What did/do you like about Pharah?

Uh, gameplay-wise, I really love characters in shooters who rely on three-dimensional movement techs. Chaining together hover and jump to stay in the air for as long as possible and keep momentum is so satisfying, and picking enemies off from the sky made me feel like a bird of prey. I was a good Pharah main.

Story-wise, there unfortunately isn't much to canonically go off because Pharah is so underutilized and neglected. Her personality's pretty boilerplate "heroic hero" (she's literally inspired by Captain America).

But it's the crumbs/bits and pieces that I really latched onto. Pharah's a confirmed lesbian; her short story with Baptiste implies she harbors a crush on Mercy (fucking thank you.). She's biracial Egyptian/First Nations. She has major mommy issues, having grown up both admiring and resenting Ana. She's the bridge between Old Overwatch, inspired by the idealized heroes who surrounded her childhood, and New Overwatch. She's one of the only inter-generational characters in the cast; someone whose experiences span the gap, which is why I seriously believe Pharah would make a great main character.

There isn't much to go off of, though; she's a very uncomplicated character (she's a soldier for a private military corporation, lol.). But that just means she's a blank slate character, so I've seen fanfic writers run wild and create some really interesting takes on her. My favorite interpretation of her's a dense, herbo gym-bro type (a lot of her liens are about work outs, exercising, and playing sports) who's easily excitable under her seemingly self-serious, armored visage. We see how she tends to gloat and hype herself up when she's on a streak too, so Pharah definitely has a competitive and boastful side under her more professional and militant performance.

Now Mercy? Mercy is a real complex character.

HEAR ME OUT

DRIVING TEACHER! MAX AND DRIVING DISASTER! CHARLES I WOULD LOVE TO SEE IT

Guys I don't normally talk about this on this blog, so I'm only going to say it once, and im going to say it as calmly as I can:

Stop with the pro-Trump - sorry, "anti-Biden" propaganda.

Stop spinning this as a choice between good domestic policy and bad foreign policy vs. bad domestic policy and good foreign policy - there is no universe in which Donald "Muslim ban" "build the wall" "turn Gaza into a parking lot" "has streets named after him in Israel" Trump is an improvement on our foreign policy, no matter how much it may FEEL like we can't get any worse and no matter how aggressively some people try to spin his end-of-term (i.e., EARLY COVID ERA) detainment numbers as "proof" otherwise.

Letting him win the presidency does NOT imply to the Democratic party that Americans want better foreign policy, either - they look at what the majority of voters say as evidence of what the people want. This is why they're so damned wishy-washy - because leftists keep trying, and trying, and trying the inaction strategy...so they go for the actual voters. They go further right - because that's where the people they see as "motivated enough to care" are. Abstaining doesn't send the message "I hate both of these options" - it just says "I don't care." It says "do whatever you want to me or anyone else, it's no skin off my nose." It says "those protestors? They're a tiny loud minority. Most Americans want more war, not less."

You cannot boycott a government the same way you can boycott a business - they're getting your tax money anyway.

You cannot change the world by sitting on your hands and doing nothing. Anyone with power who tries to tell you that inaction will get you what you want is someone who is trying to silence you.

If voting were useless, if voting made no difference, if the right weren't utterly terrified of losing power, then we wouldn't have gerrymandering, voter suppression, disenfranchisement of prisoners, disenfranchisement of anyone with a felony record, voter roll purges, we wouldn't have had to fight to secure voting rights for women and POC, the list goes on. The worst people in the world really, really want you NOT to vote. I am begging people to be more aware that just because someone knows how to speak your language to spin your silence as action does NOT mean they have the best interests of you or ANYONE else at heart.

And there is so fucking much more at stake than this one issue and "imperialists' comfort". Half the horrible shit that has happened domestically in the past four years has been because Trump stacked the Supreme Court - the overturning of Roe v. Wade? Remember that? We're likely to have more vacancies in the next 4 years. If he gets more appointments, we could be fucked for DECADES.

"But what about the rest of the world?"

