#Mina and Lena for sure Haruka if she thought of it Michiru in the right exact moment

[docholligay]

I LOVE how she's showing off here. They're all fighting with wooden practice swords, and she is passing her hand just close enough to them, without really touching them, to show them that she can. She has the upper hand. They are children to her.

It's so UNBELIEVABLY ARROGANT and so of course I am obsessed with it. As I often say, it's only arrogance if you're wrong! It's showboating. It's teasing. It's toying with someone and letting them now how little you think of them. Incredible. Love her.

Before you comment: Spoiler policy and basic assumptions!

[docholligay]

Consider a setting where graduating from a certain school gives you the right to wield political power on a national level, depriving everyone who doesn’t attend of the right to vote, but the bottom third students of every year get transformed into magical slaves. How terribly would the Senshi or Overwatch crew handle that?

Okay, so, let's get this out of the way first: WHAT THE FUCK.

Now that we've taken that important break, let's think about this.

Do we know what they teach at this school? Because I think that would be a large part of my decision for this. Some of the cannier players in the game would enter if they thought they stood a chance, but by the very nature of the thing they ALSO know that the best of the best are going to go here. Do you think you're in the top 66% of 1000 driven and probably proven intelligent people? I mean, I probably would be like, "I guess I am a voteless worker bee."

So, for the purposes of this question, we'll assume it's a standard high school type setup, with, fuck, I'm just doing this for the purposes of answering. We'll use what was the AP track for each at my high school, because, well, I'm familiar with it.

Math : Algebra, Geometry, Trig, Calc

Science: Earth, Biology, Chemistry, Physics

English: Four years of upper level Literature courses focusing on analysis and knowledge of the canon.

History: (Insert country of origin here), Government, World i, World ii

Language: Four years of a language, I took Spanish.

And then we can make space for other shit. We had 6 periods a day, but not every day had to be the same. Whatever, we'll go with the guideline.

SAILOR MOON

Rei goes because Rei has never been humble for even one moment in her life, and also she wants to boss the entire country around. She knows that she is going to be in the top 66%, and also probably graduate first in the class, she's just that smart. Is she though???? We don't see one way or the other, and I think of her as a sort high-middling student, and in an environment like this one, I could see her maybe ending up on bottom.

Minako would never do it unless she was sure she could find a good way to cheat on everything. Minako's not stupid, but I do think she can be a little intellectually lazy. Sitting down and actually doing the work would take her aback a little bit, but I also think she knows that and also isn't too proud to admit, to herself at least, that she might be in danger there.

Michiru's family has so much money and influence that even if she can't vote, she can vote, so I don't see her willingly putting herself through that.

Haruka would not attend, but it would only be because Minako stopped her from some desperate and quasi-suicidal jaunt to prove herself worthy or some shit. She knows its dumb, Mina knows its dumb, but here she is, signing up for it! It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Overwatch:

Lena has laughed herself out of the building already. Thanks but no thanks. Voting isn't worth the entirety of a physics class and having to do well in it on top of everything else. She'll go wash glasses in a pub if she has to, goodbye.

Fareeha acknowledges that it is a difficult task, and it will encourage a high level of competition, but luckily, rigorous testing of her abilities is a boon in her eyes. She spends long nights studying and sharpening her acumen. Literature is never her strongest class, and she does worry about it, but she gets it together just fine, and is strong enough in everything else.

Mercy is the sort that is more than smart enough for this sort of thing, but I don't know that she would want to sign up for it because it just seems cruel. It seems wrong. She will, of course, be talked into taking a spot, because better someone with her scruples than someone chomping at the bit to have the power.

Dva is following Lena out the door but she's posting the whole reel to TikTok, including she and Lena popping babychams in the parking lot.

[docholligay]

Insecure

Jet asked me for four ficlets based on four friendships that we share in: Rei and Michiru, Pharah and Tracer, Haruka and Mina, and Winston and Tracer. Then Jet got sick, and I wanted her to rest and not work on my video, so we had an accord that I would cease work in my WIPs for her as well. She gave me permission to publish the two I already had finished though! So this is my Pharah and Tracer fic, which turned into NOT A FICLET AT ALL. 2500 words. Happy friendiversary you ass. My entire OW universe is here. 

Winston set down the stack in the small TV room upstairs, where Tracer happily watched a movie, crunching on her prawn cocktail potato chips.

“They finally come in?” She practically leapt off the couch toward them.

