#it's even worse when combined with the talking swedish anxiety

[jellelliefish]

I'm very proud of myself because I did a whole medical appointment based phone call in Swedish this morning. I am going to get myself a reward. Perhaps a cinnamon bun, or a seasonal pumpkin drink. Perhaps both!

[tlbodine]

Let’s Talk About Folk Horror

Folk horror, both as a term and a concept, is seeing a resurgence recently. It’s been widely used to describe Ari Aster’s film Midsommar, which may be the first time you’ve seen it. But the sub-genre, like the traditions at its heart, is quite old and rich with examples.

What is Folk Horror? 

Folk horror is a type of religious horror concerned with Pagan or pre-Christian religion as opposed to Christianity. Instead of demonic possession or devilish influence, the supernatural elements of folk horror (if they're present at all) will be rooted in other, older traditions. There's still plenty of overlap between Christian occult horror and folk horror, though, and aesthetically some stories featuring Christian mythology and tradition could fall under the folk umbrella.

Folk horror will often draw on several or all of these tropes:

An isolated setting, most commonly a rural community that's a big "backwards" by modern standards and often populated by unsettlingly eccentric locals.

Cults or cultish behavior, either overtly or suspected.

Blood sacrifice, violent rituals, and other types of murderous mayhem enacted by aforementioned cult members.

A slow-building, atmospheric type of horror rich in detail of the strangeness of the setting/its people.

Ideas drawn from mythology or historical religious practices, especially those of Pre-Christian Europe

An aesthetic that might incorporate Pagan (or pseudo-pagan) motifs, whether or not they’re portrayed accurately or historically - masks, dances, sex, rituals, blood magic, etc. 

Some folk horror is supernatural or overtly occult -- there might be a monster or monstrous god posing a very real and physical threat. But most folk horror is most commonly rooted in fears of the Other, and what happens when an outsider encounters believers of a faith that appears confusing, frightening, dangerous or immoral. 

Folk horror taps into a number of potential primal fears: 

Fears of “otherness” and the unknown 

Fear/distrust of religion or organized belief structures and their power/influence

Fears of social isolation or faux pas; the anxiety of not knowing or adhering to the rules (and being punished for it) 

White guilt, or related anxieties regarding colonialism, lost history/identity, and fear of being punished for the same

In many ways, folk horror is “kissing cousins” with the murderous hillbilly genre: both often tell stories about outsiders who go to a place they don’t belong and suffer the consequences at the hands of the locals. 

More modern iterations of folk horror often side-step the xenophobia by placing the main characters within the culture instead of outside it. These tales are frequently told as historical pieces and may or may not ultimately position Christianity or white imperialism in the villainous role (but not without heavily leaning on the symbolism and aesthetic of the folk elements to provide creepy atmosphere first). 

Another reason folk horror may be enjoying a modern resurgence is because it deals strongly with identity, especially the lost (and reclaimed) identities of old religions and cultures. As “whiteness” as a concept undergoes growing pains and tries to define itself, reaching back to the “old ways” of European folklore (or even early colonial America) can provide a richness and depth of history fraught with potentially horrifying perils and deeply interesting opportunities. Which is not to say that folk horror must by default be about white people...just that white people should probably let other groups handle their own folk horror stories (see previous rant re: wendigo). 

Difference Between Folk, Occult and Gothic 

Occult, by definition, means "supernatural or paranormal.” Stories about magic, demons, witchcraft and possession fall under the occult umbrella. Quite often, occult films default to a Judeo-Christian mythological framework (in the West, at least, Asian occult horror of draws on a different set of cultural influences). Regardless: in occult horror, the occult is front-and-center, and it’s a very real influence. 

Folk horror, by contrast, requires no supernatural elements -- merely a stalwart belief. At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter whether the blood ritual actually summons an old god, only that the cult members earnestly believe that it will. 

Gothic, meanwhile, often shares a lot of aesthetic territory with folk horror. But as we’ve discussed before, the defining characteristic of gothic is decay -- locations that were once opulent but have fallen into ruin, beliefs that were once sacred but since have been abandoned (for better or worse). Folk horror is very much alive, and often extremely vibrant. 

A Taste of Folk Horror Media

Ok: So you’ve got a basic understanding of what Folk Horror is about. Now where should you start with studying it? 

