this is a nontrivial widowmaker buff

The Widowmaker buff has hit the console. It's being thrown out there as a minor buff, centred around mobility, with the grapple cooldown being cut from 12 to 8 seconds. And that is fairly minor (but welcome) - but the mine change... holy hell, team, this is a fuckin' game changer.

As long as I've been playing Widowmaker, which isn't very long, I've been ... pretty much uniquely aggro with my mines. They're part of my offensive weapon toolkit. Enemy team gets one as soon as they leave spawn, they get another as soon as they touch the payload or reach the choke, they get as many more as I can stuff in their faces, etc. I got the award spray for mine use the first day I played Widow seriously in quickplay, and I've seen very few Widowmakers come as close to the kind of harassment I dish out with the mines.

But now

BUT NOW

...it turns on wallhacks for affected players.

I'm seeing at least parts of teams all the goddamn time now. It is nuts. Suddenly, no one escapes from my sight is serious fucking business, and I am going to goddamn town with it.

Honestly, I read that note in the update and my eyes got big 'cause I realised right away - this is quietly massive. Once other Widowmakers start figuring out how this works with the mines, every one of 'em is going to start dropping mines expressly for this purpose. Good teams already aim for 'em, but there's only so much they can do.

Also, the Junkrat buff is a huge deal. Look for divebombing Junkrats from above, 'cause they're gonna be raining down on you. One of my housemates is a Junkrat main and he was already a pretty srs bsns divecomp player? ("You play Junkrat like Genji, what the hell?") But this double-mines thing - yeah. Watch out.

The Nashville Statement

The Nashville Statement - a new declaration from the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, a fundamentalist/evangelical working group - is about making anti-LGBT activism a core part of faith. It's explicitly about making anti-LGBT animus a required belief in order to be what they consider Christian.

Article 10 - excuse me, they want to sound all Roman on the website, so "Article X" - is key:

WE AFFIRM that it is sinful to approve of homosexual immorality or transgenderism and that such approval constitutes an essential departure from Christian faithfulness and witness.

WE DENY that the approval of homosexual immorality or transgenderism is a matter of moral indifference about which otherwise faithful Christians should agree to disagree.

Now, fundamentalism/evangelism is not like Catholicism, of course, where the Pope says a thing and off y'go. This statement is more like an influential imam issuing a fatwa. It's not legally binding. But it's important to remember that fundamentalism as we know it started with a not-dissimilar declaration of tenants a little over a century ago, and I think it's pretty clear that they had that document in mind.

So - this matters. Not for the week or month or year, but for the longer term. Let's go over the key points.

First, it's about asserting that being queer is being in active opposition to God.

From Article XIII: "WE DENY that the grace of God in Christ sanctions self-conceptions that are at odds with God’s revealed will."

Secondly, it's about removing neutrality - you cannot agree to disagree and still be Christian.

They're declaring that hatred of LGBT people and opposition to the rights of LGBT people is core and key to their faith - that people who disagree with this statement, who are neutral or pro-LGBT rights, are not Christians. At all.

Third, it's about making opposition to the existence of us queers a multi-generational activity.

As they've been losing ground in younger generations, they've been struggling to find a way to continue the fight against us. This is where they've gone - making it part of the religion itself. It is a blueprint showing how they intend to renew their fight against our existence.

Finally, it's about making civil rights a zero-sum game, in explicit, foundational, and existential terms.

They are declaring that laws recognising us, recognising our relationships, recognising who we are, are direct affronts to and attacks on God, and on their religion, and on their right to be Christians. To allow civil rights for queers is to deny them their faith. (See Article XI - they're using the word "speak" there, but they talk with laws, when they can.) This isn't really new? But now it's formalised. It has moved from inchoate politics to cornerstone of faith, and that has weight.

By making anti-queer activism core and critical to their Christianity, they're saying that recognising us is a direct attack on their existence as Christians. They're making our existence antithetical to themselves. They're deciding that this is an existential fight - for them.

This statement is a forthright and deliberate statement of eternal opposition to the existence of me and mine.

This statement is a declaration of total war.