What is power? ⠀ You know something ? I used to think ⠀ ⠀'information was power'.
In my life, I've met some people who swear that power comes from the gods. And others'll who were insistent that power came from the 'rule of law'. Yet on any given day that passes us by, even with all the cards in hand, all of us can be as powerless as any old mope in the crowd. So, after all of that, do you know what I've learned about power?
⠀ HCS.|JOURNAL.|¿QUIÉN ES SOMBRA?|PROMPTS.|STARTER CALL.|PROMO.
rules & regulations.
✰ Howdy, stranger mine! Call me Valerie! Or Val, if you're nasty. I'm a black woman who lives in the shameful west, I'm thirty(-one in one week by the time of posting), I'm a video game journalist by daylight, and a huge geek by moonlight. I welcome you now, with my entire heart, to my roughshod attempt to accurately give unto you SOMBRA!
No funny business. No adjustment. A straight up attempt at writing a story-accurate, canon Sombra. Hilarity will ensue.
✰ I've been playing some incarnation of Sombra for quite a long time! I don't think I'm very good at writing her and hers yet, but I give it a fair shot each time I pick up my pen. I say that to say this: Give me some grace! I'll be doing my best to give you grace in any and all of our interactions. If I fall short, give me a little and some light to catch up, I'll do the same for you.
Also, right up top? My spanish is bad. I am a no sabo kid and I'm trying my BEST to countermand that! Any spanish speakers out there see me fucking things up? Pull me aside! I'd appreciate that.
However, while I'm 100% A-Okay with you letting me know a reply wasn't the best, or what you expected, don't push me for timely replies. Please don't press me for my interest/attention. I'm a grown woman working a job and trying not to let the darkness of my days sit too deeply in my chest. Sometimes I'm here, sometimes I'm not. Until I tell you I'm not interested in our dance, I'd just assume otherwise. I want to write with you! If we're here together, I PROMISE YOU, I want to write with you. Just give it time.
✰ Don't be racist, bigoted, zionist, homophobic, transphobic, sexist, or ableist on my blog, nor in my presence, out of character. Some characters are awful people, and I get that. Honestly? I kinda love that. But that's only so long as it stays fictional. Out of character, I don't expect everyone to be saints, and on their best behavior before me, but the borders of my social contract are thus. Step over them, and this is over.
To try and keep your social contract from being breached, I do make use of content warning tags here. Formatted as 'cw [ content ]' for easy removal/avoidance of any of the myriad topics that are sure to pop up on this witchcraft-dabbling, eldritch monstrosity hunting, ancient greek tragedy deconstructing, hatefic fanfic. And there are a fair few of them! The most frequently/likely to be featured among them are:
Depictions of Violence, Bloodshed, Viscera, Body Modification, Torture, Imprisonment, Identity Death, Blackmail, and Lack of Personhood / Sapping of Bodily Autonomy.
✰ Send four-day-old memes! Hit that starter call I posted four months ago. Jump right into my IMs the second we become mutuals and tell me the plot idea you have in mind. Alice Deejay said it best when she said, 'Talk to me!'. I love plotting, and I love being tagged in random stuff that we've never even thought to discuss. If we're here, we're here to write, right? Let's do just that.
I'm easy to please, I fear. Doesn't take much to get me ready for a thread. I support pre-established relationships. I love shipping. I love angst, and smut. Fluff, and combat! If we've got some chemistry, and we both love the taste of fun, I'll write eight threads with you at once across four AUs. Let's get after it!!
✰ This account wouldn't exist in the state it's in without all the incredible artists and creatives whose work I've fully ganked and manipulated to fit my personal agendas. I am an unrepentant thief, but I always source my ill-gotten gains. And I always ask that YOU REBLOG FROM THE SOURCE!
PSD used is myrtille by cavalierfouPromo template is smoke by seraephicPinned template is free psd #2 by rubyvault
Current Theme: A Sombra!Focused Remix of Crimewaves (That I made!)