“Lena--”

But Tracer hardly heard him, quick as she scampered over to the stack. It was a big deal, this feature, something they’d been working towards, at last getting the recognition they’d worked so hard for. She’d waited weeks to see it, still, a bit like a child, excited to see herself in print, and this time was different, and better--Overwatch was more her baby now than it had ever been.

Tracer’s heart grew heavy as she picked up the magazines that had been delivered to the house, tied together with a cheerful twine bow.

She looked up at Winston. “This the only edition, then?”

Winston nodded softly, as Dva poked her head into the room.

“What?” She asked in her way that was half curious and half obligated.

“They put Fareeha on the cover alone, seems.” Tracer looked down at the magazine where Pharah looked up at her, strong and powerful, her jaw determined in the light.

They’d taken pictures of both of them, along with the group shots, interviewed them both. A Family Legacy, the text next to Pharah’s name proclaimed, Fareeha Amari and The Spirit of Leadership.

“Me whole family’s been in the RAF going back years…” she mumbled quietly, flipping through the pages, “must not ‘ave been too keen on it.”

There she was. A little biography, like all of the others, in an uninteresting line of photos.

“Of course they put her on the front,” D.va snorted.

“Hana,” Winston tried.

“She’s the “impressive” face of the team, she’s the leader, she’s the one they talk about. Why are you even surprised?” She tossed the magazine onto her laundry basket. “To send to my parents.”

Tracer gripped the magazine hard, wrinkling the edges of it, and felt something in her pop like an overfilled water balloon, spilling her feelings out.

She threw down the magazine.

“I know, ‘ana. I know she’s better then me, and smarter than me, and more ‘andsome, and taller too! I know!” She stormed out of the hallway and slammed the door to her room, which was unsatisfyingly slow as it locked into place, protecting her from being unlocked in time.

“What the hell?” She heard from the hallway.

She unclicked her accelerator and tossed it into the corner, not caring if it broke. Hoping it might, and then she’d go away.

Fareeha is so much better than you, and people like her more and she’s ever so organized, you should ‘ave died when the Slipstream failed, you should be dead, you’d ‘ave--

“LENA, STOP IT!” she scolded herself aloud, trying to calm herself.  “It’s isn’t true, and you and Fareeha are different, and lots of people really love you. They do.”

Lena Oxton was a woman of strong emotions, and, 90% of the time, those emotions were happiness, and cheer, and love, and enthusiasm. But when the others came, they came like a sledgehammer to the chest, and since childhood, she had tried to talk herself down from the wild, oppressive feeling inside of her.

She wondered if other people felt like this, when she wasn’t in the middle of it.

She closed her eyes , and took a deep breath. You can’t feel this bad for that long, love, you ‘aven’t got the focus for it.

Normally, it was a joke she told herself when she was sad like this, but now it only seemed to highlight what was wrong with her, why Pharah was the one on the cover, why no one thought of her as being leader, ever.

There was a knock. “Lena--”

“I DON’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT, WINSTON, GO AWAY!” She could practically hear Winston shrink from the door, and it tempered her for a moment. “Please just...It’s not you, promise.”

She felt even worse as she heard him shuffle away from the door. 

___

Flight was the answer. It was the one place she reigned supreme, in her little Cessna, far and away from everything else in the world. She could clear her mind, with it in the clouds.

She clipped back on her accelerator, threw on her old bomber jacket, its aged scent the one comfort allotted to her, the places where she’d patched it after being shot now a part of its storied landscape, and headed toward the small hangar out back where it was parked.

It would be yet another sign of the sort of day she was having that Pharah came down the hallway at the same time.

“Did you see my stunning debut?” Pharah grinned, teasingly, but also filled with a little personal pride. It was a good picture. “You should pay attention to what this article says, next time I command you.”

“Yeah, s’nice,” she gave a nod, “I’m out for bit. Nice to see they know who revolutionized Overwatch and all that, sure you can run it all in me absence.”

There was no play in her voice, no quick retort, just an edge that hurt all the more for the surprise of it.

“Tracer,” she took her arm, worried. Tracer was upset so seldom, and her mood was so heavy Pharah could feel it in the hallway, hear it in the echo of Pharah’s unreturned volley. “I am only teasing you.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” She yanked her arm away from Pharah and turned away,  walking down the hallway toward the the bay where she kept her Cessna. “S’all right, Pharah, you go on then, be great and mighty, I’m ‘appy for you.”

“I think you were less upset when I gave you a concussion.” She gave a weak laugh, unnerved by Tracer’s visible pain,. “This isn’t a contest, Tracer.”

