#there's like only 5 of my original mutuals left active :') oof

[verumaeternus]

i unfollowed like 2/3 of my list to clear out inactives/nonmutuals so anyway, like this if you'd like me to approach you for plotting

[nitewrighter]

So out of the five ovw short stories, which would you rate the strongest and the weakest in terms of what it did for the character and/lore building?

1st Place: Bastet. I feel like Ana's always been one of the strongest, most complex, and most interesting characters in Overwatch's roster, and this story not only fully utilizes all of her grief, grudges, and resolve, but it's also her picking herself up and going, "Okay let's fix our mess." You've got great bittersweet bonding between her and Jack, and this was also the short story that revealed Jack was gay. It didn't give us closure with regards to Sam and Fareeha, but it was also able to say, "It's not about closure, it's about what she's going to do next."

2nd Place: Stone By Stone. HUGE lore-dump on the Shambali which I very deeply appreciate, and it really means a lot to me to see characters which have been so easily shelved and sidelined for so long mutually develop each other and expand on Overwatch's world. My one qualm is that the whole Shambali origin story felt very weirdly Messianic for a culture/religion that clearly has a lot of Buddhist influences.

3rd Place: What You Left Behind. Ahhhh remember the Mauga hype? We were all so excited for Mauga to be the Talon tank... and then... he wasn't. No but all that aside, this story had a solid balance with exposition on Baptiste's time in Talon and like, exposition on all the imbalanced forces actively affecting Overwatch's world and the exploitative circumstances that both pushed Baptiste into Talon and then dragged him back to Talon for one last mission. I kind of wish the story expanded more on his tinkering, and his relationship to his Talon gear, because in term of kits I always thought he was very tech-y and eclectic, like he's using a combination of tech from Talon and stuff he's just... picked up throughout his work with the Caribbean coalition. Still, I think this story's really solid in terms of Baptiste's characterization, but aside from Sombra's cameo it feels kind of "Hm" levels of self-contained.

4th Place: Valkyrie. A really interesting look at how Angela views "Mercy" as a projected persona, her overall exhaustion, and also goes into some interesting lore tidbits about the Valkyrie suit but it's undercut by the extremely underwhelming "Oh hey Jack and Ana are still alive" and Reaper basically tossed in there like he's nothing. Like, it makes sense that ultimately Mercy would be most concerned about the civilians but the whole action sequence in general feels really messy like... what is Talon trying to accomplish? What is the point? It feels more like a box tick for "action sequence" than anything relevant. (I'm just gonna say as far as "jack and ana are alive" reveals go, maybe I'm biased but I like my Volskaya fics WAY better)

5th Place: Code of Violence. To be honest, I don't know if it's because my disappointment in the characterization is that fresh or if I just didn't vibe with the writing style, but oof... OOF, I say. I mean, look, it has been hinted at ever since the "reflections" comic that Reaper has a family, but I think for the past 5 years all of us were going, "Okay but maybe it's not a generic nuclear 'vehicle for manpain' family, right? Reaper's complex!! We know he's complex! We can feel his complexity!! Like, yeah, Blizzard's cliche, but they're not that cliche..." But they are. They are that cliche. Literally the most interesting things about this story (and I accidentally typed out 'fic' again oop) are the concepts that Doomfist actually fully convinced Reaper to join Talon and that that aligned with Reaper's own beliefs and grudges towards the world and that Talon really is as much of a shitshow of mismatched agendas as it is on purpose. Everything else is just... edginess without a lot of real pathos. We don't know Martina as a person, her thoughts toward Gabe, and how they managed to keep a family together while the world was rebuilding from a robot apocalypse. All we have to emotionally connect us to Martina are these very removed flashbacks of "Ice cream in echo park." She's not a character, she's a concept--a narrative footnote that's supposed to lend Reaper depth but basically just gives me the vibes of every lazy "dead wife" flashback in action movies minus the actual fridging.

[nakedmonkey]

My post was in response to all of your tags, I just didn't feel like copying all of them. The subsequent ones were even worse than the first, so funny you should use that as an argument in your favor?

#2 90% really? What a nice number. Where did you get your data?

#3 & 4 - oh, it's always been problematic. And this is an excuse to just brush it off now? I have no idea what point you were making here.

#5 & 6 It's important to talk about these things but then when people DO you invalidate their feelings, calling them all misogynists because you know for a fact that it's the only reason they would ever attack a content you yourself said is problematic. Because it's not an important discourse for you, so others must be full of shit, right?

#7 today's discourse never turned towards actors and at this point your tags are so gaslighting and generalizing it makes me embarrassed to read

#11 thank you? for chiming in to provide us with the correct way to critique a show. Good to know your way is the correct way.

I don't go to people's ask boxes on anon. This is literally the first time I did and that's saying something. Your tags weren't simple disagreement no matter how you want to frame it. You basically went and told all those people sharing how this show makes them feel to shut the hell up and take it and also that they're all misogynists. If you don't see that idk what to tell you.