@pyrrataexe sent:
"You ever read any poetry? This is a bit of a rabbit hole, linda, but rock with me, eh? So I was listening to this band, bunch of... drugged out old fucks from Norway or something, who fell in love with a poet living in Washington. The... state, not the capital.
Okay, so: Norse Rock Band making songs based on Washington Poet's poetry, yeah? The fucking Poet DISAPPEARED like a hundred years ago! Folks said he fell in a fucking lake or something... but that wasn't the end of it! Just recently all his old hits have started circulating and getting 'buzz' and now I'm out here reading some dead junkie poet's love psalms a hundred years out from creation, and I can't put 'em down! They're fucking... They're not the BEST poems, but they're evocative!
They're... powerful, even. Yo no se, I just - You ever read any poetry?"
"who the fuck is lin-
are y'gonna tell me you've been MIA for months reading dead men's poetry?" her head ain't wrapping around any of that concept except who linda was and the jumpscare of her presence. and also.
"i am not confessing to reading poetry."
" . . . okay read me some poetry, or play some music from the Nordic fellas. drugged out old fucks usually means good music." shaking her head, patting the seat on the couch next to her. whatever the hell was going on, she ain't pretending not to be interested hard enough.
❝ Linda. Means cutie, you walking nerve cluster. ❞
She hadn't spent EVERY SINGLE WAKING DAY reading the poems! He didn't even fucking have that many... or if he did, they weren't published anywhere she knew how to get access to.
Fucking Oceanview Publishers.
❝ I don't have any Old Gods on me, sorry to say. Didn't feel... ❞ Right? Good? No idea what it didn't feel, but she'd felt something when she tried to load the song to her internal setlist. Some kinda abjuration or - ?
She falls down onto the couch. Perfectly aimed manuever to drape her across Ashe's legs, let her stare up into her face and recite these lines of yearning directly to her (not-so) glowering eyes.
❝...Oh mercy! Thousands have gone missing beyond the labyrinth of me. When you’re lost, you’re lost in your own company ❞
❝ In the grander sense of things, there's no reason for this to keep going the way its going. It's delightful, let me be explicit about that. I l o v e the time we have together. I'm just considering lately [ ... ] maybe there are better ways to spend that time together. Healthier ones. ¿Sabes? ❞
He hears her grin, despite practically gliding toward the kitchen and boiling water. Assembling tea leaves and a large teapot were like second nature to him. Pouring it with a flexible wrist and a high elbow, sitting upright and making little to no sound while assembling dishes. Those habits engrained into him from his upbringing tended to plague his every movement. For a moment, his eyes narrow as he brings a tray of freshly brewed tea to Sombra.
He could just not answer; but where was the fun in that? He had nothing to hide.
"Being a burden to those who show me the kindness of helping me on my journey. Not being able to help save the world. Or... I've kept this one to myself for a while now..." He slipped into a kneeling position and poured her a cup. "But... not being able to get tickets to Lucio's next concert is my biggest concern right now."
Loose files floating around on the home network? She'd tried those. Recipes. Warm messages. Errant search engine requests. Brute Force targets? Social weak points? Who needed 'protection' when they wore their heart on their sleeves?
Tacky taste in ceramics and tea accoutrements? Ugh, non-existent. This sucked so bad-
Pendejo.
❝ Lucio tickets... ❞ Stubborn thoughts he could not let go of. Self-reliance. Self-actualization. The DJ of all time. He was mocking her. He was using the truth to mock her, and it stung so much worse because of it.
Sssfff. Ugh. No, this was the worst of it. This was really good fucking tea.
