Lack of Pharah in Mercy short story disappoints me

Back in 2015 when they were still revealing the heroes for the original roster, McCree was revealed with a tweet saying he thwarted a robbery at a ramenya in Japan. That combined with the fact that Hanzo was the only other male hero revealed already that was “attractive” (which is subjective, I think Hanzo is quite ugly), the MLM shippers latched onto that pairing with the fervor of a crocodile in a death spin.

I don’t get it either, and I’ve been faced with many people trying to argue that it’s canon (how???) or that I’m bad for being against it. They’ve never met, and like BigIronOnHip says, I think McCree would hate Hanzo, if they ever did meet.

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I can see McCree hating Hanzo for what he did to Genji cause Genji suffered more than McCree suffered himself. But I don’t know if McCree knows about Genji’s accident.

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I would assume he could infer, being a blackwatch agent and all.

I assume Genji would have told him, if they were friends (I think it was mentioned that they were).

i always thought mccree was the most agreeable person in blackwatch when he was in it.
it’s never stated if he was, i think it said genji was indifferent towards him
the few interactions while not canon did make me think that they’re friends or on good terms

Hashbro, LEGO, Figma put PharMercy together, because it’s an iconic duo in gameplay since its release. Not just the pros run it in OWL, Blizzard even made a weekly brawl (Justice Rains From Above) where it’s basically No Limits but Pharah & Mercy are only playable characters with some tweaks on ability cooldowns.

I come across Mercy + Widowmaker much more in higher tiers as pro Widows are oppressive. With damage boost, they could abuse full charged body shots and then quick-finish with less-charged body shots on 200 hp heroes. In higher tiers, Pharah could be a troll pick without Mercy because teams are more coordinated and hitscans’ aim are more consistent.

|1| For shipping part, Pharah + Mercy are shipped not just because of their gameplay synergy or they could fly.
Both characters had a small history where they met when young. Fareeha grew up, surrounded by Overwatch members. She dreamt of joining Overwatch by following her mother’s path.
Both characters had strong intentions for making a world better place:

  • Mercy is a pacifist doctor who saves lives.
  • Pharah is a dedicated soldier who protects the innocent. She had a tattoo of the eye of Horus which means To protect.

Some said Justice & Mercy compliment well with each other.

  • Serving Justice with no Mercy = Revenge
  • Showing Mercy with no Justice = Enabling

Both Pharah & Mercy voice actresses love PharMercy based on their interviews. Jeff said his favourite ships were PharMercy & McHanzo in one of his interview clips.

|2| For Mercy & Genji, well Michael Chu is the lead writer and he ships Gency while he retweets a lot of Gency contents on Twitter. Thus, Valentine voicelines are added between Mercy & Genji, while leaving Pharah & Mercy interactions bugged.
I don’t see how both characters relate:

  • Mercy chose to become a doctor to continue her parents’ legacy.
  • Genji chose to live like a playboy during his youth. Instead of taking care of his family business, he spent a lot of time playing video games in Arcade.

Their history is mostly Genji’s life being saved by Overwatch medical team led by Doctor Ziegler.
There’s no lore explanation why Genji was transferred from Blackwatch to Overwatch as he’s part of the OW strike team in Storm Rising. Mccree was more sensible person unless Reyes wanted him to keep working for him.
There’s no lore explanation how Genji became calmer since Retribution. In Retribution, Genji was still naive, impatient who’s filled with rage & depression. He even agreed with Reyes’s decision on killing Antonio.
In gameplay, they are polar opposite to each other as Genji’s role is to target Supports, while friendly Genji spams for heals in the other side of the map.

|3| Lastly, I don’t understand about McHanzo ship, but I’m fine with it somehow. My friend thinks people shipped them because they both are hot guys, thus put them together. I find Hanzo was a serious person and he didn’t seem interest in dating. Based on the Valentine voicelines, although voicelines aren’t stricly cannon:

Genji: “Still no chocolates, brother?”
Hanzo: “Those are your amusements, not mine.”

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From what I understand, their romance has built up so far as: Mercy saved Genji’s life, Genji is very thankful to her, Mercy and Genji were often the only ones who would stay up late on base and Genji enjoyed her very strong coffee, also Both were very lonely bc a lot of people in Overwatch didn’t care to listen to Angela’s dry research talk and Genji didn’t really have friends in Overwatch (nor blackwatch) but Genji liked to listen to Angela and found her research talk comforting because she saved his life, and then after Havana mission they went on their first date at dinner together, I am assuming they’ve either been together since or dated until Genji went off on his world traveling adventure to find himself, and they kept touch through letters and are gonna resume their relationship in the events of Overwatch 2. Liked the corny flirting lines in Storm Rising? Well there’s a lot more where that came from!!!

Also Phar/Mercy became a ship because they both fly and have wing/bird motifs, their (non-canon) voice lines are fairly amicable and imply teamwork, and it was speculated they were close friends but apparently that has been disproven. Phar/Mercy will always stay just a fanon ship and gameplay strategy, but that doesn’t make the community of people who ship it any less valid, I mean they are still making content even after it’s quite clear it’s not going to be canon. But a ship will live as long as there are people to keep it sailing. and honestly all I really care about is if they’ll so much as hint as Pharah being LGBT (I doubt they will but it would be nice) lol

and maybe Phar/Mercy seems like a baseless ship but at least they have the common visual motif, similar morals and voicelines… McHanzo is literally so random to me and no matter how hard I try to mute McHanzo artists on twitter they always find a way into my feeed!!! i feel trapped!! >:(

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I thought genji just didn’t care about reyes’s decision to kill antonio tbh
all he really speaks on it if I recall is he asks McCree why he cares, felt like to me he was just like “Eh, don’t care” about the situation.

