#techno: where else would they keep them

[sircantus]

Are all your technos Just A Guy

Most of the time. Half of the time. The other half of the time he thinks he’s Just A Guy. Oblivious to the way he is utterly insane. I think thats really funny

[phantasm-echo]

POV: you wake up in the middle of your own autopsy with force powers then immediately get brainwashed into falling to the dark side

I was reminded of the fact that I haven’t drawn inquisitor!fives’ autopsy scars in way too long so here I am, delivering a few too many Fives 💀

Anyway I know I don’t post much about the AU on here so props to anyone who knows what’s going on here even slightly, I’ve decided to nerf siren!echo (who WAS part of this AU yes I know quite random) but since him being turned into a siren kinda limits what I can do with him story wise he is now an AU of the AU.

That means the name I came up with for the au (dead mean walking/swimming or dmw(s) as I’ve been tagging it) is kinda irrelevant. I’ll just call this the inquisitor fives AU but if you have any AU name suggestions feel free to drop them.

Here are some of the major factors of the AU:

It gets worse before it gets better

(WARNING: there are quite a few heavy topics covered in the AU such as torture, dehumanisation and su*cidal thoughts, so pls read at your own discretion)

- fives wakes up in the middle of his own autopsy with force sensitivity, then gets brainwashed into falling to the Dark Side by Palpatine. As an Inquisitor, he does not remember anything about his life because those memories were blocked by Palpatine.

- Palpatine discovers that Fives is essentially immortal, and any injuries inflicted on him will heal no matter how bad.

- when echo gets rescued from skako minor, he is recalled to Kamino for experimentation, first of all so they can figure out what the Techno Union did to him, second of all to see how he survived his injuries. Nala se, who knows that fives came back to life, theorises that since he and echo were tube twins they share the “immortality”. He is kept on Kamino for VERY extensive experimentation where terrible things happen to him (cough vivisection cough lobotomy) and so never joins Clone Force 99 even if he did work with them on Anaxes.

- Fives in this time is sent out on many missions by Palpatine that involve him unaliving many people, and after the rise of the Empire he hunts a few Jedi.

- Fox, who throughout the war had experienced many blackout missions where he woke up afterwards covered in blood, is the last living Coruscant Guard commander. (Thorn dies, stone vanishes one day, Thire mistakes Vader for a Jedi and pays the price) Despite the best efforts of his son secretary Dogma (no way!?) Fox has very little will to live, is extremely depressed and borderline suicidal, he would like nothing more than to bite the dust, but still feels he has a duty to the very few remaining corries and so tries to keep it together (he is failing)

- one day Palpatine decides he doesn’t need Fox to do his bidding anymore since he has much better assets at his disposal (Fives), and decides it would be ironic to sic his pet clone inquisitor onto Fox. Fives still doesn’t remember anything, and only knows that Fox is responsible for the main scars on his body and believes fox is the reason he doesn’t remember most of his life, and so sets out to kill fox. They battle it out (ref to that one animation wip I posted) and fives is on the verge of killing fox (who didn’t really try to fight that much, like I said he would very much like to die and dying at the hand of the vod he “killed” seems fitting to him) when he gets a sudden vision of echo.

- all fives knows is echo is extremely important to him and must be rescued and that snaps him out of palpatine’s control. He knows he probably can’t rescue echo alone, and since fox has already been betrayed by the empire he decides “fuck it” and basically kidnaps fox and they run. They make a deal, that once echo has been found, Fives will put Fox out of his misery (fox feels that fives should be the only person to kill him, and only goes along with the plan because he refuses to let anyone else kill him)

- fox and fives proceed to go on an intergalactic road trip to “rescue echo” even though neither of them know how to do that. They become closer friends throughout, and fives slowly regains bits and pieces of the Before

- meanwhile during the destruction of Kamino, the bad batch stumble on echo and rescue him and he stays with them for a little bit before leaving with Rex

- meanwhile Dogma helps the rest of the remaining Corries desert, kills too many storm troopers, and tries to go after his buir fox and the bastard inquisitor who kidnapped him

This is the main stuff you need to know for the AU haha so if you’ve got new name suggestions I’m all ears ty!!

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Gandersauce

I'm on a 20+ city book tour for<p>placehold://://er </p> my new novel PICKS AND SHOVELS. Catch me in AUSTIN on MONDAY (Mar 10). I'm also appearing at SXSW and at many events around town, for Creative Commons and Fediverse House. More tour dates here.

It's true that capitalists by and large hate capitalism – given their druthers, entrepreneurs would like to attain a perch from which they get to set prices and wages and need not fear competitors. A market where everything is up for grabs is great – if you're the one doing the grabbing. Less so if you're the one whose profits, customers and workers are being grabbed at.

But while all capitalists hate all capitalism, a specific subset of capitalists really, really hate a specific kind of capitalism. The capitalists who hate capitalism the most are Big Tech bosses, and the capitalism they hate the most is techno-capitalism. Specifically, the techno-capitalism of the first decade of this century – the move fast/break things capitalism, the beg forgiveness, not permission capitalism, the blitzscaling capitalism.

The capitalism tech bosses hate most of all is disruptive capitalism, where a single technological intervention, often made by low-resourced individuals or small groups, can upend whole industries. That kind of disruption is only fun when you're the disruptor, but it's no fun for the disruptees.

Jeff Bezos's founding mantra for Amazon was "your margin is my opportunity." This is a classic disruption story: I'm willing to take a smaller profit than the established players in the industry. My lower prices will let me poach their customers, so I grow quickly and find more opportunities to cut margins but make it up in volume. Bezos described this as a flywheel that would spin faster and faster, rolling up more and more industries. It worked!

https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/10/at-amazon-the-flywheel-effect-drives-innovation/

The point of that flywheel wasn't the low prices, of course. Amazon is a paperclip-maximizing artificial intelligence, and the paperclip it wants to maximize is profits, and the path to maximum profits is to charge infinity dollars for things that cost you zero dollars. Infinite prices and nonexistent wages are Amazon's twin pole-stars. Amazon warehouse workers don't have to be injured at three times the industry average, but maiming workers is cheaper than keeping them in good health. Once Amazon vanquished its competitors and captured the majority of US consumers, it raised prices, and used its market dominance to force everyone else to raise their prices, too. Call it "bezosflation":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/25/greedflation/#commissar-bezos

We could disrupt Amazon in lots of ways. We could scrape all of Amazon's "ASIN" identifiers and make browser plugins that let local sellers advertise when they have stock of the things you're about to buy on Amazon:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/10/view-a-sku/

We could hack the apps that monitor Amazon drivers, from their maneuvers to their eyeballs, so drivers had more autonomy and their bosses couldn't punish them for prioritizing their health and economic wellbeing over Amazon's. An Amazon delivery app mod could even let drivers earn extra money by delivering for Amazon's rivals while they're on their routes:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men

We could sell Amazon customers virtual PVRs that let them record and keep the shows they like, which would make it easier to quit Prime, and would kill Amazon's sleazy trick of making all the Christmas movies into extra-cost upsells from November to January:

https://www.amazonforum.com/s/question/0D54P00007nmv9XSAQ/why-arent-all-the-christmas-movies-available-through-prime-its-a-pandemic-we-are-stuck-at-home-please-add-the-oldies-but-goodies-to-prime

Rival audiobook stores could sell jailbreaking kits for Audible subscribers who want to move over to a competing audiobook platform, stripping Amazon's DRM off all their purchases and converting the files to play on a non-Amazon app:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/25/can-you-hear-me-now/#acx-ripoff

Jeff Bezos's margin could be someone else's opportunity…in theory. But Amazon has cloaked itself – and its apps and offerings – in "digital rights management" wrappers, which cannot be removed or tampered with under pain of huge fines and imprisonment:

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

Amazon loves to disrupt, talking a big game about "free markets and personal liberties" – but let someone attempt to do unto Amazon as Amazon did unto its forebears, and the company will go running to Big Government for a legal bailout, asking the state to enforce its business model:

https://apnews.com/article/washington-post-bezos-opinion-trump-market-liberty-97a7d8113d670ec6e643525fdf9f06de

You'll find this cowardice up and down the tech stack, wherever you look. Apple launched the App Store and the iTunes Store with all kinds of rhetoric about how markets – paying for things, rather than getting them free through ads – would correct the "market distortions." Markets, we were told, would produce superior allocations, thanks to price and demand signals being conveyed through the exchange of money for goods and services.

