#screaming half formed thoughts at them will fix approximately zero of these things

[chimaerabutt]

If you’re afraid of reading anything written by anyone with conflicting views to you because you think consuming media of “the enemy” will lead to thoughtcrime, you should perhaps do some deep thinking on the religious trauma you still need to deconstruct, and examine why you have replaced religious dogmatism with an ideological dogmatism your belief in is somehow so fragile that simply reading the wrong thing could shatter it.

It is important to read things, even doctrine heavy manifestos, by those ideologically opposed to you. It is important to understand their viewpoint and the people that wrote them.

Understanding is NOT agreeing with. Reading is NOT agreeing with. If you do not understand, do you even know what you are opposing? If you do not understand what you oppose, do you even know what YOU believe?

The less you understand those you are against, the less you understand about their beliefs, the shakier your own arguments, the more susceptible you are to propaganda, and moreover, the more likely you are to Other them. Normal human beings are capable of absolutely terrible things. YOU are no less capable of absolutely terrible things because you think the Right Thoughts ™️

Your enemy is still human.

Your enemy is still human.

Your enemy is still human.

Do not cling to political ideology as though it is a new religious doctrine with its own forms of “Sin”.

Important and Good are not synonyms. Many important things are terrible.

They are still important.

[vegalocity]

A Curse of Feathers and Mud

So y’all know how it’s implied that Eda was Stan’s Ex-Wife Marilyn? Well I was thinking some thoughts at work and was like ‘what if they stayed together’ So here we are

Ao3 link

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Edalyn Clawthorne—or apparently as far as the human world was concerned, Marilyn Forrester—Was tired of the Boiling Isles and if she didn't still need to keep Elixirs on hand, she'd never return, throw the folding door and the key over a ravine and resign herself to never seeing her homeland again.

She'd had her curse for a little over a decade at this point, but had only recently learned the truth about it. A lump formed in the back of her throat at the memory of her Sisters shouting. Eda's bounty had just jumped another zero and Lilith had been 'lucky' to catch her while she was doing some self training on the Knee. And she... they'd gotten arguing and God-! She hadn't even SEEN Lilith since she'd ran from the Coven Ceremony!

And THAT was her pitch to try and get her in?! 'Hey I cursed you when you were fourteen! Come join this system you hate and could never be happy under and serve this tyrant that brainwashed everyone in the goddamn land to practically worship him so he can fix what I did to you so I don't have to do it and take responcibility for my actions! Everything will be fine!' Lilith was lucky she'd still been recovering from a curse flare up and she'd just ran, else she might not have been able to control herself.

She'd ran back to her cabin—she'd been considering making a House Demon for the place, but it would need to be more than two rooms before the demon would have enough space to thrive, Eda was a lot of things, but a neglectful demon owner was not one of them—packed a bag with some human clothes and an armful of her stash of Elixirs and left for the human world. She'd needed to get away and the furthest she could think of was the human world.

Which was, of course, how she'd met Hal.

It was just some stupid scheme of hers that ended up blending in nicely with a scheme of his own, the two of them had caught on to eachothers game and played off of eachother until they had enough to split a hot meal.

She did her best to seem as though she knew exactly what she was doing, and thankfully Dollars weren't too different in setup than Snails were. And she hadn't been overly hungry her gut still turning and churning from the previous day's discoveries, so she let Hal have most of the yellow salty sticks that came with the sandwich.

“So, what's your name?” He'd asked, a mouth full of tomato blood—well, not REALLY tomato blood, it was too viscous and salty, but it was the closest approximation she'd had at the time—and brown eyes flickering to her ears—thankfully still covered by her mountain of orange hair.

“Edalyn.” She'd answered easily. It's not like she was anybody in the Human world. Her name was only dangerous on the Boiling Isles.

“Marilyn...?” he fished, and Eda had been just about to correct him, before deciding against it. New world new her.

“Marilyn Blight.”

“Hal Forrester, nice to meet ya.”

So they'd ran some schemes together since it made it a little easier and eventually earned enough to hit the Casinos in town.

Maybe Hal was just lonely, in how quickly he'd taken to Eda, and maybe She was just desparate for the idea that she could actually do this, could actually run away to the human world and just drop back into the boiling isles when her Elixir runs dry. But eventually, high on adrenaline and the mutual sense of dispair, the two of them found themselves in a drive by chapel. He didn't have a ring for her, so He promised that that would be the first thing they got with their winnings once the stint in 'Vegas' was over.

