GEEKY I HAVE OFTEN ASKED FOR THIS AND YET EVERYONE IS BUSY BEING ANTI-SEMITIC HOMOPHOBES I GUESS
Tag: filed for later
Pharah and Tracer, over drinks.
Full overwatch universe is here!
“May I buy you a drink?” Pharah slid onto the stool beside Tracer in the hotel bar, gingerly adjusting the sling around her shoulder.
“You can bloody well fuck off, is what you can do.” She wasn’t sure she felt as angry as she sounded–sometimes, for Tracer, when the emotions were strong, sadness and fear and anger all got bound up.
“I deserve that.” She stared forward to the back of the bar, as Tracer stirred her gin and tonic.
“Can I get you something?” The bartender looked at her, hoping she would order so he could back to pointedly avoiding the two of them.
Pharah nodded. “A Labatt, would be fine, thank you.”
“S’not a beer,” Tracer stared into a drink, “it’s a facsimile of a sham of a beer, it is.”
“It suits me fine.”
“Lots of things suit you fine, that aren’t fine, in anyone else’s mind.”
They sat there silently for several minutes, the buzz of the hockey game humming joylessly above them, the drink like ash in their mouths, both wanting desperately to say something, both standing on the precipice, just trying to take the courage and the humility to take that last step.
Pharah tried to crack a smile. “I haven’t seen you this quiet since McCree shot you. It is offputting.”
“Bet you wish ‘e’d ‘ave finished the job.I go back to England Tuesday.” She took another sip of her drink. “The RAF said they’d ‘ave me.” She tossed her Overwatch badge onto the bar. “There. You got what it is you came for, no need to darken me doorway.” She took a deeper breath than she intended, and closed her eyes against the pain of it.
Pharah turned her badge over in her free hand. “I did not come for this.” She slid it back toward Tracer. “It is not mine to take. Overwatch is as much yours, as it is mine.”
Tracer looked away from Pharah, staring very hard at a fascinating beer advertisement on the wall. “You didn’t?”
“And if McCree had succeeded, it would have been a dark day. In the interest of an accurate record.” she fiddled with the edge of her glass. “I think you should come home. Angela and Winston are beside themselves, and even Dva does not seem to be taking her usual pleasure in destroying her enemies on the internet. 76 is more reclusive than usual, and all of this is disrupting–” She stopped herself. “I would like you to come home.I apologize. For hurting you. I will leave, if–”
Tracer kept her back to Pharah, but there was a slight choke in her voice. “I committed treason against me own team, against every oath I ever took, and against you.”
“You made a mistake.”
Tracer sniffled. “She left me, at the end, if that makes you ‘appy. Didn’t matter any’ow.”
Pharah shook her head. “It is does not.”
Tracer turned back to Pharah, head downcast, tears streaming down her face. “I’m so sorry, Fareeha. I know she killed your Mum, and I don’t know what I thinking, and when you found us I was tired of being pushed around by the likes of anyone, and you were proper steamed, and I just popped off like I always do.” She gave a sob and a hearty wince of pain, and Pharah wish she would stop, before she joined her in the show of military might crying over drinks. “I just–”
Pharah placed her good hand on Tracer’s shoulder. “Enough.” She gave a low chuckle. “I perhaps should not have lead with calling you a traitor and throwing you into the hallway.”
Tracer looked up at her. “Not much an ‘uman resources department, us two.” She nodded to Pharah’s shoulder. “What’d I do? Win didn’t tell me about that piece of it.”
“Broke my collarbone. It is incredibly painful and will take weeks to heal.You should be proud.”
Tracer wiped her eyes and gave a smile. “I’d laugh, but you cracked me ribs and everything ‘urts. “Ad a concussion for three days.”
“Lena.” That got Tracer’s attention, and her eyebrow arched as she looked at Pharah. “Will you come?”
Tracer searched Pharah’s face in her constantly-moving way. “Can you forgive me? It’s over between me and ‘er, really.”
“Of course I forgive you,” She took a sip of her beer. “You are important to the team. To me. I hope you can say the same, and forgive me also.”
“Fareeha?” She looked at her with wide, hopeful eyes.
“Yes?”
“I’m going to do something that will ‘urt us both.”