But Apple will not allow itself to be exposed to market forces. They won't even let independent repair shops compete with their centrally planned, monopoly service programs:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/22/apples-cement-overshoes/

Much less allow competitors to create rival app stores that compete for users and apps:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/06/spoil-the-bunch/#dma

They won't even refurbishers re-sell parts from phones and laptops that are beyond repair:

https://www.shacknews.com/article/108049/apple-repair-critic-louis-rossmann-takes-on-us-customs-counterfeit-battery-seizure

And they take the position that if you do manage to acquire a donor part from a dead phone or laptop, that it is a felony – under the same DRM laws that keep Amazon's racket intact – to install them in a busted device:

https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/27/24097042/right-to-repair-law-oregon-sb1596-parts-pairing-tina-kotek-signed

"Rip, mix, burn" is great when it's Apple doing the ripping, mixing and burning, but let anyone attempt to return the favor and the company turns crybaby, whining to Customs and Border Patrol and fed cops to protect itself from being done unto as it did.

Should we blame the paperclip-maximizing Slow AI corporations for attempting to escape disruptive capitalism's chaotic vortex? I don't think it matters: I don't deplore this whiny cowardice because it's hypocritical. I hate it because it's a ripoff that screws workers, customers and the environment.

But there is someone I do blame: the governments that pass the IP laws that allow Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft and other tech giants shut down anyone who wants to disrupt them. Those governments are supposed to work for us, and yet they passed laws – like Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act – that felonize reverse-engineering, modding and tinkering. These laws create an enshittogenic environment, which produces enshittification:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/24/record-scratch/#autoenshittification

Bad enough that the US passed these laws and exposed Americans to the predatory conduct of tech enshittifiers. But then the US Trade Representative went slithering all over the world, insisting that every country the US trades with pass their own versions of the laws, turning their citizens into an all-you-can-steal buffet for US tech gougers:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/31/hall-of-famer/#necensuraninadados

This system of global "felony contempt of business-model" statutes came into being because any country that wanted to export to the USA without facing tariffs had to pass a law banning reverse-engineering of tech products in order to get a deal. That's why farmers all over the world can't fix their tractors without paying John Deere hundreds of dollars for each repair the farmer makes to their own tractor:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/08/about-those-kill-switched-ukrainian-tractors/

But with Trump imposing tariffs on US trading partners, there is now zero reason to keep those laws on the books around the world, and every reason to get rid of them. Every country could have the kind of disruptors who start a business with just a little capital, aimed directly at the highest margins of these stupidly profitable, S&P500-leading US tech giants, treating those margins as opportunities. They could jailbreak HP printers so they take any ink-cartridge; jailbreak iPhones so they can run any app store; jailbreak tractors so farmers can fix them without paying rent to Deere; jailbreak every make and model of every car so that any mechanic can diagnose and fix it, with compatible parts from any manufacturer. These aren't just nice things to do for the people in your country's borders: they are businesses, massive investment opportunities. The first country that perfects the universal car diagnosing tool will sell one to every mechanic in the world – along with subscriptions that keep up with new cars and new manufacturer software updates. That country could have the relationship to car repairs that Finland had to mobile phones for a decade, when Nokia disrupted the markets of every landline carrier in the world:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/03/friedmanite/#oil-crisis-two-point-oh

The US companies that could be disrupted thanks to the Trump tariffs are directly implicated in the rise of Trumpism. Take Tesla: the company's insane valuation is a bet by the markets that Tesla will be able to charge monthly fees for subscription features and one-off fees for software upgrades, which will be wiped out when your car changes hands, triggering a fresh set of payments from the next owner.

That business model is entirely dependent on making it a crime to reverse-engineer and mod a Tesla. A move-fast-and-break-things disruptor who offered mechanics a tool that let them charge $50 (or €50!) to unlock every Tesla feature, forever, could treat Musk's margins as their opportunity – and what an opportunity it would be!

That's how you hurt Musk – not by being performatively aghast at his Nazi salutes. You kick that guy right in the dongle:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/02/26/ursula-franklin/#franklinite

The act of unilaterally intervening in a market, product or sector – that is, "moving fast and breaking things" – is not intrinsically amoral. There's plenty of stuff out there that needs breaking. The problem isn't disruption, per se. Don't weep for the collapse of long-distance telephone calls! The problem comes when the disruptor can declare an end to history, declare themselves to be eternal kings, and block anyone from disrupting them.

If Uber had been able to nuke the entire taxi medallion system – which was dominated by speculators who charged outrageous rents to drivers – and then been smashed by driver co-ops who modded gig-work apps to keep the fares for themselves, that would have been amazing:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/21/contra-nihilismum/#the-street-finds-its-own-use-for-things

The problem isn't disruption itself, but rather, the establishment of undisruptable, legally protected monopolies whose crybaby billionaire CEOs never have to face the same treatment they meted out to the incumbents who were on the scene when they were starting out.

We need some disruption! Their margins are your opportunity. It's high time we started moving fast and breaking US Big Tech!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/08/turnabout/#is-fair-play

[the-bi-space-ace]

Okay I’ve been thinking about this headcanon I have that Echo told Tech about some of the things that went on with the Techno Union and I have to share my thoughts ASAP.

Tagging @phantom-of-the-501st because it was inspired by your post the other day so now you get to suffer the angst with me! Also @saturn-sends-hugs @floundrickthewayfarer @renton6echo because I feel like all of you might enjoy the pain ☺️

Imagine if Echo couldn’t get the words out. Rex asked. He asked when they were finally alone for the first time. He put a hand over Echo’s and asked about what went on, how bad it was, if he needed to talk about it. But Echo can’t seem to speak. He stares at Rex, thinks about how much he loves him, thinks about how it would destroy him to know how badly everything hurt, how much he lost, and instead he just shakes his head. Tears fill his eyes and he has to bite his lip to keep it from quivering and he doesn’t mean to but that scares Rex more than anything else could’ve. The comfort is clumsy. Rex is trying to figure out how to touch Echo without crossing any boundaries or freaking him out because suddenly every instinct in his body that tells him to touch is also telling him that it might get rejected. Echo might not want it. And after so long of not getting a choice Rex doesn’t want to be someone who doesn’t give him one.

Echo is desperate to hold onto where Rex is clinging to him but half of him wants to rip away. His skin feels too much. His brain is sending alarm bells. But Rex’s arms are strong and he’s warm, so warm after all that time being so damn cold, and he’s muttering reassurances to him that he hasn’t heard in a long time and as confusing as it is he just lets himself heave anxious breaths, hot bitter tears sliding down his cheeks, as his skin burns, and his lungs constrict.

‘I don’t remember,’ is what Echo wants to say but it’d be a lie. So he just sits. And breathes. And tries to let Rex know that he still loves him, that nothing has changed.

He doesn’t say a word that night. He doesn’t talk about it for a long time.

Hunter asks sometimes but Echo knows he’s not comfortable. He knows Hunter wouldn’t know what to do with what may come out of his mouth and putting that on him seems unfair. So he doesn’t. He just nods, curtly, and says he’s adjusting. Hunter doesn’t believe him but for a man so sure in the battlefield he’s never sure in their ship. Not when one of them has hurt they are directing at something he can’t see or touch. He still squeezes Echo’s shoulder, says he’s willing to listen if Echo wants to talk. He believes Hunter. It’s easy to when he seems so earnest. It’s kind of endearing, ya know? The way Hunter tries even when it’s hard for him. Even when talking is the last thing he wants to do.

Echo doesn’t talk either. Not yet.

Not even when Wrecker tries to talk to him after a nightmare. When he’s breathing so heavy his lungs hurt and everything’s blurry with tears and sleep. Wrecker’s big hands cover his shoulders and he can’t help but thrash violently against it, afraid he’ll be held down. Wrecker tries not to take it personally but he’s hurt and Echo can’t handle the pain he’s already causing. “Just sit with me, please.” Echo forces through gritted teeth. Wrecker smiles like he’s happy to, holds his hand for hours afterwards, but Echo knows he wants to know more. He can’t help but think it’ll be smothering to have someone so eager to help. It’s unfair, he knows, but something won’t let him. He’s too afraid of breaking so soon. Afraid of being too much. Hurt someone else with his own pain.

So he doesn’t talk that night either.