“Course it’s not,” she turned on her heel and pointed at Pharah, “Because you’re winning!”

“I cannot win if--”

Tracer threw her hands up in the air. “People always talk about ‘ow YOU revolutionized Overwatch, ‘ow YOU are the commander Overwatch’s always needed, and I’m nothing! Next to you. Nothing. I’ve given the whole of me life, me entire bloody BODY, but it’s you, it’s always been you, and I’m the also-ran to another WANKING AMARI”

What Pharah wanted to say was that Tracer’s accent got so ungodly thick when she was upset that Pharah wasn’t entirely certain she understood what Tracer was saying, but more than that, she wanted to tell Tracer she could not do it without her, and that she was invaluable.

“You are not my competition--””

“Oh and? Just as bonus, your dead mother, who you don’t even CARE FOR, shows up on the doorstep, don’t she? Can’t even let anyone think you’ve failed at ‘aving LIVE PARENTS, not Fareeha Amari, COMMANDER PHARAH, EMPEROR QUEEN OF OVERWATCH AND THE BLOODY WORLD ENTIRE , but you’ve shown us, so you ‘ave.”

“Lena. You are my friend. You--”

“I don’t want your bloody pity, Pharah. ” She spit the words, and turned on her heel, storming back down the hallway to where her plane waited.

___

Pharah sat on the edge of the bed, somewhere between hurt and confusion, not understand either one. Tracer was not given to vitriol, at least not toward her friends, and to see her react that way, to teasing Pharah thought very gentle, made her wonder if it was something else she said.

“Shatzi” Mercy called to her from where she stood in the bathroom. “Are you feeling alright?” She walked toward Pharah, studying her for a moment in concern.

“Yes, I’m...I am not ill.” She looked at Mercy, her eyebrows still knit in thought, “Lena got very angry with me today.”

Mercy sat down next to her. I have been observing, as long as I’ve know her, that she does not seem to get upset so often, but when she does, she really commits to it.” She took Pharah’s hands in hers reassuringly, and forced a laugh .

“She called me Pharah.” It seemed a strange thing to carry as painful, nothing but a name that was not so different from her own, a name she had given herself and that generally carried so much pride with it,  but felt a swear in Tracer’s mouth. “She never does.”

Mercy tilted her head. “Why was she angry with you?”

“I was teasing her.”

“Lena? She is usually the one to be beginning these things.”

Pharah considered for a moment, tried to reconstruct what had happened. “The magazine? That we took the pictures for?”

Mercy nodded, listening intently.

“We received the copies today. I was on the cover, the article was about me, and--”

Mercy took in a deep breath. “Ah.” Mercy sat for a moment, still holding Pharah’s hands, feeling the warmth in them and how she longed to share it. “She feels you are better respected, I am thinking, and she tries very hard.”

“I did not know she was so sensitive. I would not have been that way.”

“It is hard to tell, what will bother her, sometimes.” She thought for a moment, “You do not remember so well, because you were also very hurt, and very angry, but when your mother came back,” She looked down at Pharah’s hands in hers, running her thumb over her fingers, trying to clear the unpleasantness of it from her mind, “She was also very sad and hurt. Jealous, you know. I have known her for a very long time, Fareeha,” She cupped Pharah’s cheek, “She will be coming out of it before too long.”

Pharah chuffed. “She can have my mother.”

“Fareeha.”

___

Tracer’s foot bounced as she looked out the window, the drizzling rain that had driven her from the sky the glorious icing on the terrible cake that had been her day since eleven sixteen this morning. The sun was setting, Tracer thought, it was about the right time, though she could not tell for the oppressive grey that lay over the land.

She was beginning to get tired of being sad, despite it having been less than 24 hours. There were some benefits to not being able to keep your mind on one thing. But still, her heart ached a little bit, as she looked at the magazine in front of herself. Why was she reminding herself of this? Why keep poking at it like it wasn’t going to hurt?

She took another drink of her beer. Mercy had told her once, when they were posing for another poster years and years ago, that to do something for the glory of it all was just as selfish as never putting yourself in danger in the first place. The way Mercy lived backed what she said, and it had stuck with Tracer.

She was in a museum, for God’s sake, why was she being petty over a magazine cover?

Pharah walked into the small nook of the kitchen and sat across from her, sliding the magazine toward herself. She looked down at the cover, where she practically glowed gold, the shining trophy of Overwatch’s success.

“This was a mistake.”