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They relate through a relationship that formed via circumstance, not some innate symbiotic connection. What you described between Pharah and Mercy is a relation between two concepts, not characters in a story. That connection isn’t necessary for a romance between two characters. Furthermore, Pharah and Mercy can have that connection in concept and future lore without it developing into a romance.

While we may still see this one day, it isn’t especially necessary. Genji is a versatile agent with superhuman abilities that can be deployed in pretty much any scenario. There’s no reason not to use him.

There is. They don’t tell us directly, but Storm Rising’s dialogue indicates he’s very fond of his teammates, Mercy especially, who he spends quite a bit of time with. As I said before, Genji’s development doesn’t need to be this one-dimensional story where he’s perpetually angry all the way up until he meets Zen and pulls a 180 out of nowhere. He can have people that influence him positively along the way while he still struggles to accept his cybernetic body.

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There’s one during the first phrase of Retribution PVE

  • Genji: I believe you found an expedient solution, commander.
  • Reyes: Hear that ? The ninja agrees with my decision.

Another one, again Breaching phrase

  • Genji : Why are you so concerned about one death, McCree ? It’s not the first time we’ve had to kill.
  • McCree : This was an execution.

Genji later that night while drinking coffee with Angela: “McCree made a big deal out of killing Antonio, total drama queen”

Angela, the pacifist that later left OW precisely because she didn’t approve of their methods: “Haha you’re so right husbando, thank god my man feels no remorse about being an assassin”

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Mchanzo is backed up by a lot of fandom padding. I don’t consume it, but since it’s everywhere, it’s hard not to notice.

They don’t share many voicelines and have never met in-person, but you can be sure, fans came up with their own. I’m worried once more stuff is revealed about Hanzo, he’ll turn out a completely different person from what people imagined and everyone will cry “retcon”.

Honestly, I’m annoyed at McHanzo. It tends to leak into other content. It’s incredibly hard to find good McCree fanfiction that doesn’t feature Hanzo. Heck, it often seeps into content that’s not about either of them.

The highest rated r76 fic on ao3 is actually a Mchanzo fic and r76 I supposed to be popular

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Overwatch fights criminals. The only way to stop criminals from making violence is using violence aganist them - less or more. And Angela Ziegler support that cause there’s no way around aganist criminals. Violence is not kiling only, it can be loud warning as well.

Overwatch used Genji’s dragon skills as also Angela’s knowledge. It can be one of their connections.

Genji joined Overwatch cause he wanted to walk again and was angry at Shimada clan for what they did to him. In Retribution Genji could kill criminal without reason and didn’t feel bad. He didn’t think about himself. In Storm Rising Genji felt bad because of being cyborg. He thought about stopping criminals as right way to stop violence, not as way of release of his anger at Shimada.

Ziegler joined Overwatch to make her own medical research Jack promised her. She didn’t know what the future will do with her work. She has the right to be angry at Overwatch.

Joining Overwatch part, I find Genji & Mccree have things in common instead.

  • They both were formerly part of criminal organizations (Genji - Shimada Clan; Mccree - Deadlock gang).

  • Overwatch offered them to join as they saw their potential skills (Genji - Ninjutsu; Mccree - Marksmanship). If they refuse the offer, Genji would be left paralyzed & Mccree would rot in prison.

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And I guess that’s why these 3 are close friends.

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you have a point with the first one, forgot about that interaction, but I was thinking more of the second one. always thought the second one was just him not caring about it

Oh, look at that! I didn’t make stuff up :roll_eyes:

You know that’s a lie made by people from tumblr to villainize a fan base? That happens all the time in fandoms, and people believe it. There was no evidence that it happened, not even a tweet. If this was true it’s a serious crime, and the person would’ve been punished for it.

Ps: it’s realy funny to see that the “I don’t care about shipping!!1” people all seems to have very strong oppinions about shipping, lol

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I am open to whatever Overwatch Team writers will do with heroes in lore. I can’t be so open?

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Alright I admit I’ve never actually seen like… hard evidence of people sending michael chu death threats like in the mail or email or anything. I shouldn’t have said that without actually looking into it first, that was careless of me. But semi-related, I do remember clearly seeing with my own two eyes on twitter, from pharmercy shippers: people @ing and quote retweeting Michael chu’s tweets around Storm Rising and saying some very not nice things that I can’t repeat here (sorry I know that sounds sus I would send a link if I could, but a few involved making fun of his marriage and I think his mother’s death?) and recently someone made a thread (it was proposed to be out of concern for his safety but still) on how someone could hire an assassin to kill the writers for canonizing a ship some people don’t like. I say this as someone who is a big fan of the Phar/Mercy ship, that I know this is a very small minority of toxic people, but everyone will look for any excuse to hate shippers (especially wlw) and it makes me sad to see this small minority casting such a blight on the community. I can’t deny that there are toxic and very outspoken Pharmercy shippers (there are definitely toxic shippers in every ship community too) and if anything they’re only pushing the possibility of their ship being looked upon in favor away. I wish they would realize that.

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There is toxic people everywhere, I’m not saying there isn’t. Just queue for comp :crazy_face:

It’s just that fan in social media throw around the “Someone sent a death threat” so much, that it trivializes the severity of it. Just for the sake of vilifying a certain group. It’s irreponsible by the people that created the rumor and by those who spread it, because they become accomplice of the lie.