#Overwatch Jiayi

[half-developed-frontal-lobe]

The way my emotions and frustrations were so recognized in this video.

I feel just as angry and tired as the rest of the lore community where, though I understand that another generation of Overwatch is coming up and characters like D.Va, Brigitte, Illari, Juno, Venture, Lifeweaver, etc. are going to be filling spots of old characters.

But there's no story or plot where these characters could be implemented except for an introduction animatic, and where the animations that should be coming out for this story are having their budget wasted on marketing and advertisements.

With the Christmas comic that just came out a month ago, I'm not even sure if Null Sector was taken down, and if they were-

It did not come across as such by the players.

I still feel like I'm stuck in the Liberation mission, wanting to move on to more storyline.

Right now, there is still a Null Sector invasion. Right now, Omnics are still getting subjugated. Or at least that is what it feels like. There's no connection. No story arc, and no proper ending.

No white flag was flown to show a means to an end of the war.

So, to show that there are happy Christmas festive events happening while the world is getting ransacked, there is a MAJOR disconnect and a bridge that isn't complete enough to cross.

[grovyrosegirl]

Hihi overwatch questions time bc even if you don't do a ton of OW stuff on here I still love seeing it on twt

Do you have any HC's or ideas for Mei's parents? I'm considering bringing back 2 OCs for my idea of her parents but I'm pretty sure you also have ideas and I'm curious

Not saying I'm gonna change my characters, I'm just really curious abt your ideas and views on Mei's family life

Waaah, first of all, thank you! Glad you enjoy my ramblings hehe. 💕

Happy to share! I’ve been screaming at the heavens for years for the game to give us some sort of info on Mei’s biological family, and alas, they’ve gone unheard. 🥲 But at least we got Jiayi and Juno now for some lovely found family goodness! ❤️

But anyway! In my own personal headcanon narrative, Mei’s family is a small one. She was raised by a single mother, who I’ve named Linjin Zhou, and the two lived in an apartment building together in Xi’an, with support from her grandparents who lived in the countryside. The single mom life is tough, and Linjin had to work two jobs to keep food on the table. Luckily, the Zhous still found community within their neighborhood, and Mei often spent time over at neighbors’ and friends’ homes when her mom was working. When they did get time together, Mei and her mother would go to places like the park or do errands together.

During holidays, the two would visit the grandparents at their home. They lived in a much more rural area, so Mei often went on hikes and nature walks with her grandparents. This is where she really started to get a love for nature and the planet.

(Heads up, below the read more tab, things are going to get sad. Mind the warnings in the tags and tread carefully!)

Originally in my fic continuity, I had Linjin still around in present day. Buuut…considering recent lore developments, I’ve begun to suspect that Mei is likely a crisis orphan. She never talks about her family, there’s been no mention of them anywhere in lore, and when the topic of family is brought up at all with Mei, it’s always found family (i.e. her Ecopoint teammates, Jiayi, and Juno.) Timeline-wise, Mei would’ve been about 14 years old at the start of the Omnic Crisis.

So here’s my updated headcanon lore for her family.

When the Crisis struck China, Mei and her mother were caught up in it. Neighbors at their apartment building had omnics and were attacked in the middle of the night. Grabbing as many people as they could, Linjin barricaded their apartment and they all hunkered down until rescue could come. Eventually, help did arrive and everyone was ushered to evacuation points. People were getting out of the city on trains, trucks, buses, anything that could carry them out to the countryside where it was safer.

Linjin’s group was taken to a train station to evacuate. But with so many people trying to get out at once, and the omnics getting closer and closer by the minute, there wasn’t enough room on the train for everyone. Wanting her daughter safe first and foremost, Linjin convinced Mei to take the last spot on the train and assured her that she would get on the next one.

And that was the last time Mei ever saw her mother. Linjin’s name was among the casualties days later.

Outside the city, Mei was found by her grandparents. They took her in and kept her safe for the remainder of the Crisis. Mei lived with them until adulthood, still a small but loving family. But they sadly passed away from old age in Mei’s early twenties.

It was hard on Mei. She didn’t have anyone else. With her mother and grandparents gone, she had to find family elsewhere. Luckily, she found this with Jiayi, a fellow crisis orphan, years later. The two became friends in college and were inseparable. Mei was there the day Jiayi and her husband were married, and she was there the day that the Red Promise crew took off to Mars, watching from the platform.

She also found family with her Overwatch colleagues. Losing them was just as hard as losing her mother and grandparents. And now, she finds family with Overwatch and Juno.

[lorewarlorddoctorsix]

Space Ranger! Turns out she's not Jiayi.

The name on her suit is Teo Minh (or Minh Teo), which has Vietnamese and Chinese origins. So she could be Jiayi's daughter or relative, but she's not Jiayi - which makes sense, since Jiayi would be in her 40s.

[wildwinterlunas]

SHAKES YOU

Look LOOK LOOK

@anonymously20-blog

I just got on my lunch break, can't a girl have five minutes /j

But seriously I am SO EXCITED for this!! Cause there is so much you could do with the backstory of her being connected to Mei, especially if she's a villain. I'm also curious if they changed her design from what we've seen since she looks a bit different in that pictures with Mei, could just be me though.

[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

[ultravioart]

"No aliens(species) in overwatch" confirmation!

