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rwbyconversations · 6 years ago

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Critical Thoughts on the Adam Short

Been about... half a week? OK, honeymoon period is over, time to go back to complaining about RWBY!

... I swear I like this show.

So this won’t be a full analysis like my Adam post a while back or the Haven Battle post. I just haven’t posted in a while and I wanna get some thoughts out. As usual, full post under the Read More for the convenience of mobile users and people on data.

So I will say, I still really like the Adam short. It’s got some great fighting, it’s a massive improvement over most of the Maya fights and it was nice to see Sienna get some action, I’d still rank it as one of the better shorts for sheer entertainment factor along with Weiss, and Lionized will almost definitely be one of my favorite songs on the OST next year. If this is the direction Adam is taken in, I can see him hopefully regaining his credibility by the end of Volume 6 and we can all hopefully treat The Scuffle of Haven as a fever dream.

But.

For all the improvements, we still should be able to look at the short, identify its flaws and then present them in such a way that CRWBY can move onwards and upwards. So please don’t take this as vitriol, I did like the short, here’s just a few things, small and large, that can be worked on in the show proper.

1) Adam’s lack of real growth.

So honest question. Tell me something about Adam that you learned as a result of the character short.

... Having a hard time? Can’t say I blame you, he doesn’t actually develop for the entire short (I wish I could say this is a one off but remember how Blake’s volume 5 short was basically just an infodump on Ilia’s backstory at the expenses of Blake).

Given how one just came out at the time I write this, let’s be a little unfair and compare RWBY’s character shorts to the animated shorts made by Overwatch. In the Overwatch shorts, each one serves a purpose in that they develop the character beyond what the game can really do. Reinhart’s short shows how broken he is over his cocksure attitude in the past getting his mentor killed, Sombra’s short shows she’s a trickster who plays both sides, and Bastion’s short is nothing short of a miracle in how much it develops Bastion as a good-hearted robot that is plagued with PTSD over the Omnic Crisis without saying a single word. Now there have been duds when it came to development in the shorts; D.Va’s recent at the time of writing short didn’t really tell us anything new, for example- but overall the shorts work as entertainment and for development purposes, and as someone who doesn’t even play Overwatch, the shorts are consistently good.

Meanwhile Adam’s short... has none of that, despite being as long on average as an Overwatch short. He’s the exact same character and we learn nothing new about him- no real signs of who Adam was that we couldn’t gather in the show proper beyond his brief shock when Sienna praises him after the first fight. Adam going into the short was a power-hungry, moderately insane extremist with a superiority complex. Leaving the short, he remains... a power-hungry, moderately insane extremist with a superiority complex. No new backstory on how he joined the White Fang, no new clues on what’s under the mask, no idea where his hatred of humanity came from. All things you’d hope would be at least teased in a Character Short.

I want to like Adam as a villain, but if no attempt is made to show how he became the mad dog that he is... why should I care? Not like the writers seem to care, they let their biases taint the writing (”Fuck Adam Taurus,” anyone?), and seem content to just say “Adam’s a respect leader in the White Fang,” “Adam hates humans,” and other such parts of his story without ever showing why.

It’s a criticism that has been beaten into the ground CRWBY, but show don’t tell.

2) Weapon spinning... really doesn’t look as cool as you think.

Like i said, small complaints as well. But, dear lord CRWBY, the weapon twirling looks really bad. CRWBY:

This Stuff. (how is Emerald even capable of spinning her weapons like that, they’re revolvers)

Doesn’t Look.

As good as you think it does. (source)

What makes it worse, especially in the case of the Adam short, is that in some other scenes, they actually made the effort to manually animate Adam blocking gunfire (4:53-55 in the trailer). I get it’s a cost-saver, but if you’re going to use this in future CRWBY, at least only use it for the characters that could realistically spin their weapons like this. Like, Qrow and Ruby weapon-spinning is acceptable (Qrow’s sword even has a function to spin for him as seen in the Tyrian fight when he blocks gunfire), but Emerald and Adam doing it pushes the suspension of disbelief.

... oh god what if Volume 6 has Yang weapon twirling Ember Celica oh god kill me-

3) KHAAAAAAAAN

Sienna’s fighting in the short was really well received, even by critics like FatManFalling. But one simple question- why make her a badass if she just dies anyway in Volume 5, and why give a fight to someone who the fans were already bitter over her death? I’ve actually seen some Sienna fans who felt more insulted by the trailer since it just made her death even more egregious. While you can read into the text and make the assumption that Sienna never thought Adam would make a move, the fact remains that when she saw the coup beginning, her Aura should have been activated, and now that the short has shown that Sienna did in fact fight on the front lines, you can’t even use the excuse that she never activated her Aura or got it to the level where she could activate it on reflex. Sienna’s fighting was great, but it felt bitter and rather pointless in the long run.

Again, let me stress- these are mostly minor details, I liked the short overall. There’s a lot of great small continuity nods (like how the White Fang soldiers in the first fight have the blue White Fang logo instead of Sienna’s red) But I’m ultimately not someone who really likes to just insist everything’s fine, nothing to worry about, there was no war in Ba Sing Se. And maybe the writing problems will have been fixed in Volume 6 proper now that Miles and Kerry have learned about the magic of beta readers to go over their scripts, we can only wait until October.

#rwby #rwby analysis #adam taurus #rwby adam character short #rwde #blake belladonna #sienna khan #rwby volume 6 #crtq

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bookwormguri · 6 years ago

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sketch-fanaticaj replied to your post “I thought for a moment that the Overwatch fandom couldn't be any more...”

I don’t even know why they’re getting so mad. Ashe looks amazing and she’s badass!

The thing is, I CAN understand why people are upset. I can understand the frustration when a character becomes a victim of “same face syndrome” from big companies. They should do better. I can understand why people would want more diversity video games. I just also happen to think when it comes to Overwatch it’s extremely misguided.

The main arguments I’ve seen:

Ashe isn’t a WOC: There is a LARGE category of WOC in Overwatch. Compared to many video games it’s an overwhelmingly diverse cast. I know there is something to be said about white being the “default” still in that game and others, but that problem does not erase the characters we already have like Mei, Sombra, D.va, Ana, ect.

We get more diversity with the male cast than female (aka more animals and omnics): The post I saw about this noticeably leaves out Orisa. I think it’s significant that Orisa is left out of the narrative when it come to black or black-influenced characters. I understand there is an issue in media when it comes to dehumanizing POC as animals and/or non-humans, so I can see why we should be hesitant to apply black representation status to her. This leaves the first two arguments at odds with one another. Do we want more omnics/creatures or a black character? The easy answer is both, but that resolutely ignores that if we get either one first that there will be complaints about not getting the other. Remember when the hamster was introduced and people were pissed it wasn’t a WOC character? Now they are using it as a point to how “diverse” the male cast is. Hmmm....

Also, now Echo seems to be a female-presenting non-human as well. Which, like I said, is drawing criticisms about no new characters being a black female.

Ashe has same face syndrome (with Widowmaker): Yeah. Fair. Are we just going to ignore the varied faces for the other females in the game? I personally love Ashe’s design. I’m a slut for the white-haired, red-eyed characters, but I can acknowledge that Blizzard could have done a little more to differentiate her. But again, compared to the rest of the diverse cast it seems like an incredibly odd hill to die on.