“Wha–” before she could finish, Tracer wrapped her in a hug, and Pharah saw spots for a moment as her collarbone moved just slightly. Tracer released her, and laid her head on the bar.
“God, I’m stupid.” She rolled her head to the side, pathetically looking for the bartender as she tried to measure out her breaths and return to normal. “Could use a another one!”
Pharah blinked her eyes a few times, and looked down at Tracer. “Now that you have revived my urge to kill you, may I buy?”
“Honestly, Fareeha, I say we get pissed and call it a day.” she gave the biggest possible sigh she could muster, which wasn’t very large. “Can’t wait to shower without me ‘arness on.”
“But you want to get drunk first?”
“I realize I’ve been out of the ‘ouse a week, Fareeha, but I’m still English.”
Tracer is granted three wishes.
“Now if I wish for me Mum and Dad to be alive again, is that one wish or two? What if I say I wish for me parents to be alive again, that’s one, innit? I don’t think that could rightly count as two, believe that’d come before a court of law and be held up. But wait is this like Aladdin, where I can’t wish for that? I mean that’s me premier wish right out, so it is, but I don’t know if I think Disney movies ‘ave the greatest possible grip on the regulations of the fantastic. Could you make Win ‘uman? Come to think of it, maybe ‘e wouldn’t even want that, and I’m being a bit of an arse’ole, him being a gorilla’s no reason ‘e shouldn’t be treated like a man, ‘e shouldn’t ‘ave to be the one to change, no. Supposing I wish to be grounded in time, like everybody else, but keep me blink? That’s pretty straightforward, maybe that’ll be me first as you and I sort the rest of this out, seems reasonable to m–OH! Can I ask to make everybody just treat Win like a man? See, that’s alright, innit, or is that like making someone fall in love? That’s an Aladdin rule again, I think, though, and the world would fall in love with ‘im, if they weren’t so preoccupied with ‘is being a gorilla, but you you know what else I think–”
The genie threw his hands up, mouth still open, half introduction, and slithered back into the lamp. He could wait another thousand years.
“Maybe she’s not so bad!”
“Excuse me?” Haruka looked as if she were going to pop every blood vessel in her face, then and there.
Mina sighed. “Haruka, how long have you two been going at it? Doesn’t it ever get old?”
Haruka threw up her hands. “Why would it get old? It would only get old if she stopped being such a fucking….ass!”
Mina looked up at her. “Like, you realize Michiru’s not going to leave you for her? Or literally any better option.” There was a flash of hurt in Haruka’s eyes, and Mina patted her arm as they loped toward the park. “I’m kidding. You and Michiru are tailormade for each other, is my point, and Seiya’s not going to get in the way of that.”
“That’s not why i hate her!” Haruka snapped, indicating, to Mina, that it was very likely precisely why she hated her.
“Sure. Well, you don’t have to like her but you better get used to her.” Mina nodded at Haruka, more quietly. “Something big’s coming, Ruka. I think we all know it.” She looked at the sun, just new over the horizon. “And soon, too. We need everyone.”
Haruka ruffled the hair at the back of her neck. “Michiru’s been having dreams. She won’t tell me about what.”
The both paused at the entrance to the park, the morning dew filling the air with the fresh scent of possibility and newness. Mina looked off into the span of verdant green, her mind wandering.
“Everything is about to change.”
She said it with such simple, straightforward placidity that one could have been forgiven for not knowing it was Mina at all. Haruka got this from her, sometimes, this sort of plainspoken talk, stripped off all the glitz and shine that Mina generally offered with every single sentence. Haruka liked it, because she knew it meant Mina trusted her.
But it was hard now, where even Haruka could see the worry on her face, the uncertainty. She didn’t like it when Mina was uncertain. It seemed unnatural.
“We’ll be okay,” Haruka said, as much to herself as to Mina, “We’ve met with tough things before, and we always come out of it.” She stretched her leg behind her, pulling it up to her back. “God that feels good.”
Mina was not sure how to explain to Haruka a feeling she could not quite articulate to herself. She and Rei had whispered about it in the dark, under the covers, Rei still protesting about doing what they had already done, what they had already done a hundred times, each with Rei protesting. It seemed like part of the foreplay now. They had whispered about the darkness that lay ahead. How it felt like the end, in one way or another. A wave was coming, and it was going to take everything with it.