The usual recommendation is to start with the so-called "Unholy Trinity" of folk horror films, which really cemented the genre in cinema. Michael Reeves' Witchfinder General, Piers Haggard's Blood on Satan's Claw and Robin Hardy's The Wicker Man were released in the laste 60s/early 70s and laid out a number of the tropes you'll grow to find quite familiar later on -- theology, human sacrifice, rural communities, and lots of British weirdness.

Now armed with the basics, you might be better equipped to appreciate more modern films -- let's try a sampler of different flavors.

Try The Witch, directed by Robert Eggers, and follow it up with The Wind, directed by Emma Tammi, for a pair of women-centered historical pieces rooted in early America (colonial and frontier eras, respectively). They draw heavily on the folk side of Christian tradition and are both atmospheric marvels.

Or, here's a trifecta that's fun to watch for compare/contrast: Ari Aster's debut, Hereditary, which combines pagan cults with family drama; David Bruckner's film The Ritual, where a night in the woods is interrupted by an ancient Pagan monster-god; and Apostle, directed by Gareth Evans, where Christian apostasy and creepy cults collide. Finish up with Midsommar if you’re not sick of Ari Aster yet. 

If you're looking at books, Stephen King occasionally dips his toes in folk horror. Pet Sematary dabbles in it, and Children of the Corn takes a proper full plunge. Both were adapted into films, too, if that's your preference. 

Incidentally, The Ritual was also a novel, written by Adam Nevill, and by all accounts it's even better than the movie. If you like that, also pick up his new novel The Reddening. You might also enjoy some of the work of Douglas Clegg, such as The Halloween Man.

If you're done with white dudes for a while, cleanse your palate with some Asian folk horror: The Wailing, directed by Hong-jin Na, combines folk beliefs, Christianity, and virology. Kwaidan, directed by Masaki Kobayashi, is itself a sampler anthology of Japanese folk tales.

If animated features are more your speed, try Over the Garden Wall from Patrick McHale. 

Folk horror even shows up in video games. Fatal Frame straddles the occult/folk line pretty well, especially Crimson Butterly, which delves deep into some cult-gothic territory. Alternatively, try out Unforgiving: A Northern Hymn, a wonderfully creepy game about Swedish and Norse mythology that you will love if you enjoy Adam Nevill's writing.  

And, because I can never plug it enough, Chandler Groover’s short interactive fiction game Taghairm is a magnificent example (warning: playing involves text-based simulations of roasting cats over a fire). 

[loudlytransparenttrash]

What are your thoughts on Greta Thunburg? It seems to me like she's a child being exploited by her parents and used as a puppet while being put on a pedestal as some kind of child martyr/saint.

Hi :) There’s an editorial by Greta and fellow activists that neatly sums up what the climate change cult is really about. “The climate crisis is not just about the environment. It is a crisis of human rights, of justice and of political will. Colonial, racist and patriarchal systems of oppression have created and fueled it. We need to dismantle them all.” In almost every speech she gives, she calls for the end of capitalism and life as we know it. Her agenda is about dismantling our economical, social and political systems and replacing them with socialist ones, ridding ourselves of the patriarchy and racism, and maybe saving the planet along the way. 

I have no doubt her first protests were self-motivated. She first read about the looming apocalypse when she was just eight which caused her to fall into a deep depression and suffer anxiety, nightmares, turned her into a vegan and a mute. She also started skipping school to spend all day standing in front of Sweden’s parliament. Rather than calm her phobias and reassure her that none of the crises predicted by Al Gore or the prophets have even come close to becoming reality and mankind is in better shape than ever, the adults in her life have only encouraged her, or have given into her. And now the media and the newest wave of the global warming movement are only too happy to make her the face of their alarmism and exploit her fear in order to stoke even more fear. 

If the adults in her life really cared about her psychological and emotional well-being, they would sit her down and explain that climate change isn’t on the brink of destroying human civilization. Yes, the climate is changing. Climates tend to do that. Yes, sea levels change, they rise and fall consistently over thousands of years. Yes, natural disasters have always existed but they are killing less people now than ever. I'm sure Greta’s parents do care, they just want her to be happy. They watched Greta spend many years of her childhood depressed, she stopped going to school, she stopped talking and eating, so rather than fight it, they joined her. They started to call her disorders “superpowers,” they turned into vegans with her and embraced Greta’s new lifestyle and demands. Her dad has already said they did it to save their daughter, not the planet. 