^The only "aliens" we will be getting are earth species on space stations like Winston(gorilla), Wreckingball(hamster), Juno(human), etc.

Jiayi(Juno's mom) is from Singapore, and Juno's dad is named Kim(presumably)!

It's also cool that Juno's name is intentionally multilingual in meaning! That's the fun stuff about Overwatch that I enjoy.

[toddcoward69]

It would make more sense timeline wise if Juno is Jiayi's daughter or something, but it wouldn't be the first time that Overwatch completely fucks up the timeline just so they can add another young cute girl.

[mercy-main]

(Theory) I think hero 43 will be...

Maximillien.

[ID: An image of Maximillien from the shoulders up. His is an grey metal omnic wearing a fancy black suit. End ID]

Not only do I think Max is hero 43, I think he's bringing Archives back with him.

Max was recently teased to be hero 43 in the The Pocket King storytime video on youtube (narrated by his voice actor), he is shown typing '43' on his holoscreen.

[ID: A close-up of the holoscreen numpad. In the first image the number '4' is lit up, in second the number '3' is lit up. End ID] [Credit to @/hazelet on bsky for pointing this out]

After chewing on this for a bit, I realized...

If he is hero 43, he would be released in season 16 (roughly mid April).

Archives historically started in early-mid April.

Max has a connection to Archives, being an important character in Storm Rising.

Overwatch hasn't had an Archives event in 3 years, Max's release is the perfect "excuse" to bring it back.

Also

The community has always collectively assumed Max would be a support (if ever released), due to his characterization.

The devs said that they were planning on having 2 supports for every 1 tank and dps (until the roster levels out) for ow2. This was true for Lifeweaver and Illari, but not Juno. It felt a weird they gave up on this so quickly,, unless Maximillien was scheduled for a later release to line up with Archives

Also

Voice actors are expensive, why put in the effort and resources bringing him back for (no offense) pretty middling content if they didn't have bigger things planned for him & his character?

The Pocket King short story, storytime video, and vault are examples of Max getting a comparatively substantial amount of attention in a short amount of time. This might be the devs laying the foundation for his release.

His animation in the video is new, I believe (knowing how expensive and time-consuming animation is) this scene came from a larger currently unreleased cinematic, for a trailer or new Archives gamemode (like, they could of teased this in any number of cheaper, easier ways). This might be supported by the fact the background is weirdly blurred? or has been removed (to hide spoilers). Like what's with this brown void?

[ID: A screenshot from the storytime video showing Maximillien, his holoscreen, and the title of the story ("The Pocket King"). The background is indistinct and brown. End ID]

Overwatch loves red herrings (Orisa released instead of Doomfist, Juno instead of Jiayi), but in this case Max is a real, established character (unlike Jiayi), and I don't think a switcheroo is likely, since he isn't associated with any other character who could take his place (like Orisa could with Doom).

And in my mind, they can't not bring back Archives, that's too much work and lore and gameplay to be locked in the overwatch vault forever. But bringing it back will inspire backlash, because overwatch players have no concept of object permanence /lh (i.e Archives is PVE and will remind the community of uhh,, broken promises...). So it's re-release has to be a party to distract from the mismanagement.

A new, already well-liked hero connected to Archives, (of which Max is literally the only option, every other featured character is in the game (Ram & SJ) or dead (Antonio)) and/or a new gamemode is basically required in order to curb negativity. This might be arrogant to say, but it would be wrong to not capitalize on this.

I'm pretty confident in this theory, but it's very possible my desperation for archives may be clouding my judgment lol

TLDR: We might be getting Archives back (!!) to coincide with Maximilliens release, who is likely to be a support.

[half-developed-frontal-lobe]

Get you someone that looks at you the way Juno's dad looks at Jiayi

[wildwinterlunas]

SHAKES

Juno JUNO JUNO SHES REVEEALED AND QJKNWOJNG

Also my predictions for her were so not right 😭

She also might be good aligned ish due to yeah the team she’s with in said trailer? Because Illari was with the talon ish crew in hers?

Yeah I am a little disappointed that she isn't a villain, but in all honesty I'm still excited to see what her character brings lore wise. I'm also hoping she's Jiayi's daughter and is in a similar age range to Illari because it offers a very interesting dynamic to Juno and Mei, it adds a layer of tragedy to Mei's story because Juno would have changed a lot since they last saw each other.

She's also very obviously a character they have had planned for awhile since the level of hinting at Juno hasn't really been seen in awhile. It still happens now, but not to the extent that they create a completely new asset for a game map. Honestly I really hope she's on par with Ashe when it comes to putting her in the game and giving her interactions, because imo Ashe was probably the most well done when it comes to characters with an association with one other character being implemented.

[ultravioart]

Uh.... the article got the names wrong??? oof. "The daughter of Dr. Jiayi Teo and Dr. Khiem Van Minh" It's Khiem, not Kim like the article said... Overwatch 2 - Heroes - Juno (blizzard.com)

"No aliens(species) in overwatch" confirmation!

^The only "aliens" we will be getting are earth species on space stations like Winston(gorilla), Wreckingball(hamster), Juno(human), etc.

Jiayi(Juno's mom) is from Singapore, and Juno's dad is named Kim(presumably)!

It's also cool that Juno's name is intentionally multilingual in meaning! That's the fun stuff about Overwatch that I enjoy.