#I'm just the fuck over here like 'mmmmm the scent of blorbos in the morning'

[docholligay]

One of the fun things that having this sort of crossover lets me do, that I don't get to often, is contrast these characters who occupy SIMILAR spaces in their own narrative, but are fundamentally.

First of all, everyone in Overwatch is more of a Growned Up. I age everyone in SM up to their early twenties-very late teens because I can't with the baby teenage thing while also allowing them to be fully realized people and squaring with the choices they have to make. But still! early twenties is an age where you still don't really know if you're coming or going.

Add to that, every person in Overwatch wants to be there. They aren't drafted. Meeting with Fareeha, and Lena, and Angela, who committed themselves to this, who have the skills necessary to carry things out, I think it could be both frustrating and also inspiring! In the way meeting people who are self-assured and useful can sometimes be.

So, Lena and Haruka both occupy a space of "I am not college material" but they think about it very differently. Haruka, it's just another reason to beat the shit out of herself, like fucking everything. She's stupid, she's useless for anything other than as a human shield, etc. Whereas Lena is basically, "No thanks!" and quickly searching "easiest A levels the RAF will accept" readying herself to do the bare minimum to become a pilot, because she has a sense of purpose that I think Haruka just doesn't. Haruka has no clue what she's meant to do or be.

And some of this comes out of their different backgrounds (Though, I guess, I came up with their backgrounds based on the person I had in front of me) Haruka did not have a supportive home life, she did not feel like her gifts were actual gifts. Lena, on the other hand, is deeply loved by her family even when she's annoying, and has been her whole life, so has an intense resilience, and optimism--not naivete, but the sense that you can always try--, and knows more or less who she is, and that who she is has good qualities.

I just think it would be neat for Haruka to ATTEMPT to see herself in that light, that she's not fucking Ami, for sure, but that doesn't make her nothing at all. Here's Lena, having a very particular type of education that Haruka would think of as 'uneducated', she's successful, she's happy, people respect her, people LIKE her. She's not wildly handsome or built or anything, but she's charming and funny and it lends her a quality of attractiveness. She keeps comparing herself to Fareeha, but Fareeha is, uh, one in a million. My hope would be for Lena to be someone Haruka could IMAGINE herself being (even if it is not, strictly speaking, true. Lena's dauntless confidence and easy cheer are things that are essentially foreign to Haruka even when I let her calm down in old age.)