By all means, teenagers should be encouraged to think deeply about issues of importance to them and educate themselves on current world events. Yes, let kids recycle, pick up trash and plant trees. But to use the fears of one helluva troubled teenager to rebrand a socialist political movement and use her fears to emotionally manipulate the masses is an act of cowardice. Allowing her to think she’s only got ten years left to save the world is cruel. It’s no wonder she cries and becomes hysterical in her speeches. The only way any credibility can be found in any of this is if her guides take her to the real problem. 

China alone produces more carbon than the U.S. the U.K. and the entirety of Europe combined. Add India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Vietnam and Japan into the mix and the Asia Pacific region accounts, by itself, for 50 percent of the world’s carbon emissions. The air pollution is so severe in China that solar panels there don’t work. It’s even worse with water pollution. Five Asian countries put more plastic in the ocean than every other country on earth combined. Overall, 95 percent of the plastic deposited in the ocean from rivers comes from Asia or Africa. Eight of the ten most filthiest rivers on the planet are in Asia and Africa. The Citarum river absorbs about 20,000 tons of waste every day. All of it is ferried into the ocean. 

Yet Greta only screams at those who aren’t even relevant players in the game. I get it, it's not very good optics for a little Swedish girl to go screaming at Africans and Asians in their own countries, that might be seen as racism or colonialism after all, it’s much better to stay in countries that will apologize, pledge money, give in and make new restricting laws, but that’s also precisely why we know none of it has anything to do with saving the environment. It's all about money and power, and as Greta says herself, dismantling our systems. 

[thehivemindwrites]

A  Series of Disconnected Thoughts, Cast into the Void in No Particular Order

1. I’ve been finding myself thinking more and more about Kill Six Billion Demons recently. Not just because it’s absolutely gorgeous artwork and Moebius-meets-prog-metal stylings are extremely my shit (KSBD is responsible for adding Gojira to my rotation of workout music, and that alone has me in its debt), but because I can really appreciate a main character who is a walking disaster coming to some kind of enlightenment through a combination of getting her ass handed to her repeatedly, making questionable decisions, and basically just deciding to struggle forwards because I don’t know, what the fuck else is there to do? It’s hardly original (see: basically any shounen about The Power of Friendship and Not Giving Up) but damn if the presentation of it in this particular case isn’t particularly delightful. Plus it gave us the image of a giant hulking demon wearing a jacket that says KILL BOSS and that’s rad.The creator of KSBD is also co-creator, as it happens, of the newly released Lancer TTRPG, which I backed on Kickstarter and will, one day, get a rad fucking hardcover copy of (but for now I’m reading through the pdf and swearing oaths that one day I will play it). Anyway, as someone who also got where he is through a series of questionable decisions and getting his ass handed to him by life in general (oh, and an enormous amount of luck), I can relate. Plus the phrase “Reach heaven through violence,” while kind of terrible on the surface, feels good to shout at yourself while you’re off for a run. 

2. Part of this whole exercise thing - a side-effect of it, if you wanna call it that - is that generally I feel better about myself like in general. I’ve mentioned that before. What it doesn’t do, of course, is magically mean that I’m now 100% good and not still dogged by a persistent sense of self-loathing that I’ve just had to accept will never really go away. Like for example: I’ve lost 35 kg since starting this whole gym thing, except you might remember the goal was 40. I still haven’t hit that goal, and frankly I’ve spent the last like three months bouncing around the same like, 3 kg zone because I’ve been traveling a lot and that basically fucks up my workout and eating routine. It’s frustrating, and it sure does let the part of me that knows deep down that I’m a fat fucker and always will be no matter what I do run wild from time to time. Which is, I’m coming to understand, just gonna always be there. This stuff doesn’t go away! Ever! 

