he professional career as bowler one time he wanted to see what would a bowling ball do if he bounced it on bed and.... he bounced it too hard, the ball hit his teeth and broke his front teeth. also he blows on his fingers all the time before starting a game, it’s a habit from bowling. 

after bowling he went to military but his knee was broken so they discharged him and he started working as a barista. 

he got married recently and his wife lives with him in los angeles now, they rented an apartment together and she teaches him english. 

before overwatch he played cs:go. 

when overwatch came out he was really good but there was one player that everyone thought was the best in the world and saebyeolbe would always meet him in ranked and he was convinced that he was better than that mystery player............ the mystery player? turned out to be PINE. 

his first real team was luxury watch blue aka LW BLUE with gambler, meko, fl0w3r, luna and janus. 

he is best friends with mano, and really good friends with jake, unkoe, rascal and iddqd.

 there were two LW teams, RED and BLUE. 

RED was founded first and pine was leader of that team but they werent very successful so BLUE was formed and with fl0w3r and sbb as their dps they saw a lot of success. 

their best match ever, the one theyre most proud of it LW BLUE vs RUNAWAY semi finals apex season 2 ( FULL VOD ) 

his favorite movie is KINGSMAN and thats why his alt is named ‘eggsy’. also he met someone in comp who was named ‘merlin’ and also loved kingsman and duoed with him and they became friends. 

also he says, to quote ‘ONENIPPLEMAN IS FUCKING DEAD, HES DEAD FUCK, IM EGGSY. NO ONENIPPLEMAN’ 

he wants to be a teacher oncehe is done with esports 

iddqd tries messing with sbb 

high level tracer game play

tracer movement 

insane widow shot 

PogChamp

sbb hates kephrii pt 1 

sbb hates kephrii pt 2

sbb asks kephrii about 8 inches

LIBERO -  hye-sung kim

battletag: libero - referencing his favorite anime character 

age, date of birth: july 12, 1999 (age 18)  (IM FUCKING OLDER THAN HIM AAAAA) 

family life: nice good family, has an older brother. his parents are really supportive 

before overwatch: he played  A LOT of starcraft (pro played from starcraft named ‘EMPEROR’ is his role model) 

he’s a big anime weeb but he onyl watches sports anime because he really really likes sports, he mostly spends his time watching soccer matches he also loves archery and volleyball 

out of all the nyxl players he is the most shy while the rest are very outgoing 

he didn’t like overwatch much at first because he always had to play alone and korean serves have a lot of cheaters and boosters, but when he met some people they duoed all the time and became friends 

his first serious pro team was META ATHENA 

META ATHENA is a team that was known for crazy strats that libero would be the main part of since he can play a lot of different characters on high level. one of their most famous strats was on dorado libero going mei and the entire team going on the high wall flank with libero boosting them up using ice wall. he’s also known as one of the best hanzo players in the world and he is a pharah player that has the most efficient ultimates.

his first main was hanzo.  

his dps partner on meta athena was sayaplayer (who people have started calling korean dafran) 

5k dragonblade

mid-air pulse

PINE -  do-hyeon kim

battletag: his first btag was ‘chicken’ and he really didnt like it so he changed it to PINE 

age, date of birth: october 15, 1997 (age 20)

family life: parents, older sister and brother. they really werent supportive of him  becoming pro player

he wasnt a very good student because he has adhd so his parents got him into sport

pine was a professional badminton player for two yeas until his inujury

his parents told him that he HAS TO get into a university so he decided to study culinary arts

before overwatch he was a professional in TF2 and that’s how he picked up english

when he was in his first year of college on the day of his exams overwatch came out and he spend 5 days locked in his room playing overwatch, he failed all of his exams 

he destroyed overwatch ladder in korea and was invited to a game show on TV, after that he went to overwatch competition in busan and decided that he wants to be a pro player 

his friends convinced his parents to let him join LW RED 

his favorite character is widowmaker 

when flower was injured and couldnt play for a long time, pine was subbed in and joined as part of LW BLUE and had to fill his role 

for a long time he was in flowers shadow but then he impressed everyone with his mccree on illios in overwatch league  (he used to be considered a widow one trick thats why his mccree was so impressive) 

he is high risk and high reward player, if he doesnt perform well they lose and if he performs well they steam roll 

when nyxl lost against london in play offs he got really really depressed 

when someone on blizzard forum complained about mccree being a weak character jeff kaplan himself in response linked pines illios highlights to prove a point of mccree being very strong in right hands 

the most incredible widow play ive ever seen, he’s a god

pine and sbb with the bm

he hates sombra and zen

pine is marketable

his guide to setting up a right crosshair 

only widow game play

MANO -  dong-gyu kim

april 12, 1996 (age 21)

he wasn’t a good student at all, had a lot of problems, would skip class all the time and run away from home

diagnosed with adhd,

he didn’t like any jobs he wasn’t interested in anything so he decided to go into military but then overwatch was released 

his first team was rhinos gaming but his big team and the one that he is known for is AFREECA BLUE (people who also used to be part of that team: KALIOS (boston), DAYFLY (philly fusion), ARHAN (best known for ARAHN LUL meme, he sometimes fucks up a lot) and TAIRONG (previous coach of AF BLUE, now coach of HOUSTON))

his first game was maple story 

in overwatch he started out as a dps player but there were so many already incredible dps players that he couldn’t find a way to break out so he switched to support, he was an amazing lucio/ana player but didn’t see much success  until he started maining winston. 

