Just Let Me Die - A Widowmaker Story
is one drop of the Fanfic Fuel that was created by the lack of plot in Overwatch.
Tropes in Just Let Me Die - A Widowmaker Story
- Anti-Gravity: The "lift" technology seen both in the game and referenced in-story. A Talon vehicle loses one lift and is rendered immobile, but Overwatch's Infantry Fighting Vehicles are tougher, able to maneuver despite losing one of six lifts.
- Arson Murder And Life Saving: Fareeha Amari broke protocol by trying to take on a fighting vehicle on foot, but she succeeded so Gérard's scolding turns into praise.
- Awesome Personnel Carrier: Averted. Overwatch decided to replace lightly-armed APCs with heavily-armed Infantry Fighting Vehicles for VIP transport.
- Black Comedy: Talon's chemical injectors emit a small "beep" after they've completely emptied their lethal chemical into the target.
- Call-Back: Amélie's fear of spiders, mentioned in an animated short, is explained here—she watched a spider devour a butterfly she'd raised from a caterpillar.
- Call-Forward: Talon's list of missions for their new agent mentions stealing Doomfist's gauntlet, which was shown to be a failure thanks to Tracer and Winston in the Overwatch cinematic trailer. Her handlers are also aware that "near-death experiences" might bring back the old Amélie, even if only for a few secondsnote
- Catchphrase: In a case of Futureshadowing, Fareeha Amari tells Lacroix to "Put your security in my hands" (which is her default voice line in Overwatch.)
- Celebrity Voice Actor/As Herself: Lena Oxton voices Tracer on MorningWatch, but ceases to do so after both a public campaign and her own evolving belief that the overly-flattering portrayal of Overwatch in the show does children a disservice.
- Cold-Blooded Torture: Talon's treatment of Amélie Lacroix—waterboarding, sleep deprivation (audio/lights), questionable "medical" tests, constant temperature fluctuations, and psychological games.
- Continuity Nod: Symmetra drops a present by that is an attempt to win favor with Overwatch in Paris on behalf of Vishkar.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Overwatch doesn't like Vishkar, believing them to be this. That doesn't stop Blackwatch from dealing with them, however.
- Crapsaccharine World: Even with the fantastical advances under Technobabble below, kids still live on the streets, governments pour most of their money into Overwatch at the expense of everything else, and society in general has tipped toward militarism, driven by fear of Omnics (among other reasons).
- Crazy-Prepared: Overwatch condition the non-action Nice Girl wife who doesn't even know anything important to resist torture...just in case.
- Dreaming of Things to Come: Amélie betrays everyone she knows in a dream, including her own husband.
- Doomed by Canon/Foregone Conclusion: Amélie Lacroix is twisted into the assassin Widowmaker.
- Evil Is Petty: In addition to kidnapping Amélie, Talon also ensures every plant in her greenhouse dies.
- Face Death with Dignity: Gérard's realization why his wife acted so strangely comes about two seconds before she kills him, and upon this he resigns himself to the fact.
- False Flag Operation: Talon pulls two, both involving Vishkar. One is a Noodle Incident in which their agents dress as anti-Omnic extremists to steal Vishkar technology. The other uses the technology gained from the first to trick Amélie into thinking it's Vishkar who is holding her prisoner.
- Fighting from the Inside: Oh boy, does she try, but we all know
where it's going... She manages to control how she kills her husband—hoping that a chemical injection will prove cleaner than a rifle shot. She's wrong, and he dies in agony. - Futureshadowing: Anyone familiar with Overwatch already knows the basics of what happens in this story; it's just the how that is being depicted here.
- Good Cop/Bad Cop: Amélie accuses her tormenters (who she believes to be Vishkar) of playing this game. The person interrogating her confirms it.
- Gratuitous French: Averted. One: The characters are actually French, living in Paris to boot. Two: The phrases used aren't just stuck there for effect; they actually make sense.
- He Who Fights Monsters: Amélie believes Overwatch is dangerously close to this trope, if not already fallen into it (Blackwatch), but she does concede even Blackwatch is not as bad as her current captors.
- Hollywood Mid-Life Crisis: Averted—an actual crisis develops when Gérard thinks he's losing his wife. He does sensible things, like checking himself in with a counselor and moving his wife's (discreet) appointment at Overwatch up despite being married to a significantly younger woman who could be called a Trophy Wife based on looks alone (see below).
- Hope Spot: Gérard is told that super-scientist Winston and temporally-displaced Tracer will search for his lost wife. However, nothing comes of it.
- I Die Free: Subverted. Amélie certainly tries, but it turns out the chemical she injected herself with was part of the plan all along—she just moved up the timetable. After she kills her husband, Amélie tries again by jumping off her house's roof. She fails, and Talon reels her in.
- Improbable Aiming Skills: Fareeha Amari "has her mother's eyes" (read: aim) by pulling off a difficult shot against an enemy infantry fighting vehicle.
- Instant Sedation: Played with, though as noted on the trope page some Real Life sedatives can act in "a few seconds" (which is presumably the type Talon filled Amélie's greenhouse with). Also see Evil Is Petty for the other effect of their stun gas.
- Interrupted Suicide: Amélie tries to throw herself off her house. She knows it probably won't kill her, but hopes that it will do enough damage that Talon will give up. Talon, of course, has other ideas.
- The Last Of These Is Not Like The Others: Overwatch will search every "desert, rainforest, city, and monastery" for Gérard's lost wife (presumably looking for those Elaborate Underground Bases).
- Meaningful Name: "Widowmaker" earns her name by making a widow of herself. She also receives a package from "Birdclaw Corporation" that begins her descent into Talon work.