Look. If I can't convince you that Trump's foreign policy would be worse (even though it is), let's consider climate change. Let's consider environmental laws. You know who the first people fucked over by climate change are, no matter who it is that's fucking around? People in Africa and South America, mostly. Do you want to enable the dismantling of the EPA? Or are you willing to admit that someone whose first act upon being sworn in was to rejoin the Paris Agreement is a lesser evil in that regard, even if his foreign policy re: international weapons sales is maybe 5% less dogshit at best?

If I can't convince you that the lives of disabled and queer people in America are worth the same as anyone else's - not more, not less, but THE SAME - then can I at least convince you that not turning Brazil and Congo into 45°C uninhabitable wastelands, or at least buying some time against that ticking clock, is a worthwhile endeavor?

I know some of you think that there's a chance that if we let Trump win, it will galvanize people to fight back harder. We tried that in 2016-2020. People died. Laws against protests tightened up worse than they EVER have under Biden - I was getting emergency alerts about curfews on a daily basis, because of crackdowns against the BLM protests. The actions being taken against the antiwar protestors now are despicable, yes - but they are nowhere near the same level of intensity. Accelerationism is tricky like that though - it FEELS like you're getting more done when the pushback is harder, doesn't it? - but all it does in the end is kill more people and set precedents to set us even further back.

Trump wants to invoke the Insurrection Act. Martial law. Do you really think that we can take on the most expensive military in the world, domestically, and win?

Do you really think that there is ANY amount of "motive" that will be enough to see us WIN a sweeping Hunger Games-style, burn it all down and rebuild from zero, "revolution" - i.e., a civil war against the US military - at all, let alone in time to save a SINGLE person in Gaza, or anywhere else for that matter? Let alone in the 5-7 months it will take to elect and inaugurate a president? The system will go on, with or without us.

At the end of the day, this is a trolley problem. People are going to die, and it sucks, but there is no third option - BUT, if you pull the lever, the casualties will be fewer. The question is not of which option results in fewer deaths, it's not of which of those lives is "more important", it's not of whether or not the numbers are ACTUALLY somehow secretly equal - it is only of whether or not you can pull the lever, or at least admit to yourself that you can't bring yourself to do it instead of trying to invent a reason the higher death toll is an objectively better outcome, actually.

Please. Think calmly for a minute about what the alternative is. Remember everything Trump has very clearly said about Arabs, remember the streets named after him in Israel, before just assuming that at least he can't be any worse, let alone that he's going to somehow be good on foreign policy and spare at least one non-American for every American he kills. Think about EVERYTHING that's at stake instead of flying into a blind rage about how that evil traitorous Joe Biden wrote "gullible" on the ceiling, because when you mistake sitting on your hands for a political statement just because the plea to do so was wrapped in emotionally charged leftist lingo, you are playing PERFECTLY into fascists' hands.

Please.

bitching under the cut

every game that has a fun stealth system: what if we made a huge multi-stage boss fight where we shoot rockets and lasers at your fragile sneak-thief body for multiple rounds? what if we put in consumables in a room where you're in active combat, and these consumables cannot be used while you're in active combat? what if you built your entire build around recon and finding a good place to fight and then we cemented shut every door and had you fight in a coliseum. are you having fun? are you having fun now? you stupid fragile piece of shit. are you? special shout-out to sinking a skill into being able to hack cars and then NOT being able to hack cars during combat because they're special little unhackable cars. idiot.

The struggle between being happy that all kinds of aspecs are talking about aspec experiences more and barely being able to stand the way people talk about aspec experiences

hi, do you have any plans of doing a review system similar to the measurement when you get to the chibnall era of doctor who? I think you said that you didn’t watch it, but i could be wrong

SoooOOOOOoooo first of all hi friend!