He tried to tell Crosshair. He’s not sure why. Thinking back on it maybe it was the silence. The quiet in the middle of the night. The way Crosshair asked why he wasn’t sleeping with the rest of the 99s. It was finally getting to the point where if he didn’t say it he would scream. The constant questions - ‘What happened to you back there?’ The looks. The worry. Crosshair didn’t seem like the type to be too mushy about it so he tried. But when he started he couldn’t keep going no matter how hard he tried. It freaked Crosshair out, even if he’d never admit it, to see how quick Echo panicked. His body froze like an animal caught in a trap, and Crosshair sat as still as possible to avoid spooking him, unsure. He’d never seen him so unsure. Echo felt like he was ruining what fragile alliance they’d begun to build. When he stood to leave Crosshair’s hand shot out to grab him, but that haunted look didn’t go away. It felt wrong to keep putting him through it, listening to something he couldn’t hear yet, something Echo wasn’t even prepared for.

So he kept his mouth shut a little longer.

Until Tech, that is. Briefly and easily during a physical to check on an injury he’d gotten on their last mission. He pointed to a scar across his chest, dipping his gaze for a better look, “did you have that scar before Skako?” When he looks down he knows he didn’t. It was a jagged cut, given to him when he refused to let them tie him down without a fight. When he says that Tech hums, typing something into the datapad. He’s quick when he asks if there are others. His voice is steady, Echo realizes, his hands are too. His expression is neutral but his eyes, those are what makes Echo want to divulge. Too many mistake Tech’s logic, his straightforwardness, as being detached. He’s not, Echo knows, he sees. It’s written there, in how he always makes sure Echo doesn’t feel restrained, how he only touches when Echo knows he’s coming, how he asks - careful, curious, simply. Obvious. Care bubbles from every word Tech says you just have to know how to listen.

So Echo talks. For the first time in a long time. He talks and says… some things. Not everything. Not even close. The lump in his throat stops him before he can. But Tech doesn’t push. He just nods, says something about how no one deserves that kind of treatment, then resumes the physical like it’s normal. Like this is fine to talk about.

Echo’s not fine. He’s torn up on the inside and has no way of knowing how to fix it. He’s afraid and unsure and it’s almost too much for him to handle. But the 99s are here. And they care. And one day they’ll know more, when he can get the words out.

That night Tech listened and that’s a start.

[genevawrenn]

Landduo is just living rent free in my brain cause where else do you find two immortals who have spent at least three worlds together and they still manage to ramp up their chaotic relationship and this time successfully drag many people into their divorce?

For a bit of context I have followed this duo for quite a while, Foolish was one of the first people I watched regularly from the DSMP after I discovered Techno because Foolish was building the DreamXD statue at the time and I was curious about the server. I didn't see the prior pranks but I do have clear memories of watching Bad add different faces to the statue and building the giant cactus monstrosity in the middle of Foolish's summer home.

My Roman Empire was that fucking stream where Foolish dismantled the entirety of Bad's home and moved it to the new world, it took him several hours and I never found the VOD again [if anyone has it please drop it in the replies, I want to rewatch it].

Like these two have been weird about each other for YEARS lol.

Then we went from DSMP to the QSMP where they only reinforced their dynamic is one not even they know but it screams immortal energy without them even feeding into it too much lore-wise. Because between the threats of bodily harm and banter, they trusted each other with their kids implicitly. Not a single question about if the other would break it, simply they knew they could be sure the other would care for their most precious family members.

Because on some level, they see one another as family. They would never admit it out loud, the moments they show such are as rare as the compliments they pay one another. But they know no matter the world they share, the other isn't far away. The universe delights in placing them together, in spite of everything.

They are rivals. They are confidants. They hate each other. They'd kill anyone else who disrespects the other. Only Bad can kill Foolish. Only Foolish can die to Bad.

Death hungers to feast on Life, and Life willingly gives in each time hoping to hold back the destruction Death can wrought if left unchecked.

The Realm is a culmination of who they are. They dragged everyone into their thousandth divorce, showing parts of their personality they rarely do for the sake of unsettling each other and the mortals they find themselves surrounded by. The factions were always a plan but they were apparently moved ahead [I think I remember Tubbo saying this but take that with a grain of salt] because Foolish rocked up day 1 and declared himself King. Which, predictably, Bad did not like and immediately created an opposition to the faction his rival formed.

But they mirror each other unconsciously; Bad declared Foolish a tyrant and became one himself. Foolish states Bad's heart beats with both kindness and chaos but what was last nights one versus one if not impulsive chaos? After an extensive talk about how the PVP on that server is unsustainable and not quite balanced properly, geared more towards leveling than fighting each other specifically.

They are driving me INSANE man, like I keep seeing parallels and differences everywhere I look, which includes characters like the one Tubbo plays where he feeds into their chaos.

Creation [Tubbo] is encouraging Death to ravage the server and attempt to force everyone to under his rule, Life willing to sacrifice himself to satiate the bloodlust for just a bit longer and perhaps give them a few more moments to think.

Its poetic. It's disorder incarnate. Its the natural cycle of life and death personified.

It's Bad and Foolish, arguing again for the thousandth time but this world is one they have gotten the whole server involved and I agree with Foolish's points last night of yellow and green will never peacefully coexist and at the end of it who will remain standing?

I, for one, don't think its the mortals that have earned their protection. I think it will be the immortals who are treating this world like a playground until there is no sanity or reason left, something to match their dynamic that will forever rage onwards cause that's their form of affection and companionship.

And where else do you find a dynamic like theirs? We don't understand it and neither do they, and that's what makes it all the more fascinating, entertaining, and irritating in the best way.

[blueinkphantom]

Spirit of a Sword

In an AU where objects can have spirits, Technoblade is the spirit of the sword called Orphan Obliterator unbeknownst to most. Following the execution, Dream runs away with Techno recharging in the sword.

Story for Day 10 (Injured, "I've got you.") of the Christmas Dreamnoblade Event by @alterdnbweek

Also on Archive of our Own. This AU is basically a remix of an old AU i had which i got new fire for after seeing rainystressed's dpurbyfiarsl AU, plus some additional inspiration by one of my favourite Zelda companions Fi.

Commotion came from the area of the stage. It was rather easy to pick out Techno's voice among the others even with Dream and Punz's hiding spot. They had him. They would lock him on display as the anvil fell.

Dream hoped the piglin found a totem of undying with the map he gave, especially considering both their skills with maps. It wouldn't prevent him from dying, but it would prevent it from being permanent and Dream having to use an item, he'd rather keep hidden from all except for Punz for a bit longer.

They both kept watch as things progressed. Until Dream gave the signal and Punz pearled in. The surprise was working, all of them were caught off guard. Dream headed down towards Carl and guided them both to a place near the van where Techno had to spot them and would hopefully then come to him.

But instead of the green flash of life magic or the white flash from visiting death, there was a pink one. Quick and left behind a similarly coloured mist that moved through the cage and past him towards the hole where Dream had planned to lead Techno to. Where his items were.

Dream followed it closely with the horse, blocking off the entry after and ignoring the yells behind him. The mist didn't stop, heading further down to where he had placed the iron armour and other items that Techno could have used, as well as the few items that Dream had already managed to steal back from the butcher army.

The chest with Techno's name on it glowed faintly from inside before dimming.

When he opened it, the sword, Orphan Oblitorator was still faintly glowing before the glow became a shimmer similar to that of an enchantment except for the colour difference. Instead of the purple, it was the same pink as the times before. He chuckled. So undeniably Techno. He couldn't imagine anyone else with that shade.

His suspicions that formed with the mist were confirmed and he didn't know how to feel about it. Maybe relief that he's not the only one. Maybe curiosity. It didn't matter.

What mattered was getting Techno out. Especially now that the piglin couldn't really do it himself unless the sword suddenly grew two legs or wings.

Considering the height the anvil fell from, he estimated it would take more than a day for Tech to reform. A time he would need to either ensure was spent away from enemies' hands himself or have someone he could trust do it.

Phil would be a good option. A long-time and trusted friend of Technos. If only he wasn't under house arrest and it wouldn't be too risky to try breaking him out now. He'd have to wait. Punz and Sam would be other good options. Both trustworthy and dedicated. But both were busy.

He'd probably prefer to do it himself anyway.

The items left for Techno got put back into his inventory before he gently lifted the sword and put it into the sheath around his belt. It shouldn't prevent him from coming back like putting him in his inventory would. And besides, an inventory slot doesn't fit Technoblade. The sheath doesn't really either but it's at least a bit better.