- Monumental Damage: It's implied the Omnic Crisis destroyed or damaged Mount Rushmore, the Old Bailey, and the pyramids.
- Most Common Superpower: Deliberate choice by Talon with the plunging neckline, even though it prevents the suit's thermal concealment from working as designed.
- Narrative Profanity Filter: Amélie's thoughts became a "roiling boil of unprintable words" when thinking of Vishkar.
- Nice Girl: Amélie has no combat training whatsoever, meaning that when she decides to take drastic action the best she can do is bodyslam a technician wheeling a toxic cart. She is even downgraded to "Non-Threat" by her kidnappers after they realize this.
- O.C. Stand-in: By necessity since not much information is given about Gérard other than "he is the husband of Widowmaker who she killed." Widowmaker herself doesn't have much pre-conversion characterization either.
- One Bullet Left: Enforced. Talon gives Widowmaker one bullet. So when she completes her mission, then tries to kill herself, no such luck!
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Adding to Gérard's suspicions, Amélie seems to no longer be interested in the children they'd pseudo-adopted or her greenhouse. Even said kids pick up on a change. Eventually, Gérard figures it means Amélie is no longer interested in being his wife. He's aware that you can't count on Divorce Is Temporary, realizing "once you used the 'd' word, you couldn't take it back."
- Opposites Attract: The chapter title even says as much—Amélie is a museum conservator who at a minimum distrusts Overwatch while Gérard works as a counterterrorism agent for the very organization Amélie dislikes.
- Overranked Soldier: Downplayed; Fareeha Amari (future "Pharah") is noted to be "impressive" for her age; her mother is already a Living Legend In-Universe anyway.
- Precision F-Strike: Amélie does NOT like the food she is given, saying that wants to leave the "Vishkar" facility and never eat "merde" (shit) like this again.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Somewhat misdirected, though not unjustified. Amélie gives Gérard an earful for his hesitance to approve her Protocol 37 request, blasting Overwatch as an obsessive consumer of government funds "while everything else goes to ruin."
- Running Gag: In-Universe, "-Watch" gets attached to a lot of things, often as a marketing tie-in. YOURWatch action figures, the MorningWatch Show Within a Show, and the very original "Watchers" group that presents itself as a community check on Overwatch. Even the kids who help out Amélie get in on it, calling themselves "GreenWatch" (they do take care of plants...).
- Shout-Out: Wouldn't be a proper fanfic of a Blizzard work without them.
- The work's title alludes to the anguished cries of one Phil Coulson during his time in the T.A.H.I.T.I. program.
- Raptora MkII suits use Backlash rockets as their main armament.
- Amélie quotes Yoda at one point ("Mind what you have learned, save you it can"), even going so far as to think about a "short green alien who talked in riddles."
- Amélie's birthday is November 7, the day Overwatch was announced in Real Life.
- Amélie's anniversary is May 24, the day Overwatch released to the public.
- Talon loaded Amélie with the Trigger Phrase "Would you kindly..."
- Some of Amélie's last thoughts before killing her husband are hoping that he will 'Run, run away and never return'.
- Show Within a Show: The Saturday-Morning Cartoon "MorningWatch" widely consumed by kids In-Universe. Regarded as propaganda (at least initially) by a suspicious Amélie Labelle, though she does use its overly-idealistic portrayal to take a jab at Gérard Lacroix's refusal to process additional Protocol 37 paperwork.
- Slap-Slap-Kiss: How Gérard and Amélie first got to know each other—she filed paperwork for compensation as a result of "unacceptable damage to uninvolved civilian property" caused by an Overwatch operation; he was the person (un)lucky enough to have to respond.
- Street Urchin: Amélie is warned about a roving group of these who might make trouble for her shop. Sure enough, she finds five kids running around in her new greenhouse, tipping plants and making messes.
- Stuff Blowing Up: Justified in that Overwatch doesn't want anyone getting their hands on technology from a downed aircraft. Not that this makes Amélie any happier to see even more of her museum destroyed in the process.
- Survival Mantra: Amélie comes up with one to resist Talon's Cold-Blooded Torture—it involves her name, her plants, and her birthday.
- Take Our Word for It: Whatever insults Amélie's mind cooked up while under Cold-Blooded Torture aren't detailed, but she "woke up choking on bits of her own vomit."
- Technobabble: Amélie is disgusted by the notion that the world can create a genetically-enhanced gorilla scientist who proceeds to invent a "chronal accelerator" but kids still live on the streets. She also overhears a conversation between scientists involving "lengthy words" that made no sense to her.
- There Are No Therapists: Averted. Gérard makes an appointment with an Overwatch psychologist, but gets punted to the back of a line due to lack of serious symptoms or evidence suggesting anything wrong with Amélie. Once she blows off the GreenWatch kids, he works to get her visit moved up.
- Title Drop: Amélie hopes the chemical she injects herself with will "just let me die."
- Trigger Phrase: After being tortured, injected, and modified by Talon, Amélie has one that doubles as a Shout-Out.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: Amélie is shown a video of her helpers saying things no kid should say, such as comparing her to an image of a presumably naked woman in a "magazine no kid his age should see." One of the kids still supports her, but the others torment him by implying he's at minimum the result of an affair. Subverted—it's all an illusion cooked up by Talon but in her anguish Amélie doesn't catch it.
- Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: Downplayed, but implied. Gérard is described as a "grizzled Colonel" while Amélie is a "knockout woman ten years his junior."
- Weaksauce Weakness: Overwatch's advanced armor was defeated by...Vishkar sonic weapons. Gérard is not pleased about this and has the weapon specifications sent to Overwatch for study.