second of all: back in the day of uh... whenever the first season of jodie came out, I did watch that season and enjoy it, it was a fun first season. I then promptly forgot everything that happens in it, because my brain works that way, and then (because my brain also does this) was like "well legally I can't watch the second season of jodie unless I rewatch the first season of jodie because I can't remember what happened in it, and I can't watch the first season of jodie, because I don't remember what happened in capaldi's seasons, and I can't watch capaldi's seasons because then I'd have to rewatch matt smith's seasons and if I watch those from beginning to end again I will lose all joy in my soul"

third of all: I no longer feel that way, I have grown as a person who deals with my brain being a silly-billy, so not only could I legally watch whatever I wanted to without the brain police nee-nawing, I also um... well I have a system of how to watch matt smith's seasons so that I find them enjoyable, so actually maybe on second thoughts I didn't quite outrun the whatever-the-heck-my-brain-does laws, so much as... rewrite them a little to work for me (crucially I did in fact... watch all of matt smith's seasons and capaldi's seasons to get back here, so hopefully I can implement a more holistic watch in future, where I just engage with the episodes I noted down with commentary and rankings that I enjoyed!)

fourth of all: I'm not sure if this rating system works for chibnall's era (I mean, maybe it does, I genuinely don't know, but my gut says no). the reason I wrote it in exactly the way that I did was mainly because of very specific noticeable recurring things I dislike in m*ffat's writing across several shows -- misogyny, making all of his main guys cruel because they're "intelligent" (which absolves them of the need to be not-cruel), those men being the most important thing in the universe of the story, "sexy" dialogue, amatonormativity, and overly complex plotlines that often spring up out of nowhere and go nowhere

fifth of all: so maybe what I'll do is just note down more simply what I'm getting out of (or potentially not getting out of) jodie's run. I obviously know the reputation of that era, I've seen a couple of oof moments, but there are definitely oof moments in rtd's and m*ffat's runs, so those alone aren't dealbreakers so much as "I see you"s

sixth of all: actually my main question with regards to chibnall's era is whether he understands that diversity is about more than casting. this in particular with regards to yas being a police officer, and how that may or may not create a difficulty in discussing the limitations and cruelties of systems, such as those propped up by... police officers. (this, by the way, speaking of rtd, so many people of colour and of course shirley anne who's a wheelchair user represented in UNIT, but that is a whole other tangent -- shirley I am manifesting a liz shaw type arc for you where you get to go "hold on, this whole thing is sus")

seventh of all: I think it's much harder, probably, to discuss chibnall's era with such a simplistic system, because from the outset it's a much more complex thing than what m*ffat was doing -- that is m*ffat's was still essentially casting a couple of white guys who were travelling with white women until s10 (which noticeably is... just a better season, in my opinion). this not to say I'm not critiquing it, but I wouldn't want to make a ranking system out of "how well does chibnall do diversity," I feel like that would be crass of me, because these stories opening up like this is already such a fascinating space to play in, vs me in m*ffat's era actually being able to track the almost complete absence of diversity in s5 (vampires in venice and hungry earth have my back) just... as a whole... to where we got to in s9 and s10, and using this measurement system to go "yeah this era got noticeably better on several fronts later on" -- I note btw on this point, that bill is waaay more proactive in her first three episodes that amy or clara usually got to be. her questions also aren't just essentially "and now what are you going to do doctor," they're more her trying to figure out how she's navigating her environments and then working with the tools she's getting

eighth of all (conclusion): probably not a review "system" but yeah, I'll still review for sure and maybe find a way to structure that, I want to be consciously interacting with the story, it's the best way for me to engage and actually remember it afterwards. I won't have the benefit of foresight with these seasons either -- that is, I won't know where certain things are going and how I feel about those trajectories (for example, although I don't remember s10 I do remember liking it!) + what I do know, I'll be filtering somewhat (with the flux for example) through the three specials we just got, so I'll know there's some form of through-line of emotional arc that perhaps wasn't felt as much when it was first being aired? all suppositions

ninth of all (epilogue): I am eager I tell you, eeaaager to see sacha dhawan in action!

tenth of all (nothing in particular): I remember s11 starts in sheffield, which is wonderful to me. since the time it aired I've just been in sheffield so many times, it feels so very familiar to me. wonderful to get out of london for a bit

Now I'm just mad and that makes me sad. :/ I really do try incredibly hard not to hate things in this fandom, which doesn't always work out because, you know, feelings, and I don't want to think about hating things! I want to think about things I like!