his frienemy is MIRO, they have a big part, miro got him into pro overwatch and there has always been a rivalry because they were the first two to make winston so important, also mano was chosen for world cup 2017 and many fans sent him hate because everyone wanted miro to be on that team, but the truth it mano is just as good on winston but he is a way better rein than miro.

during apex he was asked who he wants to be friends with and he said ‘saebyeolbe i wanna be friends with you, youre so cool’ AND THEN THEY BECAME BEST FRIENDS 

mano is also really really really good friends with calvin and he’s like the only person calvin likes duoing with 

currently he is rank 1 NA 

JANUS -  joong-hwa song

battletag: janus - he feels like he has two parts of himself one that is dedicated to his family and another that is very shy and wants to do his best to become a good pro gamer, so he named himself JANUS the roman two face god. 

january 28, 1997 (age 21)

his english is really good because he studied hard in middle school but he has also taught himself japanise 

he’s a weeb, and like effect he LOOOOVES miku (shes his phone and computer background) 

he is very attached to his pillow and carries it everywhere with himself 

janus is sadly the best known for having many health issues. he has very sick lungs and requires medical care often but he has been getting better recently. 

his first main was zenyatta but then when team (LW BLUE) needed a main tank he learned how to play monkey. 

MEKO -  tae-hong kim

july 25, 1997 (age 20) 

he wasn’t a very good student but he was an amazing soccer played so when he was in middle school he joined a soccer academy 

when he was in middle school his father was a victim of fraud and his family ended up in a lot of debt and very very poor, that was the most difficult time in his life but then the situation god better

he is best BEST friends with jjonak and theyre very close but in the team everyone calls them ‘dumb and dumber’ they say that in game they both have 900iq but out of game theyre fucking dumb lmao 

his best character is DVA and hog 

JJONAK -  sung-hyeon bang

december 20, 1999 (age 18) 

battle tag: jjonak - awkward octopus 

his battletag has become a meme to him so he named all his smurfs stuff like ‘, KKONAK.. GGONAK’ and even carpe has a smuft ‘BBONAK’ because they duo almost every night. he also has a smuft ‘JJONJEHONG’ 

so he is very young and he became a pro player because since middleschool hes been friends with GIDO who plays for seoul dynasty. gido won apex season 3 and jjonak went to watch him live and he was so so jealous that gido won that and that he gets to play with jjonaks idol that jjonak dedicated everything to become the best 

he played ranked every day, destroying ladder as zenyatta and ending up for three seasons in a row rank 1 in korea 

many teams offered him contracts but he sided with nyxl and until overwatch league he was kinda like a myth, no one believed that he is that good 

then on one anubis map, jjonak had the most damage out of everyone in the lobby, every dps was doing worse than him, sbb on tracer had 5k less damage than him

he is kinda a legend and he is the best zenyatta in the world 

but also he is a teenage boy with A LOT of money so he does stuff like buy tennis shoes that cost 800 dollars and a hoodie thats costs 1,020 dollars 

his best friends are meko and carpe (but also special shout out to alarm, alarm is like jjonaks student) 

he wanted to be like jehong so much that he copied EVERYTHING jehong did 

jjonaks crazy stats

jjonak and carpe being assholes, carpe yelling at jjonak that hes a fucking pussy noob if he doesnt sleep the rein

jjonak tracer gameplay

jjonak and meko have a running joke of never high fiving

JJONAK DESTROYS PINE LMAOOO

carpe nanos jjonak as zen and let’s him destroy everyone

ark - yeon-joon hong

january 11, 1998 (age 20) 

the best english speaker in all of nyxl, he is practically fluent 

he is the main shot caller and tracks every enemy ult and always know at what % enemy ult is 

his out of game IQ translates in game incredibly 

to many he has already won the INTERNETHULK award that is basically an award honoring the most positive and best influence in overwatch league

he’s an only child and he is very much a big loner, he had a hard time getting close to anyone when he joined the league even tho he knew most NYXL players. but he soon became close friends with dreamkazper and they are so so fucking cute like their friendship is actually good and nice. but besides dream he is close with libero, and they spend a lot of time together. 

he was accepted to YONSEI university, and he wanted to study nursing but put it on hold when he was picked up as part of NYXL 

he is the best mercy player in the league, second best lucio and one of the best ana players his sleep darts are actually insane. 

he love loves LOVES dance, dance revolution and plays it a lot. also he loves ed sheeran, he listens to him all the time

his pomposity is stupid, its insane how calm he stays and nice to everyone 

many casters have said that ark is the most disciplined player in the league because so fat he has never misused his ult 

and also he started maining lucio because of stanky

he and sbb have a habit of calling armor packs ‘cookies’

ark predicts which ults enemy team has and how they will use them securing his team to win

900iq