#faster) and yeah. want to do animatics and more comics

[cowsaresushi-coral]

Summary of 2022

Significantly less than last year given general exhaustion, but I’m surprised I had something for every month! And comparing the art to last year’s, uh, I didn’t realize it, but it’s definitely gotten better! Can’t say it’s a quality over quantity thing because though I drew less, I only spent a little bit more time drawing. Just got better, I guess. How dandy. Oh, and June when I did that commission was when I finally learned how to draw human heads, which I’m very happy about!

Was a very rough year, but hopefully next year will be better! Came out of 2022, and I’m here for 2023!

[calvinwatchesstuff]

Calvin Reacts to Overwatch Finale: Profiles

I’m not even sure if anyone is reading these things, but I’m sure as hell going to finish them. 

Alright, here we are on the last section: the character profiles. I admit, I’m still not at all sure what’s going on with the majority of these characters, which might mean it was a bad idea to watch all the shorts first. But ah well, too late for that now. For now, it’s time to get straight into what I’ve been waiting for... the profiles! (Note: the format is going to be a little bit different this time; I kind of want to get all this done in one post. I’m also not going to be paying much attention to the gameplay section, since I don’t own the game and probably won’t any time soon.) 

GENJI 

Okay, so this is basically the story I kind of inferred from “Dragons”: Hanzo and Genji had a falling-out, Genji was left for dead, but he ended up getting saved by Overwatch and rebuilt as a cyborg. It’s interesting to learn that Genji is (at least as far as I can tell) the good guy in this scenario, since he was the one who wanted nothing to do with all the criminal shit that their family was involved in. Also interesting to see how Zenyatta is involved in this; I like this new sense of interconnectedness between the characters. 

McCREE 

Now here’s someone I barely saw in the trailers, and not at all in the shorts. I have to say, I like the idea; mercenaries almost always have something interesting going on. I still have no goddamn idea why he’s dressed like a cowboy, though; that was kind of the thing I was most interested in finding out. Ah well, I guess we all have our own thing. 

PHARAH 

Okay, based on her gameplay style, I’m officially calling her “Miss Explosion”. 

On the serious side, I can kind of relate to her in terms of getting to something just in time to find that whatever you were excited about was already over. It happens to me a lot with shows and book series I’m interested in; on the one hand it’s nice because I get to see everything at once, but on the other hand I don’t get the excitement of waiting for the next episode and the odds of me getting spoiled are overwhelmingly larger. It happened with Fablehaven, it’s happening with Homestuck, and it’ll almost definitely happen with Kingdom Hearts III. Goddamn early Japanese release dates. Let’s hope for a worldwide release for once. 

...did I say that was the serious side? Because I probably shouldn’t have. Anyway, another cool bio. 

REAPER 

Okay, here they just kind of cheated. I came here looking for information about who Reaper is and what’s driving him, and literally the second sentence of the bio is “[Reaper’s] identity and motives are a mystery”. Although the theory they do provide (which, let’s be honest, is probably going to be the one they go with or else why bring it up at all) is pretty damn cool. Still, wish we could have had some kind of backstory. 

SOLDIER: 76 

Yeah, this is basically the same bio we got from the animatic. Really should have read these earlier. Hey, don’t blame me; blame TVTropes for listing the profiles last. 

SOMBRA 

Well, for one thing she’s apparently capable of hacking the fourth wall to remove her personal information. 

Alright, so here’s where we’re starting to get into the lore: apparently Sombra stumbled upon some kind of conspiracy, presumably the same one that was responsible for whatever the fuck happened to Overwatch itself. It can’t be Talon, since the article specifically identifies them as being different entities. So who is it? I guess we’ll just have to wait for future updates to find out. 

TRACER 

Literally just the same stuff as the animatic, in some cases word for word. 

BASTION 

Basically the same stuff, but we do get some nice worldbuilding about the Omnic Crisis, and about Omnics in general. Yeah, definitely getting Iron Giant vibes from Bastion here. 

HANZO 

Yeah, this is just the “Dragons” short. From here on out I’m not going to comment on a page too much unless it has something new. 

JUNKRAT 

Alright, now here’s the something new I was talking about. So apparently in the future Australia has been rendered even less habitable than it currently is, due to an attack on something called an “omnium”. I’m gonna look up what the fuck THAT is once I’m done here. And apparently Junkrat found some sort of secret in the ruins of said omnium, but no one has any idea what it is. Intriguing. That’s something I’m gonna have to look into as well. Also, Junkrat’s face reminds me of someone, but I can’t for the life of me think who. 