having issues with men, the associations the instant distrust, which i dont like i dont want it i want things to be different, just all of it so much just the dynamic i have the relationship all of it the way the world is atleast online and having a younger brother. I wouldn't trade him for the world, I try and talk to him where I can and will continue to do so i adore him but i fear. i believe in him i want joy for him. I fear that his peers will feed him fckn brainrot and it scares me. not even just that he'll fall into that thinking that his fuckn upstanding that his unwillingness to follow ppl will hurt him. crazy shit at schools, like why tf r ppl dying kids young teens killing eaachother with knives? ??I don't want to loose him i don't want to see him loose who he is and the heart that he has i don't and i hope he rises above it all and will continue to. i feel like im stating what he has to be or smth but all i could ask for is his wellbeing, respect, humanity, that he treats himself well know what he deserves and has some sense of self, some gravity. I feel like shit sometimes for this aspect that i'm concerned that i just idk, i dont like the whole 'dont disappoint me' thing he owes nothing to me other than basic human decency and respect, hes a reason why i live but to i just that intrusive thought of there is no different the hell u think of is real about men to someone i hold so fckn dear to in a way show me their fckn fuckery its idk, like another? it'd hurt me, it'd hurt me bad.

i've never understood men or boys, amab, who go on about their connection or like protectiveness of their sisters of their mother but treat other women like shit like their familiars aren't women? you don't want to fuck them so its different? what is it like just whats the difference why does it have to pertain to you for you to care? do you care or do you see them as an extension? is it a personality trait for you? a 'lover boy' thing? a signal to women, women u imagine u want and is going to be 'ur woman' but u cant even like visualize them in a way that doesnt pertain to your sexual interests? a signal so people can say oh he loves his mother so hes good to go and prime? a 'mummys boy' ? are they not real women just because u dont feel that sort of way? talking about women that way with your friends? do i have to bring up the fact those same people could date your sister etc for you to care? those people could make the kids that surround your kids, your daughter. idk.

its like okay u want sex so u respect them less? did no one hear dont bite the hand that feeds you? what the fuck is going on. you cant fuck them so its all good? the demeaning-ness? lack of gravity, venom is just rapid, vapid

“you’re a tiny man, louis, flying too close to the sun, and that’s what i am... the sun.”

mmmm the sun and its relationship to vampires as a purifying destructive force... the sun in this quote as the ‘light of civilization’ in america.... how the councilman makes reference to icarus to tell louis that it was arrogant and naive of him to assume that a black man can come close to standing equal to white men like him

louis embracing his ‘dark’ nature as a vampire to enact his own sense of justice and revenge on the councilman....the way he found pleasure in it....the unforeseen consequences and retaliation from white citizens....

i have no thesis statement, i am simply raising my hand in lecture to offer my incoherent thoughts on a piece of media and forcing you all to hear me

Thinking a lot of an scenario, probably after war, since that most likely was the most psychologically taxing, or even after everything was done, where Pep's adrenaline finally goes down and he just breaks down due to the fucking stress and all the horrors hehehoho 🥰

↑ me

at6am (i think it’s was 550 dont remember) i didnt realize it was morning (like morning morning) and dm’d moot and we started talking for an hour last thought i had was “haha yes reeal we gets it. im gonna send-“ i meant to send those sparkly mouse glitter things and fantage ough. birds chirping outside sunrising. phone in hand everything went black sleep

oh my fucking god, im trying to get into obey me nb but the technical shit is SO FUCKING BAD

(read from this page) | (read from beginning)

Legit so fucking tired of people meaning trans women when they say trans/trans people

Tired of the erasure of trans men

Tired of "jokes" like this

Tired of misandry

Tired of people infantalizing AFAB people

Tired of people claiming that women can't be abusive

Tired of people claiming that abuse against men isn't "as bad"

Tired of people assuming women in power wouldn't also be absolute monsters, and that only men are capable of that behavior

I'm tired of people not understanding what deep shit men are in

And how difficult it is for men to accept help due to the hyper-individualistic culture we force on men

Tired of the stereotype that drunk women are bathroom angels who will compliment your hair instead of assaulting you like a scary drunk man would:

Tired of people pretending they're safe from abuse just because they're in a queer relationship:

Tired of people pretending men don't get raped:

Oh hello monstrous wave of anxiety get the fuck out of here right fucking now.