Which doesn’t mean it’s right, even a little. You tune it out and throw yourself into battle with it over and over again. You get bloodied and broken and claw back and then you get bloodied and broken some more. Insert that gif from Princess Bride of Westly saying LIFE IS PAIN, HIGHNESS here. Thing is, there’s something about the struggle that’s nice. I am not sure how motivated I’d be to do anything if part of it wasn’t motivated by the desire to prove my dumb brain wrong about, uh, me. If I wasn’t fighting the various little demons that plague me every so often, I doubt I’d be so well-adjusted. I certainly wouldn’t be mentally healthy. None of this makes sense as I read it back, of course - it sounds like I’m saying “boy it’s nice to be miserable,” which isn’t true. Being miserable sucks shit! I don’t recommend it! But it is nice to see misery coming and punch it in the face (metaphorically speaking). Sometimes I think the thing that makes me go to the gym and work so hard (this sounds like I’m bragging, but I can assure you I’m not - “work so hard” means “not collapse and fall off the elliptical after five minutes because oh god I don’t want to be here”) is out of some desire for self-annihilation through pushing myself past my physical limits. Reach heaven through violence (see, I told you it sounded cool).

3. The world has gotten really fucking bad for a lot of people, and I don’t know that it will get better for them any time soon. In fact, given the latest talk from the ol’ UN Climate Change report, it’s gonna get even worse. I would very much prefer that were not the case! It’s motivation enough to get out and vote and shit, at least for me - and as someone who is, you know, ridiculously privileged, that’s the absolute least I can do. Which is why I try to do more, mostly involving donating money to causes that seem like they’re able to cause the sort of trouble that needs to be caused. Or just use expertise to protect the people I don’t know how to protect, because I’m a lot of things, and one of them happens to be smart enough to know that I don’t know shit. So I make sure people that do know shit have the money they need. Pretty straightforward, I think. 

The other thing I try to do, because giving money isn’t really something I think about much at all (I’m stupidly fucking fortunate to have a job that pays well, remember), is occasionally go out and actually be present at protests and the like - there are a lot of climate protests and they’re all a good time. Occasionally it’s worth overcoming one’s intense social anxiety to do so. Lord knows it’s significantly less of a risk for me to be out shouting at cops than most. 

4. She-Ra might be one of the best shows out there. There’s something nice about a show that both does and does not present a simple world. Yes, the Horde is bad. Like, objectively bad! They do a lot of looting and subjugating and are generally just deeply not chill people.On the other hand, the people who make up the Horde are still people, and I have a lot of time for a show that can manage to humanize its Big Bad Villain whilst still making it very clear they are  still, you know, not good. It’s messy, and complicated, and sad, because sometimes you have to fight people you used to be friends with! Sometimes you have to make the call that hey, we can’t be friends anymore, because I can’t support the things you’re doing anymore. I’ve made that call before - I bet everyone has, at some point (if you haven’t, I’m sure you’ll have to eventually). Fortunately for me, it’s never been that difficult of a choice, if only because the people I had to go against weren’t people I’d known for very long. 

Anyway, that’s part of it - you gotta just cut people out sometimes. There’s more to it though, because the other thing the show believes is that everyone - even the real shitty people - can change. It doesn’t mean everything’s forgiven, and it doesn’t erase all the bad shit, but they can still change. It’s worth changing, even if it isn’t a cure-all. 

So yeah, I like She-Ra a lot. It’s also just well-written, and funny, and it’s a real good time to see a bunch of diverse characters running around having adventures and being fuckin’ rad. Plus, they’ve shown an incredible willingness to completely change the stakes from season to season - the end of season four in particular is  the equivalent of detonating all the things you thought were important. It pulls a bait and switch so ruthless that I might have applauded if I wasn’t so self-conscious about making noise that my neighbors might hear. The combination of season 3 and 4 was a masterclass on raising the stakes and then explaining that actually, you were playing for stakes even higher than you could’ve thought possible. Oh, and the people you thought you could trust were just using you, and hey, what if we got rid of the thing that you’ve more or less defined yourself by for the entire show? Good luck in season five, motherfucker! I’m a fan, is what I’m saying.

6. Work on Vanquisher 2103 continues apace. I mentioned this before, but we’re doing a once-a-month schedule while the holidays and work beat my ass into the ground, and as it turns out I really enjoy taking a full month to write a chapter. It’s a comically slow pace, but it’s working for me and hopefully the fact that the chapters have tended to be a little longer (and allowed me to expand on ideas a little more, and do a little more research here and there) makes it worth the longer wait. I’d like this thing to be good! There’s a part of my brain, again, that will always insist that nobody reads this and it’s bad and I’m fucking up, constantly - that point, at least, is probably accurate. I am writing characters who in theory have life experiences that are very much Not Mine, which involves a lot of reading things from people who would know better than I do. It’s nerve-wracking, and the only thing I am bone-deep certain of is that I’ll fuck up and hopefully y’all will forgive me for fucking up when that happens. I’ll keep reading and refining and eventually maybe it’ll be okay. Hopefully, anyway.