“Ashe’s backstory is shit! She’s just a rich white girl who turned to crime!”: She’s. A. Villian. You hate her backstory and think that makes her a bad person? Congrats! You’re right! She’s a part of a gang bad enough that it brought Blackwatch’s attention. Wow, villains being unlikable, what a concept. But more than that I think it’s incredibly telling that people are so quick to rip into her because she has wealth. Yeah, yeah, I’m all for eat the rich. I understand the outrage when it comes to seeing a privileged person throw away all their advantages, but for me, I, unfortunately, saw some echoes of my own family. I saw some of my own emotional abuse reflected back. This could just me projecting, but if I’m not than my stance is that the people criticizing Ashe’s actions as that of a spoiled girl and not that of neglect and abuse need to either decide that all abuse matters to them, or only that or marginalized groups matter to them. I know what I choose.

The thing about all this that makes me grind my teeth is that everyone’s frustrations at Blizzard are being instead hurled at Ashe. If you want to be mad, go ahead! You know my single opinion on the subject. But when the angry people resort to calling Ashe “pasty, ugly, unoriginal” it only shows their fake wokeness in all its glory.

You want a black female character? Me too.

We’ve got Ashe. We’ve got a beautifully voice-acted, cool designed, multi-layered woman. I agree it’s fair to be angry and disappointed, but expressing that through misogyny towards this new character just shows how obtuse their reasoning is in the first place. It all just feels so performative and it makes me tired.

@sketch-fanaticaj Sorry girl. I know you weren’t searching for this kind of response. I just had some feelings and needed to write them out.

#sketch-fanaticaj #nats gabs

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segadores-y-soldados · 7 years ago

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Death Becomes You

“And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.” - Edgar Allan Poe, The Masque of the Red Death

I. AM. HYPED. YA’LL.

OH MAN, THIS IS GONNA BE A BIG ONE - you’ve probably seen me screaming a bunch of disconnected thoughts all day, but I’M READY, I’m ready to put a bunch of the pieces together.

http://segadores-y-soldados.tumblr.com/post/163184670305/yall-keep-saying-that-reaper-is-wearing-a-phantom

If you haven’t seen it, I’d encourage you to give the animated version a try:

https://reader.madefire.com/work/OVERWTACH-DOOMFISTMASQUERADE/read/10

I’m gonna stick with the same formatting as last time, but to reiterate:

http://segadores-y-soldados.tumblr.com/post/162693778075/talon-clawing-to-the-top

A lot of my ideas are connected to this. I’d recommend reading it because I’m not gonna go over every point again but:

[Main Hypothesis]: the “global conflict” that Doomfist’s faction within Talon has been trying to spread is the Second Omnic Crisis. - [EFFECTIVELY CONFIRMED]

[Subset Hypothesis]: the group within Talon that is trying to prevent this is none other than Sombra and Reaper. - [STRONGLY IMPLIED]

[Masquerade Hypothesis]: the comic “Masquerade” is a reference to “The Masque of the Red Death” by Edgar Allan Poe.

Let’s tango.

The Red Death

To start with, we should probably establish that Reaper’s outfit IS the Red Death.

Reaper’s masquerade outfit seems to be a direct reference to more classic interpretations of the “Renaissance-extravagant costume” that Erik “The Phantom of the Opera” wears when he attends the Opera’s masquerade ball.

It’s not like this is particularly unusual for “Reaper” - after all he has canonically dressed as the Headless Horseman in the past, and has a non-canon “Raven” skin.

The Red Death in The Phantom of the Opera is a reference to the original “character” by the same name in Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death.” You can read the full text here:

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/poe/masque.html

So no matter how you dice it - whether Reaper is referencing Erik in Phantom, or Poe’s “character” in Masque - the end “reference” is the same: The Red Death.

The Red Death is described as a type of plague that comes to claim lives:

THE "Red Death" had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its Avatar and its seal --the redness and the horror of blood. There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores, with dissolution. The scarlet stains upon the body and especially upon the face of the victim, were the pest ban which shut him out from the aid and from the sympathy of his fellow-men. And the whole seizure, progress and termination of the disease, were the incidents of half an hour.

In the short story, the Red Death eventually comes to Prince Prospero’s masquerade ball, disguised as

“The figure was tall and gaunt, and shrouded from head to foot in the habiliments of the grave. The mask which concealed the visage was made so nearly to resemble the countenance of a stiffened corpse that the closest scrutiny must have had difficulty in detecting the cheat. And yet all this might have been endured, if not approved, by the mad revellers around. But the mummer had gone so far as to assume the type of the Red Death. His vesture was dabbled in blood --and his broad brow, with all the features of the face, was besprinkled with the scarlet horror.”

But let’s build our cast of characters here.

The Successor: The Prince Who Was Promised

“Akande Ogundimu was born into a well-regarded Nigerian family, heir to its prosthetic-technology company. A highly intelligent and charismatic figure, Ogundimu helped to expand his family's business and position it for the future…” - Doomfist’s biography

“When you come at the king, you better not miss.” - Doomfist, paraphrasing Omar from The Wire

“We really wanted to give [Doomfist] colors that made him feel very powerful like red, gold - and really adorn him with that regal presence.” - Doomfist Hero Preview video

Something that’s important to keep in mind is that Doomfist was originally meant to be a “named legacy” - while aspects of this have remained in the finalized version, some parts have been cut. Important to Doomfist’s backstory is the fact that he “defeated” his predecessor - Akinjide Adeyemi.

“Akinjide is a Yoruba given name that means ‘the strong one has returned,’ and Adeyemi is a Yoruba surname that means ‘worthy of the crown.’”

The current Doomfist, Akande Ogundimu, quite literally sees himself as “the heir,” to Adeyemi’s legacy, his family’s corporation, and to Talon itself. He has returned from prison to “reclaim his rightful place” in the council, and begin to truly enact his new war. You don’t need to look much further beyond than beyond the fact that his title is “The Successor,” but if there were any doubts about it, the above quotes show that this belief has been strongly incorporated into his backstory, his voicelines, and even his design.

However, what’s extremely important to note is that Akande’s “reign” is built entirely on his family’s wealth, his fighting abilities, his tactical mind, and “the prosperity of peace.”

[Implication]: The Ogundimu family’s business - prosthetics - profited after the Crisis due to the sheer amount of veterans and amputees in the world. Akande himself does not see cybernetics as a weakness, but as a strength that was born entirely from conflict.

As I brought up in the “Talon: Clawing to the Top” essay, war has the ability to drive technological changes through sheer necessity - you have to improve your technology to keep up with your enemy. And when your enemy is literally armies of killer robots, well, you have to step up your game pretty fast.

“The world changed after the Crisis - it is overdue for a new test.” - Doomfist

Akande genuinely believes that war is the machine that drives human improvements through a sort of “boom and bust” cycle - your technology “booms” (literally) during war, and begins to stagnate (“bust”) during periods of peace.

Here’s the kicker:

He’s not exactly wrong.