❝ Is Lucio not best friends with your best friend? Why not ask her for — Being a burden. Of course... Pobrecito, your life must be so difficult. ❞
what a workout! five, no six, bodies lay strewn on the ground, varying wounds but still breathing, labored and light. compared to their own, heaved through cracked lilac-hued lips and the thud of their chest is only compressed by the sudden twist of a voice appearing behind them. it's almost familiar, somewhere lost in the vast network of dreams turned nightmares, and their gaze catches, and their grip against the metallic case tightens. they didn't make it all the way here to leave empty handed. they are sure the other can say the same.
and staring down the barrel of her gun is evident enough━ ❝ well, thank you. i'm glad someone thinks so. doubt these guys would say the same. ❞ there is a smile of melodrama, their shoulders half-shrugging and arms gestating to the ground. ❝ heyy, we can't make a deal? talk it out over some tea? or something stronger? would be a hell of a shame to do all the work and then just leave with nothing. ❞
❝ That's a problem, linda. Putting any weight behind the thoughts and opinions of men barely even good enough to give you a workout? ❞
Tsk tsk, and all that. Even as she pivoted her weight onto her heel and put the exit just a bit closer to her own back, she was 'tsk tsking'... and keeping score. There was a LOT of violence still circulating out of the airspace here, but they'd gone out of their way to keep these idiotas alive.
A gentle hand, or a contractual agreement? One was very exploitable... One was a problem.
❝ Ooh, I actually passed a really cute looking tea shop on my way in today! They had plants and shit in the windows, felt very earthy, very mundane.❞
Small talk. Chatter. Chirping giddily, all while she held her free hand out, glowing, pulsing, digitally-connected, and working, fingers flexing toward her palm.
The universal sign for GIMME.
❝ I'm happy to go to tea with you, even let you go home with almost everything~ Except that. ❞
YO! Happy April, Chantery! Quick update, just to clad this in iron, shifting all my accounts to low activity for the foreseeable.
Not a hiatus, not going away, just gonna be here less presently (kinda like i've been doing these past few.......? Weeks? I don't actually know.) I'll still be doing replies, popping in at random, memes, nonsense, screaming about comics & wrestling, all of that!!
Just at a lower frequency until I can wrap a lasso around the wind and get it to chat to me.
𝙸𝙽𝙲𝙾𝙼𝙸𝙽𝙶 𝚃𝚁𝙰𝙽𝚂𝙼𝙸𝚂𝚂𝙸𝙾𝙽 : @pyrrataexe it's okay to need some help now and then, doc.
“it’s an embarrassment.” a dramatic pause. “abhorrent.” another. “inexcusable.” one more. “repugnant. it’s..” then, the redhead lets out a groan sans the usual dignity she carries herself with. years of working with sombra had forged a fragile.. understanding between the two. while moira still didn’t trust the woman, she found it easier to slightly lower her guard in comparison to others. “it’s frankly unacceptable that the technology here is so inaccessible.”
fire brimmed at the tip of her otherwise pale ears; it wasn’t often that she was defeated by something as simple as a tv on a wall. “surely some.. virus has been uploaded into my television.. to spy on me, of course. i simply don’t understand why they would aim to flip the picture on the screen? to irritate me? if so, they’ve succeeded.” after a long, dreadful day of diplomacy, all moira wanted was to enjoy a bottle of aged bourbon and an equally aged anime. she had already finished the liquor, now all that remained was the last forty-five minutes of her movie.
❝ Embarrassing, yup. ❞ Tap tap tap. ❝ Abhorrent, exactly. Exactly what I was gonna say... ❞ Tap. Scroll. . . Wait, scroll back? ❝ Inexcusable. Yes! Took the words right outta my mouth, Doc... ❞
Liked. Bookmarked. Quoted. Screen off.
So that the glorified tech support could look up from her various nighttime goings-on and zero in on ... no mames. UGH. So she could zero in on the doctor's fucking television screen.
IGNORING whatever... trope-heavy nonsense was currently frozen in frame — which was very difficult for Sombra, let that not go unsung. She had about a MILLION things to say right now, and eight hundred THOUSAND of them were exclusively about the thing she was forcing herself to ignore — she had to turn and give Moira just... the MOST respectful 'are you fucking KIDDING ME?' expression she could manage.
And she managed it quite well, after all these years of practice.
❝ ... I - ❞ No. No, no, no! You still have to work with these people, Sombra. This one in particular keeps the bullets from doing that thing they love to do. ❝ - ah... I've heard of this kind of ... silly thing happening? Sap a soldier's basic comforts, take them off their edge, typa shit. Didn't think the gorilla had it in him.
