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#the inherent homoerotic experience of pharmercy gameplay.
bixels · 30 days
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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.
#i was a diehard pharmercy shipper back then btw#the inherent homoerotic experience of pharmercy gameplay.#the homoerotic experience of looking to the skies to fly to safety under the protection of your knight in shining armor#the homoerotic experience of feeling white hot murderous rage at an enemy trying to pick off your pocket mercy#i still kinda despise gency lmao. you cannot convince me mercy would be in love with genji. at all.#he'd make her feel so uncomfortable and guilty. in my head. the canon is obviously different#gency is sexless. absolutely zero bite or tension.#i could go on about mercy and how her character has so much missed potential#i'm no longer in my overwatch fandom phase but#i still think about that new flirty line they added in ow2 where mercy goes “ahh you're like my knight in shining armor!”#and pharah goes “that's what i'm goin for ;)” and i sigh dreamily#really happy that pharah outright says she's a lesbian too but it's hard to feel good about rep when you know blizzard uses it for pr#to be honest i'm willing to bet cash that blizzard's keeping pharmercy in their back pocket as ammo for the next controversy#last year we already saw logs about pharah fretting and taking care of mercy and the two talking about how good it is to see each other#tbh pharah has the same energy/demeanor as applejack. cheerful and competitive in a can of whoopass#but yeah overall pharah's a pretty shallow character. i have IDEAS on how i'd go about deepening her but. whatever#that's sorta what happens when you have to juggle a cast of 40 characters. a lot get left with the bare minimum#ok so i wrote this entire post up saying that pharah isn't in ow2's storymode when she is. she's in the story i just. forgot#because she doesn't do or contribute anything interesting#ok i'm stopping here. overwatch's story is such an interesting narrative mess i could go on for hours#i dunno how you come up with such incredible character designs and give them such an unincredible story#it's also so so so interesting seeing the conflicting takes on characters the writers have#mercy in gameplay and voicelines is peppy and cheerful and optimistic#but mercy in the storymode journal logs is tired. jaded. a total shut in who forgets to leave her room and social#and YES! THAT'S WHAT I WANT!!! THAT'S MERCY TO ME!!! THE DOCTOR WHO FORGETS TO TAKE CARE OF HERSELF#ask me#anon
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