#pharah too

[bixels]

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.

[eulogium-red]

i'd like to see more of the theme of "family" in overwatch. we see it a lot with ana & fareeha, ram & zen, brig/torb/rein/bastion, genji & hanzo. but those are the obvious ones between playable characters. the ones that are much more clearly written on the wall, even once-in-a-blue-moon players could pick up on. much else is hardly focused on despite how much family (or a lack thereof) has shaped many of the character's lives & identities for better or for worse

i don't like how martina & the unnamed reyes kid are only mentioned in passing, despite gabriel himself visiting often unannounced. clearly they were an important part of his life. clearly, family is an important part of his life — i'm very willing to wager that small passage about the death of his parents in declassified was written very intentionally. his complicated relationship with death, and how it was further affected by his own "death," & how he's now in some warped reversed position with his new family. but we don't get much more than a few voice lines about martina (is she even mentioned by name in-game orrr am i not remembering?)

i want to see how ashe manages the gang throughout the second omnic crisis. or perhaps we could see her mannerisms slightly change with bob. maybe instead of standing side-by-side with him as she is in the reunion cinematic, she puts herself more between him & potential unrealised threats. or maybe she subtly tries to nudge him under awnings whenever she spots ufos, weary they're housing subjugators — little things that are very intentional. maybe her demeanor tilts ever so slightly from confident but guarded, to guarded but confident.

i want to get a better picture of the role sam english played in fareeha's life just from playing the game, especially after ana's presumed death. i want to know more about their relationship other than the christmas dinner they had. i wonder how many players just assume fareeha's father died young, or assume the writers didn't care to write one at all? for a long time, i thought the former. i wonder what sam thinks of some of fareeha's closest friends — has he met cole & angela? what does he think of helix? we hardly even see fareeha's native heritage expressed other than the two skins off the top of my head

what about cassidy & echo? i know this is a more implied one, but cassidy was the first one to nurture her "childlike intelligence." even today, he guides her — he encouraged her to help winston&co at paris when he was still on the fence. one of the cutest things for me is her enthusiastically shouting "hello winston!" mid-battle, presumably not long after cassidy told her to say hi. she probably would've either way, but i also don't want to discredit the role cassidy has had on her development & i really do want to see more of them

or, speak of the devil, how winston views everyone at overwatch as family. how in watchpoint: gibraltar's 1st defense spawn, you can see the little beds he set up for lena and mei, how you can read an email as proof he got the blankets from a small kids blanket business. the way he keeps photos of the gang, years later. how vehemently protective he was of all their locations. i wish we could see it reciprocated a little more, i wish we could see individual sleeping areas for other heroes as the story progresses, or more items on his desk. & that's not even getting into hammond

& i don't think i can have a family post without mentioning dad 76 or how i desperately want to see benicio being the best supportive dad for lúcio more but honestly i'm getting pretty sleepy so either i'll add more later or someone can add more.

depending how you stretch the definition of family here, it can include other dynamics too. baptiste finding a new sense of belonging in the new overwatch, or mei braving the antarctic to not let her team's death go in vain & to help people who can still be helped — from jiayi and her team still on mars, to the people who now need her help on earth. i'd also argue hana's squad in korea. what are niran's siblings up to? are we gonna see more of efi & orisa? moreover, how are all these non-playable side character characters handling the invasion? i guess we got some texts between lena and emily

family is such a powerful motivator, but can also be really complicated, as seen with the amaris and shimadas + kiriko, i wish we got a similar amount of investment some other places too

a major theme of overwatch is moving towards the future, progressing in some way. & that looks different for everyone depending on their emotional readiness to do that, and what they view "progression" as. so it makes sense a lot of characters don't look back on those they lost along the way so much, at least not too openly (zarya comes to mind), but that's what can make their present relationships with others that much more worth preserving & seeing

probably an impossible ask of a game feeling the effects of layoffs that's primarily focused on pvp/bp/shop items but ykn

thank u for coming to my tedtalk

[odessastone]

still musing on whether or not Pharah was intended to be autistic-coded in her PVE logs. Like it makes sense, autistic people tend to have a strong sense of justice that can sometimes lead to black and white thinking and morality (which Pharah very clearly struggles with). She’s just not a character I ever thought of as potentially being autistic. But things like the over-explaining in the logs, the ridiculous adherence to arbitrary rules, and the repeated complaints about loud noises bothering her makes me wonder if that’s what they were going for.

I mean I’d be all for it tbh. Personally I’ve since incorporated it into my interpretation of her character already lol

[faerileee]

A tribute to the 'I love my lesbian daughter' Anas out there

[docholligay]

As always, Winston's life is suffering.

[wildissylupus]

Genji: You're so mean to me sometimes... Pharah: I'm not mean to you, you're just dumb! Genji: He's kind of mean to me sometimes, when he says- When he says "dumb, dumb idiot" and I look at myself in the mirror and I say "dumb dumb idiot", you're why I'm insecure. Pharah: -no longer paying attention- uuh huh, what's that? Genji: *wheeze laughs*

[godblooded]

unexpectedly had a series of wholesome ovw comp matches where i gained four random friends on my list and the entire time on a 4-3 payload win we both kept complimenting each other on either side. had someone literally say ‘wow don’t usually get along this well’. it was genuinely adorable. awful experience somehow mitigated by the power of friendship.

[tianshiko]

hades~

[yonevea]

Pridewatch pharah!!!

[480pfootage]

HOG AND CYPHER

two faves from the fps games i play the most

[tricksterlatte]

Yearning for another fandom historical event that makes me feel the way I felt when they confirmed Tracer was a lesbian. Please...it was so triumphant

[ladymariayuri]

they really are down bad after the pve cancellation

[termagax]

i do agree that it's kind of annoying how they keep alluding to roadhog being maori with little islander references, but just. refuse to actually do anything with it, because that means they'd actually have to like. write him with that in mind (not that they've really done. ANYTHING with pharah being native but you know)

ITS SO FRUSTRATING BECAUSE LIKE. hes already barely around and overwatch is a game with barely any actual writing. if they had just said it somewhere and then done basically the same things theyve done with it just being little flourishes here and there it wouldnt be like. a big deal. it could be so easy.

[carmarriage]

funniest part about prev is that just before ow2 came out i finally managed to talk myself around to liking gency and being like 'well if that's gonna be canon i might as well have fun with it' and now they're just going with pharmercy instead. WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME!!!

[lonelyhumanoid]

Something I just remembered.

In Overwatch 1, there was an interaction with Pharah and (I think) Mercy. It went something like:

M: “If your mother could see you now I’m sure she’d be proud of you.”

P: “There’s a first time for everything, I guess.”

This interaction has a whole new potential meaning now that Pharah is confirmed to be a lesbian.

I really hope I’m wrong.

[daily-pharah]

i thought i managed to escape overwatch but pharah reeled me back in