Of course when they left Vegas it wasn't easily. The Goons for whatever powers controlled the human world in their screaming cars tearing across the road behind them, And for a moment, Eda was tempted to leave. To pull Owlbert from where she'd hidden him, take the Vegas winnings she had in her lap, and leave. Open the door while they were at this speed, say something snarky like 'I think we should see other people' and jump out, her staff there to catch her.

But if she did... where the hell would she even go? The Owl Lady had a hundred thousand snail bounty on the Boiling Isles, and she didn't want to return there unless either she HAD to, or she was READY to. And the last thing she wanted was the chance to somehow cross paths with her sister again. Eventually Belos would start actually sending agents out to find her, and knowing her Sister, Lilith would be the first to volunteer. And she was NOT ready for that yet.

“I have an idea, do NOT slow down.”

“Wasn't dreamin' of it, toots.” 

Magic was harder here, this place didn't have magic pouring from its very core, it was a magic vacuum. Everything Eda made took almost twice as much magic as it would back hom- Back on the Boiling Isles. She'd probably need to chug an elixir a day earlier than normal. Damn things... She used to only need to take them once a month, but now it's come to a weekly basis. Maybe someday she'd have to guzzle the things like a morning apple blood.

Eda took a breath and drew a circle, the amber magic flashing only breifly before an Illusion was crafted, pulling away from them as the illusionary car stopped abruptly, the loud screech of tires against stone barely audible. The Goons behind them so startled as to not crash into their 'targets' not a one noticed the trickery for what it was.

Hal, for his part, didn't falter, she saw him startle slightly as he saw the illusion in the rearview mirror, his eyes widening and his hands scrambling over the steering wheel, but he kept his cool.

“What the hell was that?!” was the first thing out of his mouth when they'd crossed territories, into some place called 'Utah'.

Soooo maybe he didn't take it like a CHAMP, but he did take it.

Well, Eda was in it now. She had a fake name that was a wanted woman, she was in a marriage of convienence—Eda had always had a torrid romantic history but even she knew that this wasn't based in love, it was too soon, this was just mutual desperation for contact—with a human, and while she could return to Bonesbourough whenever she pleased, she found that, she still didn't want to.

“Edalyn is my real name, with an 'E'. Edalyn Clawthorne. Back home they call me the Owl Lady, I'm one of the most powerful witches on the Boiling Isles.”

And Hal had let out a nervous chuckle, Owlbert hopping down from Eda's staff and resting on his shoulder curiously. He took a deep breath and introduced himself as Stan Pines.

Though they both chose to keep the fake names for the next couple of states. A married couple looked better as an explination than just a pair of wandering people who decided to stick together after all.

Eda had barely realized a year had passed until she was on her... tenth run back to Bonesbourough for her next supply of Elixir, Stan had come with her—so long as he swore to keep the hood of his jacket up over his head so people wouldn't notice his ears—and ran her Human Curioscities stand for her as she did her business. And... okay, Stan was NOT a better salesman than she was, they were on pretty even footing, he'd simply grown up in the Human world while Eda had only been living there for a year. He knew more intimately how the curiosities worked so he knew how to better market them to others.

And HIS face wasn't the one on the wanted posters that she'd seen periodically around the marketplace. So the Conformatorium's Mooks left him alone.

When she came back, her newest crate of Elixir under her arm, over half of their stock had been cleared out, Stan humming a song about counting money to himself.

And you know... they weren't in love. Not really. Maybe on some level he was trying to replace that brother she'd heard him mention in passing with her. And maybe on some level she was just trying to prove to herself that her own sister hadn't ruined her life by making one of her own.

But they could maybe find a way to be happy. Just Maybe.

[xadoheandterra]

Title: Salt and Sugar (Cont. 8) Fandoms: Overwatch | Marvel Characters: Sombra, Widowmaker, Reaper, Talon Goon, Talon Scientist, Jesse McCree, Jack Morrison Tags: Body horror, unethical science, unethical choices, morally corrupt, first meetings, violence, murder, mind control, flashback, release of body autonomy, consenting release of autonomy, forceful release of autonomy, it’s a fucking mess, complete mindfuck, darkness becomes me Summary: Winston really should’ve performed a routine check on Tracer’s Chronal Accelerator. Maybe then this wouldn’t have happened.

Amélie noticed it first, much to Sombra’s consternation. When Gabriel stepped through the door, a stiff and quite wraith of a man, Amélie tugged at Sombra’s shoulder and hissed softly, “Chérie.” Sombra twisted, and then dashed forward without a word, Amélie on her heels. They reached Gabriel before Jack could even get to his feet out of whatever emotion the old man now felt.