Anyway I have no intention of responding again, and I wasn't going to this time either but your response just left me more puzzled than your original tags.

mmhmm mmhmm sure sure. Come off anon and/or stop following me :) It’s that easy. 

And for the record, I have not “dismissed” the show lol never said that. I still watch it and quite enjoy it! I can enjoy something while also being critical of things that are wrong with it. I can multitask like that ;) 

Not going to bother clearing anything up because you don’t seem very interested in having an actual discussion, that’s number 1, and number 2, I don’t feel the need to explain myself to strangers on the internet who attack me Anonymously. 

I have watched this show since day 1 and was at one point  a pretty active participant of the fandom. Since then, I’ve been very careful to only follow blogs that line up with the way I watch the show and it’s been SO much more enjoyable! I find that when I don’t engage with people whose opinions I find problematic or incorrect, I find more joy in things I love. 

I will say this though, I am allowed to voice my opinion however I want. Just like you do and everyone who doesn’t agree with me does. I decided not to add to that specific post because I thought it made some great points, points you seem to agree with yourself so IDK what all THIS is, so I decided to add some rambling tags. If you’re looking at my TAGS for something to disagree with then oof you’re in for a life of heartache on this site because most of people’s tag rambles are nonsensical jumbled thoughts, so good luck with that. I sure hope you do not feel the need to “respond” to this with another anonymous message because I will not be responding to it.

If any of my mutuals felt I was out of line with anything I said, I do apologize because we’re mutuals for a reason and I respect what you all think. 

Anyone else, please feel free to unfollow and have a great day! 

[filisaceaf]

oof ok i have a lot so you can choose (phan aus for the headcanons ask): detective au (one or both of them), au where dan is still a fan/never met phil in 2009, supernatural au (one of them is not human), x-men-type mutants au, hogwarts au (i had to :p)

You wanted only one AU you said? I’m sorry, Phan is my hyperfocus of the month so it looks like you win the headcannons of 3/5 the AUs and you know what? I’m not even sorry my homie.

This is long so I threw it under a cut.

Detective AU

1. Okay so, one would think Dan is the detective with his charming good looks who could get him into locations easily and charm people but Phil is actually a great detective because even though he’s tall, he just lives his life wanting to help people find something lost or someone missing or make sure people are not being unfairly treated. Dan is more his handler, part secretary (look someone needs to make sense of Phil’s notes, file them in a way that makes sense and is easily accessible to other people, and make sure Phil doesn’t overwork himself into a migraine like he has the past three weeks) and part paralegal at Phil’s little detective agency. He is very protective of his boss.

2. Phil loves being a detective. He doesn’t like to “spill tea” on clients like some people like to think he does, but he likes helping 80 year old women who were robbed get their wedding rings back or help someone find their missing child (he wishes those cases turned out a lot better than they usually do, but at the very least he helps people begin to grieve). He likes helping find justice and is actually pretty particular about what cases he’ll take. He hates doing cases about people thinking their spouses are cheating and really he does those if he’s desperate to make sure that he can pay Dan and his bills.

3. You can pry this one from my cold dead hands but Phil definitely has a corgi named Watson that he likes to dress up in plaid. Watson comes to the office with Phil because of long hours and has a little bed under Phil’s obnoxiously large desk that he bought specifically so he could have a bed for Watson there. Phil likes to pretend he’s hurt by Watson also curling up under Dan’s desk (but really he just goes soft for Dan’s voice going high pitched and “hello Watson”).

4. Dan is not a lawyer in the AU, but he did complete a paralegal program! As a paralegal, Dan can do legal research for anyone, but usually he does it for any jobs Phil did that end up needing to go to court. He can also draft legal documents and is also a notary; he just can’t legally represent anyone in court. Dan likes to joke that he is a slacker to the fact that “I’m a lawyer, but the bare minimum of one”. They met at college when Phil was in his last year of majoring in criminal justice and media studies and Dan was still on the track to wanting to be a lawyer. He took a gap (period) of years, had an existential crisis, became better friends with Phil during that time. Phil originally started his detective agency with another partner and when they left, Dan took over the secretarial side of things. It took him a few years, but he eventually went back to school to finish his paralegal certificate and Phil cheered the loudest at his graduation ceremony.

5. I don’t know how these two get together in the AU, but just know it is a slow burn. Like literal years and months and eons of mutual pining with them taking Watson on walks and late nights at the office and shared coffee runs and Dan always being scared Phil is going to do something super dangerous for his health like climb in a vent or park to close to a gangster’s house and get shot. After they get together, they do agree that Dan should get a another job because working together and living together with Phil’s unpredictable schedule was causing some fights for a long period of time (because they didn’t live together before this point). Dan does still stop by pretty often and double check the secretaries work and curl up in the corner of the sofa of Phil’s office (“Dan’s sofa crease” Phil affectionately calls it) and work on stuff for his other job at a nonprofit for mental health awareness.