It’s well established by things like World War II pulling the United States out of the Great Depression, or the military-industrial complex that war as a facilitator for “human improvements” does happen. And the Overwatch fictional future has not exactly proven Akande wrong - “archaic” technology like gasoline and oil was replaced with...whatever powers hover cars and fusion cells, Omnic technology is flourishing in places like Numbani, and there’s money to be made in developing brand new battle mechs.

Now, I know - in “Masquerade,” Akande actually states outright that “Profit is not our concern. You [Vialli] know better. We aren’t criminals, satisfied by wealth and power. We know better.” In fact, the driving conflict between Akande and Vialli in the comic is the dispute over the “purpose” of Talon - if Talon is merely a way for the members of the council to pad their pockets with high-profit crime, or if Talon is going to be a vehicle for something “higher,” something a little more meaningful, the progress of human strength and technology.

My point here isn’t that Akande sees his “wealth” or “reign” in strictly monetary terms, but rather that he sees “strength,” “honor,” and “conflict” as his dominions.

But he is still a prince born of prosperity, not war.

Akande is thinking tactically, but interestingly his concerns aren’t with the world at large but with his “internal kingdom” of Talon. It is extremely telling that his first thoughts are to “secure funds” for his war - meaning turning to the implied-wealthy “loanshark” Maximilien. He’s not interested in destroying his “true enemies” at the moment (the Recalled Overwatch agents or Soldier: 76 and Ana), but he’s interesting in “staking his claim” on Talon again. And that means finding other wealthy allies within Talon.

Literally the first thing Akande does is grab a suit, get some fancy dresses for Widowmaker and Sombra, and step into what appears to be the most opulent casino in Monaco.

[Implications]: Akande is not some sort of folk-hero, a la Lúcio, D.Va, Mei, or even Sombra. Akande is not particularly humble about his aesthetics, his wealth, or his mindset. While Akande may genuinely believe that “conflict drives human strength,” his methods are actually spectacularly the opposite - an immediate jump to securing the alliances of those with wealth.

“The tastes of the duke were peculiar. He had a fine eye for colors and effects. He disregarded the decora of mere fashion. His plans were bold and fiery, and his conceptions glowed with barbaric lustre. There are some who would have thought him mad. His followers felt that he was not. It was necessary to hear and see and touch him to be sure that he was not.”

In “The Masque of the Red Death,” Poe describes “Prince Prospero” (literally “The Prosperous Prince”) as being a sort of indomitable regality. He’s not merely a foolish noble trying to “flee” death - the Prince genuinely believes that he is doing the right thing.

“But the Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious. When his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys. This was an extensive and magnificent structure, the creation of the prince's own eccentric yet august taste. A strong and lofty wall girdled it in. This wall had gates of iron. The courtiers, having entered, brought furnaces and massy hammers and welded the bolts. They resolved to leave means neither of ingress or egress to the sudden impulses of despair or of frenzy from within. The abbey was amply provisioned. With such precautions the courtiers might bid defiance to contagion. The external world could take care of itself. In the meantime it was folly to grieve, or to think. The prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure. There were buffoons (Sombra dresses as a Jester), there were improvisatori, there were ballet-dancers (Widowmaker is a ballet dancer), there were musicians (one of Reaper’s skins is Mariachi guitarist), there was Beauty, there was wine. All these and security were within. Without was the ‘Red Death.’”

To the Prince and his followers, he’s making a bold, but brilliant move - he’s securing their futures as the plague of the Red Death takes lives around them. He’s ready for the “coming war” with the pestilence.

Poe does not directly “diss” on the Prince. If anything, Poe spends a good deal of time trying to build how beautiful and bizarre the Prince’s world is. It is a world or revelry, wealth, intrigue, glamor, lights and brilliance. Nothing ever completely stops the Prince and his guests from their masquerade, not even the ticking of the clock (the “march of time”) itself. In the “Masquerade” comic, we are treated to a version of Talon that mirrors this, one which is glamorous, gilded, beautiful, and dazzling - the team plays “dress up” not once but twice.

Which brings me to my next point:

A Masked Figure Arrives

In the previous essay, I outlined a few things about Gabriel Reyes/Reaper. I’m going to repeat them and check off what we now know, or what we can analyze further:

[Confirmed]: At the time of Infiltration, Reaper was aware of Sombra’s intentions to prevent Katya Volskaya’s death and blackmail her.

There is a ton of stuff here to unpack, but hopefully I can do this some justice:

Confirmed - Reaper was aware of Sombra’s interest in blackmailing Katya Volskaya, and basically let her “fail” their infiltration mission explicitly to keep Katya alive.

Confirmed - Reaper was not actually the one who approved the mission, but instead received the orders from Vialli, a Talon council member. However, Reaper was aware of Vialli’s interests in seeing Katya Volskaya die and deliberately let Sombra undermine them.

Implied - Reaper is aware that Doomfist wanted to keep Katya alive. In my last essay, I argued that killing Katya would cause the war to “explode.” I see now that was incorrect - instead of looking at the “short term ways to expand the war,” Doomfist is looking at the “long run”: he’s interested in forcing Russia to “dig in” and fight. And since we know that an Omnic faction supports Katya’s efforts (Maximilien, perhaps?), it furthers Doomfist’s ideology that war improves human technology.

Implied - Reaper “snitches” on Sombra. I say it that way because I do genuinely believe that Reaper and Sombra are working together. Remember - their in-game interactions are canon, according to Michael Chu.

And the most important one:

[Implications]: Reaper was not actually a Talon leader at the time of Infiltration. Arguably, he is not even a Talon leader right now, as of the above panels.

Before you jump on me, please let me explain the process for this analysis.

As of the very first and second page of the comic, Reaper is little more than a “lackey” who is positioning himself as a “follower” of Doomfist. Doomfist does not acknowledge Reaper as “a fellow leader” but instead immediately begins demanding “status updates” on missions and objectives.

Seemingly at odds with his own personality, Reaper complies.

The first clue that Reaper is still “just a lackey” is actually in the exchange:

Reaper: We were supposed to kill Katya Volskaya. We failed.

Doomfist: Whose idea was it, anyways?

Reaper: Vialli. Some were getting frustrated with how intractable she’s proven to be.

Critically important and actually surprisingly subtle is the fact that Reaper does not actually know who Vialli is.

And just in case it wasn’t clear:

https://twitter.com/westofhouse/status/887827892121423872

If you want to double-check.

And it’s not merely that Reaper “doesn’t manage to see him,” but that when he asks about who the man was, Doomfist’s response is that Reaper does not need to know.

Doomfist is treating Reaper as a lackey/henchman/follower even as Reaper is literally about to follow him to the Talon Council table.

I wouldn’t say that Doomfist has blind faith in Reaper - quite the contrary, he seems to hold Reaper at arm’s length, and he basically doesn’t let Sombra get near him. He doesn’t trust either of them. He does trust Widowmaker, and quite literally lets her walk beside him in Monaco.

But anyways, the important part is that Reaper never actually saw Vialli face-to-face.

If Reaper had been on the Talon Council previously, then he would have know who Vialli was.

And yes, that is because we are explicitly shown that every “person” at Talon’s literal business meeting of evil is straight up not covering their faces or concealing their identities.

...Well, all of them except one of course.