Amélie ducked up under one of Gabriel’s arms and took hold of him around the waist. The bags dropped from his hands immediately upon the touch from the slighter woman. Gabriel bowed forward until his head dropped onto Sombra’s shoulder who stopped shortly before the man, hands up. Sombra sighed; in response she lightly stroked her fingers over his beanie, tugged the hat off of his head, and began to remove the mask and glasses.

The young Mexican woman carded her fingers through Gabriel’s hair for a moment as he breathed into her shoulder. She whispered, “I got you, papi,” and then tapped her fingers to his temple. When they pulled away bright lights of purple-pink trailed from each of her tips, and then trailed in an ever shifting pattern along his skin. Gabriel went limp, caught into Amélie’s arms before he could crash into the ground. Sombra, in front of him, stiffened.

The feedback loop of connecting in this way with Gabriel, off of their schedule by days at that, always hammered into the back of her head like a sharp chisel. The brilliant work Talon did on the corpse and lack of corpse thereafter always left Sombra breathless, but the hack job they continued once they verified life left her disgusted. Sombra barely breathed aside from a slow, measured breath incited by her own technological enhancements that she procured to up her game within the realm of technology.

That still didn’t mean that interfacing this way, with a man so twisted up in the way that Gabriel Reyes always was, with nanites half-rotting from decades of abuse, didn’t have it’s own side effects. Sombra’s legs gave out—she could feel herself drop—but the rest of the outside world faded, inconsistent sounds and sensations. Instead Gabriel encompassed most of her senses—and she hated this violation. Hacking a computer or an Omnic was one thing; hacking a person made her ill.

Jesse grabbed Sombra around her waist; she could feel the strength of his arm and feel herself being moved—yet still close to Gabriel and that’s all that mattered. She could hear distant noise, but distant noise meant nothing to the raging, buzzing that itched beneath her skin. Sombra sighed amidst her even breaths. Her eyes practically glowed with the effect of her own nanites, turning brilliant blues bright purple-pink.

I’vegotyouyoursafeit’sokaypapiI’mhere.

Words flowed as thought and ones and zeroes across the bits and pieces that made Gabriel function, ran together in soothing phrases that let the other man drop into a state of nonexistence. Sombra forced the power down like he was an Omnic—forced a state of suspension with a little thought and twist of her fingers. She forced her way into the coding and the torn apart shreds of old machines that limped along past their prime. Pieces of Gabriel continued on despite not knowing how to do so anymore, or even why to bother.

Sombra encoded a why and a how with thought and feeling. She tugged out memories of better and happier days—of Gabriel whole; of family and acceptance. The twisted, broken memories of Overwatch Sombra took and carefully packed away. She didn’t box or seal them, but marked them to be looked over later when an emergency like this didn’t require all of her attention. She couldn’t parse those memories now, couldn’t look for raging inconsistencies or handle the sharpened emotions contained within. She kept to lighter times, periods that would help facilitate growth and healing—help facilitate a return of humanity to a man many considered a monster.

“What is she doing?”

“Maintenance.”

That word brought so many memories back. Sombra shuddered faintly.

Shortly after being brought back to the world of the living Gabriel broke down for the first time. His nanites refused to repair; entire portions of himself collapsed into mist and smoke, others into inky black tar. Talon didn’t know what to do, their best technicians and mechanical engineers could only declare that the nanites that enforced Gabriel Reyes to continue living finally reached their end. They tried to prolong it, to push his life further onward with newer and newer nanites—but there was something wrong in the programming.

In the end Talon hired Sombra. She could still remember that day when she first touched Gabriel; remember when he wheezed on the table and spat smoke and coughed shadows. She could remember how whole portions of him became monstrous, inhuman, and how it withered all away. At first she had no idea who she’d been called in to ‘help’ but the pay ultimately was good, and honestly she’d barely experimented with nanite tech and what she could do to it herself, aside from her own nanites and cyborg qualities self-drafted into her skin.

The job was intended as a curiosity. A test of Sombra’s limitations.

“Remove the mask,” Sombra uttered coldly, arms crossed, elbow of one placed in her palm as she tapped at her cheek. “I need to see the extent of the damage.”

The Talon ‘doctor,’ a word Sombra would always loosely associate with the quacks of the organization, scoffed and moved to reiterate how she was to do nothing but her own skills in nanites. Sombra settled the man with a cold look instead, lips pressed together.

