Fans Have Turned Overwatch's Roadhog Into A Shy, Emo Teen

Overwatch's Roadhog, the wheezing, porcine tank from Hell, is my favourite video game character of 2016. The rush of visceral win I feel when I hook an enemy and blast scrap metal in their face is unparalleled. I love it all: The way his Scrap Gun bounces up and down when he lumbers to the objective; his full-throated, hacking cough; his maniacal laughter throughout his Whole Hog ultimate move; even his tacky stomach tattoo of a pig on fire. By Jxnkk

But despite my love for Roadhog, I've still feel like I don't know him. To fans, D.Va is a Cheeto-snacking gamer brat, Zarya is an emblem of homosexuality in Russia, Soldier 76 is the absent father and Tracer is... butts?

Recently, I dug into Roadhog's cannon and discovered that his true name is Mako Rutledge, and he has a lot of baggage. An Australian, Mako's country was ravaged by omnics, Overwatch's robots, displacing himself and his family. He decided to rebel against the omnics along with the Australian Liberation Front. When the Australian countryside was again ravaged, but this time by a chemical explosion at an omnic factory, he lost it. That's when he put on his mask, found his motorcycle ("hog") and got the hell out.

What we know about Roadhog's personal life is limited, but we do know that he's quite close to the hero Junkrat, a crazed, cackling explosive fiend. Roadhog agreed to be his bodyguard and, together, they embarked on an international robbery and destruction spree.

Before Roadhog became a "one-man apocalypse", before the omnics destroyed his home, he had to have been someone else. There must have been some humanity in him. That's probably why fans have extrapolated on what we know — he has a ponytail and tattoos, suffered a hard life and is close to Junkrat — and turned him into a gay emo high-schooler. As Roadhog says, "Life is pain, so is death," a line easily recognisable from, probably, a My Chemical Romance song.

Beneath Roadhog's terrifying spiked armour is a molten core of sadness. An Overwatch fan named Yazzdonut searched that molten core for vestiges of Roadhog's humanity and unearthed emo, teenaged Roadhog, complete with black nail polish, gagues, dyed hair, hoodies and his twiggy boyfriend, Junkrat. After their headcannon proliferated widely throughout the Tumblr realm, other fans followed, clearly resonating with emo, teen Roadhog. Below is a sampling of fans' darling, one-man apocalypse, never again to be taken seriously outside of Warped Tour.émon-go-yazzdonut


    This is news to me and I've been keeping up to date on the overwatch stuff.
    I knew fans were pairing Hanzo and McCree.
    Also Roadhog is the cause of the apocolyse, hence the saying "I'm a one man apocolyse" because he irradiated the landscape when he destroyed the omnic leader. I don't even know why I'm typing this, they won't read it.

    Why must people ruin everything?

      I hate overwatch's fan base so much. It's like Doctor Who, a mediocre but largely harmless show made utterly insufferable by a fanbase that seems determined to appear completely ridiculous to everyone around them.

        You'll probably find this is largely with any fanbase... it seems people need to "ship" people in order to get something out of it, rather than say enjoying the story and the various layers that are contained within (I mean with Overwatch it's a team based FPS, but DAMN the layers hidden in the background pieces). Seriously this shit has been happening in the Anime community for years.

        Give me intrigue over relationship drama any day. Then again I'm a cynical old fart so what do I know?

      How have people ruined it?

      I mean I find head canon and fan fiction pretty weird too, but it has no actual impact on the characters in reality. (Unless you let it)

    God fucking dam it!

    "that persons has a male friend so HE MUST BE GAY YOU'RE DISCRIMINATING IF YOU DISAGREE WITH ME" - Tumblr

    Tumblr' obsession with gay characters is why we can never have nice things

    I was expecting it to be a lot worse judging from the title but its mostly just harmless headcanons and cute art about an au where he's a teenager?
    I mean if you really want to go into how shitty the fandom is you should look into the constant whtewashing and stereotyping characters of color.
    Just sayin

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