shoutout to everyone who followed me expecting reblogs and got Daniel’s 24/7 R76 Talkshow
niceteeth-nastysmile replied to your post “WHILE i’m mad here’s another hot take: i hate hate HATE how the r76...”
My biggest peeve with the fandom behind this ship is the massively dense amount of people that oversimplify both of these characters, strip them down to basic cookie-cutter yaoi boys and completely disregard what makes them interesting. They're old vets with (likely severe) PTSD, vigilante complexes, life altering physical trauma (including the super soldier program) -- dude I could write an essay. The dynamic is awesome but everyone ignores ittt
yeah, I have problems with this too, like, they have one of the most unique relationships in the whole game and people waltz into the ship and create content that feels like it’s not even r76. and i mean. i cant really fault people for wanting their weird porn; you see that in all fandoms, all communities as a matter of fact, and if someone wants to write porn of the 2 hot dudes they saw in passing in ovw fanart that they know nothing about... well I’m not going to try and stop them, but I can and will laugh at their characterization, lmao.
but even so, there’s some people who are like... dedicated to the characters to an astounding degree and yet they insist on writing them so weirdly. i think one of my main problems with r76 fic, to say it in the fewst words possible, is people write them too nice. the ‘sad dads’ thing is cute and all, but i think people take it too far sometimes. they’re 50+ year old war vets, war machines, who are tired and violent and angry and pissed at the world that ate them up and spat them out when they outlived their usefulness and people...... write them as cute dads. I mean. I wont tell them no. but. it feels like a disservice to their characters.
(plus people who hate angst and love r76. it’s weird. like walking into a knife museum and saying you hate knives. why are you here if you hate knives???)
pcturtl replied to your post:
“WHILE i’m mad here’s another hot take: i hate hate HATE how the r76...”
A comparison we can safely make is Gabe tends to be a logic driven planner, while Jack tends to act more on instinct (with Overwatch/Ana/Gabe being 80% of his impulse control). Something so many people give Jack guff for is that he *hesitated* to save the girl, but given the choice, Gabe probably would have prioritized the objective. Disagree about the intentionally nonlethal ult though since it's limited to body shots. He probably wouldn't care if it killed them or not.
yeah, that is one of the few assumptions we can make, though the intricacies of that dynamic (ie. how it changed over the years, to what extent jack/gabriel are impulsive/tactical, etc) aren’t so clear, but I mean nothing is clear in this fuckin lore.
and YES that was actually what I saw that made me mad in the first place. Someone was saying 76 kills all over the place and reaper only shoots at those who shoot first (which is. wrong?? hes an assassin? do people know what an assassin does?). and it was so wildly wrong i got mad. lol.
And yeah, Gabe is tactical to an extreme degree. I’m quoting off the top of my head here, but in-game, his kill line for every non-overwatch player is ‘that was a tactical error’ which i think speaks volumes. Hana. Lucio. Fareeha == tactical errors in his head. doesn’t even refer to them as people. (and i think jack has a similar line but it isnt used in the same context? I’d have to check.)
He’s very tactical & very apathetic towards the world, I mean the only things I can say for sure that he cares/cared about are jack, ana, and blackwatch,and maybe jesse. honestly cant say if he ever gave a shit about overwatch, and my guess leans towards he didn’t.
working somewhere for 30 years doesn’t mean you care about it as an organization, you know? the same goes for talon: we have 0 proof he cares about talon either.
people try to use the bit in infiltration where he doesnt shoot That Dumbass who knocked himself out as proof of his goodness (whatever that means exactly) and its like... That Dumbass put himself out of the equation. why waste a shell on him if he wasnt interfering with the mission any more? reaper isnt excessively violent, as much as he cackles about death and whatever, and it seems like if something doesnt directly benefit him or benefit something he cares about, he doesnt care whether that thing or person lives or not. (like overwatch, like that guy who knocked himself out, like the recall agents. he just doesnt care)
re: the jack ult, correct me if im wrong but i dont think that just because an ult works a certain way in-game doesnt mean it works that exact way in the cinematics. like genji cant actually deflect hanzo’s ult with his own ult the way he does in dragons.
and i think that’s less jack caring about the ~*sanctity of life~* or giving a personal rat’s ass about los muertos jackasses, and more of an instinctual thing for him. like in the beginning of hero, when the one guy calls ‘come out and fight perro’ jack couldve easily shot all 3 of those guys and called it a day from his hiding spot. it’d be easier and faster and less of a risk for him. but instead he comes charging out, gun under one arm, and punches one of them in the face.
but at the same time we also saw him kill at least the guy with the minigun, and probably a couple others. off the top of my head, i think only half of them walked drove away from that confrontation alive. if jack can get out of a situation without killing i think he would, but i also think he wouldnt hesitate to kill if it came to that. especially when it comes to ‘bad guys’ like los muertos
i think i’ve mentioned this before, but gabe’s and jack’s respective fighting styles can be summed up with ‘gabe=shooty shooty die’ and ‘jack= smacky smacky concussion’ with exceptions, of course