7. I went to Ireland and guys, Ireland is bullshit. I am offended by its gorgeous cliff-sides and open grasslands and heart-rending beauty. The immense friendliness of the people I met and the fact that you can’t sit in a pub without hearing some dude play a jaunty reel on a tin whistle or accordion or something is a personal insult. I was Arthur Dent angrily demanding to know why this bloody fish is so good the whole time.

I cultivated an immense drinking habit while there. I was also approached by a random German tourist who somehow clocked that I could speak German and we shouted about socialism for an hour auf Deutsch. I met some woman from Louisiana and we ended up having drinks a couple nights in a row to talk about traveling in general and Germany in particular, because her ex-husband is German. There were some Swedish retirees who were both very pleased by their country’s social safety net and also depressingly sour about the fact that refugees got cheap dental care - we might have had some harsh words exchanged before more drinks helped smooth over our frank discussion of differing viewpoints. I had to explain American health care to some people from the UK who were surprisingly gung-ho about the idea of privatized medicine until they talked to me (one of them talked about how the UK used to be an Empire and could be again in such a way that made me want to throw things. We did not talk for very long because I couldn’t fuckin’ handle it). These were strangers that I willingly engaged, because I was having an adventure, and I guarantee none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been going to the gym and committed to the idea of proving the voice in my head that tells me I’m an awkward mess that nobody would ever want to talk to in their life wrong (also, let’s be honest, if I hadn’t had several pints of cider at the time). 

By the end of the trip if I heard one more pub singer’s version of Whisky in the Jar though, that I was gonna produce my pistol and fucking shoot myself in the head.

Go to Ireland if you can. If you live there, fuck you how dare you live somewhere that rad.

8. I didn’t have an eighth thing but I’m committed to this “each thing is numbered” bit which means that even the end of this thing has to follow the trope. This is the end of the post where I say “okay bye I’ll be back the next time I get the urge to throw a bunch of highly unpolished ideas out.” 

[nitewrighter]

Zen and the Art of Hovercycle Maintenance (Part 1)

A Bobyatta Fic

Summary: Zenyatta is separated from his team and picked up by Deadlock during a mission in the Southwest. Is this the end for everyone’s favorite robot monk? Or the start of something new?

-----

The Hover-semi roared down the highway, its carriage bucking and rocking from the combination of its speed and the damages to the mag-cable beneath the road. The rock formations of Deadlock gorge were flying past, a beautiful but stark reminder that if they lost control of the truck, it could be a very very long way down.

“Can you please drive more carefully?!” Jack’s hand was gripping the dashboard as McCree floored it.

“I’m tryin’! I’m tryin’!” said McCree, both hands tense on the wheel, “How are we looking?” 

Jack looked to the rearview mirror of the semi the flinched back as it was shot off with pulsefire. “About the same,” he said with a growl. He put a hand to his ear. “Orisa, Zen, you’re keeping them off the Mag-levs?”

“To the best of our abilities!” Orisa’s reply was chipper, but not reassuring. Something about the way Efi had designed Orisa to be a calming presence seemed to ratchet up anxiety even worse in situations like this.

Jack huffed. “Torb. Fawkes. How’s the payload looking?”

“Sweatin’ nitro like my dad in court!” Junkrat declared so loudly it caused feedback in the comms. Jack snarled. Why did they let the junkers on the team again? “Lindholm,” said Jack, “What does he mean?”

“He means a hot truck bed is no place for explosives!” said Torbjörn, “Dynamite naturally sweats nitroglycerine over time, and heat speeds up the process so--”

“So we could blow at any second,” said Jack, rubbing his forehead.

“Well I haven’t been able to take a full inventory. We don’t know how much of this payload is pulse or EMP based so---”

“Still don’t know when we could blow,” said Jack, he brought up his pulse rifle, “Keep us steady.” he said to McCree, “This is what we get for stealing from Deadlock.”

“These... aren’t Deadlock,” said McCree, looking in the rearview mirror at a hovercyclist coming up fast on his side. He raised an eyebrow at the decal on the back of the hovercyclist’s jacket.