"I've got you," he whispered.

Dream was about to head further down when he spotted Quackity behind him, expression first surprised then souring into anger. "What the- Dream? What the fuck. Of course. Of course, you are here. Where is Technoblade? Did you help him escape? How did- How did you do it?"

The words "I wish" were on his tongue. If he actually had managed to help him escape, if he had any plan for that, Technoblade wouldn't be recharging inside the sword right now.

Subtly he tried to remove the sword from Quackity's eyesight while starting to gesture with his hands. "You really think Techno would need my help to escape? I mean I'm flattered, y'know? But he didn't need me."

"Sure. Sure. So you have Carl just for fun. Wanted another horse whose leather can be swung in front of your face." Dream's grip on the orphan obliterator tightened, still, he refrained from swinging any weapons, least of all swinging that sword. "Where is Techno, Dream? I saw Punz. You told him to disrupt the execution, didn't you?"

"To be fair, Techno has enough to buy Punz himself. He wouldn't need me for that."

"Everyone knows how you two are working together." They know, for now, Dream thought. "So tell me where Techno is and how you helped him escape or this will get ugly. I will even let you keep the horse if you spit it out."

"Hmm. I mean this would be a lot more threatening if it wasn't coming from you." Quackity for all his skill in getting people to join his cause, wasn't a fighter. "So listen. I'm gonna go with Carl and you go back to your country. Got that?"

"I won't let you leave, Dream. Tell me where he is." Quackity demanded as he held the diamond axe pointed to him.

"No. I won't just tell you where he is even if i knew."

"Okay, that's it." Quackity ran straight at him which nearly made Dream want to chuckle. He didn't pay attention to the words exchanged after the first hit. The fight - which could barely even be called that - was over quickly. A few hits with Nightmare and the duck hybrid crumbled to the floor. Breath wheezing from how it tried to still get in air despite the slit throat.

Dream kneeled down, looking Quackity in the eyes. "Don't waste your breath."

Seconds later, the body dissolved. Slowly fading to signify the first life lost and the other two remaining. With flint and steel, he burned the scattered items, only taking those that seemed useful. Tactics from back when he was hunted more widely still were useful.

After a quick check on his surroundings to ensure no more surprise attackers, he started leading Carl again, hoping the faint whispers of "Blood for the Blood God" he could hear were just his imagination. Maybe Technoblade's influence.

At some point, the path opened up more which also meant Dream could go onto the horse again, which he did after holding out a golden apple to it. It inspected the food with a few sniffs before deeming it safe and biting into it while Dream petted it. A beautiful and strong horse. He could see why Technoblade liked it.

He settled on its back and quickly ordered it forward. The rest of the way went by in a breeze despite sticking to the Overworld. Nether travel seemed risky with how they might predict it.

The cabin was soon in view. The moon is by now high up and reflecting the sun's light down onto the world.

He stepped down and fed another golden apple to it. Ignoring background whispers of him spoiling the horse and being soft. Softwastaken. Dreamwassoft. Not the strangest of thoughts his mind summoned. Though they were annoying nonetheless.

There was no one in the cabin except for the animals and enderman Techno was housing. It felt empty without the piglin’s big figure and warm voice. He should be back soon.

But for now, he racked his brain for whatever Punz usually does if he is like this. Keep out of inventory. Keep close or hidden. Repair of broken. Wait.

Techno was still out of his inventory and in his sheat. His plan for now was to stick around till either Techno came out again or Phil escaped which he should message Punz for. See if they can figure out a way. Later.

Dream remembers feeling his surroundings when he was like the piglin is now. He mulled over it a bit as he ventured upstairs and placed Techno on the bed. The blanket was left off of him. He didn't know how, when or where Techno would form, best to keep it uncovered.

Something Punz would sometimes do is fix him if he had any rips in his other form. But Techno's sword didn't seem in need of any repairs. The blade was as sharp as ever and beautifully smooth. The handle provided a good grip even if it was a bit large for Dream. It's design still left him in awe. It was a masterpiece just like its soul.

Which made him wonder how Techno had become like this. Was he born or rather made like this? Or was he cursed like Dream? Or maybe not a curse but a connection through many battles won and much blood spilt that led to his soul possessing the sword after his death?

But if he wasn't always like this when did it change? How long has he been the spirit of a sword? Did-

A squeak interrupted his mind. Something small, furry and white peaked out from the trapdoor before scrambling further up and along till it was on the bed. Dream was about to rush forward but stopped in his tracks when he saw the fox was just curling up on top of the sword.

It was just cuddling with its owner. Wait, does it know that’s Techno? Can animals sense object’s souls when they are in the object? He’s gonna need to test this once he can. Speaking of testing, he meant to text Punz.

You whisper to Punz: did you get away?

Punz whispers to you: yes. only a few minor cuts. how about you?

You whisper to Punz: same on my end

You whisper to Punz: is phil still under house arrest?

Punz whispers to you: yes. want me to get him out?

You whisper to Punz: yes

You whisper to Punz: Techno is like me

You whisper to Punz: currently recharging on his bed

You whisper to Punz: will wait till Phil gets here or he gets back

Punz whispers to you: alright

He looked back to the bed where the fox seemed asleep by now. On the nightstand, he spotted a few trinkets. A smaller bell, a lapis lazuli, a letter, a stone that looks familiar and a book. Curious he came closer till he could make out the title. “Love Across Dimensions”. It didn’t sound like something he could see Techno read. Even more curious now, he opened it to the first few pages and quickly got even more surprised or rather confused.

It turned out to be an encyclopedia on courting rituals in different species ranging from the common human to the rarest ender dragon hybrid. There was a loose page with different hybrid species written down including dragon, goat and avian.

Dream opened the list of contents again and flipped shortly to the piglin section. He got a few sentences in before another ping got him out.

Punz whispers to you: Btw, congrats on the kill

He messaged back a quick thanks and then put the book back where it was. With nothing else to do but wait, he shifted into a wolf to better blend in just in case anyone came in.

Settled beside the bed, he keeps his ears sharp, listening for any threat.

Nothing happens for hours until the wall gets drenched in a pink hue.

Dream glances up to the bed. The sword is glowing, the fox now moved further down the bed away from it. The pink mist from before exits the sword again and shapes into a familiar form.

Technoblade groans from where he reformed again and Dream forgets for a second which shape he took and lets out a yip, drawing Techno's attention.

“Huh? You’re not one of my dogs. How did you get in here?”

Deciding he’d rather not have Techno know he’s a wolf right now, he heads straight down and out, opening the door with little issue. He hears the piglin call out for him but ignores it. If Techno knew, the shifter wouldn't hear the end of it.

And later when they prepare for Doomsday and Techno mentions the wolf with a smirk towards Dream’s direction, he will deny any relation at all. Denial which Techno will not believe. 

[clownyboiclownyboi]

more headcanons, this time crash outs :)

Phil is quiet in his breaking. He takes in a sharp breath, lets it out real slow, and leaves the room with his hands shaking. How bad it is depends on how long he’s been gone. A few hours? He probably’s just had a bad day. A day or two? Okay, a creeper might’ve blown up one of his projects or he might’ve gotten injured. A week or more? Likely just found out yet another shitty thing Dream or someone else did to the kids on the server. He doesn’t even do much while he’s gone, just leaves to live in the woods his Wife inhabits and scream at the trees until he feels like he can function again.

Techno is explosive. He spends so much of his energy and time keeping himself and his emotions under wraps, so much so that when it does finally come out, it’s horrifying. One of the main reasons he keeps himself so put together is because people already look at him and see a monster, the last thing he wants is for them to hear one too, but even he needs an outlet sometimes. So he explodes. He screams at the world, throws his weapon into anything solid, anything he can make give. He tugs at his hair and takes shaky breaths and lets the emotions burst and fizzle through his chest because fuck it, if people want to make him a weapon then they deserve to be forced to witness the person they’re making it out of.

Tommy can’t break down like that anymore. He used to be loud and angry, quick to attack and even quicker to defend. Now he’s too fragile. Now his bitter words have truth to them, a truth that makes them crumble and leave all onlookers in tense, guilty silence. Now he cannot find the time or space to be left alone to cry, because his friends get so concerned the minute they haven’t seen him in more than half an hour. It’s rare he can even work up the energy or motivation to let himself feel so deeply, to let himself be angry at the world again, and people won’t leave him alone long enough for him to do anything about it.