“‘Ow you figure?” She did not look at Pharah, simply fiddled with the edge of the label on her beer bottle.

“My co-leader is not with me.”

“Mercy?” She said expectantly.

She shook her head, and flipped through the magazine. “Lena Oxton, callsign Tracer. A decorated Royal Air Force pilot. A member of the noted team who saved London, though she was only a cadet. She ran a bomb into a mass of omnics, at the risk of her own life, and received a medal for bravery. A founding member of the renewed Overwatch. You may know her.” She nodded at Traer. “People should. I am sorry they ignored your contributions.”

She shook her head, a little embarrassed. “No, I’m sorry, Fareeha. It’s not your fault.” Tracer took a drink of her beer. “Bit of a tinderbox, I am. You are,” she sighed, “better at everything than me, afraid.”

“This is not true.” Pharah looked over at her with what she hoped was a playful look. “No one on earth has ever liked me better than you.”

“Ang.” But she looked at Pharah and gave a soft smile.

“One person on earth has liked me better than you.”

“Your Mum.”

“I think that is debatable.”

“Well, she bloody well ‘ates me.”

“Why do you think I take you to--you have skills that--” She huffed, frustrated with her own inability to speak her own mind. “I cannot run Overwatch without you. I do not wish to.”

“Telling I’m your equal, then?”

She shook her head. “Not at all. You are my complement. My equal means there are two.” She looked over the table at Tracer. “I think recent history has proven two Amaris to be one too many Amaris.”

Tracer’s laugh was warm and appreciative. “I should be the one to say that, really.”

“My complement makes me better. Makes the team more strong.” She looked back down at the table. “That is what I mean to say.I do not like when I am compared with my mother and found...the runner-up. I should have been more sensitive to that in you.”

Tracer looked at her seriously. “You’re twice the commander your mum ever was, Fareeha, and I’m not exactly wanting to fluff your ego today.”

Pharah leaned back in her chair. “You are twice the help Jack ever was, I think it is fair to say.”

“Oh,” Tracer nodded emphatically, “I’ll agree to that every day of the week. But it doesn’t sway much for me.” She gave a loud laugh, and Pharah smiled to hear it.

“Your success is my success. Lena.”

“Getting a bit familiar, aren’t we, Commander Amari?” She giggled in her waterfall way, and then shook her head, “You know, if I’m not an overdramatic wanker every so often, they’ll take away me butch card, so they will.” She bounced around. “I know it is, Fareeha. It’s the team’s success.”

“You can have the cover next time.”

Tracer exploded with an idea. “No, I think we should give it to Win! You know, I don’t think ‘e’s ever ‘ad anything like that, and the rest of us ‘ave, in one way or another, I ‘ad me own poster back in the day, and I will again, once Overwatch is a bit more established, don’t you think? I think so, at least, I’m bloody adorable, and---OH MAYBE I’LL GET AN ACTION FIGURE. I wonder--”

Pharah smiled. Everything was back to whatever passed for normal in this place, and she felt the world shuffle just a little more comfortably together, assembling a sense of family she’d thought she’d lost, so long ago.

[docholligay]

Re: the latest OW comic, you said you didn't like it because it all sounded like one voice/speaker. I was wondering if you have any advise on how to keep the voices of characters distinct. You manage this so well in your fics, but thinking on this comment made me realize it's not something I've consciously thought about when I write, so I'm not sure how to make sure and do this in the future.

FIRST OF ALL THANK FOR THE KIND COMMENT

I’ll try! Yeah this was my Major and Compelling Problem with the latest comic, that everyone sounded the same, and you couldn't tell the difference from character to character (to me, they all sounded like Jack, but that’s my own character read and the comic got funny to me when I just thought of it as Jack just retelling the story the way he remembers it  and Lena being like “I ‘ave never sounded like that, ever, in my life.”)

ANYWAY (long ass advice under the cut)

The easy, smug advice I’d give is “remember that every character you write is a different fully-realized person” but I realize this is easy advice to give when you’ve been writing for 12 years and that’s just how you think of it now.

OKAY SO things I consider when developing a character voice (every character example comes from the voice I’VE developed for them, obviously) :

Everyone, for some weird reason, thinks first of accents when I talk about character voice and that’s not what I mean, not really. It can certainly be an aspect of character voice--and is, for some, but it’s not what I mean.