[Implications/Hypothesis]: Even if Doomfist knows that Reaper is Gabriel Reyes, he is unaware of the fact that Gabriel actively contributed to the Overwatch mission to stop Null Sector and contain their Uprising.

You probably saw me yelling about this issue this morning but:

Doomfist: That was a missed opportunity, but who would have thought Overwatch would get involved?

Gee, Akande -

Maybe the man standing right next to you.

And before anyone throws that “Gabriel is playing the double-crossing card” stuff around here, the entire interaction here makes it very clear that Gabriel is trying to pull the whole “plausible deniability” card instead. Jack and Ana show that they’re aware that it was actually Gabriel who “sent McCree to London” to “[investigate] the situation on the ground.” More importantly, it is through McCree that the three commanders finally get visual confirmations of just how bad and intense Null Sector’s anti-aerial defenses are.

Remember -

The first part of the Uprising mission in-game is shutting down the defenses.

And remember -

The second part of Uprising was specifically led by Commander Reyes.

http://segadores-y-soldados.tumblr.com/post/160297656765/aku-no-homu-here-are-all-of-reyes-voicelines

I’ve seen it suggested that Doomfist may be sarcastic here but the reading of it...doesn’t really seem so. Doomfist seems genuinely unaware that Reaper - Gabriel Reyes - was involved in the Uprising mission at all. If anything, Doomfist was banking on the fact that Overwatch would not get involved with Null Sector, and that Null Sector’s “flames of revolution” would spread to other Omnics.

“Omnics will not be kept down forever. The ashes of the Crisis still smolder.” - Doomfist on King’s Row.

And, oh yeah -

[Confirmed]: the “global conflict” that Doomfist’s faction within Talon has been trying to spread is the Second Omnic Crisis.

The evidence is in the above quote, the way he reacts to the “failure” of Null Sector, the way that Maximilien describe the current state of the world:

“War between Omnics and humans seems all but inevitable...thanks in no small part to your friend [Widowmaker] here.” (Also, Maxilimilien being French may be a reference to Maximilien Robespierre, who uh, wasn’t exactly a great guy).

Everything Akande is doing is building the orchestration of the Second Omnic Crisis.

So, it seems very, very at odds that Akande would let “Gabriel Reyes, the man who helped Overwatch prevent the Uprising from spreading,” join Talon unless he was not aware of Gabriel’s involvement.

In my last essay, I argued that Reaper and Sombra were trying to work their way into the upper echelon of Talon to either orchestrate a coup, or destroy the organization from the inside out.

However, I would also posit this:

[Hypothesis]: Reaper and Sombra may know the names of the Talon leaders, but they don’t actually know who they are, and how they all fit together.

In light of the fact that Reaper recognizes Vialli by name and intention, but not by his actual face, it suddenly makes a ton of practical sense that he needs to infiltrate the Talon Council just to actually see everyone.

Furthermore, the fact that the table is mostly empty at the end of the chapter implies that rivals are starting to fall, or not everyone is present (which is why he doesn’t immediately Death Blossom them).

The Reyes’ Send Their Regards

I wrote in my post earlier today, and as I hope I demonstrated earlier in this essay, the leaders of Talon don’t actually understand conflict. They want it for profit and for advances in human technology and strengths, but they seemingly remain untouched by the conflict currently happening in the world around them.

Doomfist, and at least Maximilien, see conflict as a game to play, a challenge to overcome, another obstacle in moving humanity (and Omnics) forward. They treat Katya Volskaya, Null Sector, Mondatta, and Overwatch as merely stepping stones to their ultimate goals. They discuss these topics while literally gambling, or literally indulging in a masquerade. They organize their “new business ventures for war” in a boardroom - a really sinister-looking boardroom, but a boardroom all the same.

They don’t actually feel sympathy for the players in their game, and while they may understand motives, goals, and emotional ties on an intellectual level, they don’t particularly care about them or for them. Everything about them is “coldly professional” - Doomfist even shakes Vialli’s hand before literally throwing him off a bridge.

And this is in direct contrast with an entirely different meeting from years ago:

This latter image is of three military commanders trying to make sense of a situation of “extremist” violence, and one of the commanders (Gabriel) even makes an effort to understand and arguably empathize with “the extremists.”

It is telling that many of the lines in the “Masquerade” comic parallel lines said by Gabriel, or implied to have been said by him - but a lot of them are “recontextualized” to be slightly more sinister.

Compared to:

And this one:

Followed by:

As they prepare for war, the leaders of Talon engage in excessive displays of wealth and power, despite claiming that they “don’t actually care for them.” They lock themselves in fancy boardrooms and orchestrate conflict without actually understanding it. They say lines that have parallels to Reaper’s, but lack “the humor” behind them (or at least behind the conversational contexts).

In “The Masque of the Red Death,” Poe writes about The Prince’s reaction to “the Red Death masked figure” appearing at his fancy party:

In an assembly of phantasms such as I have painted, it may well be supposed that no ordinary appearance could have excited such sensation. In truth the masquerade license of the night was nearly unlimited; but the figure in question had out-Heroded Herod, and gone beyond the bounds of even the prince's indefinite decorum. There are chords in the hearts of the most reckless which cannot be touched without emotion. Even with the utterly lost, to whom life and death are equally jests, there are matters of which no jest can be made. The whole company, indeed, seemed now deeply to feel that in the costume and bearing of the stranger neither wit nor propriety existed. [...]

When the eyes of Prince Prospero fell upon this spectral image (which with a slow and solemn movement, as if more fully to sustain its role, stalked to and fro among the waltzers) he was seen to be convulsed, in the first moment with a strong shudder either of terror or distaste; but, in the next, his brow reddened with rage.

"Who dares?" he demanded hoarsely of the courtiers who stood near him --"who dares insult us with this blasphemous mockery? Seize him and unmask him --that we may know whom we have to hang at sunrise, from the battlements!"

The basic “lesson” of “The Masque of the Red Death” is that “death comes for us all,” but a more implied, more “revolutionary” tone is that the Red Death comes to devastate those who think they can hide from death through wealth and fortresses, who think they can mock retribution and play masked games at their whims. And while Poe never explicitly states how the Red Death actually gets in, he implies that Death comes for the Prince and his friends “in their final hours,” and stems directly from their hubris.

“He bore aloft a drawn dagger, and had approached, in rapid impetuosity, to within three or four feet of the retreating figure, when the latter, having attained the extremity of the velvet apartment, turned suddenly and confronted his pursuer. There was a sharp cry --and the dagger dropped gleaming upon the sable carpet, upon which, instantly afterwards, fell prostrate in death the Prince Prospero. Then, summoning the wild courage of despair, a throng of the revellers at once threw themselves into the black apartment, and, seizing the mummer, whose tall figure stood erect and motionless within the shadow of the ebony clock, gasped in unutterable horror at finding the grave-cerements and corpse-like mask which they handled with so violent a rudeness, untenanted by any tangible form.

And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.”

The Prince tries to directly fight the Red Death, but the Red Death claims him as easily “as it got in.”

Blizzard doesn’t even try to hide the fact that Akande is meant to be “royalty” here - he’s wearing a long, decadent purple cape, with purple being a frequent symbol of regality. He walks confidently past statues of old lords and kings.