Quackity escapes. He plays the part of the mad boss and the cruel gambling king day in and day out, so when he feels that tidal wave of life coming to drown him a thousandfold, he runs. He leaves to the most deprived parts of his nation, the places where people won’t bat an eye or say shit if they happen to see the leader of their great country buying coke or whatever escape he finds that night. He takes his purchases and heads to a small, ratty apartment he’s been renting since the start, and he escapes. The stained room is similar enough to his office back in L’manberg, even reeks of the same whiskey and bourbon, and Quackity almost takes comfort in the familiar, confusing fear that comes with being on a trip and being reminded so intimately of those days. The days when all he had to worry about was doing what his husband asked and avoiding the next drunk fit. The days when Schlatt would curl up around him at night and whisper apologies. The days when he woke up with a stiff neck because he’d fallen asleep hidden in a closet again. The days when he was a follower, not a leader, and he had someone around to tell him how to keep his head straight and walk forward no matter what. He escapes to one of the cruelest times in his life, because cruel meant simple, and he’d give anything for simple these days.

[anarchy-and-piglins]

Blue-collar Techno kidnapped by white-collar SBI when? And I don't mean minimum wage Techno or cashier/clerk/other I mean farmer or rancher or otherwise physical labor intensive. Potato farmer Techno kidnapped by SBI because they loved his passion or something idk just trying to tempt you into writing more dark SBI tbh

Okay, but I can vibe with this and I'm also still very much with my brain geared towards historical AUs so maybe something that's set around the roaring 20s or a bit later (the period between the world wars basically)? Alternatively the period right before the first world war, the turn of the century. But that might be because I have the Titanic on my mind today lmao.

Techno is a factory worker, typical blue collar profession, probably orphaned or at least from a very low-income family. He's proud of his hard work and his accomplishments and he's vocal about his passions and beliefs, just stuck in a place where those don't mean much to anybody of any significance. The working class doesn't have time to do anything except physical labor to keep afloat, especially not somebody like Techno who has no support to fall back on.

SBI are white collar. Maybe a family of business attornies? I think Phil as a lawyer would be absolutely hilarious especially because I can see the vibe of him being so kind and mundane from a glance but boy does he have a sharp tongue and a good memory. He will tear you to pieces verbally if need be, and smile while doing so.

A bit grim, but I want to say it starts with a death. Somebody in the factory dies due to the company's negligence (sadly, not that unusual an occurrence) and as always the boss wants to pay as little as possible and face as few consequences as possible. Except Techno knew the guy who died, and talks to that family, and tries to push them into getting their legally owed dues for their loss, or go public. The factory hires Phil to make this entire thing go away as quickly as he can with minimal financial loss for the business and no scandal.

Phil has no moral qualms about doing this. It's not that he hates lower class people specifically, he just looks down on them as beneath him and doesn't like them stirring up trouble. He finds them dull, uneducated, and uncultured. And also, he loves money. Greedy crow.

Phil does his lawyering thing. Often it's as easy as putting some pressure on the family and using big words around them and showing them some papers they can't read anyway and they'll take the minimal offered to them, since it's still a treasure in their eyes, and agree that the company bears no fault in their beloved husband's/father's death. Even if it does go to court, Phil isn't concerned. Honestly, the entire case bores him.

What he IS much more interested in is Techno.

They meet when Phil comes by the factory, and Techno and Phil run into each other since Techno is so involved in the fallout of the untimely demise of the other worker, and Phil is enthralled. Techno is not intimidated by him, easily pushing back on his wordplay with his wit. Techno has opinions, and is rather smart for a factory worker (he can read too! Techno is mostly self-taught). Phil finds it charming. Entertaining, if nothing else. He can see the fire in Techno's eyes.

He tries to pry into Techno's past and learn more about him, Techno is guarded against this, which in turn just makes Phil MORE engaged.

Eventually, Phil offers Techno to come work for the law firm. He'll have to do some really lowly manual labor there at first, but Phil sees potential in him, and if it turns out Phil is right about that, then perhaps Techno can even make something of himself if Phil teaches him and allows him to work his way up. It's an extremely gracious offer, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity even.

Techno declines.

Phil is flabbergasted. Like, absolutely gobsmacked. But also so much more enthralled now. Techno refuses to take handouts from pompous rich bastards like Phil, and he has no interest in joining a branch that so clearly profits from keeping the upper class on top and the lower class under their heel. Most men would sell their souls for what Phil can provide them. Techno has more integrity than basically every single person Phil has come into contact with through his job in the last decade.

And god if that doesn't just make him want to have Techno more.

Even as a little kid, Phil was never told no. Thus it's not something that sits well with him. He will have his way, no matter the cost. And hey, we already established Phil knows his way around the legal branch AND that Techno has no support system so like, if you do wanna take it to literal kidnapping, that'd be easy.

I'm assuming this would be 3/4 dark sbi so my image for that is that Wilbur and Tommy are both Phil's kids. Wilbur is technically also an attorney (following in the family's footsteps, as his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather all are), except he doesn't really work a lot and has more fun squandering the family's money. Phil is way too indulgent when it comes to his sons, who are as spoiled as he used to be, so he allows this. Similarly, Tommy is still in schooling though he's not sure what he'll study once he's in university (he's leaning into finance because he loves scams lol) and he spends most of his time enjoying his wealthy life.

If Kristin is there, I imagine she comes from a family of doctors, though Kristin herself never worked or got a higher education. That'd be unbecoming for a lady of her status. She loves it when Phil has a fun little project for them to occupy themselves with since she's maybe also lowkey bored being a housewife.

[quarterlifekitty]

This might be random, but I love seeing COD have such a fun and girly fandom.

For years, it's been this macho game for macho boys. Like the player base was always gross and toxic and misogynistic. And as a nerdy gamer girl back in my tween/teen years, I was always at the end of that.

So having girls come in and take over and take this ultra serious macho thing and make it fun? Make it silly and goofy and soft? Take these huge macho men and call them our husbands and edit them with bows on to techno beats? It's so healing man.

Okay, so I wanna start by saying this is not a personal attack, I’m not trying to be mean, just something I wanna give a little statement/rant about.

Firstly, I have been in a similar boat much of my life. I have always been a nerd girl and have struggled with the atmosphere created by male fans. Obviously the worst of the worst is in online games. In most games I keep voice chat and text chat off at all times for online play. It’s a toxic environment.

But I think referring to what’s happened to the COD fandom as being a girl thing is reductive. In my little corner of this website, a lot of very prominent writers are not women and/or not gender conforming. In many fandoms I’ve been in during my adult years, trans men in particular have been a huge driving force— especially in writing fanfic.

(I’ve also seen a lot of COD art that looks Tom of Finland as fuck… we cannot appreciate the modern art of the male body without giving some respect to those who laid the foundation! Many of the kinks and subcultures that I and many others associate with COD owe much of their prominence to gay men. Bikers, leather, pup play, piss, and so many more have a rich history in cruising!)

Struggling with toxic masculinity in fan spaces is not something suffered only by girl nerds. Like in most places in society, the issue is intersectional. It’s not just a space where women have been excluded, but where LGBT people, POC, neurodivergent people, and so many more are excluded.

Also, while I do not take issue with how anyone else chooses to engage in the fandom— I personally try my best to remember that at its core, COD is military propaganda. So even if we were to say “COD is for the girlies” or some such, I would not call that a “win” for women. It’s a very “do you think Margaret thatcher effectively utilized girl power” type of thing.

[rocksibblingsau]

so you have the whole no offical cannon ships in your story but do you have any fun soulmate aus that you like? or want to play with?

for example the whole red string of fate au. where the person you're destined to be is on the other end. the color could change based on genre, or the color changes if they mix (a lot of purple string ;) lol)

I actually have a Brynth soulmate AU that I'd like to share with you.

Canon Branch timeline in an AU where the things you write on your body can be seen by your soulmate. One thing however is you can't write names, descriptions or places. They vanish. You're supposed to meet organically, not go "Hi my name is Branch and I live at-"

However there's something else. Being grey severs your end of the connection. You can receive messages, but nothing you write will be sent to your soulmate.