I can write Lena without ever using her h-dropping, and I don’t for example, write out the t-glottalization or non-rhoticity of a classic cockney accent. (Deciding how much of a character’s accent to write is, simply put An Unholy Nightmare, and you will never ever do it right, and you will hate yourself) so how do I indicate it’s her? (or any character) Well, a couple things:

Word choice:

This is, I think, the EASIEST way to work on character voice. When you think of your character, what is their level of formal education? What’s their level of personal formality? There’s dozens of English words for everything, and depending on the situation and the character, the first one you think of might not be the right one: Lena’s need to see the West Ham game on the team TV might be “absolutely, life-threateningly critical” but Haruka’s need to watch Monte Carlo might be “a super big deal” and Michiru’s need to avoid either of them on that day might be “pressing.”

Speech pattern (syntax and grammar):

No one really talks the same--I have a really particular way I put words in order when I talk, and how I use contractions and when, sentence length, and where the stops in my speech are, AND SO DOES EVERYONE ELSE. This is where saying a character’s lines out loud really helps. I spend a lot of time talking to myself in various voices. Consider Winston’s hedging nervousness: “I don’t, that is I don’t think it’s, necessarily, that way, when you consider everything.” versus Mina’s direct bossiness. “In a minute you’ll do it just because I told you to, Haruka. No one asked! We’ll debate it over beers when we all don’t die.” Or Michiru’s general lengthening of contractions into full words, for example.

Characterization:

I almost didn’t include this, because it seems almost off the point, but obviously, not every character can express the same point of view. Which doesn’t mean they have to be opposed! The Senshi, for example: Boring as fuck to have them all in because they love Usagi, period, end of story. I know this is canon, but let’s try something more interesting: It gives Mako a sense of purpose and reason for having survived when her family did not. It fills Rei’s need for ceremony and duty, which gives her something to control amid messy emotions. Michiru is in love with Haruka and feels guilty for her hand in Haruka’s binding. Haruka desperately needs to be a hero, to be good, to prove she is worth something.

NOW DOESN’T THAT OFFER DIFFERENT SHADES OF LETS SAVE OUR PRINCESS.

Rolling it all together, you’ll be able to see easy difference between your characters. Consider four ways of acknowledging your plan is not great:

“I know this will be difficult. I am not saying it won’t be. It was not my first choice. But now it is our only choice, and you know I would not ask it of you if it were not. I need you to trust me.”

“Well, if no one else’ll do it, I will! We have to do something! I can do it...I’m good at doing stupid things.”

“I know you’re thinking, this is near-suicidal, it is, and, you’re not as wrong as I’d like, but what a way to go, if we do, right? Right.”

“There is a lack of self-preservation in this. Any of you who opt to do otherwise will earn nothing but my understanding. I cannot require others to pay for my folly.”

BONUS ROUND: this is bonus round because it couldn’t have fixed the comic, but let’s see how EVEN MORE OBVIOUS character voice comes with considered motion. When you’re talking to yourself, as I’ve suggested you do, up the ante and MOVE like you think they would.

She looked confidently down the table. “I know this will be difficult. I am not saying it won’t be.” She put her hands behind her back and puffed out her chest, nodding, “But now it is our only choice, and you know I would not ask it of you if it were not. I need you to trust me.”

Her brow was furrowed, and she shook her head. “Well, if no one else’ll do it, I will!” She pointed to herself, burying her finger into her chest as she leaned toward the table, and took a breath, “We have to do something!” She looked off into the distance, “I can do it...I’m good at doing stupid things.” She looked down at the table, and chuckled.

She grinned and leaned forward, “I know you’re thinking, this is near-suicidal, I mean” she shrugged cheerfully and tossed her bangs to the side playfully, “it is, you’re not as wrong as I’d like, but what a way to go if we do, right?” She nodded.  “Right.”

She did not meet their gaze, but looked out the window. “There is a lack of self-preservation in this,” she quietly and reasonably acknowledge,  “Any of you who opt to do otherwise will earn nothing but my understanding.” She looked back at them, her face grave. “ I cannot require others to pay for my folly.”

GENERAL TIPS:

Whenever you first start writing a character, their voice is gonna be kind of rough! You’re learning how that person sounds, and it’s difficult to translate for awhile. Just keep writing, keep hitting those character notes that you’ve decided upon, and you’ll find it gets easier and better.

To be a strong character writer, you don’t have to LIKE people (I have never liked anyone, ever, in my life) but you do have to find them genuinely interesting. Study the way people talk, and say things. I like to listen to people in waiting rooms and restaurants, I can pick apart how the friends I’m around all the time talk almost exactly, especially for natural sounding dialogue it helps to listen to real people.