“Do you want your precious weapon intact, puto, you will do as I say.” She gave the man a cold smile. “After all I don’t have to fix what you broke, no? And won’t that just piss off your boss pretty boy?” She chuckled at the way the man grit his teeth, leaned over and gave him a wink, and with a burst of energy to get away from her he stormed over to the Reaper and snatched the mask away.

Sombra noted the way the smoke curled, tried to lash back, but sluggishly fell before it could like a drugged man attempting to brawl. It’s face wasn’t any better, a mess of teeth in weird places, gaping open wounds, strange appendages, and sluggish red eyes all twisted into black and ash and smoke. Sombra pulled a face.

“Ew,” she whined, because what else should she say about the thing in front of her. “What an ugly piece of shit.” She wondered for a minute what sorry lot in life the Reaper must’ve had, to end up in the pitiful hands of Talon and the mess they’d made of the creature, before she sucked in a breath and steadied herself. Oh well, no use stalling any longer.

Sombra glanced to the Talon guard and the gun he held, grimaced, and stepped forward. There was only so much antagonizing she could get away with before they choose to screw it and retaliate.

“Poor bastard,” Sombra murmured as she stepped up to the edge of the table. Those too-many-eyes pinned her, hazed and half-gone somewhere that Sombra couldn’t quite fathom. “You won’t thank me,” she said. Her fingers ghosted along his arm, and the Reaper lit up bright purple as she took complete and utter control.

The first time was ragged and twisted. The Reaper raged beneath her hold, screamed and scratched, and it took all of Sombra to battle his own consciousness back and down and force him to submit. She pulled at his memories, at the stored data within the rotted, diseased nanites that twisted and coalesced into his form. She fought him back with cutting ones and zeroes and algorithms that she formed as quick as thought. It was rough and volatile and left Sombra panting and sick. It left a long and sharp mental scar across her, a reminder that she’d always bare towards the utter invasion she forced the Reaper under.

Nowlet’sseewhoyouare.

Sombra twisted and curled through mental spiderways and sought out the information Talon refused to give her. They called him the Reaper, but how could a creature as horrific as this exist in reality? No, Sombra deigned to dig deeper. She flexed her metaphorical fingers and while she tossed out repair code like candy, anti-virus coding, and anything she could to coax the weakened crap that submerged the Reaper, she also dug into the code and into the memories within that code.

Fascinating.

Violence and anger and hatred were equal in number, enough to leave Sombra burning from it. Sadness, regret, longing, pining, resentment, horror also lashed across her mental approximate and then Sombra found gold. Joy, heroics, confidence, love, war, violence, fighting and fighting melded together with sex and lust and sorrow; with a fierce hope coupled by betrayal. Omnics shattered apart, twisted into heaps of metal and scrap—a girl—

Sombra twisted away with a gasp and abruptly cut the connection.

Reyes, filtered across her mind. GabrielReyes.Holachiquita.

Sombra sucked in a breath. Her limbs trembled like she ran a marathon and she barely noticed the grasp that steadied her, the touch of the beast that tore a man apart—tore a corpse to shreds and rebuilt a Frankenstein monster in its place. Breathing came unsteadily, and she couldn’t hear what had been said to her in the aftermath at first. Instead she stared unseeing at the twisted corpse.

The twisted corpse of the Reaper that no longer looked to be decaying and falling apart into ink and shadow. In fact he seemed surprisingly put together. Bits of shadow rolled with more coherency, his face had less teeth and eyes and more of a face, and his hand twitched in her direction, eyes bright.

“—boss’ll have your payment and you can go,” the scientist finished up.

“No.” Sombra didn’t notice she replied until she did, but when her gaze settled on the scientist she held the haughtiest sneer she could manage. “After that hack job you’ve done?”

“What?”

Sombra smiled, raised her hand, and pointed her finger almost as if she made a gun. “You took a man, and you turned him into a monster,” she said cheerfully. “After what I’ve learned, do you honestly think I’m going to just let you continue to hack him into bits?”

Sombra twitched her finger, and in a flash she had her gun in hand, a spray of bullets in the scientists brain, and a second spray through the guard at the door before the bastard could respond. Sombra let the gun go, watched it disintegrate into its base parts, and then into atoms. Then she hopped up on the edge of the sterile table and leaned her elbows onto her knees, and her chin into her palms.

“I think you and I are going to be great friends, papi,” Sombra drawled, a smile all teeth. The Reaper chuffed a faint, smoky laugh.

Sombra was permanently hired the next day