And he is the one who invites the Red Death inside.

This could very well be the first time Reaper has ever joined the council.

But it doesn’t matter how long it took him - after all, the Red Death in Poe’s story took several months to “get inside,” and even then, it took several hours until the clock struck midnight to “truly arrive.”

But it got in.

Death is patient. (He had come like a thief in the night.)

Death is calm. (With deliberate and stately step)

Death is calculating. (And the flames of the tripods expired.)

Death is powerful. (The Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.)

And in the end

Death is the only one still wearing his mask.

Masquerade: a false show or pretense; the wearing of disguise; a masked ball

Death leaves no one behind.

Not even those who think themselves above him.

Death hides himself among the masqueraders -

And bides his time.

#reaper #gabriel reyes #masquerade #doomfist #team talon #akande ogundimu #widowmaker #amelie lacroix #sombra #my essays #my writing #it's here #i lost my shit this morning lol

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hardman5509 · 7 years ago

Text

Searching...for a better writer.

The recent Overwatch comic, Searching...is badly written. I’m not even surprised, given how this is a Zarya comic (given that she has the worst skins) and it’s OW, writing ain’t their forte. It’s got good art by @kate-n-bd, but that doesn’t help when compared to all of the lazy writing and a lack of continuity featured in Searching.

Much like how the Binary comic made Torbjorn jump away from his Anti-Omnic stance in four panels:

Yes sir, that’s a turning point. Bastion holding a bundle at sticks is enough to convince a anti-AI man like Tor (Who has a history of dealing with violent Omnics) to change his mind about the Omnic who used to be a minigun sniper when the game first launched.

Searching...kinda ignores Zarya’s anti-robot stance. It mentions it, but doesn’t really address it in a proper way. We get Zarya telling a robot to shut up, her dislike of Numbani’s more open-minded society,

And this is the best moment; background characters. Ugh, Ana got TWO comics dedicated to her, Sombra got her own ‘Meet The Hero’ vid, and Doomfist got his own animated trailer and comic, but these two got a simple trailer.

But then we get this:

Notice her reaction in the last panel. The ‘How could this get any worse’ joke...and her face is utterly blank. Like she’s waiting in line at a grocery store.

Those two panels are sequential, meaning this is more of a writing error than a artist one. The writer INTENDED to put those two together. But then again, Kate didn’t exactly put much emotion in Zarya’s face in this moment where Zarya must work alongside something she hates.

And more sequential failure comes with these two panels. Not one after the other, there’s a bit with Guillermo Portero of Lumerico in-between that’s pointless.

(sorry about the blurriness of the last panel)

They set up a Gilligan Cut, and don’t follow through with it. No mention of how Lynx (The Omnic’s name) convinced Zarya to tag long. As far as we know, he followed her to Mexico. And now they’re relaxing by the fountain, like they just got off work and are about to hit up a few bars like co-workers.

Page Eight I think is the worst page out of the whole damn thing. It’s just banter and exposition. It’s poorly paced.

Panel One: Zarya and Lynx are standing outside of Sombra’s hideout. Banter, and then suddenly Lynx asks: “Hey, how many Omnics have you murdered?” Time and place, dude! (or more seriously, why ask that question now?)

Panel Two: Zarya blows up door and gives off her backstory. OW sure loves repeating character’s backstories, aint’ that right ‘Rise and Shine’?

Panel Three: The best panel out of Page Eight, only because there isn’t text boxes and speech balloons crammed into it. A big problem of the comic on the whole actually. Actual humanity from the dialogue.

Panel Four: Tripe. It’s meant to be a moment of understanding, but I think the biggest problem of Searching is the lack of emotion. I don’t feel anything from this moment, it’s just crammed in.

Then we get to the Sombra fight. It’s all fine and good, but...

Zarya somehow didn’t see that. The over-the-head baseball throw. Gawd, you’re stupid. She really does fall for it too when Sombra teleports:

(...is that the same face as the one on the card...?)

So Zarya wins (Funny, given the fact that Sombra usually is a better choice for taking down a Zarya) and interrogates Sombra. And as a reminder that Sombra is the worst spy in the world (As seen in the Masquerades comic, Sombra’s plans are well-known to Talon and she wears bells in a disguise) we get her real name:

...despite her backstory saying that she deleted all traces of her former identity. Guess she isn’t really that great of a hacker.

And my favorite funny moment:

Lynx on the ground, having been hacked ‘back in Numbani.’ So Sombra just let Zarya and Lynx get that far? Zarya nearly captured/killer her. Why not just make the Ominic explode? “Nobody tracks me and gets away with it?” THEY DID TRACK YOU DOWN AND ALMOST WON UNTIL YOU PULLED OUT A DEUS EX MACHINA. (Good story-telling!)

Our comic ends with Zarya taking Lynx out of the hideout and proceeding to go back to Russia, ending with this:

We have resolved nothing. Zarya isn’t really over her Anti-Ominic slant and is only suspicious of Volskaya. This doesn’t seem to be a turning point for her characters (Way too damn early for that), it’s just a bunch of stuff that happened.

Good artwork will not hide bad writing. (in fact, the former usually bolds the latter.)

#overwatch #searching #zarya #sombra #blizzard

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the-noodle-king · 7 years ago

Photo

All of Panacea’s non-legendary skins (to date) as well as his ability icons.

And under the cut, a very detailed character bio, featuring backstory, ability summaries and some stat numbers I worked out because I really wanted this character to feel balanced and fleshed out.

Real Name: Cole Moniker

Alias: Panacea

Age: 33 as of Overwatch’s Recall (D.O.B. 29th of April 2042)

Occupation: Field Medic

Base of Operations: Thompson, Manitoba, Canada

Affiliation: Talon

Backstory: The most adept field-medic currently working with the terrorist group Talon, Panacea maintains the organisations mercenaries in exchange for watching a world which wronged him burn.

As a young man, Cole Moniker enrolled in the Canadian military much to his decorated mother’s elation, and after 9 years of exemplary service he saw himself frequently serving both as a front line soldier and front line medic.

Set to marry his childhood crush and boyfriend of 10 years, Cole was ecstatic to near the end of his final front line excursion before the wedding, until he heard news of the omnic uprising in his home city, sparked by the similar incident in London only a week earlier. He returned not home, but to a new war zone, covered in blood and fire.

After he found his parents burnt remains in the ruins of his childhood home, he clawed his way through the rubble of his own apartment building desperate for some sign of his fiancé, and when he found no such sign, he vanished, never to report back to a military commander again. Some believe Cole died in the city, fighting omnic rebels or crushed by debris, and Panacea would likely agree that he did.

Driven by grief and anger, Cole spent some time gunning down omnic settlements until he was eventually found by Talon, who had taken a keen interest in his military record and particular medical skills. The group found him especially easy to win over, taking little to convince him of joining beyond a promise of ammunition and targets to shoot at.

Personality: Though still infrequently plagued by the horrors of his recent past, 7 years has seen his old self reemerge somewhat; beneath a well preserved layer of cold detachment and professional efficiency, he enjoys humour once more, often making light of serious situations with jokes and hearty laughter.