But in some ways, it didn’t make much sense to tell Haruka any of that before her morning run through the park, Mina on her way to some distraction, anything to keep away the feeling of creeping dread that grew stronger every day.
“Sometimes she wakes up screaming,” Haruka interrupted Mina’s thoughts, twisting her wedding ring on her finger. “She keeps asking me if I’m okay.”
Mina looked back at Haruka. I don’t want it to be anyone, but God of any religion who happens to be listening, Haruka’s be one of my last picks. She’s a good person. She tries. Don’t take her.
“We all know Michiru’s future telling’s pretty flexible, bud, it’s far off.” She waved in her hand in a casual way she did not feel.
“Yeah,” Haruka snorted, “she had a dream the other night that Usagi married SEIYA.”
“Glad to know, no matter the circumstances, your priorities never change, Haruka.” She clapped her on the shoulder. “Enjoy your run. I’m gonna head down to that tea shop downtown, I think. Want to meet up for lunch?”
“Sure.” She pulled a sweatband onto her forehead.
“You look incredibly stupid.”
Haruka scowled. “It keeps me from getting sweaty!”
Mina laughed and started down the street. ‘Later, loser. HAVE A NICE RUN, MUFFIN! I HOPE IT’S THE BEST RUN OF YOUR LIFE!”
As the parted ways, on a day that would come to be known as the Incident in the Square, a cloud gathered over the city.
Haruka and Minako, anywhere but here.
There’s still beauty in ruins, Mina had once heard a history teacher say, or thought she had heard her say. She decided it was true, anyway. She decided it was how she was going to live the rest of her very free and unburdened life, the mantle of senshi off of her now, off of all of them. The ones that were left.
She walked down the street to the tiny apartment, a grocery bag in hand. It wasn’t exactly fine dining, how they’d been living lately, but Mina would change that, or try, once she and Haruka got out.
She hadn’t told Usagi yet. How could she? So many people had left already, one way or the other.
They were moving across the country, where Haruka had gotten a little job working in a fish market. It was physical work, and she would like it, and she would be good at it, and in time, she would come to love chatting with the little old ladies doing their shopping. Someday, the scent of salt under her nails would be a thing of joy for her.
Mina would work in a bar–there was always a bar with a place for people like Mina–where the sound of the music and the clinking of the glasses would drown out every thought which had wandered through her mind since that day, the day when freedom had come, but with a price, always with a price.
Maybe in a small town like that, they could actually afford two bedrooms.
Not that Mina resisted, much. There was a comfort in waking up in the dark, and being able to call out, or simply hear Haruka’s slow, easy breathing of a dreamless slumber and know that someone was still here with her. She wasn’t alone. On the hard nights, they simply gave up the idea of their own beds entirely, one piling in with the other, just touching, just enough to know help was there, if you needed it.
They had fought on, her and Haruka, and they were going to get a nice apartment, and decorate it themselves, and she was going to make Haruka laugh more often. They would spend days off on the beach, or maybe in the parks, and lie in the sunshine, and just soak up the incredible luxury of being alive.
They would make it. They’d already made it so far.
But Usagi had to be told, and Mina it would be. Haruka was fighting but fragile, Mina was tougher, and Usagi could cry all she wanted, and would, probably, but there was the strength of steel girders underneath all that. Usagi would be fine. She still had Ami, after all. Ami should take her to Germany, if she still wanted to go. Maybe she’d suggest that. Both of them should go.
The city held too much, the pigeons cooing Michiru’s name, the honked horns like Rei’s irritated barks at some foolish thing Usagi did, the high tower bearing Michiru’s name too much for Haruka. She just stared at the ground, when she passed. Did Usagi see those things too? Did she notice the koi, in the tea garden, with the black tail? How its fins moved through the water like Rei’s hair spread out over silk? Or was it just Mina, and just Haruka, who cuddled on the couch together, eating spaghettios and praying for the morning to come because the nights were just so long.
At least they were going where Usagi could visit. It wasn’t a goodbye forever. They just needed space to breathe. Space to let go of the ways it would never make sense.
Above the apartment entrance, a dove cooed, and a crow cawed, and Mina counted the days.