When Branch and Synth are young, they can't communicate much since they're still learning how to write, but Branch is confused by Synth's talk of water all the time and what a 'beat drop' is. After his brothers leave, however, Branch starts to wonder if your soulmate can reject you. After the death of his grandma, Branch couldn't even reply to Synth even if he wanted to. He doesn't (He's lying).

Branch reads everything Synth says, but he keeps his arms covered in public.

After Chef comes, Branch tries for the first time to reach Synth. He tries to write out "Are you safe, were you taken, are you alive?" but since he's grey, it doesn't work.

After Branch gets his colors back, he finally contacts Synth for the first time, and Synth is just happy to have Branch back. Synth asks why Branch didn't message him back and he's content with the answer "I couldn't. I wanted to, but I couldn't."

After talking a bit, Synth has sort of deduced that Branch is from another tribe, but Branch has no clue about the tribes so he thinks Synth is just someone who left the tree or Pop Village at some point.

When World Tour happens, Synth tries to warn Branch, but due to the rule about locations, Branch gets a fragmented message:

"Attacked. Coming for you next. Run. Hide. Protect string. Love you."

Shortly after that, Debbie shows up and Peppy explains the tribes situation. Branch realizes then his soulmate is from another tribe and that Barb must have been the one to attack them.

Branch confides in Poppy, but she doesn't listen, though she does start to have some doubts sooner about Barb's intentions.

Branch keeps trying to check in with Synth, but Synth doesn't have anything to write with so he can't answer. Branch tries to keep Synth's spirits up by sending him funny messages. "----- threw away my comprehensive manual and my sticks. I whittled those for hours. You would love my whittling, wish you were here instead."

The rest goes as normal, but after Just Sing, Branch gets tackled by a Techno Troll. Synth knew right away that was his soulmate who threw that book.

[maxwell-grant]

Why do you think Batman's enemies (such as the Joker, Two-Face, Riddler, Catwoman, and Poison Ivy) almost exclusively come from Gotham while Superman's foes (Lex Luthor being the exception to foes like Brainiac, General Zod, Mr. Mxyzptlk, Darkseid, and Bizarro) don't tend to come from Metropolis (or at least come from Metropolis less often)?

A: Because Superman is a flying alien god who can and does travel anywhere around the world and beyond it, and is generally speaking too strong to be seriously life-threatened by most of what a regular city can throw at him (again, Lex being THE exception is no small part of why he's King Shit of Supervilllainy) , which is why, if you're not really pushing Metropolis as an extraordinary fantasy city that is frequently spawning Superman-threatening threats, you'll go with space/dimensional super-aliens that can come from outside to threaten the city for some stakes. Batman, at least nominally, is a human who can be stabbed to death in an alley and who sets out to fight other humans who want to do that to him or someone else, and his "limitations" make it far easier to justify why he's not globetrotting and fighting crime around the world on the regular. Batman ducks out of having to be responsible for the entire world, and thus his villains don't have to threaten the entire world either. Obviously you can have Batman do globetrotting, that's what the Al Ghuls are generally for, but that's the exception that reinforces the rule.

B: Because Gotham is a dramatically more interesting and well-developed setting than Metropolis. It sucks to say it, it's not even a fair comparison because Gotham is damn near the greatest fictional city there is, but the lack of interest in Metropolis and it's people and inner workings and history and all that has been a major gap in Superman stories for a long time. Several creators have taken upon themselves to try and rectify this, it's certainly a LOT better in this regard than nearly all other fake DCU cities by simple virtue of having an identifiable aesthetic/cool landmarks/pop culture cache/some of the greatest characters in the medium living in it, but it's sadly not even close. People go out of their way to put characters in Gotham or make them from Gotham, make them more and more heavily tied to Gotham as a construct, to make them more interesting, while with Metropolis, like you said, the vast majority of Superman baddies come from elsewhere.

Gotham has such rich tapestry to it that people even go out of their way to write stories in it that don't have Batman, Metropolis just doesn't have anywhere near comparable texture. And it absolutely should have - it's a techno-industrial epicenter with horrific biomechanical mutants below and impossibly rich, dangerous supercriminals above. It's where all the impossible world-shaking threats gather up to fight Superman, and would have absolutely dominated/killed everyone else on Earth if he wasn't there. It's the city either built by Lex Luthor, or the one he's intent on taking over, and either of those should be more than enough to work with.

Yeah, it's cool that it's a big shiny future city opposite Gotham (a comparison that still centers Gotham), it's cool that sometimes there's art deco/World's Fair/pulp shit going on in the background, but it's nowhere near enough. People should want to make Superman-less Metropolis stories the same way people make Batman-less Gotham stories, to try and unravel what is it about this place that invites all these stories and keeps Superman here - unlike Batman, he wasn't born there, he's not tied to the city's history, he doesn't inspire or create or hold nearly as much responsibility for the extraordinary dangers within it, but this is where he stays nonetheless. But what does it look like? What is it like without him? What was it like before him? Where is the Metropolis equivalent of Gotham Central, or The Penguin?

Again, it's the place where Superman lives, it should absolutely not feel this lacking.

[empiressmp]

Okay I said this earlier but I typed it while listening to the stream so I was not as verbose as I'd like. I've mentioned a few times now but I've been a fan of Dream since early May 2020, a few weeks after he started the dsmp server, I have been with him through his entire come up and constant painful fall from grace.

Dream helped me through one of the worst times of my entire life, the last few months of an incredibly emotionally abusive relationship where my partner had entirely isolated me along with COVID and belittled me and my interests to the point that I never once shared mcyt with them. Because of that dream and his friends became a haven totally untouched by my abuser they were something I had no one else could touch something that my abuser could never taint and turn painful.

I stopped fighting in defence of Dream after his face reveal, the grooming allegations and the increasing amount of bullshit he kept doing just make me give up on him, and if you'd asked me recently what I thought of dream I would say he's a clueless privileged man child who has got to hire a pr team desperately, and yet,

Whole watching this drama unfold I have had to let go of my relationship to dream, my fond memories and comfort and support he gave me for so long, fond stories on the dream smp, interactions with techno, streams and videos that I rewatched over and over, I have had to say goodbye entirely to my sliver of hope that maybe I could keep that, and I am in some way mourning the time spent as a fan of dream.

It sounds melodramatic but seriously, whether you lost faith in him years ago or if this situation has been a wake up call for you, don't feel ashamed if you are genuinely upset over seeing Dream's true colours, you have a relationship with ccs you follow, people shit on parasocial relationships but they're real and they effect you and if losing that relationship is painful or hurts more than you expected you have every right to be sad.

I truly hope you are able to find some peace with this. And I hope you do not feel guilty for feeling upset.

[phantomphangphucker]

Phic Phight - Nasty Appreciation

For: @ecto-american

Being a cheap but popular fast food joint in the most haunted city in America is a bit of a nightmare, but hey, at least they have Valerie

Listen, okay, Harold knew it was strange for a fast food joint, of all places, to give out large bonuses. As in nearly unheard of. Unless you were the rich jack ass owner or one of said rich jackass owner’s friends. Regular workers don’t get bonuses. Heck! Regular workers don’t even get raises.

Dirt cheap rent was the only reason any adult here had a damn place to live. After all, it was kinda hard for ‘the most haunted city in America’ to charge a lot for rent, especially when roads and buildings were getting wrecked on the weekly.

But Valerie was not a regular employee. So much so that the even the big boss had approved her getting a legit bonus and not some shitty thirty cent bonus and a Christmas card or free shares in the company.

If someone ran out of the back on fire, she threw flour on them, not water Jake. If some rude asshole attempted to rob the place, she’d stab him in the hand with a plastic straw; fuck the environment, paper straws are stupid and having more flammables in this building would be goddamn stupid. If the bane of all customer service jobs ‘the customer’ showed up and pitched a hissy fit, she had a stone poker face that scared them enough to shut and fuck off… or at least take their damn food and sit down. Alex could do that too, but that was because Alex had horrible social anxiety and would just go silent at any kind of confrontation; and he was a six foot seven brick shit house. There was a reason he stayed by the fries. Anyway, finally, if a ghost showed up then good ol’ Valerie was liable to literally kick them in the face. Never once had he seen her run and hide or flee, no it’s fight on sight with that girl. Utterly terrifying. If she wound up on the news for actually beating someone to death he wouldn’t be shocked, but knowing her they would have deserved it; a white suit or red hat wearer probably.