His humour is often flirty, though anyone flirting back will quickly shut him down and he will devolve into stuttering and apologies; when dealing with omnics his mood can still sour, even though he claims to have moved past his hatred, this is mostly seen through the dark-natured “jokes” he sends their ways.

Role: Support

Playstyle: Aggressive / Offensive

Hit Points: 200 total, 175 Health / 25 Armour

Primary Weapon: Custom Medic’s Rifle: A heavily modified version of a standard issue rifle from Cole’s service in the Canadian military.

Primary Attack: Fires a steady stream of bullets with a reasonably small, but consistent spread, which while not an issue against large or slow moving targets, can make hitting smaller or particularly quick ones more challenging.

Ammo: 50

Shots Per-Second: 12

Damage Per-Bullet: 9 at 0-20 meters, decreasing to 4 at 40 meters

Reload Time: 1.2 seconds

Able to Headshot: Yes

Ability 1: Burst Heal: Rapidly heal yourself and allies in the immediate vicinity for a small amount.

Healing (Self): 75 Hit Points

Healing (Allies): 50 Hit Points

Area of Effect: 3 meters (Area around Panacea)

Casting Time / Duration: 0.5 second animation which interrupts shooting and slows movement by 50%, healing occurs over 0.5 seconds and continues even if interrupted by a stun

Cooldown: 6 seconds from moment of use

Animation: Panacea strikes his chest harness with his left fist, then pale yellow gas is quickly vented from Panacea’s right arm and boots (Appearing red to enemies)

Voice Line (Self): “It’s good to *Laughs* vent sometimes”, “Needed to get that off my chest *Laughs*” Or “*Laughs* that tickled��

Voice Line (Healed Allies): “Something to tide you over”, “A quick top-up”, “Deep breaths”, “Breath deep now”, “Keep on keeping” Or “Take care, eh?”

Voice Line (Talon Allies): “I’ll patch you up”, “One more mission eh?”, “Keep on Reaping” (Reaper specific), “prends soin de toi, araignée (Take care, Spider)” (Widowmaker specific) Or “Los Muertos recuerdan (Los Muertos remembers / the dead remember)” (Sombra specific, only while wearing Neon Infiltrator)

Voice Line (Omnic Allies): “A quick fix”, “Deep breaths... or whatever”, “No loose wires”, “I’ve got your back... for now”

Ability 2: Enhanced Focus: Panacea draws on his military training to steady his hand and aim for his enemies’ weak points, increasing damage output and reducing bullet spread.

Damage Increase: 50% (Not applied to headshot damage)

Casting Time / Duration: 0.8 seconds animation, after which the damage buff lasts 5 seconds

Cooldown: 15 seconds from the end of the casting animation; the cooldown doesn’t begin if the ability is interrupted before it is cast

Animation: Rifle being adjusted and steadied before settling in a straighter line in front of Panacea’s view, after which the standard firing animation is less shaky until the ability wears off

Voice Line (If he gets a kill with Enhanced Focus): “It’s not personal” Or “A soldier is as a soldier does”

Voice Line (If killing an Enemy Omnic with Enhanced Focus): “Oeil pour oeil, eh?”, “*Soft laughter* Still love it...” Or “*Quietly* For Riley...”

Ability 3 / Secondary fire: Healing Charge: Fire a Healing Charge at an ally to quickly heal them for a significant amount, consuming an equal amount of Stored Healing Charge in the process.

Healing: 100 per use

Ammo Usage: 100 Stored Healing Charge per use

Aiming: Targeted Hitscan

Casting Time / Projectile Travel Time / Duration: 0.8 seconds to fire and then reach the target, healing occurs rapidly over 0.4 seconds

Can be Deflected: No

Stopped by Hack: No

Headshot: No

Cooldown: N/A

Animation: Similar to normal firing animation, but with a stronger upwards kick and a 0.3 second delay after use before normal firing resumes, each successive healing charge used adds 0.1 second to the delay

Additional Visual Effects: For every 100 points of Healing Charge Stored a light on the inner side of the rifle will light up (The parallel light on the outer side will also light up, indicating to allies that a charge is available)

Voice Line (Self and Allies upon firing): “Healing Incoming” Or if the recipient recently requested healing “Help is on the way”; after using more than 3 Charges on one hero, “Stop getting shot!” Or “I can’t keep up with this!”

Voice Line (Talon Allies): “Don’t die, eh?”, “Trying to make me look bad?”, “Try dodging the bullets next time”, “I’ve got your back”, “How’s my french now?” (Widowmaker specific), “Bienvenu!” (Widowmaker specific), “Any time, boss man” (Either Reaper or Doomfist)

Voice Line (If insufficient Charge): “Need more Charge”, “No Charges stored” Or “Almost ready!” (At 85-99% Charge)

Ultimate Ability: Military Efficiency: By overclocking his rifles capabilities Panacea can temporarily store an additional 6 healing charge uses, as well as accumulate Healing charge at a far greater rate.

Charge Gain Rate (Per Second): 15

Charge Gain Rate (Per Point of Damage Dealt): 5

Total Healing Charge Storage Capacity: 1000 Max Charge / 10 Uses of Healing Charge

Casting Time / Duration: 0.8 second starting animation, followed by 16 seconds of active ultimate time, ending with a 0.4 second animation before Ultimate charge resumes

Required Ultimate Charge: 1425

Animation: Starting animation is Panacea cocking the rifle back causing a pair of panels to open at either side of the rifles shoulder stock which each have 3 lights on them, filling respectively for Healing Charges 5 through 10, the ending animation is the rifle again being cocked back and the panels closing, though this is quicker

Voice Line (Self and Enemies): “Here comes the War-Medic!”

Voice Line (Allies): “Healing overclocked!”

Voice Line (Ultimate Charging / Almost Ready / Ultimate Ready): “Military Efficiency charging!”, “The War Medic is almost ready!”, “Prepared to Overclock” or “Military Efficiency is ready!”

Passive Ability: War-Medic: Cole’s rifle turns the power of shooting into healing charge, building more up as he does more damage.

Charge Gain Rate (Per Second): 3

Charge Gain Rate (Per Point of Damage Dealt): 1

Total Healing Charge Storage Capacity: 400 Max Charge / 4 Uses of Healing Charge

#overwatch oc #Panacea #Cole Moniker #character bio #overwatch abilities #Talon oc

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h3llthing · 8 years ago

Text

overwatch ramblings

okay @capnkeeta >:3c here’s my 2 AM ramblings abt blizzards fu cking writign. also @moonlitseer because she might want to read this too

A big issue with Blizzard’s handling of Overwatch is inconsistencies considering the lore and characterization. They have had consistent problems with this, and have so clearly not done any kind of solid planning considering the direction they will be taking with Overwatch’s general plotlines that the graphic comic that was supposed to be coming out for sale sometime around April 2017 was canceled mid 2016.

First Strike was supposed to detail the rise of Overwatch during the Omnic Crisis, which meant it would have mostly been about the original members of Overwatch, and would have taken place well before the current canon timeframe.

According to Michael Chu, it was canceled because the team “ultimately decided to take the story in a different direction”. While “the core of this story remains, we have changed and expanded upon how we see the events that took place during the first days of Overwatch”.