“‘Sidewinders?’” McCree read the decal, “I’m like... 90% sure that’s been done before--”

“’Deadlock’ has definitely been done before,” said Jack. His hand tensed slightly as the hover-semi rocked again and a hovercyclist accelerated in front of the truck.

“Shit...” said Jack as two more flanked the hovercyclist at the front. The three hovercycles wove and braided between each other in some kind of showboating or intimidation tactic.

“Upstarts,” muttered McCree, “Ashe and I pulled the same shit back in our day.”

Atop the trailer of the hover-semi, Zenyatta and Orisa were laying down cover fire as several hovercyclists attempted to flank the semi. They were outnumbered, that much was clear. Each hovercycle carried two occupants--one who was steering, and one who was shooting. Orisa was laying down barrier after barrier just to protect herself and Zenyatta, but their pursuers managed to keep weaving out of her graviton charges.

Zenyatta ducked behind Orisa and Orisa fortified as one rider fired off a round of semi-automatic gunfire at both of them, before Zen was able to knock them off of the back of their hovercycle with a well-aimed orb.

“An excellent shot!” said Orisa.

“My thanks,” said Zenyatta, as Orisa fortified and Zen ducked behind her again as several more hovercyclists pulled up from the rear.

“Morrison,” Zenyatta spoke into the comms, “They appear to have brought in reinforcements.”

 The trailer of the hover-semi suddenly rocked hard and Zen looked out over the side. A hovercycle had hugged close to the side of the hover-semi’s trailer. Rather than shooting at him and Orisa, the rider on the back of the hovercycle was using an acetylene torch against the steel of their payload, sending a shower of sparks spilling off the side of the trailer. “It would seem they are no longer trying to blow out the mag-levs,” said Zenyatta.

“They are cutting through the hull!” said Orisa, firing down at the motorcyclists, only to have them weave out of her fire.

“Well, stop them!” said Jack, “We have to keep this payload from falling into their hands at all costs!”

“Wait a sec...” said Junkrat, “So you’re saying, the mission isn’t taking this big beautiful pile of ‘splodeys for ourselves... it’s just making sure no one else gets them?” 

“I mean--” McCree started.

“Well why didn’t you say so earlier?!” said Junkrat.

“Fawkes, don’t you dare--” Torbjörn started.

“Junkrat, you are ordered NOT TO DETONATE. You’ll compromise the whole team’s safety!” Jack barked into the comms.

“Oh, Beardy’ll be fiiiiine! I’ll make sure of that!” said Junkrat.

“Fawkes! Don’t you---PUT ME DOWN! I SAID PUT ME DOWN!” Torbjörn hollered.

Jack instinctively ratcheted a lever and unhitched the trailer.

“The omnics!” said McCree.

“Orisa! Grab Tekharta and fortify!” yelled Jack.

“Tekharta Zen--” Orisa flailed out her hand toward him, glittering green with her fortification field. 

“FIRE IN THE HOLE!” Junkrat hollered.

A bright light of transcendence burst off of Zen as the hover semi’s trailer exploded. Everything went red and yellow and white with hunks of metal flying through the air. Zen wondered if the shrapnel flying through the air were bits of himself, but felt little pain, and could feel the warmth of the iris around him. There was fire and then blue... a pretty blue. Zen realized he was flying through the air, then the sky was framed by orange rock on either side. The gorge. He was falling into Deadlock Gorge. Despite the disorientation of his fall, he kept the light of the Iris around himself.

Wham. He felt the first impact of the stone, muted by the Iris’s warmth.

Wham. He hit the wall of the gorge again. The second impact forced the transcendence to fade off of him and panic gripped him as he fell for some terrifying, dizzying seconds. Just how deep was the gorge anyway? 

Wham. He hit the wall of the gorge a third time and then found himself tumbling against sheer rock before dropping through the air one last time. His vision flickered. The last thing he saw and heard before blacking out were his orbs of harmony and discord, rolling and bouncing down the cliffside, chiming and clanging as they did so.