Mina x Rei, slow dancing
Well,” Mina leaned against a pole next to where Rei stood, the turquoise f her dress more flattering than Mina might have thought it would be, matched perfectly to the bow in Mina’s hair, “I guess those damn kids finally did it.”
Mina looked out to where they swayed happily on the dance floor, Haruka in her grey suit leading Michiru gracefully, in perfect step with each other, as they had been for so many years, the lace of Michiru’s dress dancing across her shoulders in a field of tiny white flowers. They gazed at each other as if no one else existed in all the world, or ever had, and for the first time Mina could remember in years, Haruka seemed peaceful, and Michiru seemed happy.
Rei rolled her eyes. “Of course they did. They’ve been together since we’ve known them. Nevermind that marriage is assimilationist garbage, and that this entire “small” party probably cost the rent for at least two underprivileged families for a year, and–”
“Rei, do you want to dance?” If you had asked Mina if she truly wanted to dance with Rei, or of she simply wanted Rei to shut up, she perhaps could not have answered.
In any case, it proved the ultimate parry to Rei’s thrust, and she stood for a moment, still and unsure of how to respond, just stammering.
Which made Mina realize that she did, in fact, want to dance with her.
“C’mon.” She extended her hand. “It’s a good song.”
It was slow and soothing, like being rocked on the sea, and it was hard to resist the happy couples swaying together like little boats, in worlds of two, even if Rei herself would claim over and over that she wanted no part of such a thing.
Rei held her hand out, before her mind could stop her, the heat of her palm against the softness of Mina’s. They started out the dance floor, just standing for a moment, as the couples circled around them.
Mina touched her hip, and drew her in. “We have to get closer.” The spice and peach of them rose and met on the air, twining together in a single scent.
“Who’s leading?” It was a good question.
Mina never took her eyes from Rei’s face. “We’ll take turns.” She gently moved Rei into a sway. “I asked, so I’ll start.” She smiled up at Rei.
It was nothing like anything between them had been before. It was gentle and slow and their feet fell in time with the other, and Mina switched to follow as the chorus raised, and it was so easy for them to fall back into step, dancing nothing like Haruka and Michiru, something wholly their own but no less beautiful for it, two separate dancers moving as one.
The music stopped, and they stood, in the middle of the floor, still touching, almost dazed, as if they had seen their futures lying here beneath the elegant decorations and swelling music of a wedding that did not suit them, the champagne clinks the wedding bells of a world far off. Both wanting to pull away, but drawn like magnets to each other, impossible to separate.
“KISS HER!” screamed a more than reasonably drunk Usagi, as she leaned over the table, her formal dress scraping the frosting off her piece of cake.
This seemed to reverse Rei and Mina’s polarity in an instant, and they stepped away from each other, still in perfect time.
Michiru chuckled and smiled knowingly at Rei. “Should I even bother to toss the bouquet, or simply give it to you?”
Rei scowled at her, and crossed her arms. “Marriage is stupid.”
THANKS DOC I DIDN’T REALIZE HOW MUCH I NEEDED THAT IN MY LIFE UNTIL NOW
Ok so Boris is Mina but is Rosie Hotaru or Usagi?? Inquiring minds need to know. Also omg I’m fucking dying imagining Steele as Seiya. IT’S TOO PERFECT.
A Miracle
@yamadara87 commissioned, this month: Traditional Happy Outers Family, with Human Setsuna, doing Dapper Day at Disneyland Paris. I hope you like it, and thank you for all your support!
Michiru did not, as a general rule, enjoy themed events, amusement parks, and certainly no confluence of the two. Even as a child, she had set herself apart from such nonsense, as she had started considering it at a frightfully young age, and never took to it as others seemed to.
A dress-up event at Disneyland would not have been her choice, and, in fact, had not been. But when the votes are three against one, and you are steering most of the trip to Paris, certain concessions must be made, and it was for this reason Michiru found herself in an outfit she would only ever describe as an overdone costume, ready to enter Disneyland Paris.
You break a lot of things.
You broke your tooth running down the street to the playground. Your grandma told you to be careful, but you weren’t, because you never are, and she had to take you two hours across town to the free clinic to get it pulled.
You broke your mother’s love, somehow, someway, and she was left tolerating you, other mothers making lunches and braiding hair, but you were too loud, too boyish, too impulsive, too something you never really figured out, for her to feel that love for you.