That, by itself, would read as fine, especially since Chris Metzen’s retirement meant that his views on the story’s evolution would be removed. However, the novel was very late in its development, and was probably mostly finished. That is a huge thing to cancel, especially since it was only 100 pages long and probably wouldn’t have told us too much beyond things we already knew about the early days of Overwatch.

If they felt their view on (supposedly) already established events had changed so radically that they had to cancel a graphic novel in its final stages of completion, the story for which had been in the works for years, then how can they move forward with the work as a whole with no established past to base their currently evolving plotline off of? Their willingness to dump the canon they were about to establish worries me, as to me to means they’re willing to scrap things at a moments notice, which will definitely have ripple effects once different plotlines start going.

Most importantly, they need to establish a strong base to move forward off of. Currently, they’re trying to push the story forward without establishing the past important events, or establishing much about most of their cast.

Their way of introducing more current events with the shorts is very well-handled, possibly because the shorts require a bit more production work. They are concise, worldbuild well, have excellent characterization, and insofar have not contradicted themselves. There are voicelines and effects in the game that make reference to them (for example, there used to be memorials to Mondatta in King’s Row. I’m not sure if they’re still there or not).

However, their comics are, honestly, a mess, along with their characterization. Now, a lot of their characters are still pretty much blank slates. They haven’t given most of them establishing comics or shorts (which I strongly believe they should do before moving forward with the plot), and instead seem to be switching between the Ana/Soldier vs Talon side of things and Bastion for... some reason. Don’t get me wrong, Bastion is a cool character, but they have gotten a short and a comic, the latest of which promises that their storyline will be followed. This leaves most of the non-Talon and non-original Overwatch heroes high and dry.

We have gotten no out of game establishing storyline media for Mei, Pharah, D.va, Lucio, Zenyatta, or Mercy. (Interesting how they’re all female or POC/POC-coded characters...) This is especially troubling for Mercy, since she is a major player in Reaper, Soldier, and Genji’s backstories, as well as the only original Overwatch team member who hasn’t gotten a speaking role in a comic or short yet. Lucio has gotten his EP on Overwatch’s website, but beyond that nothing.

We have gotten a minor establishing storyline Zarya, due to her ending cameo in Sombra’s short, but beyond that we don’t have much on her.

Orisa isn’t counted because she hasn’t even been released on normal servers yet, so it’s expected she hasn’t gotten any media beyond her gameplay video and introduction video.

This leaves a good bit of the cast just kind of floating around for now, until Chu decides to hopefully let them start doing stuff.

The lack of characterization now leads me into characterization issues concerning contradictions between medias!!

A perfect representation of their characterization problems is the newest comic, Binary, in which Bastion’s possible relationship to Overwatch is explained. With Torbjorn. Of all characters.

Now, I am glad that the writing team has decided to try to make Torb more interesting. As it stands, he is kind of a generic Blizzard character who does not stand out from the rest of the cast in any way. He has the most generic backstory, the most generically dwarven Blizzard design, and one of the most generic movesets/ults (below only Widowmaker and Soldier).

That being said, instead of realizing where he is now as a character- being very distrustful of omnics, as well as guilt ridden over his involvement with them- and building off that, they decided to just... ignore all that.

As evidenced by his voicelines in King’s Row- “If you ask me, the Brits have their heads on straight! Omnic rights? Pah!”- Nepal- “It's like a culmination of a thousand of my worst nightmares! Are you kidding me?!”- and Numbani- “No No No! N-O NO!”-, he has seen societies in which omnics can live integrated with humans, both peacefully and with societal upheaval. Seeing an entire society like Numbani be able to love peacefully with omnics did not sway him. Seeing omnics being abused, targeted, and straight up murdered did not sway him. (His comment on omnic rights is especially inappropriate, considering Mondatta’s assassination in front of a huge crowd of people took place in King’s Row).

But I guess getting offered a twig by a random omnic in a forest was enough to melt his heart.

There are so many ways Blizzard could have written this. As it comes off, it seems like they’re ignoring what little they’ve done with Torbjorn so far so that they could awkwardly just shove Bastion in with the team. They could have had Bastion help a child, save one of Torb’s family members, come to Reinhardt or his aid in a time of need! They could have had them emotionally actually connect, and have had his realization that yes, even bastion units can change and have that realization be actually emotionally charged and meaningful!

Instead they had some generic village be supposedly threatened by him, have Torbjorn conveniently be there for whatever reason, then have the two of them wander off into the forest together to somewhere.

They’re also very bad at establishing timeframes. We know that Rein was wandering around somewhere in probably Germany at the time of his comic. We know that their families were together for Christmas. We know Torb was in some random village in Swedenfor Binary. When did those take place in relation to one another? Where is Torb’s family? He clearly didn’t live in that village, so why on earth was he there? He’s retired, so why wasn’t he with his family? Did it have to do something with Winston’s recall? Was he specifically there to track down Bastion? If he was, is he taking Bastion to Winston? If so, why weren’t we shown that?

TL;DR - Blizzard’s writing team is skipping over a lot of important stuff in the canon, both for themselves and for the fans. They’re being inconsistent with the lore and with established characterization, and considering what amazing stuff we know their writing team can do, the most recent plot comics like Old Soldiers and Binary are just very, very disappointing, and honestly seem like they’re rushing us along with the plot while skipping over “less important” things.

Disclaimer: Of course, I’m just a fan. I’m not a part of the writing team, so maybe I’m 100% wrong. Maybe they have everything planned out and established and just needed the one rewrite, but from a fan’s perspective they are looking VERY disorganized.

#aprils life #overwatch #blizzard #binary comic #bastion #torbjorn

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sadistic-nerd13-blog · 8 years ago

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Is Sombra Reapers daughter?!!?

I'd like to think that yes, sombra is reapers daughter! I've been looking into this quite extensively since her release, and she quite possibly might be the young girl seen in soldiers animated short. If that follows, here's the theory/storyline I've come up with(I could also be proven wrong but here goes nothin... There are holes, so if you debunk it let me know!!) Before the omnic crisis was even a thing and overwatch was still popular, Gabriel was on a black watch mission in dorado. He had a one night stand, then left once black watch moved to a new mission. Gabe didn't know he knocked the girl up at the time, resulting in Alejandra. I imagine later the mother contacted him, or tried, resulting in him finding out. Fast forward about 10-15 years. We can tell from the short that Alejandra is what seems to be an only child with a single mother. The los muertos Gang were beating up an omnic, showing that it's possible this was shortly before the omnic crisis. That said, overwatch was already disbanded by this time, Gabriel supposedly dead and jack becoming soldier 76 after the HQ explosion. Since gabe and jack were good friends it's quite possible that jack knew of Gabriel's child. Soldier is a man that is obviously trying to take down people that are ruining the world and wants to make things into the just world that it used to be. Well if that's the case, why would he jump after a thuggish gang in Mexico? They don't seem to be doing anything too bad to grab the attention of this justice warrior... Unless they were threatening the life of his ex-best friends child, which he still feels a duty to protect since he most likely doesn't feel as strongly about reaper as reaper feels about soldier. When Alejandra asked about why soldier saved her, he simply stated "old habits die hard." Well, this could just mean he's a good person, protecting the lives of innocent people OR... He always had gabe's back when they fought together, and consistently saved his life. This would in turn travel down the bloodline with Alejandra. He even watched over her until he was home safe, showing a little extra care than just saving her... Which is questionable. After the omnic crisis her mother most likely was killed, leaving her to fend for herself. In reading the backstory of sombra we can tell she ended up joining the los muertos, and helped them in hacking and finding out what's really going on. Well she is obviously from Dorado, as the los muertos had to have been close and an almost constant for her to join(as most people in gangs follow suit... They grow up with them.) in her days of constantly gathering information, I imagine she found out her father was Gabriel Reyes, who supposedly died when she was a child. As any orphaned child would, she daughter out to find her father, leaving the los muertos and following her own motives. I imagine she found out that reaper was part of a terrorist group named talon, and made quick work of getting in. Once that was settled she admitted to reaper that yea, I'm you're kid HIII! And he just kind of accepted her. She was useful and, well, his kid. We can tell they play like old dad and shitty kid in the infiltration short, plus the obvious genetic similarities such as the same color eyes, hair and their similar personalities such as the recon element, unique weapons and general sneakiness and snarky-ness. So yeah, I very much think our edgelord has a little hacker daughter.