Dan is a Fanboy and Literally the Biggest Philly AU (The barely alternate timeline tbh)

1. So, this is literally always my favorite kind of AU and I have a lot of soft feelings about these boys always managing to find each other somehow. But yes, Dan got discouraged after the like 100th time of subtweeting Phil and commenting on his videos and not getting a response, he never reached out to Phil for editing tips. Instead!!! He reaches out to a few other YouTubers years later when he’s going through his existential crisis and he’s like “you know, the last time i was happy was when I on YouTube all the time”. So he takes a gap year in university to try and see if it’s something he likes doing. He was not expecting for his channel to be well received. It takes him ages to figure out the jumpcut thing.

2. Because he never got to know Phil as young as he did, when they first meet at Summer In the City, Dan is actively trying not to lose his shit. Because holy fuck. This is Amazing Phil. This is the guy who he would play in the background while he studied and would donate so much on live streams and upvote and fuck he’s wearing some OG Phil merch with Lion on it. He walks around all day with his jacket zipped up because Phil can’t know he’s a fan; Phil is so smart and creative and funny and god. He’s completely turned upside down when Phil sees him and approaches him because “you’re danny’s snot on fire, right?”

Dan never regretted a username more in HIS LIFE and this exact moment lead to his rebranding months later

3. But they exchanged contact information and eventually did a collab video: Phil is Not on Fire. And they whole time, Dan is trying not to breathe too deep or do anything annoying because he’s in Phil’s bedroom??? His filming area??? His pants are on the floor like two feet away??? And when the tackle happens, Dan hopes he didn’t get a concussion and hallucinated the whole thing because Phil is warm and grinning at him with his tongue sticking out and holy shit, this is better than any video, gif, screen redraw, anything. Seeing it up close??? 

4. Phil doesn’t even notice Dan’s a fan until him and Jimmy do a ‘What’s in my tumblr tag?’ and Dan’s blog comes up with some Phil gif reblogs from back in the day and Phil just messages Dan screenshots. Dan is mortified. He’s going to delete his tumblr. He’s not Tyler (not that Tyler is bad, they’ve messaged a few times, but Dan’s not a /fanboy/ ((lmao he is))). Phil just giggles on the video and says that Dan is such a nice guy. Kind of. Definitely cheats at Mario Kart. Dan is literally going to die, this is the second best day of his life

5.They get together when they are both traveling for Playlist Live and they hook up at a party one of the nights there. Dan would be mortified if he didn’t wake up and Phil was still there. He didn’t take off in the middle of the night; he’s wrapped around Phil and Phil is mumbling under his breath about how Dan needs to stop moving and just sleep. Their coming out video is on Dan’s Channel and is Titled “I’m still #1 phil trash” which is a throw back to a privated video called “#1 phil trash” where it’s Dan talking about how talented and funny and inspirational Phil Lester is for six minutes because someone had asked him on Formspring who one of his idols was .

Hogwarts AU

1. Phil is from a magical household and his brother is a squib with a banging music career. Maybe it’s latent magic? Either way, Martyn is a sick af dj and Phil loves it when it’s time for summer vacation because he can visit Martyn in London and see some shows (he can’t go every night) or just wander around during the day with Martyn’s girlfriend Cornelia, who graduated from Durmstrang Institute, while Martyn sleeps off a late night show. Martyn being a Squib leads him to take Muggle Studies though because he wants to be able to connect with the world Martyn lives in and someday, at the rate technology is expanding, he is going to have to leave the isolating wizarding world. 

2. Dan is from a muggle family and it shows in the tenacious way he fights to be accepted by his fellow Slytherins. Every O on an assignment he gets is validation, because see I belong here, I’m one of you, I may not have families who can trace their magic past Bloody Mary or past the plague, but I am still one of Merlin’ people. He isn’t a braggart though; it’s more of an internal validation until someone asks him for help in a subject. 

3. Phil first really approaches Dan in his second year. He brought a hamster to Hogwarts (look, they’ve gotten relatively relaxed since Harry defeated the Dark Lord and the Peter Pettigrew Incident) and didn’t realize she was pregnant. The hamster had five babies and Phil remembered the lonely looking Slytherin who sat at the back of three of their house’s shared classes and thought “the boy needs a friend” so he gives Dan one of the babies. Dan names her Suki and spends so much time trying to make her happy.

4. Dan and Phil first kiss in Hogsmeade towards the end of their sixth year. Because look, these boys are magical but you can’t expect magic to help them get a clue. But they are sitting one one of the benches in town during early March and sipping Butterbeer and Phil just looks over and knows he has to kiss Dan. It’s a biological need. And it’s a good first kiss, warm and syrupy from the butterbeer.

5. Look I love Phil but I’m 99% sure Phil is someone who splinches when he Apparates. He leaves behind clothes more often than not, but there was one instance he left behind his left hand. Dan is fond, but it definitely explains the 20000 socks just lying around the flat they get after graduating.