---

For better or worse, the Sidewinder gang was off their backs. The front of the no-longer-hovering-hover-semi was still screeching along the highway, the windshield warped and shattered, the remains of the truck bed blackened, and McCree and Jack still in the front seats as it screeched along until it came to a slow, shuddering stop. Even McCree’s prosthetic was shaking as it fumbled against the door handle. Both doors of the semi fell off and McCree tumbled out, flopping onto his back on the asphalt. Jack stumbled out the other side and dry-heaved for a second before rollicking back on his heels and trying to re-orient himself.

“’We need an explosives expert’ you said,” said Jack, looking over at McCree.

“Well.. t’be fair,” said McCree, grunting and bringing himself to his feet, “Deadlock didn’t get their hands on the payload.”

“Did you see that?!” Junkrat was shouting over a string of Swedish swears as he and Torbjörn both clung to the side of a rock formation bordering the road, “DID YOU SEE THAT!?”

“That’s another 6 months of Watchpoint probation!” said Jack, “If it wasn’t for what you found in that Omnium, we would have turned you in to Interpol the second we met you!”

“You’re welcome!” Junkrat hollered back, leaping down from the rock face and dragging Torbjörn down with him.

McCree looked back towards the smoking wreckage of the semi trailer. “’Risa!” he called, “You all right?”

McCree squinted in the sun as Orisa’s massive frame trod through the smoke and strewn metal. “My systems appear to be functioning normally!” she said, coming out of the smoke. Her fusion driver arm fell off. “Oh....”

“So we’re all alive,” said Jack, looking around.

“You mean you doubted me?” said Junkrat, “Cowboy here said I was an explosives expert! If I had wanted to blow us all to hell, you can bet we wouldn’t be talking, mate.”

McCree took his hat off and brushed off some shards of shattered glass and smoke stains. “Well, you can bet Deadlock saw that explosion from miles off. We’d better clear out before---” McCree looked around, “Wait--where’s Zen?”

“Who?” said Junkrat.

“Zenyatta,” said Jack, “The other omnic.”

“...There was another omnic?” Junkrat said sheepishly.

“Bronze? Floaty? Nine lights on his head? Ring a bell?” said Mccree.

“The floaty thing? Y’mean he wasn’t just a chunk of her?” said Junkrat, gesturing at Orisa.

“Excuse me? A ‘chunk’ of me?” said Orisa.

“Y’know how some toys have bits that can pop off and--” Junkrat was socked hard in the face by McCree.

“YOU SON OF A--”

“Agent McCree!” Orisa picked up her fallen off arm and put it between McCree and Junkrat to keep McCree from lunging at the junker.

 McCree looked at Orisa. “Don’t try and keep me from--”

“Tekharta Zenyatta transcended when the explosion hit,” said Orisa, “By my calculations of his healing output, it is likely that he survived--at the very least, his memory core did. We must focus our efforts towards finding him!” It was then that Orisa’s shoulder creaked and her other arm fell off as well, “Oh dear,” she said.

McCree gave a sharp look at Junkrat who just shrugged and chuckled nervously.

“Aw, jeez...” McCree hauled up one of Orisa’s arms, “Torb, how fast do you think you can get these things back on her?”

“OR-14′s weren’t my design, but I should manage,” said Torbjörn.

“Not before we get company, though,” said Jack, turning on his tactical visor, seeing movement along the mirage-rippled horizon, a cloud of dust kicked up by more hovercycles, “Company incoming, and no arms mean no shields.”

“We can take ‘em!” said Junkrat.

“No arm means no fusion driver either,” said Jack.

“But Zenyatta--” Orisa started.

“We regroup, avoid Deadlock, make the necessary repairs to Orisa,” said Jack, “Then we can search the area for Zen. Hopefully his comm’s beacon activated so he shouldn’t be too hard to find.”

----

“This is bullshit,” muttered Zeke.

“Hush up!” said P.T, “If Boss says we search the gorge, then we search the gorge!”

“Why do we gotta search the gorge?” said Terran, looking up at the cliff walls, “Place always gives me the creeps.... Bars never searches the gorge...”

“Boss need Bars’s eyes up top,” said P.T., “Maybe she got tired of listenin’ to your gripes.”

“Maybe the boss got tired of lookin’ at your face!” shot back Terran.

“Maybe the boss got tired of smellin’ your stank!” Zeke cut in.

“Maybe the boss got tired of---” P.T. tripped and fell hard on his stomach and Terran and Zeke snorted.

“You’d think Bars would point that shit out to you,” said Terran. 