#overwatch theory #sombra #reaper #overwatch

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calvinwatchesstuff · 8 years ago

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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.)

#calvin reacts to overwatch #overwatch liveblog

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kitsunesbooks · 8 years ago

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Overwatch's Story is a Complete Mess!

Overwatch is a game I have grown incredibly fond of. It has been one of my preferred time wasters, at least before I bought DOOM. But no matter how long I’m from the game, it is always going to be a game that I can come back to. Overwatch is a game that features a wide variety of playable characters each with their own fleshed out personality that makes each one lovable in their own way. But that is where the quality of the writing for Overwatch stops. I for one, have never been a fan of Blizzard, but I can still acknowledge that Overwatch is a fantastic game, and the only one I actually enjoy playing. But there is little to no story to be found here and what little there is isn’t worth sticking around for.

So when Overwatch was being developed, somewhere down the line the decision was made to exclude story from the game and instead feature it in a variety of other media forms. This has one major advantage, being that this allows the development team to focus solely on gameplay balancing as well as developing additional content for the game. But it is painfully obvious that Blizzard has no real intention to focus on the plot of Overwatch. The story is almost a complete afterthought. Despite the fact that, before release, a lot of care was put into the backstories of the heroes and the world Overwatch takes place in. Yet, we see none of that interesting lore take root in the game.

One of the biggest issues with Overwatch as a story is how thinly it’s spread. The story is primarily told through comics and animated shorts, which ultimately do nothing to further the plot. In both of these mediums, there absolutely zero continuity. The comics started off by giving us some more on the back story on our heroes. For the first few issues, this trend stayed strong. We got some very well written comics that gave a more detailed look at who our heroes were. But then, it stopped. We barely even put a dent in the extensive roster of heroes before going off and doing random stories themed around in game holiday events. Both of the holiday comics had absolutely no bearing on the plot whatsoever and to make matters worse, next issue is going to be based around the Chinese New Year event. Where is the plot progression!? Where are the detailed backstories I enjoyed reading!? I enjoy a little fan service as much as the next person, and I love seeing our characters in casual, slice of life settings. But haven’t we gone a bit long without a new backstory comic?

This brings us to the middle of the road. Somewhere down the line, Blizzard decided to scrap the origin comics in favor of the Origin Story videos. Which is strange, because they gave Ana’s story a ton of love with one of these Origin Story videos and two whole comics. But Sombra didn’t get a comic at all, instead she got a minuscule origin video that gave us practically nothing to go off of. It was not a fleshed out background story. The only thing that video served to do was give us a little tease at a possible “bigger bad” that is behind all of the events currently going on in the story. To make matters even worse, they held onto these bare bones story details instead of putting some of the useless stuff featured in the Origin Story video into the Sombra ARG. The Sombra ARG was a poorly planned mess that almost everyone grew completely impatient with after several months. Not once but two or three times were we forced to wait with overhyped expectations for timed reveal, only to get nothing. Code breakers were scrambling frantically to solve the ARG, but ultimately it gave us LITERALLY NOTHING! The entire ARG was nothing but a waste of our time. They could have gradually revealed details of Sombra’s story by setting up an almost detective like breadcrumb trail for us to follow. They could have given us hints as to how Sombra would play, or what she would look like. Instead we got even more vague “story” involving Sombra’s plan to shut down the Lumerico power plant in the Dorado map, featured in game. But this entire ARG has no actual weight on anything going on in Overwatch’s lore. Just what the hell was the point of the ARG!?

Thus we come to the Animated Shorts. And for sake of argument I will be including the Cinematic Trailer as well. Even though the Cinematic Trailer is very well done, most of these shorts are a whole heap of bad writing. I’ve seen a video from Geoff Thew (Mother’s Basement) talking about how poorly the shorts were in the cinematography department, but the writing does the shorts even more injustice to the game’s story. Too many questions were left unanswered in the Sombra short, and ultimately they may never be answered because LORD KNOWS when another Animated Short will drop. Plus, given the trend of how these shorts have absolutely no continuity, and the possibility of the next short being related to Doom Fist, it is almost EXTREMELY unlikely we will get answers to why Volskaya is cooperating with Omnics, why is Sombra a double agent for Talon, what the hell is Talon planning, and of course, WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT DAMN CHART MEAN!? (You know exactly what I am talking about.)

Blizzard has a problem with drip feeding stories, but this isn’t drip feeding anymore. This is like letting the tap open every few months. While these shorts and comics drop small hints of what COULD be going on in the world of Overwatch, we RARELY get anything concrete. Hell, story is even dripped into the game through passive conversations between heroes before a match starts. But there is NOTHING CONCRETE. Almost all of this lore is designed just to keep the hype train going and the bizarre and almost completely unsound theories coming in. Blizzard needs to hire some real writers to come in and start making sense of this massive web of miniscule details. I honestly have lost interest in the story of Overwatch, purely because Blizzard has no desire to deliver a concise narrative with continuity and instead just want to hold the internet hostage with clickbait analysis of their lore. Overwatch fails to keep in mind the basics of storytelling. Instead of having a beginning, rising action, climax, falling action, and conclusion, Overwatch seems forever stuck in a slow moving rising action. With nothing concrete appearing in any of the lore content and nothing tying us to the characters outside of their personalities, it is almost impossible to be invested in this slow ascension to an invisible climax. This is especially true when our beginning is just as vague and enigmatic.

I think the biggest problem with Blizzard’s amazing FPS title is that despite how cool some of the backstories are, I don’t think that Blizzard will ever invest the time and money into making full fledged stories out of them. We will never get to see the prime of Overwatch’s career. We will never get see Lena Oxten struggle with her own existence. We will never get to be on the edge of our seats watching the battle for the Siberian Front unfold. There are so many things that happened in the Omnic Crisis that we may never ever see. But, Blizzard sure doesn’t mind giving us a small look. Blizzard has no idea how to tell a story and its apparent. Their idea of storytelling is whatever keeps the headlines coming in and it's a damn shame.

Stay Frosty, Adam Schmidt

#overwatch #rant #video games #omnic crisis #overwatch lore

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