He actually thought she was going to kill, or whatever, that robo ghost guy once. Got her hands on the axe and smashed him clean in the face with the blade, ripped out the tiny version and shoved him down the garbage disposal. She chased the mad scientist cringey techno one down the street with a baseball bat and a supped up taser; no one asked where the taser came from. No one ever asked where any weapon she suddenly had came from. No one asked that Fenton boy that either, but that’s because the answer there was obvious; his parents were weapons manufacturers for fucks sake.

Which kind of reminds him of another reason they wanted to keep Valerie around, she actually knew how to handle FentonWorks tech and clean up the messes FentonWorks tech left behind. That or she’d called the Fenton boy and he’d tell her what to do without fucking with her the way he would everyone else. Harold did not feel like being reminded that one corroded Fenton-goo-sorption battery, a package of lettuce, and Saran wrap equaled a giant cold fire ball. If the Fenton boy did that to Valerie, she’d go and kick his ass, and he’d let her.

Though if that Fenton kid wasn’t an ecto and Fenton hazard Nasty Burger would hire him in a heartbeat and a half.

But they can’t. Meaning they especially have to keep Valerie around. Even if that meant tossing her a three grand end of year Christmas bonus. Zone he hopes that’s enough, because this place sucked ass.

Someone tried to order their burger rare last week, rare! who eats a fucking rare burger from a cheap ass fast food joint! At least it wasn’t like that lady who tried to order shrimp, why would they serve shrimp! The skinless lettuce request had to be a joke though, no one’s that stupid. It’s close though. Like the people who ask for hot iced coffee or for ice not to float; this town sees freak blizzards enough that you’d think everyone knows how the fuck ice works now. Jesus. Or the multiple people who’ve asked if the wings were chicken or pork.

Emily was also her own brand of stupid that he doesn’t know how the zone Valerie puts up with enough to even be friendly to her. The trainer had to teach her how to use a towel instead of just grabbing hot metal with her bare hands. She filled the sink up with a hose because the tap wouldn’t turn on when she turned the faucet side to side, didn’t even think that the handles were maybe how that worked. She tried to literally bleach the raw fries one time, with actual bleach.

The was a bit of a scare with Valerie though, when that one new older higher called her ‘baby bird’ and then followed that up with calling himself ‘daddy bird’. She yanked the fry basket out of the hot fryer oil and smacked him with it. Harold has never heard someone scream like that before and never wants to again. He’s pretty sure that guy needed a skin graft after actually. Shudder. Oh yeah, she also kicked him one in the nads; oof. He’s pretty sure the only reason she didn’t get not only fired but also arrested was because literally everyone lied and said he did that to himself during some kind of dementia induced psychotic fit.

He could appreciate the team work, especially if it kept the team working haha. Everyone got a round of employee appreciation pizzas a day or two later… though that Foley friend or boyfriend or whatever of the Fenton boy apparently could smell the meat lovers from the street, crawled through the drive thru window, stole half a box, and had to get chased off… chased off by Valerie of course.

So yeah, hopefully three grand sweetened this job up enough, fuck all nothing else would. Because people who say money doesn’t buy happiness have never met drugs. Or houses. Or food. Or cars. Or existing in general. Anyway, he’s gonna give her her bonus, grab a blunt, and then get so fried that he’s sunny side up and tryin’ to find a cyber truck to egg with baked beans. Heh, that sounded like a plan, since he could so do with taking a trip outta Amity for a bit, since no one here was stupid enough to own one of those things.

“I’ll have the Cujo Chicken Chowder, no cheese because I’m vegan-”.

That doesn’t make any sense.

“GHOST BEEEEEEEEEESSSSS!”.

Oh god, fuck this place. Standing up, “Valerie!”.

“Got it! Ya’ll are going in the sink with a plugged in toaster!”.

Ah. Great. Guesses he’ll have to add ‘toaster’ to the list of weekly casualties.

End.

Prompts: The Nasty Burger would do anything to keep Valerie employed. She’s the only one willing to deal with both shitty customers and the ghosts.

[rat-rosemary]

Ranboo couldn't breathe. He had fallen into a spiral for seemingly no reason, and now he couldn't get any oxygen in, no matter how hard he tired to follow the square breathing technique Techno had shown him.

Ranboo

"No no no please I can't I cant-"

The walls were closing around him, obsidian burying him alive-

Ranboo listen

Old wounds opening once more, all alone but it felt like he was back in New Lmanburg, screaming and accusations of things he doesn't remember doing-

"I swear I tried so hard I didn't mean it please-"

RANBOO

The next gasping breath he took felt like it was ripped out of him, tears of relief as his form was changed against his will, the shift enough to snap him out of the spiral, like shoving your hands in ice.

Ranboo slumped into the floor, his new wings covering him, soft and fluffy and grounding.

Ranboo

No nevermind, back to panic time. Because that was Dream's voice and Dream was supposed to be in prison and no one was supposed to know about the panic room-

But the room was empty.

"Dream?"

Ranboo called out, his voice rough, cracking embarrassingly

Yes?

"I- Where are you?"

He leaned against a wall,pushing himself up into shaky legs

I'm right here

Dream's voice cooed back, sounding completely directionless. There was something about it that made Ranboo's shoulders loosen, and he feels a bit guilty about it. Dream might be their God, but he's also Dream.

"Here where? Y-You're supposed to be in prison."

Ranboo turned around, covering himself with his wings as he searched the small room. There isn't much to it, there shouldn't be anywhere for Dream to hide in, yet he can't find him. He doesn't even have a couch in here!

I am in prison.

"What? Then. Oh void I have actually gone insane"

A chuckle sounded on his head, and Ranboo felt like something had nudged his mind, a pyscic equivalent of a cat bumping it's head against his forehead.

No, I'm in your head. Don't have another panic attack.

"Wha- How? Why?"

He keeps spinning around, scouring the room. Somehow he would be more relieved if he found Dream now.

You were praying

Dream starts, pausing awkwardly for a moment

Very very loudly

"No I wasn't! I was-"

Panicking. How do you think animals pray to me Ranboo?

"Oh."

Yeah

They fall into silence and Ranboo sits down again, still shaky and unsteady.

It does feel better to not be alone tho. To have the quiet reassurance of someone else with him, even if it's Dream and even if he's not really here.

So... what happen?

"It was... nothing."

It didn't feel like nothing. Ranboo you have no clue how loud you were.

Ranboo squeezed his eyes closed, hiding his face in his hands. Void, this was his personal hell.

"I guess," he hesitated, fluffing up his wings and curling up further under them as he hid his face in his knees, "I've been overwhelmed lately I think? Which is stupid because all the wars are over because- uh."

Because I'm in prison?

"Yes! Or at least they were supposed to be. But everyone is so tense and there's all these politics and ugh! It's supposed to be better now! But it's so scary all the time"

That sucks buddy

Dream's voice had a tilt of dry humor and bitterness that Ranboo didn't really get

I don't know, go take a swim about it? Get away from all this shit?

"I can't swim Dream, I'm an enderman hybrid!"

Of course you can, just-

And then Ranboo was falling over, barely catching himself before he face planted the cold obsidian as his wings and legs dissappear, being replaced with a tail.

"...I'm a seal."

Laughter rang in his head once more, and Dream let go of his form, the tail staying just a few seconds more before splitting back into his normal legs

You're a seal

"And I can just. Do that. And jump into the ocean. And get no burns"

Yes, why would you?

"Well, because I'm an enderman-"

You are. Until you're a seal. And then you're not.

"Oh."

All the response Ranboo got was a small wave of fondness and the mental equivalent of an eye roll. He stood once more, leaning against a wall as he made his way out of the panic room.

From there he walked straight to the ocean, feeling a sticky mix of terror and wonder as he reached the shore.

Dream had left him when he left the panic room, but he once more reached for the god, shaking as he reached the waves bobbing gently against the ice.

With a leap of faith Ranboo jumped in, squeezing his eyes shut as he sank.

Swim

And Ranboo did, opening his eyes and sliding across the water, kept warm by the fur scattered across him. His skin did not burn.

[pinetree-tbb]

HC’s I came up with while thinking about TBB and because I can, I mixed it up with The Magnus Archives so here are my Head Canons about how I’d assign every Bad Batcher to Smirk’s List

I’m not good in naming things haha

Let’s start with Hunter.