Do you [ ... ] happen to have the remote anywhere nearby, Doc? Some kinda control system, maybe? ❞
It's not been all that long since Leon has been... promoted, so to speak, to a position trusted enough to practice medical care for the other agents of Talon, but it's a job he's taken to quite seriously. He was unsure at first-- is this really something he could stomach doing, and for these people?
It turned out the answer was a resounding yes. The first time he was the one pulling someone else through from potentially going cold on the table, to walking out of the room with only a bit of downtime needed to recover... Where else would he be able to do such a thing? Who else could give him the tools?
Still-- none of that really seeped into his bedside manner when the straits weren't so dire. It's hard to be soft when every other day someone waltzed in with internal bleeding or gruffly just expecting him to work.
Just like now-- Sombra trailing blood into the room and getting it all over, clearly on her way to bleeding out but hardly seeming to bat an eye.
"Που να πάρει και να σηκώσει," he mutters under his breath as he gets his things together. He'd be lying if he said he didn't at least kind of believe Gabriel's threat. Perhaps if the joy of healing wasn't a good enough motivator, fear is probably the next best thing. "Of course he will."
He very carefully helps to adjust Sombra on the table and brings the mounted lamp over so he can get a better look at the wound.
"What's up with me?" he repeats, a pair of forceps in each hand now as he goes in to assess the situation. "Not much. Mostly waiting for someone like you to show up so I can fix you. Thinking maybe one of these days I'll get to go back on the field, but I guess if I'm needed here, then..." Leon trails off, and whether it's simply distraction or something else, who can say.
And it was messy, because she REALLY could've used him out there! Would've LOVED having a medic on hand while Moira did ... God, whatever the hell she'd been doing. Definitely wasn't healing, tell you that much.
❝ C'mon, you know he doesn't mean it! Big softy like him, he'd probably tell you 'Don't let it happen again.' ❞
Favorite child privilege. The nonsense she got away with in this organization compared to some of the other hires? Miiiiierda! One of the perks of being irreplacable, she'd once assumed. Where were they gonna find another operative even half as good as her?
Whereas ... someone with Leon's skillset? Well...
❝ Mm... I'm sensing some discontent with your current position within this company, Leon. What's the matter? You don't like taking care of us? ❞
He'd just said what 'the matter' was. She'd heard it, too, it just ... It didn't seem entirely like the answer, did it? Like something was being kept close to the chest... Didn't he know how she felt about secrets?
❝ C'moonnnnn... You can tell me! If it looks like I'm gonna blab, just y'know... ❞ Blood-washed hand comes up from the gentle repose he'd carefully guided it to, so she could faux!strangle herself. 'Blegh...' death rattle and all.
Lena's expression softened.
For the first time since they started talking, the uneasy feeling in her stomach subsided a bit. She was a bit concerned when Sombra didnt take a sip of her drink- Did she really think that she was the type to poison someone?
But her comment about changing hearts- that was real. A shimmer of vulnerability. It wasn't something she ever would have expected to be allowed to see from the hacker. For a brief moment, she didn't see the woman who had worked against her the past few years. She saw a woman who, under the guise of offering help, was actually asking for it. Even if she didn't realize it yet.
"...Alright," She nodded solemnly.
"Alright, Sombra. You've got me. I might regret it in time, but for right now..." She slammed the rest of her drink.
"I'm willing to believe that you're being straight with me. So I'm willing to vouch for you. It'll be a bit until the next debrief, but... I'll let Sojourn know about your offer, and let her know that I think she should take it."
She looked the other woman in the eyes, trying to convey her sincerity.
"And, if she doesnt... Well, it might be the alcohol talking, but... feel free to give me a ring sometime. I imagine you already know my number, and, as you've pointed out, sometimes our bosses can be disagreeable."
She gave a small smirk, the first smile she'd given so far, and looked back to her glass.
'What did I just agree to...'
