#(actually I think it’s a little of column a little of column b yknow how it goes)

[tiskycat]

Me: I fucking hate Beth Yellowstone

Me: *remembers that post about how “y’all want fucked up women in fiction but can’t even handle the ones that are slightly mean”*

Me, through gritted teeth: I respect Beth Yellowstone for being Problematic Woman representation in a piece of modern media

[vacantgodling]

I'm so sorry if you've talked about this part in Cage already (just lmk and I'll go find the post if there's one). But I think about Hanzo's intro in your fic almost daily. The cake. Cole's disbelief and confusion. The hostile banter between the two of them. Just how well you write characters and how easy it is to get invested in the stories you tell in general.

Uhhhh...oh, right. What inspired that whole scene? Was it something from the game itself? A reference? Just something awesome you imagined that would be sure to leave an impression?

--@ceph-the-ghost-writer

CAGE ASK CAGE ASK!!!!

i’m hype i never thought i would see this day 🥹 firstly, thank you for your super kind words it really means the world to me that you would even give cage a read without being as hyper invested in ovw as i am LOL. that being said i’ve come to realize that i reeeeally love writing thinly veiled hostility (thanks amon & hya) and how the SMALLEST shred of internal willpower is the only thing keeping people from lashing out. TENSION it’s so deliciously fun to write—

BUT to answer your question it’s actually a little bit of column a, a little bit of column b. so, many many moons ago, blizz released a christmas comic kind of showcasing what many of the og characters do during christmas and there is a panel with hanzo looking at a christmas cake in japan.

christmas cake is a Thing in japan, it’s literally a special cake solely for christmas time and that (along with eating fried chicken from KFC, seriously people order christmas dinner months in advance from it) is kinda how the western idea of christmas got integrated into japanese society lol. now, it’s very possible that hanzo is only getting the cake because it’s christmas however, as a fan base people kind of ran with the idea that hanzo likes sweets. they could’ve just as easily had him going to get fried chicken which is Also apart of japanese christmas tradition, and up until that point lore for hanzo was So Goddamn Sparse that seeing him get cake was actually very… interesting, yknow? so, at least for me this tiny panel evolved into the idea that hanzo has a big sweet tooth because it says a lot about how he craves being cared for (sugar is sweet, so, he wants to be treated sweetly) and to be allowed to indulge (because as the eldest, growing up he was raised more strictly — which is canon fact he and genji have a lot of voice lines about it, and i imagine sneaking off to have sugar or sweet treats of some kind every once and awhile was the only real rebellion he was able to have) and i guess in some ways i want to illustrate a juxtaposition with his character Immediately to the audience.

like let’s say this was a novel on its own and you have no context to overwatch: you spend the first chapter with cole and genji yelling at each other about hanzo is or isn’t a monster, how he “killed” genji or injured him so badly that most of his entire body is made up of cybernetics and despite it all genji wants to forgive him. by showing hanzo upfront doing something absurd (sitting on a plane wing and eating CAKE of all things) it communicates to you that there is something… off about him, at least when it comes to cole’s knowledge and interpretation of him (since we’re in his pov).

it’s a nod to people who like overwatch and love hanzo liking sweets bc we are constantly starving for hanzo content so that sweets-loving fact is highly regarded.

but also, subconsciously i feel like it harks back to the idea of what truly “evil” person likes sweets? there’s an association with sweets of innocence, of yknow obviously sweetness, but i find that most people find sweets (subconsciously) to be disarming. what does it say when a dangerous killer like hanzo who you’re “supposed” to dislike, likes sweets? it throws you off and that’s one of the many things that throws cole off!

one of the things about the whole “oh the curtains are just blue” discourse is always the idea of what if they’re just blue and sure that could be true, but there’s usually a subconscious reasoning why writers describe things the way they do even if they don’t “mean” to impart that idea into something. very easily i could’ve had hanzo eating cake just as a nod to the comic panel but i like to think a lot of the times i’m quite Aware of why i’m describing things as they are: hanzo eating cake shows that he craves affection and understanding, but him sitting high off the ground and putting physical distance between himself and the rest of overwatch is literally showing how he puts a barrier between himself and what he craves. in a lot of the first chapters you’ll notice that i tend to put hanzo up high, and as the story progressing he starts staying closer and closer to the ground. YES this is a nod to his canon-in game-wall climb ability but it’s also a showcase of him literally closing the physical and mental distance between himself and the members of overwatch. allowing them closer and closer and trying to distance himself less.

sorry this is a whole rant and a half LMAO but i think very muchly about the mechanics of what i’m writing and why i’m showing certain things so thank you again for letting me impart some of my process on you lol :’)