“Har har,” said P.T flatly, “What the hell did---” He glanced back at what he had tripped on and found it was an intricately etched bronze orb. “...the hell?” he picked it up and turned it over in his hand.

“What is that?” said Zeke, looking over his shoulder.

“Hands off!” said P.T, pulling the orb close to himself, “I found it first!”

“You don’t even know what it is!” said Zeke, circling around him.

“Let me see!” said Terran grabbing for it.

“I said hands off!” said P.T, trying to hold it out of his siblings’ reach but finding that impossible with all of them the exact same height. P.T broke away from them and started running across the bottom of the gorge before tripping again. “Oh for the love of--!” he looked and saw another intricately etched bronze orb. “Huh...”

“Dibs!” shouted Zeke.

“I found it!” snapped P.T.

“You can’t keep both!” said Zeke, grabbing for the other orb now, “You know what the Boss says--one big happy family---”

“Guys,” Terran bent and picked up a third orb, “Look.” He pointed a ways away where several orbs were sitting in the gravelly dust of Deadlock gorge.

“There’s a bunch of them!” said Zeke, running past Terran and picking up two more orbs.

“Think it was from the blast up top?” asked P.T.

“Gotta be,” said Terran, shaking the orb next to his ear and only hearing a soft chiming sound.

Zeke had an armful of the bronze orbs at this point. “Bet that truck was from some kinda snooty art show or something,” he said, struggling to pick up another orb, “Whoever lost these would probably pay good money to get ‘em...” Zeke’s eyes fell on what he previousl thought was a pile of scrap, only to make out a silvery domed head and spindly yet strong metal limbs. He dropped his armload of orbs and hurried over. “Shit,” he turned the head of the collapsed Omnic slightly. A row of nine lights were on the omnic’s forehead, flickering weakly.

“Thrown into the Gorge and still tickin’...” Zeke said in awe. “Guys!” he shouted to the others, “Get the boss on the line! I found someone!” 

---

Bars’ scope scanned the wreckage. Most of the flames had died down but the air was still hazy from the smoke. Ashe chewed her red-rouged lips with white teeth.

“Don’t like this...” she muttered, nudging a warped and blackened metal plate over with the tip of her rifle, “Don’t like this one bit.”  Her head jerked up at some movement half-obscured by the brim of her hat, and she tilted her hat back with her thumb to look up at the sky rendered almost greenish by the haze and brightness to see a fluttering scrap of cloth and her eyes flicked to bars. Whoever was here had cleared out quick--far quicker than she would have liked. She didn’t like explosions on her turf. Even if it was in the ass-end of nowhere, it was the ass-end of nowhere on her turf, and she couldn’t have that. She had a reputation to maintain. Bars only gave her another nod that the area was still clear. She spat.

“Bob,” she said, and the massive Omnic a few feet behind her perked up. She pointed at the fluttering bit of cloth and Bob took a few brisk steps and easily snatched it out of the air. He handed it to her and she turned it over. It was charred at the edges, but she made out the image of a stylized snake with a ripple pattern in its wake, one of the ripples serving as the “s” in “Sidewinders MC Est. 2073″

“Goddamn amateurs,” she muttered, tossing the charred remains of the jacket back on the ground and stepping on it, “Well if there was anything of value here, it was blown all to hell in the scuffle over it.” She looked to Bob, “And we ain’t junkers. Leave the scrap for the desert to take. Let’s get back to--”

“Boss!” Terran’s voice hollered in the earpiece of her comm and she flinched from the volume.

“What?!” she snapped, bringing a finger to her ear.

“We found someone in the gorge! I think they were from the blast!”

Ashe smirked a little and looked to Bob. Sending the twins down into the gorge was half a fool’s errand, but if it actually yielded something, well who was she to argue with that?

“They alive?” said Ashe.

“They’re omnic, Boss,” P.T cut in, “We’d need to get ‘em back to the base to repair ‘em, but it’s nothing we can’t fix.”

“Well let’s show our new friend some Deadlock hospitality,” said Ashe, motioning to Bars, walking over to her (new) hovercycle and straddling it. Bars leapt down from his perch over to his own hovercycle. Bob clambered into the almost hilariously oversized sidecar next to her and Ashe smiled a little, “Meet you back at the hideout,” she said as she revved the engine and took off.