That's certainly a chuckle on her lips as she watches Lena muster her courage like the Dutch intended. Felt all too familiar in a way she'd never admit to either party. Especially her perch from the 'moral high point', perfectly poised to let her watch someone make decisions in her favor, and not their own.
Huh.
❝ You're going to regret a few things in time, conejita... I'll do my best to keep this thing from being one of them. ❞
The glass she was given originally? Slid some down the counter. Lining up right next to the one Tracer'd poured for herself. Not like she was going to pour it back into the bottle, right? At forty euro a pour? Fuck off.
Her free hand comes up, and a single bolt of lilac runs the length of her pinky finger before Lena's phone, the nearest TV, the radioport, and the computer she was not sifting through all flashed the same shade, and produced an oh-so familiar calavera on their displays.
❝ 'Course I do~ ❞
And there's her smile. Not the wolfish one from earlier. She'd no fear in the air to supp on any longer. No, this? This was the smile of a woman who'd j u s t found herself a new friend.
❝ Oh! And since we're going to be working together, I have a gift for you. ❞
This one takes a bit more flexing. A wave of the hand, a barrier across the ocean breached in a heartbeat, and its plunder ripped, zipped and delivered in the handy form of a bright lilac - ahh, maybe a bright blue datacube.
❝ This handy little petabyte of data is a running tab of all of Talon's data output in the last ... three months. ❞ An entire season's worth of wicked deeds, nefarious experiments, and business transactions.
Signed. Sealed. Delivered.
❝ Just in case 'The Captain' needs a bit of convincing. ❞
the layers of sophisticated calibrations within the systems had her registered long before she decided to announce herself. blaring alarms or any signal of crude breaching that demanded immediate suppression was triggered.
that was standard security architecture measured across many areas of the world. wakanda was a realm of its own. wakandan construction did not rely on reaction alone; it adapted, it recognized when something or someone moved too cleanly through its designs.
our panther had felt it then, the way an animal might feel a supernatural presence approaching in the area before it has a chance to loom remotely close.
instead of closing his fist around the specter, he let her breathe.
there was a playfulness in her cadence that didn't provoke anything out of her. he listened to her talk, not turning around immediately, or reaching for anything that would suggest defense to her expected intrusion.
instead, his attention remained where it had been, vibranium-gloved fingers resting lightly against the interface as though her presence had not introduced anything new into the room. only when she finished did he allow the silence to marinate in the air fully between, giving her confidence to exist in their space.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀“ i expected you here sooner, ms. colomar, ” he said at last, voice remaining clearly unpreturbed by her provocation. the king turned then, with casual ease of a man who had already accounted for every variable she believed she had introduced. “ or do you prefer sombra still—despite the changes in your former organization? ”
Very good thing he turned around then, it allowed him to see how she clutched at her heart, and wallowed in the sorrow of his uncouth strike across her bow. Swirling on her feet, faux-fainting as this grievous blow proved too much...! All before coming to rest, neatly, cleanly in ... Oh! A very comfortable seat opposite him.
❝ Sombra pre-dates any organizational ties... and Ms. Colomar never made it out of the rubble. ❞
All of her pains and woes seem to evaporate as she makes herself comfortable. One leg crosses over the other, the MP7 on her hip slipping into view briefly and then disappearing just as quickly. She's not Basic Instinct-ing him. Wouldn't even dream of it!
Not with all the potential work waiting for her on his GOOD SIDE.
❝ Akande talked about this place a lot, you know. 'The Last Bastion of True Strength in a World beset by Mediocrity...' or something. ❞ The 'or something' was a misdirect. She was quoting him exactly. She'd heard it enough; he sure loved bringing it up whenever Africa hit the Tac-Map.
❝ I can see what he was talking about! You've got a great nation here. So, y'know... I figured it would be [ ... ] tasteful to finally pay you, and your home, that visit he'd been dreaming of. Por respeto a los muertos, por supuesto. ❞
It's criminal that Shorty's got that netrunner tech built into her skull, it's preventing her from growing her hair out and truly getting into some wild looks.