You broke Tama’s airplane, even though she asked you to be careful with it, because you were playing too hard, and you weren’t paying attention, and she cried, because she loved that plane.
You broke a boy’s heart, who thought you loved him back, because he was too blind to see, and you only thought about yourself and the aching loneliness inside of you, and it seemed like enough to accept, until it wasn’t, and he was left wondering what he’d done wrong, when it was you that was wrong, always you.
You broke the Senshi’s goodwill, because you refused their extended hand, convinced you had to do it yourself. Did you even want to? You were dismissive and cruel because you wanted to be the hero, but a hero comes from goodness, and all you have is determination.
You broke Michiru’s violin, tripping as you walked into the living room, a long crack across the back, and Michiru had been so mad, because her violin was a beautiful thing, that she loved, and took months to get fixed, and it never sounded the same.
Haruka looked up at Hotaru and Pluto, fading away, the sparkle of their soul fading into black.
You broke your promise.
Because all you do is break things.
I’m trying to slot the Inners into RPG types, but I’m stuck on Minako and Rei. Usagi is defense (packs a fuck of a punch, sure, but she’s more Bastion than Soldier 76), Ami is support (a Symmetra kind of support), and Mako is undoubtedly the tank, but I’m not sure if Minako is dps and Rei is attack, or vice versa. Help please?
Hmm, I think I’m having trouble figuring out what kind of archetype system you’re using here. Your examples are all Overwatch, but I’m struggling to follow you there. For one, there are only four classes in Overwatch and five Senshi (which you know, there’s no law against doubling up, but you seem to be striving for a unique class for each). Then you mention Usagi as defense but not like Soldier 76 defense, but he’s an offensive character in the game not defensive. And I’m not really sure then what you mean as the basic difference, from a character perspective, between “attack” and “dps” (dps being typically offensive-style characters).
BASICALLY I’M CONFUSED ALL AROUND HERE. So I’ll just try to answer the basic question of “Which RPG archetypes do you think best fit the Inner Senshi?” All my opinion, of course.
Totally with you on Mako as a tank class. The first line of offense and defense, looking to be the damage absorbing meat shield. It doesn’t mean she doesn’t pack a punch on her own, but sucking up the damage so the others don’t have to is her main deal. (If we look to parallel her with Overwatch character powersets, I’d say Mako is Reinhardt.)
I think Usagi is more a healer/cleric type: useful for offense in specific circumstances, but best at buffing/supporting the others and keeping them on their feet. This is obviously going a bit outside the “Usagi kills everyone all the time” thing, and keeping more in line of how I think she’d fit into a combat situation if it weren’t her name in the title. (In terms of Overwatch, I think Usagi’s powerset aligns best with Mercy. She’s squishy as hell, too, and prone to screaming when anyone so much as breathes on her.)
Ami, I see as defense. She does have some offensive capabilities of course, but mostly where she thrives is in area effects and crowd control. Mist clouds, freezing enemies. Manipulating the environment (and information/strategy) is Ami’s domain. (For Overwatch, it feels a bit like a gimme, but I’d have to go with Mei.)
Bringing us to your initial question marks: Rei and Minako.
I see Rei as pure offense. A bit better off than your “glass cannon” types, she can certainly take a hit or two. But Rei’s primary battlefield purpose is to TORCH FUCKING EVERYTHING. This is the woman whose first response to every slightest inconvenience is “BURNING MANDALA”. Mako may be first on the line, but it’s usually because she had to run faster than Rei to get the fuck in front of her. (In Overwatch terms, I’d pair Rei with Pharah’s powerset for the range and explosive potential.)
This leaves us with Minako. who I’d best translate into a bardic type. Minako’s got the most versatility of the Inners, and like bards, she can thrive in an offense or defense capacity as needed. Whether it’s a well-timed Love Me Chain to pull an ally out of the way or a Crescent Beam to the enemy’s face, Minako can do it all. (Her Overwatch counterpart best fits as Lucio, I think. Particularly in the right hands, he can be invaluable support or a devastating attacker. He’s also consistently passed up for the glory of Play of the Game, SOMETHING TO WHICH MINAKO DEEPLY RELATES.)
Rhio's Tunglr Stuff 