MEI 

Another character I have literally no context for. And if you’ll forgive the unspeakably shitty pun, she has a pretty cool backstory! So apparently she was an environmentalist working with Overwatch to figure out how specifically we were fucking over the planet this time, but an avalanche caused her and her team to get cut off; so she basically Futurama’d herself in order to survive until rescue came. This again feels like something that’s getting built up to in coming updates; all these unknowns excite my inner theorist. 

TORBJÖRN 

So this guy seems to have created most of the weapons for the original Overwatch agents. I guess he really is a futuristic dwarven smith. And of course no one listened to him when he was talking about robots trying to take over the world, and then the bad things happened. Not too much backstory on this one, but I want to hear more about him tracking down his old weapons; that sounds like a killer story. 

WIDOWMAKER 

I’M NOT CRYING, YOU’RE CRYING 

D.VA 

Okay, so she’s a gamer, I guess. That’s always cool. As for the backstory proper, it’s like Pacific Rim, only somehow even more ominous: some kind of giant robot thing appeared near South Korea, no one knows where the fuck it came from, and apparently the entire country’s military and an army of giant mechs can’t kill it faster than it can adapt. Also, that last sentence indicating that she is now livestreaming her military battles might be the single most amazing thing I’ve yet come across in this series. 

ORISA 

Basically the same thing as the animatic. More cryptic references to Doomfist. I want to know who the fuck Doomfist is. Get on that, Blizzard. 

REINHARDT 

Well, I like that he’s a knight. In terms of backstory there’s not too much new stuff here, but I have to say, I kind of like the guy so far. I hope he gets some spotlight later on. 

ROADHOG 

So this is basically a prequel to Junkrat’s entry. I guess an “omnium” is an area that’s controlled by the Omnics, or else some kind of facility for robots? I’ll look it up later. As for this guy, I have to admit it’s a pretty sad story. I feel for the guy. 

WINSTON 

A lot of stuff I already suspected, but it’s nice to have it confirmed. Also, this backstory was even more full of feels than I was expecting. I love the idea that genetically enhanced gorillas are just a thing that everyone accepts exists in the future. 

ZARYA 

So she was an Olympic athlete who spent most of her life training to compete, but at the last second ended up having to change course and fight robots. Also, yeah, an omnium is definitely some kind of base for robots. 

ANA 

The last of the three post-release characters (so far; come on, Blizzard, where’s that Doomfist ARG?). Basically the same as the animatic. 

LÚCIO 

Another character I know nothing about, other than the fact that Hobbes keeps calling his weapon a “bass cannon”. As for the backstory...eh, it’s not much I haven’t seen in a crapload of other stories. Cool character design, though. 

MERCY 

Ah, so she’s the one who rebuilt Genji! Wow, nearly at the end and that whole thing comes full circle. Anyway, I like her character; she’s basically the world’s most badass pacifist. The backstory is pretty cool too; again, not too much I haven’t seen elsewhere, but it’s still interesting. 

SYMMETRA 

“Symmetra literally bends reality.” Well, that’s certainly one way to keep the reader on their toes. 

Yeah, this one is pretty cool. Absolutely cringe-worthy dialogue aside (seriously, “architechs”? “Utopaea”? I was having a hard enough time buying “Symmetra”), I am curious about who’s side she’ll ultimately end up being on. It’s interesting that one of the most powerful characters so far is one who isn’t with Overwatch or explicitly fighting it. 

ZENYATTA 

And here we are, the one I’ve been waiting for: Robo-Monk. I actually read the abilities on this one because I was so confused by them in the trailer. As for the backstory, it’s pretty damn cool! I have to say, I really like the whole thing with robots finding religion; that’s one of my favorite sci-fi tropes, seeing how aspects of our culture would be interpreted and adapted for a completely different form of life. And again, we get some more hints about future events. 

And with that, I have caught up. I am now familiar with the characters and the lore. Of course, I’m not finished; there are still the comics (which I'll check out on my own some time), and of course there is the game itself (which I might get at some point if I can figure out how the hell to run it on a Duel Disk). And of course, there will probably be other videos in the future, which I will of course react to. But for now, at least, I can finally put this series to rest. This is Calvin, signing off. 

(Oh, and expect some Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V reactions...soon-ish.)