Since Hunter is the leader of his squad he probably fears loosing all of them the most, it’s his responsibility to take care of his family to keep them save to make sure they can complete the mission. In war the fear of loosing someone is stark because it can happen in a heartbeat and once it happened it can’t be undone. So Hunter’s fear would be The Desolation (the fear of loss, especially with a senseless cause)

Going down the line we get to Tech.

I imagine him being afraid of The dark. Of course he knows that “monsters aren’t real” and that “logically there is nothing to be afraid of” and he tells himself that every time he finds himself in the dark, but the dread bubbling up in the back of his head tells him otherwise. After all, you can’t see anything so there could be something lurking. So every time he’s in the dark he quickly fumbles for his torch and turns it on to fight against the dread.

Now we got Wrecker.

We know Wrecker has a fear of heights a problem with gravity, which would be The Vast. Now, my personal HC is that that problem intensified after he watched Tech fall to his death and now he has trouble walking over bridges alone or wouldn��t go up high on a mountain or hesitates when he has to jump from somewhere onto somewhere else (ForExample: like when in the Ep. Juggernaut where he had to jump from the Juggernaut onto Phee’s ship, he will hesitate to make the jump because he doesn’t want to fall and sees his brother when he looks down)

Now to Crosshair.

I HC Crosshair being afraid of water, mostly because he almost drowned twice. He can swim but won’t go far into the water, only so far that his feet would be submerged but even then the feeling of water rushing into his mouth and into his lungs slowly begins to overwhelm him and he steppes back out of the water, so his entity on Smirk’s list will be The Buried (fear of being buried alive which includes being buried in water aka drowning)

Coming down to Echo.

Echo was a hard one to figure out but eventually I decided to make his fear the fear of being watched meaning The Eye, reason why is because of the Techno Union. They changed him and pulled secrets out of his head (which is also part of The Eye) but most of all the aftermath. We see how the Regs treat CF 99 they are different, detective and thus get bullied. I imagine Echo being paranoid and feeling judged because of what he became: A Cyborg. He feels better when he’s around the others and feels a sense of protection but when he’s walking down a hall alone he feels them all looking at him, and he doesn’t like it one bit. He tells himself that he’s just paranoid but the feeling still wouldn’t go away.

Last but not least we have Omega.

Omega fears The Lonely. We heard her say that she was afraid to end up alone in S1, she’s just a little kid wanting to be with her family, she doesn’t want to be alone, she’s been that for most of her life in Nala Se’s lab but when her little brothers came into her life everything changed and the fear of ending up alone again grew even stronger.

[nomsfaultau]

Hybrid AU in exile week where avian instincts can take over to a degree that is almost horrific, erasing someone’s personality and rationality when they’re panicking. First part here.

Tommy doesn’t preen anymore. And fair enough, really. If Techno got brainwashed (or whatever it was) by his piglin instincts like that, he wouldn’t want to either. As the days crawled past they looked worse and worse, dull and bedraggled. At least Techno had managed to convince Tommy to drink enough health potions to scab over the open wounds, mostly under the threat of potential infection. It helps Techno at least to not see where the lines of the net cut into him. 

Tommy looks like hell. Acts like it, too, this writhing mess of ugly emotions waiting to burst out of him. But the ragged feathers are especially noticeable, growing dull and disheveled the longer he refuses to maintain them. Phil is getting worried. Says properly aligned feathers are crucial for insulation and Tommy is going to end up catching something. And like, being around Tommy is a lot on a good day. Tommy with a cold? Sheesh. Someone's going to have to do something to prevent that, and it looks like it's up to Techno.

“I can’t stop feeling his hands,” Tommy chokes when Techno tries to offer to help groom him. “The ways his fingers stroked through my feathers. I just want to stop feeling it. Or worse, maybe I don’t.”

Techno shifts from hoof to hoof to stop himself from putting it in his mouth. “Would it be better if you did it yourself, then?” 

“...I think I might rip out more feathers if I try.” 

Techno winces, unable to get the image of Tommy clutching bloody fistfuls of his own feathers out of his head. “Maybe if we make it as different as possible it’ll help? Like, I don’t coo, or chirp, or squawk for one.” That had really been the reason they’d decided Techno should offer, since suppressing his coos would be hell for Philza and he didn’t want to shove Tommy deeper into a trance. “And I have hooves instead of fingers, so the texture would be different, right? We could chat the whole time, or you can occupy doing something else. Do it in tiny sections maybe, and stop whenever it’s too much. Just, I don’t want you getting sick, alright? It’s extra dangerous in the arctic.” Though hesitant, Tommy eventually relents. On one condition, of course.

Tommy downs the sleeping potion in one go. Before long, he droops, careful to spread out his wings before he succumbs to slumber. Not that Techno prefers to do it while Tommy sleeps since he won’t know if he accidentally hurts him, but it is the only way Tommy could stomach it. Better than nothing, he supposes. 

Techno pulls out a bottle of some of Phil’s fancy feather oils, sebum or whatever it is. This isn’t his first rodeo, of course, since Phil occasionally asks him to help with a tricky spot since it’s plain easier to have someone else help with grooming. He’s always happy to help out a friend, and Philza really enjoys it. As for Techno…uh. Okay so like he gets social behavior like preen is super big for building bonds etc etc but it doesn’t really do much for him. Which is really awkward given the whole crisis Tommy and Philza are having about it at the moment, since from his perspective he’s been asked to help brush Tommy’s teeth. Like yah he’ll help but? It’s not, like? A big deal?? While everyone around him is treating it like a blessing or a curse. Suuuper awkward. 

He works quickly, quietly, and carefully, straightening out ruffled feathers and smoothing over damage, massaging in oil to keep them soft and waterproof. It is a little satisfying to watch his progress, he has to admit, like that one time Steve had rolled in mud and he’d given the bear a grueling spa day. But the anger of his ruined flower bed doesn’t quite match the fury bubbling in his chest as he tries to smooth out the primaries Tommy’s abuser clipped. It’s all he can see in Tommy’s wings, the ghostly echo of the man who hurt him so deeply. The sheered off flight feathers, ripped out chunks of coverts, little rips from where the net dug in. Maybe he can understand why Tommy refused to love his wings if everything about them screamed his abuser. 

Techno only pauses once when a soft, sleepy coo purrs from Tommy’s throat. And suddenly he gets it. It sounds like pure bliss in a bottle, so sweet and effervescent. It’s echoed by a deep, content rumble, and it takes a second for Techno to realize that’s him making that noise. Self-conscious, he puts a hand over his mouth. He’d…kinda forgotten he can purr. And in context, it’s not good, especially since Tommy’s coos rush out in response. 

Techno weighs what Tommy’s waking reaction may be against his health needs. Then, he pokes Tommy’s cheek. As there is no response, Techno elects to speed run wing hygiene and hope he’s not stepping in trauma somehow. But the purrs reverberating in his chest ease the worried tension knotting his muscles, spurred on by Tommy’s infrequent sleepy coos. It’s almost relaxing, the smooth repetitive motions working through russet wings. 

He carefully scoops up the chick when he’s done, tucking Tommy in his burrow. It’s a bit of a fight to avoid piling him under blankets, but Techno just spent all that work and is not about to mess up the feathers again. He sweeps up the discarded ones, then realizes he has no idea what to do with them since he knows they have weird cultural connotations for avians. Electing to put them in a pile at the bedside, Techno comes to the unfortunate realization that his prime reading spot is occupied. Refusing to let Tommy get in the way of his literature, he crawls into bed as well. Somehow the giant piglin ends up scrunched sitting in the corner while the tiny avian sprawls and takes up more space than conceivable. Even more shockingly, Techno doesn’t mind that much. 

Eventually Tommy yawns and stretches. Techno’s breath hitches in his throat as he sleepily mumbles his abuser’s name. 

“Uh. Nah. It’s Techno. That guy is like, super duper dead.” 

Tommy hums a confused note, then flumps on the mattress. “Good,” he mumbles. Techno releases the breath he’d been holding. “Ha’ a weirddreamm…”

“Nightmare?” he asks cautiously. 

Tommy’s wings flare out, trembling with the stretch, then tuck to his back. “Not really. Was alrigh’ I guess.” He pulls the blankets around without covering himself in an echo of a nest. A little bit of squirming, and his head presses warmly against the side of Techno’s leg. “Havn’t had a good dre- sleep ina while. Was…nice. Thanks, Techno.” He hums again as Techno awkwardly pats his head. Not a coo. This was alright, then.

“Any time, kid.” 

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